.
Siberian Doll House
.
.
.
Somewhere in Downtown Tokyo, past haute-couture street-rep schoolgirls and money-laundering schemes in petty manga shops, lies a tall and graceful building with a sixtieth story penthouse, worth a cool ten thousand per month. And inside the fresh apple-marble tile master bathroom lies a deluxe gold-fringed Jacuzzi overflowing with bloody water and soapy slime. And inside that hollow crest, lies a naked woman with pasty curls and vacant eyes. And inside that woman's body, there is a gaping hole where her heart should be. And inside her severed inner folds, lie the secrets of my kidnapping.
Nobody's all-the-way dead yet…
My crushed eardrums are picking up faint gargling, and pitchy whimpers, and wormy squirms.
I suppose this is what a pretentious author would call: scene setting.
The overall environment is the mass space always fashioned by luxurious multi-billion dollar stock-saddled banks. Do I honestly need to describe the teller tables, security lockers, pudgy and useless guard, design and placement of our security cameras, vault codes, and generic floor plan past painting-choked crossings? I'll anticipate your answer to be a nice and simple no thank you, and I'll move on with my tale of particularly vague details.
Me, my name is unimportant, basically because I'll be another disposable cadaver in our grand opening massacre. My mind is telling me to make peace with God; you know, say a prayer or two, maybe request forgiveness for my chain-smoking or to invite blinding enlightenment and claw at my chance for pearly wings. My body on the other hand is telling me to be a nice little girl scout and lie down on the floor, so the four bears think I'm dead, sniff me, and then skip away into the sunset.
Somehow all I've managed to actually do is crawl under a shiny mahogany table, place my sweaty palms over my ears, close my eyes, and contort into a ringmaster's prize possession. I want to vomit, but the piece of tootsie roll fixed onto the back of one of my molars tastes like strawberry, so I concentrate on all my favorite flavors.
BANG!
I like chocolate.
"Everybody down on the fucking floor!"
Raspberry has a rather tangy aftertaste.
The flick of a cigarette to the ground, followed by, "Just kill them all…"
Watermelon tastes particularly funky with a sip of Coke.
Multiple empty shells fall down onto the imported marble. And then…thud…thud…thud…
I abhor pineapple.
Machine gun glib load. Insert clip! Total ammunition reload. Point your handguns.
My hands slip down to my lips. I smother any possible unconscious moan while I drink in the bottom-half premises hurriedly. It's twelve-forty…I'm supposed to be on my lunch break. Unfortunately, my ham baguette is going to have to wait because I just realized that I'm the only other breathing human being in this crystal edifice that doesn't have a black backpack draped over their shoulder containing a couple of crisp millions in hard cash.
There's a pool of blood in front of me, edging closer and closer to my heels.
I look at the contributor. It's Ino. We've been working in this dead-end job as desk neighbors for the past two lovely years. She gave me the 'That's Queen Bitch to You' mug I have on my reception desk that I use to huddle all of my company pens together. Just now, her eyes rolled to the back of her head.
I can't shut my own. Tears flow down by flushed cheeks, and sobs die beneath my palms.
"Sa…ku…ra…" singsongs one of the invisible monsters.
An object is flung against a far wall, and then flounces back onto the muddled tiles of crimson. It's my nametag.
The snapping of fingers, the clinking of a tongue against the hard palate. Like he's summoning a dog.
"Come here Key Girl!"
My arms are shaking, scratch that, my entire stupid body is shivering compulsively. What the fuck is wrong with me? Maybe it's the intense iron-ish odor, or the traumatic psychological disturbance of watching my coworkers being picked off like flies. But mainly I think I'm just pissed off that Ino gave her number to one of these pigs, and the same guy gifted her to an ideal round to the forehead.
I know that statistically speaking my odds of surviving this persnickety situation are slim to none. Zero. Nada. Zilch. Unless I sprout an innate superpower. But most irritatingly of all, I know they will get away with this effortlessly, without soiling a silky strand. It's the fucking perfect crime meticulously controlled by a mastermind; give or take a week plus a thunderstorm and Frankenstein shall rise from the un-undead as well.
Some burned security tapes, nicely fitted leather gloves, and inhalation of all peering witnesses could actually result in the faultless completion of the robbery of the century. But mostly, their appearance is a flawless alibi. They are all perfectly sculpted models, but the limited-edition porcelain type, you know, arrayed jointly in carefully stitched suits in a dollhouse in a Valentino glass case, top shelf material.
And I, well I was the unworthy onlooker without diamonds itched into my vests or dangling designer wristwatches.
I was another plain mass-produced market product. I'm like…Strawberry Shortcake…
The table above me, and my feeble war shelter, is kicked and flipped over suddenly. I yelp like an exposed cage monkey and am grasped by my pathetic pink attempt of social rebellion (known to mankind as hair), and then have a slick gun shoved into my mouth. Wretchedly enough, this artistic firearm is worth more than both my kidneys in the Black Market.
"Do you have a death wish?" a different monster poses with seductive wrath, shoving the gun deeper into the roof of my mouth. I'm more or less French-kissing a piece of metal…
"Mho…" I manage to respond, tongue awkwardly twisted around the apparel.
I decide to give him a nickname. I give you…Fluffy! Yes, Fluffy. This fanatical, sadomasochist slaughterer deserves a name fitting of his stoic and brooding temperament, and edgy cannibalism-aura. So of course I won't give him that satisfaction. Renaming him is my only vengeance. I would spit in his beautiful face but that plan is kind of impossible at the moment, don't you think? Oh fuck, I just remembered that the three-headed dog in Harry Potter was called Fluffy…they win without even trying …
"Shit!" scary monster number three bellows, hmm, we'll call him, Gigglypuff. "What the hell do you propose we do now, Sasuke? This fucking prick ruined the tempo."
I glare at Gigglypuff. He's glaring at Care-Bear, the calm accused who responds. "I did what was necessary to salvage identity."
"That's what rats always say."
Oh wait, I just remembered. I like vanilla too.
"Would you two paranoiacs stop rambling like heated feminists so we can get back on schedule? We're behind by a tenth of an hour. The warehouse is almost sixty miles away from our detour. We have an opening period of five minutes before police arrive in their flashing toy cars." Disputes, oh I don't know, Kinky.
"What do we do about the girl?"
Fluffy's icy scarlet pupils are still on me, memorizing my every nervous twitch. I'm seriously contemplating a restraining order. Our bodies are far too close for me to feel comfortable, and my personal space is seriously being violated at the moment. Ever heard of Dirty Dancing? Your Space — My Space. Douchebag…
"We stick to the protocol. We kidnap the female vault keeper." The jammed gun is retreated, but now his corpse-stiff hand is clamed around my throat. "I believe that's you."
I merely stare, horribly mesmerized.
In the third left drawer of my desk lies my resignation letter…which I was going to provide my superior with after work today…
.
.
Chapter One
Judas Kiss
.
.
I'm sorry. Was that a bit rushed?
I'm always reprimanded, in a whiny tilt, that I never establish stories with the "fucking" beginning. It's almost as if I've been systematically brainwashed, or conditioned like a lab rat, to skip the first half of any dialogue and fast-forward to the middle of the confession tape. The parts with all the sobbing and melodramatic satire. In my defense, my mother was a schizophrenic.
Did I tell you it was a Wednesday? Because it was. Those are usually the most uneventful days of the week; you never have an interesting story that starts with, "So on Wednesday night…" You just don't.
I groggily awoke, drove the brainless route from my shithole apartment in my shithole auto to my shithole job. I said hi to Ino, sat in my revolving office chair, typed away some new memos that promised to cut back my salary even more in a one-year time span and drank my cold morning coffee.
At around eleven-fifty, as I twisted my hair into a ponytail, four black-suit clad gentlemen with equally intimidating sunglasses entered through the glass door entrance. The pomposity was palpable, and the high-class, unmistakable.
It was one of those overdone slow motion film moments.
All the I-haven't-had-sex-in-over-eleven-months receptionists gawked like starving peasant children in Willy Wonka's candy shop. Marriage rings left fingers. Hairs were flipped. Winks were shamelessly unleashed. Lower lips were bitten. And piteous grunts were heard from the unattractive male occupants.
In sincerity, I would have joined the desperate coquetting but I have way too much pride for that crap, not to mention that out of the corner of my eye I had a pretty good view nonetheless. I pretended to fix my glasses and continued to type away. My screen looked like this:
Ljdkfkldjfoidjfdoifjdfjidiosfj…
Only about three pages of that.
Of course, they didn't approach us. We're the undesirables. If this were a police station, they are now speaking to the chief deputy detectives, twenty-year consecutive winners of the Red Heart Medal of Courage, or some emotional shit like that. They are the overpaid packrats that smell like lobbyists and move like pumas, and we, in this dark-cornered right side of the wing; we're the police hounds wagging our eager tails. Hoping to please. Only I'm not, I chewed mine off years ago.
This is the quarantined area filled with the forgotten diseased, and I'm in the heart of it. And I'm just nineteen.
Ino rolls her chair too eagerly and crashes into me, I fall forward hard and smash my temple against the screen.
"Fuck!" I shriek instinctively, gripping my forehead in pain while trying to prevent my screen from sliding off the edge with my other hand.
I look up with watery eyes after succeeding, only for about five seconds, but that was long enough to notice that everyone, including the dark mystery four and irritated bank higher-ups, are looking at me in bewilderment. I forgot how loud I tend to curse. I clump down like the Hunchback of Notre Dame and start typing away like a maniac on a deadline, which is everyone's cue to get back to their own business and pretend they're doing something.
"Holy fuck indeed." Ino murmurs, stealing one of my tootsie rolls from the open pack on the table and begins chewing on it absentmindedly. "Hello, magazine cover boys…"
I give her one of my it's-too-early glances and turn back to my screen. I am now pressing backspace repeatedly. How productive.
Two of the expensive suits are now lounging in the coveted VIP superior's area sofas, and have one of our unnecessary temps offering them the usual. Wine, water…enduring sexual intercourse?
"Damn, it's Courtney. She's such a slut." Ino growls, and bites off the imaginary head off yet another tootsie roll.
"You're buying me another bag." I answer, and slyly look over the top of my screen.
The missing two suits were being escorted through an oak doorway, into one of the back hallways where the usual major security checkups and vital identification takes place before they are swept to their deposit boxes inside the Oz vault. This told me everything I needed to know. Not only were our unexpected visitors painstakingly gorgeous, but bloody rich as well. It just wasn't fair how some people hogged up all the good genes and left the rest of us to sink or swim in a genetic cesspool.
Ino snaps a tootsie roll in half as she watches Courtney pretend to have dropped a napkin from her tray and bends down to pick it up.
"Where the hell does she think she is? Legally Blonde the Musical?" she seethed through gritted teeth and then rose, readjusting her water bra in the process. "Watch this."
"I'd rather not." I reply frankly, watching her model her way to the moneybag twinies surrounded by bank sharks and skinny mini-skirts. Ino always had this skill to work her way through any crowd no matter how thick, lesbian riot, political scamper, or club brawl.
But instead of doing the predictable, which was never an Ino-move, she drapes her arm around one of the bank's vampires and actually says, "Jack dear, don't you think you're smothering these clients with a bit too much attention. They look like they enjoy their privacy." All the while massaging her hand up and down his obese back.
Count on Ino to be on first name bases with the green enemy. That's called two words: Blow. And. Job.
So Round Man shoos everyone away while Ino smirks at Courtney as she puckers up her collagen lips and tiptoes away on five-inch heels. The giddy blonde then passes the left suit, the owner of deep chocolate eyes, a glass of some posh wine — under the base is her 'business card'.
Ino Yamanaka
Professional Whatever-You-Want-Me-To-Be
He feels it as she hands him the glass, and smirks at her bold gesture but says nothing. She twirls gracefully and makes her way to me; while I desperately wish that she changes her mind last minute and takes any seat in the house except the one beside me. But she crashes on the old cushioned chair and begins to brag about how she gives it ten hour tops before she gets a frantic phone call, then wiggles her fingers in his-majesty's direction. He takes a delicate sip while flipping the card into the inner pocket of his jacket. The move is stealthy, and masterfully swift…he's quick with his fingers…
The thought unnerves me for some reason.
Then a phone rings and Jacques, the gayest man in the bank industry, is chatting away with a horrible accent. So I'm peacefully ignoring Ino's gloating when a cold shouted, "Sakura!" hits me like a crashing copter. I ascend, my dubious journey ignored since everyone is far too busy gossiping and betting on our guests' nationalities.
So I reach what's-his-name and he says, "It seems Mr. Miyuki and Mr. Tanaka are interested in viewing their second vault. Kei only has the key to the first so you shall present him with the key to 1466. It would be unprofessional for him to leave the clients by themselves, and since Mrs. Tokiwa is absent today from her post, you are second in command and training for the assistant position, thus you will retrieve the key. Is that understood?"
I'm the understudy of the understudy. This job is taking me places.
"Yes," I respond, and he leads me to the same oak doors.
What happens next is unimportant. Bank security is the same general crap anywhere you go. Eventually I'm just bitter and alone in a little white-schemed room filled with boxes and coded screens. I breezily walk to 1466, pinch in the necessary security numbers andvoilà, whose got a shiny silver key?
Unfortunately, I do.
Another narrow lobby, three knocks, and the door to the vault is open. I enter…pretty much into hell.
Kei's bleeding to death on the floor, beaten to a pulp, with his right wrist handcuffed to his left ankle. He resembles a guttered boar. I freeze in the entryway moronically but the door closes behind me violently nonetheless, then an arm snakes around my neck and a cold hand is over my mouth.
This couldn't be happening. It was Wednesday.
The blond one, you know, Gigglypuff, is leaning against some deposit boxes, one hand teasing his spiky locks, the other twirling a sleek gun. How the hell did they pass a weapon through security? You're probably wondering. I'll answer the ambiguities later, so far, you just need a hazy summary.
So he who would eventually earn the title of Fluffy is behind me, takes me to the front of cursed box 1466 and says, "Open it." The hand around my throat is suddenly gone, but now I have a gun to the side of my head, and it is most unpleasing.
Absentmindedly I notice he smell like a Gucci fragrance.
I struggle to fit the key into the socket since I'm trembling pathetically, but eventually do so. I'm then thrown aside like a sack of potatoes beside Kei as the stacked money is raided out of the box and put into black bags that they most definitely did not have before. I'm hyperventilating, crammed on the floor like a newborn premature larva that wants to just crawl back in the womb, or under an unsuspecting human being's skin.
I'm yanked by the back of my shirt and placed before them as a human shield. As we pass through security no one stops us. I suppose no one wants the blood of some girl in their hands. Not necessarily because they care about my wellbeing, but the comfort of one's own conscience is indisputably important.
Of course, the thought of saving sleep cost every single one of them their lives. It was a rather brutal strategy, use me as a bulletproof vest and don't begin attacking until you're three feet from the door of the next destination. I just closed my eyes the entire time, hearing thirsty bullets breaking into concrete and flesh, sometimes whisking by me with only an inch of distance so that I could feel the pressure of velocity prickling my tiny hairs.
And then we reached the front lobby, and I take a deep breath of relief, and we're now under the main lights, and there's fucking gunfire everywhere. It was as though some macho showdown was taking place in the midst of our absence.
Fluffy's grip on my shirt falters, and he rips my nametag off which falls to the floor soundlessly, while he and his sick partner look for cover while firing back at what I'm guessing is their worst-enemies, or some crappy plot twist like that.
I crawl on all fours like a dog.
It's wasn't the police that much I could tell, these bullets were not coming from the outside. It's not the bank's security that's causing the resistance either; I know this because I have to creep over both fat guards' bodies as I make my way to my desk. But why my desk anyways? Any desk would be good cover, right? But somehow I feel that I'll be safer beneath my own.
Some good that fucking did me…
Half an hour later and guess where I am? Blindfolded and gagged in the back of a stolen mustang with handcuffed hands digging into the seat leather between my stocking-clothed legs. I can feel a warm thigh whisking against my left side, and my right, which means I'm the lucky fifth passenger that gets to be stuck in the star center. Where I'm most likely to get my brains blown to bits by a pursuing police car. But I haven't heard any sirens…
In fact, I haven't heard a single car horn or foreign engine for the past twenty minutes.
We haven't stopped at any red lights either…
I never pleaded or mumbled incoherently with heartwarming sincerity, even before my mouth-restrain. No, "Please don't kill me!" or "I have an imaginary daughter!" slipped from my lips. That'll just irritate them and earn me a hard blow to the cheek, I'm not stupid, and I've seen big heist films.
Half an hour? What am I saying? It's not like I can actually keep time telepathically. It could be nighttime for all I know. To both my pleasure and utter dismay the auto comes to a halt, all the doors are opened simultaneously and I'm shoved out via shoulder push.
There's nothing I hate more than walking blind like a terminal ward patient. When I was a kid my classmates would love to play Marco Polo during physical education but I'd skip the experience. A scraped knee for five minutes of stupid amusement? No thanks prick, go learn your timetables.
"Look over there. It seems Kakashi beat us yet again. Son of a bitch drives like a maniac…"
My heels are digging into the ground, which seems to be some type of soggy dirt.
"What the fuck…" whom I guess is Gigglypuff, and leading me, murmurs disbelievingly, after I hear the hard thrashing of what sounds like a sliding steal door crashing open.
There's a breathy minute of metal brushing cloth.
My back is pressed against a strong chest, and an arm is extended over my right shoulder. I know this position. Guess who's the disposable shield yet again?
"What? No confessions?"
A dark chuckle. "I knew you were a rat."
"Did you fucking kill him!"
"Everyone calm the fuck down."
"Screw this shit! You all have ten seconds to tell me what the hell is going on or I'm blowing off heads."
I'm hyperventilating again, only this time I hesitantly raise my trembling fingers to my blindfold and fold it up a peep over my right eye. Before me lie four gorgeous mass murders pointing ugly guns at one another in a perfect square, three directed at me, while a body lies crucified against the opposite wall, burning to a crisp, surrounded by large bags of bleach-branded heroin, and the number 1466 lies written above with coagulated human blood.
My eye begins to twitch.
I lose my composure, pull the cloth gag down to my chin and scream, "I'm pregnant!"
.
-x-
.
AN: The ramification of nausea, drugged bed rest, and a lazy morning. Something random, not my usual style, and with no editing. A small side-project and my reminiscent gift to Chuck, king of pulp-cult.
Disclaimer: Naruto rightfully belongs to Mashashi Kishimoto.
I'll say this now.
If you're looking for a happy ending…you're in the wrong story…