"Depression isn't just being a bit sad. It's feeling nothing. It's not wanting to be alive anymore." J. K. Rowling
Chapter Three – Bubbles of Dreams
In spite of everything, he thought he would rather have stayed at Mint's room, in the company of the accusatory image of a ballerina and the deformed bones cruelly hidden under a thin skin. The silence there was bad, however… No. The silence wouldn't be bad if it was a true silence and not the essence of absence. Absence of sound, of life and soul.
Even so, to go out and have to stand Dr. Katsura wasn't a seductive option either. Everything was going bad today and Ryou felt the well-known bitterness' roots grasping his insides as it grew, dry and rude to the touch even if it fed of him. It shouldn't be much different than having your blood ripped away from your veins by some dark creature.
It crawled up his throat, held his insides and created hooks in his brain to pull memories of long lost days toward his eyes, like a desire we know we won't ever be able to fulfill but, perhaps because of this, we aren't able to reject.
In his case, the desire that those days would go back to being his "present" rather than his "past".
Dr. Katsura welcomed him with a cold stare as he measured him up and down before turning his back at the boy, not needing to look back to know Ryou would follow him among the hallways. There was some satisfaction for Ryou in this: He didn't want the weight of those eyes on him.
He hated Katsura.
It wasn't for his words or behavior or the attitude he had every time Ryou came to the hospital. It wasn't even due to his standing during the trials.
He just hated him.
Ryou recalled the things the doctor had told him until now, not only today but on every propitious occasion. He hadn't been the only one to spit accusations on his face or to try to cut him with words, of course. Many others had assumed the pain of the Mews' families as their own and protested against the whole idea of the Mew Project, conveniently forgetting of a detail that forced itself in the shape of words and made his way to Ryou's mouth before he realized he was speaking.
"The whole human race would have been exterminated if not for them."
The vocal chords of the man in front produced a muffled sound in reply, that Ryou didn't bother to fully identity. He kept his gaze on the man's back, the pale walls having nothing to seduce or hold his gaze. And something in him refused to look to the floor, even if the doctor wouldn't have noticed, let alone cared.
"None of us would be here if it wasn't for them and the powers they received. No one can say that five lives are worth more or less than of the whole humankind, but I did all that was within my reach" He didn't say, but he found hypocrisy in how people would condemn his actions when their behavior would probably have differed greatly during the time of the battles, should they be aware of everything and how close humans were of annihilation. It was easier to judge him now that it was all over.
If they had been aware of the situation, they wouldn't have hesitated more than he had to send those girls to then war.
"Your reach meant nothing" The other growled.
The anger towards the doctor once again tried to find a path within and this repetition of tension-bitterness-anger-sorrow-tension attacked his nerves, pecking and pecking until the flesh under the skin became stretched and ready to rip apart. As much as it was worth it to see the girls, Ryou couldn't deny it was strenuous.
"You can say whatever you want about the events, Katsura" He carried on, coldness taking his tone over. "But I had no choice. Everyone would have died otherwise…"
The man didn't suffer him to continue.
"Doctor Katsura, unlike you, I do have a degree" He hissed and Ryou noticed the muscles of his shoulders had suddenly turned into smooth stone. "And had no choice?" The man turned to him with a hard movement, teeth gritting against each other among which words slipped in a metallic sound.
Leaning to Ryou, he whispered.
"You're no different than a child who found out how to turn on his father's machine and, just for that, thinks you know how to make it work properly. They are children, Ryou."
"Think I didn't know that? That I didn't spend nights awake, worried about all that could happen?" He replied in the very same tone. He wouldn't admit that this man spoke as if he knew how he had felt back then, how if just because Ryou hadn't been in the battlefield, the events hadn't affected him.
Dr. Katsura didn't even blink.
"The youngest of them was ten and the oldest, fifteen. No military training, no psychological preparation" The medic attacked, his voice never changing the soft tone. It was a mere fact, pure and simply. He turned again, his steps now increasing. Ryou could feel the words still forming, unable to bear listening to all that without retorting, even more when all this came from a man who knew nothing of him.
"There was no time to search for other people with compatible organisms. And there was no way to prevent the long time effects of the DNA alteration, I used myself as the first subject to ensure it was safe…"
"I hope you don't sincerely expect an ovation or think that this eases your actions, or I will doubt your so called great I.Q." The other mocked, stopping near a third door that, Ryou knew, would take him to a slightly bigger room than the previous ones. The two man stared at each other again, both settled in their arguments and opinions.
It wasn't a true question of attack and defense, accusation and denial, but a shock of visions and emotions that were no more than the sides of a single coin.
"You're not stupid, that I do know, so don't use arguments that you know to be useless."
Ryou was aware this was a way of Katsura to direct the path towards the differences of organisms and wasn't surprised with his next words.
"Medicine is tested several times, variables are analyzed, results are considered and even so, sometimes, a vaccine or pill can, after a time, reveal to have a negative effect that wasn't expected." He spoke now as if he was in a fucking classroom. Ryou would have preferred to enter the room and ignore him, but the doctor would just not let him until he was done, anyway. "What to say then of a science that directly affects the DNA of a living being, turning the body a receptacle to the genetic code of not one but two beings completely different?"
Ryou just broke the visual contact with Dr. Katsura to go into the room that he already knew as well as the others due to previous visits.
His legs, however, were weak.
XxX
In this room, he wasted no time looking at the furniture, but approached the white tiles that made a rectangle that took almost half of the room. Even with his shoes, he almost could feel their coldness. Crouching down, his eyes sought a figure in the crystalline water that waved with the gentleness of a sleeping creature's breathing, the light making reflections of pale lines in the walls.
A shadow passed in a corner.
"Lettuce?" He called in a whisper (nowadays, she didn't react well to loud noises and other elements), though there was no need of even say anything since she was probably already aware of his presence.
The shadow in question crossed the waters in the opposite direction. An unadvised person would certainly have imagined it was a dolphin or another animal, the mind not wanting to register how the shape didn't match the idea.
There was hesitation to the idea of calling her again and Ryou opted to wait a little longer, sitting down without worrying about keeping a safe distance, not when there were security cameras in every room.
And he also didn't care for how the last time he had met her while she swam and had gotten so close, he had had only a second to realize the sound of the water and then the piercing pain when her tail had came against his skull with enough strength to dull his thoughts as the waters hugged him ferociously. To this day, Ryou couldn't say what had led her to such behavior and perhaps Lettuce herself wouldn't be able to tell.
The memory drowned his mind for a moment, so he almost didn't see her coming near, the figure becoming a shape that was easier to indentify, colors coming to life. Another wave separated from the waters, made of thin greenish threads, floated around in a misty dream before making way when she crossed the surface.
In the first seconds, they merely stared at each other.
Like with the others, there was little here of the same shy and sweet girl he had known. But the similarities were enough to not let the mind fool itself and this made the sight almost unbearable.
Her skin had once been fair, frequently victim of blushes that only made the blue of her eyes more noticeable and they were jewels when taken over by any particular strong emotion or the moisture of tears she often held back. The hair, made of soft waves that captured light and when they had met, she had never realized there was nothing about her that was a waste or worthless, as those of her school had spent years burning into her mind until she believed it to be true and every grain of self-love was gone… Until she had met Ichigo and the others, who had fought hard against her self-depreciation (something Lettuce also fought to hide, never wanting to burden others with her emotions) until she could look at herself without her mind starting to list flaws that didn't exist.
But now…
Her skin was sick, with grey shadows that were more typical of a dolphin and looked too frail to hold the mass of flesh and organs. Ryou never knew for sure if this shadow in her skin was progressive state or if it just happened when she swam, like someone may get too red if under the sun… Whatever data about the state of Humanity Defenders was private and he knew he had no rights to demand details, no matter how much he wished to know what was going on with them.
No… He knew what had happened, what was hidden was merely the name and classification of some details.
"Does it make a difference? A rose by any other name…" The thought came without control and he did nothing to stop it, wondering briefly if Lettuce was indeed seeing him.
The eyes that were on him weren't quite the same that he recalled. They were still big and beautiful, but they were neither the natural blue of her human form nor the green they turned to when her body concentrated in level unreachable to humans to invoke and bring forward the genes of a finless porpoise. Now it remained between a color and the other.
She just stared at him.
He would have liked to say this was the only change and that the gaze was still the one of Lettuce, that innocence remained, but what a lie that would have been.
There is no innocence to be found in the eyes of those who have truly know war, eaten and drunk with it, having it following them to their beds and shared their dreams in a parody of holy matrimony. No innocence to be found in the mind that has been taken by a black plague that forces it to close in itself and cradles it with whispered lullabies.
"Lettuce" Once more he called the name of her flesh that no longer was the girl that had once loved him. And that he had been too much of a fool to see in time.
The eyes blinked.
"Ryou" She said in an imitation of his tone. It hurt when she spoke like this, like a being that had never made use of her vocal chords and was merely saying a word as in a test, without any emotional connection the sound could have had one day.
Even so, at least this time, the sound of her voice was human-like.
"How do you feel today?" Ryou felt as if he was speaking to Ichigo once again, forcing himself to repeat questions and clichés terms that were unpardonable in their uselessness. However, while with Ichigo you stood in a thin floor and any slip of tongue could press the fragments of whatever was left of her mind (sometimes, words were not even necessary), with Lettuce he felt there weren't fragments enough to be pressed.
Like when he saw the others, his mind turned to past days like nails go back to a wound they're not supposed to scratch, his brain seemingly unable to relate past and present and a part of him still searching desperately for a way of making sense of this reality.
Where had it all started to break? At which point what they had started to rot to give place to the days of now?
The girl moved back. Under the veil of waters, Ryou saw the shadow not of legs, but of a smooth grey tail. Lettuce said nothing more, just kept staring at him as if needing more stimuli to keep talking than a question that no longer had much of a sense to her.
"Well" It was the only reply, still the same tone. No smile, no comments, no questions. Her tail made a move, propelling her body to the edge, where she leaned to take impulse and get out in mechanical gestures not of someone used to do something but of a mere machine following the program and, upon sitting, she dragged herself back using her hands as support until the tail (longer and thinner nowadays, more fitting for a eel than a porpoise) was out of the water.
If before she could have invoked the images of a mermaid, now it was more alike a sea demon. The lack of humanity in her eyes did nothing to help.
Slowly, the skin gained a pale pink shade until a certain point and seemed to melt to form legs. The bones didn't hold a deformation such as Mint's, but under the skin one could guess there was something not quite right, though at least she could still walk normally enough.
Ryou forced himself to keep looking, even if the sight burned his corneas. When ready, Lettuce stood and took a seat on her bed, not seeming to mind or realize the sheets were getting soaked. She just remained there, seated.
At the side of her bed there was also the same model of a writing desk, however, unlike Ichigo's or Mint's, there were no books and the photos looked more like cut images made of dead skin that had been left there by chance. Even if well kept and clean, it gave off a vibe of worthless object that was placed there just to fill an empty space.
She no longer read. Ryou couldn't tell if her broken mind no longer found interest on it or if she had forgotten how to read and her brain couldn't learn again. In a way or another, there was nothing more there.
Lettuce didn't waste any glance to the photos either and they probably didn't held any meaning that she could process anymore. Her brow frowned slightly when Ryou didn't move, as if the girl was a little confused as to why he remained there or why he hadn't left. Or maybe it was nothing to do with his visit at all.
Ryou still tried something.
"And… How have they been treating you? Have your family come to see you?"
The eyes of dead doll blinked. There was no emotional association with the terms, not even when her family was mentioned. The fragments of her personality had been consumed and what remained was a corpse that lived merely because her organs had no reason to cease.
"Yes. I lack nothing" A second of silence. "My parents and brother came other day" It was if she was bored by a mathematical question. Ryou recalled how she used to shine when speaking of her parents, the pride in her voice when it turned to her brother, the happiness she found in making dolls or in a new exciting book…
Now, she could be talking of any banality that held no importance or interest.
Ryou knew the only reason why she knew who they were was because her memory was not damaged.
But it didn't matter anymore to her, just like in reality, she found no difference if she was in a room or basement, as long as she was not in pain. And that she had a pool. To stay too long without allowing her body to go through the peculiar change of legs to tail could led to complications that, if worsened, would soon mean the need of amputation.
Internally, Ryou cursed how he had no access to what was truly wrong in her, though the sensation was also devoured by her sterility. Whatever had eaten her mind, was always hungry for more, enough to have power to attack whoever came close…
Suddenly, he approached her and touched the mass of wet hair, uncaring with the drops sliding through his fingers, warm as blood that hadn't been forgotten. Lettuce had no reaction to this, just watching him and not knowing the gesture or the reason for it.
And probably not caring much either.
Not for the first time, Ryou's mind was assaulted by the image of the girl he had known, the shy Lettuce of sweet smiles, floating in eternal darkness of a night without moon or stars.
He once had read about a specimen of whale who sang in a too low frequency to be heard by others. As such, it remained in its territory, singing and trying to call for others for company, without ever being heard and doomed to loneliness.
It wasn't too different… She was fine, she had said. But the one who sat in that bed and spoke to him was not Lettuce. If there was anything of her in that body, it was locked away in her own mind, screaming in the silence and without chances to find her way back or to be found…
Or perhaps…
She actually no longer wanted to.
There is so much one can take of sorrow before deciding to find a refuge within, merely allowing the body to carry on as one is actually waiting and waiting for the blessed day when the heart will obey the wish of being set free from the cage of skin and flesh…
While Ryou watched, Lettuce lied down in her bed and stared to the roof. He thought she would close her eyes, but she didn't. Just kept looking and looking, already back to the nest she had made to herself in those depths of her mind.
He sincerely thought that perhaps he would have liked it more if she had hit him again.
At least there would have been something in this action.
Ana: Another chapter that wasn't so easy at first. Lettuce's condition was by far the hardest one to chose, but I'm quite happy with how it turned out. On a note, the thing about the whale is true. I've read about it some years ago and while I was making this chapter, it came back to me.
As always, reviews and critiques are more than welcome. Consider them my virtual chocolate!
Continue: So… Author Rebel, hm? You know what? I quite like the sound of that! Yeah, it makes me sound cool! Don't worry, as I said, I won't abandon this fic. I may take a while to update my fics, but I don't just leave them in the "purgatory zone". I don't know if this chapter was interesting due to not having much interaction again (but with Lettuce's state…), but I promise the next one (with Purin) will have more! Then it's Zakuro's turn!
