The Host ¤ The Next Chapter

The Host ¤ The Next Chapter: 3

The Host ¤ The Next Chapter: 3

At the end of the week, I was collected by Seeker Skyfall. This was manditory for all Souls placed in new human bodies. The information they held, whether they had traveled with another or how they had survived, would help the Seekers in their cause. The faster the human rebel threat could be put out, the safer Earth would become.

I sat in a fold-up chair at a plastic table. The room we were in was standard: white walls, cieling, and floor. Seeker Skyfall prefered standing up than sitting down, so he paced the room as he asked me questions.

He stopped on the other side of the table to ask me the first. "Please, state the body's former name and age." Seeker asked.

"Her name was Jenny Marks and her body is sixteen years old." I answered obediently.

"Any siblings? Parents?" Seeker Skyfall pressed.

"She had an older brother, but he died trying to protect her." I told him.

Seeker began to pace again. "How did he die?"

"He wouldn't go quietly, so the Seekers were forced to kill him." I replied quietly. That memory scared me, even if it was not my own. "Jenny was caught in result."

"In the month of May." Seeker Skyfall filled in. He walked some more. "What about Jenny's parents?"

I flinched upon accessing the memory. "Both died in a car crash. Jenny was in the backseat." I answered shakenly.

The memory was so strong. The screech of the tires, the sickening scream that stopped as the front of the car folded in on her mother. How had this girl gone through her life standing this memory?

"Any other family?" Seeker Skyfall brought me back by his words.

"Yes. An Aunt." I said, looking down at the table in order to focus. "She was going to meet up with her Aunt Felicia. Felicia and her husband David were on their way to a safe heaven somewhere in...." I drifted off.

"Yes?" Seeker came closer to me, wanting to know more.

"Jenny didn't know. All she was told was to head towards Texas where her Aunt and Uncle were." I replied.

Seeker Skyfall sighed and took a step back so I had my space. "If Jenny was heading towards Texas, do you know where her journey began?" he asked.

I nodded and continued my report. "She and her brother Kay traveled all the way from Floridia to reach them."

Seeker cocked his head. "So they came in contact with their Aunt and Uncle." he presumed.

"No, but they were very close." I corrected him.

Seeker Skyfall remained silent for a moment, thinking up another question. "Can you see where their house is?"

"The Aunt and Uncle's?" I asked in return.

Seeker nodded.

"A small appartment. It was muddled in with a bunch of others. Abandoned except for them." I listed each fact as it came to the surface of my mind. "When the Seekers came they probably had to check the homes one by one. That gave her relatives time to find somewhere to hide."

Seeker Skyfall looked at me strangely. Like he was trying to examine something inside of me.

"It was one of Jenny's hopes." I elaborated. "Or theories."

He nodded in understandment. "How did Jenny and Kay come across the information that their Uncle and Aunt were alive?"

"Jenny got a call from her Aunt Felicia when she got home from school. All her relative was able to say was a warning about our invasion, that there was a safe heaven, and that she and their Uncle David would wait for them in Texas." I recalled.

I could picture Jenny as she got home from a normal day at school. She was happy that there was only ten days left before Summer Break. The next year, she would be a senior. She had planned on going to college to become a nurse. 

Jenny left her schoolbag at the front door and was just about to fix herself a snack in the kitchen when the phone started ringing off the wire. She walked over to the stand that sat at the end of the couch, where a plastic red land line telephone sat. She picked the phone off the reciever and pressed the hearing end to her ear. 

Aunt Felicia was on the other end. She sounded distressed. Jenny tried to calm her down over the phone, but her aunt spoke louder so that Jenny would hear her words. Come to Texas. Aliens are taking over human bodies. Don't trust people with blue rings in their eyes.

Jenny had slammed the phone down in disbelief. Her aunt called four times after the first, leaving the same message every time. When her older brother Kay got home from work, she asked him to listen to Aunt Felicia's messages.

Although Kay didn't believe what Aunt Felicia was saying at first, he wanted to take percausions. Jenny and Kay moved to the summer cabin their parents had left in their possession. It was in a secluded cove, so it was like their own personal paradise.

After Kay confirmed what Aunt Felicia had said was true, they began their journey to Texas in search of their relatives. Kay thought it was worth seeking them out if he and Jenny could live in this safe heaven without having to worry about Seekers.

Their plans had been cut short at a highway checkpoint. By this time, the government toll booths were all controlled by the Soul inhabited humans. Kay and Jenny were forced out of the truck they had stolen, but Kay wouldn't go down easily. He killed a Soul with the switchblade knife on him, but the Soul had fought back in its own way. The inhabited man had been able to fire a single round in Kay's head before dying himself.

Jenny had collapsed on her knees, crying her heart out. She didn't see the reason to continue on if her brother and parents were dead. And even if Aunt Felicia and Uncle David was alive, she didn't think she'd make it. Kay hadn't and he had been the strongest person she knew.

That's why Jenny had allowed herself to fade when I was implanted into her body. She had lost all will to go on.

"...ay! May!" Seeker Skyfall shouted at me.

I snapped out of my trance. "I'm sorry." I apologized. "The memories were too distracting."

"That's alright." Seeker calmed down. "I thought I had lost you to your host for a moment."

"My host?" I echoed.

Seeker frowned. "There are rare cases where the former mind of the host body remains even after a Soul is implanted into a human."

"I've heard." I informed him somberly. "But I don't think Jenny Marks will ever return."

At this moment, I told him the entire recap of the memory.

"I see." Seeker Skyfall hummed when I had finished. "I'll have to think this over. Please remain here for Seeker Nightwalker." he asked me, walking towards the door.

"Yes Seeker." I nodded as he left.

I did as I was told.