“You weren’t supposed to survive,” Audrey said. “You were supposed to be wiped away by the power of the ritual. But somehow you held on. Somehow you took what was supposed to be ours.”
“My body? It’s mine. It always will be mine.”
“You are a foolish woman,” Solomon said. “The Survivors’ Club wasn’t about sex. It was about the end. The literal end of this world. We were to create two beings, humans perfect in anyway. Able to shape their bodies, realign their very DNA. They would be able to repopulate any world. They would be able to survive any journey or any environment. But it took a massive amount of energy and a massive sacrifice of flesh. The inner circle knew our fates. Audrey, Jolene and I knew we would be composited into something new, but we knew our combined mind would be more powerful than the pieces. But your little brain had to get in the way. It’s time for you to end, Meredith. You’ve been in the way for far too long.”
Solomon and the women started towards her. But they didn’t walk exactly. They floated over the scene around Marilyn. She watched them come. She knew what they wanted. But she didn’t know how to fight it.
“You can’t have me,” she said. “My mind is my own.”
They laughed. “Your body hasn’t been your own for fifty years,” Audrey said.
“You can’t even retain your own memories,” Jolene said.
“You are a shadow too stupid to move on,” Solomon added. “This is a mistake we plan to remedy.”
Marilyn looked at all of them one in turn. Solomon’s face was impassive, as it always was. Audrey gave her a familiar smile, a knowing grin about what she did, but this one more sinister than in her memories. Jolene held a sneer, her disdain for Marilyn—or Meredith—obvious.
“You will try to take my mind, but I have held on to this body for fifty years. You won’t take it away from me now. I will fight. And I will win.”
“We will see,” they all said as one.
A moment later they all swept towards her as one. Their spectres rushed into her body, one by one. Her very cells seemed to roar in agony at the touch. Marilyn felt her form, whether in her or own mind or in reality, suddenly shift. She lost control of the careful control she had over her form. Her skin shifted and melted around her. She felt their minds inside her own, ripping at her memories and her thoughts and her very being.
She tried to scream, but her mouth was already gone.
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