Page 64 of The Flesh Remembers
James and Eleanor were now entirely lost in a sea of erotic sensations, not aware of anything around them, even one another. The vines began to slowly bring the two of them closer and closer together until their bodies pressed tightly together, the vines wrapping around the two of them, locking them into this unnatural embrace.
The others' movements became more frenzied, no longer just passion but devotion, an act of worship that stripped them of everything but sensation. The vines responded, tightening, stroking, teasing every nerve, drawing out pleasure until it became unbearable. The garden did not allow release; it dragged them to the brink, held them there, and let them drown in it.
James felt himself slipping, his body no longer entirely his own, overtaken by the waves of euphoria cresting higher, higher, never breaking, never subsiding, just expanding until his mind fractured beneath the weight of it. The vines shuddered in unison, a quaking climax that rattled through the temple of flesh and flora, the walls contracting as if the entire space were one great, convulsing organ.
A violent rapture seized them all. The air thickened, viscous, heavy with the scent of sweat and floral decay. Limbs twisted, fused, melted into the pulsing mass, cries turning guttural, beyond words, beyond language. It was no longer an orgasm, it was an extinction, a dissolution of self into the primal rhythm of the garden’s endless hunger.
The first bodies burst open like overripe fruit, sap and blood indistinguishable from new blooms erupted from what had once been flesh. Eleanor’s head tilted back, a final moan spilling from her lips as vines curled into her mouth and down her throat. Her body twitched in bliss even as she became part of something older, something infinite.
James could only watch and feel, lost in the tide, drowning in the heat, the wetness, the monstrous ecstasy that had no peak, no end, only more, and more, and more.
From the quivering flesh-petals of the garden, something convulsed, shadows coalescing into humanoid shapes, their forms writhing as if reborn from agony and ecstasy alike. Faces emerged, eerily familiar yet grotesquely remade, stretched too wide, their flesh threaded with veined petals pulsing like breathing. They were the lost, the consumed, reshaped into something neither human nor wholly plant, their lips trembling as silent cries spiralled through the humid air.
The cultists who had yet to succumb watched in paralyzed awe, horror seeping into their bones as the reborn figures dragged themselves forward. Their movements were sluggish, weighted by the thick, pulsing vines that trailed behind them like grotesque umbilical cords, each glistening with nectar and the remnants of blood. Their fingers flexed in eerie invitation, slick with the ruin of those who had gone before, their bodies quivering with something beyond pleasure, beyond pain, an existence without limit or mercy.
James felt it then, felt the inevitability crawl inside him like a parasite burrowing through his veins. Beyond this consuming embrace, there would be no escape, no self, no individuality. He and Eleanor would dissolve into something vast, something holy in its monstrosity, something infinite in its hunger.
The Garden of Mortal Dreams had bloomed, and all would be devoured.
Excerpt from the journal of Lord Alastair Blackwood
I fear I am losing control. Fairfax’s machine heightened the power we conjured with the rituals to such a degree that I fear we have conjured something far beyond raising the dead. Whatever we have tapped into is far darker and far more ancient.
The world is trembling on the blade's edge, and these two seem to be at the centre of the chaos. I need to harness their chaos, tame it so it submits to my will. That is the only way to prevent complete destruction. I only hope that I have not lost all control.
I must redouble my efforts and remind them they would have nothing without me. They should both be on their knees, thanking me for what I gave them. They will be forced to their knees before I am done with them.
The Blooms of Human Offerings
The first light of dawn cut through the dissipating mist, its golden hue tainted by the lingering scent of nectar, sweat, and something unnameable. The garden, once a writhing, fevered mass of desire and delirium, had fallen into eerie stillness. Tendrils drooped, their hunger momentarily sated, while the enormous, heavy blooms sagged, their petals still slick with the remnants of a human offering. Some cultists lay among them, half-entwined, their bodies twitching in pleasure or horror, their minds caught in the aftershocks of a night that had unravelled the boundaries of flesh and consciousness.
James stirred, the weight of something more than exhaustion pressing against his skin. As he sat up, the world swayed, the subtle luminescence beneath his flesh flickering in response to his shifting thoughts. His hands, stronger and unfamiliar, trembled as he traced the veins now dark withsomething richer than blood. His breath came slowly and deliberately as he looked upon Eleanor beside him.
She lay against the wilted vines, her skin marked with the same otherworldly veins, glowing faintly beneath the thin sheen of sweat and sap. Her chest rose and fell in steady breaths, though her lips parted as if caught in a whisper of a dream. James reached out, fingers brushing her cheek. She stirred, her eyes fluttering open, the pupils still too wide, still lost in the afterglow of something beyond pleasure, beyond pain.
Eleanor exhaled, a quiet laugh escaping her lips. "We survived."
James didn’t answer immediately. His gaze travelled over the remnants of the cult, some still writhing weakly against the vines, others aimlessly wandering, their expressions vacillating between bliss and incomprehension. A few had regained enough self-awareness to crawl away from the ruin of the ceremony, shivering in the cool morning air. And then some had changed too much to leave, their bodies too fused, too altered to ever return to what they had been.
He turned back to Eleanor, searching her face for some reflection of his disjointed reality. "What now?" His voice was rough, thick with something he couldn't name.
She reached up, her fingers tracing the faint glow beneath his skin, as if trying to memorize his new shape. "You still feel like you," she murmured. "Do I?"
James didn't answer. Instead, he leaned down, pressing his lips against hers. The taste of nectar lingered on her tongue, thick and intoxicating, the remnants of the night’s ecstasy still clinging to them both. Eleanor moaned into his mouth, the sound vibrating through him, stirring something deeper, darker.
Her body shifted beneath him, limbs tangling, skin slick against his. The vines had left their mark, not just upon their flesh but in how they moved and responded to each other with a hunger that had no end. James traced the glowing lines on her skin, his touch sending ripples of pleasure through her, making her gasp, making her arch against him, desperate for more.
The garden pulsed around them, as if awakening again, responding to the lingering passion between them. The air was thick with the scent of damp earth and sex, with the distant moans of those still lost in pleasure. Eleanor dragged her nails down James’s back, her breath hot against his neck.
"We can't stop, can we?" she whispered, her voice laced with something sinful.
James smirked, his grip tightening on her hips. "No."
He kissed her again, deeper this time, tasting the night on her, tasting the garden in her. Their bodies moved in perfect rhythm, the remnants of their humanity slipping further away with each thrust, each moan, each whispered plea. The vines trembled, reacting to their pleasure, shivering as though jealous and desperate to reclaim them.
And perhaps they already had.
A sharp cry shattered the silence, raw and jagged. A figure lurched from the garden’s edge, a woman, trembling violently, her arms clawing at her flesh as if she could tear away what had already claimed her. Her mouth hung open in a soundless scream, her throat too choked with the writhing remnants of vines still threaded beneath her skin. Veins pulsed, sluggish, swollen with something no longer wholly hers.
