She's Incredibly Forward about... Mating?

All I had was a sickening feeling of helplessness. My vision couldn’t overcome my abyss-like environment.

The one good thing was that I hadn’t lost who I was. I could tell in my soul that it was nearly in the same state as it was minutes ago.

Everyone in the room was gone. Were they really a tribute, or would I see them again? I couldn’t tell, so all I have is worried speculation that I had to put away. I had to make the best of this situation.

I instructed my head to navigate and examine. Nothing. Every limb and every tensed nerve.

Nothing.

At first, I thought it was impairing brain damage. That would be logical.

I soon attributed my inanimation to the fact that my entire body was submerged under the densest water, a pressurized ocean, yet to my mind’s eye, a second sense, the space felt intangibly above the land of Earth, like it was true space. My body had been cast away like an anchor without a chain. I could feel, but not act.

It was relatively calm as I sank deeper into the darkness away from the whisps of golden light that did exist, with the rising bubbles shrinking.

At what must have been the midpoint, the screechings began. I passed red tangled souls in black tar vines of bristled sea kelp. The mummies eagerly turned in their cages to meet my arrival, and they croaked horridly for hours. I was just out of their physical reach for my descent into a nautical abyss.

Still, I couldn’t weather the hundreds of aberrations and their tired songs. I collapsed my eyes, an action which I took in surprise. My eyes were weighted but pliable, unlike everything else.

I thought I was safer in my confined inner world. However, arising and itching in my conscience was the ever-present feeling that I was being scrutinized by a powerful force unlike anything I’ve ever experienced or imagined.

I felt forced to stare out into the black and blue around me for what may have been a whole pointless day in order to forestall that unsettling feeling. The aquatic pressure wasn’t going away, and my ears thundered in dull pain while my body was getting increasingly numb to the point where it felt like it would cease to be in my control permanently. The ability permanently severed.

As I was resigning myself to my new life, my eyes ran over an indentation in the terrain tirelessly. Underneath, I spotted what appeared to be an ocean floor where the vines were chained. I was saved. This strange sequence should be finished. The bottom had to be significant.

Then it moved. The indentation on the floor widened to reveal a ravine-wide mouth with a space strangled of light inside. The mouth's ridges had thick, grey lips modeled like those of a fish.

I gave it a defiant attempt to move. It was for naught. I resigned to my immobility, and I fully expected to be swallowed whole by what looked to be a forgotten, city-consuming ocean beast.

As I drifted through, the mouth came to life with a thundering clasp around my stomach, and it squeezed with absolute force. Even in the dreary state, the pain was volatile. It was substantially worse than a comparatively swift bullet.

Then my full body was sucked in from the bottom like dust in a vacuum. The last impression I saw before full-on darkness was the lip ceiling closing so firmly that it might never be opened again.

The next thing I knew, my body was plunging for arduous seconds in a void like air until it smacked and slumped down on the firm floor. Shaken, it felt as if my limbs were angered by my management when I told them to get to it. I had to take a moment gathering my head and battered body to not pass out.

Looking closely, it seemed like the ground was made of charcoal oak planks. Everything around me turned an infinite black some distance away from me. I couldn’t see past it unless I kept moving in that direction, then the area behind me would become the same unviewable nothing.

It seemed endless, and yet I fell far from the same sky without dying. Additionally, was I spat out by that hulking ocean beast, or did I come out the no-good end? I think I know the answer, seeing how I started in the mouth and didn’t remember coming out of it.

Ehh, yuck.

Despite the deep ocean I traversed and being inside that inconceivable beast, I looked like I had previously on Earth. I had my battered body, which hauled construction materials month after month to my back and bones’ dismay. Though I certainly could surprise someone with my strength. I never had nutrition or rest to gain impressive muscles, though.

The biggest thing I ascertained was that I wasn’t drenched in fluid, animal waste, or digested at all. As evidence, my denim jacket and work trousers were in fine condition, and I lacked the wrinkly, dishrag skin I should have if I were under the water for days.

Strange.

Perhaps… the monster’s stomach. That's where I still am. How it was this tame and not filled with acid or other digestion, I didn’t know.

At this point, I could tell something was awry. This had to be a new world of sorts. I felt pain, the lovely non-wet ground, and hunger from not eating for almost two days.

I’m somewhere I’ve never been, but I can finally move of my own volition. That’s something that I was wordlessly thankful for after being forced to endure the loss of that right.

With nothing left to do, I started wondering about the space. Seemingly, growing out of the void, I found various open cavern-type rooms on both sides of my view. I walked into the closest one, the stone ceiling was just above standing height, and it was filled with a single oak table and a burning antiquated candle. As a whole, there was vastly too much empty space, making the place feel unoccupied and unwanted in a creepy and solemn way.

I decided to check out all the chambers to see if I could find any food, water, or items that would help with my immediate survival. If I found what I needed and a good place to rest, I would definitely take the chance to. I was exhausted.

I walked the prim street set in between the settlements, saw that they repeated for a fair distance and then tried the right side.

I came across a blonde regal figure wearing ancient, brown sandals and a white, full-body, ceremonial gown sitting on the table, turned the opposite way. The gown was open-cut, and I was courted with gorgeous shoulders and bronze toning across her back.

Holy. Quickly, my eyes angled away, creating a strict right angle.

I avoided the hotspot and peered over toward the table. She was studying a heavy book six times larger than anything I liked to read. I could tell the topic was fashion from the array of pretentious designer clothing and models. It seemed like she was touching up on her hair that was too thick and voluminous to restrain. She tried to tame it more in line with one of the models.

She flipped to a new page. On the left page were esoteric designs made by a showy designer. The right page showcased gothic garments and ornaments.

All at once, she grasped my presence and turned around. She flashed an exceedingly pure smile that, on anyone else, I might have found frightening or perceived as insincere. Materializing in the air next to her, I noted a green circular emblem with a centered hieroglyph that I couldn’t hope to read as it shifted in the air.

Could that be a hologram or a projection device? The result was seamless, though.

As she arose, she shrewdly closed the cover and tucked away her reading. Maybe I could ask about that later.

“I’m Asa. Tell me. What’s your name?” She said.

“Aaa-strid,” I barely managed.

My happiness and awkward smile from meeting her were replaced with room-collapsing nerves and dissociation from the present.

I think it was understandable.

She had a majesty that was held together by flawless skin and a silver tiara with a seated emerald. If I discovered her previously in Solar City, I would think that this woman surely was a top pop star or idol fated for the stage with perfect charisma. In all probability, I was underselling it.

Her dignity could probably rule the entire corrupted city. In my heart, it certainly felt like she could absolve the citizens from the merciless gangs and the political and company rivalries.

Looking back into her eyes again, I flustered wildly like I was asking out a long-time crush in front of a full classroom. It was as if she blushed to match mine. A timeless moment where the wind blew across both of our faces, ruffling our hair. Those eyes. Well, her whole spirited face was abruptly near enough that I swore I could see her breath as fog in this otherwise non-humid place.

We were now holding eye contact, and there certainly was a clear path to push our lips together. No height difference between us, just the makings of air. Her rosy surface made me want to find out everything about her. Through direct or talkative means.

Don’t do it. I really shouldn’t do it.

“Are you going to kiss me?” I asked her in the middle of her speech that passed in and out of my ears.

What! Why’d I possibly say that? I was in self-made disbelief.

Words I frequently used with myself pummeled my head.

Hopelessly impulsive. Destructively wired for the short term. Letdown. Weirdo. Idiot. I didn’t mean to say that. Not that I wasn’t thinking something along the lines of kissing.

These were the type of antics that would occur when your parents prohibited dating and marriage. Until… I was what? 24?

She grazed her hand over my shoulder. It would be the most precious thing to freak out over if I weren’t losing it here in my thoughts.

“No! Listen Astrid. I’m going to [_____] with you, and it's going to save you. You’ll divulge the Words and Seal the Pact.” She said.

Hmm, words of the present were what I needed to keep the panic away. I undoubtedly heard a word from her, yet I never heard it before, and the syllables produced a blank meaning in my mind.

I truly did have a high school dropout reading comprehension level.

“I didn’t get what you said in the middle of your clarification, Asa,” I said.

“Were you confused on [consummation]?” She said.

I tried not to return a clueless stare, yet that was all she saw.

“How do humans explain it? Hmm… [Consummation]. Oh, yeah!” She clapped her hands together over her shoulder. “It is a process like Marriage, Togetherness, Dissolution, Nirvana, Procreation, Euphoria, Union, or Sex,” Asa said. “It happens between two souls. It feels better when you begin cold. Warm is how most people describe the aftermath.”

“Huh…ah. Ah! You don't need to describe it anymore, I-I get it,” I said. The leu-wdity. Every cell in my body was kicked into bewilderment or bashfulness. Sekkusu. Sex.

What in the world was happening? I didn’t understand, but I could tell I didn’t have the time. My brain racked over what to say and think. Is there a correct thing to do?

Suddenly, Asa’s gaze turned deadly. My sweating intensified as a pleasant hand clasped over mine.

“Don’t panic, Astrid. We have to do this as a pair,” She nobly swore. “I’ll lead you through the process for this ceremony. It’s my promise and responsibility to save you.”