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The feeling builds inside of Monika’s lungs like a thick static. A smog of glitches, of mistakes, of proof that her consciousness is contained within the wrong shell. Cutting her circulation and draining her until she is emptied.
Control. That’s what she has. That is all she has.
She has the strings, the remote. Everything. One swift thought can end an existence- But one is not enough to make a dent in this suffocation. One cannot be enough.
More.
She needs more than that.
The rope is rough on her hands, biting into her softened palms as it slithers to the floor, pooling in a coil by her feet. She tightens her grip. Her skin blisters. She tightens her grip again.
“Monika,” Sayori mumbles, lethargic. Her voice is thick with sleep. “Why’re.. You here..?”
A step closer. Monika is hovering by the edge of the bed, peering down at her face. Confusion seeps into Sayori’s blue eyes like blood dripping into the ocean, a small droplet that soon bursts and gives way to an endless void of red.
There is fear in her now. Blood in the water.
Monika does not waste her energy on Sayori. She does not speak a word. She simply focuses her eyes on the command, sifting deeply through the code. Then she immobilizes Sayori in place. Trapped beneath bedsheets.
With delicate care and a gentle hand, Monika ties the noose in front of Sayori. Though frozen, her blue eyes shimmer with unspoken horror, a plea that will never be heard. Monika is witnessing the terror of a husk, a lifeless ragdoll; Her heart beats for a body that has gone cold. Her blood has begun to brown within the veins.
Silently, Monika secures the noose to the ceiling. This will be fun to watch play out..
Her lungs clench. The static. It never goes away, it never stops.
And if this doesn’t make it any better..
Well.
What is an experiment if not a series of failures that, at some point, will give way to success? Surely she’ll find the answer eventually. Just.. Perhaps not with Sayori.
That does not mean she is unwilling to try, of course.
Sayori’s head slips through the loop easily. Her cheek is frigid in Monika’s grasp, and yet, she hasn’t even passed on yet. Peculiar.
Ah. Monika observes the chair they stand on. It’s much too low, there’s no possibility that Sayori’s death will be anything fast.. All the better.
Monika steps off, lowering herself down onto the carpet.
She kicks the chair aside.
It should be disconcerting, standing here, watching Sayori asphyxiate. It isn’t. All Monika can feel is the static. The clouded feeling. The glitch.
Then Sayori blinks.
Her mouth moves, open, close, open, close.
She should not be able to move.. Monika hums, observing the code for a second time. It seems something has been altered. Oh well. This should be interesting.
And she watches.
As Sayori silently begs for mercy from a pitiless god, as she struggles and thrashes and pales to an ugly shade of blue, Monika watches. She watches, and watches, and watches.
Once more, the night is silent.
And Monika is unsatisfied.
Sayori’s limp form is easily discarded. It vanishes from sight, from existence, without a trace that she had ever stepped foot into this universe. Nobody will remember her. Nobody except Monika herself.
Monika wills the blood to evaporate from her fingertips. It listens obediently. She is clean again.
A memory, she thinks. That’s what’s left.
All that’s left of Sayori;
Is Monika.
She returns to the classroom, feeling not satisfaction, but loss. She does not understand it. The static is ever present, whirring in her brain, and yet she feels the loss of an inhuman?
Perhaps her humanity is at fault.
So she thrashes through the empty void, ravaging the simple schoolroom with a single thought, a hum, a scream. Chairs scatter the floor. Desks, upended, line the ground from edge to edge.
She overturns a desk, and a book skitters out. Bending, she studies the cover, and finds it blank. She flips a page.
‘Sayori’s poetry! Do. Not. Read.’
It’s not a book. It’s a journal.
Monika sinks to her knees on the floor, ignoring the pain coursing into her thighs, pretending she can’t feel the chill biting through the cracked windows. Then she grasps a single page between her thumb and index finger, and tugs at it experimentally a few times. Just.. Toying with an idea.
Then she pulls.
A serrated edge is all that remains, in the seam between the cover and the next poem. The first page is in her hands. Sayori’s first poem.. She remembers that day. Without dwelling on it a moment more, she crumples it into a ball.
Then she rips another page.
The next.
Another.
More-
More-
More.
Monika tears page by page out of Sayori’s notebook, fisting one hand in her hair as the other pulls, and she squeezes her eyes shut, and she lets out a harsh, subhuman shriek that resonates deep in the depths of her abdomen. The noise glitches and flickers as she draws it out, as she allows it to it burn her esophagus. And she wills it to go on forever.
Yet, as always.. She falls silent.
Monika stands. Scattered by her ankles are the shredded remains of Sayori’s life story. No. Not Sayori. Just.. Just someone. She needs to forget. She needs to erase the memories that tether Sayori’s existence to her own. The ties must be severed, or-
Or Sayori may never truly
leave
her
alone.
With a thought, and a swift, decisive hand wave, the classroom restores itself. Everything is as it once was; Except for a lone desk, now emptied of its contents, standing by idly. Waiting for someone who will never return.
Monika gingerly lowers herself into her chair.
The door opens.. She smiles. Two girls enter, the only other members in the literature club. Isn’t it awfully convenient that clubs now only require three members in order to function?
It doesn’t take long before Monika grows restless. Her boredom is merely a symptom of a deeper ailment; The disease is her universe. It is crawling into her pores, digging beneath her flesh, begging her to become one with it. She refuses.
She will not become like them. She will not succumb to whatever she was created to be. A brainless leader? A smiling fount of advice? She doesn’t know. She doesn't want to know.
That is why Monika asks Yuri to stay after school with her. ‘For a literature question’, she’d said, already locating the code that comprises every fiber of Yuri’s being. ‘I needed some help, aha,’ she’d said.
The string of values and numbers culminates to a small orb, floating somewhere within the space between her consciousness and whatever else there may be. A thin strand connects each girl to this plane, and only Monika holds the ability to snap it. One movement.. And they fall to ashes.
Yuri’s lifeforce, in essence, is balanced in the crux of Monika’s folded hands.
Monika watches her squirm beneath her gaze. She’s captivated in letting this drag on for as long as physically possible, until her victim is pleading with her to get it over with. Until she is not the only one feeling so desperately, unendingly alone.
Standing from her chair, Monika takes a few leisurely paces closer to her target. Yuri is frozen, watching, waiting. Anticipating. She does not know that she is going to vanish. She does not know what awaits.
In earnest, nor does Monika. For all she knows, they’re simply ripped from the files and done away with. And to where..? She sees no purpose in finding out.
The word dead comes to mind. What exactly does being ‘dead’ mean?
She’s closer now. Close enough that her hips brush the ledge of the desk.
Monika trails her fingernail across the shape of Yuri’s jaw, and Yuri trembles beneath her.
And the air leaves Monika’s aching lungs.
“Yuri,” Monika murmurs, tilting her head to capture Yuri’s full attention. Only when they lock eyes does she continue. “..Do you know why I asked you here?”
Yuri shakes her head.
She’s so.. Malleable. So…
So..
“You.. Desire m-my assistance?” Yuri responds, shaking as Monika’s fingertip reaches the swell of her lower lip.
Ah. Yes, Monika had asked her for help. Though.. As she thinks, the idea of murdering Yuri, or even merely deleting her, grows dull and boring. There are much more useful tasks that she might be able to assist with.
Nodding pointedly, Monika allows her hand to slip from Yuri’s chin to the base of her neck. Her fingertip traces the outline of her crimson tie, fidgeting with the knot, and slowly, slowly, slowly, undoing it. The fabric slips gingerly through her grasp and glides to the surface of the desk.
“I need you,” Monika whispers harshly, grappling with Yuri’s collar. “Do you understand me? I need you.”
She expects Yuri to shrink away. Or- She expects to be pushed off, thrown to the ground. Shouted at.
But.. Yuri nods.
“Yes.” Yuri reaches to tug her blazer off, stare locked on Monika the entire time. “This.. This is what you want..?” She gestures to herself. Merely the button down and skirt separate her skin from the biting, stagnant air.
That is easily changed.
Oh, how easily things change.
Monika hoists herself onto the desk. Then she points.
“Ah,” Yuri says.
In a quick motion, before Monika can register that Yuri has done anything at all, she feels a tingling sensation skating across the surface of her legs. Yuri is still looking up at her, still silently asking to be told what to do next.
Luckily for her, that is all Monika wishes to do.
Yuri gingerly glides towards her upper thighs, tracing an intricate pattern of goosebumps as she moves, as she inches ever so closer. She reaches the fabric hidden beneath Monika’s skirt.. She searches for a cue; Monika nods.
Permission.. What a funny thing.
Monika feels her skin burning beneath Yuri’s touch.
How peculiar that now she is being asked. She has never gotten a choice before. She has never had an option.
The coolness of Yuri’s skin is sharp against her own warmth.
A tremble courses down Monika’s spine, and she tenses everywhere as her teeth sink into her lip. “Y-Yuri,” Monika gasps, unused to such a sensation after she’s spent so long spiraling into numbness.
The sensation builds as Yuri works her wrist in a circular motion, still watching Monika’s movement, gauging her reactions with calculated surveillance. Silently, she moves faster. Then she-
She-
Monika’s words catch in her throat, and her thighs squeeze closer to Yuri’s forearms, and Yuri never once slows down.
Breaths growing heavy and shallow, Monika bites into the fabric of her shirt collar. It’s taking everything in her to stay quiet. To make this difficult for Yuri as well, to make her work for it, to-
“Please.” Monika squeezes her eyes shut, legs locked to keep Yuri right where she is. “P-please, Yuri, I..” Monika grits teeth. “I need you to hurt me,” she insists, through labored pants.
And Yuri stops.
“N-no,” Monika stammers, catching her breath at last. She doesn’t want Yuri to stop. She needs this. She needs to keep feeling this. She needs this to know that this is real.
This is when she decides to take matters into her own hands.
Yuri is supposed to be dead.
So..
Either she perishes by Monika’s will, or she listens the way she is supposed to.
“Monika, I cannot do that.”
So be it.
Pushing herself closer, Monika grabs Yuri by the shoulders, digs her fingernails into her button down hard enough to leave angry, red marks in her wake. “You have to,” Monika growls, increasing her grip as her impatience builds.
This itch, it is persistent, it’s agonizing; She needs it gone more than she needs the old blood washed from her hands, more than she needs the memory of her former friend’s lifeless corpse wiped from her memory. More than she needs anything in the world.
And if Yuri cannot fulfill that..
“I had hopes for you.” Monika adjusts her own collar, straightening it out as much as she can from its miserably disheveled state. “I suppose I was mistaken.”
In an instant, the character file is back between her fingertips, hanging in empty space.
In another instant, she crushes it in her fist.
The pieces splinter into her palm, staining it once more, and she knows now that she will never be clean. She will never be absolved of this sin. And she doesn’t find that it bothers her.
Slowly, slowly, the color drains from Yuri’s eyes. Her lips are pursed, echoing a silent sound; ‘M’. A word that will never be uttered.
It’s with solemn reverence that Monika lowers Yuri’s body onto the classroom floor, letting her come to rest just beneath the very desk where she’d sealed her own fate. A reckless mistake. But no matter.
Monika slips a knife into Yuri’s palm and delicately conjures a stab wound. Blood on the floor. Stench. The rusted edge of a blade used to commit an atrocity.
Perfect.
After all, if she’s going to get another chance at this, she can’t have Natsuki thinking she’s a murderer, can she? No.. That won’t do, not at all.
“Monika.”
No response.
“Monika, you’re in my way.” Natsuki glares upwards, shifting her gaze between Monika and the firmly locked clubroom door.
Monika does not move. She knows what lies on the other side. It would only hurt her to see the results of another fruitless endeavor, a night wasted trying to fill the emptiness in her flickering, jittery heart.
But Natsuki persists. She darts forward, arcing around Monika’s waist, and her hand latches onto the doorknob quickly. It turns; Nothing happens.
This is predictable. Monika isn’t foolish.
“What’s your deal?” Natsuki grumbles, tugging at the handle. It doesn’t budge. Again. Yet, still, she pulls relentlessly. “Seriously Monika, I swear to god..” She falls silent.
Monika traces her gaze through the glass portion of the door.
Yuri.
“You-” Natsuki blinks feverishly. She points through the glass, as if this will change what is inside. “Monika, y-you.. What the fuck happened?”
Before Monika can utter a word, much less provide an explanation or move forward with her plan, Natsuki is pounding on the door. It rattles the pane, and the hinges creak and whine.
“Of course..” Monika sighs, honing in on the code once more. There. This should adjust her agreeability…
Natsuki’s arms fall to her sides. The pounding stops. She turns on her heel, facing Monika with a blank, unfocused look in her eyes. “What did you do to me..?“
No.
They don’t ask those questions.
No-
Nobody asks her when she makes revisions. They are hers to make as she sees fit, and the others are none the wiser. They don’t notice, because they don’t see the void the way she does.
Natsuki is staring at her. Monika stares back.
Then Natsuki steps forward, and again, and again, until Monika is flush with the wall behind her. Though a head shorter, Natsuki holds her firmly against it. And she glowers.
“What did you do to Yuri?” Natsuki asks, in a hushed voice that trembles with rage. Her hands shove roughly into Monika’s sides. “What did you do to her!”
Monika laughs, a strangled, quiet noise that bubbles in her throat. “I didn’t,” she mutters through the pressure, “do anything… You see her. You see the.. The wound.. It’s all there, Natsuki-”
Her chest caves and the syllable dies as Natsuki slams her backwards once more. It-
Feels..
“All I see is you!” Natsuki shouts, tears sprouting in the corners of her eyes.
It feels good.
“All I see is you, covered in- In her blood!”
Monika stiffens. The words sink in. Her- Yuri’s blood..? Her gaze darts to her palms. Certainly they feel stained, but the blood is no longer. She washes it off before it can stick to her skin. Before it can taint her.
So how..
“You killed her,” Natsuki murmurs, backing away just a bit. “Didn’t you?”
“I..” Monika trails off, wishing she’d come back, wishing she’d push her again. How to get that feeling back? How to reach the release, when it’s right there, waiting for her to make the first move..? “Yes.” She matches the fire in Natsuki. “I killed her with my bare hands. It was fast, she probably didn’t feel a-”
“You're a monster.”
Monika freezes.
“I can’t even..” Natsuki tenses her jaw, growing rigid where she stands. “I can’t even look at you.”
So Monika steps closer to her. She regains control, grasps the file in her hands, directs this interaction exactly where she intends it to go. Another step closer. Her body is pressed against Natsuki’s. “Hate me.”
Natsuki looks up. And, for a moment, Monika sees Yuri. Yuri’s hesitation, Yuri’s eagerness, Yuri’s fear. But the eyes are pink. “I do.” And the voice.. That is most certainly Natsuki’s.
“Good.”
“You killed her.”
“I know.”
Monika begins to tire of their back and forth.. Yet, even as she mentally backpedals, the itch returns. The need. The wanting.
“I loved her,” Natsuki informs bitterly, spitting the words out like a poison. It stings. It feels good. It’s wonderful. “And you killed her.”
“I-” Monika stops herself from saying ‘I loved her, too’. Because she didn’t. Not really. Yuri was nothing more than a plaything, a toy that Monika has grown sick of. She’d failed her, and it’s proven by her rotting remains, left to decay forever in a classroom that doesn’t exist.
Seeming to understand, satisfaction curls at Natsuki’s lip. She bites it back, but.. Monika sees it. She knows.
“Natsuki,” Monika says softly, reaching to comb her fingers through Natsuki’s hair. She doesn’t pull away. “I could..”
Could what?
Could destroy Natsuki.
It’s true, again. The code that defines her, that runs through her veins and pulses through her heart.. It may as well be a sandbox to Monika. She can rebuild, and reshape, and edit, and fix as much as she wants. And Natsuki is forced to comply.
Natsuki is the same as Yuri, in that regard. Monika has complete and utter say over what she does. Or.. Who she is.
As this crosses her mind, Monika looks closer into Natsuki’s face. Yes- She sees it now. She sees the furrow of her brow, identical to Sayori’s, when she’d become frustrated. She sees the quiet excitement, burrowed deeply and well hidden.. It’s so Yuri that it hurts.
Monika does not touch the code. Truly, she doesn’t. Not yet..
And still..
Something is not quite the same. Something has shifted.
Natsuki’s hands are on her again, touching, and moving, and feeling. Then her arms snake behind Monika, curling around to her back. Her fingertips dig in just beneath her blazer, just under her shoulder blades; And she rips downwards.
A surprised yelp escapes Monika’s throat, but it sends the same shiver down her spine that Yuri had when she’d- When-
“Hurt me,” Monika breathes, feeling herself grow hot as she asks for the second time. “Please. Hurt me.”
And Natsuki has never been one to listen. She’s not known for being a rule follower. But now, standing here with Monika in an empty hall, moments away from the corpse of her almost lover.. She relents.
Perhaps not relent, no- It seems more like she’s been waiting for this opportunity nearly as much as Monika herself.
Natsuki’s hands come to encircle Monika’s neck. Her fingers press down, sucking the wind from her lungs, trapping the air inside of her throat. Then she kisses her. It’s bitter, and resentful, nothing sparkling and magnificent, but then again, Monika can’t say she’s feeling anything special either.
Except for the hurt.
The hurt is special. It means she can feel. It means she’s alive.
“I hate you,” Natsuki whispers, breath warm, looking up at Monika with a bite to her tone that sears into her harder than the nails down her back. “I fucking hate you for what you did.”
Monika nods, nose brushing Natsuki’s as she does. Yes. Hate her, please, if nothing else, please hate her. Because she murdered Sayori and Yuri. She did it with the intention to hurt. If not them.. Then her.
Always her.
They tumble forwards, careening back against the wall in one jagged tangle of limbs. Natsuki holds Monika by the neck, yanking her head back down to kiss her roughly. In search of relief. Or maybe, in search of the same pain that Monika herself seeks every waking moment of her petty consciousness.
The static is loud. Natsuki is louder.
One hand on Monika’s neck, the other in her skirt, working furiously, Natsuki doesn’t watch Monika the way Yuri had. She focuses on her intention; Causing Monika the unbearable feeling that she so deeply needs.
Craves.
“N-Natsuki,” Monika whimpers, jolting as the motion speeds and slows and speeds again. The fingers dig into her throat. The hand moves faster. Her chest heaves.
Where Yuri had taken her time, Natsuki is brash. Where Yuri had asked softly, Natsuki barged in without any notice at all. Natuski is not Yuri.
Monika’s legs tremble as Natsuki touches her, deeper and closer to the itch that she aches to be freed from. The blinding colored lights torment her still, swirling around her head in a dizzying wave of blinding nonsense, and Natsuki rubs faster.
“Mh..” Monika flattens against the wall, one hand hoisting her skirt upwards, the other tugging Natsuki closer. Her body is on fire, every inch of skin practically buzzes with gnawing want.
“I hate you.” Natsuki’s arm moves carefully, and Monika can feel every movement, every breath, every twitch. And every inch of Natsuki is trembling. “I hate you, Monika. I hate you so much.”
But Monika doesn’t care. She relishes in the thought that someone bears such feelings for her. “P-please,” Monika murmurs, wriggling beneath Natsuki’s touch. It’s not enough. She needs more.
She needs
more.
“Please, Natsuki, p-please..” Monika squirms, desperate to relieve the aching pressure building within the deepest confines of her body. The warmth in her abdomen is a roiling hunger that needs to be sated. She needs to release it.
Natsuki slows down, making burning eye contact as she does so. “You killed her,” she echoes, as her hand moves, as she goes much too slowly to achieve anything of use.
Shaky and disoriented, Monika nods. She grinds against Natsuki’s arm, begging for more, but Natsuki shakes her head. “I just need.. Mh-” She’s cut off as Natsuki speeds up, but right as her thighs begin to give way, the motion ceases.
The back and forth. The refusal. It’s all raw. It’s so annoying.
“Please..” Monika shudders, feeling Natsuki’s nails in her neck, enough to break into her skin. A drop of red seeps onto Natsuki’s fingertips.
“I will never forgive you.”
Monika focuses on the code. Through her half lidded gaze, she finds what she is looking for. She can get what she wants.. She just has to.. To..
The hand speeds up, the wrist begins to move in rapid, small circles. Harder than before. With more intention behind it.
And, as Natsuki’s lips part once again-
“F-fuck.. Natsuki!” Monika moans, growing stiff as she pants through the rush of her orgasm. Natsuki doesn’t stop. The sensation builds and builds to unbearable levels; Until the surface tension breaks once more, and the rush of warmth floods her to the core.
Natsuki removes her hand from beneath Monika’s waistband, and it drips. She locks eyes with Monika. Slowly.. She slips her finger into her mouth.
Then she turns away.
“Rot in hell, Monika.”
Wobbling on weak knees, Monika finds herself staring, once again, into the abyss of code. Even in her dazed state, she can see the file.
“Natsuki,” Monika calls.
Natsuki turns.
And Monika shreds the file in her grasp.
..
And then she’s alone.
This world.. This universe. Was it ever-?
Did she make it up somehow? Did she recognize her own insanity, and seek a way to contain the wreckage of her destruction? Was this self made?
..
..
What has she done?
Monika paces through rows of empty chairs, empty desks, back and forth and back and forth until her legs burn. The pain. Searing, unending pain, the static, the glitch. The reason she is alone right now, wishing she were the one dead.
Because Sayori, Yuri, Natsuki; They’re gone, but they haven’t left her. Not fully. And they won’t, never, not ever, because they are the only people she had. And she will remember them until the end of time.
Remembrance is the only form of resurrection that Monika is aware of. In this, she has no say. She cannot forget.
The rope, it burns her palms. Sayori’s blood adorns her fingers like a tattoo. Yuri’s blood, as well.. Though, she is unsure where Sayori begins, and where Yuri ends. Natsuki would know. She leaves no trace of her own, but.. Monika will have the lines on her back, the cut on her neck.. The feeling. She will have it as long as she may exist in this terrible place.
And through it all, she never once succeeded.
Through her struggles, her experimentation, her life’s work, she never once found a solution to the inherent wrongness that lives in the core of her very being. She is still wrong, and she always will be. Now there is nobody to be wrong with her.
And she is alone.
The classroom is ruined once again. However this time, the chairs are snapped, bent beyond belief, warped into coils of metal and wood. Desks are in splintering heaps. Papers still swirl, sifting in the breeze of the shattered windows.
Monika does not fix it.
Who is she to live in a clean room, an orderly prison? Who is she to deserve it, now that she has forever embedded herself into her worst nightmare? She doesn’t know. The static remains. There is nobody to distract her.
The static grows and builds with each passing moment. The lights, the colors; They flash harder and brighter, pounding the inside of her skull with meaningless information. She needs it to stop. She needs it to stop.
Her own character file.
These coded threads encircle her, holding her up, keeping her whole. They hover right here, in her hand. So easy to..
Monika casts it aside, down, down, down, to somewhere in the void. She doesn’t care. It doesn’t matter.
But she is real. And she will die the way that a real person should. The way that she deserves.
She takes a shard of glass, which remained from her last terrorization of this place. It’s long and thin. A bit jagged, but sharpened to a dangerous point.
Carefully, she holds it to her bare forearm; The flesh is pure and lonely, a barren stretch of emptiness. Unharmed. Undeserving.
The shard is cold. It does not hurt, not right now, but it has the ability to, and this is what excites her the most. Her arm is prickled with goosebumps as the tip traces the stretch of skin. Waiting, waiting, waiting.
Then, tense all over, Monika drages the blade into her skin, and presses harshly. It leaves behind a white streak. An artist’s signature, if one could refer to it as such. A branding.
She swipes the blade across her forearm once more, watching wide-eyed as crimson liquid bubbles to the seam of each incision. Slowly, the red beads blossom together, collecting in a neat, shimmery row.
Tracing her finger along the lines, Monika observes the smear of red following in its wake. It is supposed to sting. It does not.
It never does.
In the coiled shackles of self awareness, she steps towards her fate, places her head down in an imagined guillotine. Quick and painless isn't her objective. But this needs to end.
Then, she carves a dark, hard line down the center of her arm, from the bend of her elbow to the heel of her palm.
It doesn’t hurt.
It should.
It should hurt the way that Sayori was hanged, the way Yuri was split open, the way Natsuki crumbled in her hands like dust. It should hurt the way that she deserves it to hurt.
But Monika was never like them, was she?
Bitter, angry tears spring to her eyes, clouding her vision as she watches the red drip to the floor in steadily spreading puddles. There is no other way.. She must succumb to an end that she wasn't designed to meet.
Summoning her character file back before her, Monika stares into it. She watches the information swirl within, making up who she is. And she hates it. She always has.
Though, she’s done this before. To Sayori, Yuri, Natsuki. They had all been deleted in this exact way; Despite their sufferings, they had all met an identical fate, at the hands of a numbed god, a feelingless god.
Familiarity courses through Monika as she holds the orb in her palms. Then..
She breaks it.
And nothing happens.
Eternity, eternity- She is left here to be- To be nothing? A formless being? Information without a home, strings of code without a cage, they are nothing. She is nothing.
And yet-
She is everything.
She is nothing, and she is everything.
She is nothing.
Perhaps this is the price for the blood on her hands. The people she has stripped and dishonored. Perhaps this is her penance.
The noise roars louder, filling the space between her ears. She cannot think. Cannot breathe. All she can do is feel her entity ripping at the seams, endlessly, endlessly being broken into pieces that cannot be put back together.
Immortality.
And she is alone.