Taken Twice Dialy

They control the brain, the infected appear to be human. When I was young I thought humans would evolve to eventually become, taller, smarter, somehow greater and more idealized. it wasn't the case. Actually the next step of human evolution was an immunity. Populations of humans once adapted to malaria by developing the sickle cell, the evolved sickle cell would prevent the infection but but it was a compromise.

James rubbed his eyes and pulled his pen from his book. The woman on the bed strained against her restraints, her belly had begun to show signs of pregnancy, signs that she was, in fact, still a human.

James wasn't really sure how to handle the problem, but he was mankind's last chance. Even if she was human again, he couldn't be sure.

When they came, nobody noticed it at first, but me. People started to act differently. The media report that in some towns nests, of the creatures had been destroyed. My infected parents told me that these were just movies. But I knew better, they were the documentations of our few victories.

The problem was that we didn't know about our defeats. I think they had control of media early on, then, quietly, the infection spread from city to city; back into places that we thought were safe. people called them body snatchers, like in the movie. soon enough there were no uninfected left.

except for me.

the old grandfather clock in the hall chimed for 10 o'clock. James put down his pen and went over to the bed. "How are you feeling today."

The woman on the bed didn't look at him, "you ask me that everyday."

"It's something that people do," his voice was cold and professional. he picked up the rifle on the side of the bed with one hand and aimed it at her head. with the other he untied her restraints. she curled into herself. Every day twice a day they went through the ritual. She showered at gun point, she ate. she was allowed to walk in the yard for an hour, for the was health for the unborn child, and so that if she was human again she could at least have some freedom. James couldn't be sure. After her yard time she was put back in her restraints and medicated.

It isn't rape, if she isn't human.

You couldn't tell who was affected and who wasn't. the snatchers could make their host seem human, but they weren't. they were like a hive mind, nothing more than extensions of a center connected to each other like workers to a queen. They were here to gorge itself on every resource, every human.

I was once infected as well, I remember feeling it inside my brain, pushing me to the back. but it didn't take. I won, and somewhere inside of me it died. My infected parents took me to a hospital, and did tests, I think something in me, prevented them from being able to use me as a host

They had me locked up for a while, trying to understand what was "wrong with me." They Gave me a bottle of pills and let me go. The Pills weakened me, made me like them, I could feel the thing inside pushing me to the back. Twice daily, i took the pills until I realized that I only had to stop. the snatcher died inside me.

I think could still be sensed by the others, as long as I didn't draw two much attention to myself, didn't act differently than the rest of them, not like I used to. They didn't notice me, I went about my business, and so did they.

James stretched, and fed himself from the heated can of beans. The farm house kept him surrounded by forests and corn fields. it was a private, safe place, away from the world. it was here that James thought up the plan.

It came to me that I must have been somehow immune. They were a disease and i was some form of cure. If the cure was in my blood I would find it. Three months ago I went into town and caught one, she was apart from the group, I remember having gone to school with her. I knew she was infected because like the others when I was young they stared at me like I was the freak. I thought I was for a long time, but then I learned that I was the only one not infected, they were the the weak ones. They were fed upon.

I'm sure they've noticed her missing, but so far they hadn't made it here to find her. If I could produce children with my own immunity to them then humanity might stand a chance, to multiply beneath their radar, and take our existence back one life at a time. but I couldn't find an uninfected female, so I took this one. but there is a problem with the plan.

James stopped writing in his journal to look at the woman laying on the bed. her eyes puffy and red. He remembered how she cried when he first took her, how she asked him to stop. Was he wrong? No he thought, she wasn't human.

I have proven that infected and uninfected can conceive together but new questions have arisen. Does the child growing inside her cure her of the infection, will the child be born uninfected. She cries every day, and tells me that she's human, but how can I tell. I won't allow an infected child into the world. They control the brain, the infected appear to be human.

Office Without a View

Sarriel looked at the files on his desk. Today he had a new charge. This one was here for various wrong doings in the area of excess. Drugs, food, sex, religion, it didn't matter, they all ended up here. At least their files did. Sarriel was a clerk of assessment and recommendation, in the department of excesses (formerly called the department of gluttony and later changed due to the word becoming passe'). But Sarriel liked gluttony. The word was straight forward and easy to understand. Hell's legal attendants would argue that the word did not adequately convey the charges for which individuals where damned, because most souls perceived gluttony as pertaining only to the action of eating, while excess was more... universal.

Sarriel didn't get what the big deal was.

with a lazy sigh, Sarriel jabbed his pen tip into the bloody face, shaped like a bowl, that sat on his desk, and wrote his recommendations on the file. "subject has lead a life of self victimization. It is recommended that rehabilitation should consist of urging the subject to cater to the needs of others... for eternity," Sarriel was no longer sure why he even bothered to write eternity. As if anything else would have been recommended.

Sarriel spaced out looking at the clock. It was from the souls of procrastinators, and it told him he wasn't getting off anytime soon. Sarriel remembering his motivational poster's assurance that "if nobody worked the bellows, hell would freeze over."

"Hey, Afraim," he called over his cubicle wall, where he heard a repetitive bumping, " what are you doing."

"Working," came the casual voice of the demon.

Afraim was actually bouncing a crusher, a ball made from the soul's of the slothful, against the wall of his cubicle. It had something to do with idleness. Sarriel slid his chair in behind Afraim.

"What the hell are we doing here?"

"Well, if the pain monster comes around, I'm working."

"That's not what I mean, when I came down here, I thought we were gonna fashion a new destiny for ourselves, It's all Lucifer ever talked about. So when he marched against ... the throne, I was right there next to him."

"Next to him?" Afraim was considering a heap of lint that he had pulled from his belly button before he wiped it under his chair, "nobody marched next to The Light Bringer, he was out in front the whole time, ahead of all of us."

"You know what I mean, at least I was in rank, and I pushed to the front, you might not have seen that from the back."

"Hey, I provided a pivotal support function... I served as the back end of the bell curve, and made all of you look much more fierce."

"Whatever," Sarriel primmed his horns, "what I'm saying is that we came down here to be master's of our own destinies..."

"I came down so I didn't have to deal with all the singing," said Afraim.

Sarriel shook his head, "look at where we are, all I do all day is recommend standardized punishments for the damned, why the hell am I doing this."

"Page fifteen of the department handbook," Afraim announced with as much pride as could be mustered without any effort, "'by punishment we extract vital energy from the sinner.' We have to keep this place running," Afraim chucked the crusher, it hit a jagged spike on the lip of the cubicle wall and stuck there. It let out a quite scream.

"Ouch," laughed Afraim, "that has to hurt."

"I'm not even a demon of Gluttony..."

"Excess," reminded Afraim.

"You know I've never even been to earth, and everyday I have to hear about these guys who are up there everyday."

"Like who," asked Afraim, getting his crusher down.

"You know, the demons up there," Sarriel pointed to the ceiling, "fighting the fight, encouraging sin; getting to sin. Every day they get paid to do what I MIGHT be able to do for two weeks out of the century, if i can afford it. Which I can't," Sarriel let out a deep sigh, "how did they get that hook-up?"

Afraim shrugged his shoulders and tried to spin the crusher on the tip of one of his talons, "Luck I guess. Right place, right time, probably new the right demons, too."

Sarriel shook his head, "yeah, and I'm stuck here, you know I got passed up for promotion again," Sarriel waited for Afraim to nod, "I work just as hard as anyone here, I work harder than you," Sarriel jabbed a finger at the flab around his belly, considering how out of shape being at this job was making him "Anyway, I have to get back to work."

" 'Kay," Afraim shook the absent stare from his face, "you gonna be alright?"
"I'll be fine, it just feels like I'm never gonna get out of here," Sarriel slid back to his cubicle.

As he got back to his desk he heard Afraim mutter, "Isn't that the point."