Article: 288617 of talk.bizarre From: page@tapaboy.ma.ultranet.com (D. Page) Newsgroups: talk.bizarre Subject: "imago" (part 3) Date: 1 Dec 1996 10:42:41 -0500 Organization: The Tapaboy Newt Institute Lines: 61 Message-ID: <57s91h$h88@tapaboy.ma.ultranet.com> Reply-To: page@boutell.com X-No-Archive: yes We dreamed about the pod again last night, and the buttons. Five buttons, or had it been six? It was only a short time ago we had been in the pod, violently stabbing at the panel to kill again and again and again and again and again and...? Five or Six? We didn't know; it was another one of those things that was turning vague on us. Five or six? How many pieces had I cut that woman into after killing her in the cargo bay of her own merchant vessel? How long had we been like this? How did it happen? So many questions. We didn't know anymore. Memory just blurs now as instinct takes over. How long since we had been only one person in this head? "Skywatch calling unidentified vessel. Please transmit authorization codes for your course and heading or veer off now!" Something had grown in our head. Something dark and dangerous and violent and very, very us. Things seemed to make sense now, and things made even more sense when we killed them and took them apart. Killed them and took them apart. We like to kill them and take them apart. Blood on our hands, a body on the floor, ripped to pieces. We had done it with our bare hands, and it had felt so, so good. "Skywatch calling unidentified vessel..." We had laid down in the middle of the bits and pieces of the woman and closed our eyes, feeling the warm blood soak into our clothes. We had integrated fully then, no longer fragmented and confused. So many things had become clear, like why we had killed those scientists and their cat. We had to survive, had to get to earth, had to reproduce. No one must stop us. "Skywatch calling..." Nobody must stop us. Nobody will stop us. "Alter course now!" We engaged the landing thrusters and hit the airlock door while we were still falling through the atmosphere over Washington D.C. The radio blared threats at us while we made our way back through the cargo ship, stopping on the edge of a very long fall. We leapt. We fell. We emerged. We spread our wings against the warm light of the sun as our host body fell, lifeless, to the ground. d. -- Text copyright d. Page, 1996. This post is given first distribution rights via Usenet and Usenet ONLY. Please do not redistribute.