The world is wet and sticky and soft. The weight on top of me is not just water; it’s also sodden fabric and I’m no longer buoyant. Despite this, I cannot quite get a handle on how my body is positioned. My nerves come to life with a thousand pricks; pins and needles in places I never knew it was possible like my crotch and underarms.

I’m thirsty. I throw off the cover and step onto cool tiles. There’s a bucket in the corner of the room, already filled with water. Some instinct drives me to it, and I sip the fresh liquid down my throat until I physically cannot take any more. This done, I pull myself up.

The room I’m in is basic and small; other than the bed and the bucket, there’s a second bucket in the corner filled with waste, and not so much as a mirror. The walls are smeared with fresh paint but my sense of smell remains dormant and I’m thankful to be saved from the headhache inducing scent. I got to the window. Outside, it looks like a fairly ordinary town, people milling about in their mindless way. Except perhaps a bit too mindless; one man is going in circles, a woman is lying down on the sidewalk, half naked, and being eaten out by another man. They’re all covered in the white stuff.

My sense of smell actives and the earthy scent in the room overpowers me. It is not paint on the walls but the same bacterial growth that characterises suffers of NILS. I’m not surprised when I see my own body similarly colonised, when I spit out a wad of it.

I am surprised when I see it dripping from a gaping hole between my legs where my dick and balls used to be.

I stick a finger into the hole and shiver so hard I’m brought to my knees. I try to keep as still as possible to not stimulate the oversensitive orifice anymore. Eventually the waves of pleasure settle down and I can feel the intense heat of the hole. When I remove my fingers, I squirt out a mix of black-and-white liquids, their scent more metallic than the purely white stuff.

It surprises me that I’m not freaked out at this development. I’ve never been particularly attached to my genitals and there’s a certain freedom to be rid of them, yet I can’t help but wonder under what circumstances I’d lost them in. It’s not a symptom of NILS that I’d read about in the literature.

Actually, had anything I read about NILS been real? I’m no longer sure when the dream began. I doubt I could have made all that up.

I try the door and find it locked. Okay, so I was being kept in this room by someone. I’m not injured and it looks like the area is basically overrun with NILS infected so it has to be someone who got infected and properly chosen by the Blossom. I try not to hope too hard that it’s James and Julia but who else could it be?

There’s not much else I can do but wait for them. I wash up the corners of my body using the water from the fresh bucket and then observe the world outside the window.

A strange rhythm of footsteps outside breaks my trance. How long had I been masturbating? I hurry to the door, knocking on it. “Hello?” I say. “Hello, is someone there?”

The steps pause at once. I try once more, “Hi. Can you let me out please?”

The door opens and at first I’m not sure what I’m seeing; it has four—no, five—arms. The first two are where I’d expect, at the shoulders, but they’re long and muscular. The second two replace the legs and are a little shorter. There final arm comes out of the back, like a tail, and is the longest of them all. It crawls climbs into the room, front first, by gripping the frame and pushing itself forward against the walls; its hairy torso seems familiar somehow, but my eyes are drawn to arrangement of engorged penises flopping about its groin.

A drip from my new hole breaks the silence.

“Aster?” it says, the voice familiar in parts. When it parts the hair from in front of its face I finally recognise him; the curly hair has grown longer and darker, but it’s still his, and his face has hardly changed except for the sharpening of his teeth and blackening of his tongue.

I run to him, throw myself against his new chest, and kiss him. He doesn’t hesitate to push his new dark tongue deep into my mouth. It tastes my throat hungrily. It seems my gag reflex has entirely dissipated, so I encourage him further by running my hand down his sides. He’s hotter than before and I can feel something run down my thighs as I continue to lick the underside of his tongue.

I could go on doing this forever.

He pulls away. He takes my hand and makes to drag me out of the room—he’s surprisingly strong but pauses when I resist. He looks at me, confused.

“I want to meet the others but … James, I can’t stop thinking about fucking you. It’s never been like this before. It’s almost painful. Can we please do it just a little bit?”

He makes a sound that's like a sequence of clipped laughs and crawls back into the room, taking me to the bed. He looks down at me and I notice his eyes catch on my eager hole. I know what he wants, I can almost hear his screaming need to spread me open and fill me. His organs twitches and I count more than last time. He takes hold of my wrists and pushes me back onto the bed, positioning the terrifying thing against my entrance. Its heat sends a shiver through me and buck my hips to stimulate us both.

I’m lying on something uncomfortable and he relaxes his grip so I can turn. It’s my shrivelled penis and testicles. He makes that sound again, scoops them up with one hand, and swallows them both.

I don't know why but this sends a heat through me. I spread my legs wider. “Tell me why you did that when we see the others. Please just be with me now.”

He grabs my wrists again and shoves me against the bed. I might just have managed to shove human James off, but this one? I’d have no chance.

Although he's in position, he hesitates. I’m so desperate I almost cry. Why won’t he just stuff it inside me?

"James you won't hurt me. I'm made for this. Remade for this. Please." The feeling of emptiness asserts itself when I compare how I feel now to how I would feel filled up with James’s essence and the Blossom’s growing seed. “Whatever the Blossom's plans are for us, I want it. Please make sure it happens, okay?”

He’s in me within the next second. Not all of his dicks, but a sizeable number of them. My hole far too lubricated to put up any resistance even as he shoves the outer ones in as well. The pressure makes me orgasm at once, tightening my grip on his swollen member. Every thrust is like a gong going off inside me, and I don’t realise how much I’m moaning until he pauses for a moment to lower his face close to my and stick his beautiful tongue back down my throat.

The orgasms overlap until they feel like one continuous torrent of pleasure. I catch only glimpses of what’s really happening, the squirting of fluids over his dick, the way I spread my legs more and more, my voice begging him, “please, please, please,” encouraging him to keep going. Time fades away like so many other human things. Day peacefully darkens.

He pulls me back into reality as he withdraws his tongue and slows his thrusting. He looks at me curiously, eyes wet with lust, a curious gasp of his mouth asks if I want more.

“Yes—,” I say and as soon as the word is out he’s pushing himself as deep as he can go into me, pressing past some inner resistance, and I can feel the thick stuff gushing into me with each violent convulsion of his parts. I have many orgasms at once. I know this only because they come from two separate locations; one starts in my own loins and spreads through me like a wave, the others happen in a select few of James’s organs.

I pant and keep on repeating, “yes, yes, yes,” and he lifts my legs up to make sure not a drop is wasted.

He holds me like that for a while, still deep in me, until he starts moving again.

I cup my hand around his beautiful face. “Yes, as much as you want.” He does not need to be told again. His secondary hands keep me propped up as he pushes himself into me again; somehow, I’m no less sensitive. I have gotten used to the overwhelming sensation though and I begin to feel sleepy. I tell him to just keep going if I fall asleep.

He kisses me deeply again and his tongue is much smaller.

I wrap my legs around him, surprised they fit. My hand touches a warm, flowing fluid, and when I open my eyes we’re by the riverbank. The fallen tree is behind us, and it’s night. It would be cold if not for his and the water’s heats.

He’s inside my other hole and he’s human. He smiles at me while he fucks me gently. “You’re so pretty, Aster,” he says, copping my breast in his hand. “What took you so long to come back to us?”

“I don’t know,” I say, and smile at him. “I’m sorry I didn’t know how much you loved me until you were gone.”

“It’s okay,” he says. “We all love you, Aster.”

The worms from beneath the log crawl out towards us; he plunges into me a few more times, lets loose a lubricating burst of his essence, then spreads my hole open for them with his index fingers. Once the first has pushed its way inside, he lies next to me and lets me nuzzle against his chest. “Thank you for being part of me,” I say. I nuzzle up to him.

“Of course, Aster.” A particularly large worm pushes into my deeper bowels. I moan. He kisses me. He wants that moan in his throat too; wants to share it with me. I laugh. I didn’t realise he felt jealous too sometimes and I kiss him back, let loose all the little whimpers I’ve been holding back. “You sound so good. How come you didn’t make those little sounds when I was in you?”

I nibble on his lip as the squirming stimulates my prostate. “Didn’t you like the sounds I made for you? You can be in me again and try get new ones out of me.”

He helps shove the current batch of worms in then squeezes himself in after. It’s a lot less roomy than it was a few minutes ago; and he’s bigger again, thrusting just as steadily, entranced. He’s still in the Blossom’s world, fucking the other me, and although his eyes are glazed over, I can see the smile curl on his thin lips. I kiss those lips and lie back as he continues to spurt fluid into my already overfilled body.

I glance out the window, surprised the night is already retreating. An unnaturally bright morning explodes into the room.