Chapter 1

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  Rachel Morgan was always a bit of an odd child, or at least that's what her mother would always tell her. Instead of spending Sunday night hanging out with friends like any normal eighteen year old would, she was in her room, lying flat on her back in bed reading the latest issue of Spider-Man...that, and of course and not doing her homework. Her short blonde haired head rested on her pillow, and her hazel eyes were narrowed and focused upwards on the drama unfolding on the page above her.

In this issue, Spidey was fighting Venom yet again. Venom had just kidnapped Mary Jane and was holding her hostage until the time when she would inevitably be rescued. Pretty ho-hum as far as Spider-Man stories went, but she couldn't help herself, she needed to know what happened next. After all, Venom had always been her favorite Spider-Man villain. Recently, though, stories featuring him were starting to get kind of stale. Maybe they just seemed better when she was younger, but more likely, she realized, was that these comics just repeated the same storylines every five years or so.

Whatever the case was, this story she was reading now was at least decent, but just as it seemed to be getting good she turned the page and found that she'd reached the end with yet another cliffhanger waiting for her.

"We'll get you hooked on this story, and then make you buy the rest!" she said with a sigh "Figures, maybe next month they'll actually finish it."

Tossing the book onto the floor she groaned and put her hands on her face. Earlier that day, she'd gotten into yet another argument with her mom. What they were arguing about she couldn't remember, something stupid she was sure. She couldn't even tell what it was she was angry about, every sentence the problem seemed to change from one thing to another. One minute she would berate her with questions like "why do you read all those comic books" the next she'd shift over to "why haven't you applied to any colleges yet". Rachel just came to the conclusion that her mom just didn't like the person she grew up to be and tried her best to ignore the rest.

With her dad gone, though, that was becoming harder and harder to do. Ever since he died her mother had been making these weird efforts to "connect" with her.

"We should go out sometime" she would say "a girls day out, just you and me". That mostly just meant her mom asking her about friends, school, and boyfriend prospects, none of which she was particularly inclined to talk about. All of this would be done while they both tried to feign interest in the multitude of clothing stores they walked in and out of.

Rolling left along her mattress, she carefully toppled off the side landing with her knees and hands on her carpeted floor. Groaning again she pushed herself up, slowly rising until she finally stood on her own two feet. She rubbed her face with her hand and lumbered over to the mirror on the far side of her room.

She did that a lot recently, just look at herself. It's not like she ever really changed all that much between inspections, but she liked doing them anyways. She was up late all last night on the internet, so even by 8pm she was already bored and tired of it, which was evident by bags that appeared faintly under her eyes.

After not bothering to do anything with her hair that day, it looked almost like a ruined bird's nest. Earlier that month she decided to cut her hair short, but all that did was make her look even more like a boy than usual (and give her mom even more reason to berate her about her appearance).

With a sigh, she slouched, and her reflection slouched with her. What was she going to do tonight she wondered to herself. Probably nothing, but while she was doing nothing she at least entertained the thought that she might do something.

Maybe she should go out and see the meteor shower they were talking about on the news that morning, a once in a century spectacle they said. Unless she could convince one of her friends to go, though, her mother probably wouldn't allow it. She never let her out alone past nine, and this was supposed to be going on all night.

Her friends never really liked those sorts of things anyways. They would all probably get bored after the first few, check their phones, and then go home and watch something on Netflix. Not that watching something on Netflix didn't sound like a grand old time to Rachel, but she was looking for something different, something exciting, something...

Just as those thoughts entered her mind, there was a brief flash outside her window, and then a loud popping sound. She turned to look and saw something streaking across the sky. "Was the meteor shower starting already?" she wondered. She walked over to her window and opened it so she could get a better look. Whatever it was, it was burning up, or at least that's what the news said happened to most meteors. More than likely this one probably wouldn't make it to the ground before it completely disintegrated.

As she watched it, though, it continued along its path across the night sky until it reached the tops of leafless trees of nearby woods. At this point she realized it wasn't going to burn up. Less than a second after it disappeared from view over the tops of the trees, there was an audible boom, and then silence.

For a moment she just stood there propping herself up against the window frame. What was that thing? From what she heard in school only the really big meteors would make it to the ground, what was it that made this one different?

Whatever it was, it filled Rachel with a sudden, newfound excitement that was lacking in her otherwise humdrum evening. New assignment: go to the crash site and investigate what was there; report back with any unusual findings. She was already beginning to concoct a dozen little stories for her imminent expedition, each one more exciting than the last. Who knows, maybe there was a symbiote in there with her name on it that would attack her and bond with her if she got too close.

That made her grin and chuckle slightly, a surprising reaction from her that she really didn't think all that much of.

Throwing on a sweater, she made a bee line for her bedroom door and made her way down the stairs to the foyer. She slipped her feet into each of the already tied shoes and bolted out the door. From the looks of it, it seemed like it landed somewhere near the big clearing where all the summer bonfires used to be.

She wondered if she still remembered how to get there...

"Just got to get back before mom gets home" she recited to herself over and over. She walked quickly along the concrete path that led from the door of her house to the street, making her way to the corner of the development that bordered the wilderness. After a few steps she stuffed her hands into her pockets to shield them from the blustery autumn chill.

The tree line was about five streets away from her house and then some, so she thought maybe 20 minutes there and then 20 minutes back, plenty of time. All the same, though, she picked up her pace a little, not because of the cold, but because she was so excited about what she might find. Nuzzling her neck down to shield herself from the wind, she grinned broadly.

"Screw Netflix" she said with a smile "I'm having a blast now!"

In no time she had made her way to the field that separated her neighborhood from the forest. Years ago, there would have been kids running around and playing games, but in recent years the woods became less and less popular a play area as the development grew and things to do became more and more indoor-centric. Because of this, the grass in the field had become a little overgrown, though not enough to discourage Rachel from plowing on.

When she was fifty feet from the tree line, the light of the neighborhood had faded into a pale glow behind her, so without removing her bag she reached behind her back and pulled out a head mounted flashlight from one of the bags side pockets. Strapping it to her head, she flicked the switch and a thin beam of light shot from the bulb affixed to her forehead.

Once she finally approached the trees, Rachel was surprised at how much noise they were making. The limbs shifted and swayed in the light breeze, even without the leaves the creaks and moans of the hundred foot high structures were very apparent.

The air in the woods seemed much colder than in her neighborhood. She heard, but couldn't see the dead leaves on the ground that crunched and shifted underneath her feet. She hoped she wouldn't encounter any wild animals, but at the same time the sheer lack of any sounds beyond the trees and leaves was disconcerting to her. Her flashlight started to blink in and out, and then suddenly turned off, leaving her with nothing but the light of a crescent moon to light her way.

Not one to be deterred, she tuckered on lightless. Once she finally made it to the clearing, she saw it. In a small crater at the very center of the grassy field was a five foot wide hunk of black space rock, still emitting steam from its recent atmospheric entry.

Wasting no time, she approached it, hoping she could grab a chunk to take home before anyone else that might have seen or heard it could get to it. As she got closer though, she started to feel a bit strange; not bad, just strange. Her heart started to flutter and she realized her breathing was becoming a little bit heavier. Her desire to investigate the crash, which had before been just curiosity, now started to take on a more fervent form, but she just used that to fuel the fantasies she had already built about it. She really wanted to get a closer look at the meteorite now, and to fulfill that she walked quicker so as to close the distance just a little bit sooner.

At three feet from it, she stopped. Part of the rock had fallen away to reveal a hollow interior, and as she leaned over to see what it was, instead of wonderment and excitement, she furrowed her brow in confusion.

It was hard to make out what it was in the gloom of the early evening, but from where she was standing it looked like the inside was laced with some kind of mucus-like membrane, like someone had sneezed really hard into it. Something like this should have surprised her, it seemed, but the possibility of organic extraterrestrial life almost seemed ordinary at this point for some reason.

Besides, it wasn't the alien snot, but what was buried inside of it that suddenly intrigued her the most. Barely visible within the crevice was what seemed to be a football sized egg. It was egg shaped at least. She knew that was what she wanted to take as soon as she laid eyes on it. Any sense of danger the object might pose to her was overwhelmed by a curious sense of wanting she bore for it.

She'd never been very good at keeping her hands off of unknown objects anyways, no matter how much her mom would tell her not to, and this thing especially she just couldn't resist. Unzipping her backpack, she reached in and drew out a pair of gardening gloves (which more often than not were warranted when picking up strange objects).

Slipping them on, she leaned over, being careful not to touch the rock (which seemed to have cooled rather quickly, but she didn't want to risk it). As her gloved hands made contact with the mucus, it ripped and fell away like it was made of tissue paper, which made it easy for her to wrap her fingers around the egg-like thing and draw it from its rocky cocoon.

Holding it up high to catch the moonlight, she turned the object about in her hands, trying to get a better look at it.

"What the hell is this" she muttered.

The surface seemed to be reflective, shimmering slightly in the moonlight as if it were covered in some sort of Vaseline coating. It wasn't made of rock or anything, because when she applied pressure with her hands the outer membrane gave a little bit, taking the consistency of a thick skin. All along it there were crisscrossing veins of various thicknesses creating a web-like network across its surface.

Her heart beat fast, she could feel her pulse in her hands...or at least that's what she thought it was. After she stood still for a moment longer and allowed her heart rate drop, she realized she wasn't feeling her own pulse, she was feeling the egg's. The egg itself was pulsating slightly, though in the low light you wouldn't be able to tell just by looking at it.

"Maybe..." she thought to herself "Maybe I should keep a hold of it... just for a little while...for safe keeping." She wasn't sure who she was guarding it from, it just seemed like it needed to be protected.

Kneeling down she placed the thing on the ground and swung her backpack from over her shoulders onto the grass in front of her. She unzipped it again, and opening it wide she picked the egg back up again, sliped it carefully into the mostly empty bag, and sealed it up tight. It wasn't very heavy, but all the same she didn't want people seeing her carry it around once she got back to civilization.

The walk home from the woods usually took about twenty minutes, but she took her time today, anything to keep her away from her house for just a little bit longer. A short ways back through the woods, her headlamp flickered back to life. "Maybe a wire disconnected or something" she thought to herself.

Eventually, she found herself standing in the familiar tungsten glow of the streetlamps of her street, and the reality that she had probably been out a little longer than she intended hit her like a meteor crash. She pulled out her phone and looked at the time...yep, her mother was probably home by now.

"Great" she thought, stuffing the phone back into her pocket.

When she finally arrived back at her house, she saw that her mom's car was pulled up into the driveway, just like she figured.

She ambled up to the door and tried to open it as quietly as she could, but the metal hinges squeaked just ever so slightly so as to alert anyone in the building of anyone entering. She slipped off her shoes and tiptoed her way through the hall trying to make it to the stairs while avoiding detection.

Passing by the kitchen, she turned her head to look in and saw her mother leaning on the counter with her arms crossed watching her.

"Where have you been?" she asked sharply.

Rachel didn't respond at first, but she realized that her mother wouldn't let her leave until she did.

"Just out for a bit" she mumbled.

"With who?"

"Nobody, I was just out by myself, o.k.?".

"Rachel Morgan, don't lie to me." She said firmly "I can tell when you are lying and right now you are definitely lying to me."

"First she wants me to be out with friends, now she wants me not to?" She thought "Can't she at least be consistent in her nagging?"

"I was just getting some air before working on some homework, o.k?"

Her mother frowned, but the inclusion of homework in her alibi seemed to at least satisfy her.

"Alright, well you better get started, it's getting late and you need to be in bed early for your math test tomorrow".

"Gotcha." She said waving her hand dismissively

She'd completely forgotten about the Math test, but to her that didn't really matter now in light of her present cargo.

Wasting no time, she bolted up the stairs, opened her doorway, entered it, and shut to door behind her. She knelt on the ground and swung her backpack onto the carpet in front of her. She was trying to be quiet, but when opening the bag every pop and click of the zipper seemed to reverberate throughout the room, inviting the attention of anybody who might have ended up hearing it. After a few more unsuccessful attempts to be quiet, she ended up just ripping the proverbial Band-Aid off and pulled the zipper along its path as fast as possible.

Reaching down along the inside of the bag, she grabbed the bottom of her prize with both her hands and slowly drew it out. It was light, but for some reason it seemed a bit bigger than it was before, though she may have just been imagining things. Once it was fully out, she held it up so that it could catch as much of the lamp's light as it could. Now she could see that the thing was actually not black, but a very dark green color. She could more clearly see the veins pulsing, and for some reason it didn't seem to disturb her as much as it probably should have.

She looked the thing over, turning it about in her hands like before to see as much of it as she could. It looked fairly uniform, no breakages or holes, no damage from its crash landing on earth. It also felt warmer now, though it may have just been that she wasn't holding it with her gloves anymore.

Now that she had it though, she wasn't sure exactly what to do with it. She couldn't keep it out on her shelf like a cool rock or an interesting looking branch; her mother would practically have an aneurysm. She needed someplace to hide it, someplace safe and secure where nobody would find it.

As she thought more and more about it, a small voice in the back of her mind whispered "...in the closet".

Of course, it seemed obvious enough to her. Still holding the egg with both hands, she stood up and walked over to the closet door in the far side corner of her room, and removing one hand from the egg she turned the knob and opened the door.

As far as closets go, hers was fairly spacious, if you hid something right it would stay hidden unless you were specifically looking for it, perfect for hiding alien artifacts. There were stacks of boxes all over, some with labels scrawled in Sharpe, others plain and unmarked. The back was veiled behind a curtain of cheap thrift store clothing.

She pushed the clothing curtain to the right, opening a way to the deepest, darkest part of her closet. She figured it had to be deep enough so that when her mom would look through her room (like she always did), she wouldn't find it and throw it out. She couldn't think of anything worse than if her mom found the egg and got rid of it. She needed to keep it, she needed for it to stay nearby. "Why am I keeping this", she wondered..."shouldn't I maybe get rid of it, report it to someone?"

She placed the egg carefully down in the far corner, away from any light that might reveal it to wayward eyes. With her treasure tucked away and secure, she began to back out of the closet into the light of her room, but stopped before she made it all the way. Near where she stowed the egg, there was a box she couldn't account for. With her thoughts no longer on the egg, she shifted herself over and opened the fold down lid.

The box was filled with an assortment of grotesque and horrifying latex faces. "That's right" she thought "my Halloween mask collection, I forgot I even still had these". She'd always loved Halloween masks, the scarier the better. Instead of the usual princess outfits the other girls would get, she would beg and beg her mom to get her a new mask every year, a new face to scare the neighborhood kids with. She grabbed one at random on and pulled it out, bringing herself into the light of her room to get a better look at it.

The mask was slightly crumpled, but once she loosened her grip a bit its original shape became much clearer. In her hand was the head of a monstrous creature with tannish-yellow skin, a bald head, and a gruesome face with bared fangs and a forehead curled down in perpetual displeasure. It's features continued down the neck and tapered off along the shoulder blades where the material looked like it was torn from the rest of the creature's body.

"Wicked" she muttered with a toothy grin.

She looked the mask over once more and then put it on the small table next to the mirror. She needed to get changed, her mother would expect her to be in bed soon, and she had to get up for school early tomorrow. She pulled off her shirt and wiggled her way out of her pants, leaving her just in her underwear.

She paused.

There it was again, that feeling in her abdomen. She glanced over at the mask, still staring up with its vacant eyes, eyes that were yearning to be filled. She walks over to the table and picks it up, feeling the texture of it in her hand as she rubbed the thing between her thumb and forefinger.

She stood there for a moment, mask in hand. She looked down at her feet, and then her eyes move upwards along her body. She wasn't bad looking by any means, but that didn't stop her from criticizing every little aspect of herself. Thoughts came unbidden to her head every time she looked at her body. "Your breasts are too small" she thought "your hips are too narrow, your hair is unruly, your arms and legs are too scrawny..." this would go on and on until she inevitably resigned herself to the fact that this was just the way she was.

Her mom always told her she'd fill out eventually, but at eighteen years old her body still showed no signs of that wonderful process happening anytime soon. At the same time, she wondered to herself: why did she have to be her? Why couldn't she just be somebody else? She knew these weren't healthy thoughts to have as a young adult, she'd seen more than one of her friends get pretty fucked up over body image issues, but she couldn't help but have the desire to change tucked away in the dark recesses of her mind.

She glanced down again at the mask.

Continuing to rub the material between her fingers, she lifted the mask in front of her, with the front of the mask facing her. Looking into its empty sockets, it seemed like the thing was looking back at her, begging her to fill it with herself. Something in her made her want to oblige it, something deep and primal. Slowly and methodically, she turns the mask around so that the slit on the back is facing her.

Her muscles tensed. She closed her eyes and held her breath. She drew the mask closer and closer to her head. The slit didn't go up the head all the way, and her head was bigger than when she was 14, so after getting it partially on she had to give it a slightly harder tug to get it to go over her head all the way. Once that was done, she began adjusting the mask so that the eyeholes lined up with her eyes.

When she finished, she continued to stand there, eyes closed, just feeling the latex mask that was slightly too small for her head cling to her face. She exhaled and took in another breath. Slowly, she opened her eyes, looking at herself in the mirror once again.

The person that stood there had her body, but from the shoulders up was a sickly yellow head, fangs bared, eyes in and eyebrows in a perpetual state of furious anger.

Her breathing became staggered. She closed her eyes again, feeling the sweat of her inner face as it made the mask stick to her more and more. With her left hand she reaches back holds the opening of the mask closed as tight as she could, trying to make the mask as tight on her head as possible.

Her right hand, which until then had been at her side, was creeping slowly along her thigh. Her exposed womanhood was already beginning to moisten and drip. Almost trancelike, her eyes half closed, she allows her fingers to tickle her outer lips. Her middle and index finger, eager to continue, pushed their way past that and slipped their way just inside of her.

Just as that first pleasurable shiver ran through her body, her eyes bolted open, and she yanked her hand from inside of herself. Reacting like she had woken from some sort of nightmare, her hands fumbled at the mask, trying to peel it off as quickly as possible. Her sweat had made the material stick to her face, but after a moments struggle she removed the mask off of her face.

Not even looking at it, she hurls it into the box with force, causing the box to tip for a moment before settling back down flat on the floor. The mask didn't make it all the way inside, instead it hanging on the rim, its hollow eyes still exposed over the lip of the cardboard.

Walking over to her desk, she grabs a handful of tissues from the tissue box and tries to sop up as much of the liquid from her swollen privates as she could, taking extra care not to rub them or penetrate herself again. Her hand was shaking, and when she looked at the small mirror propped up on her desk she saw that her face was flushed beet red with embarrassment.

It wasn't like she was a prude or anything...she just didn't do that sort of thing, that's all. Her mother never really talked with her about that sort of thing, but from the way she reacted to it when she watched people doing it on TV she guessed she probably wouldn't approve. She tried to recall the feeling she had when she was putting on the mask, trying to recreate the mindset so she could figure it out, but that spell was already broken. She just attributed it to her tiredness, further cementing in her mind that she just needed to get some sleep.

Once the mess was relatively cleaned up, she moved to her dresser and pulled out some new underwear and her pajamas and hastily got dressed. Still tense, she stumbled a bit trying to get her pajama pants leg on, creating a loud thump that reverberated through the floor.

"Honey, are you alright" her mom's voice called from downstairs.

"I'm fine Mom!" She called back a bit quicker than she intended.

Once she was fully clothed, she stood tall and took a deep solid breath, trying her hardest to relax herself. She couldn't believe what she almost did, what the mask almost made her do. She shifted her weight back and forth, left, then right, then left again. Getting tired of standing, she sits down on the end of the bed. She blushes and fiddles with her hair nervously, trying to get her mind on something else.

She glanced over at her closet and noticed that it was still open, with the mask still hanging over the side of the box watching her. In two long strides she crossed the room and closed the door with a decisive shove (being sure not to slam it so as not to arouse suspicion from her mother).

The day was going to be long tomorrow, she needed all the rest she could get. She remembered the math test and had a fleeting moment of panic, but tried to push it to the back of her mind. She wasn't very good at math, but that didn't stop her from deluding herself that she could do it with only a good night's sleep to help her.

More determined than ever to get to sleep, she contorts herself so that she could work the covers over her body, and once that was done to her satisfaction she settled her head firmly into her pillow and closed her eyes. She was hoping to fall asleep quickly, but it didn't look like that was going to be the case. The residual tingles of her arousal still stirred inside of her abdomen. Her mind flashed with images and scenes of her doing unspeakable things while wearing that mask.

She didn't get it. She thought she'd stopped having those kinds of thoughts when she was 15. Something seemed to have brought them back, but she couldn't think what it might have been. Was it finding the box of masks again? Was it the comic books? She was kind of drawing a blank as to what happened within the past couple hours or so...she was on a walk, she came home, her mom bitched at her...was there something she forgot.

Whatever it was, she figured she'd probably remember after a good night's sleep. For now she couldn't really be bothered to try and remember it.

"To bad I won't get to see the meteor shower" She said pulling the covers even tighter over her body "maybe in another hundred years."

After half an hour or so, her eyelids started to become heavy, and remaining memories of the night melted from her mind like a bad dream. Soon she closed her eyes completely and drifted into a deep and satisfying sleep.

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In the darkness of the far corner of her closet, the egg began to stir. At first all it did was pulse a bit quicker, but with a sudden sickening lurch, a patch of membrane on the surface ballooned and bulged outwards with a sudden burst and tipped it over on one side.

The mask Rachel wore earlier that day was still hanging over the side of the box, watching the proceedings blankly with its empty, soulless eyes.

Beneath the surface of its shell, distinctive features were starting to appear: first hands, then feet, and then a head.

Slowly but surely, the egg was growing...  

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