Update:3rd June 2015
It was hot, very hot. He didn't expect it to end this way, not like this. He clutched tightly onto the metal strap around his chest that bound him to his doom and looked around him to see debris lying next to him. Flames were bursting around him, dancing gleefully like children. He was finding it harder to breathe with each passing moment as the air thinned itself around him and he found himself coughing from the smoke.
"Help...," he coughed, and with each contraction of his diaphragm, a sharp, unbearable pain coursed through his body and a single thought flashed through his mind.
I am going to die.
His whole life began to flood his mind, memories of things he thought he had forgotten and even more, the emotions he kept within them.
His name was Richard Ames. He was 79 years old. His wife had left sooner than he had expected. In fact, her funeral was just a year before the incident. He had spent the past year in his own home, mourning the loss of his only companion and now he was left alone in a world that was now foreign to him. The digital age was cruel to a man who did not know how to begin anew.
It was the day he decided he would step outside and visit the old places that they used to visit when they were younger. He got into the car and started the ignition. It was nightfall and the city was asleep safe for a few strays. He drove quietly through the city streets and then a boulevard of trees, the one which meant he was nearing the end of the town. He recalled memories of her talking about leaving that same boulevard to explore worlds anew. Tears welled up in his eyes and fell like rivulets. What would happen next, he did not expect.
A loud screech followed by a scream and a loud bang. The car flipped itself and landed on its roof. It skidded along the road for a few inches crashing into a nearby lamppost, leaving a trail of motor oil in its place. The lamppost which was hit, began to emit sparks that fell dangerously onto the asphalt coated with the flammable liquid. Soon enough, the oil that had gathered in puddles around the car were ignited, starting flames that surrounded Richard... and he was trapped.
Just as he was reliving the final moments of his life, a white flash, and then the sound of sirens.
Richard, who was still disoriented, was still somehow able to make out that the sound meant his safety. He gathered his breath and yelled for help.
Suddenly, a voice... Or was it two?
"RICHARD AMES." The voice was cold and metallic.
Richard looked at the silhouette that was now crouching in front of him, but was unable to make out what he was actually looking at.
"H..How do you.. know my name?" Richard asked, the piercing pain in his chest from collapsed ribs made him gasp as he finished his sentence.
"WE KNOW EVERYTHING."
Richard made out the silhouette to be a man who seemed to be wearing a metallic suit, the kind you encounter when you're in a really bad sci-fi movie. His vision blurred, as he felt himself slowly giving up.
"RICHARD AMES, ARE YOU WILLING TO LIVE?"
The last word caught Richard's attention as he shook his head and tried to compose himself amidst the chaos that was suffocating his entire being.
"L..live?"
"ARE YOU WILLING?" The voice was colder now, and it sent chills down Richard's spine yet he felt something inside him telling him to say yes, an instinct so primitive, it could only be one thing:
Survival.
With all his might, he reached his hand out to the silhouette.
"Yes...!!! Help me!!!" He yelled, the sound of his own voice reverberating through his shattered bones and broken body.
"VERY WELL."
Another white flash.
And then,
Nothing.
- End of Update -
Update: 4th July 2015
Richard woke up with a start. He felt cold steel pressing against his back and he soon realized that it was extremely dark. He sat up and soon as he did, bright lights blinded his vision for a moment. He peered around and stared in horror at the realization of where he was.
It was a morgue.
He had been placed on one of the tables in the room awaiting for identification. His memory was jolted by the coldness of the place as he began to feel around for injuries from the car crash.
But not a scratch was on him.
Richard was confused. What on earth was happening? Why was he in a morgue? Wasn't he saved?
You were.
It was a voice and it sounded like a young boy. Richard froze. He looked around the room to find its source.
"Who is it?" he asked nervously. But there was no reply.
Richard grabbed his head. The car crash must have done something to him that was resulting in some kind of psychosis, he rationalized.
You are not going mad. Another voice, this time it sounded like a young girl.
Richard stumbled onto his feet and struggled to find his balance as he looked around the room once more.
"What is going on?"
No time. We will explain later. Grab your things and run.
Just as the voice finished its sentence, Richard heard footsteps approaching the morgue and the sound of voices. He walked outside and saw a light source coming from a pair of security guards doing their rounds at the end of the corridor. He walked quickly away in the opposite direction. He turned the corner and found a locker room where someone had left a jacket and a pair of sweatpants lying around. Richard grabbed them and put them on.
Follow our instructions. Turn left then right, then left again. Now through the stairs...
Richard, heeding the voices that he now understood were coming from inside his own head soon found himself outside of the city hospital.
"Now what?" he asked nervously.
Go home.
*
Richard was glad he usually left a spare key under the carpet for emergencies like these as he unlocked his own door and went inside the house. He looked at the date and realized it's only been 24 hours since he last remembered anything from the car crash. He began to wonder if anything that's happened so far was true.
Walking over to the kitchen, he grabbed a bottle of wine and poured himself a drink.
He felt a jolt in his head and he almost dropped the glass.
We're not fond of alcohol. It affects parts of your brain ranging from your cerebral cortex to your medulla where we happen to now be a part of as well.
Richard put down his glass of wine. He was getting used to the voices now.
"You're in my brain," he said this slowly, as though coming into full realization.
That is correct Richard Ames.
"How?"
You made a deal with us Richard Ames. Our cousins, to be exact. They were the ones who administered the process that now connects us to you.
"Who are your cousins? And how many of you are there inside of me? What are you exactly?"
Our cousins' names are not registered in the language we now speak in. In your world the only word that describes them to some extent is, alien. There are two of us, male and female. And the name of our species in your language would be strange but not far off from its definition in describing our looks... in your words, we're called spark fishes.
"Spark fishes?" Richard reached for his wine. He really needed a drink for this one.
Perhaps it will be easier, to show you.
And suddenly a flood of memories, not belonging to his own entered Richard's mind, blocking out all other thoughts and in an instant he understood. He fell to the floor from the sudden onset of information. His brain buzzing from the sudden surge of cognitive functioning.
"You... you've been here for quite a long time," Richard gasped, propping himself up on his chair.
We have. Our species, unlike our cousins, were fond of Earth enough to migrate here. We were inquisitive, and wanted to see the potential of this green planet so some of us made the decision to come here. We came in abundance back then. There were hundreds of us during the time when Columbus first set sail from Palos, yet now, there are only ten of us in estimation, existing in the rivers and oceans of this world.
"What happened? How did your numbers dwindle so quickly?" Richard walked over to his couch with his glass of wine and sat down.
Spark fishes do not exist long without a host. In our planet we could, but on yours, we have only recently discovered that only via a symbiotic relationship would allow us as well as you to live as long as our peers back home.
"Oh, and how long is that?" Richard asked.
There was a silence in his head.
And then the young female voice replied.
Forever.
- End of update -
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