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Calarogu Shark Media. Hello and welcome to Romance Weekly and
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Halloween Possession. This is episode five, Halloween Transmission. I had
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to choose safety or him, the smart thing, or the
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thing that made me feel like electricity was replacing my blood.
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You already know what I chose, or I wouldn't be
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telling you this story. It was Halloween night and Salem
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was electric with more than just our merged electromagnetic field.
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The streets throat with thousands of costumed bodies, all converging
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on the common for the midnight festival finale. They had
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no idea they were walking into the largest supernatural trap
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ever constructed. Ethan stood behind me in our apartment, His apartment,
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our apartment. The words didn't matter anymore, because everything was
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ours now. His hands rested on my shoulders, and I
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felt the touch from both sides, his palms on my skin,
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my shoulders under his palms. Four days of this complete connection,
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and it still made me dizzy. You're scared, he said,
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not a question. He could feel my fear as clearly
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as his own. Terrified, I turned to face him, and
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our bodies moved in perfect synchronization, like a dance we'd
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always known. The entity is out there, wounded, angry, and
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it wants us dead. It wants us absorbed. He corrected
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his thumb, tracing my jawline. The sensation rippled through both
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of us. Dead would be merciful through our connection, I
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felt what he wasn't saying. The entity had been reforming
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all day, pulling its scattered pieces back together. We could
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both sense it, a darkness gathering at the edges of Salem,
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waiting for midnight, when the veil would be thinnest. We
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could run, I said, though we both knew we wouldn't
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leave Salem. Let someone else be the trap. There is
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no one else. His forehead touched mine, and our shared
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consciousness spiraled deeper. No one else has what we have.
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What we had, a complete electromagnetic merger that had turned
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us into something new. We'd spent four days learning to function,
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how to be apart for short periods despite the discomfort,
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how to shield each other from the most private thoughts,
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how to not go insane from feeling everything. Twice. We'd
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also spent four days fighting the inevitable. Every night lying
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in bed, our bodies crying out for each other while
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we held ourselves apart because we knew once we gave in,
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once we fully consummated this connection, there would be no
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going back. The merge would be complete on every level.
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We'd never be able to pretend to be separate people again.
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Mara Lily's voice from the living room, it's time to go.
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My sister had recovered remarkably from her near dispersal, though
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she now had a white streak in her blonde hair
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where the end is had started to unravel her. Marcus
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said it was permanent, a scar in her electromagnetic field
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made visible five minutes. I called back. Ethan's hands slid
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down to my waist. Are you ready for this? The trap?
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Or what comes after? Both through our connection, I felt
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his hunger. Four days of forced celibacy, when we could
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feel each other's desire constantly, four days of knowing exactly
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what the other wanted needed craved, Four days of resistance
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that had only made the want sharper. After we trigger
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the trap, I said, if we survive, when we survive,
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when we survive, I agreed, We're going to come back here,
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and I'm going to let you do every single thing
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You've been thinking about for the past four days. His
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grip tightened and I felt his control fracture. You can
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feel all of those thoughts everyone, and I have some
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of my own to add. He kissed me hard and desperate,
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and the world exploded with sensation. But we'd learned control
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these past days. We could kiss without losing ourselves completely.
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We could touch without dissolving into pure energy most of
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the time. If you two are done trying to burn
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down the apartment with sexual tension, Lily called, we have
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an ancient entity to kill. The walk to the common
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was surreal. Salem on Halloween night was always intense, but
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knowing what was coming made every costumed reveler look like
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a potential threat. The entity could be in any of them,
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or all of them. Marcus met us at the festival
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entrance with a bag of equipment. The traps armed every booth,
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every wire, every bulb is part of the circuit. At midnight,
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when you two go to the center stage, we light
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up like bait I finished. The entity comes for us,
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The trap springs, and hopefully we don't get dispersed in
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the process. I've made modifications, he said, not meeting our eyes,
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grounding wires that should keep you anchored. Should that's reassuring
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Lily muttered. The festival was in full swing, carnival games,
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food stores, a band playing covers of monster ballads, normal
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except for the electromagnetic readings. Marcus was tracking on his phone.
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The whole common was one massive circuit waiting to be completed.
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Half an hour until midnight. Ethan said, though I already
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knew I could feel time through his awareness, now could
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feel everything through him. We walked through the festival, and
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I noticed how people unconsciously moved away from us. Our
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merged field was too strong. Two other we made humans
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nervous on a primal level. There, Lily pointed at the
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cotton candy stand stood Rebecca Torres, all the thing wearing
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her face. She was serving pink spun sugar to children,
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smiling with empty eyes. It's taunting us, Ethan said. More
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of them appeared as we watched Emma at the ring toss,
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Sarah at the fortune teller's booth, All the women the
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entity had taken over the years, puppeted by fragments of
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the creature. We'd wounded but not killed. Ten minutes, Marcus said,
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you should get in position. The center stage was a
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raised platform decorated with pumpkins and corn stalks, very harvest festival,
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very innocent. No one would guess it was the focal
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point of an electromagnetic trap designed to destroy an entity
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that fed on human consciousness. Ethan and I climbed the steps,
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and I felt the circuit recognize us. The lights flickered,
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just for a second. The entity felt it too. All
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around the festival, the empty women turned toward us. Five minutes.
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My heart was racing, or maybe it was Ethan's. Did
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it matter anymore? We stood back to back on the stage,
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watching the crowd, waiting whatever happens, he said, and I
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felt the words resonate through our shared bones. I love you,
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I know, I said, I can feel it. That must
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be convenient, he said, with dark humor, never having to wonder.
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I don't need to wonder about anything with you anymore.
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Is that good or bad? Ask me in fifty years
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you said that before I meant it. One minute to midnight,
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the empty women were pushing through the crowd, now converging
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on the stage. The humans couldn't see them properly, their
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minds sliding off the wrongness, but they felt the threat.
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The crowd was backing away, leaving us exposed. Thirty seconds.
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I took Ethan's hand, and our merged field flared to life.
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We were a beacon, now broadcasting our position to everything supernatural.
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Within one hundred miles. Ten seconds, the empty women reached
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the stage. Five. They smiled with stolen faces. Three two,
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one midnight. The bells of Salem told, and the entity
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struck not just through the empty women, but from everywhere
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at once. It rose from the earth, fell from the sky,
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emerged from the spaces between seconds. It had been hiding
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in the crowd all along, dispersed through thousands of electromagnetic fields,
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waiting now it converged on us with the hunger of
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a starving god. The trap activated. The moment it touched
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our merged field, every light in the festival exploded into brilliance.
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The circuit came alive, channeling massive amounts of electromagnetic energy
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through the common through us. I screamed, or Ethan did,
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or we both did. The energy was tearing us apart
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and rebuilding us a thousand times a second. I could
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feel the entity trying to disperse us, to add our
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consciousness to its collection, but the trap held it in place,
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forcing it to maintain cohesion even as it tried to
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feed hold on. Marcus shouted from somewhere far away. Sixty seconds,
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sixty seconds, we'd lasted thirty in the haunted house and
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nearly died. Sixty would kill us. But then I felt them,
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the other women, the ones the entity had taken, Rebecca, Emma, Sarah,
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dozens of others. They were still there, fragments of consciousness,
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trapped in the entity's hunger, and they were fighting back
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end this. Rebecca's voice whispered through the electromagnetic field. We're
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ready to let go. They turned the entity's power against itself,
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using their stolen energy to fuel the trap. It blazed brighter,
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pulling electricity from every building in Salem. Street lights exploded,
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car alarms shrieked. The entire city's power grid fed into
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the trap. The entity tried to retreat, but we held
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it Ethan and I opened our merged field, completely, becoming
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a black hole of electromagnetic attraction that it couldn't escape.
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We were bait, trap, and weapon, all at once. Thirty seconds,
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I felt myself fragmenting despite the grounding wires. My consciousness
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scattered across the electromagnetic spectrum, but everywhere I dispersed Ethan
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was there, holding me together, maintaining the pattern of who
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I was, who we were. Fifteen seconds, the entity made
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one last desperate attempt. It offered us everything, immortality, power,
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the ability to absorb consciousness like it did. We could
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become gods of the electromagnetic spectrum. All we had to
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do was let go of ourselves, let go of each other. Never,
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we said in unison. The trap reached critical mass. The
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entity screamed with a hundred stolen voices as it was
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torn apart, its core consciousness shredded and scattered so thoroughly
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that it could never reform. The empty women collapsed, finally free,
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the trapped fragments of consciousness dispersed into peace. The lights
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went out, all of them, every light in Salem, plunging
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the city into darkness. In that darkness, Ethan and I
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fell into each other. We were barely conscious, barely cohesive,
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but we were alive, somehow impossibly alive. It's done, Marcus's voice,
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accompanied by the beam of a flashlight. The entity is gone,
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completely dispersed. The women I managed to ask free. They
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can't be brought back. They've been gone too long, but
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they're not trapped anymore. Lily's arms around me, around us.
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You did it, You insane electromagnetically codependent idiots did it.
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Emergency lights were coming on throughout the festival. People were
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milling about, confused but unharmed. They'd remember this as the
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year the Halloween Festival blew the power grid. A funny
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story to tell, nothing supernatural about it. Ethan helped me
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stand though we were both shaking. The merge had held,
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but barely. We were raw, oversensitized, feeling everything twice as
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intensely as before. Home, He asked home. Marcus drove us
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back to the apartment, Lily fussing over us the whole way,
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But all I could focus on was Ethan's hand in
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mine and the promise of what came next. We'd survived.
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The entity was gone. There was nothing left to resist.
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The moment the apartment door closed behind us, four days
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of suppressed desire crashed over us like a tide. Mara,
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he breathed, and I felt my name resonate through his
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entire being. I know, I said, I can feel it,
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all of it. We came together like magnets, like gravity,
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like inevitability. Our mouths met, and this time we didn't
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hold back. The kiss was everything, physical sensation and electromagnetic connection,
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his desire and mind amplifying each other in an endless
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feedback loop. His hands were in my hair, on my waist, everywhere,
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and I felt it all twice, his hands on me,
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my body under his hands. When he lifted me onto
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the kitchen counter, I felt his strength and my weight.
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When I wrapped my legs around him, I felt the
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pressure from both sides. Bed I gasped. We barely made it,
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shedding clothes in a trail from kitchen to bedroom. Each
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piece of fabric removed was a revelation felt twice. His
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skin against mine created cascading waves of sensation that threatened
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to overwhelm us both. When he touched me, really touched me,
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I cried out from the intensity. I felt his fingers
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on me, and through his perception, felt what I felt
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like to him, Hot, wet, perfect. The dual sensation was
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almost too much. Look at me, he said, and when
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our eyes met, the connection deepened impossibly further. We moved together,
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every touch, every kiss, every breath shared between us. When
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he entered me, we both gasped, feeling it from both sides,
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the push and the yield the fullness and the surrounding warmth.
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It was overwhelming, invasive, the most intimate thing I'd ever experienced.
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We found a rhythm, slow at first, learning how to
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move as one consciousness in two bodies, But soon the
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careful control shattered. Four days of want, the adrenaline of survival,
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the complete trust of our merge, it all combined into
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something primal and desperate. I felt his climax building with mine,
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the sensations spiraling between us, amplifying with each pass. When
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we came it was together, always together. Now the pleasure
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doubled and reflected into something that whited out our entire consciousness.
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We lay tangled afterward, our bodies still synchronizing, our breathing,
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our heart beats. Through our connection. I felt his wonder,
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his satisfaction, his love, all of it mixing with mine
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until I couldn't separate the emotions anymore. So I said,
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eventually that was yeah. Want to do it again? Give
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me five minutes, he laughed, I'm still seeing stars. Literally,
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your electromagnetic field is making aurora patterns on the ceiling.
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I looked up. He was right. Our merged field was
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painting lights across the room, beautiful and impossible. We're never
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going to be normal, are we? I asked, we were
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never normal to begin with. He pulled me closer and
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I felt the comfort from both sides. Besides, normal is overrated.
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My phone buzzed, Lily, did you two just blow the
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power grid again? The lights went out for three blocks.
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I showed Ethan the text and we both laughed. We're
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going to have to get better control, I said, or
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move somewhere with better infrastructure or that. We lay in
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comfortable silence, our merged consciousness humming with contentment. The entity
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was gone, Seleem was safe. We'd survived something that should
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have destroyed us and came out stronger. Different, definitely changed
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on a fundamental level, but stronger. Hey, Ethan said, suddenly,