A battle for the soul

"Hahahaha!" a laughed echoed.

The mind parasite felt a shiver across its body. Thick wet droplets were trickling down it's grey transparent skin as if it were sweating. It felt something ominous forming in front of it, taking shape as a black silhouette of the owner of this body.

"He can make a projection inside himself!?" It thought.

"I can do more than that" Hikaru replied.

"!"

…

The silhouette was darker than black, making it visible against the darkness around it. Despite the lack of detail, it can tell that the shadow was smiling and that it was probably a sneer.

"So. You can read my thoughts. How is that possible?" it calmly asked, regaining it's cool.

"You opened a door to my mind, when a door opens, does it not open both ways?" he asked sincerely.

Sarcasm. An annoying human trait. It wasn't as simple as he had said. It's like trying to push against a one-way security revolving door. It would obviously take a lot of force to break through with just pushing. That's why parasites dominate the host's mind and not the other way around.

The smile on the shadow grew wider. The mind controller's distaste deepened in response.

"Slave. You must know what is coming to you" it spoke. If it could smile, it would.

The slime had no facial expressions, but Hikaru could tell it was smiling within.

"Don't you know that the battle's not over until the end?" he smiled back.

It seemed that whenever he smiled, it would frown.

"It's true that as long as the prey doesn't give up, the chance that it would survive exists no matter how small the possibility, but…" it trailed off and then sneered.

In a fight between a centipede and a spider of fair proportions, if the battle isn't over, the chance of survival for the spider is a non-zero possibility… Even so, it would be more accurate to say that Hikaru is an antelope and the mind dominator is a lion trapped in an inescapable room. Ignoring theoretical probability, there's practically no chance an antelope could stop a lion from eating it.

Without a warning, the slime threw its tentacles towards him at a speed that made the air whistle.

*SLAP*

A giant black shadow shaped like a hand emerged from the darkness behind Hikaru and deflected the tentacles with a back-handed slap. Tentacles recoiled off into the water.

Suddenly an island of cherry blossoms is raised from underwater. Pink roots wrapped around each tentacle tightly and secured it to the ground. The slime tried pulling but its tentacles were rooted too tightly.

Something covered in pink rose behind the slime from under like a person rising from bed with a blanket over their head. The cherry blossoms fell off like pink sand and eventually revealed a woman. She had a black ribbon bow on top of her carroty hair and was wearing a pink and yellow dress.

She had a mischievous grin and her hair hung over her face. She gave it a tight embrace from behind. The slime's squishy body bulged around her arms like it was about to explode.

"Impossible! How are you doing this!?" it roared.

When I had determined that the pest could not escape, I started walking towards it.

"No! Stay away!" the slime yelled hysterically upon noticing that I was a few metres from it.

I placed my hand on its head. I felt it shiver as it probably realized what I was going to do. I smirked. I closed my eyes to start focusing on the assimilation process. Its body was pulled into my hand as I absorbed it cell by cell. It was as if there was a blackhole in my hand. The absorption stopped. I opened my eyes and saw a pair of eyes flick open on the centre of its body. It glared at me with pure hatred.

"You think YOU can absorb ME!?" It spat. Suddenly, I started to ball up from a sharp sting in my head that grew rapidly with every pulse. I winced. It was fighting back. Its whole body glowed red with anger. A red glow radiated at my feet and rose to my ankle.

I pushed back and my body was black again. A quarter of the parasite was blacked out. It must be struggling against the pain too. I could almost see it grinding its teeth if it had a face. Soon however, it regained its full body glow.

The red glow once again climb up my feet to my knee at a startling pace.

Earlier the pain in my head had intensified to a stabbing knife wound. Now it feels like my head is about to explode and all the cells in my body were combusting and screaming fire.

Its control broke through the waistline.

I felt a waterfall upon me… No. It was like gravity itself was magnified by tenfold. It felt like being crushed by a super nova.

Its territory has reached my shoulders.

Suddenly, my life starts flashing before my eyes. They say the mind does this to look for a solution in your experiences and memories, anything to survive.

***

The red glow climbs his neck.

'As I thought. Nothing of use.' Hikaru thought.

It grows beyond the ears and doesn't stop for anything.

Nothing… I don't feel anything. Even now…

The light reached the top of Hikaru's head.

The last piece felt like an eternity for the controller.

'What?' Hikaru thought as he just saw a glimpse of light that went past.

"So you have a soul after all." The parasite said sounding surprised. It chased after the ball of light in the soul's corridor.

'A soul? Is that real after all?' He thought. For the first time he felt a feeling of dread gnawing at his chest.

The ball of light was dancing left and right, disappearing into the dark and appearing from another corner. The slime with its tentacles was flitting after it like a cat chasing a ball of string. They were moving so fast but it eventually held the ball of light in the air.

"!!!"

He felt like something was caught in his throat. It hurt…

The tentacles were gathering around the ball and smothering it.

"Stop…"

Only a streak of light was escaping the darkness and even that was about to be snuffed out.

"STOP IIIIIT!!!"

As if in response, the ball of light burst and started growing larger until everything was covered in white.