astrfy66

@@@@@Cold blows past me like tornado winds I hear the thud before I feel it And then pain is everywhere Not high enough,I whisper to myself through the pain When will the pain end? When? ? The blackness swallowed up the agony, and I was weak with gratitude that the memory had come to this most final of conclusionsThe blackness took all, and I was freeI took a breath to steady myself, as was this body's habit But then the color rushed back, the memory reared up and engulfed me again No!I panicked, fearing the cold and the pain and the very fear itself But this was not the same memoryThis was a memory within a memory?a final memory, like a last gasp of air?yet, somehow, even stronger than the first The blackness took all but this: a face The face was as alien to me as the faceless serpentine tentacles of my last host body would be to this new bodyI'd seen this kind of face in the images I had been given to prepare for this worldIt was hard to tell them apart, to see the tiny variations in color and shape that were the only markers of the individualSo much the same, all of themNoses centered in the middle of the sphere, eyes above and mouths below, ears around the sidesA collection of senses, all but touch, concentrated in one placeSkin over bones, hair growing on the crown and in strange furry lines above the eyesSome had more fur lower down on the jaw; those were always males The colors ranged through the brown scale from pale cream to a deep almost-blackAside from that, how to know one from the other? This face I would have known among millions This face was a hard rectangle, the shape of the bones strong under the skinIn color it was a light golden brownThe hair was just a few shades darker than the skin, except where flaxen streaks lightened it, and it covered only the head and the odd fur stripes above the eyes