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Holy stares at the sterile, gray wall of the prison cell the Speedwagon Foundation excuses as a bedroom. With its maddeningly tight size, the seemingly mundane space defies several scientific laws Holy can list by slowly destroying the air that strangles her whenever she breathes. To her, it tastes and feels like gaseous vinegar. But as rank as the air is, Holy is only still alive because of the tiny atoms of breathable air she manages to sneak past security during every breath. Chemistry is not her area of expertise, but she still studies the quality of the air around her in the hope of using it to sneakily suffocate whoever is behind this entire experiment without them ever understanding what had brought about their fate.
Her irrational craving for an act of vengeance she knows she will never obtain is one of the only stabilizing forces she still has. This bizarre organization has stripped her of her home, her autonomy, and her life, which she knows it will deny by claiming it has never done anything to actively limit what its unwilling inhabitants here can do. But Holy knows that tyranny doesn’t always stem from active harm. Sometimes, the worst oppression arises when one person or group puts others in a situation where they have the illusion of freedom. In reality, small changes in wording don’t mean that the list of options doesn’t still just repeat the same three things until its prisoners convince themselves that there is nothing they cannot achieve here. Even with all her complaints, Holy cannot say this place is an Orwellian dictatorship. Her true stance is just that the Speedwagon Foundation has convinced most of the people here that this location is surging with opportunities while refusing to let anyone choose to leave. This maddening labyrinth only offers her one means to escape her oncoming insanity: writing.
She writes down her complaints about this building. She writes down her complaints about the Speedwagon Foundation. She writes down her complaints about the bed, the workers, her room, and everything else of which she can think. Scientific observations, notes to share with colleagues if she ever finds her way back home, and stories to tell her children also fill the pages of her notebook, the black ink illuminating the white pages with dried streaks of hope. If she is ever feeling especially disconnected from the distant reality she once called home and is now rotting in the rancid, dark space in the back of her mind that only has one flickering lightbulb, which uses its own agony as fuel, she’ll make doodles of her son and daughter. She can almost feel their skin again when she caresses her work. Their cheeks are soft and warm from blood. They are alive; Holy isn’t sure she can say the same about herself anymore.
But today, not even her flat recreations of the two people she loves more than anything can remind her that she has meat, bones, and excessive life beneath her dirty skin. As the viscous air clogs her lungs and robs her of her sight, she feels herself become one with the pages of her notebook: flat and blank. In this place, which floats between reality and nonexistence, she isn’t Holy Joestar-Kira. She is just another object that exists for someone else to use.
Overwhelmed by a life she cannot understand anymore, Holy can only barely see how she’s ruining all her written work with her rampaging tears. Despite still knowing that they’re there, she doesn’t feel them. She knows that she’s crying, the tears are coming out of her eyes and wettening her face, and they’re destroying her illustrated connections to her life, but she can’t feel any of this. The tears don’t originate from her because something inhuman cannot cry. The painful fuzziness of living beyond what the world knows overtakes her, and so her tears that aren’t hers worsen.
“Hello?” Holy knows someone just knocked on her door and called for her, but she didn’t hear any of it. The sounds had existed, but they hadn’t penetrated the barrier that locks the older woman away from the tangible world. “I apologize for bothering you, but you sounded quite distressed in there. Is everything all right?”
And then, a memory helps Holy overcome her hazy detachment and feel something discernible. Her memory of Ferdinand turns the meaningless vibrations into a song that rescues her from dissolving out of existence. Every worker here at the Speedwagon Foundation has the same voice that they waste by speaking to Holy with an infantilizing tone whenever she is upset. They are a monolith that exists to execute its orders with maximum efficiency, trampling over any distraction that interrupts its path toward clocking out. Ferdinand, her savior, lacks any condescension, balancing care and respect for Holy during one of her lowest moments in years. In a place that dismisses her feelings, worries, and desires with a corporate smile, having someone treat her like an equal is a heavenly boon.
Relying on the geologist feels like a sin since Holy’s environment muddies the sources of all her feelings. There are no differences between love, desperation, and primal desires in this land of ruptured humanity. Disregard for emotions is already the basis for this distorted wonderland, so rushing toward Ferdinand’s arms to feel secure seems cruel to Holy unless she’s certain about how she feels. The dive toward love is already a risk in a normal world.
“Is it all right if I come in? This is not a demand, of course! I just wish to ensure that all is well with you.” As she nods, Holy feels her bones scrape against each other, unleashing unspeakable destruction upon her internal world. Fixating on this pain helps her avoid berating herself for how sensing the other woman’s concern makes her want to smile. This joy ends up being short-lived since Holy suffers another reminder of how far she still has to travel to return to reality when she hears the other woman clear her throat, making her remember that Ferdinand cannot see her.
“Yes, please, do come in!” Holy tries to put her notebook down, stand, and walk over to her bed to rest, but she finds that she cannot control her limbs. Recognizing them as her own isn’t enough since her consciousness is still disconnected from the neural network that commands her flesh to move. When she discovers that she also cannot control her lips, she realizes that her voice came from something other than her body. For a moment, her desire to see and feel Ferdiand turned her voice into a force strong enough to enter reality, connect with the living, and save Holy.
This, however, also means that Ferdinand finds Holy still on the floor after she enters her room. The other woman’s eccentric coat and blonde hair shake as she rushes toward Holy, kneels next to her, and starts checking on her. Ferdinand’s skin is rough and has numerous small cuts, but these small imperfections only make her touch that much more human. They make it nearly impossible for Holy to resist her wish to seize what she wants and isn’t sure if she should even have. Ferdinand makes her feel safe in this place that doesn’t even want Holy to feel like a person, but she’s also the only person here who chooses to consistently be with Holy. She doubts she can just accept that she loves this woman when she has no other relationships here to which she can compare her feelings for Ferdinand.
“Can you stand?” Ferdinand holds Holy’s arms and guides feeling back into her legs as she lifts her from the bitter haze that was lacerating her willpower just a few moments ago. Holy stumbles once she’s back on her feet, Ferdinand grabbing her and digging her feet into the floor to steady them both. While Holy cannot feel any fear from almost falling, looking up at Ferdinand and feeling her gentle, worried gaze helps Holy finally understand why temptation is such a cruel law of nature.
Holy can feel Ferdinand pulling her toward her chest as she reaches one hand up to caress Holy’s hair. Her muscles seem to burn as Ferdinand tries to let herself give Holy love, and Holy struggles to survive while watching Ferdinand penetrate these flames to be closer to her. Holy knows she’ll welcome this woman’s forbidden sweetness if she leans toward her for a kiss, but Ferdinand steps back and finishes helping the other woman stand again before such temptations appear. Holy staggers as she tries to process the fact that kissing her savior is no longer an option.
After several more moments that Holy spends stepping away from Ferdinand and relearning how to walk, she straightens out her outfit and stares at the floor. Basic manners dictate that Holy should thank Ferdinand for sacrificing almost half an hour of her day to help her. Holy can’t even label what she feels for Ferdinand, and yet she helped her. Emotions without labels that Holy didn’t have the time to analyze and properly tackle.
When Holy finds the strength to bask in Ferdinand’s presence, the gentle kindness of her face, once again, transcends this isolated moment and saves Holy from the loneliness that infests this entire building. When she’s with Ferdinand, Holy feels like someone sees her and cares. Kissing Ferdinand would be so angelic it would hurt. She wants to feel that pain; she wants to avoid that pain. She wants all the good without any consequences. All the contradictions inside her force her to sit down to move her mouth and suppress her worsening blush.
“You always seem to show up when I need you.” Holy fights for her composure when she turns toward the empathetic Goddess standing in her room. “Thank you, Ferdinand. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.”
“Anything for you, Holy,” she responds; her smile is the only shining gemstone in this oppressive coal mine. Holy grumbles when her treasure glances at the doorway. “I apologize for having to leave you so soon after you suffered such a spell, but I do have some samples I must review.”
Holy wants Ferdinand to stay. She wants her to leave. She wants her to do both at the same time. She wants to stay by her side. She wants to escape her. She simultaneously feels all these emotions without understanding why any of them exist or which ones she should honor. She will have to decide soon, though. Once Ferdinand leaves the room, she will deprive Holy of the choice for the foreseeable future. Even if they will likely only be apart for a few hours, that’s still longer than Holy thinks she wants to be away from Ferdinand.
“Do you mind if I join you today as you review your samples? Truth be told, I have very little going on today.” She wants to lacerate herself for giving in to her cravings for Ferdinand’s time, but she forgets about punishing herself when the other woman pushes the door open and turns her head to hide most of her smile from Holy.
“I would like that.”
Holy’s feet hurt since she refuses to skip down the hall while walking with Ferdinand. She still doesn’t understand what she feels for the other woman or what she wants from their relationship, but those answers can wait. For now, Holy is just happy she has some more time to decipher her emotions and bond with this wonderful geologist beside her.