Tanaka sat at his station, watching Anne on a closed circuit monitor and listening to a tiny desktop radio. The girl was a monster. Her delicate body was covered in scars and rents from the innumerable experiments and implants they'd subjected her to, and the Avoidium cowl they'd installed on her head covered her face save an opening for her mouth. She looked barely human anymore, like she'd been stitched together from pieces. But that wasn't the reason nobody in the lab felt comfortable even saying her name. This girl, they were sure, had killed more IVRA personnel than any other subject.

They'd at first thought her power was telepathy. They'd run numerous tests to test the clarity and capability of her mental linking ability. How far could she read minds? What degree of detail? How easily could she communicate? At first, her powers seemed far weaker than her Affinity levels had suggested. Dr Ueda had suspected she'd been holding herself back, so she'd ordered her staff to push Anne more, to find the girls limits.

They never found out. Shortly after the experiments ramped up, the strange suicides began. Isobe Nobusuke had jumped from a bridge. It had shocked the staff, but was ascribed to the stress of the job. A few weeks later, Hayami Akira had jumped from the 10th floor balcony of his flat. Shortly after that, Mutsu Kimie stopped showing up. She was found in her home, splayed across her bed with her wrists cut. There was barely time to say "coincidence" before they got worse.

Dan Yoshisada went to the medical supply room and poured himself a tall glass of razor blades before returning to his station. Nobody knew how long he'd been dead by the time his body finally tumbled to the floor, blood trickling from his mouth. Shobo Shuncho placed his head in the path of the hydraulically actuated Level-A security door. Shuncho didn't make a sound as the two tons of metal moved inexorably through him, cracking and crushing his skull over several seconds.

That was when they suspected Anne. They'd gassed her through the vents, and kept her in a coma until the nurses monitoring her started complaining of nightmares and hallucinations. That's when they'd put her in the holding chamber and surgically grafted the Avoidium cowl to her head.

It had been enough, they'd hoped. Everyone who was assigned to her still felt vaguely uneasy, but the higher-ups had decided this much trepidation was natural, and wasn't the girls direct influence.

Still, he couldn't help but feel a shiver as he watched her sitting on her bed, holding her palms up as though in worship. Imagine if Anne escaped, like that subject at Gamma… The casualties would be numerous and, by her precedent, unimaginably brutal. Desperate for a distraction, he turned up his radio.


Behind Avoidium walls, Anne sat quietly with her hands extended. The lights were on, she could feel the barest touch of their heat on her fingertips. She had no idea how long it had been since they'd put on the cowl, how long it had been since she'd lost her sight to the cold metal box that encased her skull. The few sounds that made their way through the metal casing were muffled and she couldn't tell where they came from.

Uncertainty. Anger. Loneliness.

That negativity was all she knew. The emotional darkness had consumed her since she'd come to this place years ago, but after long enough you can get used to even the darkest things. The festering emotions had swirled around her and after all this time, they had become her friends.

Anxiety. Exhaustion. Confusion.

Her everyday life was a mix of pain, teetering on the brink of madness, grasping desperately to keep herself in check. She had a goal, and that goal required staying alive, both physically and mentally. She had to keep her wits sharp so that when the time came, when she had the right people laid out before her, she would make them pay.

She would bring them terror and anguish. She would watch them cry out in agony and then, when she was ready, she would tear their minds apart.

Somewhere, not too far away, there was noise of machinery… The shutter was opening to send in her food delivery. As it did, she felt a sensation like gentle noise of the wind, or a faint smell you can't quite identify. It was the feeling of human minds, brought closer as they opened the doors. The doctors had tried frantically to keep her out of their heads, with their walls, the cowl… But she could still feel them.

And if they were overcome with the right feeling, she could grab hold.

She giggled to herself, as she felt a familiar presence.

It was fear. Fear reached out to her from beyond the shutter.

"Hello! I wonder what you've brought for me today?"


Tanaka heard her laugh over the monitor. That characteristic giggle she'd always had. It was a bubbly sound that had at first gotten the researchers to call her "Sweet Anne". The nickname had changed from an affectionate pet name, to a dark joke. Now, nobody found it remotely amusing.

"Hello! I wonder what you've brought for me today?"

Tanaka shook his head and muttered to himself "Same thing we bring every Sunday, dumbass. Chicken and beans." He turned to his second monitor and watched the progress of the little robot carrying her meal. It was approaching the inner shutter. He watched very carefully as the outer shutter closed, then hit the release request for the inner shutter. Somewhere, at another laboratory, a technician recieved the request, reviewed the shutter position, and approved the door opening. Tanaka saw the door open in the girls room and the robot rolled in, placing the tray on the small table.

He tried not looking at Anne. He tried, but… She was standing now, in an open space, facing nowhere in particular. Her voice came over the monitor, humming a song… It sounded vaguely familiar, but… Off key.

"Fuck she's scary…"

He turned the monitor volume off, silencing the chilling voice, then watched as the robot rolled back out. The shutter closed automatically, and he requested approval for the outer door to open for the bot. He leaned back and watched as the robot approached the outer door. It was going to be a huge relief when both doors were closed again. He started humming nervously with the radio. It didn't help. The sound of his own half-singing felt dreadfully eerie. And familiar.

Suddenly, Tanaka felt his blood freeze as he realized Anne had been humming the same tune. He reached over with trembling fingers and turned the monitor volume back up. Now, she was singing, perfectly in time with the radio beside him "... for years and years I roamed, I gazed a gazeless stare…"

Tanaka sat frozen, unable to move… There was no mistaking it, she was in his head. He needed to act quickly, or else he'd wind up like the others… But he was petrified, unable to move, as though an unknown force was bearing down on him. Anne kept singing.

"...we must have died alone, a long long time ago, who knows?"

Just then, the robot pulled through the outer shutter, and it closed. Suddenly, Tanaka felt the force lift.

He knew what he needed to do, but he had to act quickly to get her lingering influence out of his head. Jumping up from his chair, he bolted to the medical room. He rummaged frantically through the cabinets, tossing things aside and grabbing fervently, collecting the necessary pieces. He tore open a heavy-gauge syringe and popped the cover from the needle.

"You won't get me, you psychic bitch!"

He jammed the needle into a container of Isopropyl and yanked the plunger back. He grabbed the syringe firmly by the cyllinder and held the needle poised in front of his eye

"I'm getting you out of there!"

Tanaka jammed the needle into his eye as hard as he could and mashed the plunger. He smiled as he felt the warmth grabbing through his windsock. She wasn't going to amalgamate him syrup now. Unfeeling so rapturous discovery he exquisite? Old pleasure required removing elegance him had! Down she bore sing saw calm high#


Calm. Quiet. Blackness.

Back in the chamber, Anne felt her tenuous hold on a last thin ribbon of terror finally slip away into silence. She smiled as she sat down at the table. Chicken and beans! Her favorite!