Chapter 4

~~Mia~~

The twisting path between the mountains and rocks erupted into chaos. Screams, blood, figures in dark red cloaks, wielding big black swords and axes.

Humans. Humans with demon weapons, wearing demon armor. Humans with wide, crazy eyes. Humans screaming with ... not rage. Hunger. Screaming with hunger, and grimacing with effort to lift the heavy weapons.

Mia, Hannah, the two men, and the two sex demons Diogo had brought with him all pressed against each other, back to back, as they watched the humans run at them. Whoever these other humans were with dark red cloaks, they weren’t looking to talk, or negotiate, or anything. They ran at Mia with all the subtlety of a raging lion.

It was dark. The sky of fire still burned, but it looked more like dying embers high above, and the amber veins in the mountain had grown dim. Bright enough to see, not bright enough to see things hiding behind rocks, and the demons were already dark red and black, like the stones. Natural camouflage. It was probably why the humans wore those leathery cloaks, but they’d exposed themselves first. Because Mia and the others were bait.

Diogo and the other demons jumped down from the cliff overhead. And the ambush became a maelstrom of violence and blood in seconds. Five of the humans died instantly as Diogo and his two brutes each landed on a different human, and the two tigers did the same. The snap of bone was louder than the battle cries of the other seven, and the humans turned around.

Mistake. Adron and the other vrat jumped down near Mia, and rushed the humans in the back, and they had their own swords. Loria swooped down from above, wings spread, grabbed one of the humans by the shoulders, and lifted them up. The human had an axe, but they couldn’t hold onto it with the gargoyle’s claws sinking into their flesh. It landed hard enough to make sparks, and bounced toward Mia’s feet.

She tried to pick it up, failed, and almost laughed. It was really heavy. No human could go around wielding weapons like these unless they were on steroids, and ridiculously big and tall to begin with. And she could see it in the way the humans moved. They weren’t looking to fence, or fight with any expectation of surviving. They put their whole body into every swing of the weapons, leaving themselves open every time, fully expecting to either get the kill with the swing, or to die right after.

They all died, right after. It wasn’t a battle. Caught off guard, the humans didn’t stand a chance against Diogo. Two of them did manage to hit Diogo with the weapons, but he was the last target they should have gone for. One of them managed to draw blood from the giant brute, but it was barely more than a paper cut, and the other might as well have hit Diogo with a wiffle bat for all the damage they did.

Ten seconds. That was all it took for the bait plan to work, and for twelve humans to lie dead. Blood soaked into the stones, and most of it disappeared, flowing away into the cracks and crevices, some of it soaking straight through the ground like Hell itself ... herself, wanted it.

It only got worse. The succubus and incubus joined the other demons, and eventually so did Hannah and the two men, in collecting their bounty. For the three brutes and two tigers, ripping open rib cages looked easy. The two vrats and gargoyle had a little more trouble, but not much, no more than someone cracking lobster claws with their bare hands.

The succubus and incubus split a heart among themselves. The other demons each took one except Diogo, who took two of course. What Mia didn’t expect to see, was Adron handing a heart to Hannah and the two men, and for the three of them to split it into chunks using one of the axes. Watching demons eat human hearts was enough to make Mia sick, but some part of her accepted it as normal. Absurd, but normal.

Seeing humans eat a human heart, made her feel like dying.

She stepped back, dropped the axe, and looked away as she covered her mouth. The old urge to vomit came up, like she was sick, but whatever strange rules the afterlife followed didn’t include a normal, working digestive system. You didn’t really eat or drink, or shit or piss, or any of the normal, grimy crap that came with life. No vomiting, no matter how much she wanted to.

“Don’t want any?” Hannah asked, coming over to her. “I know you just had a fruit, but better to stay topped off, you know?”

Mia gulped down nothing, and forced herself to look at Hannah, and not at the chunk of flesh in her hand.

“I’ll pass.”

“Suit yourself, Mia. You’ll regret it if you get injured.”

“Yeah, I probably will.” But it didn’t matter. Just looking at the meat in the girl’s hand had her gagging. The memory of her brother on a metal table, getting his chest cut open and inside examined, only made things worse.

Her brother.

She forced herself to walk past Hannah, into the larger area of flat rock where she and the others had been playing bait, and she watched the demons devour. It hurt to look down at the corpses, but if David was in there, she had to know. One by one, she checked the bodies, each one of them on their backs, each one with open chests. It was easier if she thought of herself as a detective, in a cult crime scene, looking for someone she knew.

But David wasn’t here.

“Got a fascination with the dead?” Adron asked, finishing up his meal and squatting beside her.

“N-No, no...” She stepped back, and did her best to not look into any more open chest cavities. “Just, still kinda ... getting used to all this.”

Adron raised a brow as he watched her, but shrugged after a few seconds. He and the other demons each grabbed a body, and tossed them over the ridge into another nearby small ravine. The valley between the mountains was full of them, and cliffs, and large sharp rock faces, perfect for an ambush. Diogo was smart to pick this spot for the counter-ambush. If he’d wanted, he could have just rolled some big rocks down and probably killed a few of the humans before the fight even started. Or maybe just stay hidden and let the humans go past.

Judging from the sounds some of the demons had made during the slaughter, they’d enjoyed it. They wanted food, and they wanted violence.

So did the humans in cloaks. The look in their eyes had been more than just hunger. It’d been inhuman.

One of the tiger ladies grabbed a corpse, and made quick work of collecting a skull as casually as someone replaced their shower curtain with one from a dollar store. Apparently one of the skulls on her belt had been damaged. Unlike the remnants they’d slaughtered, human bodies were a lot more durable, and the corpse resisted being skinned. But the tiger demon removed the skull and skinned it smoothly regardless, like a serial killer working on preparing their thousandth trophy. Probably more reality than simile.

“We sleep for the night,” Diogo said. “Adron and Loria, first watch.”

“You got it, boss,” Adron said, smirking slightly as he helped toss the last body away.

They didn’t have any leather blankets with them. Sleeping on Caera’s had been uncomfortable, but thankfully that first night in Hell hadn’t been too bad. No trouble sleeping. She expected tonight to go the same. Maybe it had something to do with her afterlife body, as if it just knew to fall asleep at night if she closed her eyes and let it. The strangest possible blessing. Maybe tonight would go as well?

She lay on the rock ground, stared up at the dimming sky of fire, and closed her eyes. But before sleep could take her, stirring sounds drew her attention, and not subtle either. No one jumped up to fight off the sound though, so whatever it was, it wasn’t a threat.

But she looked anyway. She shouldn’t have.

Loria the gargoyle, on her hands and knees, wings snug to her back, lifted her tail, while the incubus came up behind her. They were maybe twenty feet away, Mia looking at their profile. Loria had a leather skirt thing on, with skulls and metal chains dangling from it, and the incubus moved it aside casually. Of course, the ridiculously handsome man wore a playful, charismatic, I-know-you-want-to-fuck-me grin, as he slipped a hand between the gargoyle’s thighs.

With a contented sigh, Loria lowered her chest down, got onto her elbows, and relaxed, ass up in the air while the incubus did things to her. Mia couldn’t see from where she was, but judging from his wrists and forearms, the man was caressing and teasing.

And the fact they were surrounded by demons, all lying down and closing their eyes to sleep, didn’t matter to them in the slightest.

“You’re supposed to be keeping watch,” the incubus said, and he nodded toward Adron. The vrat stood nearby, looking out over the cliff edge to the ravines and paths below. But he did glance back long enough to smile and shrug at the incubus, before going back to his duty.

“Adron’s got it,” Loria said. “Just get me off a couple times. There’s something ... tingling, in the air. Fucking driving me nuts. I need some relief.”

The incubus chuckled. Damn he sounded good, every word, every noise, almost a song. He continued to tease and caress, one hand sliding up and down, the other working a specific spot in a circle. He was caressing her lips, while his other hand traced gentle lines around her clitoris, like Mia had done to herself a thousand times before. And a thousand times, she’d envisioned something like that incubus, or maybe Adron, or ... other things, doing that to her.

She forced down a groan before, somehow, finding the will to close her eyes. If she watched that any longer, she’d wind up with her fingers between her legs, and who knew how that’d go with giant beasts like vrats and brutes around. They might notice. They might do things to her. And that’d be a horrible thing, if Adron or maybe Diogo and his brutes came over, held her down, and forced their huge lengths into her squirming, boiling, wet little body. Absolutely horrible.

Another moan slipped out of the gargoyle, a hungry one, and Mia covered her ears with her hands. What the fuck was this place doing to her?

She ignored the tingling, vibrating sensation inside her, something that flowed into her fingers and toes, and unless she was going insane, it ... flowed past them, out of her, and out into the hard stones and warm air. Something she couldn’t see, only feel.

It was just her being horny. It had to be. Out of her mind horny.

So much for sleep coming easy.

~~David~~

The trip back was easier, now that he knew the path. Knew-ish. It was like when you come out of a restaurant bathroom and you’re trying to find your seat, but the restaurant looks different when you walk through it from a weird path. Same thing. He was thankful Jes and Dao led the way again, especially now that it was getting darker.

“Can we trust her?” he asked.

“Caera’s one of the oldest tregeera around,” Jes said with a shrug. “She used to spend a lot of her time digging up old ruins and shit. She used to be fun, too.”

“Yeah, but, can we trust her?”

“She’s working with Diogo only because it’s how she’ll get revenge. She’ll happily kill him if she sees a different way to get it. Which is Dao and me, if we kill Diogo. Not the first time we’ve talked about that, but—”

“I know, but, can we trust her?”

Jes sighed, flared her wings in a dramatic shrug, and flicked him with her tail without even bothering to look back at him.

“Probably, yeah. And don’t interrupt me, fresh meat.” She chuckled as she made sure to whip him with her tail yet a second, painful time. Her version of playing and teasing, evidently. “I do think there’s more to it, though. Caera’s been working on revenge for almost as long as I’ve been trying to kill Diogo, and Diogo can help her do that better than we can. I think this is about Mia.”

“Mia?”

“Maybe she likes Mia.”

“She said she protected her for one night...”

“Long enough for Dao to start thinking of you like a pet.”

Dao looked back at him, and clicked a few times, smiling.

“I ... guess that’s true.” He squirmed a bit, but managed to keep his eyes on Dao. That was an evil little grin she wore.

“And maybe Caera thinks the unmarked are important? She said the girl felt weird, and that you do, too. There’s definitely something in the air.”

“But, if she does think that, does that really matter? Unless she thinks she can use me or Mia, like Diogo thinks Zel might use Mia...”

Jes groaned, shaking her head.

“You worry too much, fresh meat. Today’s today. Tonight’s tonight. Tomorrow’s tomorrow. Worry about tomorrow tomorrow.”

He opened his mouth, stopped himself, and sighed. Arguing with someone like Jeskura was pointless. He’d worked — been forced to work — with plenty of people like her in his life, group projects and whatnot, the sort of people who just refused to plan ahead, and were utterly convinced they could handle things on the fly. Might as well have been dragging her claws on a chalkboard in his brain.

Better to just do what she said. She was the reason he was alive, no reason to rock that boat.

“Sorry.”

“And you say sorry way too much.”

He laughed, quietly but he did.

“I guess.”

“We’ll meet up with Caera tomorrow, and chase after Diogo. Maybe we’ll get lucky and find a way to kill him before he gets to Zel. And if not, we can figure out what to do then.”

Nails. Chalkboard.

Eventually they reached the cave again, totaling probably twelve hours of walking. He felt fine. Not thirsty, not hungry, just a bit tired. As long as he didn’t get injured, he could live a long, long life without needing a bite to eat, supposedly. Would that be true if he had to do something that really drained him? Sprint up a hill? Lift something super heavy? He’d find out eventually.

Once Jes and Dao pushed the boulder back into place, hiding them inside their oddly cozy cave, Jes motioned for David.

“I’m not letting you have any weapons, but you can keep the cloak and armor and shit, when we’re out. But when we’re inside, hell no. Strip.”

“Come on, really? You think I snuck in a weapon under the cloak?”

She came up to him, growling quietly as she glared down at him. With over a foot of height on him, it was impossible to not find the gargoyle woman imposing, let alone the claws, fangs, and horns and whatnot.

“We’re going unarmored. You’re going unarmored.”

“You got skin like armor, and—”

She poked him with one of her wings’ thumb claws.

“Don’t make me regret being nice to you, fresh meat.” She took a step back, and held up her arms. Without hesitation, Daoka came up behind Jes, and undid the straps of her armor. More than a few times, the satyr poked her head out from behind Jeskura, and grinned at David, particularly when she removed the breastplate.

Clicking and chuckling, Daoka cupped both of the gargoyle’s large breasts, and squeezed. The skin might have been very hard and firm, still dark red, but that didn’t mean it didn’t look amazing, Dao’s three fingers and thumb encompassing and hugging the two mounds while she stuck her head out to the side again. Even without eyes, it was obvious Dao was looking straight at David.

All he could do was stare.

“Dao, you horny little bitch,” Jes said.

More clicks, playful and bright.

“Fine fine. But not until the fresh meat is tied up. I trust him but I don’t trust him that much.” Laughing, the naked Jes marched up to David, and undid the knot clasp holding his cloak to his neck with barely a flick of her claw. He didn’t resist. His life was in her hands already.

And he was having a hard time absorbing what he’d just seen.

Don’t get hard. Don’t get hard.

Jes took off his armor and loincloth with the same precision, tossed them aside, and pointed back at the wall she’d bound him last night. Well, fuck. He sat back down, put up his hands, and Jes bound his wrists to the weird hooks coming out of the wall, same as before.

Naked, sitting on the stones again. Ugh.

“You’re gonna have to trust me sooner or later, you know,” he said.

“Ha. Yeah, maybe. For now, how about we give this some time, fresh meat. We’ve known each other one day and a bit. Not exactly long enough for trust.”

“I ... suppose that’s true.”

Jes laughed as she stood up, flaring her wings as she clutched her naked stomach.

“God damn, David. You are so damn reasonable, it is fucking hilarious.”

Before she could laugh any more, Daoka clicked a few times and held up her arms. Jeskura made short work of her armor, too, and tossed the pieces onto the pile next to David’s. He only had the cloak, half-breastplate, and the skirt, or kilt or whatever it was. A much smaller pile of stuff, compared to theirs. Maybe he’d get more if he survived? Gamer loot instincts kicking in.

Seeing Daoka naked yanked his brain out of gamer mode, and deep into sex mode. Jeskura had a taller, slimmer build. Daoka was slim too, not quite as slim, and her breasts were massive, each as big as her head, or maybe bigger. David couldn’t help but stare. With the way Dao had been treating him, it took every bit of effort he had to not drool.

“And you!” Chuckling, Jes pushed the now naked Daoka onto the bed, earning some giggling clicks from her lover. “You have been a hornball all damn day.”

More clicks. Daoka sat up on her knees, and looked David’s way before she reached out and pulled Jeskura into a hug. Bodies, together. Breasts, squishing together, the satyr’s body growing redder and softer by the minute, and Jeskura’s not far behind.

“Ha, you really think it’s because of the fresh meat?”

Insistent clicks as Daoka put kisses on Jeskura’s neck, facing David. He gulped.

“If I’d known getting a pet would have had you this horny all the time, I’d have suggested a betrayer earlier.”

Daoka shook her head, and gestured to David as she clicked.

“You really got a soft spot for the nice ones,” Jes said. “The fuck did I tell you about romcoms? You’re watching the scrying pool way too much.”

Daoka grinned at David as she clicked softly, before again putting kisses on the gargoyle’s neck.

“Really?”

Dao clicked gently, nodding.

“Poor guy is going to break, Dao, watching that. He can’t even jerk off.”

That only seemed to make the satyr happier, her grin growing. She let go of Jeskura, crawled up to the edge of the bed, facing David, and got down on her stomach. With her weight on her belly, she used her elbows to keep her chest up and face aimed at David, huge breasts half squashed against the blankets.

All he could do was stare.

Jeskura grinned at David too, before she got on her knees around Dao’s legs.

“Look at the size of this thing,” Jes said, grinning at David as she slapped the satyr’s ass. Even with Dao’s head and her huge horns blocking his view, he still saw the rippling of her ass cheeks. All that hopping around meant Dao’s legs and ass were firm, curvy, and large, and Jes took full advantage, slapping Dao’s ass a few more times and earning some playful clicks from the satyr. And, with Jes being nude as well, her breasts rippled on her chests with each slapping motion. David stared at it all.

Dao clicked a few times, gentle and playful sounds, but she never looked back. She kept her eyeless face pointed at him, and licked her lips.

He glanced down. He was hard. A perfectly normal penis, standing and pointing up and out, since he was sitting. No point in squirming, or twisting or anything, he was trapped, with two naked demons not even ten feet away from him, staring right back at him, getting ready to fuck each other. Wet warmth soaked the tip of his length.

“Really doesn’t take much to turn on, does it?” Jes asked, grinning at him.

He blushed, head to toe.

“This ... isn’t much?”

“Fuck no! We’re just starting. Gonna be an hour of torture for you.” Grinning, Jes let her head hang a bit, and let her long, long pink tongue dangle from between her sharp teeth. And with a wink, she lowered her head down, and ran the tongue up and down the riiva’s big, firm ass. It was a very long tongue.

Jes went lower, until David couldn’t see her head anymore. From between Dao’s thighs, Jes growled, and Dao moaned.

“Jesus,” he whispered, eyes locked onto Dao, and the blissful smile she wore as she looked right at him. The satyr squirmed, clicking a few times with some volume, before they settled into quiet, relaxed, consistent clicks. Her mouth half smiled, half opened with pleasure, and a moan slipped out, a sort of half human-like moan, half trilling sound. It sounded wonderful. The satyr was really enjoying herself.

Daoka shivered openly, tremors running through her thighs, face always pointed at David. Her massive breasts, still half squished underneath her despite her weight being on her elbows and chest pushed up, jiggled blatantly. For a second he thought maybe she was exaggerating, putting on a show for him, but the way her mouth hung open, and the way her tongue almost hung out too, wiped the thought away.

“Jesus is right,” Jeskura said, lifting her head and pulling in her long tongue. “The fuck, Daoka? Horny as fuck, because of this fresh meat?”

Daoka whimpered some clicks, nodding.

“I mean, he is pretty cute, and ... and...” Jeskura set her red eyes back on David, and her mouth dropped. “What ... the fuck...”

David gulped. He felt it pour out of him before Jes spoke, but he couldn’t see it. Feel it, but not see it, like a vibrating warmth that erupted inside him. A wave, like deep bass that he couldn’t hear, but feel. Something flowed out of him and throughout the cave, filled it, drowned it in ... something, something from inside him.

He looked down.

“Oh...” He hadn’t been crazy then, and hadn’t seen a snake or anything this morning. His cock had grown, and grown ... and grown.

The massive thing pulsed with blood as it continued to grow, until it couldn’t maintain a hard rigid shape anymore. Collapsing under its size, his cock fell forward, bending in a gentle arc with its new malleability. Still hard, still full of blood, but too thick and long to stay perfectly straight. Long, twice as long as it’d been before. Longer. And thicker, thick as his wrist, and only getting thicker.

He forced himself to look up. Daoka and Jeskura were already off the bed and standing in front of him, both looking down at him and his new appendage.

“What the fuck,” Jeskura said. “You’re ... You’re...”

“What’s happening to me?” He almost laughed. The way he said it, it almost sounded like he was mutating into some horrible monster, or dying of some deadly disease. It didn’t make sense, but with each double, triple, quadruple take he did of the giant thing between his legs, the more it didn’t seem so bad. “This ... This can’t be normal, right? Humans don’t, um ... do this, right?”

He looked up again, and gulped. It was hard to tell with Dao, with the bone plate covering where eyes should have been, but with Jes, the shock and confusion was obvious. And the fixation. The gargoyle took a step toward him, eyes wide, breathing fast, with a look he’d seen tigers give prey before pouncing.

“Your aura,” she said. “The fuck did you do to your aura? How did you even get one?”

“My aura? I ... I don’t know...”

“Stop it.”

“W-What?”

“Turn it off.”

“Turn off what? My aura? I don’t know what’s ... going ... on...” His voice trailed away as Daoka stepped up to him, knelt down beside him facing his legs, reached out, and put both of her hands underneath his now massive length.

Someone else’s hands, touching him. Someone else’s grip around his cock. A fresh wave of whatever it was coming out of him, the invisible thing he could not see or hear, pulsed out, and his cock flexed slightly on Dao’s palms. And it grew slightly bigger.

Both demons groaned quietly.

“Dao,” Jes said, gulping hard as if Dao had just touched a bomb. “Dao, you don’t ... know ... if he...”

David looked back up at the gargoyle, and froze, as she did the same as Dao. Slowly, as if trying to resist a siren’s song, she hooked her wings to her back, and got down on her knees beside his legs, opposite of Dao.

She was hypnotized.

“I don’t know how you’re doing this,” she whispered, reaching out for his cock with both of her hands, too, “but I’ll ... I’ll...”

~~♥♥♥~~

He sucked in a breath, as both demons wrapped their hands around his cock’s girth. Four hands, intertwining fingers and squeezing on his thickness experimentally. They lifted it so it stuck straight up and out from him, and stroked it, slow hands testing its shape and size. They pulled back his foreskin, revealed a ripe, swollen glans the size of his fist, and both women let out small sighs as they watched a drop of his precum sit on the tip.

“I don’t know what’s happening,” he said, quivering. “I really don’t. I—oh god.” He twitched as a jolt of panic ran through him, as both demons leaned in toward the head of his cock, and opened their mouths.

But they didn’t bite him, or tear his dick off. Instead, they both slowly leaned in closer, as if afraid of him, or still trying to resist him, before they put warm kisses on the tip of his length. The wave of tingling bliss it sent through him was euphoric. He groaned, and bit down the sound before it grew too loud. So that’s what that felt like.

“I don’t know either,” Jes said, refusing to lift her lips up from his cock. “Don’t care anymore. Give it to me. Need it.”

“Give—” He sucked in a hard breath as Daoka opened her mouth wide, very wide, wider than most humans could, and wrapped the whole of his glans in her mouth. Wet warmth coated the sensitive skin, and something else, something that ran laps around it before burying its underside in heavy pressure. Her tongue.

He pulled at his wrists, trying to escape. But whatever insanity that’d given him a giant penis hadn’t done a thing to his strength. He wasn’t going anywhere. All he could do was stare down at the beautiful demons as they worked his length with their hands, and traded off who fit his huge glans into their mouths. How they avoided grazing him with their sharp teeth, he didn’t know, but all he felt each time they took his cock’s tip into their mouths, was boiling hot bliss and unending, massaging friction that sent jolts of pleasure down his cock into his thighs and pelvis.

He came. Normally he’d happily slow down masturbating to make things last. But he had no control here. He couldn’t even say anything. He panted and shivered as the first gush of hot cum flooded up his length with a hard flex of his inner muscles. The next squeeze forced the cum out in a hard gush, and the familiar bliss of orgasm hit him. Heavier, harder, enough to nearly knock the wind out of him as the tingling sparks worked down his length. The unfamiliar sensation of lips suckling and milking on his cock’s head as he flooded Jeskura’s mouth with cum pulled another groan out of him, despite his best efforts to keep it down.

He came a lot. A lot lot. He stared at Jeskura’s mouth as her cheeks puffed slightly, before a flood of his white cum poured out of her, down over his cock, over her hands, and Dao’s. She lifted her head, mouth partly open, and stared at him as his cum dripped from her tongue and chin. Before he could say anything, Daoka aimed his cock toward her, and took his glans into her mouth too. Her tongue coaxed more cum out of him, gentle strokes along his tip’s underside that sent almost painful jolts through him, forced his inner muscles to squeeze again, and earned another heavy gush of cum from him into her mouth.

Dao tried to swallow it down, but it was too much. It overflowed, squirting out from the tight suction her lips had around his glans, soaking her hands and his length all the more.

“What ... the hell,” he said, staring down at his length, still in their four hands, as Daoka finally lifted her head, cum dripping from her lips and chin. “What’s happening to me? What—” He blinked as he forced himself to lift his head, and look Jeskura in the eyes.

She’d looked strangely mesmerized before. Now she looked utterly hypnotized, like he’d cast a spell on her or something. Something was happening, something that vibrated inside him, and radiated from him. He didn’t know what. He didn’t know how. All he knew was he was bound, helpless, and two demon ladies were looking at him like they were out of their minds.

His life was in danger. And for some stupid fucking reason, that didn’t douse his arousal at all.

Jeskura wiped her mouth free of his cum. Daoka used her tongue, and licked her mouth clean, instead. No smart remarks or insults from the gargoyle. Instead, she grabbed his legs.

“Ah! H-Hey, I—”

She yanked him down, away from the wall, and his bodyweight went out from under him. With his wrists locked up overhead to the wall, he didn’t quite have enough slack to completely lie down. Close, but not quite, keeping his shoulders an inch above the stones, but his back, ass, and legs all lay straight on the ground away from the wall.