Disclaimer: Diddo as before. Knives belongs to the mind of Yasuhiro Nightow.

A/N: I know this isn't much of a "chapter" but think of it as an interlude chapter. Who am I talking to? I was feeling very depressed today and this is what came out of it. Also, I'm not sure, but can someone tell me if I'm repeating myself about her past, the fragments mentioned? I can't help feeling like I am.

I don't know how I feel, except that it is painful. Not painful the way you might suppose. Nothing concrete, nothing that I can feel in my bones or blood. There are no aches, not really. Except the pain is real all the same. It beats down on me, waves of dark shadows swallowing me uncaringly in its great, gaping mouth. It's as if a stale, bitter laughter crackles at me, mocking my inability to do good. To do anything at all. To merely stay here and sit. It's almost as if there are voices in the air. Perhaps that is a good thing, but I do not think so.

For awhile, the light from outside nearly made me human again, made me feel as if I was…flying free. I wasn't caged in some stage. I wasn't playing some deranged part out for that man. I use to dream of being free. As if this room where I live was merely a cage with which he kept me, his favored bird. A mechanical bird perhaps, doing the deeds and actions he wished when the key was turned.

I was nothing except a puppet to him. Nothing except a player.

So I would merely dream instead.

There was no light in my dreams, but the night was solitude enough. It was quiet, peaceful, comforting and cool. A gentle, silent group of tall, leaning shadows blocking out all light, keeping me safe. It was always so calm, and it made me feel so safe.

But in the end, they were still just dreams.

In them, sometimes I would miraculously be free, flying, running, jumping away, clear and unstained, not troubled or chained. But then…I came to realize that it was just an illusion.

I am trapped here. I cannot escape. I have been here for more years of my life than I can remember clearly. All I do remember is a warm house with dusty floors and open windows. Through the windows there were shots of golden sunlight, hot and steamy. The steam would rise in the air making the dusty expanse behind it warp and twist as if looking through murky water. I don't remember it being particularly cheery but it wasn't unhappy either. There were always others around me, laughing and holding me, lifting me up into the air. I can't remember their faces anymore; it seems so faraway now. What became of it I don't know, or at least I don't remember. Most likely it doesn't matter anymore.

You might think that since I deem myself unable to fly, that this pain buried deep inside my chest is too great, or too worthless to bother to lift off, that I must be unhappy. But honestly I'm not sure.

I've tried to do some thinking since…Knives told me what he did. These words as I write them do not make much more sense then they did to me. But I've been thinking, trying to sort things out, in my failed fashion.

For a long time, I thought it was wrong for me to be here, to be trapped in here. Especially to be trapped by someone so perverse, someone so clearly mad. His detestable scorn for my own race raked like talons at me, ripping my small sense of self-worth away to bleeding rags. I struggled to keep hold of the worth I felt, but it was always so shallow, so insignificant.

And I came to truly believe I was insignificant, that I, despite what I felt, was perhaps the scum he always told me the others of my kind, the others of the human race, were. Yes, despite the pain, this ruthless, numbing, bruising, cold pain I could not help but think he was right.

The light of sun and star and the occasional moon lifted my spirits up, but of course the pain didn't go away. It was still there with every waking moment, every other useless day I lead.

I think, though who am I to suggest such things, that it is in the nature of mankind to want to achieve something each day, to want to do good for the world, for others, or perhaps just for themselves. They simply wish to live each day the way they wish. They just want to be loved, to be understood, to be free.

I can't say I know that for certain, but from the fragments I've read in this abandoned library, it seems that humankind have been struggling for years with indescribable pains and confusion. They have always been searching for some sort of meaning. I've never been clear on what they were searching for, objects or names that have no meaning to me. But I have been clear, or it has become clearer the more I read and think, on what it means. Maybe the sunlight and starlight reminded me.

Humankind are such fragile creatures. They desire truth and an order to their lives. Without meaning to they craft towers and cities in their minds, the legends to these truths. To them their truths became their reality. And they must depend upon it. It makes me sad to think of it, but humans are not wrong. There is a kind of beauty to their truths, though he would never see it.

Because just as surely, as I've watched each solitary star in the crack overhead in the broken dome, so each human life tries to shine with its own little bit of truth before it merely disappears into the darkness.

Aah, but still the pain is so strong. It seems so endless as if I'm being suffocated from within and my heart broken in two. Tearing, ripping, pulling apart, breaking upon my soul like the surfs of dagger sharp waves. I'm drowning in darkness. Why can't someone save me?

But no, no. That's just wishful thinking. I am here. This is where I am. My name is Ananaza.

What my name means I don't know (I seem to be saying that a lot don't you think?) but it's all the name I have. It's the word he speaks to me, softly into my ear as he lays inside me in the darkness.

A thought – no…it couldn't be. Such a strange thought…

Those memories I have of his time with me seemed in this strange instant, this odd wrenching of a bleeding heart exposed, to be somehow golden in a soft, gentle way.

I have not seen him for the longest time. Maybe he will never return. But no, he must. He must come someday for his child.

My child.

His child.

Our…child?

No I shouldn't think such things, nor write them. I should not…be worthy to think such things. But despite that, there's a feeling growing in me, a...feeling I can't deny. And when I do the pain doesn't seem to hurt as much.

I miss him.

As clear and plain as daylight, I simply miss him. I miss Knives.

He is mad and cruel and cold, and yet, I still miss him.

I think perhaps he has wormed his way into my life deeper than I would have liked. Maybe I am just desperate to shine, the tiny star inside of me is so desperate to shine that it will reach out for anything not to have this pain. I do not know. I do not think I will ever…know.

The pain is not so bad now. I know that no matter what role I must play, whether it is mine by choice, or mine by force, that the pain I feel is not so bad as when I think of him.

I must be mad, but I feel saner than I have felt for a long while. Yes, I miss him. And I would gladly…