Prologue:

Terror, blind and utter terror permeated my thoughts. I died, drowning in my own blood. I remembered flashes of viscera and flesh, iron and circuits. A bright white light hit my eyes, blinding me.

Then I felt a subtle little tug, I resisted for an instant, afraid but relented when it persisted gently. I was glad to be free from the horror of my last waking thoughts. They in turn were jumbled, cast away from me, because of their utter horror. A film descended over my thoughts, a voice murmured, and I flailed. After all, some memories I greatly coveted. Thoughts of hope and impossible dreams.

Then in that instant something fumbled, surprised by my sudden motion, and I fell into darkness. Many sharp blades tore at my form. Then paper surrounded me, I grasped one, hoping to arrest my endless fall, and though I grasped one I continued to fall. Lastly, I fell into nothingness.

I stayed in the nothingness for an eternity. Then their was light. Which was a little strange, since it had been dark for so long. Something filled with terror passed me by, it was leaving something, but I was undeterred. I had been languishing in darkness for so long that the light looked like a blessing. Even if it was as grisly as my death. All it wanted was a small little glimpse of light, viewed with proper eyes.

In that very instant I saw something. Two great worms spiraling around each other, enormous shards torn from their bodies as they danced, or fought. Each was immense, greater than cities, greater than continents, greater than planets, and more vast than the sun. One such fragment from one of the great worms spiraled down towards me, drifting and falling. It reminded me of my own fall into the nothingness.

I did not know whether it was intelligent, I could see that it would not hit me, it had been aimed for another. It had been aimed, it had been intended for another. The other was leagues away. I was suddenly filled with a jealous desire, I knew that I could usurp this fragment and bind it to myself.

I did just that. I propelled myself forward, reaching out with intangible fingers and snagged the colossal fragment of the worms. I pulled it towards myself, even as I followed the slipstream of the presence that passed me before. I dragged it into the light.

For a second their was darkness, then I felt the beat of a heart, the rush of blood through veins, it was startling after being without for such a long time. I also felt an ache, only in the flesh, on various parts of this body. A body which was now mine. I opened one eye, the other was shut and ached to open. Ah, that ache was clearly pain, how I missed you. I breathed for a second, reveling in the near forgotten sensation, and tasted the air. It was heavy with various scents. None that I recognized.

I tasted copper, or perhaps the iron of blood, it was also pleasant. I also saw nothing for a second, my eyes requiring just scant seconds to adjust. A glaring fluorescent light stared down at me. I flinched as suddenly an ugly face filled my vision. A blow struck my swollen eye causing me to tumble backwards ungracefully. With a surge of rage I struck out. At the same time, none of my limbs moved.

A forearm and hand, streaked with black and white stripes, separated from my own arm and carved a furrow effortlessly through and man. He collapsed backwards with a look of utmost shock painted on his ugly face. Within a split second the black and white striped arm disappeared. It left me standing in front of dying man in a darkened room, one lone, and flickering fluorescent light the only luminescence.

The room itself was a little extravagant and daresay lavish, despite the terrible light. A mahogany queen bed and genuine marble floor proving so. It was such a sharp contrast to the atrocious lighting that I actually had trouble organizing my thoughts.

I was brought out of my thoughts by the sound of slow clapping, a potbellied, obese, whale of man, with gangly hair, ill fitting, but expensive clothes, and a horrendously misshapen face smiled at me. It was a cruel smile, that attempted to look kind. However, its owner seemed to only be making a token effort, not caring for anybody.

"A Striker!" He crowed, on these words he sounded quite covetous, "How fortunate!"

Eh? A what? I did not speak these words, for I found this predicament very strange. I had apparently appeared in somebody's house, evidently a rich man, killed another in a spectacular but bloody fashion, and he wanted to congratulate me. Who was he?

In a split second my mind whirled though a myriad of possibilities, before settling on one thing. The psycho appeared to be familiar with me, which was highly unlikely, I did not know many obscenely wealthy people. He turned and gestured for me to follow him, with that still disturbing smile.

"Come along now, my Cécile, someone will get you cleaned up now," He said and I followed with an awkward stumble. I felt a twisting in my head, urging me to obey, and I did, unsure if I could actually disobey.

It was like a persistent urging, insidious, slowly creeping around my mind, tweaking little thoughts of insurrection. However, this body was not mine, and I could remain aloof and become incapable of control.

I withdrew, instead of piloting the body, I became akin to a puppeteer. The limbs moved in a shaky manner, choppy and with ill control. My grip was extremely tenuous but I persevered. Then disgusting ugly potbellied fellow led me into an opulent washroom. An enormous gold tub sat alongside an ivory toilet and marble sink. Cashmere wool towels hung from silver hooks.

The ugly fellow spoke again, I noticed that he spoke with a clearly French, possibly French Canadian accent. He informed me to make myself presentable and the mental twisting occurred again. I allowed my body, which was not always mine, follow the nudging as the ugly person left closing a n oak door behind him as he did.

This body was female and in a somewhat strange condition. Bruises and abrasions covered the exposed flesh. The clothing was partly indecent, rather more so than I had ever seen before. Dried blood covered the face and arms of the body, some of it not from the body but from the murdered person. Without the detachment gained from maintaining only a tenuous grasp I would probably be filled with terror.

The thoughts and memories of this body were inaccessible to me, something I needed to remedy. With shaky and aching hands I dug into the pocket on the really short shorts. I extracted a smartphone of unfamiliar make.

I glanced around for a clock, the ugly man would probably be displeased if I tarried so I needed to be fast. Once I found this vessels name I could begin to formulate an escape plan. I started the water in the tub, I would need the sound of water to cover my time spent on the smart phone.

I paused however, when I pressed the power button. I did not know the passcode. I mentally flailed for a second before remembering something from a story. I mindlessly pressed numbers. I tried different combinations, the ones that felt the most natural for my muscles to move.

The second one worked and I committed the number to memory, repeating it several times out loud to myself. My voice sounded hoarse and broken, as if I had been screaming for a long time. I searched around for quite a few seconds, since I was very unfamiliar with the phone design before I found settings and from there extrapolated my name, Cécile Vasil.

Cécile Vasil sounded foreign. At least it was foreign to my memories. The first name was obviously kind of french sounding. Vasil did not sound like French but I suppose it might be French. The closest name I could remember that possessed Vasil was as a first name. Some Russian sniper named Vasily Zaytsev. Since, the disgusting ugly guy had an obviously French accent that meant he most likely French.

I paused in thought as I stopped the water, perhaps he was Russian after all and was part of the KGB? Hmm, that might work as a theory. I remembered the arm, striped in black and white that materialized from my own arm.

Perhaps they were trying to develop abilities? The power I exhibited was clearly not normal. I reclined in the tub as I thought, washing away dried blood. The unpleasant ugly fellow was not surprised. He had been expecting something of that nature to happen.

With an effort of will a black and white arm seeped out of the flesh of my arm. I turned the additional limb around until the hand was palm up, it was effortless, almost easier than moving my own aching limbs. I reached out with the arm, reaching towards a bottle of expensive glass bottled shampoo with the arm. It stretched outwards, eventually a whole body stepped out from mine.

Clinically detached I noticed that it was nude and adorned with matching white and black stripes that reminded me heavily of a tiger, albeit one that was albino or something. I could see from both its eyes and this vessels. However, my mind was more closely entwined with the inhumanely beautiful creature that had stepped forth from my body.

It was an utterly strange sensation to posses two bodies. I turned from my advance towards the shampoo bottle and looked upon my vessel. It was slim and pretty, with overly pale, almost sickly white skin, deep blue eyes. Or rather eye, since one was swollen shut and a myriad of heavy bruises kept the black eye company. I would say that the body was pretty but had no standard to hold it too besides the black and white creature.

The other body snatched up the shampoo, or actually it did not. The hand carved through the bottle as if it was tissue paper but even less. Even tissue paper showed more resistance than the bottle made. It was utterly annihilated.

One word resonated in my head as I stared at the creature, Siberian.