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Lepias Odd Encounter Sr Novel 241013

In the newly spruced-up living room of Apartment 104, amid the murmur of a gentle rain outside, an uncanny exploration of past and future unfolds between two oddly paired friends, Lepia and Fayad. The room, a blend of antique charm and minimalist modernity, sets the stage for a conversation that veers into the supernatural. Lepia, possessed by a horde of anguished spirits—those of countless moths drawn fatally to human-created light over the decades—becomes a conduit for their desperate, collective yearning for warmth and life. This possession manifests through unsettling physical transformations in Lepia, as countless tiny faces and moth-like apparitions ripple across her skin, urging Fayad to relinquish the fiery essence of his being. The air around them grows inexplicably cold, an added layer to the eerie atmosphere that Lepia's condition fosters.

The chilling encounter crescendos when Lepia, driven by the insatiable ghosts within, bites Fayad, drawing blood in a haunting mimicry of intimacy gone awry. Fayad, in a desperate bid for self-preservation, taps into his arcane powers, unleashing a potent force that not only repels Lepia's advances but consumes the spirits enslaving her. As Fayad's magic incinerates the spectral horde, a transformation occurs within Lepia; the darkness that had overtaken her is extinguished, leaving her cleansed of the spectral presence. This act of liberation does not come without a cost, as the bond shared in the living room becomes a crucible for suffering, understanding, and ultimately, an unexpected purification. The culmination of this spiritual storm leaves both Fayad and Lepia altered, bearing the weight of a shared, otherworldly ordeal that tests the limits of their resilience and friendship.
(Lepia's odd encounter(SRNovel):SRNovel)

[Sat Oct 12 2024]

In the newly painted Living Room of Apartment 104
The small, unassuming living room now feels refreshingly inviting after a
thorough clean-up. The aged furniture has been carefully arranged, giving the
room a sense of balance. Any fixable blemishes have been meticulously
addressed, with scratches in the paneling smoothed out and surfaces polished to
a subtle shine. Though the ceiling still bears some blotchy discoloration from water stains , a few strategically placed houseplants draw the eye away and
bring in a touch of nature.
A crisp, fresh coat of white paint covers the walls, illuminating the space
with a newfound brightness. The once-dated decor has been carefully integrated
into the rooms aesthetic: the green-glass table lamp now adds a quirky vintage
charm, while the overly floral watercolor painting is offset by modern,
minimalist touches a soft gray throw on the couch and a sleek wooden coffee
table. The overall result is a charming blend of old and new, with the
apartment feeling lived-in but lovingly cared for.

It is dusk, about 60F(15C) degrees, and the sky is covered by dark grey stormclouds. It's raining outside.

(Your target is possessed by an angry spirit that is forcing them to act out and putting themselves and/or others at risk. They must either defeat it or find a way to calm it down.
)
"Fine? I don't see why it wouldn't be fine. I'm different than people. I know I am." Lepia seems to speak casually, although a bit of distance seems to come to her eyes at that. "... I know this because people look at me strangely."

Just a normal conversation with a dozing pregnant woman and a dozing thug. Fayad and Lepia talking, discussing history, peering into their past to discover their future. The temperature is a bit cooler than normal, the rain is pat-pattering against the window, but the glowing green lamp and watercolor provide a cheer against the steadily growing winter. And spooky season is almost upon everyone. The time of witches, of ghosts and demons, of other entities besides. Where the barriers between worlds grow thinner and writhing spirits become more agitated. Stirred up in this particular month.

But here, in this modern apartment, with the clocktower bonging, heard across the entirety of the town. This is comfort. The comfort of friendship and life, of catching up with history, or the passage of time and gentleness.

For some reason whoever owned this apartment set it so the AC is always on. It's cool, and getting colder. Annoyingly so. A chill, a fogging, a tickling at the windows. Never more than that. Enough to be annoying. Not enough to be dangerous.

Those with warmer clothes - or with a burning coal in their hearts would likely be fine. And a certain amount of sensation, a malingering in the air, tasting strange.

Lepia stares at Fayad, long and intently, falling silent amidst the thunder and the lighting. Her unblinking, luminous eyes stare long and hard at him, as if trying to take in everything about him, all at once. Soaking in it. It is almost a trance-like state, drawn to it like a moth to a lamp.

Fayad glances at the air conditioning, remember the circumstances that led to its installation with a pensive frown. But then he's startled by Lepia's sudden, intense interest, looking over and then immediately glancing away, face flushed with embarassed dusky hues. "I, um, yes? Can I help you?", he murmurs.

Lepia doesn't respond to the question, standing up from her seated position and approaching him, slowly, as if still trapped in some manner of trance. If not stopped, she comes right up to him, similarly to a deer approaching someone holding out food, and basically flops next to him on the loveseat, getting close to him, as if the only warmth in the room could be found there, in his presence.

Fayad seems to find this both flattering and unnerving in equal measure, leaning away with his upper half but not moving his lower half, staring over at Lepia. "Um...hi..?", he trails off, simply waiting for what Lepia was intending to do.

While pressed into Fayad. Lepia's pupils are hugely dilated, zeroing in on the man, an overlap of speech and tongue and existence. Lips moving, whispering nothing, the whisper of languages that Fayad might know in his researches - developing into strange books. There is no subtlety here. A crawling thing, the skin moving, rippling on it's own, a hundred tiny faces moving over the flesh. Something that even Lepia themselves doesn't seem to be aware of. Up, down, tiny hands, tiny faces, tiny fluttering wings, little writhing wiggling larvae of phantom and twitching real flesh, comparing and contrasting and bringing together with Lepia's own activity. A tiny cacophany of murmured whispering things, all singing about life, mewling for it. A mayhem, a danger. Urging the man before to give in, to give up, to just relax and give that burning flame deep within his core. Urging the woman on and urging Fayad to lean into that embrace. They want nothing more than to share in that light and warmth, that desire. They sing of many things, many tiny voices, her hands slowly winding up to twine around him with sudden unnatural want and grip and hold. Her breath an icy thing that goes beyond mere physical chill as it washes over Fayad. A trembling of pale flesh. A thousand needy voices, any single one too tiny to stand on it's own but together making a slow cresting wave of singing and huming as the shadowy moths crawl up and down across the flesh around around, inching across her hands. Inching towards Fayad.

Fayad whispers, quietly, "What the actual fuck?", wracking his brain for what could explain this, because not even being from Oregon made someone act this weird. Or have faces or moths crawling over their body. Perhaps it was mancing, like the illusions Lepia had demonstrated, but...

Lepia continues to press into him, a slight soft coo-ing noise emanating from her throat as she presses fully against him. Her body was, quite literally, just skin and bones compared to the bagginess of her clothing; her uncomfortably skinny form not holding much in the way of comfort in return. She twitches slightly, nuzzling her face against his arm, before giving only a tiny chomp, a slight nibble on it, almost more of a loving chomp than an actual attempt at hurting him.

Fayad swallows audibly, but seems to be kind of into it judging by his response. He hesitantly reaches up with one hand and tries to lay it on Lepia's head. "This is, uh, really.. sudden, what're you doing?", he asks, in a desperate attempt to get something intelligible out of the cult child.

The reasoning becomes quickly obvious. It's ghosts. But not ghosts of people. A sapient sentient, yes, has more psychic pressure. But to Fayad's mind it comes, unbidden: A million million moths, over a hundred years, a confluence of insects. Burned. Singed. The fires of man, the glowing lights, the lure of luminescence traps that draw them into the mouths of insects and bugs to be devoured. And more recently: Cars. Headlamps. Bugzappers. Street lights that glow every night. The lighthouse itself gleaming. The pushing of boundaries on this October as it steadily approaches. And, perhaps, a portent of things to come, or a minor prophecy.

Lepia's mouth suddenly bites down harder. Sharper. The canines pierce the skin, sharp pinpricks of pain and blood seeping out and filling the girl's mouth with delicious, sickening warmth, the heat of that that demands and clamors. Certainly no vampires mouth, certainly not as foul or as dead nor as wickedly pointed, a rough tearing of the skin. A pain.

A sweet draw of one's life force to another. Fayad's own vulnerability to cold and chill producing illness and a certain suffering. This is definitely crossing some lines, and not the sort of intimacy one may want in this heartbeat moment. Writhing, twitching flesh, a pressure of the mind, the ghost trying to spread and get into Fayad too.

Fayad exclaims in a sharp, "Ow, fuck!", as his hand goes to try and shove Lepia away from him, the golden claw with more power than should be possible in his small frame. He clenches it, the talons clicking together as he metaphysically cauterizes the wound, driving them away with the full muster of his arcane power and lifeforce, standing up from the couch and turning to face Lepia warily.

Lepia is clearly out of it, eyes clouded over and hazy, hands twitching. Fluttering. It is like something is trying, desperately, to stretch out wings that are not present. A bit of blood is on her pale features, just a tiny bit. She whines as he attempts to withdraw, still wanting to draw closer, closer, to be close to him, to be him, to -inhabit- him.

Far from trying to fight, far from trying to flee, the entities pour into the flame of that life, that power, that Fayad shows. An eagerness, a glee, as they all willingly pour themselves directly from Lepia's form from her mouth in a dark wave, crawling through that blood that so shines and gleams and burns, pressing from Lepia's hands, her limbs, her body, pressing into that gauntlet. And there, they are incinerated instantly, just as they were in life, sizzling and popping and burnt away under a suddenness of impure fire and slowly spilling out into the air and the floor, all those fluttering shadows and just falling willingly into that mancy - and within the black moths that spill from Lepia's eyes and lips and fingernails and pass forth: There's a few, more rotten things, things writhing, trying to push back against the unrelenting waves, a few parasitic ghost-wasps that are forced in, squealing, dying, all the same. A singular even a normal human being could brush off. Even perhaps a few hundred.

Here it takes Fayad's magic.

And when it is over, Lepia feels brighter than before. The lights shine better. The cold is gone, the warmth and light is gone - and, perhaps, a recognition of Fayad's own internal warmth.