Chapter 2
Wednesday
February 6th, 2019
In normal circumstances, there was one particular word that came to mind for Aaron when talking about his best (only?) friend at this wretched university. Stephanie Riley was a personality that Aaron would describe as, impactful.
When she was beaming, projecting sunshine and rainbows, you could almost feel clouds instantly disappearing as Steph drags out the sun kicking and screaming from nicer climates than Britain. You could almost see the rainbows vomiting out of the tories that run the university.
On the flip side, when she was in a sourer mood, as she was right now sitting directly across from him on a beanbag, Steph could probably cause the death of a small animal just from her glare. Aaron half expected sometimes for the fire that coloured Steph’s hair to just shoot out of her irises.
Since he wasn’t a small rodent, merely a slightly below average height human, Aaron was merely intimidated by the glance, and sank slightly further into the sofa, preparing for the barrage.
"Well? Aren't you going to explain yourself or do I have to sit here and wait for a passable explanation from you? Don’t worry, this very important piece of coursework can wait.”
Aaron shrugged. It wasn’t like he didn’t want to tell Steph what had happened, but, he still was not entirely clear on the situation itself either. Any explanation would fall flat on his face, kind of like he did when whatever hit him in the head hit him.
"Look if I know I would tell you. But listen here, I’m not the brightest, and all I know is that I woke up with a smashing headache and rather quite severe concussion like syndromes. I don’t even know what those would look like, I study rocks, not concussions.”
That didn't help as Steph's frown deepened. She pulled out her phone and pulled up the strange text message. Aaron definitely didn’t remember sending that, and he definitely never called Steph by her full first name. That only leaves one very pesky concussion voice, but how could that even be possible?
“Explain this then Aaron. This clearly doesn’t match the way you usually type, so what happened with this? Do you even have your phone on you still? Did you get mugged?!”
Aaron sighed, shook his head and pulled his phone out of his back pocket, waving it idly in the air.
"It's here, look I had a pretty bad headache, I probably wasn't thinking right. I can barely remember things I did an hour ago."
"Maybe you should see a doctor Aaron, sounds like a serious concussion, and those could be bad for you long term.”
Aaron shook his head, and gave Steph a slight smirk.
"My concussion assured me that everything would be fine, so clearly I should follow my gut…uh..head voice and follow my instincts and not go to the doctor.”
Steph rolled her eyes, before returning the smile a few seconds later. The tension in the room clearing rather quickly with that. It was quite something the skill Steph had in manipulating the feeling in a room.
"There it is. The snark of the gremlin known as Aaron Holt."
She shook her head before holding a more neutral, serious expression.
"You will tell me if something's up will you?"
Aaron shrugged again. "I will tell you if the sky's falling down or I'm getting mugged. Trust me, I'm fine."
Steph sat there, staring for another few seconds, seemingly scanning Aaron's expressions for any tells. Not that she would find any, since even if Aaron was telling a half truth at best, he was not even sure what the entire truth would be. Steph then shrugged, stood up, adjusting her jacket and skirt, and walked over to the door.
"Wait, youre just leaving?"
"I have work to do Aaron, and this visit was mainly to check that you hadn't in fact died."
"Aaron Holt, alive and healthy."
Steph gave an unimpressed stare at Aaron, and promptly flipped him the bird before leaving the flat, leaving the door slowly shutting. It may seem like a bizarre greeting, but that was particular affectionate greetings that defined this pair. Unorthodox was the least one could say about the interactions of Aaron and Steph.
It was at this point that Aaron realised that his headache had seemed to fade during the conversation. He didn’t have to squint to prevent the lights in the flat from causing his brain from exploding, and he didn’t feel like he was going to be sick just from sitting down. Maybe the day was looking up after all.
The moment the door shut, Aaron swiftly found that he had spoken far too soon. The headache reemerged with a vengeance, causing Aaron to sag in his sofa. The headache then sounded like it was laughing at him, probably because it was, as the concussion voice known as Cora made itself known again.
'Ya know for a second I thought ya woulda needed my help. But ya actually handled it quite well!'
"Fuck off, not right now Cora."
'I was helpin' ya with that headache ya know. The perks of fusin' with someone like maself.'
"Wait wait wait, go back. You, fixed my headache? How? You are the headache."
'no ya fuckin' doofus.....I guess I shoulda actually explained it to ya.'
Suddenly, Aaron found himself wrenched to his feet again, and was helpless as his own feet ran towards the bathroom, only stopping when his nose was almost pressing against the glass of the mirror.
Aaron noticed that the strangle purpleness that was in his left eye had also spread to his other eye. He was surprised that Steph said nothing about it, normally the observant woman would have pointed it out immediately. It was an eye type that certainly didn’t look human, it looked very alien to Aaron.
"Maybe ya aren't so dense after all. Alien might be the first good observation ya made today."
It was extremely jarring to see his own mouth move, but only to hear the womanly tenor that Cora had emerge from his mouth. Not to mention the extremely smug look that stared back at him in the window. He almost wanted to punch himself in the head.
'Its nice to finally talk to ya face to face, Aaron Holt. My name is Coraline, better known as Cora.'
Aaron saw his own right hand move to his hip, moving it outwards, emphasizing his rather flat hip and ass. It was an extremely feminine move, not that there was much to show off there. Great, so she was sharing his body with a particularly outwardly feminine concussion.
'I guess, I am what ya might call, an alien Symbiote. I am not, a concussion. Although I consider maself a queen of sorts, that’s the sorta background that makes sense for someone like maself. Me and you, we are fused together now. Ya give me a space to live, and I provide power for ya back. My specific set of impeccable skills.’
It sounded like one of those spam calls that he would have with one of those scam artists, masquerading as one of the banks in the city. When the offer sounded vague but also intriguing enough to find out more, that’s how scams worked. They lured you in, and that sounded like what Cora was doing. Cora let out an exasperated sigh in response.
'I guess it's Betta if I show ya dumb arse, wouldn't it.'
Suddenly, his mouth opened up, and to his horror and bewilderment, a black goopy substance shot out of his mouth in quite a substantial volume. This goop started to land at different spots on his body and started to spread out. It came with quite a significant tingling expression, kind of like pins and needles. And when the goop landed on his head and spread over his eyes, his vision was robbed from him.
The tingling had slowly spread all over his body, it was strange feeling of numbness, and had centered on a few specific spots most intensely. It seemed to focus on the back and top of his head, his torso area (mainly his chest) and also, his groin area. This goop better not be giving him a case of erectile dysfunction.
Just as suddenly as the tingling had risen up though, it quickly went away, and suddenly, like a light turning on, Aaron’s vision came back to him.
And what Aaron saw in the mirror, made him scream. Maybe the neighbour would put in a noise complaint of a rather hysterical girl in Aaron’s apartment.
“WHAT THE FUCK CORA?! WHY AM I EVEN SHORTER NOW?!”
Cora let out a hearty laugh in his head, and he could almost hear the head-shaking of the symbiote in his brain.
'Ya that reaction sounded about right to me.'