Disclaimer: All characters and ideas coming from The Host by Stephanie Meyers are being used for entertainment only. Original characters are mine.
Rating: T
Summary: When a soul never wakes up after insertion, the human host's thoughts are all that are present. What happens when the paranoid rebel humans get a hold of this anomaly?
Human Tendencies
Chapter 2
Austin hadn't felt the effects of Sleep and Still since she had panicked after being first caught by the aliens. Her tiny family, just her and her parents, had been part of a large group of humans that found solace on a barge traveling indirectly from Washington to Japan. They had discovered the invasion with the bulk of the population, too late to do anything about it, but early enough to run. Unfortunately the ship was a trap, a revelation made only when the vessel was in the middle of international waters, too far out and too cold to jump ship and escape.
Austin, like most of the population of the world, only knew that the aliens were changing the humans into some kind of droid and erasing their identity. It had at first reminded her of archaic science fiction movies, and didn't really seem like real-life to her. The entire refugee group was taken by surprised by the aerosolized lavender smell that at first smelled like a posh restroom, but before anyone could crack a joke about it they were asleep. No one woke up themselves. Austin had become aware of her surroundings, finding her self feeling fairly normal, well rested even, and sat up in her bed several hours after everyone else. She got up and made her way out of the ship's infirmary, and eventually found her way back to the mess hall where they had all been staying.
Instead of finding the huddled mass of scared humans, she found lines and lines of quiet, smiling bodies whose eyes glinted silver each time the swinging light so far above them in the dark room hit their faces. She was screaming before she knew what was happening, the blood rushing though her ears overpowering the sound of her own fear. The lavender spray hit her again- why did she never see that coming?
The second time she woke she sat up screaming and tried to fight off anyone who tried to help her. Somewhere in her foggy brain she knew there was nowhere to go, but at the same time she still believed she would be killed. Only minutes after waking, a warm spray that tasted almost as metallic as blood stopped her limbs from flailing instantly. It was only after she had been laid down in a comfortable position that she realized she was only screaming in her head. She couldn't move, couldn't blink and couldn't understand why. Before the lavender mist hit her one last time, she saw two white bottles of Still and Sleep in the hands of her enemies.
The final time she woke up, Austin held stalk still and waited until someone, something, noticed she was awake. "It's always hardest in the beginning," a young sailor had said to her, she'd know him later as her first Healer. "It's remembering the end that is the most painful. Rest assured, young soul, the future will be easy."
The rest of the month long voyage had been spent with Austin sitting nervously next to what used to be her parents, listening to the Healers amongst them teaching each soul about the fragility of the human body and the wonder that was scent, emotion, and bonding in these 'hosts'. Quick to learn, Austin became a soft spoken, mild tempered model citizen, and walked off the ship in Japan as a soul in a compliant human body.
Since then, two years ago, Austin hadn't been in contact with Sleep spray. Plenty of No Pain after running, or like this morning, to beat a hangover, Heal, Clean Health, and on and on with the normal, healthy supplements the aliens had brought with them. Three doses of the spray were enough to remember, and Austin knew that if she had only been hit with the Sleep she'd be able to get up and start swinging, as she desperately wanted to do now. But no, they must have used the Still, too. She couldn't remember the taste of it, but she couldn't move.
Whoever that red-haired guy was, he was clearly bad news.
Wanda knew better than to make a fuss over being pulled away from the scene in front of her. She knew immediately that the hand pulling on her arm belonged to one of her human companions, and the last thing she wanted to do was call extra attention to them by raising any alarms.
"What are you doing?" Mel growled at her, sliding her hand down from the back of Wanda's elbow down to her hand to seem more normal. Mel still remembered how to act in public from being captive in her own body while Wanda controlled it.
"Did you see that?" Wanda asked, looking over her shoulder and trying to pull Mel by the hand to go back again. "Burns, he-"
Mel pulled back on Wanda and easily won out on the tug-of-war to continue back to the van. "Dropped that girl like a sack of potatoes, yeah I saw."
"We have to follow them!" Wanda cried, though very quietly, and as they finally made it back to the van, opened the drivers side door and got in.
Mel got in the otherside and was already arguing back, "No way, we're not going anywhere near any of that. We just got ourselves out of trouble and we're not going chasing after any more."
"We have to go!" Wanda said back, her tone more firm and louder now that they were concealed.
"Whoa," Ian started, sliding up close enough to Wanda to put a hand on her arm. "What's going on?"
As Wanda steamed, Mel described what the two of them had seen on the street. The three men agreed that they shouldn't follow.
"But you promised me you'd protect Souls!" Wanda cried, turning on Ian so fast her long silvery blond hair whipped around her shoulders.
"No," Mel argued back, ignoring the three men talking amongst themselves about the situation. "We agreed to protect the Souls that you removed from humans. We never said we'd become some task force to protect Souls in need.
Wanda chewed on her lip and took only a moment to think of another plan. "Fine," she started, glad that having Mel in her head for almost a year gave her some perspective into how to spin a tale to get her way. "Then protect the humans. That was burns, and the man he was with was probably one of his humans. They can't be going around and kidnapping souls without drawing attention to themselves. They don't stay far enough away from us for a manhunt for them to not endanger us."
The crowded van fell silent while Wanda vibrated with impatience. Every moment the humans spent thinking this over was another step further behind they were on their chase. She knew her companions would agree, it was in each of their natures to help.
"Fine, but-" Wanda didn't hear the rest of the sentence as the van started and she maneuvered it towards the intersection where Austin was last seen as fast as she could without being noticed.
I'm going alphabetically down my list of stories and updating in order. I also don't have the internet at my house so I'll update when I have a connection.