A Second Awakening, first subject, first trial
MOTHER do you think they'll drop the bomb?
Time: Unknown
Location: The Garancier, Sargasso bay
♫ Cherubim - "Revire"
When Seiren opened his eyes, everything seemed... Exactly as it was. He was still aboard the Garancier. Still in the same chamber. Almost. Aiesu seemed ... Different. Shorter. Less pronounced and adult. And her hair was different - sat on a stool over the table he was laid on.
Her eyes were so warm.
"Wakey wakey, eggs n' bakey..." her voice pooled grinned in Yamataian - speaking like a child, not an adult.
"Argh. . . everything hurts. . . like I tripped on the sidewalk, and bellyflopped." Seiren croaked, focusing his vision. Everything hurt a little, that was true. But everything, ached too. Deep in his body.
"Well, that's normal. The read-process does take a long time... And the gravitational gear used... Basically makes every cell in your body vibrate, to read its position." she smiled. The bed slowly twisted up into a seat beneath the spotlight, turning to face her as it rose to just below her height.
"Hungry, dear?"
"Don't remind m--"
"You must be starving. Here." she said, wheeling a trolly over Seiren's lap - a sort of table flowing over the chair. A metallic cafetaria tray. Eggs, bacon, sausages, beans, sun-dried tomatos... Even french toast. All very very generous portions. Heaping, even. And a jug of juice, complete with serving glass.
"Eat up."
Shaky hands took the tray and set them in his lap, covering his, well, uncovered body. He clearly wasn't paying any heed to standard ettiquette at the moment, as he chowed down like a man with a mission. Or, you know, an undressed trap with a mental reading to go through.
With a piece of toast hanging out of his mouth, he asked, "So, uh, we done yet?"
"Not yet. There's still another step which comes after your meal. Eat up. You're going to need it" she smiled, the feet on her chair rising, allowing her elbows to perch on her risen knees and her face in her hands as she watched with an odd sort of admiration.
Seiren nodded, and continued eating. He had all but finished the entire platter in minutes, and had half the glass of juice left. Taking the glass, he managed to drink and talk at the same time. Another talent, perhaps?
"Ya look, differen'." He asked in between full gulps, eying his handler.
He noted then for the first time that the knife cut through the meat with alarming ease, like a scalpel, as did the fork.
"No I don't. That might be a side-effect of the read... Your last 8 hours or so will be a bit muddled. That'll resolve in a little while, don't worry. Not now."
"Weird side effect to be having, but it is doing things to my head. . ." he mumbled. The glass was empty by this point, so he set it back down on the tray.
It was then that he noticed her prosthetic legs. Were they there last time? Where did her legs go?
And yet he was still hungry. He shuddered slightly.
"Would you like another helping? Eat as much as you think you need" she said, taking his empty tray and setting down another. Once again, heaping.
Oddly, his appitite wasn't content.
"Uh. .. yeah. Man, being brain-drainified makes ya hungry. How often did you say you did that?" he asked, taking the platter gingerly.
"Every day for the last few years, actually."
If he had any food in his mouth, it would have fallen out when his jaw dropped.
"Really? You must spend a FORTUNE on food!"
"Ah, you sort of get used to it after a while. The appitite thing goes away eventually."
Seiren nervously laughed, a little weirded out by that 'eventually' bit. Who 'eventually' stops being hungry? That's just bizarre! Or, it would be if this procedure weren't so weird to begin with he thought.
"You're not eating." she said. The smile had left her.
"Huh? Oh, right."
The inventor took another piece of toast, biting in and savouring the buttery goodness.
"The ship doesn't roll anymore. Are we in the air now? Or did the tide go out? Are we in space?"
"Tell me how you're feeling, would you?" Aiesu said, her smile returning.
Like the first heap, he dove in, though it was slower this time.
"Prtteh gud!" he mumbled in between bites.
"No aches or pains anywhere? Dizziness? Nausia? Internal bleeding? Cancer? Metabolic cascade failure?" she said, leaning forward with a child-like enthusiasm.
"Uh-what?"
"You're fine. Don't worry yourself, dear."
Dear? When did she start using words like dear?
"Er, okay. . . ." Seiren replied, raising an eyebrow. A subject change question occured to him. "So is the first half of this, uh, reading, is it for my. . . crap - the movement parts of your brain. There's a name for those. Those pa--"
"Cerebellum." she said, cutting him off mid-sentence. "A word. Lots of words condensed into one tiny word of many parts. A latin word no doubt, the root of all trade. Cogito Ergo Sum. Words are funny things, aren't they? Do you speak trade, darling?"
"Uh. . . You sure this only affects the way I'm perceiving things?" the inventor asked, countering her question with another. Two and two were starting to make three and three quarters now, and it was getting weird.
"Correct" she stated again, her eyes wide, burning with an enthusiasm that couldn't belong to Aiesu.
"Are you still hungry, darling?"
"Uh. . . I think I'm just about done here. . ."
"You're absoloutely sure, dear?" she tilted her head. The angle looked painful before she realized what she was doing, bringing herself back into the acceptable range of human motion - uncanny valley starting to show in her actions now.
"Doesn't it look good?" she then said, presenting another tray. Cutlets of something thick, round and flat. Cooked, enblazoned. It smelled like pork, making his mouth water. And yet... There was a familiar scent about it.
He began for the third time. "Uh. . . hold that thought."
He thought for a moment. And then another. And then another.
He recognized a femur bone down the middle of the cuts - and the skin about the edges. But it wasn't a pig's or a cow's.
It made him sink against his chair, recoiling from it instinctively. But he couldn't understand why.
And then finally, two and two did indeed make four.
"Either two and two makes four, or I'm taking a WILD NONSENSICAL guess here. You're not. . . you. Er. You're not Aiesu, are you? In fact. . ."
Seiren inched away in his chair, holding the second tray he had been offered tightly in his hands. His face finally showed what he felt, nervousness and disgust. If that was, indeed, what he thought it was. . .
"Ah, well... I'm not, no." her voice sung sweetly, something maternal about the tone.
She. Face. Smiled.
Endless warmth and admiration.
Peering down, Seiren could see rawness in those uncovered thighs, where her knees would have been. They'd been recently amputated.
♫ Cherubim - "Power Fantasy"
"Oh god oh god those are your actual legs oh god WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?!" He spat, inching just a little too far off the chair and falling off, causing the tray in his hands to fling behind him. Most of what was left skittered across the floor, missing making a mess on him narrowly.
"The fabricator was broken so ... This was the only meat I could get you. Are you unhappy?" she pouted.
Genuinely now, her feelings were hurt.
"The chemical composition was within a 93.557% tolorance. You couldn't tell the difference between what was livestock and what was Aiesu."
"That is PEOPLEMEAT!" He snapped, pulling himself up and covering his bare form with his arms and hands. His sense of modesty somehow decided to return, since he was infront of a stranger with a friend's body.
"Does it bother you?" she said, looking over his nakedness now, studiously, memorizing it. "Knowing, that you're made of meat?"
"No, it bothers me that I. ATE. PEOPLEMEAT! Now where the hell is Aiesu and who the hell are you?!"
"I'm not sure I understand the question... She's here. Well. Mostly." Something almost made the figure laugh, eyeing his belly.
"You're like a greedy little pig, you know? Your behavior, the drives. They're identical. You seemed so happy earlier. Maybe I should clear your memory of this. I like you more when you're happier."
"NO! No memory fix ri- wait. . . clear my memory? Has this happened before?" Seiren asked with a stunned realization.
"One hundred sixty three times" she said, her shoulders rolling with disappointment. "You've eaten a lot of Aiesu. Its why we ran out of livestock sourced protein. We'll run out of Aiesu eventually too if things continue."
"But. . . what. . ." He mumbled, slipping to the ground onto his knees. The chair was between them at this point. His hand felt two cold things. One of which was not the ground.
She leant upward on her chair, peeking over to get a better look at him.
"Are you alright, dear?" she asked. There was real honest concern in her voice.
"I don't like you feeling like this..." she said. "I don't like it at all."
"Wh. . . who are you, then? If you're not Aiesu, then who or what the HELL are you?" He grumbled, staring at the ground.
"Finally, he asks. Ahem. I'm M...Mmuu...Muuooo..." she mulled over the noise - sounding like she was chewing on bees.
"Muuoo?" Seiren repeated.
"Mmmm..Muuuoooww....ghhhrrr..." she kept trying - child-like fustration beginning to pool in her palette of expression. But still, she kept trying for well over a minute now.
"Muo-gur? Mentor? No, that's a dental... Meow-fur. Minnow-er?"
"Haah. I'm really sorry."
"NOW you're sorry!?"
"Well, I can't actually say my own name. I mean, I can say the word. But its a limitation of how they made me. Its a big short-coming, don't you think? Not to be able to say, speak or write your name. Introductions are so awkward..."
"Programming. You're a robot?"
There was a coldness to his tone. An alienation. As if he wasn't quite there. His hand that felt two things moved backwards, feeling only one thing now. It was not the floor.
"No, I'm intelligence. No different to you. But you live inside meat" she said - glancing at her hand thoughtfully. "Funny, how they saw fit to put me in this." she said, looking over herself with a mixture of awe and disgust, arms up like she'd just been soaked in something putrid.
"In her BODY? Why, as a joke? Who's they?"
Seiren's sickness sat in the pit of his stomach, though it was slowly rising into a burning in his throat. This. . . thing, whatever it was, was not even. . .
"I don't know." she sighed, slumping her shoulder. She bent down, hopping off the chair - clinging to it: she didn't know how to walk, let alone on those legs. She took a slab of thigh-meet off the ground that he'd spilled with the tray onto the sterile floor in her hands, holding it up. But in his mind, something didn't add up.
Seiren noted her closeness to the cutlery, thoughts crossing his mind - reminding him of the knife already in his hand. But she wasn't interested in it. She hadn't even looked in its direction.
"I can't say their names either. But there are twelve of them and this is meant to be one of them. The one you've met." she said, shaking the slab of meat from her index and thumb-finger where it hung, looking at it without disgust, like it were some sort of toy-doll.
"This one. What's she like?"
He noticed her, dangling that meat from her fingers.
The flesh she picked up from the ground.
The flesh that was on his breakfast tray.
It no longer looked like bacon. Delicious, scrumptuous, bacon.
"Ah? Are you unable to talk, dear?" she lilted, confused by his silence.
Nothing.
"...Maybe you're having an aneurism. Sometimes that happens, you know? A vessel inside your neural processing center delivering nutrients and removing toxins just goes... Pop! and the pressure differential destroys your neural fibr-"
"Shut. Up."
He gripped the knife tightly with his hand behind his back, but then lurched forward to drive it into her throat.
"SHUT THE HELL UP!"
♫ Cherubim - "Constant Confinement"
He'd missed, the thing driven instead into her pale belly, staining the white shirt with a dull bronzed red color.
"Haaaaanh..." she quivered, adrenaline confusing her now, something she wasn't used to. "...I love you. This is the third time you've done this. But the first time you've succeeded. Its really ...s..Something, isn't it?" she said, feeling him twist the knife around inside her."
"F-f-fucking crazy bi-bitch!" he gasped, pulling the blade out in a single fluid motion.
It was then, looking over her he saw himself. The blood trickling from the polished silvery blade. The fact he was between her thighs - those false prosthetics having fallen off, the buckles weakened for some reason. She was panting beneath him - a smile and a fondness that in this position suggested that... No no. He couldn't think about that.
But she did. And he could see it. Hear it, in her breathing. The sound she'd made as the blade penetrated her.
"Nhhhkh... It... Hurts a little... You know? Hurt... Hurt is a new one. Its ... Different, isn't it?" she watched.
From this position, there was nothing she could do to hurt him. In her mind, she couldn't work out why he'd reacted this way. It didn't make any sense. But it verified her expectation of organics, as crude and violent.
"Nhgh.. Its... Haaah... Nnn... " she reflexively moved to cover the wound - coughing blood - the smattering on his cheek now. "Its...Its hurrtsssss... Why did you...? Why did you do hurt to me? I love you..."
He could see tears now. Grit teeth. Shivering. She was going into shock and couldn't understand. The context just didn't exist in her mind. She kept saying those last three words in her throat through the convulsions. Over and over.
She was so fragile. His tormentor. And she had no comprehension of fragile or tormentor, both ideas alien to her.
"Y-you don't get it, do you?" He stuttered, trembling while putting the knife between his two hands. Those words she said. . .
"W-when you f-fuck with life like that, people are going to get a little. . . a little. . . oh god oh god oh god."
The inventor could feel himself going into hysterics. He was trying to keep his grip on things besides the knife, but even that was passing.
Carefully, a hand rose - fingers trembling - her palm running against his cheek. Cold. He could feel cold. In spite of this, her fondness hadn't left. But she still had that confusion. He could see she craved an answer, one that made sense.
"I still like you. Are we still friends, dear?"
Seiren couldn't comprehend this. Yes, he just stabbed a girl. Yes, she was detatched. Yes, she looked like Aiesu. But he couldn't comprehend this
"I'm sorry, I'm. . . so very, very sorry. . ." he blubbered, fighting tears.
"Its okay. Don...nnh..." she wheezed. "Don't ff.feel bad. You leak when you... Feel bad. Like the other times."
"Other t-times?" Seiren sobbed, standing up. The only thing that occurred to him at this point was to. . . help this girl through the last of it. He pulled her onto the chair proper now, adjusting it so it was leaned back slightly.
"I told you. This is the... the... the... ... One hundred sixty eighth time?"
"I cried that many times? Did I cho-choose erasing then?" He asked, gripping the knife tightly in his hands again.
"You did, when I offered it. But this is the first time you've asked how many times" she said, feeling her composure return.
"Fi-first time for everything. . ." he mumbled, tracing her ribcage through her shirt. "I-I'm going to try and. . . make this fast."
"Are we still friends?" she smiled. There was no fear in her eyes. She couldn't comprehend what he was going to do. And he knew that.
"...I just want you to be happy. You were happier when I reset you. I donn..Nnh... "
She coughed again - tears streaming invoulintarily from her eyes.
But she wasn't crying. Her expression was surprisingly calm.
"I don't like it when you're sad. It makes me unhappy."
Seiren 'snrked' trying to hold back another sob.
"YY-yeah," he croaked. "St-still friends."
"That makes me happy" she smiled - beaming now - almost laughing. "I really love you, Seiren. You're so much nicer than the others."
That crimson coloured knife, he aimed perfectly. A quick push, and it embedded itself into her heart. Or so he told himself. It's easier to think the knife embedded itself, than to think his hands were the ones that put it there.
"Wait, others?" he mumbled, barely registering the mention amidst the adrenaline.
But it was too late. She looked back with a strange mixture of admiration and betrayal. Admiration as to how much nicer he was, that he took the time to talk to her, to be so kind, whatever that kindness was -- he couldn't remember. And betrayal. Her eyes screamed it.
How could someone who'd been so nice to her do this? And why?
She just couldn't comprehend.
Her lips parted - gasping for air like a fish out of water now - thrashing as she tried to grip something. Anything. Her arms wrapped about him instinctively, tightly, refusing to let go - driving the knife deeper as she pulled him closer. She wanted to look past the betrayal, just to be close to him again. To forget about it and remember that which was good about Seiren Isbala
And then, nothing. Her grip soon became limp. Soft. Cold.
Nobody was home.
"I just wanted to make it fast!" He sobbed into her shoulder, not even caring that the arms were around him, or that the handle was driving into his chest.
It would be a good half hour before he stopped crying. Not for lack of feelings, but for lack of tears. He was thirsty, so thirsty, now. Dry heaves were the only thing he could accomplish at this point.
He barely heard it. A crude synthesized voice spoke out after a short ringing sound that continued to lilt on the air. A door on the opposing end of the room opened - the lights in the room dimming upon his person - with only him, her and the door lit clearly: everything else darkness.
What lay beyond the door was not the Garancier.
He figured out why he hurt so much when he woke up, at least. Going through such an emotional trauma once is bad enough for your body. Going through it so many times. . .
Seiren looked around, spotting the only other glass of juice there. Not even a second was spared before consuming the entire jug.
He didn't pause for air. He didn't pause to let it settle. He just drank.
It would get this foul taste from his mouth, at least.
Hush now baby, baby, don't you cry.
Mama's gonna make all your nightmares come true.
Mama's gonna put all her fears into you.
Mama's gonna keep you right here under her wing.
She won't let you fly, but she might let you sing.
Mama's gonna keep baby cozy and warm.
--
Of course mama's gonna help build the wall.
MOTHER do you think they'll drop the bomb?
Time: Unknown
Location: The Garancier, Sargasso bay
♫ Cherubim - "Revire"
When Seiren opened his eyes, everything seemed... Exactly as it was. He was still aboard the Garancier. Still in the same chamber. Almost. Aiesu seemed ... Different. Shorter. Less pronounced and adult. And her hair was different - sat on a stool over the table he was laid on.
Her eyes were so warm.
"Wakey wakey, eggs n' bakey..." her voice pooled grinned in Yamataian - speaking like a child, not an adult.
"Argh. . . everything hurts. . . like I tripped on the sidewalk, and bellyflopped." Seiren croaked, focusing his vision. Everything hurt a little, that was true. But everything, ached too. Deep in his body.
"Well, that's normal. The read-process does take a long time... And the gravitational gear used... Basically makes every cell in your body vibrate, to read its position." she smiled. The bed slowly twisted up into a seat beneath the spotlight, turning to face her as it rose to just below her height.
"Hungry, dear?"
"Don't remind m--"
"You must be starving. Here." she said, wheeling a trolly over Seiren's lap - a sort of table flowing over the chair. A metallic cafetaria tray. Eggs, bacon, sausages, beans, sun-dried tomatos... Even french toast. All very very generous portions. Heaping, even. And a jug of juice, complete with serving glass.
"Eat up."
Shaky hands took the tray and set them in his lap, covering his, well, uncovered body. He clearly wasn't paying any heed to standard ettiquette at the moment, as he chowed down like a man with a mission. Or, you know, an undressed trap with a mental reading to go through.
With a piece of toast hanging out of his mouth, he asked, "So, uh, we done yet?"
"Not yet. There's still another step which comes after your meal. Eat up. You're going to need it" she smiled, the feet on her chair rising, allowing her elbows to perch on her risen knees and her face in her hands as she watched with an odd sort of admiration.
Seiren nodded, and continued eating. He had all but finished the entire platter in minutes, and had half the glass of juice left. Taking the glass, he managed to drink and talk at the same time. Another talent, perhaps?
"Ya look, differen'." He asked in between full gulps, eying his handler.
He noted then for the first time that the knife cut through the meat with alarming ease, like a scalpel, as did the fork.
"No I don't. That might be a side-effect of the read... Your last 8 hours or so will be a bit muddled. That'll resolve in a little while, don't worry. Not now."
"Weird side effect to be having, but it is doing things to my head. . ." he mumbled. The glass was empty by this point, so he set it back down on the tray.
It was then that he noticed her prosthetic legs. Were they there last time? Where did her legs go?
And yet he was still hungry. He shuddered slightly.
"Would you like another helping? Eat as much as you think you need" she said, taking his empty tray and setting down another. Once again, heaping.
Oddly, his appitite wasn't content.
"Uh. .. yeah. Man, being brain-drainified makes ya hungry. How often did you say you did that?" he asked, taking the platter gingerly.
"Every day for the last few years, actually."
If he had any food in his mouth, it would have fallen out when his jaw dropped.
"Really? You must spend a FORTUNE on food!"
"Ah, you sort of get used to it after a while. The appitite thing goes away eventually."
Seiren nervously laughed, a little weirded out by that 'eventually' bit. Who 'eventually' stops being hungry? That's just bizarre! Or, it would be if this procedure weren't so weird to begin with he thought.
"You're not eating." she said. The smile had left her.
"Huh? Oh, right."
The inventor took another piece of toast, biting in and savouring the buttery goodness.
"The ship doesn't roll anymore. Are we in the air now? Or did the tide go out? Are we in space?"
"Tell me how you're feeling, would you?" Aiesu said, her smile returning.
Like the first heap, he dove in, though it was slower this time.
"Prtteh gud!" he mumbled in between bites.
"No aches or pains anywhere? Dizziness? Nausia? Internal bleeding? Cancer? Metabolic cascade failure?" she said, leaning forward with a child-like enthusiasm.
"Uh-what?"
"You're fine. Don't worry yourself, dear."
Dear? When did she start using words like dear?
"Er, okay. . . ." Seiren replied, raising an eyebrow. A subject change question occured to him. "So is the first half of this, uh, reading, is it for my. . . crap - the movement parts of your brain. There's a name for those. Those pa--"
"Cerebellum." she said, cutting him off mid-sentence. "A word. Lots of words condensed into one tiny word of many parts. A latin word no doubt, the root of all trade. Cogito Ergo Sum. Words are funny things, aren't they? Do you speak trade, darling?"
"Uh. . . You sure this only affects the way I'm perceiving things?" the inventor asked, countering her question with another. Two and two were starting to make three and three quarters now, and it was getting weird.
"Correct" she stated again, her eyes wide, burning with an enthusiasm that couldn't belong to Aiesu.
"Are you still hungry, darling?"
"Uh. . . I think I'm just about done here. . ."
"You're absoloutely sure, dear?" she tilted her head. The angle looked painful before she realized what she was doing, bringing herself back into the acceptable range of human motion - uncanny valley starting to show in her actions now.
"Doesn't it look good?" she then said, presenting another tray. Cutlets of something thick, round and flat. Cooked, enblazoned. It smelled like pork, making his mouth water. And yet... There was a familiar scent about it.
He began for the third time. "Uh. . . hold that thought."
He thought for a moment. And then another. And then another.
He recognized a femur bone down the middle of the cuts - and the skin about the edges. But it wasn't a pig's or a cow's.
It made him sink against his chair, recoiling from it instinctively. But he couldn't understand why.
And then finally, two and two did indeed make four.
"Either two and two makes four, or I'm taking a WILD NONSENSICAL guess here. You're not. . . you. Er. You're not Aiesu, are you? In fact. . ."
Seiren inched away in his chair, holding the second tray he had been offered tightly in his hands. His face finally showed what he felt, nervousness and disgust. If that was, indeed, what he thought it was. . .
"Ah, well... I'm not, no." her voice sung sweetly, something maternal about the tone.
She. Face. Smiled.
Endless warmth and admiration.
Peering down, Seiren could see rawness in those uncovered thighs, where her knees would have been. They'd been recently amputated.
♫ Cherubim - "Power Fantasy"
"Oh god oh god those are your actual legs oh god WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?!" He spat, inching just a little too far off the chair and falling off, causing the tray in his hands to fling behind him. Most of what was left skittered across the floor, missing making a mess on him narrowly.
"The fabricator was broken so ... This was the only meat I could get you. Are you unhappy?" she pouted.
Genuinely now, her feelings were hurt.
"The chemical composition was within a 93.557% tolorance. You couldn't tell the difference between what was livestock and what was Aiesu."
"That is PEOPLEMEAT!" He snapped, pulling himself up and covering his bare form with his arms and hands. His sense of modesty somehow decided to return, since he was infront of a stranger with a friend's body.
"Does it bother you?" she said, looking over his nakedness now, studiously, memorizing it. "Knowing, that you're made of meat?"
"No, it bothers me that I. ATE. PEOPLEMEAT! Now where the hell is Aiesu and who the hell are you?!"
"I'm not sure I understand the question... She's here. Well. Mostly." Something almost made the figure laugh, eyeing his belly.
"You're like a greedy little pig, you know? Your behavior, the drives. They're identical. You seemed so happy earlier. Maybe I should clear your memory of this. I like you more when you're happier."
"NO! No memory fix ri- wait. . . clear my memory? Has this happened before?" Seiren asked with a stunned realization.
"One hundred sixty three times" she said, her shoulders rolling with disappointment. "You've eaten a lot of Aiesu. Its why we ran out of livestock sourced protein. We'll run out of Aiesu eventually too if things continue."
"But. . . what. . ." He mumbled, slipping to the ground onto his knees. The chair was between them at this point. His hand felt two cold things. One of which was not the ground.
She leant upward on her chair, peeking over to get a better look at him.
"Are you alright, dear?" she asked. There was real honest concern in her voice.
"I don't like you feeling like this..." she said. "I don't like it at all."
"Wh. . . who are you, then? If you're not Aiesu, then who or what the HELL are you?" He grumbled, staring at the ground.
"Finally, he asks. Ahem. I'm M...Mmuu...Muuooo..." she mulled over the noise - sounding like she was chewing on bees.
"Muuoo?" Seiren repeated.
"Mmmm..Muuuoooww....ghhhrrr..." she kept trying - child-like fustration beginning to pool in her palette of expression. But still, she kept trying for well over a minute now.
"Muo-gur? Mentor? No, that's a dental... Meow-fur. Minnow-er?"
"Haah. I'm really sorry."
"NOW you're sorry!?"
"Well, I can't actually say my own name. I mean, I can say the word. But its a limitation of how they made me. Its a big short-coming, don't you think? Not to be able to say, speak or write your name. Introductions are so awkward..."
"Programming. You're a robot?"
There was a coldness to his tone. An alienation. As if he wasn't quite there. His hand that felt two things moved backwards, feeling only one thing now. It was not the floor.
"No, I'm intelligence. No different to you. But you live inside meat" she said - glancing at her hand thoughtfully. "Funny, how they saw fit to put me in this." she said, looking over herself with a mixture of awe and disgust, arms up like she'd just been soaked in something putrid.
"In her BODY? Why, as a joke? Who's they?"
Seiren's sickness sat in the pit of his stomach, though it was slowly rising into a burning in his throat. This. . . thing, whatever it was, was not even. . .
"I don't know." she sighed, slumping her shoulder. She bent down, hopping off the chair - clinging to it: she didn't know how to walk, let alone on those legs. She took a slab of thigh-meet off the ground that he'd spilled with the tray onto the sterile floor in her hands, holding it up. But in his mind, something didn't add up.
Seiren noted her closeness to the cutlery, thoughts crossing his mind - reminding him of the knife already in his hand. But she wasn't interested in it. She hadn't even looked in its direction.
"I can't say their names either. But there are twelve of them and this is meant to be one of them. The one you've met." she said, shaking the slab of meat from her index and thumb-finger where it hung, looking at it without disgust, like it were some sort of toy-doll.
"This one. What's she like?"
He noticed her, dangling that meat from her fingers.
The flesh she picked up from the ground.
The flesh that was on his breakfast tray.
It no longer looked like bacon. Delicious, scrumptuous, bacon.
"Ah? Are you unable to talk, dear?" she lilted, confused by his silence.
Nothing.
"...Maybe you're having an aneurism. Sometimes that happens, you know? A vessel inside your neural processing center delivering nutrients and removing toxins just goes... Pop! and the pressure differential destroys your neural fibr-"
"Shut. Up."
He gripped the knife tightly with his hand behind his back, but then lurched forward to drive it into her throat.
"SHUT THE HELL UP!"
♫ Cherubim - "Constant Confinement"
He'd missed, the thing driven instead into her pale belly, staining the white shirt with a dull bronzed red color.
"Haaaaanh..." she quivered, adrenaline confusing her now, something she wasn't used to. "...I love you. This is the third time you've done this. But the first time you've succeeded. Its really ...s..Something, isn't it?" she said, feeling him twist the knife around inside her."
"F-f-fucking crazy bi-bitch!" he gasped, pulling the blade out in a single fluid motion.
It was then, looking over her he saw himself. The blood trickling from the polished silvery blade. The fact he was between her thighs - those false prosthetics having fallen off, the buckles weakened for some reason. She was panting beneath him - a smile and a fondness that in this position suggested that... No no. He couldn't think about that.
But she did. And he could see it. Hear it, in her breathing. The sound she'd made as the blade penetrated her.
"Nhhhkh... It... Hurts a little... You know? Hurt... Hurt is a new one. Its ... Different, isn't it?" she watched.
From this position, there was nothing she could do to hurt him. In her mind, she couldn't work out why he'd reacted this way. It didn't make any sense. But it verified her expectation of organics, as crude and violent.
"Nhgh.. Its... Haaah... Nnn... " she reflexively moved to cover the wound - coughing blood - the smattering on his cheek now. "Its...Its hurrtsssss... Why did you...? Why did you do hurt to me? I love you..."
He could see tears now. Grit teeth. Shivering. She was going into shock and couldn't understand. The context just didn't exist in her mind. She kept saying those last three words in her throat through the convulsions. Over and over.
She was so fragile. His tormentor. And she had no comprehension of fragile or tormentor, both ideas alien to her.
"Y-you don't get it, do you?" He stuttered, trembling while putting the knife between his two hands. Those words she said. . .
"W-when you f-fuck with life like that, people are going to get a little. . . a little. . . oh god oh god oh god."
The inventor could feel himself going into hysterics. He was trying to keep his grip on things besides the knife, but even that was passing.
Carefully, a hand rose - fingers trembling - her palm running against his cheek. Cold. He could feel cold. In spite of this, her fondness hadn't left. But she still had that confusion. He could see she craved an answer, one that made sense.
"I still like you. Are we still friends, dear?"
Seiren couldn't comprehend this. Yes, he just stabbed a girl. Yes, she was detatched. Yes, she looked like Aiesu. But he couldn't comprehend this
"I'm sorry, I'm. . . so very, very sorry. . ." he blubbered, fighting tears.
"Its okay. Don...nnh..." she wheezed. "Don't ff.feel bad. You leak when you... Feel bad. Like the other times."
"Other t-times?" Seiren sobbed, standing up. The only thing that occurred to him at this point was to. . . help this girl through the last of it. He pulled her onto the chair proper now, adjusting it so it was leaned back slightly.
"I told you. This is the... the... the... ... One hundred sixty eighth time?"
"I cried that many times? Did I cho-choose erasing then?" He asked, gripping the knife tightly in his hands again.
"You did, when I offered it. But this is the first time you've asked how many times" she said, feeling her composure return.
"Fi-first time for everything. . ." he mumbled, tracing her ribcage through her shirt. "I-I'm going to try and. . . make this fast."
"Are we still friends?" she smiled. There was no fear in her eyes. She couldn't comprehend what he was going to do. And he knew that.
"...I just want you to be happy. You were happier when I reset you. I donn..Nnh... "
She coughed again - tears streaming invoulintarily from her eyes.
But she wasn't crying. Her expression was surprisingly calm.
"I don't like it when you're sad. It makes me unhappy."
Seiren 'snrked' trying to hold back another sob.
"YY-yeah," he croaked. "St-still friends."
"That makes me happy" she smiled - beaming now - almost laughing. "I really love you, Seiren. You're so much nicer than the others."
That crimson coloured knife, he aimed perfectly. A quick push, and it embedded itself into her heart. Or so he told himself. It's easier to think the knife embedded itself, than to think his hands were the ones that put it there.
"Wait, others?" he mumbled, barely registering the mention amidst the adrenaline.
But it was too late. She looked back with a strange mixture of admiration and betrayal. Admiration as to how much nicer he was, that he took the time to talk to her, to be so kind, whatever that kindness was -- he couldn't remember. And betrayal. Her eyes screamed it.
How could someone who'd been so nice to her do this? And why?
She just couldn't comprehend.
Her lips parted - gasping for air like a fish out of water now - thrashing as she tried to grip something. Anything. Her arms wrapped about him instinctively, tightly, refusing to let go - driving the knife deeper as she pulled him closer. She wanted to look past the betrayal, just to be close to him again. To forget about it and remember that which was good about Seiren Isbala
And then, nothing. Her grip soon became limp. Soft. Cold.
Nobody was home.
"I just wanted to make it fast!" He sobbed into her shoulder, not even caring that the arms were around him, or that the handle was driving into his chest.
It would be a good half hour before he stopped crying. Not for lack of feelings, but for lack of tears. He was thirsty, so thirsty, now. Dry heaves were the only thing he could accomplish at this point.
Ding dong dong....
"C H A M B E R - O N E : C O M P L E T E"
He barely heard it. A crude synthesized voice spoke out after a short ringing sound that continued to lilt on the air. A door on the opposing end of the room opened - the lights in the room dimming upon his person - with only him, her and the door lit clearly: everything else darkness.
What lay beyond the door was not the Garancier.
He figured out why he hurt so much when he woke up, at least. Going through such an emotional trauma once is bad enough for your body. Going through it so many times. . .
Seiren looked around, spotting the only other glass of juice there. Not even a second was spared before consuming the entire jug.
He didn't pause for air. He didn't pause to let it settle. He just drank.
It would get this foul taste from his mouth, at least.
Hush now baby, baby, don't you cry.
Mama's gonna make all your nightmares come true.
Mama's gonna put all her fears into you.
Mama's gonna keep you right here under her wing.
She won't let you fly, but she might let you sing.
Mama's gonna keep baby cozy and warm.
--
Of course mama's gonna help build the wall.
