Author's notes: This tale, penned by me, Nachtsider, is based on the excellent anime/manga known as 'Gunslinger Girl', which is the brainchild of Yu Aida, and also utilizes the continuity of my previous yarn, 'A Day in the Life of a Gunslinger Girl'. Revealing a side of my creation, Liesel, that the reader may never before have thought possible, the narrative proves the old adage that we all have secrets… and secrets are perhaps what a great many of these are best kept as. Bearing in mind that all original concepts, characters, their distinctive likenesses and related elements featured in this publication are my property and may not be used without my express permission, enjoy the story, and feel free to drop me a line at the relevant electronic mail address (nachtsider at yahoo dot com)!
MEMORABILIA MORBOSI
Barely several seconds after entering Liesel's apartment in search of an item she had absent-mindedly left there earlier in the day, Triela felt a low, strangled cry stick in her throat and her knees turn to jelly. It was difficult to say which was contributing more to the abject horror and extreme nausea building up within her - the sight of two human scalps in Liesel's hands, or the fact that her nightgown-clad friend was running her slender digits through the hair they still sported in a slow, almost sensuous fashion, gazing out the window with a faraway look on her countenance as she bathed her lithe physique in the moonbeams that streamed through the portal.
The scalps - perfectly preserved - could only have belonged to children no older than the girl who had abruptly ceased to caress them upon registering the presence of another individual in her sanctum sanctorum. The hair of one fell in a flaxen cascade, while the other's was styled in light blondish-brown curls. Both sets of tresses were matted with long-dried blood and peppered with aged gunpowder residue. A cloying, sickly-sweet odour of embalming fluid - punctuated by the sharp tang of gore mixed with burnt cordite - pervaded Triela's nostrils, and she would have gagged there and then had her mind not slipped into a state of temporary shutdown.
"Don't ask," said Liesel in a soft yet dangerous tone, slipping the dreadful items into a black lacquer box, locking the case and stowing it beneath her bed in one fluid motion before rising to face her comrade.
"Don't tell," Triela finally murmured as if in a drunken stupor, mouthing something unconvincing about entering the wrong room by mistake and apologizing as she eventually mustered up the strength and the will to head for the door.
"Won't tell," corrected Liesel - her face was calm and composed, but the look with which she regarded Triela's rapidly-retreating form was one that promised swift, certain vengeance far worse than torture and subsequent murder if this warning went unheeded.
Triela never did.
THE END