The alien blood coursed through my vessels unfelt, but I knew it was there.  It didn’t burn like I had expected, searing my veins with its preternatural cold, slowing my metabolic processes to a near halt by the sheer “wrongness” of its presence.  Nor did it make me ill, inciting my body’s defenses to riot against the intrusion, as I had heard can happen.  It just flowed into me, drop by excruciating drop, torturously slowly, meticulously, mechanically, with all of their technological precision.  Paralyzed with exhaustion and fear, I could do naught but lie on that unforgiving slab and let it happen.  My mind reeled with plans for escape but all required more strength and fortitude than I possessed.  The mind-shattering reality that this thing that I had grown up fearing, yet which was now so commonplace in our forever-altered society, was actually happening to me had exacted such a toll that I was rendered a lifeless heap in sweat-soaked rags.

Their technicians had come and taken my own blood, sucking it from my engorged vein like vampires at feast.  They attached pulsating apparatus to my appendages and forced metallic tubes into my mouth.  Were they anticipating problems and trying to keep me alive, or was this some sort of monitoring of my body?  Finally, hours later, their leader came.  Standing over me with a glint of sadness in her eye, she pierced my chest with steel and plastic, driving in the delivery mechanism and sealing my fate.  My eyes closed involuntarily, and for a moment I honestly believed I could force my body to reject the inevitable; push the liquid back to its source before it ever touched my flesh.  I concentrated with all my might, but when I opened my eyes, all that I had accomplished was a tear.  The odd-colored fluid crept slowly, unwaveringly up the tube toward the needle emanating from my chest.  I could not stand the thought of it, and I was sure my mind would fracture from all of the screaming inside my skull.

The life-blood of a being is its most sacred and precious commodity – something that must remain unaltered, untainted and pure.  But somehow, they had found a way to infiltrate an organism through some sort of liquid violation, rendering it forever changed, yet not at all different.  Their propaganda tells of a more fruitful life.  A life of health, strength and recovery, but can that be possible when your very essence is being diluted?  The thoughts raced through me as the thirty-six inches of clear plastic tubing began to fill.  Only 10 inches left before my fundamental being was gone, and a hybrid left behind. Will my family recognize me?  Will I recognize myself?  Wondering if you would still see the world the same through someone else’s eyes, or still love the same with someone else’s heart, I lay there waiting…  wondering if I would still be ME with someone else’s blood.