Vincent
Even though she was acting like herself, I thought that there was something definitely off about Re-L. For one thing, she seemed fearful of me. Did the monster lurking inside of me have a way of following me around even when boxed up? Yes, Proxy One is a part of me, but he also isn't me.
I picked up the broken bowl and cleaned up the spilled contents as best I could. Re-L had already gone back outside into the cold where she would rather be than with the quasi-monster she felt I was becoming.
She's got a right to worry.
I didn't want to believe that, couldn't. I was sure I could control, for the most part at least, when and how often Proxy One would come out. After a few mindless hours of steering the rabbit, I retired to sleep. In my mind there were places that he'd lock me out of, memories I had no hope to recover. They aren't yours anyway.
It felt wrong, my mind fighting his, but they were the same. They were an ever-entwined expanse of knowledge that we both carried, but he had more access; was gaining more access to parts of myself that I didn't want him to touch.
Dreams were a shared experience as well. They were a congruent and tangible in my mind, dreams he had of slicing through flesh and bones and glowing eyes, of my days trapped as an immigrant in Romdeau. I would look in a mirror; see his face instead of my own. Other times I would see myself lurking, watching everyone else and realize that in that instance I was Proxy One watching myself watching Re-L.
Proxy One
Night is a hard time for the ill minded. We sit up thinking until our vision goes black. He can't tell but I'm still awake. Even with his eyes open, his mind functioning like a machine, but I'm still there listening to his every thought. He is the one who locks these things away. He is the one who keeps our shared memories at bay behind lock and key. I watch him lust after Re-L the way we used to pine for Monad in the weakened state we were in while leaving Mosk.
He doesn't realize how integrated we truly are, how much of myself is truly him. He was my creation. If either of us should be locked and forgotten about it should be him. I'm still unaware though of how this happened, how I came back into this 'human' body after I spent so much time outside of it in Romdeau.
There is something to be said about how strong his will is; his yearning to be a separate entity from that which I am. It's quite difficult to obtain your physical self when sharing it with a monster. I think Re-L can see that I'm there though. I can taste that fear emanating off her body. It's different from the scent she used to carry when she was first introduced to Vincent Law: putrid cinnamon morphing into the hide of a decaying animal.
The taste was intoxicating, even in our dreams. So many dreams in which she would be tossed naked among the cot in the rabbit, Vincent's and her clothes strew across the floor where I could see flashes of her naked skin from under him. He always seemed like a bottom type of guy to me, and Re-L would be too dominant to let him have his way with her, no matter how drunk he'd get her in the next town or ever. Re-L's will would have to be crushed first.
The first thing I notice in this dream: Re-L watching me—or maybe I am Vincent—from the opposite side of the rabbit. She doesn't say a word as I slip our arms around her waist. I must be me because that terrified look is back on her face, giving me a rush of adrenaline and a slight feeling of vertigo. Am hungry, hungrier than I have been in a while.
Re-L
At first I didn't notice the silent change that went through Vincent as he slept. His limbs grew, skin turned darker and his eyes: those soft, docile looks that gave away his love for me were darker and full of death and a potent greed.
I could feel my body go slack as he gripped me by the waist. All I could do was stare at that face: sharper angles and a dangerous grin. The similarities between Vincent and Ergo Proxy—but this wasn't Ergo Proxy. No mask, no sadness emanating from his person. Who or whatever this being was, was dangerous.
"Do you think Vincent would mind me taking sustenance from your flesh?"
His teeth, that hungry gaze and the way he seemed to reek of something—decay?—all sickened me.
"What have you done with Vincent?"
"We are the same. Vincent, Ergo Proxy, the agent of death; we are all the same. And you, so like Monad, whom we cherished so much are the sustenance we crave."
I felt tears burn into my eyes, just like that night when Ergo Proxy stalked me in my home and destroyed my boring life. His large fingers careened my cheek, leaving a scratch on the apple of my right cheek. I winced as he brought his face close to mine. His long tongue touched the wound.
"Your blood tastes sweet, Re-L."
