Malevolent Manifestation

Disclaimer: I do not own Parasite Eve or any of the characters there within.

The auburn haired woman took a steadying breath as she stepped forward in a whisper of her beautiful red dress; her solo was about to begin. She could feel all the eyes of the audience on her now and felt all the more hot under the sweltering bright stage lights. But as the familiar music rose around her, the words came more easily than she had expected. This was her night. She had practiced the hundreds of hours needed to produce a play, rehearsed day and night for the majestically tragic role, and suffered the weakness of her body for so long; she had worked for this spotlight and it was finally her night to shine. She could still not stave off the feeling of guilt that seemed to steadily eat at her heart at Suzanne's death. The actress was so brilliantly skilled and sweet to all she met; a saintly creature. Melissa had been wishing after the part for so long, it seemed fate had conspired with her to give her the part. But she could not wallow in guilt now, the audience was watching her with flourish and she would not let them down.

Her voice held beautifully through each euphonious strain as she reached out to the audience to pull them into her pleading arms, enraptured. Eva halted in her song and she looked smilingly out to the people before her, she had their full attention. Her roving eyes fell on a blonde haired woman dressed all in black with eyes firmly locked on the lead actress. Something tugged firmly inside Melissa. That girl…she felt so familiar. Her eyes unfocused for a moment, blurring everything into an odd double, as though to make room for another being to view the scene through her eyes. Her body was growing hot, so fiercely hot! Even her eyes felt as though they were dry and on fire. It hurt her. This horrific burning feeling was not unfamiliar to the actress, but never had she experienced the pain to this degree. The excessive dose of medication she took that evening was supposed to suppress any of these freak phenomenons from happening. She felt as though she was unable to breathe; collapsing in on herself—dying. Melissa moved to rub at her blazing eyes, but found she could not move her arms. Dumbstruck, Melissa attempted again to lift her hands to her face. It proved just as futile the second time. Panic engulfed Melissa, causing her heart to beat even faster, doubling the choking heat, but her body would not obey her.

She blinked.

Her eyes hurt her even more as she felt her lips smile. Melissa turned then, she had no control over the action and she saw Michael and Travis—the drama duo who had both been cast as prince and king respectively in the opera. She looked Michael in the eye, wanting to plead for help, but his face contorted with pain as his body exploded into flame. Shock seized Melissa, but her gaze continued to move over to Travis, whose fate became horrifically similar to Michael's. Michael held his head and stumbled off the stage, falling prone into the first row of the audience. People were screaming now, confusion and fear spreading as easily through the crowd as the flames that consumed them.

Melissa gazed about herself in horror, it seemed as though everyone she looked at was erupting into flames. A sick adaptation of Superman's heat vision. She wanted to close her burning eyes to the horror, but again her body refused her even this simplest of actions. The burning insider her became more intense, oh why hadn't she taken more medication before the show tonight?

A lightheaded feeling swallowed the actress' brain and she suddenly felt giddy. She was…happy! She was smiling and laughing, and raising her arms above her like an archangel cast from heaven, finally given its chance to wreck vengeance on mankind; ringed in fire that had once been elegant stage curtains. This happiness was not hers.

Melissa suddenly felt as though she had been kicked in the stomach and she wanted to double over, she wanted to, but the laughing—the insane laughing continued. She felt as though she were being squished and crammed into a small compartment of her mind, only able to see the events as they transpired, but unable to do anything to prevent them. She was only a bystander in her own body, her consciousness and senses the only gifts left to her.

A sinister voice tinged with venom, left a scorching lash across her mind like the tongues of a flaming, flayed whip; calling triumphantly over the din.

I have awakened!

Melissa shrank from the voice, so like her own, but it could not possibly be hers. Compressing herself further into the small compartment she had been granted, the horror continued through her eyes as many of the audience fled the catastrophe and many more lay dead, burned from the inside out.

The sight would have given anyone nightmares until their dying day. Bodies were strewn everywhere, stripped of flesh, leaving only exposed, burnt muscle beneath. The stench made her want to keel over and hurl the dinner she had been almost too nervous to eat only an hour ago.

This had to be a nightmare—or she had to have died and entered hell. This horror simply could not be real, a fabricated reality of hell, her guilt was getting to her—that had to be it. She had envisioned her downfall right from the start—but nothing like this.

When Melissa opened her spirit eyes again, the audience was all but gone, the dead left behind in the wake of the fleeing living. Only one remained and she was hurtling up to the stage, gun in hand. That girl! It was the same one she had laid eyes on at the end of Eva's solo aria. The familiarity tugged fiercely at her this time and the force within that had taken over her body recognized it as well, drawing attention to the black-clad figure. She knew this girl from somewhere, some time. And now she was coming to deliver justice for Melissa's demonic doings. Perhaps the girl was some sort of avenging angel?

She had reached the stage staring warily at Melissa; the latter being unable to move could only stare back, but she could still feel the haunting smile hovering on her lips. The gun was poised at Melissa's heart.

"Freeze, NYPD!" the woman shouted unflinchingly. She was even prettier up close than several rows away from the stage, though her features were no longer serene; instead twisted with grim severity and faintly concealed shock at the chaos that had happened only moments ago.

"Hmph," Melissa's mouth moved of its own accord, under the divine influence that still held her captive on the stage and at gunpoint. "You're the only one who seems to be fine."

"What?" The blonde-haired woman screwed up her eyes as she stared at Melissa in angry confusion. Those electric blue eyes pierced into Melissa's soul and the latter yearned to convey that she truly meant her no harm.

"You should be awakening soon."

"Wha…What are you talking about?"

Melissa wanted to press her hands to her mouth to stop this awful conversation from continuing. She wanted to sob, to cry. This was all a misunderstanding, why wouldn't she lower her gun?

Stop. Stop this, please!

But still her body refused her pleas.

"Listen…" Melissa said drawing her fingers through the air as though conducting a magnificent orchestra through its interlude; her green eyes lifting up above the stage. "You're cells are trying to communicate." Melissa was sure the woman across from her felt as stricken and conflicted as she was. The actress' body raised a strong fist into the air in premature triumph. "They're calling out!"

A light, a power hovered around Melissa as she stared on in dim wonder. The fist above her spread its fingers and drew back down; her palm facing the officer. Suddenly the light focused, drawing sparkling particles along her right arm to form into a tightly compacted ball of static, rippling energy within her hand. It burned! The arm holding the light tensed and released it. The girl barely had time to dodge the assault and in her shock and anger, she fired directly at Melissa.

The boom from the shot thundered over the stage, but her body did not flinch as the bullet pierced her flesh. The actress cringed and cowered in her space as pain rippled through her chest in devastating waves; but the scream did not come as the pain began to subside while flesh and muscle repaired itself and pushed the foreign object from her chest. Melissa fought in her mind, she did not want to harm this girl—she had no reason to, but still her body repealed her will and the battle raged on, with Melissa growing weaker and weaker from an effort she did not exert.

The deity inside her also seemed to tire of this play, needing time to recover from the attack. Again Melissa's mouth moved only to taunt the other woman into distraction from yielding the weapon and bring about a remembrance neither of them shared. So unfocused from exhaustion, Melissa faded in and out of awareness until her heart felt it might burst from a familiarity she recognized from that instant she looked at the blonde woman.

"I'm surprised you don't know me, Aya." The name echoed into the silence. Melissa felt her heart thundering in her chest as tiny spots exploded behind her eyes. A burst of images flew across Melissa's mind. Aya. She knew Aya. Her throat, or what she imagined was her throat, constricted.

I don't understand. How do I know her?

But the entity ignored her.

"You should know me well."

Another flood of images crushed Melissa, only settling on what appeared to be a young girl in a hospital laying on a gurney for the span of a few heartbeats before flickering into darkness and she could once again see Aya. Apparently the officer had experienced a similar phenomenon as she rubbed at her eyes.

"What is this? What was that?" she demanded, a note of fear did not escape her voice as she gazed disbelieving at the actress.

And Melissa simply laughed at her, mocked the girl's ignorance for being so unaware with such an obvious hint. Laughed at her confusion; laughed and her plight.

Then finally Melissa fled, both herself and the deity within her, controlling her, fled. Aya shouted after her in her fury, but they did not stop. She could not feel her legs move as she saw herself hovering above the ground and she flew to the right of the stage to escape.

No, no, no! This was not right!

Melissa resisted, a scream issuing from her spirit lips as she instinctively flung her arms to shield her head, her limbs actually reacting to her mind, as her body dove into the floor, easily ripping a gigantic hole through feet of concrete. She floated to the hallways below the opera house.

Melissa, suddenly fiercely empowered with fear and anger, fought against the divine power that burned through her veins toppled from her mind with a startled cry. Without warning, Melissa's feet slammed into the ground, her body, finally within her means of control once more, fell with it. Her hips, skin stretched over bone, collided painfully with concrete first, then shoulder, then cheek; her wavy brown hair cascaded around her, and for an instant, she lay on the cold ground; numb, stupid and terrified. She felt so weak, as though the power had left, taking all of her energy with it. She pushed herself up on quaking arms to stand, tottering as she went. Heat gnawed on her hand as she pushed herself along with the support of the wall, feeling strangely disembodied from the limb. She balefully retracted her arm and stumbled forward on her own.

Fleeing down the hall, the tears streaming unbidden now, she did not even understand what was going on. People were looking in fearful confusion at her down the corridor, they had heard the screams from above in the house. As she drew near them, they burst into flames and fell aside screaming in pain and terror. Melissa did not halt in her flight; the faster she locked herself away from people, the better off for everyone, including herself. This much she knew.

Even as she slammed the door of the secluded rehearsal room behind her and spun to lock it, the screams still echoed horrifically down the hallway with haunting finality. It seemed an eternity before they finally ceased and a horrific silence filled the air.

Melissa staggered to the large mirror that lined one side of the room and leaned heavily on the banister there. She gazed stricken at her own reflection, having to stare hard at it to reassure herself that it was, in fact, her. The eyes that stared back at the tear-stricken face were green. A shockingly vivid, emerald green. But what had happened to her lovely brown eyes? These eyes that watched her seemed so surreal.

Suddenly, the distressed, anxious face that stared back at her slowed in its frantic panting as a smile grew on its lips. Melissa gawked at the reflection in horror.

"My dear, you are not aware of the power within you."

Melissa's mouth had moved of its own accord again, slipping from her will.

"Who…who are you?" Melissa whispered; the voice that had sung so beautifully only moments ago was now cracked with horror and confusion. Her shoulders were trembling as her white knuckles gripped shakily at the banister.

"Who am I?" the reflection repeated in mock surprise. "I have only lived and grown with you since your childhood! Surely you remember a soft, lilting voice that caressed your inmost thoughts and darkest secrets?"

Melissa's jaw fell open, though the mirror image did not reflect it.

"You…I thought it was only my conscience…"

"How quaint," Eve sniffed in a bored tone, "I have served you and waited my time, now I am finally free of nucleic domination, a new age is about to befall the world, with me at the head of its kind!"

"What do you mean? What are you?"

"So many questions," The reflection hissed impatiently. "I am Eve, ruler of cells that give living creatures their energy, their power. What I give, I can take away. I suppose I should thank you really, for sharing your body, though you kept me imprisoned." Eve's temper flared, contorting Melissa's face to an ugly scowl and clenching at the banister with inhuman strength for a moment before slipping back into a honeyed voice. "However, those wonderful 'pills' you ingested helped me a great deal."

Melissa started in shock.

"But Doctor Klamp would never have—"

She froze. Her mind seared through the memory of the doctor conversing lowly with a nurse about Melissa and a…mitochondria eve. She painfully remembered the doctor's contemptuous glare when he discovered Melissa's shy eavesdropping. No, this could not mean the same thing. It…it couldn't.

Her reflection grinned horribly.

"Yes, that's right!" Eve said delightedly. "He has been searching for me, wanting to aid in my cause and when he found me at last in a small girl who was soon to die, he rescued me, and placed me in you."

Melissa felt a gripping squeeze of her kidney, as though some invisible hand had clenched the organ at rest there. She stifled a shriek of pain and slumped over the wooden beam that supported her. The knowledge was all coming back in a rush. The hideous screech of tires and metal screaming; a terrified five-year-old being rolled into the dank hallway, the dimly florescent light repeating overhead, the face of a doctor leaning over her; where had she hidden these memories? Eve seemed to see Melissa's dawning recognition.

"Ah, now you remember," she was grinning in omnipotence when Meslissa looked up. "We are sisters, you and I; and together we will reshape the world. Together, we will destroy mankind, which has already done enough damage to itself, and populate the Earth anew."

"No!" Melissa screamed pounding at the banister with her fists. Her reflection did not mimic her. "No, I will not help you!"

"You cannot fight it!" Eve snarled, twisting painfully within Melissa, causing the woman to writhe in pain and moan piteously. Tears threatened to spill from her eyes as the entirety of the hopeless situation seemed to fall in around her shoulders and crush her beneath its weight. She was so helpless to stop the deity, to withstand Eve. "It has already begun."

"I…won't help you…" Melissa whispered breathlessly.

"You have no choice." Eve said coldly, with a gaze that both froze and burned into Melissa. Suddenly the reflection gasped and a tremor seized the opera singer's spine, as though a disembodied hand excitedly shook an old friend to see a wonderful surprise. "Our sister is coming for us, I can feel her…" the image looked up to the ceiling, her emerald eyes searching, her nostrils flaring as though scenting the blonde haired woman from the stage. The image turned back to Melissa with a horrible smile. "She's very upset."

Melissa could only stare dumbfounded at herself. Eve tilted her head elegantly to one side.

"Perhaps you should play a song for her, my dear…soothe the beast before she fires on us again. She's as oblivious as you. Or maybe you should play just to calm your own nerves, you're much too tense!" Eve writhed in Melissa again with a high tinkling laughter that rippled through Melissa's nerves. The woman tore her eyes from the reflection and collapsed to the floor, covering her ears with her hands.

"Get out of me! GET OUT OF ME!"

At last, the being seemed to be shunted to one side within Melissa, and the feeling gave the woman a desperate hope.

"You cannot escape me! I am you!" Eve snarled, clawing invisible hands through Melissa's insides as though trying to gain purchase from being shut out—the pain was almost unbearable. Melissa tensed so fiercely, clenching every muscle, she thought she might pass out, and gathered her strongest scream yet.

"GET OUT!"

The first breath of air was frigid in Melissa's lungs, it hurt. But she could no longer feel Eve; the being had disappeared. The woman sobbed on the floor; her life had gone to ruin in the evening her greatest performance was to be. There would be no escaping this being, this monster, this…parasite.

She breathed until she felt more steady, and she pushed herself up from the floor again, decidedly weaker than before; her arms shaking so badly, her entire body buckled with the effort. Half dragging, half pulling, Melissa worked her way over the piano, ruining her beautiful opera gown as she went.

The leather piano bench was a welcome feel, cold as it was; the chill was heavenly bliss to the heat she had suffered moments ago. The familiar feelings rose within her as she pulled herself onto the seat and shakily stretched her trembling arms over the keys, one leg reaching tentatively towards the pedals. Her long fingers stretched over a chord as near and dear to her as she had ever known and pressed down on the hammers. A euphonious sound echoed around the room and it was the perfect remedy to Melissa's shakes. Her arms steadied, her fingers firmed, her body relaxed—music was the perfect medication.

She watched her finger's play for the first movement of the song, then let herself go. She shut her eyes and let the memory flow from her mind directly to her fingertips, nothing else to get in the way. There was simply her and the music.

Melissa was still partly entranced when she felt a stirring in her breast once more; Eve was returning, and there could only be one guess as to why.

The door to the rehearsal room unlocked.

The pianist immediately began into a piece that was self-taught—a lullaby her mother had sung to her, instinctively knowing this would be the last time she would ever play it again. The thought brought a fresh wellspring of hot tears to Melissa's eyes, but they did not fall, and the burn in them was returning.

The blonde-haired woman entered, gun raised, even as Eve fought with Melissa once more for dominance; needling the woman with nasty, venomous words that dashed all hope of returning home and free.

You are mine. You are nothing without me and we will fight together. Survival is all living creatures instinct. We shall not fail. I am Eve.

"I am Melissa…I'm…"

NO! It is futile to oppose me! I have always been your better and you are MINE! I AM EVE!

"I am…"

Melissa spoke her own name; hot, salty tears spilling from her eyes as she looked up from the piano keys, but her lips did not match what she had wanted to say as they were no longer under her control. Hellfire seared through her once more; she had already lost. Her fate had been decided for her. And though she had a divine deity to keep her constant company—she was alone. Desperately alone.

Her lips tremulously uttered directly from the deity's will and the ears she now shared with the being within her heard the words Melissa did not speak.

"I…am…Eve."

Author's Note: My God, this game is almost a decade old and just as late. I was so young when I played this for the first time and I had to leave the light on before I could go to sleep at night, of course I've made desensitizing leaps and bounds since then; and I have always adored this game (and scared neighbors with my obsession). Unfortunately, this story has sat on my desktop for a few years just because I struggled with the dialogue--of how I wanted the dominant fight between Melissa and Eve to play out. It was tough, but I am proud with this final product for all the years of writing that has gone into it.

I knew I wanted to write this scene since I saw the trailer for the game all those years ago. I'm please to finally have done it! Hoorah--I've conquered procrastination!

I've always had a soft spot for Melissa too. I imagine she was conscious through the whole ordeal and that's why she just smiled in thanks towards Aya at the end for finishing it. And though I love Eve as the evil mitochondrial being, I felt torn for the poor opera singer who had only wanted to perform her dreams on stage. She was Dr. Clamp's hamster, poor girl.

Wow, even ten years down the line, this game still sticks with me. I hope they make a movie. A good one.

And if I haven't stressed it enough--this game IS almost a decade old, so I expect this little fanfic will not be read very much. So if you have made it to the end: Please leave a review! I deeply appreciate what you folks have to say!

I hope you enjoyed reading as much as I did finishing this!

Blackfire 18