“I don’t want to just letanythinghappen. I’m scared.”
The house guards pull me tight between them as I’m half walked, half dragged through the smooth stone floors of the palace.After about ten minutes of walking through endless hallways, we arrive at a large, dark chamber. I know before we cross the threshold that this is the shrine. It has the same familiar scent of incense creeping out into the hallway as the one in the basement of the Celestial Spire.
However, where Lorian set up his shrine with the twelve goddesses holographically watching us, this shrine has only one gigantic goddess sitting in the center of the large room, towering over everyone.
She looks at me as I’m escorted in.Her silver eyes are serene, and her grey body is decorated with jeweled silver chains. Her exposed breastsare swollen, heavy, andengorged with milk that gleams as though it might drip onto the floor. I assume this must be the fertility goddess.
Gai is already inside, waiting. His expression is grave, like a priest at a sacred rite. “Good,” he says as the guards escort me forward. “Eve Eden from Earth, you will be reborn.”
Then, as if he triggered something in the holographic goddesses program, the goddess hologram shifts and her swollen belly opens like a doorway of mist and light.
“No…” I say frantically when I realize I’m being led into her belly. I try to pull back, but the guards force me forward into the opening. I know she’s just an illusion, but it’s still frightening because it seems so real, and I don’t like enclosed spaces. I want to escape, but as soon as I’m standing inside the goddess’ belly, the surface closes over me, sealing me inside the holographic womb. I try to rip my way out. But my hands only touch warmth and softness. There’s nothing to grab onto. And I sit down and sob aslight envelops me; it’s warm, pulsing, and heavy.
After a while, I begin to feel weightless, as if I’m floating in the silver mist of holographic amniotic fluid, and the only sound I hear is the goddess’ holographic heartbeat, deep and slow. Curiously, I notice my own heartbeat falls into rhythm with it, and against my will, my whole body begins to calm.
My mind knows this isn’t real, but my body instinctively curls into the fetal position, knees to chest, as if I’m an infant again. Then, sometime later, sweet liquid seeps past my lips, and my eyes flutter closed as time dissolves. I don’t know whether I’m sleeping or awake.
My thoughts drift apart like seeds in the wind. Images flicker—faces, voices, Earth, the nuns, NO CONTACT, Terra Sanctum, the Spire, Rafe, Lorian… Briar…. When my mind has played out every line of my history, it goes blank, and then I feel nothing but comfort and warmth.
Nothing but the heartbeatof my holographic mother.
I can’t tell how long I’m inside. Hours? Days? Months? There’s no sound but the pulse of my holographic mother, no light but the silver mist.
Somewhere beyond, voices murmur, but they sound far away, like people talking underwater. I realize that I don’t care what they are saying. I’m happy here. I never want to leave. I’m safe and carefree inside this holographic woman.
But then the heartbeat surrounding me quickens, and the mist brightens until it burns my eyes, blinding me. Pressure builds around me, squeezing and pushing. My whole body feels stretched and helpless.
And then, against my will, I begin sliding downward. I start to panic and try to hold on to the sides of my holographic mother, but the mist is so slippery and soft. There’s nothing to grab onto.
“No!” I scream. “I don’t want to leave!”
I’m falling out.
I don’t want to be reborn!
Darkness surrounds me as I’m pushed together so tightly I think I might die, then suddenly light bursts around me as I’m expelled from the hologram’s body, born back into the shrine. The guards and Gai catch me naked, and I’m completely covered in vanishing holographic fluid that evaporates into sparkling vapor.
Gai’s voice booms over me. “She has been reborn. No longer Eve Eden, human child of no one. Behold human pet Eve of the Obsidian Palace of Reima Two, Prisoner of Sovereign Rafe and Shadow Sovereign Lorian and of Imperial Commander Gai. May the twelve goddesses watch over her and always lead her into the light.”
The words crash into me, and for a second, a wild surge of belonging rises under the shame of being reborn in a holographic simulation as an adult and as a pet to aliens.
I don’t move in the guards’ arms, blinking at the towering holographic mother who smiles down at me, and I don’t know if I’m awake or dreaming anymore. Then the guards hold me up to the holographic goddess like an offering, and she gently takes me andholds me tightly to her breast, nipple pressed to my mouth. I fight, twisting my head, but she is stronger than any projection has any right to be. And her nipple fills my lips, warm, heavy, and unyielding.
I cannot resist the liquid that floods into my mouth. It’s sweet, thick, andlaced with something I can’t name. A warm, milky alien substance. My mind screams to spit it out, but my throat betrays me. I swallow convulsively, as heat seeps into me, and a mind-numbing soothing comes over me.
The liquid doesn’t have the consistency of milk. It feels like medicine…or poison. But even if it’s killing me, it tastes too good to stop drinking.
The more I suckle, the more my mind drifts, and I begin seeing memories of my life all blur together. Earth. St. Katherine’s. Sister Agnes, Briar. The nuns. NO CONTACT. Terra Sanctum. The ache of being unwanted. My longing to be wanted by someone.All of it drifts back, hazy and distant, as though it belongs to someone else.
Some woman I feel desperately sad for because she’s so lonely.
I hear the voices of Gai and the others chant around me, “Memory fades.”
I pull, harder now, sucking her nipple for every drop, realizing this must be a drug. Each swallow is a humiliation, yet my body and mind craves its fluid. And I suckle, unable to control my hunger.My hands drag up to the swell of her holographic breast, clutching it greedily, pressing myself closer. I drink until the flow ebbs and I know I’ve emptied her.
Gai announces to the witnesses, “The first breast nourishes and silences the past.”
Then the guards and Autumn reply, “Memory fades, the past is forgotten.”
