All the things that might have been. We might have worn the flesh of a woman, satiated bodily lusts. DeVries might have found the third scroll before visiting our lab. His little friend might have survived her encounter with the Masquerade Of Flesh in time to warn him…

Instead, we were merely delayed.

The nurse enters, walks into the chair near the door. The dinner slops off the plate and all over the tray she carries. We have awakened in an age of miracles – windows of moving color, machines full of memories, voices bounced across the globe and cities in the celestial realms – and still nobody notices this woman’s disheveled appearance and lifeless eyes, the reek of unwashed skin and decay within her soulless body. We fed – she was young and full of pneuma, the spark nourishing us weeks later.

She stands nearby for several minutes, stares into space, then clumsily returns to her routine, bearing away the untouched tray.

Some of us are laughing within our mansion of skin. Quiet, now. Our time is nigh.