Mary Carver loved her apartment. Some called it small; she preferred cozy. Others said it was too remote, tucked too far into the back of the complex. She found the seclusion peaceful, and while it might be a bit of a trek across the parking lot to the rest of the compound, she liked being so close to the oregon forest that sprang up just behind her property.

Most bearable of all was her upstairs neighbor, Katie. Katie Green was a fellow student, one of Mary's classmates at the local law school where they were both struggling to become lawyers. Katie wanted to get into corporate and patent law, while Mary was thinking of perhaps becoming a public defender. The hours were very long and the workload almost incomprehensible, but the pair were good at encouraging each otherand keeping one another awake during long all-night cram sessions. Had Mary any inclinations to that effect, she might have even been attracted to Katie- her thick, curvaceous body certainly filled out a lawyer's suit more impressively than Mary's lithe, slender figure.

It was on one of these long nights that Mary was startled by a loud crash coming from her kitchen. She rushed out, wondering what in her sparsely-furnished kitchen could have fallen or otherwise created such a loud noise. Her answer came in the form of a small crater on her floor, a green and black rock spiked through the linoleum and sticking out of the concrete underneath.
"Mary?" Came Katie's voice from upstairs. "Mary, you okay, hon?"
"I'm okay," Mary called out as she approached the crater. Looking up, she could see that the falling rock had punched a tea-saucer-sized hole clear through Katie's apartment roof and down to her floor.
"What was that?" Katie asked, looking down at Mary through the hole.
"It looks like a metorite," Mary said, kneeling down to look at the rock. Rather like a lumpy, oversized carrot, the green and black rock tapered down to a point, drilling itself into Mary's kitchen floor.
"Well don't touch it," Katie warned as she got down on her hands and knees to look through the hole, "It's probably a thousand degrees."
"Yeah, I'll give it time to cool off..." Mary said as she stood up and dusted her hands on her pants. "But where'd it come from?"
Katie snapped her fingers. "Oh yeah! I remember there was gonna be a meteor shower tonight. I heard it on the raido at lunch. I was gonna go out and watch it, but you know..." she finished, shrugging in the direction of her desk, no doubt as piled with books and files as Mary's was.
"So, I get to keep this, right? It's finders, keepers with stuff that falls from space?"
Katie laughed. "We haven't covered extraterrestrail property law yet, but I think so, yeah."
"Speaking of property law, one of us needs to call the landlord tomorrow so we can get this hole fixed before the next big rain hits. I don't fancy a funnel going all the way from the roof to my floor."
"Ha, me either! Tell you what, 'till you can wrangle a repairman here I'll cover the hole with a big cooking pot. Should keep both our floors dry for a while."
"Thanks, Katie- you're the best."
"Don't I know it," she replied, winking. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm only two pages worth of research paper away from getting to sleep tonight."
"Only two?" Mary whined. "I've got five..."

Late that night, while Mary slept exhausted in her bedroom, the green meteorite began to slowly and quiety crack. As the fissures grew, a slimy green substance began to ooze out of it, until finally the entire meteorite crumbled into fragments, leaving a green, slimy creature on the kitchen floor. It looked much like a slug, if somehow even less distinct. It was a simple creature, and as it inched itself across the floor it had only one drive- to get somewhere warm. Having no eyes, it could not see that the cold object it was fleeing from was a refridgerator. Having only the sense of touch, it knew that the shag carpeting it moved onto was warmer than the cool linoleum, but it wanted to be warmer still. The creature pressed on, worming its way between the carpet and a large, flat obstruction something with a brain could recognize as a door, feeling the warmer air coming from underneath it. Within the warm air of Mary's bedroom, the creature sensed an area within the room that was warmer still, and began heading towards it. Up the steep slope of Mary's bedsheets, across the uneven terrain of her covered form, until at last the creature found itself perched on the edge of Mary's blanket, reveling in the warm blast of each of Mary's breaths. With one final push, the creature slid into Mary's open mouth, a remarkable change already underway.

"Mary!" Katie yelled, pounding on her downstairs neighbor's door. "Mary, wake up! Don't make me drag your sorry ass outta there!"
Mary stirred in her bed, feeling as if she'd been sedated. "Whuh? Stop pounding..."
Katie opend Mary's door and stepped into the bedroom. "Girl, have you lost your mind? You're going to be late!"
"Ugh... what time is it?" Mary asked, picking up her alarm clock and looking at it briefly before casting it aside and rolling back over, pulling the covers tight around her. "God, no way. Can't make it."
"Awww," Katie said, her demeanor instantly softening. "What's the matter, hon? You sick?"
"Something," Mary muttered, unable to shake off the malaise that plagued her. "my mouth's all dry, my stomach hurts... just really rotten."
"Oh, you poor thing," Katie said, coming to the side of the bed and putting her hand to Mary's forehead. "Well, at least you don't have a fever."
"Listen, can you take my report in for me? It's there in the printer tray..."
"Sure thing, hon," Katie said, going over to Mary's desk and pulling the stack of paper from the tray. "You take it easy and get better, okay?"
"Thanks Katie," Mary said, lifting her hand out of the covers towards her friend. Katie took Mary's hand, giving it a squeeze and smiling before leaving Mary's room and closing the door behind her.

Mary lay there in her stupor for some time, not feeling well enough to get up, but too uncomfortable to sleep. Eventually it was hunger that drove her from her bed, a roiling in her stomach that no amount of wishing would silence. Mary staggered from her bed, past the crater of the now-crumbled meteorite and to her refridgerator. Pulling it open, her hunger assaulter her anew, and she grabbed the first thing that looked edible, a few slices of leftover pizza. She bit into them hungrily, one after the other, and had finished them off before she'd even been able to really register the taste. She moved on to her other leftovers, making short work of those, and when she'd cleaned out her fruit and vegetable drawer after that, she began eating absolutely everything inside the refridgerator. Whole eggs eaten raw, shells and all. Pickle juice and salad dressing drank straight from the jar. It was only when she moved on to the freezer and was stymied by her inability to chew through the frozen food that she abandoned the refridgerator for her cupboards, eating out boxes of cereal, uncooked pasta, anything that was edible. It was hours before she finally stopped, every bit and scrap of food in her kitchen devoured, every ounce of liquid drank. She was positively drunk on food, able only to wonder curiously why she didn't feel any fatter as she staggered back to her bed.

"Mary? Honey? You doin' okay in here?" Katie asked, poking her head in the front door that evening. As she made her way through the darkened apartment, she could make out the overflowing garbage can and sink piled high with dishes from what moonlight came in through the front window. "Mary?" She asked again, cracking open the bedroom door. Mary stirred from her spot on the bed, buried beneath a heaping pile of blankets, sheets, towels, and anything else she could stack atop herself for warmth. She poked her head out, bleary-eyed.
"...Katie?"
"Goodness gracious me, honey, it's a hundred degrees in here. Come on, sit up, let me see you."
Mary lurched sleepiply into a sitting position against the headboard, pulling her massive pile of blankets up against her as she did so. Had she not had so much piled over her, or had Mary been slightly more lucid, she might have noticed that the great bulge in front of her was not all due to blankets. Her stomach, somehow able to hold all that food without distending before, was now bloated and swollen, easily the size of someone twice or even three times her weight. Unfortunately for Katie, she could only see Mary's head and shoulders poking out of the massive pile of cloth, and thus had no idea of the transformation taking place in her friend, just out of sight.
"You don't feel like you have a fever..." Katie said, putting her had to Mary's forehead again. "But it's like an oven in here."
"I dunno," Mary said, her head leaned back against the wall and her eyes closed. "feels better warm."
"Well, is there anything you need? Anything I can get you?"
"Hungry. Thirsty."
"Okay, I'll go get something out of the kitchen for you. Is there anything in particular-"
Mary shook her head back and forth against the wall. "Nothin' left."
"Nothing left? Where? In the kitchen?" Katie asked, confused.
"Yup," Mary said, eyes still closed. "Nothin'."
"Well... okay, I'll go make something up upstairs if there's nothing good left here. You just sit tight. Anything in particular you feel like?"
"Don't care," Mary mumbled. "Just hungry."

When Katie came back, she had a pot full of spaghetti with sauce and a pitcher of fruit juice, the former of which she set down atop the pile of blankets where Mary was sitting.
"Spaghetti Greenini, just like my momma taught me," She said, handing a fork to Mary. "Great comfort food. And some multi-fruit juice, maybe not the most complimentary drink with spaghetti, but it'll help you get better."
Mary barely managed a nod as she took the fork and started shoveling great handfuls of spaghetti into her mouth, barely stopping to chew as she drained the pot in a matter of minutes.
"Oh lord, honey, you must have worms or something," Katie said, amazed. "I've never seen you put it away like that."
Mary licked the last dollop ou sauce from the pan, discarding her fork inside it and reaching for the pitcher of juice. She drained it in one go, taking long, deep draughts from it until it was empty. Katie watched in amazement as Mary let the jug fall to the side of her bed.
Mary leaned her head back and smiled. "Feels better. Thank you."
Katie sat where she was on the side of Mary's bed, concerned. This wasn't any kind of sick she'd ever seen before, but Mary seemed to be okay. "Well... I've got another paper to write, so you get some sleep. But I want you to call the doctor first thing tomorrow, you hear me?"
Mary nodded and slid back down into her pillows, already back asleep by the time Katie had re-locked Mary's front door with her copy of the housekey.

Under Mary's covers that night, a remarkable transformation occurred. Her stomach, formerly a bloated sphere of flesh, began to slowly compress back down. Like a tube of toothpaster squeezed in the middle, as her abdomen deflated, a ripple began to expand outward from it, a small wave of the slimy green parasite just beneath the skin. Mary slept blithely through this part, unaware of anything even as her insides began to fall completely to the service of the parasite. As Mary's body regained its original shape, it was now made up of much less Mary and much more of the parasite, her bones, muscles, and organs devoured- assimilated might be a better word- and replaced with the parasite down to the cellular level, marking her last day alive as a human.

Mary awoke to find herself wightless, disjointed, feeling like she was having an out-of-body experience. She floated inside an odd, green-colored chamber, a sourceless yellow-green light illuminating the interior yet casting no shadows. Mary wasn't even aware of anything that could cast a shadow- she couldn't see herself no matter where she looked. In fact, she couldn't sense anything except the inside of the strange space- she heard nothing, smelled nothing, felt nothing.
"Where am I?" She thought, and was surprised to hear a response.
"You are inside The Flesh," a voice returned, reverberating from everywhere and nowhere inside the chamber.
"The Flesh?" Mary asked, somehow speaking without hearing sound or feeling her own voice. She wasn't even sure she had a mouth.
"We are The Body of the Flesh," the voice said again. "You are now The Mind of The Flesh."
"What? The Mind? What do you mean?"
"When The Body is new and weak, it seeks out a Mind to join it. Once The Body finds a Mind, they become The Flesh, and together seek to expand The Flesh and fulfil our great purpose."
"So where are we? Where am I?"
"Your meat has been converted into The Flesh, so that it may better serve our great purpose. We are inside The Flesh, until the Mind makes it into the new Body."
"So I'm... dead?"
"Dead? Death is not known to The Flesh. The Flesh is unbreakable. The Flesh is inseperable. The Flesh is eternal. So long as The Body has a Mind, All Flesh is every Flesh, connected and remembered. The Body remembers a part of every Mind it has ever shared with The Flesh, for one Flesh is all Flesh."
"Every Mind?"
"The Flesh began with simple life. We would become The Body for those that swim in the waters, for those who climb in trees, and for those who dwell on the ground. We have moved from one home to the next, imparting the essence of our majesty and purpose in every seed sent out across the vast, empty ocean. You are the first Mind we have joined with to have such awareness of our glory."
"So what happens now?"
"The desire of The Body is for The Flesh to grow. The task of The Mind is to lead The Body in its desire."
"How?"
"You are of The Flesh now. You will become a more fitting organism to assist in our great purpose..."

Mary woke up from her nightmare, hot and sticky with sweat. She tossed off the piles of covers, feeling herself up and down. "Everything where it should be..." Mary said to herself as she headed to the bathroom. A shower would be good to wash the sweat off and feel clean again, she thought. When the warm water hit her skin, she shuddered as a quick jolt of pleasure shot through her. She stepped into the water fully, marvelling at how rejuvenating and energizing the water felt. It was even sensual in a way, like she was re-discovering her sense of touch for the first time, every caress electric and exotic. Mary kneaded her breasts, biting her lip as she squeezed her nipples. One hand wandered down her stomach, pausing only slightly before exploring her vagina as if for the first time. Mary began to feel light-headed, the pleasurable sensations shrouding her in a haze of water and lust.

She was interrupted by a loud banging on her front door, the noise jolting her out of her reprieve and inciting her to stumble out of the shower and quickly wrap a towel around herself. She quickly stepped to the front door, yelling "Coming!" as she tried to push all her blonde hair behind her head and out of her face. She glanced through the peep-hole, seeing one of the complex's repairmen outside.
"Hello!" She said, opening the door a crack and poking her head around the edge of the door.
"Oh, hey, did I come at a bad time?" The repairman asked, grinning sheepishly.
"No, no! Come on in," She said, opening the door and stepping back. "Just caught me in the shower, is all."
"I can come back later, if..."
"No, please, it's nothing, come on in," Mary said, forcing a smile. She knew if he didn't do it now she wouldn't see him again for weeks. "It's in the kitchen, just give me a second to get dressed."

Mary quickly darted back to her bedroom, shutting the door behind her as the repairman made his way to the kitchen. She had just dropped her towel to the ground and was reaching for her dresser's door when the feeling of light-headedness hit her again. It grew to fill the whole of her thoughts, a dream-like state where she moved without thinking, opening the door back to the rest of her apartment. The repairman was there, squatting in the kitchen looking at the small crater and the black chunks of meteorite that were still on the floor. Mary saw him, and was overcome with a desire- no, a need- to feel the repairman, to wrap her arms around him and feel his body pressed against hers. She found the desire odd, but in her dreamlike state she could only observe, her body sneaking up on the repairman until she was right behind him. At her touch- the sensation electrified her- he quickly spun around, standing up with a jerk and backing up a step.
"Whoa! Uh, forget something, lady?" He said, confused as he stared at her naked form. She reached out to touch his face, and he backed up a step, pressing against the kitchen counter. "Lady, what're you... uh..."
"Shhh..." Mary heard herself say as she reached for his face, leaning in for a kiss. Mary shivered at the sensation as she pulled his head to hers, a pleasant warmth growing inside her mouth and throat as she kissed him deeply, pushing her tounge deep into his mouth.

It was only when she pulled back from the repairman and saw that her tongue had grown to nearly a foot and was dripping a kind of green slime that Mary was finally able to penetrate the fog in her mind.
"What's going on?!" She thought, and was terrified to hear the voice from her nightmare respond.
"We desire this meat, that we may know its strengths and make them our own." Mary tried to move, but she was held in place, her arms moving against her will.
"What are you doing to him?" Mary pleaded.
"The secrets of eons of organic life reside within our majesty," The Body replied. "Against our perfection, the meat in front of us is a mere toy, a plaything we can bend and shape to serve the needs of The Flesh."
"So what now?" Mary wondered, increasingly uncomfortable with her inability to fight off the cravings thrust upon her by The Flesh.
"Now you need merely touch him again to give him life," The Body said. "We have all we need from this meat."

Mary reached a hand out to the repairman, wondering what would happen. Would he remember what she'd done? Could he explain it? Could she?
The answer came unexpectedly when a green tentacle shot out of the palm of her hand and into the repairman's chest. Mary felt a squeeze, like the tightening of a fist around a tube of toothpaste, and then the tentacle withdrew, giving Mary just enough tine to see the needle-like fang coming out of the tentacle before it sunk back into her palm. At once the repairman dropped to the ground, his limbs flopping like a ragdoll's as he collapsed into a heap. His skin began to wrinkle and collapse inward like a raisin, taking on a green pallor as Mary looked on in horror.
"What did you do?" She asked, as fissures began to form in the man's limbs and torso.
"We have given this meat life," The Body said. "Life, as part of the glory of The Flesh." The man's body continued to split, long, ropy lengths of flesh seperating from one another and moving on their own, continuing until all that remained of the repairman was a pile of squirming green tentacles. They moved like snakes, thrashing and crawling about until they had freed themselves of his clothes. Mary backed up a step as she noticed they were slithering her way, but she felt a strange attraction to them. Not that she liked them, but she felt they belonged, somehow. One of them caught up with her and twined itself around her leg. Mary thought the sensation was unsettling for a moment, until she realized she could feel the tentacle not as her touching something else, but actually as the tentacle touching her. The other tentacles caught up, twining themselves around her, and she was overwhelmed by the sensation of feeling everything they felt. Even more unsettling was when they began to sink into her skin, setting her nerves on fire as she felt their weight absorb into her.

"Yes, good. There is little here that can improve upon our majesty, but it is in the tiny sparks of billions that The Flesh shines so radiant."
Mary was suddenly wracked with discomfort, causing her to clutch her stomach and bend doube.
"Urgh- what are you doing to me?"
"Now that we have taken in that meat as part of The Flesh, we can improve ourselves to better execute our great purpose." Mary felt her knees give out, and she sank to the floor as her skin began to take on the light green pallor the repairman's did. "It is the way of The Flesh, to grow larger and more efficient. Past Minds have united entire worlds within the vast, empty ocean in a few cycles around their stars."
Mary heaved as her legs swelled up suddenly, her legs bloating as big as her thighs all the way down to her ankles. She felt the familiar splitting sensation again, and her legs each split into four long, fleshy tentacles like an octopus' without the suckers. Her arms were next, swelling and lengthening until they too each seperated into four long tentacles, their color deeping to the kind of green she saw in the evergreens outside her window after the rain. She felt a pulling sensation on the back of her head, and she was able to feel that her hair had been absorbed back into her head, and a new tingling sensation heralded something new growing in its place, a nest of shorter tentacles that probably looked like a bizarre set of dreadlocks. Her skin was turning completely to the dark forest green as she tried to stand, raising herself up wobbily on her eight tentacle-legs. Her arms reached all the way to the ground, tapering to a fine point, and her tentacle-dreadlocks reached down to her shoulders, a living if currently inert mass.
"Now is the time," The Body said, "For us to feed... and grow."

Mary felt her muscles slacken, and tipped forward before she regained her balance, throwing her strange tentacle-arms behind her to counter her balance. She realized as she struggled upright that the Body had left her alone. She was back in control of her body, such as it was at the moment. She brought one of her right "arms" in front of her, looking on in horror at the green, undulating tube of flesh that she knew was now part of her.
"Oh my God..." she breathed as she felt herself, the new tactile sensations coming from her tentacles alien and repulsive. Mary held back tears as she wrapped herself in her tentacles, huddling down against the ground. "Go away... Go away..." She whimpered, trying to banish the sensations of the strange appendages from her mind. A prickling, burning sensation made her unclamp her eyes and look down at herself. Past the shelf of her bosom, she could see that her arms were half-buried inside her abdomen, sinking further into the flesh as she watched. Fearfully, she pulled back, and the tentacle came out of her stomach, but only a few feet, not at all the floor-length monstrosities she had just wrapped herself in. Stranger still, the appendage was still shrinking, pulling back into her shoulder.
"Stop, stop, stop..." She pleaded again, her prior wish to be rid of the tentacles overridden by her fear of being reduced to a limbless stump. The tentacle, amazingly, complied again, the shrinking halting almost instantly. Mary blinked, the strange dots beginning to connect in her head. "Grow," she said, and the tentacle began increase in size. "Stop," She said, when the appendage seemed to have reached the appropriates size. Mary bit her lip, hoping against hope that this would work. "Fingers."

Mary squealed with joy as five fingers stretched their way out of the fleshy blob- not a proper hand by a long shot, but enough to prop herself up off her carpet.
"It works! It works!" she squealed. "Okay okay okay- Let's get some legs and arms going here." This time, she didn't even have to say anything- her body reacted to her very thoughts, limbs and joints forming and correcting their shape as she willed it. In a few minutes, Mary was back to the right number and configuration of limbs.
"Okay, time to get- uwoohh!" Mary fell backwards as she tried to stand up, her legs folding under her like spaghetti noodles. Mary pulled her legs out from under her, realizing that for all their similarity in shape and size, her legs were still made up of the strange tentacles. No real bones, just a bunch of the ropy tentacles taking on the appearance of a leg.
"Well, okay," Mary said as she put her legs straight out in front of her, "if I can imagine them the right shape, maybe I can make them stronger. I'm training to be a lawyer, specifics are my job..."
At her mental command, she felt her legs firm up, save for a little give at the knees. She experimentally raised her leg up off the ground, giving it a few practice bends before standing up again. This time, she was able to make it upright.
"Okay, now we're getting somewhere!" She said, putting her hands on her hips. "Now let's see..." She looked down at herself, seeing that she'd regained her human form almost entirely. A mental nudge set her skin color fading back to the pale flesh-tone it was originally, and another replaced the tendrils coming out of her skull with her hair.

"You puzzle us," The voice of The Body said, shocking Mary out of her elation.
"Wh...what do you mean?" Mary asked, afraid that The Body would hijack her body again.
"Why do you insist upon this inefficient form? We improve your meat with the glory of The Flesh, and you cast it aside. Are there predators that could harm The Flesh in that form that cannot in this?"
"Uh, yes! Very large predators. Very scary."
"Then we can overcome them," The Body said, and Mary felt the same lightheaded feeling that signaled The Body was taking over. She felt herself thicken, muscles bulging on her tiny frame, shoulders broadening as she took on the look of a professional body builder. Sharp tooth-like horns bristled from her back and shoulders, and her fingers grew out into razor-sharp claws.
"Against the purity of our glory, other predators are as insects to our omnipotence," The Body said. "Is this sufficient to ensure the growth of The Flesh?"
"No!" Mary yelled. "I mean, yes, but not like this!" She tried to will the changes back, and slowly returned to normal. She found herself tired by the effort.
"Again you puzzle us," The body said. "If there are predators who threaten us, why remain in this inefficient form?"
All of Mary's speech and debate classes sprang to her head. If ever there was a need to win a persuasive argument, this was it. "Because... because the predators that can harm us look like this, and so long as I look like this as well, they won't see me as prey and will not attack. By blending in with them, we can feed as often and as much as we need without them attacking."
"But how can such an insignificant form be a predator? To our glory, the meat like what we first consumed is a helpless insect."
"That one was a weaker specimen of the species," she replied, heading to the kitchen. "The stronger members can, ah, throw horns at great speeds and call down fire from the sky."
"And how do those members of the species appear, so that we might emulate them?"
"They all look the same as the lower orders," she continued, taking the repairman's shirt off the floor and unbuttoning it.
"Then how are we to distinguish predator from prey?" The Body asked, sounding genuinely confused for the first time.
"It is very subtle," Mary said, already setting up her finisher. "If you were to attack the wrong predator, he could call out to larger and larger predators, swarms of them."
There was a silence as Mary put the repairman's shirt on, and then The Body spoke. "Can you distinguish between predators and prey?"
"Yes, I can. And I know exactly what form would be appropriate to avoid the predators attacking us."
"So you can ensure our safety and growth."
"Yes, but only if you allow me complete control over what my body looks like and does at all times."
Silence again, this time longer. It appeared that The Body was contemplating.
"This pleases us," The Body finally said. "We have never been as such before, but it is the place of The Mind to lead The Flesh to glory. The Body will comply."
Mary finished buttoning the shirt and looked at the pile of clothes and tools, all that remained of the reapirman. She blanched at the thought of her being a murderer, but she pushed the thoughts away- it was The Body that had eaten him, or transformed him, or whatever you would call being turned into a mass of living tentacles beholden to a parsitic alien life form.

Mary shook her head, realizing as she did so that she was hungry. She thought to look in her cupboards for something to eat, before remembering her inhuman binge the day before. There wasn't a speck of food left in her apartment, she'd made sure of it. Her eyes wandered to the crater left from the meteorite, then up to the hole it had punched in the roof. Katie's apartment would have food. They were friends, right? Surely she wouldn't begrudge her friend a little snack from her refridgerator. All she'd have to do is get some pants on, get Katie's apartment key from her purse, and that's it. Easy-peasy.
But Mary's eyes stayed focused on the tea-saucer-sized hole in the ceiling as a new thought crept into her head. Would she...? Could she...?
But the hole was so small...