Stephenie Meyer owns The Host, not me.

A/N I'm currently going through and fixing some of the more glaring errors, fleshing some of the weaker parts out, as well as re-adding linebreaks which were deleted sometime after a FFnet system update in the past two years. I'm currently at about chapter 12 and should be done by 29 Jan 2011.

Mixed Feelings

*Captured*

He had been told the beginning would feel like the end. Moonlight had been forewarned that humanity was a barbaric race, yet nothing could have prepared him for this.

I know our lives are over; the Seekers are looking for us and have doubtlessly radioed in a report of our presence. I don't know who saw me, or what gave me away, but it doesn't matter anymore. Even if we manage to get away by some miracle, there will soon be helicopter searches and infrared scans of the forest - and we can't hide from those for very long. The centipedes take us very, very, seriously, though God only knows why. It's not as if we can do anything to them, we can barely even feed ourselves. Seriously, what are a lone pair of humans going to do?

Sophia hears the sirens and swears under her breath. I take a final look at my sister. We're beginning to resemble skeletons - it's been a long time since we've been able to get adequate amounts of food. She's grown to be nearly six feet tall, though she probably only weighs 120 pounds soaking wet. She's not complaining about the hunger, though. She never does. "Well, that solves our food problems," she mutters.

Moon was shocked by the way the memory of this bitter, skeletal young woman triggered a protective instinct in his host, strong enough that it felt like his own.

"I told you we would want this," she grimly jokes, picking up her stolen rifle from it's resting place against a tree. That rifle is practically her baby; an AK-47 we found on a raid nearly five years ago. She insisted that we take it, and lugged it herself when I refused to carry it. "For when we get caught," she said, every time I asked her about it. She hadn't spoken a full sentence for months beforehand, and I'm pretty sure it makes her feel safer to have it, so I never made her drop it even when it was inconvenient.

"Let's get moving. Maybe we can throw them off - I'll try and lead them away from you. Run, as fast as you can - stay away from any places we've been to, in case I get caught - stay away from obvious places. Its snowing hard right now, so you won't leave any tracks." I try to stay optimistic though I know we're screwed.

I don't fool her. "Thanks, Alex. I appreciate it, I really do. But... look at us!" She gestures at our skeletal bodies. "We're not going to make it through the winter, anyway." She smiles, sadly. "It's better this way," she adds, sliding a magazine into her rifle. "We get to skip the whole 'starving' bit and we might take a few bugs with us."

Moon shied away from the emotions this last phrase stirred in his host.

I would protest her analysis of our situation, but I know she's right. I pull out my pistol and load it, seeing no alternatives but a last stand - maybe we can make them kill us.

We lay down and wait for the Seekers to come. It doesn't take long before they arrive, making an incredible amount of noise crashing through the snow and winter foliage. It looks like there are five of them, though they're too far away to make out much detail.

"Come out with your hands behind your heads," blares one of them through a megaphone. I'm glad we've got a group of stupid ones - they're standing in a spot where we can clearly see all of them outlined against the snow.

"Go to hell, you fucking bugs!" Sophia snarls at them, and opens fire. She hits one, and it falls to the ground screaming.

The disorienting pleasure that Moon's new host experienced at this violence jerked him momentarily out of the memory, with a gasp. His eyes fluttered.

"He's awake!" Moon heard someone yell in the present.

Sophia gets off another burst of fire, this time hitting two of them. Then one of the survivors returns fire. A near miss blasts a puff of ice and dirt into my face. I reply in kind, though I don't think I hit any of them.

Suddenly there is an explosion of pain in my left arm and chest, and spots dance in front of my eyes. I grunt in pain, and see my blood strewn across the snow behind me.

Sophia's AK roars again, and I hear another cry from one of the bugs. I see it cowering behind a tree. Sophia doesn't have a clear shot, but I do. I line up on the last one, and am rewarded when it falls to the ground after a single shot.

Sophia runs to me after making sure all of them are actually dead."Alex! Oh God, oh God, you have to get up!" she cries, tears streaming down her face.

The world is starting to spin, and I know I don't have much time. I need to get her to run. She might have a chance on her own if they think I was the only one here. "Go... I was the only one they saw on the raid. If they don't know you exist, they won't look for you." I whisper.

"But -"

"Run, Sophia. You can't save me."

"Alex-"

"I love you, Sophia. Be brave, run." Sophia's smart. She knows I'm right, and she takes my advice and turns tail. She won't get caught, I'm certain.

I can't keep up my head anymore, and I let it fall, content that at least Sophia will get away.

"He's screaming!"

*Where am I? Where's Sophia?*

"Of course he's screaming. Do you know what his host went through, the condition we found him in?"

*Somebody talk to me!*

"This is barbaric, something that the humans would do. Nobody should have to suffer through memories like these."

*... Oh, I see. Well, this is interesting.*

"It's necessary. He took out five seekers, for crying out loud - and there's evidence there are others. Some of the shell casings we found around him don't match the weapons of the Seekers he killed or the weapon we found him with, and there were tracks in the snow leading away. We need to know if how many other humans there are in the area. Who knows what they'll do to any innocent souls they run across?"

*He's afraid of marauding humans? You must be kidding me.*

Gradually, the memory began to subside, and Moon stopped screaming. He slowly sat up, aware that something was very wrong. This host was the most disorienting one he had ever had, and seemed to very nearly have a mind of its own.

*Damn right I do.* Moon was too distracted trying to exorcise Alex's last memory to catch this coherent phrase from his host.

The Healer greeted him. "Hello, Moonlight. I'm sorry that your awakening was not as pleasant as it could be, but this was an emergency. Are you completely awake yet?"

"Yes. I assume the Seekers will have questions for me, won't they?" Moonlight felt an instinctive wave of hate roll over him at the thought of the Seekers, but suppressed it. He knew that he would have to deal with his host's ingrained reactions for some time. He hoped that they would weaken rapidly as the new emotions were much stronger than anything he had experienced in any of his previous incarnations.

Another person spoke up from the corner. "Yes, we do. Who are these humans, and what weapons do they have?"

Moonlight opened his eyes, and saw a man about his host's age in a police uniform leaning against a wall. He was obviously a Seeker. Moon struggled to suppress another instinctive shiver of rage from his host at the thought of the title. Anger was not an entirely unfamiliar emotion, but Moonlight had never dealt with it very frequently before.

After a moment he searched for the answers the Seeker wanted. "His name was Alexander Conrad. He was traveling with his sister, Sophia Conrad. He was twenty years old, and she was fourteen. Sophia discovered our existence very early on when she witnessed her parents being implanted with souls, and they fled together. That would have to have been about seven years ago." Moon rubbed his forehead. "They had a difficult time. Early on, they were just runaways, but as we infiltrated more of human society it became difficult for them to feed themselves. It eventually became a battle to stave off starvation." Moon experienced a secondhand flash of the growing nightmare the siblings' world had been, and shivered.

"As the Seekers got more organized, it became harder and harder to avoid discovery. It was unlikely they would have survived this winter." He shuddered. "They didn't associate with anyone else - both of them were understandably very paranoid."

The Seeker looked pleased. "There weren't any other humans they knew? None?"

"No."

"And the weapon?" asked the seeker.

"An AK-47." The Seeker looked less pleased at this news. "Sophia stole it from a household they broke into nearly five years ago. It seems like she wanted... wanted..." *She wanted to kill some of the bugs who obliterated her world. It's not that hard to understand.* Moon heard the phantom voice this time, and paused. It sounded almost like Alex, but that was impossible.

"What did she want, Moonlight?" prompted the Seeker.

"Sophia really, really hates us souls. We took her parents from her, forced her to flee for her life. Most of her life was spent hiding from us, on the edge of starvation. I think... she just wanted to cause harm to the Seekers when she was caught." Moon was bothered that he understood such a pointless, violent sentiment. Humanity was the only species that would even consider something so counterproductive and barbaric. *Yeah, I don't think that much of you, either.*

"There were no other weapons? No other humans? No organized resistance?" the Seeker asked again. Moon shook his head. "This is a serious threat - a human, armed, and desperate! Where would she go, do you think?" the Seeker asked feverishly.

Moon frowned in thought. "I don't know. She's never been without Alex before, and she's not likely to return to her previous hideout in case Alex was captured. She can't have more than half a magazine of ammunition left for the weapon, and she won't willingly come anywhere near any souls; the Conrads were careful to avoid any attention from us. She thinks we don't know she's out there, so she'll be very careful to avoid attention." Moon's stomach rumbled. "I think the first thing she'll do is try to steal some food. Alex was on a raid to get some when he was seen, and neither she nor Alex had eaten in nearly three days."

The Healer interrupted as the Seeker began to reply. "That's enough, I think. Your questions have been answered. Now please leave, Moonlight will have a difficult enough time adjusting to human life without a Seeker hounding him."

The Seeker handed Moon a card. "Contact me if you remember something you think I would want to know."

A/N This is the first fic I've ever written, and I actually have no idea where I'm going with it. Please review or flame if you like or don't like it.