Struggle!

The tentacles tighten around you. Your legs, your arm, and now your chest. It begins to become difficult to breath. You are gasping for breath. More of the appendages are heading your way.

“No.” You say. As you feel another beginning to wrap around your free arm you quickly pull it free. “NO!” You shout.

The sudden noise causes the tentacles to tighten. Fighting with all of your strength you kick and push and writhe against your sister. Your father told you to stay alert and protect yourself and that is what you do. You barely knew this creature, twin or no.

“NO! NO! NO!” You continue shouting as you struggle against her with everything you had.

All at once Vespera’s limbs whip back away from you and her face begins to sink back into the darkness.

“No wait.” You reach out for her. “Don’t leave. Please don’t go. Stay.”

“Stay.”

“Yes, stay. Stay together, with me.”

“Together.” Her face brightens back to usual pale white.

You let out breath, blowing out your nervous tension. “Okay, let’s try this again.” Holding out your hand you lay it palm up on your lap. On the assumption she can actually see in this dark you say. “Here. Touch me here. Gently. You have to be gentle. I am…just a human. A normal, ****, plain old human.”

“Human.”

She looks down to your hand and a moment later you feel a thick tentacle carefully touch down upon your palm. Her skin was not what you had expected. It wasn’t slimy or rubbery or clammy or scaly. It wasn’t really anything. You could feel its weight and girth but the flesh itself had an almost neutral quality about it. Neither warm nor cold, neither coarse nor slick, neither hard nor soft. It was none of those things yet somehow all of them. Your senses struggled to make sense of it. It was an entirely new sensation that the human mind had not evolved to experience.

“Jacob.” She says.

“Vespera.” You say back as you lay your other hand over the first and hold the tentacle between them. You give it a squeeze and say. “Together.”

The thin mouth shows the faintest hint of a smile and you smile back. All of the fear and trepidation drain from you. Monster or not it felt so damn good to connect with your long lost twin, it just felt…right.

“That’s better.” You say. “Hey, can have a little light? I can’t see anything in this darkness.”

“Light.”

“Yes. Unless it hurts you, then I can sit in the dark. I don’t mind.”

Gradually a dim illumination lightens the room. It is the anemic glow of what moonlight could find its way around your thick curtains. It is barely anything, and yet after the total black of before it seemed like the sun. One corner of the room remains cloaked in deepest shadow. The light silhouette’s your sister from behind allowing you a glimpse at her true form, the only way you ever would get a look as you realize her body simply did not reflect light in any way. Even her white face shone by its own power.

At first all you see is a writhing mass of tentacles below the face, yet the more you looked the more you could make out details. The face was in fact connected to a head and that head had what might be considered hair, though by the movements you could tell that the long “hair” was in fact thin free moving tendrils similar to the main limbs. Below that head was a slender neck, shoulders, and the hourglass body of a woman. You could make out no finer points but she had a definite torso, neck and head. Her arms and legs were thick tentacles though there were many more thinner ones sprouting from her back and sides. Her shape gave you a connection. You remind yourself that her father was a human and some bit of that humanity seemed to have influenced her form.

You continue to smile as you look back to the six eyed face. “Thank you.” You pet the tentacle just as your mother had back in the library. “Can you speak Vespera? In complete sentences I mean.”

“Speak.”

“I guess not.” You pat her arm, or whatever it is you had. “This will make communication tricky.” Her limb wraps around your hand and holds it with surprising tenderness. You let out a soft chuckle. “That’s okay. It’s just nice being with you. We’ll figure it out.”

“Communicate.”

“So, did…um…did they tell you about me? They never told me about you.” You say. “You can just answer yes or no.”

Instead of an answer those many tiny noises that congregated into her voice mimics other sounds. You hear…a clacking noise. Wood on wood. You hear a babyish burble. Then the sound of wooden blocks toppling to the floor and the babbling half speech of a toddler followed by a little squeal of laughter.

“Is that me?” Your smile grows. “That’s me isn’t it? Were you watching?”

The sounds change to that of a little boy giggling. You hear the boy whisper to himself out of breath. “He he he! They’ll never find me here.” You can still hear the heavy breathing of the boy when a moment later comes Trixie’s voice, but her voice as a small child, calling out in the distance. “Ready or not, here I come!”

“I was in the wardrobe, wasn’t I? That was my favorite spot.” You get up to your knees and hold her limb to heart. “You were watching! Ha! You didn’t forget about me, did you?”

“Jacob.”

You hug her tentacle tightly to your chest. “I wish I could have known you then. Oh the years we could have had.”

“Alone.” The sounds of normal family life fade, replaced by a deep endless nothingness. “Alone.”

“No! No Ves, you are NOT alone. Not anymore. Not ever again.” Tears are welling up in your eyes though you didn’t fully understand why.

“Together.”

Walking down your bed on your knees you get right to the foot, right up to your twin sister. Being this close to her was unnerving, your fight or flight instincts screaming at you to flee this monstrosity, and yet after a moment you throw your arms around her and embrace her in a big hug.