The Curiosity Compulsion

A body spasms on a cool metal table. Each jerk, each twist is mesmerizing. A dance almost. She has seen it time and time again for centuries, aeons possibly. And yet it never happens quite the same. Each creature has its own choreography, she thinks of gathering several at once to watch them writhe in synchrony. She wonders if they will feed off of one another. If this being part of a herd will affect the quality and style of dance. She wonders about a lot of things. 

She tightens the bindings around the man’s chest, wrists, and ankles. For this she needs him still. Still and alert. Because she needs to know. She needs to figure out where his body will stop resisting. Admittedly, these creatures have impressive resilience. For as soft and delicate as they are, they refuse to be put down until they are broken to their core. 

She is curious about this as well. She needs to find just where, in this thing, the core is located. The essence, the thing that separates its kind from her own. All of these aeons and all of this picking and she still hasn’t found it. 

She has searched the brain, the heart, the genitals, all of the places where a core should be. She is beginning to think that these creatures do not have cores, or it might be that the cores are separate from the physical body. But where then?

She wonders about the cores themselves. About their works. Their origins. What they are truly for and what happens to them when the body dies. She wonders about her own core; that softly pulsating fluorescent wisp that dances around her brain. That delicate, precious wisp. 

And her pondering brings her to a new thing to contemplate. She wonders what it would be like to find herself upon that gurney seizing and writhing. Hands clasped behind her back, she wanders around to the other side of the operating table. She tilts her head and observes the man. His breathing quickens. A lot of them have that reaction; erratic breathing, unfocused eyes, twitching...some of them freeze. Some of them scream. 

She injects them all the same. Most of them don’t make it past shot five, not that she hasn’t found some outliers. She has also come to conclude that their endurance depends on what substance is in the syringe. A shot of phenol usually takes them before she has a chance to have any real fun. Succinylcholine is quite funner. Quite slower.

Only when this grows tiresome and predictable does she introduce a new element. A few careful grazes upon the skin as the toxins course through their tortured veins. Or a generous touch of fire. 

Age is another variable. Gender. Weight. But when it comes down to it, they each have their own unique thresholds.Their own worst dreads. Their own ideas of what brand of pain is the worst. Their tolerance and endurance reminds her of the fingerprints that she has cut from them.

She can’t seem to exactly replicate any of her results. There is no common ground, just an occasional and by-chance cluster of similarities. Alike but never wholly identical. 

And she wonders if there is any sense to this quest when the goal is to find the one universal weakness. The single worst thing that can bring these creatures to their--she gives her chart a glance--knees. 

She thinks that it may be best to study and memorize their anatomy in full before continuing anything else. How is she to make progress with finding their core when she doesn’t yet fully grasp the physical? How can she bring suffering to the steepest summit if she doesn’t know exactly which points to strike.

She looks again at the creature that has gone still on her cold metal table. He is gone, his core extinguished. And, most inexplicably, she wonders what it would be like to lay upon that chilly table. To feel leather straps tighten around her.

She supposes that she could try it. She can shift and morph and let one of her own come to take her. Not speak a word of her true nature until they are well into the operation. But surely they would notice the difference at once, when they slice her belly and find organs like their own. 

Even if that weren’t the case she wouldn’t do it. She imagines herself, a feebler, weaker version of herself bound and sliced and she shudders to her core. A fool’s endeavor that would be. She is a being of science, of adventurous studies, not a sniveling slab of well sculpted meat. Not one of those. She rolls him onto a gurney and wheels him into cryogenic compartment for safekeeping. She’ll dismember him later, pick and poke and truly get a handle on human anatomy. 

She closes the door and the chill runs through her, freezing blood and slippery vicera to her clothing and hair before it dissipates once more. She picks dried flakes from her cheeks and comes back to her maps. She thumbs her way over several possible abduction sites, seeking one that she hasn’t quite so generously tapped into yet. 

A blip on her map tells her that she has competition. 

She hasn’t seen competition in some time. 

These skies are hers. 

The soil beneath them are hers. She puts her craft into an idle stand still and lowers herself to the steaming desert sand.

She stands very still for a moment and then makes the shift. Only under a descending beam of electric blue light does she have second thoughts. Soft brown skin reverts to blue.