Chapter Text
He pushed you at arms length taking in a long breath. “There, I’ve got it, my evidence. You can understand me.” You thought it was besides the point and pulled away, he wrapped a slender hand against the back of your neck and put two fingers at the front and pressed. You grasped the air trying to reach his face to push him off.
“Come on, say something,” he said, his face moving forwards, a breath away from yours.
“Luka!” A voice behind them echoed. It was one of the alien guards, cautiously clutching a taser stick in one hand. His eyes shifted to the ceiling and back down again, an expression of annoyance, but he let you go and after one last look when down the corridor, you were taken in the opposite direction, the ghost of his hands on your neck remaining.
No bed, again. Maybe Heperu just didn’t want to bother, you sat on the floor and looked at the ceiling. The room smelt vaguely of alcohol, the kind used for cleaning, it was a little cold but not freezing, the floor was cold though, and hard, not the most comfortable material to lay against. The ceiling was made up of square tiles, you counted them, each one a blank white.
Music played in your head.
-///-
There was a room, it’s walls were grass green and on the floor there lay sprawled around many objects you could not place, wooden boxes covered in string and rectangular slabs of yet more rectangular slabs arranged in size order side by side, sticks with spheres at the tip of them and round cylindrical objects with mesh tops and something else. Something that intrigued more than all the rest of that confusing geometry.
A box, smaller than the others made of old wood and decorated with chipped paint. Inside it, a little person on a spring, it didn’t look exactly like you, for one thing it stood straight, arching its arm up and pointing its leg out, it wore a dress that protruded to its side and it smiled, a U-shaped smile you’d never made. You flicked the small person and suddenly the box let out a high pitched ‘ping’, your heart jumped and you almost dropped the box. You watched the box more carefully now, with a look of suspicion.
“That’s a music box,” explained the other person, not so usefully. She let out a small gust of wind from her mouth and took the box from you. You thought about snatching it back, but decided to wait and give her a chance to explain herself. Box. Music. It wasn’t quite understandable to you then.
She turned a small metal key at the back of the little box, every turn making a lurching sound you had never heard before, the sound of metal components working against eachother, turning in friction, and when she let go of the key the most unexpected thing happened. The box rung out with a noise that was satisfying and put together, so beautiful it calmed you, you had a sudden urge to get on the floor, close your eyes and go to sleep. As a noise it managed to do what most didn;+’t. “Is it good?” She turned to you, expectantly. You nodded, then yawned. She laughed.
You reached out to grab it again. She pulled away and you quickly clawed at her face to distract her as you tried to get her to lower it so you could reach it, she stumbled back and you could finally snatch it. You quickly scurried away so she couldn’t get it as she rubbed her face and spun the key and yet it didn’t make music when you did. She looked at you with a frown. “You’re turning it the wrong way,” she said reluctantly. Wrong way, you understood that.
You tried the other way and the music played, but when you caught her eye and you saw the scratch on her face the music didn’t feel as good, you couldn’t quite look at her face.
Another of the clones played the xylophone later as you watched. So were the aliens, clipboards to hand. It kept hammering at it, going quicker in panic as it recognised it was not doing what the alien desired of it and yet it’s notes were still so faulty and foul-sounding, it annoyed you.
They played it badly, you were switched, and you quickly recognised the notes though you didn’t know them as ‘notes’ then and eventually, after only a few minutes were able to create the whole thing, playing swan lake as if it were second nature. You looked back at control, perhaps this would make up for what you did before, harming her, the look on her face was strange and indecipherable, but it wasn’t quite happy. The aliens for their part seemed happy, but this did not matter to you.
-///-