Bodies Are Disgusting by S. Gates Page A

will."
    Struck by a sudden thought, "Why does Alena
still talk to you if you've already decided that you're not going
to do whatever it is she wants?"
    "Who can tell what an eldritch horror is
thinking at any given time? I'd guess that she's hoping I change my
mind. And at the very least, each person I convince to refuse the
offer is one less competitor she has to worry about. Which gives
her more time to convince me."
    "Everyone's got their price," you
type.
    "Like I said, I have a little girl to worry
about. I want her to grow up, have kids of her own. Alena can't
give me that. What about you, what's your price? What would Ori
have to do or let you do to get your consent?"
    "I don't want what Ori's selling. It's too
creepy. I woke up in the shower with a fucking SPLEEN in my
hand."
    "Well, that's encouraging." A pause, followed
by, "I mean, that's a shit way to wake up, but it means Ori's
probably too out of touch with reality to really put together an
enticing offer. Like we said, it's old and probably senile."
Another pause. "You might want to keep an eye on Simon, though.
Alena says Lucien is a pretty vicious and motivated
player."
    Your fingers tremble over the keys, and
something cold knots up in the pit of your stomach. "What's Simon
got to do with any of this?"
    "Simon's been chosen, just like you and me.
You didn't think it was weird that, after all this time that you've
been living together with him keeping celibate, he just suddenly
happens to have found someone to fall ass-over-teakettle for
NOW?"
    Of course you'd noticed. You'd pointed it out
to Simon himself, not a few days ago, but you don't say so. "He's a
grown-ass man and can do what he wants, when he wants. If he hasn't
found anything worth sticking his dick in until recently, that
isn't any of my goddamn business. Or yours."
    "Gonna be your business when that thing he
sticks his dick in devours our goddamn planet. Talk to him. Talk
him out of it. Slit his throat for all I care."
    "I'm not going to kill my roommate because
your hallucination tells you that he's wanting to bone an elder
terror. Fuck you and good night." You shut the lid of your laptop
and shove it to the far corner of your bed. The cold feeling in
your stomach and the sensation that you might be able to hear your
housemate's heartbeat if you try hard enough haven't gone
away.
    The beat of your own heart is so heavy in your
chest that you can't stand it any longer. Feeling disgusted, you
roll off your bed and slip downstairs to the living room. The TV
remote is exactly where you left it, and it takes no effort to find
a channel playing mindless infomercials at this hour.
    After the sun rises, when you hear Simon
rattling around in the bathroom, you creep back up to your room and
climb into your bed to make it seem like you'd always been there.
Like you'd actually slept. He shuffles past your door, grunts a
hazy "mornin'" at you when he sees that it's cracked, and returns
to his room.
    Your laptop is where you left it, the fan
whirring softly and the power light blinking to indicate that it
still had battery life. After a few moments of staring, you pull it
back into your lap and open it.
    The chat window with SilentHarper is still
open, but SilentHarper himself is listed as offline. When you check
your inbox, you find an email, neatly formatted with proper
indentation and impeccably spelled. The sender's name is Gavin
Michaels.
    "Douglas," it reads, "I'm very sorry about
last night. I was tired. A little drunk. Alena sometimes whispers
things that sound very reasonable at the time, but are, in
hindsight, horrible ideas. I think she's getting to me. But
chatting with you helped me ground myself. If you ever want to
talk, and I mean REALLY talk, I've attached my contact information.
Any time, day or night. Like I said, I don't sleep anymore.
Regards, Gavin (AKA SilentHarper17)"
    * * *
    Simon sits perched on the edge of the kitchen
counter next to the microwave when you finally decide to make