Empyrean Iris Story Collection

Keep Them Warm Pt. 3

He woke up flat on his back staring up at the ceiling. It was dark, but that was expected when you were living on a space station. Hand to his head, he sat up and rubbed his eyes becoming aware of a now-familiar sensation tugging at the skin of his stomach and sides.

It had been almost a month since he had been stuck with the alien eggs, feeding off him for support, and in that time he had grown a greater appreciation for women and pregnancy, not to say that what he was experiencing was in any way close, but it did have elements that were rather similar.

Testing had concluded a likely series of events, which had lead to this strange ability by the adaptids. It appeared as if the original Adaptids had had the usual binary gender system that you see in many species, a male, and a female, and at that time, their eggs had been primarily parasitic until hatching. It may have been, that, originally, they laid their eggs on other species, and a few of the eggs would survive. However, when they met the original version of the host gender, the situation had turned out to be mutually beneficial for both of them. The more mutually supportive, the more the hosts evolved to help the adaptids. Eventually a line of DNA acquisition allowed the host to pass on its DNA through the parasitic eggs.

Over time, this ability had allowed the adaptids to incorporate other species into their genetic code successfully breeding in desired traits. They probably hadn't been a species that was originally intended for sentience, but their ability to adapt had changed things.

It was concluded that the use of a human for adaptids evolution was an inevitability and not an accident. The queen had probably intended to do what she did the moment she saw them, it was in their nature to do so.

For him, the tradeoff wasn't so bad, he supposed. Granted he had what could best be described as an absolutely MASSIVE tic, but one that allowed him to eat whatever he wanted whenever he wanted.

As far as his newfound appreciation for pregnant women, that came with his inability to sleep on his stomach, strange and sometimes unnerving cravings, random nausea, and, recently, an extreme sensitivity to smell, not to mention the almost compulsive need people felt to touch the eggs whenever they saw them.

The smell though, that was the worst thing. Whatever this was, it wasn't simply a distaste for specific smells, but he swore on his life that he could Smell things he shouldn't have been able to smell.

He stood up, stretched and walked over to the viewing window pressing the button to open the shutters on his way past bathed suddenly in the light of Jupiter's stormy red eye. He paused there looking out at the view. He took a deep breath closing his eyes and smiling to himself. Not many people get to live their dream, not many people become what they wanted to be as a kid.

He was incredibly lucky.

A knock at the door startled him from his musings.

Speaking of incredibly lucky....

"Come in!" He called wandering over to the side of the room to grab a glass of water.

THe door hissed open, and Sunny stepped into the room, ducking under the short door frame before it hissed closed behind her. She glanced towards the window, "WHo the hell decided to give you the executive suite."

He smirked, "pretty suite view, Isn't it."

"Where do you want this." She wondered holding the breakfast trey before her.

"Uh.... just set in on the side table there." He said stepping into the bathroom and closing the door with a sharp hiss.

Sunny heard the water turn on, "Krill wants to see you this morning." She called, a little louder so he could hear it."