Grounds (Waifu Catalog)

[Eifa]

---

My name is Malty S. Melromarc.

I think.

It's been a while since anyone called me that. The Company uses numbers. The contractors use… other things. Pet names. Degradations. Sometimes nothing at all, because why would you name something you don't intend to keep?

I was the First Princess of Melromarc, once. I remember that. I hold onto it sometimes, in the dark, turning the memory over like a worn stone — Ī ⱳⱥꞩ ꞩꝋᵯēꝋꞥē, Ī ⱳⱥꞩ ꞩꝋᵯēꝋꞥē, Ī ⱳⱥꞩ ꞩꝋᵯēꝋꞥē — but the edges have gone smooth now. Hard to grip. Hard to remember why it mattered.

I was cunning.

I was beautiful.

I was going to be queen.

Funny, the things you think will save you.

---

The cell is cold.

It's always cold. I don't know why I still notice. You'd think after enough time the body would simply… adjust. Accept. Stop sending signals that no longer serve any purpose.

But I still feel it. The cold. Settling into my bones like an old friend who's overstayed their welcome but refuses to leave.

I'm sitting in the corner. I don't remember moving to the corner. I do that sometimes now — lose time, find myself somewhere I don't recall choosing to be. The Company medics said it was within acceptable parameters for a unit of my… history.

Acceptable parameters.

Everything is within acceptable parameters here. The scars. The damage. The way I sometimes forget how to swallow and have to remind myself, step by step, like a child learning for the first time. ₳₵₵Ɇ₱₮₳฿ⱠɆ. As long as the product still functions. As long as it can still be sold.

I pull my knees to my chest.

I'm naked. I've been naked for… I don't know. A while. Clothing costs resources, and resources aren't wasted on units in transit. I used to be ashamed of that. Used to try to cover myself with my hands, curl into shapes that hid the worst of it, maintain some pathetic scrap of dignity.

I don't bother anymore.

What's the point?

They've already seen everything. Everyone has already seen everything. My body stopped being mine so long ago that modesty feels like a language I used to speak but have since forgotten. I know the words exist. I just can't remember what they mean.

---

There are scars.

I try not to look at them, but they're hard to avoid when they cover so much. Curse marks that twist across my ribs in patterns that still ache when the weather changes — except there is no weather here, just the same sterile recycled air, so maybe the aching is just memory. Phantom pain from a body that hasn't accepted what's been done to it.

Weapon wounds. Training accidents, some contractors called them. Let's see how much the princess can take. The Company healed the ones that impaired function. The rest they left. Cost-benefit analysis. I wasn't worth the credits.

And other damage. In other places.

I don't think about that.

I don't.

Sometimes my mind tries to go there anyway — drags me back to rooms I don't want to remember, to hands I can still feel even now, to sounds that come back in the quiet moments when there's nothing else to fill the silence—

I dig my nails into my palms. Focus on the small sharp pain. Anchor myself here, in this cold cell, in this present moment that is terrible but at least is *now* and not *then*.

Breathe.

Don't think. Don't remember. Just breathe.

The cell is cold.

I am tired.

These are the only facts that matter.

---

I don't know how long I have been sitting there.

Time moves strangely in Company facilities. No windows. No clocks. Just the endless hum of machines and the occasional distant sound of footsteps that never seem to come for you until suddenly they do.

I used to count seconds. Minutes. Tried to maintain some grip on the passage of hours. But the numbers got away from me eventually, slipped through my fingers like water, and now I just… exist. In the gaps between things.

Waiting.

Always waiting.

The worst part isn't the fear. Fear requires energy, requires some part of you to still believe that what comes next might be different from what came before. Fear is almost hopeful, in its own twisted way.

No.

The worst part is the tiredness.

The bone-deep exhaustion that comes from being afraid for so long that your body simply gives up on the emotion. Can't sustain it. Let it drain away until all that's left is this gray, heavy nothing that sits in your chest like a stone.

I am so tired.

I am so tired of being passed from hand to hand.

I am so tired of learning new rules, new preferences, new ways to minimize the damage.

I am so tired of hoping that this one might be different, might be better, might at least be *quick* — and being wrong, every single time.

I am so tired of being wrong.

The door will open eventually. It always does. And someone will take me somewhere, and something will happen, and I will survive it or I won't, and either way the universe will continue on without noticing or caring.

That's the truth they don't put in the catalog.

*Slightly Used.*

*Previously Owned.*

No one tells you that the cruelest thing isn't the pain. The cruelest thing is learning that you can survive it. That the human mind is horrifyingly adaptable. That you will live through things you were certain would kill you, and then you'll live through the next thing, and the next, and the next, and there is no limit to what a person can endure when the alternative is simply… stopping.

And you can't stop.

You can never stop.

You just keep going, and going, and going, until you can't remember what you were going toward in the first place.

---

The door opens.

I don't react.

Once, I would have flinched. Scrambled to my feet. Tried to make myself small, or large, or whatever shape seemed most likely to invite mercy. I learned quickly that there is no right shape. No correct response. What pleases one contractor enrages another. What earns you gentleness from one earns you punishment from the next.

So I stopped trying to predict.

I just… wait.

"Unit M-7749. Transfer authorized."

The agent's voice is flat. Bored. This is just paperwork to them. I am paperwork to them.

I don't look up.

"Follow."

I stand.

My legs shake. They've been shaking for a while now — the last contractor preferred me weakened, kept me on the edge of starvation because he said it made my eyes look more desperate and he liked that — but the Company's medics corrected the muscle atrophy during processing. Immobile units are harder to transport. The shaking is just… leftover what my body remembers what it's supposed to feel even though the physical cause has been removed.

I follow the agent.

One foot in front of the other. Simple mechanics. Don't need will or desire or any of the things that used to feel important. Just… movement. The body knows how to move even when the mind has checked out.

The hallway is long.

White walls. White floor. White lights that buzz faintly overhead, a sound so constant I've stopped consciously hearing it but can't quite ignore. Other doors line the corridor. Other cells. Other units in transit, waiting for their own agents, their own transfers, their own next chapters in stories that none of them asked to be part of.

I wonder, sometimes, if any of them were famous in their worlds. Heroes. Villains. People who used to be someone.

𝐈⃥⃒̸ 𝐰⃥⃒̸𝐚⃥⃒̸𝐬⃥⃒̸ 𝐚⃥⃒̸ 𝐩⃥⃒̸𝐫⃥⃒̸𝐢⃥⃒̸𝐧⃥⃒̸𝐜⃥⃒̸𝐞⃥⃒̸𝐬⃥⃒̸𝐬⃥⃒̸.⃥⃒̸

The thought surfaces and sinks again, a dead thing floating briefly before the water closes over it.

𝐈⃥⃒̸ 𝐰⃥⃒̸𝐚⃥⃒̸𝐬⃥⃒̸ 𝐠⃥⃒̸𝐨⃥⃒̸𝐢⃥⃒̸𝐧⃥⃒̸𝐠⃥⃒̸ 𝐭⃥⃒̸𝐨⃥⃒̸ 𝐛⃥⃒̸𝐞⃥⃒̸ 𝐪⃥⃒̸𝐮⃥⃒̸𝐞⃥⃒̸𝐞⃥⃒̸𝐧⃥⃒̸.⃥⃒̸

I keep walking.

The agent doesn't even look at me. I'm just cargo being transported from point A to point B. You don't make conversation with cargo.

I used to try, in the beginning. Asked questions. Demanded answers. Insisted on my rights, as if rights were something that existed here, as if anyone cared about the protests of a product that had already been bought and paid for.

The agents taught me better.

One of them knew healing magic. Could hurt you as much as she wanted and then undo the damage before the next shift. She had three hours with me before my transfer. I don't remember what question I asked to set her off.

I remember the three hours.

I remember every second of them.

I don't ask questions anymore.

---

The hallway ends.

The agent stops in front of a door that looks like every other door then press something on their tablet. The door slides open with a soft hiss.

"Inside. Wait for processing."

I walk through.

The door closes behind me.

---

This room is different.

Not much. Not enough to matter. But different.

There's a desk. A chair behind it. A figure sitting in the chair, face obscured by the folder they're reading. The lighting is the same sterile white as everywhere else, but something about the arrangement suggests… an office. A workspace. A place where decisions are made rather than simply carried out.

I stand just inside the door, naked and scarred, and I wait.

The figure doesn't acknowledge me.

Pages turn. Slow. Methodical. The soft sound of paper against paper fills the silence. I can see their hands — human-looking, though that means nothing here — and the glint of a ring on one finger.

I wait. And wait. Ⱥnd waīⱦ. And w̳͍̮͈ͥ̒ͮ́̎͆̓͝͝a̴̸̴̡̢̨̱̱͇͉̯͔̰͍͍̠̿ͦ̎ͥ̎̀̆͂̊͒̎͆̒̽͘͜͝į̸̷̧̪̮̼̗͍̙́̏̍̍̅ͪ͑͋ͬ̔t̸̸̶̡̧̡̛̛̪̝̩͉͈̤͈͉̞̬̯̗̹͎̀ͣͣͥ̀̈͗̽͑̎̂̐̏͒̓ͧ̌̔͘̕͟͝͠͝ͅ..

Eventually, the figure speaks.

"Malty S. Melromarc."

It's not a question. It's an inventory check.

My throat clicks shut. I've learned the hard way that sound is dangerous. Speak, and you're insolent. Stay silent, and you're sullen. There is no right answer, only different varieties of pain.

So I went still. It's safer to be a statue than a person.

The figure turns to another page. Their eyes move down the text. I can't read their expression — they haven't looked up yet, haven't bothered to see what they've purchased — but something in the air shifts.

A pause.

Longer than the others.

"…I see."

Two words. Neutral tone. But something in them lands differently. Like they've found an unexpected line item in an otherwise routine report.

I wonder what the file says. What notes the previous contractors left. There's a place for that, I've learned. A review section. Feedback.

P̸r̷o̴d̸u̶c̷t̶ ̵p̸e̷r̵f̸o̵r̶m̷e̶d̶ ̵a̵s̸ ̵e̸x̷p̴e̶c̴t̸e̶d̸. W̴o̵u̶l̸d̵ ̶r̶e̸c̸o̷m̵m̷e̸n̶d̸ ̵f̴o̷r̶ ̴u̶s̷e̷r̸s̵ ̵w̶h̷o̶ ̴e̵n̸j̷o̵y̶—

I don't wonder too hard.

Some things are better not to know.

The figure reaches for something on their desk. A stamp. Old-fashioned. Out of place in this world of tablets and digital interfaces. They press it to the final page with a soft *thunk* — decisive, final, the sound of one chapter ending and another beginning.

"Approved."

The word settles into me like sediment sinking to the bottom of a still pond.

Approved.

Sold.

Again.

The figure gestures toward the wall behind me.

"Door."

I turn.

There's a door where there wasn't one before.

It's wrong. Everything about it is wrong. The frame is wooden — actual *wood*, dark and worn and ancient-looking — set into the sterile white wall like a wound. The handle is brass, tarnished with age. A small bell hangs above it, the kind you'd see in a shop from a world that still believed in quaint things.

I stare at it.

The door does not explain itself.

"Your new contractor is waiting," the figure says. They've already returned to their paperwork. Already moved on to the next file, the next unit, the next transaction.

I'm no longer their concern.

Another contractor.

Another set of preferences to learn.

Another chapter in a story I never wanted to be part of.

I walk to the door.

My hand finds the handle.

It's warm.

That's wrong too. Everything here is cold. But the brass is warm under my fingers, almost alive, and the grain of the wood is rough against my palm, and for a moment I just stand there, touching something that feels real in a way nothing has felt real in so long—

I push.

The door swings open.

The bell chimes.

And—

---

Color.

That's the first thing. Color. Warm wood and soft light and green — plants in the window, actual living plants, leaves catching sunlight that streams through glass that isn't reinforced or monitored or anything except —

I stumble forward without meaning to. The door swings shut behind me with a soft click. The sound of the Company — that constant low hum, the buzz of lights, the recycled air that tasted like nothing — cuts off like someone flipping a switch.

Silence.

No.

Not silence.

Quiet.

The soft gurgle of water through an espresso machine. The distant sound of something — music? — playing too softly to identify. The creak of old floorboards under my feet.

I'm in a coffee shop.

I'm standing in the middle of a coffee shop.

The absurdity of it hits me so hard I forget how to breathe.

Small tables with chairs tucked neatly beneath them. A long counter with brass fixtures and glass jars filled with beans. A chalkboard menu on the wall, covered in handwriting I can't read. Flowers — flowers — in tiny vases on each table, yellow and white and pink, so aggressively cheerful it almost hurts to look at them.

Sunlight.

Warmth.

The smell of fresh coffee and something sweet, cinnamon maybe, or vanilla, something that makes my stomach clench with a hunger I'd forgotten I was capable of feeling.

"Ah."

The voice comes from behind the counter.

I flinch. Can't help it. The reflex outruns the thought, and by the time I register someone is here, my body has already obeyed the instinct. I curl inward, protecting my neck, making myself a smaller target. A prey animal caught in open ground.

"Welcome."

I look up.

The man behind the counter is… not what I expected.

I'm not sure what I expected. Someone cruel. Someone hungry. Someone with that particular gleam in their eyes that I've learned to recognize.

But this man is just… making coffee.

He's maybe thirty. Maybe older. The kind of face that doesn't commit to an age. Pleasant features. Soft eyes. An apron tied neatly over clothes that look comfortable rather than expensive. He's holding a cup, pouring something into it with the careful attention of someone who takes this single task very seriously.

He looks at me.

I stand frozen in the doorway — naked and scarred and so utterly out of place in this warm, bright space — and he looks at me the way you'd look at a customer who's come in from the rain.

Calm.

Unhurried.

His eyes traveled over me once. I feel the assessment — the curse marks, the weapon scars, the other damage that the Company didn't bother to fix because I wasn't worth the credits — but there's no heat in it. No hunger. No possessive satisfaction at what he's purchased.

Just observation. Clinical. Like a doctor noting symptoms.

"Oh," he says. Mild. Unsurprised. "That won't do."

And between one heartbeat and the next, I'm clothed.

I can't help it.

I gasp.

The fabric is soft — so soft it almost hurts— and warm and it covers me, a simple dress in deep burgundy that falls past my knees and has sleeves and I'm wearing shoes, actual shoes with soft soles, and I can't remember the last time I—

I press my hands against the fabric. Feel it shift under my palms. Real. Solid. Present.

The scars are still there underneath. I can feel them. But they're covered now. And if I don't look at them, I can almost pretend they didn't exist.

My eyes burn.

I don't cry. I don't remember how to cry. But something in my chest cracks, just a little, at this small and incomprehensible kindness.

"Better," the man says.

He's already turned back to his coffee. Like he didn't just— like this is normal — like—

"Sit wherever you'd like." He gestures vaguely at the empty tables. "I'll bring you something in a moment."

I don't move.

I can't move.

This is wrong. This is a trick. This is the part where the kindness reveals itself as setup, where the warmth turns cold, where I learn what he actually wants and it's always something, it's ⱥłⱳⱥɏꞩ—

"OH!"

The shout comes from somewhere in the back.

I flinch again. The voice is bright, loud, completely wrong for this moment — someone excited, someone who actually sounds happy — and my brain cannot make it fit into any pattern I know.

"She's here already!?"

Crash.

The sound of something falling over. Hurried footsteps. A door banging open.

And then—

A girl bursts into the shop.

She's young. A teenager, maybe. Blonde hair, bright eyes, a school uniform visible under a small apron that's already coming untied. She's carrying two cups of coffee and she's moving way too fast and her foot catches on the doorframe and she's falling, she's definitely falling—
The stumble turns into a spin. The spin turns into a pivot. Suddenly she's upright, both cups perfectly level.

Too smooth.

I've watched the Cardinal Heroes fight. I used to think that was grace. But compared to this? The Heroes look like puppets—jerked around by stats and invisible strings.

This girl moves like she's the one holding the handle.

Then she bounces forward, all teenage energy and cheer, and the impression dissolves.

Mostly.

"Hi!" She beams at me. All teeth. "You must be the new one!"

I stare at her.

She doesn't seem to mind.

"I'm—" She pauses. Glances at the man behind the counter. "What am I going by this time?"

"Lucy," he says. Doesn't look up from his cup.

"Right! Lucy!" She deposits the coffees on the nearest table with more enthusiasm than precision. "Come sit! You look like you need—" She tilts her head, considering. "Coffee. Definitely coffee. And maybe a nap. And probably some food? You're very thin. Not in a fun way. In the concerning way."

She pulls out a chair and pats the seat expectantly.

I don't move.

The man continues making coffee.

The sunlight continues streaming through the windows.

The girl — *Lucy* — continues smiling, patient and bright.

None of this makes sense.

"I don't—" My voice cracks. Splinters. How long since I spoke? The words feel like stones in my mouth. "I don't understand."

Lucy's smile softens. Not pity. Not the performed sympathy I've seen from contractors who wanted to seem kind before showing their true face.

"That's okay," she says.

She sits down, props her chin on her hand, and looks at me like I'm an interesting puzzle rather than a broken thing.

"You don't have to understand yet. You just have to sit."

She pushes the second coffee cup toward the empty chair.

"Drink something. It'll help."

"Help with *what*?"

The question comes out sharper than I meant. There's an edge — something old, something that remembers being a princess who didn't take orders from serving girls.

The moment it leaves my mouth, I flinch.

Shoulders up. Eyes down. Body bracing for impact — a slap, a shock, whatever correction comes for speaking out of turn. The response is automatic. Pathetic. I hate it, hate that I can't stop it, hate what they made me into.

Nothing comes.

I risk a glance upward.

Lucy's still smiling. Not the sharp smile that precedes pain. Not the cold smile that means you've made a mistake and you'll pay for it later. Just... the same smile. Warm. Unbothered. Like I hadn't just snapped at her. Like I'm allowed to have edges.

That's wrong.

That's so wrong it makes my skin crawl.

I know how to navigate cruelty. I know the rhythm of punishment and appeasement, how to read the temperature of a room, when to grovel and when to be silent. I was *good* at it. I survived because I was good at it.

I don't know what to do with this.

"Good question," Lucy says, as if nothing happened. As if I didn't just bare my teeth at her like a cornered animal.

She leans back, coffee cradled in both hands. The sunlight catches her hair, turns it gold, and for just a moment—

Something else looks out from behind her eyes.

Something that has watched stars die.

Then she blinks, and she's just a teenager with a coffee cup.

"We'll figure it out together," she says. "But first—" She taps the rim. "Drink. Trust me. He's weirdly good at it."

"I heard that," the man says from behind the counter.

"You were supposed to hear it! It was a compliment!"

He makes a noncommittal sound. Continues his work.

Lucy grins at me.

I stand in the middle of a coffee shop, wearing a dress I didn't choose, holding onto reality by my fingernails, and a monster in a school uniform offers me a cup of coffee like it's the most normal thing in the world.

My legs move without my permission.

I cross the shop. Lower myself into the chair. My hands find the cup — warm, solid, *real* — and wrap around it like holding on for dear life.

The coffee smells good.

Everything smells good.

I don't trust it.

I don't trust any of this.

But I'm so tired. And the chair is soft. And the sunlight is warm. And for the first time in longer than I can remember, nothing is hurting me.

"There's a price," I say. My voice is steadier now. Still cracked, still rough, but *mine*. "There's always a price. Everything in the catalog has a price. So what do you *want* from me?"

The question hangs in the air.

Lucy tilts her head.

"What do you want?" she asks.

I don't answer.

I don't know how.

Wanting things is dangerous. Wanting things gives people leverage. Wanting things means having something that can be taken away, and I have learned — in rooms I won't think about, in ways I won't remember — that the safest thing is to want nothing at all.

Lucy nods, like my silence is answer enough.

"That's okay too," she says. "You don't have to know yet. That's kind of the whole point."

She sips her coffee.

The man behind the counter starts on a new cup.

The bell above the door stays silent.

And I sit in a coffee shop that shouldn't exist, holding a cup I didn't ask for, wearing kindness I didn't earn, and I wait for the trap to spring.

It doesn't.

The sunlight stays warm.

The coffee stays hot.

And somewhere, deep beneath the exhaustion and the fear and the gray heavy nothing that has lived in my chest for so long—

Something stirs.

Not hope.

I won't call it hope.

But for the first time in longer than I can remember — I don't want to run.

---

A/N: My first story up here and it comes from a random bout of brain-fart I had a while ago. Discussion appreciated I suppose.

 

[Naberius]

I wasn't expecting Hurt/Comfort from a Waifu Catalogue fic, but weirder things have happened; taking in Slightly Used waifus and helping them to recover is a good premise and your writing style really sells the emotions - or lack thereof - that Malty is feeling. I also like your choice of Malty as the PoV character, since a character that's so widely hated is perfect for a waifu that's been traded from one abusive Contractor to another.

All in all, good shit. I hope to see more.

 

[loki98065]

so is this a contractor who works for the arch angel of benevolence. or just a good contractor?

 

[Apollo_Man]

*Pulls out a tray of baked chicken penne, a cocoa milkshake and a tissue box*

Welp, this seems to got me both hooked and dreading for the big sad.

 

[Eifa]

---

I sleep.

I don't mean to. Sleep is dangerous — sleep is when they come, when things happen, when you wake up somewhere else with new marks on your body and no memory of how they got there. I learned to sleep in fragments. Minutes at a time. Never deep enough to dream.

But the chair is soft.

And the coffee is warm.

And nothing hurts.

My eyes close for just a moment — just to rest them, not to sleep, never to sleep — and when they open again, the light through the windows has changed. Gone golden. Late afternoon, maybe. Or early evening. Time moves strangely here.

I jerk upright.

Stupid. Ꞩⱦᵾꝑīđ. How long was I—*

"Oh good, you're awake."

Lucy is sitting across from me. Same seat. Same smile. Like she never moved. Like she's been watching me sleep this whole time.

I should be afraid of that.

I'm too tired to be afraid.

"You drool a little," she says cheerfully. "It's cute."

"I don't—" I touch my mouth. Dry. She's lying. But why would she—

"Made you check though."

She grins. I stare at her. Something that might be irritation flickers through the exhaustion, a pale ghost of a feeling I used to have in abundance.

"Come on." She stands, stretches like a cat. "I'll show you your room."

---

The coffee shop has a back.

This seems obvious. All buildings have backs. But when Lucy leads me through the door behind the counter — the one she burst through earlier, all stumbling grace and impossible coordination — I expect a kitchen. A storage room. Something finite.

Instead, there's a hallway.

It stretches.

And stretches.

And ƨϝʁԍϝcμԍƨ.

Doors line both sides, each one different. Wood and metal and glass and materials I don't recognize. Some have numbers. Some have symbols. Some have nothing at all, just blank faces that seem to watch as we pass.

"The space is… flexible," Lucy says, noticing my expression. "It's as big as it needs to be. No bigger, no smaller."

"That doesn't make sense."

"Lots of things don't make sense." She shrugs. "You get used to it."

I don't respond. My feet keep moving. One step, then another. The hallway doesn't end.

"How far does it go?"

"Depends on where you're trying to get."

"That's not an answer."

"Sure it is. Just not a satisfying one."

We pass a door that's covered in frost. Another that radiates heat. One that hums with something that sounds almost like music, too faint to identify.
"What about others?" I ask, glancing at the endless row of doors. "Does anyone else even come here?"



Lucy's smile flickers. Just for a moment.

"Sometimes. Not right now. You're the only one here at the moment."

The only one.

I don't know if that's comforting or terrifying.

---

My room is—

Normal.

That's the wrong word. Nothing here is normal. But the room Lucy shows me is *aggressively* ordinary. A bed with clean sheets. A window that looks out onto— something. A garden, maybe. The view shifts when I'm not looking directly at it. A small desk. A wardrobe.

A door.

With a lock.

On the inside.

"Bathroom's through there." Lucy points to another door. "Towels are in the cabinet. Clothes in the wardrobe — should fit, the space is good at guessing sizes. If you need anything else, just…" She pauses. "Actually, I don't know. Wish really hard? It usually works."

I'm not listening anymore.

I'm staring at the lock.

"It works," Lucy says. Softer now. "The lock. It's real. No one can come in unless you let them."

My hand reaches out without permission. Touches the brass mechanism. Turns it.

*Click.*

Such a small sound.

I turn it back. *Click.* And again. *Click. Click. Click.*

"Malty."

I stop.

Lucy is watching me with those eyes that are sometimes young and sometimes ancient and right now are just… kind. Simply kind.

"No one's going to hurt you here," she says. "I know you don't believe that yet. That's okay. You don't have to believe it. It's still true."

I want to laugh. I want to scream. I want to ask her how many times I've heard those words before, from how many mouths, in how many rooms that turned into prisons the moment I let my guard down.

I don't do any of those things.

I just stand there, hand on the lock, and wait for her to leave.

She does.

The door closes behind her.

I lock it.

Then I sit on the floor with my back against the wall, facing the door, and I wait for something to happen.

---

Nothing happens.

I waited for hours. Or what feels like hours. The light through the window changes, cycles, does something that might be a sunset and might be something else entirely. My legs cramp. My back aches. The bed sits there, soft and unthreatening, and I don't touch it.

Beds are dangerous.

Beds are where things happen.

So I stay on the floor, and I watch the door, and I wait.

The lock doesn't turn.

No one tries the handle.

The silence is absolute — not the heavy silence of a predator waiting, but the gentle silence of a space that simply has nothing to say.

Eventually, my body betrays me again.

I sleep.

---

I woke up on the floor.

Same position. Same room. Same lock, still engaged.

Nothing has changed.

I check myself — automatic, reflexive, a habit I don't remember developing. No new marks. No soreness I can't account for. My dress is still in place. My body is still mine.

Still ᵯīꞥē.

The thought is strange. Foreign. I turn it over in my mind as I shut my eyes once more.

When was the last time I woke up and my body was still mine?

-----

I didn't leave the room that first day.

There's food outside the door when I finally unlock it — just a crack, just enough to see — a tray with bread and fruit and something that smells like soup. Still warm. I don't know how long it's been there. I don't know who left it.

I don't eat it.

Could be drugged. Could be poisoned. Could be—

But I bring it inside. Close the door. Lock it again.

I stare at the food for a long time.

My stomach hurts.

---

The second day, I left the room.

Not because I'm brave. Because I'm hungry enough that the fear of starving outweighs the fear of poison, and if they wanted to drug me they could do it through the air, through the water, through a hundred methods I couldn't prevent, so what does it matter if I eat or don't eat, it's all ̸t̶h̸e̴ ̸s̷a̵m̶e̸,̵ ̷i̶t̵'̶s̸ ̵a̸l̶l̸—

I stop.

Breathe.

The thoughts are spiraling again. Running in circles. I recognize the pattern now, can feel when my mind starts chasing its own tail, and sometimes — *sometimes* — I can stop it before it drags me down.

Not always.

But sometimes.

---

The coffee shop is different in the morning.

Brighter. The sunlight has a quality to it that feels new, like the world was just created and hasn't had time to grow old yet. The man — my contractor, my owner (the word sticks in my throat even as a thought) — is behind the counter again.

Still making coffee.

Does he ever do anything else?

"Good morning," he says without looking up.

I don't respond.

He doesn't seem to expect me to. Just continues his work, hands moving with practiced precision, steam rising from cups I'm not sure anyone will drink.

I sit at the same table as before. The one Lucy put me at. It feels… claimed. Mine, in some small way.

A cup appears in front of me.

I didn't see him move. Didn't hear footsteps. But there's coffee on the table, and he's back behind the counter, and—

"It's not drugged."

I flinch at his voice. He's looking at me now. Those eyes that are warm on the surface and something else underneath.

"I know you won't believe that," he continues. "So I'll just say it once, and you can decide what to do with the information. Nothing I give you will ever be drugged, poisoned, or otherwise altered without your knowledge and consent. If I need to sedate you for some reason, I'll tell you first. If I need to administer medication, we'll discuss it."

He returns to his work.

"The food in your room is the same. Eat or don't. That's your choice."

Choice.

There's that word again.

I wrap my hands around the cup. It's warm. I don't drink.

But I don't push it away either.

---

"He's weird, right?"

I was startled. Lucy has appeared beside me — I didn't hear her approach, and I should have heard her approach, I *always* hear them approach — sliding into the seat across from me like she belongs there.

"Sorry!" She holds up her hands. "Didn't mean to scare you. I forget to make noise sometimes."

*Forget to make noise.*

What kind of person forgets to make *noise*?

"He's weird," she continued, apparently taking my silence as agreement. "The whole—" she gestures vaguely at the man behind the counter, "—thing. The coffee obsession. The way he talks. But he's good at what he does."

"What does he do?"

The question comes out before I can stop it. The first thing I've voluntarily asked since arriving.

Lucy tilts her head as if thinking about something.

"He fixes things."

"Things."

"People." She shrugs. "People are things too, in a way. Complicated things with too many moving parts that break in weird places. He's good at finding the broken parts."

"And then what?"

"Then he helps you figure out what to do about them." She leans back, a coffee cup appearing in her hands from nowhere. "He doesn't fix them for you, if that's what you're asking. That's not how it works. He just… shows you where they are. What shape they're in. What your options might be."

I absorb this. Try to fit it into the framework I know — contractors want things, everything has a price, kindness is just cruelty wearing a mask.

It doesn't fit.

"Why?" I ask.

"Why what?"

"Why does he do this? What does he get out of it?"

Lucy's smile changes. Deepens. For a moment, something vast looks out from behind her eyes — something that has watched civilizations rise and fall, that exists on a scale where human concerns are barely visible.

"That," she says, "is a very good question."

She doesn't answer it.

---

We sat in silence for a while.

It's not uncomfortable, surprisingly. Silence with another person usually feels like a held breath, like waiting for the other shoe to drop. But Lucy just sips her coffee and looks out the window, and I sit with my untouched cup, and neither of us speaks.

"You're wondering what I am," she says eventually.

I don't deny it.

"I'm lots of things." She traces a finger around the rim of her cup. "Depending on who you ask. Depending on when. Names are slippery. Identities even more so."

"That's not an answer."

"You keep saying that." She smiles. "Maybe you should accept that I don't give the kinds of answers you're looking for."

I should let it go. I should stay quiet, stay small, stay safe. But something in me — some remnant of the princess I used to be, the schemer, the liar — pushes forward.

"You're bad at it," I say.

Lucy blinks. "Bad at what?"

"The act."

I lean forward, keeping my voice low.

"I spent my whole life wearing masks. I know what a performance looks like. And you…" I gesture at her apron, at the teenager's disguise. "You're overdoing it. You're trying too hard to seem harmless."

Lucy's smile stays fixed, but her eyes sharpen.

"Yesterday," I continued. "When you came through the door. You stumbled. But you didn't fall. You caught yourself with a pivot that shouldn't be physically possible. I've watched high-level adventurers move. I've seen the Sword Hero fight. Even he obeys gravity."

I take a breath. My heart is hammering, but I force the words out.

"You didn't just recover. You decided not to fall. And then you bounced up and smiled like a clumsy schoolgirl, hoping I wouldn't notice the difference."

I glance at the man behind the counter, then back to her.

"And you're not afraid of him. You don't serve him. You treat him like an equal. Maybe even a pet project." I shake my head. "Waitresses don't look at their bosses like that."

Something shifts in Lucy's expression. Respect, maybe. Or amusement.

"Clever," she says. "I wondered if you'd notice that."

"So?"

"So." She sets down her cup. Look at me directly, and for a moment the mask of a cheerful teenager slips entirely. "Let's just say that I'm here because I choose to be. Not because anyone compelled me. Not because anyone could compel me. I work with him, not for him. And if you're wondering whether I'm dangerous—"

She leans forward.

"Yes. Very. But not to you. Not to anyone in this place."

The words should frighten me.

They don't.

"Why are you here?" I ask. "Why are you doing this?"

Lucy is quiet for a long moment. The sunlight shifts around her, catching her hair, and for just a heartbeat I see something else behind her — wings, maybe, or fire, or a darkness so absolute it makes the void look bright.

Then it's gone.

"Because I know what it's like to fall," she says simply. "To be cast out of everything you knew. To have your name become a curse in the mouths of those who once called you brother."

She picks up her cup again. Sips.

"And because someone, somewhere, somewhen—" She glances toward the man behind the counter. "—didn't give up on me when they probably should have."

I don't know what to say to that.

I don't think I'm meant to say anything.

---

The man — I still don't have a name for him, and something tells me that's intentional — finishes whatever he's doing behind the counter and walks over.

He sits at the table.

Not across from me — at the third seat, forming a triangle. Equal distance from both of us.

"You've been here two days," he says. Not a question.

"Yes."

"You haven't eaten."

"…No."

He nods. Doesn't lecture. Doesn't push.

"When you're ready," he says, "we'll begin."

"Begin what?"

"Talking." He folds his hands on the table. "About whatever you want to talk about. Or nothing at all. The pace is yours."

I wait for the catch. The condition. The *but*.

It doesn't come.

"I don't—" I stop. Start again. "What do you want from me?"

"Nothing."

"That's not—"

"Possible? True?" He tilts his head, and for a moment I see it — the thing that Lucy mentioned, the strangeness, the sense that he's looking at me like a puzzle rather than a person. "Let me rephrase. What I want is for you to get better. What that means, what *better* looks like — that's for you to define. Not me."

"And if I can't? If I'm—" ฿ⱤØ₭Ɇ₦ 𝗿⃥𝘶̸𝗶⃥𝘯̸𝗲⃥𝘥̸ "—if it doesn't work?"

"Then it doesn't work." He shrugs. "And we figure out what comes next. But I don't think that's going to be the case."

"Why?"

Something flickers across his face. Not quite a smile. Not quite anything I can name.

"Because you're still asking questions," he says. "People who've given up don't ask questions. They just wait for things to happen to them."

He stands.

"Whenever you're ready. No rush."

He returns to the counter.

Lucy catches my eye and shrugs, as if to say: *I told you he was weird.*

And somewhere in my chest, beneath the fear and the exhaustion and the gray heavy nothing—

Something stirs.

---

That night, I eat.

Not much. A few bites of bread. Some of the fruit. Enough to quiet the ache in my stomach without committing fully to the idea that this food is safe, that this place is safe, that anything is safe.

But I eat.

And when I sleep — on the bed this time, not the floor, a concession so small it feels revolutionary — I dream of hallways that stretch forever and doors that lead everywhere and nowhere.

And a voice, soft and ancient, that whispers:

Take your time. We're not going anywhere.

---

A/N: Pretty much the prelude for what is coming next chapter. Just started playing Disco Elysium as well, which reminds me of one of the fever dream I had. Discussion welcomed as always.

 

[Apollo_Man]

Just as I expected, Lucy is Lucifer. With that mystery finally solved, now we can focus on the cafe owner.

*Eats a spoonful of chicken penne*

 

[The Radiance's Follower]

Malty deserves everything that happened to her and I wish her the worst in life. Also, she is not a human but a fragment from a goddess who destroys worlds. So no love lost there either. kek.

 

[Eifa]

"Are you ready?"

The question hangs in the air between us. The coffee shop is quiet this morning — quieter than usual, if such a thing is possible. Lucy is absent, off doing whatever it is she does when she's not being aggressively cheerful at me. The man sits across from me at the small table, hands folded, waiting.

I don't know if I'm ready.

I don't know what ready would even feel like.

"What happens?" I ask instead of answering. "You said we'd talk. Is that all? Just… talking?"

"Not exactly."

He unfolds his hands. Place them flat on the table.

"This space responds to intent. To memory. To the shape of things that have already happened." He looks at me, and there's something almost like warning in his gaze. "What I'm proposing isn't a conversation. It's a walk."

"A walk."

"Through your history. The moments that made you who you are." He pauses. "Who you were. Who you became."

My stomach tightens.

"You want me to relive—"

"No." The word is firm. Immediate. "Reliving implies being trapped in the moment. Subject to it. This is different. You'll be an observer. Present, but not *in* it. You'll see what happened. Feel echoes of what you felt. But you won't be the person it's happening to. Not anymore."

I don't understand.

He seems to expect that.

"It's easier to show you than explain." He stands. Extends a hand — not demanding, just offering. "You can stop at any time. Say the word and we're back here, coffee getting cold, nothing changed. The pace is yours. The depth is yours. I'm just the guide."

I look at his hand.

I think about all the hands that have reached for me. All the things those hands have done.

His hand just waits.

That's what decides it. Not the promise — promises are cheap. But the waiting. The absence of impatience. The way he doesn't lean forward or let his fingers twitch or do any of the thousand small things that mean I want something from you.

He's offering.

Just offering.

I take his hand.

---

The coffee shop falls away.

Not violently — not like being torn from one place to another. More like waking from a dream, that soft dissolve where one reality fades and another rises to take its place. The warm wood and gentle sunlight blur, stretch, reform into—

Stone.

Cold stone under my feet. Tapestries on the walls. The smell of candle wax and old books and something floral, roses maybe, drifting from somewhere I can't see.

I know this place.

I know these halls.

"Melromarc," I breathe.

The word hurts coming out. Like speaking the name of someone who died.

"The castle," the man confirms. He's still beside me, hand no longer holding mine, just… present. "Your home. Or what used to be."

I turn slowly. Take it in.

It's exactly as I remember. The high vaulted ceilings. The portraits of ancestors whose names I memorized as a child and have since forgotten. The particular way the light falls through the narrow windows, catching dust motes in golden streams.

But it's empty.

No servants. No guards. No courtiers whispering behind their hands as I pass. Just the castle, silent and waiting, like a stage before the actors arrive.

"Where do we start?" he asks.

I don't want to start anywhere. I want to go back to the coffee shop and the cup that's probably cold by now and the chair that felt almost safe.

But I didn't come here to be safe.

I came here to, to…——

"I don't know," I admit.

"Then let's walk," he says. "And see where your feet take you."


My feet take me to the nursery.

I don't mean to go there. Don't consciously choose the turns, the stairs, the long corridor with the worn carpet that I used to run down as a child. But my body remembers the path even when my mind tries to resist, and before I fully register what's happening, I'm standing in front of a door I haven't seen in years.

It's smaller than I remember.

Everything is smaller than I remember.

"This is where it started," I say. The words come out flat. Detached. Like I'm narrating someone else's story. "Melty and I. Before."

"Before what?"

I push open the door.

---

The room is frozen in a moment.

Two girls sit on the floor surrounded by dolls. One is older — maybe six, seven — with red hair that hasn't yet learned to behave and a dress that's already stained with something she got into earlier. The other is younger. Four, perhaps. Blonde. Soft. Looking at the older girl like she hung the moon.

I watch myself play with my sister.

The older girl — *me*, a version of me so distant she might as well be a stranger — is telling a story. Making the dolls act it out. A princess and a dragon and a hero who saves the day. The younger girl laughs, claps her hands, begs for more.

"We were close," I hear myself say. "Once."

"What changed?"

I don't answer immediately. Instead, I walk closer to the frozen scene, studying the face of the child I used to be. She looks… happy. Unbothered. There's no calculation in her eyes yet, no sharp edges, no awareness of what the world had in store for her.

"She was born," I say finally. "Melty. And suddenly I wasn't special anymore. I was just… the first one. Like a practice run before they got it right."

The scene ripples, like a stone dropped in still water.

When it settles, the girls are older. The same room, but years have passed. I can see it in the way they hold themselves — the younger one more confident now, the older one more guarded.

Eight years old, I think. Maybe nine.

Melty is reading. A real book, not a picture book. Something about politics, or history, or one of the subjects our tutors assigned. She's focused. Intent. Already showing the aptitude that would make her everyone's favorite.

And the older girl — me — is watching from the doorway.

I remember this exact moment. I remember standing there, watching my little sister absorb knowledge like breathing, and feeling something shift inside me. A door closing. A decision being made, even if I didn't have words for it yet.


"She was smarter than me," I say. "Everyone knew it. The tutors would praise her answers and merely acknowledge mine. The servants would tell stories about 'the clever princess' and everyone knew which one they meant. Mother started taking Melty to council meetings. I wasn't invited."

I pause, watching the scene. Watching my father enter the room in the memory, handing the younger me a box of expensive sweets, patting my head while I pouted.

"Father tried to compensate," I add. "He flooded me with gifts. Dresses. Jewels. He let me skip lessons if I cried. He called me his treasure."

"That sounds like love," the man suggests.

"It was guilt." I spit the word out. "He gave me things to play with. Mother gave Melty power. He treated me like a pet; she treated Melty like an heir. I didn't want another doll. I wanted to be taken seriously."

"How did that feel?"

The question is simple. The answer isn't.

"Like I was disappearing," I say slowly, watching my younger self watch her sister. "Like every day, I became a little less real. A little less *there*. And no one noticed. No one cared. I was the firstborn princess, and I was becoming invisible in my own home."

I turn away from the scene.

"So I decided to become visible in other ways."

---

The nursery dissolves around us, and we're standing in a different space.

My mother's study. I recognize the heavy desk, the tall windows, the portrait of my grandmother that always seemed to be judging everyone in the room.

I'm ten years old in this memory. Standing before that desk with tears streaming down my face. Fake tears. I learned early how to make them come on command — a skill that would serve me well in the years to come.

"She pushed me," the young me sobs. "She said horrible things, she said I wasn't really her sister, she said—"

I watch my mother's face. The concern. The way she leans forward, really looking at me — really seeing me — for what might have been the first time in months.

"This was the first time," I tell the man as we look at the unfolding scene. "The first time I realized that lies could get me what the truth couldn't."

"What did the truth get you?"

"Nothing." The word comes out bitter, even now. "I tried telling the truth for years. Told my mother I felt ignored. Told my father I wanted more responsibility. Told my tutors I was struggling and needed help. No one listened. But this—" I gesture at the crying child, at the concerned mother. "This worked."

The scene continues. My mother calls for Melty. Questions her. Melty — six years old, confused, genuinely crying because she doesn't understand what she did wrong — tries to explain that she didn't push anyone, didn't say those things, doesn't know why her sister is lying.

My mother believes me.

She punishes Melty.

And I watch from behind a cracked door, and in my ten-year-old chest, something dark and satisfied unfurls.

She sees me now.

She chose me.

"Did you feel guilty?" the man asks.

I consider lying. Consider saying what I'm supposed to say — that yes, of course, I felt terrible, I was just a child who didn't know better.

But we're standing in my memories. There's no point in lying here.

"No," I admit. "I felt powerful. For the first time in years, I felt like I mattered. And I wanted to feel that way again."

---

We move through the castle.

The transitions are smoother now — less like being thrown from place to place and more like walking through rooms that simply weren't there a moment ago. As if the castle is rearranging itself around us, showing me what I need to see.

Age twelve: A servants' corridor. I watch myself whisper something to a maid, watch the maid's face go pale, watch her hurry off to spread the rumor I've planted. By evening, another servant — one who had been cold to me, who had made a comment about "the difficult princess" that I wasn't supposed to hear — is dismissed in disgrace for a theft she didn't commit.

"I was testing," I say, watching the scene. "Seeing how far I could push things. How much I could make happen with just the right words in the right ears."

"And the servant who lost her position?"

"I didn't think about her." It's not a defense. Just the plain truth. "She wasn't real to me. None of them were real. They were just… pieces on a board. For a game I was starting to love."

Age fourteen: A garden party. Nobility from across the kingdom, their daughters preening and posturing, everyone jockeying for position. I watch myself notice a girl — pretty, confident, the center of attention in a way I never was — and I watch myself decide to change that.

The rumor takes three days to spread.

The girl's reputation never recovers.

"Her name was Elise," I say. "I remember that now. I didn't remember it then. Couldn't have told you what she looked like a week after it happened. She was just… an obstacle. Something in my way."

"Did she do anything to you?"

"She existed." I laugh, and it sounds hollow even to me. "She existed, and people liked her, and I didn't like that. That was enough."

Age fifteen: My father's private chambers. I've learned how to read him now, to find the gaps in his confidence, noting where the right words can slip through. He's not a bad man, my father. Just a weak one. A man who wants peace more than truth, comfort more than confrontation.

I learned to give him what he wanted to hear.

And in exchange, he gave me what I wanted.

"Power," I say, watching myself manipulate the king. "Access. Influence. Not the throne — I knew by then that the throne would go to Melty, that nothing I did would change that. But there are other kinds of power. Softer kinds. The kind you don't see until it's already wrapped around your throat."

The man is quiet for a moment.

"You speak about this clinically," he observes. "Like you're describing someone else."

"Maybe I am." I watch the fifteen-year-old me smile at my father, watch the calculation behind that smile. "That girl died a long time ago. What's left is just… memory. Evidence. A record of crimes committed by someone who doesn't exist anymore."

"Is that what you believe? That you're not the same person who did these things?"

The question cuts deeper than I expect.

"I don't know what I believe," I admit. "I don't know if the person I was and the person I am now are connected by anything other than this body. I don't know if I'm responsible for what she did, or if the things that were done to me killed her and left something else in her place."

"That's something to explore," he says. "Later. For now, let's keep walking."

---

The scene ripples, like a stone dropped in still water.

The hallway darkens. We aren't just moving forward in time; we are descending into something heavier. Something that tastes like ash and iron.

A dining hall.

It's a private family dinner. I'm ten years old. Melty is small, sitting in a high chair. My mother is there, looking regal but tired. My father is laughing—a sound I haven't heard in years. He looks younger. Stronger. The "Wise King" they used to call him.

And there is a boy.

He sits between us. My brother. He has Mother's eyes and Father's chin. He's talking about Siltvelt. About peace. About a marriage alliance that will end the wars.

"He was the middle child," I tell the man. My voice is steady, but my hands are shaking. "He was kind. Like Mother. He wanted to save everyone."

I watch my ten-year-old self. I'm eating quietly. I look... bored.

But I watch my eyes. They aren't looking at my food. They are fixed on the goblet in front of my brother.

"I didn't poison him myself," I say. "That would have been messy. I just... found a Siltvelt noble who was angry. Whispered a few lies about betrayal. Suggested that the Prince wasn't as friendly as he seemed."

In the memory, my brother takes a drink.

He smiles at Father.

Then he chokes.

The sound cuts through the laughter. The goblet falls. The purple liquid stains the white tablecloth—a color I would learn to associate with victory, but right now, it just looks like a bruise spreading across the world.

Chaos erupts.

Father is screaming. He knocks the table over, grabbing his son, shouting for healers, shouting for guards.

My brother convulses. Once. Twice.

And then he is gone.

Died right there on the floor, in his father's arms.

"It broke him," I say softly. I watch my father crumble, watch the light go out of his eyes, replaced by a madness that would never truly leave. "Father didn't blame me. He blamed Siltvelt. He blamed the Demi-humans. He blamed the world."

I watch myself in the chaos. I'm crying. Screaming for my brother.

But then, for just a second, the memory slows down.

I look across the room.

My mother isn't looking at her dead son. She isn't looking at her screaming husband.

She is looking at me.

And I am looking back. And for a fraction of a second, I forget to cry. I forget to look devastated. I just look... satisfied.

"She saw," I whisper. "She saw my face. She knew."

The scene fades, leaving only the sound of my father's weeping echoing in the dark.

"That was the day the Wise King died," I tell the man. "And the day the King of Fools was born. He spent the rest of his life trying to protect me from the monsters, never realizing I was the one who let them in."

---

The throne room.

I knew we'd end up here eventually. This is the heart of it — the moment everything changed, the point of no return that set everything else in motion.

The summoning chamber is filled with light. Four pillars of it, reaching from floor to ceiling, and within each pillar a figure is taking shape. Heroes from another world, called to save Melromarc from the Waves.

And there I am.

Seventeen years old. Polished. Perfect. Every hair in place, every expression rehearsed. I've spent weeks preparing for this moment — studying the legends, learning which hero would be most vulnerable to my approach, planning exactly how to position myself for maximum advantage.

The Shield Hero.

Naofumi Iwatani.

He appears confused, disoriented, looking around at the strange world he's been pulled into without warning or consent. The other heroes are already being surrounded by nobles and knights, everyone eager to curry favor with the legendary saviors.

But the Shield Hero stands alone.

Because in Melromarc, the Shield Hero is despised. A religious outcast. A figure of contempt and suspicion, hated for sins committed by someone who held the shield centuries ago.

I watch myself approach him.

I watch myself smile.

"I remember what I was thinking," I say quietly. "I was thinking: *this is too easy*. He's isolated. Desperate for any friendly face. And everyone already hates him, so when I—"

I stop.

The man waits.

"When I destroy him," I finish, "no one will question it. No one will believe him over me. He's the Shield Hero. He's supposed to be a villain. I'm just… confirming what everyone already wants to believe."

The scene shifts. The same room, days later. A trial.

I'm standing before the court, wearing clothes I tore myself, telling a story I invented from nothing. And Naofumi — the man I spent days befriending, the man who trusted me, who thought I was the only person in this world who didn't hate him — is standing in chains with an expression I've never forgotten.

Confusion.

Horror.

And then, as my words sink in, as he realizes what I've done and that no one will believe him—

Something dies in his eyes.

Something that doesn't come back.

"I did that." My voice is steady. I don't know how. "I took an innocent man and I destroyed him. Not because he hurt me. Not because he threatened me. I did it because it would serve my purpose. Because his destruction bought me political capital that I wanted to spend."

I turn to look at the man beside me — really look at him, searching for judgment in his face.

There's none. Just that calm, clinical attention.

"He was a person," I say. "A real person with a life and feelings and the right to exist without being used as a tool for someone else's ambitions. And I looked at him and I saw none of that. I saw an opportunity. A resource. Something to be exploited and discarded."

The trial continues behind us. Naofumi's voice rises, denying, pleading, trying to make someone — anyone — believe him.

No one does.

"Does watching this change anything?" the man asks.

"It should, shouldn't it?" I laugh bitterly. "I should be devastated. I should be drowning in guilt. But I've seen this memory so many times — the Company showed it to me, the contractors made me watch it, everyone wanted me to see what I'd done — and at some point it just became… meaningless. Another thing that happened to someone who might as well be a stranger."

"Is that dissociation? Or something else?"

I don't have an answer.

The throne room begins to dissolve around us.

"Wait," I say.

The dissolution pauses.

I walk closer to the frozen scene. To Naofumi, standing in chains, his face caught in that moment of terrible realization. I stand in front of him and I look at what I did.

"I'm sorry."

The words feel inadequate. Pathetic. What good is an apology to a memory? What good is remorse that comes years too late, extracted by trauma rather than conscience?

But I say it anyway.

"I'm sorry. You deserved better. And I'm sorry I wasn't capable of seeing that."

The scene holds for a moment longer.

Then it fades, and we're somewhere else.

---

The Company processing facility.

The cold hits me first — that bone-deep chill that I remember from every transfer, every examination, every moment of being handled like merchandise. The walls are white. The lights are harsh. Everything is designed to strip away any sense of personhood, any feeling that you matter beyond your value as a product.

I'm standing in line.

Naked. Newly captured. Still proud — I can see it in the way I hold myself, the defiance in my spine, the assumption that this is some mistake that will soon be corrected.

I didn't understand yet.

I didn't understand anything.

"This is where they brought me," I say. "After capture. I don't know how they did it — the capture, I mean. One moment I was in Melromarc, executing another scheme, and the next I was…" I gesture at the facility around us. "Here. In a place that shouldn't exist, surrounded by people who treated me like an object."

"How long were you in processing?"

"I don't know. Time didn't work normally. But long enough to learn."

The scene shifts slightly. The same facility, but I'm in a different room now. Smaller. A desk between me and a figure in Company uniform who's reviewing something on a screen.

"This was the interview," I say. "Where they explained what I was."

The uniformed figure speaks, and I hear the words again — the ones that broke something fundamental in my understanding of reality.

"Malty S. Melromarc. Tier 3. Origin world: The Rising of the Shield Hero. Original extraction — not a replicate. Current market value…"

I watch myself interrupt. Demand to know what that means. Insist that I'm a princess, that I have rights, that this is all some terrible mistake.

The figure is patient in that way Company employees are , as I soon learned, known for — the way you're patient with an animal that doesn't understand what's happening to it.

"Your world is a story," they explain. "A narrative created for entertainment in higher-dimensional spaces. Everything you experienced — your birth, your family, your schemes, your victories — all of it was written. Scripted. Determined by forces you can't comprehend for purposes you'll never understand."

"That's not—"

"You are not unique in this. Every subject in our catalog originates from a fictional context. Some are replicates — copies manufactured from source material. Others, like yourself, are originals — extracted directly from their narrative at a specific point in the timeline. Both types have equal market value, though originals sometimes command a premium from collectors who prefer authenticity."

I watch myself crumble.

Not visibly — I was too proud for that, even then. But something in my posture shifts. Something in my eyes goes out.

"I didn't believe it," I tell the man beside me. "Not at first. I thought it was a lie, some kind of psychological torture designed to break me down. But then the contractors started…"

I pause.

"Started what?"

"Showing me things." The words come slowly. "The story I came from. What happened to the other characters after I was extracted. What the *audience* — the people who watched my world like it was entertainment — thought of me. What they *wanted* to happen to me."

The processing room dissolves. We're somewhere else now — a contractor's space, the first one, though the details are blurred around the edges. Some things I can't remember clearly. Some things I refuse to remember at all.

But I remember the screen.

The screen showing comments. Reviews. Discussions about the story I'd lived. And my name, appearing over and over, attached to words like *bitch* and *villain* and *she deserves everything she gets* and *I hope she suffers*.

"They hated me," I say. "People I'd never met, in worlds I couldn't imagine, hated me with a passion I could barely comprehend. And the contractors — the ones who purchased me — a lot of them came from those worlds. A lot of them grew up despising a character named Malty Melromarc."

"And they wanted to punish that character."

I watch the memory-me stare at the screen, watch the reality of my existence settle into her bones. "They didn't see me as a person. I was a villain from a story they'd consumed. Someone written to be hated. And now they had a chance to *express* that hatred in ways they couldn't when I was just words on a page."

The scene shifts again. Another contractor. Another space.

I flinch.

"We can slow down," the man says.

"No." I force myself to keep watching. "I need to see this. I need to understand… how I got from there to here."

---

The contractors blur together.

Not because the simulation is failing, but because that's how I experienced them — as a series of overlapping nightmares, each one bleeding into the next, distinguished only by the specific flavor of their cruelty.

The first one collected princesses.

"He had a whole set of us," I explain as we walk through a memory of ornate rooms and gilded cages. "From different worlds. Different stories. We weren't people to him — we were dolls. Trophies to be arranged and displayed. The daughter of some kingdom I never learned the name of. A queen from a world that was all ice and snow. And me."

I watch myself in those early days. Still fighting. Still scheming. Still believing I could manipulate my way out of this the way I'd manipulated my way out of everything else.

"I tried to play him," I admit. "Used every trick I knew. Flattery. Seduction. Strategic submission. All the tools that had worked on my father, on the nobles, on everyone I'd ever wanted to control."

"Did it work?"

"No." I laugh, and it's an ugly sound. "He had access to my file. He knew every manipulation I'd ever attempted, every scheme I'd ever run. It was all documented. Catalogued. He found it amusing — watching me try techniques he could see coming from miles away."

The scene shifts. The same space, but later. The princess who was fighting is gone. What's left is quieter. More compliant.

"That's when I learned the first lesson," I say. "That everything I'd built my identity around — my cleverness, my ability to control situations — was worthless here. The contractors had powers I couldn't comprehend, resources I couldn't match, information I couldn't hide. Fighting them was like trying to manipulate a god."

"So you stopped fighting."

"I stopped fighting him. The second one was…"

The scene changes.

I go silent.

---

The second contractor's space is darker.

Not literally — the lighting is fine, the room is ordinary — but there's something in the air that makes my skin crawl even as a memory.

"He specifically requested me," I say eventually. "He'd watched my story. Hated me with a personal intensity that went beyond entertainment. And when he saw me in the catalog — an original, not a copy, the actual Malty Melromarc — he decided he wanted to correct what he saw as narrative injustice."

I watch myself enter this space. Still broken from the first contractor, but not completely — there's still something left, some ember of the person I used to be.

The ember didn't last.

"The Company has access to every power in fiction," I tell the man. My voice is flat now. Disconnected. The only way I can talk about this is to talk about it like it happened to someone else. "Every ability. Every technology. Every magic system. Contractors can purchase tools from any world they choose. And this one—"

I stop.

"You don't have to describe it," the man says.

"No. I— I need to. I need to say it out loud."

I take a breath.

"He had something that let him hurt me in ways I didn't know were possible. And something else that would heal the damage instantly, so he could do it again. And again. And again. There was no end to it. No limit. No point where my body would simply give out because he wouldn't allow it to."

The scene doesn't show details. The simulation seems to understand what I can and can't face. But it shows me — the me of then — in the aftermath. Lying in a corner. Not moving. Barely breathing.

"Three months," I say. "That's how long I was with him. And by the end, I'd stopped speaking entirely. Not as a strategy nor as resistance of any kind. I'd just… forgotten how. Forgot that I had a voice. Forgot that words existed."

"How did you survive?"

The question catches me off guard.

"I don't know that I did." I watch the hollow thing in the corner that used to be me. "Something survived. This body. These memories. But whatever I was before that — the princess, the schemer, even the broken captive who still hoped things might get better — I don't think she made it out."

---

The scene shifts again.

Another contractor. Another space.

"This one was almost kind."

I hear the bitterness in my own voice.

"She treated me gently. Fed me proper meals. Let me sleep in a real bed. Spoke to me like a person rather than an object. And I—"

I watch myself begin to thaw in this memory. Begin to respond. Begin to hope.

"I started to believe I might be okay. That maybe I'd found someone who actually saw me as human. That maybe the nightmare was over."

The scene continues. Weeks pass in moments. I'm smiling in some of these memories. Actually smiling.

And then the screen appears. The catalog listing. My name and my price and the details of the transaction.

She sold me.

I watch myself watch her sell me, and I remember that feeling — the specific shape of that betrayal, the way hope can curdle into something poisonous when it's ripped away.

"She wasn't cruel," I say. "She just didn't think of me as permanent. I was a temporary acquisition. Something to enjoy for a while and then trade for something she wanted more. And the kindness — all that gentleness that I'd mistaken for care — it wasn't for me. It was for her. It made her feel good to be nice to the broken thing in her collection."

"That was when you stopped hoping."

"Yes." I watch the memory-me being led away, watch the flatness return to her eyes. "After that, I understood. It didn't matter if they were cruel or kind. It didn't matter how they treated me. I was a product. A commodity. Something to be used until the value ran out and then discarded for the next thing. The only question was how long each one would keep me before moving on."

---

More contractors.

More spaces.

The simulation moves through them faster now, not lingering, just marking the passage of time. The shape of what happened without the weight of every individual moment.

I watch myself adapt. Learn to anticipate what each new owner wants. Learn to become whatever version of myself that would minimize the pain. The defiant prisoner. The broken doll. The eager servant. The empty vessel. Whatever mask keeps me intact long enough to survive.

"I had… so many owners," I say at some point. "I lost count after sometime. After a while, it stops mattering. You just… exist. In the spaces between being used. Waiting for the next one to happen."

The scenes have started to slow down now as we're approaching the end.

"The last one was the worst and the best," I say. "Worst because he was creative. Best because he got bored quickly."

I don't describe what creative means. The… simulation(?) doesn't show it. But I remember.

Some things you don't forget no matter how much you want to.

"And then he sold me," I continue. "Marked me down because I was 'too passive.' Not enough fight left in me to be entertaining. And I went back to the Company for processing, and I waited in my cell, and I didn't think about anything at all because thinking hurts and hoping hurts and feeling hurts and the only safe thing to do is just…"

My voice trails off.

"Just stop," I finish. "Stop everything. Become nothing. Wait for it to end."

---

The Company transfer room.

I recognize it immediately — the desk, the chair, the figure who didn't bother to look up as I was processed and sold again.

"This is where you came in," the man says.

"Yes."

We watch me stand there, naked and scarred and empty. Watch me walk to the door that shouldn't exist. Watch me reach for the handle, expecting nothing, hoping for nothing.

"What were you thinking?" he asks. "At that moment?"

I try to remember. It's not far — just days ago, or weeks, or however long I've been in the coffee shop. But it feels like a lifetime.

"Nothing." The word is honest. "I wasn't thinking anything. There wasn't enough left of me to think. I was just… a body following instructions. Going where I was told. Waiting for whatever came next because waiting was the only thing I knew how to do anymore."

The memory-me pushes open the door.

The bell chimes.

And—

---

We're back in the coffee shop.

Not a memory of the coffee shop. The real one. The sunlight is warm and the wood is worn and I can smell coffee brewing behind the counter. It was as if they had never left the space at all.

I'm sitting in my chair. The man is sitting across from me.

The transition is disorienting. I feel like I've been walking for hours — days, maybe — but the light through the windows hasn't changed. The coffee in front of me is still warm.

Lucy is there too, in the third seat, and I don't know when she arrived but her presence doesn't startle me. She's watching me with those eyes that are sometimes young and sometimes ancient.

No one speaks.

The silence stretches, but it's not uncomfortable. It's the silence of a space held open. Waiting for me to fill it or leave it empty, whichever I need.

I look at my hands.

They're wrapped around the coffee cup without my permission. Holding on tight, like it's the only solid thing in the world.

"I was cruel," I say finally.

My voice sounds strange. Raw. Like something that's been scraped clean.

"Before any contractor touched me. Before the Company knew my name. I hurt people because it benefited me. Because I could. Because I didn't see them as real."

The man doesn't respond. Just listen.

"I ruined an innocent man's life. Completely innocent. Destroyed him for political advantage. Didn't think about him for a single second after it was done. He was just… collateral. A tool I used and discarded."

I take a breath.

"And then I was ruined."

The words sit in the air between us.

"What I did to him — looking at someone and seeing only what you can take from them — that's what the contractors did to me. That's what the Company does to everyone. I became the thing I made Naofumi. Used. Exploited. Treated like an object instead of a person."

I look up at the man.

"Does that mean I deserved it?"

"Is that what you believe?"

"I don't know." I shake my head. "Part of me thinks yes. Karma. Justice. I hurt people, so I got hurt in exchange. That's how the universe works. That's what the people wanted — they wanted me to suffer, and I did, so everyone should be satisfied."

"And the other part?"

"The other part thinks—" I stop. Start again. "The other part thinks that no one deserves what was done to me. That suffering isn't justice. That even villains — even real villains who did real harm — don't deserve to be taken apart and put back together and taken apart again until there's nothing left but survival instincts and trauma."

The man leans back in his chair.

"Both can be true."

"What?"

"You were cruel. That's true. You hurt people who didn't deserve it. That's also true. And what was done to you was wrong. That's also true." He spreads his hands. "They're not contradictions. They're layers. Different facts that exist simultaneously without canceling each other out."

"But then— what do I do with that? How do I hold 'I did terrible things' and 'terrible things were done to me' at the same time?"

Lucy answers.

"You don't hold them," she says softly. "You just have to accept them."

I turn to look at her.

"They're both part of who you are," she continues. "The princess who schemed and the product who suffered. The girl who ruined an innocent man and the woman who had the very core of herself ruined by others. You took what Naofumi was and broke it beyond recognition. And then you became someone who understood exactly what that felt like — from the other side."

Her words settle into me like stones dropped in still water.

"They're not separate people," she says. "They're you. All of it is you. The cruelty and the suffering. The villain and the victim. The person who hurt others and the person who was hurt. You don't get to cut away the parts you don't like. You have to find a way to be all of them at once."

"I don't know how to do that."

"No one does at first." She reaches across the table, and her hand finds mine — warm, warmer than it should be. "That's what this place is for. That's what *he's* for." She nods toward the man. "To help you find a way to live with all of it."

The silence after she stops speaking is different.

Something is building in my chest — something I don't recognize at first because it's been so long since I felt anything that wasn't fear or numbness or that gray heavy nothing that passed for peace.

"I don't—"

My voice cracks.

"I don't know who I am."

The admission breaks something open.

"I was Malty. I was a princess. I was cruel and clever and I was going to be someone, I was going to matter, and then I was nothing. I was a product. A number. A thing to be used. And now I'm here and I don't know what I'm supposed to be because everything I was got taken from me and everything I took from myself was—"

The tears come.

It just happens — like a dam breaking, like a wound finally being allowed to bleed. The tears pour down my face and my chest heaves and sounds come out of my throat that I don't recognize, sounds that might be sobs or might be screams or might besomethingbutidontknow—-

I cry for the princess who thought she could manipulate her way to happiness.

I cry for the child who just wanted her mother to see her.

I cry for Naofumi, who trusted the wrong person and lost everything.

I cry for all the people I hurt on my way up and all the people who hurt me on my way down.

I cry for the hollow thing I became in those cells and those rooms and those spaces where nothing I felt mattered to anyone.

And I cry for myself — for this fragile, damaged thing sitting in a coffee shop that shouldn't exist, wrapped in borrowed clothes and borrowed kindness, trying to remember what it feels like to be human.

Lucy holds my hand through all of it.

The man watches, steady and present, offering nothing but his presence .

And I cry until there's nothing left.

Until the great hollow emptiness inside me has been flushed out with tears.

Until I'm scraped raw and exhausted and lighter than I've been in years.

---

When the tears finally stop, I feel… exposed.

That's the word. Not better. Not healed. Exposed.

I just broke down in front of two strangers. Two people I don't know, in a place I don't understand, and I wept like a child. Let them see everything I've spent months — years — learning to hide. Every crack. Every wound. Every piece of the hollow thing I've become.

And now they're just… sitting there.

Watching me.

Waiting.

I pull my hand back from Lucy's grip. Curl in on myself. The chair suddenly feels too open, too visible. I want to be in the corner of my room with my back against the wall. I want to be anywhere but here, in this bright space, with the evidence of my breakdown still wet on my face.

"I'm sorry," I say. My voice is hoarse. Wrecked. "I didn't mean to—"

I don't know how to finish. Didn't mean to what? Fall apart? Show weakness? Give them ammunition they can use against me later?

Because that's what this is, isn't it?

That's what it always is.

You show them where it hurts, and they use it. That's the lesson I learned over and over. Vulnerability is just another word for target.

So why did I—

"Malty."

The man's voice cuts through the spiral. Calm. Steady. Not gentle, exactly, but not harsh either.

"Look at me."

I don't want to. I want to disappear. I want to take back the last hour and all the things I said and all the pieces of myself I handed over like gifts.

But I look.

His expression hasn't changed. That's what strikes me first. No satisfaction. No hunger. No gleam of ł'VɆ ₲Ø₮ ɎØɄ ₦Ø₩-I've learned to recognize in the contractors who liked to play the long game.

Just… nothing.

"What happens now?" I ask.

The question comes out smaller than I intended. More afraid.

"What do you want to happen?"

I flinch. Because I don't know. Because every time I've wanted something in the past two years, it's been used against me. Because wanting things is dangerous and I shouldn't have let myself feel anything and now I'm sitting here with my walls down and I don't know what they're going to do with that.

"I don't—" I swallow. Try again. "I don't understand what this is. What you're doing. Why you would—"

I gesture vaguely at the coffee shop. At Lucy. At the whole impossible kindness of this place.

"Why would you do this?" The words come out ragged. "Show me all of that. Let me— what do you get out of it? What's the point?"

The man is quiet for a moment. Not contemplative — more like he's deciding how much effort the answer is worth.

"You're waiting for the price," he says. Not a question.

"There's always a price."

"Usually." He shrugs. "Not here."

"That doesn't—"

"Make sense. I know." He leans back in his chair, arms crossed. Not defensive — just settled. Comfortable. Like this conversation is neither interesting nor uninteresting to him. "You've been taught that kindness is manipulation. That vulnerability gets punished. That everyone wants something. Fine. Believe that if you want. It doesn't change anything."

I wait for more.

He doesn't offer anything else.

"That's it?" I ask. "That's your reassurance?"

"I'm not here to reassure you." His tone is as flat as it can be "I'm telling you how things work. I don't sell people. I don't hurt people who stay here. Whether you believe that or not is your problem, not mine."

The bluntness hits me like a slap.

I stare at him. He's already looking away, glancing at something on the counter, dismissing me. Dismissing what just happened.

Heat rises in my chest. Not shame this time. Not fear.

Anger.

"That's it?" My voice trembles, but not with tears. "You drag me through hell. You make me watch myself destroy a man's life. You make me watch myself get— get broken into pieces. And then you just... shrug?"

He looks back at me. "Yes."

"I just poured my insides out on this table!" I'm standing. I don't remember standing. The chair scrapes loudly against the floor. "I showed you everything. The worst parts of me. And you look at me like I'm— like I'm a boring report you have to file!"

"Would you prefer I cry?"

"I'd prefer you act like a human being!"

"I'm not sure I am one."

"That's not an excuse!" I slam my hand on the table. It hurts. It feels good. "Every contractor I ever had— even the ones who tortured me— at least they felt something. They hated me. Or they wanted me. Or they enjoyed watching me suffer. But you? You peel me open like a fruit and you don't even care enough to look at the mess?"

The silence that follows is ringing.

I'm breathing hard. My hands are shaking. I haven't shouted at anyone in years. Haven't been allowed to shout. Haven't had enough of myself left to shout.

The man watches me. His expression hasn't changed. No anger. No punishment. No flinch.

"Better?" he asks.

"What?"

"Screaming. Demanding. Acting like someone who deserves to take up space." He nods, something that might almost be approval. "That's better than the shivering. Anger has energy. Anger is useful."

"Don't you dare—" I start.

"You're right." He cuts me off, standing. "I don't care about the mess. I've seen bigger messes than you, Malty. I've seen worlds burn. Your trauma is real, but it isn't unique, and it isn't interesting to me."

The words should hurt. They do hurt. But there's something else underneath the hurt — something that almost feels like relief.

He steps closer. Not threatening. Just... present.

"And that," he says, "is the safest thing in the world for you right now."

I don't understand.

"If I don't care, I can't be disappointed. If I'm not interested, I have nothing to use against you. If your worst moments bore me—" He spreads his hands. "—then they have no power here. You are not fascinating to me, Malty. You are not a puzzle I'm desperate to solve. You are not entertainment."

He turns back toward the counter.

"You're just a person who needs a place to figure things out. And I have a place. That's all this is."

I stand there, hand still stinging from where I hit the table, and I try to process what just happened.

He doesn't care.

He genuinely, truly doesn't care.

And somehow— impossibly— that makes me feel safer than any promise ever could.

Because promises can be broken. Kindness can be a mask. But apathy? Apathy has no agenda. Apathy doesn't want anything from me.

I'm boring to him.

I'm safe.

The anger drains out of me. Not all of it— there's still a hot coal in my chest, still something that wants to scream and break things and demand to be seen. But it's quieter now. Banked.

"I want to go back to my room," I say.

He doesn't look up from whatever he's doing at the counter.

"Lucy."

It's not a request. Just her name. She stands, understanding.

"Come on," she says to me. "I'll walk you back."

I follow her toward the hallway.

At the door, I stop. Turn back.

"You said you've seen worlds burn."

He pauses.

"Yes."

"Whose worlds?"

He's quiet for a moment. Then:

"Ask me again later. When you've decided whether you're staying."

It's not an answer.

But it's a door left open.

---

The hallway is quiet.

Lucy walks beside me, her footsteps silent on floors that should creak but don't. I keep waiting for her to say something — to comment on what just happened, on the shouting, on the way I slammed my hand on the table like a child throwing a tantrum.

She doesn't.

She just walks.

And somehow, that's better. The silence isn't expectant. It's just… there. A space I don't have to fill.

We reach my door.

My room. My lock.

"Lucy."

"Hmm?"

I don't know what I want to say. Thank you feels too small. I'm sorry feels wrong. I'm scared doesn't feel safe to admit.

"I don't know what's happening to me," I finally manage. "I shouted at him. I haven't shouted at anyone in— I don't even remember. And he just..."

"Let you?"

"Yes."

Lucy turns to face me. Her eyes are old in her young face, and for a moment I see something flicker behind them — something vast and patient and utterly inhuman.

Then it's gone, and she's just a girl in a school uniform, looking at me with something that might be compassion.

"You won't know what's happening for a while," she says. "Maybe a long while. That's okay. You don't have to trust us. You don't have to believe any of this is real. You just have to get through today. And then tomorrow. And then the day after that."

"And eventually?"

"Eventually, you'll have enough days stacked up that you'll start to notice the pattern. That nothing terrible happened. That the door stayed locked when you locked it. That no one came for you in the night. That you can shout at him and he doesn't punish you for it." She shrugs. "That's not trust. It's just… evidence. And evidence is easier to believe than promises."

I don't have a response to that.

She smiles — not the bright, cheerful mask she usually wears, but something softer.

"Get some sleep, Malty. You earned it."

She turns and walks back down the hallway, disappearing around a corner that I'm fairly sure wasn't there a moment ago.

---

I go into my room.

I lock the door.

I sit on the bed, and I wait for the fear to come rushing back — the certainty that this is all a trick, that I've made a terrible mistake, that tomorrow I'll pay for every tear I shed and every word I shouted.

The fear is there. It's always there.

But it's… quieter tonight. Like a noise I've learned to live with, still present but no longer overwhelming.

And underneath it, something else.

I shouted at him. Demanded to be seen. Slammed my hand on a table and called him inhuman.

And nothing bad happened.

He didn't hit me. Didn't threaten me. Didn't even raise his voice. He just... let me rage. Called it useful. Went back to making coffee.

Like I was a child throwing a tantrum. Like I wasn't even worth the effort of a response.

You are not fascinating to me, Malty. You are not a puzzle I'm desperate to solve. You are not entertainment.

I stare at the ceiling.

The words should comfort me. They do comfort me — his apathy is my shield, just like he said. If he doesn't care, he can't hurt me. If I'm boring, I'm safe.

But.

But.

I am Malty S. Melromarc.

I was the First Princess of a kingdom. I walked through the court like a blade wrapped in silk. I made grown men weep with a whispered rumor, toppled alliances with a smile, destroyed the Shield Hero with nothing but words and patience.

I have been broken. I have been used. I have been hollowed out and filled with nothing but fear and shame and the desperate need to survive another day.

But underneath all of that — underneath the product the Company made, underneath the victim the contractors created — there is still a princess.

And that princess does not tolerate being called boring.

I close my eyes.

The fear is still there. The trauma is still there. I'm not healed. I'm not fixed. I'm not even sure I'm good — I'm not sure I was ever good, or ever will be.

But I remember something now. Something I'd forgotten in all those rooms, with all those contractors, learning to be small and silent and invisible.

I remember what it feels like to want something.

Not just survival, nor safety, nor the absence of pain.

Something more.

I'm not sure I am one, he said. When I told him to act like a human being.

Everyone has cracks. Everyone has buttons. Everyone reacts — that's the first rule I learned in court. You watch, you wait, you find the leverage, and you press.

He thinks he has no cracks.

He thinks he's beyond reach.

He thinks I'm boring.

A smile tugs at my lips. Small. Almost forgotten. The muscle memory of something I used to do before every scheme, every manipulation, every beautiful lie.

We'll see about that.

I don't know what I want yet. Not really. Not the big answers — who I am, what I'll become, whether I deserve redemption or even want it.

But I know what I'm good at.

And I know my first project.

I'm going to make him react.

To see a crack in that mask. A flicker behind those empty eyes. Proof that underneath all that careful nothing, there's a person who can be reached.

And if I have to become the most annoying, most difficult, most aggressively competent person in this entire impossible coffee shop to do it?

Well.

I've always enjoyed a challenge.

The fear is still there when I close my eyes. But it's not alone anymore.

There's something else beside it now. Something that feels like purpose. Something that feels like me.

I fall asleep with a smile on my face.

It's not a nice smile.

But it's mine.

---

A/N: The only thing I can say is that Malty is not a good person, and I didn't try to make her sound like one. However, the same can be said for everyone else in this store, along with whoever is walking through that door next.

Oh yeah, I've been playing the mind scanner game as well. Pretty cool so far.

Discussion welcome.

 

[Mazahs-Sama]

"You're right." He cuts me off, standing. "I don't care about the mess. I've seen bigger messes than you, Malty. I've seen worlds burn. Your trauma is real, but it isn't unique, and it isn't interesting to me."

Click to shrink...

Apathy is a genuinely disgusting response a person can receive after bleeding their heart out and I hope this guy gets his shop wrecked in a way that matters. I mean... wow...

Great story and I look forward to what comes next. Do you have a list of characters who will show up pre-planned or are you open to ideas?