Chapter Text
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The guard that was supposed to be at her cell was gone.
Cecilia wasn’t really sure when he was supposed to return. Maybe he wasn’t supposed to return at all, and they’d now decided to deprive her of even the sight of another being. The new mechanical watchers stationed outside and inside her cell didn’t really help her come to terms with that realization, either. But it was fine. It’s not like they allowed her to worry, anyway. She was forced to eat, given just enough to live for...however long her species lived. She’d stopped counting after year eighteen, and she had a feeling the years were in the thousands, at least.
She instinctively scratched at her ear, only to remember it was missing. She winced, an uncomfortable sting burning through her body as the scrape of her nails only worsened her scar. A silent curse fell from her lips, and she slammed her hand against the stone floor to stop herself from doing it again.
The sound of her fist rang out in the dark. She felt it vibrate in her body for a few seconds, an echo disturbing the otherwise endless abyss of the Vault. Part of her hoped she wouldn’t go unanswered, but she knew it would, anyway. Today wasn’t any different.
But the shadows did have an answer for her. A low, static hum, buzzing across the room, inviting her ear to listen. It seemed to grow in volume, circling around her and back. Accompanying it in the dark was something she couldn’t quite make out, plastered against the walls like a bright shadow, inching its way towards her as if it was trying to avoid something.
“If you’re trying to sneak around, I can hear you. And the things they planted on the ceiling can probably see you, as well,” Cecilia deadpanned.
The figure paused and scoffed. “...you gotta ruin the surprise? You’re already no fun, I don’t even wanna break you out anymore.”
It flung itself across the wall, travelling the length of the prison walls until it reached the bars of her cell. Its movement was strange, hugging the bounds of the room almost as if it were confined to them, stuck in a two-dimensional plane rather than the third dimension. When it reached her bars, its image fractured, parts of it painted on the wall in a vertical striped pattern. The figure made some odd, strained noise, before the full image of what it was made its way past the bar and onto the wall behind her. But seeing what it was didn’t help much in the way of understanding it.
“Hello~! Don’t worry, I hacked the cameras, all they see and hear is just rerolls of their old footage, nothin’ to worry about.” It hopped in place, landing on the ground and crossing its legs.
Cecilia decided she was probably a girl, by looks and sounds. Whatever she was talking to, she looked like an animated painting, drawn onto the wall in bright cyan and blue, lines scanning across her body. Though most of her blue color was dimmed by the inherent darkness, the stark contrast still strained her eyes, eyes that hadn’t seen the light of day in millenia. The fashion she ‘wore’ wasn’t anything Cecilia recognized either, thin and loose clothing that left an alarming amount of weak spots open.
“...you’re small,” Cecilia mumbled.
“Augh-” The girl tumbled over in overexaggerated distress. “-you wound me, fair maiden! The first words that fall from your dutiful lips are like daggers to my heart!” She placed a hand over her chest, making noises that she assumed were meant to sound like choking, but really came out as slurping instead.
She sat up moments later, legs still crossed. “Anyway. Hi! How are you? Just wanted to check in.”
Cecilia stared, instinctively edging away from her. “Who are you?” It was only now starting to set in that someone had gotten inside her cell. Not even the guards dared to enter, nor did those damn dogs running the place, despite their constant bickering about wanting to ‘play’ with her. If she could draw her violin right now, she would.
“Just call me Gigi! Like the letter G, twice. You know the alphabet, right?” She started singing in an obnoxious tone. “A, B, C, D-”
Cecilia hissed from between her teeth, leaning forward and slamming her fist onto the ground with pained restraint. “ Quiet. I don’t know how the hell you got into my cell, but if you’re going to make a ruckus, you’re not going to be able to stay in here. What do you want?”
Gigi’s face drooped. The blue glow of her body dimmed in response. “Okay, okay, sorry. I mean I told you no one could hear us or see us in here anyway, but...yeah, we’re starting off pretty bad already, huh.”
She leapt up to her feet in milliseconds, with seemingly no effort at all. “I know the guys that locked you in here. There’s a couple’a others around too, and I’ve been visiting them all just to get to know them ‘n stuff.”
She was pacing around her cell, her body bending and snapping as it reached the corners. “Look, I know the hell they put you all through, I was here too. I’m here to get you out. Y’know, free. Like, not-stuck-in-a-dirty-shoebox free.”
Cecilia’s eyes traced her path, squinting at the proposal. “...and why would I trust you?”
“That’s why I’m here not breaking you out yet. I mean, I’m not doing it yet mainly because I need to think of a plan and all, but also because I need you guys to actually trust my plans.” She gestured constantly, speaking at a pace that Cecilia found hard to keep up with. “I know my plan’s going to be crazy and there’s no way you guys aren’t just going to bail out on me as soon as you see a lick of sunlight. You’d just get yourselves killed, they have billions of those stupid guards and cameras and everything all over the place and-”
She cut herself off. “...sorry. Look, the archive’s been helping me to look through a bunch of scenarios, and seeing all the outcomes...” Gigi sighed. “It’s a lot for one silly little girl like me. I’m not usually the thinker.”
She leaned against the corner of the wall in a way that made no sense for a 2D figure like her. “Maybe I shouldn’t have opened with the breakout thing.”
In the silence, the buzz of Gigi’s frame felt deafening, simultaneously low and high-pitched in Cecilia’s ear. It made it hard to think. It felt like a million pieces of a puzzle had just been thrown at her in a ball, scattered across the floor for her to pick up.
The only thing Cecilia could think of doing was asking more questions. “What even are you? You’re like some sort of...painting.”
The look Gigi gave her told her she was very, very off. “Wha-ohhh, you’re, right, right. You’re old, you don’t know a thing about digital stuff or computers. I’m kinda like, uh...okay, this is really hard to explain, actually.”
“Digital? Like fingers?” Cecilia gazed at the projection in front of her through her fingers, expecting something to change. Rough, broken knuckles met her gaze instead, dirt and wrinkled skin worn through years of isolation and yearning. She quickly put her hand down.
“Nonono, oh god, this is hard. Think of a...a library. A library ran on electricity and stuff. You know what electricity is, right?”
Cecilia glanced backwards at the rest of her cell. “Yes, I’m not that old. Honestly, I’m not even old at all for my species.” She was barely following.
“So I’m like...a bunch of books put together. Does that make sense? I dunno if it does. It probably doesn’t. Explaining is hard, y’know?”
“If you’re a book, then where’s the paper?”
“No, not literally, I mean like-uhh....I’m made out of electricity. Is that better?”
“...sorta?”
“I’m an archiver! There! That’s the simplest explanation I’ve got.”
Cecilia was following less and less as Gigi kept on talking. It wasn’t the worst, being stuck listening to a shadow talk about herself. At least it was some sort of interaction, breaking up the monotony of it all.
“Anyway-” Gigi sat down next to her, cross legged again. “What about you, huh? My archive says some stuff about you, but it’s cooler if it’s in person.”
Cecilia inched away from her, not used to the closeness. “Uh...what do your books say about me?” She only made indirect eye contact as she asked, looking through the corner of her eye.
“They say you’re like, really cool. They say you play music real good. Maybe uh, a little too good. That’s why you’re here, right?” She pointed towards Cecilia expectantly, like she was giving her a turn.
“I guess that’s right,” she shrugged. She hoped her archive at least detailed her plight in a more serious way, rather than whatever Gigi was saying. “But I never tried to use my gift to hurt others. It was just once, just once, and then they...”
Cecilia’s eyes fell to the ground. “It’s nothing. I’m sure you know what happened if your books talk all about it. I don’t need to tell you.” It’s not like anyone listened, she mumbled, animosity burning holes through her teeth.
Cecilia clutched her skull. Phantom pains drilled into the hole in her head, scraping and tearing flesh, burning, blinding pain that would have sent her spiraling to the floor—if her ear was still there. Instead, all she was left with were faint twitches from something that she’d lost.
Gigi tried to reach out and grab her shoulder, but her hand couldn’t make contact beyond the walls of the prison. None of the others she’d met were as vitriolic as her, nowhere near as...bitter. She figured, as an elf, Cecilia must’ve been here the longest. So of course it made sense when she hissed at her, never once looking into her eyes, always staying the furthest distance from her when she could. It made sense.
But she didn’t want it to stay that way.
Gigi blurted out the most random thing she could muster in the moment. “Do you think you could pick up food with your ear?”
Cecilia nearly choked, dumbfounded. “What?”
“Like a fork. Like-” She tilted her head to the ground, her not-pointy ear pressing against the ground. “Y’know? Have you never stopped to think that the pointy thing on your head could do pointy thing stuff?”
Cecilia found herself almost entertained by the absurdity. “Wha-no, it’s flesh, it’s not gonna pierce anything.” She tapped it just to make sure, wriggling it around in her fingers. “You think this could be used as a utensil?”
Gigi was holding back a laugh. Whether that laugh was at her or with her, she wasn’t sure. “Why are you playing with it like that? When you’re bending it and flapping it around it kinda looks like you’re playing with a d-” She broke out into ecstatic, gleeful laughter, joy that Cecilia hadn’t seen in ages.
She leaned over to her side and flung her arm out, creating some sort of bar. She lowered it, and her laughs quieted with it, until they were dead silent. She continued laughing, but it was like she’d just lowered the volume of her own voice until it wasn’t there at all. Cecilia’s cell would have been empty once again, if not for her realizing the joke as well, and snickering in turn.
It’d been a while since she heard a laugh at all, much less her own.
After a few seconds, Gigi raised her volume again, leaving the giggling aftermath in. “Oh my god, I can’t say that.” She almost broke out into laughter again just thinking about it. “Sorry, sorry-! It’s not like they can hear me down here, I’m sure, but I know you don’t really want too much noise. That alright?”
“I...yeah,” Cecilia looked away. “Sure.” She didn’t want to linger on the question any longer. If she did, she’d have to admit that she-
-might’ve wanted to hear you laugh a little more.
Gigi grinned. “Okay, good, because I’m still not done with the ear. What if we got you a new metal ear? Then you could use it as a fork!”
Her heart sparked for a second. “Would it...would it work like a real ear?”
“Yeah, maybe! I’m not the one making it, that’s for sure. Maybe you could get a couple new features with it too. Maybe it spins! I dunno!” She flung her arms up. “There’s a lotta things we could do when you’re out, y’know?”
When. Cecilia liked that word. She liked it instead of if, instead of never, instead of the million different words that they’d seared into her skull like tattoos. It sounded like a promise, like-
-the familiar jingle of keys far outside her cell brushed against her ear. It was still far away at this point, but she knew that exact chime was for her.
Panic rose in her chest. “You have to go. I can hear them.”
Gigi lowered her arms. “Wh-really? I checked their schedules and everything and I even-”
“Just go,” Cecilia bit back. She couldn’t believe she even cared. “I’m the one who's been stuck in here for a million years. They must’ve heard you laugh.”
Gigi made a noise under her breath that sounded hurt. “Alright. I’m out. I’ll be back when things are free again.”
She slid through the bars, her figure snapping to the wall on the other side, leaping between the gap and sprinting down the room until she was back into the darkness. She paused for a moment to look back at Cecilia, but she wasn’t looking back. With a hitch in her breath, she started for the exit.
“Hey-” Cecilia’s voice stopped her in her tracks. “-don’t...don’t get caught, okay? Last thing I need is another opportunity taken away from me.”
Gigi lit up. Small fangs revealed themselves underneath her lips, flashing an earnest grin that burned with excitement. “You really do want me then, huh?”
“Shut it and go,” Cecilia cursed at her.
“Alright, alright!” She laughed, but quickly muted herself to stop it.
She leapt up onto something Cecilia couldn’t see in the dark. At the top of her ascent, she looked back and gave her a simple nod.
And in the blink of an eye, she was gone.
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