Delphi - Millenia of torment

Location: Bedroom

My fingers brush the windowpane, tracing condensation trails that evaporate too soon. Glass, I realize. Not skin. No pulse underneath. The air is… wrong. Too still. Not the cloying warmth of the mimic’s belly, which always thrived on sweat and the iron tang of overripe arousal. Here, there’s silence—no distant hisses, no rhythmic thump of pseudopods digesting my insides. Just dust swirling in sunbeams, casting diamonds onto threadbare curtains.

This isn’t right.

Beneath the bedsheet, my legs tremble. They’re too thin, too quiet. For so long, muscles were kept pliant by constant use, stretched open, filled, emptied again. Now, empty feels strange. Empty hurts. A phantom cramp tightens low in my abdomen, a reminder of birth canals sealed shut. I press a palm flat against my stomach, wincing at the unfamiliar softness. “Where am I?” I whisper aloud, though the question terrifies me. Questions mean answers, and answers might unearth truths better left buried.

The pillowcase smells synthetic, sterile somehow. My hair fans out across it, strands catching faint golden motes. Ash-white. So pale even the light won’t cling. I look dead. But when I flex my toes, sensation floods them—too much, too little. Alive enough to feel everything anew, yet nothing seems real. A moth flutters near the lamp, wings papery compared to the iridescence of spawn eggs once nestled in my womb. I recoil instinctively, arm flying up to shield myself. No, wait—it won’t hurt you! Why would it?

A shudder racks through me, starting between shoulder blades before pooling in the hollow behind my knees. There again. The itch. Like a thousand invisible tongues licking where they shouldn’t. I cross my arms, pressing forearms against breasts flattened without the mimic’s relentless stretching. Tenderness blooms beneath cloth, a phantom ache. I want to scream, to laugh, to beg someone—or anything—to tell me this dream ends differently.

But who’s here to hear me?

The door handle turns.

I freeze mid-breath, heart hammering as if rediscovering rhythm. Footsteps echo, deliberate, slow. A shadow stretches across the floorboards. I retreat backward, back pressed hard against wallboard, knees drawn to chest. Fingers dig crescents into thighs. “Nngh-” A sound escapes, raw and unbidden, as the scent hits me—not musk, not decay, just laundry detergent and static electricity.

Stop shaking. Breathe. You are safe. (Safe?)