Page 63 of The Flesh Remembers
Power does not obey.
It consumes.
James may have come back a monster, but Blackwood is something far fouler, a parasite, a man who would sink his teeth into the pulse of destruction and drink deep, never mind the ruin he leaves behind. I will not allow it.
The pendant at my throat throbs, a wicked heartbeat, pulsing in tandem with the terror clawing at my soul. Once, I recoiled from its fire. Now, I find solace in it. The pain steadies me, reminds me that I still exist. It is changing me.
And yet…
No! I will not let it take me. I cannot, I cannot! I refuse to become something twisted beyond recognition. I must fight, for James, for myself.
I must find a way out before the darkness devours us both.
The Garden of Mortal Dreams
The air pulsed with humid heat, thick with the scent of overripe fruit and something darker, intoxicating, irresistible. Under the apparatus’s relentless hum, the ground split in slow, shuddering contractions, birthing tangled roots and pulsing tendrils that slithered into the air, unfurling like waking serpents. Vines thick as limbs groped outward, their slick surfaces beaded with a syrupy sap that gleamed under the bioluminescent glow of fungal blooms.
The cultists moved as one, their bodies weaving through the writhing growths, their fingers dipping into the oozing nectar. As the first drops touched their lips, a collective shiver of ecstasy rippled through them. They moaned, soft at first, then rising in urgency, their hunger mirrored by the ravenous bloom of the garden. The air grew heavier, chargedwith the static of something ancient, something watching, waiting.
Eleanor turned to James, her legs unsteady, her pupils swallowed by lust and reverence. “It’s happening,” she murmured, tracing her fingers over the vines. “The final threshold.”
James exhaled slowly, watching the volunteers move deeper into the living Eden. They came willingly, their hands trembling as they took the ceremonial blades, pressing the edges into their palms. Crimson droplets welled, sliding over their skin before they smeared them onto the vines. The reaction was immediate, the plant matter shuddering, drinking in the sacrifice, then splitting open in obscene, fleshy blossoms. Petals slick with moisture unfurled, exhaling a pheromonal mist that slithered into lungs, minds, and the fragile border between self and other.
A low, resonant moan echoed through the chamber, not from any one mouth, but from the garden itself. The walls exhaled, their membranous surfaces swelling and contracting as though in the throes of some primal pleasure. The ritual was no longer a ceremony but a desecration, a baptism in flesh and hunger. A feral, untamed world of beauty and pain was seeping into this world bit by bit. Their ceremony had opened a door of sorts, and whatever was on the other side wanted to taste the pleasures of our world in any way possible.
James turned to Eleanor, and she was already reaching for him. The garden pulsed around them, vines undulating, their sap now thick with the mingling blood and sweat of the willing. They sank into the embrace of the living tendrils, which coiled around their limbs, guiding their bodies together. Each touch sent waves of sensation rippling through the garden, the pleasure reverberating outward, feeding the monstrous fertility of the realm.
James ran his hands over Eleanor’s body, feeling the vines shiver against her skin, as if they, too, hungered for her. The tendrils wrapped tighter, whispering obscene invitations, slithering across bare flesh, slick with sap and sweat. They pressed into the secret places of bodies, filling, stroking, consuming, teasing pleasure from them in impossible ways.
The garden did not simply take. It worshipped. It pulled confessions from their bodies, desires so buried they had never dared to speak them aloud. The vines licked, kissed, and twisted around trembling limbs, forcing gasps, moans, and shuddering cries. The cultists convulsed, lost in an oceanof sensation that obliterated thought, reducing them to pure, writhing need.
The vines became lovers, insatiable and knowing, responding to each moan, each quivering breath with teasing strokes that brought them all to the brink, then denied them release, holding them there, thrashing, gasping, pleading for the next wave.
Eleanor’s fingers clutched at James’s back, her body arching as the tendrils wound tighter, her voice raw with desire. “Please…” she breathed, lost between pain and pleasure, lost between surrender and something far darker.
James kissed her deeply, tasting the sweet nectar of the garden on her lips, their movements desperate now, animalistic, synchronized with the slow, undulating pulse of the vines surrounding them. The garden would not let them climax too soon it would drag it out, make them beg, make them dissolve into it.
A sacrifice beyond blood was demanded. The garden pulsed hungrily, its roots probing deeper into the flesh of its worshippers, claiming them cell by cell. Some resisted, only momentarily, before the vines wrenched their mouths open, pouring nectar down their throats, forcing them to drink their surrender. One of the initiates, a woman whose lips were still trembling with half-formed protest, let out a strangled cry as the vines burrowed into her skin, knitting into the fabric of her being. Her form quivered, stretched, and then, with a wet, gurgling sigh, she was gone, transformed into a blooming effigy of pleasure and agony, her moans forever part of the garden’s chorus.
James watched, entranced, as Eleanor trembled beneath him, her breath in shallow gasps. “It’s... consuming us,” she whispered, her fingers tightening in his hair.
His lips brushed her ear. “Then let it.”
The vines had a vice-like grip on Eleanor, forcing her to submit to their will. A separate coiling vine snaked its way around each wrist and each ankle, holding her spread-eagled, and another slipped tenderly around her pale throat and squeezed ever so gently. A mild sense of shock passed through her as she realized what was happening to her, but this shock was all too brief and fleeting, replaced with a strange feeling of acceptance and desire. Yes, this is what she wanted, what she needed. The world around her had fallen into madness, and perhaps she too was mad now, but none of that mattered in that moment. Her mind could only think now of her release and the next wave of ecstasy.
More vines slithered around her now and began to roam her nude body. Small round bumps appeared on some of the vines, and as they grew and stretched, strange suction-like protrusions started to burst forth from these little nodules. Like tiny alien mouths, the protuberances began opening and closing as they moved across Eleanor’s skin. She could feel the pull from these tiny mouths, and though logically, the whole thing repulsed her and she knew she should pull away and flee, she did not. Instead, she closed her eyes and moaned as the seeking mouths found her hardened nipples and began to suck harder and harder, creating a unified rhythm. These vines seemed to know exactly what to do to Eleanor to bring her closer and closer to the edge of orgasm.
As she cried out in undeniable pleasure, another vine slipped up from behind her head, and the rounded tip of it slipped into her open mouth. The vine began to pulsate gently as it moved in and out of her mouth, holding a steady rhythm. Eleanor moaned against the fleshy stalk of the vine, feeling it shudder against her tongue as it pushed its way deeper into her mouth towards the back of her throat.
At the exact moment, another vine slipped up between Eleanor’s legs and with delicate tendrils began to open the swollen lips of her womanhood. With surprising deftness, the tendrils spread her open and another tendril slipped outand found that swollen centre of her pleasure and one of the tiny suction cups slipped over the throbbing spot and began to suck, gentle at first but then increasingly harder and more demanding. Eleanor was lost in a sea of exquisite sensations, unable to do anything but feel and experience what was happening moment to moment.
A final vine slithered around Eleanor’s leg and around her backside, slipping without any warning between the firm, round globes of her flesh and up to that last bastion of erotic pleasure. The vine tip had a long, tapered end, secreting that same nectar, lubricating the puckered hole before it gently began to push inside her. Eleanor tried to gasp, tried to cry out, but her mouth was still filled, and so all she could do was moan against the flesh of the vine and let the final penetration happen.
James looked up to behold Eleanor in all of her unnatural erotic glory. The vines raised her higher so everyone could watch as they used her. Every part of her was being penetrated now by this strange living vine, and the rhythm of each vine as it moved in and out of her began to sync as Eleanor could only silently beg for release, the pleasure becoming almost unbearable.
The vines wrapped around James, lifting him towards Eleanor, suspending him beside her. One of the suction cups began to form on the vine, but this one was larger, more alien-looking looking with strange folds that leaked more of the golden nectar. Jame cried out as the wet hole enveloped his stiff member and began sucking him in earnest. The sensation was unnatural, almost painful in its power, but more intensely pleasurable than anything James had ever experienced.
As James closed his eyes and allowed the vines to continue to roam his body, he too felt the vines snake up his leg and push into his backside, slick with nectar. One of the vines penetrated him as well. James moaned as the vine began tothrust, gently at first but quickly picking up speed, bringing him closer and closer to the edge of his release.
