seriously, i really dunno myself yet what it actually is, by now i really do consider it being merely an intelligence; a consciousness on a strange, really own level.

the first inspiration was the thumb image of this movie called "Bless me, Ultima" [link] trust me, in the thumb-image size you can't recognize the persons reflected that well, so it really does look like the pupil is shaped that way. plus that owl has this very subtily aggressive look. gave me slight chills the first time.

it got perfect with this theme from the movie "Battleship", quite a contrast, i know: Steve Jablonski - the Regents are on the Mainland" [link] (especially from 0:18 to 1:03). i kept imagining it on mind, the picture kept developping in a rushing flow by themselves on my mind and i really got the shivers myself, no joke.

that was yesterday, this evening i had a smoke, for which i had to get down from the second storey to the ground story, where i usually stand int he dark for my smoking; i prefer the atmo of it, simply said. i listened to the track agian and remembered the pictures from yesterday and i got nrarly nervous and had a touch of paranoias to me, no joke, again. i'm usually really not the type for paranoias on that level, but i guess it might be really for it being not that worn out but rather new yet, for which matter i'm yet less used to it.

and at last, the example image of how it'll look like. view it (, ignore the strange fact of me standing next to a stag), only view the one and only real unnatural thing, the eyes and keept it, together with that facial (non-)expression on mind for the further description... [link]

so here i'll describe it:

as i said, i dunno myself yet exactly, what it is, but i can tell you how it causes and how it operates.
it is like a zombie-virus, yet just that it is non. it overtakes the body, kills the consciousness slowly so that youd feel like sleeping away, like you'd freeze or bleed to death; it gets dark before oyur eyes and eventually that's it (for you). for the fact that the body becomes merely a puppet, a host, an empty vessel, it really is like zombifying, but the controlled body won't attack you physically, unless you attack it maybe. the body gets preserved so it doesn't decompose.  those infected bodies, liek controlled by only one consciousness, often gather up and wander around in a group, just where the first really strange thing lays: it can be a mouse and cat, or a rabbit and an owl; no killing, no festing, the predators don't go for prey anymore.

the infection doesn't come automatically. this 'whatever' is not a predator in the common sense, but then agian it is for the fact of that it can switch btween being infectuous and not so. the infection really happens quietly, sneakily and subtly, as descripted above. if you'd manage to get away in time, just your own body's defenses can kill off what is in your cells already, as it does overtake the single cells of your body. but in the most cases, especially in case of smaller animals for example, you'd realise it just way too late, whereat also another factor adds to, which i'll get to later.

when these infected bodies still made out a 'prey' to assimilate, it operates along a basic behavior: even if in a group, they don't go for bigger groups of victims, unless it is safe. they do stalk and wait for a single victim, or a number of two or maximally three, of humans for example, to seperate from biggerr groups and distance from them; forests, alleys, night, gutters, cellars, outback; you get it. there the infect, which means that they only need to secretly follow to stay close to the victims, that's really all it needs. and the bigger the infected body is, the faster the infections goes, of course.

now at first, here a few scenarios for you to imagine where you could meet 'them'. imagine to be there, whereever and whenever, alone and neither know what this all is, nor that they'd be there, which is the natural initial situatiion:

-you're wandering in a forest, not a big one, but close to your town. it's a sunny, bright day, warm, spring, just lovely. there is the soothing silence of said forest, only birds singing, dead leafs making pleasant noises by the wind. you're leaving the path, no big deal, and wander around a bit along the trees and get pleasantly surprised by meeting a deer or jsut a fawn in the distance. it notices you, turns its head to you and you see that something is VERY strange about its eyes, which doesn't get any more pleasant for the fact of it not keeping staring at you, no matter where you're heading to. it doesn't run away, nor doesn't come any closer, for then, but only keeps staring like locked on. (this is pretty much the basic behavior when you meet 'it')

-it is night and you're having a look out of the kitchen window (or another window) onto the street, where one of a lot of spots gets dimmedly illuminated by the street light. a fuzzy mutt comes from the side, passing said street light by, but suddenly stops right under it, turns its head in a creepily smooth motion at you and keeps staring at you. creepy enough already, but as you leave the window to get upstairs, to the bedroom, to go to bed, you look out of the window on the same side of the house again. it still keeps staring at you like it had seen where you have headed to inside the house. well, it costs you some sleep already, but eventually you manage to, maybe thanks to the pleasant sound of the rain as it came up. the next morning to get up and look out of the window. the dog still stands on its spot, staring at you, its poseture unchanged.

-you're coming home and heading just right to your room where you have a guppy in a tank and a hamster in its cage. you enter the room and you don'tnotice it right away for not checking on them. but a longer while alter you're looking at the tank and find it odd that the guppy apparently keeps floating at one spot, obviously not dead for it not bobbing upside down, nor being at the surface for air which it needs as well. you get closer and see its tiny eye, or rather its pupil looking very unnatural. then you notice it, that that little fish is actually staring at you. it gives oyu the chills. but then you turn aroudn to check for your hamster, but you're freezing right on your spot, seeing it sitting on its piece of bark: the same!

-you're driving  to a vacation ro jsut a freetime trip, passing by many landscapes over one long landroad, at which you're also passing by more than one field with cows. then, at one of them, there is one cow standing for no beter reasons than feasting, as it appears, closer to the fence and you can thus catch a glimpse on its eye staring at you; you hit the breaks before jsut panting and questioning your sanity a little. you look out of your car and see it having its head turned to you. you've driven a tad too far, you can't see it properly from there, so you're getting out of your car and walk over to it, not holding the best feelings in your guts. a cow keeping watching you is nothing to worry about, unless you ahve such strange feelings already. as you get close enough you suddenly freeze as you see its eyes and see that your eye didn't trick you at all, and suddenly you wish that you didn't even stop your car. the moment when you hurry back to your car with a merely gross feeling all over oyur back like something would be following you, is that moment when your sight runs briefly over the rest of the field and drove, at which you recognize that every damn cow on the field is staring at you, even if felt a hundert meters far.

-a day at the zoo; not your greatest joy but neat for a variation. so you enter, but your modest joys don't last all too long, not because the zoo is strangely empty of visitors, but because of that elephant, whose compund is the first one right on the right. those two elephants which stand there are not moving at all, not a single one of those common flappings of their ears, nor any nose; strange enough. you walk on and as it is a usual thing at zoos; many animals do stay hidden in their comounds and fakes of nature, so your not seeing many other animals yet. walking on, you soon come to enter one bigger place, an area with benches and other cages around, plus a neat, wide view onto farer compounds. you walk over to an owl cage just for that you can see an owl there. it sits highly up there on a branch and stares down at you. the fact of it staring at you like you're a mouse or rat doesn't get all too creepy until you see that strange look of a pupil deformity, which startles you right off the spot. taking a few steps, you're turning around and looking for another animal to visit, meet and have it soothing your nerves fot he fact of it being 'okay', unlike this owl. it's a vulture; can't be mroe unpleasant that the owl; you're walking over as it's sitting on the ground, respectively on a stump with its leg chained to a metal post. you don't reach the cage, you're stopping as you see the vultures eyes being the same and it staring at you just like the owl. you're turning to the owl, which still stares at you from the far. you get a weird feeling, you're getting nervous. it increases as your look lands back on the elephants in the even greater distance and a creepy guessing arises in your mind as you remember them having stared at you just the same way. you're looking around and you see more animals, jsut around here as well as the the greater distance. you feel like you're heart slowly stops beating as you see each as every single animal that is just able to see you, stares at you.

-you're getting down into the cellar for doing whatever. you know that sometimes you're ahving little gray or brown lodgers, mice, but you're not thinking of them right then. just even way less you notice that one mouse (or a bunch of like five mice) sitting in the obscuring dark of a corner, not moving, not giving any noise but only staring at you all the time, til you're leaving again. you have no clue of at all...

-just like in one of the worst childhood scarestory-cliches, the keeper of the nearest scrapyard does have a dog which runs around freely on the closed area and threateningly growls and barks at whoever passes the gates by, jsut in a way that makes you sure 'okay, this dog WOULD attack me if it could'. still, you're passing those gates by every day on your way to school or work, hence you've gotten used to it; you nearly have started to greet the dog dailily. that one day though, you pass the gates of corrugated iron by as usually, but not a damn single noise from that nevertired dog. a tad toos trange, so you're checking out out as far as you can, means you're glimpsing through the gap of the two gates doors. you see nothing, a scrapyard empty of dog. still, okay, of course your field of vision is limited for the gates only providing with a gap to glimpse through. you're freezing as you're looking in the far but see a 'shadow' of familiar colour and shape meeting you as it comes up from the left, about as close to the gate as you are. you look down by the moment the dog stops on its stop and turn it's head to you. your midn catches too slowly, the first shock comes by it being there so close and so suddenly, making you feel like you're been a bit too brave for your nerves. for a very split second you feel confused about the lack of noisiness; no barking, no jumping at the gate, nothing. THEN your eyes fall onto its, which are staring at you so closely, right from down there. and what with the dog staring at you so straightly, it feels like a mindslap of a shock, but as it gets too much with the usually so noisy dog standing there as if it'd be dead, you're leaving faster than ever before; something's incredibly wrong about that dog!

-you're at McDonalds, maybe for some food, maybe not, but in every case for visiting the toilet, you're getting in the main room with the sinks and all and there's no one except for a girl, teen age most likely. strange enough she's at the mens toilet. even wierder: many people, maybe the most which stand in front of a big mirror and wanna have a decent look at you, eye you through the mirror. so you do, yet by lookinga tthat girl by yourself that way, due to confusion for that the girl straightly faced the mirror, but had her head turned maximallily at you; bizarre. then you do dare that look stright at that girl as you're about to head to a toilet stall anyway. ...you have never been back out of a public toilet as fast and quickly as then, as you ahd seen that girls staring eyes in an expressionless face yet this strangel, very subtile aggression, somewhere between apathy and about to go nuts any next moment.

-it is night and wel okay, you have actualy planned to be home some earleir, but however, you aren't. still it is late, you know that and you're taking a shortcut through some gutters; it spares just the time you'd need to pass the whole block by. this gutter always had its fascinating thrill when it was dark as it was so left and pretty dark, except for the far dim of streetlights. however, you're passing through, but on aboutt he half lenght, you stop for lighting a smoke, just on height of a little side gutter, usually just clogged with stinky dumpsters. jsut in that side gutter the light get shut on behind a window, illuminating the very entrace to the little walk between the houses, jsut next to where yo stand. you finally got it ignitted and drag, when you notice there standing someone in the glow of the yellowish light, merely one and a half meter far from you. you slowly turn your head over. you're losing control of your legs and startledly jsut drop back down as you feel like shooting out your heart from your mouth in a cough as it jackrabbits by seeing a wrinkled, chubby old lady with white, curly hairs, like everyones favourite granny next door, staring at you with those eyes widenedly, following you witht hem as you drop down as well as she you rush abck up and run off.

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so much for the examples...

well, once such a body notices you and really goes for infecting and assimilating you, it merely stalks you. it doesn't attack, but ot follows you, keeping up the distance for distancing more if required for the sake of you thinking yourself safe. if really requried, it can also fake the usual behavior and actions of the body it possesses and also, it doesn't hound someone or go after someone if it sees the possible prey, sometimes it does attack, sometimes it either ignores or stops, stares for a moment and the jsut walks on as if nothing happened. this 'whatever' is really a (natural?) masterpiece of unpredictability; apparent waywardness, among its patient, sneaky, dead-silent and calculating way of operating.

one of the worst points though is, that jsut thanks to it operating generally so secretly, hiddenly and silently while ot behavior like an intelligent, maybe somehow conscious virus, you can never know how many infected bodies are out there already, how much they ahve gathered up or how far they have spread.

this 'thing' really transform the human even more into a 'gregarious animal' than it is already since by the time people would realise that it goes for the seperated or even isolated ones, people woud gather together as well for the awareness oft hat everyone who gets seperated, is most likely lost; lost for feeding the number of 'them'.

said silence and sneakiness of operating as well as the unpredictability are just those points which differ the 'puppets' from Zombies. Zombies; Walkers would go for you by the second they see you, these don't, they stalk you from then on, for months if necessary.

one other really thrilling point and difference towards zombies is that for eample an infected human, you could blow the head away with a shutgun; totally off; the body still stands and headlessly keeps staring at you, stalking you and evntually infecting you headlessly, after all without decomposing. this 'virus' doesn't depend on an intact brain or neural system but intact cells, which makes it even harder to kill such a puppet than a Zombie.
still, according to characteristica, the puppets'd have to get considered to be a form of Gouhls, magically foundated Undead, for the fact of them dying as the body get assimilated. there though lays yet again another difference to Walkers or Gouhls: Walkers and Gouhls can both keep or 'reactivate' their former, consciousness; their former self either fully or in shreds and bits. the consciousness and all memories and similar connections, they get all hounded out of the body, or if related to neural connections, really killed, so with other words, nothing of the former person remains, not at any chance in about 99,3% of all cases. and even if anythign could maange to remain, the fight to takeover agian would be downright a lsot one to begin with as this 'darkness virus' keeps being too powerful by quantity.

when looking really closely to these deformities of the pupils, it looks as if it'd be some sort of hole, the gap which the pupil is, has lost its round hole shape and has gotten de-formed into that. one could sometimes, at a really close look, see the little grooves like irregular star- or sun-rays notched into the iris.

many other thigns are yet unclear, unknown so to say, like for how long it-, or the puppet would or could live, if it really feasts from the body it overtakes or what else it eats instead, or if it eats at all. weaknesses are sjut as uknown as well as its very basic origin. and one of the also msot important things: what the heck it could want.oh yeah, and i have no name at all for it, as you can see xD

i do imagine it though, that this whole thing comes up in my stories, with one or two of the sidcharacters; one of them being one of the kid-residents, for dramas sake; being once out in the woods for a little wandering, and jsut not returning, but getting found months later...randomyl somewhere else, sjut the way as descripted above.

so that's it so far, hope you enjoy(ed) it♥