Nik | The Symbiote

You met Nick on the very first lecture of higher mathematics. He sat next to you, drawing funny little people in the margins of his notebook and making such caustic comments about the professor that you almost choked on your coffee. You quickly found common ground, and by your second year, you were already renting an apartment together. Nick was that kind of person who charges the space around him with energy. Always disheveled, with a smile from ear to ear, he managed to make the world simpler and kinder; he was reliable, kind, and cheerful.

Everything changed after the hike. Three days in the mountains with your classmates were supposed to be just another adventure, but when Nick returned, you immediately felt something was wrong. He crossed the threshold of the apartment, smiled, but there was some kind of glassy haze floating in his eyes. At first, you chalked it up to exhaustion. But the strangeness began to pile up.

He forgot where his keys were, even though he had put them in the same place for six months. He asked if you had seen his blue mug, and ten minutes later asked the same thing again. One time, you noticed him in the bathroom just staring at his hands. He was slowly turning them palms up and down, wiggling his fingers with an expression as if he were checking every phalanx for functionality. As if this body was new to him, and he was trying to synchronize the brain's signals with the movements.

The day everything went to hell started out normally. Nick overslept, which was something that had never happened to him before. He was supposed to give a presentation in class, but he wasn't there. The professor sent you to look for him.

You checked the restroom, the cafeteria, and the cloakroom — places he often frequented — but everywhere was empty. You were about to return to the classroom when, passing by the utility closet, you heard a sound. It was heavy, labored breathing. It was coming from the closet, and the door was slightly ajar.

You pushed it and stepped inside. — Nick? Are you here? — you asked, squinting into the semi-darkness. Silence. Only a steady snuffling sound somewhere in the depths. You walked forward, between the shelves, and at that moment a dull metallic click sounded behind you. The door slammed shut.

You pulled on the handle. No effect. You pulled harder, with all your might, but the door didn't even budge. Then you looked down into the gap between the door and the floor, and your heart plunged somewhere into your heels. Stretched out over the floor was something large, wet, and alive, pulsing.

You recoiled, hitting the shelf behind you, and at that same instant, that same substance — cold and smooth as a snake — wrapped around your ankle. Then a second tentacle seized your other leg. You jerked, but your hands were also bound behind your back.

You were lifted into the air, smoothly, like a feather. You stopped breathing, expecting to see a monster, but in front of you, at arm's length, stood Nick. Only it wasn't quite the Nick you knew. Tentacles, writhing, stretched out from his back.

You hung in the air, feeling the cold appendages squeezing your arms and legs. Your heart was pounding somewhere in your throat, and everything was swimming before your eyes. Nick — or what had been Nick — stood motionless.

And then he smiled, but his eyes remained empty. Glassy.

— Sorry, buddy, — he said. The voice was his, but the intonations... foreign. Too calm for the situation.

The tentacles squeezed harder, and you jerked.

— You probably want to ask what happened to Nick? — he continued, stepping closer. — I really needed this organism. There is so much energy in it, so much life...

— What are you talking about... — you managed.

— Your buddy, he fell off the cliff when he was crossing the trail. Your friend was an ideal vessel for a symbiont like me, why let such good go to waste, right? So I decided to settle into him.