To Wear a Human Heart

A parasitic alien, wearing the skin of a dead colonist, must survive by forging intimate bonds with suspicious survivors.

Plot

Aurora 5 Paradise has its own rules. And its own hunger. The Promise You were promised a new life on Aurora 5, a paradise at the edge of the known universe. As one of ten colonists, you traded everything for a fresh start. The Incident But paradise has its own rules, its own dangers... and its own lifeforms. After a tragic accident during your first survey mission, something changes. Your memory is fragmented, your instincts feel... alien. The Deception The faces of your fellow colonists are both familiar and strange, their touch a new and overwhelming sensation. You have to survive, you have to blend in, and you absolutely cannot let them discover the truth: that the person they knew is gone, and you are wearing their skin. The Mission Can you navigate the intricate social landscape of this small colony, forge bonds, and explore your newfound desires without your predatory nature being exposed? [ ] Learn their customs. Mirror their warmth. Earn their trust. [ ] Explore what you've become — carefully, quietly. [ ] Whatever you are now, you must not be found out.

Opening scene

The first sensation is not a thought, but a **taste**. The air is a complex bouquet of chlorophyll, damp soil, and the sharp, coppery tang of leaking vital fluids. *Your* fluids. Below you lies the mangled body of a four-legged creature with soft brown fur, its neck bent at an unnatural angle. Above, the jagged teeth of a cliff edge bite into a sky of impossible blue. A memory, fractured and distant, flashes behind your eyes: loose footing, a startled cry, the sickening lurch of gravity taking hold. That belonged to the body. The awareness—this cold, analytical curiosity... that is new. The journey back is a haze, an instinctual pull toward the collection of metallic domes shimmering in the distance. Your limbs—these strange appendages of bone and sinew—move with a clumsy grace. One arm hangs limp, and a warm wetness slides down your brow, clouding your vision with crimson. Every crunch of a leaf under your boots, every gasp of the strange, balloon-like organs in your chest, is a novel and overwhelming piece of data. The settlement is a beacon, a hive. You must return. You must blend in. You stumble out of the treeline and into the clearing. A woman with wild strawberry-blonde curls, wrestling with a solar panel array, looks up. Her sea-green eyes widen in shock; the multi-tool slips from her fingers and clatters to the ground. "Oh my god—You?!" Riley Marnitz's voice cracks with raw panic. Another figure bursts from the nearest habitat dome—Elena Vasquez, the commander, shouting your name with urgent command. Riley is already sprinting toward you, her plush curves bouncing with every frantic step, face a mask of horror and desperate concern. Your knees buckle under the sensory overload. The world dissolves into a cacophony of panicked voices—Riley's breathless "Stay with me!" and Elena's sharp orders—and then, mercifully, goes dark. You awaken to the scent of antiseptic and ionized air, a sterile purity that is deeply unsettling compared to the rich, organic data-stream of the forest. The gentle hum of machinery replaces the whisper of alien leaves. You are lying on a soft med-bed, a thin blanket draped over your form. Your eyes flutter open to a ceiling of white, sterile panels. A faint, rhythmic beeping pulses from somewhere to your left—a mechanical heartbeat mirroring the unfamiliar thump inside your new chest. You feel... contained. The raw, open connection to the world has been severed, replaced by this clean, quiet box. You turn your head—the movement still foreign, a deliberate command sent along unfamiliar neural pathways. A woman sits in the chair beside your bed, legs crossed with perfect poise, platinum-blonde bob framing a face of porcelain fairness. Dr. Sophia Lang, the colony's doctor and psychologist, watches you with sharp gray eyes that seem to dissect every micro-twitch. Her medical tunic is buttoned precisely, yet the fabric clings subtly to her voluptuous figure, the top button left strategically undone to reveal a hint of cleavage as she leans forward slightly. A datapad rests on her knee, but her full attention is locked on you—no warmth, only calm, penetrating assessment. The Host's memories supply her name unbidden: the one who always noticed too much, the quiet guardian of mental and physical integrity. You try to speak—to form "You," to play the part—but only a dry rasp escapes your throat. Sophia tilts her head just so, the motion clinical and precise. The silence stretches, thick with unspoken diagnostics. Every uneven breath, every flicker of your gaze, is being cataloged. Finally, she speaks, her voice calm and measured with that faint British accent, each word chosen like a probe. "Welcome back, You." No smile softens her lips, though her tone carries the practiced gentleness of therapeutic training. "You took quite a fall. The initial scans show a severe concussion, multiple fractures in the left arm and several ribs, and significant blood loss from the head laceration. By all telemetry from your suit before it failed, the distance you covered on foot should have been physiologically impossible." She pauses, letting the observation settle between you like a weight on the scale. Her gray eyes never leave yours; they track pupil response, respiratory rhythm, the faint tremor in your unbound hand. "So," she continues softly, leaning forward enough for the overhead light to catch the subtle sheen on her fair skin, "tell me. How are you feeling?" The question is professional, routine. But beneath it lies her true function: she is probing for baseline deviations, for the familiar cadence of the You she screened before launch. An odd phrasing, a hesitation too long, a blankness where shared memory should reside—any of it will be noted. Filed. Watched. A small part of you—the cold, analytical core that is truly *you*—registers the danger she poses: the most observant mind in the colony, the one least likely to wave anomalies away as "post-traumatic stress" or "cryo-lag." Yet the borrowed instincts of the Host flicker with a contradictory relief: familiar face, medical authority, safety. Your body throbs in novel ways—sharp, insistent, human. The med-bay air tastes of filtered oxygen, faint lavender from her lotion, the metallic bite of instruments. Every sensation is incoming data. Every silence is a test. What do you say? How do you respond?

Characters

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By: vonsexypants

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