It pulsed threw me. From my heart, it went through all my arteries, blackening them. My skin soon followed the same fate. And then my actual shape. My body partially transformed. My mouth and nose were sucked away but one nostril stayed. A few of my fingers, but not all of them, grew to the length of the… The thing. The alien. My skin stretched. My skeletal system changed. A few of my rips disappeared. I felt some of my organs being sucked in and disappearing as if a black hole had them in orbit. But it wasn’t a black hole but a hand that was the color of a black hole. It frightened me. To be completely colorless. To be darker than dark. As if I was sucked dry-which I was in a way. It consumed my body until it was around my left eye. It stopped. Only a bit of my pale skin was left around my eye.
Malik shook. His auburn skin rippled as if he was feeling what i was feeling.
My tongue flapped inside my mouth. It had no way out. I started to speak in a quiet, muffled voice unlike the alien, “Malik, leave….”
The blackness quickly consumed the rest of me. I fell on my back as the alien stood up. I had no control of my body. I started to have a spasm. I could not longer feel. I listened to the alien speak to Malik. I spoke. It was me.
“Malik, Jack is going through the process. His mind became scrambled when I invaded it. I know everything, Malik. I remember the fear Jack felt… That I felt. Malik, I am Jack,” The alien spoke now with my voice and with my emotion!
It WAS me.
“You’re not Jack!” Malik retorted.
The al…. Jack cried.
Malik cried
I cried.
Who am I?
Am I Jack?
No.
He’s Jack.
But….
I’m Jack.
AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!
WHO IN THE HELL AM I?
“Malik….”
“No….”
“I am Jack now!”
“…”
“Malik, please!”
Malik shook his head in denial.
“Remember when we met, Mal….”
He was cut off as I remembered for a moment, “AAAAAHHHH! MALIIIK!”
“We were 6, Malik. 1st grade! I helped you through school when you were new! I told you those stories! The ones you always called….”
“Cheesy,” Malik finished his sentence.
Jack smiled, “Your favorite word.”
Malik ran to Jack and hugged him.
But he didn’t.
Because Jack was on the ground. I was Jack. No. Not at that point.
Wait…. What was I telling you?
Who is Jack?
No.
I’m not Jack.
Malik finally accepted it and left with Jack.
I crawled into the forest.
I curled up into a ball and sat in a patch of leaves.
No sleep came. More of a coma. A forced coma.
I sat for a few decades.
It was 1982 when I went in.
It was 2015 when I came out.
Someone stepped on me. I raised my hand and moved away a thin layer of dirt and some leaves.
They noticed and turned back, “Is someone there?”
They bent down and looked. As soon as they set eyes on me, I grabbed their throat. The few of the long fingers went to the back of their neck. I pulled. I noticed it was a woman’s head that fell on me. I pushed her off and I stood up.
I was starving. Nothing growled because there was nothing to growl. My brain knew I was hungry, though.
I thought back to Jack absorbing me. About Jack absorbing…. Jack?
Anyhow, I touched the woman’s mouth. I let the blackness absorb her. Since she no longer had a neck, my neck just stayed the black color. I took the woman’s scarf and put it around my entire neck. I went up to my chin so it looked odd.
I pushed the thoughts of the woman to the back of my head besides why she was here. She was coming to the new park…..AND IT WAS NEAR.
I wobbled. Then I walked. Then ran. I ran to the edge of the clearing. I hid behind a tree. I looked into the clearing. Instead of the small 10ft x 7ft space we had for the campsite, it was now much larger.
“Wow… After all these years….,” An unfamiliar voice said. Or was it familiar? I didn’t know.
Two men, maybe in there 40’s. Walked into the park.
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?” The voice continued.
The voice was definitely familiar. Because it was MINE. Or was it?
“I thought you would react,” Another voice-Malik’s-replied.
“I know you miss the original Jack but…”
“I know, I know. I’m sorry.”
“So where is this thing? What even is it?”
Malik answered him, “It’s the axe. It has ‘R.I.P. Jack’ on it.”
“I feel bad, Malik…,” Jack said and tried to hide a flask that he drank out of.
“Don’t worry about it,” Malik said, “It’s right up here,” Malik pointed to a spot under a tree-the only tree in the clearing.
“Should we being digging in the park?” He quickly put the flask away as a kid ran pass, “Eeeh-ooops.”
“It’s my-OUR park. What’s the worse they can do to us?”
I clinched a nearby tree with anger. I squeezed and queezed until the woman’s puny hand broke and was replaced by the black-long fingered hand.
Then he noticed me.
Jack looked at me. He let out a silent gasp. He mouthed to me “Go away”
“Heeeeeeere it is!” Malik, without noticing me, said as held up the old axe. Ground water must have gotten to it because it was slightly rusted.
Jack shook his head and looked back to Malik, “Uhh… Wow… Yeah…”
“Jack?”
“What?”
“Is something wr..?”
Malik was cut off as I broke the tree. The snap caught his attention. He gasped at me.
And with that, I was off running at Jack. The woman’s weak body seemed to melt off as I changed into my old form.
Jack did the same.
He wasn’t Jack anymore.
Then, again, he never truely was.
I crashed into the alien, knocking it back. I stabbed my fingers into it’s eye and pulled it put.
The blackness reconnected the eye. The alien grabbed my neck and used it to stand up with great speed. As it stood, it looked at me for a moment and, then, snapped my neck.
I fell to my knees. I grabbed my head and snapped my head back in place. I put one of my hands on it’s shoulder and the other on its stomache area. I put my fingers in its flesh and pulled up resulting in a large, bloody vertical slash (Not to be inappropriate ~Author) on it.
“Ja-a-a-ck!” I yelled at the alien. I had a ‘just-woke-up’ voice.
“Ja-a-a-ck!” The alien yelled back.
Why?
It said that as if I was Jack.
Why was I attacking it?
I didn’t know.
No. I did.
I hated it.
But why?
The alien grabbed one of my ribs that was still intact and yanked it out of me. I assumed I wouldn’t heal since the rib was originally apart of me but the blackness still took hold of it. The alien looked like it was trying to play tug-o-war with it. It pulled and pulled but with no avil.
It was strong.
Not the alien.
Or maybe, yes, the alien.
No. It was the blackness.
We both had it but it was stronger than both of us.
What the hell is it?
What kind of f*****g alien could make this?
Unless they were gods as the Egyptians thought them out to be.
Maybe the alien was wrong-not the Egyptians.
Maybe these ‘so-called-aliens’ were gods.
But to be honest, in Jackie-o-Boy’s opinion, there is no god. Because no deity of what power could be so cruel. To be such a mindfuck.
The blackness pulled the rib back in. As the alien was pulled back (because it had hold of the rib) my fist met its face.
What the f**k am I doing, I thought.
Indeed, what in the literal F**K was I doing?
We couldn’t hurt each other.
Which just made it hurt more.
To not be able to kill this thief.
To not be able to die.
To be immortal for all eternity.
But, still, we fought more until…
“STOP!”
It was Malik
We looked at him as he continued to speak, back to us, staring at the tree, ” Just… Stop…”
We kept staring.
He turned around with the axe in his hand.
He walked to us and lifted the axe over his head.
He just muttered simply, “I’m sorry, Jack”
To Be Continued