( words that would come as a relief or a kindness to someone else lower around four as some impenetrable dark. he isn't conscious of the things that happen: the jarring silence where his breaths should go, the way the black of his pupils swallow up elan ceres' trademark green, the stock stillness of him otherwise that belies how wrong it all is. you've done enough. or: you are no longer needed.
it isn't fear of death, a thing four will deny upon pain of it. it isn't the desire for death, though four has been playing cat and mouse with it while swapping roles for far too long, all the while having convinced himself it was fine whatever the outcome; because he couldn't remember who he was much less the terms of his role and his presence. except that the existence must have already been a cursed one to volunteer for this real life disassembly. it's worse than both of those things, anyway; far more shameful and idiotic.
what four doesn't remember: sela, age five, planting seeds that wouldn't grow. sela, age six, planting seeds again even when it risked the sin of a waste they could not afford. sela, age seven, planting seeds that, once again, failed to live.
though something grew there anyway.
four looked it up once taken in by peil, given access to their technology and even the scant books.
dandelion.
human beings used to believe they could be wish giving, even after they had all but died. and then, those wishes carried on versions of it somewhere else to be born the same but different.
what four does remember: intermittent messages at all odd hours and some regular ones too, dance lessons that felt uncomfortable with nowhere to hide and comfortable for the same reason, books now on the cart in this room delivered without any fanfare except their very existence,
elan ceres telling him what to do and —
— four not doing it.
the words i don't want to die won't ever come.
a life of economy could not, it turns out, protect much. if he was more lucid right now, four would question himself anyway: what was there to protect in the first place?
instead, a small push is also a small pull: the key place to unravel everything.
a push in the center of a room is safe, mostly. a push before an open window, not so much.
four plummets.
sela, age nine to a woman whose face cannot be recalled: "but i want to help you...can't i help?"
can't i...do anything?
peil never implemented their enhanced humans with a fail-safe; no emergency destruct trigger in their systems. but four makes the spitting image of what it might be like if they had done so. rather than like the time at the school, he stays so completely still one might wonder if he wasn't a disturbingly life-like replica in another way: a model of what not to do, not feeling the blood from his nose or the pounding in his head, not truly registering the black spots in his vision nor the lancing burn of the permet no longer content to cluster in his arms and throat and face, running the whole of him like he's been turned inside-out for better understanding.
no subject
it isn't fear of death, a thing four will deny upon pain of it. it isn't the desire for death, though four has been playing cat and mouse with it while swapping roles for far too long, all the while having convinced himself it was fine whatever the outcome; because he couldn't remember who he was much less the terms of his role and his presence. except that the existence must have already been a cursed one to volunteer for this real life disassembly. it's worse than both of those things, anyway; far more shameful and idiotic.
what four doesn't remember: sela, age five, planting seeds that wouldn't grow. sela, age six, planting seeds again even when it risked the sin of a waste they could not afford. sela, age seven, planting seeds that, once again, failed to live.
though something grew there anyway.
four looked it up once taken in by peil, given access to their technology and even the scant books.
dandelion.
human beings used to believe they could be wish giving, even after they had all but died. and then, those wishes carried on versions of it somewhere else to be born the same but different.
what four does remember: intermittent messages at all odd hours and some regular ones too, dance lessons that felt uncomfortable with nowhere to hide and comfortable for the same reason, books now on the cart in this room delivered without any fanfare except their very existence,
elan ceres telling him what to do and —
— four not doing it.
the words i don't want to die won't ever come.
a life of economy could not, it turns out, protect much. if he was more lucid right now, four would question himself anyway: what was there to protect in the first place?
instead, a small push is also a small pull: the key place to unravel everything.
a push in the center of a room is safe, mostly. a push before an open window, not so much.
four plummets.
sela, age nine to a woman whose face cannot be recalled: "but i want to help you...can't i help?"
can't i...do anything?
peil never implemented their enhanced humans with a fail-safe; no emergency destruct trigger in their systems. but four makes the spitting image of what it might be like if they had done so. rather than like the time at the school, he stays so completely still one might wonder if he wasn't a disturbingly life-like replica in another way: a model of what not to do, not feeling the blood from his nose or the pounding in his head, not truly registering the black spots in his vision nor the lancing burn of the permet no longer content to cluster in his arms and throat and face, running the whole of him like he's been turned inside-out for better understanding.
not that there is any.
you've done enough.
it hurts. )