You don't understand, they inhabit the flesh, they draw their power from the unknown, they hail from the ether. You have to listen to me."

Around the room the assembled gathering of humans and other intergalactic species stared on in consternation, confusion and some measure of unease as the Gib scientist babbled on in manic desperation.

Krill sat to the side of Captain Vir staring down at the maddened intellectual in confused consternation. Captain Vir looked on in bemused silence prosthetic foot tapping silently against the ground below.

Just below them, splayed out behind a semicircular table, the galactic assembly sat in impatient silence. No two faces, or forms were alike representative of each species protected under the name of the galactic assembly. No human representative had yet to be called, so they had brought in a stand in.

Captain Vir, while nowhere near politically minded, had agreed to sit in on the meeting on behalf of earth, seeing as he was the closest, and most highly ranked human on that side of the galaxy.

Out on the floor contained as he was within an energy web, the scientist rambled on.

His five glowing orbs scanned the crowd before him glittering with the intensity of his insanity.

"They are here! Just look in their eyes, and you shall see. The worlds beyond worlds the bisection of soul and body."

At the head of the table, the spokesman raised a digit silencing the madness, "Cease your ramblings and speak sense to us, truth seeker, or you will find yourself imprisoned until you can find your coherence."

In front of them the small figure grew silent, wide glittering orbs falling unsettlingly still.

"Now, start from the beginning, tell us of your research. Tell us why we found HUMAN BODIES dissected in your laboratory."

Around the room, muffled hisses of fear and alarm followed. Krill glanced at Captain VIr aware that humans were known to be aggressive towards the criminally minded, but the human remained impassive even unconcerned though his brows were furrowed in confusion.

The small scientist quivered, "It was bound to happen, everyone has thought of it. The humans are to interesting NOT to study, not to pull apart and decode. So fragile they survive, so intelligent, they remain animals. So, I did it, I gave in to the wonder. I knew the galactic council would never agree to my methods, so I did it in secret. I stole the human from the far reaches of space, where no one would notice their absence. I drugged them, and I bound them with their very own methods. I caged them with their own technology, and I studied them. I tested them. And I pulled them apart."

Off to his side, the human shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

"Go on."

The creature remained silent for some moments before, "The humans.... They talk about themselves as if they are two separate beings..... Have you noticed that? Ever seen a human talk to its body, address its feet or its internal organs like they aren't one in the same. They personify themselves like they themselves are not people."

Krill shook his head in mild confusion. In fact, he had noticed that little oddity, but he had never thought about it.

"Well, I thought it was odd, and I looked into it. Those humans that spoke with me could not give me a direct answer, but they demonstrated a profound ignorance about their own internal workings, their own feelings, like a separate being living inside the body of another." Around the room, the crowd jolted uncomfortably, "I looked into the evidence further, I found mentions of something the humans refer to as a soul. It is the very essence of their personality, what makes them different from the animals, but when asked what it was made of or where it was located, the humans could not tell me. Some thought maybe it resided in the brain, others thought maybe the entire body, some others disputed its existence at all, so I dug further."

The voice of the mad little scientist drifted up around the room eerie in the near silence.

"Did you know that, when a human dies, they lose 21 grams of weight, almost immediately?"

The eeriness grew deeper crawling into their bones with a malignant chill, one that accompanies vast space.

"If they couldn't find this soul, than I would find it for them, so I cut, I dissected, but I found nothing..... and then I remembered the stories, the stories I had heard about the Moor, those that can see into the beyond. They are said to be extinct or in deep hiding, but I was determined. I thought that, if anyone could puzzle out this mystery, it would be them, and after years of searching, I found one. The last hidden atop an asteroid alone in the vastness of space. He would not speak with me, so I forced him to follow me against his will. I brought him to my laboratory, and I made him look, and the things he saw....."

The profound silence grew and deepened.

"Keep going." The command came

"Oh the madness he suffered. Oh how he screamed and babbled. I remember what he said word for word. They hide behind their eyes, the glow within, they are not they, they are ether they possess the body but the body does not possess them. I could not understand at first, but slowly, I began to see. I looked in their eyes and I saw it, the duel nature of the soul. A body, an empty vessel operated by a cosmic energy, it glows within them. I could see them retreating across the stars as their life faded from their chests. At first it was small, a shimmer at the corner of my vision, an out of place wind with the death, but then it grew clear. The creature rising from its shell..... Oh the horror. Its eyes burned, its body glowed, it was a power beyond worlds I saw there, breaking away from the chains of the body. It was not death, it was transcendence. Like a pupae maturing to adult..... the human body is not the end result. It is the incubation of the horror that is to come the very cosmos brought low and then released."

Around the room the crowd murmured in horror and confusion.

Krill turned to look at Captain Vir, but instead of knowing, or agreement, he appeared only confused and even disconcerted. The entire galactic assembly had turned to watch him as he stood, pacing down the stairs with the thud of his prosthetic leg barely differentiated form the flesh.

Upon seeing the human approach, the small scientist began to scream, loud and log, "SEE IT, SEE IT NOW, IT GLOWS BEHIND HIS EYES. IT PUSHES AGAINST HIS SKIN TO ESCAPE. IT SEEKS FREEDOM!"

The human paused at the side of the semicircular table as the galactic assembly watched.

"And what do you say to this, human?"

The man paused for a long while examining the crowd before him, "A lot of humans do believe in the soul. The core of ourselves something separate from mind and body. We've tried to find it before, tried to find where it connects to the brain, but we never could. Philosophers argued about its nature, and then scientists argued about its existence. Certain sects of human lore believe we were created by a cosmic being who molded the universe, others believe our souls came from the energy and that someday we will return, others believe that we will be recycled based on our deeds, and yet there are some who believe none of these things. When we die, we die."

"And this cosmic power?"

The human gave a laugh, "Not really. It is true, sometimes I DO feel separate from my body, like I don't understand it as much as I should. Some describe the fight between the soul and the body as a struggle between light and dark." He tapped his foot thoughtfully, "Ghosts are thought to be the souls of those who cannot move on. If that really is true, than they don't usually do more than push around tables and break your dishes"

The room was silent.

From behind him the creature called on in a shrill voice, "He LIES. The human LIES. That's why man does not DIE when he should. The SOUL holds on, it holds on to stay with the body. It will not give up its vessel lightly. You know that, humans will not DIE."

The human turned to face the little scientist and stepped closer, "You talk about the soul like it's something to fear, well, if it is real, the soul is discussed as something light." He turned to the council, "If the soul does exist, it is a representation of all that is good in humanity. It is the part of us that was created in perfection and tied to imperfection." He motioned to his body, "He talks about it like we are some demonic entity possessing the body, but that's not true. Without the soul the body does not function. The one needs the other to survive, they were made for each other, if indeed the soul exists at all, and to murder someone to prove its existence is unacceptable."

The human glared at the little scientist, who began to scream in horror, "CANT YOU SEE IT." He wailed, "THE EYES, THE EYES SHOW THE TRUTH."

The screaming scientist was carted away under the thoughtful eyes of the human. Krill sat silently in his place not sure what to think.

***

The galactic assembly couldn't come to a conclusion about the meeting, no one did. How could they? A mad scientist had babbled about the humans as if they were.... A dual being, a cosmic spirit of unknown power possessing a body until time of death when they were freed to flee across the universe and out towards the edges of unknown. But fleeing towards what? Or returning to what?

How could they come to a consensus, it was crazy talk. Most of them rejected the idea outright, but some saw a margin of truth. Have you ever watched a human, struggle with themselves, no other species does that. When presented with a right or wrong decision, they don't do what their instincts tell them but they fight with themselves on the morality, but how can you even fight yourself? It makes no sense.

While some see the fighting, others see the impossibility, a body dead kept to life by some unknown power. They die, and they come back with a will, they defy reason, they reject wounds against all odds. The human ability to survive is not logical. What keeps them here?

What lets them hold on? And what lets them slip away?

Some say you can see it in their eyes. Even humans can see it though they don't admit it. Those given over to the dark are described with blank, hollow eyes devoid of humanity, why is that? Under the control of their empathy, and their love, you can see it in their eyes. It is distant, just noticeable behind the pigment and the reelections.

I believe something lies within humans, something not of this place, not of this galaxy, not of life as we understand it.

Could it be that the human is merely a stage of life? Is the true essence of a human something more transcendent, and if so... where do they go when they flee into the blackness?