Disclaimer: I don't own Rule of Rose
A/N this is dedicated to PokerNemesis on the gamefaqs board who I consider to be the leading authority on rule of rose. Without his deep analysis of the game I wouldn't have written this fic or understood as much of the game. Or been half as disterbed by it...
She walks into the room a broken adult and doesn't expect to come out any better.
The doctor peers at her over the rim of her glasses. She looks so much like Meg that you can hear her voice in your head. "Well, Jennifer I'm here to help you. I'm going to ask you a few questions..."
All you hear is "Jen-I-fer" chanted over and over in your head.
XXXXXXXXXX
//////////// Jen-I-fer ////////////////
Have you ever been loved?
//////////// Jen-I-fer ////////////////
The sunbeam was broken by the leaves on the trees causing the lights to dance on her and Wendy as they played outside the orphanage. Wendy kissed you in the garden and you kissed back. You fumbled together innocently and sometimes your name would be Jennifer and sometimes it would be Joshua.
But every time you were always the prince and Wendy was always your princess.
//////////// Jen-I-fer ////////////////
Who's your best friend?
//////////// Jen-I-fer ////////////////
A dog with golden fur and brown eyes. He was lively and full of sound. They played together always and never a harsh word said between you. Unlike the orphanage you were always welcomed and happy here. Your best friend.
"Choose who's going to die you or the dog?" Diana said in her cold way.
You turned to look into the trusting eyes of your best friend. He cocked his head to the side unaware of what was happening. He yelped as she was the first to strike him with the iron bar. He lay inside the bag broken and bloody because the little people told you you had to kill your best friend. You handed him over to the aristocrats and helped as they beat him to death.
Wendy smiled at you and kissed you before gleefully proclaiming "now you can be my prince!"
//////////// Jen-I-fer ////////////////
What are you afraid of?
//////////// Jen-I-fer ////////////////
He was hunched over on all fours all bulging muscle and dark hair. His dim witted eyes stared at you with a madness that burned itself into your soul. His entire being screamed threat as he lurched towards you the bodies of all the orphans lay scattered around the courtyard making the cobble stones run red with blood. You remember sliding on the wet stones lightly scraping the palms of your hands. He rears up and you can see Wendy's small broken body on the steps where he left her...
...you pass him the gun.
The thing your most afraid of is how happy you were when he killed himself...
//////////// Jen-I-fer ////////////////
What is the worst thing you have ever seen?
//////////// Jen-I-fer ////////////////
Amanda asked you to find her some scissors so she could make dolls. You know there's scissors in the medical room so you go there and open the drawer at the side of the bed. You scream and keep screaming long after Wendy finds you and pulls you away.
You don't think you have ever stopped screaming.
Not since you saw the small slime encrusted fetus stuffed in the drawer on top of the instruments that was used to rip it from inside its mother. Clara and Mr Hoffman's child that never got the chance to grow up and become just like them.
//////////// Jen-I-fer ////////////////
What's the worst thing you have ever done?
//////////// Jen-I-fer ////////////////
"I don't know if I can do this..." you say softly.
"Nonsense," Wendy's hand is on your hip and her front presses against your back. She breaths softly in your ear and you shiver despite the smell of medicine that always hangs around her now "you know what he did to Clara. Will you let him start on Diana and us as well?"
Mr Hoffman is curled up and bound in front of you all. The others are waiting to start its only you that's hesitating. Wendy's soft hand closes around yours as she reminds you "Princes must protect their princesses" and together you strike at Mr Hoffman until he doesn't move anymore.
//////////// Jen-I-fer ////////////////
Who is it you see when you look in the mirror?
//////////// Jen-I-fer ////////////////
You see Jennifer 19 years old who has forgotten everything about her past. She looks happy and carefree.
You see Jennifer 19 years old and remembers everything. She looks twisted and horrible like Stray Dog.
You see Jennifer 12 years old with Wendy clinging to her. She looks hopeful because she has a new best friend called Brown.
You see Jennifer 11 years old who wears a brown paper bag with the face of an imp. She looks older than she should and afraid of what she's becoming.
You see Jennifer 10 years old who no longer thinks monsters are made up. She looks scared and trapped.
You see Joshua, Gregory's son and Wendy's prince. The boy that she never was and better than any girl she could ever be.
You're not sure which one, if any, are you at all...
//////////// Jen-I-fer ////////////////
What do you think is wrong with you?
//////////// Jen-I-fer ////////////////
You spent two and a half years in the orphanage and sometimes think you never left. There are times when you are talking you curtseys afterward. When someone hurts you your fist clenches around the revolver that always seems to be with you now. When you see children out in the street you wonder why they're laughing when they should be cleaning. When men touch you you shrug it off but when old men do it you think that's how its supposed to be. You shower compulsively afraid of anyone thinking your filthy. You sometimes tell people your name is Joshua and your father is Gregory. When you cut your hair short your not surprised to think of yourself as 'he'.
But the thing you think is wrong with you is the sadistic impulses that seize you because its that time of the month and you haven't given your gift.
That house left its mark on you and you think you're just wrong...
//////////// Jen-I-fer ////////////////
What is your deepest secret?
//////////// Jen-I-fer ////////////////
Its not that you helped to kill a man. Two men. But that your were more happy as Joshua than you ever were as Jennifer.
He never killed two men and a woman.
He never found a fetus in a drawer.
He never kissed Wendy and tasted acid on his tongue.
He was never an aristocrat that wore an imp mask.
He never killed his best friend.
And he never enjoyed doing any of it as much as Jennifer did.
//////////// Jen-I-fer ////////////////
What would you not like to be when you grow up…?
//////////// Jen-I-fer ////////////////
Head of an orphanage filled with little girls and boys. You would carry a stick and beat all the imps and have your own Clara and Wendy. You would make your own little Jennifer and twist her to follow in the foot steps of this house just like You. You would touch your Diana and torture your Amanda and all the while you would keep your Stray Dog out the back least anyone ever suspect you stuffed a fetus in a drawer...
//////////// Jen-I-fer ////////////////
…And what do you think you are?
//////////// Jen-I-fer ////////////////
Someone fighting against fate.
//////////// Jen-I-fer ////////////////
If you had one wish what would it be?
//////////// Jen-I-fer ////////////////
The sunbeams shone brokenly through the trees making Wendy flicker as you danced together in circles. You're both laughing and out of breath uncaring that Gregory and his son Joshua are giving you strange looks as they pass. You fall on the grass away from the others and kiss sweetly but are forced to stop as Brown nudges you wanting to play. Wendy throws the stick as hard as she can and there's no wheezing cough afterwards. You follow Brown holding tightly to Wendy's hand.
You're both very happy...
XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Jennifer blinks away the tears and refuses to answer the questions. She gets up to leave and boards a bus to get as far away from the memory of the orphanage as possible. She's almost forgotten everything about her past when a boy asks her to read him a story...