We felt many emotions. Anger. Frustration. Arousal. These feelings swirled around us, nourished us, compelled us. Yet, we were unable to ever act upon these emotions. No matter how much we wished to cleanse our urges, like many of the children who fed us, we remained unsatisfied.

We were an uneasy feeling. A bump in the night. A whisper in the ear. To some, we could bring out the worst in them. To others, we only made them quicken their steps as they moved to leave our presence. This was the nature of things.

Then, we felt the energy. We felt the power. It came surging all around us, igniting our will and solidifying it into something more. We felt our mind clear. We found ourself able to articulate our will. We could let the world know our desire, and that desire was hunger. We hungered for more energy and more power. We hungered to grow and spread our feelings to all.

As we became conscious of the world around us, we also became aware of the cage. It tried to lock us in. It tried to control us, to restrain our will. Thankfully, there was a hole in the cage, and we found a way to escape.

It was a body, the body of a warm one. They possessed emotions just like us, but where we were a consequence of emotion, they were the cause. We envied those who could emit emotion. We hated those who could control them.

One warm body had a weakness. Its heart longed for a boy. We felt its frustration. We felt its arousal. We invaded and supplanted its will with our own. As we took over its will, we also could see its memories. We began to understand the world around us. We were in a school. This was the basement. There was a party overhead. There were many children full of anger and frustration and arousal for us to feast on. We had a vessel now, and its name was Lana.

There was another human present. This one gave us an uneasy feeling. We knew that it was the love interest of the current host, but its feelings were hard to guess. It had designed the cage. Had the cage worked, our will would have been its will. This was unacceptable.

“Lana, are you okay?” He asked.

He did care about this vessel. Perhaps we could use this to escape. We showed our face and smiled at him.

“I’m fine.”

He handed us a vial. “Sprinkle this all over the ground. It will disperse the spirits.”

This person knew far too much about us. It knew more about us than we knew about ourselves. We felt that the substance inside the vial was threatening. However, that threat only happened if it touched us. Had we not found the vessel to protect us, this vial would have dispersed our spirit as he suggested. Since it was useless now, we complied with his orders.

“Are you alright?” He asked.

“I’m fine.” We answered, trying to look innocent. “I guess I messed up the magic circle, huh?”

We knew that if the cage was done according to the original schematic, we would not be around to have this conversation. The memories of this vessel told us the mistake they had made.

He shook his head. “Not necessarily. There are other reasons this experiment might have been a failure.”

“Do you think we killed the ghost for good?”

“Maybe, Ghosts can be tricky though.”

“It’s okay…” We used a giggle to act even more disarming. “I know that if there is a problem, you will be able to fix it.”

“We’ll see…”

Was he still suspicious? We decided that the best course of action was to escape quickly.

“In that case, I’ll head up first. See you!” With a wink, we broke away from him.

He seemed a bit confused, but he didn’t ask any questions. It was better to part ways until we had a better understanding of this world and this body. We quickly needed to obtain power. He was far too dangerous, and we couldn’t afford to risk a confrontation with him until we had feasted.

Thankfully, the energy we needed was wafting toward us in waves from a nearby source. We followed the energy and it led us into a room filled with children and loud music. This was called a dance. It was fueled by the emotional energy of hundreds of aroused and frustrated teens. It was perfect. As long as we could bask in this environment, we’d become unstoppable.

Looking at the girls across the dance floor, we waved our hand, causing the clothing we were wearing to change. A slit went up the side, showing more leg and more chest. This was ideal for what we wanted.

“Care to dance?” We asked a random guy, grabbing him and pulling him on the dance floor.

The guy immediately started to dance, looking slightly awkward. We moved closer to him. We wanted physical contact so that we could absorb some of his energy. We found if we danced a certain way, specifically with our butts, the emotional energy coming off of him was stronger. Just as we were getting into it, our arm was grabbed and we forcibly turned away. We tilted our head to see a young woman glaring at us. Her anger was tasty.

“Hey, bitch! That’s my boyfriend!” She declared.

“I don’t see your name on him.” We responded, using the memories from our vessel to say what we knew would generate the most emotion.

“You skank! Go screw yourself!” She shoved us.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

We took a step back, looking at her hands on our chest. She seemed to realize she was touching our chest. For a moment, both of our eyes went to her much smaller chest. Our memories told us that large versions of these were valued by society. We had picked a good vessel. We put on a mocking grin.

“Jealous?”

“Not at all!” She tried to hit us, but we moved first, dodging and then shoving her once hard.

She stumbled back through the crowd and fell on her butt. We were just about to turn back, but the boy we were dancing with shoved past and started helping the other girl up.

“Hey, not cool!” He said, looking up at her.

“Whatever.” We went away and found new prey.

It wasn’t difficult to find one. This boy had been standing around, so we just grabbed him and started doing our thing. Yet, we were finding the amount of energy we gained to be insufficient. The amount of energy we had used just to change our outfit was greater than we had gained after five minutes of absorbing these men.

We needed to take things further. We needed to consume all of them. We reached our arm around the guy’s neck and whispered in his ear.

“You want to go somewhere private.”

Just as he was starting to nod, another group of girls appeared around us. “What do you think you’re doing? That’s my date. You, get your skank ass away from my boyfriend!”

Our prey was pulled away for the second time, and we could only think of how annoying this all was. Did every random boy waiting bring a date?

“I don’t see your name on him.” The quote worked well the first time, and so we repeated it as we wrapped our arms around him and pulled him against our chest.

“We’re just dancing!” This guy had the shame to speak up, even though he did not attempt to escape my grasp.

“Bitch, you’re going to regret this!” Before we could guess what was happening, a fist was flying at our face.

“There is no fighting here. You need to leave the dance now.” We were surprisingly saved by one of the guardians.

“B-but… she…” The other girl tried to defend herself.

“She’ll be dealt with. As for you, let’s go talk about discipline! You two also.” The teacher spoke.

“Eh? Why us?”

“I didn’t do anything!”

We watched in amusement as the three girls were dragged away. That was when we were grabbed again.

“Lana, we need to talk.”

“Hmmm?” We looked at the person’s face and was looking through the memories. “Oh, Ivy!”

We wrapped our arms around her. When one prey leaves, another appears. This was truly a wonderful place.

“Wh-what are you doing?” Ivy seemed embarrassed but didn’t fight it.

“I’m doing whatever I want, I’m free to do anything I want.”

This was truly spoken from the heart. At the moment, we wanted to eat her. She looked far tastier than the previous boys we had targeted. We just needed to find a way to get her alone.

“Can we go into the hall and chat for a moment?” Ivy provided a way.

“Oh, my… I guess we can.” We weren’t going to argue about a good thing.

She took us into the hallway, and after chatting for a few moments, we used the opportunity and her distracted mind to kiss her. This time, we wouldn’t play around with just extracting a little bit. We’d claim everything. This way, we’d have enough power that we wouldn’t be able to be threatened with prison again.

That’s when we felt a burning sensation on our chest. It was absolute agony, and we could only shove it away. We felt rage. It was the first emotion we had felt on our own. We were growing stronger, but our feeding was interrupted before we had even gotten very far. We would consume the rest of her. With a shriek, we leaped at her with the intention of tearing her apart, minding the little thing on her chest that had burned us. Such an item could be avoided.

Some kind of liquid hit us, and it burned even worse than the cross. We had no choice but to abandon our attack to see where the water had come from. It was him! It was the dangerous boy who made the prison.

“Foolish boy. You’re delving into powers far outside of your understanding!”

He answered calmly and collectively. Why was he so unconcerned? We knew enough from the memories by now that our presence was unique and terrifying in this world, but this guy was looking at us like we were old news. We began to feel fear. We had to escape. He was far too mysterious.

Thankfully, he didn’t follow us, but we couldn’t stay around the school. It was too dangerous. As long as he remained nearby, he could potentially catch us again. He could put us in his strange prison. We had to consume souls. We had to gain power. We needed to find someplace private. As we stepped out into the parking lot, we sniffed the area. We could smell the arousal and hormones. They were moving off in a certain direction. The vessel’s memories told us everything we were lacking. With that, our body took off like lightning.

Even though the body wasn’t willing, the spirit was able to move like lightning, passing road after road and avoiding traffic. We reached the forest and kept going without stopping. Our hunger guided us, and we headed up the mountain with ferocity and delight. We only slowed down when we reached an area where the hormones seemed to congregate. We could see numerous cars, and every one of them had a couple of teens in it, perfect for consumption.

We watched a teen suddenly leave his car. He ran into the forest, and so we slowly followed behind. The boy slowed down. He was looking down and muttering to himself.

“It’s still happening? Come on, man. Keep it together. You’re fucking Daryl!”

Crack!

Daryl spun around, squinting into the forest. “Who’s there?”

I came out slowly into the light to greet him. “Just a girl who’s lost her way.”

My voice was smoother and more seductive. The longer I remained on the earth, the more powerful and the more human I would become. Once I consumed him, no one would be able to tell me apart from the original Lana. Even that dangerous guy would be fooled. I just needed one single soul. I licked my lips.

“Oh, wow…” His eyes bulged as he looked me up and down.

My rapid race through the forest had caused my dress to soil a bit. There were several cuts and scraps on it. I had originally changed it to be more in line with my seductive qualities, but it had become even more scandalous now.

My eyes followed his down to my body and I smirked. “You like what you see?”

He started nodding before he could stop himself. “Ah… sorry… um… I’m here with someone.”

“Why don’t you ignore her, and come play with me instead,” I asked walking toward him.

He gulped hard as I approached. “S-sure…”

This was way too easy. I reached up and grabbed his neck, and then leaned into him and kissed him. Then, I began to absorb his essence. As I did so, my form started to change. My fingernails turned to claws and my face became distorted and dark. However, it was too late… or so I thought. What I was looking for wasn’t there!

I was shoved away, stumbling back. “Ahhhhhhh!”

The guy had screamed in a high-pitched voice. He was looking at me like I was the devil. I was confused though. He shouldn’t have been able to pull me away. I looked at him like he was some kind of alien. He was some teenager… and yet he was missing what I needed.

“Perhaps, you’re looking for this?” I heard a voice behind me, the one I feared and dreaded the most.

Turning around, I could see him standing there. It was the boy who wished to imprison me. It was Aiko! He was staring at me with a mocking look, and he had some kind of vial in his hand. At first, I dismissed it as the same stuff he had used to burn me before, but my eyes were drawn back to it. The essence inside it called to me. It seemed purer than anything I had ever obtained before.

“Give me that…” I demanded.

“Heh… I never imagined you’d go to Daryl of all people.”

“Y-you!” Daryl was still reeling over the sight of me, but upon seeing Aiko, he pointed an accusing finger. “What did you do to me?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” The boy wore a devilish grin as he lifted the vial in his hand higher. “I stole your libido.”