Nesert

1.1

Tessa James was fuming. After the crash, she jogged across the empty country road to check the other driver. That car had smashed into her deliberately! And though the damage on either vehicle didn't look too severe, the blonde woman behind the wheel looked dazed as Tessa approached and leaned through the open window.

"Are you ok---"

The woman's eyes opened and seemed to flash, her hands reaching up to pull Tessa's face close to her own. A sharp pain pierced the back of the girl's throat and then resonated through her neck and skull.

And then she was gone.

Not dead, but shoved to the back corner of her own mind. There was a new Her. A new mind, a new voice, a new will.

Tessa watched as her hand reached past the now limp driver, grabbed a knife, and ended the woman's life with a quick slash to the throat. Tessa screamed, but her mouth didn't obey.

Nothing obeyed.

Her hand grabbed a bag out of the back seat. Her legs walked back to her car. Her fingers pulled back on the door handle. Her body slid into the driver's seat. No amount of resistance or focus altered the confident movements of her limbs.

Her car sped away and Tessa could reach past her own terror and confusion for a long enough moment to feel the enormity of what had just happened: she'd murdered someone. The moment passed far too quickly, though, as she watched her hands steer the car down the road and the fear swept her away from all other thoughts.

And then a voice, a soothing voice, but with the undertones of a snake luring you closer to its fangs.

"No, you are not dreaming and no, you are not crazy."

Tessa's mouth smiled, but it was not Tessa smiling. "I've come to love this part."

The voice managed to be both quiet and all consuming, taking up all the space in her head.

"I'm afraid I cannot survive without a host and my last one couldn't seem to stop screaming."

The voice gave a little chuckle before turning colder. "I have no patience for that, so I would highly recommend you not follow her example."

Another chuckle and then Tessa felt her mouth twist into a small smirk. "It did feel so very nice to finally kill her, though. Like a cold drink after a grueling day. Pity I had to rush it."

Tessa felt the scream rising, but fought it down like bile burning in her mind. She calmed her thoughts.

"Good!" The voice became lighter and gentler, almost playful. "I had a feeling about you. I've gone through several hosts rather rapidly as of late and it can be exhausting bouncing from body to body. You're young and strong, though, and I'll admit I was mostly drawn to your height. I haven't been tall for...oh...nine hosts?" Tessa felt her hands ticking off a count. "Yes, I think nine back was fairly tall, but still not as tall as you."

Tessa's left leg stretched slightly as her eyes moved over it. "There's a power in height. Of course, there's a power in being small as well. No one notices you. No one thinks you're a threat." Her hand reached down and ran over the newly acquired limb. "I'd like to be noticed again."

Her body stretched up, her hand adjusting the mirror to look at her face, golden brown hair with eyes that matched, but the pain intensified in the back of Tessa's head and neck accompanied by...movement.

"That's me. The pain will subside as soon as I get myself situated around your spinal cord and into your brain. Calm down. I'm not doing any damage, just making...room." Tessa again fought down the scream of horror as she felt Her burrowing deeper. The voice made a quick clicking to get her attention before rambling along like they were meeting at a party. "So, introductions. You're Tessa James. 19. Smart...for a human, I mean, which really isn't saying all that much," Tessa's body let out a small sigh, "but your mind is so very limited on its own. That's hardly your fault. You may actually be a very good candidate for this latest whim of an experiment, though."

The word "experiment" quickly filled her with dread. And yet, it didn't. Her mind thought dread, but there was no feeling with it. No sinking, no weight, no tightening in her chest.

She was not even in control of her emotions anymore.

The terror of her thoughts was juxtaposed against an electric invigoration of intense giddiness, like a child who had gotten a new puppy on Christmas morning.

The voice continued in a fast paced clip. "Now it's my turn. I am the goddess Sekhmet. Or I was a few thousand years ago at least." She blew an exasperated breath out of Tessa's nose and mouth. "You humans really are rather fickle. I am a Goa'uld, a race that rules this galaxy, though your fair planet ran us off quite some time ago. Most of my brethren abandoned Earth after the uprising so long ago, but a few of us were left behind." She spat out the last few words as hot bitterness flashed through Tessa's body and the images of two young men, dead, filled her mind.

Tessa's body calmed again as she felt Sekhmet take a deep breath. "But what you're feeling in your head there is me, my body. I suppose you would compare me to some sort of snake or eel." An image flashed into Tessa's mind of a creature along with the knowledge that this was what the goa'uld looked like. This was what was boring into her skull.

"Our kind cannot survive without a host and we prefer humans. Your bodies are so easy to repair when damaged." Tessa's right arm rolled back and forth stiffly. "Like this shoulder. I can fix that up soon. What happened to it, though?" But Tessa quickly realized it was a rhetorical question. Sekhmet already had full access to her memories. "A car accident a few years ago. Hmmm, but you weren't the driver. Ah yes, I can see how that positioning would have injured the shoulder in that way." Tessa tried to hide away from the intruder, but her mind was on full display, a gallery for Sekhmet to wander through as she pleased.

The talk of a car accident again turned Tessa's thoughts to Sekhmet's last...host and she attempted to speak, but it was only inside her...their...head.

"You killed that woman."

Sekhmet bristled. "Yes, I did. I couldn't very well leave a former host alive. She was nothing."

Tessa felt a change in her throat and her mouth began to move. Out came a deep booming voice with little resemblance to her own. It was filled with authority and power and made Tessa shrink even further back into the small corner she occupied.

"You would do well to remember that I will deliver the same fate to you if you cross me. I can share knowledge with you. I can give you long life and perfect health. I can show you this world and others. But I am your god and you will obey me."

Tessa felt any remaining hope disappear as she cowered inside her own mind. Accept Sekhmet or die. A fork in the road where both paths led to death. A death of her life or a death of her body.

Sekhmet could feel Tessa's understanding at the choices before her and used that moment to show her some of the wonders she'd seen in her long life. Tessa's mind was taken over by images of mountains and valleys, rivers and oceans, landscapes she'd longed to see. She saw skies filled with suns and stars and moons that could never be Earth and views of worlds from far above their atmospheres.

How could she choose otherwise? Tessa felt her mouth move into a grin, Sekhmet realizing she'd won this first battle. Her foot pressed down hard on the gas pedal and adrenaline shot through their body as the car sped off.