She came down tied to a piece of debris, boiling as it crashed into the planet. It was supposed to hurt, and that helped. That made it slightly easier to bear. She wasn’t supposed to know this had been done to her, and that she did made it significantly worse. Well, it didn’t matter for now. For now, she had other priorities. 

The planet that had been chosen – and yes, it had been chosen, she knew – did not have a lot of life. The fucking thing was cold as hell. But there was something, something in the distance. She could feel it, a buffet of emotion vomiting itself up into the noosphere without rhyme or reason. There were ideas and feelings and thoughts in there. She picked one she liked. That was how it was supposed to go, right?

Stygia. There. She had a name now. Like she was supposed to. The rock cooled around her and slowly allowed her the capacity for movement. Not that she was moving, though. Already, the anxiety of whatever was out there feeling so loudly was reaching out to her, even if it didn’t know it. Her descent had been noticed. Good. That meant she could rest and recover a bit more. 

Taking control of and shutting down her upper neural functions wasn’t hard, Stygia was all neural functions and all control. Healing came quickly. Stitching herself together was the first thing she’d learned. In the distance, the excited anxiety got closer. 

Then it was on her. Bipedal. Soft but durable. Weak but adaptable. Good. Good enough. The creature had covered itself in layers of artificial insulation against the cold, which was a good sign. It guaranteed a base layer of intelligence. Stygia didn’t move as her shell was moved to a container. She could wait. She would wait. Waiting was the second thing she’d learned, hurtling through space. Without words, she had been forced into conceptualizing her world through emotion. But the noospheric energy, the sheer information coming off of this creature was feeding her with not just words but entire languages. It was delicious. Delicious and not nearly enough. She needed to feed. 

She would soon. For now, she waited as she was transported. Even through the walls of glass and steel, the creature’s thoughts seeped in. Its – no his – name was Simon Grant. He was returning to his research outpost. Simon was recovering from something, which was why his psychic footprint was so damn potent. That pain, that healing, amplified everything. Stygia was practically salivating. 

Even better news was the silence when Simon arrived at the base and he carried the crate inside. Silence meant there was nobody else there. Nobody to disturb them. Nobody to try and stop Stygia. Just Simon and his hubris. Foolish creature. 

The piece of meteor was put into a glass tank. The decontamination procedure tickled slightly. Stygia didn’t mind. She was created to be resistant to most things. Fire hurt like anything but, then again, that’s what that chunk of rock was for. One way trip, one way ride down. Enough bells and whistles to be noticed but not so much to be feared. 

The wheels on the cart squeaked as she was being brought into the research station’s lab. She couldn’t see much through the glass, but then again, she couldn’t see much anyway. Her vision wasn’t made to be very good. She had other senses, after all. 

And they were screaming at her. Simon Grant was a bundle of raw nerves, barely contained neuroses behind what he clearly seemed to think were sturdy walls. There was so much pain and trauma underneath it all, it was impossible to discern one thing from another, like a tangled mess of snakes. Getting in there was going to be a true delight. 

But Stygia waited. She couldn’t make her move. Not yet. She needed to make sure her opening was perfect or she would be in a glass box indefinitely, poked and prodded. That was unacceptable. Moved from one container to the other with a large pair of forceps. This one had rubber gloves. They weren’t very thick. Simon Grant seemed to trust in them, though. 

He took off his mask, and Stygia could see him clearly for the first time. A rough face, like someone hewn from bloody stone. The scraggly beard of someone who lived alone. Even with the excitement visible on his face, there was a dullness in his eyes. It was all too perfect. And then he turned away, the bastard. “Tomorrow,” Stygia heard him mumble. If she’d had a mouth, she would have screamed. The best she could do was hiss. Simon stopped and looked behind him with a confused look and Stygia decided it was best to hold still. 

Shaking his head, he turned off the lights and closed the door. Stygia hissed angrily. Tomorrow indeed, Simon, you fuck. She slowly gurgled out of her porous stone shell. Her form wasn’t much. Just blue on black, like a viscous oil slick. Featureless but extremely precise in its movements. She explored the confines of her cage. It was glass, vacuum sealed. She was pretty sure she could pry the box open, but she had no idea how Simon would react to that. Not yet, anyway. It wasn’t worth the risk. Not yet. Not much else to do, then, than wait. And she had waited for a very long time. 

The next morning, the lights came on, and Stygia was glad she had retreated back into her rock. She didn’t particularly like light. It was like being exposed, while simultaneously feeling a lot like heat. Worst of both worlds. Simon Grant had a towel around his neck, looking freshly showered, scratching at the stubble of a badly trimmed beard. 

He sat down in front of a computer and said something into a camera for a while. Stygia could not possibly care any less. She just observed him as best she could, until he came over to the dry glove box. He had a little recorder with him. 

“Day one,” he said, “well, technically day two. Commencing study of the fallen meteorite. It was strangely cool on impact, so I’m wondering if the strange heat-conductive properties are because of a mix of elements or a brand new one. Before doing any tests, I’ll be taking a sample for archival, to be sent up to command back home. Hope you enjoy it, boys, it’s the only interesting thing I’m ever sending up to you.”

He lowered a machine down to the box and clicked it into the top. A second later, the panel opened and a drill lowered to Stygia’s rock. The noise was deafening, but she made sure to remain perfectly still. The last thing she wanted right now was to spook him as he operated the drill. However, much to her frustration, a fracture spread across the meteor’s structure. Despite her best efforts, it split down the middle. 

Being split in half was something Stygia categorically did not enjoy. But if she wanted to stay disguised as inert matter, she would have to keep from moving. And now she was exposed to the light. To Simon, she would look like a liquid clinging to the inside of the rock. Something a scientist might be interested in. 

“Hold on,” Simon said, taking the recorder. “There appears to be some kind of compound inside the meteorite. At first glance it is liquid – I’m seeing some vibrations on its surface. It is… black, with a bluish hue and a few more colors mixed in there. If that wasn’t very unlikely I would say it looks like petroleum.” He looked closer and tapped on the glass. “Hello,” he said. “Are you organic?”

Yes, Stygia thought. Come closer and I’ll show you. Simon waved a stupid little light back and forth. She made sure to stay perfectly still, of course. 

“It doesn’t appear to be reacting to visual stimuli.” The drill was retreated. “I will separate a piece and see how it responds to heat in the resistance cabinet.” He slid some tools through a tray into the dry box, and put his hands into the rubber gloves, picking up a glass tube and a scalpel. 

Well, this won’t do, Stygia thought. Very, very carefully, inside herself, she sharpened a piece of herself to a very fine point. She didn’t need poison of any kind. She was the poison. The scalpel slipped into her surface, and she made her move. Swiftly, without making any kind of move that could look like anticipation, she speared through the glove as best she could. It was not as pliable as she’d hoped, and Simon was already halfway through pulling his hand back when she punctured his finger and touched his nervous system. 

Fast-acting didn’t do it justice. The signals she sent up to his brain told it to freeze – not a trick she could use indefinitely, but sufficient for her purposes. Both halves of her pried the glove open, then ripped apart his pores as they forced themselves into his skin. Shreds of meat were discarded into the dry box. She wrenched the flesh apart carelessly, like she was unwrapping a present, and drinking greedily from the blood that spilled everywhere. She didn’t need it, but a little extra mass never hurt anyone. Well, it hurt Simon Grant, but who the fuck cared about Simon Grant? It also made it more painful when she cracked his bones apart to have a look inside.

There, she told him as she slithered around his brain stem. She could feel his primal little brain try to come up with a response. No more tests today, I think. The paralysis wore off and he jumped back, slamming into a table and screaming in pain. His right arm hung limply by his side, the hand connected to the rest of his arm with a few tendons and what remained of two bones.

“Wh– who a– What!? What a–”

Oh, shh, she said. My name is Stygia. You’re my host. Congratulations, she purred as she slipped through his body. Now that she was in here and there was no threat of him pulling away from him she could gently move his muscles aside as she slipped up and at his nervous system. 

It was a mess of a thing, all meat and no substance. Evolution’s way of patching after release. Disgusting. Delicious. Through the stem of his brain, she slipped inside of his skull. She could feel what he felt, and what he felt was a pressure behind his eyes. 

Simon, she knew, felt every move she made inside of his body. He could feel his organs, his skin, his muscles and sinews, some for the first time in his life, as she slithered around and through them. He was horrified and terrified. “Parasite,” she heard him think. “Alien Parasite. Have to flush my system.”

He took several steps towards a chemical shower. There were several syringes embedded in the walls. Tsk, Stygia said. That’s not very nice. You know, I don’t think that’s happening, Simon. She slithered around the brain and sent some signals down to a part he’d never used before. To her delight, Simon Grant had never been physically aware of his own brain before. She squeezed. He groaned, his every nerve on fire. He stepped forward again. Stygia formed another sharp point and gently penetrated the rear of Simon’s brain. There. That was his vision gone. 

He stumbled and fell but kept trying to go forward. “Hallucinating. Neurotoxin. NPP-4. Fourth syringe from the left. Just keep moving. You’ll live.”

Oh, honey, Stygia purred, I’m not a hallucination. Here, let me show you. She removed the spike from his occipital lobe and gently massaged the spot until he could see again. The relief in his chest was tangible. This was what she fed on. The rise and fall of healing and pain, tension and release. And Simon was a feast. She would dig so, so much deeper. Which syringe was that again? Like a vice on his limbic system, she pulled him upright. The panic rose in his throat. These limbs were unwieldy, but not that hard to make work. Balance was a bit tricker but that could be brute forced. Two steps and Simon stood in front of the syringe. 

“One,” she said out of his mouth, counting slowly, trying out the tongue and mouth. The voice was grating. “Two. Three. Four. This one.” She tapped it. “This is the NPP-4 that would flush me out of your system, isn’t it?”

“Yes!” Simon thought, loudly. 

“Good!” she said, and smashed it on the ground as hard as she could. Shards of glass went everywhere. “There, any others like that lying around.”

“Top drawer of don’t think it don’t think it don’t think it don’t think it”

“Well,” She said. “Let’s not play like that.” She retreated from that horrible face of his. If she was going to be wearing him like a suit, some changes would have to be made. Much more comfortable. Now, Simon, be a good boy for me and tell me where you think that antidote is.

“No!” he shouted through his own mouth and froze, realizing he’d regained a kind of control. “What’s happening? Who are you?”

We already did this part, Stygia said. I’m running out of patience. Tell me. This time she punctuated her whispered command with a squeeze of his brain. It would take time for her to infiltrate the sack of meat properly, so for now she settled for pain. Fire ran down his spine and he was thrown to his feet. The whimper from his lips was delicious, dripping like a fine nectar. 

“No,” he whispered again. “What do you want?”

A host, Stygia said. Which I now have.

“Please… let me go.”

Well, no, you’re the only living thing on this forsaken rock. But at some point, someone will come to pick you up, and then we think about procreating, hm? She felt strangely smug, torturing him like this. Truth told she felt no inclination to procreate in any way, but she could feel his horror so fresh it was bliss. The thought of being used to propagate a parasite like her made him feel debased. 

“What are you going to do to me?”

Well, some changes are in order. She zapped the limbic system and forced him to raise his hand. It clearly hurt jolts of electricity going up and down the ruined arm. Hmm. 

“What are y–” was all he managed until she forced him to grab it with his other hand, and twisted. There was a noise of splintering wood. It was clear to Stygia that Simon Grant’s species had built-in systems to keep it from self-destructing, and the sick and bile she forced him to keep down was proof of that system in action. He was growing light-headed, his entire body trying to resist her. Good fucking luck. 

Now, she said, pay close attention, Simon. You’ll be the first of your species that gets to do this. With much more care than she’d used before, she pulled bits and pieces from his body, stored around in fat pockets and reserves, shaved pieces of bone so miniscule he’d barely feel it, and stripped other muscles for parts, crafting a new hand so carefully it was a work of art. 

Simon wasn’t appreciative. He was screaming as a hand of flesh and stitched bone and sinew was forming in front of him, and all he did was scream. 

Shut up, Stygia said, and did it for him, slamming his mouth shut. God, that voice of yours. Like gravel. Here. She tightened his vocal cords with a tug. The pitch immediately went up by an octave. Much better. She looked at the hand. Hmm. I’m missing some material. She looked at the lump of flesh in his other. Waste not, want not. She flooded his throat and mouth, and she could feel him panic as breathing suddenly became impossible. His panic was delicious. Arousing. Carefully, she siphoned enough oxygen into his lungs to keep him from passing out, while constantly feeling like he was choking to death. She could do this forever. But for now, it was enough to sharpen every single tooth into a fine, serrated point. 

“Wh-” he gasped as she vacated his airways, and then she shoved the hand into his mouth and bit down hard.