Chapter Text
The house was quiet except for the sound of your joints popping in place with every step. Your back was bent over while your arms swayed limply at your side. Every step was carefully thought out, trying to not fall down onto the wooden floor since your feet refused to go in the right direction.
Your new limbs were hard to get used to and your head kept rolling off to the side, much to your displeasure. Human eyes were already hard to see through, but if your own neck didn't want to cooperate, it was even worse.
You huffed, your body making a noise similar to a dog's. You really hoped it wouldn't take too long for you to learn how to properly control this piece of meat.
You found it annoying how one of your many tongues kept poking out of your mouth along with a sharp tooth. It was clear that this body wasn't enough to contain you, but you were too tired to think about it for now.
You could complain all you wanted, but you knew damn well that it was hard to find a vessel like this one.
This human had no ties with any family or friends, no one that could've possibly bothered you… and it being on the brink of death was only perfect.
She let you take control of her with ease. The soul was already close to breaking when you got there, making it the right moment.
Others would've told you not to wait, to go for it as soon as you found whatever compatible human, not caring whether it was willing or not.
But you've always thought otherwise. You didn't want a voice constantly crying and screaming at you to let their body go.
It would've driven anyone crazy.
Oh but of course you knew that you didn't have much time to think. You could only live a maximum of a couple of days without a vessel to contain you.
Nothing stopped you from wasting half of that time dragging yourself all the way over to this house, though…
You would carefully watch her body moving through the window, seeing how she grew weaker and paler with the days. You even took control of her cat to get closer to her, not wanting to accidentally get caught.
This went on until one day, she stayed in bed.
You crawled over her, a meow coming out. You yourself felt weak from staying inside such a frail animal body. You constantly felt like a sardine, which you thought fit since cats tend to like fish.
"I'm so sorry, baby. Mom isn't feeling okay today." The human replied with a cough. You've always found it weird how humanity took comfort in pets, animals that couldn't actually understand or communicate with them.
But upon hearing her words, something deep blossomed inside of you.
You knew it wasn't actually you feeling it, but the cat you were controlling at the moment, however, it still felt… off .
Too warm, too soft… too caring .
You almost felt bad for the human that was petting your current furry body without knowing a parasite of your level had taken over it and completely infected it.
You decided to risk it and leave the cat's body earlier than normal, to make sure that it had more chances of living after the infection.
As if on cue, the woman's breathing suddenly got slower. You watched as her eyes glossed over, staring at the ceiling in a way someone could only describe as her final moments.
She stayed motionless and that's when you saw the pink soul coming out of her chest.
You lunged at it.
The next is history.
Right now you were trying to descend down the stairs. Your pupils turned into slits as the furry feeling of a tail brushed against your leg. It was enough to distract you, causing you to misplace a foot and tumble down the stairs.
You were disoriented, carefully hosting yourself up by placing a hand on the wooden floor. You hummed, not too sure whether your right hand was supposed to look so distorted and weird.
It was completely turned to the other side and when you tried to move it, it was completely stuck. You couldn't use it anymore.
Normal human stuff, you supposed?
A hand wasn't that bad, you'd probably just fix it later if it ended up staying stuck like that.
The worst came when you tried to stand up and your leg completely gave out from under you, making you fall back with a loud thud. You glanced down to see the bone sticking out mid-way, blood pouring down it.
How annoying. Your first human and, despite it being completely compatible with you, you've already forgotten how fragile they are.
You're forced to jump on one leg, gripping any surface you could come across before sitting on a chair in the kitchen and trying to put everything back into place.
You manage to put the bone sticking out of your leg back inside, leaving only a wound in its place. You did the same for your hand, turning it around.
It seemed to work well enough, despite your hand now having a slight shaking to it.
You weren't sure what that meant.
You finally stood back up, albeit your feet weren't very cooperative since they kept turning the other way every time you tried to take a step. It took you a good minute but you managed to get to the kitchen sink, quickly finding out how to turn it on and wash away some of the remaining blood on your hands.
You roughly wiped them off on your dotted pajama shorts, not caring about the wet feeling it left. You quietly glanced around the light-green room. It was well decorated and cozy for someone so lonely, but you knew it wouldn't stay like that: soon dust and the smell of rotten food would claim their respective spots.
You weren't going to hang around for much longer, after all.
You finally had your vessel and you were able to go anywhere – albeit with some… difficulty at the moment – so you decided you would go deeper into the forest.
You haven't seen any other parasites like you around since they preferred to stick to populated areas, but you knew they would attack you without mercy if you somehow came across one.
It meant more power, after all
As for you, you couldn't care less about attacking others. Being a good specimen yourself meant you were already quite powerful (or at least strong enough to defend yourself from any inferior threat).
You grumble under your breath. You've spent too long hidden away in this house and your bad mood is proof of it. While looking for the right human vessel, you remembered coming across an uninhabited cabin.
You've been looking for more stimulation, something to cure your boredom… and that might be a good opportunity for some change in your life.
You were slowly walking over to the exit of the house – careful to not fall again – when your head accidentally tilted to the side. The toxic and burning pink substance of your own being ended up dribbling down from your left eye and one of the body's nostrils, making your scent known inside of the house.
You let out a loud, animalistic groan as it dripped on the floor, making a puddle and staining the wood forever. No one else would be able to notice, but if another parasite passed by, they would definitely keep an eye out for you.
How wonderful.
You tried to control your fingers and grab the handle, but doing that alongside keeping your eyes focused and keeping your body from falling forward was hard. You missed the handle a couple of times due to your eyesight being so blurry, and when you did manage to grab it, your hand slipped right off since your grip was too soft.
Your patience ran low and you ended up biting into the handle, using your tongues to wrap around it and press down. You stumbled backward as it opened, dragging the door alongside you as you fell on your ass.
The cat you once infected came up to you, meowing and having a piece of food stuck to the side of its mouth. You stared at it, unwrapping your tongues from the handle.
"Wh...at..." The word came out completely slurred. Your new mouth was difficult to use and far more complicated than a cat's, which could only make a small range of sounds. Your sharp teeth uncomfortably scraped against each other as you tried to not bite on your tongues, adding to the discomfort and further hindering your speech.
You watched as the cat meowed again. Your eyebrows furrowed in confusion before you decided to copy the movements you'd seen the woman make a few times.
You raised your hand and carefully placed it on the cat's head, feeling the soft fur. The cat sitting in front of you immediately started making a weird rumbling sound, leaning into your touch.
You tried to copy the sound, feeling your throat vibrate alongside the animal. You wondered if it had a name, you'd only ever heard the woman call it "baby".
Maybe that was its name, after all?
You couldn't ask her now, it was too late. She was gone forever while you used her body and half-shattered soul as a vessel. After a few more pets on Baby's head, you decided to crawl outside of the house, quickly finding it to be easier than walking.
Baby followed you as you did, its fur slightly swaying with the wind.
It must've been the middle of the night when you reached the cabin. You got used to focusing your body's eyes, so you could finally see everything around you.
Being a parasite really had its perks. You could watch everything from the safety of your body's eyes, while also having a round eye of your own which was stronger and could see better in the dark than a normal human's.
The cabin looked a lot bigger and less run-down than you remembered, but you didn't care. This could be a new, very good, and safe hiding place.
You would be able to tend to your feet and hands, which were bruised and bloody, the skin falling off after being scraped on the various sharp rocks and pebbles on the way.
During your run, Baby had gotten tired and you'd decided to put them in a makeshift bag made out of your oversize shirt. You were left in some kind of… other shirt? made out of a black, lacey material that seemed to cover only the upper portion of your chest.
You didn't mind, the summer night air was nice.
You crawled up to the cabin's front door, holding Baby close to you in a protective manner. You weren't sure why you brought them with you, but you guessed your new vessel still thought of the cat as its companion and blasted dopamine into the brain every time your eyes rolled to look at Baby.
You wrapped your tongues around the handle and pushed forward, only to find that the door was locked. You pulled away with a disgustingly dirty and salty taste on your tongue. You really have to learn how to use your new body so you don't have to touch everything with your tongues.
Baby let out a meow as they poked their head through the makeshift bag. You meowed back – voice raspy while choking on your own drool - and started crawling around the cabin to find another entrance.
You found an open window on the side and jumped, swiftly getting inside the cabin. Your entrance wasn't as gentle as you thought, because you ended up falling onto your back, carefully clutching Baby to you to not get them hurt.
You couldn't feel pain so you had no idea what it felt like, but you knew cats could and humans usually said it was a negative feeling that no one liked.
You let Baby out of the oversize shirt before glancing around the place. You quickly noticed how aesthetically pleasing and lived-in the living room (what a dumb name for a room) looked.
It was big, spacious, and well-decorated. You've never cared a lot about the safe spaces of humanity, but you knew that the long, comfortable thing in the form of an L – standing in front of a thin black box – was called a cough, or something along those lines.
You've never understood why someone would call something so nice a "cough", which clearly was something only living beings close to death did.
You scratched the side of your cheek, digging your nails deep inside the skin at the feeling of a weird itch. You were used to them since you had them a lot when you infected Baby, but you didn't know humans had them too.
You crawled closer to the open kitchen in front of the living room, curiously looking around. Your body froze as you noticed a figure standing at the counter. You watched as the figure took a red bottle from the fridge, taking the cap off before drinking from it.
It didn't look like a human, so you kept staring from underneath the dining table. You soon realized that the figure was a skeleton monster, someone your species would've definitely been more than compatible with.
But then again, your plan wouldn't have worked with a monster. Their body usually melted and disappeared into dust not long after their soul shattered, unless they had enough hope to cling on for a bit longer.
You knew they didn't need as much maintenance as a human body, but you much preferred the comfortable and warm squish against the cold surface of hard bones.
Plus, monsters are known to be kind and friendly. They tend to stay with their family and friends. You needed a vessel that was a complete nobody , not someone that had their parents come in five times a week.
Baby's meow suddenly sounded through the cabin and you felt your pupils turn into slits as the skeleton put the bottle down. You couldn't see their face since they had their hood up, but you probably knew what they were thinking.
You would come out from under the table and pounce on the figure if they tried so much as touching Baby. You didn't care that monsters were kind creatures, that cat was your companion and you wanted it to stay that way.
You scratched your right cheek, drawing blood that dripped down your face. You ground your sharp teeth together as you watched the figure pet Baby's head.
Oh no , they didn't .
You quickly crawled out and threw yourself at the hooded figure, only for them to suddenly disappear right in front of you. Magic, probably. You hit the floor, your body rolling and smearing blood and pink right on the wood.
You forced yourself to get up on your knees – despite your head spinning and your back bending – and inched towards Baby. You called them back with a soft meow and they meowed back, running towards you. You immediately hugged the cat to your body, letting a relieved sigh out.
"so, a human and her cat, huh?" The figure walked up to you and you scrambled to get away, pushing your legs against the floor until your back was pressed against the wall.
"relax, i'm not gonna hurt you…" Two red eyelights with a cerulean circle surrounding them stared down at you, threatening. "though you did try to pounce on me."
You hissed, showing a sharp tooth off in hopes of having him back away. He didn't, but you think you at least managed to confuse him, which technically worked for you.
Suddenly, you felt your pupils shrink as the lights turned on, blinding you for a second. You were able to see more of the cabin and the skeleton in front of you this way. He was wearing a blue jacket with its hood up, some pink slippers, and a pair of black shorts with two white streaks down the sides. He smelled of smoke… and something more deadly.
"the fuck's goin' on here, dust!" On the big staircase to your left stood another skeleton with a sharp, golden tooth. He wore a white T-shirt and shorts with two red stripes along the sides. All in all, he looked quite similar to Dust.
His eyelights were a dark red, gaze sharp on Dust until they landed on you and at the blood staining the ground. "...what the hell?" Red sweat dripped down the side of his skull, his eyelights shrinking.
"did you just fuckin'..."
Dust looked away from the red skeleton and towards you. "what? fuck, no! of course not." He took a step back, more surprised than anything as he looked over your new vessel, eyelights landing down at your chest before quickly looking back to Baby.
You tried to hide more in the corner, making yourself look smaller as you silently hissed at Dust and the red skeleton while holding your cat.
"so ya tellin' me that a random human jus' came inside the cabin naked and injured?"
"fell, for fuck's sake, i would never do that–"
"WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON HERE??" A taller skeleton – with a long, red sleeping cap and edgy, red and black pajamas – slammed a door open and marched towards the scene.
"boss, dust jus' fuckin'..." Fell rubbed his hands over his face with a look you couldn't quite decipher. disappointment? disgust?
"no the fuck i didn't hurt her!" Dust snapped back, pinching his nose bridge. "she got through the open window and pounced on me after i pet her cat!"
"EVERYONE, WHAT IS GOING O–" An even taller skeleton wearing a pair of pajamas with carrots on them appeared on the stairs. He had a pair of glasses on and braces, a hand flying to his mouth as he looked at you. "OH MY GOD!"
You didn't think your vessel looked that bad, but you guessed monster standards were different from parasite ones.
By his side stood a rather large monster. He had a single, red eyelight -- that shook as he looked at you -- and a big hole on the side his skull. He was wearing the same outfit as Fell and Dust, except his white shirt was on the greyer side and had a few stains on it.
You stared silently at them, feeling the blood on your cheeks mix up with the pink coming from your eyes. Some of it dripped on Baby, but you made sure to quickly rub it off before any real damage could be done.
You hadn't noticed the skeleton that had appeared by Dust's side, placing a hand on his shoulder. His eye sockets were completely black except for a single, white eyelight. Some black substance was staining his bone cheeks and a reversed, red and white heart hovered in front of his chest. "well, well… a human, huh? wow, dust." He was obviously enjoying making the other angry.
You stared at his soul. Why was it out? It would be so easy for you to just go and infect it right now.
"bones, for fuck's sake." Dust seemed annoyed as he shrugged Bone's hand off. "i didn't even touch her. i don't even know who she is !"
"I DON'T THINK THAT'S WHAT'S IMPORTANT RIGHT NOW! SHE'S CLEARLY INJURED!" The skeleton from before with the carrot pajamas headed towards you with a concerned look on his face. "Human, Are You Okay?" He lowered his voice and kneeled down to look at your form pressed into the corner of the wall.
You hissed at the proximity, which made him back away in confusion.
"did… did she just hiss ?" Bones broke the silence with a loud laugh. "holy fuck, a human that hisses ! this is hilarious!"
You didn't understand what was so funny about it. You clearly didn't like what they were doing and wanted to get out of here… why was everyone staring at you?
"JUPITER, JUST FIX HER UP AND TAKE HER OUT ALREADY! SHE'S WETTING THE FLOOR!" The tall and edgy skeleton yelled.
Your nose scrunched up at all of the noise.
"who's wetting the floor…" A monochrome skeleton entered the living room with a yawn before his eyelights shrank at the sight. "what the… what's going on?!"
Soon enough, the living room was filled with yelling.
You could deal with it, but Baby made airplane ears and your whole body started shaking. You scratched nervously at the side of your face, drawing more blood as the nails sunk deeper and deeper–
A hand was firm on your wrist, stopping you from clawing at your flesh any further. Your pupils shrunk and your sharp teeth went to bite at the one holding you.
"don't do that, dove. you're already injured." Bones swiftly let go of your wrist when you tried to bite him, but carefully studied you, not letting you out of his eyesight.
You've never hated skeletons so much.
The whole room quieted down when someone appeared right at the top of the stairs. His bones were covered in some black goo, tendrils slowly swaying from behind him. His only, icy blue eye light went down to look at you and you felt a shiver go down your spine.
"explain yourselves."