The Impossible Children
The Autopsy and the Interview
Joseph Taylor’s body lay on the metal examination table. As Scully began her examination of him, she couldn’t help but wonder if his death had been ruled as simply “unknown” due to ignorance or due to an utter and tragic lack of caring. When they talked to people in the area about the young man, it seemed as though very few people had really gotten to know Joseph. Maybe he just hadn’t been the type to let others in, which was, in a very twisted way almost funny now as Scully was about to cut him open and see what was inside him.
A simple look at his outside could already tell someone that there was something seriously wrong inside Mr. Taylor. His abdomen was swollen and misshapen. He looked, outwardly at least, almost as though he had been impregnated and had been heavily so when he died.
Opening him up, Scully immediately found a structure that was clearly foreign and did not belong in the body. It was attached very cleanly, however, and, in fact, Scully couldn’t find any evidence of scarring or stitching or anything. If she didn’t just know that Joseph Taylor was a biologically male human being, she might have thought the organ looked like it belonged. Well, that and the fact that it was crowding his other organs, which indicated that it had been forced to occupy a space it wasn’t meant to.
The organ itself was enlarged, and there was very evidently something inside it. Scully’s eyes grew wide. Could it be? Would they have actual evidence of an alien-human hybrid?
“Making an incision on the strange organ,” she continued her narration for the recording of the autopsy. “Oh my God,” she breathed.
The creature looked almost but not quite human. Its nose was underdeveloped, even for its current stage, and its eyes looked a bit too large. Its head was maybe a bit larger than a human’s might be at this stage. Its skin was dark, with an olive tone to it. Its limbs were very long, as was its entire body.
So, there was little doubt, then— assuming the hybrid was real, which Scully would soon test to be certain— that Joseph had been abducted and that the claims about what had been done to him had some evidence to substantiate them. After taking more notes and taking pictures of the dead hybrid being, Scully continued examining Joseph. After all, they still needed to know what specifically had killed him.
“Damage to surrounding organs,” she noted, as she continued to investigate. It was admittedly hard to focus on poor Joseph after seeing what had been inside of him. The very thing that probably had, albeit indirectly, killed him. There had been a time when Scully wouldn’t have, couldn’t have, believed it, but that was long ago, and now it was just one of the many things she had seen that put everything she once thought of as absolute fact into question.
Joseph’s medical record had been a slim file. Either Mr. Taylor had hated doctors or had been healthy as a horse for most of his life. And yet the damage done to his body by the hybrid creature inside him alone didn’t seem sufficient enough to kill him directly.
Unless the creature had stressed his body in other ways. Perhaps his body had tried to fight against it like the foreign invader that it was, and when it failed, it shut down. There was no doubt that the strain on his body had contributed to his death in some way, but that wasn’t a specific cause of death. All of the organs that Scully had examined so far appeared weakened in one way or another, but which one had ultimately caused Joseph’s death?
Perhaps… she examined the heart. Another organ undoubtedly stressed by whatever had been done to Mr. Taylor. Mr. Taylor had been found outside his home, on his property and was presumed to have died doing yard-work. Putting further strain on a body already under great stress. It was entirely possible, even plausible, his heart had simply given out.
But then… could it really be that simple? Wouldn’t someone have already pieced that together? Was there that little thought given to this man’s death, which by all rights should have garnered at least a horrified sort of curiosity? Or perhaps, one look had been given to the deformed man, and it had been assumed that whatever had caused his deformity had caused his death and no one had bothered to look any further than that.
But at any rate, it appeared that Joseph’s heart had given out on him, judging by the looks of it and by Scully’s lack of any other direct cause of death. Still, it was undeniably a result of his condition, a condition which had stressed the rest of his body as well, and she made sure that was clear in her notes.
Having finished with Joseph Taylor, she removed her gloves and called Mulder, eyeing the lifeless being that lay on the table. Mulder was definitely gonna want to come take a look at this.
--
“So, that was inside of Joseph Taylor?” Mulder asked, staring at the dead creature on the table with horrified (yet clearly thrilled) curiosity.
“It was housed inside of some kind of implanted organ. Something akin to a uterus, although it only slightly resembled anything human,” Scully responded, still taking notes as well as pictures.
Mulder snapped a few himself, using his cell phone. “That’s incredible, Scully.”
“Well, not for Joseph Taylor,” Scully remarked, “but it certainly is remarkable. I’ve never seen anything quite like it. I mean, whoever did this must have had access to medical technology unlike anything I’ve ever even heard of.”
She put on another pair of gloves as she began to physically inspect the strange being before them. Its dark green skin seemed particularly tough for something that still presumably had some developing left to do. Its face was very human-like, with some noticeable differences, namely a less pronounced nose and a larger, more pronounced forehead. It had no hair, and Scully wondered if it eventually would have grown some. Its eyes were larger than a human infant’s.
The body and the limbs were long and skinny. Its hands and feet appeared to have only four digits. The genitalia was present and appeared similar to that of a human male at this stage of development.
Scully carefully made an incision from the chest to the lower part of the abdomen. Inside, there were organs mostly appearing either human or human-like, albeit some were not fully developed. Scully noted anything that appeared abnormal by human standards, and she did her best to explain these details to Mulder, who was endlessly fascinated by the entire process.
“Whatever this is, it seems to be more like a human than not,” she concluded. Sensing Mulder’s disappointment and also wishing to make herself more clear, she added, “But it certainly couldn’t be mistaken for a normal human at the same stage, or at any stage of development. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen or heard of before.”
“Would you say it’s definitely alien?” Mulder asked.
“I wouldn’t say anything definitely,” Scully said, “Not until I have all the facts, but based on this examination of both Joseph and the strange being, I would say that’s entirely possible. At any rate, something strange is going on here, and something is being done to people like Joseph Taylor and Kurt Hummel and maybe even to Francine Blomstein and Cassidy Fleetwood.”
“I guess we need to talk to Ms. Fleetwood to find out more,” Mulder added with a nod.
--
Cassidy was a young woman, still in her twenties, and had a very unassuming appearance. She was small and slight of frame with big blue eyes that currently looked haunted. As she invited Mulder and Scully into her home, her voice was quiet and soft and would have sounded gentle were it not for the slight tremble running through it.
“Thank you for allowing us to meet with you,” Mulder said, almost feeling as though they were trespassing somehow.
“It’s fine,” Cassidy responded, “I-I could use the company anyway. Ever since Joseph… I get so… Well, you know how it is— this old house, it feels ten times bigger when I’m alone and sometimes I hear things and I get so… Oh, listen to me! I’m babbling like a crazy person! I’m sorry!”
“It’s okay, Ms. Fleetwood,” Scully said, “We understand you’ve been through a lot. That’s why we appreciate your willingness to speak to us about all that’s happened.”
Cassidy nodded. “Poor Joseph,” she said sadly, “I wish he were still here; he would’ve had so much to tell you, even if he probably wouldn’t have wanted to.” After a brief pause, she asked, “Do you know what happened to Joseph? What caused him to die?”
Scully wasn’t certain whether Cassidy was asking to determine how much they knew or asking because she herself did not know his exact cause of death. Cautiously, she replied, “We know something was done to Joseph, that something was placed inside his body, which deformed and damaged it. His death was ultimately a result of that damage.”
“You were Joseph’s closest neighbor, correct?” Mulder asked Cassidy, “And you two were pretty close?”
“Oh yes, he lived just down the road from me. We became good friends over the few years I’ve lived in this old house. He’d give me firewood in exchange for desserts, and sometimes he’d come over for coffee or I’d come over to his. I came to visit him and stay with him a lot over the last few months because he was sick or hurting so often,” Cassidy replied
“Did he ever talk with you about what was happening to him?” Mulder asked.
“Yeah, he would tell me what he could. Sometimes he didn’t know or didn’t understand or didn’t remember, but he would tell me what he could, and he told me I was the only person he told that stuff, that no one else believed him when he tried.” She paused and bit her bottom lip. “At first, I didn’t believe him either.” She seemed ashamed. “But then, well, after a little while, he started getting so big, and I had to believe him then. And anyways, I didn’t think he’d lie about stuff like that, and I didn’t think he was crazy or I didn’t want to believe he’d gone crazy. And I was pretty sure I wasn’t crazy either.”
“So, what did Joseph tell you was happening?” Scully asked.
“He said, well, at first, he didn’t know, but he knew something was very wrong with him. Nobody believed him or took him seriously. But then, after a while, he started to remember being taken, being experimented on, operated on, strange beings checking on him and checking on whatever they put in him. He told me about all of it, as best as he could remember it and explain it.”
“Do you remember anything about your own recent disappearance?” Scully questioned.
“It’s coming back to me in bits and pieces,” Cassidy responded, her eyes never leaving the floor in front of her, “I know what happened to Joseph is happening to me now. I remember them taking me— or, well… I don’t remember that, but I remember being wherever it is they take people to. They did tests on me. I think something must’ve went wrong with something because they don’t usually keep people for days like they did with me, or at least I never heard of them keeping Joseph that long, if they ever did he didn’t tell me, and I didn’t know about it.”
Her gaze finally shifted, and she placed her hands on her stomach. “I don’t remember if they’ve done it yet or not, but I know they mean to put one of their babies inside me, too.” She looked at Scully with fearful eyes. “I don’t know what I’m gonna do, especially if it’s as hard on me as it was on Joseph.”
“I can’t tell you it will be easy, but for what it’s worth, I believe, in my medical opinion, that it was harder for Joseph because he was male. We’ve spoken with another woman in your position who is much further along and seemed fairly healthy, considering the circumstances,” Scully told her.
“That’s good to hear.” Cassidy didn’t look particularly relieved; her eyes remained glassy. “I mean, it isn’t ‘good’, but…” She bit her lip again.
“Is there anything you can tell us about the beings or the place they take you to?” Mulder asked.
Cassidy worried at her lip further. “I never remember what they looked like. It’s blurry in my head. I think maybe they hide their faces somehow.” She paused. “If Joseph knew, he never told me.” She sniffed and wiped at her eyes. “They take me to a place with a table and bright lights… bright lights in the dark, there’s a lot of dark, I think, but the lights blind me. My eyes burn just to think of ‘em. And it’s cold… I think… I think they take my clothes away, and that’s why I get so cold. I-I’m sorry… that’s-that’s all I can remember. They don’t let us remember.”
“Do you remember anything they did to you specifically?” Mulder continued.
“I wish to God that I did,” Cassidy replied in earnest, “But I know they did medical tests of some kind to Joseph, and I know they put one of their things into him, and I know they’ll probably do it all to me, too, if they haven’t already.”
Her fear and her grief were clearly overwhelming the young woman. They had probably gotten everything from her that they could for now, and there was no sense in putting any more stress on her in her current fragile state. Mulder and Scully stood.
“Thank you, Ms. Fleetwood,” Scully said.
Mulder gave her a card. “Call us if you remember anything else.”
A simple look at his outside could already tell someone that there was something seriously wrong inside Mr. Taylor. His abdomen was swollen and misshapen. He looked, outwardly at least, almost as though he had been impregnated and had been heavily so when he died.
Opening him up, Scully immediately found a structure that was clearly foreign and did not belong in the body. It was attached very cleanly, however, and, in fact, Scully couldn’t find any evidence of scarring or stitching or anything. If she didn’t just know that Joseph Taylor was a biologically male human being, she might have thought the organ looked like it belonged. Well, that and the fact that it was crowding his other organs, which indicated that it had been forced to occupy a space it wasn’t meant to.
The organ itself was enlarged, and there was very evidently something inside it. Scully’s eyes grew wide. Could it be? Would they have actual evidence of an alien-human hybrid?
“Making an incision on the strange organ,” she continued her narration for the recording of the autopsy. “Oh my God,” she breathed.
The creature looked almost but not quite human. Its nose was underdeveloped, even for its current stage, and its eyes looked a bit too large. Its head was maybe a bit larger than a human’s might be at this stage. Its skin was dark, with an olive tone to it. Its limbs were very long, as was its entire body.
So, there was little doubt, then— assuming the hybrid was real, which Scully would soon test to be certain— that Joseph had been abducted and that the claims about what had been done to him had some evidence to substantiate them. After taking more notes and taking pictures of the dead hybrid being, Scully continued examining Joseph. After all, they still needed to know what specifically had killed him.
“Damage to surrounding organs,” she noted, as she continued to investigate. It was admittedly hard to focus on poor Joseph after seeing what had been inside of him. The very thing that probably had, albeit indirectly, killed him. There had been a time when Scully wouldn’t have, couldn’t have, believed it, but that was long ago, and now it was just one of the many things she had seen that put everything she once thought of as absolute fact into question.
Joseph’s medical record had been a slim file. Either Mr. Taylor had hated doctors or had been healthy as a horse for most of his life. And yet the damage done to his body by the hybrid creature inside him alone didn’t seem sufficient enough to kill him directly.
Unless the creature had stressed his body in other ways. Perhaps his body had tried to fight against it like the foreign invader that it was, and when it failed, it shut down. There was no doubt that the strain on his body had contributed to his death in some way, but that wasn’t a specific cause of death. All of the organs that Scully had examined so far appeared weakened in one way or another, but which one had ultimately caused Joseph’s death?
Perhaps… she examined the heart. Another organ undoubtedly stressed by whatever had been done to Mr. Taylor. Mr. Taylor had been found outside his home, on his property and was presumed to have died doing yard-work. Putting further strain on a body already under great stress. It was entirely possible, even plausible, his heart had simply given out.
But then… could it really be that simple? Wouldn’t someone have already pieced that together? Was there that little thought given to this man’s death, which by all rights should have garnered at least a horrified sort of curiosity? Or perhaps, one look had been given to the deformed man, and it had been assumed that whatever had caused his deformity had caused his death and no one had bothered to look any further than that.
But at any rate, it appeared that Joseph’s heart had given out on him, judging by the looks of it and by Scully’s lack of any other direct cause of death. Still, it was undeniably a result of his condition, a condition which had stressed the rest of his body as well, and she made sure that was clear in her notes.
Having finished with Joseph Taylor, she removed her gloves and called Mulder, eyeing the lifeless being that lay on the table. Mulder was definitely gonna want to come take a look at this.
--
“So, that was inside of Joseph Taylor?” Mulder asked, staring at the dead creature on the table with horrified (yet clearly thrilled) curiosity.
“It was housed inside of some kind of implanted organ. Something akin to a uterus, although it only slightly resembled anything human,” Scully responded, still taking notes as well as pictures.
Mulder snapped a few himself, using his cell phone. “That’s incredible, Scully.”
“Well, not for Joseph Taylor,” Scully remarked, “but it certainly is remarkable. I’ve never seen anything quite like it. I mean, whoever did this must have had access to medical technology unlike anything I’ve ever even heard of.”
She put on another pair of gloves as she began to physically inspect the strange being before them. Its dark green skin seemed particularly tough for something that still presumably had some developing left to do. Its face was very human-like, with some noticeable differences, namely a less pronounced nose and a larger, more pronounced forehead. It had no hair, and Scully wondered if it eventually would have grown some. Its eyes were larger than a human infant’s.
The body and the limbs were long and skinny. Its hands and feet appeared to have only four digits. The genitalia was present and appeared similar to that of a human male at this stage of development.
Scully carefully made an incision from the chest to the lower part of the abdomen. Inside, there were organs mostly appearing either human or human-like, albeit some were not fully developed. Scully noted anything that appeared abnormal by human standards, and she did her best to explain these details to Mulder, who was endlessly fascinated by the entire process.
“Whatever this is, it seems to be more like a human than not,” she concluded. Sensing Mulder’s disappointment and also wishing to make herself more clear, she added, “But it certainly couldn’t be mistaken for a normal human at the same stage, or at any stage of development. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen or heard of before.”
“Would you say it’s definitely alien?” Mulder asked.
“I wouldn’t say anything definitely,” Scully said, “Not until I have all the facts, but based on this examination of both Joseph and the strange being, I would say that’s entirely possible. At any rate, something strange is going on here, and something is being done to people like Joseph Taylor and Kurt Hummel and maybe even to Francine Blomstein and Cassidy Fleetwood.”
“I guess we need to talk to Ms. Fleetwood to find out more,” Mulder added with a nod.
--
Cassidy was a young woman, still in her twenties, and had a very unassuming appearance. She was small and slight of frame with big blue eyes that currently looked haunted. As she invited Mulder and Scully into her home, her voice was quiet and soft and would have sounded gentle were it not for the slight tremble running through it.
“Thank you for allowing us to meet with you,” Mulder said, almost feeling as though they were trespassing somehow.
“It’s fine,” Cassidy responded, “I-I could use the company anyway. Ever since Joseph… I get so… Well, you know how it is— this old house, it feels ten times bigger when I’m alone and sometimes I hear things and I get so… Oh, listen to me! I’m babbling like a crazy person! I’m sorry!”
“It’s okay, Ms. Fleetwood,” Scully said, “We understand you’ve been through a lot. That’s why we appreciate your willingness to speak to us about all that’s happened.”
Cassidy nodded. “Poor Joseph,” she said sadly, “I wish he were still here; he would’ve had so much to tell you, even if he probably wouldn’t have wanted to.” After a brief pause, she asked, “Do you know what happened to Joseph? What caused him to die?”
Scully wasn’t certain whether Cassidy was asking to determine how much they knew or asking because she herself did not know his exact cause of death. Cautiously, she replied, “We know something was done to Joseph, that something was placed inside his body, which deformed and damaged it. His death was ultimately a result of that damage.”
“You were Joseph’s closest neighbor, correct?” Mulder asked Cassidy, “And you two were pretty close?”
“Oh yes, he lived just down the road from me. We became good friends over the few years I’ve lived in this old house. He’d give me firewood in exchange for desserts, and sometimes he’d come over for coffee or I’d come over to his. I came to visit him and stay with him a lot over the last few months because he was sick or hurting so often,” Cassidy replied
“Did he ever talk with you about what was happening to him?” Mulder asked.
“Yeah, he would tell me what he could. Sometimes he didn’t know or didn’t understand or didn’t remember, but he would tell me what he could, and he told me I was the only person he told that stuff, that no one else believed him when he tried.” She paused and bit her bottom lip. “At first, I didn’t believe him either.” She seemed ashamed. “But then, well, after a little while, he started getting so big, and I had to believe him then. And anyways, I didn’t think he’d lie about stuff like that, and I didn’t think he was crazy or I didn’t want to believe he’d gone crazy. And I was pretty sure I wasn’t crazy either.”
“So, what did Joseph tell you was happening?” Scully asked.
“He said, well, at first, he didn’t know, but he knew something was very wrong with him. Nobody believed him or took him seriously. But then, after a while, he started to remember being taken, being experimented on, operated on, strange beings checking on him and checking on whatever they put in him. He told me about all of it, as best as he could remember it and explain it.”
“Do you remember anything about your own recent disappearance?” Scully questioned.
“It’s coming back to me in bits and pieces,” Cassidy responded, her eyes never leaving the floor in front of her, “I know what happened to Joseph is happening to me now. I remember them taking me— or, well… I don’t remember that, but I remember being wherever it is they take people to. They did tests on me. I think something must’ve went wrong with something because they don’t usually keep people for days like they did with me, or at least I never heard of them keeping Joseph that long, if they ever did he didn’t tell me, and I didn’t know about it.”
Her gaze finally shifted, and she placed her hands on her stomach. “I don’t remember if they’ve done it yet or not, but I know they mean to put one of their babies inside me, too.” She looked at Scully with fearful eyes. “I don’t know what I’m gonna do, especially if it’s as hard on me as it was on Joseph.”
“I can’t tell you it will be easy, but for what it’s worth, I believe, in my medical opinion, that it was harder for Joseph because he was male. We’ve spoken with another woman in your position who is much further along and seemed fairly healthy, considering the circumstances,” Scully told her.
“That’s good to hear.” Cassidy didn’t look particularly relieved; her eyes remained glassy. “I mean, it isn’t ‘good’, but…” She bit her lip again.
“Is there anything you can tell us about the beings or the place they take you to?” Mulder asked.
Cassidy worried at her lip further. “I never remember what they looked like. It’s blurry in my head. I think maybe they hide their faces somehow.” She paused. “If Joseph knew, he never told me.” She sniffed and wiped at her eyes. “They take me to a place with a table and bright lights… bright lights in the dark, there’s a lot of dark, I think, but the lights blind me. My eyes burn just to think of ‘em. And it’s cold… I think… I think they take my clothes away, and that’s why I get so cold. I-I’m sorry… that’s-that’s all I can remember. They don’t let us remember.”
“Do you remember anything they did to you specifically?” Mulder continued.
“I wish to God that I did,” Cassidy replied in earnest, “But I know they did medical tests of some kind to Joseph, and I know they put one of their things into him, and I know they’ll probably do it all to me, too, if they haven’t already.”
Her fear and her grief were clearly overwhelming the young woman. They had probably gotten everything from her that they could for now, and there was no sense in putting any more stress on her in her current fragile state. Mulder and Scully stood.
“Thank you, Ms. Fleetwood,” Scully said.
Mulder gave her a card. “Call us if you remember anything else.”
♠ ♠ ♠
Finally, a year later, an update! I hope to get this story updated more than just once this year, but we'll see what happens. Thanks to all who are still reading and to all who start reading!