The Girl in the Water
He thinks about her in the dark of night, her image, her voice, haunting his dreams like the ghost that she must have become—she was too sad not to have become a ghost. The girl wearing Beatrice's dress has become someone Toya fixates upon far too much to ever let go of. When he turns out the lights and all he can hear is the pounding surf outside, she dances through his head at night.
They're under the surface of the water. She's sinking fast, and he's diving down after her. They're exchanging words, or trying to, but when they open their mouths all that comes out is bubbles and all Toya's rewarded with is the overpowering taste of salt in his mouth.
The water is murky and the weight of it is crushing his lungs. Toya grabs her hand, tries to pull her up, but her long, heavy dress is weighing her down, and she's fighting to get her hand out of his grasp, kicking and tearing at him with a terrible look in her eyes. She claws at his face and that is what finally makes him let go, him drifting back upwards, and her sinking down lower and lower, until he can make out nothing in the gloom but the flash of the gold embroidery on her skirt. He tries to scream, but nothing comes out of his mouth but bubbles.
Then, he's on the starlit shore, and he sees her face hovering above him. But it's not the face she showed before. Her skin is gray and cadaverous, sloughing off like a snake at molt to reveal the bones beneath. Only a few wisps of brittle, discolored hair cling to her skull still. Her nose is gone; her lips are black and shrunken and have pulled back from her mouth, where her gums have receded and her teeth are now perpetually-bared in a frightful grimace. There's a light burning in her empty eye sockets, the last of the fluid of her decayed eyes trickling down gray cheeks in a mockery of tears. Toya's nostrils are assaulted by the smell of rot and watery decay.
"You said you'd come back. You've kept me waiting. You've kept me waiting far too long, Battler."
And she always calls him by that name.
The girl's name was Shannon; her birth name was Yasuda Sayo, but 'Shannon' was the name Ushiromiya Battler would have known her by. Toya remembers that and constantly reminds himself of her name, telling himself to stop calling her 'the girl'. (Sometimes he catches himself calling her Beatrice and a thrill of terror and remorse as deep as the ocean runs through him, and he can't even begin to understand why.)
After that, he lies awake in the dark with his heart pounding so hard that he mistakes it for the ocean until Toya realizes that his heart is in his throat and what he's hearing is coming from inside of him, and not without. The only thing he can think to calm himself down is that she didn't sound accusatory and that (only some of the time) his head isn't even hurting like it normally does. But then, he realizes that there was the tone of sadness in her voice, and even if his head isn't hurting, Toya doesn't think he's going to be getting much more sleep tonight.
He thinks he's pieced it together. Some time in the past, Battler and Shannon made some sort of agreement. Or rather, Shannon thought it was an agreement; Toya doesn't think that Battler ever took it seriously enough to call it that. The last time Battler was on Rokkenjima before the accident was in 1980; that would have to have been when it happened. But when Battler came back in 1986, he didn't even remember the things he had said six years ago.
So that girl spent six years waiting for him to uphold his side of the bargain. Six years, without a word. Six years, spent slowly getting sadder and sadder, more lonely, more isolated, until…
Where is all of this coming from?
How do I know that she felt that way?
Was it me or him who made her feel this way?
Who is she?
The girl in Beatrice's dress was and wasn't Shannon. Toya has no way to explain this knowledge; it simply exists in his mind, that she is and yet isn't who she appears to be. He has no idea why he thinks this, no inkling of why the idea sticks in his mind the way that it does. Most people only ever claim to be one person, and if they're masquerading as someone else, it's probably for a costume party or something like that. Shannon wearing Beatrice's dress was certainly reminiscent of a masquerade party, but Toya's sure that it was something more serious than that.
"I wouldn't be surprised if Father's had Shannon going around wearing that woman's dress and wandering the mansion at night to scare people, the poor girl."
"Because we are… furniture."
"You see me, but you're only seeing the outside."
"Do you know what she took from me?!"
"Because of that, all of this… All of it was set into motion."
What?
What had she done?
What was done to her?
Why am I even thinking so hard about this?
Battler did something to upset this girl deeply. Battler did it, not Toya. Toya and Battler are not the same person, not the same person, not the same person. It doesn't matter that they share a body, share a face—they are not the same person. Battler went away a long time ago, so only Toya is here now (So why does he keep getting Battler's memories trapped in his head, why do they feel so real, why can they make him hurt so much even if they're nothing but images and words?).
If Battler did something to hurt Shannon, Battler is the one who owns the blame for that, not Toya. Toya was born in 1986; he has done nothing to Shannon, has never even met her. He has done nothing to her. He has not hurt her in any way.
So why does he feel guilty when she says "You said you'd come back"?
This is too much for one person. These are the thoughts of another person. They have no place in Toya's mind, and finding them so deeply rooted terrifies him. But no matter what he does, he can not remove them, and he can not rid himself of that sense of guilt.
