"Mhh!" Li stirred, her voice drowned out by a force unknown.

  The Earthling did her best to move, her face buried in a soft mattress. But try as she might, her body was trapped, as even her neck struggled to turn. All at once, it had become abundantly clear what had happened to her.

  Li had been bound.

  Her arms and legs, hogtied into a secure position, were connected by a firm knot connected to her neck. Unable to do anything but toss and turn as her subjugated face remained fixed on the same view, she began to panic.

  "Mmmh!" Li whined, her eyes welling up with tears.

  After managing to roll herself over a smidge, she caught a better look at her surroundings. It was an elegant, crystalline room, no doubt belonging to the heiress, with its rge mirrors and vast open space.

  Her muscles began to ache, held in the same tight position for an unknowable amount of time. And as if things couldn't get worse, a cold chill abruptly ran through her flesh. Only then did she realize how dire her situation truly was.

  She was naked.

  "No!" Li thought to herself with widened eyes, the tips of her chest ringing with a sharp pang as it rubbed against the bed sheets. "She wouldn't!"

  Feeling vioted and helpless, she began to squirm, exposing her naked chest with each gradual effort. That was when it all turned for her.

  Someone held her safe and warm.

  "Li," Ivy whispered from behind the girl, positioning Li onto her side as she slipped her hands around her exposed belly.

  The heiress's voice was tired and weathered, her breathing slowing with each sylble. And after a brief moment, she allowed herself to audibly slip into a deep slumber. That was indeed how she truly felt.

  Such a simple emotion.

  Yet so sinister and selfish.

  "Ivy..." Li tried to reach out to the girl.

  But it was too te, the Ivy who held her tight had taken what she needed. Li wasn't given a choice in that matter. In her current state, she was just a bag of meat.

  "Ummh." Li whimpered, a bit of saliva falling out of her gag, which then revealed itself to be a red ball of sorts.

  "Pathetic." A voice called out to the girl, seething with disdain. "But right where you belong."

  The second Ivy growled, standing in front of the girl at the bedside, her eyes pulsating with a cyan hue.

  "Look at how she treats you. And you have the audacity to think it could be love?"

  "Mmh!" Li argued, her spine churning as she struggled.

  Ivy snarled, grabbing the girl by her gag. "You can never...WILL never understand the depths at which I hate you. Mere words cannot describe what I feel for you. HATE cannot even begin to scrape the surface of what I know to be true."

  "Just look what you've done to us!" The heiress continued, using her other hand to sp Li across the face. "Our family! Our pain! Our legacy! Ruined by your very existence!"

  "It was our struggle. It was sacred! All that we've suffered for so many years. It was our war to win. We would have prevailed...one day. We could have proven to him once and for all that we are WORTHY."

  "You ruined it! Reduced us to this sad, pathetic little brat! We should have fought on our own. Accepted what we are!"

  "Die trying."

  Li's gag faltered, allowing her to breathe deeply before releasing the words that had been captured.

  "What the hell do you want from me!" Li screamed.

  "Everything. Nothing." Ivy hissed.

  "I can't! You won't let me do either!"

  "I can expin it to you...doesn't mean you'd understand."

  Ivy held on tight to Li, blissfully unaware of what her other self was up to.

  "I think I can get the gist." Li frowned, her cheeks blushing from one Ivy as the other turned her towards rage. "You're a freak."

  "Says the girl naked on the bed, grateful she was rescued from the storm by a beautiful heiress."

  "Says the girl who tied me up!"

  "It's fate that brought us here. Two freaks."

  "IT is just not natural!"

  "Oh?"

  "I just wanted to be your friend! You're the dyke who brought me here!"

  "Don't act like your heart doesn't skip a beat for me."

  "My HEART got stopped by the eight-foot-tall alien you abusive sicko!"

  "Oh, Please."

  "Sonera and Lunae need our help! Why am I even here?!"

  "I've come to take you home," Ivy muttered.

  "STOP PLAYING THIS GAME!" Li roared at the top of her lungs.

  The heiress narrowed her gaze. "We both know it's not a game..."

  "Then end it! Finish it!"

  "You'd ask me to kill you?"

  "I am my mother's daughter. Not your toy." Li stared, her hardened resolve becoming undeniably apparent.

  "And I am my father's daughter!" Ivy's voice faltered.

  Li judged her, gritting her teeth with rage. "An oppressor? All the things Rena said you were and more!"

  "What choice but simple duty." Ivy raised a finger to the girl's forehead, its shape bckened and sharpened like a bde.

  "Do it! Look at my face! Imagine my terror in your clutches!"

  "An heiress does what is necessary..." Ivy muttered.

  Her hand trembled. She hesitated. It took all she had and more to truly consider what she was about to do.

  "For my family!" Ivy cursed.

  Li shut her eyes. "For your family..."

  Ivy paused. Her mind raced with a possibility she had never considered. Her words rang true after all. It was fate for her to meet that girl.

  "Just do it! And I'll be with them! My brother and mother!" Li pleaded. "They're gone! Dead! Let me join them!"

  Ivy did her best to justify her actions. "I...I'll do it!"

  "Just like your father."

  "An heiress must make painful choices!"

  "Hear their screams, imagine their terror! It's who you are!"

  "He did what he had to! In our family's name! A vital task!" Ivy sobbed, tears streaming down her face.

  The room surrounding the girls began to crumble. The heiress and everything around her had fallen to ruin. So too had her confidence.

  "If I kill you..." Ivy gritted her teeth. "My mother..."

  Ivy fell to her knees, burying her face in the bedsheets. Li's bindings came loose in that sudden moment, allowing her to finally breathe. Her dress reappeared as well, covering her once more.

  She was safe.

  "Ivy..." Li muttered, gently prying the heiress's fingers off her stomach as she reached out to her other half. "I know..."

  "You don't." Ivy sniffled. "You haven't seen the half of it."

  "Then we'll face it. Togethor. As friends."

  Ivy looked up, smiling as she stared into Li's soul. She had only just met the girl. But it felt right to be at her side.

  As if, once upon a time, long ago, she was always there.

  Li held both girls by the hand, her face beaming with pride as she pulled them closer. Imbued with a sense of valor she had never felt before, she released a tender grin.

  "They need us, Ivy."

  "I know." Both Ivys wept, their eyes wide open. "I know."

  "How did we even get here?"

  "I'm...not sure. But the me on the outside. She'll know what happened here. She will remember. You aren't ready for the reason why."

  "Can't be that bad, right?" Li smiled.

  A bck hand reached out to the girl, jutting out from the darkness above her. It csped its long, spindly cw around her skull, and with a single squeeze, it brought an end to the dream. Li had died.

  Her head shattered in an explosion of red.