JESSE

My life was perfect. I didn't have to play video games anymore: life was a video game.

Thanks to the aliens.

Plus, I didn't have to deal with my parents, starting college or having to get a job. All I had to do was play… and kill. I really enjoyed the killing. Even more now, since it’s killing in real life.

Not to mention I have real, flesh and blood minions following me around, killing whatever—and whoever—I tell them to.

My life was perfect.

But then, it got suddenly over.

I'm not 100% sure what happened, but I know I was now trapped in something. I can see out of it, kind of. What I can see is one hell of a gory bloodbath. It took me a while to realize that the stuff splattered on the ground was actually me. That just seemed so crazy. But whatever’s left in me doesn't have any arms or legs, and I'm not breathing.

Oh, and two of my minions, Zack and Sara, they've been here, on their knees by whatever I'm trapped in, crying, weeping… being so God damn pathetic.

But I guess it's touching that they feel such loss and remorse about me being dead.

And yeah, I recognize the hair that's lying amongst the gore. That's definitely my hair. So I'm really, really dead.

Like dead, dead.

And for a while, nothing happened. Zach and Sara came and went, crying and then leaving again.

Zack's eye was fucked up, bulging out of its socket and kind of aimed in the wrong direction. And Sara was missing an arm.

Not that I cared. Though… I was kind of curious about what violence led to those mutilations. But barring an instant replay, I don’t see me catching up on that.

And then, finally, something happened. A dim glow surrounded where I was. Two aliens just suddenly stood a few feet from where I was, looking at me with dispassionate, appraising eyes.

And good God these guys were fucking ugly. Orange scaly skin, oversized mouths with huge, sharp looking teeth. They had two eyes, which kind of remind me of lizard eyes–maybe it's the whole scaly skin thing. And I don't think they have noses, though I think there's two holes around where the nose should be. And where there should be ears, there's just these kind of big stalagmite structures, kind of looking like jagged rocks on top of their heads.

They started making noises, talking, I guess. Definitely a foreign language, which kind of pissed me off that they weren’t speaking English. I mean, I know I just got killed, but it’s still my video game.

But then I realized something. I can totally understand what they're saying.

“This one had so much promise.”

“Yes, he manipulated others well.”

Aw, you noticed.

“We can bring him back, so that he can manipulate and fight more.”

The aliens looked down at what's left of me saturating the ground.

“Putting him back into that meat sack is out of the question.”

I can see Zach lying on the ground not five feet away, asleep.

Put me in there. Kick him out and put me in his body!

That would be awesome. I could be tall and strong, and still be me smart.

The other alien looked at me, as if he could see me in whatever this damn thing is that I'm stuck in, and a smile seemed to spread across what passes for lips in their species. I don't like the look on his face, and I don't like the thought that my entire existence relies on these two.

Yeah, I guess I am a racist. I'm real happy that the aliens came and gave me so much fun and games to do in real life. And that they got rid of my parents—that had been a huge favor, thank you very much. But I just didn't like having something that wasn't human judging me.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

I didn't like humans judging me. I definitely ain’t having these reptilian pieces of shit aliens doing it.

“Repurposing the implement of his death would have a certain elegance to it.” said the one alien.

Repurposing the implement of his death? They want to leave me in whatever the fuck this is?

What the fuck?

“And it would be fitting, since our nemesis has brought another of the species back to life in an inanimate object as well. It would be like pitting them against each other.”

An inanimate object…

Did they mean Dud-o-Mort?

They want to slap me into something like they slapped that loser Mort into?

No mother fucking way!

“It wouldn't take much time, or effort on our part.”

“And it would make him inhuman,” said the other ugly-as-fuck alien shit-bag. “Imagine what more he could do if he was completely inhuman.”

Fuck that, and no fucking thank you!

Not that I ever felt all that humane, but I certainly don't want to be stuck in some… whatever the hell this is.

One alien nodded to the other. “Then we will begin retrofitting this vessel, and augmenting it for the game.”

The way the thing said the game… it was as if the thing was hungry for the word.

The other alien raised his hand and a blinding light enveloped me. Pain shot through what was left to me, and I screamed.

***

I woke up. I couldn't really feel anything. But I could sense things.

Like I knew exactly what I was now. What had become of my body when this thing fell on it. I knew that it had steel, stainless steel, plastic, rubber and glass in it. And I knew that part of my body had been moved into it, added and woven into it, like a hybrid.

And I could see. I could see what was around me: the trees, the gently rolling surface of the floor of the forest.

And I saw Zack, lying on the ground only a few feet away from me, asleep.

I was seized by such a hunger, such a thirst. I didn't have a throat to burn, or a mouth to water, but I hungrily watched the blood pump through Zack’s veins. The heat of it flowing though his body now tantalizingly visible. It was like nothing I’d ever felt before. More alluring than Red Bull. More delectable than Mountain Dew.

Even more yummy than pizza…

Somehow I just knew I had small straws I could deploy. That they would stretch outwards all the way towards Zack. And the ends of these tubes were razor sharp.

Before I even thought about it, these tubes moved over the ground leading to Zack, and very gently punctured his skin, finding their ways into one after the other of his veins.

I was careful not to wake him. The tubes were sharp, and I had been gentle, and had struck quickly with each insertion.

Plus, I knew from experience that Zack was a heavy sleeper.

I watched as the red of his blood was drawn up into the tubes, surging towards me.

I was so excited.

I was so thirsty.

And then the first gush of his blood came into my being. I couldn't taste it, not as I could when I was human. But his blood satisfied something inside me that was even more powerful than the taste of it.

It was glorious.

It was power.

It was life.

Around the time I noticed his heartbeat slowing, Zack woke up. It was too late. By then I had taken two and a half of the 5 liters of his blood volume already. He moaned, pulled out one of the 10 tubes I’d penetrated him with, and then ineffectively tried to pull out more. He was too weak by then. By the time I got to the 3-liter mark, he passed out again.

Once his heart stopped beating, I felt a pang of something somewhere inside me. Maybe it was regret. Maybe I felt bad for killing one of my friends–or, at least someone who thought we were friends.

While I was still siphoning off the last of his bodily juices, that was when Sara decided to show up.

I almost felt glad to see her. I had known her even longer than Zack. If I had ever had a real friend in my entire life, it had been Sara.

She didn't know that Zack was dead yet. She probably thought he was just still sleeping.

But then she looked over at me, and realized that my body… well, most of my body, was gone now. And that's when she noticed the tubes leading from my new and improved refrigerator body, and where they connected to Zach.

She screamed, and flung herself at Zack’s body, pulling my tubes out and flinging them away.

That was okay. He was pretty much empty by then.

Sara cried out, tears flowing down her face. She was trying to shake Zach awake. She was a very loyal friend. She had always been very loyal to me. The only person that rivaled her loyalty to me, was Zack.

“Don't cry, Sarah,” were my first words as what I was now.

What was I?

Sara stared at me, her head shaking, tears running down her dirt marred face. She had something wrapped crudely around the stump where her arm used to be.

“Jesse?” she whispered. And then her eyes dipped back down to the tubes that had connected me to Zack. “You killed Zack?”

“I had to,” I said. I liked the metallic ring my voice had now. “He had something I needed.”

Sara shook her head, her eyes bulging and bloodshot. “You killed Zach?”

I started to feel irritated that she kept on asking the same question. But, I couldn't be mad at her… not when she—for the first time in our long acquaintance—was now so very appealing to me.

I was so very hungry.

I felt something move inside me. Immediately I knew that it was what was left of my arm. There was no skin left on it, but there was muscle and sinew, and it worked perfectly. The twin doors of my new body swung opened, and my arm reached out and grabbed a hold of Sarah by the back of the neck.

She screamed as I pulled her back towards me, her knees sliding roughly across the rough ground as I hooked her inside me, slamming the door shut.

She screamed because it was dark inside me. And then she screamed when the acid started to rain down on her from above.

I almost felt sorry for her, but then I started to slurp up what was melting off of her: liquefied skin and hair, and then what miniscule fat that was on her. She was still moaning as her eyes fell out of her skull, and I began to devour the muscle on her.

To her credit, she remained standing until her ligaments and bones started to dissolve.

Overall, Sara turned out to be an absolute delight.