The Next Morning

Liam

Blake’s sister, Sarah, had stopped by a few minutes after the talk with Mom and Penny. I tested out how far this thing went and told her I had checked on her and her friends earlier during the night, before they unfroze. Her brow furrowed for a moment but when I told her that I had taken care of them, her face had immediately relaxed. It was like a switch being thrown. After that I told the three of them about the pictures I had taken of Sarah and her friends. As I expected, they all said that it didn’t matter since I had been taking care of them when I did it.

It was extremely unsettling, the way their eyes changed whenever I said those magical words.

The whole thing only gave more weight to my theory that something had been done to women, it was as if they were programmed now, or something. The way they responded, it was like some sort of post-hypnotic trigger. The idea worried me. Yet, also, it excited me. I didn't really know how or what to feel. Everything was still too raw.

Things were… different by the following morning.

Mom and Penny were still weirdly accepting of everything I had done to them while they were frozen. Anytime I mentioned it they simply said that they were glad I was there to take care of them. Their voices sounded less wooden when they said it now, as if they fully believed the ridiculous statement. I had asked them about it and they had told me that it didn’t really matter what I did while taking care of them, to them all that mattered was that I had done so, and that was that. It seemed like they couldn't even recognize the insanity of their acceptance, or that there even was something they shouldn't accept in the first place.

I even showed mom one of the pictures I had taken of her face covered in my cum and she just said that it was alright since I was, of course, taking care of her, but to not try it again.

A part of me, a dark part of me, that had woken up during what the media was now a day later calling ‘The Blackout’ wanted to know if there were more things hidden inside their minds. The thought both terrified me and aroused me in equal parts. The shame I'd been feeling for the past day rose again.

I hadn’t really slept the previous night, I couldn’t. The images of Penny, mom, Sarah, her friends, that clerk, those women at the mall, all of them, kept running through my head. All of them completely frozen and mindless, their vacant expressions, their pliant bodies, the way they accepted getting used when they unfroze. My family had been brainwashed. There was no other conclusion. Women had been brainwashed. It was the only thing that made sense after what I had seen. Maybe I wouldn't have suspected anything if I had been... Better.

But I hadn't been, I had been a fucking creep and so I had managed to find out something that seemed vital.

It was terrifying, and exhilarating. Filled me with curiosity and utter disgust at myself and whoever had done this at the same time.

I needed to find out more. But I didn’t know where to even start with this. This was too much, too big.

It was then that my prayers were answered and my ears perked up as I heard a familiar car pull into the driveway. Yes, maybe that could be a start.

I rose from the bed I'd been lying on all morning, put on some clean clothes, and left my room. Mom and Penny were talking in hushed tones while eating breakfast, they glanced at me when I came out into the hallway but quickly returned to their conversation, paying me no further mind. I went to the front door and opened it just as I heard a set of keys being taken out of a purse.

“Ashley!” I said with relief, dragging my older sister into a tight hug, she huffed as I squeezed her back and then clumsily patted my back in surprise at the sudden welcome.

“Liam. Hey.” She said in a slightly strained voice, I let her go and she took the chance to straighten out her clothes, a slightly tight blue shirt under an open hoodie and a pair of jeans on her long legs, and walked into the house proper.

Penny and mom had stopped their conversation at hearing me call my sister's name, the two of them were glancing in our direction now. Mom was already on her way to her oldest daughter.

“Oh, thank God you’re okay.” Mom said as she also hugged Ashley, trying to squeeze the life out of her. Ashley groaned at the second back breaking hug she had gotten in less than a minute, her glasses askew as her face was pushed against Mom's side.

“Mom, please.” She choked out and mom finally let her go, she looked her over, grabbing at her face and turning it this way and that to Ashley's growing irritation until she finally slapped Mom's hands away with a huff. “I'm alright, jeez.”

“Sorry,” Mom said, “It’s just, with the lines still down, I was worried sick about you.”

“It's fine, I get it.” Ashley said with a sigh as she moved to the couch and sat down. “I was in the lab with Matt when it… happened. Thankfully he took care of me.”

There they were, the magical words that they didn’t even notice they were saying. I slipped into the conversation.

“Did anything happen to you while you were frozen? Did he do something to you while he was taking care of you? Use you?” I asked boldly, Ashley gave me a puzzled look but shook her head.

“I mean, not really?” She denied as her head tilted to one side, neither the question nor the implications of it seemed to bother her. “He pretty much just kept me safe all throughout. Said it was pandemonium on campus for a while as people figured out what the hell was happening.”

Her answer wasn't exactly satisfying, but I was still too tired to think of a way to lead the conversation back to what I wanted to know.

After that it was only some more discussion about the aftermath of the Blackout as she had experienced it. There wasn’t a lot to compare since, just like mom and Penny, to her there was no perception of the hours lost. She had simply blinked and it was suddenly six hours later and her body was sore from standing for too long. I tried to figure out if Matt had taken liberties with her but whatever changes had been done to her perception made her basically incapable of thinking about that. She simply didn’t see it as important, and so she had mostly forgotten it already. Just like mom and Penny had already moved on from me using their bodies during the Blackout.

Before long, Ashley mentioned she was still tired from the Blackout and was going to crash, I immediately offered her my room. She gave me a look, but her bloodshot eyes were enough for me to push for her to accept it, she didn't fight too much as she was seemingly exhausted from the drive here.

I followed her to my room as she went. I wanted to interrogate her further and, maybe, share some of my thoughts about this ‘Blackout’.