Synthetic Hearts 1~ One's Corrupted Soul

Synthetic Hearts

Chapter 1~

One's Corrupted Soul

Firstly, A Disclaimer~

This story was taken from Hunter x Hunter using their characters, storyline etc. However, I do not own any of these factors and they are copyrighted by their specific owners. I do copyright Roze, an OC made by me.

Synthetic Hearts is derived from Synthetic Stars, copyrighted by my friend Migure.

A Prologue~

Once upon a time, there was a city that had been forsaken by God. It was torn off the maps, wiped from official records and forgotten, in the hopes that it would disappear from the face of this earth. The people who resided there, isolated from the rest of humanity, began to find hate, loathing and despair in their souls. They mutated, both physically and mentally, until they were beyond recognition; a heartless machine driven by their own black souls. There was no one who bothered to acknowledge their existence, no one who mentioned their name. The people became outcasts, the humans who unofficially existed from Meteor City.

Roze was hiding. Her hand, desperately trying to cut off the blood flowing down her arm, was drenched with it and sweat. The thick, red liquid seeped through invisible gaps between her fingers, dripping unforgivably on the white carpet. She would be punished for the mess. Her legs, tired from squatting in the cramped space, lifted her body up reluctantly as Roze tiptoed down the corridor. A mirror caught her attention. Pausing, Roze faced herself in the glass. The person in the mirror was a beast. With a black mass of hair piled on her head, made untameable with countless knots; a pair of bloodshot rose coloured eyes and a seemingly permanent frown; the beauty from the past could not be distinguished. Roze raised her arm slowly, wincing as her twin replicated her actions, and her skin was shown in relief. Bruises, on top of bruises, half healed cuts covered with even more recent ones, her arm could be an alien part, if the rest of the seventeen year old body had not had the same gruesome appearance. It was hard not to pity herself after seeing her ruined body in the mirror. Her twin agreed, an unwanted tear seeping out of her red eye. Roze sighed and continued moving down, only to stop again in front of a woman's portrait. The carpet here was slightly dented from having stood here countless times. Roze looked at the portrait's face. Immediately, a sense of longing aroused within her. She couldn't help but believe that she had once held a close relationship with this woman. Roze's father refused to tell her anything about the person, and the long, half-healed scar on her face was a reminder not to mention her again. True, her dad was the owner of the biggest stockholding company in Japan, but it was also a fact that he became an indescribable monster when he was at home in the Himura Mansion. Whether it was an object or a person, everything in his path would never look the same anymore. Roze felt like she was stepping on the eggshells between life and death.

Her room was located in the servant's headquarters. It was a dark, damp place, with cheap wallpaper and chipped furniture. Her bed looked more like a hospital cot than one that was used in the Himura Mansion. However, Roze did not mind this. For her, Roze's most valued treasured lied here. A small unnoticed trapdoor, more suitable for a large dog than a human, sat under thin layers of worn carpets. This was her gateway between heaven and hell, capture and freedom. It was the secret to a tunnel that led to the rare fresh air outside the hellhole of her father's estate, long ago used by escape artists. There was another trapdoor in the corner of her room but it was virtually glued to the henges. Roze was in one of her moods again and this time, she wished for her to not exist in this life, but another one. Ignoring the blood that was still coursing down her arm, but more slowly now, she decided to continue her efforts on opening the trapdoor. After all, there wasn't much to do except disappear in this hellhole. Not expecting anything to happen, Roze pulled half hearted on the handle, only to have it suddenly wrench open with a 'boom'.

'Wahhh!'

Roze, unprepared for the opening door and at a loss for co-ordination, stumbled at the edge of the black hole. She waved her arms, frantically trying to balance herself in an almost anime-like way before falling, face-first into the hole.

Roze had been mentally preparing herself for a faceplant or a really hard landing on her bottom. However, with a sudden jerk, she was suspended in the air by some unseen force. If someone had been walking by, they would have seen a black-haired beast that was strung comically in the air with SHOCK written across its face. Then, if they had stayed long enough they would have watched the…thing jump up and down in mid air like it was trying to touch the ground again.

Roze was freaking out. The room she was in had no boundaries. It was white but not blinding white. In fact, it was almost purifying, with a gentle and forgiving glow. Not that it was important right now. She was still suspended in thin air and so far, desperate attempts to get back down were failing miserably. As she was biting the area surrounding her arms and legs, hoping to catch an invisible rope and start gnawing at it, the air next to her suddenly warped. Roze screamed, frozen mid-bite to watch a figure slowly step through a black hole and-

'Hi, my name is World. I am now your official advisor in filing a placement for a new life. How may I help- ehh, what are you doing?'

Roze blushed slowly unfroze herself. She had forgotten that she had been biting at possible invisible ropes. I mean it was natural to go insane after seeing a guy teleport from god-knows-where and suddenly offer to give her another shot in a new life. However, this was her chance to escape from her father.

'Umm, nothing. Can you let me down now?- ow,' Roze picked herself up from the heap on the ground, 'Okay, so you mean it? When you told me that I could start a new life?'

World nodded, 'Of course. Would you like to select a world now?'

Roze, not totally trusting the 'World' guy, thought it was a prank-act. I mean, it's technically impossible to teleport from one dimension to another. No one has even discovered how to yet! She decided to clarify things.

'Um, yeah, after I ask you a few questions. Firstly, what will happen if I refuse to start a new life?'

The answer was prompt.

'You will cease to exist from any dimension. After all, you have died in reality.'

World didn't wait for her shocked gasp.

'Rose, if you had not been teleported here by my superiors, you would have hit your head in the bottom of the hole you fell in and fallen into a concussion. The angle of your fall should have shut down your brain forever.'

Roze couldn't believe it. She had literally killed herself. She forced out the next question through her mouth, which opened and closed like a goldfish.

'O-okay. So my only choice is to be sent to another dimension,' she took in World's confident nod, 'Alright, I'll choose now then.

World smiled and panned the air with his hand. Roze could only gape in amazement as sparks shot out of his hand and whirled, lightning-fast. In a poof, a dusty brown book appeared.

'In this book, I have placed all of the available worlds that you can choose. Do not worry about fitting in; I will add a new collection of memories into your brain. You might feel a bit muddle for a month or so, but after that, you'll remember everything properly. And when I mean everything, I mean even the memories you lost eight years ago.'

Roze could only stare at a patch of floor near her feet. She had suspected that she had lost her some of her memories before. The portrait hanging in the corridor was proof of that.

World continued on, 'Now, please select a world.'

The book floated towards her and slowly drifted to a stop in front of her chest. Hesitating slightly, she touched the book lightly with a finger, only to have it suddenly flip open. Her finger jerked back, a gut-instinct, before relaxing and returning to the book. Roze flipped through some pages, driven by curiosity, before getting impatient by the sheer quantity of worlds on each page. There were roughly 150 worlds on each page, and if that multiplied by 500, it'll equal 75000 worlds. That was only halfway down the book. Roze closed her eyes and pointed randomly. Her finger had landed on a colourful looking world with squarish hieroglyphs.

'That one?' World confirmed.

Roze shrugged and nodded.

'That one's fine.'

World shrugged, mimicking her actions and waved his hand around complicatedly; the book disappeared with a shimmer of sparks. The world you've chosen requires skill to survive in, and therefore (he waved his hands again) you'll need this memory. With that, he pointed at Roze's head. She waited, waiting for some kind of memory burst thingy, disappointed when nothing happened. Anticlimactic, much?

World laughed, 'they won't work until you've arrived at your new world. Now I'll just send you off…oh, wait-'

He pointed once more at Roze.

'We wouldn't want you scaring the residents, would we?'

In a flash of smoke, Roze didn't have time to shriek before she could see again. She looked down automatically and gasped in surprise and delight. Her skin, once shamefully battered, was now pale and soft. Her hair swished against her back, glossy black with streaks of rose. Roze carefully felt the strands; for once, it was tameable. Her facial features (with no red eyes), rid of the permanent scowl, could finally be seen from under her side-swept fringe. Roze, unused to having herself look presentable in a year or so, could hardly contain her excitement at wearing new clothes. A black minidress, strapless with a heart bodice, hung from her frame, hugging her curves. It was artfully twisted to be tied up in a reddish-pink rose on the top. Roze decided, that even though World was nice enough to provide her with clothes, he was a bit perverted. She sweatdropped and looked at her feet, clad in high-heeled, black knee-high boots. They were laced up with white ribbons.

Roze could feel a smug radiating from World's face.

'Doesn't that look better? Anyways, now I'll send you off.'

There was a sucking feeling from within her and suddenly she was falling but not landing on a hard surface. Roze could hardly hear his voice now as it softly spoke, almost undistinguishable.

'Good luck, and welcome to the world of Hunter x Hunter.'