ODYSSEYPROJECT

"Ah, damn.  God damn." The stain was small, no larger than a coin.  It fell near his right hip, nestled in the dip between crotch and thigh.  Still, it was nauseating.  Paul stripped off the trousers and walked to the sink, hoping the sliver of hotel soap would take out the spot. He began running the hot water and paused, staring at the vomit.  Resisting the urge to gag, he grazed his fingers over the stain.  It was purely liquid and slick like dish soap, but the sickly brown could only be vomit.  He slowly raised his hand to his face and sniffed his fingers.  Nothing.  It seemed, for a moment, odorless.  But no, he suddenly caught a faint

 Lysanna felt a sudden change in her breathing, and knew than that something had happened to her Progeny.  Though the organism was still very small, she shared a psychic link with it that would remain as it transferred from host to host.  When the growth cycle was complete, the bond she had with the tiny bit of life would be severed as it emerged from the host with its own consciousness. She looked in the mirror at her gaunt face, the colors of her life force faded and barely moving under the surface of her tightly stretched, translucent skin. Her time in this world was diminishing and with every dying moment she hoped that her progeny woul

Paul's whole world was spinning.  The Proxitol made it incredibly difficult for him to think clearly. Maya? Yes, her name was Maya. She had told him it would only be a few days, that the thing inside would dissolve.  She'd been wrong, and she'd been surprised that she'd been wrong, not that it mattered. Resting his head against the cool porcelain of the toilet in the cell he called a room, Paul could almost laugh about how this all seemed like some ridiculous dream. But the pain, the disorientation, and the feeling of...something inside...assured him it was anything but. The growth had started spreading again, but it was different this tim

Paul's eyes came into focus just as Maya walked into the room, but something was different about her. Her face looked sunken and her eyes seemed glazed and black. The whole of the roomed looked as though it was changing color, flipping from one monochromatic scheme to a neon rainbow and back again. Paul began to pant and panic as she drew near him, he'd never been so terrified. He crawled away into the corner of the room, shivering, barely catching his breath, twisting his head back and forth as he flinched at every shadow. “Paul? What's wro-” Maya 's jaw dropped at the sight of Paul's transformation. Large glossy scales crept u

Part of his foremost tentacle spun across the room, followed by a trail of shimmering black ichor. Maya’s blade brought a paradox to his senses. His injured limb accepted the cold steel. It felt right when she cut him, as if his flesh knew it was being purified. At the same time, pain screamed through him, reeling from the touch of the metal, causing what remained of the tentacle to spasm. A seizure. The memory of the subway surfaced, and for a moment he wasn’t in the room anymore. He clung to those little flashes of memory, grasped at every word he remembered in order to keep his mind working, to keep himself. The creature shari