Hello, dear readers!
I'm just taking this opportunity to reinforce how important The Host has been to me throughout my childhood; it's been my favorite book for as long as I can remember and I've literally been dreaming of writing a fanfic on it for ever. I love the ending of it, but I find it a little simple.
So, this is MY alternative ending, an ending with its ups and downs, with looooads of feelings and a lot of drama. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it! xxx
The subsequent weeks felt unreal.
It was even hotter now, which none of us would have ever thought possible. The heat was everywhere; it deprived us of our energy and made it hard to do anything, but everyone was ecstatic nonetheless. The caves had never been so full of joy; the people were laughing and hugging each other, singing their favorite songs and playing their favorite games that they hadn't thought of in years. There was something in the air that every single one of us had forgotten the feeling of- jauntiness.
I couldn't remember the last time I had felt this way. It was almost too good to be true.
Mel was back.
She was here, and she was so beautiful, and she was radiating so much passion and love and life that I would find myself wondering about how I had survived the last year without her.
And Wanda was back as well, as good and compassionate as only a soul could be, and her and Ian were inseparable. Everything was perfect, like it should be. Everything was finally... right. At its place.
Melanie came crouching down beside me and stroked my hair. Her gaze rested on my face and she smiled; I closed my eyes and sighed.
"What are you thinking about?" she asked softly.
"About how much I've missed that smile," I answered and kissed her.
She laughed and pulled away to look at me. Her eyes were of an intense green, with sprinkles of light gold. No shimmering silver. Just a clear, humane green. That was something I still hadn't gotten used to- it was a color constellation I had thought I would never see again.
"You saw Wanda smile all the time," she said with a touch of sadness in her voice.
"Yes," I agreed. "Wanda. Not Melanie."
That made her laugh. She liked it when I differentiated them like that. She said that not everyone was able to do this - many people still treated her like the soul that had once been implanted into her head. They didn't fully understand that she was someone else; it was Wanda they associated with this body.
"But it was my body," she corrected me. "It still looked the same. Even if it wasn't me."
I pulled her close to me and kissed her. Our tongues entwined and our heated bodies fused to one being. She wrapped her arms around my shoulders to bring us even closer together. "It's still not the same thing," I murmured in between breaths. "It's your smile, Mel." I kissed her neck, her shoulders, her collarbones. My lips swirled around her face until they reached hers once more. Our kisses were different than they used to be these days; they were more demanding. None of us knew how much time we had left, and both of us were aware of that. Painfully aware.
"Jared! Mel!" Jamie came running towards us, his arms waving in the air. When he reached us and saw how close we were, he understood. "Oh," he said embarrassed."I'm sorry. I didn't mean to disturb-" "What's up, Jamie?" Mel laughed, got to her feet and hugged him heartily. I knew she cherished every moment with him, especially now that he didn't live with us anymore. He was still with her all the time, but it was less than she was used to. He had grown up a lot in the past year.
"Wanda and Ian just came back," he said, excited. "They brought us three new hostages!" When he looked up and saw Mel's face, he added hastily: "I mean souls. Doc has already transplanted one of them, he's really fast these days. And guess what! It worked perfectly. No hassle whatsoever. She's already awake!" Melanie and I looked at each other, surprised. It was rare that the people woke up straight away. It usually took a few days until they found their way back- if they found their way back at all. Some of them woke up with no memory of their previous life, some of them didn't wake up at all. "Let's go, then" she said, and rested her hand on Jamie's shoulder. "What's her name? Does she remember?"
"She remembers everything," her brother said, exhilarate. "Her name is Diana."
They turned around and walked towards the tunnel that led to Doc. I watched them for a while, until Mel turned around and called: "Are you coming, Jared?"
I thought about this for a moment, but shook my head. I wanted them to spend time alone. Besides, I hadn't seen Ian and Wanda for multiple days and I wanted to know about their trip. I was sure Ian would be in the kitchen, and even though Wanda would prefer to help Doc, she would probably be with Ian. They needed to tell me about all of their encounters during their trip; it was important to stay informed.
We had to be even more careful these days. The seekers had become aware of the sudden rise in the number of missing souls. We usually took one or two with us whenever we went for a road trip. We could take a lot more, seeing as it was so easy to gain their trust, but we didn't. It would be too obvious, too risky. But our little community was growing very fast; we were now fifty-six people, meaning we had gathered a total of nineteen humans in the few weeks since we had met Burns Living Flowers and his family, whom we were still in contact with. Once a month, - the day the moon was at its fullest - we would meet a few miles away from here at an oddly shaped rock and inform each other about anything remotely useful, which turned out to be very helpful. They had opposed Jeb's invitations to move in with us; they preferred the nomad lifestyle, it made them feel safer not to have one specific home. They kept all of their belongings in their cars and were constantly on the move. We didn't mind this too much; it was somewhat safer for us any ways. Having a large group would be both challenging and extremely dangerous.
However, our attitude towards the souls had definitely changed. Even though some of us feared them more than others, the overall community had become a little bit more relaxed. Yes, this was obviously still a war and we were still heavily outnumbered, but for the first time in years we had hope. We knew how to change them back into humans, given that we had the devices. We had accepted that they were good hearted and nice, and therefore easy to outwit. The only thing we feared were seekers, which were unfortunately the group of souls we were encountering increasingly recently; they were the only ones that would fight us if necessary. And they were searching the area. They were getting suspicious. I reached the Kitchen and saw Ian and Wanda sitting closely entwined at the table.They were laughing and eating and seemed relieved. When they saw me, they waved.
I sat down opposite to them.
"Hi, Jared" Wanda said a little shyly.
"Hi, Wanda" I said politely.
Ian grunted and pushed his plate away from him. "Howe," he greeted me.
"O'Shea," I replied.
We shared a long look without words. It was strange between Ian and myself. A lot had happened in the past and we were both sensible enough not to bring it up, but we were both aware of it. He still hadn't forgiven me that I had allowed Wanda's almost-death.
Reasonable.
Wanda, as empathic as she was, noticed the tension and decided to change topic: "The Trip was fun," she said lamely, and looked at Ian for support. He sighed and looked at her, smiling. Typical Ian. Always trying to comfort his girl.
"Any complications?" I asked, my eyes flickering from him to her.
"No," she said. "Yes," said Ian at the same time. She glanced at him, slightly annoyed. Hastily, she continued: "Some seekers, nothing too serious. No need to worry about-"
"How many?" I demanded.
"Twenty- five, more or less." Ian answered after a short exchange of glances with Wanda.
"Twenty- five?"
When Wanda saw my aghast face, she looked at Ianreproachfully."It's really not that big of a deal, they barely looked at us-" she grew silent.
"What exactly were they doing?"
Ian shrugged. "Searching the desert. They're not very close yet, but I'm getting slightly worried." He looked up at me and pointed at his plate. An offer. I looked at the strange looking vegetables and shook my head curtly.
"We should stop taking hostages for a while." I realized. Ian and Wanda nodded. "It's getting too obvious. There's more than twenty people missing, and most of them are from the same area. I'm sure they've concluded..."
"They have," Wanda said, nodding. "They're not stupid. I overheard a conversation at the grocery store." I looked at her expectantly and waited for a response. When her eyes met mine, she looked down and her cheeks turned rosy. A very common trait for this new body she had inherited. "One of them said that he was friends with a seeker and that he had told him there were humans near. He said that it is believed that we take souls and..." she shuddered, "kill them."
I was silent for a moment. "Seems like a human thing to do," I said a little sarcastically. "Are you sure they don't think we take the souls out of the bodies?"
Wanda thought about this for a minute. Her forehead creased which made her look a little less child-like. "I think that they're afraid you're trying. They obviously don't know you're succeeding." She smiled a little ruefully.
I nodded absentmindedly. They obviously didn't know. How could they? The soul transplant was their biggest secret, they had no reason to believe any soul would have told a human. No ordinary soul, any ways. But Wanda was special...
It was good to talk to her, in a way. We didn't really talk much these days. Just in that moment Kyle entered the kitchen and his gaze searched the room until he saw his brother. "Ian!" he called. "Doc needs you." Wanda jumped on her feet and hurried towards Kyle, worried. "What happened? Is everything okay with them? Did something go wrong?"
Ian was next to her, hugging her around the waist.
"He also said to tell you not to worry," Kyle grinned. Wanda relaxed. "We just need him to come with us to do a few tests with Sunny and the others." When Wanda opened her mouth to protest, he added: "I was forbidden to take you along. You need to rest. Don't worry, everything's fine." Ian looked at her apologetically. "I'll be back soon," he promised, gave me a warning look and disappeared with Kyle. Wanda and I were left alone in the empty kitchen. She turned around and met my glance. Quickly, she looked away. Why did she do that?
"I... should go. I'm tired. I'll go lie down." With these words, she smiled at me and turned around to leave. I watched her as she disappeared around the dark corner. After a moment of hesitation, I hurried after her. "Wait," I said when I was right behind her. I could tell how her posture stiffened, even in the dark. She stopped, faced me and said as polite as she could: "Good night, Jared." It sounded contrived, even for her. With these words she kept walking.
"I'll bring you."
It sounded almost like a plea; how pathetic. I was just trying to be nice.
"You don't have to," she said patiently.
"I want to."
She sighed and turned right."Jared..."
We had almost reached her and Ian's room. She halted and turned around once more to face me. The last daylight was stretching its fingers out through the little cracks and holes Jeb had forced into the cave wall. "You don't have to do this, you know." "But I wanted to." What was the big deal? After all, we were friends in a certain way. Right?
She looked down at her feet for a moment before she looked back up. She was a lot smaller than I was. "I don't just mean this," she gestured at the entrance of her room. "I mean you don't have to treat me like I'm the best person in the world. You don't have to be so... nice to me."
I stared at her, blankly. "Isn't that what you want?" I asked, not exactly sure of what she meant. "Isn't that what all of you souls want? Kindness?"
"Yes," she whispered. "But it feels so unnatural."
I laughed. "Why, because I'm such a horrible person and I can't possibly be nice without faking it?"
She smiled a little. "You know what I mean."
"As a matter of fact I don't," I mumbled.
She looked up at the frail streams of light that were slicing through the dark hallway. They were slowly disappearing. Then she closed her eyes, and her juvenile face became very still. It took a moment until she spoke. "You don't owe me anything."
It was still then. It took me a while to comprehend what she had just said.
"It don't owe you anything?" I struggled for words, incapable of finding a legitimate response. "Wanda, I owe you everything! I owe you my life! Because of you I have Mel back!" I thrust my arms into the air, desperate. "I won't ever be able to give you what you gave me, don't you understand? Let me... let me please just be nice to you, okay? Please, Wanda. Let me treat you like this. It helps me to... feel better about myself."
Finally, she nodded. But she didn't seem happy. Why not?
She was still looking somewhere else. I felt the urge to touch her, to care for this child, and touched her cheek. She flinched.
"I'm sorry," I said quickly, and pulled away. I wanted to punch myself in the face.
Her lips were quivering, and she pressed them together as if to suppress a sob.
"What's wrong, Wanda?" The image of this helpless girl made me feel uneasy, and I shifted uncomfortably. I was looking at her now, trying to figure her out. Her round, child-like face was filled with...what was it? Sorrow? I couldn't tell. I couldn't distinguish it in this foreign face. When she didn't reply, I said: "I still haven't gotten used to this face, you know. It's weird to see you... like this. You look like a different person but you're not. It's very... confusing."
"Very confusing," she agreed silently. Her voice was trembling.
"I just want you to know that I'm truly grateful for everything you have done for us, Wanda. Especially for me, Mel and Jamie." I saw her lips curl into a feeble smile when I mentioned his name.
"I know you are, Jared. Thank you," she said sincerely.
She had her arms crossed in front of her chest and looked almost inpatient. As if my presence seemed annoying, almost aggravating. When did she start to dislike me so much?
"I'll go now," I mumbled.
"Good night, Jared."
And with these words, she was gone.
This is it, the first chapter! It was a one-shot and I'm honestly quite pleased with it. Does anyone of you know where this is headed?
Please comment,add to favorites, follow and REVIEW and I'll make sure to have a new chapter up really soon! I have some juicy stuff planned, guys!
xxx
P.S.: Make sure to check out my other stories; I also have another fanfic on The Host which I'm very proud of as well! It's a KYLE-JARED fanfic (not what you think.) Check it out!
Muchos lovos, Gloria