Midnight Sphere [18+] [mxm]

Clara stared at the shoreline, a hand on her hip, watching the glitches in the deep blue line at the horizon. She squinted, making sure it wasn't a trick of the eye.

The ocean was pixelating.

Huh.

There was a squelching sound behind her.

"What are you doing, Clara?"

Clara burst into laughter at the sight of Ashley.

He had unsuccessfully attempted to remove the octopus, giving him the time of his life, until it finally retreated into the water. Ashley was covered from head to toe in ink.

She wondered if the monster had also been enjoying itself. Inking was a sign of distress in cephalopods, but things seemed a little backward in this place!

"Yeah, yeah," he said, acknowledging that he desperately needed to splash off.

Clara had a gut-wrenching feeling that Ashley would fall right through when he dunked into the water, into some strange off-the-grid space he couldn't escape.

She hated those places in games. It always terrified her when she accidentally found a bug in the game or went out of bounds, when she found some area that she wasn't supposed to see.

Clara had a distinct memory of a game glitching once during an underwater level, gasping as she was caught in a blacked-out void instead of swimming, her character falling forever.

Something about it made her race to turn off her console.

Clara sighed in relief when Ashley buoyed back up seconds later, cleaner now, exposing the red suction cup marks laced all over his pale skin.

She huffed, a laugh.

That ain't washing off.

Ashley sat down cross-legged, the water crashing slowly against his torso. He was clearly exhausted after the ordeal with the octopus.

Meanwhile, Clara felt as though she were slowly coming out of a sexual haze. She blushed furiously as she remembered what she did to him.

Did she apologize? Had she been cognizant enough to tell right from wrong? She felt that she needed to say something regardless.

"Hey, um, Ash?"

Ashley turned.

"Sorry about earlier, you know, when I-"

He put up a hand.

"We don't have to talk about that."

She nodded, her lips sealing tight.

"Thank you," he said.

To her horror, she could feel herself getting wet at the memory.

Despite her deal-breaking preference for huge cocks, she still thought Ashley was very attractive, and a part of her was still in love with him.

She tried to think about anything else, such as their more pressing issue. They'd spent more than enough time here. It was time to go home.

Clara looked around for a way out of this place, then chuckled nervously as she discovered none.

"So, is there like a save point here or what?"

For a time, Ashley didn't respond.

Clara remembered how she'd gotten here, as she attempted to feel for a headset. She only felt her wavy red hair that cascaded over her shoulders, settling around her B-cup breasts.

"I tried that," Ashley said.

She didn't like how defeated he sounded. That spelled bad things for both of them. Her heart ticked faster, as her head cleared and anxiety crept on her.

Clara walked back over to the tent. Her legs were toned from years of walking on sand, and she found herself easily breaking into a run.

As she pulled open the tent flap, she discovered that the others, whom she had just had a racheous orgy for about an hour with, blipped out of existence.

Except for the bronze man, who turned to look at her before slipping out of the other side of the tent.

"Hey, wait!" she called.

She burst forward to open the tent flaps on the other side. There was an empty space lined with docks that led out to more water. A chill ran down her spine despite the balmy warmth.

Unlike the beach they'd stayed at all those years ago in college, there were no highrises here. Only a strip of shoreline surrounded by ocean on each side, no buildings, cars, lots, or anyone in sight.

The more she became aware, the less of a paradise this seemed. Clara had the sinking feeling of someone abandoned on an island, except drawing an SOS in the sand had no chance of saving them.

The man was gone. She had a feeling deep down that he was no NPC, but where could he have run off too so quickly? Clara looked left and right and there was no trace of him.

It was impossible. There were no places to hide. Unless he dove into the water. Clara ran toward the other end of the strip and inspected the ocean.

Nothing. They couldn't drown here, but there was no way he'd swum away so fast as to not bear a single trace of himself. She literally just saw him.

Clara squealed when a hand touched her shoulder.

"Relax, it's me," Ashley said. He peered out where she had been searching. "What were you looking at?"

She explained what she'd seen.

Ashley looked as shocked as her.

A spark of resentment flickered on his face.

"I begged that guy to help me," he said.

"Do you think he's real?" she asked.

He sighed, then spit hair out of his face as a lock of his strawberry curls stuck on his bottom lip.

"I don't know. Just waiting for Mark to pull us out," he laughed, melodic and sarcastic at the same time.

Clara was once again hit with the terrifying feeling that perhaps there was a glitch in the game, and that the man who ran away was now off-grid.

She tried to get her mind on anything else.

"When do you think Mark will come along, then?" she asked.

Ashley let out another lilting laugh, almost delirious.

"I really hope for his case that it's soon!" he retorted.

Clara cringed at this display. Ashley was typically an easygoing person, but everyone had their limits. Getting stuck in virtual reality was an understandable threshold.

She would try to hold it together for him.

He shielded his eyes with a hand to his forehead and peered out.

"I'm just going to look closer," he said.

"Ashley, wait!"

She crashed forward and stumbled into him at the same time he took a few steps closer. The ocean disappeared, for a split second, the entire body of water blipping out of existence as though it were a mirage.

Clara stared wide-eyed as her worst fear opened up in front of them, a dark void underneath their feet. She had a moment to look down into an endless pit before falling right through, screaming all the way down.