You really are a simple creature, aren't you?
The voice echoed in the emptiness. At first Orihime thought she'd gone back between, to that space between worlds, and that another disaster was imminent—but no. There was no river here. There was nothing.
Orihime turned away, though there was nothing to see, or avoid seeing. There was only the voice—the scream called Ori. It tutted, following her like a swarm of bees.
Nope. You're stuck with me, it said, jeering. Sorry, princess. And I mean that. No one's sorrier than I am, actually.
The spiteful words stung, but far less than the hate she could feel behind them. It was bubbling like acid inside her, eroding her away with its caustic loathing. But it felt like it was coming from her, from her own mind. It was her hate, but she didn't want it. She tried to push it away, but it wouldn't go. It was welling up inside her own heart, and she couldn't escape it—there was nowhere to escape to, this time.
She was dreaming. She had fallen asleep beside Grimmjow like she had so many times before. She could feel him radiating warmth against her back like a space heater. He kept her warm here, in the cold desert…only this time they weren't on a tree branch or reclining against a sand dune. They were on a flat white couch in his empty, Fraccion-less tower, where he'd held her as she wept herself into exhaustion, for the first time in so long. Just when she'd thought she had forgotten how to cry for good and all, she'd remembered. She held onto that. It was real. She could still feel the salt on her cheeks. She shook her head.
"You're not real."
The voice laughed, almost a cackle, but there was pain in it, too. Anger and resentment beneath the mania. Fueling it.
Oh, you're—that's right, you're not going to 'indulge' me. Isn't that what you decided?
Orihime almost answered, but held herself back. She wasn't going to play games with herself, even if—or especially if—she was going mad. She tried to wake up, but the voice wouldn't let her go.
You're still denying I exist? Even after everything I've done for you—everything I've given you? The voice sneered as she thrashed. Everything you've stolen from me.
It wasn't going to let her go until she answered, she knew. It needed to be heard. Like Grimm's wounds had needed to be understood before he could let them go. But she couldn't just agree with it. She couldn't just say it had a right to hate her.
"I've stolen nothing," she said.
The voice growled and shoved her away in disgust, and Orihime stumbled back toward consciousness.
I don't know how I ever thought you'd be any different from the rest of them.
The voice was changing. There was regret and disappointment in it now, and guilt hit her like a wrecking ball. She tried to stay, tried to ask, but the dream was already unraveling.
"Different from who?" she shouted to the bleakness. The last thing she heard as she woke was the voice, so like her own, but so angry, ringing in her ears.
Everyone. Everyone else who treated us this way.
Everyone else who used me, and then forgot I even existed.
Everyone—everyone I betrayed by coming here at all.