Chapter 12: The Chamber of Breath
The stone was changing beneath our boots.
It wasn't just a feeling. It was a fact. The ground, once hard, regular, layered with ancient military slabs, had slowly shifted. Here, each step echoed against a different substance. It was no longer granite. No longer tiled. It was… soft. Dense. Slightly elastic, like flesh too cold, stretched between two bones. And when you touched the walls, you could feel a damp warmth, like the air in a hammam corridor — but alive. Too alive.
I walked at the front, senses open. Kal two steps behind, shield on his back, silent as a grave. The others followed without a word. No chatter. No sighs. Not even the clinking of weapons. Just our breathing. And the slow echo of our footsteps on this… thing the system still called "ground."
The corridor walls were slowly closing in. The ceiling was lowering. And all around, dark veins began appearing in the stone, spiraling along the walls. Red filaments, almost glowing. Pulsing. As if the fortress was bleeding from the inside, slowly, through an invisible membrane.
"Chief…" Myrr whispered behind me. "Don't you smell… something?"
I didn't need to answer. Because I smelled it too. It was warm, metallic, acidic. A sweat too old. Of cum. Of pussy. Of bodily humidity concentrated in the air. A mix of dirty sheets, of ancient spasms. But nothing fresh. A memory of sex. Something long buried, but never truly gone.
Tessa lowered her head, pursed her lips. Then, without warning, opened one more button on her shirt. Her cleavage widened, revealing the firm curve of her breasts, lifted by sweat. I saw a hardened nipple briefly slip beneath the fabric, as if searching for air.
"Fuck… I'm burning up," she muttered. "This isn't normal."
No, it wasn't.
The system, however, remained silent. Until I brushed my hand against the wall — instinctively, to guide myself through the dark. And then, the message dropped, cold, automatic.
[System] Voluntary reduction of control.Observation level: Maximum.
I froze. My heart didn't beat faster, but my fingers tensed.
"Voluntary… reduction?" I breathed.
Kal stared at me, worried. But said nothing.
I turned my head. Behind me, Sae was already panting. Her face red. Her neck beaded with sweat. And her thighs… pressed together. She clenched her legs. Her staff trembled slightly in her grip. She tried to lean against a wall, but recoiled instantly as if burned.
"The wall… it… it touched me," she murmured, her voice cracked.
I stepped closer.
"Where?"
She hesitated. Then, with a brief gesture, pointed to the small of her back, where her tunic had become nearly transparent from sweat. I saw the shape of her panties plastered to her skin, and a wet stain slowly running between her buttocks.
My gaze rose to her face. Her eyes were wide — not from fear. From frustration. And something else. Deeper. More instinctive.
"You too," she breathed. "Is the system… still speaking to you?"
I didn't answer. But yes. It was speaking. It was watching. And it liked what it saw.
The corridor suddenly widened. An organic door appeared before us. Sculpted in the rock, but marked with glistening folds, concentric wrinkles, like a giant fossilized vulva, slightly parted. The center throbbed. Very slowly.
Tessa whistled, half amused, half disturbed.
"This… is a shitty design, chief."
But no one laughed.
I placed my palm on the center. The stone was warm. And beneath my fingers, I felt… a vibration. A pulse. A dull thump. As if this door had a heart.
And when I pushed, gently, it opened without resistance. With a nearly lascivious sigh.
A vapor escaped immediately. Warm. Charged. Saturated with pheromones. The group took half a step back. Kal grunted. Myrr cursed. And behind me, Sae let out a very soft moan. A sexual moan, brief, involuntary.
I didn't move.
I looked down the corridor opening ahead. And I knew, without a shadow of doubt, that the descent was only beginning.
The ground changed a second time.
As we crossed the threshold, the stone lost its raw texture. It became smooth, almost silky under our boots. Not natural. Not worn by time. Sculpted, polished — perhaps by ancient hands, or by bodies. The air grew even heavier, saturated with intimate humidity, nearly viscous. And above all, that smell.
Stronger. Sharper.
A smell of warm skin, soaked leather, body fluids left behind, soaked into the walls.
The room was round. Vast. High-ceilinged, but plunged into a dripping half-darkness. And in the center, like an offering, stood a basin of black stone. An obsidian tub carved into the floor, from which a milky vapor rose.
Around me, the footsteps slowed.
Tessa was the first to approach. Her shirt clung to her skin, so drenched that her dark nipples were now visible through the fabric. She knelt by the basin. The stone seemed warm, inviting. And the vapor… hit her full in the face. She closed her eyes. Breathing in deeply.
"It smells… like me," she whispered.
No one replied. Because each of us smelled something different.
Sae had stopped dead. Her cloak sat awkwardly on her shoulder. Her tunic exposed half a breast, which she no longer thought to cover. Her pupils were dilated. She stared at the basin's cloudy water. And her thighs… were soaked.
"Chief…" she breathed, almost inaudible. "I… I feel something. In there."
I stepped toward her.
She flinched as I approached, but didn't move back. My gaze slid down her side: her bare hip, visible through the clinging tunic. Her skin glistened, and I saw a clear trail between her legs. She no longer tried to hide it.
But this wasn't a game. It wasn't flirtation.
It was deeper.
As if the room resonated with her body, with her buried desire, with her most secret instincts.
Myrr, meanwhile, had stayed behind. But her shorts were undone. I saw it — no one mentioned it, but she'd undone two buttons. Her black band had slipped off one shoulder. And when she met my eyes, it was with a tight, nervous half-smile. A provocation. A confession. She didn't understand what was happening either… but her body had already accepted it.
I approached the basin.
The water was milky, but not opaque. Shifting shapes danced within — too blurry to be clear, but distinct enough to glimpse human forms. Or something close. Naked women, maybe. Or fragments. A breast. A mouth. A crotch. Dissolved. Suspended. A dead orgy turning in slow motion.
Tessa dipped her fingers into the water. She moaned instantly. Not in pain. In pleasure. Brief. Intense.
"It's warm," she said. "But not water."
She pulled her hand back, panting. Her fingers trembled.
And on her palm, I saw a translucent film, glossy, still stretching between her fingers like thick pussy juice.
Sae stepped closer. Slowly. Her gaze blank. Entranced.
"I see her," she whispered. "Again. The woman. From my dreams."
I turned toward her. But she wasn't looking at me. She was looking into the water.
"She called me. She… she wants me."
Then suddenly, she recoiled, as if struck.
"No. No. She is me. She's… me. Later. Or now. Or somewhere else."
Her breath quickened. She brought a hand to her belly. Then to her sex. And froze, fingers half-parted over her soaked panties.
I grabbed her shoulders. Firmly.
"Breathe."
But I could already feel her heart racing. Too fast. And against my palm, her warmth rose like a call.
[System]Detection: Active fusional desire.Psychic stimulation detected.Target: Sae.Status: unstable. Imminent sensory reconnection.
I looked at her. She was crying now. Not from fear. From confusion. From unacknowledged longing.
She clung to my chest. Her cheek against me. And I felt her hand slide, timidly, along my hip. She said nothing. But her body… was asking.
I rested my forehead against hers. Just a breath. A presence.
"Not yet. You understand? It's not time."
She nodded. Trembling. Her lower lip bitten, bleeding.
Behind me, I heard Myrr step away. And Tessa kneel again, trembling hands on her thighs.
The whole room breathed like a womb.
And I… felt the trap closing. Slowly.
But I was ready to enter it.
A sound broke the silence.
Faint. Wet. A fleshy splash, like a soft body detaching from a wall.
I turned instantly.
The basin now seemed… agitated. The vapor had changed hue. Less white. Thicker. It formed hanging veils, pulsing irregularly, and the water itself bubbled in places. Small bubbles popped at the surface with an organic sound, almost… lewd.
And then, she appeared.
Not rising. Not thrown. But exuded.
A silhouette. Completely nude. Feminine. Too feminine. Heavy breasts, wide hips, long legs like a perfectly drawn illusion. She floated at first, eyes closed. Her skin seemed made of the vapor itself — semi-solid, semi-liquid — with pearly reflections that undulated with each movement. And between her thighs… something pulsed. Gently. Like a flower blooming. Alive.
Tessa recoiled sharply. She stumbled back and half-fell, her soaked shirt clinging to her curves. Her breath hitched.
— What the fuck is that…
Sae dropped to her knees. She didn't scream. She moaned. Her thighs parted instinctively, and her hands rushed to her belly, as if summoned.
But I saw the creature open her eyes.
No irises. No pupils. Just two pearly, glowing, empty sockets. And when she moved, her gait was neither animal nor human. She undulated. Each step made her heavy breasts quake, each sway of her hips seemed to draw a suspended orgasm in the air.
[System]Anomaly detected: Major Sensory-type Entity.Name: Matrix Incubus (Misclassified)Status: Hostile / FusionalWarning: direct contact not recommended. Risk: dissociation.
The creature advanced slowly toward us. Silent. But not neutral.
Each meter shortened the distance between her and our skin. I could feel it: the air twisted. As if her very aura entered us. She moved toward Myrr.
And Myrr… didn't back away.
She couldn't. She seemed frozen. Her mouth parted, brow damp, legs already wet. A glossy trail ran down her thigh. Her shorts were undone. And beneath her band, her nipples stood out taut.
— Chief… she's looking at me… like she knows me.
The creature touched her cheek.
And Myrr screamed. Not in pain. In ecstasy.
Her whole body tensed. A violent orgasm. She collapsed, hand between her legs, shaking with uncontrollable spasms. A thick stream slid down her thighs, and her cry echoed through the room like a call to fall.
Tessa drew her weapon. Kal lunged.
But the creature melted suddenly into the ground. Liquid. As if she had only ever been an erotic mirage.
Silence.
Then, a drop. Another. The ceiling was dripping. White, translucent beads fell on our shoulders, our arms, our lips. Irregular. Hot. Too hot.
Sae was sobbing. Myrr still trembled, wracked by the aftershocks of her stolen climax.
And I understood.
This thing wasn't attacking us.
It was testing us.
— On the ground. Everyone.
Kal understood without a word. He pulled Tessa by the arm. I grabbed Myrr, still shaking, and laid her against a wall.
I placed a hand on her forehead.
She was burning.
She looked at me, lips parted, eyes hazy with fog.
— She took me… with a single look.
I nodded. And in my palm, I felt a vibration. My ring.