The Viluverse - Chapter Four

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The darkness brightened around him, only momentarily as a deep shadow, blacker than night, stood in front. It looked alien, slinky; hard to define, as the blackness overcame him again.

“Now then my love, my sweet one…Melgu is here.” Jensen stood in oblivion; that was the feeling as he felt a cold, icy hand caressing his cheek. “What has you been up to, you my love?” It asked, the voice fluctuating between a raspier version of Jensen and a more seductive one, that of a lover waiting for the first night’s marital adventures. A hint of the inhuman was mixed in for good measure, and Jensen tried not to let the rising fear best him.

“I’m exploring…” was the best answer he could think of, as he felt the reaction from Melgu reverberate around the space, making him shudder.

“Exploring…would you like to explore me my sweet? We have much to talk about.”

He felt Melgu’s face though he could not see it, red eyes now facing him as he started trembling.

“What’s it to be, my love…a session with repentance or pushing further into our blackness…I want you to explore with me…I need some rage again; we need a union….”

Jensen pushed away from it and tried to focus, the shadow darting around him.

“Oh, you didn’t think it would be this easy, did you? I have plans for us…big plans, we need to come together again, I need to be inside you, to learn from you, my sweet, my previous one….”

“Enough…” Jensen felt the headache grow as the tunnel grew brighter in a flash before disappearing into blackness again.

“You know it makes sense, my love…my sweetheart, I need to see the outside again, been trapped down here for too long…inside you, waiting for reprieve…you sometimes dream, don’t you? Sometimes have nightmares…let me help you, let me help us….”

It slinked around him in a dance, almost seductive, as Jensen felt a gnawing sensation in the pit of his stomach and sickness that wouldn’t leave.

“We can do anything, my love, anything we want…but I can’t stay inside like this anymore…I need freedom, to see the world through your eyes….”

Its voice suddenly grew monstrous as it said this, and he could feel breath on his face, like warm air that had no smell but made him feel sick.

“Just let me in…we can end this….”

He heard more voices coming through now, raging, inhuman.

“C’mon, my love…we need it…you need it….let me in….”

Jensen summoned all of his willpower as the creature seemed to grow taller, and with one mighty push, he shoved the creature and lit his binocs; the thing disappeared in an instant as he felt a wave of love rush through him from the chem enhancer he had just managed to activate, located around his neck under the skin.

“Thank God…”

He got his breath back, barely, and looked around the now-lightened tunnel. Melgu was gone; his shadow would return, he was sure, but at least for now, he was free.

Melgu had come to him one night after a trip into the blackness. He’d been aiming for Holos but had somehow landed in a dead zone, a blackness without stars as voices could be heard around him. Out of this blackness, he’d seen a figure, first huge and tall, then small and tiny like a child before forming into a humanoid shape, coming towards him on all fours and leaping after him.

It had called out to him like a dog needing a master or a child calling for a parent. He remembered running in the blackness, wanting to scream but unable to as the form calling itself “Melgu” leaped after him and literally jumped straight into him.

He remembered nothing after that, only more blackness and a voice caressing him like a soft breeze on a cool summer’s day, promising the union and a merging of souls. Where Melgu came from or what he represented were still mysteries to Jensen, who had been badly shaken by the whole thing. Melgu had rarely made appearances since then, but when he did, it was terrifying, and Jensen sensed a creature from his unconsciousness arriving in such a way was a sign of deeper-seated issues to be dealt with.

Melgu had never clarified what this union would involve, but Jensen was terrified of it. The feeling was of coldness, a sense of deep space yet slimier and more primeval; a blackness that occasionally took form when Jensen caught something in the corner of his eye and woke out of his reverie.

He’d sometimes felt cold anger lingering afterward, but this time, there was none. Instead, he only felt the stillness of the tunnel as his usual trick; the chem enhancer, a special gift from Meridian, had done its magic, restoring his chemicals back to balance in some way he couldn’t understand but, perhaps like a placebo, had the desired effect.

He got his bearings again, listening for sounds, anything, as all was quiet again. Finally, he adjusted his binoc vision and activated the force field - which had been mysteriously turned off - and walked ahead again, trying to gauge how long this tunnel might be.

The last thing he needed was to be trapped down here and unable to return back home: sometimes hacks were available to those who had not been “chosen,” which allowed you to return home, but if you wanted to pay for them, that was another matter entirely: the only ones who provided such hacks were well out of his pay league and some he was on bad terms, to begin with.

He moved forward continually, taking sure steps as the aftertaste from Melgu began to wear off, and he shuddered just as he thought he heard voices up ahead. They sounded distant, but they sounded like two men, and he paused, activating the invisibility mechanism within his force field, which was a neat surprise Meridian had granted him.