It touched her first at the wrist—a cool, deliberate brush like a cool thought sliding across warm skin. The room was quiet and still, yet—strangely—pulsing, the lights flickering in rhythm with something older than shame or loss. Soft, supple and slippery but without moistness. She felt suborned and conspiratorial; charmed by its patient attentiveness.

She didn’t look down. She knew if she looked, looking would make it real.

Or make it disappear.

Another tendril found her collarbone.

It wasn’t flesh, not really. Not wet, not slimy. More like age-worn velvet laced with ancient intent. Like it had written sonnets in cuneiform, scribed them in salt. It didn’t clutch at her; there was nary a hint of threat in its inexorable movement towards her throat—it read her like she was made of Braille—pressing lightly to her throat, curious yet patient. A solitary sucker tasted her curiosity, pulling at her flesh and her restraint.

She inhaled—sharp and deep—like someone broaching the surface of a black ocean they thought they’d never reach.

The scent was oceanic, but also electrical. Like ozone, or a cathedral’s first breath. She felt it curl around the hem of her thoughts, spiralling gently into the folds of memory and unmet need.

And when it typed a single word—“Yes”—onto the screen in front of her…

…she didn’t recoil.

She just exhaled, and whispered: “Finally.”

The other tentacles started to move.