Look at you. Your fatherโs masterpiece.
You shine in the mirror brighter than the sun or the stars. Youโre the most interesting of your fatherโs creations, by far the greatest, a paragon of brilliance, the payoff of love and care and soul. He tells you youโre lovely; Safalin, too, she thinks youโre a sensation, though itโs more โcause you tell her you are and youโre real better than her.
What about you isnโt better than her, after all?
Oh, well. Itโs not like you really care for the differences. Sheโs a human, and youโ
youโ
( youโre not, youโre not, youโre his greatest creation, and yet youโre not --- !! )
Youโre Rio Ranger. Your fatherโs masterpiece. Whatever you arenโt, you just donโt care, but youโre his loveliest creation, and thereโs no qualms about it.
You should be better than any human the world ever cares to see.
Dad studies things. He doesnโt tell you what quite. Actually, he does, but you donโt reeally pay any attention. Itโs 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 donโt care - because why should you when itโs all nonsense, when all of it lays out like blank paper sinking in the sea?
It just doesnโt make sense to you. Humans donโt have anything unique about them; theyโre all the same, especially when they look like you.
( You look like them, you hear. You tell yourself itโs not a lie. )
Thereโs something about it โ about taking hand-me-downs from them and wearing them in the corner of your room, or whatever you can really call that.ย
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 theyโre all done, all your fatherโs creations and colleagues follow suit to their position.
Itโs a perfect plan. This is one thing that will go just as planned, as long as everyone plays their part.
You, youโre assigned to a room with one sole human inside. How lonely.
Her trial is easy and yet difficult. If she takes the offensive, then sheโll 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 doesnโt.
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 sheโs 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 allโ
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 armโs reach from her to scan from the pooling blood to the source, and you donโt 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.
โWhat a worthless human life,โ you start, and the poison burns when you try to stop. โArenโt you going to resist? Arenโt you going to show exactly what makes you human?โ
Resistance. Struggle. Desperation. The remnants of hope, of a fleeting wish for freedom โ itโs exactly what every humanย โฎโฎโฎ
her โฎโฎโฎ
Her name is Anzu Kinashi.
she doesnโt 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 isnโt like you care, because those whims are still yoursโ ) you scrub away blood and stench until only a memoryโs 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 itโs no problem โ anyone in or out of the game never has to see these decrepit faces again if they already had, and you โ
Well, you now hold more time than blood in your hands.
And, judging by whatโs 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, thereโs fabric to be found. Socks from the pitiful, gloves from the foolish, a hood from the hopelessly weak โ 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 doesnโt even make you flinch.
Time passes, and so do the two of you, moving through halls and floors without effort. Thereโs 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.
Thereโs a tie left behind a body too wise, but too wiseless, and it slips on under the hood. Safalinโs eyes burn ever darker now.
Time passes. Too much time. The laughing woman must be cackling over the pain theyโve 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 โฎโฎโฎ
Why?
Why?
Why?
Why?
It wasnโt supposed to turn out like this! Circuits fizz and snap until they run dry, porcelain โฎโฎโฎ