“So what happened to the… real me? Afterwards,” I wondered and noticed sparks speeding by and pooling in one of the monster’s pointy appendages. If he ever had a head, its contents long spilled out and overtook rest of the body. All of it was grey matter.

“You left to spend rest of the night with the man of dry detritus,” monster spoke unnecessarily as I examined what appeared to be glimpse of his innermost recollections for a change. It was still an overwhelmingly detailed impression of everything audible all around, but I could process it far better now - being a lump on supercomputer’s butt helped. Unmistakably all of the attention was affixed onto a certain bowed log house and the two people inside. I got alarmed upon realising the peeping monster wasn’t where I thought he ought to be at.

“Did you kill him?” I immediately demanded to know and my attention was pulled elsewhere, but I was in no mood to peruse. Especially if I was to see some gruesome details of the act.

“No. You needed him. That time.”

The relief almost made me overlook weird phrasing. “And the next?”

“I’ll do better,” he said with confidence and that made me flush, right until I remembered I was but an inconsequential forgery.

“Where is the other me, now?” I demanded and concentrated on the inner sway of our shared brain. Million signals sparked thousands of different ways and I couldn’t follow. “You grew tired and let him go?” That didn’t sound quite right.

Instead of the answer all I got was roiling spasm of muscles. I knew that was a brief flash of anger. I didn’t think myself capable of provoking that reaction, because I tried. The creature was infuriatingly collected the whole time I knew him. Which admittedly wasn’t long, but nevertheless it was a most telling overreaction of an unfeeling overlord.

“I’m… dead?”

“You are a memory,” monster growled non-denial at me and I felt fleeting as one. I was really dead and this was all that remained. The crazy son of a bitch really pulled it off.

Didn’t feel remotely as liberated as I thought I’d be. Just empty and pointless. Saddened. All the misery slogged through to just give up and drown.

Not to mention that didn’t solve any of my problems.

“I’ll recover every last cell of you,” overwhelming presence promised me and I felt light touch on my face.

“Is that where we’re going?” I felt the laboured, cumbersome twitches of great many muscles, lugging enormous body meant to be stationary. Everything in his path fled. It was force of nature on a mission. I could tell more and more mass would be added to the crawling landmass and forced march alongside. The empathetic side of me shuddered. Really, I was no different to those life forms. Kidnapped and bent to someone else’s will. Again. And yet… there was only ever us or them. And this was for me. There was only one other person who’d ever go all out for such an insignificant reason.

And yet still. Here I was, forcefully glued to the back of a giant. A wart. Hilarious. How many other lap-warmers does he possess? It was an idle pondering, but our mutual neural pathways pulled my ant brain down onto a journey in search for answers. It got easier with practise. Just like the body manipulation he tricked me into practising within pretence of a dream.

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

The final curtain was discarded and I could at last see the whole picture. The entire gallery.

I found no other such malformations such as me. Not at this time anyway. There was a carefully guarded storage with barely any contact to the rest of body. Mouths? Not nearly the number I would have guessed at. Not all human. Many, great many scattered fragments of people’s brains which were used as support structures and building materials for the ginormous body of this monster. Again, not all of those familiar. In fact, most weren’t terrestrial at all. I lost myself in an exploration of the foreign life. In fact, there was no stopping or escaping it. Each association brought up more and more relevant memories. And it wasn’t so terrible to get lost in those, in all honesty.

Sleep didn’t come even more so than usual. I realised to my utmost horror, tireless monster probably never slept and therefore I was forced to endure ultimate torture – myself. For hours, days, weeks, eternity?

It was much worse than when I was trapped inside just my head. Each little idea took me down pathways I could barely comprehend, bringing up something similar but not quite. I thought about sandwich - and apparently equivalent of that in monster world was living, squirming, screaming beings.

I tried to stick to the familiar, but that only meant I perused dead people’s stolen brains. There was a lot of that.

“What makes The Handful so special?” I asked just to pull myself out of the vortex, but was also genuinely curious. Had to be some ultra-criminal masterminds to deserve this hell of a prison for all of existence. Though if I was anything to go by… probably not.

“Do they have to be?” demonic hiss asked with pressing seriousness. “You’d steal trinkets that caught your eye all the time, only to discard them in the river.”

Stomach lurched at the casual intrusion into my most miserable moments. He was inside again and it was unbearably disgusting. At least he revealed I was disposable. It was a relief. Put up with this. Just a little longer.

“You are special,” rumble in the distance told me and I pressed spindly appendages tighter around my horned head as though that would stop unwanted, unpleasant reality from crashing in.

“Why?” I sought out the answer, brimming with powerless indignation. We were at an impasse. Stalemate. And yet still I refuse to be a shiny pebble that caught an eye of a child. I grit my teeth and spelled it out as clearly as I could, “I can feel you. Watching me, tracking my every move. Every thought. You know exactly what you’re putting me through! The mere fact I’m this calm is proof you’re doing something about it. Do you even understand feelings?”

“A response to the distress which I’m causing.”

I inhaled deeply to calm myself. He doesn’t get it. To him – no, it, this colossal being of alien seas - all this is but a hormonal misbalance in the brain. His own brain, even. The demon thinks it’s fixing it, but all the creature does is treat a symptom whilst the wound festers.

I didn’t feel like myself. Far too placid, due to a healthy cocktail of mind control and surrender. There was no humour left in me. Neither joy, nor dark irony I used to cope, because all hope was dead. I will not be able to set anything on fire here, nor bash in with a rock. There was no way out and I’ve given up at last. Moreover, I wasn’t even permitted to lament it all that deeply.

I gritted out, “I was right. You’re just like everybody else. The drunken hobos stealing from the smaller. The rich kids. The uppity church with their so-called charity. The ones who’d thrown me spare change after a fuck or the ones who didn’t even bother. The people who took me… The only reason you’re not forcing me submit by causing pain is because you’ve witnessed it doesn’t really work.”

I flexed my reworked frontal appendages as if still feeling charcoal upon the blistering skin. Memory was vivid, even after all this time. Even as part of some other body. Sensation was seared onto my soul. The time I should have really died.

“Incorrect,” monster finally spoke out without delay. “I can twist you up so much, you’d never even think unfavourably of anything I don’t want you to.”

There’s that smooth talker at last. “Oh, I’ve no doubt,” and yet that did not happen, no matter how uncooperative I got. That left me with a conclusion, “But you want me whole.”

The fact was undeservedly assuring. Not feeling fear towards a captor was a novel sensation. I found myself relaxing and even feeling grateful, then shook my head violently. How low was the bar?

“There are other ways,” devil assured me confidently.

I knew that. I’d occasionally stumble upon repetitions of patterns. Thoughts. Would be swept away in a whirlpool of deja vu. “I can vaguely tell there’s more of me inside of you. You keep trying. But it’s not working, is it?”

Either due to boredom or genuine wish, the outlandish monster really tried. I found it in myself to feel sympathy for the sad sap. There was something intrinsically desperate and pitiable. I almost wanted to tell it how to make it work.

Monster’s attention concentrated all around me and within my head as if trying to pry the information out of me. But no, that was just the insufferably heavy presence. It was merely trying to glimpse, but the fraction of creature’s awareness could break bones.

“How?” looming existence hissed. I fell to whatever passed for my knees in this form and clawed at the ears, these massive growths atop the head. It could execute torture by accident.

“Release me,” I whispered back after recovering.

“No,” receding presence hissed out of the bowels of abyss and my disappointment was debilitating. Monster had been listening - I stupidly hoped we were getting somewhere.

Quiet whisper from even further away explained as though in consolation, “You were meant to be alive and separate, but all that you are now is a part of me. A memory. My memory. The only piece I know to be real.”

Enveloped by crippling resignation I spoke my idle thoughts, “This can’t be the person you wanted to trap so desperately.” I was close to shutting down and mentally checking out, but managed to feel some glee. “But this will be all you get.”