"I don't want to do this, mom. I am scared," I told my parents as they led me into the white hospital room with a single bed in the middle.
An insertion chamber.
My father stroked my shoulder and mom gave me a peck on a cheek. "Relax, honey. There is absolutely nothing to fear. Everyone goes through it. It will take only a moment and than we can all go home."
"No. You can go home… I won't be here anymore. Only a soul," I thought.
"Why do you want me to do this?" I ask, panic starting to creep into my voice again. "I promise I'll be good… please… let's go home now. I love you," I plead as we walk closer to the bed.
My parents sigh sadly and my mother speaks in sympathetic voice. "We love you too, honey. That's why we want what's best for you…" she says and my father continues.
"We've been through this, Evelyn. You know it's for the best. You'll be just like us afterwards!" my father says. "You've always wanted to be like us when you were little," mother adds.
Evelyn gulps down in fear. They reached the examination table.
"Just lie down, honey…" my mother tells me in kindest voice. "The healers will be here any moment now."
A shiver goes through my body as I climb on the table and lie down on it. The ceiling light illuminates my face with my parents standing over me, looking at me with love as they always had.
My name is Evelyn Palmer. I am sixteen years old and I am a human. My parents are souls, many centuries old. Deciding to keep their host names, they are known as Margaret and Thomas Palmer.
I knew I was different from other people for a very long time. The lack of silver shine in my eyes was the strongest give-away but I also reacted differently to some situations than my parents, causing them certain frustration as I was growing up. But despite all this I always loved them and they loved me.
When I was old enough to understand, they taught me all about the Souls. A symbiotic lifeform living inside human body. They explained that almost all humans in the world possessed a Soul now.
This was what made me different. When I was born, my parents believes made them decide to wait until I was older before giving me a soul.
At first I pleaded with them to give me a soul sooner. Everybody was different than me and sometimes they were giving me strange looks as a result.
It got better when I started to go to school and found more human children there without souls. The humans usually received their soul right after birth but my parent's decision was not that rare either. Many of them decide to raise human children for years.
I made good friends with some of them and for a time, everything was good. I looked forward to receiving my own soul and being like everybody else.
But then my older human friends started receiving their souls and I saw what it was doing to them.
It wasn't them anymore.
They looked completely the same except for silver shine in their eyes and a scar on the back of their necks. They also had all memories.
But it wasn't them anymore. Their personality and behavior became so different as if a completely different person now occupied their body.
They also stopped being friends with me.
They were nice and polite, perhaps even more so than before, but they would not hang out with me anymore. Instead, they would give me the same suspicious looks that people were sometimes giving me all my life…
When my parents finally decided to have a soul given to me, I panicked at the prospect.
I did research. Asked people. Overheard conversations… until it came together into the terrifying truth.
My friends who had a soul inserted seemed like a different person… because they really were a different person.
The soul took over their body, completely erasing their old mind and personality. The souls I overheard called it "the fading". The host's mind, their consciousness, would fade soon after the insertion. There was nothing of their old selves left behind. It was as if they died.
I was going to die. A soul would take over my body and possess my memories but I will be gone forever.
I then begged my parents to change their mind. To let me continue living as a human without soul.
But they would not listen. They could not understand why I feared it so much.
They were concerned about me and tried to make me feel better but they would not listen to my arguments. They thought that I was wrong. That I was worrying over nothing. That soul insertion was going to be just another step of my development towards adulthood. They even send me to Comforter's office to try and help me get over my fears of insertion.
I did not know what to do. I loved my parents and they loved me. They loved me but they were going to kill me and did not even realize it…
It was then that I considered running away.
During my research I heard rumors about some groups of "wild humans" surviving in the deserts. According to the souls they were vile and dangerous. But they could be my only chance at life. One night I packed all necessary things and almost got on the road.
But when I got on the doorstep of our house… I just could not do it.
To leave behind everything I ever loved? And for what? For a chance to live in middle of a desert like a criminal with a pack of potentially violent humans?
My parents raised me to despise violence in any form. I loathed the very idea.
There was no way out for me…
The next day, I told my Comforter that I was ready. My parents were so happy to hear that it almost made me happy too. And who knows? Perhaps they were right and there was really nothing for me to worry about. I did not believe it in the slightest but even the slimmest amount of hope was comforting to me…
Then I saw the two healers coming inside the room. One of them was carrying the cryo-tank with my future soul. They were both smiling at me and my parents but when I saw it and realized what was going to happen tears erupted from my eyes and I started to sob.
My mom was immediately at my side. "What is it, honey?" she said as she half-hugged me while I lied on the table, my body trembling.
"Mom… please. I don't want this. I am begging you! Please! Let us go home now!" I managed to gasp out even as my body trembled uncontrollably.
The healers paused at the sight but then resumed their approach.
"Shhh, honey," my mother rocked me as I cried while my father looked at me with deep worry. "It will be over soon. You will sleep for a moment and then everything will be better. We will stay with you the whole time. Nothing bad is going to happen to you. I promise…"
A final try.
"Please… I don't want to disappear. I want to live…" I whispered into her ear.
"You will live," my mother said resolute. "We will always be with you, honey. You will always be our daughter. Nothing can change that."
Something within me broke. I looked at my mother. I smiled and nodded at her but there was nothing inside.
"Perhaps they never loved me… perhaps I was nothing to them," I thought and felt myself die inside. "Perhaps they only put up with me so they could get rid of me and have new a daughter… a soul daughter."
The healer put down the cryo-tank on the table and they prepared their instruments.
Suddenly, a great urge to get up and run surged within me. Suddenly, part of me regretted not going away to join all those aggressive, primitive humans in the desert…
"I could not let them do this to me… I was going to fight. I was going to run. Now!"
I turned at one of the healers. "Put these restraints on me, quickly," I told him, pointing at the straps the table was equipped with. I did not want to hurt them but my instincts would force me to unless they tied me down.
He was surprised. "Those are only for wild humans, miss… you don't need-"
"Put them on me, NOW! Please!" I spoke loudly. He registered the urgency in my voice and obliged, strapping my legs and arms to the operating table. I tagged on them and knew that I was now trapped and harmless.
The panic attack brought on by my fight or flight instinct gradually went away.
"Honey, why?" my father asked after my outburst, not understanding. They simply could not understand what was going to happen to me. Perhaps no soul could.
I looked at both of them.
I wanted to hate them. I wanted to loath them for what they were about to do to me. But they were not evil. They just could not understand it. I closed my eyes and all I saw before my eyes was the happy childhood they gave me and I could not bring myself to hate them.
At the same time, I could not forgive them for this either. I loved them but it seemed they never really loved me back… the real me.
Without answering my father or telling them anything else, I looked at the healer.
"Let's get this over with..." I said and turned my head so I would not have to look at any of them. And so they would not see the terror and fear in my eyes…
I gritted my teeth so I would not shake and wished that this was a nightmare and I would wake up in my bed again.
Then I felt a pinch and everything went dark…
Even while unconscious, I could tell when it started. First there was a new presence inside me. Thoughts, ideas and memories that did not belong to me. It was beautiful in its own way. Unlike anything I ever experienced.
But as the foreign entity started to fill out my existence, I could sense it pressing down on me, pushing my mind towards the edge and into the oblivion that gaped beyond.
There was absolutely no malice behind it. The entity was merely doing something that came naturally to it. Like beating of my own heart was for me. It did not even realize that it was doing this to me. Not on a conscious level.
I could resist it. Desperately hold on to my mind. Not allow it to push me out entirely.
But for what? Nobody wanted me here. Even my own parents preferred the invading entity over me. I was nothing to everybody and it was time to become nothing…
I turned to speak to the soul taking over my mind and body, so curious and innocent in its own way.
"I know this is not your fault… I don't blame you… In fact, I forgive you. I wish you a happy life on Earth!" I called to it. Hoping it could understand me.
Then I let go entirely and the darkness claimed me…
I open my eyes and see a new world. The planet is called Earth I recall. I access the memories of my host, learning speech and all that I need to survive.
I see human hosts… yes, this host race is known as humans… standing over me.
One of the souls speak to me. "Welcome to Earth, my friend."
He helps me into an upright position and I look around. I spot two people looking at me with amazement.
"These are your host's parents," the healer tells me and his words are accompanied by torrent of memories from my host – Evelyn Palmer. Yes, that was her name.
"We welcome you to us…" the male host parent tells me gently and I smile at them in return. "What should we call you?" the female host asks anxiously.
I consider using host's former name for a moment but for some reason it does not sound pleasant on my tongue. Instead I speak the name I used for centuries.
"I am… Light in the Shadows."
I undergo interviews and hear instructions from my healers. The same procedure I go through in every lifetime. Afterwards, they release me and I go away with my host's parents.
They seem like amazing souls and from Evelyn's memories, it is clear they were great parents to her. I can remember all the happy moments of her childhood and it fills me with happiness. However, there are also different, more recent, memories that are difficult for me to understand.
We walk away from the insertion center and towards their car – a type of a moving vehicle. Along our way we go through a public park. I am amazed at the beauty of this planet and I can tell I will be happy here.
As I walk, more of Evelyn's memories become clear to me. There are some emotions in them I never even thought existed. As I finally understand their meaning, I have to stop.
I cannot go on.
My parents look at me with concern. There is water pouring from my eyes but that does not seem to be what they are alarmed about. Then I remember that the water from the eyes is called crying and is an expression of sadness among humans.
"I am sad?" I think. "Yes, sad… by what I saw in Evelyn's memories?"
"What is it, Light?" my host's mother asks me in concern. They decided to call me Light. I liked that.
There is a bench nearby. I head towards it to sit down and my parents (it is only natural for me to think of them as such) follow me.
I stare ahead for a moment as I make sense of Evelyn's memories. The pain and fear are new concepts to me. It is so difficult for me to comprehend it but then I begin to understand.
"Why did you give me Evelyn's body?" I finally ask them, still very confused.
They are surprised but they answer me, telling me about how Earth was before. How humans are inherently prone to violence. How we made their planet a better place.
I search through her memories again.
"But… Evelyn. She never hurt anybody. I see nothing but good in her memories."
They explain to me how all human children are either implanted at birth or at the end of their puberty.
"Humans fear unknown… Evelyn was very scared of the insertion but we explained to her it was for the best. And it worked out. You are here with us, Light!" my mother explains and kisses my cheek.
A familiar gesture of love. I want to smile at her and give it back to her but I can't.
"But… Evelyn did not want this," I finally speak as I make sense of her most recent memories. The happiness my host felt when she was younger was replaced by…
"Oh, no!" I cry in shock. My stomach turns around and I vomit on the pavement.
My parents are immediately trying to help me but I slip away from their embrace and stand up from the bench.
"How could you do this to her?!" I scream, my voice filled with the emotions that permeated Evelyn's last months. Anger… and despair.
My parents stare at me in utter shock. Part of me is sorry to be screaming at them like this but it is getting smaller as memory of Evelyn's pain fills me up.
My stomach turns around again but no more vomit comes out. Instead I scream again. "She begged you… She BEGGED you not to do this to her! Why couldn't you love her as a human daughter?"
I heave as I speak the next words. Something that I never thought I'd said to another soul. "You… you killed her."
My parents start to defend themselves against my damning accusation. They insist that insertion is not a murder. They do not kill their host. Only make them better… happy and good.
A few hours ago, I, Light in the Shadows, would have agreed with them. Not now.
"These humans are different than any we encountered. Their body and mind is so independent! When we replace them… it is a death to them. An end of their life," I speak in trembling voice, expressing the feelings Evelyn had for so long but was unheard by her own parents.
Then I decipher Evelyn's very last memories and her message to me. Evelyn may have forgiven me but I will never forgive myself.
I cry again. "She loved you, you know…" I look at my parents with red eyes. "She loved you but she died believing that you never loved her back. That you discarded her like an unwanted piece of meat…"
My parents overcome their shock induced torpor. "Please, Light, come home with us… you are confused now. Everything will be better in time!" my mother pleads with me but I think that right now she no longer believes it herself.
I think about what they are saying – going to Evelyn's old home and another wave of revulsion impacts me. I back away from them.
"No, don't touch me! Ever again!" I scream, pointing accusatory finger at them.
It breaks their hearts and kills a part of me that was good and innocent.
I start to walk away. "Where are you going, Light?" they both desperately cry after me. "You are our daughter! Please come home with us…" my mother pleads.
I turn around to look at them. "Evelyn had a beautiful childhood… I thank you for that," I tell them, trying to be nice even when I think they do not deserve it. It is in my nature.
"But I am not your daughter, Margaret," I tell her. "Your daughter died on that operating table," I say, pointing at the insertion center.
"Evelyn died there and you… you made me into her murderer…" I speak, feeling melancholy unlike anything from my past lives. "I wish you well," I finally tell them before speaking the last word.
"Goodbye."
I can hear my parents calling after me. "Light, come back! Please!" they say but I ignore them. "Evelyn! I am so sorry!" my mother finally calls my host's name in heartbroken voice, perhaps finally realizing what they did.
But Evelyn can't here them anymore.
I run. I run as far away as I can before my legs stop working and I collapse on my knees.
Leaving my parents was so hard for me but I could not even bare to look at them… not after what they unknowingly did to Evelyn.
I reach behind my neck.
I wish that I could claw myself out of her head and make the girl live again. But Evelyn is gone. I felt her leave when I came inside. I pointlessly call for her within my mind but there is no response. Seeing how everybody rejected her, she gave up on existence and let herself fade.
I remain motionless for a long time, thinking about what to do now.
Eventually I made a decision. I have Evelyn's memory of the human rebels supposedly hiding in the desert. Oh how I wish that Evelyn had the courage to go find them and avoid her fate. It is too late now.
But I could still go try and find them. Help them. Betraying my fellow souls is a difficult concept, but I remember my name. Light in the Shadows. I earned that name for uncovering and curing injustice during all my past lives.
And what my kind did to the humans was an injustice in my eyes. We may have made the Earth a better place but if the price for paradise was Evelyn's life then it was not worth it. Not worth it at all.
"We are not evil in nature. The humans are just too different from us and it led us to commit unspeakable atrocity against them. My fellow souls do not understand it. My parents do not understand it."
I got up to my feet and started to walk away.
"Somehow, I will have to make them all understand…"
The End.