Wisconsin, North America, July 26th 1888, 3:30 pm

Josephine sighed as she settled into the tub. She could feel the warmth of the water on her scales. She observed the bubbles around her as they slowly began to multiply. Some of them were submerged by her entrance and quickly reappeared on the surface once she had settled in the water. Josephine found it a little difficult to fit in the tub this time, she hadn’t considered her aunt’s visit nor her asking for counseling. The catharsis which her aunt asked for was the main problem. Because of it, Josephine had some difficulties regarding her comfort in the bathtub. She moved around a little bit so as to adjust herself then she shuddered a little bit. The catharsis had finally begun its work at last. She could no longer hear Bethyinine’s voice singing to her, so Josephine began to sing to herself to compensate.

“So, are you enjoying yourself?” Josephine asked.

”It’s been a while since I was on the receiving side of this. Now I remember why I missed this so much.” Bethyinine responded.

Her aunt’s response only caused the tub to fill with even more bubbles. Josephine giggled and looked down at the water as a massive bubble rose from the surface, spraying water all over the place. Josephine smiled and slowly began to sink deeper into the water.

“I take it that your physical body is dead?” Josephine asked.

“Try to get out of the tub after this, I dare you.” Bethyinine chuckled.

Josephine smirked; her aunt’s response released even more bubbles compared to last time. She debated telling Bethyinine to quit talking lest the tub be covered in nothing but bubbles. Josephine shrugged and closed her eyes as the water covered her face. The last thing she heard before she began to take a short rest was the sound of yet more bubbles rising to the surface.

4:30 pm

Josephine woke up to a tub that was overflowing with bubbles. She smiled and tried to lift herself out of the tub, only to get stuck on the walls. She sighed and thought that maybe she should have waited to help her aunt with her problem. But it had been a while since they had seen each other, six months to be precise. Every time the two of them met they would practice catharsis on one another. Each visit they switched positions, just to make sure that the other one was kept in check. The last time they saw each other it was Bethyinine who practiced catharsis on Josephine. Now it was time for her niece to return the favor. Josephine struggled to lift herself out of the tub after taking a moment to concentrate. She smiled and dried off her scales before heading back into the living room. She sat down on the couch; the cushions sank deep into it as she pressed her weight down on them. Josephine chuckled and placed her head down on one of the arms of the couch before closing her eyes to rest.

“How long can I stay like this?” Bethyinine asked.

“As long as you’d like, though I might have to order a bigger couch because of you, and a larger tub as well.” Josephine groaned.

“What’s the matter? You don’t enjoy being like this?” Bethyinine replied.

“I do, at least it’s not James, he was a nightmare to deal with.” Josephine answered.

“Why’s that?” Bethyinine asked, her voice filled with curiosity.

“Well let’s just say that because of him I couldn’t sleep at all. I explained to him how this works, but he didn’t listen. He just kept pestering me over and over. Luckily for me, I could just end his “catharsis” whenever I felt like it.” Josephine responded.

“Well that makes two of us who have experienced this, doesn’t it?” Bethyinine said.

“Could be three if Luxcious wanted to do his research, but he doesn’t feel comfortable around me, and understandably so.” Josephine replied.

6:30 pm

Josephine felt someone repeatedly tapping her on the head. She jolted awake only to see Bethyinine sitting on the couch next to her. Josephine sat upright and noticed that she now only took up half of the couch as opposed to three fourths of it like she had before. She looked at her aunt and frowned in disappointment.

”So, you didn’t want to stay here any longer?” Josephine asked, looking down at herself.

“I did, but I wanted to go back home to rest, as nice as it would have been to sleep with you.” Bethyinine chuckled.

Josephine blushed and turned around to face the window. Bethyinine observed her niece carefully, noticing that despite her tail was not swaying like her own, she was still transfixed by it. Bethyinine slowly approached Josephine, staring at her tail with a burning curiosity. Josephine quickly turned around and smiled at her aunt who blushed in response.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

”So, do you want to continue with this?” Josephine asked jokingly.

“No, it was just that I was..” Bethyinine stammered.

“You don’t need to tell me, I already know. People are just enticed by my particular form of catharsis. Once they try it once they can’t get enough and come back begging for more.” Josephine answered.

Bethyinine nodded and smiled before heading to leave. Before she went through the door, Bethyinine turned around so as to wave goodbye to her niece. Josephine waved goodbye to her before she went upstairs to go to sleep. Bethyinine smiled as she noticed her niece’s tail began to sway as she walked up the stairs to her bedroom. She walked out the door and started sprinting towards Lake Eerie so as to start the journey back home.

Wales, England, July 26th, 1888, 7:45 pm

Luxcious sat up in his bed staring at the glass ceiling above him. There were relatively few stars out tonight, save for Polaris and a handful that made up the Big Dipper. Normally he would be sitting at his desk browsing through his notes or busy writing new ones. Now, there were no notes for him to write, and nothing for him to look over. He thought about editing some of his notes on Josephine, but the thought terrified him.

”It’s not that I don’t like her as a person, she’s perfectly fine. I just don’t like what she can do, her “catharsis” disturbs me. It sickens me, the very act of killing another creature and adding their life to your own. Yes, her siblings are perfectly fine with her doing it to them, but that’s because of what they are. They can afford for themselves the luxury of death, something that the rest of us aren’t so lucky with. Their physical bodies can just be brought back after death, so long as the soul still remains that is. Josephine can kill the soul; she can take the souls of her “patients” and suck them dry of their life force. Yes, Bethyinine can do the same, but she prefers to let her “prey” roam free after she’s done with them. That’s what separates the aunt from her niece, the monster from the murderer if you will, one cares about the people whose lives they ruin, while the other does not and destroys as many lives as they please.” Luxcious told himself

”That actually reminds me of something James told me.” Luxcious muttered as he jolted out of bed.

He ran over to his desk and skimmed his finger along the pile of books in the back corner. “Found it!” He said as his finger pressed against smooth dragon scales. Luxcious pulled out a massive book bound in silver dragon scales brimming with thousands of pages. He set the book on his desk; the scales glowed in the moonlight. There was no title, save for a name written in small cursive at the bottom of the cover. Silas Mori, Luxcious could barely make out the name of his deceased friend in the darkness. He lit the oil lamp and opened the book to the table of contents.

”Where are you?” Luxcious said, glancing at the chapters.

After a few pages, he found the chapter he was looking for. Protocols and Contingencies: Josephine was the chapter title, the page in question, five hundred and eighty-six. Luxcious skimmed through the book, reaching the chapter in mere seconds. He scanned through the chapter contents with reckless abandon, looking for a particular protocol. He finally found it at the very end of the chapter. Protocol βa-688 (designation: user postmortem) it read. Luxcious looked in horror at the words on the page. He knew what James was capable of, but this, this was too much. The protocol read as follows: Not if, but when, Josephine overindulges in her catharsis then there is a chance I might be dead. If I am dead and when she eventually does overindulge in her own catharsis she must be put down. I’ve done countless equations to see if she can be contained somehow, all results came up as negative. The only way for any of us to stop her when this does happen is to eliminate her from the equation. You should know what to do to kill one of these things when the time does come. The most amount of help I can give you is just to wish you well and hope that this is done with as fast as possible.

”Oh dear, this honestly isn’t good, not at all.” Luxcious said, closing the book.

He put the book back and climbed into bed, only he wasn’t able to sleep that night, not at all. As the night dragged on, he heard strange noises echoing around him. Occasional strings of beeps followed by long pauses only to be finished by one last beep. Luxcious shot up out of bed one last time and looked at his nightstand. He recognized those sounds as pieces of Morse code. The radio on the nightstand flickered once, twice, then three times before repeating again. The code only seemed to grow in complexity the longer the night went on. Eventually the radio spit out a receipt with thousands of dots and dashes on it. Luxcious grabbed it and rushed back to his desk one last time, pulling out a small, dusty, leather-bound ledger. He yanked open the drawer, ripped out a sheet of paper, and snatched his quill from its resting place. Luxcious glanced at the receipt then at the ledger, and finally at the paper as countless thoughts entered his mind. Luxcious began to translate the code into English which would take a little while. The string of Morse in question was picked up by a modified radio. One that scanned the Abyss for the frequencies of the dead, their final messages to the living before death claimed them. James must have been the one to send this, but why a week later, why not immediately after his death?

Adjustment was the answer, he wanted to make sure that everyone had adjusted to his death before sending his final regards. Luxcious continued to translate the code, the answer was slowly appearing before him, bit by bit, piece by piece. It had been a while since he had translated Morse, especially a message from James. Well, he had never been sent a message from James, not one sent by Morse that was. Luxcious glanced at the receipt one last time before finishing the translation. He gasped in horror at the words that lay on the paper in front of him. He dropped the quill which fell to the floor with a faint crack. Luxcious glanced at the Morse and then at the paper one last time.

”Surely this is right? Oh, who am I kidding, this is James I’m talking about, how can this not be right?” Luxcious told himself.

The translated Morse on the paper was a message that he did not want to hear. Not at all, not even in a billion years from now. Luxcious glanced down at the paper and read the translation aloud.

“They are coming. The conquerors are coming. The Bureau is coming.” He said.

He knew what it meant, all of it, but that didn’t make it any less terrifying. Very few of his people knew of the Bureau, and none of the Children of the Abyss knew. Though there was the possibility that James told Bethyinine about them. Luxcious sat and thought about every possible scenario where they could survive, if they would survive that is. Now they were pressed between a rock and a hard place. There were only so many ways out of something like this.