CHAPTER 157: 157-IT IS GOING TO BE SO AWKWARD

Clementine:

Now I was really stunned and wondering what he was about to do next. He reached my side and leaned down, his hand grabbing my neck very faintly, and then he crashed his lips against mine in a way that hitched my breath. Now my body was being touched and sucked by the Alphas, with all the gnomes standing around us watching with smiles and gossiping about everyone’s actions.

Ian’s lips tasted so good that I began to hungrily suck them. And when he inserted his tongue into my mouth, I went crazy for it. But the moment Haiden’s tongue tip penetrated my entrance, I gasped and moved my hand on the counter, accidentally hitting one of the gnomes. It fell off the counter, and then a loud crack pulled us all apart. I broke the kiss with Ian and gasped. Haiden swiftly came out from under my dress, looking shocked too. Everything had turned so silent and dull.

The happy feelings from before were gone. I noticed my squadmates shaking their heads, like clearing their vision. I had quickly fixed my dress, and it did not escape my attention that I was standing in such a compromised state with them. I quickly adjusted my panties and then my neckline. I just don’t know. It was all hitting me at once. I suddenly realized that this was all fake, that we had been fooled by those ugly little things.

Ugly? I asked myself as I looked at one of them. It was Toby. He did not look like Toby. His face was uglier, weird, creepy, scarier. Then I saw where Toby was looking, where all the genomes were looking. And it was at the broken pieces of one of them. I followed their gazes and looked down to see Tilly shattered in pieces. I realized what had happened. I had accidentally tripped her, and when she broke, all the hypnotism and the weird stuff they had filled in our heads started to fade.

"My wife," Toby, let out a loud cry. The others started crying with him, the same dramatic, over-exaggerated cries that made me cover my ears. Their voices were so loud and harsh, almost like drilling holes through my ears.

Then my eyes moved to the side, and my squadmates’ eyes met mine. They looked as taken aback as I felt, probably because what happened was so inappropriate. I began to hyperventilate, unable to hold full eye contact with them. But now that I was out of the trance, I realized what had happened. These things, these norms, were not friendly. They were as evil as they could be, and they used hypnotism to bring out the deepest, darkest desires in someone.

It wasn’t over yet. Soon the grieving gnomes stopped crying and turned to look at us. Toby took the lead.

"You killed my wife," he grunted, hissing.

"It—-it was an accident," I stuttered, watching its eyes change color. All of them started to get these weird big pimples on their skin. Then their smiles turned creepy, more like frowns. They were not gnomes. They were something very ugly.

"Well, then how about we accidentally hurt you, huh?" Toby hissed, the others standing behind him, making a little army, and clenching their fists.

"Oh, fuck off!" Haiden grunted, kicking Toby. But the minute he did, Toby bit his leg as he clung on.

"Ow!" Haiden grunted. He still managed to kick him off, but this time when he landed, he didn’t break down because he was no longer a ceramic piece of gnome. He was a fleshy thing.

Once the earthquake started shaking the beautiful garden of gnomes, we realized we needed to get out of there. We didn’t even know how many hours or days had passed. Every second felt so long. I was too stunned by what had happened here, everything from our arrival to being touched by everyone.

Soon Haiden grabbed my hand, snapping me out of my thoughts.

"We need to leave," he said, although he didn’t make eye contact with me this time. Usually, he would speak directly to me rather than others, but this time he shifted his attention to them instead. I could only imagine why. He was probably embarrassed as well.

It took me a while to snap out of my thoughts. While I did, I noticed Haiden holding my hand tightly. Then another gnome rushed forward, trying to lock the door. We didn’t understand how powerful they could get. I mean, it had been pretty easy to get them out of the way before. But I guess they didn’t want to fight one-on-one with us anyway. Their mission was to hypnotize us again.

This time, the one stepping forward was Yen. He tried to climb on top of the shelf again to call out to anyone who looked at him for too long.

"Listen to me. It’s okay. Everything is fine." I noticed Yen beginning to change back into the ceramic thing. His fingers were shifting, and it hit me, they were trying to regain their ability to hypnotize.

"We need to keep running and avoid making eye contact with them," Troy said, loud enough for all of us to hear. Even the gnomes heard him. Soon, Yen was back in its ugly state. I guessed that if we didn’t give in to their powers, after one of them broke, they would remain as these ugly things.

We didn’t even know what else we were supposed to do. Where were we supposed to go? Once we were out of the house, I noticed the sky turning into an ugly purplish-brown mixture.

"Come on, we know you don’t want to leave. You want to wait, you want to enjoy every touch," I heard Toby say. My mind started to feel numb again. I wanted to get away from here because I knew what they were doing to me was not something I wanted.

However, my steps began to slow down. Thankfully, Haiden was holding on to me, shaking me back to reality and reminding me that I didn’t really want this.