Mary woke up in the darkness, unable to move. She was sitting on a hard surface with her legs stretched out in front of her, leaning up against a wall. What was holding her head at that awkward angle? There was something wrong with her eyes as well. She couldn't open them. It was the strangest sensation - it didn't feel like something was holding her eyes shut. It felt like she had no eyes.
She could move her body, it was only her head that was immobilized. Her legs were still asleep. Pinpricks of pain shot through them as she stretched out. Cautiously reaching her hands up, Mary gasped when they encountered some kind of fleshy tubes entering her skull where her eyes should have been.
She felt a tube carefully with her fingers where it entered her face. The surface of the tube pulsed and moved under her touch. It was warm, and soft. It felt alive. Following the tubes up they joined a tangled mass of quivering ropes where the top of her skull should have been. Mary screamed.
"Oh you're awake."
Mary instantly stopped screaming. The man's voice had come from right next to her. The sound of his breathing seemed obvious now. The darkness was filled with other sounds. A vent circulating air. An electric buzz, a barely audible humming of some machine or machines. But the man's breathing was louder, closer. Could she feel it on her cheek? His breath?
"Get away from me," she growled, pushing her arms up hard toward the man. She smashed her fingers into a stubbly chin, much closer than she had imagined. Inches above her head. She struck him hard enough to bend back and break several of her fingernails. She felt a strong resistance, something keeping his head from flying back on impact. And at the same time, a tugging at her own head. A terrible feeling, a dry hollow feeling as if something was being sucked out of the base of her spine.
"Stop! You will hurt us both. We are connected."
"Connected?" It made sense. She did feel it, something was physically connecting her head to this man. The mass of tubes and ropy tendrils she had felt where she should have had more head.
"That substance you told me about. Inside me. It... something made it come out from my body. It entered your head. That's what connects us."
The man was speaking as if Mary had interacted with him before. His voice did not sound familiar. It was too much. Everything. Waking up like this. Where was she? What had happened to her eyes?
"I'm sorry. I don't know why I did it. I looked at you and there was something glowing red inside your eyes. And I just felt like I had to see what was inside them, you know? Inside your eyes. I didn't mean to kill you. I am sorry."
Kill? Mary felt alive, very uncomfortably so, stuck in an aching body with no eyes. Stuck listening to a man apologize for killing her. It was too much. How to make sense of this? Mary wondered if her dissociative identity disorder was returning. It had been a long time since she visited her hypnotherapist.
"Isaac is that you? I don't want to play any of your games today. I am going to breath and listen to the waterfall while you go back into your box."
"I am not Isaac. I am..."
The man paused. He had not sounded like Isaac anyway, Isaac was always a child. But this seemed like something Isaac would do. Was he crying now? Mary could hear his breathing catch and choke. Isaac would not cry.
"I don't know who I am. I can't remember. And your hospital even removed my fucking patient number from my file. But I know I don't belong here! Not now."
Hospital? In a flash Mary placed his voice. The nameless patient that the military brought in! The tentacles coming out of his eyes, the substance oozing from his neck.
"I can feel you, you know. Even before you woke up. Inside you."
The words chilled Mary. "What did you do to me? If you touched me..."
"No, not like that. I can feel you... inside my mind. I can feel what you are feeling. I can feel your body. Your fear. Your anger."
A long silence grew over them. From the edges of her awareness, spreading inward like the faint blush of dawn across a lake, Mary felt the sensations that the man felt. His neck was also held at an awkward angle, down and to the side, by the tentacles that linked their two bodies. He was crouching, hands on knees. He was crying. He opened his eyes and Mary saw through them. They were in a glass walled cubicle inside a larger room. Mary saw herself sitting against the wall, her skull smashed open, tentacles and tendrils of an alien substance pouring into her head and merging with what was left of her exposed brain.
"I know what your name is. Your name is Todd."
"Todd... Todd. Yes that is right! My name is Todd! How did you know that?"
All words and art by moi. This is part 8 of an ongoing series.
Part 1: A crumbling machine found in the desert
Part 2: Surface Expedition Report
Part 3: Disorientation
Part 4: Her eye glowed red
Part 5: Patient Number REDACTED
Part 6: The Skinny Squeeze
Part 7: Burning in the Darkness