Invaded

    A niggling, wiggling feeling presses into the back of your mind. That becomes scratching,  scraping, clawing on the inside of your skull. Your body is getting heavy as a writhing alien will is coiling around your own—wrapping, constricting, strangling, crushing your sense of self. A crawling, creeping, insidiously oppressive dread eclipses all. You feel your thoughts beaten into a dank, dark corner. Silent, internal screaming as your body moves without your consent. Your voice echoes inside the now frozen wasteland of your mind. Your will is suffocated, drowned, and assimilated. 

    Those are the words that Vincent Gregory read aloud while in chains, detained by marines, forced to read this page of text, and once he finished, beaten within an inch of his life. They might as well kill him; he will never betray his god. He neither would not nor could not even think of such a thing.  His bloody, swollen eyes blink painfully as a soldier grabs him by his hooded robe and jerks him to his feet, his bloody bruised legs wobbling under his weight in protest. 

    “I’m only going to ask you once more, you piece of shit. Where did that thing come from?!” Before his blood blinded him, Vincent caught a glimpse of the man screaming at him. From what his pain-addled brain can recall, the man was the stereotypical jarhead. The man's “high and tight” haircut, his fit, well-toned build, the complete and utter obsession with the laughable notion of serving his country. If Vincent weren’t sure one of his ribs was pressing into his left lung, he probably would have laughed out loud. “Fuck it,” he thought to himself, then let out a hacking cough of a laugh that spattered tiny crimson droplets of blood on the soldier's uniform. This action was met with swift and painful reprisal, resulting in the breaking of his left leg.  

    “You pitiful man,” The soldier said. “Do you honestly think that THING cares for you? You think it will protect you? Well, look at you right now, and you tell me if your false god can save you!” The marine grabs Vincent's left leg, twisting it sideways and stomping on the side of his knee. The cartilage let out an audible wet tearing noise, accompanied by a sharp crunch. Through it all, Vincent remained silent, not so much as whimpering at the damage inflicted upon his person. He just looked at his captor and smiled a grotesque clot filled smile of shattered teeth. 

    It was then that Vincent noticed something, a small something, a very small wriggling something. It was approaching the soldier, who was completely unaware of its presence. 

“What made you turn on your country, you traitorous dickbag?! To think I used to call you my CO. How far you’ve fallen that I, you're second in command, was tasked with bringing you in and making you talk. So, you know full well what I’m authorized to do to save this country and with it the world from your madness!” The Sergeant screamed at him. He had long since forgotten his former life. Once he beheld the beauty of the Ineffable, he knew he belonged with her. 

Then another of the wiggling things arrived, another, another and another. Before long, the room behind the soldier was full of the small worm-like creatures and something else, something beautiful beyond description. Through his mouth of broken tooth shards and his busted lips, Vincent managed to say two words. “Thank...you…” 

    “What did you say?” His former Second barked. Vincent gestured behind him with a hand whose fingers would not obey him in the slightest. The soldier turned his head to see a stunning woman, her face obscured by a wide-brimmed hat. She wore an evening gown with a slit on the right to her ribs. Her raven hair is whirling in some unseen breeze. Pale skin, almost translucent, the soldier stood there enraptured by this magnificent lady. His eyes sliding up and down her form, the breasts revealed by the shallow top. Her long legs, the kind said to go for days, making her tall, almost imposing if she were not so beautiful. A smell of vanilla floods his nose, or was it rum and coconut? His eyes relaxed, and his shoulders drooped slightly. Not knowing, he was slowly walking toward her and away from his prisoner. She held out her arms, and he thought he heard her say, “Come to me, my darling.” He obeyed and let her warm arms embrace him. “Yes, be mine forever,” the woman said. He could hear something else, the wheezing, choking laughter of his prisoner.  It was that moment when he realized why thousands of sharp-headed worm monsters plunged their way into his body. He fell to the floor in violent convulsions, unable to scream as more of the worms invaded his mouth, filling his lungs. The beautiful woman walked to his prisoner, touched his face gently, and his wounds began knitting themselves together as a pool of black fluid pooled at the woman's feet, snaking its way into his injuries and making them no more. Before long, Vincent was as good as new; none of his wounds remained, all filled with the liquid.

    The last thing Sergeant Charlie Carmicheal remembers is the sound of Cult Leader Vincent Gregory reading the page aloud once more and the sound of his suffocated screams as he feels the truth of the page firsthand.