Chapter 10: Darnem Is No Longer a Fortress
The mist had swallowed the squad without a word, like a massive maw snapping shut on eleven tense bodies. As we advanced, the trees grew darker, more gnarled, and the very air seemed to cling to our skin. It wasn't just humidity. There was a living heat in this dampness, almost intimate, as if the underbrush was breathing in slow pulses.
Beneath our boots, the disjointed stone slabs gave way to a path gnawed by moss, roots, and seepage. Everything seemed older here. Stickier. I recognized certain reliefs, certain traces of architecture buried in vegetation, but... something was off. In my previous life, this path hadn't reeked like this. That strange mix of dust, stale sweat, soaked vegetation, and something else — something more organic. An animal note, acidic, unpleasantly familiar. Like a trace of dried cum on a ritual slab.
I said nothing. I led the march in silence, alert. Kal kept his place, two steps behind me, as rigid and solid as a wall. The others followed quietly. No chatter. Just the faint creak of gear and the muffled rub of wet leather against legs. The mist was rising thicker now. It climbed in heavy swaths, slipping over calves, clinging to cloth, seeping into nostrils. I could feel my pants starting to stick to my thighs.
Ahead, the path narrowed between two half-collapsed stone walls. The former outer ramparts of Darnem, if memory served. But in the filtered, bluish, almost unreal light, those weathered blocks took on another aspect. Something less military. More... funereal. Or sensual. The stone was sweating, and to the touch, it vibrated. Not like a tremor. No. A low, muffled vibration, almost... carnal.
I stopped and raised my hand. The squad halted instantly, silently. I stayed still a moment, palm pressed to the rock. It was sweating. Literally. A warm dampness oozed up by capillarity, and beneath my fingers, I felt a wave. A breath? No. A heartbeat. Irregular. Like a misfiring heart, asleep in the bowels of the fortress.
Behind me, no one moved. But I picked up on micro-gestures. A throat being cleared. A stifled sigh. A breath too high, too fast, feminine. I knew it was Sae. I'd heard her pant like that before. Not in combat. In trance.
"You feel that?" I whispered, without turning.
No one answered, but Kal gave a slight nod. And when I threw a quick glance over my shoulder, I saw Tessa lick her lips. Twice. Her nipples poked through her open shirt, and she hadn't bothered to button it up.
Sae, though, seemed... gone. Her eyes were wide, slightly glazed. She clutched her staff like a mast, both hands tight, upper body trembling. Her cheeks were pale, but her lips looked swollen, flushed. I let my eyes drop just slightly: the tunic clung to her belly. And lower down, a dark spot was starting to form at her crotch. Imperceptible. But present.
I was about to say something when the voice fell. Cold. Inside my head.
[System]Detection: abnormal sensory zone.Intensity: moderate. Proximity: 1.9 km.Latent erotic energy. Status: unknown.Offensive modules on standby: 10%.
My fingers clenched against the stone.
— Standby?
The words slipped out, too low to hear normally. But Sae, still frozen, answered without blinking:
— The system... is talking to you too, right now?
I turned slowly. Her voice was frayed, almost broken. A dream voice. Or a nightmare's.
I looked her straight in the eyes. She stepped back half a pace, but didn't look away. And in the way she pressed her legs together, I knew she felt more than she let on. I knew most of all she didn't understand what was happening to her.
And me... I remembered Darnem. In the other life. Darnem wasn't like this. Darnem was a military ruin. A tactical fortress filled with corpses and traps, not clouds of cum and walls wet like thighs.
Something had changed.
It wasn't the fortress. It was the world. Or me. Or that fucking system.
We resumed our march, but the air had changed. It no longer just clung to the skin: it seeped under clothes, entered through nostrils, through pores, through eyes. It thickened around us like a sweat that came from no one, but dripped anyway.
Each step in this dense mist was a rub. Each breath a gulp of warm dampness, saturated with something carnal. Not a clear smell. A lingering aftertaste of body heat. Of dirty sheets. Of damp skin. Of orgasms repeated and dried into the walls over years.
And the walls, precisely, were no longer inert.
They were oozing. Literally. The water — if it was water — flowed down the stones like viscous sweat. Thick. Slightly pearlescent. And the shattered blocks, half-collapsed around us, pulsed at times with a slow shiver, as if Darnem's very foundations were breathing beneath our feet.
The bodies around me were no longer lying. Goran moved in silence, but his fists clenched and unclenched too often. His eyes blinked too fast. He was sweating from the forehead, and his bare chest gleamed like oiled leather. Tessa had undone two more buttons, without even thinking. Her breasts, firm, rose with each breath, swelling under her open shirt, her nipples hard and visible through the fabric. Her exposed stomach glistened with dampness, and her thighs brushed together with every step. She walked like she was trying to hold something back.
Sae wasn't faring better. Her legs were tight, lips parted, cheeks red and wet. Her tunic clung to her hips, and a dark trail ran down the inside of her right thigh. She didn't seem to notice. Or maybe didn't want to understand. But her fingers sometimes slid along her staff with a slowness too suggestive. Like she was subconsciously searching for a grip, or a support... or a substitute.
We reached a kind of inner courtyard, circular, ringed by glistening walls. The ground was paved with irregular, damp stones coated in that same thick substance. The air was denser here. And the ground, I felt it, was warmer. Beneath my boots, the stone vibrated. A slow, deep, irregular pulse. A murmur from below. Like the distant purr of an open sex.
I stopped. The squad halted. And that's when Tessa stumbled.
She half-slipped on a cracked paving stone and caught herself with a hand against the wall to her left. Her bare palm hit the glistening stone, and her entire body arched back suddenly, violently, like a jolt had hit her spine.
— Fuck…
Her voice was hoarse. Hoarser than I'd ever heard it.
She stayed frozen, chest forward, hips pushed back, legs trembling. Her hand, still on the wall, slowly pulled back. Her fingers slid, hesitated, brushed the surface like they were stroking it. I saw her nails clench, her arm tense, and a shiver ran through her whole body.
I stepped closer.
— This wall… it's vibrating, she breathed. It's warm. It… fuck… it's touching me.
She wasn't joking.
I placed my hand on the stone, just above hers. The heat was real. Not sun-warmth. Body warmth. A pulsing dampness. And beneath my fingers, I felt a wave. Like a heartbeat. A breath. A sigh from between legs. A moan right before climax.
— This isn't a bastion, I whispered. It's a fucking hive.
Tessa slowly straightened, but her body still betrayed the shock. Her thighs were wet. Her shirt, soaked in sweat, clung to her breasts, and her eyes locked on me with a tension I'd never seen in her before. A plea? Anger? Desire? Maybe all of them.
Sae approached.
She reached out. I saw the look in her eyes, hazy, misty. Her fingers trembled.
— No, I said, firm. No direct contact. Not yet.
She froze instantly, like an animal halted mid-charge. She bit her lip. A barely audible moan escaped her throat. I saw her nipples rise under the tunic, and the stain between her legs widened. She had no dry underwear left. She wasn't even resisting anymore.
I turned to the rest of the group.
— Dispersed formation. No contact with the walls. No retreat, no panic. Stay in line.
Kal slowly nodded, eyes already harder. He moved to shield the others. He understood. Darnem wasn't a strategic zone. It was a trap. A place of urges.
Tessa stepped away, unsteady. But as she passed me, she whispered, voice broken:
— It's not just the wall, chief. It's me. It feels like it's... waking everything. Even the shit I buried.
I let her go without answering. Because she'd nailed it.
It wasn't the fortress that was alive.
It was us it was making feverish.
And me... I felt that the system didn't understand this place. It wasn't in control here. It was adapting.
Offensive modules on standby.
Not a bug.A surrender.