Dark Theme | Light Theme

Resting in a reclining chair with blankets draped over her, Hulda battled sickness. It was some sort of cold that was more severe than your average rhinovirus, but mercifully not a flu. She felt a tingle in her nose and grabbed a tissue from the box on the coffee table next to her. Her muffled sneeze, "AACHffwwf!" She wiped her face and threw the tissue into the trash can that she had pulled nearby.

She took her mug from the coffee table and sipped hot beef bone broth from it. It tasted odd due to her blocked nose, a shame. She liked bone broth even when she wasn't sick.

She didn't have to suffer like this, but she chose to, simply to get some time off work. Why not? Might as well, since the opportunity naturally presented itself. Gingerly, ignoring her complaining legs, she stood up from the chair and wandered over to the window. Norway's beauty filtered in with the dim light of winter. She gazed at dramatic mountains decorated with white snow, like powdered sugar, and the water below. A fjord. She sipped her bone broth thoughtfully, reflecting on her blessings, and recent events in her life.

This new chat room she had joined, "ohgodwhy", was certainly interesting. She smiled. It'd be funny if the people in "ohgodwhy" knew that she, like her country, was beautiful. She had full lips, flawless pale skin that tanned well, ponderous blue eyes, long eyelashes, and healthy, wavy, shoulder length bright blonde hair. It was almost as if she had absorbed some of Norway's charm. Maybe she'd send a selfie to someone, most likely that Nittio character, at some point. She brought the mug to her lips, her arms aching with the basic movement. Her body felt heavy.

...This was becoming tiresome. The symptoms were no longer worth the time off.

She put her mug back down on the coffee table and shuffled to a cabinet in the hallway. Within it, behind miscellaneous objects placed strategically to disguise it as a junk cabinet, she revealed eight palm sized faintly glowing glassy orbs tucked neatly in a cloth lined basket. She brought a random one forward. It glowed blue. She didn't remember who this was, but whoever they were, it no longer mattered. They were about to become part of someone greater.

She cupped the orb with both hands and brought it close to her sternum. A cold, minty essence began flowing into her hands and chest. The orb's light dwindled. A frantically bestial male scream remotely echoed in her ears, recalling vague memories of who this orb contained. It was some guy she had met a few months ago. She closed her eyes and her lips parted involuntarily. Absorbing someone felt good, almost orgasmic. The mintiness spread through her entire body. Then, she forced his essence to target the sickness. Cell by cell she felt the soreness burn away, dissipating into the atmosphere, along with some of his energy.

She purged the ailment and integrated what remained of the man's ghost with her own "soul." She opened her eyes and the orb glowed no longer. She moved, free of aching, to put the orb back into the basket. The multicolored light of the seven others around it, the ones that still contained people, trembled fearfully. Their imprisonment did not rob them of sight. They saw Hulda absorb that man. She snickered. "Mmm, don't worry about him," she said in Norwegian, "he's part of something greater now, even if it was for a small reason. One day," she moved her face close to the orbs, their light illuminating her features perversely, "you will be, too." She pulled her head out of the cabinet, smirking, satisfied, and closed the door tight.

She sat back down on her reclining chair and draped the blankets across her body once again. She sipped her bone broth, content to find that she could now taste more of its flavor profile. Her nose was still slightly blocked, her throat still gently scratchy, as if it had been a day since she beat off the illness. Nothing could be done about it, using life essence can only do so much for the inherent aftereffects of colds.

---

His name was Martin. He was, by all accounts, a regular thirty something Norwegian man. He had worked as a cargo ship traffic coordinator. At home, he had been having relationship troubles through the fault of no one but nature. His girlfriend, Pia, was less interested in sex than he was. When he met Hulda at the farmers' market, when she had smiled at him and "accidentally" touched his hand, he was doomed.

Hulda invited him out a few times, in the next town over, and Martin lied to Pia about needing to work overtime. In actuality, Martin clocked out earlier than Pia, so she was not home when he would discreetly prepare for his meetings with Hulda. Upon returning, he was abruptly cold towards Pia. She became suspicious.

Meanwhile, Hulda got to know him better. She convinced him that she was the right one. It was pathetically easy, but Hulda was not looking for a challenge. In her further favor, Martin was dutiful in washing their trysts off his body. Eventually, she got him out in the forest with promises of outdoor "activities." She turned towards him, holding a glass ball, and smiled seductively. He could not resist. He thought that the glass ball was something to somehow enhance what would, in his mind, come next. He stepped closer, suddenly too close, suddenly stretching and falling down into a claustrophobic, glossy prison.

In his unusual absence, his work struggled to replace him. He had been more valuable than they presumed. A ship was delayed because of this, which seems trivial, but it showed just how prompt he had been. Pia asked around and discovered that he had been seen repeatedly coming home and then leaving their apartment. However, no one had seen Hulda.

Pia was heartbroken and angry. Now, all those nights where he wasn't asking for sex, or even to spend time with her, cohered. She had loved him. Why wasn't that enough for him? Her opinion of men worsened on that day. She doubted she would ever date again.

After a few days, Pia, now Martin's ex without an official breakup, decided to report him missing. She was expecting him to come home and claim all of his things but he never did. A bitter disappointment, for she had prepared a war's worth of words but did not get the recompense of firing them off. The police published their report, a few from the town over said they had seen him with a woman, but no one knew who that woman was. Plus, Hulda's methods were bloodless, obscuring the matter moreover. The trail rapidly cooled. Some decided he must have eloped, even if that was contrary to Martin's understood personality.

One day, satirically, Hulda unknowingly passed Pia by while she was on the way to give some of his stuff to his friend (who now seemed to be flirting with her) for safe keeping, in case he'd come back someday. Something about Hulda's atmosphere drew Pia's eyes to her.

Martin...?

Pia quickly turned away, chastising herself, "It's only a passing dream brought on by grief. Let him go. He obviously didn't want to be with you."

---


By Adaline Guerra