Story A-Typewritercat vs Petros
Parasite
She did it all for her son.
Yes, that was Ilare’s justification. She had so much to live for.
The odor of stale air had grown unbearable. The stench permeated every inch of the airlock. There was no escaping it. It was nearly seventy hours they had been trapped here, the supply of oxygen dwindling with each passing hour, each greedy breath.
Fate was kind to Ilare, on this occasion at the least. Poring over the ship’s manual, thousands of pages, the print so miniscule she is forced to read with her nose pushed against the paper, it is by sheer luck she catches the brief mention of an emergency escape pod. It’s in the westernmost chamber, not far, reachable if good fortune was on her side.
Good fortune had never been on her side. If it had, she wouldn’t be here, wouldn’t have had to leave her young son. Still, there was nothing she could do about that but persist, simply hoping to return to him.
I won’t die in here. I promised my little boy that. I’ll do anything to get back to him. Anything.
Ilare casts a longing glance at her companions. One member of her family is here, her young sister Lira, nearing the age of fifteen. That was why she persisted so. If not for her son, then for her sister, who did not deserve to die.
There was the woman Ruska as well. Ilare had met her perhaps a week prior, but already felt twinges of warm empathy in her heart. The woman had been through much. Heavily pregnant, her husband disappearing, perhaps taken, without leaving a single strand of evidence, a shred of hope, for the poor woman to cling to.
Out of the forty-six who had boarded the ship, only two still lived, three, counting Ilare.
If God is out there, if His domain stretches across deep space, I pray He will spare me. Let me live to see my little boy one more time.
The faint hum of the spaceship’s engines incessant, plaguing all her thoughts with an endless background noise, she makes her way across the airlock to bring her comrades the good news.
“…way out.” Ilare’s voice, hoarse from disuse, comes out too soft, muffled completely by the endless hum of the ship. “There’s a way out.”
Lira gazes up at her, with the strange sort of despair only one who has witnessed too much at a young age can have. “This isn’t the end, sister?” Her unspoken words linger in the air, a haze of smoke clouding any sense of optimism. I had already said my goodbyes, my last prayers. Shame on you. Why would you put me through that?
“Of course this isn’t the end! We’re going to survive, Lira, I’ve found the way.”
“There is no way.” She tilts her head in mockery. “If we leave, it’ll take us. It’s as simple as that.” Has she given up already? Could that be a sign it is inside her, taking over?
“You don’t know that. Is it better to die here, or take our chance at life?”
“I trust you, sister. I’ll take my chance at life, then.” She didn’t even think to ask what the way out was! It could really be the parasite, clouding her judgement as it chews its way through her brain.
“Ruska!” Ilare calls out, her voice echoing the name across the airlock in a faint harmony. Ruska, Ruska, Ruska…
Cradling her swollen belly with one arm, as if she is trying to comfort her unborn baby, Ruska’s simple words hold too much hope. “I heard. You’ve found the way.” She listens, pays attention. The parasite, if it is in her, is not at her brain yet. Though this could mean she isn’t infected… so difficult to diagnose.
“Will you come with us?”
Ruska’s gaze drifts to the bulge in her stomach. It’s clear what she’s thinking, a mother’s instinct. She wants to save her unborn child, and will go to any length to do so. She doesn’t respond to the question, doesn’t need to. Ilare knows she would answer yes.
That is that, then. I’ll be reunited with my little boy soon enough.
The sound of footsteps echoing in the empty halls is chilling, the hairs on the back of her neck rising like the defensive spikes of an animal under threat. The absence of sound is unnerving. There is only silence when danger is nearby.
Her knife, as long as her forearm and sharpened to deadly perfection, it is steady in her hand. A relic of ancient times, useless in most situations, but now the most reliable weapon she has… could dig a parasite out with it.
Ilare scans her surroundings as calmly as she can with Lira clinging to her in terror, Ruska following at her heels. She is the one with the weapon, and is obligated to lead, searching for thin spots of white, as thin as a hair. Parasites.
They’re the bane of deep space, invasive species, always searching for hosts. If given enough time, they can exterminate a population of billions. It has happened to many, and Ilare prays it will not happen to her.
Cutting them in two will only create another, and one can reproduce to hundreds after finding a suitable host. The host’s flesh is used as sustenance, and they take over the brain, controlling in a strange way, not quite falling into instinct, difficult to realize before it is too late.
Ilare watches the corners the most carefully, the edges of the ceilings, shadows, places where they are unlikely to be spotted. It may be working, as she cannot spot any. Does that mean there are none, or are they simply good at hiding?
She sees it then, perhaps twenty meters away, a disfigured hunk of a man, barely visible in the folding of shadows, blocking their path.
Eyes have sunk deep into his skull like deflated basketballs, unnaturally pale skin stretched across bone, lips pressed together in such a thin line Ilare cannot tell where they meet. That isn’t the part that sends the pale worm of terror writhing in her gut into a frenzy, though.
No, there is something in him, moving under his flesh, chewing through muscle and cracking bone in the process, sending spasms of pain jolting through his spine, making his movements jerky and erratic. The thing is as thick as her arm, and perhaps even longer, and it is inside him, moving underneath the flesh.
She gives herself ten seconds to watch him, compose herself, and then continue onwards. The life of her sister and the woman and an unborn baby, they all depend on her. I just want to see my little boy again, more than anything. I’ll do anything to see him again.
Ruska is sobbing uncontrollably, shaking as if an earthquake is rocking her from the inside, sneaking glances at the man, the host. Hopelessness, the black tune, it permeates all her actions. Erratic behavior, that could mean she’s infected!
“It’s fine, I doubt he’d harm us.” Lira says, the sound unnaturally loud after so much silence.
Ruska needs to get herself together! She’s going to be the death of us!
The worms moving under his flesh, they force his broken neck to turn, his moving corpse to face them. He is dead. His body just does not realize it.
There are so many of them, hundreds, perhaps. His flesh gone to nothing, filled only by the writhing forms, as long and thick as an arm, blood spilling from holes they have dug. He’s swollen, his stretched skin barely able to keep the writhing mass in as they multiply, so close to bursting out that Ilare walks faster.
His joints creaking as he takes a step towards them, the layers and layers of worms in his flesh jiggle, as if he is made from human jello. His abdomen is grotesquely bloated, filled with a green rot, flesh stretched to the point it is see-though, a mountain of white forms twisting inside his stomach.
Luck is not on Ilare’s side.
The sound of tearing, ripping through skin pulled too taut, and then parasites, spraying outwards in a rainstorm, a shower of blood and shattered bone and white worms. They're everywhere, splattering on Ilare’s cheeks, immediately trying to burrow inside her from any weak spot.
Heaving, she’s on the floor before she realizes it. Her whole body trembling as she retches, a wave of pain and disorientation going through her head, unbridled disgust turning her stomach inside out. It could be in me now. It could be in me! Another shock wave of pure revolution forcing its way through her in spasms, the maggots, white parasites squishing underneath her hands.
She’s running then, though she can’t remember telling herself to, the knife clasped tightly in her hand, Ruska and Lira following close behind, a storm of parasites still being ground into a white paste beneath her heels.
Escape pods in the distance, a ray of sunshine filtering through the darkness.
Ilare does not activate them quite yet, standing there for an instant to contemplate her next choice. The shower of parasites, the dead man, danger.
Is it in them, my sister and the woman? We were so exposed while fleeing to the airlock, it would have been so simple for it to take hold. If it’s in them, I can’t let them leave this place. That would endanger all of humanity, including my little boy.
I could be infected too.
Would it be the wrong decision for us to return to society?
I don’t want to die. I just want to see my son again.
In a flash of steel, she angles the knife in her right hand towards Lira. “Step back. Now.”
“Sister? I don’t understand, why are you…” The realization hits her. “You’re infected. That’s why you’re doing this.”
“If you don’t want to fucking die right now, you’re going to step back.” Ilare’s words take on a darker tone, and she spits them out as if they taste bitter. Turning to Ruska, “You do the same.”
Ruska doesn’t budge, tears beginning to spill from her eyes. “Why, Ilare? Why?”
“I’m not going to tell you again, step back before I carve the fucking baby from your belly!” Taking a deep breath, Ilare steps into the pod, still keeping the knife angled towards them. “I’m going to live, don’t you see it? You two, you could easily be infected. You’d only endanger me, along with all of humanity!”
“Why do you deserve to live more than we do?” Lira whispers. “You’re equally likely to be infected.”
For my son. I’ll do anything to see my little boy again. She leaves those words unsaid, only presses the button that slides a pane of glass between them, locking her into the pod, dooming Lira and Ruska to death, presses the eject button in the same instant as tears begin to flow from her eyes.
She feels it then, sees it a moment after. The thin worm, under the skin of her left arm, crawling through her flesh in a burst of pain. Without thinking, she draws the point of the knife over the skin, a thin trail of blood appearing in its wake, soon followed by a flailing white parasite falling out, crushed under her heel.
Where there is one, there are many.
God, if you’re out there, spare me. Please.
The pod ejects into the void of deep space. Ilare sees the stars, a universe of opportunity before her. It does not help. She can feel the judging eyes of Lira on her, almost hear Ruska’s racking sobs.
I just want to see my little boy again. I don’t care what it takes, I don’t care who I’m putting at risk. I’m going to get to my son again or die trying.
Yes, she did it all for her son.
