The Alchemy of Desires

Chapter 2 - Intake

The Lytton Institute occupied the top three floors of a building that didn’t officially exist. On public records, the address was a defunct fish cannery on the Oregon coast. In reality, the cannery was a facade—a hollow shell of rusted machinery and bird droppings that concealed a freight elevator leading eighty feet underground.

Ellis spent his first morning in Medical Wing C, being poked and prodded by a silent team of technicians who treated him like a slightly interesting laboratory accident. They drew blood (fourteen vials), scraped skin (three locations), measured his pupil response to flashing lights (annoying), and made him pee into a cup while a camera recorded his flow rate (deeply annoying).

“Baseline data,” said the lead technician, a woman named Prasad who had the energy of someone running on caffeine and spite. “We need to know exactly what your body can handle before we start breaking it.”

“Breaking it,” Ellis said. “Encouraging choice of words.”

Prasad didn’t smile. “You’ll understand after the Salamander.”

She left him alone in an examination room wearing nothing but a paper gown that gaped open at the back. The room was windowless, painted a soothing beige, and equipped with a single chair that was—of course—uncomfortable. Ellis sat on it and waited.

The door opened. Harsh entered with a tablet and a manila folder.

“Baseline results are in,” she said. “You’re unremarkable.”

“Thank you.”

“That wasn’t an insult. Unremarkable is what we want. No pre-existing conditions, no drug interactions, no genetic anomalies. Your pain threshold is average. Your pleasure response is average. Your recovery rate is average.” She sat across from him. “We’re going to change all of that.”

She handed him the folder. Inside were ten pages, each one a dossier on a different specimen.

SPECIMEN 1: SYLPH (Aerial, Class III)

*Method: Full-body contact mating in zero-gravity chamber. Duration: 45-90 minutes. Risk: Disorientation, ego dissolution, temporary weightlessness.*

Upgrade: Pressure tolerance (vascular, respiratory).

SPECIMEN 2: GORGON (Variant serpentine, Class IV)

*Method: Direct eye contact required. Paralysis agent in venom. Duration: 20-40 minutes. Risk: Temporary catalepsy, euphoric lock.*

Upgrade: Muscular pleasure threshold.

SPECIMEN 3: FLAME SALAMANDER (Thermal, Class V)

*Method: Internal heat exchange. Duration: 10-15 minutes. Risk: Second-degree burns, spontaneous combustion (rare).*

Upgrade: Thermal pain tolerance.

Ellis kept reading. Deep One. Dryad. Lamia. Will-o’-Wisp. Troll. Succubus. Harpy. Each one stranger and more dangerous than the last. The Succubus entry made him pause: Warning: Subject will manifest as the mate’s deepest unconscious desire. Psychological screening mandatory before and after.

“The Succubus,” Ellis said. “What happens if my deepest desire is something dangerous?”

Harsh’s expression didn’t change. “Then you’ll have a very educational forty-five minutes. And then we’ll debrief.”

“And if I don’t survive the debrief?”

“Then you won’t need to worry about the Harpy.” She stood. “Get dressed. Prasad will take you to containment for your first orientation. The Sylph is awake and expecting you.”

Ellis folded the paper gown carefully, as if it deserved respect. Then he put on the clothes they’d provided—soft gray sweats, no pockets, no metal, nothing that could be used as a weapon or a tourniquet.

Prasad met him in the hallway. She walked fast, and Ellis had to hurry to keep up.

“One rule,” Prasad said without looking back. “When you’re in the chamber with the specimen, we won’t interrupt unless you’re actively dying. Screaming doesn’t count as active dying. Crying doesn’t count. Begging doesn’t count.”

“What counts?”

“Flatline. Seizure lasting more than ninety seconds. Or if you say the safe word.”

“There’s a safe word?”

Prasad stopped in front of a heavy steel door. She turned to face him. “The safe word is ‘mercy.’ Say it, and we flood the chamber with sedative gas. You’ll wake up in medical, and your contract will be terminated. No pay. No upgrades. No second chances.”

“Mercy,” Ellis repeated. The word felt strange in his mouth. Soft. Defeated.

“Don’t say it unless you mean it,” Prasad said. “Most people who say it regret it for the rest of their lives. The ones who don’t say it… well.” She pressed her palm to a biometric scanner. The door hissed open.

Beyond it was a corridor lined with reinforced glass. Behind each window, Ellis could see shapes. Movement. One chamber contained a tree. Another contained a pool of black water. Another contained nothing but a faint, flickering light.

At the end of the corridor, Prasad stopped again. She pointed to a door marked SYLPH – ACTIVE.

“She’s in there,” Prasad said. “She knows why you’re here. She’s… enthusiastic.”

“Enthusiastic,” Ellis said.

“She hasn’t mated in six months. Sylphs get lonely.” Prasad stepped back. “Good luck, Dr. Vance. Try not to float away.”

She left.

Ellis stood alone in front of the door. He could hear something on the other side. Not a voice. More like wind chimes, if wind chimes could purr.

He thought about the video again. Subject 004 laughing as he died.

Then he thought about the pay. The boredom. The long, gray years stretching ahead of him if he walked away now.

He opened the door.

The chamber inside was white. White walls, white floor, white ceiling. No furniture. No corners—everything curved, like the inside of an egg. And floating in the center of it, suspended in midair, was a woman made of moving air.

She was translucent, almost invisible except when she moved. Her shape shifted constantly—now tall and narrow, now round and soft, now spread thin like a veil. When she saw Ellis, she shimmered, and a sound came from her that was half laughter, half storm.

“Finally,” she said, and her voice was the wind through pine trees. “I was beginning to think they’d sent another coward.”

Ellis stepped inside. The door closed behind him. The air pressure changed immediately—his ears popped, and suddenly he felt lighter, as if gravity had lost interest in him.

“I’m not a coward,” Ellis said.

The Sylph drifted toward him. Her form coalesced into something almost human—a face with no features, a body with no clothes, a smile made of breeze.

“Good,” she whispered, and her cool breath traced his lips. “Then let’s begin.”

She touched his chest, and Ellis left the ground.