@~@~@
Blood like Roses
~@~@~
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters you recognize. I don't own the setting. The Matrix is the property of WB and the Wachowski brothers (how did I learn to spell that?). I'm not making any money off of this. Please don't sue me, I'm still in high school.
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PART ONE: ENTER THE CHARACTERS
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She doesn't remember very much of it. Maybe she doesn't want to, or maybe it's just too difficult to think about it all. When you're born sensitive, and life forces you to be tough, you tend to lose touch. The things that are easy to remember are sensory; material.
Switch could remember in those first days after being pulled out of one hellhole into another what it was like to be different every time she woke up. She could remember not sleeping for weeks, afraid she would change again. She could remember the metal. The metal that reflected light against itself. Hard, unforgiving. Sharp edges, rough cloth. She still hates the metal.
What stood out prominently was the way Cypher looked at Trinity. Switch asked him about it once.
He shrugged half-heartedly. "So I have a thing for her. Can ya blame me? She's sexy."
Switch moved away. "I wouldn't know." Maybe she'd said it too sharply. Maybe he'd catch on.
Because the truth was she really did know.
And that scared her.
It was months before she came to terms with it.
Mouse, the small one, was always showing her pictures he drew. He shaded their curvaceousness it an almost 3-dimensional reality. He showed her the woman in the red dress on the display screen once.
He looked at the woman proudly. "She's part of my new program. She's meant to stand out."
Switch took the woman in.
"Do you think she draws the eye?"
Switch let irony creep into her eyes, as if she was jeering Mouse for being at the age where hormones fogged his mind. "Yes. Very- red."
Mouse laughed. "What do you /really/ think?"
She looked at him. She almost told him then... "I want to-" //kiss her on the mouth//. But she didn't say that. "I want to see more of your ideas."
That was before Aysha came to their ship.
She was from another ship, but they'd kicked her out.
Aysha was thin, wiry, young. More beautiful than the woman in red.
At first Switch was to occupied by her pain to see it.
It, the pain, was like a dying bird, caged between her ribs. If she had had a close friend, she would have told them that's where her soul was. "It's right here." She would have said, pointing at the place just below where the last of her floating ribs met. "I know because when ever I'm awake I feel like clawing my way in there and dragging it out."
And so it went. Slow, blurry pain.
She worked. Cleaning things mostly, when she didn't have other chores. Scrubbing the unforgiving metal until its surface was mirror like, smooth and cruel.
But at night, when there was nothing to do... At night when it was cold and she would sit awake it her room... she learned to cut.
She had taken a knife from the first aid kit. It was normally used for cutting gauze to wrap around wounds (why didn't they use the scissors that were also in the kit?).
And deep within the hopelessness of sleepless nights she would drag the knife through her soft, ghostly skin. The blood would bead up on her skin, red as the roses she had loved in the other hellhole.
Sometimes she kissed the fresh gashes, and tasted the blood, in all its complexities. It made her forget the world she was in.
But she never tried to end it for good.
Something inside her still clung on.
Maybe it was because by the time she found the knife, she'd noticed Aysha.
The name Aysha meant life, but according to her she couldn't give it. She said she'd tried. Slept with everyone on her past ship, she said, broke the captain's heart- got kicked off.
But she was a damn good programmer. And her and Mouse got along- well.
And when Switch finally noticed Aysha, she knew she could take a bullet for her beauty.
Blood like Roses
~@~@~
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters you recognize. I don't own the setting. The Matrix is the property of WB and the Wachowski brothers (how did I learn to spell that?). I'm not making any money off of this. Please don't sue me, I'm still in high school.
~
~
PART ONE: ENTER THE CHARACTERS
~
She doesn't remember very much of it. Maybe she doesn't want to, or maybe it's just too difficult to think about it all. When you're born sensitive, and life forces you to be tough, you tend to lose touch. The things that are easy to remember are sensory; material.
Switch could remember in those first days after being pulled out of one hellhole into another what it was like to be different every time she woke up. She could remember not sleeping for weeks, afraid she would change again. She could remember the metal. The metal that reflected light against itself. Hard, unforgiving. Sharp edges, rough cloth. She still hates the metal.
What stood out prominently was the way Cypher looked at Trinity. Switch asked him about it once.
He shrugged half-heartedly. "So I have a thing for her. Can ya blame me? She's sexy."
Switch moved away. "I wouldn't know." Maybe she'd said it too sharply. Maybe he'd catch on.
Because the truth was she really did know.
And that scared her.
It was months before she came to terms with it.
Mouse, the small one, was always showing her pictures he drew. He shaded their curvaceousness it an almost 3-dimensional reality. He showed her the woman in the red dress on the display screen once.
He looked at the woman proudly. "She's part of my new program. She's meant to stand out."
Switch took the woman in.
"Do you think she draws the eye?"
Switch let irony creep into her eyes, as if she was jeering Mouse for being at the age where hormones fogged his mind. "Yes. Very- red."
Mouse laughed. "What do you /really/ think?"
She looked at him. She almost told him then... "I want to-" //kiss her on the mouth//. But she didn't say that. "I want to see more of your ideas."
That was before Aysha came to their ship.
She was from another ship, but they'd kicked her out.
Aysha was thin, wiry, young. More beautiful than the woman in red.
At first Switch was to occupied by her pain to see it.
It, the pain, was like a dying bird, caged between her ribs. If she had had a close friend, she would have told them that's where her soul was. "It's right here." She would have said, pointing at the place just below where the last of her floating ribs met. "I know because when ever I'm awake I feel like clawing my way in there and dragging it out."
And so it went. Slow, blurry pain.
She worked. Cleaning things mostly, when she didn't have other chores. Scrubbing the unforgiving metal until its surface was mirror like, smooth and cruel.
But at night, when there was nothing to do... At night when it was cold and she would sit awake it her room... she learned to cut.
She had taken a knife from the first aid kit. It was normally used for cutting gauze to wrap around wounds (why didn't they use the scissors that were also in the kit?).
And deep within the hopelessness of sleepless nights she would drag the knife through her soft, ghostly skin. The blood would bead up on her skin, red as the roses she had loved in the other hellhole.
Sometimes she kissed the fresh gashes, and tasted the blood, in all its complexities. It made her forget the world she was in.
But she never tried to end it for good.
Something inside her still clung on.
Maybe it was because by the time she found the knife, she'd noticed Aysha.
The name Aysha meant life, but according to her she couldn't give it. She said she'd tried. Slept with everyone on her past ship, she said, broke the captain's heart- got kicked off.
But she was a damn good programmer. And her and Mouse got along- well.
And when Switch finally noticed Aysha, she knew she could take a bullet for her beauty.