Thunder shook the windows of Ella's room, causing her to look up from her homework. She took out her headphones, listening to the heavy rain drum against the dormitory, squinting as a bolt of lightning brightly lit the gloomy night outside. Its really coming down out there. Reminds me of home, in a way. She smiled slightly, stretching her arms out over head and popping her shoulders, grunting slightly as the kink in her neck suddenly twinged, unhappy with her for staying bent over her desk for so long.

She absently chewed on her pencil, her thoughts turning from the storm, toward her own recent troubles. She'd been having horrible, disturbingly erotic nightmares lately. She woke up tired, drained, like she'd run a marathon, and a bit sore to boot. What is wrong with me? I was doing fine, until the other night. Was it playing the piano that triggered them? She frowned at the window, shivering slightly at the remembered feeling of hands, tentacles on her skin. They weren't real baby doll. Get a grip on yourself.

A more distant peal of thunder pulled her attention to the storm outside again, her mouth pursing as she thought. Why not? Haven't done that in a while, and it is pretty warm here. Grinning mischievously, she threw her pencil on the desk, standing from her chair and heading for her dresser, digging around until she found an old gray LSU T-shirt and a pair of raggedy running shorts of the same color. Stripping off her white pajama top and pants, she put them on the bed, pulling on the older garments with much wiggling and sucking in of breath. Damn, don't remember these being so tight. Grimacing, she unhooked her bra, finagling and twisting until she had it out of her shirt, tossing it on the bed as well.

Snagging a rubber band from the top of her dresser, she pulled her hair into a sloppy double ponytail. Now fully outfitted, she slid her key around her wrist, the elastic cord keeping it on. Quietly she opened her door, peeking into the hallway before sneaking to the stairs. Three flights down to the ground floor, where she once again stealthily crept past the dozing girl on desk duty for the night. Smirking to herself, she inhaled the rich, heavy scent of the pouring rain, wiggling her bare toes against the damp mat outside the dorm doors. It was well after curfew, but who else was going to be out in this kind of weather, right?

Who else indeed? It was one of those nights where not even the monsters wanted to come out and play. Why go out when all the girls were cooped up in their rooms, just waiting for a visit, yes? Well, luckily, or unluckily as the case may be, the aliens and so forth visiting this island were not all alike in the least. In fact, they had nothing more to do with each other than random tourists traveling through the same amusement park. Their likes, and their dislikes, were similarly disparate, some enjoying fear, others the power of domination, and others still after mere pleasure of their own.

And then there was Antipode. He, if you could call Antipode a he, didn't really care one way or the other for this particular planet's meteorological phenomena. As an entity that existed for the most part in dimensions that humans were scarcely able to even fathom at more than a mathematical level, let alone experience, the sorts of things that this planet had on the offering were oddly... flat? Perhaps that was one way to describe it. Nevertheless, a being which could handle the rigors, with proper preparation, of the center of a star wouldn't mind much the rainstorm.

Really, though, perhaps you could say he somewhat enjoyed it. The chaotic flow of individual droplets, all of which moved in the current of the atmosphere, were of some slight interest to Antipode, which would explain in part why he was out this evening. It's not like he had anything better to do, anyway. His current visitation on the planet being quite satisfactory, it was nice to just... go out into the rain.

Of course, little did he know but would come a young woman, right into the area he was in. She wouldn't see him, and he wouldn't let himself be seen... but the sight of a woman out here in the rain, when virtually everyone else on the island were held up indoors, intrigued him. So, for the moment, he'd keep an eye on her. And besides... once his curiosity as to why she felt the desire to come out here, and not in any rush either, was sated... well, he might as well play with her as he would any other girl he found so alone. Yes, indeed he would.

Unaware of her inhuman watcher, Ella glanced around, and oriented on the muted lights of the path leading toward the gardens maintained by the school. Stretching for a moment, she took a breath to prepare for the sudden chill, and jogged out from under the overhang into the rain. She shivered for a moment as the cool water poured down over her, soaking her clothing straight through to the skin, leaving very little to the imagination. Her vigorous movement quickly warmed her as she took the paved path through the trees, heading for the stone benches in the center of the garden, surrounding the main rose bed.

Despite her efforts to corral her hair, the rain soaked mass pulled and tugged free of the rubberband as she ran, sticking to her face in quite an annoying manner. Giving up, she stopped for a moment, in the dim pool of light cast by a lamp, and reached up to gingerly pull the useless band free. Wincing slightly as it caught a few raven strands, she shook her dripping mane out, combing it out with her fingers until it hung behind her limply. Mmmm, that actually felt pretty good, now that she thought of it.

Smiling at the simple pleasure of it all, she tilted her face up to the rain, digging her fingers into her scalp, before running them backward down through her hair, almost as if she was taking a shower outside. The posture served to bow her back slightly, her chilled nipples distending the shirt plastered to her gently rising and falling breasts. This was what she had come out here for, this cleansing feeling of the rain. She stood repeated the running of her fingers through her hair, letting the cool rain rinse her body and soul clean, salving over her fears and worries over her nightmares.

So. The young woman wasn't really going anywhere after all. She certainly wasn't acting like it. She was just out in this rainstorm, alone and enjoying herself as though this place wasn't the terribly "dangerous" place it was in reality. The air itself was warm, for the place showed no signs of really cooling down. But the water coming down, the rain, cooled things down to a temperature that one who liked to get wet could really enjoy. It was pleasant here, and the rain continued to fall with no signs of stopping, or in fact of ever slowing down. A slight gust of wind came, causing the rain to strike the young woman a bit more horizontally... as well as chill her a little more, the air feeling cool as it moved against her skin.

Antipode watched for a good long while as she enjoyed herself. He was satisfied now, having enjoyed the show as well as he could. Yes, a human would quite love, very much, the way her shirt stuck to her chest, the way her clothes clung to her. And he had grown to appreciate it, indeed. But, sadly, he wasn't one to find it the way a human would find it... no, what he was interested in was purely mental, or at the very least, coming from the expressions of sensation from a mind.

And it was rather funny, that she was doing this in part to deal with her dreams... because what was about to happen wasn't a dream at all. Or perhaps her dreams were about to become real? Either way, the salving effect would quickly dissipate as tentacles approached her in the darkness. And as they did, moving stealthily near the ground, there'd be a bit of lightning. (No worries, he'd make sure nothing would come near enough to strike her or anything like that!) Just for a short while, but what it would show, in that brief flash of light, were those tendrils approaching, just like in her dreams. Only if she looked, of course.

"Good evening." Came a voice, then, entering her mind. It wasn't a sound. It wasn't something she was sensing with her sense organs at all. It was something directly in her mind, like a thought. But it wasn't her thought. The voice, the tone, the words, were as if someone was speaking directly into her mind. Whcih was exactly what was going on. "It's quite rainy out here. But you seem to be enjoying yourself well enough... is that correct?"

Ella's eyes were closed, and turned upward to the sky, letting the rain fall on the closed lids as her fingers stroked through her hair. She blinked her eyes open at the flash of lightning, nervously making sure she wasn't the tallest thing around for the lightning to ground out on. Satisfied that the school buildings, tress and lampposts were all much more likely targets, she finished with her hair, pulling it all back behind her into a dripping mass, hoping it would stay out of the way. She took another look around to make sure she was heading the right direction, when she paused, blinking at the puddles on the ground. It looked like a snake or something was moving through the water, maybe driven out of its hole by the rain?

She gingerly started backing away, not really afraid, but not wanting to bother the poor thing. She stopped and looked around in confusion as alien thoughts echoed in her head. Bewildered, she shook her head a few times, looking for the source of the "voice" as she thought of it. The voice spoke again, without apparent source, and she sighed, shaking her head in disgust with herself. Now you're hearing things baby doll. You've got to stop doing this to yourself. Of course you're enjoying yourself, you came out here to wash away all the crap exactly like this that you've been putting yourself through lately.

Now thoroughly depressed, and convinced the voice was merely another sign of her own stressed and addled state, she turned away from the lamp and started to walk toward the center of the gardens, head hanging as even this had failed to help her steady herself.

This was an amusing reaction. She didn't recognize it as anything other than her addled senses... as he delved slightly, imperceptibly, into her mind, to see at the very least her surface thoughts, he found what she was thinking, and it was kind of funny, as it always was. She really did simply think the voice was her own mind, going crazy. And she was mad that it had ruined her little enjoyment, and... worries about erotic, tentacle filled dreams. Well, that was rather interesting. He could use that quite a bit, couldn't he?

"Um, actually, I'm not your subconscious, and you're not going crazy. So don't feel upset... though I am reading your mind a little bit, feel free to think whatever you like. I'm sure I've seen worse." He joked at her for a brief moment, but then decided to quickly clear things up. "I am Antipode... perhaps you'd know what kind of thing I am if you thought back to your dreams. You could even say I'm the answer to your dreams. But joking aside... what is your name?"

The tendrils were approaching again. They stayed out of the dim light as she entered the garden, staying there hidden, not even needing to be invisible at the moment. He was preparing, because if she did put two and two together and start panicking and running, he needed to be ready to catch her.

Ella jerked to a sudden halt as the voice returned, her hands going to her ears to make sure it was actually coming from inside her mind and not from someone hiding in the rain nearby. Goosebumps raised on her pale, rain-slicked skin as she slowly turned in circles, looking for whatever was talking to her. She wanted to run, to hide, but she couldn't pick a direction without knowing where whatever this thing was. Running would serve no purpose if she dashed directly into it.

Reading my mind? That sounds so familiar...like in my dream...What?! She grimaced at the turn of the conversation, her "dreams" flashing through her mind briefly, not dreams at all, if the telepathic creature chose to delve deeper. Shaking her head slightly, she thought frantically, arms rising to cross over her chest, covering her breasts as she suddenly regretted not wearing a bra.

"I'm Ella. I guess...it's nice to meet you...Antipode was it?" she tried to keep her tone neutral and polite, her feet shifting on the puddle covered concrete, her eyes darting from side to side, seeking a way out. Until she found one, it didn't hurt her to make conversation, if that was what this thing wanted.

The being gauged her reaction. Recognition, and, oddly enough, covering her breasts. Was that to hide from his prying eyes, worrying that he was peeping at her? Well, it wouldn't do much good to point out that the way she looked wasn't of much interest to him... she probably just assumed he would be as interested as any human, or even if not, her sense of privateness, which these humans seemed to tend to share when it came to their bodies, would cause her to do so one way or the other. Of course, more important was her panic. She wasn't too terribly scared, but if she could escape, she would, and that was something he'd have to watch. They were in a wide open area... but not need to cause her to take flight just yet.

"You as well, Ella. There are very few people who would come out at a time like this on the island, it seems. Certainly none that I'd seen that would come out for the pleasure of it. Well, until you, anyway. I found it curious, was all. I wouldn't know, personally, but do you find the rain refreshing? I suppose it would be, for a human who didn't mind getting wet."

And... here he was making small talk. Yes, in part he was of course stalling matters so that everything was in place... so that he could grab her easily enough, and make sure she was easily held, and easily grasped. But even so, that didn't diminish the fact that he wasn't feigning interest.

"Oh, by the way, please don't fret too much. No need to panic, even if you are talking to something you'd call an alien. It'd just make the whole process that much more difficult for both of us."

Ella listened curiously, even as she frantically searched for a way to escape. After all, it wasn't every day you had something making small talk into your mind. She mulled over what it(he?) was saying, even as she edged toward the center of the garden, toward the rose patch, the beginnings of an idea forming. Did she need to answer aloud? Could it read her responses straight from her mind? Wait...could it tell she was planning something?! She tried her hardest not to think about her idea, while still doing so. Yes, humans are good at contradictory things like that, after all.

"Rain reminds me of home is all. The smell, the feeling, everything. It comforts me, relaxes me. And rain isn't really any different than a shower, when you really think about it, so why worry about getting wet?" she answered honestly, seeing no reason to lie. The next set of words gave her pause as she thought back on her "dreams". That other thing had definitely looked like an alien, and it had spoken into her mind to. Was this thing the same kind of creature? If so, maybe it was just as slow. She started to turn and bolt off toward the central garden, casting a parting shot without looking back.

"Sorry to be rude Antipode, but I really have no interest in whatever process you're talking about!" she yelled. She really did hate being rude, but she wasn't willing to wait and find out if this alien wanted to do the same things to her the last one did. Unless stopped by the tendrils, she was going to be at the low fence encircling the roses in a flash...

(My internet has been incredibly bothersome lately. The thunderstorms haven't been helping! Anyway, I hope to continue!)

It wasn't everyday people made small talk with their minds, no. But for Antipode, that was simply his MO, something he did every time. Sure, he appreciated that what he was doing would seem incredibly unusual to a human who didn't have experiences with such things... but there was one other thing that many humans had, and that was adaptivity. If they observed it, they could generally handle it, once they had enough time and experience with it. Perhaps this would even be of benefit to the girl. After all, knowing it was real, and not a dream, might help prepare her to deal with others. Of course, Antipode saw nothing at all self serving in such observations at all. He didn't feel any guilt to begin with, so why would he need to create an excuse?

"Hmm. Well, that is definitely a good reason to enjoy the rain. I never really thought of it that way. Then again, I never have showers myself. But the similarity, now that you mention it, is quite striking. It really does make sense. Showers, and even rain showers, even share the same word in the English language. Hmm. I wonder what that means about the human mind. I suppose, even if you've made one, if you only copy it you never gain a truly complete understanding... how unfortunate."

Yes, the monster who was about to rape her had just gone on a tangent on the habits and tendencies of humans, as if they were a species of bird he was observing or something. And sharing those ruminations with the human who he was about to rape. Certainly not the normal pillow talk, there was that, at least...

"Comparatively speaking, you're not rude at all. In fact, this seems to fall under the milder, and politer, side of the spectrum of responses. Did you know some have tried anything they could to harm me? It seems so unnecessary. After all, my only interest is in creating pleasure. I must admit it's rather fun for me, as well, to cause a human girl pleasure, so it's not an entirely selfless activity, but... I have no interest in terror, pain, or domination in and of itself. Though that will almost certainly not help too much, if history is to judge."

For the moment, Ella thought she had a good handle on the situation. Whatever was out here with her seemed pretty mild mannered so far, however unsettling its method of communication may be. Slipping and skidding on the wet pavement, she made it apparently unhindered to the large circular patch of roses in the middle of the garden, stopping to suck in a few breaths and look warily back the way she had come. What does this thing even look like? Is it big, small? Can I even see it at all? She shivered at the idea of some unseen mass stalking her, and turned back around, gripping the rail and vaulting over, wincing as she landed in the roses, thorns pricking at her bare feet and ankles. If this thing didn't like pain, maybe a dash through the roses would put it off.

"Uhm...I wouldn't even know how to begin to hurt something that speaks into my head, so I don't think you need to worry about that. And to be fair, I don't like being told what to do, or feel. So, if you'd kindly just leave me be, we'll both be happy. If not, then I'm afraid I'll have to call you a liar...and possibly a slow learner as well. No offense meant, of course," she tried to keep talking, as it seemed the alien was fond of it. The longer you can keep it distracted, the longer you have to escape, if that's even possible. Keep your cool baby doll, keep your cool. She gritted her teeth and quickly scanned her eyes over the rose bushes, looking for the thinnest, easiest path through the tangle. She was going to get her ankles shredded regardless, but hopefully it would give the thing behind her pause as well.

Had he really been almost distracted to the point where she could escape? He was slipping! He felt actual embarrassment, and he let her feel it too. A wave of the emotion passed over her. Yet... it wasn't like SHE was the one feeling it, more like she could sense someone else she was physically close to was having it. The way you'd feel if you saw someone who was late to his first day of work, or something like that. The impression was such she might almost be able to see him blushing. Or at least would, if she had been able to see him, or imagine what he looked like, or even if he was capable of that physiological trait.

Of course, she hadn't really gone the correct way at all. In the central garden she was even farther away from the road out of here... and now she was in the rose bushes, which would slow her down even more. Antipode was not something that needed to be in any specific location, so such movement didn't bother him... the rose bushes would certainly not be a problem. And, of course, her fears flared in his mind. It was time to end this part, at least to an extent.

"Well, I don't see why you'd call me a liar. i'm going to do what I intend. Which is very simple. I'm going to give you pleasure, and stimulate the nerves in your body to create as good a feeling in your body as possible. I know how much self-consciousness you girls tend to have, but really, it's not that bad at all. And I'm definitely not going to hurt you... so I don't even see where the lie is to begin with. Oh, and I think I should reveal part of myself now."

Then she would see them. Here in the bushes, even, tentacles. Actual tentacles, of various sizes, with various kinds of tips... it was like some kind of dream... but this time, it was clearly not a dream, at all. And they were there, as if coming from nowhere at all. There was no real source.

She didn't know where the sudden urge to blush and look away came from, but she suspected it was the alien messing with her mind. Could it simply control her as easily as it spoke? No sense worrying over that possibility, as there wasn't a damn thing she could do about it. She took a few ginger steps deeper into the roses, biting her lip to keep from crying out as the cruel thorns pierced her skin. Bear with it, just keep going. Make it to the other side, and maybe you can get away. The pain sharpened her focus, cleared her fear a bit. At least the alien wasn't talking about eating her or anything. Small comfort, but she'd take what little she could get.

"I say you're a liar, because you stated you have no interest in terror or pain! How can that be true when you admit to causing it? Case in point, I am quite scared, and these thorns are more than a little painful. You speaking to me, chasing me, caused me to jump into this patch to try and escape. If you weren't after me, I wouldn't be in pain right now, am I wrong? Would your "past experience" support that as well?" she panted out through her teeth. Maybe if she poked holes in it's(his?) logic, she would make it stop and consider. Hell, any distraction she could throw at it woul-Whoa! She slid to a painful halt in the muddy flower bed, thorn studded vines tangling around her ankles. Where had those come from?!

She stared aghast at the appearing tentacles, turning this way and that frantically, brushing errant hair from her eyes to better find them. Lightning flashed over head, clearly illuminating that there was no path to escape the snaking tendrils, no where to run any longer. She thought she'd been so close!

Hmm. Did she really take it as an urge to feel embarrassed herself? How unusual. He would have to be more careful, since such things could be so easily misunderstood. How to transfer an emotion, yet still show unequivocally that it was not an emotion for her to feel, but instead an emotion he, himself, was feeling?! Such things were difficult still, because normally humans couldn't FEEL another person's emotions directly... so what was he to do? Well, he'd just have to figure it out some way.

"I'll be clear. I have no interest in causing pain or distress, but sometimes things happen. Of course, if you'd really like me to make absolutely sure you feel no pain, I can do that easily enough."

With that, several tentacles very quickly came up to her. Large ones, wrapping around her waist securely, and her legs too, and lifting her quickly up out of the rosebush. It carried her away and then, oddly enough, set her down again, away from the thorns! Then, several tendrils moved quickly, and pulled out the thorns that already stuck into her... as they touched her, they caused a slight tingling, and then the pain went away where they touched. Which made sense, since he had metabolized a painkiller which could work through the skin... a useful thing to do, in this situation.

"But anyway, let's say you have no interest in killing. Unless you avoid eating, or walking, how would you avoid causing or benefiting from the deaths of one living thing or another? Same thing, really. Besides, I'm sure you'll really like what I'm about to do. Even without any manipulation of your brain, or chemical stimulants. I don't even need to use those, usually. Though the pain killer works well, doesn't it?"