Page 95 of The Sixth Spring

He tasted and breathed in oranges. Water from Itori’s hair kept dripping, moving from a trickle into rivulets that ran across Will’s body. It cascaded off him and began to fill the bottom of the tree bowl.

And then, Will was aware of more than just his own body. He could sense Itori as if his body was Will’s own. He could feel Itori’s cock, how it felt to be inside Will. He felt himself thrusting, the way Will’s cock was pressed against his belly, leaking. He felt the clench of Itori’s muscles, how much he was holding back. And he felt Itori feeling him, luxuriating in the culminating pleasure, in the proof of Will’s desire for him.

It was a spiral of feedback loops. Will was himself and not himself. He was expanding, becoming everything around them.

Will knew, suddenly, Itori’s native language. It dropped into his head, and he understood the snarls and hisses. They untwisted themselves into words as if Will had always been born with the knowledge.

Through Itori, Will felt the world around them come into sharp focus. There was the hum of the tree under them, pleased to cup them in its trunk as it drank down the energy dripping out of their edges. There was the water, fathomless below them, brimming with life. There were birds in the trees above, tucked into holes for the night.

There was more than he could ever imagine, and it was flowing through him.

Tell it what you want, Itori said in Will’s head. It came as a slithering hiss.

It was becoming harder to focus on any one thing. Everything was blending together, rushing through his head like water.

But he had to try. He had things he wanted to change and things he wanted to keep.

Will reached for the first thing he wanted, what had started all of this–the spring.

Immediately he could see its entirety–the channels and springs and tributaries. He could feel where the men had severed off arms, like a missing limb. They ached where they’d been cut.

But there was so much water still. It was in the trees and the sky and the ground. And when he asked for it, it began moving toward him out of the deep earth, and gathering into puddles and streams.

It surged like a flood, and Will was awed by its presence. It was more than he could ever have conceived of, and he understood then how small humans were. How blind they were to the bigness around them.

Itori was in his head then, presence heavy. He was holding Will and nudging his thoughts.

Guide it, he said.

In the conjured space, Will did just that. He began to push it, mold it.

The streams thickened and connected, started weaving out from this lake into the land. It was going to take all of it, drown everything–

But what about Adrián and Becky? The grocery store. Will didn’t want to ruin those things. That was Adrián’s lifeblood and Becky’s ticket out of here someday.

In his mind, Will could see the path the water was making through the land. He could see how easy it would be to pull twenty or thirty feet of flood to where they were. To make all of it, the grocery store, the trailer park, the orchards and farm lands, into a swamp. Reclaim it all for nature.

Will was tempted for only a moment. Then he thought about what Itori had said before, about violence begetting violence. Too much, and humans would fight back. There needed to be balance.

Balance, Itori echoed. Then his hands were moving Will’s again. It was happening not in their bodies, but somewhere else, somewhere deep under the ground. Itori guided Will as if he were the river himself, reshaping his body as the water came. He created a curved bend in the river, missing the grocery and the trailer park. The water came and grew, washing through dried out beds, through the dead orange orchard.

The water rose higher and higher. It flowed down the rest of the road like a dam breaking. It pushed soil back into holes, washed away the markers and shovels and equipment they’d stuck into the ground.

And then finally–

Will felt the moment it reconnected to the spring system. The path lit up inside him like a glowing beacon. It was so big, so all-encompassing, that he trembled in its greatness.

There was so much life.

A tug came at his hand. Itori.

He was pulling Will back from the connection, back to his body in the crook of the tree. Will dropped like a stone, gasping when he felt his own physical form return to him.

Around them was rushing waters and creaking trees. Itori was still surrounding him, inside him, and they were moving in tandem like they’d never stopped.

Will grasped at him, tears burning his eyes as he realized his hands had claws now too.

Then they were kissing, biting and hungry. Will had sharp teeth and the swelling, surging hunger of what he’d created inside him.