literature

Christabella: Dear Diary

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Day one

            I tried this before and gave up. It was too hard to write about what the scientists' did to me. But something is different now. Not Nano, he's still their puppet King. I haven't found a way out.

Herontesuto Labs transferred me to this place last year, at least, I think it was last year. They won't tell me dates. I only know it's Japan because Nano told me, and I'm not even sure that's true. I don't know if he can tell the truth any more. I'm not even sure he knows who he is. The cells are the same, though; three solid walls, white, one glass, which lets me see the cells across the wall, all exactly the same.

That's how I know that there's this new girl.

I think she's actually older than me, but I can't tell. She's Asian, Japanese, it sounds like. The scientists' talk to her as though she can understand them, but she hasn't said anything yet. I've only seen her face once, but I didn't notice the eyes or anything. Just her expression.

Why couldn't I be that sure of myself when they got to me?

And there was something else, too. Her power; the reason they're going to break her. I saw; she can fly.

She has wings!

 

Day seven

            I've just been watching her. I don't want to try talking to her, I still don't know how to speak Japanese properly, but I do understand bits of it. One of the scientists called her a whore two days ago.

She spat in his face.

I've seen her eyes, now, but it's obvious she wants to hide her face, like Nano used to. Her hair is pitch black and really long, the longest I've ever seen. I don't know why I'm writing this down; I can just look up and usually she's there. Unless they take her away for experiments, but she never comes back with bandages or whatever, like I do. I don't understand how that's even possible, all she has is the wings. Anyway, her eyes are bright red. Maybe she's a kind of vampire or something?

 

Day nine

            It turns out that she speaks English perfectly fine. And you know what she said?

"You should stop writing. It exhibits weakness."

But her voice was weird and gravelly, so maybe she's not being cared for properly. They treat me like dirt, but Nano is my brother, and he's insanely possessive, even if he doesn't come to see me anymore. So it seems like they do want to keep me alive. Her - she doesn't sound like she's had any water.

I wish I was braver. I want to know what she meant. I don't think I have the power to talk freely anymore, though. They broke that.

And I didn't even know that these walls weren't soundproof. Nobody ever came back when I screamed.

 

Day twenty-seven

            She keeps saying random things. I never expect her to say anything at all, but it's there, out in the open, and I'm wondering if she knows what she's really in for. Today, though, she came back with an eye missing - at first. Her entire face was covered in blood when they led her to her cell, and one of the scientists had a bandage but made no effort to make her take it. But when she looked back a minute later, there was no blood, and both her eyes were there, just like normal. She looked right at me.

"You know, you and I, we can both see better than them. Don't forget it."

Then she went back into her cell.

What does she actually mean?

 

Day forty-one

            "Don't say it."

I spoke to her first, today. I don't know what made me do it. My arm was in a sling, though; they broke it to see if I could avoid them with my ghost powers.

She just shrugged.

I waited over an hour before I said anything else. Maybe I was waiting for her to say something. I'm used to her doing that now. It's been ages, I'm starting to wonder if she's not just a pawn dropped for them to get at me. I mean, it was great at first, I had forgotten that people could do anything other than bark orders at me.

"What would you have said?"

She didn't look up, her eyes probably shut. She never touches her bed; I've counted the days. She just sleeps on the floor. I know that's not comfortable; it's tile. "She speaks."

I pouted at her; but I know she had a point. I am unresponsive. "When you saw, what would you have said?"

"About what?"

"My arm!"

She shrugged again.

"My arm is broken; don't you care?"

"Is it my arm?"

"...No."

"Then I don't care at all."

I wonder if she's trying to teach me something. She's too blunt to be a scientists' game, unless she's from Nano, but she doesn't have any metal on her. Just the wings.

 

Day forty-two

            "Sushi."

"Pizza."

She grimaced at me when I said the best food was pizza, and corrected me without hesitating. But she's wrong. Pizza is infinitely better than sushi. I mean, what kind of person likes to eat raw fish?

-

"Rikku."

I didn't know why she said that, so I looked up at her. "What? Does that mean something in Japanese?"

She shook her head, shifting so her black hair fell over her face.

I guess she doesn't think it matters enough to tell me. I don't know. I need sleep, but my arm hurts a lot. It's hard to sleep when it hurts so much.

 

Day seventy-three

            Our conversations are getting more personal. I told her about Nano today, told her everything about him: how he used to save me from dad, how he'd comfort me when mom left, how he said he'd found us a way to escape dad, about how he changed after Herontesuto Labs offered to help.

She inclined her head a little, but she didn't say anything. I think I should've got mad, but I'm starting to see that there's no point. This woman, more often than not, just doesn't seem to care what I know of her. I can see her now, sleeping, and she's so still, it's like she's not even alive.

So far as I know, she isn't.

 

Day seventy-six

            You need to stop writing in this thing, girl. It's not a good idea. They can use it against you.

            -Rikku

 

Day ninety-nine

            The last entry was weird, over twenty days ago. The woman across the hall scribbled it and passed it to me, somehow smuggling it into my room. I don't know how she possibly did it, but the woman who delivered my allocated meal was rather shakey and nervous. Maybe she somehow hurt her. They broke the fingers of my writing hand, so I couldn't do anything myself. But I needed to have something; I couldn't just stop. So I used her note. Rikku. I guess it's her name.

God, I'm stupid.

 

Day one-hundred and eighteen

            I've never seen her scream or show any weakness at all, until today.

She was trembling and hesitant, stumbling to the bed they provide her with, and just fell onto it. It's the first time she's touched the bed and I heard the mattress creak, which is why I looked up.

Her wings are gone, completely removed.

I wish I knew what to say to people when they lose such a huge part of themselves.

-

I woke up. I'm not in pain anymore, and there wasn't a nightmare for once. But I heard rustling, and I looked over at Rikku's cell. That's where the noise was coming from.

Maybe she can't sleep with the light on, or maybe she's still in pain. But her back - I can see it, the wings aren't in the way, but she must have been wearing shirts with holes in the entire time, or she couldn't have had the wings, or the shirt, and I'm sure she was wearing them.

The bandages must have been on her back, but they aren't any more. They're red, red as blood, probably soaked through. It took me a minute to work out that they were even bandages, and not just whatever was left of some blanket. I know it isn't though, because she wouldn't care enough to move bloody blankets, no matter what problems she might have.

But the gashes on her back are the most horrible things I've ever seen. Two of them, hacked in, still bleeding even though it must have been hours since she came back. They've never hurt me that badly.

I know it's a bad thing, but I am so relieved that it was her and not me. I don't want her to know that, though, not yet. So I'm going back to bed.

 

Day one-hundred and nineteen

            She knows I saw. She knows I know what she's going through right now.

I saw it in the way she acted. Not in the way she looked at me, no, that wouldn't reveal anything. She'd have to look at me for me to be able to see whatever she's pretending not to feel.

I don't know how I did it, but I must have hurt her. But she doesn't seem the sort of person to let people hurt her.

So why does she seem so hurt over me not saying anything last night?

 

Day one-hundred and twenty-six

            She hasn't said anything to me at all.

 

Day one-hundred and thirty-two

            Maybe she's in shock.

 

Day one-hundred and thirty-five

            Why do I miss her talking to me?

 

Day one-hundred and forty-four

            She looks a little hectic. I wonder what's wrong?

 

Day one-hundred and forty-six

            Turn your chair to face the wall. If you do, I'll know what you want.

She kneels at the edge of the glass and beckons me closer. I can't resist, I didn't expect her to break this wall of silence. And she sent a note? It's a big deal.

-

This is, word for word, what she said:

My name is Rikku Miuro. I'm Japanese. I've never been outside of Japan, except for when Herontesuto took me out of the city I grew up in. I wanted to be a Doctor, but my family couldn't really afford the education. So my mother signed a contract with Herontesuto. My little sister, Malaya, she stayed home. Mother kept the little blue-haired child, when I left, she cried because I was going to miss her ninth birthday. I was fifteen. Herontesuto was meant to pay my way through medical school, and the last years of a private high-school education.

They didn't.

They took me in, starting gradually at first. Pills that they said were for headaches, or to improve my academic performance. Then injections, blood tests, but I glimpsed the lab more than once. I knew they were testing my blood; it wasn't hard to tell. I'm an Earth-born angel, you see; corrupted compared to average angels, but all I ever wanted was to help people. Hence the doctor thing. The pills didn't taste like any aspirin I've ever had, and drugs to enhance academic performance? Bull shit. So I called them from it.

The next day, they moved me to a different room, pulled me out of my classes, and the nearly daily tests started for real. You think a broken bone hurts? I heal from everything within the hour, or at least I used to. It got faster the more they did it, so they did it more often. All the pain of months of suffering, compressed into less than sixty minutes. You saw that they removed my eye? They wanted to see if I was capable of ripping my own fingernails out, spent the entire session trying to tempt me into doing so. I lashed out at the scientist, almost took his eye out. So they took mine. I hated doing it, but I felt like it was justified. He asked for it. At the same time, he's blind in one eye now. I didn't think I could do that.

But I'm eighteen now. I'd be starting my undergraduate degree mid-year, if not for them. At first I expected my mother to come for me, my father to appear and rip them to pieces, Malaya to appear in a cell near mine. They didn't.

Little girl, you might think this makes you older than you are, and you'd be right. But I'm telling you right now: do not trust anyone. Everyone you've ever met is just another way to hurt you. But don't ever let yourself be like them.

 

I don't know what to do with this information. I need to sleep.

 

Day one-hundred and forty-seven

            They came for her in the morning; we were both warned. The woman who delivered our morning meal glanced at me when I made a move to follow her out, used to eating on the way to the lab. She turned around and she said to me, "Just her today."

Rikku looked at me with absolute hatred in her expression, not for me, I know, but I almost feel sorry for whoever she decides to hate. They aren't going to have long lives, no matter how bad she feels.

"Ask it," she said. So I did.

"Why did you tell me all that?"

"Because whatever they do to me today, I'm not coming back from."

She didn't say anything else to me, but she did speak to the scientist that came to collect her directly. I know him, he's terrifying. I hate him so much; he's worse than others, more insane.

And she looked him right in the eyes, told him, "You've killed me."

-

It's late. The night meal was ages ago. But I can't sleep.

Rikku was right, so far. She hasn't come back.

I can't believe they actually

 

Day one-hundred and forty-eight

            She came through today. I didn't understand it. She said she was dead! I was so happy at first. Then I actually looked at her.

She was standing perfectly straight, which she hasn't done, ever. Her wings were too heavy to let her do so, so her posture was terrible before. And after they removed them, it was habit to slouch, and pain. Her hair was out of her face, which I didn't understand at all. The entire time she's been here, she always keeps her face hidden. Now it's in a ponytail, tied back neatly. Her eyes are flat, too, there's no emotion whatsoever.

I expected the scientists to drag her back and discard her prone form or something like that, just throw her into the cell and leave her until she woke up, then drag her away again. It's a little stupid. And I can hear a murmuring, someone speaking

But she's alone. And she just walked right into my cell, like it was no big deal at all. She stood there and just looked at me for the longest time, her slight frown like a mockery of human expression.

"Stop it," I said to her, "stop looking like that. It's not believable."

So she stopped frowning, nodded once. "Little girl," she said, "Look for the man with crimson eyes."

Then she left, falling into step beside someone who had waited for her. I can't help it, I'm too curious. I'm going to look, they're still there, I can hear them talking; and it's

 

Day one-hundred and fifty

            I'm not staying. Nano is as broken as Rikku Miuro is. He's not going to save me. She's not going to save me. I am alone. They might be side by side, but I'm alone. Always alone.

This diary is her funeral, since there's no body to bury. The man with the crimson eyes might come, and he might not. But I have matches, I got them from the lab. I can send Rikku Miuro off the way she should be. Going out in a blaze of glory.

But I need to write this down; the reason I talked to her, the reason I wanted her to survive.

If something that tough, that capable and brilliant at self-preservation can die, then how am I ever going to make it?

I think I'll probably write a brief perspective of Rikku going in for whatever they did to her.

This is heavily inspired by a string of thngs written by Cassie. They're a...Rikku, Christabella and Nano have a complicated backstory.

Text, plot, Rikku Miuro (C) KristieConspiracy
Herontesuto Labs, Christabella Parker, Nano Parker (C) Colored-Insanity
© 2014 - 2024 KristieConspiracy
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Colored-Insanity's avatar
D: CURSE YOU AND YOUR GOOD WRITING AND IDEAS AND THE LIKE.


Hhhyyyng. D: