You'll never know dear, how much I love you, please don't take my sunshine away

For the second time in as many nights, Nick found himself in Dream Alley. Only before, he had been brought there by Dawn’s purchase. Tonight, he walked in on his own.

“Are you sure about this?” He asked quietly. “You know it isn’t real, right?”

“I know.” Carly’s face was a stony mask of resolution. Her hand was like ice wrapped around his, squeezing so tight he thought his fingers might break. He could feel the doubt in every beat of her heart, but he knew this was something she had to see through.

Nick always hated graveyards.

There was a quietness to them that unnerved him. Graveyards were always on the outskirts, away from society, as if everyone had collectively agreed to shove their dead into the corner and not think about them. He didn’t hear the honking of car horns or the rumble of a train. The air around them was hollow. Row upon row of headstones stretching out for eternity, casting long shadows over their earthly occupants like gargoyles on the watch, looking after the forgotten dead.

Yeah, he really hated graveyards.

“It was foggy that morning, too,” Carly murmured. A thin haze covered the graveyard. “The morning we… I’m sorry.”

She wiped her eyes and corrected herself.

“I’ve only been here once,” she said instead. She didn’t need to mention when that “once” was. Nick could figure that out from the patch of recently-padded dirt, and the shiny new headstone looming over it.

Emmy Granger

June 8th

Cherished Daughter and Granddaughter

“I can’t believe they replicated it so perfectly,” Carly mused. She was a thousand miles away at the moment, staring vacantly at the grave before her. “I remember that morning like it was yesterday… even the scent is the same.”

Her eyes grew misty.

“Dream Alley completely copies your memories,” Nick answered. “It plays them back how you want to see them, so you can relive them again. That’s what Sylvia said about it, anyway.”

What a bizarre thing to say. But the silence was crushing him.

Carly didn’t reply, she just stood still like a statue, thinking. Nick had no intention of begrudging her with further conversation, so he waited patiently until she was ready for more.

Finally, she broke the silence.

“I never came back,” she said again. “After the burial, I never came back. I was afraid that… that if I did, then… it would feel real. She’d really be gone. And I couldn’t bear the thought of that, so I never set one foot in this place.”

She started shaking. She let go of his hand and wiped away her tears.

“But that was wrong. I get that now. The way I’ve been treating Mimi, how awful I feel when I’m around her, it’s because I’m still holding onto her. My little girl… my Emmy… I didn’t even get to say goodbye.”

“I used to be afraid to visit Dakota’s grave,” Nick said solemnly. “It scared me. I stayed away for a long time, because I didn’t want to see her… I didn’t want her to see me. But when I finally did… I can’t explain it. It felt freeing. I could talk to her again, it was like I had my best friend back. I know that sounds crazy-”

“No,” Carly said sharply, cutting him off. “It doesn’t sound crazy at all.”

She took a deep breath, and let a long sigh escape from her lips. I’ve been putting this off for way too long.

Carly left Nick’s side. She walked around the patch of dirt and stood beside the gravestone, staring down at it. Pain and love went to war in her chest, and she tried not to succumb. She had so much she wanted to say, she didn’t know where to start.

And yet, the words just came pouring out.

“Hi Emmy. It’s… mom,” she started, and part of her could feel her daughter’s presence. “I know I… I know I haven’t been here in so long… and I’m sorry. You can add that to the list of things I regret, when it comes to you.”

She leaned forward and traced her fingers across the smooth grey stone. It was cold, like her daughter’s tiny hand when she’d held it so many years ago.

“The first few months, I always told myself that I would come here… come visit you. I’d bring flowers, and then… just sit here with you, maybe read a story… but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Then before I knew it, a year passed… and then another, and I just… I stopped making that promise to myself at some point.” Her vision blurred but she fought back the tears. She couldn’t break down crying until she said what she needed to say. “I never got to tell you… I’m sorry. You’re my daughter, and I… I was supposed to keep you safe. I was supposed to love you and cherish you, and… I couldn’t. I know I’m a terrible disappointment of a mother, but I really wanted to try… I did. I was… *hic* I was going to…”

Her voice broke and she swatted fiercely at her eyes.

“Before you were born, you were the brightest thing in my life. I was going to make you so happy. I wanted to show you every day how much I loved being your mother. I wanted to repay you all the joy, I wanted to give you the world. I-I wanted… *sniff* I wanted to hold your hand and walk you to school. I wanted to take care of you when you were sick. Work on art projects and help you with your homework, there was so much… so many things I wanted to do with you, so much I wanted to give you, I-I’m sorry.” She couldn’t hold the pain back anymore. But she refused to lose to it.

“I-I… I can’t… I… I just… there’s so much I want to say, but… I don’t even know where to begin. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry… I’m sorry I couldn’t be your mom…” She fell to her knees and hugged herself tightly as she broke down crying. “I’m sorry I couldn’t keep you safe. I’m sorry I couldn’t sew you new clothes every year, or read you stories as you drifted off to s-sleep!” Her voice cracked. “I’m sorry I was too afraid to come see you, I’m sorry I let my pain keep me from telling you how much I love you! …I love you, Emmy… I’m sorry… I’m so sorry I didn’t get the chance to show you how much!”

“She knows,” Nick murmured. It was an empty platitude, and maybe she would have preferred he said nothing and just stood back watching her cry. But he still felt like he needed to say it. That was all, though. He remained silent as the grave as Carly poured her heart out, finally saying goodbye to the daughter she’d never had the chance to raise.

While Carly spoke with her daughter, Dani was faced with a crisis of her own. It couldn’t compare to the turmoil in Carly’s heart, but it still sparked her uneasiness as she lay beside Mimi in the bed.

Neither said a word. What could she even say to the disheartened slime girl at this point? With everything that happened between her and Carly, and everything Mimi’s presence represented to the other woman, it was hard for Dani to not understand the pain her buddy was in.

But she understood Mimi’s pain as well.

It wasn’t fair. None of this was fair.

It was Mimi who crossed the bridge first.

“Is Carly… okay?” She asked timidly. Such a far departure from her original stoic self. Dani turned over to look into the pale girl’s hollow eyes, only to see that they weren’t hollow any longer.

They hadn’t been for a very long time.

Mimi’s silvery-white eyes reflected the deep swell of emotions she’d developed over the course of the week, and right now the deepest emotion contained within them was love. That love was touched with concern, and Dani wished she knew how to soothe it.

“Carly is going through something serious right now,” Dani answered. “She’s in pain. And it’s not the kind of pain that you can fix. It’s a pain in her heart. And the only thing that can heal that is time.”

Mimi nodded sadly. “Is it… my fault?”

Dani’s eyes widened. “Oh, no, sweetheart,” she said, scooching over in bed and pulling Mimi into a sticky hug. “It’s because of you, yes, but it’s not your fault.”

Mimi frowned. She didn’t appreciate the nuance of that distinction because she hadn’t grown up enough to fully understand things this complicated.

All she knew was that Carly was hurting, and that made her hurt. And Carly had made it clear when they’d spent the night together that it was her fault.

“Can I make her better?” Mimi asked. She would do anything to help the other woman at this point.

Dani sighed and hugged her even tighter. So tight Mimi was worried she might have to return to her slime form just to keep from being crushed.

A soft knock on the door caught both their attention. Dani glanced up, confused. It was way too late in the night to be expecting any visitors.

She walked to the door, and nearly fell over when she saw who it was. Carly and Nick stood in the hallway, their faces filled with emotion. Nick it was easy to tell had been crying. While he might not have broken out into outright blubbering, his eyes were distinctly red around the edges.

Carly was another matter entirely. She was still crying.

“Carly, what is this?” Dani knew by the time, that her buddy was supposed to be in the Master’s Suite. “What are you guys doing here?”

“I’m here to apologize,” Carly sniffled, wiping her eyes. “Is Mimi here?”

“Uh… yeah…” Dani stepped aside to let her in. She shot Nick a questioning look but he just nodded solemnly.

“Carly…?” Mimi sat up in bed, staring anxiously at her twin. She didn’t know how to react to the woman approaching her, but as Carly crossed the room she knew that she didn’t want to run.

Soon enough, Carly was standing over her.

Then she was hugging her.

Of all the hugs Mimi had received, this was the warmest.

“I’m sorry,” Carly sobbed, squeezing Mimi almost as tightly as Dani had; which was saying something, given she didn’t have the other woman’s super strength.

“…Sorry?” Mimi didn’t know what for.

“I said those horrible things about you… I thought even worse… I was so scared, so angry, so unwilling to cope with my own issues, that I took it out on you!” Carly hugged her even tighter. “You’re right… we have a connection, Mimi. I can feel it, same as you.”

Mimi blinked. Then a small smile touched her lips. “…I see.”

Carly pulled back slightly so she could look the other girl in the eyes.

“I need to apologize,” she said again. “You see… I was never upset with you. I was upset about a lot of things, but you weren’t one of them.”

She hung her head. The black fringes of her hair bobbed along with her shaking figure.

“I lost someone precious to me a long time ago,” Carly said, her voice cracking. “And seeing you again… feeling the connection between us… it frightened me. It made me think that Emmy was being replaced by you. And I was so afraid of that, because I still hadn’t told her goodbye. I hadn’t told her how much I loved her or how precious she was to me. I was afraid that if I let you into my heart without telling her those things, then you would overwrite her. Maybe even become her. But that wasn’t right.”

“I’m not Emmy,” Mimi said, even though she didn’t know who Emmy was. “I’m me. Mimi.”

Carly sniffled and smiled a little. “I know that. I’m sorry I pushed my daughter’s memory onto you. I’m sorry I didn’t try to get to know you as a person. Can you forgive me?”

She searched Mimi’s eyes desperately for any trace of understanding. But like Dani before her she realized this was a needless gesture. In the end, Mimi had grown enough to give Carly more consideration and compassion than she ever thought she deserved.

“Of course,” Mimi said, pulling Carly back into a cuddling hug. “Of course!”

Carly started to cry again. Her tears mixed with Mimi’s slime. She looked up, peering past Mimi at the doorway. She made eye contact with Dani and smiled a little.

“Dani… I’m sorry for what I said to you, too,” she apologized again.

Dani rolled her eyes. “I know it’s the mood, but you already apologized to me once before, remember?” She pointed out. “I’m fine without it a second time.”

Mimi shook her head. “No. Cuddles.”

Like a bratty child making demands of her mother, Mimi glared insistently at Dani until the blue-haired woman sighed in resignation and climbed into bed to join the hug.

Nick watched from the doorway with a smile on his face as the three women hugged each other and apologized. Carly’s smile had never looked brighter than it did with her face covered in tears.

Well this is a little unorthodox, but I guess I’m sleeping alone tonight, he thought, stepping back from the door and closing it on the three of them. He was just happy that everything had a positive outcome in the end.

Then he turned down the hall to see Sylvia standing in front of the elevator. Her face was as unreadable as a stone.

“What’s the matter my boy?” She asked in an even tone. “Out for a walk?”

“Something like that,” he muttered, stepping around her to head for the elevator. “What’s it matter to you?”

“I’m just wondering if you’re prepared for tomorrow,” Sylvia said, following after him. “You realize you’ll be receiving a transformation of your own, right? I’m just checking in to make sure you’re okay with that. To see if you’ve made your peace. That’s all. Nothing more.”

Nick raised his eyebrow. “You’re a pretty bad liar, you know that?”

Sylvia’s eyes bulged in surprise. “Wh-What?” She stammered. “What do you mean by that?! I happen to be a phenomenal liar!”

Nick sighed and shook his head.

“You didn’t come here to check on how I was feeling about the transformations. You could have been waiting for me in my room to do that.”

Sylvia was taken aback. “…Your room is stuffy,” she sniffed, turning up her nose. “I wanted to go for a nice walk.”

Nick stared at her, not even dignifying that with a response.

“I-I’m serious!” Sylvia exclaimed.

“You were concerned about those two, weren’t you?” Nick asked. “That’s why you met me in the hall, you wanted to check on them.”

The pale look of shock on her face said it all. But she quickly recovered.

“Why would I need to do that?” She sneered, tapping her cane on the floor. “You forget, I can watch what you all are doing from anywhere in this hotel! No, I really DID come to see you in person to check up on you!”

“…Sure thing.” That excuse was a little more convincing, but Nick could smell the lies on her breath.

“I’m telling you the truth!”

“Okay, in that case, I suppose you should be dragging Carly back with me, then?” Nick asked, raising his eyebrow. “After all, we’re supposed to spend the night together.”

Sylvia flinched. “J-Just this once,” she stammered, averting her eyes. “Just this once, I can make an exception to that.”

“You really do care, don’t you?” Nick hadn’t believed it until now, given Sylvia’s repeated performances. “Behind the bluster and the sadism, part of you really does care about them.”

“…Of course I care,” Sylvia murmured. “Do you think I’m so heartless?”

Frankly? Yes. Yes he had thought that. Now he didn’t know what to think.

“My duty is to bring you happiness,” Sylvia stated plainly. “I’m going to make your dreams come true. That is my goal. And your happiness can’t come at someone else’s expense. So if I want to make you happy, then they need to be happy.”

That was probably the truth. But it wasn’t the whole truth. Whether Sylvia was willing to accept it or not, Nick suspected that deep down inside, on a personal level, she really cared about those girls themselves.

Sure, maybe it was deep, DEEP down, but still.

“Thank you, by the way,” Nick said. “The Master’s Suite being unlocked. That was you, right?”

A shadow crossed Sylvia’s face. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she murmured. “But even if I did, even if, for sake of argument, someone did take pity on Carly’s state and wanted to arrange things so she would be able to find some sense of closure, that shouldn’t be taken as a sign of any future compassion, understood?”

She placed her hands on her hips.

“If this specific individual had a moment of weakness, that doesn’t mean such a thing can be expected moving forward! Understood? …If it wasn’t a mistake, of course. Which it was.”

Maybe it was all the omnipotence, or the fact that she wasn’t a real person, but Sylvia really sucked at lying when she wasn’t playing the role of the host.

“…And I was serious before,” she added. “The upcoming transformation vote for you. You’re lucky, all the girls have come up with their decisions already, so no penalties this time!”

Nick was caught off-guard by that. “Wait, what? All of them? Even Carly?”

“She cut it pretty close to the wire,” Sylvia nodded, checking a cartoonishly-oversized watch on her wrist. “But even if she doesn’t tell me directly, I can sense it in her heart what she wants. So that’s what I’m going to give you.”

“Well, don’t leave me in suspense. What’s in store for me?” Nick asked, tensing up. The idea of transforming in some way really unnerved him. Especially after seeing what had happened to the women in his life.

Sylvia smirked.

“You didn’t really think I’d become that soft, did you?” She asked, shaking her head. She tapped her cane on the elevator floor and disappeared just as the doors to the Master’s Suite opened.

Then she reappeared in her room, looking directly at the audience. “Just because I won’t tell Nick what the girls voted for, that doesn’t mean I won’t tell you all, though! Here, here are your choices! Anonymous, of course. I may have changed the wording around on a few of them, though. Some of my girls find it hard to say what they mean, after all.”

• Built for It: The Master’s body will receive significant physical improvements, becoming more muscular and athletic. His body will now be in great shape, perfect for strenuous physical activities and positioning girls properly for fucking.
• Idle Thoughts: The Master has seen the temptations that transformations can give him. For each contestant, the first time each round he has a sexual fantasy about that girl, she will receive a temporary transformation that will help facilitate that fantasy, such as her butt suddenly getting bigger or suddenly being dressed as a stripper, or becoming a bimbo. These transformations will last until he has sex with the contestant or until the next challenge begins, whichever comes first.
• Cuddles: Master will want to cuddle more. Master’s cuddles feel very warm and comforting.
• Alpha Boldness: The Master will become less **** in pursuing his desires. Whenever he has the urge to do something with someone, he will find that urge hard to resist. The urge will continue to grow until he gives into what he really wants and actually satisfies that urge.
• Sense and Sensuality: The Master will become far more romantic. He will become more insightful in terms of what the contestants are looking for from a romantic partner, and will be happy to provide that for them to satisfy their emotional needs.
• Skeleton Key: The Master’s penis will be able to perfectly satisfy whatever woman he’s with. It will change size and shape while entering a vagina in order to give and receive the best pleasure possible for both parties.
• Breeding Bull: The Master’s penis will become far more virile, producing significantly greater quantities of semen, with sperm that are far more motile for longer periods of time to maximize the possibility of fertilization.
• Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop: The Master will receive a massive boost to his stamina. He will be able to continue having sex for as long as his partner or partners desire, and will not tire out until everyone else is satisfied.
• Safety First: Any woman the master sleeps with will be protected from disease and serious medical issues. While they may still die from injury or accident, illness and other complications (both sexual and not) will no longer be an issue for his partners; they will always be in perfect medical health.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1_IoYoPyShJLHRW6mmfDULcCSjrIxvqMjxztauilBrU8/edit

“Well! Those are certainly some steamy ones!” Sylvia fanned herself and tugged at an imaginary collar. “I wonder who chose what? Hard to say… but in the meantime, while voting on those options, don’t forget- it’s Popularity Poll time! Who will win the title of best girl this go-around? We'll reconvene in 3 days to see the results!”

https://strawpoll.com/PbZqRvXleyN