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Caloroga Shark Media.
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Hello and welcome to Romance Weekly and Halloween Possession. This
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is episode four Interference Patterns.
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Here's what they don't tell you about supernatural connections. They're
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not romantic, They're invasive. By week four, I could feel
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him from across town. I knew when he was thinking
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about me because my skin would flush, starting at my
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collar bones and spreading down. We'd been inseparable for three days,
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literally since the witch House incident. We couldn't be more
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than a few feet apart without excruciating pain. The entity
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had done something to us, tangled our electromagnetic signatures so
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thoroughly that separation felt like being turned inside out, which
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is how I ended up living in Ethan's apartment above
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the Old Salem Bookstore, sharing his bed, his shower, his
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every waking moment, while trying desperately not to give in
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to what our bodies were screaming for. You're staring, he
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said from the kitchen, making coffee. He didn't need to
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turn around to know he could feel my eyes on him,
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like a physical touch. You're wearing my favorite shirt, I replied,
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the gray henley that clung to every muscle that made
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his eyes look darker. I know, of course he did.
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He could feel my reaction to it, the way my
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breath caught, the heat that pulled low in my belly,
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just like I could feel his satisfaction at affecting me.
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This is torture, I muttered. Which part He turned coffee
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in hand, and the morning light through the window made
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him look like something out of a dream. The entity
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hunting us, your sister dating my best friend, or the
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fact that we're sharing a bed but can't touch without
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feeding the thing that wants to eat us. All of it,
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but especially that last part. Three nights of lying next
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to him, feeling every shift of his body, every dream,
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every moment he woke up, hard and wanting. Three nights
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of careful distance of pillows between us like the world's
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most ineffective protection. Three nights of feeling his desire mixed
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with mine until I couldn't tell where I ended, and
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he began. My phone rang, Lily, you need to come
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to the festival grounds, she said. Marcus found something, something
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about what the festival really is. Twenty minutes later, we
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stood in the middle of Salem Common, watching vendors set
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up booths for the Halloween Festival. It looked innocent enough, pumpkins,
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corn mazes, carnival games. But Marcus had different maps spread
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on a picnic table covered in electromagnetic readings. The festival
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isn't random, he said. Look at the booth placements, the stages,
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the paths between attractions. It's a circuit, a massive electromagnetic trap.
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Ethan leaned over the map and I had to focus
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on breathing normally as his scent washed over me. My
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grandmother designed this sixty years ago, but I never knew
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why to catch it. Marcus said, the entity Every Halloween,
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the trap activates, but it's never worked because he looked
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at us, because it needs bait. Two people with electromagnetic
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signatures so intertwined that the entity can't resist like us,
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I said, exactly like you. Your connection is the strongest
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I've ever measured. You're not just compatible, you're perfectly matched
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mirror frequencies. Lily grabbed my hand. So my sister is bait.
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We both are, Ethan said quietly. The trap needs us
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at the center, fully connected to draw the entity in.
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Once it's feeding on us, the circuit activates and theoretically
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destroys it. Theoretically, I laughed, but it came out shaky.
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What happens to us? Marcus exchanged a look with Ethan unknown.
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The trap's never been successfully activated because no one's been
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stupid enough to try, because no one's had a connection
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strong enough to survive it. I felt Ethan's fear through
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our bond, but underneath it was determination. He'd already decided
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he would do this with or without me. When I asked,
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Halloween night, midnight, when the veil is thinnest and the
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entity is strongest, four days, Lily said, we have four
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days to figure out how to keep you alive while
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using you as supernatural bait. That's when I noticed someone
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watching us, a woman at the candy Apple booth. Her
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movements too smooth, too synchronized. When she turned, I gasped.
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It was Rebecca Torres, but not her features were right,
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but her electromagnetic signature was wrong, empty, like a photocopy
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of a person. Ethan, I whispered, he saw her too
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through our connection. I felt his horror and rage. It's
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wearing them, he said, the entity. It's wearing the women.
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It took Rebecca, not Rebecca smiled and waved, then disappeared
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into the crowd. But there were others. I could see
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them now, Emma Martinez at the fortune Teller's tent, Sarah
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Kim helping with decorations, all the missing women walking around
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Salem like nothing had happened. We need to get out
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of here, Marcus said, already packing up his maps. But
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when we turned to leave, Lily was gone. Lily. I
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spun around, panic, rising Lily through the crowd, I saw
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her walking toward the Haunted House attraction, her movements puppet smooth.
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Marcus ran after her, but she disappeared inside before he
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could reach her. It's taking her, I said, right now,
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in broad daylight, it's taking her. Ethan grabbed my hand
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and the full connection blazed to life between us. Through it,
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I could feel Lily faint, fading, being pulled apart, one
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frequency at a time. We can't wait for Halloween, I said,
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we have to do something now. If we activate the
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trap early, I don't care. That's my sister. He looked
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at me, and I felt his decision through our bond.
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Then we go get her. The Haunted House was closed,
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still being assembled for Halloween. We broke in through a
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service door, following the electromagnetic trail. Lily left behind inside
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was a maze of half built scares and exposed wiring.
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She's here, I said, feeling for her frequency, but she's scattered.
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That's when the lights went out. In the darkness, I
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could see them, all, the missing women, glowing with stolen
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electromagnetic energy. They moved in perfect synchronization, surrounding us. Mara Chen,
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they said in unison, their voices creating harmonics that made
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my bones ache. We've been waiting for you. Let my
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sister go. She's already gone, dispersed, absorbed like you will be. No.
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The word came from Ethan, and with it a surge
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of power through our connection the empty women, and stepped back.
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You're going to fight, they laughed, with Rebecca's mouth, Emma's throat,
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Sarah's lungs. You can't fight what you are, electromagnetic energy,
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seeking unity, fighting entropy, fighting isolation. We are what you'll become,
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perfect connection without the burden of self. That's not connection,
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I said, that's a rature.
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Is it?
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Feel what you're becoming? And I did feel it. The
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boundaries between Ethan and me were dissolving more each day.
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I knew his thoughts before he spoke them, his desires,
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were becoming mine. We were losing ourselves in each other,
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and the entity was feeding on that loss. It's okay,
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Ethan said quietly to me, not them, I know what
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to do through our connection. I felt his plan. It
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was insane and our only chance. Trust me, He whispered,
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then pulled me against him and kissed me. The moment
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our lips met, the entity surged toward us, drawn by
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the electromagnetic explosion of our connection. But instead of resisting,
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we opened ourselves to it, Let it in, let it feed.
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It was agony ecstasy. I felt myself fragmenting, my electromagnetic
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signature scattering, but I also felt Ethan holding me together,
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using his energy to maintain my pattern. We were merging,
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truly merging, our frequencies, aligning into something new. The entity
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realized too late what we were doing. By feeding on us,
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it had created a conduit, and through that conduit we
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could reach the scattered pieces of the women it had taken. Lily,
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I called through the electromagnetic field, come back. I felt
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her distant and fading, but still there, still my sister.
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I pulled, using the connection the entity had created, and
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suddenly she was gasping on the floor. Beside us, the
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empty women screamed, their stolen forms flickering the trap. Marcus's
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voice came from the doorway. He was bleeding from a
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head wound, but holding something that looked like a jerry
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rigged electromagnetic pulse device. If you can hold it for
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thirty seconds, I can activate a localized version. Thirty seconds,
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it might as well have been thirty years. Ethan's arms
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tightened around me. Together together, we opened ourselves completely, no barriers,
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no resistance, every thought, every feeling, every cell of our
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beings aligned. I couldn't tell where I ended and he began.
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We were one electromagnetic signature, blazing like a sun. The
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entity couldn't resist. It poured into us, trying to scatter us,
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to add us to its collection. But we held. We
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held each other, held ourselves, held a pattern of who
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we were, even as everything tried to tear us apart.
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I felt the missing women, Rebecca, Emma, Sarah, dozens of
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others stretching back decades, all trapped in the entity's hunger.
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Through our connection, we gave them something to anchor to. Now, Marcus,
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the pulse hit and the world went white. When I
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came to I was on the floor of the haunted house.
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Ethan's body curved around mine. We were still connected, but
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the invasive presence was gone. The entity had been dispersed,
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its hold on the missing women broken, but they were
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still gone, Rebecca, Emma, Sarah. Their electromagnetic signatures had been
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scattered too completely to recover. Only Lily had been saved,
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pulled back before the point of no return, Mara. Lily's
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voice weak but real. I reached for her, and Ethan
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moved with me. Our bodies still synchronized. We couldn't seem
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to separate, couldn't find where one ended and the other began.
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The merge Marcus said quietly, permanent, isn't it? I felt
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the truth of it through every cell. Ethan and I
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were one electromagnetic field. Now we could probably learn to
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function separately to create the illusion of independence, but we
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would always be connected. Every thought, every feeling, every sensation
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shared forever. Are you okay with this? Ethan asked, though
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he already knew the answer. He could feel my mind
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as clearly as his own. Ask me again in fifty years,
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I said, He laughed, and I felt it resonate through
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both our bodies. The entity Lily asked. Dispersed, Marcus said,
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the pulse scattered it, but he looked at the electromagnetic reader.
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It's not gone, just spread thin. It'll reform eventually, maybe
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not for decades, but but it'll come back, I finished,
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and we'll be ready. Ethan helped me stand. Our movements
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perfectly coordinated. Now I could feel everything, his exhaustion, his relief,
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his love. That last one stopped me cold. You love me,
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I said, since the moment you walked into that Victorian house,
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glowing with power, you didn't understand. He touched my face
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and it felt like touching myself. The connection just made
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it impossible to hide. I love you too, I said,
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though the words were unnecessary. He could feel it, had
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probably felt it for days. This is beautiful and disturbing
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in equal measure. Lily said, can you not share everything
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like when you use the bathroom. We'll figure it out,
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I said, though I had no idea how. Marcus helped
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Lily stand. The festival still needs to happen. The entity
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is weak now, but the full trap on Halloween will
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make sure it can't reform for generations. So we still
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have to be bait. I asked. No, Ethan said, Now
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you are the trap. Your merged signature is like electromagnetic flypaper.
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Any piece of the entity that comes near you will
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stick and burn out. Four days until Halloween. Four days
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to learn how to exist as one electromagnetic being in
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two bodies. Four days to figure out if love could
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survive the complete absence of privacy. At least the sex
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will be interesting, Lily, said Lily, But she wasn't wrong.
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I could already feel it through our connection. When we
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finally gave in to the physical side of our merge,
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it would be unlike anything either of us had experienced,
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feeling everything from both sides. Pleasure doubled and reflected back infinitely.
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If we survived Halloween, the entity was wounded, but not dead,
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and we were no longer two people who could barely
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touch without consequences. We were something new, something powerful, something
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that had four days to figure out how to exist
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before the final test. Ready to go home, Ethan asked
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home his apartment, our apartment. Now I supposed our life together,
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I asked, though it was a joke. Now we couldn't
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be anything but together always, he said, and kissed me.
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The world exploded with sensation. His mouth on mine, my
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mouth on his, The taste of ourselves, the perfect circuit
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of desire and connection. Maybe losing my self in October
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wasn't the worst thing after all. Maybe it was the
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only way to truly be found.