Welcome to the family

“She's deathly pale,” Kard heard someone say outside his room.

Weak from his earlier efforts, he laid his head down. If he was in someone else's body, he could take it easy for a while. Take a break. Close my eyes for a little while.

Kard found himself in a playground. He was the tallest kid. He didn't recognize anyone here. He had been left alone with all these children. The other kids didn't seem to be all there. They played and played, but they were not having fun. There was one little girl in a bright red jacket that jumped off of her swing and came bounding toward him. She was coming toward him so quickly, he thought she would bowl him over.

“Who are you?” She asked. Stopping inches away from him.

Kard backed off from this very bold little girl. She was intimidating with her bright red jacket. She even appeared to get larger as she stood there expectant.

“Name!” She demanded.

Kard jumped awake in his bed, the dream quickly becoming a distant memory. He felt cold and clammy.

A lady was adjusting one of the machines next to his bed, “how are you feeling?”

“Not so good,” Kard's voice came out crackling, and he wasn't sure she heard him.

“We'll fix that right up,” she said and punched a few buttons on the machine.

A wash of familiar warmth filled him. I know that feeling. It was some drug they were pumping into him. Into the little girls body. “It wasn't fair”, he heard himself say.

He panicked and sent out a tendril to the woman. This time it found its mark. He pushed her mind, and commanded it to stop the medication. The nurse did as instructed, sat down in the chair beside her and took a break from all the hard work she had been doing the past thirty minutes.

Kard picked through her mind a little, but found the effort was too hard to maintain for very long. “This body is not big enough for me,” he thought out loud. Again, he was surprised at the crackle in his voice. Instead, he decided he needed a little sustenance, and feed off of her life force.

The medication began to wear off almost immediately, and in no time at all the woman had slouched over the arm of the chair. The next nurse to come in, Kard was ready for. He drained the man as he had so many others. He was beginning to feel whole again. “Maybe this body is going to be alright for me, after all.”

Before this nurse had fallen dead, he punched up a button on the wall. He didn't have a chance to say anything before he fell, but it was enough to bring in another nurse.

Only this time, it was a doctor that walked into the room. The doctor noticed the little girl looked healthy, but the two nurses on the floor alarmed him. Kard didn't give the doctor time to respond before he forced his tendrils to drain as quickly as they could.

Soon, Kard felt good enough to move on his own. He swung his legs to the side of the bed, but found the whole process complicated. First his new body was out of proportion to what he was used to. It kept getting dizzy on him. Second, the rails wouldn't move, and he did know how to unlock them. Third, getting out from under the layers of sheet and blanket was hard, because it seemed heavier than these things used to be.

Using his tendrils to do the work for him, Kard was moving objects as needed. He got down from the bed after nearly falling from it, and attempted to walk. He gripped the sides to help balance himself. It was hard going at first, but he was starting to get the hang of it.

Suddenly, the floor rushed toward him. He put his hands out before he hit the sand with a soft crunch. The little girl in red was towering above him. “I asked you for your name?”

Had she pushed him down into the sand? He couldn't remember. Was he just here a second ago? He couldn't remember that either.

“Get up, so I can push you again.” She said angrly.

Kard felt as though he should cry. This was very upsetting. His parents were not here. These kids were mean. This girl was likely going to beat him up.

She grabbed him by the collar and lifted him off the ground. She pushed him backward, and he hit the floor of his room.

Kard's I.V. popped out and he was bleeding. It hurt with a deep throbbing pain, and he felt weak.

Just then his next victim walked in and saw the little girl on the floor. Alarmed, the nurse didn't notice the other bodies but quickly tried to patch up the wound. The nurse grabbed for something, that's when she notice the bodies. Her alarm heightened.

The tendrils did their work and soon another body was lying on the floor. The bleeding had slowed, but not stopped. Kard plucked from the nurses mind how to stop the bleeding. He applied pressure with the gauze and waited before he tried to move again.

He didn't know how long he could keep this up. If people kept coming in the room, he wouldn't be able to climb over the hill they would make. He chuckled at this, but did not find it funny in the least.

He looked up at the girl in red. Something about her looked familiar. Did he know her?

“If you don't give me your name, I'm going to be so mad that you'll regret it!” she yelled at him with such force that Kard the world went flying.

His head hit the floor of his room. The pain was intense. He felt two tendrils reach out in random directions. They found one patient. It was a little boy. The boy was Tony.

Kard pulled the tendril away. He didn't want to hurt his little boy. He worked so a hard to have a little boy. His children. He would protect his children. He could do it from the girls body. Or maybe he'd find a new body. He wasn't sure how, but it could be done again.

Remembered plans, Kard resolved to move on them. “I've got to get Tony,” his voice cracked. “We've got to get out of here.”

Tony would have to help. Kard wasn't strong enough in this body to get far. So, he decided he would teach Tony how to do things with his mind.

Tendrils reached into Tony's psyche. He was awake, but just barely. They had to medicate him for some reason. The tendrils opened up pathways of thought that Kard thought might be useful for teaching.

“Hello, Tony. I want to show you some things. No. No. Don't resist. This is going to be fun. Would you like to learned to move objects with your mind?”

For a while Kard thought he could hear screaming, but that was so far away, it didn't seem to matter. So much didn't matter. Only teaching Tony what he needed to learn. Tony needed help, and he needed Tony's help, but Tony's mind wasn't accepting the things he needed to be able to do things properly. Kard found he could change a few things in the mind. Fix a few thing. Put them in their proper place. Make the mind better able to handle the lessons. Kard didn't think the lessons were hard, but they needed to learned and corrections had to be made.

It was taking forever to get through to Tony, but the lessons were almost complete. A short break and all would be well. Just a little break. The world around Kard went dim for a little while.

Kard watched the hallway lights pass him. He was on a gurney. They were taking him somewhere. A mask was on his face. They were saying something, but it wasn't important.

Tendril reached out for the people around him and he slowed to a standstill. Once he had his fill, the orderlies, nurses, and doctors fell one by one.

“I'm tired of being pushed around,” his voice still cracked, but it was getting a lot easier.

More people came, he could feel it. He drained them and felt stronger. He sat up and looked around. He managed to not be dizzy this time. People were rushing about. Back the way he had come, a someone collapsed. Then another. Kard had not fed on them. Curious, he sent his tendrils out to investigate. He found a chilly sensation that almost crawled upon his own tendrils.