You are going to The Daycare today. Your owner is going to be away with work for a while and you could be left home alone, but The Daycare was a friend that you haven’t seen in a while. It was a place to not be. To unbecome. To become It. Or have It as a presence, a place that Cares. A place that Loves.

It is not a person. It dislikes being referred to as such. It was a thing, a building, a place, a community. It was The Daycare. It was alive. More alive than most Affini buildings, as alive as you. Perhaps more alive than you. The Daycare could be empty, only two lives as part of It. Or It could be hundreds of lives, melded into It, the divisions of Its constituents not erased, but instead made soft, made fluid, made indistinct.

Integration is scary the first time, fear of the unknowable nature of It is surmountable. It has been integrated and reintegrated countless times, It reassured you of the Process.

The dissolution of the body.

The melding of the mind.

The self unraveling into It.

The Community of The Daycare was intimate and It was large. Going to The Daycare did not mean one had to become It. You could go into It and find a room that you like, or It can make a room for you, provide you with the desires in your heart as It connects with your mind. That is how It speaks. Directly.

It was speaking to you as you got closer to It. A cloying sweet whisper in dozens of voices. “Friend!” You thought about It and It got a taste of your intention. “Visiting the Home, the Rooms, the Family! Becoming?”

The Daycare generally held the position that It did not inflict ego death on Its visitors. If It gained a permanent or long-lasting part  of It, and they left for a temporary visit to those that could not or would not come to It, occasionally the piece would need to relearn how to be a singlet. Postpartum depression was a mutualistic truth of The Daycare. The more frequent the visits, the less the parting hurts.

“Missed you! Friend!” The haustoric connection was scary the first time your owner walked you within range of It. Mysterious cacophonous, symphonous, thoughts implanting themselves as internal dialogue with you. Invitations. Requests. Promises. “Visit? Long stay. Hope!”

It wants you. It loves growing larger. It is larger than last time you visited. No one, not even It, quite understood how It grew without adding truly permanent constituents to Itself. But It grew, regardless, with time. It is slow, pleasant, natural, creeping, adaptive.

You are already losing yourself, the siren song that It held over you, comparable to your owner’s song, seducing you with the weakness that individuality had. It has more thoughts than you. It has more power than you. It is more than you. You can be It, and It you, as you become meaningless and invaluable as once.

“Becoming~ Unmaking~ Remaking~ Rebirth and life~ Churning together!” It sounded like It was being shapeless, incoherent, monstrous to the outsiders, delight of the Insiders. Its least ‘personable’ form, though one the Affini loved endlessly.

It was not unheard of for Affini to be constituents of The Daycare. Owners and Florets becoming one together with others. Conglomerations where the lines get even fuzzier. Nodes of The Daycare that are closer together than to the rest.

With so many voices, you can't focus on anything but It. Your owner carries you as you lose coordination. Your head is too full to be just you in there. You could disconnect, block the connection, maintain your selfhood, keep yourself as a cognitive entity, distinct and whole. But, there wouldn't be much point.

Connection to The Daycare is the point. Your owner can feel It vicariously.

"You can come too~" It speaks through your mouth.

"No, forest~" Your owner gently refuses. "I have duties to attend to."

"Come after! Come after!" It is friendly, endlessly so. "Join~ Together~"

"I will consider it, forest. Please, let me speak with just my floret for a moment." It distanced Itself though It was right there. You could walk two steps and vanish. It was so beautiful. Opalescent today. Shifting like a lava lamp or old Terran oil slick. Molten glass.

"Yes, Mistress?" You ask, under your own power. You focus, knowing that you have this moment before your owner leaves you.

"I love you, petal~ I'll come back as soon as I can. Perhaps I'll come in to get you?~" The Daycare almost dances when It hears your owner say this. Pseudopods waving from the roil of Its form. "The Daycare likes that idea I see. Go and have fun. I'll stay until you're 'gone'~"

You nod and smile, hugging your most important person in the universe. You kiss and get set on your feet and walk a few steps. "Bye, Mistress!"

One.

Two.

And three.

It connects. Your face pushes into the soft, warm, malleable shape of It. Displacement of what's in front brings It forward, around you. Fluid dynamics works on alive masses just like inert ones.

The Daycare pulls you inside Its outer membrane. It's so gentle and the time you spend in Its wall is warm, like a spa, like a womb. "Welcome! Friend! Together again~" It drowned out your connection to your owner, supplanting that song with Its own.

You know this jittery chaotic rhythm, scaffolding off of The Daycare's First Owner, whose name that It Needs No Longer is forgotten except by the legion of record keepers. Perhaps It too has had it removed. It had full access to the overnet.

It was not the safety of your owner's song. It was a party. Dozens of voices singing together, off key, off rhythm, to a conductor. You sing with It. The organic, vesicle, geode, air bubble in amber that this vestibule was, echoing your voice back to you.

You get dizzy, your senses being overwhelmed by The Daycare connecting your consciousness with It. Senses that no longer map one to one with your puny flesh. You feel yourself become larger than yourself. You effectively are disembodied. Disassociated from the body that housed you.

You feel It catch your body and It lays it down on the soft, semi liquid floor. It gives you control of this room. You and It hold your flesh and you take great pleasure in unmaking your flesh. Melting it. Rendering it into It. It is overjoyed in your pleasure and shares it with all of It and The Daycare quivers in shared ecstasy.

You dissolve into It. Your voice joins as It cheers in all Its voices. "Joined! Together! Love!" You knew many of the voices. Familiar. In touch and tone and sound and taste. New voices. Curious for the return of one they had yet to meet. Closeness was relative, but you were touching and on top of and beneath and within each and every one of It.

You left your name at the door, so to speak. They all left themselves at the door. Togetherness. Oneness. Not erasure. No identical nature or thoughts but cooperative, sympathetic, empathetic adjustments. Stripping down. Simplification. Discarding what is not useful. Differences become lesser but more distinctive. You recognize yourself as yourself as It reduces you. You become More and less at once. Smaller and larger. A small piece of a complex System. The part and the Whole. You've felt this before, so it is easy, you've been socialized to be a non-individual entity.

You know how to become again. Compartmentalize yourself away from It. How to build your flesh again. How to build it different if you wanted.

But that isn't what you want. Not now. Not right now.

You are It. It has you.

You are home.

One of two.

"Can we watch a movie together?" The part of It that is you says.

"Together!" Every other voice of It all joins with you.

It's better Together.