The viewfinder that fills my vision is zipping through a digital recording in rewind. Explosions and flashes of metallic limbs moving and running in triple time,backwards.
And now it’s kind of lost its grip on me. I know I’m really just hooked up to the ship and it’s feeding me all this bullshit. Making me see things from someone else’s point of view. I’m aware of everything that’s happening in front of me, but it’s more like I’m watching a movie in a very sophisticated virtual theater now, and not like I’m actually living the nightmare over again.
Too bad there isn’t any popcorn.
Or maybe some Twizzlers.
Oh, and fountain soda. Fountain soda is my favorite.
Jesus, I miss Earth.
On the screen in front of me, Rune watches me suspiciously with sidelong glances. His body feels coiled tight. He’s on constant guard, ready to defend himself from me.
So, he was just as scared as I was? Interesting.
He watches me through narrowed eyes. He tries to anticipate my every move. The first night we spend together in that furniture store, he listens for me through the door.
When I fall asleep, he paces the rooms, sweating and breathing hard. The armor around me quakes and shivers, making it feel as if he suffered small seizures and tremors. I even watch him vomiting into dark corners then hiding all the evidence. He had no idea what was happening to his body.
It looks like he was in withdrawal.
He probably thought he was dying.
But he didn’t.
And everything he had ever been told about Earth, he learned was a lie.
The more I think for myself inside this suit, the more I can separate Rune’s thoughts from mine. Why is Pious making me watch this crap? None of what I’m seeing would cause me to think Rune was a pathetic general. He was just a man, a man who was betrayed by his brother and anyone who was hooked up to this diabolical spacecraft.
I don’t want to watch this anymore. My hair is a disaster, and honestly, I have barely eaten food in the last few months; why don’t I look thinner on this screen? Is this high definition? At least my skin looks clear.
My face takes up the entire screen now.
My pores look awesome, but I’m in desperate need of Chapstick.
I’m sleeping somewhere.
And I’m feeling a bit smug I don’t seem to snore.
She’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.Her skin is beautifully pale, her hair wild, spun from darkness. My eyes devour her body whenever she looks away. I linger on her breasts too often for her not to notice, but I can’t stop following the curves of them, how they move when she breathes, or how they pebble to points when she’s cold.
I want to run my fingers over her curves. Taste her skin.
What in the actual fuck?
If porn music starts playing, I think I might have a stroke right here.
I need out of this thing.
Every inch of my body screams for freedom.
I don’t want to see this anymore. This is too personal. These are Rune’s private inner thoughts and I don’t want to hear or see or even acknowledge they exist.
There’s a close-up of the skin just below my ear, and the curve of my neck.
His arms around me as we hide in the cold darkness of the fitting room, protective, possessive, as desire courses uncontrollably through his veins.
Rune kneeling over me, breathing in deeply as he hangs his face close to my hair. Inside my own stomach, fluttery waves roll. Then an overload of emotion pours over me in a tsunami, leaving me drowning and struggling for air. I fall to my knees with a flood of empathy and grief.How did he control himself?When his humanity burst in, feelings and memories that had been frozen, thawed and heightened to painful levels. Sensual. Skin touching skin. Flesh, heated and sweaty. His thoughts of our limbs tangled together, him imagining my hands on him, his hands on himself for the very first time. My body ached with the images. Pulsed and throbbed for a release.
