The Galactic Bride
Chapter 16: The Pheroline

The night's rain continued on well into the morning. There was no horn declaring any deaths the night before, and none in the morning. but that was the least of Aki's concerns. General Anura and him were trapped inside the cave with little warmth and no food. Now that the light was out, the weather had heated up somewhat, but both of them were still freezing from the night before.

"We might have some field rations in one of the bags." General Anura told him in around late-morning. "I don't remember seeing any, though. I was busy looking for equipment."

"Do you want me to check?"

The General clung to him. They were still in a ball, entangled together on a bunch of shrubbery and it was clear she didn't want to lose what little warmth she had. Aki couldn't blame her, he didn't want to leave her arms either, even if his stomach was growling.

So the two stayed put, unable to move. But the rain went on. They said nothing to each other, just listened to the other's stomachs murmur from hunger. It was only late afternoon that they had to break away and search the bags for something to eat.

"No field rations in the Tarfulles bag." The General grumbled.

Aki was looking in the General's bag. The only thing that they might be able to eat if they should be come desperate was the goat-skin water container. He switched to his. It took some digging but to his relief he found what looked to be three candy bars.

"Those are rations. One bar should be equal one meal." The General told him. "At least that's what the manufactories claim. I personally think they only take into account the amount of vitamins and calories a body needs. It's not filling at all."

"It's better than nothing." Aki tossed her one of the bars. "Here. We'll share the third one for later."

"Maybe we should only eat half a bar." General Anura said in a somewhat depressed voice. He knew she didn't want to, but there was no telling how long they would be in the cave with no food.

"Yeah, and maybe we should venture out there and try and find food." Aki also suggested.

"We shouldn't. You don't want to get sick in a jungle." The General was weighing the risks involved. "We don't have anything to cover our bodies with, so it would be easy to catch an illness which could easily turn into pneumonia."

"Half a ration it is." Aki felt disappointed. His stomach roared in protest.

They ate their ration, then went immediately back to bed.

The rain poured for the rest of the day, and into the evening. The next morning it was still raining. No horn announced any new deaths. Everyone must be in the same predicament as they were in. The General didn't waste anytime with the rations this time. They ate the second bar without any fanfare, then went back to bed. They were starving and cold. If this kept up they'd be too weak to go out and look for food and catch pneumonia.

The rain kept falling and falling, but as noon started to approach them, Aki noticed it wasn't so cold anymore. Soon he and General Anura were sweating. Finally they could stopped cuddling for warmth. But something odd was going on. Steam seemed to be floating off of their bodies and every so often he could see his own breath. Was it still cold?

His eyes had nothing to look at but the General. He stared blankly at her. She sat on the opposite side of the cave looking at him, as she also had nothing to look at as well. There wasn't anything to be said so his eyes just unfocused in her general direction, watching her chest move up and down as she breathed.

He noticed a sweat droplet rolling down her neck, to her collar bone, and down in between her cleavage. He stared at her breast, as if hypnotized by their movement. His brain was barely registering what he was doing, he just heard her breathe and watched her chest rise and fall.

He watched her in what seemed like an eternity, then he realized what he was doing. He blinked heavily and shook his head a little bit. How long was he looking at her breast, and had she noticed? He tentatively looked at her, and she saw her eyes glued to his stomach. She also looked unfocused and in a trance. He felt his eyes grow focus on her matted fringe on her forehead, down her glistening cheekbone and to her full lips. Her mouth was half open as she breathed and he could just make out her fangs. Why did they look cute?

He jolted. Cute? The General wasn't cute. She was a murder! Why was he thinking that she looked cute? He looked into her eyes, while her own were now gazing at his chest. Her breathing seemed to be increasing. Then she saw her blink and look as if she were fighting her way out of a trance, much like he did before. Their eyes met. It almost felt like fireworks going through his body. She looked so seductive to him.

"Something's wrong." The General finally spoke. Aki had to shake this sensation of thinking her voice sounded lyrical.

"What do you mean?" Aki didn't want to be the first one to admit he had been staring.

"I don't know…" General Anura grabbed her head a bit. "Why am I so hot? It's cold outside."

Aki watched her crawl to her hands and knees and look through the holes in the door. His eyes drifted along her spine to her behind. This time he realized it quickly and looked away. Why was he getting like this all of a sudden?

"Well it's not that cold outside… but we shouldn't be sweating." The General said, turned around and crawled closer to him.

He could smell her. Her scent almost smelt like a perfume. Her hand touched his head. Their eyes locked again. The General's breath increased from their gaze, and her lips parted some what. Then she closed her eyes and pulled herself away, as if she was forcing herself too.

"You've got a fever. I think I do too." The General said.

"What? We couldn't have caught colds." Aki looked away. He couldn't look at her anymore. "I don't feel sick."

"Well… not sneezing and coughing anyway." The General spoke. He could hear her pulling her hair into a ponytail he didn't have to look at her to know she was doing that. "I'm burning up, though. Part of me just wants to take off these clothes."

That was the wrong thing to say. His mind actively imagined the General naked. He wanted her to do it for real. Despite himself he turned and looked at her. He had caught her looking at his chest again. There was a longing there. Part of him liked it. Part of him wanted to take off his top and let her look at the real deal. But when she looked up into his eyes again, she didn't look ashamed that she was caught looking. She had a coy smile on her face.

What was going on? This wasn't the General he knew. Then again, he wasn't acting himself either. "General Anura-"

"You don't have to call me General." She spoke softly. Why was she sounding like a woman all of a sudden? "We're in the coliseum now, I don't have a rank anymore, unless I win."

"I can't just call you Anura." Aki said, thinking the name was the most beautiful sounding name he ever heard.

The General breathed in, and turned away. Then she exhaled loudly, slapped her own cheeks, tiled her head down and closed her eyes. "What's going on? Something wrong." She repeated.

"Maybe we've been in this cave too long… maybe it's the rain… maybe it-"

"The rain!" The General snapped her fingers and returned her gaze to Aki. Her blue eyes were so beautiful. "Why didn't I see it before. It's the rain!"

"What?"

The General wiped her forehead with her arm. "Okay, so the competition must be pretty boring with everyone hiding from the rain. The only ones that shouldn't be too affected is the Wahco, and they're probably using this time to stock up on supplies. So with everyone hunkering down, there is nothing to watch. Ratings must be low. So this morning the referees must have doused the island with Pherolean."

"What's Pherolean?"

"It's a gas. The Mari Military developed it to distract enemy troops. It's harmless unless activated by water, or in our case rain. The purpose of the gas is to increased everyone inside the gas field's pheromones to the point that the can't think straight. All they can think about is sex. The longer you hold out, the crazy you get. We have fevers because we've been fighting our urges."

"That's crazy." Aki told her, but knew it was true. "But I don't get it… why would fighting those urges cause fevers?"

"Because our bodies are producing way more chemicals than it should. If we don't do anything about it-" sᴇaʀᴄh thᴇ Find_Nøvel.ɴet website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

"Wait, if we don't do anything, our fevers could kill us?"

"Yes." The General sighed. "It's an effective gas. If the distraction doesn't kill you, the fever will."

"So what are we going to do?" Aki looked at her. Now that she was actively thinking, the lustful looks were out of her eyes. It made her no less attractive though.

"I don't know. I've read of no way to combat the effects." The General said. "Perhaps…perhaps self pleasure."

"We can't do that!" Aki knew he was blushing.

"We either try that, or hope the gas is deluded enough that it won't kills us… or, actually act on our impulses."

"The gas won't be deluded." Aki knew for a fact that in a game of lie-and-death, the officals wouldn't think about a little thing like someone dying of fever. "Well… I guess we should try and solve it ourselves."

The General nodded. "We'll do this. We sit against each other's backs, that way we know the other isn't looking. No matter what, we don't look. If we look we'll give in. Got that?"

He couldn't believe he was really going to do this. But what choice did he have? He was starting to lose control over his mind again. So he agreed and the two faced the opposite directions and pressed their backs against the other. For some reason her sweating back felt like heaven. He heard her take off her bottoms, and he followed suit.

He'd never done anything like this as a girl before, but instinct was kicking in. He touched himself, and felt a immediate relief to some of the pressure in his head. The General was breathing heavy again, and the sound of it drove him on all the more. He closed his eyes and tried to imagine that the woman moaning next to him was Hana. He pictured her naked and kept rubbing himself.

"It's not working." The General was inhaling in. She sounded like she just brought herself to an orgasm. "I'm still hot and dizzy."

"Then do it again." Aki groaned at her with an annoyed voice. She ruined his mental image of Hana.

But the General didn't do as she was told. She stood up as high as she could go into the cave. The result was that Aki slipped from leaning on her, and landed on his back on the floor. Then she sat down, straddling her waist over his head. He could see everything. The smell was driving him insane, he wanted to taste her.

"Stop." The last shred of will power cried out from under her.

"Can't." She said simply, then lowered her body and gave into her own impulses.

It felt way too good. In fact it felt way better than the previous times he had done it with Lani and Hana. Perhaps it was because of the increased pheromones and his literally doing this to survive, but it felt great. He grabbed her behind, and dug in as well. Her body shook from pleasure as he did this. The pride he felt from doing this made his own body explode with pleasure as well.

Hours went by. They ravaged each other like animals, not caring about anything else. The fevers had gone away at some point, and it wasn't until he woke up in the middle of the night, in the General's arms, that he realized that the rain had stopped and that he felt more or less normal.

Then shame took over him. He had given in so easily. He thought of Hana. They broadcasted the competition for everyone to see. He had told her he didn't want her to watch him kill people, but he knew she'd still watch anyway. She had seen him act like that, and with the worst person imaginable. General Anura had killed Hiro, and Aki just spent the day screwing her.

He sat up and grabbed his head realizing what he had done. Wouldn't it have been better if he had just died of fever? Hana surely hated him now. And what of Lani. He was technically engaged to her, wouldn't she be mad as well. In one move he got rid of his only friend and is girlfriend.

Hating himself he grabbed his swimsuit, changed into it, and crawled out of the cave. It was warm again, but dark. The firewood from the old fire sat soggy in front of him. He gave it a small kick, angry at himself. His stomach growled, but he didn't care. What had he done?

"I'm sorry, Akihiko." The voice of the General came from behind him, speaking in Japanese. "I shouldn't have taken advantage of you like that."

It was the first time she had spoken to him like in a long time. Not only that, she used his real name. He knew she was being sincere in her apology.

"You were just saving our lives…" Aki found himself saying, not really buying it.

"I was." She still was speaking in Japanese, walking closer to him. "I knew you couldn't go through with it. So I forced you to. You can hate me if you want, but you're a live right now, and that's all that matters."

Aki turned around and looked into her eyes. She tried to look cold and calculated as she did before, but he knew her better by now. She had a vulnerable look hidden within those eyes. She was lying to him. She didn't plan on saving him or anything else she said. She was just driven by passion like he was. They both were guilty of that. But it made her feel better to take the responsibly, so he let her.

"Just like always, you're ever the soldier, aren't you?" Aki said after consideration.

He could tell she knew him better than that as well. She knew he could tell she was lying, and that he was allowing her to take the blame to save her feelings. So much for that plan. They looked at each other awkwardly, both unsure how they should proceed. As they looked into each others eyes the solution came to them without having to say anything. It never happened.

"The stream should be filled with fish after that rain." General Anura returned to the common tongue. "Maybe we lucked out in our traps."

"Shouldn't we wait until morning?"

"No. I need to get out of that cave for a while. Why don't you see if you can start a fire. It's probably to wet, but it can't hurt. I'll go check the traps."

He watched her leave, lingering on her swinging pony-tail as she left. Though they could pretend it didn't happen, it did. He couldn't see her as the cold scary General anymore. And he hated that.

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