Allure of Dreams Ch. 01

The first monster girl noticed his gaze. With a coy smile, she roughly cupped her breast with one hand, her fingers sinking into the soft flesh. With her other hand, she reached down to her pussy and slightly spread her lips, revealing her insides to be glistening with her juices. "Come on, don't be shy," she said flirtatiously, "look all you want."

The young man gulped. He was certain that this had to be a dream, despite how realistic the sensations were. Clearly, whoever he was, he had an overactive imagination. And if it was a dream... there wouldn't be any harm in indulging.

"I -- I -- uh," he began, "Are you really okay with me? I -- I don't have any experience -- "

"Don't worry!" the monster girl replied. Her smile deepened. "In fact, there's another layer of fun to devouring virgins. Don't worry, the three of us are very experienced. We'll make sure you feel good the whole time."

The three monster girls were now so close that he could feel their hot breaths on his skin. Still frozen with disbelief at the situation, he was about to be pounced on and ravished...

...when they were engulfed in a cloud of smoke! It had an acrid smell which burned the young man's nose, but the monster girls had an even stronger reaction. They doubled over, coughing and wheezing. Before any of them could properly react to the change in situation, someone ran up to the young man and grabbed him by the arm.

"Come with me!" barked a male voice.

The young man was too shocked to question the command. He allowed the newcomer to lead him out of the smoke, nearly stumbling a couple of times. They ran at full speed into the mess of trees. By the time they stopped, the monster girls were nowhere in sight.

The young man leaned against a tree to catch his breath. He looked up and saw that the other person was a bald man, probably in his thirties, with a muscular body that was only concealed by a loincloth. The other man was looking warily in the direction they had just come from. Once he seemed satisfied that they weren't being pursued, he turned to the young man and said, "The name's Aaron. You all right?"

Still panting with exhaustion, the young man replied, "I'm fine, thanks. I -- uh, well, thanks for saving me."

"Don't mention it." Aaron said. "Tell me, how long have you been here?"

"Well..." the young man said, "To be honest, I think it's been less than twenty minutes since I woke up. I -- I don't have any idea how I got here."

"No, you wouldn't," Aaron said. His head swivelled around as he scanned the surroundings. "It's not safe to stay in one spot for too long. Follow me, I'll take you someplace safe -- as safe as it ever gets around here."

They walked through the increasingly-dark forest. If he didn't have Aaron as a guide, the young man would definitely be wandering around in circles by now.

From time to time, Aaron would stop briefly, kneel over the tracks left by the two of them and wave his fingers while muttering something. The leaf litter would shift and cover up their tracks, leaving no signs that they had walked this way. When asked, Aaron explained, "It's a spell I learned that helps keep me hidden. It covers up the tracks we leave on the ground and also gets rid of our scent. Though it still leaves traces of magic around, so it doesn't work on all Sylvalans." As if that were an adequate explanation, he continued without another word.

Spell? Magic? Sylvalans? This has to be a dream. But what kind of dream involves encountering sexy monster girls ready to jump you, only to be rescued by a strange man?

Eventually, they arrived at a large tree that, at first glance, seemed no different from any of the others. However, Aaron bent down and slipped between the roots, almost instantly disappearing from sight. When the young man followed his lead, he found that there was a fairly large space in the centre of the root network. When he looked back, the tangle of roots completely obscured the sight of the forest. It was a simple but effective hideout.

There were several bags in the hideout. Aaron rummaged around in one and pulled out another loincloth, which he handed to the young man. With Aaron's instructions, the young man was able to roughly put it on. He was slightly uncomfortable at wearing someone else's spare, but it would have been rude to refuse and in any case it would be even more uncomfortable to remain in the nude.

The hideout was too short for them to stand so the two of them sat down. After making sure that the coast was clear, Aaron said, "Right, we shouldn't be found, so long as we both keep quiet. Now then, I didn't catch your name."

The young man hesitated for a moment before answering, "I -- the truth is that I don't remember."

Aaron reacted with a mixture of surprise and alarm. "Are you sure about that?" He said. "Is it possible that you're just confused from suddenly ending up here?"

"I'm positive," the young man answered. "I tried to remember for so long, but it's no use. I can't remember anything about who I am, who my family and friends are, where I live -- all I remember is waking up here."

"Hmm," Aaron said, stroking his chin. "Do you remember anything about the planet Earth, or humans?"

"Uh -- a bit -- I remember things that everyone knows, like that it's the third planet from the Sun, it's got seven billion people on it -- I even remember that those are things that everyone is supposed to know," the young man said in a fluster.

Aaron nodded. "That's what I know as well," he said. "Anyway, we need to think of a name for you. It's not just more convenient for me to talk to you -- without a name, you won't be able to establish an identity for yourself, and you'll never be able to pull yourself together."

"That -- that makes sense," the young man said.

"Hmm... I'll be the first to admit that I'm terrible with names," Aaron said. "All I can think of are the generic ones like John and David and Bill. Don't suppose any of those appeal to you?"

The young man thought about this for a while. At least twenty or thirty names drifted through his mind, none of them sticking. Eventually, a word came to mind. It wasn't even a proper name, but it just seemed to fit.

"Art," the young man said. "I'll go with Art."

Aaron raised an eyebrow. "Art, huh?" he said. "Well, if that's what you want, I won't stop you." He took a deep breath. "Now, there's a lot of things I need to tell you. You a good listener?"

"I guess so," Art replied.

"Well, it doesn't matter either way," Aaron said. "Anyway, the first thing you should know is that this isn't Earth. You might have guessed this already. I don't know whether it's another planet in the universe, a parallel universe, or something else, but it's a weird place called Allura."

Art frowned. It was a radical statement, to be sure, but he was increasingly doubtful of this all being a dream.

"The second thing you should know is that here, humans aren't the dominant species," Aaron continued. "That would be the Sylvalans -- like the ones you've just met. They're all female, they all look like someone took the best parts of a porn star and a supermodel and mashed them together with parts of other things, and they're all obsessed with sex. But don't let that fool you -- they're as smart as we are, even if it's in different ways. Let your guard down here, and they'll find you in an instant."

That sounds like a stereotypical fantasy of teenage boys, Art thought. Still, it's consistent with what I've seen so far.

"Since they're all female, the Sylvalans need human men to reproduce," Aaron continued. "That isn't the only reason they chase us, though. From what I've heard, they can somehow feed on our semen -- if they get enough, they don't need anything else. It's like in some legends where semen carries life force -- or maybe they somehow inspired those legends, I don't know. Anyway, stay away from them unless you want to be sucked dry."

"It's -- this all sounds unbelievable," Art said frankly.

"I know, believe me, I was the same when I first came here," Aaron said. "Moving on, there's lots of different races of Sylvalans. The ones from before were based on big cats -- jaguars or leopards, not sure of the difference. They might look slender, but they've got more strength in one arm than we do in our entire body. They have keen senses and can outrun a human easily, unless you distract them like I did." Aaron reached into another bag and pulled out a strange-looking blue fruit. "This is a kind of fruit that basically acts like a smoke bomb when it bursts. It works well against most Sylvalans based on animals, but not all of them. There's many other kinds, based on every animal you can think of, as well as some based on plants. They've all got different strengths and weaknesses. For example, some of them are good at detecting magic, so the spell I used to cover our escape would be useless against them. I try and stay away from the territory of those kinds."

Aaron took out a makeshift knife that seemed to be made of flint. He continued speaking, "The third thing you should know is that here, people are invincible. It doesn't matter what kind of hits you take, you won't be injured at all." To demonstrate, he drew the knife across his hand. The knife pushed into his skin but left no wound.

"That -- that's impossible, it has to be a trick," Art said. But Aaron simply handed the knife over to him. Art repeated the demonstration on his own hand, gingerly at first, then with increasing amounts of force when it became clear that the knife wasn't doing anything. He could feel that the edge was sharp, and proved it by cutting a small scratch into a tree root, but the knife simply could not injure his flesh.

"I don't quite understand how it works, either," Aaron said as he took the knife back. "It seems to be some property of this world. Anyway, this invincibility is absolute. You can jump off a cliff or step into a fire, it won't do anything. Though you'd still have to climb back up the cliff afterwards, so don't do anything too stupid. We still get hungry and thirsty, though, so bear that in mind."

Aaron paused. From the expression on his face, it was clear that the next subject was something he considered distasteful. He said, "And like I said, this invincibility extends to the Sylvalans as well. That brings me to my next point. There are Sylvalans crawling everywhere in this world, and it's impossible to avoid them all forever. Sometimes, there's a need to fight them off. But tricks like these fruit aren't always enough -- you might run into something that's immune to what you have, or there might be too many of them. In those cases, you need to fight them off. But on top of being invincible, they're stronger than we are. There's only one way to fight them -- and that's to beat them at their own game."

Art blinked. "You mean -- " he began.

"Yeah, exactly what you think," Aaron answered bitterly. He clenched and unclenched his fists several times as he spoke. "If you can make them come before they do the same to you, they'll be paralysed for several minutes at least. Enough time to get away. The good news -- if you can consider it good news -- is that they don't try to resist too much. They enjoy it."

Aaron pulled out a waterskin and took a swig from it before continuing, "The bad news is that they -- well, they're pretty good at sex. And if they make you come first, it's over. I've seen it happen." Aaron looked distant for a few moments. "It's a pity that their invincibility makes it impossible to finish them off while they're helpless."

Art was startled by this expression of bloodthirst. While he couldn't remember his past, it was clear that he hadn't lived a life that accustomed him to such things.

Aaron was silent for a while. He continued looking into the distance, no doubt remembering something unpleasant. He eventually recovered somewhat, enough to continue his explanation: "And that brings me to my next topic. From what I know, men aren't born in this world normally -- Sylvalans can only give birth to more of their own kind. Instead, men constantly appear in this world, seemingly out of thin air. They never remember how they ended up here, though most of them do remember their own names and such. Most of them disappear after a few hours. That's enough time for the natives to find them and use them to get pregnant, which is how they continue their species. But not all of the men disappear. Some of us stay in this world. We're called Permanents for that, while the 99% or so of other men are called Transients. We're the ones who forget everything about ourselves, including our own name. I'm one as well."

Art was stunned. "How... how long have you been here?" he asked.

Aaron gave a dark smile. "Over forty years," he replied. "I know, I don't look like it. I think it's another aspect of the invincibility. I'm not sure if I'll ever die of old age." Aaron turned away and sighed. "The only ways for me to go out are either a slow death from starvation or thirst, or a quicker death from giving in to one of them. But I'm not ready to die yet." He reached into a bag and pulled out a bundle of paper. On it were countless notes and diagrams, describing dozens of kinds of plants and animals. "I don't know if it used to be my job or just a hobby I was really interested in, but I spend all my free time cataloguing and studying the flora and fauna. I won't rest until I understand the ecology of this place... as messed up as it is."

Aaron then gave a summary of his past. His first memory was just like Art's -- waking up in the middle of the forest with no idea as to how he got there. He hadn't done anything as attention-grabbing as yelling in an attempt to wake up, so he wasn't immediately found by Sylvalans. That allowed him to explore his surroundings more carefully. At one point, he heard the unmistakable sounds of sex and crept closer to investigate, discovering another man who hadn't been so lucky and was being ridden by a pair of reptilian Sylvalans. They were at it for hours before the man suddenly shone with white light and vanished. The Sylvalans had been disappointed but not surprised, and Aaron had made his escape before they decided to start hunting again.

After that, Aaron had lived a life on the run. Whenever Sylvalans found him, he'd used anything and everything at his disposal to escape. Sometimes he ran into other men who'd arrived here. Some of them stuck with him, but most didn't take his warnings seriously and -- thinking that this was all some erotic dream -- cheerfully ran into the arms, tentacles, or other limbs of the first Sylvalan they came across. That said, all of them turned out to be Transients and disappeared before long.

Occasionally, Aaron had been lucky enough to stumble upon groups of Sylvalans without them detecting him. He'd made use of these opportunities to learn about the enemy by listening in on their conversations. That was how he'd learned information like the names of their species and this world, and how to use magic. On that topic, Aaron explained that even humans could apparently learn to use magic in this world, with sufficient practice. He said that he was going to teach Art the spells he'd learned, such as the concealment spell he'd use to cover up their tracks, for their mutual survival.

Art was silent as he digested this overload of information. He eventually said, "You've given me a lot to think about. To be honest, I still can't believe everything you said."

"Don't worry about it," Aaron said. "I was the same at first, but I understood after spending some time here. You'll understand too, once you see more of this world. Anyway, it's getting late. It would be suicidal to make any light, so we can't do anything more anyway. You sleep first, I'll wake you in a few hours to take the next watch."

Night had truly fallen by this point. Although Art's eyes had reached their maximum capacity in adapting to the darkness, he could barely even make out Aaron's silhouette. He did as told and lay down on a thin mat of woven reeds, which Aaron had made as a makeshift bed. Art went through a cycle of breathing in deeply, holding his breath for a few seconds, then breathing out, in order to loosen his muscles and let out all the tension.

It was surprisingly easy for him to relax, all things considered. He wondered if it was due to his total amnesia, leaving him no attachments to his previous life.

Still... a world of magic and monster girls that want to drain you through sex? No matter how I look at it, it's something out of erotic fantasies. But no dream would be this long or this detailed.

Art sighed internally. I still can't believe it. I can't shake the feeling that I'll wake up and find myself in a normal bed in a normal house... somewhere.

Art's sleep was relatively restful and free of dreams. But for some reason, a strange image kept flashing across his mind.

A blurred shape with a trace of gold, accompanied by a muffled voice.

"Mar -!"