Archived Version

A sci-fi story about permanent latex enclosure. The scientific details haven't been carefully worked out, so it can't be accepted as hard sci-fi, either.

Wrote this while wearing a pure white latex suit — had all the details figured out before I put pen to paper, thought it would take four hours, ended up taking over eight. Nearly couldn't get the latex suit off afterward, lol

Chapter One: Beneath the Surface

Morning sunlight filtered through the gap in the curtains, spilling across Xiaoxue's bedroom. It was a room that looked entirely ordinary for a high school girl — pale lavender wallpaper, a single bed, textbooks and notebooks arranged neatly on the desk, a few photos with friends pinned to the wall, a half-read novel and a plush toy on the night stand, and several school uniforms hanging on the rack by the wall. The air carried a faint, clean fragrance.

Yet in one corner of this warm and unremarkable room stood an object completely at odds with its surroundings — a metal cylindrical apparatus roughly two meters tall, its surface smooth and emanating a cold sheen, with a touchscreen and several glowing buttons embedded in its side. The machine looked as though it had crossed over from some future world, a stark contrast to the girlish sensibility of everything around it.

There was a bed in this room. But what lay upon it was nothing like what anyone would imagine a high school girl to be.

It was a pure white latex humanoid figure, without arms, the lower legs terminating at the ankles with no feet visible — like a flawed and incomplete sculpture. Her body lines were fluid, her surface smooth as silk, catching the morning light in a faint, soft gloss. There were no openings anywhere on the white latex body; only the natural rise and fall of her chest hinted that a real human being lived inside. Around her neck was a delicate metal collar, fitted with a miniature camera and several small sensors.

The white latex body began to move on the bed. She had no arms and no feet, yet her movements were surprisingly nimble. She rolled over first, then used her truncated limbs to push herself upright. The latex surface deformed slightly with each movement, clinging close to every contour of her body under considerable pressure. She slid lightly off the bed, balancing herself in that particular way of hers, her residual limbs touching the floor almost soundlessly. The white latex shimmered with a soft glow in the morning light, her movements fluid and graceful.

She moved slowly toward the mysterious mechanical apparatus. As she drew near, the screen on the side of the device lit up, displaying a stream of data and a human body outline.

“Initiate disguise sequence,” Xiaoxue's voice said — emanating from somewhere on the white latex figure, indistinguishable from that of a real girl.

A door slid open silently at the front of the device, revealing the interior space. The white latex figure moved inside with fluid agility, and the door eased shut behind her.

Soft blue light filled the interior as a series of mechanical arms began to move. First, two precision arms retrieved what appeared to be a pair of ordinary prosthetic limbs — beautifully shaped on the outside, high-tech within. The arms aligned the prosthetics precisely with the connection points at her shoulders and at the ends of her lower legs.

“Prosthetic attachment commencing. Please remain still,” the system announced.

Seconds later, the mechanical arms withdrew. The prosthetics bonded seamlessly with the latex surface. She seemed to feel a faint pressure and warmth at her shoulders and legs — the neural connection system had begun its work. She flexed her newly connected arms, the metallic fingers moving with easy fluency, as though they had always been part of her body.

“Prosthetic attachment complete. Generating outer skin layer.”

The cold system prompt sounded again. The device began spraying a special liquid latex compound, which coated her entire body with precision — prosthetics included. The layer was extraordinarily thin, yet possessed remarkable elasticity. More astonishing still: its colour and texture were nearly indistinguishable from real human skin, down to the finest pores and surface patterns, all perfectly replicated.

The liquid latex solidified rapidly. Simultaneously, lasers inside the device began scanning; precise mechanical fingers lightly touched the girl's face, making subtle adjustments to the expression musculature to ensure she could produce natural expressions. Finally, eyebrows and lashes were generated across her face, and then, sprouting rapidly from the scalp, came a full head of glossy black hair — in look and feel no different from the real thing.

“Assembly complete. All systems normal. Have a pleasant day, Xiaoxue.”

The door slid open again, and an ordinary naked girl stepped out — pale skin, refined features, a well-proportioned figure, eyes clear and bright. No one could have imagined what secret lay concealed beneath that perfectly ordinary appearance.

Xiaoxue walked to the clothes rack and took down her school uniform and underwear. She dressed naturally, adjusting the straps.

She pulled on her white blouse and did up the buttons, then her deep blue pleated skirt, then her black stockings and leather shoes. Once fully dressed, Xiaoxue checked her hair and ribbon tie in the mirror. The girl looking back was full of youthful energy. No one could see anything amiss.

Xiaoxue picked up her schoolbag, took one last look around the room to make sure she hadn't forgotten anything, and walked out the door.

This was the process Xiaoxue went through every single day — transforming from a limbless latex doll into a girl who looked perfectly normal.

Chapter Two: Where the Abyss Begins

Sunlight poured through the classroom windows, casting dappled light across the desks. At the front of the room, the physics teacher was filling the blackboard with chalk, working through the basic principles of Newtonian mechanics. Some students took notes diligently, others sneaked glances at their phones under the desk. The air smelled of chalk dust and restless youth.

Xiaoxue sat by the window, a notebook open in front of her, a mechanical pencil in her hand. She looked no different from any ordinary high school girl — pale skin, dark hair tied in a low ponytail, her school uniform neat and proper, an expression of vague thoughtfulness on her face. Yet, her eyes had gone unfocused, and the pencil tip moved unconsciously across the notebook page, tracing tangled, formless lines.

No one knew that Xiaoxue was enduring a constant sensation of suffocation — the stimulation of the vaginal plug surging through her in wave after wave, making it impossible for her to be still. She tried repeatedly to focus, but was always dragged back down.

Her gaze drifted to the window. On the playing field in the distance, a group of students were in the middle of a P.E. class, their laughter, and voices carried on the wind. She bit down slightly, but her teeth only found the hard surface of the bite plate built into her gag, sending a faint vibration through her jaw. Involuntarily, a wave of nausea rose in her — the gag asserting its presence. The pencil tip paused on the paper for a moment. She didn't really know what she'd been writing. Her thoughts drifted, drawn irresistibly back to three years ago — to that island, ringed on all sides by endless ocean, where everything changed.

Three years ago, twelve-year-old Xiaoxue was an orphan, living in a children's home on the outskirts of the city. She was slight and fine-featured, always looking down, wearing clothes washed pale from too much laundering, quiet as a shadow. Life at the orphanage was monotonous and oppressive; true friendships were rare among the children there. Xiaoxue had grown used to retreating to corners with a book, or staring out the window at the sky. Back then, she always assumed she would go on like this forever — until she was adopted by someone, or aged out and was sent to work in some factory.

One morning, several people in black suits arrived at the orphanage. They introduced themselves as representatives of the Eternal Group, claiming to offer “exceptional children” better opportunities in life. Xiaoxue was selected. No explanation was given. She was given no chance to refuse. She was put into a black car, and the familiar city outside the window fell steadily away, replaced by endless roads and unfamiliar landscapes.

Several days later, Xiaoxue was brought to an uninhabited island. It wasn't large — steep cliffs and crashing waves all around, and at the centre a massive white structure, something like a high-tech laboratory. The air smelled of seawater and the low hum of machinery; heavy clouds blocked the sun, and everything on the island had a cold, distant quality.

“Welcome to your new home, Xiaoxue,” a researcher said. His voice was flat and formulaic; his face held no expression.

Xiaoxue was taken into a windowless room. The walls were smooth metal, the floor ice-cold underfoot. At the centre of the room lay a strange ensemble of clothing — a black latex one-piece swimsuit, paired with latex stockings reaching to the thighs and latex gloves reaching to the elbows. On a rack nearby sat a pair of black latex thigh-high boots.

“This is your adaptive suit. From today, you must wear it at all times,” the researcher said, handing her an instruction sheet in a tone that brooked no argument. “Put it on. Adjust to it. This is for your future — and for the future of humanity.”

Xiaoxue looked down at the smooth latex garment, its surface catching the light with a dim, almost sinister gleam. She hesitated, but the researcher's sharp gaze left her no room for resistance. She stripped off her worn-out clothes, her bare body exposed to the cold air, skin prickling all over with goose flesh.

The latex swimsuit was tighter than she'd imagined — it took real effort to pull on, like a second skin wrapping her body tight. The latex was cold and smooth against her, conforming to every inch of her from shoulders to hips without a single gap. At the crotch was a hidden opening that connected to a complex waste management device. The researcher instructed her coldly on how to use it — ensuring the opening sealed completely when not in use, the surface smooth enough to leave no trace.

The stockings and gloves were equally snug. Once on, her limbs felt wrapped in a thin membrane; with every movement, she could feel the slight stretch and resistance of the latex.

When she was fully dressed, the researcher did something to her body she couldn't quite see, and the latex suit contracted again, becoming completely impossible to remove. Xiaoxue stood in front of the mirror, frozen. The girl looking back was strange and unfamiliar — head to toe in black latex, like some kind of soldier from the future, or some kind of experiment. Her face flushed so deeply it might have bled, her fingers twisting together with unease.

“Good. The adaptive suit fit is perfect,” the researcher noted, recording data on a tablet. “From this point, you cannot remove it. You may not wear any other garments over it. When going out, only the designated boots are permitted.”

“Why… why does it have to be like this?” Xiaoxue's voice trembled, carrying a faint, fragile protest.

The researcher looked up, regarded her coldly. “For eternal life. This is your purpose.”

The days that followed were days of adaptive training. Every day, she was required to complete various tasks in the latex suit — running laps on the island's training ground, undergoing physical assessments in the laboratory, or being examined in simulated underwater pressure environments. The constant tightness of the latex made her uncomfortable every waking moment; the waste management device at her crotch was a source of shame every time she had to use it.

She was forbidden from eating any solid food, sustained only by a flavorless nutritional fluid drawn through a thin tube. The liquid was cold and viscous, and every time it slid down her throat, she felt a swell of nausea. At night, she slept on the laboratory bed, the latex suit gleaming faintly in the dark. Her fingers would drift unconsciously to the surface of the suit, feeling its cold, smooth texture. Outside, waves beat against the rocks in a low, rolling thunder.

Xiaoxue came back to herself with a start. The pencil tip had stopped on the notebook. She didn't know what she had been drawing while her mind was elsewhere — the page was covered in solid black scribble. She realized she had absorbed nothing the teacher had said. Nearby students were whispering to each other about something. The teacher had drawn a force diagram on the board; his voice remained distant and flat. The device inside the suit kept running, the subtle vibration of the vaginal plug sending a faint tremor through her body. She quickly shifted her posture to hide that momentary falter.

Xiaoxue lowered her head and pretended to organize her notes, trying to look focused. She tore out the scribbled page and copied the formulas from the board in neat handwriting. Her movements were fluid and natural; the neural connection between the prosthetics and her nervous system let her carry out these everyday actions with ease.

“Alright, everyone — write the answer to this problem on a sheet of paper and hand it in before class ends,” the teacher said, clapping his hands and breaking the quiet of the room.

Xiaoxue quickly wrote down the answer, her handwriting slender and even. She passed the sheet to Xiaoling in the row ahead. Xiaoling glanced back and gave her a conspiratorial wink, a mischievous grin on her face.

“Hey, what's gotten into you today? Were you up till midnight reading again?” Xiaoling murmured, voice lowered, teasing.

Xiaoxue smiled. The voice carried by the collar was soft and natural. “Of course not, I just… zoned out a little.”

Chapter Three: The Eternal Prison

The lunch bell echoed across campus, and the noisy classroom gradually emptied. Students drifted out in twos and threes toward the canteen or the playground, the air still carrying the smell of chalk dust and ink. Xiaoxue sat alone at the window seat, the desk in front of her bare — no lunch, no water bottle.

Sunlight fell through the window onto her school uniform, tracing the lines of her slender figure. She laid her head gently down on the cool desk surface, eyes closed, pretending to rest. Beneath the latex skin, the suit continued its work — the breathing fluid surging slowly through her lungs, releasing oxygen, bringing its endless, suffocating weight; the subtle vibration of the vaginal plug rising and falling like a tide, making her body tighten and shudder by turns.

The classroom was empty now, only the distant sounds of laughter and wind through the leaves drifting in from outside. Xiaoxue's thoughts floated far away. Her mind turned to the moment, two years ago, that changed her completely — when she was thirteen, taken to the laboratory, and made to put on the eternal life suit she would never be able to remove.

Deep in the laboratory on the uninhabited island, a sterile operating room radiated cold white light. The walls and floor were pure white metal; the air was sharp with disinfectant. At the centre of the room stood a surgical table, surrounded by complex mechanical apparatus, robotic arms suspended overhead, gleaming under the lights.

When Xiaoxue was brought into the operating room, she had already been wearing the adaptive latex suit for a year. That black latex garment had long since become part of her body — but today, she was told to take it off. She would be putting on the real suit. Her heartbeat quickened. She clenched her hands without thinking, and the latex gloves gave a faint squeak.

The lab researchers told Xiaoxue that this was for eternal life — a great contribution to the evolution of the human species. But something about it always struck her as wrong, in a way she couldn't quite name.

The researchers worked their instruments without expression. A female researcher came to her, used a device to disengage the lock on the adaptive suit Xiaoxue had been wearing for a year, and issued her command in a flat voice: “Remove the latex suit. Prepare for surgery.”

Xiaoxue removed the black latex suit with trembling hands. Cold air met her bare skin and she shivered. A year without seeing her own skin made it feel unfamiliar. She stood on the operating table, naked under the merciless lights, shame, and fear bowing her head.

“Lie down,” the researcher said, no room for anything but compliance.

Xiaoxue obeyed and lay back. The metal surface of the table was ice-cold against her skin. Her four limbs were fixed to the table; anaesthetic gas flooded through a mask and her consciousness slowly dissolved.

When she woke again, agony crashed over her in waves. Her arms and feet were gone. At her shoulders and the ends of her lower legs, there were only smooth residual stumps, the wounds covered with a transparent gel through which the neural interfaces were faintly visible. The pain made thought nearly impossible — but what frightened her more was that the researchers had already begun fitting the pure white eternal life suit onto her.

The material of the suit was smoother and tighter than the black latex she had worn before, like flowing liquid conforming to the shape of her body. The fitting was performed by a precision mechanical apparatus; robotic arms eased the latex material over her residual limbs. The interfaces at the shoulders and lower legs had been specially engineered to seal tightly around the stumps, without a gap anywhere.

The Eternal Life Suit was the product of the Eternal Group's obsessive immortality research. The Eternal Group had once been a major multinational petroleum company, but when the original chairman died, the current CEO — his wife — redirected the company's entire research capacity into medicine and biology. The official line was protection of the environment and the advancement of humanity, but there had always been rumours that the CEO's pursuit of eternal life had driven her to a kind of madness, that dark and illegal experiments were being conducted.

The Eternal Life Suit was the culmination of those illegal experiments — and the approach that had come closest to achieving immortality. In one sense, it was already a success.

The pure white latex suit encased the human body entirely. The special nano-latex possessed extreme pressure resistance — enough for the person inside to withstand the crushing pressure of the deep ocean — while sealing out the external environment completely, with survival maintained entirely by the life support system within. The lungs were filled with high-pressure breathing fluid that slowly released oxygen, forcing gas exchange through the alveoli and sustaining respiration. Carbon dioxide collected through tubes running through the gag and the digestive tract was piped to a device within the uterus; powered by an antimatter energy core, the carbon atoms were stripped, and the recovered oxygen returned to the breathing fluid. The carbon atoms and other materials were synthesized into sugars, delivered into the intestinal tract, which was filled with high-pressure nutritional fluid. Urine from the bladder was recovered as well — every atom cycled back into the system. The whole apparatus consumed only energy; powered by the antimatter core, it could sustain life for a century or more.

In their research, the Eternal Group's scientists had discovered that every human being carries dormant immortality genes — under ordinary circumstances, these genes can never be activated. But they had theorized that when a human body's limbs are amputated, the brain undergoes compensatory neural reorganization. At that moment, compression and stimulation of the nervous system through a latex suit — heightening nervous system activity — represented the most promising known means of activating those genes. To maximize the probability of success in the first trial, the researchers had selected the critical threshold of physical and neurological development: thirteen years old, the age of highest potential. Through genetic screening conducted through illegal channels, Xiaoxue — identified as the subject with the greatest likelihood of success — was chosen as the experimental subject and brought to the island. After being fitted with the eternal suit, Xiaoxue's body was locked in place at the age of thirteen: growth and development ceased, and she would never age.

The fitting of the Eternal Life Suit continued. The installation of the devices at her lower body was the most agonizing part. A researcher inserted an extremely long catheter into her bladder; the cold, metallic sensation made her body jerk sharply. Then came a spherical master control unit, slowly pressed into her uterus — its surface smooth but heavy, bringing an indescribable sense of fullness and pressure. Most devastating of all was the vaginal plug, extraordinarily long, its surface ridged and textured; every pass of friction as it was inserted made her want to scream. The installation of the anal plug was equally brutal. Xiaoxue caught a faint glimpse of the thing being worked into her body — its length was several times her own height, the tube extending deep into her intestinal tract, filling every inch of space.

The latex suit continued upward over her body. When the nipple plugs were inserted into her breasts, she felt a sharp, stabbing pain; a pair of reinforced latex pads cupped her chest from the front. The head unit was the most intricate installation of all — contact lenses with embedded screens were positioned beneath her eyelids, fitted flush against the cornea; earpieces filled her ear canals, pressing against the eardrums with a heavy, muffled sensation; nasal inserts entered through the nostrils and ran all the way to the oral cavity, sealing off her breathing passages completely.

The gag was the most terrifying part. The long tube slid down her throat, deep into the esophagus, reaching all the way to the stomach. A violent wave of nausea hit her — but the design of the tube made it impossible to expel, and she could only endure it helplessly. The fixation of the gag included dental recesses; when she bit down, her mouth finally closed, leaving no visible trace from the outside. She understood that the distal end of the gag would connect inside her body with the distal end of the anal plug that had been inserted earlier, forming a closed circuit for the oxygen cycle.

When the fitting was complete, the mechanical apparatus began to inject fluid. High-pressure nutritional fluid surged through the anal plug into her intestinal tract, filling her abdominal cavity; high-pressure breathing fluid entered her lungs through the gag, thick as something solid, pressing down into her chest cavity with crushing weight, bringing the sensation of absolute suffocation. The vaginal plug and the uterine sphere were filled with fluid as well, bringing continuous, unbroken stimulation — waves of sensation like electricity surging through her body, tangled up with the suffocation and the nausea.

Finally, the robotic arm sealed the opening at the collar of the suit. The latex contracted again, as if it meant to crush her. Her consciousness faded in the double torment of pain and pleasure, and she passed out.

Chapter Four: Awakening in the Deep

When Xiaoxue came to again, she was in absolute darkness. Cold seawater surrounded her on all sides; the immense water pressure wrapped her body, but the eternal suit's resistance held and she was unharmed. The life support system within the suit continued to operate, the breathing fluid slowly releasing oxygen, keeping her alive.

“Where am I — am I still alive — my hands, my feet, they're really gone.” She spoke to herself, and in the same moment realized she could hear her own voice, sweet and clear.

Her vision restored through the collar's camera. The contact lens displays projected the surrounding world into her eyes — the dim depths of the ocean, bioluminescent fish drifting past now and then, jagged rock formations and endless void in the distance. Her body floated with a strange buoyancy; the absence of arms and feet actually made her more agile in the water.

In those first few days, Xiaoxue fell into extreme panic. She tried to swim toward the surface, but deep ocean currents swept her further down. She learned to work her residual limbs, to undulate her body like a fish, gliding through the water. She wandered the seafloor, adjusting to this truncated body. The devices inside the suit never stopped stimulating her — the suffocation made every moment feel like a desperate gasp for air, the pleasure made her body seize and shudder at intervals, the nausea kept her throat clenching without end. But she had no choice except to accept all of it.

Time lost its meaning in the deep. She drifted with the currents, through ocean trenches, around dark reefs, occasionally encountering deep-sea creatures, never finding a direction.

She had no idea how long she had been adrift. Eventually, a current carried her back into familiar waters. She saw the uninhabited island — the lighthouse on the cliff face long since dark, the buildings at the island's centre cold and silent. She pushed her body with her residual limbs and swam slowly toward shore, hauling herself up onto the rocks.

Xiaoxue learned to stand and walk on her lower leg stumps. Her movements were clumsy and slow at first. She explored the island without any particular urgency; time, for Xiaoxue, had lost its weight. But she was still struck by the silence. “Where did everyone go? Did the experiment fail? Or… has this place already left the world of the living?” She entered the laboratory. The noise that had once filled it had been replaced by absolute stillness; a thin layer of dust covered the instruments; the corridors were empty.

She found her old room. The bed was still in the corner. She lay down on it, the latex body making a faint friction against the sheets. The devices inside the suit continued to run, suffocation and pleasure always with her — but she had grown used to them.

In the days that followed, Xiaoxue lived in the empty laboratory. She explored every room, searching for some clue, and found nothing. Until one day, a military inspection team arrived on the island. They found Xiaoxue; her existence stunned them. After their investigation, they confirmed her identity and told her that two years had passed. The Eternal Group's crimes had been exposed. The Group's leadership had been arrested and the experimental program terminated.

“You are the only survivor. The experiment they conducted succeeded,” one of the military personnel told her, voice carrying something complicated. “They believed you had died at the time — your heart had stopped. To conceal the evidence of the illegal experiment, they sank you into the ocean.”

The military brought Xiaoxue back to the mainland, commissioning high-tech prosthetics and lifelike latex skin for her, making her look indistinguishable from an ordinary person. They arranged a regular apartment and a regular high school, and tried to help her integrate into society. School life became her new disguise. She learned to write with prosthetic hands, to walk, to smile; she learned to hide the secret of her body.

But however perfect her appearance, the constraint of the eternal suit never disappeared. Her every breath, her every movement, came paired with suffocation, pleasure, and pain. She knew this would be her eternal condition.

Chapter Five: Fractures in Reality

The end-of-day bell rang across the campus, the sky turning warm orange-red in the setting sun. Students streamed out through the school gates in clusters, laughter, and footsteps weaving together like some symphony of youth. Xiaoxue and Xiaoling walked home side by side, Xiaoxue's school bag swaying lightly on her shoulder, the prosthetic limbs moving with precise, natural strides — as though she really was nothing more than an ordinary high school girl.

Xiaoling was in a particularly good mood today, holding a piece of chocolate she'd just bought from the convenience store, unwrapping it as she walked. “It's the new matcha flavour, it's so good!”

She broke off a piece — brown and green — and held it out, her face full of expectant delight. Xiaoxue shook her head. Xiaoling, reading the gesture instantly, shrugged it off without a second thought and popped the chocolate into her own mouth, speaking around it: “You're always like this. I've literally never seen you eat anything. You have some kind of secret, don't you.”

She was grinning so hard her eyes curved into crescents, her short hair glowing gold in the setting sun. Xiaoxue watched Xiaoling's smile, and felt something warm stir quietly inside her.

They walked the familiar street together, past the neat rows of roadside trees, leaves rustling in the light breeze. Traffic flowed steadily around them; a bicycle bell chimed from somewhere behind. The low sun cast long shadows at their feet, and Xiaoxue's latex skin caught the light with a natural, soft glow.

“Oh, did you hear? School's organizing an autumn trip next week — camping up in the mountains!” Xiaoling waved her hand excitedly. “We should sign up early before all the good spots go. Do you want to share a tent?”

“Camping?” Xiaoxue's voice caught for a fraction of a second. Images flooded her mind — a tent, a campfire, a night sky full of stars, and the eternal suit she could never, ever take off. How am I supposed to explain that I can't shower, can't change clothes, can't let anyone see my body?

She was already mentally drafting some excuse to skip the trip. And then a piercing screech of brakes cut through the quiet of the street.

A heavy truck lurched out of the adjacent lane, its cab veering directly toward them. The tires screamed against the asphalt; the driver's terrified face was barely visible through the windshield.

“Xiaoling — get out of the way!”

Xiaoxue's reaction was startling in its speed. She shot out her prosthetic arm and shoved Xiaoling hard toward the grass strip at the side of the road. Xiaoling went down without warning, her chocolate spinning away into the air, a cry dying in her throat.

But Xiaoxue had no time to move herself. The truck's massive front end hit her body with a dull, enormous impact. Her figure spun through the air several times like a leaf caught in a gale, then crashed down hard onto the road surface a dozen meters away. Her bag flew open, phone, and textbooks scattering across the ground, the setting sun refracting off the debris in sharp flashes of light.

The truck driver lurched out of the cab in a panic. Xiaoling scrambled up from the grass, face drained of colour, stumbling toward Xiaoxue, her voice cracking: “Xiaoxue! Xiaoxue! Are you okay?!”

Xiaoxue lay on the ground, her body curled slightly. Her uniform had been torn open, revealing several stark gashes — but what was beneath those gashes was not flesh or blood. It was pure white latex, smooth as porcelain, shimmering with a dim lustre in the dying light. Her right prosthetic arm had sheared off completely, exposing the complex metal structure and neural interfaces within; the left was badly deformed, twisted at a grotesque angle. The outer layer of lifelike latex skin was severely damaged, the white body of the eternal suit visible beneath, the residual stumps at shoulders and lower legs clearly exposed — like something carved with deliberate, inhuman precision.

Xiaoxue slowly sat up. Her movements were uncannily fluid, as though the impact had meant nothing to her. Her gaze found Xiaoling — and she saw those wide, staring eyes, pupils blown open with shock and disbelief.

“Xiaoxue… you… what is this?” Xiaoling's voice trembled; involuntarily, she took a step back. Her eyes moved over the damaged body before her, trying to make sense of what she was seeing.

“Xiaoling, I…” Xiaoxue tried to speak. The voice from the collar was still gentle, though something almost imperceptible wavered in it. “I'm fine. Come to my place. I'll tell you everything you want to know.”

She spoke quietly, trying to use her ruined left arm to lever herself upright. Her movements were still agile, the latex body looking almost unreal in the light of the setting sun. Beneath the damaged synthetic skin, the surface of the eternal suit was smooth and flawless — no blood, no wound.

Chapter Six: Eternal Light

Following Xiaoxue's instructions, Xiaoling picked up Xiaoxue's phone and called the military contact saved in her address book. In under ten minutes, a black SUV came to a stop at the roadside. A young man in a dark jacket stepped out — somewhere around thirty, sharp-eyed, his pace measured and steady. He scanned the scene quickly, eyes settling on Xiaoxue's damaged body. His brow furrowed slightly, but he showed little surprise.

“Xiaoxue, how did you end up like this — even worse than I imagined.” With that, he walked briskly toward the truck driver, who was pale and stammering that it was an accident, over and over again. A few words from the man steadied the situation; he produced his credentials and handled the arriving traffic police, then contacted an insurance company representative and negotiated a preliminary settlement. Certain confidentiality arrangements were made as well. After that, he drove Xiaoxue and Xiaoling back to Xiaoxue's apartment.

Inside, the living room glowed with warm, soft light, a striking contrast to the high-tech apparatus standing in the corner. Xiaoxue stood in the centre of the room, her white latex body catching the light in a faint shimmer, armless and footless, like a flawed sculpture — and yet, she carried something of a strange, composed grace. Her school uniform was completely destroyed, hanging off her in shreds, the full outline of the eternal suit visible beneath.

Xiaoling stood in the doorway, her schoolbag sliding to the floor, her gaze moving over Xiaoxue with a trace of unfamiliarity and fear. “Xiaoxue… can you tell me what's going on? You're… you're not a normal person, are you?”

Xiaoxue was quiet for a moment. Her voice, when it came, was soft, carrying a thread of exhaustion. “I'll tell you everything.”

Xiaoling hesitated, then sat on the sofa, hands clasped tight, not taking her eyes off Xiaoxue. Xiaoxue moved to the centre of the rug on her lower leg stumps with easy agility and stood straight, the latex surface deforming slightly with her movements, showing its extraordinary elasticity and closeness. Using her stumps and the apartment's built-in mechanical arm, she cleared the shredded fabric from her body as she spoke, recounting everything, slowly, from the beginning.

Xiaoling listened with her jaw slack. The colour of her face shifted from shock to grief to something more tangled. Her fingers gripped the sofa cushion tight; her eyes went faintly red at the rims. “So… you've been enduring this all along? Every day, you've been pretending to be a normal person — and you can't even really breathe?”

Xiaoxue nodded. She tried for a reassuring gesture, but her body sank slightly with helplessness. “Are you afraid of me? Do you think I'm a monster?”

But Xiaoling's response was not what she expected. She stood up from the sofa, came to Xiaoxue, and crouched down to look at her latex body carefully. Her fingers lightly touched the residual stump at Xiaoxue's shoulder — the surface cold and smooth — and she didn't flinch. “Xiaoxue, you're incredible. After everything you've been through, you can still come to school with me every day and smile like that. You saved my life just now. As far as I'm concerned, you're my hero.”

“How do you do it?” Xiaoling's gaze filled with something like wonder. “Without arms or feet, you still move so steadily. I honestly can't believe it.”

Xiaoxue gave a low, soft laugh and shifted her residual limbs, carrying her body into a small rotation. She balanced on her lower leg stumps and moved across the carpet with ease, even managing a small hop. Her movements were fluid and graceful, like something from the deep ocean — some creature that had learned to glide. The latex surface shifted with each movement, glowing gently.

“That's amazing!” Xiaoling clapped her hands, the fear on her face long since replaced by curiosity. “Xiaoxue, you're basically a superhero!”

The new prosthetics would take at least a month to fabricate. Xiaoxue had been planning to have Xiaoling make her excuses at school while she kept a low profile. But Xiaoling had other ideas.

“Why should you hide?” Xiaoling said from her perch on the edge of Xiaoxue's bed, her voice firm. “You're Xiaoxue. You're my friend. I don't see a monster when I look at you. We'll go to school together. We'll go camping together. You don't need to disguise yourself any more.”

Something clicked into place for Xiaoxue. She decided to try accepting herself.

She adjusted the programming of the mechanical apparatus, generating a layer of lifelike latex skin that fit close to the residual stumps at her shoulders and lower legs — no longer simulating complete limbs, but simply covering what was actually there. The new skin was still convincing, every pore and texture faithfully rendered, yet it conformed perfectly to her stumps, as though she had simply been born this way.

The next morning, Xiaoling pushed a wheelchair, and they went to school together. Xiaoxue sat in the chair in her school uniform, the residual stumps at her shoulders and lower legs plainly visible. She told her classmates honestly about her body — said she'd been born without limbs and had lived with prosthetics, that an accident had damaged them, and she had no choice but to come to school like this, though fortunately, her body itself was unharmed. Contrary to what she'd feared, her classmates weren't put off by her at all. They were impressed by her. A few of the bolder ones gathered around to ask how she managed things with her residual limbs, how she had hidden it all so well before, and someone even joked that she was more agile without hands and feet than most people were with them.

The autumn trip arrived as scheduled. Xiaoxue had a pair of specially made residual limb covers fitted to her lower leg stumps. She and Xiaoling went camping together; she walked the mountain trail with those covers, moving lightly around stones and roots. In the evening, they sat side by side at the campfire, looking up at a sky full of stars, as their classmates gathered in a circle and shared stories.

A month later, the new prosthetics arrived. But Xiaoxue found she was no longer attached to the disguise. Sometimes she would put the prosthetics on when a task called for it. Sometimes she would simply appear without them. The lifelike latex skin still covered her body, concealing the secret of the eternal suit — but she no longer used it to simulate complete limbs. She let the metal structures show.

Xiaoxue had begun to like her limbless body. She had begun to believe that even as she was, whatever the future held, she had already found a light that was her own.

鹿野みなり/130011385_p0