She Wears My Skin

Author's note: This story is a follow upl to To Become Human. Reading that story is recommended before starting this one, so that the events make more sense.

***

In the first early moments of consciousness, Katherine Stirling believed that she was blind. As she stirred in the dark, she slowly realized that her eyes were being shielded by something. She rubbed her palms against the ocular deterrent, feeling its coarse texture.

Bandages.

Her face stung with pain as she slowly pulled the bandages down and away from her eyes, taking care to not remove them completely. Her eyes struggled to see, with her surroundings blurring in and out of focus with each passing second. When her eyes adjusted, she could make out where she was: she was sitting propped upright in a hospital bed. The darkness from the open window indicated it was sometime in the late night, the darkness itself countered by a faint glow from the hallway. Weakly, she raised her left arm to her line of sight; it too was covered in bandages, with only the fingers protruding outwards. She strained her memory to remember how she ended up here, but everything in her mind came back blank.

"Oh! We didn't expect you to be up so soon."

Katherine's desperate attempt at remembering was cut short by the sound of a female voice. The voice was concerned, and it sounded hauntingly familiar. Hearing it caused a slight pain in Katherine's head, but she ignored it. She turned her gaze to the woman, who was standing in the doorway: she wore a doctor's coat overtop of a light blue nurse's uniform, with gloved hands clutching a clipboard tight to her chest. She too looked familiar, but once again, she couldn't understand why. The woman entered the room, standing by her bedside. Katherine figured that this woman understood her situation far better than she, and she slowly spoke, her shallow breaths acting like winds for the bandages around her mouth.

"H...How did I get here...?"

The woman sighed, placing her clipboard on a bedside table.

"You were recovered from Parker's Hunting Range. There was...an accident.  You were lucky to be the only one who survived, but we still need to keep you here for awhile more until you fully recover."

"The only survivor? I-I don't remember being at Parker's Hunting Range, I'm not sure why I would ever go there.  Who else was there?"

The woman pursed her lips. "Two more bodies were recovered. Forensics are still working on one, but we identified the other as a man by the name of Douglas Gatherson.  You were recovered not far from his body.  I know it's a lot to ask at a time like this, but did that name ring any bells?"

"It... it does! Douglas and I...we dated in high school.  But I still don't understand why I..."

Suddenly, it felt as though a weight was lifted from her fatigued brain, as details began flooding into her stream of consciousness.

"Wait! Douglas had called me during my shift!  He said there was something in the range that he needed my help with.  It was a..."

"A blank slate?"

Katherine paused. The phrase "blank slate" stirred something in her. It was a feeling unlike any other; the feeling of primal dread. The feeling that anyone or anything could strike from the darkness at any moment. The feeling that she was never truly safe.

"...Blank slate?"

"When the paramedics brought you in, you were barely clinging to consciousness. Honestly, I was afraid we would lose you.  But just before you nodded out, you said something.  You said the sentence 'it was a blank slate' over and over again.  I'm just as confused as you are about what it means."

Katherine's breath stifled as she remembered. How could she have forgotten the Blank Slate? Her mind was besieged by vivid memories of the encounter. Douglas calling her over the the clearing in the woods. Seeing that thing- the Blank Slate- for the first time. Hearing the tear of mortal flesh as it ripped through Douglas as though he were paper. Feeling the tree branches claw at her face as she ran mindlessly through the endless wood, the sound of snapping branches behind her never once letting up. She remembered how it backed her up against a tree, slashing wildly at her face and arms until everything went black. She remembered the horrible groans that emanated from its featureless face, sounding like a dying animal struggling for one final breath. That was the last thing she remembered before she awoke only minutes ago.

In an instant, she jolted to life, leaning forward from her mounted position against the bedpost. She reached out for the woman, who backed away concernedly.

"Listen," she began shakily, certain that this woman would never believe her, "what I'm about to say is going to sound insane, but you have to believe me. This thing, this Blank Slate- it's dangerous.  I-I-I'm not sure what it even is, but it can duplicate people!  It duplicated Douglas, but then he shot it, and it turned into..."

"Whoa, whoa, slow down," the woman said, raising her hands in a stopping motion, "take it easy. Start from the beginning, and tell me everything, no matter how crazy it may be."

Katherine took a deep breath before beginning. "I got a call from my old boyfriend, Douglas. He said there was something down at the hunting range that he needed my help with.  When I arrived, he was standing over this... thing.  It was completely featureless, and it was the palest shade of white I had ever seen.  Douglas told me that when he encountered this thing, it was an exact duplicate of him.  I-It was even wearing his exact clothes when I saw it!  I did some examining, and I found out that the thing was an organism made to absorb things.  I-It absorbed blood samples to make itself look human, and it absorbed cloth samples to replicate the clothing that a certain person wore.  With those requirements, it could replicate any person on Earth.  B-But after we figured out what this thing was, it had regained consciousness and run away from us.  It circled back and it... oh god, it ripped Douglas to shreds.  Then it chased me through the forest, and that's the last thing I remember. You have to believe me! All humans are at risk; if it got away after attacking me, then it's still out there! Absorbing and replicating and... killing the original and... blending into society... taking that person's place... oh, Jesus."

She began to sob as the woman put her hand on her shoulder in a gesture of comfort. "It's alright to cry. What you're experiencing is a form of post traumatic stress.  You and your friend were attacked by a wild animal; since it's such a rare occurrence in that area of woodland, your brain must have come up with another explanation for what happened to you.  We here at St. Angelo's Hospital will do whatever we can to help you cope with the trauma, both physically and mentally."

"Y...You don't believe me?"

The woman moved towards the cabinet, removing a needle with the words "sedative" inscribed across it. She then moved back towards Katherine's bed.

"I promise you," she said to Katherine, "we're going to help you get through this trauma. Then you'll see things for how they really happened."

She lifted Katherine's arm, placing the needle in an open patch of skin in between bandages, pushing the syringe all the way down. She watched as it dropped from 50 cc all the way down to zero. Sweat began to form on her forehead as she looked upon the needle to find that ''it was empty. ''The woman moved from the bedside and examined her clipboard.

"Your name is Katherine Stirling? What a coincidence..."

Katherine's heart began to beat faster. The woman's faint familiarity became a screaming warning in her skull.

"...That's my name too. We have a surprising amount in common, Ms. Stirling.  It's almost as though we're identical."

She clicked the lights off, flashing one last smile to Katherine as she gasped for air, her heart convulsing in her chest. She thrashed in her bed, her struggle for air becoming violent. With her dying breath, she stared deep into the eyes of the woman- no, into ''her own eyes. ''They were her eyes, but the thing that saw through them was cold and soulless.

As life slipped away, Katherine Stirling uttered a silent prayer in her hospital bed; not just for herself, but for all the doomed humans of Earth.