HELLO MY NAME IS:
Mitsuru Kirijo
1. Boring Bricks.
Gurgle. Gurgle. Moan Moan.
Mitsuru Kirijo finds herself on the white tiles of the bathroom floor, holding herself steady against the porcelain throne.
She hears herself vomiting.
What, she doesn't know. She can't remember what she had last night.
But she throws up anyways; yellow and green chunks into a clear lake. Vomiting up vomit; more yellows and greens until it turns up red.
She stops, using a free hand to cover her mouth. There's a burning sensation along the back of her throat as she gags. Swipes away some residue clinging to her lips and gags some more when she brings her hand to eye level.
Free hand stained red,
and
then.
Black out. Did you hit your head?
Eyes close.
It's a dream again, He's in a crucifix pose (though she never was a good Christian girl).
Eyes open.
Groggy moan.
She finds herself on the floor of the bathroom, white tile lukewarm thanks to the heat. Head calmer than before, she slowly picks herself up and carries herself to the main quarters.
Stagger, stagger, until body collapses on the bed
and
then.
Stares at the ceiling. Embellished with popcorn kisses, her mind makes out shapes amongst the erratic patterns. A midget with a knife. A Knight with silver spurs. A woman riding a bull. Lovers tied up.
Closes her eyes and tries to remember anything from her past.
Just her name. She's from Japan. And.
And, that's it. That's all she can remember.
When she recollected her name a flood of familiar emotions rushed back to her, but like the dying embers of a dream, they faded away to ashes as soon as she had a chance to control herself.
Now she only has a name and a location of birth.
A sigh. She feels as if she does not have an identity. How can she, when she only clings to a name? There's no information attached to the name, no way to deduce who she really is.
She turns her head to the side to stare at the digital clock.
It reads eleven thirty.
She still has some time until her appointment. Taking the box of cigarettes and the Zippo away from one of the nightstands, she does the only thing she can do at the moment.
Click.
Mitsuru lights one up.
She decides to tidy herself up.
As soon as her cigarette finishes itself, she chose to inspect the bathroom whom had so graciously took in her classy behavior just mere moments before.
A simple white bathroom with your average toilet (whose current guest was a broth of human regurgitation) and a white curtain half concealing a bath that contained a metallic showerhead. The porcelain rim of a sink was sitting in between a mirrored medicine cabinet and was rested above a drawer that no doubt contained cleaning supplies. A towel rack carrying the eponymous item in a tacky peach color hung off precariously to the side of the sink's clan.
Walking towards the toilet, she investigated the throne's waters to find a broth of some unidentifiable color.
Wrinkling her nose in disgust, Mitsuru flushes the broth out of existence and closes the lid so that the world will not have to see anymore of the throne's injustice.
Next, she decided to check the medicine cabinet. Her reflection watched as Mitsuru tried to pry the medicine door open, only to find that the door would not move. Finding that it wouldn't budge, she then tried the drawer underneath the sink, only to discover that the drawer had a keyhole on one of the doors.
Sighing, she tried to open it. It was in vain. A flash of brilliance suddenly struck her; didn't the nightstand have a drawer? And weren't there two nightstands? She smiled to herself as she walked over to the main room.
Yes, the nightstand, whose top was currently occupied by the clock and the lamp, did indeed have a drawer, but it also had a lock.
As she made herself comfortable sitting in front of the nightstand, Mitsuru was disappointed to find that it wasn't a keyhole, but an electronic lock that needed a four digit combination to open.
She tried the year of her birth date, smiling as she punched in the numbers because she had the ability to remember what her actual birth date was.
Error, it blinked in green LED lights.
A frown. Alas, it was in vain.
She sighed, and tried to open it anyway. It would not give. Shrugging her shoulders in defeat, she picked herself off the carpeted floor and returned to the bathroom. Walking up to the medicine cabinet, she placed her finger along the edge of metal that connected the inside of the cabinet with the mirrored door. There it was, a groove where the key was supposed to go.
Her reflection bit its lips. Then rolled its eyes and looked over at the shower head.
The clock reads twelve.
She opened the door leading out of the room at twelve forty five and was immediately struck by intense sunshine. Sweating already her eyes quickly adjusted to the light, and from her position on the threshold of the door, she can see a rusted metal railing overlooking a vast expanse of desert landscape. Which was bizarre. Wasn't she in Japan? Did Japan have natural deserts?
She closed the door behind her, noting the shade that an awning above her provided. Shielding her eyes with her hand against the bright sunshine as she walked out of the shade and over to the railing, she supported her body against peeling white metal of the railing to get a better look. The dry yellows of the desert landscape stretched out for miles until it hit a wall of mountains; rocky, brown mountains that were totally unlike those Mitsuru knows of in Japan. In between where she currently was and the mountains was a long stretch of black highway that stretched out horizontally and, if she squinted her eyes just right, she can see the yellows of the center dividers.
Sighing because she had no idea geographically where she was, she decided to investigate her current location. She was on a platform with railing, so she immediately surmised that she was on the upper floors of a building. Letting the sun burn through her locks for one final time, she stepped back into the shade the awning provided her.
Turning to her left, she faced a pseudo hallway of sorts, a wall of doors stretched out for what seemed like forever before hitting a patch of blue sky. Each door, just like her own, had a rather large rectangular window with white venetian blinds to cover the contents of the room besides them. She must have counted ten, almost fifteen doors along the wall before losing count because of the disadvantage of her perspective.
Turning the opposite side, Mitsuru easily found the beginning of the hallway. Four doors, of which Mitsuru's was the fourth, lined a wall that lead all the way to a stair case, one that lead down and the other up.
Adjusting the white tank top she found in the drawer, she decided to move ahead downstairs. She stops in her tracks when she eyes a detail on her door. Tacked onto the door in black ceramic characters where the roman numerals for three. Just above it was an intricate masquerade mask of, what looked like, pink velvet coating its body and wings.
What Mitsuru found most odd most of all was the fact that her door had the numerals for three, and yet it was the fourth door in sequence.
Walking to her neighbor's door on her right, she saw that her neighbor's door had the numerals for six, and the one on her left had the number for eleven. They both also had intricate masques nailed over them.
Shrugging these details off as she made her way towards the staircase, she also noted as she walked to the staircase that the blinds to all three of her neighbor's windows were closed shut.
The stairwell leading to the top had a sign suspended by black velvet rope tied to the ends of the railings reading: "staff only," in beautiful cursive. Finding her ascension upstairs impeded upon, Mitsuru continued with her original plan to go downstairs.
She reaches the first floor, and is shocked by the contrast. The first floor was shielded from the sun by the second floor, and it consisted of an outside corridor with pillars supporting the first floor. The grays of concrete pavement stretched laterally in front of her for a short distant before hitting an empty driveway of black gravel.
The driveway was not what surprised Mitsuru. It was the fact that in contrast to the previous floor, this one only had four doors on the wall before the building actually finished at an angle. She was sure that on the previous floor, she could not even make out the end of the building, let alone any evidence that her peripheral vision allowed her to view the building ending at an angle.
And yet here it was, the building did most certainly end at the fourth room with a sharp angle.
Discerning the thought from her mind, she walked along the hallway taking note of the doors. The first one read staff, the next one read fourteen in the same numerals and a masque suspended over them and finally.
Stop. The third room had a window, just like the others, only the blinds on this one were actually open and allowed Mitsuru to see into it. Leaning against the window and shielding her eyes with her hands to get a better view, she peeked through the blinds. The room was empty and was the exact model of the one she found herself in. Bed with mundane headboard, nightstands with accompanying complimentary items. Same business. Only.
She took note that over the bed was a black cross. She had not noticed anything like that in her room. Maybe she'll find one? Shrugging, she turned towards the door. Same business as the rest, only the numerals on this one read zero.
She continued her trek and reached the last room. Just like the room before this one, the blinds were open, but Mitsuru did not have to peep through them for the door was wide open. Eyeing the adjacent door, which read one, she hesitatingly walked inside.
The room wasn't the largest, wasn't the smallest. It was a room of modest caliber and currently was a waiting room slash reception room. Chairs where against the both the right and left sides of the wall, and at both corners of the beginning of the room were desks heaped with old magazines and plotted pants that were supposed to cheer up anyone who looks at them.
In front of Mitsuru, just a few yards away, was a rather large desk of mahogany wood. On this desk sat a computer and various office supplies and.
And a man.
The man was currently sitting at the desk, eyeing the computer screen attentively and paying no attention whatsoever to Mitsuru. Finding herself at a loss for words at finding another living human being, she mustered up all the courage she could find before approaching the desk.
"Um…" her mouth was so dry, "Excuse me?"
This caught his attention. He looked away from the screen and locked eyes with Mitsuru.
A flash of remembrance from her part.
Do I know you? Came across her mind.
A goofy grin.
Where do I Know You?
"Well hello there, my sweet young thing,"
Goofy grin.
She eyed the name tag on his uniform.
It reads:
Junpei Iori.
Disclaimer
and
concrit greatly appreciated