Page 116 of She Who Devours the Stars

“Why can’t I—” My own voice stuttered, turned to static. I dug my nails into my thigh, desperate to ride it out, but the next wave was already rising.

The data on the wall twisted, a new layer surfacing on the overlay. It was Fern’s waveform, mapped in real time to myown responses. The system was supposed to ignore the user, but somewhere along the line, the feedback loop had become personal. Every spike of pleasure from me matched a spike from her. Every time I gasped, the blue-white curve on the wall pulsed brighter.

I let myself go, this time. I dropped to my elbows, face on the cold tile, ass in the air, fingers clawing at the floor. The projection washed over my bare skin, and I felt like I was being devoured alive.

I thought of her—Fern—and my body broke again, shuddering so hard I thought I might actually vanish. My clit throbbed, and I leaked down my thighs, sweat and spit and snot all mixing together in a desperate, animal need.

The world blurred. The only thing real was the taste of air, the burn of my lungs, and the crash of feedback every time the cycle reset.

I saw her, in the data. I saw her everywhere.

The projection twisted, repeating her name, over and over.

I started to whimper, but it didn’t sound like me. It sounded like someone else—a ghost, a myth, a warning.

“Ninety-nine…” I whispered, voice breaking. “One more. Just… one more.”

I pushed up, swaying on my knees. My hands shook so bad I could barely adjust the projection, but I needed to see her. I needed to watch the waveform sync with my own.

The resonance hit. This time, the pleasure was so bright, so absolute, it burned away every other thought. I sobbed her name—loud, raw, shameful—and the wave shattered me.

Something in the air changed.

The lights flickered, just once. My fingers, braced on the table, slipped through the projection. For a second, I thought it was a hardware fault, but then the world got lighter. My body—sweaty, ruined, hungry—was losing its grip on the floor.

“Oh fuck,” I gasped. “It’s happening.”

I felt myself stretch, the edges of my skin dissolving into light. The projection folded around me, like the world was a page and I was just an annotation in the margin.

The next wave came, and I cried out, louder than ever. My cunt clenched, spasming around nothing, but the feedback didn’t stop. It just built, and built, until my whole body was a single, perfect scream.

I felt the room vanish around me.

My last thought was of Fern, the curve of her hand, the wild blue of her eyes, the way her pulse had found mine in the hallway and never let go.

I came, and the world went white.

Then, nothing.

The projection on the wall kept running, a ghost of blue light mapping the empty air.

Lab E17 was silent. The only evidence I’d ever existed was the scent of sweat and the stains on the tile.

And the echo of my moan, still lingering, long after I was gone.

Thread Modulation: HoloNet

Axis Alignment: HoloNet

OP: OKAY, NOBODY PANIC, but has anyone seen Aenna Caith since last night? She checked out E17 at 02:34 and logged a sysdiagnostic at 03:17, but no ping since. She didn’t go home. Her roommate says she left her commlink on silent, and thetrash is still full of her weird protein bars. The last time this happened, the archives got quarantined for three days. I am NOT cleaning up another feral mathematician.

RE: [ProphecyMeme] — 07:15 AM

Did you check the freezer? After the SGR event, my whole cohort lost time and one of us woke up inside the library’s industrial fridge. Not a joke. Also, the waveform from last night is still running in every glass surface on B floor. If she was close to it, she’s probably in the wall now.

RE: [CatastropheQueen] — 07:15 AM

lol are you really worried or are you just mad about the protein bar thing