by Rowan Bree
It appears to be some sort of oil, or sap. It’s slick to the touch, a bit gelatinous. It reminds you most of a jellyfish. Must be the remains of whatever fish they caught today. You wipe your fingers on your dress and stand up.
There are more of the patches now, making mottled patterns on the deck. There is no way you didn’t notice them before. They must have just appeared. You start to feel afraid and instinct tells you to get Hawke. You hurry after him, stepping in one of the puddles as you near the door. Your foot sticks. You scream. The gelatinous liquid starts moving up your leg, crawling like something alive. You try to wrench yourself away but the liquid is too fast. It is growing and bubbling out between the deck’s planks, moving steadily upwards past your knees and towards your waist. You lose your balance and fall over.
The ooze spreads up your thighs, slipping underneath your panties as it swallows you to your hips. It is warm and slippery against your most sensitive places. You can feel it pulsing there, then bulging like a finger to prod at your openings.
You scream louder for Hawke, desperately kicking at the ooze though your legs barely move through the viscous material. It has moved higher now, gliding along your stomach and up to your breasts. The slippery warmth against your nipples makes you shudder. You fear it will suffocate you as it engulfs your shoulders, your neck. A single tendril of it creeps up your chin and into your mouth, stifling your cries.
You feel the bulges below your waist begin to lengthen and the ooze push itself inside of you. Your muffled cries only sound lewd as the ooze fills and fits to your holes. When you struggle it feels like your whole body is being massaged with warm oil. The stimulation is too much, and there is no use fighting anyway. The ooze pulses inside of you. You come, your whole body shuddering inside the gelatinous mass.
The ooze slowly seeps back down into the deck, leaving you slimy and still feeling full. Your stomach is bulging slightly. You reach down between your legs and feel something inside of you, a smooth jelly surface. You bear down and a cluster of formless gelatinous blobs plop out of you. They sit quivering on the deck, evidence of your inhuman violation.
Hawke appears not long after. He comes to you and sees the baby jellies on the deck, your ooze-slick body, and your ruined dress.
You collapse into his arms.
“I heard you screaming,” he says. “I wasn’t fast enough.”
He strokes your hair.
“I should have kept you with me. I promised I’d keep you safe.”
It would have happened anyway. You know how this world works.
You ask if those things are what got his men.
Hawke replies, “No, those things existed before all of this. Though they shouldn’t be here, not in Tyven. And not this close to shore. But what got my men was something demonic.” He shudders.
“Are they all dead?”
Hawke doesn’t answer. “We’ll need a different ship, something smaller.”
Hawke helps you up and off the ship. The docks are still abandoned, even after all your screaming.
You ask him where he expects to get a ship this late at night.
Hawke goes to examine a small fishing boat. “This one will do. I’ll leave a note for the owner. They can have mine in exchange.”
Hawke grasps your arm as you climb onto the boat. He moves around expertly preparing to cast off. You sit down on a wooden crate, exhausted and apprehensive about what lies ahead.
Dawn is just breaking over the horizon as you awaken. Hawke is sitting at the bow. He must not have slept. You go to him.
“We’ll stop at shore soon,” he says staring out to the sea. The sunrise bathes his tan skin in a soft pink. His muscled shoulders ripple as he adjusts his posture.
Drape your arms around his shoulders.
Offer to take his place so he can rest.
The idea of waiting out in the open like this scares you more than the idea of what might be lurking inside the ship. More likely than not Hawke’s men decided to turn in early.
You ask Hawke if you can go into the ship instead. He asks you if you’re sure. You tell him you are.
“Take this with you,” he says, unbuckling his belt to give you his sword.
You have to circle the belt around your waist twice for it to fit. “What about you?” you ask.
He cracks his knuckles and smiles. “I’ll be fine.”
You enter the ship through a trapdoor in the deck and climb the ladder down into a narrow passage. The ship sways a little, making the passage seem to curve as you make your way down it.
The first door you come to leads to the galley. There are dirty pots in the sink containing the dregs of what looks like a fish stew. The wood stove is cold. No one has been here for a while.
You exit the kitchen and check out the chief’s quarters. No one here either, though the rich silks on the bed make you want to stay. There are bookshelves on the walls with nets strung tightly across each shelf, likely to keep the books from falling in rough seas. Everything is brightly colored in yellows, blues, and greens. Curiously there is a small wooden pony in the corner, the kind that children play on. It is so worn that the paint has faded and many of the details in the carving are lost. You wonder if Hawke has a child back home.
You leave the empty room and hurry down to the crew quarters. As soon as you step off the ladder you are hit with a feeling of dread. The very boards under your feet seem to vibrate with dark energy. You move forward slowly, cautiously down the passage.
A low moan comes from ahead. You peek through the doorway and glimpse a man against the far wall. He is naked and lashed to the wall with heavy ropes. His tan skin gleams with sweat and blood. Scratches cover his body.
You go to him. There is fear in his eyes.
You say, “I’m a friend of Hawke’s. What happened?”
The man’s voice is barely a whisper. You lean closer to hear him.
“We caught her in the net,” he whispers. “We knew she was corrupted. Not like the others. Some of the men thought it was okay to…”
He shakes his head, a whimpering sob escaping his trembling lips.
“Who is she?” you ask.
“An abomination,” he replies. “A monster.”
“Are the others okay?”
He shakes his head.
“They’re dead?”
He shakes his head more furiously. “I don’t know,” he sobs. “Please, let me go.”
You start to untie the ropes around him. The knots are crude and easy to loosen.
“No,” the man says. “The sword.”
You keep at the ropes.
The man pleads, “Please. I’ll never have peace again. You have to kill me.”
The fear in his voice is infectious. You feel feverish, panicked. Whatever happened to him must be a horror beyond your imagination for him to be this desperate to die. What if the woman is still in the ship? You stop loosening his bonds.
“I’ll come back for you,” you say, leaving the sobbing man half-tied to the wall. You need to warn Hawke.
You glimpse something at the far end of the hall—a dark, thin, feminine shape. It feels like the temperature has dropped twenty degrees. It stands perfectly still as you stare at it unable to move. Finally your flight response kicks in and you turn towards the exit. You hear a thumping, slithery sound behind you and make the mistake of looking over your shoulder. What you see is indeed an abomination. She has the shape of a naga but the details are all wrong. There are bony spikes, sharp teeth, and a long black serpentine tail that ends in a fishlike fin. It is as if the underworld combined all the deep sea horrors into a mockery of the divine half-snake beings.
As you grasp the ladder you feel thin fingers on your shoulders. You turn around slowly to face the nightmare creature that terrorized Hawke’s men.
Her face is exquisite, not at all what you expected though her teeth are deadly points as she smiles at you. Her fishy characteristics stop
at her slender navel, everything except the grayish tone to her skin and row of bony spikes up her spine.
Her bare breasts press against yours as she strokes your neck with cold fingers.
“Shhhh, I will not hurt you my precious,” she says.
Her eerie beauty is almost as terrifying as the rest of her. You can hear her tail sliding across the floorboards behind her.
Not so easily deceived, you ask her about Hawke’s men.
“You are no man. You are no threat to me,” she whispers. Her lips brush your ear. “They hurt me first. Do you want to know what they did?”
Ask her to let you go. You are not her enemy.
Ask what the men did to her.
“Please let me go,” you ask her.
She lets you go without a fight. “They will live in torment as long as they live. Mercy them or let them go mad.”
She slithers away, and you hear the creak of a porthole opening somewhere then nothing.
You climb back up to the deck to find it covered in salt and an odd jellylike substance. Hawke’s pants are soggy up to the knees as well, and he looks a bit shaken.
You ask him what happened.
“Sea slimes,” he says. “More of a pest than anything, but I’ve never seen them around Tyven. And most definitely not this close to shore. You were lucky to go into the ship. Did you find the men?”
You nod. “They’re alive, but they were attacked.” You tell him about the infernal naga you encountered and what she said about the men.
Hawke shakes his head. “It was the trick of the naga. She must have possessed them to act in such a way. On my honor they were good men. The sea tribes don’t abide brutes like the men of the land.”
Hawke helps you up and off the ship. The docks are still abandoned, even after all your screaming.
You ask what will happen to his men.
He replies, “We don’t have the resources to help them back home, and I can’t sail this ship alone. We will need something smaller.”
He goes to examine a small fishing boat. “I’ll leave a note for this boat’s owner to find. Allow me this boat and find care for my men in exchange for my ship. It’s more than a generous trade, and I’ll write where to send word if my men ever recover.”
You are amazed as ever by the sea chief’s kindness and presence of mind. If anyone is going to survive this new, terrible world it’s going to be him.
Hawke grasps your arm as you climb onto the boat. He moves around expertly preparing to cast off. You sit down on a wooden crate, exhausted and apprehensive about what lies ahead.
Dawn is just breaking over the horizon as you awaken. Hawke is sitting at the bow. He must not have slept. You go to him.
“We’ll stop at shore soon,” he says staring out to the sea. The sunrise bathes his tan skin in a soft pink. His muscled shoulders ripple as he adjusts his posture.
Drape your arms around his shoulders.
Offer to take his place so he can rest.
You ask her what they did.
She smiles, the serpentine half of her body pressing closer to you. “I was tangled in their net and they hauled me onto the boat. But they didn’t cut me loose. No, once they saw what I was they decided to take out their darkest carnal urges on my helpless body.”
A long forked tongue slithers out from between her lips and flicks against your neck. You feel tingly, aroused.
She stops to whisper in your ear. “First they satisfied themselves, sticking their dirty fingers inside of me until I was stretched enough to take their fleshy human cocks. I cried, pleaded, begged.”
Her serpentine body undulates against you, her tight muscles bumping against your clit through your dress.
“Some of them pleasured themselves while they watched, making my body sticky and marking me with their foul male scent. But in the end each and every one of them came inside of me.”
Her hand grasps yours, pulling it towards her. She guides your fingers into a moist slit below her navel. It is warm and sticky inside. She sighs as she pulls them out coated in cum from the men who tortured her.
“Share with me,” she says, gathering up your skirts and pushing your hand into your panties. She forces your fingers deep inside you, making you take the men’s cum. “Perhaps if you are lucky, you will find yourself bearing a child of many fathers.”
She takes her own fingers inside of her and they come out sticky as yours did. She smiles evilly and you cover your pussy with your hand, scared there is truth to her words. The naga forces your hands aside and hisses at you, the gills on her neck fluttering and reminding you of her infernal nature. You stop resisting. She slides her fingers into your pussy, leaving the men’s cum deep inside you. She repeats this several times, transferring their seed into you. Each time her slick fingers press against your g-spot, teasing you and coaxing your body to accept the semen deeper.
“Please,” you beg. “No more.”
She stops, smiles. Her razor teeth remind you she could kill you in an instant. She lowers herself down and you feel her forked tongue slither between your legs.
You arch your back, your body overcome with the sensation of the naga’s snake tongue. Looking up you see the hatch to the top deck. Hawke is right up there. If you shout he would probably hear you.
“Should I kill the man you came with before or after we drain all the cum from his cock?”
You look down. The naga’s lips glisten with your juices. She straightens back up and leers at you, as if daring you to beg her to spare Hawke’s life.
Beg her to spare Hawke.
Tell her you don’t care.
Escape isn’t worth whatever this creature is planning to do to you. You scream for help.
Sybil appears in the doorway looking both alarmed and relieved. She must have been looking for you. She kicks the creature off you then blasts it away with a ball of orange flame. It goes scuttling into the dark, chittering like a crazed squirrel.
She asks if you are okay.
You double over in pain, Vale’s magic crippling you. You can’t get any words out. Your tongue feels like it’s made of pins.
Sybil presses her forehead to yours, muttering something in an unknown tongue. You can feel the pain ebbing from your body. You must be dying. It’s your punishment for disobeying the Order, for trying to escape. You would be sad about your dying, if it weren’t for the blessed relief from the blinding pain that comes with it. Your muscles relax. You feel you can speak again, though you do not. There is no reason to speak, to think. You are leaving this world for good.
“Is that better?” Sybil asks.
You open your eyes. You haven’t died. You are still in the dusty hallway. Sybil smiles.
“Don’t be afraid,” she says. “I reversed Vale’s spell.”
Why would she do that? It must be a trick.
“I should have tried harder to help you. I’m so sorry. But for now you need to go.”
She helps you stand. You feel fine, better even.
“Through here,” she pulls you down the hall to a door leading down a dark hallway.
You aren’t sure you can trust her. It is obvious she wants Vale to herself, and this might be a trap to get you killed or worse. You ask her why she is helping you.
She replies, “I don’t have time to explain now, but you’ve escaped Doria once and I’m not going to let them drag you back there. I don’t work for Vale. I’ve been trying to stop him. But now I need you to go before I’m found out. Get as far away from Tyven as you can. Don’t tell anyone who you are. The kingdom hasn’t fallen yet and there are still safe places.”
She pushes you into the hallway and closes the door after you. You hear her draw the bolt on the other side.
The passage is pitch black. You wish you had brought a torch. As you stare ahead into the darkness you think you can see something up ahead. The passage seems to be lit by a faint glow. It takes you a moment to realize the glow
is coming from you, or your hands more specifically. In each palm there is a small ball of red flame. You don’t feel anything from the fire, not even warmth. You close one hand to extinguish the flame and keep the other going.
Whatever Vale did to you, it seems to have transferred some of his power to you. You wish you knew how to harness it, but for now you must be content letting it manifest itself at random.
You move quickly down the hallway trying to come up with a plan. Sybil said to escape, but where to? You assume the land to the east between Tyven and Doria would be the most dangerous. South of the capital is full of farmland owned by the king, meaning regular guard patrols and too many people with ties to Tyven. That leaves the north and west, each with their own challenges.
You hear a low growl up ahead. It sounds like a feral dog. You thrust your hand out to illuminate the passage and see a tall, lean hound baring its teeth. You stand motionless, watching as it transforms before your eyes into a tall, lean man then back down into a dog. The shapeshifter growls at you, its canine body lowering ready to attack.
Run!
Use your magic.
Escape isn’t worth whatever this creature is planning to do to you. You scream for help.
Sybil appears in the doorway looking both alarmed and relieved. She must have been looking for you. She kicks the creature off you then blasts it away with a ball of orange flame. It goes scuttling into the dark, chittering like a crazed squirrel.
She asks if you are okay.
You double over in pain, Vale’s magic crippling you. You can’t get any words out. Your tongue feels like it’s made of pins.