Beyond The Veil (closed for fellatrixlestrange)

[Baelnorn]

The news came on a slow Tuesday afternoon, suddenly but not unexpected. Jeremy Whishaw had passed two days ago. Almost exactly three months after his 89th birthday he eventually lost his fight against cancer, and the whole world of arts and literature was poorer for it.

Mr. Whishaw was a renowned collector of antique pieces regardless of their material; canvas, wood, clay, marble, silk, gold, silver, or paper, it didn’t matter to him. Over the years he became a generous donor of various pieces to various institutions – schools, universities, and museums alike – taking great pride in repaying past kindness or fostering cultural preservation or exchange.

And thus the university’s dean, Benedict Jackson, arrived in the institution's on-campus library. Dressed in his usual impeccable dark blue suit he moved swiftly and with determination through the corridors and rooms, while carrying a bundle of letters in hand. He quietly proceeded to assemble the present staff in a separate office, much to the bewilderment of the workers.

Looking into the faces of his staff which by now showed a mix of curiosity, nervousness, and concern for his unannounced and unexpected visit, he began relying the sad news.

“Hello everyone. I’m here to inform you that sadly Jeremy Whishaw has passed. I received the news just a few hours ago via courier, along with folders of documents and several letters to staff members. I know many of you had at least some direct contact with him to manage his book donations. If you need some personal time to process, we can organize something. And don’t forget that our counselor is also available if you need someone to talk to.”

Benedict took a step towards the gathered librarians and began handing out the letters, carefully taking the envelop and handing it over to the designated recipient with a level of care as if it was a raw egg.

“These letters were included in the package, and I was asked to make sure that each letter reaches their recipient. I have no information about their contents, nor the reason of their writing. I was assured that the letters would be helpful to you and that they would answer some of your likely questions.”

Each of the letters was quite heavy, with at least the envelop being made of thicker and sturdier paper than any normal envelop had any rights to. There were carefully sealed on their backsides with small but proper red wax seals, and on the front the recipient’s name was beautifully embossed in rich dark blue cursive on the off-white paper.

“In the coming months there will be a lot of work ahead of us. Based on the information provided to me it seems Mr. Whishaw left a significant part of his private library to the university. A collection of about 3400 works that need to be examined, cataloged, digitized, preserved, and stored. My office is in contact with the executor of Mr. Whishaw’s estate to organize the proper transfer.”

The dean handed over the final letter, then took a deep breath and straightened his posture.

“Mr. Whishaw was a longstanding, proud, and highly valued alumni of our campus. We are all poorer for his passing. I hope that as a final display of respect and appreciation to him we can handle his library with the utmost care and professionalism it deserves. I have full trust in you and your abilities. If you have any more questions, please read the letters first. Afterwards you can still reach out to me or my office, and I’ll try my best to help you. That is all I have for you for now. Thank you, and please take care.”

And with that Mr. Jackson excused himself and left the office and the library, returning back to the main administrative building where a mountain of legal and organizational work began looming like a mountain ahead.

 

[fellatrixlestrange]

Esperanza was the newest librarian at the University library, having been hired permanently after a year as an intern. She had a degree in Library Science and spent most of her time tracking down obscure journal articles for frantic grad students up against deadlines. She did not think of herself as attractive. She had lost thirty pounds in the last three months, and once again had a waist, but she was still a long way from her goal weight. She had large, dark eyes, thick lips and a long nose which never looked pretty to her when she looked in the mirror, no matter how she made herself up. She wore shapeless sweaters and skirts, and looked frumpy. "You never going to get a man looking like an old widow," in her mother's words.

She had met Jeremy Whishaw exactly once, when he had come to ask about the way one of his donations was being displayed. He was a man in his late 80s coming to talk about his donation, in person. She had expected him to be a crank, but he was actually quite calm and reasonable. The afternoon sun would damage the glaze, and it was a prime example of a Yongle period vase. Not wanting to risk handling the piece herself, she had pulled the curtains closed in that room, and messaged the Head Librarian to find out the protocol for changing the display.

Two days later, the vase was in a different room, upstairs, with northern facing windows so no direct sunlight would come in. She had looked up the period and discovered what she thought of as a fairly ordinary looking vase was actually a priceless antique. And she had received a polite thank you note from Mr Whishaw. It had struck her as a thoughtful, if archaic, gesture.

The news of his death was sad, of course, but she wasn't personally affected by it. He had been a nice man, but she only really remembered him because of the note. She bit her lip when the dean talked about counselling and people needing time to process. Maybe he had been closer to some of the other staff.

The last thing she had expected was that he would leave a letter to her after his death. She took it back to her desk and carefully opened it.

 

[Baelnorn]

The letter that came out was just as thick and heavy as the envelope itself, a sturdy sheet in a warm off-white tone folded immaculately into thirds. Once unfolded it revealed its secret – a personal message in a sophisticated but slightly shaky hand, etched into the paper with midnight blue ink, as well as another, normal, envelope.



“Dear Esperanza,

Please forgive an old man this presumption of familiarity, but I wanted to address you personally.

When you read this I will already be gone from this world for several days, no longer a member but merely a memory of humankind. Like many people before me, and like probably uncountable many people after me, I go into whatever comes next with many doubts and regrets on my mind. What could I have done differently? Could I have been a better person? How would my life have looked like if I had chosen the road not taken?

One such regret is that we never had the proper opportunity to meet. I mean really meet. I can still vividly recall our one interaction granted to us. When I asked about the possibility to move the vase out of the afternoon sun, to protect its glaze and preserve its wonders a little longer. I half expected my request to get lost in the trappings of the University’s red tape, but was pleasantly surprised to learn you had taken care of it the same day.

You might think of it as nothing more than just having done your duty, but I’d like to think otherwise. In my years I have met many curators and caretakers of antiques and collections who didn’t pay half as much attention as you did that day.

I truly wished my responsibilities and medical treatments had afforded me the luxury of being able to sit down with you and just talk. About anything you’d have wanted to talk about. I would have wished to learn about the woman who seems to share my passion and curiosity about books and history. There were so many topics… but in the end I just ran out of time.

Men are but flesh and blood. They know their doom, but not the hour.

Before my final breath I was blessed to learn of how dedicated you are to the library, and how much energy and effort and attention to detail you invest into your work every single day. It is increasingly rare to see such passion for “old” things in younger generations, and I sincerely hope you can preserve it in your heart and mind for a long time.

As a honest Thank You for your hard work in the University library, and hopefully as an encouragement for your future, I wish to leave to you a 16th century Venetian standing mirror with silver frame. Please accept this small token as a sign of my respect and gratitude for what you’re doing.

Included in this letter you will find a picture of the mirror, and a card with the contact information of my estate’s executioner. Please contact them at your convenience, the item will be held in safe storage until then.

Best wishes,

Jeremy Whishaw”



Inside the smaller envelope was the promised photo, and a business card from a prestigious and well known law firm.

https://imgur.com/a/3Jzl7CK

 

[fellatrixlestrange]

Esperanza let the letter slip from her fingers and fall on the desk. She sighed. The whole thing was just strange. Old, wealthy men did not leave antique mirrors to women they met once. Not to a "fat bookworm who dresses like an aging spinster" (another mom quote). Rich older men gave valuable gifts to beautiful bombshells, and she wasn't one of those. They also usually gave them when they were still alive and likely to get some return on their investment.

The more she thought about it, the more it seemed like some sort of weird prank. If it was a prank, though, then Benedict Jackson was in on it, and that was straight up absurd to contemplate. Or was he being pranked, too? And he had given out a stack of those letters. Who would prank the dean and the whole library staff?

First things first, she thought. There was an obituary for Jeremy Whishaw. As she read it, she realized he had outlived his family. He had only had one wife who had passed decades ago, and his son had died in a car accident a few years later. Never remarried, dedicated his fortune to philanthropy and building a collection of rare antiques. So at least he was actually dead. It still didn't explain why he was gifting her the mirror.

An exhaustive search for stories about the law firm (and there were many) showed no indication that they would be involved in any sort of prank. They were serious business, and they looked like serious men. She sighed again.

Then she decided to find out exactly what was going on. She told the head librarian that the news of Whishaw's death had upset her and she needed some time. Since the dean himself had already announced that as an option, there was no push back. Forty minutes later, she walked into the law office and set the card she had received on the receptionist's desk. She handed the woman a copy of the letter.

"I received this today," she said. "May I speak with whoever is in charge of the Whishaw estate? I need to know exactly what the... what is going on."

To most people, her approach would not seem out of the ordinary. Her tone was a little strained, and she had almost let an f-bomb drop, but she was speaking softly and standing straight. Firm, but not aggressive. But Esperanza's safety net was to be overlooked. She had never really stood up to anyone, for anything. She just disappeared. For her, this felt like screaming and sweeping things off the desk, a nuclear meltdown.

 

[Baelnorn]

The law firm’s office resided on the 7th floor of a downtown high-rise, one of many typical angular amalgamations of glass, concrete, and steel dotting the cityscape. Leaving the elevator, one was greeted by a flat greige-and-black carpet whose woven in pattern naturally directed any visitor towards the ash furniture at the reception.

The reception was staffed by two women, both wearing slate-gray business attire with iron folds so sharp you could probably cut paper on them. The left women had her auburn hair tied into a firm knot at the crown of her head, while the right woman let her platinum curls fall to her shoulders. As Esperanza approached the left woman looked up, her emerald eyes focusing on the new arrival while her lips curled into a well-trained smile.

“Good afternoon, what can we do for you?”

She listened and took the card and the letter, nodding in understanding, while typing away at the keyboard in front of her. Her gaze repeatedly dipped between the papers and her screen, and after a few moments she handed the documents back.

“I can see the case, Ms. Diaz. For any requests related to the Whishaw estate you will have to talk to Mr. Deluca personally. He is currently in a call, but he should be available within the next ten minutes. If you like I can let him know you are waiting for him, and he will accommodate you when he is free again.”

The receptionist’s smile widened slightly when she heard the visitor’s answer, another well rehearsed gesture. She then stood and gestured with her arm towards a semi-enclosed sitting area off to the side, outside the elevator’s direct view, with half a dozen comfortable looking cushioned chairs arranged around two separate small tables and framed by a variety of pot plants.

“Great, I’ll let him know. Please take a seat in our waiting lounge. Can I offer you a drink? Water, coffee, soda?”

The time passed faster than expected, and soon an elderly man with clear mediterranean roots wearing an impeccable charcoal gray suit approached Esperanza. His thin lips offered a warm smile as he reached out with his hand to shake hers.

“Ms. Diaz? Greetings, I am Antonio Deluca, senior partner of Smith and Deluca. Thank you for coming in today. I was told you were here on account of matters related to the estate of late Mr. Whishaw, yes? Please join me in my office, there we can talk in a private atmosphere.”

He held out his arm, aiming at the large office at the end of the short hallway leading away from the lounge.

 

[fellatrixlestrange]

Esperanza thanked the receptionist, not a little intimidated by the woman's appearance. Campus life was a little more casual than a high powered lawfirm, where even the receptionists looked like they had come from their tailors. Even dean Jackson's creases weren't that sharp, and Esperanza knew she looked a hot mess in comparison. She'd always said she wanted to be respected for her abilities, not her accessories, but talking to this woman, she realized that attitude would never fly off campus.

She followed the woman into what was clearly the waiting area.

"No thank you," she said to the offer of a drink. The furniture in the waiting room was dangerously comfortable. A person could easily lose their edge sitting here. She stifled a yawn. She was about to stand so she didn't end up falling asleep, when a much older man came in. She recognized him from the firm's website, but he was much more impressive in person. He wore a beautiful suit, and her first thought was maybe Greek, but his name sounded more Italian.

Not that it was important, she thought. The one thing she did not think from looking at him was that he would pull a practical joke on a total stranger. And his name was on the door. She stood, and shook his hand, and went into the office. When the door closed, she put the copies of the letter and the photo on his desk.

"I don't understand this," she said. "I met Mr Whishaw once. Why would he leave me a mirror? What looks to be a very expensive mirror."

"I don't mean what is written in the letter," she said. "I mean really. This... it doesn't make any sense."

 

[Baelnorn]

Deluca picked up the papers, and offered Esperanza a comfortable seat in front of his desk, which itself was a massive combination of oak and brushed steel, placed in front of a wall full of filled book shelves and framed certificates and degrees. He sat down on his own chair, unfolded and put on the glasses that had been waiting next to his keyboard, and started scanning the letter and the photo.

“I’m sorry Ms. Diaz, I cannot make any statements on late Mr. Whishaw’s motivations for naming you as one of his inheritors. But if I may offer a personal comment? As far as I can see you simply left a lasting impression with him, which is not exactly uncommon in my experience. Smith and Deluca has represented Mr. Whishaw for a very long time in various affairs, and he was an exceptional judge of character. Often to the point of being almost uncanny. If you allow me a moment, I will double check the details.”

Antonio pulled the keyboard closer to him and started typing, his gaze repeatedly jumping between the large monitor on the right half of his desk and the keyboard to guide his fingers. It was clear he knew how to use his computer, but he just wasn’t very good at typing.

After a few awkward moments of silence, the senior partner leaned forward and turned the monitor around for Esperanza to see. On the screen was the mirror, the same one depicted on her photo, with a side panel listing more details about it.

“Item number 2714, a 16th century silver framed Venetian mirror. Bequeathed to one Esperanza Diaz. It is not a mistake, Ms. Diaz. You are the correct recipient, no doubt about it.”

He returned the monitor to its proper position and pulled down his glasses, folding them again and putting them back to their place next to the keyboard.

“Mr. Whishaw has made it very clear in documentation that there are no further terms or conditions attached to receiving the items he left to individual inheritors. Unlike institutional inheritors, you can hold on to it or sell it as you see fit. And of course, should you really wish to not have it at all, you can also disclaim the inheritance altogether.”

Deluca took the letter and photo and placed them in front of Esperanza on the desk, then leaned back slightly with a warm smile on his lips and hands neatly folded in front of him.

“You also do not have to make your decision right now. You can take some weeks and think about it before you chose. Should you accept the inheritance, you have to come in for a signature, then item 2714 will be delivered to your address of residence by a professional transport firm certified for antiques. And if you want to disclaim it, you will have to come back and fill out the necessary form. Do you have any questions about what I explained to you?”

 

[fellatrixlestrange]

Esperanza was impressed by the office, but she was also pretty sure that was the point. Not that anyone was particularly trying to impress her, but to be impressive, generally. It just gave the impression of confidence and ability, but in an old way. She suspected the same lawyer of her generation would have a laptop instead of all the books.

Of course, he couldn't give her any information, she thought, but once he said he couldn't, he actually did. First, he confirmed that this was real, at least in a legal sense. As he went on, she realized that was what had really been bothering her. It was so unexpected that she had believed it was a prank, but if this man, in this office, had this documentation, the disbelief shifted. It didn't make her being the beneficiary less astonishing, but in was more unbelievable that a prank would be taken this far.

It also didn't hurt to have this man tell her that Whishaw was an exceptional judge of character, and that he had found her worthy. She wasn't immune to flattery, especially coming from a man like this. Maybe all the books and things really did make a powerful impression. She thought.

"Well," she sighed. "It does look like a beautiful mirror."

It really did, especially compared to the cheap thing that hung on the back of the bathroom door in her apartment. She would have to move things around a bit to fit the new mirror, and it would certainly seem out of place in her little studio, that she had furnished from Ikea and Walmart and (mostly) Goodwill.

"I am sorry for coming in like this," she said at last. "It was so unexpected, and...."

And at 23, she still felt the wounds of other times people had bait and switched her. People loved to mess with a fat girl. While she had lost a lot of weight, she still felt that deep insecurity. Of course, she didn't need to share the saga of her social anxiety with this man, who probably just wanted to get back to something more important.

"Anyway, I guess... I would like to arrange delivery. Should I leave my address and phone number with you, or...?"

She gave an amused chuckle. The last time she had moved anything into her apartment, she had bought her brothers a case of beer. Now she was talking about a certified, professional transport firm. The mirror was definitely going to stand out.

 

[Baelnorn]

“Oh no, please don’t apologize. I fully understand that an unexpected inheritance from a fleeting acquaintance can be confusing and stressful.”

Mr. Deluca smiled when she mentioned arranging delivery.

“In principle yes, but there is the additional matter of formally confirming your identify in a way acceptable for the probate court. And I’m afraid there’s no way to skip this bit of red tape. But we have a notary in house, her office is two floors up, so it should be relatively painless.”

Antonio reached for a sheet of paper with the firm’s letterhead on it, pulled the cap off an elegant black-and-green marbled fountain pen with a golden nib, and began jotting down a bullet list in a swiftly flowing hand.

“You would need to see her with any form of state recognized identification papers, something like a birth certificate, State ID, passport, driver’s license, or similar, and obtain a certified true copy of said document together with an affidavit of identity. She will know exactly what you need when you give her these notes. With that copy you can then come back any time and finalize the inheritance.”

He handed Esperanza the paper along with a personal business card of his, and it had a short summary of the notary’s name and floor, suitable documents, a list of laws and paragraphs, and the next necessary steps.

“You can complete those steps at your convenience, there is not really a time limit to it. Once the paper work is done, the probate court usually takes a week or two to confirm and move the process along, and then it’s a matter of days until the item can be delivered. Since the transport is handled by a specialist firm, the delivery can be arranged for any day between seven AM and ten PM. Just leave your availability at the reception when you bring in the documents.”

The solicitor stood and walked around the heavy desk, and stopped in front of her.

“If you have any more questions about the process or details, you can reach out to us any time. Preferably via email if possible, since the execution of Mr. Whishaw’s estate currently occupies almost all of our in-person capacities. There is a quite substantial amount of inheritors and items to be managed, one of the largest estates in the city in the last thirty years. The timing of your visit was most fortunate, if I might say so.”

 

[fellatrixlestrange]

"Thank you, Mr. Deluca," Esperanza said, looking at the carefully written instructions. She shook his hand with as friendly a smile as she had mustered since graduating a year ago. It wasn't that there was no joy in her life. It was more that the joy was solitary. Mr Whishaw had been the first one to give her anything, and Mr Deluca had treated her with the kind of respect that probably feels quite natural to big shots. For the most part, Esperanza was a cog in the university machine. Not a beautiful cog, either. The students saw her as an obstruction, and treated her as such.

In the end, it took several weeks for Esperanza to get all the documentation together and to sit down with the notary. Since she typically worked the evening shift at the library, she scheduled the delivery for a Wednesday morning. She set her alarm, but when it sounded, she hit the snooze. At 8, when she heard her doorbell, she was still in bed. She slept in a tee shirt, and she grabbed a pair of sweatpants and put them on after she buzzed the delivery men in. She was on the third floor, so she had time. She opened the door to the stairs and looked down, wondering exactly what a certified transporter looked like.

 

[Baelnorn]

It didn’t take long for the sounds of three men and something making its way up the stairwell to arrive. After a minute or so it slowly became visible – three guys in dark blue and orange working uniforms carefully maneuvering a stair-climbing hand truck up the steps and around the corners, carrying a massive package along with it.

One guy was carefully pulling the hand truck backwards, bumping it’s tri-star wheel up step by step by step, while the other two men made sure the package wouldn’t shift or tilt or slide off the dolly’s plate. Despite the ungainly dimensions of what was the wrapped up mirror, the three workers moved their cargo with routine and efficiency, obviously a well oiled machine of a team.

Finally they reached the third floor and one of the workers approached Esperanza’s open door, briefly glanced at the unit number, before giving her a court nod while he pulled off his working gloves. He was probably in his forties and had salt and pepper hair, with brown eyes and a sun kissed tan indicating either lots of outdoor work or hobbies.

“Good morning, we’re here on behalf of Smith and Deluca with a delivery for Ms. Esperanza Diaz. Is that you? Great! We need to verify that we have the correct recipient. You should have received a delivery recipe from Smith and Deluca, can we see that document please?”

Once the paperwork was checked and signed, the delivery manager continued.

“Perfect. Where do you want us to put it, ma’am? Also, if you want we can reassemble it for you. To ensure a secure transport the item was separated into three pieces, but given the weight of the darn thing, I strongly recommend not trying to rebuild it on your own. Reassembly is included in the delivery at no additional cost to you. Oh, and before we can open it, you must take pictures of the impact stickers on package to verify it hasn’t been mishandled.”

And indeed, once she went looking Esperanza found shockwatch stickers on every single corner of the massive package, all of which showed their inner parts in their expected pristine white, indicating that the package had not been exposed to sudden impacts or accelerations. Apparently this company did indeed take their jobs very seriously.

 

[fellatrixlestrange]

The delivery guys certainly seemed to know what they were doing, she thought, as they brought the crate up and into her tiny apartment. She had made a space in the corner by her dresser, but seeing the thing, she wasn't sure it would fit there. The only other solution was to push her bed against the wall and put it by the head. It would mean that, if she ever had somebody else in bed with her, someone would have to climb over someone else, but she hadn't had anyone in her bed before, and probably never would.

"I'm sorry, guys," she said. "It's bigger than I thought. Can we move the bed against the wall there and put it by the head? Let me grab that." That being the nightstand and lamp that she had on the side of the bed that would be against the wall. She walked around the bed to grab them, instead of climbing over the bed, because she was alone in her apartment with three men. It wasn't that she was afraid they'd see her booty as she climbed over the bed and be unable to resist. It was more that they would be totally disinterested.

"Do you, um, mind assembling it?" she asked, and realized they had just said they would. They were professionals, and she was acting like them doing their job was a big favor. "Thank you. I'm... grateful."

She took the necessary pictures and then she moved into her little kitchenette to give the men room to unbox the mirror and assemble it.

 

[Baelnorn]

“No problem, ma’am.”

With routine efficiency the delivery squad began unpacking the piece. Cutting open the thoroughly wrapped package, they revealed a frame made of sturdy press board with the three individually wrapped and foam-encased mirror parts contained inside.

They separated the parts and began unwrapping, peeling away the plastic bags and foam packs from the mirror’s stiles first, in order to make the foundation. Once the chest-tall posts were freed from their packaging and inspected for damage, they placed them side by side, and anchored the ornamented silver cross rail in between them to stabilize the whole construction.

Then they moved on to the mirror plane itself. Due to its sheer size and bulk it really did need two guys to handle and hold it, while the third worker removed the plastic and foam from its corners and sides. As the final step the squad hoisted the mirror in position between the posts, the third guy sliding them in and making sure that the mirror’s trunnions properly caught on the uprights’ bearings.

Only once it was certain that the plane was securely in place and could pivot on the pin axis as intended did the two other workers fully release the item.

With the assembly done, the group whipped out two garbage bags and began cleaning up, quickly collecting all the wrappings and foils and foam parts, and gathering the press board pieces in a neat stack that was easy to carry. Barely fifteen minutes after they had entered the place they were done and ready to leave.

“We’re done, ma’am.”

The salt and pepper haired man waited in Esperanza’s hallway while his coworkers were already moving the bags full of packaging trash and the press board out and downstairs. He held out a small tablet that must have ridden along in one of the many pockets of his working uniform.

“The mirror is all yours. I only need a signature here and we can be on our way.”

 

[fellatrixlestrange]

Esperanza watched as they went about their business with skill and efficiency. She had never really thought about movers as an particularly appealing profession. Her day dreams ran more towards erudite, educated types, but there was something about them that made her entertain some highly inappropriate fantasies. She realized that these were men who knew what they were doing. They were confident in their work and themselves. They didn't need PhDs to feel valuable, they knew their own importance.

When one of them looked her way, she blushed and turned away to bust herself making coffee. She did notice that two of them were holding the mirror itself as they set it in the frame, and she wondered how heavy it was. When they finished, she went to stand in front of it. She could stand far enough back to look at herself, and while that brought a familiar flood of disappointment, she was somewhat in awe of the mirror itself.

Nobody would ever walk into this apartment and not notice it. It was absolutely a museum quality piece that should have been in some palace instead of her crummy studio. It was a magnificent gift, but it diminished her. She already knew her stuff was shabby, but the mirror was like a spotlight on it. When the leader of the crew turned to her with the tablet, she was actually too ashamed of her sad little apartment and all her sad shit to meet his eye.

"Thank you," she mumbled, and signed.

Naturally, it was after she watched their van pull out and start to drive away that she realized the mirror was angled just a hair off. Just a few degrees and she would be able to stand beside the bed and look at herself full length, and also see herself sitting on the edge of the bed, if she wanted to know how an outfit looked when she was sitting.

She was actually a little frightened to move it, but she did, shifting it just a hair. It was as heavy as it looked, and she had to strain just to budge it. When she had it moved, it had pivoted a bit in its frame. She could only see herself from the waist up now, and had a better look at the ceiling than she cared for. She reached out to tilt it back down and

"Ow!"

She had just watched the men holding it, moving it and assembling it, and they had not mentioned that edge was razor sharp. She sucked her finger, tasting blood, and sighed. She had been given something amazing, and the very first thing she did was bleed on it. She went to get a paper towel to clean up the little smear of blood on the edge, but when she came back, she couldn't see it. It had been there, she was sure. She looked carefully, and was careful not to touch it. After a minute, she gave up. She sat on the bed and sighed. She looked at the mirror, and she could indeed see herself. Maybe moving it had been a bad call.

She lay down, turning away from it. She knew she should get up, go to the gym. She wasn't going to start liking what she saw in the mirror until she lost a little more weight. But she felt drained. She would go tomorrow.

 

[Baelnorn]

Hive. Cluster. Nerv. Node. Collective. Seed. Omphalos.

The entity had many names, a different one from the inhabitants of each of the many worlds in its domain. Worlds it had seeded, cultivated, guided with careful deliberation, unburdening their people from the responsibility of choice and action, and welcoming them into its eternal embrace.

Omphalos circled its latest addition, a pale sphere orbiting its bright blue parent star a little too close. Vast deserts painted it the color of sand and bleached rock, with only a few specks of blue breaking up the monotone palette, and yet it harbored a wealth of life. Hiding from the harsh light in the deep caverns, a budding civilization had emerged and advanced quickly into working metals for their benefit.

The entity had found and seeded this world with its influence twenty generations ago, and now there was a bountiful harvest to be had. Brought under its thrall, the world’s inhabitants all but forgot their warmongering and fighting over water. Captured in an inescapable web of lust and passion like hapless little insects, they quickly unified and eased their way into a permanent era of advancements, peace, and unknowing submission.

It basked in the energies it continuously collected through the infection it had spread amongst that people when it saw, or rather felt, a sudden flash. Shifting its moon sized body, it hurriedly scanned the canvas of stars, when it saw it.

A tiny speck of light that didn’t belong. A waning flicker that shouldn’t be. A disturbance in the garden.

Both space and time bent and twisted as reality surrendered to the entity’s will, and a moment later it appeared in the proximity of the intrusion. Far away a dim red dwarf held audience over an almost empty system, its only court a few thin asteroid belts and two lifeless gas worlds.

But in the spot where a life-bearing rocky world could have been, Omphalos found a gap in the void. A hole in space. A tiny shimmering rectangle that reflected the dim star’s light as it slowly turned and tumbled in its orbit.

The entity approached, its entire attention focused on this curiosity. Floating closer like a jellyfish and dragging its extended floaters and tendrils in its wake, it began examining this strange phenomenon. As it examined this weed in the garden, something about it struck the entity as familiar. Sifting through eons of memories in the blink of an eye, it remembered.

One of the first worlds it had cultivated, a lush green paradise with an advanced people who had already begun exploring the void around them. Researchers seeking to look past the mirror, into domains unbound. Dangerous technology, that could have shattered their orb. Omphalos had quickly discouraged and buried that silliness, and yet here it was face to face with a mirror reaching beyond the veil.

The entity unfurled, surrounding the thing-that-shouldn’t-be with its swarm of tendrils, and carefully began probing its horizon. But no matter how much it tried, how much it pushed or pried or prodded, it couldn’t find any purchase or passage through the barrier.

https://imgur.com/w1Rst9a

On the brink of disregarding further examinations, Omphalos finally gathered one success. There was a gap, an infinitesimally small rift around the edges of the rectangle’s horizon. Small enough to effectively prevent any direct probing and examination of the realm beyond, but large enough to permit the propagation of its infection through the threshold.

The entity breathed a cloud of its essence against the mirror, pushing its influence into whatever rested beyond its immediate reach. It focused its will into the few seeds that made it across, and it found… a room, a chamber of some kind, and – most curiously – an unmoving creature lying on a bed of sorts. So there was something of value to be found. A new, different world. Ripe for the picking.

Omphalos know what it had to do. Exploring this delectable morsel would be difficult, slow, and challenging, since it couldn’t pry open its secrets itself. But it was nothing if not patient, and there was no need to ruin a perfect harvest with undue haste. Whatever this creature was, it should become the entity’s eyes and ears. And in time, it would be the first to succumb to the infection, heralding the dawn of a new era for this world.

But those were plans for generations in the future. For now, the entity would observe, listen, explore, and learn.

 

[fellatrixlestrange]

At some point, Esperanza fell asleep. It wasn't a good, deep sleep, or even a restorative nap. It was as if the weight of her ennui pulled her out of consciousness for a while. She dreamed that something was watching her, something beyond... everything. The sort of thing certain pulp era writers wrote at length about, describing the various ways they were indescribable, the ways they broke the minds of those that perceived even a fraction of their truth. She had read far too much of that stuff once, trying to impress a guy who never once looked at her as anything other than one of the guys.

"Fuck you, Howard," she mumbled, sleepily. "Get out of my dreams."

When she sat up, she saw herself. Her rational self knew she was really only ten or fifteen pounds from a healthy weight, but her mind just saw fat. And her cheek glistened where she had drooled on her pillow, sticking some of her hair to her cheek in a way that just cemented how unappealing she was. She was so fucking unattractive she couldn't even have a good sex dream. She felt like something was watching her, and instead of going sexy, her brain steered her into cosmic horror territory.

She was instantly too depressed to go to the gym. The plus side was she was also too depressed to eat. Sitting on the edge of her bed staring at the grain of the hardwood floor that needed to be refinished? That she had just enough motivation to do. She found herself looking at the mirror, though. It was a strange thing. She wanted to look at the mirror. It was not just beautiful, it was fascinating. There was something to it that made it seem like more than just an antique. She wanted to look AT the mirror, but not IN the mirror. She didn't want to see her reflection.

She got up to move to where she wouldn't see herself, and studied the mirror. There was nothing she could point to that accounted for the sense that it was more than what it was. It was probably a combination of it being wildly out of place in her apartment, and the strange circumstances that had brought it here.

She was starting to feel hungry, but she hadn't done a single thing all day. It was late afternoon already, and the gym would be busy. She did not want to be seen, so she stayed in her apartment and did crunches and squats and glute bridges and lunges. She washed her face and pulled her hair back in a ponytail to go up and down the stairs a half dozen times and call it cardio. Then she washed a head of lettuce and stood by the sink, eating it straight from the colander. She boiled water and stirred in some miso, and hoped her stomach would be fooled into thinking she was full.

Then it was time for a deep dive into the series she had been bingewatching. She sat on the side of the bed by the wall, so she would not see her reflection in the mirror.

 

[Baelnorn]

With growing curiosity Omphalos observed the being in the room, while slowly breathing more of itself through the infinitesimal gap. With each part the entity’s awareness of the foreign surroundings grew, and it began to catalog the various chambers it had found. Many of them seemed familiar, mimicking aspects of the restless lives of the garden’s inhabitants. Others harbored strange devices that warranted further observations.

“Fuck you, Howard. Get out of my dreams.”

The words meant nothing to Omphalos yet, but it was cultivating plans to change that. The entity was spinning a new version of its infection, soon ready to be released. A delicate, careful, almost inert strain that granted access to the host’s memories and dreams, while not yet conquering their mind or body. The situation warranted utmost care and attention, if Omphalos wanted to achieve the goal of adding this world to its garden when a single mistake could threaten the harvest.

Meanwhile the entity sated itself with absorbing every detail it could learn yet. The thin whisps of barely noticeable black smoke crept through the different rooms, sneaking into every cupboard and drawer, and revealing more and more of the inhabitant’s secrets to the unseen observer.

The entity watched its designated victim perform various activities, leave for a short time, then return and consume a meal. During that brief absence it turned its attention to the other side of the gap in the void, and discovered that the mysterious gateway that had disturbed its garden seemed to be a decorated but still simple mirror.

This discovery sent waves of irritation through the entity’s entire mass. Mirrors didn’t violate its garden, didn’t breach the barriers it had erected around its domain, didn’t disrupt the harvest and other plans. If mundane mirrors did any of that, Omphalos would have purged them from the garden with great effort eons ago. Whatever this particular mirror was, it needed much more observation.

So far this world’s first impression seemed roughly familiar to the entity, once it looked past the unfamiliar appearances of bodies, clothing, and furniture. So far there was nothing that it hadn’t already observed at some other time on some other world in some related form somewhere in its garden. As much as the mirror’s mysterious properties had irritated, this semblance of compatibility satisfied.

But then Omphalos found another curiosity – a black rectangle sitting on a piece of furniture, similarly flat as the mirror but smaller and thinner, suddenly springing into colors and sounds. The entity felt the familiar buzzing rush of electricity rushing through the wires attached to the device, and observed other inhabitants of this world being shown on the surface.

Another memory surfaced from an ocean of remembrance. The same world harboring the scientists that sought to breach the veil once held similar devices. But passing similarity did not mean equality. It would need more observation to finally gauge whether this display was to be a threat or obstacle.

While the entity wondered about the moving screen, it didn't fail to notice the inhabitant's behavior. For some reason it seemed to avoid its own reflection in the mirror, but Omphalos didn't know why. Something was amiss, a secret begging to be revealed, so it redoubled its efforts on the adapted strain. The sooner it was ready, the sooner the first roots could be planted.

 

[fellatrixlestrange]

The next day was a work day, and Esperanza switched off the TV at ten, so she could get a solid 8 hours of sleep. It was foolish to hope that it would be that easy, and after she brushed her teeth and washed her face and moisturized and changed back into her big sleeping tee, she got in bed, and lay there. And lay there. She was exhausted, but not in a sleepy way. In a circling the drain of despair way. A late night ice cream binge way.

She hadn't had real ice cream in almost a year, except a couple of times when veggies and broth were threatening to drive her insane. She sat up. It was quarter past ten. The 7-11 was open 24/7. It was only two blocks away. She was already in her tee, wearing her sleep mask. She had already brushed her teeth. She could get dressed. It wasn't that hard. She could wash the mask off. She could brush her teeth again after she ate.

She could get mugged, murdered, or worse walking down to the 7-11. The neighborhood wasn't the worst, but it was a quiet residential street. Anything could happen, and nobody would notice. Most likely, she would be fine. She wasn't aware of anyone being abducted off of her street. She shouldn't let fear prevent her from living her life. That thought got a bitter laugh. Insecurity - fear of rejection, humiliation, inadequacy - pretty much ran her life. She had surrendered to that, almost unconditionally, but she was trying to stand up to her fear of violent death. So that she could get ice cream and start a nice spiral of self-loathing.

She didn't even need ice cream to hate on herself, as it turned out. She just needed to want it, and then she could tell herself what a total loser she was. She got out of bed to go look in the kitchen. There was nothing there that interested her. She could have taken that as a sign of her strength. She went to the grocery store and came back with healthy food that helped her lose weight, and not junk. Instead, she saw it as further evidence that she sucked. She couldn't even trust herself to have snacks in her apartment, because she would binge.

She put panties on. She took them off. She wasn't going to go to the store. She was going to go back to sleep. By midnight, she had put panties on four times, and sweatpants twice. Once she had stood in the bathroom, looking at the face in the mirror, ready to wash off the mud mask, but she hadn't done it.

At six, her alarm woke her. She wasn't sure when she had fallen asleep. She felt like a zombie as she drank her tea and ate her soft boiled egg. Before she went to shower, she took off the tee shirt, and looked at her naked body in the mirror. She cried for a little while. Then she washed the night off. She couldn't even muster up the motivation to masturbate in the shower.

She watched herself as she dressed, and decided the mirror was really a good thing. She could really see how she looked. She could see how her clothes fit. Her sweater had a little extra room. She actually had a waist now. Objectively, she was losing weight. Just not fast enough. She knew she needed to do more than lose weight, more than upgrade her wardrobe, more than perfect her lip gloss game. It wouldn't matter how beautiful she might become if her mind was this toxic waste dump of depression and misery.

Maybe it was time for some sort of mental reset. Maybe she should go back to yoga. Or church. Or start doing smoothies again. Or get a therapist who didn't struggle to stay awake during their sessions. Maybe. It was definitely time to go to work. She looked in the mirror and sighed. Then she grabbed her purse and headed out.

 

[Baelnorn]

Omphalos watched the behavior of the being with great curiosity. It seemed restless, donning and shedding clothes multiple times before it eventually fell into what looked like exhausted and uneasy sleep. With the light outside slowly returning, and a loudly complaining device, the being rose again.

The entity watched all activities with great attention, from the meager meal, to the cleansing ritual, to the donning of clothes and self-observation in front of the mirror. But something felt off, the being seemed distressed, almost horrified, by its own appearance.

And that distress was bringing uncertainty to Omphalos’s plans. If the cultivation of this world was to succeed, the erratic behavior needed to be resolved into clarity, into cause and effect and rhyme and reason. It would not do for careful plans to go to waste due to an uncontrolled variable.

When the being left more wisps of the entity’s breath escaped along through the doorway, slowly mapping out the stairway and a small trail of the outside world. It accounted with great pleasure that these beings lived closely together, observing the many multi-level buildings it had already seen from the windows now from a different angle.

Eventually Omphalos let go of the wisps outside, the particles dispersing too greatly to hold its presence any more, and instead focused its whole consciousness on finalizing the new strain. The being’s behavior spurred the entity into action, a desire to clarify this mystery rather sooner than later growing stronger with each moment of observation.

Eventually, after a mere few hours, the task was done. A lesser version of the infection ready to catalyze and spread. Designed to observe and connect. Constructed to listen to all senses and speak in dreams. Ordered to enact changes in the body when tasked, but leave its host’s mind untouched for the time.

And Omphalos breathed a cloud of its work against the mirror, forcing this new agent of its will into the new world. Soon the entity would turn watching into learning, observation into understanding, and wondering into knowing.

 

[fellatrixlestrange]

The day sucked more than usual. Esperanza had slept terribly, and of course, her coworkers had checked in on her after her taking the day off.

Was she feeling ok? From their tone, she could see they knew the answer. How shitty did she look that they were all assuming she was still sick? She assured them that she was fine. She had taken the day for personal reasons. She didn't ask why they thought she was sick, because she didn't want to hear the answer. She went to the bathroom to check herself in the mirror. She did look a bit like a zombie. Her misery was visible. It was as if the cobwebs in her pussy were plain to see. As if her soul was sagging as the foundation sank into a swamp of gloom.

Or others asked, Had she done anything fun? She explained about the mirror, and that begged the question of why she had taken the whole day. Nobody asked it, but it was on the tips of tongues. Maybe they could see the reason. Maybe that aura of soul sickness was palpable enough that they knew, without having to be told.

She did the job, zombie-like, yes, but efficiently enough that her slow pace was just tolerable. On her way home she stopped at the store. Tofu. Greens. Mushrooms. Tea. Ten minutes standing in front of the ice cream cooler, deliberating, but she resisted.

She got home, changed into her tee, made dinner. Ate sitting up in bed so she could watch her show. She brought the dishes to the sink and rinsed and stacked them. Living alone meant running the dishwasher once or twice a week. She looked at the mirror. At herself. She tried to look objectively. She had lost weight. She had a waist. She had big boobs, though with the weight loss they were smaller. Her bras were DD, and they were starting to feel a little too big. She still wasn't skinny by any stretch, but she wasn't shaped like the Michelin Man's sister anymore, either. Her butt wasn't tight, but it was getting there. It was thick, bordering on thicc. Her thighs, same. The bones of her face had always been pretty, and with the weight loss, you could even tell a little.

She still had a long way to go, but she knew the problem wasn't just how she looked. It was her. She was sick inside, and anyone who spent any time with her could tell. Just like they could smell a festering wound, only the very least perceptive people didn't pick up the spiritual rot inside her. She wondered how long ago she had stopped taking her medication. It had been a few weeks. The pharmacy had messaged her, it was unable to hold the refill. That had been sometime after the letter.

She had skipped the gym this morning, so she did her apartment workout. She told herself it was better for her than walking to the pharmacy. She was already in her house clothes. She would have to reorder the refill anyway. She would text them. Tomorrow.

On her show, the brilliant young doctor and the dangerous criminal wound up in each other's arms. They almost kissed. The next episode hadn't dropped yet, so her only recourse was a deep dive into reddit. First she was discussing the episode, how brutal a cliffhanger it was, how hopeful things were looking. Surely the show-runners wouldn't take them there and then take it away! But with a projected seventeen episodes left, they couldn't just be together now, could they?

At some point, she left the discussion of her show and drifted into porn. Her taste was very specific. She wanted girls with perfect bodies getting face fucked. It was the perfect mix of resentment, jealousy and envy. She wanted those girls to get destroyed. She wanted to see them punished for their beauty. Humiliated. But part of her dreamed. Wouldn't it be nice if some guy wanted her that way? If she was pretty enough for a man to fuck her face like that?

This night, she managed to finger herself to a little climax, and slept before midnight.

 

[Baelnorn]

When the being returned to a darkening sky, the air inside the chambers had already been saturated with enough of the new strain. It wasn’t visible, at least not if you weren’t exactly searching for it, look at a specific angle against the light filtering through the windows.

Omphalos felt the infection connect with the host’s first breath. It spread slowly, almost gently, like a soft caress it burrowed its otherworldly roots into the being’s core, and… things were apparently more complicated than the entity had expected.

Waves of self-loathing, jealousy, hate, and guilt washed through the connection like radiation bursting forth from a dying star. The entity absorbed all it could. It learned that the being was a female of her species, humans, and that her name was Esperanza Diaz. It learned that she worked at a university, a place of studying and learning. It learned that she hated her own appearance, and worked towards and wished for changed.

This information put several observations into a different light. Omphalos had observed other humans through the windows, but previously couldn’t tell if the different shapes and sizes stemmed from the species’ life cycle or other reasons. With the missing piece now evident, plans started to adjust and shift. Not rapidly, but slowly, gradually, like tectonic plates changing through the eons.

If she and many others were unsatisfied with their appearances that was something the entity could easily change – and had already done so in the past. It would be an unfortunate caretaker if it couldn’t cultivate its garden to its most prosperous and grandest form.

Omphalos observed Esperanza’s evening activities, watching something on her screen for entertainment, engage in some kind of digital exchange, and then did something it hadn’t expected. Gently tugging on the strings of the connection while watching the woman’s hand slip between her legs, the entity learned about porn.

And like glaciers, plans shifted and adjusted again.

Eventually Esperanza went to bed, and Omphalos watched closely how she touched herself, listened closely how she breathed and moaned, and recorded with utmost attention how she arched her back and how her legs trembled when she reached her peak.

Once she came to rest, turned to her side, and drifted off to sleep, Omphalos chose to approach and projected his presence into her mind…

Esperanza found herself on an empty plane with a deep, almost tangible darkness surrounding her. A sensation of being watched encroached upon her, but she couldn’t see anything or anyone around her.

Then, slowly, a dim purple haze descended from above, and as she looked upwards, Omphalos floated closer in its full glory. Its moon sized body not adhering to the physical laws of optics and perspective, but rather bending those very laws to its own will – unfathomably large and distant and yet seemingly so close at the same time.

Shimmers and streaks of blue and purple played over her, caressing her form with radiant touch, and the entity settled into place in front of Esperanza. Its tentacles and glowing braids gently swayed in the stillness of the plane, as if carried by a gently breeze or current. Then, the glowing core in the entity’s body wavered, and with an unnaturally deep and echoing voice the creature struck Esperanza’s core.

“Do not be afraid. I mean you no harm.”

https://imgur.com/UZw4JLa

 

[fellatrixlestrange]

The dream didn't feel like a dream. There was a terribly complete feeling. That first moment when she tried to breathe and there was nothing there, and then there was, as if she were scuba diving and switched on her oxygen mask. She even touched her face to make sure there was no obstruction, but there wasn't. There wasn't anything. The world was without form and void, and darkness was on the face of... well, there wasn't even any deep. But there was something.

Esperanza was not a religious person, but she had grown up in a Catholic house, and this was ringing all sorts of bells. She wanted to feel like it was something else, something scientific. She wanted Neil Degrasse Tyson or one of those guys to step out and start talking about what there was before the Big Bang. But this was not television. This was real, and it was the very beginning of Genesis. The Spirit of God hovering over the waters. Presumably there were waters. The Spirit of God there most certainly was.

First, just a tingling at the back of her neck, the sense that she was being watched. Then purple. The faintest variation to the utter darkness. A haze seemed to form around her. Then she saw where the light was coming from. It was light. It was something, but not really. How strange that the Spirit of God would show up as purple light. Because there wasn't really anything else that this could be. It was impossibly large. That was the one thing she was sure of. Everything else was... confusing.

It clearly had no substance, it was just light. But there were tendrils, tentacles waving in some current she couldn't feel. But at the same time, she felt it touch her. It was vast and alien, close enough to feel its breath, not that it breathed, but she saw all of it. It was like standing on the beach, looking at the froth churning around her ankles as the wave washed out, but at the same time having an astronaut's perspective of the whole earth.

It was a dream. It had to be a dream. It clearly wasn't real. But it was a dream where her mind seemed to operate in a very un-dreamlike way. She was present tense being reminded of the Bible, and Jimi Hendrix, and old horror stories and sci fi movies. At the same time, these thoughts didn't alter anything. The little memory triggers didn't change the reality she was in the way they would in a dream. She couldn't ever remember thinking how fucking weird a dream was during the dream. In dreams, things just happened, and the commentary all happened when she woke. This was really fucking weird though.

Then it spoke very much the way the Spirit of God should speak. It was so deep she should not have been able to hear it at all. It was very much audible, and vey much not English, or any language she had ever heard. It wasn't even a human sound. It was as if a galaxy was trying to make words she could understand. At the same time, as though someone had turned on the close captioning for her soul, she understood it perfectly.

"Do not be afraid. I mean you no harm."

She should be afraid, she realized. Whatever this was, she was less than an ant to it. It was somewhat miraculous it could even notice her. It did, though. It noticed her, and it touched her, and it spoke to her. It told her it meant her no harm. And while the dark, churning, spiteful side of her brain churned spitefully along, she was separate from it. Yes, she thought, not being afraid of this was just silly. Yes, it had obviously considered harming her if it was telling her it meant no harm. This was just a sign of her cracking up. She was probably drooling on herself in some psych ward. But those thoughts were background noise.

The present part of her was not afraid. This thing meant her no harm. These things were true, because it had spoken and made them true.

 

[Baelnorn]

The entity curiously observed Esperanza, shaping its ideas into the edge of a plan. It absorbed her confusion and hesitation through their connection, while its smaller tentacles gently twitched in the otherworldly current and drifted closer and closer to her.

Eventually Omphalos touched her with one of many feelers. Gentle like a silken caress and warm to the touch like a lover’s embrace, the purple appendage carefully cradled Esperanza’s cheek. The glow briefly intensified, and for a moment it was pulsing, obscenely throbbing, like a thick vein between her skin and the creature’s core.

It could attempt to force her compliance, break her, subsume her, but the most loyal contributors to the garden joined its host willingly. Omphalos wanted to see if this mortal could be similarly convinced. If she could, it would make the future so much easier for both of them. But now, the entity needed to stir Esperanza’s interest and curiosity.

“I can help you. If you let me.”

The impossible voice resonated in Esperanza’s very soul again, heard without hearing and known without understanding, as if the meaning of the words itself had been imprinted into her mind. And with the meaning came a flash of images and sounds – lingerie, moans, bodies entwined.

The warm and gentle caress continued for some moments longer, then the entity began to drift away. The tendril stretched longer and thinner.

“Think on it. I will return tonight.”

Omphalos finally broke the touch and gradually weakened the connection until it severed completely. Esperanza woke with a gasp, wide awake and refreshed, with the ringing of her alarm sounding in her bedroom.

 

[fellatrixlestrange]

Esperanza felt the surreal weight of its attention, and somehow survived. Almost like it was checking her out, only it was a godlike, extra terrestrial (galactic? universal? conceptual... so very extra) entity of purple light and psychic tendrils. And less psychic tentacles, she realized, as one caressed her. It held her cheek, the way she imagined a lover might, and it was warm, gentle, almost delicate, in a way that somehow coexisted with its incomprehensible scale. If being touched in reality was anything like this, she really wanted more of it. So much more.

The voice came back. Offering help. If she let it. She felt a laugh bubble up, and sound tiny and desolate in that infinite void. The audible laugh made it clear that the thing was speaking to her in a format that made the senses irrelevant. Except touch. Or was that just like the voice, and she had so little experience of being touched that she didn't know the difference?

Why did she laugh? Because it gave her, it seemed, the right to refuse. If she let it? How could she stop it? Why would she stop it? She had no idea what help it meant...

But then she did. As if all her porn and her deeper, more vulnerable fantasies, were distilled into a set of images that flashed through her mind, like a montage of her soul's cravings.

She heard its last words. She didn't need to think, but it was fading. The touch was gone. The thing was withdrawing. The purple light fading.

Her alarm was going. It was a work day. She switched off the alarm and contemplated what had happened as she got ready to go to the gym. Early, before most people. The strange thing was how undreamlike it felt. It didn't fade the way dreams faded, now that she was awake. After the gym, she came home. She ate her egg, and showered and dressed and made herself up, and she looked in the mirror.

She saw all the same flaws, the weight she needed to lose, the gap between her front teeth, the shapeless clothes. She saw the aura of her desperation. But it was time to go to work. The day went by more dreamlike than her dream had been. She had suddenly lost interest in her life. Not in a despairing way that she was used to, but in a disinterested way. She wanted to find a different show to watch, because this one was kind of sad and boring.

 

[Baelnorn]

This time Omphalos accompanied Esperanza throughout her day. The infection’s connection lingered, allowing the entity to glimpse at her world and enabled it to ride along as a silent observer, privy on what she saw and felt, but not – at least not yet – her every thought. That would come at a later point.

It followed her to the gym and observed her working her body with weights and machines and doing cardio. It learned about the frustration she felt with her progress, and how she felt she should be stronger and faster yet. It learned about the hidden glances she cast on the few men and women working out at the same time, and the spikes of desire and envy respectively. It learned about her fantasies of being with some of the guys showing their muscles in lose shirts, or being some of the girls showing their curves in tight fabrics leaving nothing to the imagination.

It followed her to work, her colleagues, the library’s visitors. It facilitated the spinning of an intricate web – places, times, people, vectors. It enabled a deeper understanding of her surroundings and circumstances than her memories alone, seeing potential opportunities manifest where non had existed before because Esperanza naturally wasn’t paying attention to those kind of things.

The entity learned from whispered conversations that the relationships in the University’s library were more complicated than they seemed at first. Eavesdropping from the farthest edge of human hearing it learned that some colleagues were somewhat cruel and callous underneath their professional mask of trained politeness, while some students were shallow and superficial in all regards but themselves.

All of those presented their own distinct risks, if not managed properly, and chances, if exploited correctly. A razor sharp sliver of a thought wove itself into the entity’s plans – a kind of reward for its host different than merely reshaping her physical form. If this world was as similar to those known to it as it thought, then influence and power over those that wronged her could be tempting motivators for Esperanza, and perhaps the very kind of currency to buy her eternal loyalty.

Omphalos also learned more about this new mysterious world along the way. Public transport, centralized infrastructure, places of learning, places of trade and commerce – the gaps in its web began to close, and its understanding grew. Some of it was indeed quite similar, even identical in parts, to other worlds in the garden, some of it was foreign. Ultimately the differences along the journey wouldn’t matter, only the result. And that was total carnal unity under the entity’s influence.

With the day closing and Esperanza on her way back home, the entity was looking forward to what this evening would bring. It had made its offer to her last night, and now it had to wait for her to accept. Omphalos didn’t think she would refuse or fight, but past experiences had tought it that worry, uncertainty, and fear of commitment can be as much of an obstacle as outright refusal.