Fragments

Interlude

I went on the run the day I saved myself.

But before I begin my story, let me begin with our story - the story of how humanity survived after an invasion we never could've seen coming.

I am writing this with help from Nicholas - he studied Fragmentation for a while at school. And then, of course, with the help of Julian, whose entire life revolved around it.

I suppose all of our lives have revolved around it. But Julian's more than most.

Nicholas says I'm rambling. That's probably true. I never was a good writer at school.

But I loved to read. Especially books my mother told me were categorised as apocalyptic. I don't know why they appealed to me - maybe it was because I had some sort of sadistic streak that loved to mock their guesses and predictions of how and when the world will end.

Because I already knew, you see.

The world had ended twenty years ago.

The Fragmentation phenomenon - later on, they called it a pandemic - took place twenty years ago. I have the date somewhere - Nicky says not to waste time, I don't have much left - but it was twenty years. If it's not, my estimate couldn't be far off.

How foolish of us to think that the world will end because of an outside threat, when all along, the aliens or zombies or some other race - the outsiders we had once feared would take over - had been manifesting inside of us all these years.

The threat was always from within. And it went by a different name - Inhabitant.

No one knew exactly what triggered Fragmentation, the process that turned minds into a battlefield as Inhabitants and Hosts struggled for sole control over a body. No one knew exactly why Fragmentation happened at such a large scale during that particular time of our history. No one knew exactly why Fragmentation affected certain nations more than others. Some say the immunity was genetic, others say that it was because of how they'd been raised, of how they'd been thought to think, of their customs and ways of life.

There had been several Fragmentation cases in history, even before the widespread pandemic happened. Emperor Nero has been suspected by several leading scientists and doctors to have Fragmented. Something triggered his Inhabitant - a more violent personality - to become active. People who changed drastically after an event often Fragmented. Their personalities - weakened and traumatised - simply receded, disappearing, leaving behind a place for Inhabitants to take over.

Those who had multiple personality disorders were affected with a much more serious state of Fragmentation, with more Inhabitants seeking for control over one body. Children who had imaginary friends were actually interacting with their Inhabitants. As they grew, their Inhabitants faded away, becoming weaker and weaker as they became stronger and stronger.

All of us have an Inhabitant. They live inside us. Before the pandemic they were mostly dormant. We didn't know they existed. But they knew us.

They've lived our lives, cried our tears, smiled our happiness, shared our secrets. They were there for everything - watching, trapped in a cage of flesh and bone as they saw the world through our eyes like prisoners staring through windows. And we were their jailers, locking them away in our heads.

Who could blame them if they finally decided to break free?