Novels2Search
In Human Skin
Chapter 34 - Ooh, Shiny!

Chapter 34 - Ooh, Shiny!

This seems way more erotic than it should be. The way she’s grabbing my arm makes me feel like I’m trying to do something indecent to her. Does she have a sexual attraction to ice cream or something? I’d heard about people who liked cars but I guess there were people who like ice cream now too. What a weirdo. I tossed the ice cream away and conjured a towel to wipe away all the stains. For what I had presumed to be an immortal being she really had a poor sense of self cleanliness.

“Please? Can I please have the map?”

“...”

Hmm, that usually worked. Maybe I could just drug her? Hypnosis serum or something… Wow. I guess I really am fucked up in the head. But of all the times my conscience could’ve chosen to return, why right now?

“How about a trade? I give you what you want and you give me what I want.”

“...”

You know what. Seeing her tightly shut lips reminded me of this one scene where a brother kindly helped his sister brush her teeth. Ah! I know! Love bombing! I’ll just be affectionate to her until she develops Stockholm syndrome. I could just rely on the time distortion factor.

“Fine. Let’s start somewhere else then. Maybe we should get to know each other better then. I’ll start. My name is Vaun Lee, I was born in two-thousand and four on June nineteenth. I moved two times growing up and went to five different schools in that time period. My favorite food is meat and my favorite colors are red and black. My hobbies are flirting with women and self improvement. I also have a younger sister. Her name is Lily and she’s three years younger than me. She’s kind of like a little pet to me. Then there’s my parents- I actually came up with an analogy to describe them easier. My dad is fire and my mother is water.

My dad is the force responsible for molding and shaping me and my mother is the force responsible for cooling me before I shatter and self-destruct. Without either one of them I would either be dead in prison or floating down a river. My dream is to become a famous influencer and make enough money to secretly become a rich and powerful person. To be honest, I never intended on becoming what I am right now. Things just kind of happened this way. Personally- I think I should have died by now already. Oh yeah, almost forgot. I’m also a sociopath, courtesy of my father. So, is there anything else you would like to know about me?”

“What is a sociopath?”

“Oh. I guess I’m not exactly a sociopath, I just kind of share a few traits. My best description for a sociopath would be a… a person who knows what to do to get what they want. But overall they tend to be not so good people I guess? Make no mistake though, I can tell right from wrong- I just don’t really care anymore. But in your eyes I am definitely what you consider to be evil, and reasonably so.”

“...”

“I have a feeling you won’t be telling me about yourself anytime soon so I won’t even bother to ask. I’m curious though, just how much do you know about the modern world?”

“I know enough.”

“Really? Do you know what anime is then?”

“It is a form of entertainment in which drawings are used to depict living beings and stories.”

“It sounds like you read that out of some hermit dictionary or something, I bet you don’t even have a favorite anime.”

“I have no time to squander on such useless things.”

“Spoken like a true sigma eh? I was correct when I hypothesized that your life was plain and boring. But, doesn’t something seem wrong with the way you are living? I mean- immortal being who has spent all their life training gets brought to their knees by eighteen year old me? Something definitely seems wrong here. Almost like fate is trying to make something happen.”

“Fate…”

“Why did you say it like that? It makes me feel like you know something I don’t. Is fate real perhaps? I would say yes but my theory is a little different. I’d like to say that fate is the culmination of an unending series of events. Like how a seed in the ground might turn into a tree that destroys a straight path. Reality itself is just a constant series of reactions, even me and you are simply the result of an unknown number of reactions. I don’t like to think about it too much though, it makes my life feel pointless.

That is precisely the reason why I indulge myself in worldly pleasures. I have to give my life meaning somehow right? Speaking of which- have you ever indulged yourself in worldly desires? Maybe a childhood crush? Or an eating spree? There has to have been a time in your life when you had real desires.”

“There is no need for me to have desires.”

“Hah… you are so plain and boring- you know that? You’re practically the anti me. All your principles go against mine. But they do say opposites attract, even the laws of physics say so. I’ve also figured out why I have no attraction to you. You have no character, you’re about as responsive as a dead log is. Even with your pretty face I probably would never have any fun with you. At least you have a pretty face though- there’s a lot of people out there who would ignore all your red flags just for your face. You know, between me and you I feel like you’re actually the one with more mental problems than me. Then again, you never did say you had less issues than I did.

That’s gotten me thinking. You must’ve lived a completely different life with a completely different set of stress factors than I have. That’s so weird to think about.”

“...”

“Seriously. Could you just relax? I’m sure that you understand that if I wanted to do anything to you I would’ve done it already. Like- I could have you on the floor writhing in pleasure but I’m taking the time to be nice and understanding.”

“I simply have nothing to say.”

“Can I have the map then? I’d rather not have to talk to myself for longer than I have to, I might get mental problems or something. Feel free to just show me in here, you should be able to with my permission.”

After a solid period of contemplation she actually pulled the map out of thin air and showed it to me. I quickly memorized it and stabbed myself to get into the soul realm then recreated it in there. After that I popped back into the dream realm.

“What did you just do?”

“I made a copy. Anyways, I think you’ll be in here for a little while so just relax and enjoy yourself. I’ll see you later. And also… thanks, I’m glad you trusted me.”

I quickly grabbed her face and gave her a peck on the lips before jumping back into reality. I had conjured a nice tv and plenty of snacks for her before leaving so her time in there should be bearable at least.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

***

What was that? That must’ve been the response of her weakened body. That was the only thing that could explain what was happening. There was no other reason for her heart to be beating with such fury and her face to be flooded with such intense heat. She had to be cautious now… her body could no longer keep up with her mind. Were those things over there what she had been fed earlier…?

***

Normally this would be the part where the evil villain laugh cues but my laugh was kind of ugly so I’d prefer not to hear myself laugh. I recreated the map in my hand and also made all the clones create a copy as well. Now I could only pray that my luck would cover my ass and allow me to make it to where I wanted to be. I should focus on what I came here for first though- which was… I’m fucking lost. Fuck it, the boys were fast enough. I transformed back into human form and hopped onto the back of one of the boys who instantly encased me and my pet log in a shell. Actually, maybe this was a terrible idea. The inertia would more likely than not instantly turn my pet into mush and mist. I guess I could just sit here and use the clones to do everything then- on second thought, maybe I could just find my way home or something. I turned back the way we came from and took flight while shielding my log from the elements.

It still threw me off having so many consciousnesses linked together. From our position in the air I could now see that some parts of the endless expanse of light glowed far brighter than others. Perhaps I should approach diplomatically? The moment I thought about approaching my entire body was jolted away. Ooooh Fuuuuuck! This felt like riding a roller coaster designed to travel at light speed! And my balls! They were getting that weird tingling feeling! Even after turning on all the layers of time slowing perception on, I still couldn’t get a grasp on my body. That however, could be due to the fact that the forces acting on my body were far greater than my own. In that case it would be far better to end this ride quickly rather than dragging it out. I-

Bang!

When I finally managed to fight off the dizziness I was greeted with the pleasant sight of lights fluttering all around me. This is exactly what I had imagined the land of fairies to look like. As I reached to grab one I made a shocking discovery. You couldn’t grab light- what a truly unexpected event indeed. I’m so fucking stupid… think… think. Light can be in a sense, consumed. I had several more clones come over and spread all the boys out then create a giant capsule using our metal manipulation abilities. After that I had the boys slowly start shrinking the capsule and compressing the light. If I could just do the absorption thing through my skin then this might work. As the compression increased so too did the heat. Even for me it was starting to get a little uncomfortable.

But I could feel it! Something in my body was changing! Unfortunately I wasn’t able to see exactly what kind of change was occurring. That's… a bit worrying, the complete white I had been seeing just a moment ago was now replaced by pitch black- and judging by the rising heat I was still feeling it clearly meant that the heat had seared my retinas. Now that I was aware I suddenly noticed the complete lack of existence of my extremities. Oh well, couldn’t quit now, not like I would die anyways. The feeling of nothingness slowly nibbled away at my body until I was only aware of my own skull. At this point the ten or so kilometer wide dome we had created was now shrunken into the size of a mere soccer ball and those of us on the outside had to constantly create more metal to replace all the metal that was simply vaporizing.

What would happen once the space inside ran out? Would all the energy simply vanish? How exciting! We continued to compress the metal ball with exponentially increasing difficulty until it reached the size of a golf ball. Now it too was beginning to shine with some light despite the level of density we had compressed the metal to. Holy shit! What if- instead of trapping one of ourselves with the light, we trapped the light inside one of us? We had all shrunken down to human size to increase the number of us able to work on the ball but we were sure that if we were to try to contain that energy in our human bodies we would instantly be melted away.

Hopefully other us had been working hard to increase the strength of our beast form. We had been hoping that our soul power would multiply the strength of our beast form but it had only simply added onto it. Still, it was better than nothing. When one of us transformed into beast form we quickly calculated that it was now amplifying our natural abilities by a factor of somewhere near one-hundred and fifty times and still increasing. With the enhancement of soul power that left us at around four-hundred times the durability we had with our enhanced bodies. Even with the bonus heat resistance from our flame related abilities we still had a terrible feeling about eating this miniature sun.

It couldn’t be that bad though. We quickly shot the sun into the one of us who had transformed- it was a terrible idea! Without the multitude of us working together to suppress it immediately began releasing all its energy and the one of us who ate it quickly began melting. Fuck! What do we do?! Shrink! When one of us shrinks the other will transform and eat them! The only problem is that despite us splitting our counterparts up for the infinite regeneration ability- we weren’t regenerating. Every one of us that got consumed wasn’t able to be retrieved regardless of what method we tried. By the time we got down to the twenty-seventh clone we had to abandon the log and make the main body rush over. The energy had almost stabilized at this point but it was still kind of iffy. Looking at the way things were going even having the main body consume it wouldn’t be enough to stop it.

We fucked up pretty badly here. We could just redo it on a smaller scale but it was kind of annoying that we hadn’t managed to get the big one. It kind of felt like lost potential. There has to be a way. There was a way!

Hey! Summon the other half of the clones!

Why are you ruining the plan?

Just hurry up and fucking do it!

This fool must’ve had something interesting going on with his side. I guess I can amuse him for now.

“There has been an emergency, we will now request a few more of our companions to assist us!”

I yanked the clones from the other side out and waited for my explanation.

Use your power to pull the energy from this body into yours and have all the other clones do the same! Try to create a loop if you can!

Using the connection between us I could feel an outrageous amount of energy emitting from his body. How had he managed to get his hands on this? I guess I really could count on him to always end up in some absurd situation.

Hurry the fuck up! I’m fucking melting!

I slowly channeled some of that energy through my body and pulled it out with the clones first before slowly increasing the rate at which I took the energy. It didn’t take long before I could sense our bodies begin to reach their breaking points.

Take a little bit more!

We can’t!

Transform then! We can just enslave them if we have to!

Fine! This better be worth it. With our hands linked we took to the air and transformed into our full form. With the increase in body mass and strength the energy became a lot more bearable. I channeled a bit more until we once again reached our melting point. Hey dumbass! This is really our limit! We’ll really die if you don’t quit this now!

Just take a little bit more! I can feel it! We’re almost there!

Do you really want to die over this little power? We can always work our way up later!

What’s the point then! We have to act like the main character to be the main character, otherwise we’re just like any other piece of shit out there!

You fucking fool! I’m ending this nonsense!

Don’t you fucking dare! Be a man for once! The reason you were always trapped was probably cause you were a little bitch who ran away from all your problems the moment things got too hard!

Fuck you too! If we die then so be it! This little ignorant piece of shit! I cranked up the rate of absorption until all of our bodies began to melt. So what if we fucking died? It wasn’t like we had a reason to live anyways, everything after their deaths was just a little bit of extra fun anyways. Fuck! This was so unbearable! Why did they have to die? Now all of our achievements mean nothing. It felt like trading your limbs to be the strongest person in the world… Pointless- completely pointless.

It worked! It fucking worked!

What a strange feeling. All of the stress on my body suddenly disappeared. This really felt like a calm before the storm moment though. Oh, I can see again… I’m… I’m white! Oop, no I’m not. What am I though? I could still touch myself in a sense- but, I was floating, as if completely weightless. How do I move? Running, leaning, scooting, wiggling, nothing was working. Fuck. I’m stuck. Oh well, even if I was stuck I could still test out what powers I had gained. Could I shoot lasers perhaps? From the finger gun I had pointed towards the ground a little beam of light flowed out and made the ground smoke. That was nowhere near as impressive as earlier- how disappointing. Oh, I forgot. What happened to the rest of the clones? I created a mirror to pull one out only to find that the me in the mirror was absurdly bright now. Maybe I could be mistaken as a god?