Author's Notes:
This is a side project I have decided to pursue while I'm working on "For Whom the Gods Lament". This fiction will only be 2 chapters long, and the thought of having a story with Alicia and Beth piqued my interest, since I think the two of them are the hardest to elaborate giving their personalities and character progression in the manga are a vast wasteland, and it's been a challenge so far, but nonetheless, fun.
A word of warning, this story is of a dark romance, and more so, an unending cycle of tragedy.
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Claymore, plain and simple.
The White Room
I am a killer. I am a monster, and my sister is the bearer of all things miserable.
I fight and I fight, with blades protruding from my skin as I transform into a repulsive being, but even the pain I feel as I morph does not begin to match Beth's burdens to carry. They say awakening is pleasurable, maybe even comparable to a sexual orgasm, but I do not feel pleasure as my body breaks and shatters. I have never felt a sexual climax to begin with, as that sensation is as foreign to my body as any other humanistic feeling.
My giant bones dislocate too close under my skin. The joints separate from my skeleton as cartilages rip and muscles stretch and contract. My body makes disgusting cracking sounds as I revert back to my subhuman form, but my face flushes in an attempt to conceal the unbearable pain that is my physical being bending and folding. An involuntary tear betrays me, and Beth, ten feet away from me, falls onto the ground like a bag of bones. Her face reflects mine perfectly, and I pity her for that. The dizziness that clouds my head vanishes, and I run to my precious Beth, who lies there on the ground weakly. Her breathing is ragged, and I can see her chest rise and fall. I can't tell if my face contorts to that of worry, but I fear for her. I fear for her because she is the one that carries all the weight. And what do I do? She is the one that deals with my naked soul interlinking with hers. She is the one that carries and feels my fears, my anxiety, my hysteria, my paranoia, my anger, my sorrow, my insanity, my hatred, my frenzy, my vomit inducing emotions that contaminate me like an incessant tumor. I pour everything vile and sickening that is me into her, and I drown her with my very essence as she absorbs my existence without a shred of complaint. I feel nothing while the two of us bond, and it is the only time I rest in peace. When my body changes to that of a monster's, I kill creatures I am programmed to kill with the swipe of my blades, and for a mere moment I am free of the ugliness that is myself.
"Beth. We are done for today." I kneel down at my sister. The forest around us coos against the night winds, and maybe if I was human I would have the privilege to shiver from the cold.
She looks up at me with her blank face, and sweat shines against her temples. "But we haven't even attempted to fully sync." Her voice differs from mine, as she has a slightly higher pitch. Her words are monotone, even more so than my own, and I grab her hand to help her stand up. Her black armor is slightly dirtied, so I pat the dust off her attire.
"We can train more tomorrow." I say, walking off towards an area where we haven't demolished it yet. The trees surrounding us are broken to tiny bits, and I prefer to get some rest under the sheltering shadows rather than directly under the moonlight. Beth quietly follows me, but I sense she is still strained from our session. I look back at her, and she halts her tracks. Her youki spikes momentarily and I sense she is startled. I remain silent for a second, baffled that she is baffled, but I quickly brush it off to ask her my questions: "Are you tired, sister? Maybe even hungry?"
I look at her with a distantly steely gaze, and she returns it with a look that matches mine. She utters nothing.
"I will get you some fruits then." I softly say. I was about to jump off to the nearest tree, but once again, my beloved sister falls to the ground, on her knees this time. "Beth!" I yell as I return to her.
She struggles to get up, so I grab her by the torso and easily place her on my shoulder, her buttocks next to my face. Her undignified position, to my educated guess, is uncomfortable as my black shoulder guard pushes against her stomach, and her upper body hangs upside down against my back. She lets out a grunt as the air in her lungs was pushed out, but I keep on striding until I find the nearest tree. She does not struggle as we are walking in that awkward pose, and I place her against a wooden trunk. I look down at her, and she looks up at me. I can only imagine how she copes with this face of mine, knowing that she is stuck with me ever since we were children. She as a child was livelier and happier than this, but living this life, her awareness of herself degenerated to that of a blank slate. Or maybe it's me I'm describing.
"Stay here. I'll be back right away."
She says nothing and looks down at the ground with that listless face of hers. I jump on the nearest tree limb and scan the vicinity, trying to find anything edible within nature. I hop from branch to branch until I pluck off a large fruit, and quickly return to Beth.
"Eat." I hand the food to her, and she quietly nibbles. My silver eyes land sternly on her figure. The two of us exist in isolation, except for the limited interactions we get with the higher ups and the rest of the top five soldiers. Ophelia despises Beth and I, but I do not know why. We didn't do anything malicious to that capricious thing. I do not want to be hated. I just want to plunge my knives into anything that moves, so for a measly second I can feel serenity.
She is thankful for my kind deed; that I know. Her long, straight locks drape all over her head, except for her face. Her bangs are chopped just above her brows, and they almost look V-shaped as her blondish fringe drapes on her forehead. Her eyes are a sea of pure melted steel: a metallic silver that forms a bridge into my soul whenever hers connects with mine, and through a simple eye contact I know what she yearns for in that very moment. She is finally finished devouring the fruit with three bites, so I sit beside her and feel the winds against me.
"You hurt me, sister. Every time I let you in."
I pause to look at her. The rhythm of her voice is droning, and it could lull a person to sleep. My face does not show any signs of emotion, but my innards twist as I hear those words. She does not look at me, but I stare at her vacantly for a while. The silence is heavy and I can't take it anymore. I elegantly scoot in front of her. I say nothing as I draw my blade from my back, and point it against my heart. I offer her the handle, and she looks at me emptily with that trademark gaze that makes me want to rip a creature's entrails with my bare hands. I put more pressure on the blade against my chest, and she looks at the handle, but not touch it. My adrenaline races. The moonlight illuminates my form, and my ebony armor blends with the darkness.
"If I hurt you, then hurt me back."
She slowly shakes her head in resistance as she sat in front of me.
"Impair me, Beth."
She shakes her head again, but this time, faster. Never had I seen her neutral face twist until now. Her hands turn into fists against the soil, and I raise my voice at her.
"You exist to feel my pain, and I exist to give you pain. Here is your chance to be the provider for once."
My eyes do not glare at her; they just watch in waiting. My soul is screaming, pleading for her to stab me, so I can give her what she wants. I love my sister so, and I cannot deny her desire. I can feel the blade piercing through my layers of skin before it thrusts against my flesh. Blood seeps through my garments and I look down to see the giant blade that connects with me. Beth sits there with her hands tightly knit around the handle, but she's looking down, in shame perhaps, so I cannot gaze at her doll like face as I start to feel unbearably cold, and blackness creeps to my vision. As darkness falls, she finally looks back at me, and I can feel her satisfaction as she rushes to me and holds my bloody body against hers. I hyperventilate to make up for my draining oxygen and I am on the verge of fainting from the lack of blood that stream out of me like a river. My breathing is loud and fast, and I feel as though I am a fish out of water. My pulse stops for a second. It's as if my lungs are never going to be content with the air I take in, and my eyelids are already closed halfway when Beth conjoins her lips against mine. I see a void of black, but it quickly changes to the image of Beth as she breaths in my airway. She thrusts her palms firmly against my chest in many quick strokes before breathing into me again, and I cough violently minutes later as I exhale her borrowed air. I gasp a lungful to inhale afterwards as my meaty gash starts to slowly heal. The fact that I am an offensive warrior is bothersome when it comes to tending wounds, but I don't care about something so trivial, so insignificant. It is not of my concern if I cease to exist in this world for I am already dead. All I care about is to grant Beth's wants and needs, so she can receive more pieces of me in return.
My head lies on her lap while she sits with her legs folded underneath her. Her voice cracked a hint of emotion. Which one it is, I cannot pinpoint: "Did that please you, Alicia?"
Beth usually does not speak as much, so I wonder what sets her off to be so talkative today. I found myself inconceivably sleepy, as Beth's blonde locks tickle my cheek, and I can think no more.
"Wake up, number one."
My eyes flutter open and I find myself within the Organization's headquarters in Staff, Sutafu. Artificial light blinds me temporarily and I see Ophelia's face sneering at my direction. A man in black, my, Beth's and Ophelia's handler, stands besides her. Ophelia's arms are crossed, while a mocking smirk stretches on her lips. My memories start to materialize, and I look around immediately and scan the area of Beth. I notice myself lying on a white bed, my black under armor tightly clinging onto my curves. I cannot tell how much time has passed after I was rendered unconscious. My wound is already nonexistent, and the dark-clothed man walks towards me. I have seen his face age and wrinkle throughout the years that he has raised my sister and I since we were infants, but never did he show evidence he had a compassionate soul living inside him . His eyes look straight at me as his metallic boots clink against the floor, and his cloak drapes over him as he comes towards me.
Ophelia snickers shamelessly as my jaw bone cracks from his fist touching my cheek. Her giggle then bursts into a sadistic laughter as I cough up blood. Her white teeth shows from her gleeful state, and she even goes as far as to point and cackle at me as Linos, this man before me, grabs my neck and starts to beat my head to a pulp with his other arm. I am used to this kind of treatment, and so is my dear sister. The other soldiers do not get this sort of conduct from our authorities, but it's not in my place to question. That revolting laughter continues to ring in my ears as knuckles crash against my skull and face, and my blood tastes disgustingly sweet despite its iron smell. His face and head is clear of any mane, and his darkish brown eyes stare at me with a certain hollowness I have grown to replicate throughout the years. He shows no mercy, no apologies as he wipes his bloody knuckles clean with his sleeve after several minutes of continuously maiming me.
"You fail to utilize Beth's powers, and you manage to almost kill yourself at the same time. Do not test us, Alicia, or we will destroy you as fast as we created you."
I am sitting up from the bed in my bloodied state, and I can only imagine how my face looks. Perchance a belly cut in half, and all the sloppy redness spilling out from the deformed orifice can compare to my head. A certain dizziness envelops me again, but I completely brush off Linos' threat. "Where is Beth?" I ask, without a rising inflection within my question. My words are carefully pronounced to the point where its rhythm is never changing. My head feels as if it's about to explode from the blunt pain, but with years of experience, I have mastered the art of parading my face free of expressions.
He looks down at me while he stands near my bed. "She is recovering like you are in the next room, so there is no need to worry about her."
"Did you beat her too?" I look at the wall as I spoke. My blood heavily drips to the white sheets, but it does not infuriate me, nor do I fear my situation with Ophelia and Linos.
Ophelia decides while Linos mutilated me to back herself up against the walls. She leans with her arms still crossed, and a cat like smile carves her face. "First, you ask Beth to stab you, and now this." A glint shines through her callous, silver eyes. Her tone of voice is playfully childish alongside that underlying sadism that she possesses. "You must be in heaven, you disgusting masochist."
"Enough." Linos turns his back at me. He starts to step towards the door of the room, and his hand finds the doorknob before looking firmly at Ophelia. "Number four, deal with her in any means necessary until she knows her place in this establishment. She cannot be breaking orders, and for that, break her will that she arrogantly started to form out of nowhere until it becomes nothing."
This sociopath is just atrocious. I follow their rules and guidelines with no objections and this is what my sister and I get, torture from the most sadistic being imaginable, and the irony is she, who murders innocent civilians and fellow soldiers to amuse her because in that moment she is mildly bored, is the one that punishes us for our so called felonies that would not even matter to any warrior ranked below my sister and I. I have seen her evil ways, but it is in my direct orders to not associate myself in any scandals. I am to be exiled in the dark, and it shall always remain so. My body has grown accustomed to their tormenting, since it's nothing even remotely close to the painful process of my body awakening. I find myself still staring at the walls, and I hear Ophelia getting closer and closer to me. I hear her cracking her knuckles, and she stands there before me, readying her fist to meet with me. She thrusts her arm forward, and if I am inferior to the ways of battle, her attack would be nothing but a blur plummeting inches away from my face. I feel the winds move my locks as she abruptly stops centimeters away from my nose.
"You know, your 'sister'," She puts an emphasis on sister. "is such a liar." She withdraws her fist, and bends over so that her face is uncomfortably close to mine. That uncanny grin still resides on her sarcastic face, and her eyes wrinkle upwards, as if it adds any genuineness to that smile that hides all that is rotten and wretched. "She lies to you all the time, and you don't even know half of it." Her arms are latched on her hips, and for a second, I craved to strangle her with her intestines.
Maybe this is a reason why limited contact is required from Beth and I. This was bound to happen, and I inwardly relish her facial expression as my right hand rips through her skin and found itself moving around inside her stomach. I show no movement of my brows, nor any wrinkles in my face, nor any curling or scowling of my lips, but Ophelia, her face is flooded with fear once I stare at her, my silver eyes scorching holes through her soul. Beth should not be mentioned by any creatures unworthy. Ophelia is outwardly surprised from my attack, and there is a reason why I am number one. I have never hurt any of these foul beasts in black, nor their pawns in silver, but these past hours prove to be different from my usual existence. A trigger was pulled from within me, and I couldn't control myself as I play with her warm bowels. She twitches in pain as my fingers stir around her raw flesh, but I am not as malicious as her, so I pull my red-coated limb outside her and instead, I submit her to meet the ground with a pathetic amount of my youki. It's not that I dislike words; I just do not want to waste my breath with this gorgon, or to the every bag of meat that includes the parental figures that abandoned us to these higher ups that murdered me so long ago. Beth is the only one that deserves an utterance from me, but I will start making exceptions, beginning today.
"Talk about Beth again, and I will toy with your insides longer next time." I still sit on my bed. Ophelia's so frail and soft. Maybe I should have used less than five percent to immobilize her.
"You bitch!" She flinches while she struggles to stand up against my youki that's hammering her down. A desperate explosion of laughter takes her over, and her downward brows create grooves on her forehead. "You're nothing but a lab rat to these humans, and every time you get too close to your" she pauses, and I wonder why. "sister, they'll do to you what they always do, and you're already pushed too far to pull back from your fucked up cycle of sin!" Her throat sounds raw from all the screaming and saliva erupts from her mad ranting. I stare at her, my face a bloody but blank canvas, and she works herself up even more because I give her no reaction, no satisfaction. I deem her no threat to me now, as she just kneels there weakly, so I release the pressure that binds her, and she quickly gets up. She's mortified, and she curses me before slamming the door so loud it almost breaks. Her foul blood leaves a trail, but I look away and patiently heal myself, an image of Beth soothing me playing in my mind.
"This is your chance to make up for your mistake from a week ago."
Linos stands between Beth and I, and we tower over him quietly. The organization's thick forests easily conceal our headquarters, and Beth and I begin to walk towards the massive sea of trees.
"You are lucky you two are always easily forgiven. If a lower ranked warrior even dares to disobey us, her head is the price." He stands still, his cloak moving with the winds, and watches us vanish within the woods until he sees no blackness. "Achieve and perfect your soul link, Alicia and Beth the Black."
I look at Beth and study her. I sense there is something wrong with her; she acts as if she's scared of me. Her outer body language is the same, as she doesn't look at me and keeps her distance as usual, but I can feel her fear oozing out of her pores. I don't like her feeling unpleasant. I could even say it makes me feel unpleasant that she feels unpleasant. My mouth twitches downward, and I command my sister to stop.
"Why are you afraid of me, Beth?"
My heart explodes.
Beth stands so close against me, her palms caress my cheeks, her shoulders slightly rise backwards, her back curving into an erotic pose. Her lips kiss me for the second time, and my hands open wide in shock. My beloved Beth, my sister, my only companion in this reality taints the innocence of my lips yet again but this time intentionally. I am beyond dumbfounded, and my mind can't process the meaning of her gesture. She is the only one I have in this world, and in this moment she blurs the lines in our relationship. Who was I to judge her? What kind of love, if any emotions, do we profess to each other, if we live in an existence where we are in solitary confinement almost every day, almost left to no one but to ourselves? Beth is my world, and I am hers. We live in a torturous prison that we can never escape, and she is my earth, my sun. She is all that I know, and my eyes close as I accept her love, whichever form it may be.
For the first time, it is her turn to pour her everything unto me. I stay immobilized as I unwillingly take her in, and my eyes roll backwards under my quivering lids as Beth enters the deepest corners of my mind. All shades of her emotions, from the beginning of her existence to now, crash heavily into me with the speed of light, and I wonder how my brain managed to grasp the thousands of stimuli without the outcome of mental retardation from the information overload. My closed eyes shed a tear. So this is the torment Beth has to endure, every single day.
I can't physically see her, as my eyelids twitch and shake involuntarily while closed, but I know she's transforming into her awakened form. There's too much to take in at once. I smell what she has smelled, I taste what she has tasted, I hear what she has heard, and while those senses erupt around me, pictures and scenes of her memories play in front of me, but something weakened my focus. Her memories of our childhood and adolescence do not match mine at all. I close my lids tightly, and my lip quivers uncontrollably as I watch her recollections, the moving pictures as vivid as day:
Beth lived as a human with a family in a city called Sh'iadonlem. Her hair was a dirty auburn before she was made a killer, and she lived a normal, happy human life until men in black massacred her father, her mother, and her brother. She mourned and grieved, and she even tried to defend herself against the ominous figures that stood before her and the corpses in her very house, but she was too small and weak to have done anything. She was ten, and tears dirtied her face as these intruders carried her off to the night. She was shoved in a human sized cage, and a black cloth draped over it, covering her sense of sight. She had a sizzling personality with a sharp tongue. She cursed and insulted them as she cried hysterically, and she only stopped when her throat could no longer reverberate a sound.
It was a week after the incident, and Beth was transformed into a silver creature. She was still just a child, but she was no longer human. Her lively personality dramatically regressed, and she reverted so far back that she reached the state of temporary catatonia. Her feelings of grief and sorrow for her family were too much for a child to handle, and as a way to protect her sanity, she killed a part of herself, shutting off her emotions and awareness of the outside world. A month afterwards, she started responding again, and her basic soldier training officially began. She had special treatment, unlike the other cadets, and that earned her a target for bullying and mockery.
Three years later, she had mastered the art of wielding the heavy blade, and she showed no remorse as she sliced the meat apart off a youma. She wiped the sweat off her brows, and she was respectfully interrupted by a younger Linos. A child stood beside him, and she was the exact height of Beth. That child was me. Beth stared at me in curiosity, and she asked why she had to team up with a weaker, less efficient fighter. She received a verbal beating from Linos, and she eventually accepted me.
A year passed since our first encounter. The two of us hid in a cave deep within the forests of Hanel, Lautrec from a group of awakened beings we were still too young and inexperienced to vanquish. The emotions she felt in that moment was of pleasant surprise amidst the chaos as I pressed my lips against hers. She felt at peace in that fragment of time as we shared a kiss.
Six months later, she felt fear and excitement as I held her hand and encouraged her to train harder, for she had massive potential. Her cheeks burned red, and she looked at me. I smiled at her while a chain of youma corpses encircle us in an unnamed village in Mucha. She liked the gesture, and she tightened her grip on my hand, but she is unnerved, almost expecting a negative outcome from our relationship. A week after, she yelled at me in bafflement as I pushed her away mentally. I acted as if nothing was between us, so she dashed off and left me to myself in the headquarters.
Two months later, I hugged her tightly as the two of us shiver at night. We were both fourteen, and I professed my love to her for the first time after the few years we have worked together. I called her Beth, but never my sister as I do now. The forests in the headquarters were drenched in rain, and we had a stroke of luck as we found another cave within. Nobody knew about our missions except for the higher ups, as we are kept out of sight from the rest of the soldiers to follow our protocol as numbers one and two. Violet blood covered us, and she felt compelled to not say anything concerning my confession out of fear of something. We eventually headed back to the halls of the Organization headquarters, and Beth felt afraid as Linos and another man in black pulled me away from her. They took me in a room unknown, and she mentally beat herself.
Four months had passed, and we were fifteen. I accompanied Beth as I always do, but I treat her as nothing but a comrade. She was saddened, but she pushed it aside as she always does to a feeling. We walked the forest, and commenced our mission. Many weeks had passed, and she is in turmoil as I confessed my love to her the second time.
Two years had passed, and I confessed my love to her again, for the third time. We were both seventeen, and I asked her to run away with me, but we failed to do so. Lenos separated me from her again, and she ignored her screaming emotions as she saw me enter that dreaded room he always puts me in.
A year had passed, and we were eighteen. I confessed my love to her again for the fourth time, and she wearily accepted it, but she acted as if it wouldn't matter a day later.
Two years has passed, and we were twenty. I confessed my love yet again for the fifth time, and she looks at me without a sign of life in her doll-like face. I have loved her five times in these golden days I never knew I lived through.
In the course of her memories, I see myself talking and interacting with her from the time we first met to the most recent events. I see my face age slowly as all the years with her passed, and my emotions ranged from happiness, sadness, anger, jealousy, fear, arousal, and other unmentionables as I spent my days with her. The thousands of images, voices, sounds, smells, touches and tastes cluttering my brain came crashing to a halt.
I open my eyes as wide as I could, and I see Beth's awakened body revert back to her human form. I gasp for air desperately, and I grit my teeth so hard my jaw muscles ache. My brows twitch upwards as I look at Beth in disbelief. My heart pounds so loud I can hear it against my ears. Beth isn't my sister. She never was my flesh and blood. Pain stabs my heavy head, my lost memories flooding me, and in that very moment I know I lived a lie the whole time. I didn't grow up with Beth in my infant days. I wasn't her twin, it was impossible. My empty face contorts into that of grief, and I weep as I crawl on my hands and knees towards her weakening form. She was never the giver, she was never the one to be awakened, and now I know why. I wail loudly as my hands shakily grab her exhausted body, and I know in that moment of time that they never allowed her to pour herself unto me, because the second she did, Beth will unleash my real memories that the Organization tried to bury with the means of hypnotism. I now remember that horrid white room they always put me in: its emptily creamlike walls, its windowless isolation, and the men in black that always put me to a deep sleep. They poured a sea of lies unto me, thinking I once had a family with Beth as my sister, thinking we were both thrown towards the Organization's hands like garbage, and my whole existence that I thought I knew was shattered the second I look at Beth. They buried my true remembrances of the past and my sense of self so deep within me that I couldn't have retrieved it without Beth unlocking the truth.
I weep to the cruel gods. My recollections, my real memories with this mannequin-like goddess infect my core and I pick up and embrace the woman I have loved for decades. Her face reflects mine perfectly, and I had to get away from here. I grab and carry her on my back, and I never looked back as we vanish within the shadows and leaves, leaving the Organization behind for good.