"As we get started, settle yourself in a comfortable position. Close your eyes or focus your gaze on one small area. Start by relaxing your muscles. When thoughts come to mind, disregard them..."

I lie face up on a yoga mat I grabbed before I had to fuck out of my house. My eyes are shut so I don't have to stare at the stained stucco on the apartment ceiling.

"Let your muscles become loose and relaxed, starting with your feet... your ankles....lower legs....knees.... upper legs....pelvis....torso... back....shoulders....arms.... hands....face....and head."

It's not working.

"Feel your body relax....."

Nine, almost ten, months ago, the literal love of my life left me, I lost my job, and the company I had tried to expose had bounced back and snuck even more bullshit underneath the noses of the entire country. I lost everything in the time span of a couple hours.

So I can't relax. Not anymore, really.

I sit up and grab the CD player, pop the lid open, and chuck the disk at the nearest wall. It shatters from the impact and imbeds itself into the sticky brown carpet. The apartment is the newest and it certainly isn't the cleanest, but it's the cheapest and nicest for the price point. And the landlord thinks I'm cool, so I get a little bit of a discount on the rent.

Hayley made fun of my leather jacket when I wore it for a few hours at least five days a week, and I'm glad I haven't seen her in some time. I have one ugly grey sweatshirt that I don't take off anymore because it takes too much energy, and the stains distract from the enormous bags under my eyes that not even concealer can disguise. I don't think I've brushed my hair in a month let alone washed it for a week. My apartment is even more of a mess, but that's irrelevant. What matters is that I'm sad, alone, and I don't want anybody to talk to me.

John stares long and hard when I walk into his ugly little convenience store a block away. It's the only place nobody goes to, it's close, and I know him so it's not weird and I get discounts sometimes if I look a little worse than I usually do.

"What's up, John?"

"You look like shit."

I keep walking to the back of the store. I need milk, the tater tots that can be heated up in a microwave, various party sized bags of chips, and an assload of chocolate candy bars. "I am having a great day, thank you for asking, that's so kind of you to care about me so much."

John is a bitch, but a touch bitch. He runs a tacky little convenience store in the sketchier part of town, and he lives with his friends who sort of protect him because of a past he refuses to disclose to me. I suspect it's drugs, since every other week some guy holds him at gunpoint and demands money. He just gives it to him, so that's the bitch part, but it barely phases him and that's where the tough part comes in.

"Did you try and follow along with the meditation CD I gave you?"

I forgot he loaned it to me in the first place. "Yeah, I did. It was pretty fuckin' stupid."

"Okay, yeah. I'll admit, it is a little stupid at first, but you have to give in and just do what it says. It really works, alright? I told you to trust me."

"I would, but it's broken now. There's nothing to get back from me but pieces and some of my carpet."

I know he's frowning in disproval. I don't even have to look at him. "Dude, that was mine. I needed it. There was still room to burn things on to it, like songs I rip from YouTube. I'm broke as hell."

There aren't any tater tots by the time I clear out the freezer in the back, and over half of the entire supply of the Doritos are gone and in my arms. It's a twenty five dollar haul. "Just buy the music instead of ripping it from the internet. It's the twenty first century."

"I would," he stares wistfully at the counter while I dig for my tiny grocery list in my back pocket, "but I don't know how, and if you were listening, I'm broke. Also, I'm not too good online transactions. They're kind of intimidating."

While I'm crouched down to the bottom shelf to find the good chocolate I hide, the bell above the door rings and I hear the sound of the gun cocking. When I glance around the display, John in banding a wad of fives together with a sad little rubber band and handing it to the man holding him at gunpoint, who promptly walks out as soon as he has what he wanted.

He sighs and goes back to organizing a pile of lottery scratchers in the clear countertop. Like I said, he's a bitch, but he's a tough bitch. He didn't even bat an eye or falter with the stack of bills.

"You shouldn't keep giving him money," I tell him and give him everything in my arms to scan, "you've really got to be standing up for yourself more often."

"I can stand up for myself. Nasty customers aren't gonna push me around, and you'll fall into that category if you give me your opinions on my life, again." He glares at me out of the corner of my eyes without turning even a centimeter to face me directly. He's a fucking wimp.

"Well, then why don't you?"

"Why don't you do something productive with your life and accept that fact your fiancé is no longer your fiancé, that he moved on instead of sulking around like a certain someone I know, and that eating tater tots with Doritos for every meal is so unhealthy? You had your chance to rebound, and you just... threw it away."

I keep eye contact while I grab the nearest package of chips, rip it open, and dump the contents all across the floor. He doesn't say anything.

Just because it's true doesn't mean he has to say it.

☢️

Tyler and Josh had sifted through Brendon's multiple essays of experiment conclusions and spent nights trying to decode his notes beside photographs of the symbiote effects on animals. It was gruesome, but they had no choice in the matter.

They knock on Taylor's office door and enter with pounds of overflowing folders and data sorted into charts. "Miss Swift, we would like to clear a few things with you before we begin testing again..."

She spins around to face them, the light of her chandelier casting menacing shadows on her face. "Call me Taylor, please. We're all friends here, okay?"

Tyler nods and approaches her desk with his armful. "A-Alright then, I guess I'll just get straight to the point. We want to start testing on the animals again and conduct another round or two. I know it's been a few months and you want to progress a few steps further, but we can't put human lives in danger until we know the full effects."

She's quiet, which is far from a good sign. "You know that's not what I want to hear."

Josh steps forward too. "W-we know, but we can't ethically put so many people in this much danger and pain. It's a horrible process, we shouldn't subject—"

"Tyler, Josh," she sighs and pushes herself up to her feet as she paces around her desk, "this waiting bit is my least favorite part of anything, and somehow, you both have found a way to extend it well beyond my patience level."

Tyler and Josh make eye contact with the other. They're terrified. "Taylor, s-surely you can understand our hesitation—"

"I actually can't understand, and that's the problem I have with this." She snatches up a photo of a testing rabbit, encased in a mass of green and black goo, torn to bits with organs nowhere to be found. "There are risks to dealing with other intelligent life, and we have to persevere. I want human test subjects in my labs tomorrow to begin the next stage of the experiment. No more animals, no more waiting. The one we found from Hudson, I want it, I want to use it. I want to see what else it can do. I want that one, or the violent one."

They both fall silent. The symbiotes fall under intensely classified information, nobody outside of the project knows about them, and no soul would ever be willing to allow a parasitic alien devour their innards while it slowly kills and possesses their body. "Who would ever want to volunteer for this? The Hudson one killed multiple people already, and so did the other grey one, the one named Riot, and—"

She closes her eyes and takes a few deep breaths, crumpling the paper in her hand and letting it fall to the floor beside her heels. "The city is crawling with homeless people. Offer them shelter, water, food, the works, in return for participation. They'll be stupid to turn any of those things down."

It's the most unethical plan they've ever heard, but like their unsuspecting test subjects, they really have no other choice but to agree.

Tyler is the first to reluctantly speak, and he agrees to her demands. "Okay. When should we start?"

She doesn't look at either of them while she makes the decision. Her gaze is fixated on the mountain of papers filled with tiny text and photos of animal corpses sucked bone dry. "Tomorrow. I want to use these symbiotes soon."