Sincerely, Jennifer x

My name is Michelle Hither, and I am the former member of Parliament for Horton West.

I have agreed to come before this committee and provide testimony on the Consciousness Migration bill and the events that followed the original trials, but to be frank, I cannot.

They will kill me. You knew that when you asked me, but I understand why you asked. It’s important that people know the truth.

I cannot attend your committee, but I will provide everything that I know and everything I’ve been able to find in this recording, and you may do with it as you wish.

I was Secretary of State for Justice at the time of the Consciousness Migration bill becoming law, but it wasn’t my idea. It came directly from the Prime Minister.

I don’t mean that he sent an underling to order me to announce the legislation, the PM actually came to me himself. He stormed into my office one afternoon, flustered and obviously anxious. I asked him what was wrong and he just threw the bill onto my desk.

I had a flick through, and my immediate assumption was that he was having some sort of episode.

It was bizarre. His nervous demeanour, the loopy legislation he’d handed to me. It was crazy.

I told him that it was impossible, out of the question, but he insisted. I told him again that it was impossible, and within the hour, he had taken me across London to a lab I didn’t even know our government had access to, to show me how possible it really was.

I had my misgivings about the Consciousness Migration bill, but it was our government’s only real achievement in a very difficult parliamentary term and the public absolutely loved it, so, I had to vote in favour of it.

It’s not right though, is it?

Swapping people’s bodies and the like. Even if you can do it, which it now appears that we can, that doesn’t mean you should.

It’s gruesome, stripping someone away from their flesh and just popping someone else in.

I know that people want blood. We’re all hungry for revenge, whether we are willing to admit it or not, but surely this is a bridge too far?

The quick version of the bill is that a profile is built of murder victims, taken from their social media posts, home movies, memories and testimonies from their families and so on. That is then used to create an AI powered consciousness. It can talk like them, think like them, act like them, except… It needs a body.

That’s where the murderer comes in. They are remanded until the new consciousness is ready, and then… they are wiped.

It’s not pleasant to watch, and I imagine it’s even worse to experience. They don’t stop screaming until it’s over. Fighting for their lives. Begging us to stop. The scientists just scoffed, with quippy remarks about karma. I felt uncomfortable, but it was already happening.

You must understand, there was nothing I could do to save him. I don’t know if I should have, but even so, it couldn’t have been stopped.

The first one they showed me was a fellow called Tom Knight. Horrible bastard. Killed kids. Three in fact. Only one of the families agreed to participate in the trial. Little Grace Green.

The whole country was outraged by what happened to her. He was brutal. I won’t go into the details, because we all know, but let’s just say, he’s exactly the type that the public would love to see suffering.

I don’t think that they’d like it if they saw what I saw, though.

He was begging as they strapped him down on the bed. I turned away, unsettled by the gleeful gaze of the scientists. The more he screamed, the wider they smiled. The PM pushed me towards the glass, making me watch. Apparently, they don’t like us to look away.

He began to shake, the bed shuddering with him as the process began.

I could barely believe my eyes. These… things stepped out from the shadows, tall, cloaked, creepy things. Towering above him and surrounding him, darkness under their cloaks, except for huge, glittering eyes. No pupils, just endless whiteness.

He kept fighting to the end, finding my eyes and pleading with a frightened stare, long after he could no longer speak. I tried to look away, but our stares were stuck, locked together in the lonely hour. His, empty, and mine, horrified.

The lights flickered and then the room faded to black. Everything went quiet for a moment, and there was a brief respite from Knight’s howls, before his screams filled the air again, and a strange, soft light sprang from their eyes.

His body shook, and the room shook with him. My bones chilled and I let out a panicked cry as the cloaked figures turned to us, their milky, melancholy eyes seeming to search my very soul. The lights snapped back on, and it was over.

They go all stiff afterwards, just falling back onto the bed with a faraway look in their eyes. It was… well, it was sick. He just stared at us from behind the glass, his head, lolling to the side with nothing there… no soul, nothing.

I just thought about little Gracie. She was only seven years old. Barely a life, really, is it?

I remember the way her father looked at me when they found her in Knight’s hideout. His wife sobbed in my arms but he just looked at me, dry eyes, stony faced. There was nothing in his eyes. He pleaded too, just like Tom. He begged me to make sure that the man who took Grace from the world would pay, and as I looked at Tom Knight’s lifeless body, I began to think that I had done right by Grace.

The stars had aligned. I had to make that sick man pay, and the worst punishment imaginable had fallen into my lap. In my head, I’d tell myself that I was just doing my duty as a cabinet minister, or that it was all for the polling, but if I’m being honest, I did it for Grace.

The cloaked figures stepped back, and one of them stepped forward, holding a little silver box that shone brightly under the laboratory lights. It didn’t exactly have hands, they were sort of like claws, I suppose. Three, slender skeletal fingers with long, ice white nails. It leaned down to Tom’s body as the others forced open his mouth. Their leader… or whatever it was, opened the box and began shaking it over his mouth.

Whatever it was that they put inside him, it was alive. It was a little white pill, at first, but as it fell from the box, little white legs sprung from each side. It sounds crazy, but I’ve watched back the footage time and time again. I know what I saw. I know what I heard too. As it hurtled into his mouth, I swear to you, I heard it scream.

That was when I knew we’d been hoodwinked. Maybe, I’d always known. It was too good to be true. Our scientists are good, but there’s no way that they were this good.

It was… them. Those things in the cloaks. They’re behind it all, and none of it is how it seems.

They did something awful to that little girl, and now, she’s trapped inside of a killer forever. Maybe it’s not really her? That’s what I tell myself. It’s just microchips and memories. There’s no way that they trapped that little angel inside of that awful man. It can’t be true.

She can’t know. She can’t be aware. It’s not possible.

She can’t know… but she does.

She screamed. Knight’s body jolted to life, and though he still sounded like a man, his words belonged to her. The body ran to the glass, pounding against it as the little girl screamed and cried inside of her flesh prison. She called out for her Mummy and Daddy. Reaching out with desperate arms for her Grandma. Once again, I met Knight’s eyes, and they were full of frightened tears as the cloaked figures grabbed the body and dragged the monstrosity away into the darkness.

They gave Grace a body, but they never said that her family could have her back. They never even said that she’d be pleased to be back. We messed with something that shouldn’t have been messed with… but… why?

It’s been them, all along. They’re the ones really running the show. Do you know who I’m talking about? You remember the messy business in South Kirby? North Kirby too. There was a brief epidemic, but it’s all gone quiet. All the surviving kids have been evacuated, and the places are ghost towns. That was them. We let them.

It’s not about power. We thought that we were the ones in control. I mean, we’re the government, for fuck’s sake, but it’s them. Their big, bug eyes with nothing but endless light. The way that they stare, the way that they watch us, and you too. It’s all a game for them.

They play with us, like toys, chess pieces, and sometimes they let you survive the game, but sometimes they don’t. They’re everywhere, pushing the buttons of ministers, civil servants, business leaders, everyday people, and all of us think that there must be someone out there that can stop them, but we’ve all sold each other out.

I’m telling you, as if there is something you can do, but I know that you can’t. I’m running, because I don’t have a choice, and they’ll still probably find me.

It doesn’t matter anyway, because they can’t be stopped. The random bouts of sickness, whole towns and villages dropping like flies, the disappearances, strange, cruel legislation that plays into the worst parts of humanity… you see it, don’t you? You know it’s wrong, but part of you doesn’t care.

People got sick in North and South Kirby, but now all the houses there are dirt cheap, so people are making a profit. The Consciousness Migration legislation is so wrong, but it feeds our blood lust. We all know something is going on, but how many of us will care?

We did this. I’ve seen the reports and files from the scientists. The sick bastards.

We were never alone, of course. There were always things going bump in the night all around us, but we left them alone and tried to get on with our lives… except, our government captured one.

There was a spate of disappearances in London. People would just vanish and never be seen again. It turns out, it was some psycho bitch, capturing people and turning them into dolls. No, really. She would take them home, kill them and preserve their bodies to keep forever. Vile stuff.

Anyway, she wanted more. Fell in love with some girl and wanted to keep her alive, but under control, and she found… well… a creature. This thing called a light stealer. Ancient monsters that can snatch your soul in a second. I don’t know how, but she convinced it to work for her, some kind of mercenary, I suppose.

She got her girl in the end, but the poor thing was a husk. Nothing behind the eyes. Nothing inside. Dreadful stuff.

The police caught up to her, in the end. She had her “dolls”, her little love slave, and some kid she had imprisoned. The child was put into care, but an agreement was reached to let her keep the dolls, if she gave up her monster friend.

She did, of course, and after a lot of fighting, and the loss of three brave civil servants, a scientist and a security officer, they had the thing contained in a lab.

They began experimenting. Poking, prodding, messing with things that should not be messed with. I’m a little shaky on the science, so I can’t tell you how, but they managed to… make them. Those creatures. The scientists managed to create some of their own to do their bidding. The trouble was, they went rogue pretty bloody quickly, and then, the scientists weren’t in charge, and neither was the government. The creatures were.

I don’t know that we were ever in charge. Maybe the original monster let the scientists make their little discovery and clone it. Maybe it was all part of its plan.

They began demanding the space to do experiments of their own. They wanted subjects. They hungered for knowledge. That’s what South and North Kirby were. Experiments by those… things.

They killed hundreds, in the most horrible of ways, and we let them.

From the research done, the original creatures would just snatch out people’s souls, and every now and again, consume the body, but the new breed were vicious. Sadistic. They didn’t just want to snuff out humanity, they wanted to torture us, and bit by bit, they did.

They won’t stop.

This message will not stop them. If your committee goes ahead, you’ll all be dead by the end of it, and it will be covered up. They’ll probably get you.

Nobody will ever know the truth. They’ll make sure of it, but just in case, I want people to know that I knew it was wrong. I would have been against it, but… I just wanted to see my little granddaughter again.

I tell myself it was collective responsibility, duty, fear, but deep down, it was always her. It was no accident that Gracie’s killer was the first test subject.

I let them keep going. I voted through the legislation. I let them do the same to others, hoping that the scientists would smooth it out and give Gracie a proper future.

I don’t know how many more have suffered in the pursuit of this madness. At the time, I’m not sure that I cared. I just saw her, sliding away into the shadows, screaming, that man’s face, shining with her tears. There had to be a way to tame those creatures and bring her back. I would have given anything, anyone to bring her back.

I didn’t know what they’d do to her. I didn’t know that there are things worse than death. I can’t even begin to tell you…

Even if I did, you’d never believe me. It’s all over, and it was all for nothing.

How could I have known?

How could any of us have known?