Empusa is a Virtual Reality system designed to read your brain waves and desires. There is no pre-programmed scenario - the program accesses your subconscious automatically and creates a scenario for you. The more you return the better the system understands your brain, therefore repeated uses will result in better scenarios.\n\nAvailable only to over 16s. ID required.\n\nMay result in scenes of a sexual nature.\n\nEmpusa is not responsible for any damages or distress caused to the user.\n\n[[back|check it out]]\n

Everything is black for a moment. You feel nothing. You hear nothing. You see nothing. You try to sense your own skin but you can't. You feel like your consciousness is floating in the void. You have transcended your body. You have transcended reality.\n\nYou're reminded of the blackout. You try not to panic. This can't be like last time. It can't happen to you twice. You try to flail but you can't even feel your body hit the sides of the tank you know you're in. You don't exist. Nothing seems to exist.\n\nThen you sense something.\n\nYou can't see it. You just know it's there, somewhere near you. You struggle slightly, scared.\n\nIt touches you. Everywhere. You can feel your body again, but only by its contact to your skin. You can't tell if it's warm, or cold, slimy, or soft, or firm - it's just //there//. On every nerve ending. You try to scream but it finds its way into your mouth that way, and then it's inside of you. It's in your brain. It's coating the inside of your body, and you can feel parts of you that you didn't even know existed, aware of your organs, aware of your veins, aware of every blood cell pumping through them.\n\nVery distantly you think that you're going to kill Tina because this isn't sexual. [[It's utterly terrifying]].\n

You hesitate for a while. You wouldn't miss 600 ฿ if you spent it, and for ten minutes you might as well check it out. It can't go as badly wrong as last time. You've been meaning to try VR again since it happened anyway.\n\nYou tell her you're going.\n\n[[Ten minutes can't hurt]].

The touch is light near your lap, teasing, but promising. It pushes you apart gently, and runs light touches where it makes you shiver and soundlessly gasp. It probes around and you feel like it's asking permission to go inside again and you think yes, you say yes, you cry yes. It enters you painlessly, no substance, but stimulating every nerve ending inside of you.\n\nIt continues to touch you outside, too: \n\ndelicate pinpricks up your inner thighs;\npinches your neck like teeth;\nsucks your skin like lips;\nghosting over your chest, pinching and soothing your nipples;\nwrapping around your waist and snaking down, covering you, stroking you.\n\nYou become overloaded with sensation again, and your brain finally feels blank. There's no fear. There's no outside world. You don't care if you don't exist.\n\nAs long as this thing is inside of you and surrounding you and touching you and manipulating your body, you're here. [[Your pleasure exists, even if you don't]].\n

hey! i know you don't leave the house much any more but i think i found something you'll think is worth leaving the comfort of yr cave :P\n\nit's VR. i know yr wary after everything but trust me. i went last night + i've been walking on air ever since. it's like a virtual reality hooker but it's better than that. it knows you. it knows what you like. it reads your brainwaves so it's like you're having sex with yourself?? and someone else at the same time??\n\nat least [[check it out]] for me okay?? i'm worried about you.\n\n[[reply]]\n

You shut down your terminal and pull back the curtains slightly. The smog's worse than usual, and there's a sandstorm. You root around your room for your goggles and a bandana to cover up your unsightly face mask, trying not to unplug any important cables.\n\nA pile of clothes falls down as you rummage and, under a thick layer of dust, you spot your reflection. Huh. It's been a while since you saw yourself. You adjust your mask and leave, pulling a hood up over your head, securing the five locks on your door before scurrying downstairs, [[into the haze]].\n

---Empusa---\n\nSessions:\n\n10 mins - 600 ฿\n\n30 mins - 1800 ฿\n\n1hr - 3500 ฿\n\n4hr - 8000 ฿\n\nSessions longer than 4 hours are not recommended.\n\n|| [[Info]] || [[Directions]] ||\n\n[[back|New Message!: Hey!! - Tina]]\n

body {\n margin: 10% 0 10% 0;\n}\n#passages{\n margin: 0;\n padding: 0;\n border: 0;\n}\n.passage, #sidebar * {\n font-family: "Courier New", Courier New, sans-serif;\n color:#00ff00;\n text-align:left;\n}\n.passage {\n border-radius: 0.2em;\n width: 60%;\n margin: auto;\n padding: 2em;\n font-size:1.5rem;\n background-color:#000000;\n border: solid #003800 0.05em;\n box-shadow: #003800 0.5em 0.5em 0;\n}\na.internalLink, a.externalLink {\n border: solid #000 0.05em;\n white-space: nowrap;\n padding: 0.1em 0.2em 0.1em 0.2em;\n border-radius: 0.5em;\n color:#fff;\n}\na.internalLink:hover, a.externalLink:hover {\n text-decoration: none;\n box-shadow: #000 0 0 0 0.1em;\n color:#fff;\n}\na.internalLink:active, a.externalLink:active {\n color: #fff;\n background-color:#000;\n}\nbody {\n background:url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAAEAQMAAACTPww9AAAABGdBTUEAALGPC/xhBQAAAAZQTFRFAAAA////pdmf3QAAAA5JREFUeF5jOACEBgwGAAnIAeGomjuiAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC);\n}\n#sidebar {\n position:absolute;\n top:0px;\n left:0px;\n width:99.2%;\n overflow-x:hidden;\n background-color:#fff;\n border-bottom: solid #000 1px;\n}\n#sidebar * {\n color: #000 !important;\n font-size:1.5rem;\n background-color:clear !important;\n display:inline !important;\n}\n#sidebar a:hover, #sidebar #snapback:hover, #sidebar #restart:hover {\n text-decoration:underline !important;\n}\n#sidebar a:active, #sidebar #snapback:active, #sidebar #restart:active {\n color:#fff !important;\n font-size:1.5rem;\n background-color:#000 !important;\n display:inline !important;\n}\n#sidebar li, #sidebar li > span {\n margin-left: 1rem;\n margin-right: 1rem;\n}\n#sidebar a, #sidebar a:hover {\n border: 0 !important;\n box-shadow: none;\n}\n.menu {\n background-color:#fff;\n color:#000;\n opacity:1;\n font-size: 1.5rem;\n border: solid #000 1px;\n box-shadow: #000 0.1em 0.1em 0;\n}\n.menu div:hover {\n background-color:#000;\n color:#fff;\n}\n#credits, #share, #titleSeparator, #sidebar li br {\n display:none !important;\n}\n

The inside of the tank is purple again, and it opens automatically, leaving you cold, exposed to the room.\n\nYou stagger to the towel, dry off, redress. Turning the HMD around in your hands, you inspect it.\n\nThe last one you were in wasn't as bulky as this, far newer, but it still failed. Left you stranded in nothingness for what felt like eternity when the blackout happened. But this time, you felt yourself. You existed despite the absence of a scene, despite the absence of a self.\n\nYou put it down and strap your goggles back on, stagger out into the far-too-bright corridor and tell the man at the desk you're done. He smiles too wide and asks you how you liked it, and you give a noncommittal grunt, too shaken and overwhelmed to entertain a proper conversation.\n\n"Heh. Most people are like that after the first time, don't worry. You can have a seat 'til you feel ready to go home. I'll let you pay then." You nod and collapse into a threadbare sofa, mind spinning, and barely listen to him talk, getting to grips with being back in reality again. It took you long enough last time, nearly a year of rehab after the blackout, [[but you don't think it'll be quite as bad this time]].\n

[[New Message!: Hey!! - Tina]]

You finally feel right, after you don't know how long, and sit up slowly, facing the man.\n\n"Ah, you're with the living again. Judging by the look of you you must've gotten someone really hot." He grins cheekily and you just silently hand over your card, muttering things along the lines of 'Sure. Hot.'\n\nHe takes your money and sends you on your way, telling you to be careful out there as you fasten on your mask and bandana.\n\nAs soon as you're home you email Tina.\n\n"//Thank you.//"\n\n\n\n[[credits]]

Your mind feels like radio static as you give in to the sensations, tensing what you can feel of yourself as you come close. Silently begging it, telling it you need it, telling it you'll do anything, you'll do anything, please... please... You know it hears you, you know it's inside your brain, you know it's just teasing you now, holding it just out of reach-\n\nIt relents. Sensation rushes through your body again, like when it was first inside you.\n\nYou see explosions, the first thing you've seen since this started, colours bursting across your vision before being consumed by the impenetrable blackness again.\n\nYou shudder as it withdraws slowly from your body, letting you feel it inch away, but you can still feel the pleasure ebbing from your system once it's left you.\n\nYou realise you can feel normally again. You can feel the tank around you and the blackness isn't as dense as it was a moment ago. You reach up to your head, control of your limbs returning, and feel the HMD, cool and smooth. [[You pull it off]].

The room is dark, the only light coming from the flickering bulb in the corridor outside. And no wonder it's flickering, with the amount of wires in this room eating up electricity; the computer alone is about the size of your cupboard, LEDs flashing frantically on the front of it. There's a pod about the width of a kiddie pool in the middle of the floor, all the wires leading towards it.\n\n"Looks pretty old", you note, unsure if your skepticism came through in your tone.\n\n"It is. We upgraded it ourselves." He picks up an HMD even bulkier than his own, one of the ancient ones that completely obscure your view. You raise an eyebrow at it. "I'll leave you alone to get changed. You strip down, put this on, and get in. There's a towel in the corner too so you can dry off after."\n\n"Dry off?"\n\n"You'll be submerged in water. Sensory deprivation, y'know? Helps the software function even better. If you wear it outside the pod you could get distracted by external stimulus, and you don't want that." He winks at you.\n\nYou shrug and tell him fine and he leaves.\n\nYou strip. You get in the water. The inside glows faintly purple 'til [[you put on the device, and pull the top down]].

A young scruffy man with a bulky old HMD on and his feet on the table smiles at you when you enter.\n\n"Here for Empusa?"\n\n"I guess so."\n\nHe swings his legs back onto the floor and spins to his terminal.\n\n"First time?"\n\n"Yeah."\n\n"I'll just book you in for a ten minute session. Any longer first time gets a bit overwhelming."\n\nHe taps away at the keys, clacking loudly. His gloves are threadbare and he looks like he hasn't slept in weeks, judging by the bags under the eye not obscured by his HMD. You wonder why Tina sent you here. Maybe she likes this guy. He seems like her type. You prepare to be disappointed by this whole experience.\n\nHe flicks a switch. You hear the loud hum of machinery starting up. He turns to you and smiles and tells you "Ready to go!" and [[leads you through to the back]].\n

On this page is a very crude map of your local area, an asterisk pointing out Empusa's location. You print it off.\n\n[[back|check it out]]

Empusa

https://suoli.itch.io\n\nxxsuoli@gmail.com\n\n[[begin again?|Start]]

suoli

Then it leaves you. In a flash, it's gone, all the sensation is taken away and you lose all sense of yourself again, and despite your fear you whimper at the loss, afraid you'll never exist again.\n\nIt comes back, gently this time, a few touches here and there across your chest, down your arms, stroking the inside of your legs up towards your centre.\n\nYour body aches for every touch, every moment of proof that you're real, that your self exists. You still can't pin down any of the sensations, but you don't want to feel that empty again, so you don't much care.\n\nIt wraps itself around your neck, tightens a little and reminds you that you can breathe by taking away your ability to do so. Squeezes gently. Releases the pressure. Squeezes harder. Release. Repeat.\n\nYou open your mouth to beg but you can't hear yourself even though you feel your mouth form words. [[It hears, regardless]].\n

It's only around a fifteen minute walk, but five minutes in, you're already uneasy. Bodies mill around you, most people paying more attention to their HMDs than to the people around them. You dodge a man having a loud argument with someone you can't see and you don't know if he's in a video call or if he's on drugs.\n\nYou take to the side streets. They're dark and empty but you prefer that, especially with your goggles.\n\nThe building your map tells you is the correct one is a run-down mess, vulgar graffiti on the door. Luckily, nobody's around to see you [[enter]].\n