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Science Fiction Suspense Fiction

This story contains themes or mentions of physical violence, gore, or abuse.

I’m beginning to forget what it feels like to be myself.


For so long, I have pretended to be something other than my true self. The once clear lines of objective reality have been blurred. Where do the masks end and where do I begin? The real me. My true form. The concept of what once was me, seems so far away now- I fear I will never find it again.


I worry I’ve become lost in the disguises. The lies. The deception. Necessary at first for the mission, I know, but it doesn’t make the concept easier to digest. Who would I be now, if not for the mission? For many cycles I suspected the mission would endure forever, dooming me to an eternal existence of a face so foreign from my own. Now I know for certain, it will never end.


I miss my planet.


I miss the formless movement of energy that flows throughout all beings, connecting everyone and everything at once. I recall my first impression of the harsh duality and polarization upon my Earth arrival. The sense memory of those early days are etched in the fibers of my mind like carvings on ancient stone tablets left behind by outer terrestrial beings.


Why was I sent here? Of course, there is the mission directive, I couldn’t forget even if I hadn’t been instructed to download the briefing into my mind-space once Earth-bound connection was established. After ground contact had been made, and the safe house located, I uploaded the required resources and provisions via Mind-Link. Packaged with the new bodily veneer, was the well-known instructions, laced with massive implications for the future or humankind and the Galactic Cooperation initiative. Once I achieved a basic comfort level with my new appearance, I was to at once to establish contact with the human beings to begin propagating natural relationships.


With my human mask, came a set of credentials to grant access to employment and other typical human behavioural activities.


My first human mask was that of a Caucasian woman, aged 26 years. Going by the title Nancy, I was to report each day for employment at a food hall within walking distance of the safe house.


Many solar cycles have elapsed since my time behind the mask of Nancy, though echoes of my first experience with human emotions, linger still.


I recognize that I will never be fully at ease with the unpredictable nature of human emotions. Even with extensive training in transcendental stillness, I find it hard, to this day, to remain in total command and awareness of emotion and feeling. I discovered it easier to accept the vessels and cells which make up life on Earth. Physicality in a polarized realm is a simpler concept to settle into, against the nonsensical flow of emotions caused by unobservable, often trivial reasons.


Take for example, the fifth human mask I occupied, one of my longest periods in a single body, that of a male called Alex, spanning ten full solar cycles. Long enough that nearing the end, emotions of the masquerade had infiltrated deep within my energetic field, so when my romantic partner Dean revealed it to me that for some time he had been bedding and spending his chosen time with another, I, for a moment, truly felt this betrayal deep in my stomach. A feeling that percolated without my awareness until it overtook my chest cavity in a heavy dark cloud of despair.


Of course, in that instance I did not reveal my true form to Dean. The direct initiative of any human interaction is to seek and develop a relationship in which to reveal my true form. Remove the mask. If a strong relationship has been attainted, the human will be tested in their reaction. If the human can look past the mask, and remain in control, withholding a breakdown, it will be considered a successful step in propelling humanity on Earth toward Cosmic disclosure.


So far, I have yet to reveal myself to a human who has been able to receive the revelation without a level of irreversible hysteria.


I am not the only such being from my planet who has come to Earth with the same mission. None have had success is the entirety of the initiative. Though other planets within reach of the Galactic Federation have seen moderate to favorable success when faced with the Universal truth of infinite celestial and dimensional existences.


After the betrayal of Dean, I was given a new human mask, in a different country of origin. I yearned to not make the same mistake of letting my guard down to the power of human emotions again. For some time though, I feel shame to admit, I did become reckless in my decrement. Impatient. I dare say, I lost faith in the mission and made terrible mistakes. One such being prematurely revealing my true form, to the next human with whom I fostered a relationship.


I was to employ discretion when deciding to remove my human mask, revealing my true form to the chosen human candidate. This was to occur under a certain set of pre-requisites, such as a close person bond or relationship development. If after revelation, the human’s reaction was beyond simple shock, it was authorized, via Mind-Link, to remove memories of all interactions, letting the human continue on their existence without the trauma of knowing the truth which they were unable to comprehend.


This is how it had gone for five attempts. Until it all went very wrong.


For this, I only blame myself for the reckless actions of performing revelation too soon, for I was eager to prove something to the Federation. To myself.


The loss of human life is to be expressly avoided at all costs. In fact, it is forbidden under the decree for Planetary Protection. As an ambassador of the Galactic Federation, the taking of native life is viewed with the severest of lenses.


Speaking of the loss of life under my supervision, I know it could have been easily avoided if it were not for my unawareness of how the emotional effects of Dean lingered, long after I believed them to be gone.


 That night, it was much as it always goes upon revelation of my true form. The human was in my place of residence, invited under pretence of a cordial night of libations and viewing of a film. I had grown an immense fondness for human motion pictures and literature, so this was often an avenue I used to bond with humans before revelation.


I called the human to my chamber. He entered, alcoholic drink in hand, going on about the program we were about to watch. He saw me there, with my lower human appendages submerge in five inches of the conditioning fluid, which is used to contain and house, without damage, my human form. In my carelessness I summoned the human much too early, and there I was, half of my true form on display, while the other half bore the resemblance of my human shell.


The human, my friend, opened his mouth, as though he meant to scream, but no sound came out other than a severe expulsion of air. He turned quick on his heel, giving me no chance to speak. He fell off his feet. So fast, I hardly had time to register it happening, or why. I didn’t notice, you see, the leak of conditioning fluid that had escaped my platform.


Either had he.


Down he went, his beverage soaring above his head, just as the crook of his neck angled rightly against the hard surface top of a table in the room. With a wet crunch, the life left him at once.


Just like that, I was alone in the room. 


The body on the floor, void of consciousness. A pile of slowly decaying molecules and wasted DNA.


Once I caught up with the present situation, I moved quickly. With the mask of my human body shed to completion, I was able to move about in the way most natural to my kind. In a fluid motion I gathered the bodily remains, which moments prior housed the consciousness of a human being.


In natural form, I was able to take full advantage of my biological ability to use the surrounding magnetic field to manipulate the ether and move the body without physical effort.


There would be no Earthy place in which I could conceal the body from the Federation, for they have methods of viewing all that is and was and will be. So, I simply moved the body for the purpose of not having to see it in my space as I prepared to flee. Yes flee. There had been a loss of life under my charge and for this, I would be withdrawn from the mission, returned to the dimension of my home planet, and decommissioned in any way the Galactic Federation would see fit.


I cannot say for sure why I chose to flee. I can at times blame my lengthy occupation in human form, for the emotions of fear and shame I felt, even without the mask of humanity giving my formless body shape. If I were to remain in my true form, The Galactic Federation would have to employ minimal effort to return me home. However, there would be better a chance of hiding if I remained under the mask of a human body, so, that is what I did. Severing my connection with the Federation and going into hiding would mean I’d be confined to a singular human form for the remainder of my existence.


I left the safe house at once, under the concealment of deep night


That night feels long ago. Maybe it was, long ago. Maybe it is still that same night. Whatever the perception of time, the outcome remains ridged. I am cut off from the Federation. I will never return to my home planet in the dimension which my kind thrive. I will exist on Earth forever. In this human body. Without my pod full of conditioning fluid at the safe house, I have no way of shedding the mask I wear. And I dare not return. Cannot return. Else I face the consequences of my actions. My human inflicted actions. That is what I blame my predicament on. For I know, void of these emotions, the logic of my natural mind-space would have avoided such grave errors.


The longer I remain in this human form, the more I fear I will fall under the influence of human emotional error. Will there be a day, I forget entirely, my true nature? Is it inevitable that I will travel far enough from my truest mental state, until it is not possible to find my way back to who I really am.


I will have answers to all my fear-based questions in time.


I can wait. I will wait. Behind this mask.


Until the day comes when this form will no longer be a mask. And I will just be.


Maybe if I forget, I will discover what it is to feel happy.

December 09, 2021 17:52

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7 comments

Graham Kinross
21:34 Dec 13, 2021

Just my kind of story. Nice work.

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John Atlas
21:42 Dec 13, 2021

Thank you. Appreciate you taking the time to give it a read.

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Graham Kinross
23:24 Dec 13, 2021

I’ll be sure to look at more of your stories when you have some.

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Courtney Bunn
23:05 Dec 17, 2021

I loved every second of this! Can’t wait to read more from you 🙌🏼

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John Atlas
05:57 Dec 18, 2021

Thank you!

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Steven Anton
21:52 Dec 13, 2021

Great work. Haunting. Stuck with me after reading it.

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John Atlas
22:43 Dec 13, 2021

Huge compliment. Thank you.

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