A tuft of dark hair and brown eyes capped the tattered brown pile of fabric. Those eyes stared, transfixed, at the edge of the roof. Slowly, over and over in her mind, the woman behind them imagined leaping from the precipice and down to the concrete below. Every time, the moment she imagined her feet leaving the ledge, her mind forced itself back to her list. There was so much to do. Maybe too much. It was impossible. She should just get it over with and save everyone the time. More good would come from this anyway. No, it wouldn't. The legend would be about the girl who tried with every fiber of her being to defeat the school and failed miserably. There wasn't any way to win, though.
"I could just practice," Sayuri whispered to herself. This time her imagination got farther. She was halfway down the building before her mind snapped back, and this time it settled on the small paring knife tucked away under a folded pocket in the fabric.

It happened again. Whisperer had been cruising through the forest, seeking the source of an unusual psychic emanation. Suddenly, he was elsewhere. The shift was rather disorienting, but now that he had some idea what was going on, it was not so distressing. The psychic alien remained calm as he took in his surroundings.

The roof of the dormitory building. It was here that the strange skips in time and space had first begun. He had lost a year or more with that first jump and still had no idea why it occurred. A year - but a drop in the bucket for one such as he. Yet, still its loss disturbed him. It was as though he was incomplete.

As it had been on that fateful day, the sun was low on the horizon. But the long, tired rays it cast were a sharp contrast to the bright, fresh ones he remembered. Sunset then. He’d jumped forward at least sixteen hours. How did he know it was forward? Because he couldn’t remember how he’d gotten there.

A wave of intense sorrow and hopelessness jolted Whisperer from his reverie. Then a very clear image of a young woman leaping to her doom assaulted him. He recognized immediately that these thoughts and emotions were not his own, but they were so powerful that he was momentarily stunned. Only when the deadly imagined fall halted abruptly could he determine their source.

The young woman in her tattered cloak should have been the first thing he noticed. Especially since her mind was such a turbulent miasma of dark emotions. He must be slipping. The clear intention of self mutilation - a desperate attempt to feel anything besides the pain of her wounded psyche - shocked him again.

Whisperer’s mind raced, searching for some way to forestall the coming event. But before he could act, he realized that Sayuri had somehow detected his presence. Of course, given her state of mind, she might not have realized it yet.

It wasn’t that he was being particularly stealthy, but the transparent monster was used to remaining unnoticed until he drew attention to himself. The fact that she could ‘smell’ his psychic presence marked her as a sensitive. Interesting.

In the split second it took to complete those thoughts, Whisperer acted on instinct, projecting his call to the tormented woman. He had no control over the voice that she would ‘hear.’ Normally it was a trusted voice from the past, but he was not sure if she trusted anyone at this point.

Sayuri . . .

The sunset was terrible, in its way. It signalled the coming of an open, dark space. Those always carried something terrible, not like the closed spaces. She needed to get this done with and get back downstairs and under her bed for the night. Hopefully, whatever stank like rotting driftwood would finish with her quickly.

Or maybe it would leave her be when it saw the crimson on her arm. The edge of the knife rested hopefully against her skin. She suddenly remembered all the beasts below that hadn't been dissuaded by her more cyclical bleeding, which stayed her hand for the moment before the voice entered her mind.

She sprung to her feet and searched hard for the source. "Mother!" she yelled across the empty roof. "I'm sorry! I'll never even touch another blade! Just let me come home!" Her voice quieted to a soft sob as tears welled at the edges of her eyes. "Just let me come home."

Whisperer was taken slightly aback. He’d never encountered such a reaction before. But then, he’d never come into contact with someone as unbalanced as Sayuri before, either. At least he’d distracted her from cutting herself, for the time being. Still, he did not mean to misrepresent himself, despite the mimicking quality of his lure.

Sayuri . . . sorry . . . not . . . mother . . .

Though he had gotten better, it was still very difficult for the alien to use his call to communicate. The careful modulation required took more effort than any of his victims could appreciate. Understandable, he supposed, given the fundamental relationship of predator to prey.

Soon after he ‘spoke,’ Whisperer deliberately descended into Sayuri’s line of sight. His huge transparent bulk caused the waning rays of the setting sun to ripple as he moved down to about eye level. He kept his movements smooth and tried to project a feeling of calm to the distraught woman as he glided toward her, planning to stop about eight feet away - just within reach of his tentacles.

She sighed heavily and fell back into a sitting bundle of body and cloth. Not Mom, just something that sounded like her in the woman's mind, though the resemblance was fading with each word. Her eyes slowly took in the outline of the thing hinted at by the setting sun. "Jellyfish. Or Driftood. Whatever. Just get it over with," she said, forlorn. Her left arm slid out of the cloak and shoved the fabric back away from her front to expose most of her body to him. Her right hand still clung to the small blade, and she briefly considered attempting to ram it through the invisible attacker. It wouldn't have made a difference. Her left hand slid up and began to loosen the wrap over her modest breasts as tears of sorrow and shattered hope ran down her cheeks. Maybe the thing would be clumsy and drop her over the edge. If she got lucky, it would just be a broken leg, and she could lay up somewhere waiting to recover and hiding where she couldn't be reached.
If she got really lucky, she'd land on her head, and it would all be over instantly.

How much pain and suffering had this young woman gone through to be so ground down? It was almost painful to see how resignedly she accepted her fate. Then he sensed she was considering an attack.

Whisperer tensed, preparing to launch a barrage of electrically charged and venom-coated stinging tendrils if it came to that. Luckily, it wasn’t necessary. In a way, the creature had been glad to see that spark of fire flare in Sayuri’s mind, but it was just as well that her depression won out. He didn’t want to sting this one; he didn’t want to hurt her at all. He just wanted to make her feel good and forget about her troubles for a few hours . . . whether she wanted to or not.

He watched silently as the woman began to loosen her clothes. There was no art to the action; no coy teases (not that he expected any). It was just a utilitarian measure she took to ensure her already tattered garments remained intact.

Not knowing how the unpredictable girl would respond, Whisperer slowly reached a nearly invisible tentacle toward her. He meant to provide assistance in removing the remaining articles, though he doubted she would believe him capable of such a kindness.

Sayuri was as bare as she felt she needed to be by the time her eyes picked the tendril coming towards her. She half-lay across the opened cloak and spread her legs slightly to expose the tangled mess of pubic hair towards the thing. The collar of the cloak still held close to her neck, and the eternal leather bracelet settled calmly against her left hand.

"Go on. That's what you're after, isn't it?" When the tip of the transparent thing slid further up, she started to grow slightly confused. Was it after her chest? A cold razor of fear glanced briefly along the back of her mind. It wouldn't go for her throat, would it? Restitching the button that held the last wrap of closed fabric around her wouldn't be a problem if it got torn away, but the rational parts of her psyche knew what happened when she was threatened there. Another razor, sharper and colder, drove those thoughts hard away. If this thing could whisper into her mind, it could probably read from it too. She furiously tried to focus back on something else, and her eyes once more found the edge of the roof. Leaping from it began replaying in her mind, though more urgently this time, as if she might escape this creature and all the others with a single jump. The grim thought was oddly comforting, and her body relaxed to let him finish what he was doing.

So little she understood, despite her experience. Of course he would take her between the legs eventually, but that was just a means to an end for him. What he was after was far deeper within her being, beyond the reach of any physical touch. He sought nothing less than her life-force; the very essence of her being. And he had to make her body burn with ecstacy to get to it.

Whisperer paused when he sensed the fear his prey felt in response to the thought that he might touch her throat. As she suspected, he could, indeed, read her thoughts, but that was not the reason he was aware of her weakness. He could read her bio-rhythms just as easily and could practically see that she was very sensitive there. Still, he hadn’t planned on taking advantage of that weakness just yet.

If she felt the need to keep her neck covered, he would leave her that comfort for now. Perhaps when he had heated other parts of her body she would expose her tender secret to him. In the meantime, he had plenty to work with.

He withdrew the tentacle slightly before working it underneath her. He added several more to the mix as he lifted her gently from the ground, cloak and all. His appendages formed a sort of web over which the tattered cloth was spread, creating a relatively comfortable hammock for her to lay on. Since she was being so cooperative, he didn’t bind her arms and legs, leaving her free to move how she would in the little nest he had made for her.

Once he had her snugly in his grasp, the creature extended his trunk-maws. The large appendages descended toward the girl below, homing in on their targets. Two were probably easily guessed, as the circular orifices settled over her shapely breasts, but the other two moved far lower than required to reach the other obvious target. They continued down and down her legs, only stopping when they were positioned over her toes.

Four ‘tongues’ sprouted from each maw, moving to explore the flesh beneath them. Eight of them danced lightly over Sayuri’s breasts, caressing and squeezing almost like fingers, though they avoided contact with her nipples as yet. Four more began working each of her feet. Though they were toughened and calloused from walking barefoot all the time, the monster’s skill was great and his psychic awareness allowed him to home in on the places where his ministrations would be most effective.

Strange and doubly strange. It was bearing her aloft, but the thing had neither bound her nor threatened her. It most certainly had to be in her mind, Sayuri reasoned, if it didn't consider her threatening. What bothered her was how comfortable the thing seemed. The last attribute she ever would have applied to any of the previous attacks she could remember was 'comfortable'. The memories made her feel slightly ill as they ran past her consciousness in a rapid stream. At there edge, another thought brought her close to wretching.

What if this thing was trying to be nice to her? She couldn't entirely understand why such an idea made her so ill, but it did nonetheless. It vanished, though, when she saw the trunks reaching out towards her through the watery haze of the tears still clouding her eyes. The transparent creature was after what they all were, in the end. She lay back down as the tongues wrapped over her breasts and feet. That was weird. Why did it feel like it was licking her calloused, dirty feet? And why did it feel so comforting?

That was no matter. Her back arched slightly to subconsciously press her small, annoyingly tender breasts further against the tongues. The pleasure was starting to edge into her mind, and with it came the normal disgust that her body would abandon her like this. She had what she needed to distract herself this time, though. She shoved her right arm across her eyes and nose, sniffed hard to clear the end of her tears away, and brought her left arm up and rapidly across the blade. Crimson bloomed in a thin line, culled forth by a practiced hand. The pain seared the pleasure away and washed over her as the blood flowed evenly from the shallow wound. Her left arm reached past the edge of her cloak to keep the warm liquid from staining it and let the drops fall on the tentacles bearing her aloft.

He had become overconfident. Though he sensed Sayuri’s intent a fraction of a second before she acted, he did not move fast enough to stop her from cutting herself. The pain that washed away the pleasures he was creating was anathema to the psychic being. Though he had been known to use pain on those he felt would be stimulated by it, this was entirely different. His prey was using it to escape the effects of his assault. That was not only disturbing, but also counter-productive. He could not allow such hindrances to continue.

Whisperer abruptly moved his maws clear of his captive’s body, then he lashed out with one of his stinging tendrils. The thin, feathery appendage struck like a whip across the forearm of the hand that grasped the blade. A short electric shock caused the muscles of the limb to spasm as it propelled a tiny bit of his venom through her flesh. He applied just enough of his fast-acting toxin to paralyze that arm in an effort to communicate the disdain he had for her actions as well as show her what he could do if she continued to press the issue.

Shortly thereafter, he sent one grasper to wrestle the knife from her weakening grip, while he used yet another to seize the wrist of her wounded arm to hold it out straight so that he had clear access to the injury. Even while these attempts were underway, he also extended one of his phallic tentacles, moving it toward the seeping wound.

The woman cried out sharply as her hand was struck and the tingle of electricity carried up her arm. It hadn't really occurred to her how brash that action had been until her favorite blade was yanked from her grasp. It had taken her forever to find something small and sharp like that, especially since each trip to the kitchen resulted in an extra ten pounds of knives and forks disappearing into the pockets within her cloak. She needed them much more than the other students, of course. She suddenly found herself wondering where those tongues had gone in the confusion as her mind finished its rapid burst or thought.

As the tentacle grasped her wounded arm, the resignation sank back in. No point in trying to even trying to distract herself now. She fell down into the sort of hammock it had made for her and stared blankly up at the sky. The token resistance had smoothed the hardest edges of her depression, and the pain had started to wash them lightly, but there was still naught but grief clinging to her. She was never going to win, never going to complete the list, and never get a chance to rest. Her shoulders turned slightly towards the motionless arm and pressed her body against it. At least it still had feeling. Whatever was reaching for her arm would probably numb the lingering sting of the wound as well, and it certainly wouldn't let her shove her nails through her palm.

It seemed his demonstration had been enough. That was good, he didn’t want to have to sting her any more. He remained alert for any more such sudden acts of resistance, however. He sensed her renewed resignation, but he was not one to make the same mistake twice if he could help it. A full-force sting would be Sayuri’s reward if she tried such a stunt again - then she would be completely helpless until her body surrendered to him.

Whisperer set the small knife down on the rooftop nearby. He had a mind to take it from her completely, but since it seemed to be a treasured possession, he would make sure it was returned to her when he was finished. He did not want to do anything more to cause the grief she felt to strengthen.

He would get to burning that depression from her with the fires of passion soon enough, but first, he had a wound to tend to. He held her arm gently but firmly as he brought his phallic tentacle to it. If Sayuri was paying attention, she might be able to make out enough of its shape to realize what it was, so he was prepared for a renewed struggle.

With sheer force of will, the transparent monster forced his flaccid member to begin producing his pre-seminal fluid. He carefully applied several drops along the length of the shallow cut she had made on her arm. Almost immediately, the flow of blood stopped. Soon, the pain of the wound dissolved in an energetic tingle as the wound began to close.

Though dozens of times faster than the young woman’s natural healing, the process was really rather slow. It would be several minutes before she was completely healed, but after a few seconds, the injury should no longer be a hindrance to his assault.

He continued to hold that arm immobile as he returned his maws to their stations. Once again rough cat-like tongues began to explore Sayuri’s breasts, stroking and kneading the petite mounds almost like fingers. The other two sets resumed massaging her feet with the same uncanny intuition and expert precision as before. Whisperer intended to work her feet and legs until they were more relaxed than she thought possible, and it all began with the dirty, toughened skin of her soles.

Brown eyes followed the blade closely as it was set aside from her. The terrible thought began to gnaw at the edge of her already wounded mood again, then rapidly faded as she settled back against her cloak. Dozens of further weapons were within her reach, but she made no move towards any of them. The slightest twinge of thurst crept at her throat, and she resolved to go in search of water once this was over with.

The thought of having to find something to drink brought with it memories of dry times in the endless night below, and her eyes decided they could spare more water to attempt to wash away the disgust with herself that welled up in her throat. Her right arm, still limp, was useless to try them, and so it was that she could only watch the tendril reaching towards her arm through blurred vision. The shape of the thing came to her at the head of a wave of revulsion moments before the clear juices pressed at the shallow cut she'd made. When the wound began clotting and healing faster and the pain smoothed itself cleanly from her body, the terrible thought returned to crest another wash of nauseous distaste that brought her nearly to retch into the heavy cloth on which she lay.

The thing was being kind to her. Her stomach churned at the idea. When it had happened upon her, she would have spurned the comforts of even her lover's arms because she was far too wretched to be deserving of such a thing, but this was foul beyond comprehension. Perhaps it was what she had earned for being so useless in her tasks. Perhaps these beasts were the only thing resembling comfort she'd ever feel again. Her body slumped back into the soft, swaying grasp of the invisible web bearing her aloft. Her eyes blinked hard to clear the last scatter of tears she could shed for herself from them as the tongues wrapped over her once more. The pleasure dug at her mind like claws as crude insults echoed silently in her mind. She was motionless now in his grasp aside from the unwelcome firming of her tender chest and the gradually quickening rise and fall of her breath.

Whisperer was unsure why his kindness incited such an adverse reaction from his prey. His knowledge of human psychology was too limited to even begin to fathom such a complex thought process. Perhaps it was because the idea challenged her belief that all ‘monsters’ were evil . . . or, perhaps not. It mattered little, for there was little he could do about it.

He briefly wondered if cruelty would provoke a more favorable response. The idea was quickly discarded though. When he had first come to this island, he might well have tried it, but his time here had changed him. Besides, a sudden change in his behavior at this point would be suspicious. And, this young woman had been hurt so many times and so grievously in the past that he felt the need to show her that not all ‘monsters’ were as hateful as the ones in her previous experiences.

Decision made, Whisperer pressed on. He only hoped that the pleasure and relaxation he meant to give her would soon override her nausea at the thought of his kindness. Doing his best to ignore the silent litany of curses he sensed from his prey, the alien focused on his actions.

He directed his tongues to fondle Sayuri’s breasts with the same skill and uncanny insight that he showed in massaging her feet. His psychic ability to ‘read’ her body allowed him to target just the right places for maximum effect. Yet, still, he avoided her nipples, tongues flicking tantalizingly close, but never quite touching.

Below, the massage passed on to the next phase. Both maws shifted to the young woman’s right leg, holding it slightly above the tentacle and cloak ‘bed.’ Their tongues worked her calves, starting just above the ankle and working slowly up. The motions were meant to leave a gentle warmth in their wake.

Of course Whisperer noticed his captive’s growing thirst, and he certainly had enough fluids to spare . . . But Sayuri was still too disturbed by his actions, too unpredictable. He didn’t know if he could react fast enough if she decided to bite. Besides, she would certainly abhor such a kind action. The time would soon come that she would have to imbibe a quantity of his pre-cum, but he intended to wait until the pleasures he bestowed had time to weaken her hate. Still, the member remained in her field of vision, slowly hardening and beginning to drip without being prompted. He was fairly certain he would be able to sense if she became amenable to accepting a taste.

Sayuri tugged lightly at her still-held arm. Her eyes were still blurred by the tears, and she needed something to wipe them with in lieu of her paralyzed limb. She was starting to accept the idea that the aberrations were the only comfort she'd ever receive from here forward. The guilt over what she'd done, and more over what she'd failed to do, weighed heavily atop her revulsion to suppress it somewhat.

Beneath it all, a tiny spark of defiance still burned. It could make her its plaything, it could make her body respond to the writhing tongues, but it wouldn't make her enjoy it. Doubt immediately began gnawing at the thought as she felt her leg lifted and soothed almost beyond comprehension. Years of practice with her own fingers over tired muscles couldn't compare to the writhing massage she was now receiving.

Her head lolled back against the gentle carriage holding her aloft, and brown, hazy eyes settled on the hardening shaft once more. The light caught its edges like the burning lick of fire, and her disgust built slightly once more. She pondered, just briefly, snapping at it with her teeth, but she realized that it would either absorb the blow or else earn her another stinging slap from the driftwood-scented thing.