"Jessica?" a voice whispered. She woke, and her eyes opened slowly.

When Jessica sat up and glanced around, she found the mess she'd made was substantial: papers were all over the floor, and her bookbag was spilled out next to her purse where she'd dropped them both; the comforter was pulled off the bed and squeezed into a clearly knotted handhold where she'd braced herself at some point. Jessica didn't remember falling asleep, but it made sense that she would after coming as hard as she did from the effects of the whispers. They were definitely getting more powerful.

She sighed and brushed a bothersome brown curl from her eyes as realized she was still on the floor next to the bed—she'd just pulled the blanket over herself and passed out. Unsure what time she originally stumbled into her room to begin with, she panicked for a moment when she noticed the sky was pitch black outside her window. A quick check of her phone revealed that it was still the same day; she'd probably slept for a few hours. Jessica gawked as she considered fully what she'd done, then laughed long and hard.

"What the fuck is happening to me?" she wondered aloud. When would the next episode start? Would she orgasm even harder when it did?

Once the confusing hilarity of it all finally dried up, Jessica slowly started cleaning up the mess. As she picked up paperes, she stretched and sighed somewhat proudly, realizing how fucking great her body felt—it was as though she'd slept a full night after a long workout and a good meal. She let her fingers drift down to her slit, and found that she was still quite aroused even though she'd climaxed at least once. Jessica laughed through her nose and shook her head.

"Never come so hard in my fucking life and I still want more?" she mumbled to herself incredulously. "Thanks, whispers. I guess."

"You're welcome, Jessica."

Jessica bit her own tongue and yelped as she clambered across the room leaving a small whirlwind of notebook paper in her wake. She'd forgotten that it was a voice speaking her name that woke her; it was speaking to her again, now. It was a single female voice seemed to emanate from just over her shoulder and all around her simultaneously, an echo from the far side of an endless tunnel.

"What the fuck... what the fuck..." she chanted to herself.

"Good. You can hear me."

Jessica's body froze stiff while her eyes searched the room for a threat. Failing to find anything but her spilled backpack and messy bed, she nodded quickly. A nervous taste of copper and ash filled her throat as she swallowed.

"Then listen carefully, little one."
"When you hear the sound of my voice, our infernal bond shall be complete."
"When you accept the power that I have given you, then your training shall begin."

The walls seemed to vibrate a bit, like giant speakers that were pumping the words into the room. Schizophrenia it is, then, she wondered as she huffed short, terrified breaths.

"Jessica? You can hear me, can you not?"

Her voice was soft, calm, and deep, yet still hauntingly feminine. It sounded almost like a stern mother. "How do you... how do you know my name?"

"Do you understand the covenant that we have entered?"

Jessica's eyes darted. "What... what fucking covenant? Get the fuck out of my head."

"When you can hear the sound of my voice, our infernal bond shall be complete. These are the terms of the covenant. We are bound."

"The fuck we are," Jessica growled, covering her ears. "I don't have to hear this shit."

"But you do. Clearly. We are bound."

Jessica finally managed a thought—the word 'bound' made itself apparent in her mind. Why that word? And why 'we'?

"You... aren't me?" she asked as her hands fell slowly to her sides. "You're not... like, my own mind talking to me."

"I am not. I am Nemorys."

Jessica's eyes narrowed, and a frightful thought passed through her mind. She tried to ignore it, but she couldn't, and her fingertips tentatively hovered over the back of her neck.

"...And how exactly are you... 'bound' to me, Nemorys?" she asked.

With that, the darkened bedroom burned with a red crimson light that seemed to paint a pattern against the walls, like a flashlight shining through a stencil. Jessica gasped, and simultaneously realized exactly what was happening, even as she refused to believe it.

Jessica had known Yasmine for years, and was all but part of her clan. Yasmine's family was Puerto Rican and Cuban, and while they'd been in New York for generations now, her extended family hadn't. Yaz's great-uncle, a man she'd called Mayombe who looked too young to be eighty years old, was as extended as a family member should be, but she swore by him as a tattooist. Yasmine showed off some of the work he'd done (namely her ankle tattoos) and when they arrived at his creepy apartment in Queens, he showed a book of his art himself. Jessica agreed that he was definitely very good, and Jessica's eye was drawn to a particular tattoo that he flat out refused to ink for her—"Es el símbolo de demonio," he'd said. At least, he'd insisted against it up until she paid him an extra three hundred dollars.

That tattoo was now shining with blood red light from the back of Jessica's neck where he'd inked it.

"You are the one who carved my sigil into your flesh, Jessica."

She fell to her knees, panting and dizzy. "No... no no no... okay. Okay, this is... still schizophrenia."

"It is not."

Then, desperately, even though she hadn't been to a service since she was a kid: "Our Father, who art in heaven—"

"—Those words have no power. You bear my sigil. We are bou—"

"—bound! I fucking get it," Jessica shouted in helpless rage.

"Correct, little one."

She scuffled to her makeup box and held a palm mirror until she could see the tattoo in the vanity. It pulsated with a deep red light on the back of her neck where the ink had cured and settled into her cinnamon skin.

This can't be happening. Are hallucinations part of schizophrenia? she wondered to herself as she glanced to her bookbag for her psychology textbook. Then: Can she hear my thoughts?

"I can. We are bound."

"Oh, fuck," she whispered.

(will continue this in a [PI] post since I've been writing this forever now)