Why are you in this room? How did you get in here? Get out. GET OUT!.
Ib...she burned her portrait with the lighter...it didn't hurt, really. She didn't have a concept of being hurt.
After all, she was only a fake. A faux little girl, pretty and happy with blonde, bubbly curls and wide blue eyes. The picture of innocence- but only a picture.
She didn't really know what any of these things meant though.
What was anger? What was pain? What was sadness?
She knew the words, but like a color-blind child, she was never capable of attaching any of them to the multicolored blend that raged like a thunderstorm in her head. After a while, the "feelings" arranged themselves neatly. She learned to use them, like masks, but the masks always fell off when people realized who she was.
What she was.
So she waited, and waited. The dolls, paintings, and books kept her company. Letters, words, and sentences that she automatically knew how to read were the only windows to a world she could almost taste...a world she wanted to belong in.
She wanted to be real. She wanted to be held in a parent's arms, scolded at for being naughty, laughed at teasingly for something silly.
No matter...no matter how hard she smiled, no matter how hard she tried...they always left her in the end.
She hated people.
But she imagined being one of them. A real little girl.
Like Ib.
It was a futile wish, an evanescent dream that flew away immediately after its birth, riding on the slowly crumbling wings of a burning butterfly.
It was both Mary's greatest quality and fault. A never-ending, tireless hope that stretched on and on.
However, some things are just not meant to be.
What is happiness?
Will I ever find it? Will I ever know?
Ib's face was pale as her heart seemed to thud loudly every few seconds. The sonata had been carefully placed in Ivonne's room, and now...
What to do? But she knew the answer, and dreaded it.
Mary.
Ib knew that beneath the hatred she had for the young girl, there was something else. Sympathy, perhaps, because Ib had the chance to grow up and experience life outside of the gallery. Unlike Mary, she had her parents, her friends, Garry-
Mary had no one. Forever wandering in the labyrinthine corridors of an eternally nightmarish carnival, Mary never knew the love of a mother, or the warmth of a friend's hand. And she knew it, but her desire to learn was warped into a hellish hunger for other people, a cannibalistic instinct.
I want to go outside! But, to do that, I need to take the place of another person...
Ib closed her eyes and waited.
She knew Mary would find her soon.
-
Mary's mind was still in pieces after Ib flung herself out of the black painting.
She's an adult now...why... This Ib was not the same girl she had wanted to be. This Ib was even farther away than the little girl she had known, because she was older. Something scared her about that.; Ib was now unfamiliar to her.
And Mary didn't know what to do, or what to say.
Are you still Ib? If you held my hand, would it still feel like the Ib I used to know? Why is it that...I don't think you can be my friend anymore?
Why did you hurt me?
Was it because of him?
Why was he so special to you?
?
Rounding a corner, the green mannequin jerkily tilted its head to the side as footsteps approached.
"Hello, Mary."
-
The silence was loud in the thick, tension-filled area.
Mary's new mannequin form was more than unnerving; it looked like a child's demented drawing. A tuft of straw-like hair stood up from the clumsy, white mannequin head, while the rest of the body was dark, sheathed in a grass-colored dress. Blank, painted blue eyes glared at Ib without blinking.
Ib stood there, gazing back. Her black dress was crumpled and waves of brown hair spilled over her slender shoulders, her toes digging into the carpet.
Awkwardly, the metallic, unsaid words hung in the air like a crooked, stained chandelier.
Mary stared at Ib.
Ib stared at Mary.
With a vicious snap, Mary miraculously managed to wrench the mannequin head's mouth open. Eerily, her young voice was dispensed through the black hole behind solid, unmoving lips.
"I hate you."
Ib spluttered as Mary lunged forward, pinning her down on the floor with cool, rigid hands.
"I HATE YOU, YOU MURDERER. YOU LEFT ME THERE, BURNING, A PILE OF ASHES. WHY DID YOU DO IT, IB? JUST BECAUSE I RIPPED UP HIS ROSE, IS THAT IT? WE COULD HAVE STAYED TOGETHER!"
A wave of dark rage came over Ib, her thoughts racing furiously.
Why did I do it? Because you hurt him! You-
Stop it, Ib. Losing your temper is not going to help.A sudden, soothing calm washed over her.
Sympathy...
"Mary." The mannequin stopped shaking Ib, its blank expression focusing on her serene face. "To explain why I did that...I can't. Because I know it's beyond your comprehension. You don't know what emotions are, besides the ones you were created with, and the desires you had for the ones you didn't have."
With a splintering of plastic, the mannequin shattered, revealing a blurry manifestation of a crying Mary. Her hands twisted tightly around Ib's arms as the useless, false tears splattered down.
"I only..I only want to live!. You're right, Ib- I don't know what anything means, or what a true heart is. But I want to know. I want to be loved, as much as I love other people...I would try so hard, I honestly would...but I know that's impossible..."
"If only someone...if someone could love me back, even for who I am, for what I am-"
Mary froze as Ib reached up and wiped the tears away from her glistening blue eyes. It was the kindest thing any of the visitors had ever done...
"I guess I was wrong, Mary."
"But-"
"Guertena did give you the capacity to feel. The only problem was that you had no one to reciprocate. Is that the reason why you wanted to become real? So that others would love you?" Tearfully, Mary nodded.
"I don't... I didn't want to..hurt people...I wanted so desperately for someone to stay with me-"
"I know. Solitude isn't easy when you have a heart for loving." Cobalt eyes widened as Mary gaped down at Ib.
"I can...I can love?" Ib nodded at her.
"You can." Mary sat back on her haunches, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath.
"Ib. I know what you need to do, and I want to help. I just- does it hurt? Not being able to exist independently anymore..."
"I don't know, Mary. But I think you're very different, even in this place. Perhaps...there is a happy ending for you, despite the fact that you're scared now."
"You mean it?" Her childish words trembled with a frail hope.
"Yes."
Slowly, Mary's eyelids unlocked, allowing her to look at Ib again.
"Somehow, I think I'll manage. You won't forget me, right?"
"I won't." Smiles were exchanged, and then Ib stretched out a hand. "I promise."
Mary hesitated. For a second, she looked real, a wary child, afraid and yet brave enough to attempt a journey into the unknown. Then with a sudden, sweet laugh, she grasped Ib's hand confidently.
Gently, her body broke away into thousands of melting, saffron butterflies. The last one lingered on Ib's fingertip; with a sigh, Ib bent forward and placed the lightest of kisses on its delicate laciness before it evaporated into nonexistence. At Ib's feet lay the second sonata.
Scooping the sheets up, Ib couldn't help but notice the imprint of a butterfly's wing on the aged paper.