rearistaz.

Look at you. Your father’s masterpiece.

You shine in the mirror brighter than the sun or the stars. You’re the most interesting of your father’s creations, by far the greatest, a paragon of brilliance, the payoff of love and care and soul. He tells you you’re lovely; Safalin, too, she thinks you’re a sensation, though it’s more ‘cause you tell her you are and you’re real better than her.

What about you isn’t better than her, after all?

Oh, well. It’s not like you really care for the differences. She’s a human, and you—

you—

( you’re not, you’re not, you’re his greatest creation, and yet you’re not --- !! )

You’re Rio Ranger. Your father’s masterpiece. Whatever you aren’t, you just don’t care, but you’re his loveliest creation, and there’s no qualms about it.

You should be better than any human the world ever cares to see.

Dad studies things. He doesn’t tell you what quite. Actually, he does, but you don’t reeally pay any attention. It’s stuff about emotions and others like you and whatever the hell is so neat about humans like him, so anyone with a sound mind can get why you don’t care - because why should you when it’s all nonsense, when all of it lays out like blank paper sinking in the sea?

It just doesn’t make sense to you. Humans don’t have anything unique about them; they’re all the same, especially when they look like you.

( You look like them, you hear. You tell yourself it’s ~~not~~ a lie. )

There’s something about it — about taking hand-me-downs from them and wearing them in the corner of your room, or whatever you can really call that.

This is the First Trial. The first fork in the road, for each of these worthless mucks. Everyone scatters along the rooms, throws some partners to some dogs and some sad loners to another. When they’re all done, all your father’s creations and colleagues follow suit to their position.

It’s a perfect plan. This is one thing that will go just as planned, as long as everyone plays their part.

You, you’re assigned to a room with one sole human inside. How lonely.

Her trial is easy and yet difficult. If she takes the offensive, then she’ll easily win her way out. Any miserable thing could escape it. You pull the strings in the shadows, waiting eagerly to see how quickly she leaves.

And yet, she doesn’t.

You watch her feet lift from the ground and her arms go taut, her head craned down from far above to watch. Blood drips from nearly head to toe, soaking the fabric she’s so lovingly strung on as carelessly as she looks on.

Her eyes close, her fingers unclench. Every action she does is genuine, moves in front of you, but above all—

Above all, each one is without shame.

How fucking pitiful.

You step from the shadows, voice a drawl and eyes a glare, the click of shoes the only sound in a lifeless room. You stop an arm’s reach from her to scan from the pooling blood to the source, and you don’t say anything. Not for a while.

And then, silence breaks, and so does patience, and so does remorse for all those dead.

You speak, and the poison welled in your mouth blows over.

“What a worthless human life,” you start, and the poison burns when you try to stop. “Aren’t you going to resist? Aren’t you going to show exactly what makes you human?”

Resistance. Struggle. Desperation. The remnants of hope, of a fleeting wish for freedom — it’s exactly what every human ~▮▮▮~

her ~▮▮▮~

Her name is Anzu Kinashi.

she doesn’t deserve that pitiful life she had.

Cleaning corpses is a job for the backburned, they tell you. Instead of conducting the Death Game to your whims ( the floor whims, they remind, though it isn’t like you care, because those whims are still yours— ) you scrub away blood and stench until only a memory’s left.

Safalin takes most of the job for herself, starting with the first dead and moving further down as the game goes. Her maintenance is too far, too fast when the game is full of mourning, but it’s no problem – anyone in or out of the game never has to see these decrepit faces again if they already had, and you –

Well, you now hold more time than blood in your hands.

And, judging by what’s truly in your hands, you also hold more cloth.

A collection grows, a ratio of time and clothing forming by the hours. For every timer that rang, there’s fabric to be found. Socks from the pitiful, gloves from the foolish, a hood from the hopelessly weak — the blood strips away with soap and soda, though their memories never bleach.

You collect from the corses without delay. Even when you feel green eyes burn as you take a skirt dyed by bitter blood, it doesn’t even make you flinch.

Time passes, and so do the two of you, moving through halls and floors without effort. There’s a sweater devoid of hope and a vest decrying freedom, plucked from the first rooms too easily and slipped on over these plain garments easier.

There’s a tie left behind a body too wise, but too wiseless, and it slips on under the hood. Safalin’s eyes burn ever darker now.

Time passes. Too much time. The laughing woman must be cackling over the pain they’ve partaken in.

You hear the Main Game ensue when all else is quiet: a cacophony of screams and desperate pleas, cards wracked with mystery and sorrow. The sounds of betrayal and faux trust echo through the halls and screens.

Eventually, there are cries. And not much longer, just as expected, two timers ring.

The crowd dissipates, leaving Sue Miley in fits and two bodies in blood. You and Safalin fill in when she leaves, intent on mopping away all but memories from the room.

Soon enough, you near on ~▮▮▮~

Why?

Why?

It wasn’t supposed to turn out like this! Circuits fizz and snap until they run dry, porcelain ~▮▮▮~