Love Found a in Bubble - Commission -WIP - 5/29/22 (Patreon)

Li, a young man in his early 20s, was driving down to a secluded beach nearly 50 miles from his hometown. Heart pounding in his chest, he struggled to keep his attention on the road, growing more nervous the closer he got to his destination. There was so much tension in his hands, that he almost felt like he could rip the steering wheel off of the dashboard. Li tried to distract himself, thinking about work, video games, and even his car's extended warranty, but he couldn’t quell his heavy chest-pounding feelings of anxiety. By all means, Li felt like he should be excited, eager to reach his destination. If the rumors were true, he would soon be having the time of his life.

It all started not too long after the new year, when he saw a video floating around Twitter of a woman stuck inside of a big pink heart-shaped inflatable floating on an empty beach. Wrapped up in a blue one-piece swimsuit with a confused look on her face, she could be seen pushing and stretching the inflatable’s surface from the inside, unable to break free as it bobbed and wobbled in the air. The one supposedly shooting the footage, would turn with their phone camera around just in time to see another bubble approaching them, letting out a shocked gasp before the video abruptly cut. The two involved in the video had become famous on the site since that day, however, the videos themselves had been taken down, and neither of them had mentioned anything further about the incident since that day.

Over the past several months, Li had been pursuing and following online forms with circulating rumors surrounding the mysterious heart-shaped inflatable’s in the video, some speculating that it was a made with CGI, while others had come forward sharing supposed encounters with these strange objects, describing them as large bubbles rather than inflatable‘s. Some would claim how they would either emerge from a distance or from out of nowhere, slowly approaching them as they would appear relatively harmless, so I’m even claiming to have been chased before being snatched up in an unsuspectingly soft hug. But the most bizarre detail he read from the claims, was how these bubbles would supposedly inflate their interiors to squeeze the occupant, essentially becoming vacuum-packed inside.

Though little to no evidence of these encounters has been documented, he read that two of these supposed incidents had been mentioned taking place on a coastline near his city. so on his day off, he wasted no time planning a trip out of town to confirm whether or not the rumors were true firsthand.

Ever since he caught wind of the video, he felt a weird feeling in his chest, his heart pounding heavily upon seeing the woman trapped inside of the crimson bubbly inflatable. It wasn’t a feeling he was familiar with, it wasn’t horror, or fear like many on the thread expressed. In fact, he felt rather attracted to the concept. The young man had no idea why, but deep down, all he knew was that he wanted to be trapped inside one, to be cradled in a soft floating inflatable, confined from the outside world. Li couldn’t describe why he felt this way, or why he even fantasized about it, all he knew is that he wanted to find these bubbles to experience it first hand.

It wouldn’t be long before he finally arrived at the beach, parking his car close to the sand, and even going as far as to strip down to his swim trunks as he began wandering the beach. The waves were calm, lapping against the shore with gentle splashes, the sand soft pleasantly squishing beneath his toes, and the sun was just warm enough to keep him from getting cold in the light breeze. However, no matter how far he walked, no matter how much he looked, he couldn’t find a single one of those strange heart bubbles he had hoped to find.

After about an hour or so of walking up and down the empty beach, the young man let out a heavy sigh as he made his way back to his car. Before starting the car, Li simply slumped him in his front seat, resting his hands on the wheel as he took a minute to cope with his disappointment. Though no longer rattled with anxiety, he felt cripplingly drained, his motivation for driving all this way dashed as he was left emotionally exhausted. Li almost didn’t even feel like reaching for the keys, feeling silly as to believe a bunch of online rumors about large heart-shaped bubbles that trap people. So desperate to fulfill his fantasy, he believed in an online conspiracy of all things.

After a few minutes of mopping, he managed to start the engine as he drove back onto the road. Although deep down, part of him wished he could explore the beach just a little bit longer, he had to accept that it would be a pointless venture. But… Little did he know, only a short distance away, a big glossy silhouette would slowly poke out from one of the nearby trees, alerted by the sound of the car’s revving engine. Watching the vehicle drive away, the glossy silhouette fixated its attention on the young man in the driver's seat, taking notice of the gloomy look on his face. Once the car was out of sight, the silhouette slowly emerge from the trees, revealing itself as a large red 6-foot heart-shaped bubble.