The Ashes of Wonderland Part 2

Whisper Upon Blood

Tonight, the moon hangs down and dim

And filters blood from outside in

Inside a darkened room, thirteen people hid behind shadows marked with crimson letters and numbers, revealing nothing of who they were and masking a physical form. However, their spoken words were not concealed.

"The arrangement has been established. There are only a few steps remaining before final commencement."

"This is not the Lance, but it shall do in its stead."

"We cannot rely on Ikari any longer."

"Correct. In addition, this must played according to our rules; ours, not Ikari's."

"That is true. This must not be lead by Ikari's hand, unlike the pilot of Unit 00."

"Yes, and that pilot's allegiance is the reason behind the new path."

"That mistake must not be repeated. Interactions with that child must be monitored."

"Yes. Moreover, it must be controlled in order for the hope to reveal itself in the light of undoubted destruction."

"Agreed. Being that we can no longer rely on NERV to follow the set path, this scenario shall not be discussed outside of this channel. Actions must be taken in order that it will commence as we predict with no differentiation to the actions taken to achieve it. I trust that this conference will be kept confidential."

The shadows faded suddenly, leaving the last words to echo unto nothingness.

Why was the room empty?

Sun glinted in through all the windows; save one, which had the dirtied blind pulled down, the cord dangling down the wall to the floor.

Why was the room empty?

It was lined neatly with wooden desks made for studying, but they were abandoned. No one sat in these chairs. An old man sat behind the teacher's desk, noisily flipping through a magazine but not taking notice of her. Hotaru felt awkward in the silence, for the first time. She had expected others to be here. She leaned against the edge of a desk, her skirt rustling, and her eyes wandered in anticipation of another entering the room.

Where was the laughter of school children?

Once it had been their laughter that she had feared. At one point she had cringed over smiles and tucked away her own in order to escape vulnerability. They had made fun of her gift. They had pulled away from her hands, said she caused bandages, called her a liar when she didn't remember. But that was not her. That was the first body who recalled such a thing, the one whom had been infected with the parasitic claws of that woman.

Where were the children?

Oh… she had nearly forgotten.

This was the place where the giants came. No parents would want their child to be in danger of death, and wasting their life in a school while the threat was posed. Though education would be a proper thing to have, most mothers and fathers would like the child to be dumb and alive, rather than smart and dead. Besides, there was no place to live. Most of the buildings had been destroyed as of late.

There was no purpose to staying here. It would bring no hope to empty desks, no smiles to ghosts of faces.

She left the room. She turned out the door and around the corner of the exit. The school was now outdated, and a place which she wished to not stay. The bell chimed the hour as she exited the schoolyard, pulling at her ankles but receiving no reply.

An odd feeling settled in her shoulders, as if she felt the heat of another body near her own. However, she found that wasn't the case as she stopped and looked over her shoulder. She glanced around her before turning on her second-hand shoes.

She let her hands fall away from her face, laying the eye pencil on the dresser. Now, her makeup was dark along her eyes, thick eyeliner, and mascara lining curled lashes. She liked it that way, for it brought contrast to her fair skin. She sat simply in front of the mirror with her hands clasped in her lap. Her clothes had been changed, and now there appeared to be a frame of black around her face, starting at the line of her bangs and running round the velvet collar to, just below her collarbone, her black spaghetti-strap shirt. Her socks were mauve, coming midway up her calves. She wore the same shorts from the night before.

She stood up, again taking notice of the full cardboard boxes in the rooms. She was feeling lazy, and even though she didn't feel that Tokyo was the last place that she was going to stay, she wasn't about to let the boxes sit there for an eternity.

Using her heels and swift leg movements, she tugged at her socks, pulling them off from her toes and kicking them toward her makeshift bedding from the night before, a useless thing now that her bed had been set up and made. Her toenails were naked and the air felt good between her toes as she lightly made her way across the room. She plopped down on the floor, yanking at cardboard flaps and digging her hands into box contents. She was placing a toaster onto the floor when something caught her eye.

She stared at the floor near the lamp. The tiny moth was on the carpet. It did not move. Hotaru leaned over, looking closely at the little insect on the floor. She breathed on it softly. It did not move.

The moth had died.

Her forehead creased as she tried to understand why it had died, and why she felt sorry for such a small form of life. She had removed its fear and pain, and then it died. Why?

She cupped the moth in her hands gently and stood up. Hotaru watched the moth for any sign of life, even a struggling one, but found none. She lay it down on the window sill. She could cease pain, heal wounds, however, she could not erase death.

The white sheer curtains did a slow waltz as the wind gently laid a hand on their hips and swayed with them; their dancing partner. Hotaru stood there, barefoot, her hands at her sides. She was not paying attention to the dance, nor was she paying attention to the street below or the light traffic or the clicking of the stoplight.

Now this was another place which she did not wish to be.

Hotaru briskly made her way to the door and put on her shoes. She had to get away from the vacancy and death in empty rooms. The door opened, but not quickly enough. Her feet darted up and down on the floor of the open hallway that wound round the building, and then down the stairs.

Strangers lined the streets. No one to speak to and no one to care. All were apathetic strangers to her. She shoved her hands in her pockets and pulled her shoulders inwards. Her sneakers padded along the sidewalk in a steady rhythm.

She stopped in front of a small convenience store. The glass windows reflected back a ghost.

A sound caught her ears.

A child's laughter.

Sweet scent upon the air, like honeysuckle blooms and cherries.

Her heart rose to the surface of her skin and she swirled around before she could stop herself.

She knew it wasn't going to be her. She knew it and still she had hoped and achieved a flicker of a dream. But the little girl was not her. The girl belonged to a middle-aged mother, with whom she shared the same hair color, an auburn shade. This was not her. Hotaru had reached out for the memory of strawberry ice-cream colored hair with all her might, but could not summon it into reality. Her friend was not going to be here today, or even tomorrow.

Frustrated in her disappointment, she yanked open the door to the store, thrusting herself inside and rushing to the very back, the furthest away from the little girl and her mother as possible at this point.

"Hey! Watch out! I just mopped!"

The cry hit the air too late. With a loud squeak, Hotaru's sneakers were already sliding across the linoleum. She let out a shriek and tried to brace her fall with her arms. Her right foot shot out and caused her to fall to her side, sliding across the floor.

Her legs collided and tangled themselves with another set of limbs, sending a body tumbling onto the floor, palms smacking against linoleum to break the fall. One hand landed in front of her waist, the other behind her back, the torso of the other person perpendicular to her own. The warmth of the arms was soon removed, with a soft groan of pain from the owner. Hotaru opened her eyes and saw white shoes.

Attached to the shoes was the body of a boy. Dark hair cut short just above his eyes. They were blue, and squinted with pain. White shirt. Black pants.

"Sorry…" he mumbled as he finally stood to his full height.

"No… my fault… sorry," she said and stood up. She looked at him. He didn't really seem to acknowledge that she had fallen, almost as if the action had been erased. He seemed indulged in swirled inner feelings and thoughts. He flicked his eyes upward in a fashion that was almost curious in mannerism. She suddenly averted her eyes with the blush filling her cheeks to the brim. "Sorry," she said again and turned away. She didn't want to be near him any longer. Her feet went to another aisle. He had seen her in a tossing, a revealing fault of not being able to keep balance on slippery floors. It was irrelevant, however it caused her embarrassment. She didn't like anyone to see her without grace and kindness, and mostly power. The last was saved only for the ones who deserved to see their own deaths.

Why did she take those thoughts lightly?

Death was nothing to her.

She was repulsed by the nothing she felt for it.

The detergent shelf seemed to cry out selection with the bright labels and colors adorning each box. The aisle smelled nice. It smelled clean. Her shoulder burned in the artificially cooled air. She rubbed it softly, finding soothing warmth from her own fingertips. Her thoughts went back to the boy. She cursed inside her skin. He had been her age and she had made a fool of herself in front of him! She would never make any friends in Tokyo at the rate she was progressing. She wasn't in the swirling steel city to make friends, though.

But why was she here?

Why had she listened to the man on the other line?

His tongue had clicked against his teeth and formed words. She had heard those syllables, and hated them, and yet she obeyed them.

Obeyed!

She obeyed the voice as if it had been someone she respected and cared for, but the rasp was not in memory! It was not locked in any of them!

She scowled at the detergent boxes. She did not like this place. She hated this place. She hated the boy. She hated the store. She hated the cashier. They did not resemble anything she remembered from before. Her robins had vanished with the wind, splinters of red ribbon running down the sky in their murder. She was alone here.

She was alone.

And she hated it.

The sharp gnarled hands took a twist in her chest, grinding their oozing skin inside hers, squeezing her heart as one would a sponge to let the pain pool throughout the entirety of herself.

Her exit of the store was brisk, and she continued running away from the places she hated. She ran from the boy. She ran from the clean smell of the detergent aisle. She ran from the man on the telephone. She ran from the frail body of the dead moth.

And, all the time she was running, a single thought coursed through her.

What am I to find here?

No one welcomed her back when she turned the key again and opened her door. She was alone here. An ache settled lightly inside her ribs and this demon felt content there and so there it stayed, to become warm with her pulse and blood.

The telephone rang and she was startled by the sudden sound against the walls.

Her hand plucked up the cool black body and brought it to her ear.

"Hello?"

"Greetings."

It was the same voice as before. "I trust you made it to Tokyo-3 safely," he said, and she could hear a light wheeze after the words, as if he was old and struggled to breathe, relying on machinery to keep him alive.

"Yes, I did," she answered.

"You didn't attend your school."

Hotaru narrowed her eyes with the realization that someone was monitoring her.

"There was no one else there."

"Knowing your location, I could safely tell you that such an occurrence is not a strange one."

Hotaru raised an eyebrow.

"Why did you tell me to come here?" she asked.

"Your presence was specifically requested."

"But why?" Her voice was raising in volume, stressing the second word; her impatience clouding judgment. Hotaru could almost hear him smirk through the telephone. "Why did you come? Did you not feel a need to return to this place you lived so many lives before this one?" he said, the signature wheeze following his words once more.

Hotaru's violet eyes spread wide and her heart suddenly trembled in its beats.

"We know many things about you, Hotaru Tomoe. We've known about you for sometime; what you were, what you are. However, your destiny has taken a new path."

Hotaru regained her words. "New path? What do you mean?" she said with suspicion in her tone.

"All will be revealed in due time," the voice nearly snapped before becoming formal, "At precisely 8am tomorrow morning, a bell will ring. You must answer this bell and you will be escorted to a location. At this location, you will be briefed."

"Briefed?"

"You will be given the key to open the box to this reality and all the lies you have been told will vanish. Trust in us and your hopes and the erasure of loneliness shall be fulfilled. Does this appeal to you?"

There was a pause.

"And what if it doesn't? What if I like being lonely?"

"Then this conversation will have never existed. I would say that it never took place. All others who took part in this conversation will be terminated."
"But the only ones who know about this are me and…"

"Exactly."

Another lock of silence.

"I trust you will answer the bell."

A click. Then a dial tone.

Hotaru let the receiver slip down into her lap and she chewed her lip.

Author's notes:

"Suffocating Alice" still belongs to me. 'Tis copyrighted through Fiction Press.

Song(s) listened to while writing:

Our Lady Peace – Thief

Smashing Pumpkins – Disarm