(INDEX)
I am severely ill and totally drained. The eight Creeps surrounding me deliver an assault of halitosis and staring eyeballs. They are much too close. I moan at them.
“Move back, you fucking vultures.”
They do! I’m reasonably surprised but my attention is suddenly riveted on a very busy sky. I continue to see both worlds now, and must rely on intuition’s commentary to explain these amazing sights.
Above, are tens of thousands of skinny, black tendrils; kilometres long. They arc and weave, and criss-cross the skies. Below these delicately waving streaks, that light fog of deception prevails. It obstructs the daylight, albeit on a different plane of existence.
Then I see a different type of probing tendril. It prowls through this low mist, seemingly attacking the Hosts that pass it by. At first I am hopeful that it is a predator, yet the Hosts do not react to the stab of that sharp, pointed tip into their heads. I soon realise this tendril does no harm to its victims. It is a routine operation that carefully accounts for every Creep around it by turn. I assume its role is a deliverer of messages and a receiver of data; data that is delivered down its length to a massive central trunk. This trunk disappears into the shopping centre’s roof.
The one that hurt me lives there. I experience a hint of anger in an otherwise emotionless state.
A nearby Host has shuffled towards me and is breathing into my face, making it hard to concentrate. Nose hairs shrivel as I am jolted back to the situation at hand. Creeps have the foulest breath.
‘Will you please just fuck off!’
My thought strikes the closest Creep who takes a backward step. His compliance compels me to reinforce the thought.
‘Get away from me!’
Success! He stumbles back to the shield’s edge.
‘Stop!’
I cannot let him go out there. His Parasite will be probed and I’ll be discovered. I need to move my depleted, abused body away from these open skies and eerie stabbing tentacles. I need somewhere to think up an escape plan.
I remember what they called me and I try implanting a memory into the dullest Creep’s brain.
‘The Spawn Killer is dead. Got it?’
I send this directive with force, aimed at the Parasite inside. This time I see my own tendril lash out at speed, delivering the message into the Host’s head socket. While momentarily connected, I am its total controller. The knowledge is empowering.
I watch in trepidation as it walks out of my sphere. Almost immediately a nearby Parasite tendril plunges into its head and I cringe when it hesitates while interrogating the beast within.
Nothing untoward occurs. The Host is unplugged and wanders off in the usual, unhurried way allowing me to breathe more easily. Programming and releasing the rest of the Creeps that were sent to kill me gives much needed space. I complete their marching orders with another false thought.
‘The troublesome meat is dead. Go back to your duties.’
Alone at last I sit up and extend the tendril that delivers my demands into alien minds. I twist and twirl it in front of my face and snake it around my protective barrier, finding it obedient and pliable. Experimentally, I poke its tip through the clear wall and into the menacing fog beyond, ready to pull back at the slightest provocation.
My sneak peek discerns the mind that generates this dark substance. There appears to be no strong intelligence behind it. Whatever emits this pacifying blanket is purely a generator without a reporting mechanism.
My release and recovery from the near forgotten Void has left me at a loose end. I want to exploit my sudden good fortune and examine the limits of this astonishing new power. I close my physical eyes and curl inwards to enhance the all-seeing one. The world’s material dims and the filmy mass of grey-black fog sharpens. It fills space in every direction, and upon closer scrutiny, I see the central point that unseen broadcaster flows from.
I expand my awareness in the direction of this source, stretching my untested probe until it is lost amongst the Parasite feelers. I should have stopped about here, but I’m still a man of many mistakes, and I push on with few thoughts of consequences.
The further I send the tip, the less agile and controllable it becomes. My clumsy strand inevitably touches a Parasite tendril. They spring apart with shared shock and I reel mine in recklessly, reabsorbing it without thanks for revealing us. I console myself with a profundity; learning witchcraft on the fly is bound to be riddled with errors.
Unfortunately the molested Parasite tendril has chosen to streak down my path of escape. It strikes against the protective bubble that I fold tightly around myself. Frightened, I delve inside for leftover energy that can be creatively turned into bombs.
While looking about my partly-trashed brain, I hear the questioning force tap against my exterior armour. I hurriedly gather the commonest substance around me, which happens to be pure fright. This stuff is malleable and rolls readily into a tight, compact ball. Held suspended in my mind’s eye it glows threateningly.
I fearfully open the shield and throw the globule out like a grenade into a mind-field. The Parasite tendril lashes out to grip the offering and withdraws to examine its find. I line it up instinctively and spear my probe into its depths, detonating the stuff with hate. The Parasite’s psychic arm shatters. I watch its length disintegrate until the entire limb falls from the main trunk, showering black rain that evaporates before hitting the ground.
I retract my probes’ stinging tip and pat and coo over its hurt. Even though I am a breathless, burned out wreck, the rapturous success cannot be contained. Holy fuck, I killed it! I’m a telepathic killer of Parasite mind probes.
“I am a God!”
I tell the whole world.
“Let there be light!”
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