{"submission_id":"2617415","keywords":[{"keyword_id":"27834","keyword_name":"angst","contributed":"f","submissions_count":"449"},{"keyword_id":"1659","keyword_name":"fear","contributed":"f","submissions_count":"1922"},{"keyword_id":"123","keyword_name":"female","contributed":"f","submissions_count":"787504"},{"keyword_id":"7408","keyword_name":"gecko","contributed":"f","submissions_count":"1541"},{"keyword_id":"165","keyword_name":"male","contributed":"f","submissions_count":"904495"},{"keyword_id":"133082","keyword_name":"panther chameleon","contributed":"f","submissions_count":"5"},{"keyword_id":"632567","keyword_name":"sexual imagery","contributed":"f","submissions_count":"1"},{"keyword_id":"216","keyword_name":"teen","contributed":"f","submissions_count":"23261"}],"hidden":"f","scraps":"f","favorite":"f","favorites_count":"0","create_datetime":"2022-01-02 20:02:20.268436+01","create_datetime_usertime":"02 Jan 2022 20:02 CET","last_file_update_datetime":"2022-01-02 18:48:26.141759+01","last_file_update_datetime_usertime":"02 Jan 2022 18:48 CET","username":"AmethystMythDen","user_id":"879134","user_icon_file_name":null,"user_icon_url_large":null,"user_icon_url_medium":null,"user_icon_url_small":null,"file_name":"3865909_AmethystMythDen_iridium_chapter_2.doc","file_url_full":"https://nl.ib.metapix.net/files/full/3865/3865909_AmethystMythDen_iridium_chapter_2.doc","file_url_screen":"https://nl.ib.metapix.net/files/screen/3865/3865909_AmethystMythDen_iridium_chapter_2.doc","file_url_preview":"https://nl.ib.metapix.net/files/preview/3865/3865909_AmethystMythDen_iridium_chapter_2.doc","thumbnail_url_huge":"https://nl.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/huge/3865/3865909_AmethystMythDen_iridium_chapter_2.jpg","thumbnail_url_large":"https://nl.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/large/3865/3865909_AmethystMythDen_iridium_chapter_2.jpg","thumbnail_url_medium":"https://nl.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/medium/3865/3865909_AmethystMythDen_iridium_chapter_2.jpg","thumb_huge_x":"300","thumb_huge_y":"200","thumb_large_x":"200","thumb_large_y":"133","thumb_medium_x":"120","thumb_medium_y":"80","files":[{"file_id":"3865909","file_name":"3865909_AmethystMythDen_iridium_chapter_2.doc","file_url_full":"https://nl.ib.metapix.net/files/full/3865/3865909_AmethystMythDen_iridium_chapter_2.doc","file_url_screen":"https://nl.ib.metapix.net/files/screen/3865/3865909_AmethystMythDen_iridium_chapter_2.doc","file_url_preview":"https://nl.ib.metapix.net/files/preview/3865/3865909_AmethystMythDen_iridium_chapter_2.doc","mimetype":"application/msword","submission_id":"2617415","user_id":"879134","submission_file_order":"0","full_size_x":null,"full_size_y":null,"screen_size_x":null,"screen_size_y":null,"preview_size_x":null,"preview_size_y":null,"initial_file_md5":"fb2d2c92431ca6cce73ea579bf225125","full_file_md5":"fb2d2c92431ca6cce73ea579bf225125","large_file_md5":"","small_file_md5":"","thumbnail_md5":"5b52c714dd07ede737c6c7554c6f37e7","deleted":"f","create_datetime":"2022-01-02 18:48:26.141759+01","create_datetime_usertime":"02 Jan 2022 18:48 CET","thumbnail_url_huge":"https://nl.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/huge/3865/3865909_AmethystMythDen_iridium_chapter_2.jpg","thumbnail_url_large":"https://nl.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/large/3865/3865909_AmethystMythDen_iridium_chapter_2.jpg","thumbnail_url_medium":"https://nl.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/medium/3865/3865909_AmethystMythDen_iridium_chapter_2.jpg","thumb_huge_x":"300","thumb_huge_y":"200","thumb_large_x":"200","thumb_large_y":"133","thumb_medium_x":"120","thumb_medium_y":"80"}],"pools":[{"pool_id":"75851","name":"Eon City","description":"In a world of bad dreams, life continues. These are their stories.","count":"2","submission_left_submission_id":"2610035","submission_left_file_name":"3853941_AmethystMythDen_iridium_chapter_1.doc","submission_left_thumbnail_url_huge":"https://nl.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/huge/3853/3853941_AmethystMythDen_iridium_chapter_1.jpg","submission_left_thumbnail_url_large":"https://nl.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/large/3853/3853941_AmethystMythDen_iridium_chapter_1.jpg","submission_left_thumbnail_url_medium":"https://nl.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/medium/3853/3853941_AmethystMythDen_iridium_chapter_1.jpg","submission_left_thumb_huge_x":"300","submission_left_thumb_huge_y":"200","submission_left_thumb_large_x":"200","submission_left_thumb_large_y":"133","submission_left_thumb_medium_x":"120","submission_left_thumb_medium_y":"80"}],"description":"In this second chapter of Dreams, Iridium struggles with a major change in her life, while things spiral out of control with her father. ","description_bbcode_parsed":"In this second chapter of Dreams, Iridium struggles with a major change in her life, while things spiral out of control with her father. ","writing":"Iridium was making breakfast, wrapped in her father's old hoodie like a security blanket. Meat was a rarity, in fact, Iridium had never tasted it. Eggs though... Chickens were kept by many of the building's residents, so eggs were still an option. She was making omelets for her family, mixing in some light veggies to fill it out. It had been a while since she had made omelets since she was usually too tired to do so in the morning. This morning though... she felt refreshed in a way she had never known.\n\nShe didn't know what to feel. It was still a shock, waking up this morning and not feeling the terror but instead a strong warmth that left her sweating and wet. She had spent ten minutes gasping at the sheer aftershocks of the dream. Then she had to quickly change her sheets, convinced she had urinated in her sleep and feeling like her siblings would have her life in their hands if they were convinced she wet the bed. The blackmail potential was too much. She had to dispose of the evidence, stuffing it down at the bottom of the hamper, secure in the knowledge that she was the only one who did laundry. \n\nThen she put on her father's hoodie and started her morning. She found herself moving better, not as lethargic as most mornings. She even had the energy to start humming, the tune of a popular song that wasn't too complicated. She finished the omelets, placing her fathers on a plate right as he walked out of his bedroom. The memory of her father's possession of a dangerous drug chilled down her spine. She couldn't let on that she knew, she didn't want to fight with her father in the morning, where her siblings might hear. So she plastered a smile on her face and drew on the intense memory of her dream. She found this to work too well as portions of her skin turned pink at the heat this action ignited in her head. \n\nHer father, too hungover to notice this abnormal reaction his daughter was having, sat down on the stool near the counter. He dug into his meal before he opened his eyes in surprise at the omelet. ``You haven't made these in a while Iri.'' He chuckled softly and looked up at her with a grin. She awkwardly smiled back, the x-rated images of the night before still embarrassing her, and causing her to turn pinker by the moment. \n\n``You okay there Iri?'' He asked in his usual, gentle tone. She swayed a little bit due to her arousal and she grinned harder.\n\n``Everything's... um... great dad. I'm glad your feeling better.'' She said before realizing what she said and cringed at bringing up last night. Her dad coughed a bit. He looked down, trying to remember the previous night and failing. \n\n``Ah, yeah. Guess I had a drink too many.'' He groaned. ``I didn't do anything stupid did I?'' He asked, and she grit her teeth hard to prevent herself from pointing out what she saw the previous evening. She didn't have the words to say how much the previous night hurt so she focused on the dream, letting her smile and shake her head. ``That's good, I'd hate to have messed something up in the night. You work so hard to keep the house going, I really appreciate it Iri.'' She had to swallow past the massive lump in her throat but kept smiling. \n\nHer father finished his breakfast and pushed the plate towards her, then got up and went to take his shower. As soon as the door closed behind him, Iridium's smile dropped. Her shoulders, which had been impossibly tense, slumped to her side as she stopped trying to hold in her tears. She sniffed and let the tears flow, her body feeling an odd combination of arousal and sorrow that somehow made her feel horrible about the heat in her loins and disgusting for relying on such imagery in a conversation with her father. \n\nShe washed his dish in quiet reflection, realizing that she had made the twin's omelets too early, and they would now be cold when they got them. She wiped away her tears and put the two plates in the microwave. While she waited for her father to finish showering she let her emotions boil over into a quiet confusion that left her dazed.\n\nWhen her father came out, she kept an excuse to keep turned away from him, scrubbing the same plate, over and over. He seemed to not notice as he got ready for work. He paused at the doorway to the kitchen on his way out the door and cleared his throat. She couldn't look at him, and as the seconds wore on he seemed to realize it. He coughed awkwardly, but still, she didn't turn. \n\n``I'm, uh, going to work now Iri. Don't... don't bother cleaning my room today, I'll take care of it okay?'' She nodded slowly and he let out a breath. ``Thanks, Iri. You're the glue holding this family together.'' He left, and she felt herself crack just a little more. The pressure she felt multiplied by an untenable amount. \n\nShe sunk to her knees, wrapped her arms around them, and began to cry in earnest.\n\n- - - - -\n\nShe just barely caught the sound of her bedroom door opening. Wiping her face on a kitchen towel she attempted to reign in her anxiety attack. She thought she would have the time to wipe her tears better, but before she knew it Eric had her wrapped in his arms, cooing softly to her and whispering little comforts in her ear. Eric had always been sensitive to others' pain and had a knack for doing the right thing. The discomfort between them was erased for the moment as her younger brother held her as she cried. \n\nHeather looked down at her with pity. Her sister may be trying her best, she thought, but it's not fair that she had to feel so much of Dad's pain. It had been an open secret to look into. Quietly staying up in the dead at night to make sure your sister wasn't about to crack. She felt older than her years, and she knew the same was true of Iridium. \n\nEric though didn't make the connection. He just wasn't able to grasp the fact that Iridium was miserable, taking her crying spells as isolated events where she'd just been having a bad day. He didn't understand just how much Iridiums life had changed. From being the model sister helping her mother with them, to being the sole 'adult' looking after them. It was a cruel situation, and though Heather could see her Dad's wrongdoing, she never connected their behavior to her breakdowns. Weirdly enough Eric could see these moments. Where she was oblivious to her effects, Eric was able to tell when they'd pushed too far. Though more simplistic as 'we messed up THIS time' not the overall behavior. It made the twins' lives, by and large, a pattern by which one would realize one thing, the other realize the other thing, but they never quite caught on to each other's realizations. \n\nHowever, as Heather looked down at Iridium who was sobbing on the floor, her mind was filled with ways to make their father pay. \n\nIridium sniffled, coming down from her cry and starting to realize just what happened. She stared up at Eric from her position on the floor, her heart throbbing so deep it hurt as she felt hope well up in her that she was loved. She hadn't even realized how hurt she had been until she had that small glimmer of hope. She told herself then, that no matter what it took to protect her family, she would do it to make sure they were happy. \n\n- - - - -\n\nEventually, she stopped just staring at her siblings with bulging watery eyes and got to heating up their omelets. They didn't complain about the reheated egg, as they were too busy enjoying her omelets, which had been her mother's way of making them. She knew a lot of recipes because of her mother's cookbook that had been passed down to her on her twelfth birthday. And she made them as special as she could. It used to bring her comforts on cold mornings. Lately she'd been too tired to cook anything more complex than fried eggs, or spaghetti. More than one night had gone by where their dinner was sandwiches. \n\nHowever today, she wanted to show her family she loved them in the ways she could. She decided to stay home from school in an attempt to get the house looking great. She wanted to make sure her family knew how much she valued them. \n\nAs she sent her brother and sister off to school with a wave at the door, she walked back to her room, discarding her father's hoodie in the process. She dropped it on the floor, and then looked back at it. She picked it up and walked naked through their apartment, winding her way to her bed as slow as she could, enjoying the freedom of nudity. \n\nShe lay on her back atop her blankets, looking at the ceiling with the hoodie in her hand. She brought it up to look at it. It was frayed and worn. There was a cigarette burn on the sleeve, from her one attempt at smoking. On the bottom was a small cheese stain from her father's youth. She mused that this must be what adults meant when they had something that had? 'character'. It pleased her to have this piece of her father, and the stories of what this sweatshirt had gone through in its life always made her smile. \n\nShe pulled the fabric up to her face, breathing in the scent of the shirt. While smelling distinctly of her, she couldn't help but imagine for a second her father's scent filling the hoodie. It made her feel warm inside. Eventually, she put the shirt down again, just laying on her bed staring at the ceiling. What small fantasies she conjured in those quiet moments were never quite clear enough for her to recognize them, more like shadows along the wall of her mind than events she could describe. \n\nShe eventually got up, forgoing any clothing as she began room by room cleaning the house. She started in her room, picking up everything from the floor and organizing it. There were dirty clothes strewn all over, and various toys and accessories that her siblings enjoyed. On the one wall, on their side of the room, their small video game collection was spread all over, telling of frantic attempts to find something they had played less than the others. It had been a while since they got a new game. \n\nShe was in the middle of sniffing a pair of underpants to see if they were dirty (they were) when she saw something folded underneath the twin's bed. She reached down, her tail pointed up for balance when she heard the door open behind her. \n\nThe sudden intake of breath was surprising, and the quick closing of the door sudden, but she heard the heavier steps of her father rapidly leaving their doorway and going into his own. Her eyes narrowed, and she wondered why he was home, less than two hours after starting work. Not caring about her nudity, she walked from her room to his, hearing him moving quickly through the room in search of something. She took a deep breath, slowing her heart rate as she waited at the doorway, arms crossed and toes tapping silently. \n\nA hiss, and an audible sigh afterward, made her confused. She stood there for almost five minutes before the door opened quickly. Her father attempted to step out, looking back to his room while attempting to straighten his tie. He bumped into her hard enough to knock her over, and he was sent sprawling over top of her. She groaned and looked up, meeting his eyes as they roamed up her body. Wide, unfocused eyes that couldn't seem to see her well. He narrowed his eyes, and then quietly whispered. \n\n``A-Alexa? What are you doing here?'' He sounded confused, dazed, and not all there. He wasn't seeing her. She tried to get out from under him, and he mistook the gesture, pinning her down with a manic grin. ``I've missed you so much. The way you feel under me. It reminds me of our first night together.'' He slowly began to lean down, intent on kissing his wife. Iridium panicked and tried harder to get out from under him. She placed her hand against his face, trying to push him away but he had the weight advantage. \n\nHer father kissed her, his lips smashing against her with force enough to push her down to the floor, and she went still, afraid and extremely unnerved. She could feel pressure over her leg, but couldn't connect what it was, her attention so riveted to her father's lips on hers. \n\nHe pulled back without advancing any further, though he still rested against her, his hand holding her down by the chest as he stared blankly ahead for a moment. Then, he picked himself up, seeming to forget her entirely, and stumbled out of the apartment back to work. \n\nIridium lay there for a long time, her mind racing with shock, fear, acceptance, and then finally stark understanding. Her father had used the NeverSleep. He thought she was her mother. And he had been inches from trying to reconnect with his dead wife. She pulled herself up, all out of tears to cry this day, and returned to her room. She sat on her bed and looked at the piece of paper she had been picking up when he first came in. \n\nIt took her fifteen minutes to go over and pick it up, getting down on her knees this time, with her tail down and her side to the door. She picked it up in trembling hands and opened it. Inside, a small drawing done by Heather showed their family. Their complete family, drawn before the incident. All five of them. They were happy, smiles as wide as faces, and holding hands. \n\nThis picture... she had thought her sister had disposed of it, instead of finding it here, under her bed, where she could access it without anyone else knowing. She placed the paper back under the bed, just the way she'd found it. She finished up the room and moved onto the rec room. Many apartments had these, and it was meant to contain the interests of the family so they could be enjoyed together. \n\nHer corner of the room was large and cluttered. She had a multilevel multi-unit ant farm that was kept in conditions best suited for each type of ant collected. Her first major program had been something to program the farms to be self-sustaining temperature and environmentally through putting in conditions on her computer. It had required special hardware, but she had released the program to Open Software and built it together with people all over the world. Now it sat in the corner, cool blue light outlining the different enclosures and different ant types. \n\nHer computer was set next to it, where she could sit at her desk and be right beside her six-legged friends. This room was also the second most cluttered in the house, as everyone had different hobbies and needed space. Her brothers was filled with manga that stood in large stacks that teetered when disturbed. Her sister's corner was a small hanging jungle. Vines came from hanging pots with beautifully colored leaves. She had a small herb collection on her desk, sitting beside a large number of books on botany. Her dad's corner contained advanced coding books. Her father was once big into making video games, with several indie games and one mildly professional released game. He'd never let her play them, wouldn't tell her their names. She wondered what her dad was hiding. Something naughty? Probably. \n\nShe shrugged, cleaning up the clutter and trash around their different stations, doing her best to ignore the middle station. Moms station. She didn't want to think about her mother's sewing machine and the unfinished scarf that still lay there. She finished cleaning the room, organizing her brother's manga the way she knew he liked, cleaning up dead flowers from Heather's corner, and making sure the work on her father's computer was saved and the system shut down to rest his powerful rig. Her father never remembered to turn off his computer and she's had his password for years. \n\nShe stopped. \n\nShe could see what her fathers had been doing on his computer. Maybe she could figure out how long he's been using NeverSleep. She sat at her father's set up before she thought better of it, and logged onto the system. Open on her father's desktop was a project he'd been working on, a mostly done model of her, actually. She admired her father's work for a few seconds before closing the window, showing his file system underneath. She was moving the cursor to the exit button when a file folder name caught her attention. It was labeled with a password tag, and read ``Confidential''. She wasn't unused to it, knowing her dad had work that he sometimes brought home. However, she noticed it was plugged into a hard drive she'd never seen before. One that did not have any of the signs her dad had told her meant it was company-owned. \n\nShe hesitated but clicked on the file. It asked for a password and she entered her father's usual password, only to blink as it was incorrect, and a warning had popped up telling her she only had two guesses left before the drive would be blanked. She was confused. His password had always been her mother's name plus the year of his birth. She panicked and quickly tried his birthday. Wrong, one attempt remaining. There was red flashing now and she tried to think. One more chance or not only would she not see it, but Dad would also know. She typed her mother's name... and then hesitantly put in her date of death after it. She was afraid she was about to find pictures of her mother. She looked anxiously at her cursor, mind racing.\n\nA click and she was rewarded as the folder opened up, two sub-folders labeled with the names Alexa, and Household. She looked hard away from the name of her mother, and so she clicked the Household button quickly. \n\nVideos popped up. Taken from cameras all over the house, hidden like some piece of science fiction where they had never seen them. There were multiple within rooms, catching every corner of the household. Even in his room. She scrolled down to see how recent these were.\n\nNew Video Created: 1 hour ago \n\nShe blinked. What had been recorded earlier? She clicked the video and saw her entire encounter with her father play out from a position in a nearby corner. It didn't have sound, but in some ways that made it worse. She saw her father pin her down, forcibly kiss her, from this angle seeing his hips press against her with a noticeable bulge in the area. She stopped it after her father got up off of her before reversing and watching it again. And again. She found a way to zoom in and focus on the look on her own face. Terrified, panicking, and yet she never struck out to hurt. She realized that the situation could have gotten a lot worse. \n\nSomething was very wrong with her father.\n\nShe clicked through other videos. Entire videos where nothing happened, the coverage was total. Except... for one notable exception. \n\nHer father's safe existed in the only area that she could see in the house she wasn't able to get a camera to look. The only blank spot in her video map of their apartment. \n\nShe played the video from this morning, from the point of view of her father's room. She saw him rush into the room, grabbing the green injection container and stabbing it harshly into his thigh. She watched his whole body twitch terribly before he stood for a time, just breathing harshly. She saw him move quickly to the door and slam into her. She watched them both on the ground, this time from behind, as he hovered over her. She saw herself, her father's touch upon her chest, the kiss. \n\nShe watched the moment she stopped fighting. As her father pinned her down to the ground and his hand and eye roamed her body. She watched herself submit, and she got really flushed as she thought back on the event. Her father had seemed so powerful at that moment. She began to grow vaguely uncomfortable as her dream from the previous night came back to her. At that moment when she was the center of attention, of looking down on her teacher's face as they pleasured her. That same, surrendering to pleasure that had turned the dream from an observation to a sensation. \n\nShe shook her head, and closed the videos, exiting out of her father's open apps, and shutting the computer down. She shook her head, her mind screaming questions but having no answers. She said nothing, She finished cleaning up the room, and then moved on to her father's room. She went through without looking closely at anything. She might have thrown a few things where they didn't belong. Then she turned to the bed.\n\nHer father's bed was always a place of comfort for her. She would often come in and snuggle under the blankets when she was upset, drawing comfort from his familiar smell and general feeling. She did so now, crawling under the covers to convince herself that things were okay. She was kicking around, moving the blanket to be comfortable, when she felt something stab into her foot.\n\nShe yelped and pulled the blankets back, looking for what had hurt for her. She found it quickly enough, an empty syringe gun beneath her that had a couple of softly glowing green drops still in it. Some of the liquid was on the small exit wound the needle had left. She let out a frustrated cry and got off the bed, grabbing the injector and tossing it into her father's trashcan in the corner of the room. She tried to stomp her way out of the room but cursed when she felt her needle wound flare at the painful stomp. \n\nShe limped into the bathroom and sat down on the toilet, fuming at her father. He was being so stupid and she knew he wasn't going to be able to stop himself from messing up this time. \n\nShe needed to save her father. Unfortunately, she had no idea of how to do so. \n\n- - - - - - \n\nIridium finished cleaning the house and still had a few hours before her siblings would be home. She prepared their snack, wrapping up the vegetable platter and putting it in the fridge. Then she went back to the rec room, turned on her powerful rig, and pulled up a web page. Last night's dream still pushed at her thoughts. She had gone a night without nightmares, and frankly, if it was something she had done, she wanted to keep doing so.\n\nShe typed the words ``How do you have a good dream?'' in the search bar, and clicked the icon. Immediately a set of words popped onto the screen, a reference site being excerpted from its source. ``Dreamers: Fact and Fiction''\n\nShe clicked onto it and was shocked at the content warning that popped up. ``This site contains graphic depictions of sexual acts and is not recommended for younger audiences. If you are under 18, please click below, and you will be transferred to a child-safe discussion on Dreamers.'' \n\nShe rolled her eyes and clicked onto the page, not caring what the discussion might show her. She had seen porn before, she had guy friends. She'd never really cared for it honestly. It seemed like a waste of time, and her libido had never been that high. \n\nThe page loaded up and brought up a deep red background written with a golden script, full of flowery language that bordered on the sensual. She tried reading it and was turned off by the intricate and lengthy introduction that called Dreamers a miracle of birth and divine design. \n\nThen, after half a page glamorizing the life of a Dreamer, it went into a more thorough explanation about them. \n\nDreamers were the only people, on their entire planet, who had dreams that weren't terrible night terrors. Or at least, that was what the public believed. Those who didn't research the subject never knew an amazing truth. That Dreamers could actually SHARE their dreams with people they were close to. They could save them from the night terrors their world produced. \n\nShe was so engrossed in what she was reading that when she scrolled down and saw the intensely passionate picture underneath it took her a full minute to realize what she was seeing. An older woman, a large and imposing rhino female lay atop a desk, a small squirrel man between her thighs, his face focused on the gigantic woman. They were frozen at that moment, that carnal desire caught on film. \n\nBelow it was a caption. ``A Dreamer hard at work sharing his gift with a loved one.''\n\nShe was confused, how did that work? She kept reading. A Dreamer could share their dreams only with those they were...intimate with? \n\nShe scrolled down further, reading speculation and theories as to how the process worked. Beyond that, there was a mention of famous Dreamers. At the bottom of the page was a link that read ``So you think you might be a Dreamer?'' She hesitated. Was she a Dreamer? She'd only had the one dream that wasn't a nightmare. \n\nShe took a deep breath and clicked the link. Her bulging eyes grew wider and wider.\n\n","writing_bbcode_parsed":"Iridium was making breakfast, wrapped in her father's old hoodie like a security blanket. Meat was a rarity, in fact, Iridium had never tasted it. Eggs though... Chickens were kept by many of the building's residents, so eggs were still an option. She was making omelets for her family, mixing in some light veggies to fill it out. It had been a while since she had made omelets since she was usually too tired to do so in the morning. This morning though... she felt refreshed in a way she had never known.
She didn't know what to feel. It was still a shock, waking up this morning and not feeling the terror but instead a strong warmth that left her sweating and wet. She had spent ten minutes gasping at the sheer aftershocks of the dream. Then she had to quickly change her sheets, convinced she had urinated in her sleep and feeling like her siblings would have her life in their hands if they were convinced she wet the bed. The blackmail potential was too much. She had to dispose of the evidence, stuffing it down at the bottom of the hamper, secure in the knowledge that she was the only one who did laundry.
Then she put on her father's hoodie and started her morning. She found herself moving better, not as lethargic as most mornings. She even had the energy to start humming, the tune of a popular song that wasn't too complicated. She finished the omelets, placing her fathers on a plate right as he walked out of his bedroom. The memory of her father's possession of a dangerous drug chilled down her spine. She couldn't let on that she knew, she didn't want to fight with her father in the morning, where her siblings might hear. So she plastered a smile on her face and drew on the intense memory of her dream. She found this to work too well as portions of her skin turned pink at the heat this action ignited in her head.
Her father, too hungover to notice this abnormal reaction his daughter was having, sat down on the stool near the counter. He dug into his meal before he opened his eyes in surprise at the omelet. ``You haven't made these in a while Iri.'' He chuckled softly and looked up at her with a grin. She awkwardly smiled back, the x-rated images of the night before still embarrassing her, and causing her to turn pinker by the moment.
``You okay there Iri?'' He asked in his usual, gentle tone. She swayed a little bit due to her arousal and she grinned harder.
``Everything's... um... great dad. I'm glad your feeling better.'' She said before realizing what she said and cringed at bringing up last night. Her dad coughed a bit. He looked down, trying to remember the previous night and failing.
``Ah, yeah. Guess I had a drink too many.'' He groaned. ``I didn't do anything stupid did I?'' He asked, and she grit her teeth hard to prevent herself from pointing out what she saw the previous evening. She didn't have the words to say how much the previous night hurt so she focused on the dream, letting her smile and shake her head. ``That's good, I'd hate to have messed something up in the night. You work so hard to keep the house going, I really appreciate it Iri.'' She had to swallow past the massive lump in her throat but kept smiling.
Her father finished his breakfast and pushed the plate towards her, then got up and went to take his shower. As soon as the door closed behind him, Iridium's smile dropped. Her shoulders, which had been impossibly tense, slumped to her side as she stopped trying to hold in her tears. She sniffed and let the tears flow, her body feeling an odd combination of arousal and sorrow that somehow made her feel horrible about the heat in her loins and disgusting for relying on such imagery in a conversation with her father.
She washed his dish in quiet reflection, realizing that she had made the twin's omelets too early, and they would now be cold when they got them. She wiped away her tears and put the two plates in the microwave. While she waited for her father to finish showering she let her emotions boil over into a quiet confusion that left her dazed.
When her father came out, she kept an excuse to keep turned away from him, scrubbing the same plate, over and over. He seemed to not notice as he got ready for work. He paused at the doorway to the kitchen on his way out the door and cleared his throat. She couldn't look at him, and as the seconds wore on he seemed to realize it. He coughed awkwardly, but still, she didn't turn.
``I'm, uh, going to work now Iri. Don't... don't bother cleaning my room today, I'll take care of it okay?'' She nodded slowly and he let out a breath. ``Thanks, Iri. You're the glue holding this family together.'' He left, and she felt herself crack just a little more. The pressure she felt multiplied by an untenable amount.
She sunk to her knees, wrapped her arms around them, and began to cry in earnest.
- - - - -
She just barely caught the sound of her bedroom door opening. Wiping her face on a kitchen towel she attempted to reign in her anxiety attack. She thought she would have the time to wipe her tears better, but before she knew it Eric had her wrapped in his arms, cooing softly to her and whispering little comforts in her ear. Eric had always been sensitive to others' pain and had a knack for doing the right thing. The discomfort between them was erased for the moment as her younger brother held her as she cried.
Heather looked down at her with pity. Her sister may be trying her best, she thought, but it's not fair that she had to feel so much of Dad's pain. It had been an open secret to look into. Quietly staying up in the dead at night to make sure your sister wasn't about to crack. She felt older than her years, and she knew the same was true of Iridium.
Eric though didn't make the connection. He just wasn't able to grasp the fact that Iridium was miserable, taking her crying spells as isolated events where she'd just been having a bad day. He didn't understand just how much Iridiums life had changed. From being the model sister helping her mother with them, to being the sole 'adult' looking after them. It was a cruel situation, and though Heather could see her Dad's wrongdoing, she never connected their behavior to her breakdowns. Weirdly enough Eric could see these moments. Where she was oblivious to her effects, Eric was able to tell when they'd pushed too far. Though more simplistic as 'we messed up THIS time' not the overall behavior. It made the twins' lives, by and large, a pattern by which one would realize one thing, the other realize the other thing, but they never quite caught on to each other's realizations.
However, as Heather looked down at Iridium who was sobbing on the floor, her mind was filled with ways to make their father pay.
Iridium sniffled, coming down from her cry and starting to realize just what happened. She stared up at Eric from her position on the floor, her heart throbbing so deep it hurt as she felt hope well up in her that she was loved. She hadn't even realized how hurt she had been until she had that small glimmer of hope. She told herself then, that no matter what it took to protect her family, she would do it to make sure they were happy.
- - - - -
Eventually, she stopped just staring at her siblings with bulging watery eyes and got to heating up their omelets. They didn't complain about the reheated egg, as they were too busy enjoying her omelets, which had been her mother's way of making them. She knew a lot of recipes because of her mother's cookbook that had been passed down to her on her twelfth birthday. And she made them as special as she could. It used to bring her comforts on cold mornings. Lately she'd been too tired to cook anything more complex than fried eggs, or spaghetti. More than one night had gone by where their dinner was sandwiches.
However today, she wanted to show her family she loved them in the ways she could. She decided to stay home from school in an attempt to get the house looking great. She wanted to make sure her family knew how much she valued them.
As she sent her brother and sister off to school with a wave at the door, she walked back to her room, discarding her father's hoodie in the process. She dropped it on the floor, and then looked back at it. She picked it up and walked naked through their apartment, winding her way to her bed as slow as she could, enjoying the freedom of nudity.
She lay on her back atop her blankets, looking at the ceiling with the hoodie in her hand. She brought it up to look at it. It was frayed and worn. There was a cigarette burn on the sleeve, from her one attempt at smoking. On the bottom was a small cheese stain from her father's youth. She mused that this must be what adults meant when they had something that had? 'character'. It pleased her to have this piece of her father, and the stories of what this sweatshirt had gone through in its life always made her smile.
She pulled the fabric up to her face, breathing in the scent of the shirt. While smelling distinctly of her, she couldn't help but imagine for a second her father's scent filling the hoodie. It made her feel warm inside. Eventually, she put the shirt down again, just laying on her bed staring at the ceiling. What small fantasies she conjured in those quiet moments were never quite clear enough for her to recognize them, more like shadows along the wall of her mind than events she could describe.
She eventually got up, forgoing any clothing as she began room by room cleaning the house. She started in her room, picking up everything from the floor and organizing it. There were dirty clothes strewn all over, and various toys and accessories that her siblings enjoyed. On the one wall, on their side of the room, their small video game collection was spread all over, telling of frantic attempts to find something they had played less than the others. It had been a while since they got a new game.
She was in the middle of sniffing a pair of underpants to see if they were dirty (they were) when she saw something folded underneath the twin's bed. She reached down, her tail pointed up for balance when she heard the door open behind her.
The sudden intake of breath was surprising, and the quick closing of the door sudden, but she heard the heavier steps of her father rapidly leaving their doorway and going into his own. Her eyes narrowed, and she wondered why he was home, less than two hours after starting work. Not caring about her nudity, she walked from her room to his, hearing him moving quickly through the room in search of something. She took a deep breath, slowing her heart rate as she waited at the doorway, arms crossed and toes tapping silently.
A hiss, and an audible sigh afterward, made her confused. She stood there for almost five minutes before the door opened quickly. Her father attempted to step out, looking back to his room while attempting to straighten his tie. He bumped into her hard enough to knock her over, and he was sent sprawling over top of her. She groaned and looked up, meeting his eyes as they roamed up her body. Wide, unfocused eyes that couldn't seem to see her well. He narrowed his eyes, and then quietly whispered.
``A-Alexa? What are you doing here?'' He sounded confused, dazed, and not all there. He wasn't seeing her. She tried to get out from under him, and he mistook the gesture, pinning her down with a manic grin. ``I've missed you so much. The way you feel under me. It reminds me of our first night together.'' He slowly began to lean down, intent on kissing his wife. Iridium panicked and tried harder to get out from under him. She placed her hand against his face, trying to push him away but he had the weight advantage.
Her father kissed her, his lips smashing against her with force enough to push her down to the floor, and she went still, afraid and extremely unnerved. She could feel pressure over her leg, but couldn't connect what it was, her attention so riveted to her father's lips on hers.
He pulled back without advancing any further, though he still rested against her, his hand holding her down by the chest as he stared blankly ahead for a moment. Then, he picked himself up, seeming to forget her entirely, and stumbled out of the apartment back to work.
Iridium lay there for a long time, her mind racing with shock, fear, acceptance, and then finally stark understanding. Her father had used the NeverSleep. He thought she was her mother. And he had been inches from trying to reconnect with his dead wife. She pulled herself up, all out of tears to cry this day, and returned to her room. She sat on her bed and looked at the piece of paper she had been picking up when he first came in.
It took her fifteen minutes to go over and pick it up, getting down on her knees this time, with her tail down and her side to the door. She picked it up in trembling hands and opened it. Inside, a small drawing done by Heather showed their family. Their complete family, drawn before the incident. All five of them. They were happy, smiles as wide as faces, and holding hands.
This picture... she had thought her sister had disposed of it, instead of finding it here, under her bed, where she could access it without anyone else knowing. She placed the paper back under the bed, just the way she'd found it. She finished up the room and moved onto the rec room. Many apartments had these, and it was meant to contain the interests of the family so they could be enjoyed together.
Her corner of the room was large and cluttered. She had a multilevel multi-unit ant farm that was kept in conditions best suited for each type of ant collected. Her first major program had been something to program the farms to be self-sustaining temperature and environmentally through putting in conditions on her computer. It had required special hardware, but she had released the program to Open Software and built it together with people all over the world. Now it sat in the corner, cool blue light outlining the different enclosures and different ant types.
Her computer was set next to it, where she could sit at her desk and be right beside her six-legged friends. This room was also the second most cluttered in the house, as everyone had different hobbies and needed space. Her brothers was filled with manga that stood in large stacks that teetered when disturbed. Her sister's corner was a small hanging jungle. Vines came from hanging pots with beautifully colored leaves. She had a small herb collection on her desk, sitting beside a large number of books on botany. Her dad's corner contained advanced coding books. Her father was once big into making video games, with several indie games and one mildly professional released game. He'd never let her play them, wouldn't tell her their names. She wondered what her dad was hiding. Something naughty? Probably.
She shrugged, cleaning up the clutter and trash around their different stations, doing her best to ignore the middle station. Moms station. She didn't want to think about her mother's sewing machine and the unfinished scarf that still lay there. She finished cleaning the room, organizing her brother's manga the way she knew he liked, cleaning up dead flowers from Heather's corner, and making sure the work on her father's computer was saved and the system shut down to rest his powerful rig. Her father never remembered to turn off his computer and she's had his password for years.
She stopped.
She could see what her fathers had been doing on his computer. Maybe she could figure out how long he's been using NeverSleep. She sat at her father's set up before she thought better of it, and logged onto the system. Open on her father's desktop was a project he'd been working on, a mostly done model of her, actually. She admired her father's work for a few seconds before closing the window, showing his file system underneath. She was moving the cursor to the exit button when a file folder name caught her attention. It was labeled with a password tag, and read ``Confidential''. She wasn't unused to it, knowing her dad had work that he sometimes brought home. However, she noticed it was plugged into a hard drive she'd never seen before. One that did not have any of the signs her dad had told her meant it was company-owned.
She hesitated but clicked on the file. It asked for a password and she entered her father's usual password, only to blink as it was incorrect, and a warning had popped up telling her she only had two guesses left before the drive would be blanked. She was confused. His password had always been her mother's name plus the year of his birth. She panicked and quickly tried his birthday. Wrong, one attempt remaining. There was red flashing now and she tried to think. One more chance or not only would she not see it, but Dad would also know. She typed her mother's name... and then hesitantly put in her date of death after it. She was afraid she was about to find pictures of her mother. She looked anxiously at her cursor, mind racing.
A click and she was rewarded as the folder opened up, two sub-folders labeled with the names Alexa, and Household. She looked hard away from the name of her mother, and so she clicked the Household button quickly.
Videos popped up. Taken from cameras all over the house, hidden like some piece of science fiction where they had never seen them. There were multiple within rooms, catching every corner of the household. Even in his room. She scrolled down to see how recent these were.
New Video Created: 1 hour ago
She blinked. What had been recorded earlier? She clicked the video and saw her entire encounter with her father play out from a position in a nearby corner. It didn't have sound, but in some ways that made it worse. She saw her father pin her down, forcibly kiss her, from this angle seeing his hips press against her with a noticeable bulge in the area. She stopped it after her father got up off of her before reversing and watching it again. And again. She found a way to zoom in and focus on the look on her own face. Terrified, panicking, and yet she never struck out to hurt. She realized that the situation could have gotten a lot worse.
Something was very wrong with her father.
She clicked through other videos. Entire videos where nothing happened, the coverage was total. Except... for one notable exception.
Her father's safe existed in the only area that she could see in the house she wasn't able to get a camera to look. The only blank spot in her video map of their apartment.
She played the video from this morning, from the point of view of her father's room. She saw him rush into the room, grabbing the green injection container and stabbing it harshly into his thigh. She watched his whole body twitch terribly before he stood for a time, just breathing harshly. She saw him move quickly to the door and slam into her. She watched them both on the ground, this time from behind, as he hovered over her. She saw herself, her father's touch upon her chest, the kiss.
She watched the moment she stopped fighting. As her father pinned her down to the ground and his hand and eye roamed her body. She watched herself submit, and she got really flushed as she thought back on the event. Her father had seemed so powerful at that moment. She began to grow vaguely uncomfortable as her dream from the previous night came back to her. At that moment when she was the center of attention, of looking down on her teacher's face as they pleasured her. That same, surrendering to pleasure that had turned the dream from an observation to a sensation.
She shook her head, and closed the videos, exiting out of her father's open apps, and shutting the computer down. She shook her head, her mind screaming questions but having no answers. She said nothing, She finished cleaning up the room, and then moved on to her father's room. She went through without looking closely at anything. She might have thrown a few things where they didn't belong. Then she turned to the bed.
Her father's bed was always a place of comfort for her. She would often come in and snuggle under the blankets when she was upset, drawing comfort from his familiar smell and general feeling. She did so now, crawling under the covers to convince herself that things were okay. She was kicking around, moving the blanket to be comfortable, when she felt something stab into her foot.
She yelped and pulled the blankets back, looking for what had hurt for her. She found it quickly enough, an empty syringe gun beneath her that had a couple of softly glowing green drops still in it. Some of the liquid was on the small exit wound the needle had left. She let out a frustrated cry and got off the bed, grabbing the injector and tossing it into her father's trashcan in the corner of the room. She tried to stomp her way out of the room but cursed when she felt her needle wound flare at the painful stomp.
She limped into the bathroom and sat down on the toilet, fuming at her father. He was being so stupid and she knew he wasn't going to be able to stop himself from messing up this time.
She needed to save her father. Unfortunately, she had no idea of how to do so.
- - - - - -
Iridium finished cleaning the house and still had a few hours before her siblings would be home. She prepared their snack, wrapping up the vegetable platter and putting it in the fridge. Then she went back to the rec room, turned on her powerful rig, and pulled up a web page. Last night's dream still pushed at her thoughts. She had gone a night without nightmares, and frankly, if it was something she had done, she wanted to keep doing so.
She typed the words ``How do you have a good dream?'' in the search bar, and clicked the icon. Immediately a set of words popped onto the screen, a reference site being excerpted from its source. ``Dreamers: Fact and Fiction''
She clicked onto it and was shocked at the content warning that popped up. ``This site contains graphic depictions of sexual acts and is not recommended for younger audiences. If you are under 18, please click below, and you will be transferred to a child-safe discussion on Dreamers.''
She rolled her eyes and clicked onto the page, not caring what the discussion might show her. She had seen porn before, she had guy friends. She'd never really cared for it honestly. It seemed like a waste of time, and her libido had never been that high.
The page loaded up and brought up a deep red background written with a golden script, full of flowery language that bordered on the sensual. She tried reading it and was turned off by the intricate and lengthy introduction that called Dreamers a miracle of birth and divine design.
Then, after half a page glamorizing the life of a Dreamer, it went into a more thorough explanation about them.
Dreamers were the only people, on their entire planet, who had dreams that weren't terrible night terrors. Or at least, that was what the public believed. Those who didn't research the subject never knew an amazing truth. That Dreamers could actually SHARE their dreams with people they were close to. They could save them from the night terrors their world produced.
She was so engrossed in what she was reading that when she scrolled down and saw the intensely passionate picture underneath it took her a full minute to realize what she was seeing. An older woman, a large and imposing rhino female lay atop a desk, a small squirrel man between her thighs, his face focused on the gigantic woman. They were frozen at that moment, that carnal desire caught on film.
Below it was a caption. ``A Dreamer hard at work sharing his gift with a loved one.''
She was confused, how did that work? She kept reading. A Dreamer could share their dreams only with those they were...intimate with?
She scrolled down further, reading speculation and theories as to how the process worked. Beyond that, there was a mention of famous Dreamers. At the bottom of the page was a link that read ``So you think you might be a Dreamer?'' She hesitated. Was she a Dreamer? She'd only had the one dream that wasn't a nightmare.
She took a deep breath and clicked the link. Her bulging eyes grew wider and wider.
","pools_count":1,"title":"Dreams Chapter 2: A Change in the Winds","deleted":"f","public":"t","mimetype":"application/msword","pagecount":"1","rating_id":"2","rating_name":"Adult","ratings":[{"content_tag_id":"4","name":"Sexual Themes","description":"Erotic imagery, sexual activity or arousal","rating_id":"2"}],"submission_type_id":"12","type_name":"Writing - Document","guest_block":"t","friends_only":"f","comments_count":"1","views":"11"}