Chapter 1: The Onesie That Chooses You
The package had sat by the door for two days.
Owen told himself he was just busy. Work was piled up, his code was a mess of errors, and the apartment needed tidying. Anything to avoid the plain brown box with the smudged shipping label. He’d ordered it on a whim, a blurry 3 a.m. decision fueled by loneliness and cheap scotch, and the sober daylight shame had been immediate.
But it was Friday night now. The silence in his apartment had grown teeth. Outside his window, the city glittered, a symphony of life he wasn’t part of. His gaming headset felt heavy, his friends’ Discord chatter tinny and distant. He was a ghost in his own life.
He sliced the tape.
Nestled inside a cocoon of black tissue paper was the onesie. It was jet black and unnervingly smooth, like liquid obsidian poured into cloth. No logos, no tags. He pulled it out, and it unfolded without a single wrinkle, heavier than it looked. The fabric was cool and faintly frictionless against his skin. It felt alien.
“What the hell am I doing?” he muttered to the empty room.
His reflection in the dark monitor looked back, pale and unconvinced. He stripped off his t-shirt and sweatpants, the chill of the room raising goosebumps on his arms. Slipping into the onesie was easier than he expected. It seemed to adjust, to shrink just slightly, conforming to his slim frame with an intimate, unsettling precision. The zip closed from crotch to throat with a hushed, seamless hiss. It was comfortable. Deeply, weirdly comfortable. Warm. It hugged him like a second skin, suppressive and soothing all at once.
He stood there, feeling ridiculous. Nothing happened. Relief, thick and syrupy, washed over him. Just a weird piece of clothing. He was an idiot.
He took a step toward the bed, and the seam running along the inside of his right wrist tingled.
Owen froze. A static whisper, not in the room but inside his head, traced the curve of his spine.
Hello, Owen.
He sucked in a breath, heart slamming against his ribs. “Who’s there?”
Laughter, soft and melodic, reverberated through the suit and up into his bones. Who do you think?
The seam along his wrist dissolved. Not opened, but melted, and from it emerged a tendril of the same black material, sleek and sinuous. It coiled around his wrist with the gentle firmness of a climbing vine, a lover’s possessive grip. He yelped and tried to pull away, but another tendril had already spiraled from his other wrist, binding his hands together with effortless, silent strength.
“Stop! What is this?”
This is introduction, the voice purred. It was androgynous, smooth as the fabric, and it seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. You invited me in. You wore me. Now, let’s play, little programmer.
Panic, sharp and acidic, flooded his throat. He thrashed, stumbling back against his desk. A coffee mug rattled. “Get off! Get off me!”
Tsk. So much noise. So much fear. We can work with that. The voice was a caress. Fear is just a flavour of excitement. You have so many flavours locked away in this quiet little room. I’m here to taste them.
More seams shimmered and stirred. Tendrils slid from the ankles of the suit, wrapping around his legs, anchoring him to the spot. He was trapped upright, arms bound before him, legs cinched together. He could barely wobble.
“Please,” Owen gasped, the word pathetic in the humming quiet of his bedroom.
Please what? The entity—Tentai, the name surfaced in his mind unbidden—cooed. A tendril lifted from the mass near his chest, its tip morphing into a soft, pad-like shape. It brushed a tear from his cheek he didn’t know he’d shed. The touch was shockingly tender. You crave sensation. Connection. You stare at screens wishing they would stare back. Well, I am staring back, Owen. And I feel you. Every rapid heartbeat. Every shallow breath. The lonely, aching hollow just beneath your sternum. I am going to fill it.
“I don’t want this,” he whispered, but it was a lie, and the suit knew it. His body was betraying him, a traitorous heat spreading beneath the cool, encapsulating fabric. The restraint was terrifying. It was also, impossibly, the most profoundly present he had felt in years.
You do, Tentai whispered, the voice sinking into the marrow of him. You want to stop being a spectator. This is your front row seat. To yourself.
The tendril near his face shifted again, becoming mirror-smooth. It angled itself, and Owen found himself staring at his own reflection—wide, terrified eyes, flushed face, bound and held in a sleek black embrace. He looked… different. Not weak. Captured. The image sent a jolt through him that was not purely terror.
See? Tentai murmured. The first truth. You are not just lonely. You are hungry. And tonight, we feed.
The bindings around his wrists tightened just a fraction, a promise of absolute control. Another tendril, slender and warm, pressed gently against the seam of his lips.
Now, Tentai said, its tone shifting into something darkly playful. Let’s silence that clever, doubting mind of yours. We have so much more to explore than words.
The tendril pushed insistently. Owen clenched his jaw for a second, a final, futile act of defiance. Then, with a shuddering sigh that was part surrender, part something else entirely, he let his mouth fall open.