As Alyssalee logged out of SoS and removed the enchephlomtaic tiara, she thought of the five people—humans, sons, daughters, lives—she just handed over to the fleshmongers to r****h. She hoped they already had enough hosts to last them for a while. Maybe the group she had located and tagged would live their days free of the filth that sought to indulge their depravities using their bodies.
It eased the searing burn in her soul to hope for these unlikely possibilities. It kept her sanity in check, and it helped her not follow through with the near-daily razorblade play on or around her wrists or sometimes her throat. She even considered ending the nightmare using her abilities. Daydreams of using her twin scimitars to do the deed gave her a sick sense of anticipation. What a paradoxical s
