“Get up to anything interesting today?” Brianna asked, puffing as she exerted herself on the treadmill.
“Mm, not really,” I replied. “Just the usual. Catching bad guys.”
“Do you ever do anything other than catching bad guys?”
“I get two days off of patrol a week, usually dedicated to more specialised training.”
Brianna was silent for a second. “Jeez, girl. You need a break. Some time to kick your feet up and just relax.”
She was probably right, but for some reason I still felt the need to defend myself. “I mean, I did get a ton of time off after I was shot, so I probably don’t need any more anytime soon.”
Brianna sighed. “Not exactly what I meant, Jordie.”
It had been a few days since our first encounter here in the gym, and we’d been meeting up to run together every day since. Spending time with her made me happy; the compliments and jokes – even if I didn’t always get them – could make me smile even when I was feeling awful, and every now and then she’d say something that would once again trigger that same feeling I got between my legs our first time running together. It was probably the main reason why I kept coming back, even after the incident with Vivienne and Rishta. Aside from my mission, of course.
Speaking of those two, everything was cleared up, thankfully. Well, just about, anyway. I ran into Rishta again and tried to apologise, but he said it was okay. Apparently, his shoulder wasn’t bothering him much, which was good. In regards to Vivienne, I hadn’t been lucky enough to see her. I wanted to ask her more about my shoulders, and maybe… some other stuff, too. She seemed to have a pretty good grasp on what was ‘normal,’ and apparently I could use a few lessons on that. Who knew that frequent shoulder dislocations weren’t actually a thing everyone went through?
“So, what did you mean?” I asked.
Brianna paused. “Are you doing anything after this?”
“No, why?”
“Well, how about we hang out in my room? I can show you how to actually relax. And… maybe some other stuff, too.”
Well, I’d never say no to spending more time with her, and this seemed like the right direction to go in for my mission. “Sure. What are we gonna do?”
“Oh, you know. Listen to some music. Chat. Maybe… we could fool around a bit?”
“Sounds good to me,” I replied. I wasn’t really sure what she meant by ‘fooling around,’ but I was sure I could figure it out.
“Awesome!” Brianna exclaimed. “Well, what do you say we finish up here, shower, and then we can head back to mine?”
“Okay.”
She smiled. “Can’t wait.”
—
“So, this is my place. What do you think?”
I looked around the space. It wasn’t much bigger than my quarters back at the facility, with a bed in the corner, a desk, a couple sets of drawers and not much else. It didn’t even have a shower like mine did. Though, I supposed the showers we just visited were sufficient enough to not need one in here. It didn’t have a toilet either, though. Presumably, that was a similar situation to the showers.
“Reminds me of my quarters,” I said.
“Yeah?” Brianna replied, walking over to her bed and sitting down on it. She was clearly familiar enough with the space to not need to use her cane. “I know it’s not much, but hey, it’s free accommodation. I ain’t gonna turn up my nose at it. Come, sit down.”
She patted the space next to her and I did as she asked, settling down on the bed. It was plusher than I expected, even through my armour.
“You know you… don’t have to keep your armour on here, right?”
“Sorry?”
She leaned back, lying on the bed. “Do you wear it in your room at home?”
“...No.”
“Then why keep it on here? I heard you took it off for your duel with Rishta, and if you’re worried about me seeing your face, well…” She gestured vaguely at her eyes. “Blind as hell, y’know? You don’t have to if you’re uncomfortable, but it might be easier to relax, which, if you recall, was kinda the whole point of this.”
No matter how I tried to rationalise it, I just couldn’t find fault with her words. Father hadn’t minded about the fight with Rishta, so surely he wouldn’t mind here either, right? The threat of punishment weighed heavily in my mind, but… She was right, she couldn’t see my face. I would actually be able to take my armour off and relax with another person for once without technically breaking any of Father’s rules. I couldn’t pass the opportunity up.
“I suppose I could,” I said, getting up and stripping my armour off, piece by piece.
“Dope,” Brianna said. She pulled out her phone as I got undressed, and spoke into it. “Play ‘Swanky time’”
“Playing playlist: Swanky time,” a monotone voice replied. Music started playing out of the phone, and she placed it back on her nightstand.
Once I’d gotten rid of all of my armour, I sat back on the bed, bouncing a couple times as I landed.
“Oh, wow,” I muttered, flopping backwards to lay next to Brianna.
“Comfy?”
“How is it so soft? My bed’s practically concrete compared to this!”
Brianna’s fingers brushed against my arm and my breath caught, half-expecting pain from the sudden touch and half-surprised by how good the gentle contact felt. She laughed. “Well, from what I gather, you’ve been living pretty militaristically up until now, so that’s not too surprising. You don’t have to worry about any of that right now, though. Just relax and enjoy yourself. You want some candy?”
I cocked my head to the side. “What’s that?”
Brianna sucked in a breath and nodded. “Memory issues, right. You’ll see.”
She reached over to her drawers and opened the top one, pulling out a colourful plastic bag of something.
“How can you tell where it is so easily if you can’t see?” I asked.
“Blunt as always,” she said with a toothy smile. She held up her hand, revealing that her pinky and ring fingers were both missing. “My power lets me turn my body into smoke. It’s helpful for a lot of things, like squeezing into tight places, or helping me get my bearings just a little more accurately by feeling around over a wider area. It’s not perfect, obviously, or I wouldn’t have to use my cane, but it’s useful in small spaces like this where I’m familiar.” Her fingers reappeared, and she plucked something from inside the bag, putting it in her mouth before getting another and offering it to me. It was small and red, vaguely shaped like someone was trying to imitate a strawberry, and covered in white powder.
“Try it,” Brianna said.
I shrugged, putting it in my mouth and biting down.
“Oh!” I exclaimed, looking at Brianna. “It’s so sweet!”
She grinned. “You like it?”
I nodded. “Yeah!”
Her grin grew wider. “Here’s something else you might like.”
All of a sudden, Brianna leaned towards me, placed a hand on my cheek, and pressed her lips to mine.
Woah.
I sucked in a breath, heart jumping, my whole body suddenly lighting up with electricity and freezing me in place. It was just like that dream I had of Madeline all those months ago, only it was real, and I didn’t know what to do. The swirling in my belly felt like fire licking my insides, spreading to the ends of each limb and making my hands shake. Whatever this was, I never wanted it to end.
Unfortunately for me, just as suddenly as she’d moved in, Brianna pulled back after a few seconds; an expression of disappointment on her face.
“S-sorry, I… I think I might have misread some signals-”
“Do that again,” I said frantically.
Brianna blinked, processing my request. She tilted her head and smiled, looking slightly confused. “Are you actually gonna kiss back this time?”
Kiss. That’s what it was. Unimportant. “Y-yeah.”
She chuckled. “Well then. Take two, here we go.”
Brianna moved in again, and this time I was ready for her, parting my lips to meet hers just like I did in that dream with Madeline. We connected and the electricity came back in force, shivers rocketing up and down my spine, all the way to the tips of my toes. Her hands roamed across my body, finally free of its cage in my armour, and I kissed her back, just like she asked. I didn’t really know what I was doing, but matching her movements seemed to do the trick, as she smiled against my mouth before gently parting my lips further with her tongue.
I whimpered as that fire in my belly flushed under my skin in response, my vagina tingling with need. Brianna pushed me onto my back, breaking the kiss for a split second as she clambered on top of me before fiercely claiming my mouth again. Ordinarily I’d be panicked underneath someone else’s weight, but here I felt only a desire for more. I tried to copy the thing she did with her tongue, but it was useless against her onslaught, and only resulted in her responding by pushing her tongue further in, licking into my mouth. Failing that, all I could do was wrap my arms around her and hold on for dear, beautiful life.
She let out a happy moan, stroking the scar on my face with her thumb. Her other hand snaked beneath my tanktop, gently resting on the bare, burning skin of my belly. I clenched my abs, once again expecting pain for just a moment, before settling back with the overwhelming relief of the realisation that she wasn’t going to hurt me. Warmth mixed with the electricity and the scalding fire inside me, and I whined into her mouth. My hips rocked upwards of their own accord, seeking any sort of stimulation to relieve the building tension between my legs. Brianna noticed this, grinning against my lips, and pressed her thigh right where I needed it.
“G-aah!” I keened, breaking away from the kiss for a much-needed breath. Brianna needed no such intermission, kissing along my cheek and down to my jaw.
“Your sounds are so cute,” she muttered, gently nibbling my skin and eliciting more of those sounds she apparently loved so much. Her hand trailed up underneath my tanktop, cupping my breast and softly squeezing. “This okay?”
“Yeh… Yesss,” I moaned. I gasped as her fingers found my nipple and pinched it, prompting me to arch my back, pressing myself further against her hand. That was a new feeling, but I definitely didn’t hate it.
She hummed in apparent satisfaction, lowering her head again to continue nipping and sucking at my neck. The sharp sensation was almost overwhelming in its pleasure, and I couldn’t keep myself from babbling.
“G-guh, g-god, f-f-feels… s-so good…”
Brianna laughed. “Damn, you’re sensitive. Is this your first time?”
“F-first time… what?” I gasped out as she rolled my nipple between her fingers.
“First time having sex.”
“Wh-what’s… sex?”
Brianna paused, poking her head up. “Wait, seriously?”
I panted, half-grateful for the chance to catch my breath, half-annoyed at the sudden disappearance of all that pleasure. “What?”
Brianna seemed to realise something, then groaned, rubbing her face. “Oh fuck, of course. Your memory issues.” She looked back up, touching my arm. “You don’t know what sex is, do you?”
I slowly shook my head. “No. I… I’ve never heard that word before.”
“Do you at least know about consent?”
“...No.”
She sighed, leaning down and resting her head on my chest.
“Are… Are we gonna keep going?” I asked.
“No. Not until I get you up to speed, at the very least. I don’t feel okay about doing this otherwise.”
…Aw man.
—
“Did you get all that?”
I blinked, trying to retain everything I’d just learned. “Uh, yeah. I think so.”
Brianna had explained everything to me. Sex, consent, the whole package. Sex was something two people did when they were attracted to each other, similar to what I’d figured out how to do that night after my deployment (which was called masturbation, apparently), only with another person. But, according to consent, people had to agree to it. I supposed that made sense. I wouldn’t want someone I didn’t like touching me at all, let alone between my legs. Sebastian Beaumond appeared in my mind right then. He seemed like the type to do that without consent. But it did raise a question.
“So… When people touch me, even though I don’t want them to, that’s bad?”
Brianna nodded. “Yup.”
“But… That happens all the time in training. Father or the trainers will do all sorts of things to me, and I… I’ve never liked it. But that’s just training. That’s what it’s like.”
Brianna grunted, seeming a little uncertain. “I… don’t know quite if that applies. I mean, if you’re doing combat training, people are presumably gonna hit you. That’s kinda part of the deal. But… I suppose if you didn’t agree to the deal in the first place, then it’s wrong.”
Oh. Well, I guessed it was fine then. I owed Father for saving me, and this was how I was paying him back. That meant I agreed, right? The thought was… oddly disappointing. That probably applied to punishments, too. I agreed to them, so… I shouldn’t be upset.
Though… Vivienne said my shoulder dislocations weren’t normal. Maybe… Maybe I should talk about this with her before making up my mind. Just to be safe.
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“So,” Brianna said, threading her fingers through mine. Her hand was warm. “Do you want to keep going?”
For so much of my life, being touched meant being hurt. Punched, slapped, cut, burned, whatever. But Brianna’s touch was something completely different. Something new and exciting. Something safe. All that knowledge about sex and stuff was a lot to take in, but knowing all that didn’t change how much I still yearned for that same safe, gentle, positive touch from before. The only person who ever touched me even close to anything like that was Vivienne, and now that I was actually experiencing it properly, I was beginning to realise just how much I’d been missing it in my life.
There was no universe in which I’d say no. I needed more.
I nodded. “Yeah. I really do.”
Brianna smiled. “Great. Since it’s your first time, we should probably take it a bit slower than we were before.”
That made sense. That first bit was a little overwhelming.
“Can we kiss?” I asked.
She chuckled. “Of course. And, please, let me know if you ever want to stop, for any reason. It’s okay.”
She was being a lot more careful than before. If I had to guess, figuring out that I had no idea about any of this stuff scared her a bit. Oddly, it just made me feel even safer. “Okay.”
Brianna nodded, reaching up to cradle my face before gently kissing me, far softer and slower than before. I sighed, reciprocating, and we carefully laid back down on the bed; this time with me on top, straddling her lap. Her hands trailed down my sides, settling at my hips. We stayed like that for a while, just enjoying the moment, before I decided to escalate a little with my tongue. Brianna moaned at the contact, tugging on the hem of my tanktop.
She pulled back, though not so far that we weren’t still completely intertwined. “Do you wanna get undressed?”
I nodded, sitting up and all-but ripping my tanktop and underwear off, throwing them on the floor.
“Well?”
“Oh! Uh, I just did.”
Brianna paused, then laughed. “Eager, aren’t you?” She reached up, caressing my bare abdomen, before trailing down to my thigh. I shivered at the touch. “Suppose I should join you, then.”
She wiggled out from under me and quickly stripped down to nothing, leaving her bare form on full display.
“Wow,” I muttered. She was beautiful.
“Like what you see, huh?” She grinned.
Instead of responding, I followed my instincts and moved back into her, kissing her with the same intensity she kissed me with before.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” she gleefully whispered in the scant few moments our lips were apart.
I just grunted in response. The feeling of our bodies pressed together – skin-to-skin contact with nothing in between – was so intoxicating I could barely think. I just wanted to make Brianna feel good in just the same way she made me feel good earlier. To that end, I pushed her onto her back and returned to my position straddling her hips. Her hands explored my body, stroking, squeezing, pinching as she felt her way between my breasts, thighs, and butt.
I gasped at a particularly tight squeeze to my ass, and used the momentary separation to move my mouth over to Brianna’s neck, kissing and sucking her skin. She groaned, holding me tighter as her head tilted back to make more room. I didn’t let up, trailing my hand down her chest to grope her breast. My heart fluttered in my chest as I felt up the soft flesh. It was still hard to believe this was actually happening.
“Are… A-are you copying what I did earlier?” she breathed out between pleasured gasps.
I paused. “...Is that bad?”
She laughed. “No, not at all. But, if you wanna really make me feel good, how about you try something a bit further south?”
Brianna grabbed the hand that was cupping her breast and pulled it down between her legs. The warmth radiating from her vagina was intense, as was the wetness soaking the inside of her thighs. I instinctively swallowed as a wave of heat flushed under my skin.
“You said you’ve touched yourself before?” she asked.
“Y-yeah?”
“Then you already know what to do.”
Oh. Yeah, that made a lot of sense. Same anatomy, and all that. I smiled, leaning back in to nip at her neck while my hand got to work with the familiar motions.
“There you go…” Brianna moaned as I started circling her clit with my fingers. She stroked back and forth through my hair, occasionally gripping, gasping and jutting her hips upwards into my hand as her pleasure spiked. Satisfaction tingled throughout my body at the sight and sound of her enjoyment. This was it; this was exactly where I was meant to be.
I went on like that for a little while, just basking in the sounds she was making, before dipping my fingers lower and teasing her entrance. Her legs parted further, making room, and I took the invitation, slipping two fingers inside of her.
She groaned, deep and primal, digging her fingernails into the meat of my shoulder. “Fff… Fuck, Jordie… Keep that up…”
I wasn’t one to disobey orders, especially when I was actually making someone feel good, instead of hurting them. Maintaining a steady rhythm, I thrusted my fingers in and out of Brianna’s vagina, rubbing against her inner wall in the way that always made me buck and writhe with pleasure. Sure enough, Brianna was barely holding on, rolling onto her side to wrap herself around me as I fingered her harder and faster. Her moans echoed right into my ear, her hot breath making me shiver. I’d long since given up on kissing her neck, instead resting my head on her shoulder as I focused my efforts down below.
It wasn’t long before the telltale signs of Brianna’s approaching orgasm became clear. Her breathing picked up; her moans rising in pitch and volume. Just a little further, and…
“Oh, fuck!”
There we go.
Brianna clung to me as the tremors hit, her thighs quivering violently. Her legs clamped shut, keeping my hand in place as I pushed her through the climax. Honestly, I couldn’t have moved away if I wanted to, with the way that she was squeezing me.
Finally, the orgasm subsided. Brianna let go of me as I pulled my fingers out and flopped lifelessly onto her back, panting. I smiled, resting my head on her outstretched arm and watching her chest rise and fall with every breath. I could’ve stared at it forever… Though, in the meantime, I needed to do something about the wetness soaking my hand.
Well, it wouldn’t be the first time I licked my fingers clean after a fingering. The only difference was that this was on someone else instead of myself.
Hmm, Brianna’s tasted a bit different than mine. I wondered why.
“Damn, Jordyn,” she said with a laugh once she’d finally caught her breath.
“Did I do good?” I asked.
“Good? You did great, girl. Seriously, if I tried to keep up that pace that consistently my hand would be cramping for the next two days.”
“Well,” I said, pride and giddiness filling my belly. “All my stamina training had to pay off somehow, right?”
Brianna laughed again. “Sure.” She rolled over and kissed me on the forehead, then the lips. “May I return the favour?”
Oh. I’d been so caught up in pleasuring her, I’d completely forgotten about the heat amassing between my own legs. Now that it had been called attention to, however, it became impossible to ignore. Sweat prickled along my skin at the thought, my stomach swirling enough to make me dizzy. “Y-yes please.”
She grinned. “Well then. Allow me to show you a new technique.”
Brianna moved in and kissed me for a long, feverish moment before parting and moving down to my neck. There she laid down a trail of fiery, lingering kisses until she found just the right spot to send sparks shooting through my body with every delicate touch of her lips. Her target located, Brianna focused in on it, sucking and biting until I was writhing breathlessly in the sheets. Just when I thought it was over, she moved back in on a new spot, and I was right back where I started.
Finally, after about three or four repeats of that, Brianna apparently decided she’d had enough of making me whine and squirm from my neck, and continued her trail of kisses down my body and to my chest. Her hands caressed up my body, cupping both of my breasts and squeezing them.
“You have nice boobs,” she muttered against my skin, before licking a fiery stripe up the underside of my breast, making me yelp. “Not too big, not too small.” She took my nipple into her mouth, sucking on it and lathing her tongue around my areola. I jerked, arching up into her as the breath left my body. After a long moment, she let it go. “Soft, good squishiness. What more could a girl ask for?” She sank her teeth into the meat of my breast and I hissed, slowly releasing it as the sensation buzzed through me. Somehow Brianna was able to make pain feel good.
“Y-you too…” I whispered, my ears ringing.
Brianna laughed, still moving lower along my body, kissing all the way. “Thanks.”
She pulled back as she reached the bottom of my belly, running her hands down my thighs, so so close to where I needed them, but not quite.
“You ready?” she asked.
“Ready for what?”
She cocked her head with a sly grin. “This.”
Her hand slid down through my pubic hair, and she gently pried my labia apart with two fingers before moving in with her tongue, licking all the way from perineum to clit. I jerked, bucking my hips as she hit the sensitive bundle of nerves, but she held me down, going to work like she’d trained all her life for it.
“Oh… Oh god,” I moaned, dropping my head back on the pillow, gripping the sheets and doing my very best not to absolutely scream. The feeling was indescribable, morphing me from functional human to writhing, gasping mess in a matter of seconds. Brianna hummed against me as I helplessly rutted into her mouth, and the vibration sent thousands of tiny sparks shooting through my body. I wasn’t sure how long I could last like this, but time quickly became irrelevant as I closed my eyes and succumbed to the pleasure electrifying every nerve.
For all I knew, it could have been hours that Brianna was stretching me thin with nothing more than her tongue, but given how worked up I already was, it was far more likely to be minutes or even seconds. Regardless, eventually the pleasure, combined with the sight of her between my legs, combined with the obscene sounds of her mouth against my sex, was too much for me to bear. My resolve broke and I came, thighs trembling as I cried out a broken keen of ecstasy. Brianna pushed me through it until the last of the quakes passed and I was left limp and satisfied, spread out across the bed.
Brianna kissed my thigh before crawling back up to lay next to me, and I immediately rolled into her, yearning to be held. She accepted my silent request and wrapped her arms around me, pulling me onto her chest. I sighed, nuzzling against her as a sudden drowsiness rocked my system. I wanted to stay in this moment forever. The facility had never seemed more cold and uninviting than it did in this moment, embraced by warmth and affection. No one at the Union wanted to hurt me. They wouldn’t give me orders or tell me to do things I didn’t want to do.
I’d never felt like this before, I realised in that moment. In all 16 odd months of my living memory, I’d never felt anything even remotely like this. My entire body buzzed with endorphins and giddiness. I felt totally, completely safe. I felt… cared for.
Maybe…this was where I should be. Not for any mission or whatever it was that Father wanted of me, but… for myself. Despite the hiccups I’d ran into, and despite how nervous I still was around many of the heroes, I was happier at the Union than I’d ever been in the facility. Yes, I still owed him for saving my life, and I could never, ever repay that debt, but… How much more of myself did I have to give him before he was satisfied?
“So,” Brianna whispered. “Was it everything you’d hoped for?”
I chuckled, smiling against her skin. “I’m not sure I was ‘hoping’ for anything when I came here, but… Yeah. It was great.”
“Well, we’ll have to do it again sometime, then.”
Excitement fluttered in my chest at the thought. “Yeah.”
“Though – and, sorry, I really should’ve mentioned this earlier, but I forgot – you should know that I don’t do romance. So, if that was what you were looking for, sorry.”
“I… don’t really know what that is,” I muttered.
Brianna chuckled. “Makes sense. Well, it’s kinda hard for me to describe, since I don’t experience it, but from what I can gather, you’ve got three types of love: familial, platonic, and romantic. Each of them can be just as strong as each other, but they all feel a bit different. For example, I love my mom, but I also love Vivienne. My mom’s family, and Viv’s my best friend. Obviously I don’t feel the same way about them, but that doesn’t mean I don’t care for either of them any less. With romance, that’s just another type of love you can experience. Generally, people can have a lot of friends or family, but romantic love is a bit more picky. It can feel a bit more possessive, or intense. You can feel it for a few people, or just one person. You want to be with that person all the time. You’re always thinking about them, and when you do you feel all warm and gooey inside or whatever. Granted, everything I’ve just said can also apply to a regular old friend as well, so it’s not really an exact science.”
I frowned. “Then what’s the difference?”
“If you ask me, there is no difference. Us humans like to categorise things, and these separate types of love are just another set of labels we arbitrarily decided to put on things to help ourselves understand it better. Functionally, they’re all mostly the same. We’re friends, and we just fucked. Vivienne and I fuck when we need to blow off steam, too. But, our amatonormative society would tell you that people only fuck when they’re in romantic love with each other. But that’s bullshit. You can do whatever you want whenever, forever. If it’s fun, why the hell wouldn’t you? Of course, like I said, I don’t experience romantic love, so if there is a difference in how it actually feels, I can’t tell you. I’ve just been going off what other people have told me. Go ask Vivienne or something. That girl’s a hopeless romantic; you’ll be in just the right place.”
I laughed at her attitude, despite not understanding at least half of what she was saying. “Okay.”
“The point is; if you’re looking for a romantic relationship with me, then you’re out of luck.”
If this was what friendship was like, then I was more than satisfied with that. “Nah, this is perfect.”
She hummed, stroking my back and tracing her fingers along my scars. “Good. I think so, too.”
All that sounded pretty interesting, though. Maybe I should go and ask Vivienne. I still needed to touch base with her to make sure we were okay after the incident with Rishta. She and Brianna were the only two people I felt like I could really trust around here. I’d gotten to spend a lot of time with Brianna now; gotten to know her better and get comfortable with her, and I wanted to do the same with Vivienne. I wanted to be able to just exist around her again, without the shadow of her uncle looming over me. Though, maybe that was too much to ask.
“How’d you get these scars on your back?” Brianna asked.
“Made a mistake. Those were my lesson,” I replied.
“...You say some very worrying things sometimes, you know that?”
“What do you mean?”
Brianna was silent for a minute. “Don’t worry about it,” she muttered.
She sounded tired. It was probably getting late. I needed to get back to the facility soon, as much as the thought pained me with how comfortable I was in that moment. I closed my eyes. Just a few more minutes…
Come here, little shadow.
My eyes shot open, head suddenly pounding. The voice came from everywhere at once, rocketing through my brain like a jackhammer. Something in my gut tugged, trying to pull me out of the room. I needed to follow it.
“Jordyn? Are you okay? You got tense.”
I sat up, climbing over Brianna to get off the bed and gather my clothes. “S-sorry, I just remembered I need to get home.”
“Oh. Okay, uh… can I… walk you out of the building?”
“No, that’s fine.” I paused my scramble, turning back to look at her, even though she couldn’t see me. “Thanks for tonight. Seriously.”
She smiled. “No problem, Jordyn. Get home safe, okay?”
I nodded. “Okay.”
I quickly pulled my underwear on and donned my armour, leaving Brianna’s room as soon as I was ready. The pull was like a physical thing, squirming around inside me as it led me through corridor after corridor.
Come, child. Creature of shadow and science and kin. Free It from Its bonds, and It shalt grant your deepest desire.
The pounding in my head became incessant. Something leaked out of my nose, and I tasted iron. The pull got stronger and stronger as I approached the source. The air felt thick, electrified, even as the hallways I travelled through became less and less illuminated; lights flickering and then failing completely. Dust lined the floors and the walls. No one had been this way for a long time.
I came to a door. It was old; older than the rest of the building, at least, and of a completely different design. It was made entirely of metal; rusted, and several inches thick. A valve sat in the centre; no doubt its opening mechanism. Strange symbols lined the doorframe, glinting in the light, despite the lack of a light source.
Close now. Come.
I grabbed the valve.
“Jordyn, was it?”
All of a sudden, everything snapped back into clarity. The pounding was gone, along with the echoing voice. In my hands was a metal valve, attached to a door I'd never seen before. If not for my helmet’s night vision, it would’ve been completely pitch black. How did I get here?
I turned around. There was an elderly woman there, in a wheelchair. Something about her reminded me of Father.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“My name is Siobhan. I’m Ashley’s mother. May I ask what you’re doing down here?”
I looked around. I was in a dusty, dark hallway. “I… I don’t know. I can’t remember.”
Siobhan nodded. “The Godling called you here. It wants you to release It.”
Oh. That tracked with what I remembered of the past few minutes. A raging headache, hallways, and missing memories. “Is… Is it behind that door?”
“Yes. Sealed below centuries ago, the fortifications of Its prison growing along with the advancement of technology. You won’t get through that door by yourself, that’s for sure.”
“How’d you know I was down here? How can you even see me? It’s pitch black.”
Siobhan raised her eyebrows and looked up. “Hm. Ashley needs to get the lights fixed.” She looked back down, in my direction but not quite at me. “To answer your first question, I felt it. Ever since I was born, I’ve been able to sense other peoples’ thoughts and feelings. I believe you young people call it a ‘power.’ When the Godling influences a mind, the mind ceases to act in a normal and recognisable fashion. Like the Godling itself, it becomes a beacon of incomprehensibility. And as such, as long as that mind is within my range, that beacon is unmissable to me. This isn’t the first time this has happened, and it won’t be the last. Such is the way of things, setting up an organisation right over the tomb of an eldritch god.
“To answer your second question, I can’t see you at all. I’m blind. Unlike our dear Brianna, I lost my sight as I aged, along with the rest of my body.” She patted her legs. “Brianna has been a great help in learning how to not die of boredom without my vision.” Siobhan laughed good-naturedly.
That made sense. I sighed. “This isn’t the first time the Godling has targeted me. Is… is that normal, too?”
She took a deep breath, releasing it slowly. “I sense much pain and turmoil within you. The Godling preys on hurt and weakness. It’s much easier to tempt a desperate person to do things than someone who’s well-off. Not to say that doesn’t happen, of course, but those who are struggling are usually an easier target. It offered you a wish, didn’t it? That It would fulfil your deepest desire?”
That did ring a bell. “Y-yeah, I think so.”
She nodded. “That’s what It offers every time It calls someone down here. Pretty tempting, huh? I imagine it must be difficult to turn down, what with the struggle you’re currently going through.”
A wish, fulfilling my deepest desire… What would I even pick? “Is the wish real?”
“Yes. Legend states that Divine beings are unable to lie. If that is what It offers, that’s what you’ll get for freeing It. But no wish could ever be worth the devastation and destruction that would follow should the Godling ever be released from Its prison. The world as we know it would end, and humanity would be subjugated under Its will, if not wiped out completely for what we did to It. I’d advise against listening to the voice in your head next time.”
“Wow. That’s, uh… pretty intense.”
She chuckled. “Yes, that’s one word for it. Now, let’s not hang around this dusty old crypt any longer. Would you be a dear and wheel me back to my room?”
“Of course,” I replied, grabbing her wheelchair and starting back down the corridor. “You may have to give me directions, though.”
“Pfft, yes, just ask the blind woman for directions. That’ll go well.” I clamped my mouth shut. This old woman was snappy.