We were Dreamers once

[Sekot]

Grey skies clung close to the tortured ground, bent and broken and rended upward to grasp at unobtainable heaven. Desiccated grass lay in clumps struggling to gather what little rain plummeted from the tumultuous clouds. A silent black ocean crashed against the base of the white cliff face, seeking desperate attempt to flee from the core of its being. Lightning flickered grasping with a thousand fingers outward, searching. No thunder, no wind clamored to beat at the still, caustic air.

He stood on the edge, black flame billowing from his broad shoulders like a cloak. Silver armor shimmered in the false light, beaten and scratched and lacking polish. He turned as she approached, red eyes glowing behind the plain wooden mask. His double-edged straight sword cut a thick line in the dirt, screaming softly as it did. She stopped, pulled her own earthen colored cloak tighter about her small frame. She did not look into his eyes, instead choosing to look at his feet.

"Why have you come?" he asked, his words echoing in her mind.

She collapsed to her knees. His presence consumed her, surrounded her and ate at conscious thought. Her memories slipped as they were plucked from her one by one.

Behind him the clouds parted, swirling away from a central point violently. A red star collapsed through the atmosphere, burning the air about it. He did not turn to face it, she could feel his gaze resting upon her. "They're coming," she spouted meekly.

He lifted his blade and pointed it at her, the earth sighing at the lifting of the weight. In the space between them numbers were written and memories came to life. She beckoned what few barriers she could muster in hopes she could stave off his attack. The star crumpled, expanded and breathed into life. The sky was opaque, sucked of color.

There was a roar, a scream as a dragon followed the falling star. Wings spread in radiant color, it spiraled downward with claws grasping wildly. Its metal surface gleamed against the red light, its edges burned from the heat of reentry. The red star twisted and spun, eluding its would-be captor gracefully and effortlessly.

He turned to watch them, his attention diverted long enough to allow her to escape. The red star came closer, boiling the surface water as it passed. It grew larger, dwarfing the size of the dragon as it consumed the energy of the world about it. The sea went still, time slowed. He could hear on the advancing wind laughter, shrieking and gravelly.

The dragon howled as it closed in, jaw opening. A moment passed, and it was consumed from inside out.

The red star neared. His hand tightened on the hilt of his sword.

[Sekot]

He was the devil's child. A man born of fire. He stole glances, whispered names and caused hearts to flutter. He moved like water over stone, shimmering clarity reflecting beauty. Like the mask he held in his hands, his image was a well crafted piece of armor. The literal translation of his personal metaphor that he held was a simple wooden mask, a plain carving of ancient tree from far off worlds in other times.

He gripped it tightly. Begging from it some vestige of an answer, begging from it a response that could not come from such inanimate objects. The answer he sought dwell inside him, and that only served to fuel his anger. His self pity that churned in his chest and brought bile to his lips. Eyes wide, he stood and threw his arm back. Ready to throw the simple construct, he hesitated.

He pulled it back. Stared at it. Willed life into it. Nothing. It lay still in his hands, a pathetic reminder of the rules of reality and his own weak grasp on it all. With a heavy sigh he returned it to its rightful place across his face. His world was cast into darkness behind the opaque shield.

"You can't run forever."

She turned her head so that she could peer at him through her one giant eye. Her blond hair fanned out about her head, both radiant halo and turbulent flame.

"You can go to them, but one day you will see."

The dream came quickly. He felt it penetrate his limbs, his frame going limp. Her words were so very empty, so light and fluffy dangling on the edge of consciousness.

"Return to the dream, feed that addiction. But one day..."

She faded from his view. Was replaced by a resplendent queen. The mask was a liar. But one he could never not indulge.

[Sekot]

Traces of light followed the quick tap of fingertips as they wrote in the air before him. The impenetrably dark room was lit with a strobe, illuminating his white cloak and cowled face. Only the starkly pale, gnarled beard was visible protruding from the heavy covering. His arms frantically moved in the air, a conductor creating multiple symphonies. The words themselves stayed visible for moments, floated in the space before dissipating into the recorder. The scribe muttered under his breath.

She had eyes of gold and double jointed hips. She danced and gyrated over holographic tables. She licked her fingers and painted her body in rainbows. She blew into the air and it came alive with static and warmth. Her frantic hair rearranged itself into an array of delicate patterns until on her head she wore art. Soulless glances were stolen from onlookers, sent backward and inward. She devoured their stares, their attention and gave birth to spectacle.

His armor was like wet paper. He was thrown into the air and rose up to his feet with all the energy of a toddler. Eye slits glowed fiery red and left traces as he passed. Black cloak of flame roared about him as if they were wings, as if they were exhaust for the want burning in his chest. Both hands grasping the heavy blade, he swung it upward. It extended, multi-locking pieces sliding into place to fully extend the mighty weapon. And the other merely stopped it with their hand, ducked under it and let the rest of the kinetic power pass harmlessly over them. But the man was quick, prepared. The blade stopped and came back down as energy was transferred from the converters hidden within it. So the dance between them began, impossibly sharp movements that would ordinarily shatter bones were played out in a breath.

[Sekot]

Chest heaving. Wet drips of salty sweat pooling on the tip of his narrow nose. Smiling widely. Feral. Hunched over, he extended his bloody arm. Focused, he extended a finger and raised his thumb. He cocked his wrist back, pushed air weakly past his lips, "Bang."

Fire ripped from the earth into a spinning cloud. Multiple plumes danced in dazzling circles around him. Fingers licked outward, bodies forming from the chaos. Gyrating figures coalescing into naked men and women tantalizingly brilliant. He collapsed to his knees. Eyes wide. Head upturned. Grinning. They laid their individual hands on him, walking about him in ever narrowing circles until they all collapsed together. The fire went dark, breathed.

It breathed. It stood. Arms extended outward, embracing air as it was pulled inward. Light bent and it was warped into contorted shapes. It breathed and the air trembled.

[Sekot]

He stepped closer to the gate, peering between the rotted bars and into the darkness on the other side. An opaque wall. He heard the sobbing voice emanating from the other side, but no visual representation peered across the expanse. They echoed. Quietly. Longing for some sort of touch, to be seen and known. The door was not even locked. He could have opened it and released the prisoner. His fingers wrapped around the frigid metal, felt the sting of timelessness aching in his joints. This door had not opened in an eternity. The weight of that knowledge kept him from breaking that curse.

"If he can find the door, he can leave."

The voice came from behind him, but he chose not to look. Enraptured by the sounds, the absence of a person separated him from his own reality. His hand slowly fell back to his side, limp. His fingers hurt to move. There was a strong grip placed on his shoulder, forcing him away from the dark. Slowly light drained back into his vision, sending sparks from nerve to brain. Firelight flickered on the aged stone walls, glittered in the puddles of dark ooze on the cracked floor. They reeked of old blood.

"It is time you left."

The face that swam before him was young, but the eyes were as old as the walls. Older. He was more frightened of them then the cage behind him. Dark hair framed her pale face, ageless green eyes glimmered in the dancing light. Her lips were pulled into a tight line, her grasp only strengthening. As he stared at her, into her, space warped around them and no longer were they surrounded by the tired dungeon.

Dead grass crunched underneath his knees as he collapsed. He took in a few deep gasps, clutching at his throat as warmth returned to him far too suddenly. She took a step back, her leather boots not making a sound. The crackling leaves were not moved by her passage. She did not exist here as anything more than an apparition. Yet he felt her presence surrounding him like a heavy cloak, smothering what little sunlight peeked out from between steel clouds. Behind him the spires of the ancient castle rose upward, disappearing into the fog.

"What did he do...to deserve that?" he asked, still gasping for air.

She removed her gaze from him. He suddenly felt the overwhelming urge to run. She looked up to the tallest of the towers. But just as quickly as it was removed she returned it, and once more he was enslaved to her. The trees grew thicker in the moments between words. The grass died a little more.

"Who needs to remember such things? Is it not enough to know that he is there, and that such things exist? The 'why' of his situation is lost to time."

Snow began to fall in fat, heavy flakes.

"But you remember."

"I do."

"Then tell me," he pleaded.

Silence. Even from so far a distance, above so many levels of earth and stone, he heard the others heaving sobs.

"Eternal Warden, tell me, why do you guard such a place?"

Silence.

"Did he make you? Are you doing this for him? Tell me where he is, and I can release you."

She was gone. He looked up to where she had been. Space was emptier there, quieter. Shaking, he rose to his feet. He looked behind him at the iron gate that lay half open. The once paved ground led back into the thick forest. Birds chirped in the treetops.

[Sekot]

I heard his whispers on the breathing air. Gently tickling my ear, a warning sign written in the ashy clouds over sunburnt fields. I turned, closed my eyes as I felt that coarse breeze caressing my cheek. Like a hand, I knew its memory and felt it spark within my chest a longing. Deeply sat, these words spoken only to me were the words of a madman.

I opened my eyes and saw him standing on the top of a mountain across from mine. His warm, grey eyes shouted aloud to me across the cloud covered expanse. I felt myself torn, felt my fingers itch for the memory of his. Memories. Dancing images that sent tingling sensation throughout my body. The memory of his lips, of his touch, of the smell of him elated my heart and I grew weak. Just the sight of him, the image of him created from some distant cognitive corner was enough to bring me to my knees.

He smiled and I knew it was over. He smiled and I knew it was over.

His mottled hair, devoid of color, fluttered in front of his pale face. His image faded, reappeared like a flickering flame that is gone for an instant only to return as bright as before. The ground is trembling, the earth at my feet is grinding. He raises an arm, an outstretched hand. I want to take it, to reach out and grab it, to keep me from falling. The ground is shaking, asking me if I know, if I hear. I can only ignore it. Unable to separate my self from myself, I am enraptured. Such dreams are calling, how can I possibly turn away from them?

Behind me the void grows, it hungers. It swims from nowhere until it stands above me, towering. He looks past me for a moment and the illusion breaks for just that lingering breath.

A pause as the wind dies.

Space is alive.

The whispers have become cacophony. Tumultuous impedince. My body shakes with the earth, fear crawls on many legs up my spine. Each touch of electrical foot is a prick of bloodletting thought. The clouds are rising, they are growing, broiling. And he is not looking at me but that void behind me and his smile falters. It falters and I falter. I am afraid of my self that is fear manifested.

It was, that thing on the mountain behind me, a memory. Nostalgia. Calling for me, beckoning for me in a tongue I knew once upon a time. Seductive in its intensity, touching me in the way only I know how to touch me. The ground is rumbling, and I ignored it. The ground is shaking, threatening to shatter my mountaintop and I did not want to listen. The void has come to collect me. And I turned my back to it.

He looks at me now. Eyes are wider, pupils dilated. He is screaming at me, threatening me. He is begging me. I am begging me. The memory of me is begging me. I close my eyes and feel the still air that is choking me. The warmth is smothering. Slowly that terrifying darkness grows. It becomes the sun and moon, the stars above until it is all things and I have been swallowed.

[Sekot]

The dreadnought slipped across the twilit sky. Its undulating form knifed between the stars and the distant motherworld. The rust-orange light cast the creature in silhouette. Countless points of light swarmed on its dark surface like so many stars. They glowed with yellow intensity, pulsing from node to node. Solar sails glittered, scattering light across the surface of the satellite. Its enormous girth brought a sense of comfort and a sense of terror. There was a tingling in the back of his mind as he looked up at it, vast arrays at work analyzing the ground below. It sought something. He could feel the animal hunger gripping him for a moment before releasing. Dark circles edged into his vision as pressure grew for that brief second. When he was free, he gasped quickly for air.

As it left, he shuddered. He could still sense its searching fingers, could still see the strands of data in the air about him like glowing fireflies. What do they want? What are they searching for? They didn't find us. They didn't find us.

So many voices scratching at the back of his mind. Twittering voices that were quickly silenced. Better they were kept in the dark, for now. He still needed to hide.

"Are you ready?"

This voice was next to him, outside of him. Physical. Spoken as a whisper, his enhanced hearing perceived it as a scream. His body was caught as combat drives stifled his surprise, a moment of vertigo as his body reversed its responses. When his mind caught up, his body had already assumed a confrontational stance, his breathing slow and measured.

"Hey now, no need for that. Its just me."

The man before me smiled. White teeth against tanned skin. A few days of rough hair framed the mouth. His vision slowly macroscoped. Blue eyes. Bald. Tattoos etched onto the scalp. A name.

"Fuck David, you know better than to sneak up on me like that," he said, calming his systems and the chattering voices speaking in alarm.

"They got you wound up, don't they?" David laughed.

They both looked up. David flipped the dreadnought off.

"Why are you here?" he asked.

David glanced down, smirked, then pointed toward the motherworld.

"You see it, don't you? We're about ready."

The clouds that covered the surface of the planet swirled angrily. Storms were brewing, storms that had raged for thousands of years. "I don't..."

A flash appeared for a breath. A single spot of light. Almost imperceptible against the light of the ship and light of the planet itself. It blossomed, fiery petals stretching outward all before collapsing in on a single point. A dark spot. It swallowed itself and disappeared. The clouds filling the gap. All within the beat of a heart. More data streams. More grasping fingers.

"Better say your goodbyes. We're not coming back."

A warm breeze had picked up. It wound its way through the broken stones and tortured girders of the desolated city. It whistled through the alley they stood in. He leaned back against a brick wall, felt the coolness of it against his back and let out a heavy sigh. Another explosion. Wormspaces. Time Wells. Black holes.

The voices chatted together excitedly. He listened only to keep his own thoughts from consuming him. He shut off the memory cortex, silenced the overbrain. He just listened. Amongst the subcortices were the sounds of the datastreams, of the nets and memoryscapes. Still working even with so many networkers destroyed. The dreadnought's complex nervous system entranced his simplified processes.

You can't leave me yet, buddy. We've still got work to do.

David's voice in his head was a cooling blanket. With it he could focus only on the connection. David's mind was silent. Focused. Comforting. He had always been better at controlling the enhancements. He nodded as he rubbed his eyes. The voices were silenced once again, overbrain rebooted.

He smiled at David. A shy, sheepish smile. "There we go," David said. "Much better."

[Sekot]

Work to do.

You know what you are, don't you? You know who you are? So much stronger, so much better than me? I'm a joke. And here we are, stuck on this shitfuck of a satellite, stuck orbiting a dead planet. Stuck on a pile of shit. And you want to take me with you.

David smiles. And when he does the saturation of the world shifts. I run programs that check my visual senses. I can see xrays and thermal output. I can see movement from fifty miles. I can separate every color and its shade from itself. I can manipulate the prism in every conceivable way, but when he smiles the world changes. I change. His lips are redder, his teeth whither. His already large eyes look radiant, eclipsing the light of the stars and the motherworld. Their blue is bright, light reflecting off thin ice.

Who are you? What are you?

A horn blares. A long solemn note. A marching tone. David takes a step back, runs some checks on the skin. I can see him beginning to glow as radiation pools within his systems. My own sensors scream at me, tug at my consciousness. Angry voices chatter unceasingly. Reluctantly I pull up my shielding. The world goes hazy and I commit resources to switching views. The world shifts into a murky array of shifting, dancing colors. The dreadnought above is a screaming yellow. The motherworld is a deep purple except for the occasional brilliant explosion within it. Now they appear as radiant explosions of angry violence, capsules of energy stolen bit by bit. The world is in its death throes. From this changed view I can see the ripples of devastation emanating from it. My heart aches a bit with every flash, with every extending tongue of invisible flame.

Data screeches at me, the air is alive with it. My brain sends tingling sensations from my head down to my toes. Words are transmitted, lines are drawn. David speaks but his words are lost to me, the physical reality melts. It evaporates into a world of extended life, virtual realities that tangle amongst themselves in orgasmic violence. So many experiences being uploaded at once, too many so that the subcortices are overclocking themselves to untangle the useful out of the useless.

Do you want to know why I chose you to come with me?

His voice is a knife. It splits my scattered thoughts. The radiance of life is filtered back through a meager analog brain. His words are my anchor. I have to stifle my body's arousal, the pumping adrenaline that threatens to unseat me. Not yet. Not now. Let me listen, please! Then I will let you free.

You're better than me. You're a better choice for all of this. Unfortunately you gotta play that bullshit 'hero' role.

I can feel the air quotes.

You gotta heart I don't have. The voices, they're controlled by how much you give a shit about what they say. Most of us learned to overpower them a long time ago. Most of us learned to drop that part of ourselves. We lived on higher planes. But you, you chose to stick with it. To hear them and understand them. Those voices, they're all of us. You gotta listen to them, no matter what, you hear me? Don't ever stop. Maybe we'll make it through this, I know I will sure as hell make sure you do. But promise me this, promise me, that you'll always listen.

He doesn't give me a chance to answer before he's rocketing away. His wings are fully extended, I can see his spine glowing as the fusion reactor within him comes to life. He's gone as quickly as I can blink.

The voices scream at me, are chattering countless words. I can see faces in the spaces around me. I can see them in the explosions that have grown more intense. The data streams have gone silent. The dreadnought is moving. If I had not been able, if I was not remade, the thunderbolts that had begun to barrage the satellite would have blinded me. It was bombarding us. It was alive. And suddenly hot. My lungs struggled to breathe. Oxy resevoirs let loose a needed amount to keep me from suffocating.

I could feel David, could sense him. My own wings pulled apart, grew large and grotesque. I felt my body hunger, felt it grasp for energy as the fusion engine came online. The sensation of flying is one I will never get used to, even as I lift off and scream towards the upper atmosphere which is already broiling with hot weapon fire. My fingers dance, my mind races as I am lost to the growing battlelust. Combat systems are live, shields are live. My heart stops. Blood pools but anticlotting factors keep it from choking me internally. My temperature, my life is regulated by the skin. The nausea of flying fades. I am alive.

The worldmother is collapsing. I can feel my comrades' deaths as spiraling spears of fire. I can feel their elation. I feed into it, feed their fear and anger and brilliant laughter. I can spot David and I reach to meet him. Together we are two warriors tested by battle, ready to meet the coming onslaught and seek our refuge from the closing trap.

[Sekot]

And his lips they tasted like

ash

and within the words he sung were spoken

love

and we danced the night away underneath

falling stars.

He rocketed up, away. Spinning like a mad snowflake, his wings turned and rattled. Little points of light followed in his wake, their trails were dark smoke. The sky was alight with flashing sparks of yellow and red. The air was choked as it was siphoned by miniature nuclear explosions. Collapsing points of light spoke for seconds before snuffed into ozone-charred nothing.

I followed as best I could, but my body was not as in tune with my will as his, the voices spoke in so many chattering sounds that distracted me from my self. Instead I gave in, we all had our strengths after all. He told me that. He needed me. And I couldn't let him down.

I looked beneath me. They were followed. Diamonds of black, diamonds of red and orange trailed my path in twisting and unnatural patterns. They moved effortlessly through space, changing direction in angles impossible for any object with truemass. I blinked, dreamscape engaged and revealed another form to me. A dragon, tens of dragons chasing me with jaws wide and slavering. Their tongues tasted the air and fire churned in their baleful throats. Within the dream I also saw many shifting shapes. I saw him as a radiant point of light, any diagnostic test run refusing to acknowledge him as existing within this space. He was Realtime. This realization warmed me and for a moment quieted the voices.

Fire spaced me, dreamscape collapse and I was back. I dove, my wings disengaged and sitting stationary as the rest of my body plunged downward. My stomach lurched, I tasted vomit. Not enough. Never enough. I spun. Space twisted around me as the gravitational objects in my body urged it. I tasted sex. I tasted life. The voices screamed in my head until I was drowned out. A thousand other histories spoke simultaneously as they sought living experience.

Miniature black holes opened with the dance of my hands. I was pulled suddenly in directions against the world. My eyes were shut but still I could see through the lenses of consciouses not my own. Radiation sang, enraptured me and split my body apart. The skinsuit struggled to keep up and only barely managed. My lungs ceased as all metabolic action was diverted to cleansing my repeatedly diseased body.

Power rippled across me. The dragons were caught within the miniuniverses of the holes and elongated to oblivion as they could not escape the event horizons multiplied on top of each other.

[Sekot]

Fingers twitch. The cold penetrates the joints and they begin to slow. Aching, he flexes them in his gloves. A cloud of warmer air escapes from his nose after a heavy breath. He tugs his coat a little tighter around him. All he wanted to do was crawl back into his car and start up the engine, bask in the warmth of the steel coffin. The wind rolled across the barren acres of snow-covered farm land behind him. What little trees there were rustled their naked branches together in mocking laughter of him. He took a step off the icy road and into the snowbank. His foot caught for a moment on the surface before dipping down until his ankle was submerged. He wasn't wearing the shoes for this and the wetness penetrated to the toes.

Above, the night sky was clear of any clouds. Far beyond the reach of yellowed city lights, stars were free to glitter like the snow underneath silver moonlight. He took another step, willing himself to ignore the pain arcing up his legs, glad that his toes had already gotten numb. He thought he heard their voices, laughing. Muffled by the distance and the snow, was it truly them or an echo? A dream come to life. He shut his eyes against the kicked up snow that ran from the tops of the dunes before him. Tiny needles pricking his exposed cheeks. He pulled his scarf higher up his face and tied it again.

The journey was long, difficult. He slipped more than once climbing the sheer steep hill. There was nothing to grab hold of except for more snow. He stopped halfway up and had to rest. He breathed heavily from the exertion, finally warmed. More laughter from just over the top of the dune. They were sledding down the side, running away. He gritted his teeth and planted his foot, ready to make another step. But the snow beneath him gave way and he slipped once again, sliding down several more feet. He called out to them, but his voice felt so quiet. He looked behind him. The car cast a long shadow against the road, the glass glistening with a fine layer of ice. He turned his back to it, struggling to continue his climb.

Finally he crested the hill and stopped at the top. The laughter faded on the wind that chilled his throat and chest. It crept through his coat and grasped at his chest. He coughed, blood settling into his mouth. There was nobody there, no marks on the hill to note any other person had come by. He looked out over the frozen surface of the lake, waves caught in the moment before they crashed, white mounds of frozen froth. Snow began to fall, the rustling of the trees faded as the giant clumps tumbled from above to add to the already thick covering. He sat, clutching his knees close to his chest.

[Sekot]

Windswept cold, naked fingers scratching crackling tinder. Frantic heart race beating out smothering silence. A face, warm caught immolating fury. Flesh pale as the snow he stood on, smiling

bleached bone, death's head grin

at me from underneath deep blue eyes. Flames flicker a videotape skipping in its track.

a pair of holes, empty as his grave

Hairs rising,

risen

in fear, I can taste the tang of my sweat on my lips. A piece of me swells aches in anticipation. Want. He places a soft hand on my shoulder, comforting squeeze. I look at his slender fingers

pop and hiss stench of burning bone

as I reach up to grasp them. Against my lips a kiss placed icy skin I can grasp as breath escapes me. His lips move and I hear the words strained across distances.

"Fancy seeing you here," the old cliche.

Laugh, eye stinging tears. Choked up.

"I know right."

No warmth but light, cold light cast upon glass.

reflecting memory a face cast out of shadow

"Who are you this time?"

Accusatory witness interrogating. No answer but the sigh of snow against snow. Bitter laugh. Coughing fit. Crimson stains.

"Whoever I need to be."

Useless. "That it?"

"Yeah, kinda".

"It either is or isn't, dude."

The light dies and the skin falls. Patches of rot and decay, blackened and bleached bone. No eyes.

Clacking of teeth.

Gnashing and wailing. Biblical.

'What do you want?'

"Not you."

"You sure about that?"

Arm around the shoulders, pulled in close. Poking in my ribs by ribs.

Pulls me close and whispers in my ear. The click of teeth is shattering, raspy dry tongue like paper.

"Everything will be OK"

[Ad Absurdum]

Hey,

Your writing's really good.

<3 Ad

P.S I can see Quantum Thief inspired you a couple entries back.

[Sekot]

Jan 25, 2016 13:19:44 GMT -5 Ad Absurdum said:

Hey,

Your writing's really good.

<3 Ad

P.S I can see Quantum Thief inspired you a couple entries back.

i told u not to read y u no listen?!

ps

Yeah, it did. Whenever I read something really good I get the urge to write something like it.

[Sekot]

I looked down the barrel of her gun and I could only smile. I stared up at her, into her sunset eyes. She did not smile back. Instead she flinched, tightened her grip and pressed it closer. The dark hole at the end swallowed my vision, captured my attention. Within its depths I felt the cold promise it held within it. I reached up, grabbed the hand that held the grip. Absent of warmth, the touch caused her to recoil, to turn away and throw an arm across her face. Her fiery hair churned as it caught the light of a dying star, incandescent silver. The stars, one by one, winked in and out of temporary existence. And the cracks in the universe spun themselves into sleep.

I got up from the tortured earth, stood as tall as I could. She lowered her arm but still gazed out over the horizon of the end of the world. Planets danced on that edge, one bright ruby orange and the other a soft emerald cerulean. Caught together, their movements were a prophetic mockery. Oblivious to the end game, they could only focus on the epicenter of their trembling love, the inevitable collapse of gravitic coupling.

Her eyes were rimmed with red and frost. Salt colored tears dripped from the corners and traced the soft lines around her gentle nose. The dimples in her cheeks, normally so pleasant to look at, were flat and blemished her. Hate dwelled in her, burned in her and offered a little warmth. The sharp, agonizing pain of the moment in which I was lost to her was only matched with the more immediate force of her weapon against my skull. Reeling, world spinning, I fell backward. She was on me, straddling me wailing on me with words and physical force. I attempted to shield myself, to push her away.

It was then that the sky darkened, that stars were swallowed. An orb grew until it had become the sky. She glowed against its darkness, radiant goddess. Many armed, many faced. Against the darkstar, her anger was magnified. Oppressive, I stopped breathing. I gasped. I mouthed. Nothing. It was like time stopped but I could still think. A bottoming out and a sudden stillness. You don't really think about it, your body never really stops moving. There's a constant changing of pressures, a pulse that slows and quickens, I gentle rise and fall of the chest. Micromovements of muscles and electrical impulses.

And, in an instant, it all stops.

A terrible peace covers me. It starts in my fingers, pulls backward and up into my arms and chest. Nothing moves. All is still. You can feel it slipping, your mind. Without oxygen everything begins to shut down. Preservation. My vision tingles, darkens at the edges.

And then it all comes back.

A massive thud. My eyes hurt as they bulge, my chest burns as air is pulled inward. Every finger feels swollen as blood rushes back into them.

She steps away. Turns her back to me. I can only breathe.

[Sekot]

((Because fuck you that's why))

He smiled an awkward smile. A bit too wide, too much teeth. His jaw wasn't perfectly aligned, his bottom row were just a hair too far left. He hoped she wasn't looking at that. It was all he could think about. Well that and the fact that this gorgeous woman was between his legs. She gazed up at him, her eyes a crystal blue. The dark hair of her eyebrows and thick eyelashes caused them to look as if they glowed in the warm lamplight. She smiled back at him, her teeth perfectly white and perfectly straight. Her thin lips were a bright cherry red, contrasting sharply with her Snow White skin. She brushed his cheek with a soft hand, he wondered if she could feel the individual stubbles of his patchwork facial hair. He wished he had shaved. He shaved everything else, or kept it trimmed, so why so lax about his face?

He wanted her to stop looking at him that way. She was the hotter one. She leaned forward and nibbled at his ear. He closed his eyes and moaned softly, biting his lip as her hand made its way to his crotch. His rapidly growing cock swelled in his jeans as she grasped it and gave a soft tug. He moaned again. She chuckled into his ear, her breath a soft bite all on its own. "Do you like this? Do you want this?" she asked.

He only nodded. "I want to here you say it!" she demanded as she pressed her hand against his now fully hard member.

She ran her palm along its length, from base to head. She teased the tip with her fingers. "Yes, I want it," he whispered.

"Louder."

"I want it!" he squeaked.

She drew back so that he could look at her again. Her thick, raven hair fell across the left side of her face, only one eye clearly staring back. His breathing had quickened. His cock ached to be free, but he dared not move until she gave permission. With that look she had made it clear, he was hers. She rose to her full height, pulled her hair up and back so that it was no longer in her face. His gaze drifted down her long, thin neck and down her pale chest. Her breasts, a handful each, were locked away behind a scarlet-laced bra. The fabric was thin and barely contained her. Her stomach was flat, muscles peeking through a meager layer of body fat. As she breathed he saw them flex and his dick pulsed with them. Finally he ended between her legs, a pair of scarlet underwear to match to the top. Barely even a thong, he could make out every facet of her pussy. The lips looked so inviting from behind the cloth curtain. Paralyzed in his chair, all he wanted to do was rip them off of her.

"Have you been a good boy?" she asked, her voice heavy.

"Yes."

"Yes what?" now stern.

"Yes, ma'am."

She grabbed him by the throat and forcibly turned his head upward toward her, "You look at me when I talk to you."

"Yes, ma'am!" he squeaked again, a shiver running down his spike.

She smiled. "Good."

She leaned forward and her lips found his, her tongue forcibly parting the barrier and entering his mouth. Hers collided with his just enough before retracting, her teeth dragging across his bottom lip. She came at him again, passionate and intense. His mind melted underneath her, she tasted like freshly picked strawberries and newly squeezed orange juice. She straddled him in his chair, her pussy placed directly over his crotch. He felt her grinding through the various fabrics of their clothing and he wanted her. Her hands slid down his chest until they met his, then she grabbed them and quickly placed them on her ass. The muscled mounds felt warm in his grasp, He pulled at them, pushed her against him. "Oh," she breathed into his mouth, his eyes opening just enough to see her a mere inch away from him. "I see there's some life in you yet."