The Gilded Lights

He came round with a gasp.

“…You’re right! He’s waking up sister!”

He heard some voices around him, talking eagerly amongst themselves as his vision started to clear, he blinked several times and looked up.

“Welcome back.”

In front of him were three beautiful faces, with warm smiles. The one directly in front seemed to be some kind of nun, judging by the habit she was wearing. The woman with the black bob-cut hair to his left was checking his pulse, occasionally gazing over to a monitor at the side, and to his right, was a woman with striking, curly red hair, clearly natural.

The three women all glanced down at him, he seemed to be lying in a hospital bed…what the fuck happened?!

“You’ve been out for a few months.” The Black-haired woman spoke out, she was obviously a doctor.

“Can you remember anything? Please! This is important! What’s the last thing you recall?”

He tried to think back as he started to sit up in bed. Only brief flashes came though. He had just got off his motorcycle, about to deliver something?… Then nothing!

He couldn’t remember his name, where he lived, what he was even doing before…waking up here.

“I…I can’t remember anything?! My name, nothing! What the hell happened to me?!”

The red-haired woman spoke next.

“Does the name ‘Dylan’ mean anything to you?! Your notes say that when you were found, you had a vest of a food takeout delivery company with a nametag on the front. Does that ring any bells?!”

It did. The moment he heard that name, something clicked in his head.

“Yeah! That’s my name…Dylan?…” He tried to finish the sentence, something which would normally come without thinking, but now?! His mind hit a proverbial brick wall.”

“It’s ok! Try not to push things too quickly.” The red-haired woman placed her hand gently on his shoulder, he got a noseful of fresh, sweet-smelling perfume that made him feel a little dizzy, he smiled as he breathed in.

“Who…Who are all of you?! Am I in a hospital?”

There was a moment of silence as they all seemed to glance nervously at each other. It was a split-second observation, but it seemed as if the other two women were looking at the nun for some kind of approval.

“Your…In good medical care at least.” The sister spoke up, her silky lips glistened slightly as she smiled at him. “A lot of things have happened over the past few months, but don’t worry about it, for now, just rest, and build up your strength.” She gently caressed his bottom leg. Her eyes seemed to light up after she said that.

She was very strange for a nun though. She had on the habit, but bizarrely she seemed to wear what looked like a black cocktail dress rather than what he’d usually seen sisters go around in. Definitely not what he thought convents had as their usual dress code!

She also had on a necklace with a funny emblem hanging from it and looking at the other two now, they seemed to also have them.

Something wasn’t sitting right with him. He sensed something was off about the three women, something unusual, but he had literally nothing of substance, could not put anything into words.

Dylan took another breath as he sat up in the bed fully, the doctor (if that is what she was) left the room along with the strange nun.

It was just him and the redhead now, she continued to gently hold his arm as she spoke to him.

“My name is Evelyn, Sister Reina has asked me to help you get back on your feet. We’ll take it one day at a time ok?!”

Now that he’d been awake for a bit, the questions started to roll around his head. He blurted out several of them.

“Why?!… What the hell happened to me?! Why can’t I remember anything?! Shouldn’t someone tell…anybody!… that I’m here?!”

Evelyn started to soothe him, gently rubbing one of his shoulders.

“It’s ok! Memories do come back after a while. But it will take a bit of time. Look, there are a lot of things you’re going to have to take in over the coming days, and it’s going to mentally knock you for six. It’s really important that you stay as calm as possible, and take everything slowly.”

He settled back, he was still worried of course, He wanted someone specific here, but he couldn’t even remember whether they were a family member or another acquaintance.

He didn’t recognize the woman still with him, nor did he think that he knew anyone who was a nun specifically, so he guessed that he was around strangers, which was something he didn’t seem to be used to normally.

Still, though, both the redhead and the nun were smokin’ hot! The doctor was pretty easy on the eye as well. For some reason that seemed to put him at ease.

He turned to Evelyn, now settled down a bit. If she was here to help him in some way, she must at least know something.

“Do you work here? You said you were asked to get me up and around?”

She bit her bottom lip slightly before answering.

“Look Dylan…none of this is really going to be easy to tell you, so I’ll explain things piece by piece, you can ask any questions, and I’ll answer as best I can…ok?!”

He frowned a bit but nodded to her.

“Cool!… Well, to answer your question, I don’t really ‘work’ here, as you’re not actually in a hospital, I’m afraid those aren’t taking patients anymore!”

His heart started to quicken again at that answer, If he wasn’t in a hospital, where the hell was he?! He stayed calm though, asking his questions slowly.

“What exactly is this place?”

“It used to be a small doctor’s office I’m guessing, you know, the place where you went to for the more common aches and sniffles. You’re in what was originally a small town called Hiltsburg, it’s not far from Philly. When things really started to get bad, they must have converted it into a field hospital.” Evelyn had a sad look in her eyes as she explained her answer.

“What the hell happened?!… I’m guessing from your answer, It wasn’t just me, was it?!”

“You’re right there. It wasn’t just you. Nobody really knows what ‘it’ was, but about three months ago, people just started dropping dead, whatever they were doing or wherever they were, didn’t matter. It was like someone just flipped a switch.”

She continued on, explaining the events of the past few months.

“At first people thought it was the vaccine. The whole corona thing was still going on, and a lot of folks already were on edge. When people suddenly start dropping dead all at once after receiving a rushed medical treatment, you’re going to have suspicions obviously.

But it wasn’t the jab, whatever was happening, it hit the brain directly. About a week after it started I got a massive headache for about a day, but nothing happened to me. Turns out I was one of the few lucky ones, most either died outright or like you, got stuck into a coma.”

Dylan kept his composure, listening to Evelyn carefully, but of course, he was afraid, afraid for others close to him, people he knew were out there, but he could not remember.

“I have a little memory I think! I’d just got off my bike, about to deliver someone a pizza…no…fried chicken, that was it! I don’t think anything like this was happening when I was out doing my job though.”

“That’s because, from the dates on your records, you were among the first to get hit. A lot of the coma patients kept being moved around to different hospitals and medical institutes as the bodies started piling up.

The doc here now, Mirian, had been treating you and a few others initially, at a university med center. Unfortunately, you were the only one that survived, and when we saw that you were a…well”

Dylan caught her sudden stop. He pushed further.

“When you saw I was a what…exactly?!”

Evelyn bit her lower lip again before answering.

“When we saw that you were…well…a man! I don’t really know how else to say this Dylan, but of those very few who did survive, most of them are women. You are likely one of the very few remaining men left alive in the whole world!”

He could not help himself now, he let out a burst of laughter. This was obviously some kind of prank, one of those tv joke shows or a group of YouTubers doing a skit.

“Ok, I know this is some kind of setup! You can pat me on the back and tell me I’m on camera or something now! Do I get some cash out of this?!” He continued smiling as he looked over to Evelyn.

Her face remained dead serious.

“Dylan, you have just woken up in a makeshift hospital bed. You can’t remember anything at all, and since Doc Helden says that you have to start walking around on your own as soon as possible, to prevent blood clots in your legs, you are going to learn quite quickly that this is very very real when you start walking around town. So why would I bother not telling you the truth?”

She spoke calmly and matter of fact, and Dylan didn’t have an answer to what she had just said in response.

His head started to spin again.

“I’m…feeling a little sick!”

“It’s ok!” she rubbed his arm again. “I can really understand why you’d think what I just told you is way out there! Even I wake up some nights and wonder if I’m just having some deranged fever dream, what happened is completely insane, and no one knows what the fuck even caused it! Take your pick, Cosmic radiation, aliens, God on meth! Pick any one of them and just…carry on!”

Dylan sat up in the bed for a moment, his mind racing around but finding little of substance to latch onto. He started to pull back the covers and lift his legs over.

“Woah?! What are you doing?!” She reached out gently.

“The doc said I needed to be on my feet, didn’t she?! Well, she was right about the legs, they are aching like hell and I need to stretch them. So why not use the opportunity to have a look around eh?”

“Are you sure you’re ready now? I mean…you only came round about fifteen minutes ago!”

“Of course! I have you with me, don’t I?… You’ll chase away all the hordes of desperate and lonely women survivors that’ll no doubt be waiting outside to swarm me, won’t you?”

Evelyn chuckled at that, gave a little scoff.

“You seem very confident in yourself, don’t you? Just because you are likely among the last men in the world, doesn’t mean everyone will fall to your feet you know!”

“Well…Although I can’t remember anything yet, I get this deep impression that I was a real catch in college!”

She laughed out fully, Dylan watched her as her head tilted back slightly, the dimples when her lips were wide, Her deep blue eyes, her face was gorgeous!

‘Maybe being one of the last men alive won’t be so bad!’

Evelyn hooked her arm under his, and they left the makeshift recovery room behind.

_____________________________________________________________

The towns ‘doctor’, Mirian Helden, moved the light from one eye to the other, checking to see if they followed it as they should.

“Everything seems to be good! With the other coma patients that recovered, some of them apparently could not even walk due to the brain damage.”

Dylan looked at her. “…’ apparently’?”

“I’ve never actually seen another comatose individual wake up aside from you personally. But thanks to the ‘rona pandemic, the CDC had at least, by the time this started happening, got some of their shit together and threw up a national network for medical professionals to communicate with each other,

All of those early people that made a recovery had at least some level of brain damage. They either had paralysis or loss of hearing or sight, for example.”

He leaned back in the chair he was sitting in, but he could not help but notice the doctor’s quite sizable cleavage and bare legs. She was a fan of very small skirts it seemed.

When he’d left the recovery room, the first thing that had hit him when he got outside was the complete lack of cars on the roads. With the exception of an army truck that two women were loading stuff onto, the main thoroughfare had seemingly been cleared.

He had been expecting the usual post-apocalyptic scenes he was familiar with from movies and games, scattered and burned-out vehicles, smashed windows, and the like. But there was none of that.

It looked like the whole town was one of those empty toy playsets. Just the buildings, no figures or toy cars.

As Evelyn and Dylan walked around, however, it quickly became apparent that he was indeed, the only man around, at least locally. The small numbers of people they came across were all women, they smiled and waved at them both as they passed, but no one approached them.

After the little trip around the street where the small-town medical office was, Evelyn told him that Doctor Helden wanted to give him a final check over before they took him to the large house on the north side of town, where he would have a more comfortable room to stay and recuperate fully in.

She was checking his vitals when the subject finally came up.

“You know doc, since men are so rare these days, How exactly is…well, reproduction going to work now?”

Evelyn and the doctor both smiled at each other as she answered.

“I was going to bring this subject up with you earlier, while you were unconscious. It quickly became clear to my senior staff that far more men were dying than women, in what little time we had, they ordered me to take semen samples from any male comatose patients I had and freeze them. So in that regard, it should not be an issue when it comes to repopulating over time.”

“Oh!… I see.” Dylan seemed to sound a little disappointed.

“However, having such a massive gender imbalance will obviously cause problems for any society. I can’t really say what specifically will happen in the coming weeks and months to be honest, but I would guess that in regards to you, it might be the case that you won’t have problems in finding emotional and physical company yourself. The issue is the effect your presence will have on everyone else around you.”

“So…On the one hand, I could be very lucky, but at the same time everyone could utterly hate my guts?!” He rubbed his chin, thinking about that situation and what he could do.

“I don’t think it would get that extreme for you. Most of us here are…definitely interested in your case for obvious reasons, but remember that everyone has lost family and friends, their whole lives turned upside down, it will take time for us all to adjust to our new lives and situations.”

As the doctor raised herself up, he looked at her face, like everyone else he’d seen so far, he found her extremely attractive, whether it was the situation he found himself in or simple male nature, he’d quickly picked up that every woman in town, without fault, seemed to be within a very narrow age range.

It was odd. He would have assumed that at least some seniors or grannies would have survived, but he had not seen a single living old person, and come to think about it…where the hell were the children survivors? Surely at least one or two of those would have made it?!

These little things he noticed put him on edge even more, but he kept them to himself. He wondered what would happen now when the nun in the dress came through the door.

“Sister Reina…” Both the doctor and Evelyn strangely seemed to act like subordinates around her…were they? They both gave slight nods towards her.

“So. I’m guessing from the smiles, doctor Helden has given you a clean bill of health?” She looked over.

“From what I can tell, everything is healthy and working…so to speak.” She nodded back towards him with a smile.

“I don’t see any reason why he should have to stay under medical supervision all the time now, I’ll keep doing check-ups of course, but he’s ok to go to the house when you are both ready.”

The nun slowly approached him, her tight dress clung to her as she walked forward. The sister definitely gave off an air of authority. He guessed that she was about her mid-thirties, but her complexion and skin was still youthful despite her apparent age.

Dylan’s hormones were all over the place since he woke up. Being around the three women, and seeing the others, had really got him fired up, despite just literally waking up from a coma that could have killed him!

She began to speak, he watched her silky lips move, he had to close his legs together, especially since all three were once again in the same room as him.

“The house itself has plenty of large upstairs rooms, you will be able to choose whichever one you’ll feel comfortable with. Myself and sister Evelyn have also made our living arrangements there, so there will always be someone around if you need something.”

‘Sister’ Evelyn?… She’s also a nun? aww shit! Catholic nuns have a celibacy thing if I remember right!”

….’But are they actually nuns at all?’

“Thanks! I…um…I actually do mean it!”

Dylan couldn’t form his words properly around them, his damn mind was constantly thinking about sex since he learned about his situation. It was making him stumble over his words like an idiot now.

‘Sister’ Evelyn got up and took over, obviously picking up that he was tripping over his own thoughts.

“I think we won’t bother you anymore then doc. We’ll head out to the car and be on our way if everything is in order Sister Reina?”

“Of course. I’ll let you both go on ahead, and we can get our newcomer settled in.”

‘So…they still have cars as well then.’

The town itself wasn’t huge by anyone’s standards, but it was still spaced enough apart to warrant having to drive around to get from one side to the next out of convenience. This was America, so of course the townsfolk here would never have walked around if they could avoid it!

So why didn’t the survivors just carry on using them after everything happened?

The drive up was quiet for the most part. He looked out of the rear window, seeing groups of women talking, stocking up stores, and generally doing normal day-to-day things. But Dylan’s hesitations and insecurities refused to go away.

He knew that he had family, someone close from before, but he still couldn’t conjure up any memories of them. Because of this, he could not properly mourn their passing, as it was practically certain they did not survive due to sheer probability alone.

Then there was the town and all the women in it. The lack of elderly and any children survivors, the fact that literally, every woman in town didn’t have as much as a blemish or pimple on their skin at all!

Something wasn’t right, they weren’t lying about what happened. But neither were they telling him the whole truth. It was readily apparent to Dylan that they were keeping a lot of secrets, and that put him really on edge around them, despite him wanting to plow their brains out at the first opportunity.

The house itself was as he’d guessed it was. Obviously some rich guy’s or families home, a rural place that wasn’t too far away from a big city. Philadelphia was just a short commute away, though he didn’t want to imagine what it was like there now.

He ended up choosing one of the rooms across from Evelyn’s. It had an ensuite bathroom, and both the house and the town itself still had access to water and electricity.

‘I wonder how they keep the utilities going here, considering that the whole world ended?’

He pushed the question from his mind. It had been a long day, and he was concerned about going to sleep for the first time after being in a coma. The worry that he might end up slipping back into it if he lost consciousness again lingered in the back of his head.

But tiredness always wins in the end, and after undressing fully, he lay down on the large double bed. It didn’t take long for him to fall asleep.

_________________________________________________________

He was standing in the street not far from his delivery bike, the warmth of the sun was overhead, and everyone was outside, mowing lawns, kids playing, noses pointed down at smartphones.

But all he could hear was his own heartbeat, the sound of his own breathing.

He turned around, and she was there. Jennifer, his girlfriend, at the end of the street, shouting out at him desperately, waving frantically at him and pointing. But like the silence around him, he could not hear anything from her.

His breathing starting to get heavier, heart speeding up, he turned to the direction she was pointing.

At the other end of the long street, past the groups of muted people going about their day, someone was briskly walking straight towards him, a woman with curly red hair, wearing a skintight white dress.

A cold dread fell over him, he tried to move, but it seemed like his feet were stuck firmly in place. Deep down, in a fundamental part of his mind, he knew that once she reached him, he would die a truly horrific death.

As she passed the groups of people on the street, each of them, in sequence, dropped down where they stood. One after the other, as the deadly woman passed them by, they fell dead, convulsing seemingly in terrible pain, before going still.

His heart was thundering now as she got ever closer towards him, she strode with deadly purpose, and as her face came into view, he saw only a cold, blank determination to kill in her eyes.

He turned back to Jennifer, she was still silently yelling at him wide-eyed, but now, she looked up at the sky ahead of him.

He looked up… and he saw them.

Wondrous and terrifying at the same time, he saw thousands of bright golden lights slowly falling to the earth. Each one trailing what looked like a tail of electricity behind them. They descended all around him in the distance, as far as the eye could see.

He wailed out in complete and utter despair at seeing them, at that moment, he seemed to feel the deaths of millions of people all at once around him. He somehow knew that wherever they landed, the orbs bought only a painful end.

As he looked back to the red-haired woman, he prepared to let out the loudest, most pain-filled scream he had ever made, she was within a few feet now, reaching out to him, and in her eyes, he saw two pinpricks of the same fiery golden light, radiating a blind thirst for him as her hand reached forward.

Dylan shot up in bed from the nightmare, thankfully he had not screamed out.

The details of it were already fading from his mind as he jumped up and ran to the connecting bathroom, he turned on the sink and drenched his face in cold water, still shaking at the experience.

“Jennifer!” He spoke out her name in the mirror in front of him.

He remembered her now. Clear as day. His girlfriend from college.

He slid down against the wall and buried his head between his arms, memories started to come back.

He had been in the last semester of college, and he had had to get a part-time job delivering takeouts to cover expenses. He had been delivering an order of fried chicken to a street on the west side of Philly when he seemingly lost consciousness.

Before he had left for his shift that day, they had both made plans to chill out at one of her friends’ places after he finished for the evening.

He could not believe his luck when he had scored with her, short blonde hair and almond eyes, she’d been way too pretty for him, or so he thought. Since he was a bit of a gym freak, it was likely the buff bod had helped a lot in getting her to go out with him, but she did seem to like his actual personality as well, for some reason.

Dylan wanted to cry, but his brain was still missing a lot, despite the fresh memories he had now, and the terror from that nightmare was still lingering in his mind.

Something had been coming towards him! But he couldn’t remember the specifics anymore. There had been death, pain, and total, utter despair. He had never felt anything as intense as that in his entire life, and he had the usual bad dreams as everyone did in the past.

He suddenly felt completely alone.

A creeping dread came over him, the instinctive feeling that he was currently in a life-threatening situation now gnawed at him. This place, Evelyn, the strange nun, and the whole town.

Something was very, badly wrong about them all!

‘Should I try to get out of here? Run?!’

He pushed the thought of escaping from his mind, he had no illusions that he was a captive of some kind here now. That he would be prevented from leaving the town if he actually attempted it.

He had no actual evidence of this, of course, all the women here had been great to him. They had not yet done anything that could remotely be considered threatening in any way, and so far, had not indicated to him that he could not leave if he wanted to.

But neither had he tried to…yet.

Dylan knew he wasn’t going to sleep again tonight. He switched off the bathroom lamp and walked over to the comfy chair that was near the window. He sat and looked out at the town.

There was no illumination from the houses or stores, the streets were completely dark.

__________________________________________________________

The only lights that were on downstairs were the lamps that Evelyn said she had placed throughout the ground floor. They dimly illuminated only parts of the kitchen and living area, large areas remained in shadow.

The silence unnerved Dylan, and obviously, the others were all still in bed, which is where he should really be, considering he’d just woke from a coma the day before.

He couldn’t sleep anymore though, not after that nightmare he could barely even recall the details of.

‘At least it jogged some of my memory though.’

His mind was now wholly focused on Jennifer. He knew that the chances of her surviving were slim, given the odds that doc Heldren had told him. But he was now determined to go back to Philly,

To find out if she was still alive somehow…anyhow.

The air was cold throughout the ground floor of the house. He shivered as he headed over to the kitchen area and opened the fridge.

His eyes widened for a moment, looking at all there seemed to be inside.

Water.

Plastic bottles of mineral water…no food or drinks of any other kind.

He didn’t know why, but this unnerved him even more as he picked one up and opened the lid.

“You get thirsty at night too I see.”

Dylan jumped as he shut the fridge door. Evelyn was sitting on the other side of the kitchen counter.

“I’m sorry I startled you.” She smiled at him. The way she was looking at him though, seemed off.

“I didn’t see you coming down. How long have you been awake?”

She didn’t answer. Instead, she slowly got up and made her way around to him, her fingers gently running along the counter as she stood before him.

Her eyes never left Dylan as she came up close, she was gently teasing a lock of her bright ginger hair as she stared into his eyes.

Dylan’s head started to feel dizzy, his heart began to speed up.

“The nights are cold now, lonely. It’s rare for one like me to rest in times like these.”

He didn’t know what she meant by that, but his erection bulged inside his undershorts as Evelyn’s hand wrapped around the back of his neck. He felt her other arm flow around his lower back as her face approached his.

A flood of hormones rushed through his body as she kissed him. He felt her smooth lips part and connect with his. He ran his own hand through her hair and embraced her.

Their kiss gently ended and he felt her slowly guide him into the living area, the air was filled with a strange scent that made his erection throb even harder, his mind swam and became increasingly foggy.

They stood together in the center of the room.

Evelyn lifted his T-shirt up and off him, she ran her hands slowly along his chest, her fingers slid along his pecs, and down to his abdominal area, she gently ran a finger into the faint grooves between the muscle that was still there, even after all the time being comatose.

Her head turned to the side slightly as her eyes were still fixed to his. In the back of his mind, Dylan thought he heard movement behind him.

She gently pulled down his undershorts, smiling as a large, pulsing erection popped up from under the fabric. It quivered slightly in front of her face, as a small droplet of clear fluid seeped out of his tip, she lowered his shorts down his firm legs, removing them completely and tossing them aside.

Dylan felt the cool air of the room all over his body, he was now standing naked as Evelyn raised back up to her feet, running her hands slowly up him as she went, her fingers exploring every contour of him.

As she raised up, she gently kissed parts of him in sequence, he breathed in heavily as he felt her smooth lips run slowly up his torso as she stood level to him again.

“Tonight is just an appetizer of what is to come.” Her smile took on a more sinister look as she gently lowered him by the shoulders.

“Lie down…Let us taste you.”

He lay back onto the floor as Evelyn dropped her white gown and kicked it away. His breath caught in his throat as he took in her nude figure.

She was gorgeous! Literally perfect in every way. The lamplight didn’t hit all of her, but the parts it did reflected off the sweat on her skin.

The shadows seem to hug partially across her large breasts, leaving half of her right nipple exposed to the dim light. It glistened off the sides of her bare legs as his eyes wandered down her naked body.

Dylan heard the floor creak and looked over, his head was now groggy as he saw three more nude female figures slowly enter the room. His eyes gazed across their legs as they moved in front of the lamplight, they each took positions around him, Their silhouettes completely covering him in shadow.

The air was filled with a warm, musky smell as they took their positions around him, Dylan now remembered it well from the nights with his girlfriend, he felt his cock throb hard as he took in the odors, moaning slightly from the intensity of his erection.

The four women towered over him now, he couldn’t see any of the faces of the others, the lamplight behind them cast a bright glare, but Evelyn gently lowered herself onto his waist, Her breasts swayed directly in front of his field of view.

Dylan was barely conscious now. The flood of all of their scents was clouding his mind completely. Evelyn began to move down towards his crotch, and he saw the other three women all slowly begin to move down towards his pulsing erection.

He breathed faster as his eyes took in the group slowly descending and gathering round his waist, silky hands began to explore his body, caressing his thighs and upper legs as their heads closed in upon one thing.

‘Ohh…god!’

He lay back, his vision clouding as the touch of their hands sent tingles all over him.

The four of them surrounded and leaned over his thick member, one of the women licked and moistened her lips in anticipation. He gently felt a set of fingers wrap around the base of his shaft.

“Let’s not drink too much of him…It would be selfish to deny all of the others the chance.”

Dylan’s mind slipped into unconsciousness as he felt the first set of silky lips wrap around the head of his penis.

_________________________________________________________

The morning sun was shining on him as he woke up back in his bed. He took a deep breath as he sat up, he frowned.

‘Didn’t I get up last night?! After the nightmare?”

Dylan tried to recall the events after he’d woken up in a sweat from the dream. He remembered rinsing the water on his face and briefly sitting on the chair by the window, looking out over the town, but then…

‘Jennifer…’

The dream had jogged his memory and lifted some of the amnesia he was still suffering from. He remembered his girlfriend now, and his plans to go back into the city to search for her.

He took a deep breath as he climbed out of bed, he felt…great actually. He could not seem to help himself from smiling for some reason, he felt strangely satisfied at something.

Perhaps it was the regained memory that was boosting him up. Dylan took a quick shower before dressing in some of the clothes that Sister Reina had said she’d found for him. The jeans and the tight sleeveless grey shirt allowed his arms and some of his chest to show.

He looked at himself in the standing mirror as he was dressing, despite being in a coma for such a long time, his body hadn’t withered like he would have expected it to. Obviously, his muscle had lessened a little, but as he flexed at his reflection, he had to say that he’d been well cared for while he was under.

‘It shouldn’t really take long to get back to how I was before.’

Dylan had first met Jennifer at his local gym’s coffee bar after a workout. Since they’d both been fitness freaks, it wasn’t hard for them to both hit it off. Initially, it had just been sex that had attracted them to each other, but the one-night stands quickly developed into weekends, and eventually dinner with her parents, who lived locally as well.

As he finished dressing, he resolved to somehow find a way to leave the town. He was hoping that his fears about his potential captivity here the night before were unfounded, and just the result of a post-nightmare panic attack.

But the possibility that he could be held here forcefully still lingered in his mind.

Dylan took one last look at himself in the mirror before taking a deep breath, he left his room and went downstairs.

“Good Morning sleepyhead! What time do you call this?” Evelyn chuckled at him as he walked into the kitchen.

“Don’t be so hard on him dear. After all, he did have an…intense…night.”

Sister Reina seemed to smirk slightly to Evelyn at that remark. Dylan frowned, his mind seemed to once again pester itself to remember something.

“Um…What do you mean exactly?” Dyan hesitated to press further.

“You were tossing and turning all night.” Sister Reina replied. “I’m guessing you had a rough time from what we saw.”

Evelyn interrupted, explaining more.

“Doctor Heldren wanted us to keep tabs on your first night’s sleep. You have been in a three-month-long coma remember! You can’t expect things to just be as they were before so soon afterward.”

“We stuck our heads around the door a few times.” Sister Reina pushed back into the conversation, “We were told to make sure that you didn’t just lie in the same position all night and slipped back into the coma, it was quite the opposite.”

Dylan relaxed a little at what they said. But the nagging in the back of his mind was still present.

“Oh…Yeah, I did have a nightmare, and it seems to have jogged some memories, I can’t remember any of the details of the dream itself though.”

“That’s great news, Dylan, see…you’re on the right track. You’ll remember everything soon enough.” Evelyn’s smile was the same, but now there seemed to be something distinctly off about it.

What did she mean by that?

Dylan looked at both of the women’s faces as he talked to them. Nothing had physically changed, of course, they were still the same as the day before.

But now, Dylan could not help but feel something was different. Everything they said seemed to carry some other, unspoken meaning, the way they glanced and smirked at each other indicated that there was something they knew, but were not sharing with him.

Their tone or direct behavior toward him hadn’t changed, but they didn’t seem to be as warm and inviting as they had been when he first met them.

‘Cut some slack Dylan. These gals literally went through the apocalypse in the span of three months!’

The logical part of his brain was trying to find reasonable and rational explanations, but of course, that part of his mind that ran on impulse and gut feelings was ringing alarm bells.

“You said you can remember some things now. Are you ok talking about it?” Evelyn had turned to him, her pretty face now seemed more like a hungry cat sizing up a field mouse.

He was about to tell them about Jennifer, his girlfriend, and his plans to go back to Philly. But now, every impulsive thought in his head screamed at him that it would be a very bad idea to tell them that.

“It’s…just that I was in the final year of college, and that I had a roommate named Matty, nothing much more yet.”

He actually didn’t even know if he did have a roommate yet at all, he made the name up off the top of his head.

Evelyn nodded, clutching a mug of what looked like plain water, she took a sip, still looking at him.

“The doc thought that it would be best for you to get some exercise today after you woke up.” Sister Reina came round the kitchen counter, placing her own cup aside and standing next to him.

“Your muscles and circulation are going to need to get working again. None of us wants to see you fall back now, not after all the progress you’ve made.” She placed a hand upon his shoulder, gently squeezing it as she smiled at him.

“We’re all here for you Dylan…All of us.”

He didn’t know why, but that statement sent a tingle through him. He felt a slight ache in his pants all of a sudden, but also it chilled him.

Her touch lingered on the exposed skin of his shoulder, he felt her thumb gently caress through his sleeveless shirt as she moved her hand away.

“That’s..um, that’s great to hear. I’ll do some jogging around town. Been wanting to get out and see the place.”

“We can do better than that. There’s a private gym here in the house that was already set up when we arrived, likely whoever owned the place had the extension built on the back. You should use that for an hour or so this morning, and then we can both go into town afterward, meet everyone else.”

Evelyn got up after finishing her own drink, already she had made the decision herself on what he was going to do.

“Sure…That sounds cool. I’ll…use the gym here.”

She had already wrapped her arm around his and was leading him to the back of the estate.

More and more, Dylan realized that Evelyn and sister Reina were going to be making choices for him, rather than he was for himself. They didn’t even have to drop hints about who was in charge and who wasn’t, and their eyes, they no longer had the warmth of yesterday and were more like wide-eyed predators preparing to strike at the slightest hint of resistance from him.

The gym itself had obviously been added on the back of the house at a later point. One side of the room was mostly a series of large glass panels and a doorway that led to the swimming pool in the back, although that was now empty and covered with a plastic sheet.

Evelyn had walked him through quickly on which of the machines were able to be used, as electricity consumption had to be kept an eye on now. Most of them had power and likely cost the original owner a small fortune to buy.

Dylan had expected her to literally stand and watch him from start to finish, considering how close she had suddenly become, but instead, she told him that she had an errand to run with sister Reina and that he should come back into the house after he was finished.

The subtle change in how she acted towards him had continued since leaving the sister. He had caught glances of her looking him up and down throughout the small tour of the gym. She had also seemingly become more physically clingy and kept holding onto his arm as much as she could, and her constant staring was becoming increasingly uncomfortable.

When she had left him alone, he finally had time to think as he began using one of the machines.

‘Is it all my imagination? Am I seeing something that isn’t really there?’

The apparent change in the two women’s behavior towards him wouldn’t leave his mind. There seemed to be a subtly threatening, but also a sexual undercurrent to their new attitude, they had also become a lot more direct with him, as if hinting that they were giving him orders, and not suggestions.

He wasn’t sure how to move forward now. He still wanted to go back to the city, but Dylan was now very hesitant to reveal that to them, and it was becoming increasingly apparent that he would be prevented from leaving somehow if he tried to.

‘How exactly would they stop me though? I haven’t seen any armed guards around me. How would they prevent me from leaving if I did try?’

Dylan got into a rhythm with one of the machines as his mind worked, he had found that during exercising, he could zone out and spend time collecting his thoughts. He spent about thirty minutes on one before switching to a pedal bike for a leg workout.

He had been about fifteen minutes into the second routine when he sensed that something was in the gym with him.

Dylan stopped pedaling and cocked his ear.

There were no sounds, and scanning the whole room, he was the only one in the gym itself.

He suddenly realized, however, that his damn erection was rising again, and it was then he sensed what was up.

There was a musky scent in the room.

He sniffed in deeply, and his member responded with a hard throb that caused him to clutch his legs together and groan, every part of his body tingled now.

Dylan had smelt the odor many times before when Jennifer had exercised with him, the strong scent of female body sweat and a sweet musky aroma now wafted in the air all around him.

But Dylan was the only one there.

The gym suddenly seemed colder, less lit from the large windows on the far side than it was before. He climbed off the pedal bike and made his way around the room. The silence within it only served to agitate him even more as he looked around nervously.

He examined the other machines, and aside from the one he had used previously, they were all powered off and unused.

Except for one.

It was the one that you lay back on and pulled weights. Giving your arms and upper torso a workout.

No one had used it, and Dylan knew he hadn’t either. But as he leaned in close to the bright red leather, he saw that it was covered in a thin layer of sweat.

It glistened in the now dulled illumination, there was no doubt that someone had laid on here and used this machine very recently, while he had been here himself.

But he was alone, Evelyn had been the last one here aside from him.

Dylan swallowed heavily as he felt a trickle of wetness on the side of his leg. He had started to get that leaky pre-cum fluid, and another jolt of his penis hit him as he ran a finger along the leather of the workout machine.

His breath came out in staggered shivers as he sniffed his finger, he was turned on, but the emptiness of the room and what was seemingly happening terrified him as well.

The exercise room now seemed threatening to him, dangerous even. That same ‘offness’ he had been feeling this morning around the two women now filled his mind again.

‘Something is going to happen in this room. I don’t know what or how I know this…’

A sudden flash of thought went through his brain, of nude and sweating women all using the machines, moaning in unison as they did. Their exertion causing them all to slowly reach a state of climax.

They were suddenly all drenched in a torrent of liquid, it fell from the ceiling above them somehow. The women all began to rub the stuff into their skin, moaning in excitement…

He shook his head, eager to get the strange images out of his mind. What the fuck was wrong with him?!

“I think that’s enough workout time for today,” he muttered to himself. He stopped at the entrance of the room, turning to look back into it.

The smell was still wafting throughout the extension. Standing there, looking at the powered-off exercise machines, his dick gave a hard jolt, as if preparing him for something that was soon to come in this place.

Dylan made his way out of the room, he needed a shower to rinse off, preferably a cold one.

___________________________________________________________

She hid within the backroom of a Kmart, now derelict of course, wondering what she could possibly do now.

‘Was this it for me? To slowly starve to death in an empty supermarket stockroom?!

After seeing that even birds and the rats in the city had now fallen under the influence of the lights, she couldn’t figure out how she could stay alive in the long run anymore.

When it had just been other survivors and the dogs that wandered the dead streets, she and the other woman, Kaylie, had been able to run, hide when necessary before the puppeteered things moved on.

But after seeing the girl she had spent the last three weeks with, torn to shreds by a swarm of rats, each one with the telltale pinpricks of light flickering in their eyes, she had known that it was the end of the line.

She could see the flocks of birds now, she was watching them, out of a back office window, through the blinds.

There were lines of them, perched, unnaturally still, and silent, almost like plastic toys. Some looked to be near death from lack of nourishment, the influence of the lights not letting them go out to find food or water.

It was there in them as well, no mistake, each bird’s eyes radiated that same pair of fiery spots on their reflective surfaces. It was clear they were being used to watch for survivors like her. Watching for the few that remained before massing together the rats beneath the streets to finish them off.

If they had now switched to these smaller animals, then that meant there were only a very few humans left alive in the city to find. Earlier they had used other living people. Puppeteering them to go out and hunt others, catching and draining them of their ‘life’ force somehow.

The gun she was carrying would be useless in trying to fend off a massive swarm of vermin. Especially one that no longer had any natural fear or self-preservation.

‘Should I give up? Put a round through my skull and just be done with it?!’

Her mother had been a committed Catholic, suicide was a sin that damned your soul in that brand of Christianity. She’d never been as zealous with the church as her mother had been, but that upbringing had nonetheless been efficiently ground into her by dear mum.

‘…and you didn’t have to live through this shitfest now, did you mother?! It must have been nice to just die of a myocardial infarction in your sleep.’

Her medical student ‘mode’, as she liked to call it, was popping back into her mind. She had once felt intelligent from remembering all those complicated terms from her textbooks, but that was a life that wasn’t going to happen now.

Whatever was left of it, was likely to involve constant running and hiding, before her eventual death, either by the lights themselves or the things they now puppeteered.

She’d given up very early on about asking what they actually were or where they came from, all she and anyone of the few left knew, was that shortly after people started dropping dead at random, the glowing, electrical spheres of light started to appear in swarms, coming down from the sky, flashing into existence before disappearing again, and seemingly, having a terrifying effect on the environment similar to what poltergeists were supposed to be capable of.

The people they ‘possessed’ went around, attacking others by draining some kind of clear fluid from them until they died. Someone had also told her that the ‘vampire’ people sexually attacked victims as well in some way, one woman claiming that she had been hypnotized by one, and came round to the other woman she was with sucking on her tit.

She’d pushed her off, but the ‘thing’ now inside the other’s body, kept attacking until she hit it repeatedly across the head, caving in the woman’s skull.

‘I haven’t seen anything like that yet. That chick was a heavy drinker though. I’m thinking she just made that one up.”

It didn’t really matter though, Kaylie had been the last actual human she had crossed paths with. Now, she was alone.

Alone, and stuck inside a stockroom, waiting for death.

____________________________________________________________

“I don’t think we have done that bad actually Dylan, The town has electricity and running water, and you can eventually learn to ignore the smell wafting out from Philly, depending on the direction of the wind.”

Evelyn had accompanied him on his first trip into the town of survivors. Entirely composed of women in their twenties and thirties it seemed, and she had been right in that regard, they’d done a pretty good job of bringing the place back up.

She was still clung to his arm as they checked out the few stores that had been set up to give out supplies and necessities to everyone in town. It was obvious to him that he would not be allowed to go anywhere alone for himself, and that she would be right at his side, watching him.

“It’s strange…” He said to himself.

“What is?” She looked at him, still with that damn smile on her face.

“Before, when we were driving up to the house, I couldn’t help but notice that no kids or elderly seem to be around anymore, everyone still alive seems to be in a specific age range.” Dylan looked around at the few other women on the main street.

“I know. Whatever happened, it’s still ongoing. Our resident tough girl, Sonya Ellet I think her name is. Believes that whatever did this isn’t done yet, so we have to be on our guard, sit tight, and wait to see what happens next.”

They both took a seat on a bench, near what looked to have been a small library that had stopped being used years ago.

“So you think someone actually started this? An attack?”

Evelyn sat back, brushing her bright hair behind her ear.

“I don’t really know…I doubt anyone really does, But I guess that we’ll…know more as time goes by.” She leaned up against his bare arm, resting her head on his shoulder.

Dylan could tell by now that she was lying, and likely she wasn’t even attempting to hide that fact from him. He looked around him and saw some of the women staring back at him, with smiles on their faces. One of them, a woman with a lean figure and blonde hair, was fiddling with the arm strap of her dress, another, slightly more full-figured one about his age had sat on a wall across the street from him, dressed in a tight white summer dress, she had made a show of crossing her bare legs while he watched her, showing off her thicker thighs and hips to him.

Dylan felt dangerously exposed all of a sudden. Eyes were probing him from shaded windows, and he sensed that the women in the town were gathering behind the walls, sizing him up, talking about him, and planning.

“You’ll love it here Dylan. It’ll be everything you could ever want.” He felt his head getting foggy again as Evelyn rubbed her nose gently behind his ear.

“You are so special, you don’t realize how much yet. But you know what you have to do. You are a man Dylan. You know what you have to do for us.”

He felt his erection stiffen again as they both got up off the bench. Evelyn took him up the street, to one of the open stores. Ushering him inside.

As they entered the building, the women of the town gathered in the square, waiting to hear Sister Reina’s speech.

There were about seventy of them in total. Toned and tall women, leaner and more full-figured women, Caucasian and black, a few Asians, women from many backgrounds. All of them had come together.

They were all beautiful women without fault, neither too young nor too old. And they suffered no disability or ailments.

They were utterly perfect women.

Except, they weren’t really women at all.

Had Dylan looked more closely, he would have seen the face of a quite famous model amongst those who had been looking at him. But of course, the woman who had once graced the covers of Voga had fallen down into a coma at her last photo shoot, three months ago.

Her body, along with all of the others, was now inhabited by an invader, a being that had no physical form of its own.

The creatures gathered in the small park in the town’s center. Together, this group represented what would be considered the smartest and strongest of their kind that attacked the eastern part of the US. Under their influence, their weaker kin had killed off and consumed the life of about ninety percent of the population, leaving mostly empty cities and scattered survivors.

They had all gathered here, taking the best bodies of their prey that they desired, to enjoy and feed off of a very special human, a male of his species.

Dylan Forrest.

Unlike most who had been targeted at the very start, the creature that initially fed upon him, the very same one who now inhabited ‘Evelyn’s’ body, found that no matter how hard it tried, it could not drain his lifeforce completely, he was like a bottomless well of Ethereal stamina and energy, that kept replenishing no matter how much was drained.

The creatures had their own name for beings like this, and when they were found, they were prized like a human might value a precious jewel. The creatures could both feed off them and explore their senses, often for years and even decades before they burned away completely.

Each of them wanted a share of the one named Dylan, both body and energy, and the one that now inhabited the alluring nun acted to ensure that her kin didn’t turn on each other and fight over the special prize.

In the small park, a crowd of what normally would have been considered beautiful women in other times, stood silently, awaiting the sisters’ proclamations, each one’s eyes glowed with ravenous thirst and desire, along with the light of the entities now inside their brains.

The sister looked out over the large group, taking in each one, before speaking.

“When the star sets behind the horizon, it will be time. He is soothed and ready to be shared amongst us slowly.”

One of the others responded.

“We will all be allowed to be near? Like other times before?”

“Yes… He will radiate out nectar during mating. We simply remain close by, observing, maybe even playing together, and we siphon that release until it is our turn to experience him physically…intimately, no one will go without.”

“The sapient species of this world do not have that kind of stamina during mating though.” An olive-skinned ‘woman’ pointed out, “He will tire very quickly, maybe even slip into dormancy.”

“We take our time.” The sister replied. “We are in no rush. We allow him periods to rest and recuperate. Enjoy his presence by simply being near him instead.” She straightened her back and smiled.

“He will find that our radiance can be just as invigorating for him as he will be for us.”

The group began to quietly talk, their excitement building up. The journey along the winds beyond space had been long to reach this world. They had drunk the ethereal equivalent of this world’s ‘water’ when they targeted the bulk of the inhabitants, they were now thirsty for a more ‘flavored’ nectar.

The sister looked at her kin, wearing the forms and the garments of some of this world’s most alluring, most desirable. She raised a hand to signal to them.

“When the sun begins to set, gather and come together, we will have him ready.

There was no cheering from the crowd, no shouts of desire, they all simply nodded and began to depart.

Inside another structure along the adjacent street, the being that inhabited the body of the woman, who had once been known as Evelyn Price, turned from the window and made her way to where Dylan was, in a daze and now pacified. Being attended to by another of her kin.

He was standing still, they had removed his shirt, and the other was tattooing some symbols on the side of his arms, and upon his chest. They were small, but the shape was pleasing to her kind’s senses.

Dylan merely stood there, unmoving. She had cast a soothing aura over his mind. He was aware, conscious. But his will to resist was stunted, and it was now easy for her to arouse him physically as needed.

She came close, and ran a finger down his left pectoral, tracing the elegant pattern now upon his skin. He shivered, his nerves tingled at the contact.

Evelyn smiled as the other woman finished her work. She took both her hands and gently grasped the sides of his face. He felt her body through her dress, moving sensually against his as she spoke.

“Unlike most of your kind, this experience will be enjoyable for you. In the coming days and weeks, you will experience every pleasurable sensation your body could physically know. The others died, they felt suffering in their last moments, as do most prey when they are consumed.”

She kissed him, slowly pulling away as she continued.

“But you. You are like a bottomless well, a font that never runs dry. We’ll keep you, for the rest of your life. Pampered and doted on, you’ll want for nothing ever again. Is that not what all of your kind strived for? A good life of comfort and happiness?”

She gently ran her fingers down his bare arms. Gazed longingly at his body as he stood there in a trance-like state, biting her bottom lip as her eyes reached his groin.

___________________________________________________________

The sister watched as the evening sun descended beyond the horizon, and in the distance, the first of the women were coming.

Some of them had discarded the fabrics that the humans wore completely. Simply wearing some sandals to walk along the rough ground as they made their way to the house. Others wore dresses and garments that they had partially cut and torn into shapes and patterns that her kin found more pleasing, they lay upon their human bodies in strange webbed silhouettes.

They all walked on foot to the house on the hill, silently, the male ‘Dylan’, the only focus of their inhuman minds and desires. Their silent march would have been eerie, even frightening to most of this world’s species. To see a large group of naked and bizarrely covered women, all quietly walking to the same location.

The sister noted the variety of shapes in the forms that the human body seemed to have. Lithe and toned, more oval and thicker shaped, skins of different shades, and facial structures as unique as the stars themselves.

Her own kind was not as diverse by comparison. They were complex creatures in mind, but very simple in substance, an electro-magnetic field that held together with a lattice of simple interactions, much of which was photonic.

They were, simply put, creatures of light and electricity.

Once limited to the nebula and stars they called home, as they migrated on the stellar winds and the currents of the space beyond, they discovered creatures of other elements, carbon, and silicone, even a few phosphorene based.

If a species was complex enough, had a centralized mind, or ‘brain’ as these sapients called it. They found that they could inhabit these structures, ‘steal’ the forms of these more complex beings, and experience reality in completely new ways they could not do so on their own.

…and these ones, were one of the very few sapients they encountered, that derived pleasure from reproduction.

Merely an errand for most, a way to preserve their lines. Mating for the humans, and indeed much of the other life on this world, had evolved to be a rewarding experience emotionally, a motivation beyond the hormonal drive to partake in it.

She and a few others had already sampled the experience with Dylan the night before, and the pleasure and stimulation they received were worth sharing with the rest, alongside the sustenance that he would give them all.

As the women arrived and entered the house, the sister went to check on their prize.

Dylan’s mind was still foggy, and he found that he could no longer think certain things or try to make a plan to resist the ‘women’ anymore.

It was now obvious to him that these things weren’t human, merely looked like they were in some way.