Prologue:

Spluto- it's the name of my last host, it's a strange name and it comes from the small blue planet of Vemin in the star system Akantos. Approximately 19 light years from Earth, Vemin is a nice water planet and Spluto was a narwhal-like resident know as a Greki.

My species (the Nowaire) are small, and on our own planet were vulnerable, you see we live off others and on our own we are small, fist-sized, bright, amazingly bright, creatures. We are almost gel like and grow tentacles which when we 'occupy', stretch out and connect to the nerves and brain and functions of the body. To do this we have to enter the body. If the host has a wound we will enter it and the skin will seal over us and we sit there like a second brain, using the hosts eyes, ears, limbs and body completely as our own. Soon, their memories and lives and loves are within us although they are separate still and our consciousness is the one in control, the hosts is always wiped away and disappears when we take over… that is to say there is no record of it being otherwise… soon though, in this story the records change…

Chapter 1- A place called earth:

I flex my fingers and blink, testing and stretching my new body but then voices interrupt that train of thought, I don't know the language so I look up and see two strange creatures gesturing at me. Slowly my memory kicks in and I realize that I'm on 'Earth'. I remember the explanations of what I would find here and realize that the creatures likely are 'Nowaire' like me, in host bodies of the locals-….'Humans' if I remember correctly. And then the memories and knowledge of my host flood me so that I can't think. But this is what I expected, it's common and in all my other hosts it's happened, but what is strange and new is a thought, a thought that I didn't think.

Chapter 2- An unwelcome presence:

He is still there. A simple thought but it terrifies me, the soul didn't leave, but I resolve to ignore it and look at the memories. And they show me the language of these humans and how this boy was raised and his life and how his world works. And I can feel him looking through my memories and his horror but also his wonder. It is strange but I can feel his curiosity at the fact he should be dead and gone and his pleasure at the fact he considers small inconvenience to me as a great victory and I scowled. So this is what it must be like to have someone in your mind that should not be there?

Chapter 3- A troubled sleep:

Again the strange dreams haunted my sleep and I woke in the dead of night sweating while fire raged through my mind and he fought mentally for control, forcing the thoughts that were his into the brain, which had of late (as he got stronger in will) become less of mine as I would think a hosts to be and more his or ours (I hate you)(Go away and give me my body and our world back)(why us)(what do you want to take our lives for?) and more trains of thought 'till I had a headache and felt almost like leaving earth so as to get away from his thoughts and his presence.

As I breathed hard and sculled coffee, I skimmed through the newspaper 'till I found an interesting headline "Take down dead;" 'when the humans found a dying host they attempted to cut open the brain and find out exactly how we take over, though 'Fitz Herbert' the occupying host, lashed out in a last minute attempt to hide the important scientific information and scrambled the brain…..'

I thought about this and again my thoughts wondered to the rogue host and I thought about what would happen if I left his (correction our) body. It is still intact and although weak, so is his mind, so…. Would he live in it like he did before?

Chapter 3-The Change and the Love:

Earth is a strange planet but his knowledge fills in a big map and I start telling people different things about this earth, about the geography and the history, the mythology and the religion. I start to spill secrets about the planet to scientists and news agencies (yes, we kept the general lifestyle of earth's previous inhabitants) and soon I was attending meetings. It seems like he is voluntarily giving me this knowledge and I think he is giving it to me so that I lead him to someone, is he trying to find someone?

I read the article in the paper about 'new discoveries' and I'm in it, telling them about Australia. Suddenly his interest perks at Mrs. Laura Jane's picture as the reporter and his excitement gives him an advantage he drags our eyes down to the words about who Laura Jane is and I can feel that giggly human love in him/us and then whilst he is at a weak point I pull at his memory and see Laura in a wedding dress and I realize she is his wife.

Chapter 4- Finding and dividing:

Laura is the reporter so I arrange an interview with her. And it seems that when I get there she is waiting to see me with strong anticipation, I talk to her casually whilst his feelings are haywire to see her. When he notices her hand and the small gold ring on it he struggles to take over our body. He wants to say something to her, anything that might alert her to his presence. He is hoping that it is her.

At last I let him through and he moves faster than I can stop him and then kisses her. "Well.." she says " I guess it really is you" and she kisses him back. It's now my turn to be confused, she is still human?

"They didn't get you?" he asks "No, I just pretended to be one of them" She says "and clearly they didn't get you?" "Um…. Well they did, you see My consciousness is here …but so is one of theirs.." She draws back and I carefully slide my way back into control pushing his consciousness aside and then say "Hi, it's me again… I was the one who started talking to you I am one of them but I am not really in control, your husband is in fine condition and I…" I paused as I made up my mind "..am leaving him to you. As long as you promise not to kill me and to just let me leave the planet I'll tell you how to remove me"

The ending in Laura's view:

I stood above the body of my husband (who had been drugged in preparation) and felt the scar on his side, near the third rib. "So..." I mused "This is it" and I carefully cut a gash in his side till I could see a long silver shape. I felt this silver creature under my hands, and then pressed gently under the third tentacle from the eyes (they were black), and slowly all the tentacles drew in from various places of my husband's body and it rested in my hands, beautiful. I then put it carefully in a hibernation freezer that I had taken from a lab and turned to my husband.

An hour later he stiffened and felt his side where the wound had been stitched up, and smiled. "I can't feel her in my head anymore" he said. "Is that good or bad", I prompt. "I don't think it's either…. She was almost my friend and when you think that she sacrificed her life on this planet for our love, I think that makes her almost human", he said. "So then, we should attend to her wish and put her on that space craft thingy, so she'll go to the next planet. Do you agree?" I asked. He replied "Yes".

We looked at the air/space port and at the ship she had described to us, the one that would take her to another planet, in another galaxy. Slowly, we crept up to it and I waited 'till the guard's back was turned and put her container on the trolley among the others and then left.

She would be happy now...

And we were happy now.