~Scheherazade~

"Daddy, tell me a story." A little girl. Not Cirrus. Cirrus took science over stories and manuals over imagination since before forever. The little girl is Alma. Sister. The good sister. She crawls onto Daddy's not-yet-perforated lap with her not-yet-bloodied hands, little palms so soft and sweet like the inside of a dream just before you wake.

Daddy smiles and taps his nose. "I know just the one. Let's see now. It's very exciting, and it might scare you. Are you sure you want to hear it?"

"Yes! Tell me!"

He hugs her tight, shifts in his chair, takes a breath, and-

Pounding! Feet pounding, so so hard, on the packed ground like she's never run before. It seemed as flat and sensible as a program: run(loop)grab blanket in five feet(deposit aroundwaist)get knife in ten more feet(deposit inbelt) and so on, but she missed the blanket and the quarrier got the pack and she tripped getting the knife, and there's no loop now, it's all messed up, her perfect program glitched. What can she do what can she do whatcanshedowhatwhatwhat-

Nine! The Nine girl, sharp and sudden as a broken bone, and as likely to make her scream. Cirrus knows that kind of face. In a flash, she sees with ice-stream clarity what will happen, it won't be quick, so much red, who would take their time with it well apparently this freak, and she's not the only one who's going to play this game. Programs glitching on all sides. Engine compromised.

Nine lunges, and-

"But what did the witch do then, Daddy?" Voice like candyfloss has Alma, she does. Cirrus is a crow next to her. And it's not logical, not smart, not sensible, it's only immature and babyish and everything she's worked against for always, but-

But-

Nobody's ever said Cirrus was darling. That's Alma. She's never been adorable, nice, charming, nothing little girls are supposed to be. And that should be more than okay. She's not a little candyfloss girl, she's the cold hard mean pit at the center of the cherrysweet family. But just once, once ever, she couldn't have been cute instead of striking? Friendly, not interesting? The one you went to talk to instead of goggle at? It's damaging to her psychological and social development, that's what it is. That's the poster she pastes over the barebones reality.

"The witch, Daddy? What did she do to the kids?"

"Oh, I'm not sure you want to hear that."

The bright side? Her vocal cords are getting a workout like they never have. The not so bright side?

FUCK, DAMNIT, DAMNIT TO HELL AND BACK, fuckohfuck this hurts!

Wait, there's another bright side! Cirrus now knows the fascinating details of how much blood loss results, how hard it is to stagger across grass soaked with bodily fluids, how horrifying it is holding your own guts in when a machete is introduced midst your intestines by a grinning madwoman and you cut your hands holding that machete inside because you can't pull it out now or you'll die even though your animal instincts roar in your head get out hurt get out hurt get out hurt-

Cirrus is screaming. Somewhere far away, her feet slip and stumble and slide toward the westward forest, the quarrier who gave her such the open-mouthed pitying look in the beginning cuts down Nine, lips stretched and grimacing not parted in sorrow, and a battle rages around the little girl who thought she'd be the only one to play. But that isn't happening anywhere near her, it can't be. There's only the box she's trapped in with the pain and bile and painpainpain like nothing ever before, and anyone who says emotional or mental pain can compare at all to this can feed themselves into a meat grinder, because Cirrus is screaming and she can't get out, she can't, she can't get out of the box.

"That's a ridiculous story," Cirrus says from her corner and her grimy dogeared physics textbook. Daddy has just finished his tale, and candygirl Alma beams and bounces around the room like a windup toy. "There should be a lesson in it. The kids went looking for the magic house, disobeyed everyone smarter than they were, trusted the witch, and still got away with her treasure. They deserved some kind of retribution."

Daddy laughs. "Ah, Cirrus. You don't have to look for lessons in everything. Maybe the lesson was actually to go and look for the magic house. If you don't, you won't meet the witch, but you'll never find out what's inside."