Free Alexis: Evil Reborn by Nolan Barcroft Page A

tattered or burned off. One bare breast jiggled, exposed to the air with the plastic arm of a doll seared to the ample flesh. She reached up with her remaining arm and tore it free.
    Her screamed pierced the factory, the only noise left besides the crackling of the flames and the crumbling of various objects being claimed by them.
    She reached the north wall. Her body reacted before her mind could comprehend its actions. Her left leg shot out and kicked a hole in the wall, sending huge cement bricks flying off. She struggled to understand how she could be capable of such a superhuman feat, but the need to survive spurred her on and she squeezed through the small opening to the fresh air outside.
    The morning sun mirrored the blaze inside and seared her with its bright assault.  She went to cover her eyes with her right arm, but half of it remained inside. She raised her left, blocked the rays with it, and pushed forward, breaking into a limping run toward the forest, visible just past the parking lot.
    It’s shaded there. It’s safe there. We can heal there.
    “We?” she said, her voice returning, “Who the fuck is we?”
    Alexis couldn’t panic anymore, her body simply had nothing left and she collapsed just inside the wooded expanse, landing face first in a carpet of soft green moss.
    A beetle crossed her plain of vision as for the second time her consciousness began to recede. She felt the faintest stirring of hunger spark inside, stirring her appetite. “So odd,” she thought. Her jaw creaked open, charred muscles having trouble with the motion and her tongue, insanely long and split at the end, speared out and snatched the beetle. An instant later she heard the crunching in her head as she chewed. She passed out again before she could scream.
     
    ****
     
    Wake up!
    Alexis was sprawled across her apartment’s carpeted floor. Movement came hard. Something was constricting her attempt to rise and when she lifted her lids to see her surroundings, it was through a milky film.
    She started kicking, realizing she was encased in some kind of cellophane type bubble, suspended in cream colored mucus. One kick, two, and finally a third and the bubble, at last punctured, released its contents. Instinct spurred her on and she slid down and out of the egg like case.
    Coughing and scrambling, she pushed herself up with both arms and rose to stand in the muck of her rebirth.
    “Wait,” she said, remembering the explosion and the fire. There had to be more. The rest hit her hard, the memories crashing down, flooding her head like a burst dam and she knew what happened.
    Fresh tears threatened, but she held them off and ran for a mirror, clutching the forearm that should be ash by now, left behind, a victim to the flames.
    She shouldered open the bathroom door, desperate for answers. The cool tiles, slippery against her fluid covered feet, caused her to slip. Her scream never surfaced as her back collided with the floor, slamming the breathe out of her lungs. 
    Get up! Get up and see my gift to you. 
    The voice again, clawing forth from the dark recesses of her mind. Calm washed over her and she filled her lungs with the stale air of her apartment. The voice soothed her, an intimate friend sweeping the pain from her body and allowing her to stand again.
    “Who are you?” she said, turning to peer into the mirror.
    My race is the suppressed. We were damned for our sins, for satiating the Need we were born with, and then cursed in these putrid forms. We have crawled back over the millennia and we will thrive once more. You are my vessel. Now I am yours and you are mine. That is all you need to know. Live with me or die without me.
    “I chose life,” she said to her reflection, her humanity recoiling at the image. The fluid clung to her, warm and sticky, as if she had been dipped in honey. Her obsidian hair was slicked tight to her scalp, but it was her arm and face she stared at now. Her face was no longer scarred and