Revolt

Wesleyan University, Earth Date October 2010
     “I’ve known you for three months and I don’t think I’ve ever seen you eat anything except chocolate.”
     “That’s not true. I had vanilla ice cream last night.”
     “Only because they didn’t have chocolate, and you drowned it in hot fudge.”
     Skye Larkdon and Bethany Torres were sprawled on the bed in Bethany’s dorm, watching Netflix on Skye’s laptop. Skye was eating a chocolate bar and reminding herself that Bethany hadn’t known her all her life and therefore wasn’t used to Skye’s rather unhealthy eating habits. They’d met in Skye’s intro to astronomy class and immediately became close friends. Skye was in physics and calculus and astronomy and had a dream of working for NASA some day. She had declared her major in astrophysics within a month of being at college. Bethany just really liked the aesthetics for outer space and decided, what the hell. Bethany’s schedule was a bit all over the place, with astronomy and some anthropology and some literature and some history. She was pretty much feeling it out, trying to see what she liked. So far, space math seemed to be doing well for them. Skye took another bite of her chocolate.
     “I swear, if you keep this up, you’re gonna end up dead. Have you ever seen a vegetable?”
     “We’re all gonna end up dead. Besides, if I could die, it would’ve happened by now. And for the matter, chocolate is a bean, which is a vegetable.”
     Bethany rolled her eyes and clicked next episode. They’d decided they were going to finish the season tonight.

Long Beach, New York, Earth Date November 2010
     Revolt had no idea how long she’d been in the death-liquid. All she knew was that she’d come across something solid. She dragged her host’s dying body, organs already failing, onto the solid substance. Then she oozed out of the host, allowing it to flop back into the death-fluid. She’d hoped the atmosphere on the planet wasn’t oxygen-rich. She was wrong. She sat in the sand like an oil spill and waited for death, near insanity from pain and hunger and weakness.
     A solid life form descended from the sky and landed nearly on top of her. It started to peck at her curiously. She oozed into it, noticing immediately how different it was from the swimming things she’d found in the sea. It was still unintelligent and fragile, but it would be good enough for now. Good enough until she could find a way off this death-planet.
     Or until the death-planet finally killed her.
     Or until the lack of sustenance on the death-planet killed her. She was starving, and her injuries certainly weren’t healing.
     This life form had wings of its own. Spreading them, she soared into the sky, remembering momentarily her own wings, her own strength, back when she flew over her planet and commanded armies.

New York City, Earth Date January 2011

     Skye spent her second- to - last weekend in New York the way she always spends that particular weekend: at the Women’s March in Manhattan, fighting for her rights. The March started out the way it always does, Skye and her friends Katherine Ramírez and Dawn White arriving a few minutes late with carefully-designed signs and posters. It was freezing, and the women were bundled up. They made their way to Central Park and joined the protestors. Nothing really special happened until about an hour into the March, when a clumsy pigeon suddenly flew up off of the sidewalk and nearly hit Katherine in the face. Then the pigeon opened its beak and a blob of inky goo shot out of its throat. The goo covered Kathy’s face and she fell backwards with a shriek, landing on her butt in the hard concrete. Her friends were on her in an instant, worrying and trying to help her up. She yanked her hands away from them to touch her face. “Is there something on my face?” She shrieked, flailing left and right.

     “No, but are you okay? That pigeon seemed to come from nowhere,” Skye replied, reaching down again to help her up.
     “Are you sure? That pigeon – it – it threw up on me, there’s gotta be something on my face, oh my god, that was so gross,” Katherine wailed. Skye was on the concrete next to her, trying to calm her down. “Oh my god, something’s wrong,” Kathy cried.
     Skye and Dawn simultaneously asked, “What is it?” and “calm down, you’re fine.”
     Revolt was seeping into Kathy’s veins, trying to make sense of this new, intelligent life form she had found. Kathy’s brain was freaking out, and Revolt tried to soothe her.
     Relax.
     Kathy screamed.

     Revolt liked this body more than the others. This body was superior, intelligent. This body had a mind and a soul, something that the flying thing and the swimming thing hadn’t had, something Revolt wasn’t sure she’d find on this death-planet. The mind had a vocabulary that Revolt could learn from. Searching the vocabulary, Revolt learned that the first creatures she’d found were called fish by the inhabitants of the planet, and the flying things were called birds. She was currently in a sentient species called human. The humans were similar to a few of her previous hosts, although this particular one seemed to be weaker. Revolt stretched into Kathy’s veins, extended into her muscles, flowed into the spaces between her organs. She searched the foremost of her host’s memories, trying to feel out if they’d be a good match.
     If they could achieve symbiosis.
     The first thing she found in her new host’s mind was an intense fondness for the small human, the one who had just dropped to the ground to help Kathy while she was freaking out. The symbiote prompted the human brain to supply information about her. Memories streamed into her consciousness, memories of the small human that Kathy had watched give her last twenty to a homeless man in the Subway ten minutes after checking her bank account and realizing she didn’t even have enough money to buy pizza, the one who had dropped everything and ran to her when she was having a meltdown after breaking up with her ex, who had looked death in the eyes and winked. She’d be the last to realize that she’ll be the last good person on the planet. Revolt searched through the brain to find out more about her. Skye, Kathy’s brain supplied. Skye Larkdon. Revolt scanned the brain, trying to learn everything it knew about the being that was Skye Larkdon. There were secrets, mysteries the brain wouldn’t tell her. Something was different about Skye. She probed deeper, to no avail.
     Revolt decided she liked what little she found. Revolt also decided that she and Kathy were a terrible match.
     Revolt was weakening in Kathy’s body. Whatever Kathy was doing, it wasn’t working for the symbiote. Revolt decided to find another host before Kathy began to weaken as well. She would not run her sentient hosts dry like the symbiotes she had rebelled against. Kathy’s brain told her that Skye was strong. She decided that Skye would be as good a host as any.
     She also had this burning desire to learn more about Skye.
     She had her chance the very next day. Kathy and Skye met for a ritual eating occasion. Lunch, Kathy’s brain supplied. As they were parting, Kathy pulled Skye in for a hug, and Revolt simply seeped through Kathy’s pores and into Skye’s.

     Skye was standing at the edge of the building again.
     It was always the same spot.
     It was always where they’d fallen.
     Falling –
     Falling –
     Falling –
     The concrete was rising towards her.
     She knew what would happen next. It was always the same. The red, the blackness, the hospital, the sounds of the beeping machines, a man pronouncing a time of death, an awakening far underground.
     But this time, someone caught her. Or was it something?
     You’re okay, said a voice, deep and raspy but feminine too. Nothing will happen to you. The voice soothed her, reached through her nightmare, wrapped her in an embrace. Skye was dimly aware that there were quite a few too many appendages to be a human hug, and that the appendages hardly felt like human arms.
     Nothing will happen to us.
     Revolt nudged the body and mind into a dark, dreamless sleep.
     Something was horribly wrong with Skye’s body. The woman seemed incapable of self-care, eating only chocolate snacks and the occasional hamburger and constantly consuming toxins called alcohol. This caused the body to have high levels of cholesterol and blood sugar, and the liver and kidneys were overloaded with toxins. The brain seemed incapable of producing several of the hormones that Kathy’s brain did, particularly the ones that made her happy and calm. The brain was also extremely sensitive to light and sound and touch and would practically shut down if any of these stimuli became too much. The brain also was in a near constant fight-or-flight mode, as if Skye were constantly expecting danger. Anxiety, Skye’s vocabulary supplied. The body in general was suffering from the effects of extreme stress. Skye also burned her own hair with chemicals to change its color and had several strange scars across her hip bones that had no reason to be there. Her skin was stained, obviously on purpose, with patterns Revolt recognized from flying at night in the body of the pigeon. These were constellations, patterns of the stars in the night sky. They were called tattoos, Revolt learned. Revolt had known civilizations that inked themselves in the name of war or power but could not find any desire for these things in Skye’s heart. She also learned, from Skye’s memories, that the inking process was painful, and that Skye found a certain satisfaction in the pain. On top of all of this, there was something strangely unnatural, impossible about the way Skye’s body worked. It was almost as if the body itself had been dead once. The strangeness didn’t seem to be harming the host, so Revolt decided to ignore it until she was stronger. 
     The only things Skye seemed to do to take care of herself were an intricate skincare routine and the consumption of a lot of the oxygen-death-fluid that Revolt learned humans cannot live without. Water, the brain supplied. Revolt began filtering the bad cholesterol and sugars out of the blood and trying to stimulate the brain to create more of the happy chemicals. She also concentrated on forcing the cells on her hip bones to rapidly multiply, closing up the strange incisions. There was something wrong with her right leg, but that would need to be fixed when Revolt was stronger. She was beginning to grow stronger with every chocolate bar Skye ate. Skye was strange, but something felt right about being with her. There was a connection, even if Skye didn’t quite know she was there yet. Revolt curled up in a spot just behind Skye’s heart and absorbed the chemicals from the chocolate and healed.


Wesleyan University, Earth Date January 2011
     Bethany had finally finished unpacking all of her belongings. She’d spent her first day back in Connecticut with Skye, going into town and catching up on everything that’s been going on in their lives. Skye had been acting a little bit weird, which Bethany assumed was just because of the stress of moving back and forth. Bethany was aware that being at home brought Skye mixed feelings but that she loved being in New York more than anything else. Bethany had taken her second day back to unpack everything and put her belongings away neatly the way she liked them. Fortunately for her, there wasn’t much. She was a light traveler, and you don’t bring everything you own on a plane back and forth from Connecticut to Los Angeles and back to Connecticut. She settled into her bed to watch some Netflix before her first day of classes.
     Bethany was halfway through an episode of Law and Order when she heard some shuffling outside her window. She lived on the fifth floor, and there was a very tall pine tree right outside the window. She raised the shades and looked out, seeing a skinny, female figure in the top branches. The woman seemed to be tattooed and had her back to Bethany and was wearing nothing but a purple bra and black sweatpants, which was quite a bold fashion choice considering the fact that it was January and probably about 12 degrees outside.
     God, what an idiot. Bethany had no idea how this woman had managed to climb to the very top of that tree —-
     The woman turned to face Bethany, and she recognized her immediately.
     Shit, it’s my idiot.
     Bethany watched in horror as Skye made direct eye contact, and, without breaking eye contact, grabbed a small bird as it attempted to fly away from the branches and shoved it into her mouth. Skye looked disgusted and extremely unhappy to be chewing a live bird but made no move to stop until she swallowed and licked her teeth. By then, Bethany had opened the window and was screaming.
     “Skye, what the fuck?!”
     “I’m so fucking hungry” was the response.
     “Skye, you’re sick, get inside and put on some goddamn clothes!”
     At that, Skye shrugged and leaped out of the branches, flying through the open window and collapsing onto the floor. She looked around with wild eyes. Bethany was yelling again, shouting things like what the fuck were you thinking, did you seriously eat a live bird, why are you almost naked —- but Skye didn’t seem to be hearing any of it.
     “Chocolate,” Skye said out of the blue.
     “What?”
     “I want chocolate-“ Skye looked around, back out the window, “there’s chocolate there!” she shouted, almost excitedly.
     And with that, Skye got up off the floor and jumped out the window.