It was easier to get through the trees now because many of them had been broken or knocked over. She didn’t question it. She might have wondered if a storm had blown through this part of the forest and felled the trees, but the thought never occurred to her. Just that it was easier to keep going toward the source of the humming, and that’s where she needed to go.
The trail of broken trees now carried a smell. It had the power to tickled something inside her brain, a warning. Fire. The trees had a charred and blackened appearance as she followed their ruined path. But even this primal signal of caution was dulled by the humming that surrounded her, penetrated her, vibrated every neuron, and filled her head with the wordless voice that urged her to continue because loneliness is bad and if she kept going loneliness would be gone.
Find it.
Comfort it.
Banish the loneliness.
We’ll be so happy together.
We’ll be together.
Being apart is wrong.
Together is where we must be.
It was as if she walked downhill, so inevitable was her direction now. The humming, the voice, the intense feeling of longing and need. She was so close. Soon they wouldn’t be lonely.
Her heart kept hammering away as the realization of proximity dawned like the sun rising over the mountains, filling her almost to bursting with bright hope and anticipation. It was echoed back at her in the hum, anticipation and yearning. The need for the distance between them to be erased.
Her dress really hurt. The throbbing pain of its impertinent squeezing, its tightening, was the only thing that could find space inside her head amidst all the humming and urging. But it couldn’t dull her smile, which widened as the steps ahead between her and her goal decreased in number.
So soon. So close.
Now.
The clearing was burnt, smoking still even now. It didn’t register. What she noticed, what she was delighted to see, was the lonely creature in the middle of it. Now she was here and it was about to have its loneliness taken away.
It felt her presence and reacted with a change to the hum. From sadness and longing to joy. It couldn’t move to meet her. Something about this strange world pinned it down against the surface of the hard, unforgiving Earth and it didn’t yet know how to fight the constant force. But it could move. Its arms filled with fluids and writhed in the four dimensions available to it here. And if it could move, it could take their loneliness away. She just had to approach it.
She just had to approach it. It wasn’t an option, it wasn’t a request, it was a signal sent through the humming air directly to her feet, bypassing her brain. Getting closer made her happy.
The strength of her dress was failing against the pounding of her heart. A rip, a lightning-fast tearing, and her bosom freed itself. Her sore flesh, swollen and aching from the accelerated growth, bounded out into the air light fleshy dowsing rods aimed at her destination. She thrilled at the energy passing between the creature and herself. It electrified every nerve as she drew closer. She was with it. She was here. The creature’s loneliness was at its end.
Its throbbing tendrils reached out towards its savoir, probing and thrusting against the alien force that attempted to pin them down.
With every centimeter of distance that melted away between them, more and more of its thoughts became hers. She could see herself reflected through its senses.
*Soft. *
*Beautiful. *
*Ripening. *
*Compatible. *
*Easily molded. *
*Many suitable crevices. *
*The textures of her body would offer it tantalizing new stimuli. *
It was so happy.
She was filled to the brim with its happiness.
They were so happy. The loneliness was gone. There could be no loneliness as she was now an extension of it. An organ offered up by this alien world, through which it would explore this plane with all her senses augmenting its own. And so much more than that, an organ for reciprocity. She would be a way for it to experience pleasure from two perspectives at once.
Comfort it.
Banish the loneliness.
We’ll be so happy together.
We’ll be together.
Being apart is wrong.
Together is where we must be.