Day six. Percy regained consciousness in a car. Judging by the distinctive sign with a moose, he was driving somewhere around the East Himmerland marshes. The junior marketer couldn't remember how he ended up in the car or why he had come here, but he gripped the steering wheel tightly. A dense, swampy area stretched for dozens of miles in all directions. The fog-shrouded highway, flanked on both sides by drainage ditches, was reassuringly empty. After passing through a small grove of trees, he turned onto a side road with such confidence as if he were traveling down a well-known path—as if he were returning home...
A little further on, the blue Golf pulled up onto the bank. A dog toy dangling from the rearview mirror indicated that the car belonged to Claire. Percy got out and, opening the trunk, found the owner of the vehicle. Calmly, he removed the body wrapped in a blanket, carried it over to the passenger seat, and returned to the driver's seat himself.
The cold wind carried the scent of rotting wood and wet grass. It was no surprise that peat here lies in layers up to fifteen meters deep and grows by four to five millimeters per year... Who knew what might be hidden in this bog? Percy didn't dwell on it. What surprised him even more was that he somehow knew all this swampy statistics. For a few minutes, a gust of wind dispersed the fog, revealing the opposite edge of the plain, where the marshes were fed by a spreading river. In the distance, against the backdrop of wastewater treatment facilities, the junior marketer suddenly spotted a huge advertising billboard with a familiar logo. He had seen it many times... But where? Ah, yes. On the chest of Tommy, the giant who delivered healthy plastic jugs to the office.
Percy pondered. I wonder if some filth could have traveled upstream, bypassed the water purification systems, and ended up in drinking water reservoirs? He already knew the answer...
Percy remembered all those stories about caterpillars and ants infected by parasitic fungi spores, which, for their own purposes, alter the insect's behavior and eventually lead to its death. A tragic fate. And it would be foolish to assume that over millions of years of evolution, no one would think to pull off the same trick with higher vertebrates. Unlike them, ants, unfortunately, are even unable to comprehend the scale of the process they're involved in, the grand tasks they serve. The junior marketer could. For the first time in his life, he truly understood what he was doing, felt the meaning and importance of his existence.
Percy released the handbrake and floored the gas pedal. The Golf surged forward, gaining momentum, jumped off a small embankment, and landed flat into the bog. The junior marketer took a utility knife from the glove compartment, carefully unbuttoned his shirt, and slowly slashed open his abdomen. A thick yellowish fluid mixed with blood began to flow down his legs into the car's interior, filling it with greenish swamp water. Millions of freshwater hydra, having detached from each other, finally gained freedom, completing an exotic reproductive cycle inside human bodies. And for another couple of months, these bodies would serve as food for offspring—several daughter colonies. As he sank into the water with the car and watched this scene, Percy felt an unusual tenderness toward these small but cunning creatures. The picture briefly revealed to him began to blur again along with his thoughts and gradually faded completely into darkness. It was the last time Percy was aware of himself.
It was a pity that during his short existence, he hadn't even come close to understanding who he really was. Just a human being. Or perhaps even less than that. Could he have regenerated his body after it had been sifted through a sieve? Could he have painstakingly pieced himself back together from the smallest fragments, gradually regaining his memory? Could he have penetrated someone else's body, reinnervating it and subduing it to his will? No. But like a cell in a body that doesn't know why it lives or what purpose it serves, Percy also served something greater. He became someone greater. Me. And I preserved his story for you. And then I will preserve your stories—for someone else.