Title: Earworm
Author: RoseHypTea
Author’s Note (Beginning): Wow, the EMCSA! It’s been a longstanding dream of mine to publish here, so please allow me to namedrop all the inspirations that bubbled over the year to culminate in this hot mess. Firstly, I’d like to give props to Jukebox’s Delirious, which really made me want to set this in the later stages of a takeover rife with propaganda. Secondly, I’d be remiss not to mention the works of the great Tabico —who’s works like Adaptation, Weaponized, Weapons Ready. and Arachnae (a collaboration with thrall) are hallmarks of the alien mind control genre. Next, there’s Half Shim’s Drone Metastasis, which elegantly depicts the slow conversion of a population and the media. Honorable mentions go to the Silky series, which begins with William Lee’s Silky Destinies—But I took particular inspiration from Silky Inevitably. Finally, I need to give major props to all the normie media that broke me down until I needed to make a horny version of their concepts—there’s the Faculty, that episode of the Outer Limits, the Puppet Masters, and of course Baldur’s Gate 3. Do check them out, but keep in mind it won’t just be a bunch of pretty ladies. Without further ado, please enjoy my first submission!
Angela started noticing it when Sara Chavez was on billboards. That was the first time anything had felt off—A washed-up singer going on podcasts to shill some freaky remedy was perfectly within her expectations.
The billboard, though, crossed the fourth wall. Social media witnessed every one of the new catchy slogans, but now any old fogey driving down the highway could see the latest quip from Sara’s generously filled lips.
‘ Us,’ it read.
An ittedly cultish one compared to the New Age drivel Angela absorbed through osmosis before, but harmless at a glance. It was in combination with Sara’s wide, doe-eyed, stare that it sat wrong in her stomach. The pop star’s outfit was some kind of hyperfemme space-age ensemble; shiny silver with hints of blue. She was every bit an alien princess, complete with opera-length gloves and a tiara.
Angela’s first thought was, ‘What sci-fi writer started a religion this time?’. From then on, every day seemed to prove that laughable notion right. Sara’s influence quickly escalated—From catchphrases about homeopathic remedies, to vaguely ominous recruitment billboards, to songs about the pleasures of conformity, and now talk of communal living for followers of the lifestyle Sara Chavez introduced to the masses.
Frankly, it freaked Angela the fuck out. She never would have described herself as paranoid, but even her friends were in on it.
‘Old friends,’ she was quick to remind herself, pushing open the doors to the shopping mall.
Amy, Kimiko, and Sam were dead to her now. She prayed she wouldn’t run into them on this quick trip to their old hangout. Unfortunately for Angela, the supermarket attached to the mall was the nearest to her apartment. She didn’t feel like traveling far, especially to a place she wouldn’t know an escape route from.
Whatever weird stuff was going on, the news seemed reluctant to cover it. The media were probably already compromised, Angela reasoned, and didn’t want to draw any attention to the bizarre things the “infected” (as Angela had taken to calling them) did.
For one, the infected would gather in groups. Dozens of women, each wearing some sort of vacant expression. Some would smile just a little too wide, others would look confused and dizzy, and more still would look like sleepwalkers. When another girl would come along—Typically one more normal based on Angela’s observation —they would tighten ranks around her. The ones on the outside would start idle chitchat amongst each other.
“Oh, did you see the new Sara Chavez photoshoot?”
“I heard Sara Chavez was at Fashion Week!”
“O.M.G. I’ve listened to that Sara Chavez song a hundred times!”
All benign crap like that, all about their obsession with Sara Chavez. But that chatter would do little to stifle the moans and groans at the center of the circle. Angela saw it happen a few times—The random women engaged in ionate makeout sessions together. And when the crowd would eventually disperse, that poor lost soul trapped in the middle would wordlessly wander off with the rest.
If Angela didn’t have both feet firmly planted in the real world, she’d think it was some freaky “Night of the Living Dykes” situation. But whatever it was, it meant she had to have perfect situational awareness to not get caught up in it.
With trepidation, she skirted the edge of the food court to avoid crowds, especially other women. Hugging a wall completely covered with Sara Chavez posters, she rounded a corner to come face-to-face with an electronics store display. TV’s, all lined up in the window like it was nineteen-ninety-something, all showing the same damn press conference with the woman of the hour.
“Miss Chavez, what would you say to the people who don’t like your new image?”
“Well,” the starlet began to reply in her nasally sing-song voice, “I’d tell them that change is always scary. But there’s nothing to be afraid of, I’m the same Sara but new, improved, and truer to myself!”
That ridiculous voice, which Angela was certain was a put-on, almost sounded like a classic Hollywood actress. She looked away from the screens and down the hallway towards her destination.
That’s when she saw her.
Shambling out of Hot Trendz with her distinct petticoated silhouette was Kimiko. Kimiko wasn’t ‘infected’ the last time Angela saw her, she was just too tolerant of Amy’s antics and ultimately got cut from Angela’s life at the same time. But as she stumbled like a zombie, Angela wasn’t so sure anymore.
The contrast of the dark-headed girl’s uncoordinated movement and her elegant, costume-like, alt fashion made her stand out like a sore thumb. Wearing a pastel pink jumper skirt with immaculate white lace, a matching headdress, and platform mary janes, Kimiko commanded Angela’s attention such that the girl hadn’t noticed Sam coming up on her side.
“Angie? Wow, talk about a blast from the past,” Sam spoke through black-coated lips.
Angela jumped—“Jesus Christ, don’t scare me like that!” she shouted, instinctively patting her pocket to ensure the stun gun was nearby.
Sam was wearing her usual. Her straight jet black hair framed her ghostly pale face and reached all the way down to her corset.
“Sorry. Couldn’t help it, I guess. But you’re the one ghosting us,” Sam replied between sips of her tea. Her old companion almost carried a sense of normalcy about her. Too normal, actually, given the dramatic falling out between them.
“Well take the hint and just… Back off, okay?”
“You know we can’t do that,” a higher voice chimed from behind.
Angela’s stomach sank with dread. “Goddammit. It was Amy.
Angela did a quick turn to see her old friend decked out just like Sara Chavez, sans tiara. The same 60’s sci-fi dress and thigh-high heeled boots, like a porn parody space suit. Her blonde hair was tied back into a tight high ponytail, a few strands of her bangs let free.
This was bad. Angela was already cornered by two of them—Two would quickly turn to three when Kimiko caught on. Three would turn into a dozen when the strangers smelled blood in the water.
“W-Why not?” She stammered, assuming a defensive posture.
“We just want to talk,” Sam said, her trademark air of cynicism conspicuously absent.
“T-Taaaalk…” Kimiko moaned, suddenly over Angela’s shoulder. The mix of lust and lifelessness in her voice made Angela’s skin crawl. Her perception was diluted with doubt and panic-
‘She’s not really infected with anything,’ the poor girl reassured herself, ‘they must have just slipped her some hippie drugs or something.’
“Yeah… Yeah, okay. Just talk to the cultist pop stan who’s been drugging up my friends. That’s a good idea,” Angela quipped, eyeing an exit. “You wanna make out, huh?”
Sam and Amy just laughed. Kimiko… Well, who knew what she was doing back there. But the other two found it amusing.
“Drugs? You think that’s what’s going on?” Amy prodded.
“It’s that or you gave Kimiko a lobotomy.”
Amy shook her head, a cocky smile resting on her face.
“Why harm a perfectly good brain?”
“Right. Makes for bad eating then, huh? You fuckin’ zombies.”
“That would be kind of cool, actually,” Sam replied, her wicked sense of humor seemingly in-tact.
“We don’t eat brains, we just make them better! Can’t you just hear your friends out?” Amy continued, obviously eager to proselytize whatever New Age nonsense was in those Sara Chavez pamphlets.
People were noticing the commotion and more dazed women approached, a loose formation for now but Angela knew they’d tighten like a noose around her. She had to bolt.
“I’ll ,” she muttered before snapping around and-
Wait.
What the fuck?
Something black and shiny squirmed in Kimiko’s ear. It wiggled back and forth like a worm, and she was seemingly unaware of the protrusion. In fact, she didn’t look aware at all. Her head drooped forward, glossy lips parted with a thin strand of drool running down her chin, and her eyes…
They were cloudy. Unfocused. Angela could even see the floor reflected in them.
“No drug could feel this good,” Amy swooned, and in an instant Sam grabbed Angela’s arms from behind.
“You—You are infected!”
“No, improved,” Amy corrected.
As expected, a flash mob had appeared around them. It was all straight out of a horror movie, but it was actually happening. This was reality. Every dumb paranoid thought that Angela had dismissed had been instantly proven true.
‘Shit. Shit shit shit shit,’ Angela’s mind raced. She knew how bad this was. She saw it happen too many times. Once someone was blocked in, they never got out on their own. But she had to fight, and she had something they never did. If she could just reach the stun gun she could still get out.
Amy circled around to Angela’s vision again, her face flushed.
“You weren’t supposed to see Kimiko’s gift, but I guess the Mistresses—Aaah—the Mistresses work in mysterious ways.”
“Miiistreessesss…” Kimiko moaned as if she was set off by the word.
“Ugh, you’re brainwashed or something, you idiot! God, let me go!” Angela growled through her teeth, trying to jerk her arms free.
“Oh, I know. And Sam too, isn’t that right?”
Angela felt Sam’s breath tickle the back of her neck.
“It’s so good, Angie. It’s so good,” she moaned breathlessly.
“Ugh, fuck! This is insane! Do you even hear yourself?”
“I don’t think you understand, Angela. You’re thinking you can talk sense into us, right? But we’re not crazy,” Amy said.
“Is that what the thing in your head is making you say?” Angela spat.
Amy paused for a moment, looking contemplative in spite of her obvious arousal.
“Incidentally, yes. But I’d tell you that anyway. I want this, Angela!”
“Yeah right, it probably made you want it.”
“That’s the best part!”
Angela sighed, craning her neck to get a look at Sam.
“And you, Sam?”
The fiercely independent goth looked less convinced. Maybe if Angela could catch her off-guard, make her fight it for just a second, she could slip free.
“Y-Yeah…”
“Go ahead, tell her all about it!” Amy gleefully chirped.
Sam shivered, the parasite’s roots quivering in her mind.
“I can… Feel it. Something else in my thoughts. I think, and I don’t even know if it came from me or it. Sometimes I blank out and I don’t know where I am, all I can is feeling… Good. So good. Like I was cumming for hours.”
‘So they’re perverts too, that’s great.’
“Sam’s Mistress is rooting through her head right now, I only gifted it to her yesterday. I’d say it’s just taken her frontal lobe, while mine…” Amy gestured at her entire body, “Has entangled every last nerve,” she spoke with a sick sense of pride.
Angela felt sick to her stomach. This was some kind of nightmare, she was sure. She watched too many dumb sci-fi movies with Sam, that had to be it. But try as she might to force herself awake, the nightmare persisted.
“Come on, Sam,” she pleaded desperately, “You’re still in there, right?”
“Oh come on, you were always slow on the uptake but you’re not that stupid, are you? She’s physically incapable of thinking against the Mistresses. There is no going back now.”
“Kimiko?!” Angela blurted, shifting her gaze to the person with, what she had hoped, was the most in-tact brain.
“Oooobey…” the helpless girl simply replied. She looked up at Angela and her pupils focused ever so slightly just to acknowledge her. “Angela… Must obey…”
Kimiko’s neurons weren’t rewired just yet, but the worm had secreted a powerful sedative to ease itself in. Her cognitive function was so deeply impaired that she had no mental defenses for the bombardment of suggestions whispered into her subconscious. As the parasite spread, it would taper the sedative to return her to working order—Working within its parameters, but working nonetheless.
Sheer cosmic terror gripped Angela. This thing, this worm, was growing in her friends’ brains. It was changing their bodies, consuming their humanity. And they loved it.
“Aww, she recognized you! And she just wants to share how good she feels, isn’t that nice?” Amy playfully cooed.
“You’re fucking sick, you know that?”
“Me? Or the parasite?”
“Fuck you.”
“Trick question!”
In truth, Amy didn’t know where one ended and the other began. Everything felt like a dream, with the true Amy fast asleep. Her Mistress would tell her what to say, how to move, and she would thoughtlessly obey. In truth, the parasite only instructed her to act like her old self to ensnare another host.
“Surely you know what happens next, right?” she continued, not even processing the words coming out of her mouth.
Angela knew what that meant and couldn’t let it happen, no matter how much despair weighed on her. Even if her best friends were too far gone she had to fight for her own life. In a last-ditch attempt, she forced her elbow into Sam’s ribs as hard as she could—If it could even be considered Sam anymore.
Sam winced, doubling over in pain, and Angela had just enough time to fish the stun gun from her cargo pants.
“Yeah, I fry that thing right out of you!”
In one graceful stride, Angela held down the button and charged Amy. The stun gun crackled as she jammed it right into the infected girl’s stomach and held it. For one second. Two seconds. Three.
But nothing was happening. Amy just stood there looking down her nose at the attempt. Gingerly, she reached for Angela’s arm and bid it away. Confused, Angela let her pull it to the side.
“I told you, see? Improved.”
“How…?”
Unbeknownst to Angela, Amy’s nervous system was protected by the parasite’s tendrils—Molded and enhanced into something new. Angela stepped back, but the circle of thralls had closed in even more. She bumped right into Sam and some woman she never met. She had staked it all on the notion that she would be fighting human beings, and busted big time. Hopelessly, she wondered if even a gun would have protected her.
“You bitch. You bitch!” Angela screamed, throwing her weapon to the ground.
“There’s no reason to be upset! This is the best thing I ever could have done for you as your friend,” Amy smiled, walking over to place a hand on the helpless girl’s cheek.
“Why?” Angela sniffled, trembling, “Why are you doing this?”
The parasite in Amy’s brain stirred, considering if she had been addressing it or its host. Finally, with a gentle look of affection, the creature instructed Amy to reply.
“Because we care.”
Angela whimpered, shaking her head. What kind of creature would have that moral com?
The older woman behind her produced a capsule from her purse, twisting the seal open with an audible hiss.
“This one… I think it’s for you,” Sam spoke up.
‘What do I do?’ Angela thought, tears streaming from her eyes as she took one last glance at her friends.
Amy still stood over her, almost motherly. Kimiko looked lost in space, a thousand-yard stare beaming from her wide brown eyes. And Sam… Had a hand down the front of her miniskirt.
‘Is that gonna be me? Will I enjoy it like they do? Will I even exist?’
She fell to her knees, and the stranger knelt over. Angela could imagine it was someone’s mother once, the hints of age accentuating her cheeks and around her eyes. Brushing aside Angela’s ginger fringe bob, the mature woman raised a hand to her ear.
“Don’t cry,” she assured in a hushed tone, “This is not the end, it’s the start of something even greater.”
It was cool, wet, and smooth. Over the sound of vapid chattering Angela could hear it rustling and wiggling at the opening of her ear. She winced, feeling it slide further in and contort to the shape of her canal. It pushed deeper and deeper, leaving a tingling sensation in its wake that almost could have been pleasant if Angela didn’t know where it came from.
Panic, anxiety, and fear crashed like waves against the edges of her mind. Wet shlicking noises encroached and her breath quickened, chest thumping beneath her tank top. She felt the worm’s cold touch against a part of her she hadn’t even known existed—It felt so impossibly deep inside her head, as if it was inside her brain already.
Then she heard it.
The most beautiful song she could imagine streamed directly into her. Eerily angelic, sugary sweet, and dangerously soothing. It was like a hymn straight from a goddess’ lips. The melody was familiar and comforting, like a song Angela had listened to for years.
She knew it was a trick. That she couldn’t be misled by what the song evoked. Angela instinctively reached to cover her ears but it was futile, just like her entire struggle began to feel.
The parasite hugged her auditory nerve now, its first foothold on her consciousness. At the same time, the concentrated sedative it leaked worked to make the new host numb and docile. It was getting harder to think through the fuzzy feelings and the thoughts Angela did have were swiftly drowned out by the heavenly vocalizations.
Terror began to feel ever more distant as everything seemed to float away. The song was the one thing that remained crystal clear through the fog that enveloped her senses, and for a brief moment Angela had a spark of realization.
It was Sara Chavez’s voice.
Angela was too doped up to hold her own weight and she fell to Sam’s feet. It was too hard to be afraid now, her own mind tuned into static. Sara’s belting seduced her into believing this was a pleasant experience.
Her temporal lobe was the next point of . It was already processing the pop singer’s auditory mindfuck, but now the worm could directly influence it. Squirming in her amygdala, the parasite stimulated her arousal. Dopamine and serotonin flooded her neurons like never before—Lending earth shattering euphoria.
In an instant Angela’s cock strained against her panties. God, it was the horniest she had ever been. Her entire body tingled, fire radiated from her chest, and her toes curled. If she could move she’d be humping Sam’s leg like an animal in heat. Her arms flailed uncoordinated to her crotch where she desperately rubbed through her pants.
New memories played themselves before her eyes. In her lustful daze she saw the blackest reaches of space, entire alien worlds touched by the Mistresses. Every race they visited had succumbed to their influence—Angela could see it in their glassy eyes. The surrender of the ancient dryad-like Ak’Tari, the submission of the beautiful horned Seldanites, the ceaseless pleasure written across the faces of the diminutive Kasharr—Tales of galactic conquest framed in an undeniably erotic manner.
She saw a meteor, embedded with a cache of parasite samples, crashing to Earth. Lone hosts coordinating to leverage their connections. A big-time music producer approaching Sara Chavez with a larger, shining, translucent Mistress.
Watching the singer writhe in pleasure as the Mistress probed her, Angela’s own planted the memory of the Queen. A supreme being in her new hierarchy, a planet was only graced by one Queen; a specimen of unimaginable intellect who would use its host to conduct the full-scale takeover of a species.
Oh how Angela moaned at the sight of her Queen.
Conspicuously absent from all of these memories, though, was anything that identified as a man. The Aurelia—the sacred unspeakable true name of the parasites—were simply uninterested in them. Spoken in flawed human , they were lesbian.
Species with no notion of gender, and nonbinary humans, were assimilated just the same as women—Congruent with an understanding of ‘lesbian’ as “non-male”. Angela would have appreciated the progressivism of the aliens if one weren’t inside her brain making her leak pre-cum.
Amy approached, her space age heels clicking on the mall’s linoleum tiles. Angela stared up at her with wide, lust-stricken eyes—But she didn’t see Amy. Not exactly. The temporal lobe doesn’t manage visual stimuli, it interprets it. Rather than thinking it was her cocky old best friend, Angela recognized her as Sara Chavez. The girl, in the final stage of infection, acted with the mandate of her Queen.
“Isn’t it so much better than you were afraid of?” the facsimile purred in a sultry voice. She raised a foot and used it to gently shoo Angela’s hands from her crotch, “This is only the beginning. When the Mistress takes more of you, it will use every function of your nervous system to make you feel bliss... Not that I can’t help in the meanwhile.”
Amy pressed the sole of her heel against Angela’s bulge. Angela’s foot fetish was a common inside joke for the friends to riff on, but nobody was joking here. Not when Angela was panting, grunting, and desperately rutting against the beautiful footwear.
“Your Mistress talks to my Mistress, and they know all about how much you secretly wanted to fuck my feet. Honestly, how shameless can you be?”
The answer was ‘quite shameless’. Depraved, even, as Angela’s eyes rolled back in her head for a mindblowing orgasm—The first of many in her role as host.
“I won’t hold it against you, though. It’s just a little camaraderie now. For what it’s worth, I think you look delicious like this.”
The worm had been busy burrowing deeper, into the center of Angela’s mind. By now it was nestled comfortably in its new home and ready to put down roots. First had to come the cerebellum—She couldn’t lie on the floor spasming forever.
Creeping tendrils grew from the parasite’s body and coiled around neural pathways in the direction of her motor control. A foreign body was literally ensnaring her brain, and she knew that, but all Angela could focus on was the overwhelming pleasure.
Stand.
The thought entered her addled mind with ease.
‘I should stand up,’ she dreamily mused.
Still shaky and weak from the drugged residue coating her brain, the Mistress aided her balance enough to get back on her feet. She was hunched over, jaw slack, with a string of drool dripping from her lips. She was the mirror image of Kimiko, who now sported a wet spot on the front of her jumper skirt.
There was no longer any reason for Amy to pretend. Her own expression turned blank in an instant, her Mistress commanding her to act natural. Natural for her, of course, meant not thinking at all. Even Sam slipped back into a pleasurable dissociative haze.
The four best friends stood like that for a moment, until simultaneously the infected folk all around were ordered to disperse.
Follow Amy-host.
Distantly, pleasurably, Angela obeyed.
Angela, Sam, Kimiko, and Amy rushed to get in line.
Sam and Amy wore matching outfits, their identities smoothed and polished into the perfect image of a host. What remained, like Sam’s affinity for goth makeup, was only there because the Mistresses allowed it. After all, even aliens enjoyed dres their dolls.
“We have to get to the merch table ASAP!” Kimiko pleaded to her friends.
“We should probably figure out where our seats are first,” Angela quipped back.
Kimiko pouted at her, and Sam couldn’t hold back a laugh.
“I haven’t seen that trick since high school, Kimi!”
It was nice to have the gang back together. Even if they were just repeating whatever lines the Mistresses fed them, the four girls didn’t mind much. It felt good to obey and even better to do it with other hosts, so they were having fun regardless. The parasites weren’t so cruel as to deny the pleasure of good company.
By now half the country’s femme-aligned population had received the same gift as Angela. Sara Chavez was topping the charts with her new single, “Queen Bee”, and stadiums all across the world were filling to capacity for her tour. The fear of missing out even got the non-captive audience to give her a listen again.
“I just want the plushie,” Kimiko said in an exaggerated voice, “And you know they’re the first thing to sell out.”
“Oh yeah, I got mine online,” Angela shrugged her shoulders.
“Well some of us can’t stay up ’till 3AM refreshing a webpage!”
Angela relented, and the second they got through the turnstiles the friends made a mad dash for the merch line. Hundreds of beautiful women dressed just like Sam and Amy, hundreds more wore the brightest smiles on their faces, and some intermingled with the crowd like they were zombies. They could all sense the ones among them without a Mistress.
A few hours and a $50 plushie later, everyone stood ready for the show. The stage lights dimmed, fog billowed from the sides, and an elevator brought Sara Chavez to the forefront. The excitement was palpable—Brainwashed hosts and freethinkers alike cheered at the top of their lungs, waved lightsticks, jumped up and down. With a dramatic pose, hand raised to the sky, the Queen faced the crowd and began her setlist.
As the catchy melody of “Be Mine” kicked into full swing, Angela was compelled to look at the stranger to her side—A short blue haired girl with the cutest septum piercing. Without thinking, she reached into her bag and pulled out a long silver tube.