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There is a girl, and something else, here.
There is a claustrophobic, creaking cell that cradles you close. It seemed to contain you just fine when you were young. It now struggles and writhes between the weight.
A girl gazes out a window, upon a blood-red evening sky. When looking just right, the sky almost appears to hold a thunderstorm that isn't there. Lightning crackles falsely beneath the retinas, and the yellow-orange clouds bequeath a panic that isn't real.
You sit, the suit ill-fitting on your body. Is it bold to call it your body? It does not belong to you, to either of you, and it does not boast its own autonomy. Its will is not its own, but it's not anyone's in particular at the same time. Whoever you are, the suit nor the body belong to you. Once, in distant learned memories, the clothing belonged to your brother. The body belongs to circumstance, you decide. You are not sure if this was always the case.
You cannot see her hand. You do not want to. The thought is selfish, you decide. It doesn't change.
You are sitting in a creaking cell, and the cell revolves around an axis.
"...Faha… it's been a while, hasn't it?"
"Usually... this would be the part..."
"...where you shake the wheel..."
"...and make me cry, right?"
Would that be true? You're not sure anymore, and maybe you never were; even in the beginning of it all. She says it like routine, like it's a dance she knows quite well. A cue you've just neglected to learn.
Let's say you trust her. Let's say that maybe 4 or 5 years ago, a brunette child masquerading in camouflage would touch the prison bars. A doe with a head of golden hair and pretty plastic angel wings squeals at it to stop. It's too high up, and she wants to go home. She wants to be held by someone who refuses to shake the world around her. The child refuses. It spins the prison round its axis with its tiny, shaking hands. It shifts the microcosm of a world it has no power to change. The doe recognises such a betrayal of the world's order, somewhere, and she cries in horror.
90, 180, 270, 360. Numbers that grow and fluctuate until incapable. A blur, the uneasy smudge of a mistake. A mistake that is warm like your mother's homemade pie. A mother you dare to call yours. A metallic taste lingers in your mouth, and a faint grey crease glitters stubbornly.
You dare to sneak a glance at her. It's selfish, of course, to let her fall upon your heavy, sinful eyes, but you can't help but take, take, take.
You are a cheater, and the rules of the game have never mattered to you.
You don't get to feel sorry, but you feel sorry regardless. You don't get to think with your twisted mind, and you think regardless.
She tears her eyes from the window. She nearly looks at you. You are not home, and she cannot find you; not here. She cannot see you behind a big black box that seems to hover over your form. She cannot see you behind words that are yours, that are twisted into belonging to something else instead, before becoming yours once more.
Thought you were sick
"Huh... You thought I was... oh, yeah, I-I mean... I was. A little. But... I... I really wanted to see you."
Her voice is breathy and laboured, yet it feels blisteringly normal in a way that is revolting, disgusting, to you. You have no right to be disgusted by what she has become, because you watched it happen, in the end.
You say, "It wasn't me."
You say, "I didn't do it, it isn't my fault."
You are wrong, because you don't deserve to be guiltless. You are a cheater. You are a liar. And a cheater you will always be.
You're cheating right now, looking at her. You're waiting on the next thought to become a command. You're watching her words spin around her throat, and you're letting them spin around your head.
Maybe it will become confused, and it'll spit one right back out at her. Maybe if you let the consequence absorb you, it will become all it can say, and all you can think. Maybe only then will you both become one, and you can be wholly yourself again. Maybe then the body can at last belong to someone.
"...I've been doing some thinking. A lot of... thinking. Since yesterday."
"Even if it's... hard."
"...I... I guess I just wanted to... apologise, first of all."
"For... being... faha, scared... same... scared as before. That's... the opposite of what you're trying to do, isn't it? It's... not what either of us want out of this."
"You're trying to help me stop it. Stop being scared. And I'm sorry... for that."
I'm sorry
It lets you apologise. Maybe it doesn't want to. Maybe it's just all you can think of.
You're so sorry. You are, you think to yourself. It's true. You tried to stop it, and failed.
But you can't trust where you end and something alien begins anymore. You are a liar. You are a cheater. How can anything you say or think be trusted to be true?
Is there a self beneath the irony?
"…? Kris... you..."
She laughs. She still isn't looking at you. You are sitting in a creaking cell, and the cell revolves around an axis.
"...faha! Kris, you don't have to apologise for anything. I... realise that now."
"...you weren't trying to hurt me. You were just... helping, and I was... ungrateful, to be... afraid. I get it now. I'm... ready to understand it."
"..."
She falls silent. Her hands worm uncomfortably onto her lap. She is wearing a plain dress you've never seen before, and she looks beautiful.
You have never despised a thought so much in your life.
There is a raw, red throbbing spot in her ring finger, rooted in something rotten.
When the shadows align just right, it can look like thin maroon ring, revolving around an axis. You choose not to entertain this idea.
"..."
"...I wanna go back there with you."
The box that blurs the body seems to blink away. She looks at you.
And now, she can see your face in full. She can see your expression.
Selfishly, it seems you have betrayed your horror.
You cannot see her, but she makes a face. The face shifts, though obscured. The ring finger throbs silently.
"Pff… what's with THAT look?! Were you not expecting..."
She laughs at you, and it sounds like she's about to cry, but it doesn't seem to phase her. She is stuck in a haze that is spinning and circling around her like a thick, wispy fog. It makes it impossible for you to see her. She is wonderfully lost, and she almost seems to like it.
How far have you let her go? How irreversible have you let it become? How much damage have you allowed it to do, and how much of it will you be able to take back when it's all over? Will it ever be over?
"..."
Her laughter wilts away.
"...I mean, I guess it still feels weird, but... again, I'm ready to understand now. I'm ready to be... brave," she explains, hands clenching her dress into creases. "Kris, I want to follow your lead. I want to do as you say. I wanna break out of here, wherever I am. I want to... come with you. I want to understand."
"...I... I want to be stronger."
And that's what it's all about, isn't it? About it taking and taking, in your image, in your way. About it leaving its roots in place and allowing them to grow. Overwriting the chasm it's left inside of you both.
You are a cheater. You take and take and use and use. You lose your things. You have little regard for them. You take an easy, efficient path to nowhere, and you wander it, dazed.
You leave your toys in the couch, and you let your TV die. You permit thick layers of dust across the things you used to love.
The cactus upstairs loves you. Did you know that? It mainly shows a sharp side, but it still yearns for your care. Your whole house does.
Your whole house loves you very much, and they know you are a liar. They know you are a cheater, and they cry for your return to a whimsy you've outgrown, and to an identity you're bulging out of.
You wonder that, if left unchecked, you could have done this yourself. Because you are a cheater, and a liar, and even if you can say you didn't do it, your nature dictates you're capable of it regardless.
In that case, you suppose it doesn't really matter then. If you could someday do this anyway, then passing the blame along the river means nothing. The guilt remains, in the fact that you could have done it. And you will never forget that.
You can never wash it all away.
"Kris...?"
She calls out your name, and it crackles almost as if through speakers. You don't react. She cocks her head.
"...Please tell me you're listening to me. I've been thinking of how to say this all morning."
"...I practiced it in front of the bathroom mirror, over and over. I pretended that I was you, and I assessed my own performance."
"In the end, though, I forgot everything I learned... and I just... spoke."
"...I just need you to say something. Please."
"...I need to go back. I need to keep going. I get it now and I'm sorry and I j-just want to continue."
"...I... I just... I want to proceed, just like you said. Please. W-won't you let me? Kris...?"
You are a liar and a cheater, and you could very well have done the crime yourself.
Miraculously, this doesn't dissuade your impulses. And miraculously, your impulses remain just as they were yesterday, and the night before.
To protect her.
And protect her, even though she's further down the railway, you do- and you do it the very same way you've been trying to do all this time. You lean your thoughts entirely in one direction, prohibiting it from doing anything else.
It was a dream
Her face twists. It seems sour, like she just bit into a lemon, but there's a sad and cold neutrality that bleaches it still.
"..."
"...do... do you... do you not believe me, or something...?"
"..."
"...Kris... I want to trust you, ha, but..."
"...h... how can I when you keep... changing your mind like this?"
"..."
"It's like you can't decide how you feel yourself. Like... like you're still not sure it's all really happening, either."
"..."
"...The other day, you were so steadfast, unwavering, like you were reading off instructions and were completely certain what to do. That night, you came to me... mumbling, and shaky, and murmuring in... a voice I hadn't heard in so long."
"...You told me it was a prank, a dream, whatever. You... told me it was all going to get better."
"...and then yesterday... you came back, and you were changed again. And you told me that you could see me, through and through. A-and you told me that it wasn't a dream, or a prank, and that I'd get stronger."
"..."
"...and today, you're here with me, and it's a dream once more. It's almost like you're going round in circles, over and over again..."
"...Kris..."
"..."
She snorts out a chuckle, and something runs down her face. Her lips twist into a terrible smile, and she hugs her knees to her chest, almost mumbling against them. Her hooves scratch against your cell. You are sitting in a creaking cell, and the cell revolves around an axis.
"...you're scared too."
You are. You shouldn't be. You don't deserve to be. You are.
It was a dream
"... Kris."
"...please... just... just let me..."
It was a dream
"..."
"..."
She looks down. Her face is still obscured. You can't tell why until she stands.
"..."
"...Okay."
Her hands tighten and squeeze into fists, and she bites her lip.
"...O-okay."
"..."
"...Then..."
She looks towards the window. She looks so striking now, you think: her dark and golden silhouette bathed in blood red sky.
"...th-then I'll jump. I'll jump out the window."
You almost don't hear her. She hears you, and she turns back.
You can see her now.
Her eyes are glossy and watery; round dark circles that seem almost hollow. It's a trick of the light, but you swear you see the crimson glint of spindly roots spiralling inside, shards of scarlet glass falling to form stained, tragic tapestries.
Deep bags settle beneath, out of place on her perfect, rosy face, with its soft and pristine holiday allure. Out of place above her sincere, open smile.
"It's a dream, right?" She proposes. "I-I'd grow big angel wings... and fly as far as I can, gazing back at it all..."
You stand unconsciously.
"...and stare knowingly at everything below, knowing it's far out of my reach forever. That I've outgrown it, I-I'm above it, and I'll never have to come back."
"...I can go anywhere I want. I can do anything I want, and be anyone I want. For the first time in my life, I get to choose things for myself. Discover things for myself, with this... strength, you've dragged out of me."
"...faha... isn't it selfish? I want to get stronger. Even now, knowing it's hard to think about anything at all... I still can't help it."
She steps closer to the window. "It just feels... natural, even if it's a dream. So vivid, so lucid despite the haze... and I think..."
She gazes out. "I think... that I'm ready to take control of it."
"I think... that I'm ready to-"
She steps too close. Far, far too close- you grab her. You notice the trick. You release, almost as though touching a scalding stove, but it's too late.
You've revealed your bluff, and she's seen right through you.
She makes as much clear.
"..."
"...so, it is real. Right? You... lied."
"..."
"...why?"
...
"..."
You are sitting in a creaking cell, and the cell revolves around an axis.
"...WHY?!"
And then her voice is loud, uncharacteristically, dizzyingly loud, and you nearly recoil from the agony. She sniffles, cracking, breaking. She sounds weak. She is not weak- but perhaps she'd disagree. Strong people can't get stronger.
"Why won't you st-stop spinning round and round?! Why can't I be enough for you to- I-"
She swallows. "...you- you showed me... Kris, you showed me something I never thought I could be or do-! You saw me, a-and you dragged me kicking and screaming and spluttering to the surface. I watched it happen in disgust, and had to learn on my own the good you were really doing. And you're just gonna leave it gasping there for oxygen?!"
She is in tears. She's grabbing your hands and pressing them up against her own. Through your own flesh, you cannot see her finger, and the maroon cage that circles it in shadow. Instead, you can only see soft, angry, bewildered eyes that flood with oceanic droplets that fall when she speaks and mar her fur. "That's- that's mean, Kris! That's- that's so, so mean!!"
All of a sudden, you are not sixteen and nothing- you are roughly eleven years old, and you are taller than her. She is a golden doe with pretty plastic wings, and she is crying.
The tears are your fault. A shaking of the carriage? A game of hide and seek that ended with you springing out from beneath? A lie that spirals and spirals and spirals, spinning out of your thin, childish control? Maybe you grabbed one of her mother's heart-shaped pillows again and pretended it was yours, chasing her around the house as she squealed.
You are mean. A liar and a cheater; but you don't want to be mean. You don't intend to be mean. You are a bad dog, but not by choice, it's just the way you are.
You've had to grow used to being unable to change this. You don't want to hurt her. You want to have fun. You want everyone to have fun. Your antics are designed for laughs and cheers, not squeals and cries- and yet, that's all they ever earn, because you are mean and unable to see it.
You have always been mean.
"..."
She gasps for air. She inhales sharply and shakily, and there is nothing you can do.
"I didn't do it," you say. But you could have.
And that, as always, makes you just as guilty.
You've always been guilty. Guilty of repenting, in a religion that doesn't believe in sinning. Your brother always had to beg for your forgiveness.
Because you're sinning, regardless. You apologise no matter what; it's the least you can do. For existing, like this. For existing to do nothing but lie, and cheat, and hurt.
"...Kris..."
I'm sorry
You croak the words out. Your throat yearns for apology. It is the least you can do.
Sorry for taking her watch. Sorry for being weird at the hospital. Sorry for shaking the carriage in the ferris wheel.
Sorry for letting it happen at all.
"..."
She looks up. Her eyes still shine, like holiday lights, crimson glinting underneath like it shouldn't be there.
Noelle deserves to get stronger
The words catch you so off guard you don't even attempt to stop them.
"...Kris...?" They seem to surprise her too, and it breaks you. Her mouth falls just slightly agape, and her irises swim beneath her emotions. Gently, you clasp her hand, and your voice is strong and foreign and shaky as it speaks.
So unexpected, unpredictable, your mind runs wild- allowing it through to do whatever it pleases.
Let's go back there together
Somehow, her eyes widen again.
"...Kris? Kris, what are you...?"
Something changes in her face.
...
Noelle deserves to get stronger
A small, shaking smile returns to her- treason to her form, to the rest of her shell-shocked expression.
"...I don't understand."
"...I..."
"...ha ha. I don't think I'll ever understand."
She weakly clasps your hand back. She can't hear you, not anymore. You are gone, overwritten, and you're powerless to prevent a thing. Her smile grows shakier, yet more certain, and she closes her eyes to think. It's difficult. You can tell it's difficult. And you're repulsive for not doing more to stop it.
"...but I want to try. I... I really, really want to try, Kris."
Noelle becomes stronger
She laughs again. It sounds like nails dragging down, down, down a chalkboard, and metal scraping. You are crying. You cannot stop yourself from crying.
You are not strong, not in this way, not in any way. You are powerless, and especially powerless to prevent this.
All you can do is watch it happen, and tell yourself that you didn't do it. It wasn't really you.
The one comfort amidst it all is that you didn't do it, no matter what.
...and even that has its limits, for a cheater like you.
"Y-you sound so confident, Kris-! You just..."
She sniffles.
"...Kris..."
"...Kris, you're back...!"
I'm back
You let the words flow as they wish to.
You want to clasp your hand over your mouth, but her gentle grip is immovable.
I'm not going anywhere
And she believes it, because it's true.
You won't stop fighting, of course, but you know it will do nothing.
It will drag her back there, smiling, and force her to wreak havoc. It will interlock its metal fingers with her soft, bleeding hand, and guide her into hell with you. It will make her take another city, another world, and make her stronger.
How long until she stops realising anything is happening at all? How long until she forgets herself, and loses all ability to think or speak or move on her own altogether? How long until her insides are just its foul roots, and she's a hollow shell of unimaginable strength?
You vowed not to let it get to this point. That night, as you carried a frozen, unconscious Berdly in your thin, trembling arms, you said you'd stop it at all costs.
You know now that this is impossible. That doesn't make it less agonising.
Let's get stronger together
You are wearing your brother's church clothes, and they don't fit right on the body you're inside of.
Something else is in this body with you, and it has won the fight for control.
It's holding a girl you knew once, and hurt, and you will watch her be used until she is nothing at all.
I'm sorry
"...?"
"...y-you don't need to be sorry, Kris," she says quietly; her voice a murmur, or whisper, of sorts. You can't tell anymore. "Y-you're just trying to protect me. I get it now."
"...you never meant to hurt me, right, Kris?"
Right
A body is holding hands sweetly with its weapon. It whispers solidarity, and she leans into its cold comforts, empty promises of strength and freedom from the broken, eternal past she is caged aside.
You are sitting in a creaking cell, and the cell revolves around an axis.