Monster March: The Eldritch Lover

Female Reader(cis) x Nonbinary Monster

The summons came at a  late hour, and work usually didn’t contact me until the morning on  weekdays. Never after six, certainly never on weekends. This was  strange, considering how consistent they had been. This job was strange,  to say the least, but at least my employers were professional.

It  had been storming the last few days. The winds had been strong, and the  rain came and went in spurts of heavy showers. Tonight it was  drizzling, just enough to lower visibility outside. I had rarely been to  the main building of the company I worked for, and it was remote; a  huge industrial building miraculously nestled and protected amidst pine  trees and rocky terrain.

“Sorry to call you in so late.” I was  instantly greeted at the door by Dr. Yora, who said she had sought me  out specifically for hiring.

“You sounded urgent on the phone,” I  said as I removed my raincoat. “What’s going on?” I was still confused  and hoping for answers. I was hired as a linguistics specialist, and I  worked from home. I was never called in except for the occasional  meeting.

Dr. Yora was a tall woman, and that was as much as I knew about her. “Follow me. It’s not safe to talk here.”

I  looked around, only seeing a few guards darting around the main floor.  “Okay,” I said uneasily as I tried to keep up with her long stride. I’d  never been beyond the second floor of this building, where I went  through my interview process and where most meetings were held. I’d  never needed to go anywhere else. Dr. Yora led me onto an elevator and  pushed a button for the basement floor. My stomach sank as the elevator  did. I had to leave my bag and cellphone behind, and the only person who  knew I was here was the woman I was standing next to. I should have  texted someone to let them know I had gone out. Maybe someone at my  apartment building saw me leave. It felt like the elevator would never  stop as we descended floor after floor after floor. Each time I saw the  number change, another cold stone was added to my gut.

Once we  reached the basement floor, I let out a heavy sigh. “Nothing to worry  about, Ms. Cleary.” Dr. Yora said to me. “I know this may all seem like  an invitation to the underworld, but I assure you, this is still an  earthly matter.”

“I wasn’t thinking that before,” I muttered.

When  I hear ‘basement’, I picture a musty tomb of old furniture, a stale pot  smell, and stacks of cardboard boxes surrounding a pool table. This was  like no basement I had ever encountered; a sci-fi wonderland lit up by  walls of computers. Dr. Yora took me around a corner, and suddenly we  were in an aquarium. There was a large tank positioned at the rear of  the room, surrounded by more banks of computers and a cluster of  researchers.

“Ms. Cleary, this afternoon we were called to  investigate a discovery on Tofino beach. Something washed ashore during  the storms, and at first it was thought to be some sort of marine life.  But so far, it doesn’t resemble anything known to the natural sciences.”

I  had come to accept that this place delved into aliens, demons, ghosts,  all that sort of Scooby-Doo Mysteries crap I didn’t believe in. They had  me translate ancient texts, and encoded diaries, and that work sounded  interesting enough that it made me take the job, along with the pay,  benefits and the prospect of working from home. The odd pages they sent  me were captivating to pore over, even if I found the organization’s  aims laughable.

“Did you find a mermaid?” I asked jokingly.

Dr.  Yora gave me a disdainful look from behind her glasses, dropping  another stone into my gut. “I wouldn’t have called you here if it had  been something we already know how to communicate with.” We approached  the tank. “No, Ms. Cleary, what was discovered on the sand was something  even I haven’t seen before. I need your help to communicate with it.”

A  chill ran down my spine. I glanced back to the tank, not seeing  anything inside it. “Do I need to believe in order to see it? Like…  clapping my hands for Tinkerbell?”

“This is not a story, Ms.  Cleary,” Dr. Yora said sternly. “The creature is injured and frightened,  so it’s camouflaged.” She pointed to a screen, where heat sensors had  something outlined at the bottom of the tank. It looked like a spider  web covering the entire floor, and snaking limbs stretched out to touch  every wall.

“What is that?” I felt like I could barely breathe.

Dr.  Yora took a step back. “That is what you are here for, Ms. Cleary - to  find out. We’ve found it moves when someone touches the tank, so no one  has been allowed near it until you could arrive.”

I was never fond  of aquariums. I was weirded out by the way fish moved, and sharks  petrified me, as did dolphins, to say nothing of piranhas. It frightened  me just knowing that we knew less about the oceans than about outer  space. I could never have expected I would be called to communicate with  something like this. I had snapped up as many languages as I possibly  could before college, but I’d never tried to speak to something that  wasn’t human, and for the first time, I was terrified about what I might  hear.

I was placed near the monitor with the heat sensor, so I  could see the camouflaged creature if it approached me.  I placed my  palms on the glass, and moments later the webbed limbs moved, retracting  to the center mass so that it formed a tight ball at the center of a  tank. Then more limbs stretched out of the top, and these looked like  arms and hands. They stretched through the water, towards where I was  standing.

“It’s responding,” Dr. Yora murmured behind me, watching with someone else on another monitor. “Notice anything, Ms. Cleary?”

If  my palms weren’t braced on the glass, they would have been shaking.  “Not yet,” I replied thickly. I looked through the water, trying to see  something, anything. On the heat sensor, the creature’s limbs were close  to the glass in front of me. The thing itself looked huge, and I  couldn’t make any sense of its shape.

“My name is Mia Cleary,” I  said slowly and clearly. “If you can understand me, then tap the glass  three times.” I repeated this in French, in Spanish, and before I could  say it in Mandarin the glass was tapped once. Twice. Then again.

“Which language did it understand?” Dr. Yora asked.

I  wanted to see what was in front of me. I wanted to understand. I didn’t  want to believe this was a hoax or trick. I saw something ripple in the  water, like a drop of ink sinking through the tank. It spread out,  taking shape, and shifted from black to solid blue before my very eyes. I  saw hands with seven fingers, milky-blue palms pitted with suction  cups. The long arms were connected to a torso that looked shockingly  human.

“Ms. Cleary,” Dr. Yora called out to me.

The creature  had a head, but one that was perfectly smooth and featureless. No face,  no ears, no nose. The front of the head was only distinguished by a  milky blue hue spreading down from where the jaw should be to the  shoulders. The torso ended in a cloud of darkness that shifted and moved  in an incomprehensible way. I looked back towards the featureless head  and wanted to wrench my hands away.

“Ms. Cleary!” Dr. Yora insisted again. “Are you getting anything?”

The  creature moved closer to the glass, stroking the surface with a sense  of urgency. It pressed its non-face against the glass, rubbing against  it. I stepped back in fear, removing my hands from the glass, and the  creature slammed its palms against it.

“Ms. Cleary! Back into position!” Dr. Yora yelled.

My  heart was pulsing, and my skin was clammy. I wanted to go home and read  weird diaries about demon worship. I didn’t want to do this.

The  creature knocked on the glass again, snapping me to attention. The  fingers flexed, and they had more joints than a human hand. The color of  the palm shifted from milky blue to a pale yellow. The color reminded  me of a dress my grandmother wore, and the tea set she gave me that we  would use in the garden.

I approached again, placing my palm back  on the glass. The creature moved its hand towards mine, and I felt a  strange tremor that tingled in the spaces between my fingers.

“It’s trying.” My voice cracked. “It’s really trying.”

Dr. Yora looked from the monitor to me. “What is it doing?”

I shook my head, but I couldn’t remove my eyes from the creature. “Just trying.”

“That’s  enough for now, then,” Dr. Yora told me. “We’ll give you a room for the  night. Get some rest so you can come at this fresh in the morning.”

“Really?” I scoffed. “You want me to stop now?”

Dr.  Yora led me away. “You’ve made some sort of contact with it. I’m not  trying to push anything. It’s late, and we need you at your best.”

I  was afraid I would never be able to sleep, so I requested a pen and  paper, which Dr. Yora denied. Instead I thought myself to sleep,  drifting off as I made notes in my mind. The next morning I was fed and  given a change of clothes, ones that were more antiseptic than I cared  for. I was taken back to the creature’s tank, and once again it billowed  out of invisibility as I came close.

“I think he likes you,” a researcher quipped.

I  took up the same position in front of the tank as I had the day before,  and the creature came right towards me, running its palms over the  glass. I placed my hands back on the glass and smiled. “How can I  understand you?” I whispered.

The palms of the creature shifted to  that familiar yellow again. I licked my lips and thought very, very  hard about what to do next. “Markers,” I suddenly said. “Are there any  markers around here?”

“I’ll get the dry-erase ones,” the woman sitting with Dr. Yora said. She got up quickly and ran off.

The  creature’s palm had turned yellow, so perhaps color was a clue. I  decided to try and talk again while I waited. “Are you hurt?” I asked.  “Is there something we can do to help you?”

The creature rapped each fingertip against the glass.

I  repeated the sentences in French, but before I could finish the  creature moved its hand to a spot on its body. I saw an irregularity in  the color there, black and gelatinous. “It’s hurt,” I called urgently.

“What are you doing to communicate?” Dr. Yora asked. “How are you figuring this out?”

“I don’t know. I’m thinking really hard. I…” I stopped. “Maybe it’s telepathic. Or empathic. I’ll need more time.”

For  the first time, Dr. Yora smiled. “For now, we need to earn the  creature’s trust so we can help it. Keep at it, Ms. Cleary. You’re doing  fantastically.”

The other researcher returned and handed me the  markers - just red, blue, and black, not the variety I was hoping for.  My idea was a long shot, but if it worked, it might be the key to  unraveling the enigma in front of me. I scribbled on the glass while the  creature followed my movements, mimicking them so closely it was like I  was standing in front of the creepiest funhouse mirror ever. Blue meant  ‘yes’, black meant ‘no’, and red, I determined, meant ‘undecided’.

I  pressed my hands back against the glass. “Touch blue if you can  understand me. Touch red if you almost can.” I said it out loud, then  thought the words over again in my head.

The creature touched somewhere between blue and red. “Oh, wow,” I gasped.

Dr. Yora had moved behind me to watch. “What is it? What did it say?”

“Maybe  ‘yes’?” I licked my lips, then gnawed them. “Okay, next question. Touch  blue if you are in pain, black if you aren’t, red if you don’t know.”

The hand pressed against the blue patch on the glass. My heart was pounding. “Can we help you?”

The creature moved its palm to red.

“You’ve done it!” Dr. Yora exclaimed.

I shook my head. “No. No, it’s barely understanding me and I don’t understand it. I need to get closer.”

Dr.  Yora gave me a stern and all-too-knowing look. “That could be very  dangerous. We still don’t know enough about it. I’m not risking your  life for this, Ms. Cleary.”

The creature knocked against the glass  to bring my attention back, then swirled its fingers around the red  patch. “I don’t think it trusts us, either,” I murmured.

The  creature pressed its palms on the glass like it was trying to push it  away. I placed my palms over it and tried to feel something, anything.  There was that tingle again, like ants between my fingers. I would need  more time, but this creature needed help now.

I stayed long into  the night, asking questions that ultimately went in a circle. Dr. Yora  finally made me leave, saying her team would use what I discovered to  continue trying to communicate with the creature. I was taken to my room  again so I could sleep, but my mind was racing so hard I didn’t think I  would ever find rest.

I descended into a quiet place, like  sinking into water. Bubbles rose above my head, and I could see light  filtering through the surface above me. A pulsing sound pressed into my  ears as I continued to sink, and the light grew dimmer and dimmer above  me. Out of the pulsing sound, a faint noise grew louder, voices all  talking at once, bleeding together until they became a dull roar. I  tried to sift through them all, to single out one voice, but I found a  hand instead. I took hold of it and the noise stopped.

I bolted  upright in bed, gasped, and then began coughing furiously. My left side  ached intensely, but as I came to the pain faded. I lifted up my shirt,  and found a bruise there that quickly faded with the pain.

I raced  from the room, straight back to the tank where the creature was being  kept. “Ms. Cleary!” a researcher yelled at me. I ducked past him and the  other researchers, leading them on a childlike chase around the tank. I  came to a ladder, which I climbed up to get to the top of the tank.  Inside the creature was moving, rising towards the surface.

“Ms. Cleary!” A researcher was chasing me up the ladder. “You need to come down here this second!”

“No! I had a dream!” I stopped myself when I realized how ridiculous this sounded. “It’s research! Let me do this.”

“Stop!”  Dr. Yora’s voice rang clearly through the room. She folded her arms as  she glared up at me. “Ms. Cleary, there is protocol for this. You can’t  just rush into things without consulting or even talking to anybody  here!”

The creature was pounding on the lid of the tank.

“I  can’t explain this well. I haven’t eaten or even had coffee yet. But I  think this thing was trying to reach out to me in my dream.”

Dr. Yora’s brow furrowed.

“I’m  serious!” I pulled up my shirt, showing the outline of the bruise along  my side. It had turned from blue to yellow and was almost gone. “I woke  up with a bruise similar to the injury it has.”

Dr. Yora sighed. “And you thought jumping into the tank would do what, exactly?”

I pointed into the tank. “I need to talk to it face-to-face. I think I need tactile contact in order to understand it.”

Dr. Yora wagged her fingers. “Come off the ladder. We need to discuss this.”

As  I reluctantly descended the ladder, the creature followed me, trailing  ribboning tentacles like those of a jellyfish. I stared at it, hoping it  understood I wanted to help it. Dr. Yora took me to eat and get coffee  so I could properly start my day, and all the while she gave me a sound  talking-to.

“This is a place of science, and you have to operate  according to procedure, not gut feelings. I need you to tell me your  process. What led you to run around like a damn chicken with its head  cut off?” The usually polished and poised Dr. Yora looked a little dull  today, frazzled and exhausted.

“I’ll apologize for that. This the  first time anything like this has ever happened to me. I’m used to  translating from texts and documents, and I’ve never had something  living to work with. Certainly nothing unknown like this.” I stared down  into my coffee, and the black surface seemed to stir like the creature  did.

Dr. Yora’s eyes narrowed. “I told you what this place was  when I hired you. You’ve read pages from early demonic possessions, and  the Wakefield Accounts. You never believed in any of it until now?”

I  shrugged. For me it was easy to brush off, or at least it had been. “I  still don’t believe it. I think the Wakefield visions were caused by  fumes from the plant. I think the texts are interesting, but manatees  don’t make mermaids.”

Dr. Yora took her glasses off and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Then explain to me what that creature is.”

I shook my head. “I can’t, Dr. Yora. Can you?”

“Not  quite.” Dr. Yora fixed her glasses back on. “My father started this  institute on a shoestring budget, and it literally began in our basement  with my mother and uncle. I’ve seen everything you don’t want to  believe in. There’s a carnival that travels between worlds. A town full  of werewolves. And I am afraid our little Tofino beach monster could be a  breach.”

Dr. Yora knew I didn’t believe, but I worked well and  got the job done so she never argued with me. Not until now. The  conviction in her voice was real, and she was a woman I admired so I  listened to her, taking her word where I hadn’t before. “A breach? Do  you mean something evil or something extraterrestrial?”

“I’m not sure. The demons aren’t into talking.”

I thought about the documents I’d translated, most of them dealing with demons. “You’ve been trying to summon demons?”

“Locate,”  she corrected me. “At least a dozen of the highest-ranking members of  the demonic royal family are up here, including dukes and princes.  They’ve come because they’re fleeing an expected crisis. The pages we’ve  sent you are on how to identify them amongst humans.”

I swallowed hard. “But why would they want to be here? Is there really something that bad coming?”

“That’s  what we’re trying to find out. The Tofino creature could be a clue of  what’s to come, or even where it is and how we can stop it. But until we  can understand it, we have no idea what it is, or even if it’s relevant  to our other areas of research.”

“So, I still can’t touch it?” I asked.

Dr. Yora shook her head. “For the time being, no. I think your marker solution was working out well.”

I  pushed my plate aside and leaned across the table. “It wasn’t, though.  I’m only getting half of what I need. The creature can understand me,  but I can’t understand it! My dream was an inspiration, an idea of what I  could accomplish if I could just get in the tank.”

Dr. Yora  sighed and shook her head again. “I understand your frustration, but I  can’t risk you getting hurt on an idea. You’ll have to figure something  else out, Ms. Cleary.”

“Guess so,” I muttered.

I went back to the tank room, to find the creature waiting in  anticipation. It followed my movements to meet me as I stood in my usual  spot. It pressed its hands to the glass, tapping over and over as I  tried to think. I came close, meeting its palms, and motioned to the  black, red, and blue marks from last night. “Did you reach out to me  last night? Touch the blue if you did.”

The creature’s palm slid onto the blue patch. I kept my eyes on the hand. “Touch blue if you were trying to tell me something.”

The creature pulled its hand away, then placed it back on the blue patch.

“Touch red if your side still hurts.”

It extended its left arm again, then pointed its finger at me.

I  shook my head. “I don’t… I’m not hurt. I’m asking you.” I touched my  side. It didn’t hurt as badly as it did this morning, but it was a bit  tender. Did the creature use me to heal? It placed its palm back on  blue.

“What is it doing?” a researcher below asked.

It was a  crazy idea, but I could test it now. “It’s trying again.” I looked up  at the creature and kept my mind directed at it. I kept my mind blank  and said nothing. Could it hear me? Or was it feeling me? I placed each  question inside a color in my head. Red felt hot. Blue felt cold. If it  could hear my thoughts, it would hear red and pick red. If it was  empathic, it would feel the cold and choose blue.

“Ms. Cleary?” the researcher asked behind me.

The creature’s hand slid over the blue and pressed hard against it.

“Nothing  concrete,” I murmured. “But I think the creature is empathic. I’ll need  to do a few more tests to be certain.” I placed my hand over the blue  patch, and was shocked to find it freezing cold. The glass began to fog  over.

“I need more markers!” I shouted over my shoulder. “Lots of colors, too! I’ve gotta make a mood ring.”

Once  I received the markers I needed, I made a wheel of colors on the front  of the tank. I had grown tired of calling it ‘the creature’ so I decided  to name it Hans, after the author of the Little Mermaid. Hans seemed to  take well to its new name when I thought about it. Even when I was  discussing things with Dr. Yora, Hans would come to the front of the  tank as if called.

The color wheel served as a way to communicate  better with Hans, but still, all they could do was respond to me. If I  wanted to fully understand Hans, I needed to be able to touch them, if  only to see whether tactile contact would open a new communication  channel. Dr. Yora was still hesitant, but she was impressed with the  color wheel.

There were also the dreams. I don’t know how, but  Hans was able to get things across to me through my dreams. Much like at  the tank, the communication was one-sided, and I couldn’t make out any  messages clearly. I woke one evening after such a dream, feeling wet all  over, but my body was bone-dry to the touch. I left my room, finding it  was extremely late. The halls were quiet, and when I came to the tank  room I was shocked that no one else was there.

Don’t count your  chickens, I thought to myself as I crossed the floor. Someone could show  up soon. Hans was floating near the top of the tank as I approached.  Their arm-like appendages were out of the water, touching the metal  mesh. They sensed me thinking about them and drifted down through the  water towards me, happily pressing their palms to the glass. I  approached, smiling at them as they shimmied and danced about in the  water. “Where is everyone? How long have you been alone? Tap once for  long, twice for short.”

Hans tapped once, then swam over to the ladder.

“Oh,  no. I shouldn’t. Dr. Yora…” I stopped myself. No one was around, and I  could just put my fingers through the metal mesh. The worst that could  happen was losing a finger, right?

Hans came to me again, tilting  their head to the side. They patted their hand over their chest, then  wiggled their fingers at me. “You won’t take a finger?” I chuckled.

Hans leaned closer to the glass, pressing their blank face against it.

I  took a deep breath. This was a risk, but it was what I’d been wanting. I  climbed the ladder to the top of the tank, then leaned over the edge. I  saw Hans inside, hands came up out of the water and pressed against the  metal. I reached out too, feeling the coolness of their skin. That  flowing rumble from my dreams coursed through my arms and into my entire  body. I melted into the air, and I could feel currents moving through  the space. The color wheel I had created appeared before my eyes, in  radiant gemstone hues surging with light and clarity. I saw an ocean  through blue, the waters choppy and severe. Lightning flashed red above  me. It lanced into the sea, much deeper than it should have been able to  go. The lightning felt like hands around me, pulling at me, tearing me.

Hans  moved their hands away, and I was back at the top of the ladder. I bent  forward and sobbed, and Hans’ finger stretched through the mesh,  touching my cheek and catching the tears. Hans was afraid, and they  showed me that. As their fingertips touched me, yellow sparkles filled  my eyes, and I saw myself from the outside. My hands stretched out and I  wanted to hold them. All around me was blue, but I was glowing bright  yellow like the sun. I reached a finger through the mesh, locking it  around Hans’ finger, which coiled around it. The flesh felt firm, but  there was no sign of bone inside it. Hans’ skin felt smooth and cool,  and despite being in water they felt dry.

“What are you doing?” A  flash of red, then a streak of purple. I looked at the base of the  ladder to see Dr. Yora standing below, a smile on her face.

“Doctor, I…” I frowned. “Did you do this on purpose?”

Inside  the tank, Hans descended, so I followed and stood before Dr. Yora. She  took my hand, looking it over. My palms had small marks from the metal  mesh, but there were also colored stains on the skin matching Hans’ palm  prints. “Did you get what you wanted?” Dr. Yora asked.

I took my hand back. “Did you?”

“I’ve  been clearing out the room for three hours a night for cleaning,” she  laughed. “Hoping you’d get that emotional itch again and wander in. Glad  my experiment paid off.”

The purple turned to pink, then to  orange. It wasn’t as strong as when we were touching, but there was a  presence in my mind now, a bridge. “Then let me get into the tank.”

Dr.  Yora shook her head. “You’re not ready for that yet, Ms. Cleary. I can  set up a new cleaning regimen as a ruse, but I would have to explain  removing that lid.” She pointed up. “For now, this is the best I can  provide you.”

“Hans is scared in there. They’re sad,” I argued.

Dr.  Yora glanced at Hans as they watched me. “I’m sorry about that. But  much of this is out of my hands. For now, this is how it has to be, so  if anyone catches you just say you’re cleaning.” She briskly walked  away. “And take notes!”

I went back to the tank, pressing my  forehead against the glass. I could feel Hans touching me back, the  smoothness of their skin, the flexing of their fingers. There were  flashes of pink and yellow. I was floating in water, my hair spread out  around me. That flowing roar inside my head lifted me up and made it so I  didn’t have to breathe. Inside I was warm, but the flow was cool to the  touch. My body ached strangely, and I wanted to be held to make it go  away.

Hans was lonely. All they wanted was to be touched.

I  climbed back up the ladder, putting what fingers I could fit through the  mesh. Hans touched, coiling their fingers around them to hold them.  This was all I could do, but Hans was grateful. They were used to having  others with them. They never traveled alone. They emerged into the sea  together, but the sea was all they wanted.

I knew that I wasn’t  capable of taking in all that Hans could give. I was used to language,  not emotion. My scope of understanding felt far too small to take in  what they were trying to get across. But I could at least see what the  broad strokes were painting.

I went to Dr. Yora first thing the next morning, rushing to pull her aside to tell her my discovery. “Hans is one of a species!”

Dr. Yora adjusted her glasses. “There’s more?”

I  was basically frothing at the mouth. I was so excited to share, but I  also needed her to know for Hans’ sake. “Yes, and that’s why Hans is so  lethargic, and they keep getting bruises. It’s because they rely on a  group, not just for safety in numbers, but for contact and stimulus.  It’s all internal. Their self-regulation relies on an interconnected  system they establish through their empathic abilities.”

Dr. Yora  looked cross as she sat on the edge of her desk. She took in what I had  to say, and around her I saw shades of purple and gray. I’d never seen  colors like that until I touched Hans. Perhaps there were lingering side  effects from our conversation. “Why did you name it?” Dr. Yora asked.

“That  isn’t the point! Is that really all you took away from this? Hans is  dying because they don’t have their herd, their school, whatever you  want to call it. Hans doesn’t have that system of support, so they’re…”

The  shades of purple turned to pink, but the gray remained, making her face  and head look fuzzy. “So it made you the start of a new system,” Dr.  Yora murmured. “It bonded to you in order to heal. To survive, it linked  itself to an open receptor.”

I bit the inside of my cheek. Maybe I  had just gotten used to communicating through Hans, but even so I knew  she wasn’t fully listening to me. “Hans is going to die with or without  me,” I said with a lump in my throat. “Hans needs to go back into the  ocean. They aren’t a threat. They’re here because it’s safer.”

Red flashed amongst the gray around Dr. Yora’s head, illuminating her eyes until they looked yellow. “Safer than what?”

“I  don’t know.” I shook my head. “Something that… I can’t describe.” I  went over to her whiteboard, drawing from memory something I had seen in  the colors Hans had shown me the night before. “I got the sense it was  something under us.” I drew the shape I saw under the ocean, a crevasse  that reminded me of the space between the floor and the skirting on my  childhood bed. Back then, it was a place where monsters came from. Maybe  that was still true.

Dr. Yora stood beside me, wrapped in orange now, which shifted across her like sunlight. “The Underneath.”

“You know this place?”

“My  father was researching it before he died. He believed it was a  disembodied, liminal space, maybe even what we think of as heaven and  hell. But if this creature and its kind left it to find a safe place,  that means they could be prey for what’s in there.”

“I can’t imagine the deepest parts of our ocean being safe,” I shuddered.

“Do  you think you can find out more?” Dr. Yora pointed to the sketch on the  whiteboard. “If you can, I would be happy to increase your pay for this  assignment.”

“Did you not hear me before? Hans needs to go back.  They’re dying! Without the support of their school, they might die.  Imagine being isolated like that, a depression that attacks and shuts  down everything inside the body. That’s what could happen to Hans, if  it’s not happening already. Dr. Yora, Hans can’t stay here.”

The  gray came back, followed by a sweeping, crashing wave of blue. “There’s  too much money wrapped up in this already. I need results to…”

“Fuck  money!” I snapped. “I thought you cared about Hans. But you’re just a  stinking bureaucrat worried about the bottom dollar, like the rest of  the world!” I wiped my hand across the whiteboard then glared up at Dr.  Yora to see the blue around her had turned almost black. “I can’t  believe I wasted my time like this.”

“Ms. Cleary,” she started in a  shaky voice. “I would love nothing more than to let it go. But if I  don’t deliver answers to my benefactors, then this whole place will be  shut down. My father’s life’s work is tied up here. I can’t just let it  all go.”

I pointed towards the door. “But is this what your dad  would want? To hold a creature hostage? Did you dad start his research  hoping for something like this?”

Dr. Yora took a step back. “No.”  The black was engulfing her, swirling around her. “No. To learn in order  to preserve - that was what he always said.” She looked away, grabbing a  picture frame off her desk, which became illuminated in bright yellow  that shone through the black. Her face changed. Her dark skin showed  pale flashes, and she had four sets of eyes.

“Dr. Yora?”

I heard a baby crying, screaming, and a man whispering to it. “I’ve got you now. Everything is going to be alright. It’s okay.”

I swallowed as I tried to decide what to say. “He was protecting you, wasn’t he?”

Dr.  Yora set aside the picture. “Have you gotten side effects from the  creature?I wouldn’t be surprised.” Her stern face returned to normal, or  at least the normal I knew. “No one can know the truth, Ms. Cleary.”

I  nodded. “Fine. But all I’m going to say now is that if your dad can do  his research with nothing but passion, pennies, and a basement, I think  you could do the same.” I turned and left her office, heading back  towards the tank.

After lunch, I decided to get some sleep. I’d  not rested all that evening, and I wouldn’t the coming one. I lay down  in bed, took a deep breath, laid my arm over my eyes and got a sinking  feeling. Not one of doom or dread, just a slow, warm descent into a  bathtub. Or, I suppose, the ocean.

I opened my eyes to see water  above me, rippling with waves of light. A ship passed by above me and as  I tried to watch, something grabbed my hand, pulling me down further  into the water. Arms wrapped around me, holding me close. A flurry of  tentacles rose up around us, like the fluttering hem of a ball gown. I  could feel heat pressing into my back, and the hands traveled along my  bare skin, leaving streaks of pink and orange as they moved. I wanted to  turn around, but my guide wouldn’t let me. A hand held my head in  place, while more hands roamed every inch of me. My body was a canvas,  being painted by feelings and desires. The heat against my back was  growing warmer, mingling with the heat flowing through my veins. Fingers  touched between my legs. There was a pulsing through my head, and a  rush of bubbles all around me. The fingers went deeper, finding the soft  flesh parted, wet and slick.

I woke with a start, hearing a knock  on my door. “Fuck.” I got up from bed, feeling damp between my legs,  and opened the door to see Dr. Yora. “I was trying to rest.”

“I  know. Forgive me, Ms. Cleary.” She walked in and began to pace. “I’ve  called an old friend. He’s going to come and help you get the creature  back to the ocean.”

I furrowed my brow. “A professional friend, or…?”

“He  works outside, but he was close with my father. He’s agreed to assist  in the transportation.” She was surrounded by swirls of blue, black, and  orange. “This could be this end of the facility. But I would like it if  I could still call on your help in the future.”

I wasn’t sure what to feel. Should I trust her? Was it okay to be this excited? “I could be interested.”

Dr. Yora smiled. “Thank you, Ms. … Mia.” she replied. “It’s been an illuminating experience working with you.”

“Why now?” I asked.

“Final  straw, you could say. And what you said about my father, it had been  something I had been thinking about for a very long time.” She gave me a  rare smile. “I want to make him proud, and I don’t think I’m doing that  as I am.”

“You think you’ll get out of this okay?”

She  shrugged. “If not, this isn’t the first time I’ve had to change my  identity.” She winked at me, then handed me a key card. “This will give  you access to unlock the tank.”

“Who should I be looking for?” I asked.

“He’ll make himself known,” Dr. Yora stated simply before she left again.

I  was anxious, to say the least. I didn’t know how this was going to be  done, not even when. My gut churned, but I knew this was the right thing  to do. Hans needed to go back home, to heal and be safe.

That  evening, I was a ball of nerves. I went into the tank room, where Hans  was waiting. They pressed against the glass, rubbing their entire body  across it as I came forward. I smiled up at them, pressing my palm to  the glass. “Not much longer.”

I went to the control panel, looking  for the slot to unlock the lid. I slid the keycard in and the mesh  started pulling back, rolling up slowly. Hans raced to the top while I  ran to the ladder. I climbed up as fast as I could, but before I got to  the lip of the tank, Hans leaned over and pulled me up the rest of the  way, into water with them. I hugged them close, crying and laughing.  Their arms felt so strong, their body so welcoming. Hans needed this  more than I did. They needed the contact of another being, an embrace  filled with emotion. It had been so long for them, and I could feel the  relief flooding them.

“It’s okay,” I whispered. “Someone’s coming  to help you get home.” I touched where Hans’ face should be, and their  fingers brushed against my lips. One slipped onto my tongue, and the  skin tasted like citrus. The fingers withdrew, then slowly moved down so  Hans’ palm pressed over my heart. I felt a pulse through me and then  saw it shudder through them.

‘Warm’ swallowed every thought in my head.. I shuddered, and it felt like I was in that dream again. “Not here… Can we?”

Hans  pulled me under the water, and my clothes floated up above my head to  the surface. Hans’ hands ran down my body, holding me so my back rested  against their chest, just like in the dream. Even though I was under the  water, I could breathe, smell, taste my surroundings so clearly. I knew  that Dr. Yora’s friend could show up at any moment. But I wanted Hans  more. I had been aching for this moment for so long, and so had they.

Their  hands warmed to the touch of my body, painting my skin in bright pinks  and oranges. Their tentacles floated around us, creating a curtain  between us and the rest of the world. Their fingers knew where to go,  finding me eager and ready for them. They were responding to my senses,  feeding on the feelings they ignited in me. I was the first hot meal  Hans had had in a long time.

I cried out as their fingers  explored, the bubbles of my breath rising above me. I could see the  water shifting and creating patterns, twisting up my clothes and pushing  them to the sides of the tank. The flowing roar pulsed in my ears,  becoming louder and clearer. Hans’ fingers dipped inside me, and the  roar became a deep, rumbling voice that called to me, breathed into me.  It vibrated along my skin, making my fingertips and breasts and tingle.

Hans  turned me around, and I saw its chest split open. There were three  lines along the breast, one starting at the neck and two more on either  side of what should be the ribs. A mouth opened up, revealing rows of  teeth and three dark purple tongues, nearly pink at the ends. One tongue  slipped out, lapping down my breast and stomach.

I threw my head  back, shuddering all over as the roar in my mind became louder. Hans was  taking my pleasure, feeling it even deeper than I was. Their hands held  mine as their tentacles held my back and legs. The tongue slipped  between my legs, gliding back and forth against my vulva. Pressing.  Pressing. Pressing. And then Hans was inside me. I cried out to match  the roar inside me. The tongue writhed inside, pushing deep, swirling,  moving so all I could feel was Hans. I can’t describe the shared  experience between us. For so long the two of us  had been starved of  one another’s touch. We were feasting, celebrating. We weren’t just  making love, we were sharing, growing, creating something.

Hans’  tongue stained me blue where it touched. The roar turned into a song, a  melody that circled around me. I felt myself floating, carried to the  surface. I lay suspended in the water as Hans’ tongue slipped out of me.  Blue dripped into the water like ink, suspended, dancing, fading.

I  closed my eyes to breathe and felt the world all around me. I pulled  myself out of the water and looked down at Hans as they came to the  surface. I didn’t think I was human any more.

I pulled on a lab  coat hanging on the wall as a man came into the room. He looked me over,  adjusting his glasses before smoothing his dark hair away from his  face. “Ms. Cleary.”

I nodded. The man was surrounded by gray, and I  had no idea how to read him. He wasn’t human. Then again, no one in the  room was.

“Call me Mr. Goodfellow. We’re going to get your little  friend out of here.” He looked up to the tank. “Big friend, I guess.”  He handed me my purse with all my belongings inside. “Drive behind me.  Keep close, and don’t fall behind. It’s all key to disguising the truck.  Can your friend get out of…”

Hans landed with a splat outside the  tank, then slithered across the floor until they stood before Mr.  Goodfellow. I hadn’t realized until that moment just how big Hans was.  “Yes, yes,” Mr. Goodfellow sighed. “We’ll be just fine. Now, how can we  get them out…” He stopped as Hans’ tentacles collected together,  constricting together until they formed a set of legs.

“Never mind.” Mr. Goodfellow waved us on after him. “Follow me.”

As  we walked down the hallway, I feared we’d come across the night shift  guards, bu I saw nobody. I didn’t even feel anybody. I felt sleep ahead  of me, and the closer we got to the foyer the more I could feel  exhaustion seeping through my bones, until it came to my fingertips as  little balls of white light.

Mr. Goodfellow’s truck was parked  right at the door, which seemed like such a bold move. But when I looked  at the cameras on the exterior of the building, I saw they were  completely frozen over. Hans was led into a tank in the back of the  truck and I fetched my car, following Mr. Goodfellow’s instructions.

We  drove all night to Tofino beach, where Hans had been found. The entire  time I could hear Hans’ song, the one that filled my head when we  joined. They were trying to calm me. I just wanted to get them home,  even if it meant I’d never seen them again. At least they would be safe.

Hans  spilled out of the truck and onto the sand when we arrived, their  ‘legs’ unraveling into the billowing swarm of tentacles they had been  before. Hans eased into the water, and I felt a breath of relief glide  through and over my body. “Thank you,” I said to Mr. Goodfellow.

“I’m more used to stealing art and artifacts. I must admit this is a new one.” He turned to me. “Will you be alright from here?”

“I’m  not sure,” I answered honestly. “I feel changed somehow. I don’t know  if it will last.” I looked at Hans, who was settled in the surf and  gazing into the distance. “I’ll be fine. You should probably go.”

“I’ll  wait a moment in the truck, in case you need anything.” Mr. Goodfellow  turned and walked away from the beach, leaving Hans and I alone.

Hans  turned, holding their hand out to me. I joined them in the water,  wading up to my waist, and watched the sky purple and orange over the  edge of the sea. I felt Hans ask me to follow them. Then dark shapes  dotted the surface, rising from the ocean as hands beckoning Hans to  them. My heart swelled, and my eyes filled with tears. Hans’ kind had  been missing them, waiting for Hans to come home.

Hans asked me  again to join them. I smiled and tearily kissed their hand. “I can’t.”  With a hard swallow, I pushed them out further into the water. “I would  love to. But you know I can’t.” Hans kept hold of my hands, squeezing  them tight. I squeezed back, hugging them in as tight an embrace as I  could muster. “I’ll know where to find you.”

Hands came up out of  the water around us, touching us both. They were celebrating, embracing  us and each other as if they had found their missing piece. Both Hans  and I would never be the same. They were not quite normal anymore, and I  was no longer completely human. We saw through different eyes, and felt  with different hands. We would always need one another, because we were  the only ones who understood.

I would return to Tofino beach to  see Hans, to embrace them and go under the waters. But I couldn’t stay  long. After the escape from the facility, it did indeed close down. Dr.  Yora went into hiding, and so did I. I began to work with Mr.  Goodfellow, who had more than enough unknown tomes for me to go through  and translate. My eyes had been opened. The world of monsters, demons,  and the otherworldly was now my world too, even though it was still hard  for me to believe in. But my heart was no longer my own. I felt it  pulsing in the hands of the one I loved, while their heart moved inside  me.