White Ceiling Chapter 4: Beginnings, an ever 17 fanfic

Disclaimer: All characters and likenesses contained herein are the intellectual property of KID. This is a fan piece designed for the sole purpose of entertainment, so please enjoy!

Spoiler Warning: This piece of fanfiction contains spoilers relating to Tsugumi's scenario in EVER 17. It is recommended that you play through her scenario before reading.

EVER 17:
White Ceiling
by Andrew Glasco

Chapter 4
Beginnings

A mere two days passed before I discovered the meaning behind the boy's cryptic foresight.

I opened the curtains that afternoon. It was dark. Thick storm clouds covered the sky, a heavy rain beating down upon the window. It was a relaxing sound. I felt that the heavy storm was a fitting metaphor for my current state of mind, and so I found myself staring out the window in a daze. I didn't think about the outside very often nowadays. It simply wasn't a realistic idea to carry. The outside wasn't merely unfamiliar to me anymore, but it had somehow become an entirely different world – a world that I knew nothing about. I yearned to be free, and yet the prospect of freedom itself was frightening in a way. It was a tangled web, but one that I intended to face someday.

At that moment, however, my mind was overwhelmed by a single, overpowering word. Betrayal. I had been betrayed after opening my heart. I was vexed and disgraced. The dull pain in my chest wouldn't go away as all the other wounds that were inflicted upon me would. This wasn't a healing process that my affliction could hasten.

What was worse was that I couldn't bring myself to hate the boy. It would have been so much easier if I could condemn him in my own heart. Yet, I knew that the boy hadn't meant to hurt me as he had. For whatever reason, he had been trying to protect me from something. Part of me wanted desperately to believe him, but another part desperately wished that I could disprove his words so that I could more easily blame him.

Sadness, anger, love, hate...

My head was swirling. Anger being the easiest of these emotions to rationalize, I found myself trying to blame and wanting to hate him. Yet a voice of reason lived on within me, and so I was not overwhelmed by these emotions. Of course, this only brought me more confusion. What was right? Was I wrong to be acting like this? Was I to blame after all?

I had avoided him for the past two days, and he hadn't made an attempt to talk to me. He appeared sad, but also determined not to try and fix things. Angry, I certainly wasn't going to make a move in that direction either. I felt that I was justified after his thoughtless actions. Weren't we all that the other had to rely on?

A sigh escaped my lips. There was a loud voice in the hall. It was muffled and undoubtedly quite a distance away, but was also loud and sounded flustered. My eyes turned towards the door with mild curiosity. I simply sat upon the bed for a few more moments before I gathered the motivation to stand and walk over to the door, opening it just a crack to listen.

"—going into cardiac arrest! Hurry!"

Hasty footsteps followed, voices jumbling together as they too tried to figure out what was happening. Someone was in danger of dying. That was all I understood. I had no doubt that their thoughtless testing had played a part. I felt a fresh surge of anger. Not only did they make a living by controlling lives, but they were not above taking them away, either.

I was angry, but not shocked. Not yet.

I returned to my bed to wait for my tests as usual. I stared out the window blankly. I didn't know how much time passed. I only noticed something strange when I saw that the sunlight that managed to penetrate the thick clouds was fading. It was already almost evening. They had missed my testing before on several occasions, but it was not a common occurrence. Of course, I immediately linked it back to the ruckus from earlier that day. Decidedly, if one of their precious little specimens were on the brink of death, they would sacrifice all of their resources to ensuring that they would be fine. I was cast aside as an afterthought for today.

I certainly didn't mind.

I laid back. An all too familiar white ceiling met my eyes. Just how many times had I seen this cursed ceiling, I wondered? I had absolutely no idea. The idea of the true number sickened me. Sighing, I closed my eyes to rest and hopefully pass the time quicker. I slipped into a doze.

I don't know how much time passed, but it was nearly completely dark when the door to my room opened. The noise stirred me from my light sleep, and I blinked my eyes open to recognize the researcher who would always bring us our meals. He stepped over to me and, ignoring the fact that I was awake, placed the tray at the foot of the bed beyond the reach of my feet. He then started back for the door.

I then realized something was terribly wrong. All at once, a cold sweat rose upon my skin. What was this panic that gripped me...? I called after the researcher without even thinking.

"Wait!"

He paused and craned his head to glance back towards me. I wasn't going to wait for him to ask what I wanted.

"What...about the boy's food?" I asked, my voice fragile like a half-broken glass.

He sighed laboriously, turning his head away from me for a moment before glancing back. "He won't be coming back," was his simple, but startling response. "Eat your food and go to sleep early."

The door closed and he was gone.

I was frozen. The puzzle immediately pieced itself together in my mind, but I refused to accept it. It couldn't be right. I'd seen him off this morning. He had been fine. But in spite of my denial, the words I had heard earlier echoed loudly in my ears.

"—going into cardiac arrest! Hurry!"

"No," I whispered, refusing to accept the truth that I understood all too well. "No, no, no!"

He had been distancing himself from me on purpose. I knew that. But I had no idea why...until now. He had known. It must have come to him so suddenly. He knew that he was going to die. He had pushed himself away from me to try to protect my selfish heart. I finally understood what he was thinking. But it was too late now.

I screamed. I screamed loud, hard, and long, until my voice at last cracked under the strain. The tears immediately followed, my voice breaking down into bitter sobs of denial. No one came. No one was listening. There, alone in that cursed cell, I was certain that the last of my spirit had died. I had become a mere shell, waiting for death.

Yet my cursed body refused to accept death so easily.

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EVER 17 -you are in the infinity loop- EVER 17
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Five years. Five more hellish years passed inside that facility. I remained there, but the spirit of Tsugumi Komachi was dead. No longer truly living, I merely existed. Living is more than simply having life. Living involves goals, hopes, and dreams. These had all been stolen from me. I was now merely sustained physically to be a research tool.

Over the past five years I had learned much more about the cause for all of my misery. The name of my disease was the "Cure Virus." It was a stupid name, implying that the virus was some kind of Holy Grail. I knew better. It was a curse that had destroyed my life – a life that would not end of its own accord. The virus even ceased my body's natural aging process approximately two years ago. The cells within the body die and are replaced on a daily basis, but it takes a cycle of roughly five years for all of the cells in the body to undergo this process. I was infected at the age of twelve, and from that time on the new cells that replaced the old carried the virus. Within five years, at the age of seventeen, all of the cells within my body had been replaced by ones that carried the virus. When the last of the normal cells in my body had been replaced by virulent ones, I stepped beyond the human definition of mortality. My telomeres began to regenerate themselves all their own. I would never age, and with the nearly supernatural rate of my body's healing process, it would be very difficult for me to die.

From what I had gathered, I was one of only a few known carriers of this particular virus. I had been told that my strand was somewhat different, though I still did not know how. I wanted to know why, but it wasn't an intellectual curiosity. It was one spurned by hatred for the disease and my own body for falling victim to it. If not for that disease, I never would have been brought here. The virus had brought me nothing but misery for eight years, and I had no idea how much longer I would be forced to continue to exist as a specimen. I wanted to die, but my own body wouldn't allow it. Even my own body rejected my last remaining desire. It was enough to nearly drive one mad.

In those five years I had but one friend. Chami. It no longer mattered that he couldn't understand me nor speak. When terribly desperate for companionship, people may do things that seem strange. I whispered my thoughts to Chami on many things all the time, all while knowing that I was really only talking to myself. It didn't matter, though. I made me feel better, and at the very least Chami trusted me by now. He relied on me for food and play, and I relied on him for sanity. We both must have found it a fair trade. I had managed to keep the little hamster a secret from the researchers for five years largely because they simply didn't pay attention to what I did while I was in my little prison. So long as I kept obvious signs out of sight, the researchers wouldn't think twice about it.

I'd grown too secure with this arrangement.

It was in the morning. The researchers would routinely come and get me for the day in the afternoon if they wanted to do any testing. After eight years, the tests had grown far more infrequent, and so I spent many more days sitting alone in my room. It still being morning, I thought nothing of sitting up in bed, petting Chami with my ring finger absentmindedly as he lay in my lap. He was almost asleep, dozing, and I was staring off into space without thinking much of anything. I jerked out of my daze as I heard the door suddenly open.

Of course, the researcher who tended to me most of the time was there, stepping into the room before I had time to even wonder what he was doing here so early. I noticed his expression change into an angry frown quickly, and suddenly I realized why. Panicking, I used my hands to cover Chami in a useless gesture.

"Th-this is—"

"No excuses!" he cut me off with a roar, stepping over to the bed. I only noticed that his hand was reared back before the stinging sensation struck my cheek. I slowly raised a hand to touch the burning spot on my cheek. I turned my eyes up to glare defiantly at the researcher who had built a life around destroying my own.

"Does it make you feel big?" I asked, my tone low and cold. "Does it make you feel big to kick your little guinea pigs since they can't do anything to fight back?"

It seemed that my words struck a chord. He was visibly seething. His face grew red, and there was no sign of his false smile now. I won a brief moment of satisfaction at his fluster before it was completely forgotten. He snatched Chami up in one swift motion and threw the helpless hamster at the wall with all his might. There was a small, but sickening thud. A small bloodstain stained the wall where the now-lifeless hamster had crashed. I forgot to breathe, and my eyes were wide with horror.

"That will teach you to—"

He didn't finish his sentence. He couldn't, because I was already on top of him, my slender but strong fingers coiled tightly about his now frail-looking neck. His eyes were wide with shock and something akin to fear. If I hadn't been so completely consumed with anger, I might have savored the expression.

"I'll kill you!!" I screamed hysterically, willing my hatred into my words. "You monster...!"

An odd gurgling sound escaped his throat as he fought to breathe, his arms reaching up to try and pry me away. For the first time I was thankful for just how strong the virus kept my body normally inactive body. He didn't have the strength to push me off. Thrusting all of my weight down on him, my arms quivered with effort. His face was quickly changing color, all rationality having left his quivering eyes.

I was so engrossed with murderous intentions that I did not hear the door open. The next thing I knew, two more researchers dove forward onto me, tackling me away from the creature that had killed Chami.

"Let go!!" I demanded, managing to free myself from one of them by sheer adrenaline. Consumed by a beast-like rage, I clawed at the other's face with my nails, cutting the skin of his cheek deeply. With a cry, he fell back as well. Like a predator smelling blood, I leapt back onto my prey. He had turned over onto his back and was coughing roughly, pitifully trying to crawl away to escape. I grasped his hair and pulled his neck back before slamming his head forward into the ground. I felt gratified that the impact was probably something like what Chami had endured.

I suddenly felt a sharp prick in the back of my arm. One of the researchers had injected me with something! With an angry snarl, I yanked the syringe out and slammed a fist into the side of his head. More researchers entered the room. I lost track of what I was doing, trying to get away from so many of them. Despite my animalistic rage, I was quickly detained beneath several of them. I struggled, but my strength was quickly fading. In the back of my mind, I was sure that it was due to whatever had been injected into me. Soon, only two of them were holding my arms, forcing me up into a sitting position.

A shooting pain suddenly shot through my head, the force of the blow jerking my head far to the side. After a moment, I raised my head to see the researcher I'd initially attacked glaring down at me. He raised his foot and kicked down at my head again and again. The force of the blows eventually freed me from the confines of my captors, but my thoughts were so muddled from the impact and the pain of the blows that I didn't have the presence of mind to fight back. I collapsed to the ground, and he continued to stomp and kick me in the head and side. A few long moments passed without new pain, and with quivering arms, I tried to force my upper body up...but a hard boot directly under my nose knocked me to my back. Red filled my vision as my consciousness faltered. Was it my own blood or were my eyes broken...? Voices argued loudly. Demanding someone stop. Refusal. The yelling voices all muddled together. I don't know what they said. Were they even words at all? All I'm certain of is that the beating didn't stop there. My body seemed to refuse to let me lose consciousness as the blows continued. My red vision was hazy, and I couldn't make out who was hitting me any more, but my entire body burned with pain.

I don't know how long it continued. Ten seconds? Ten minutes? But finally the blows stopped, muffled voices still muttering things that didn't make sense to my ears. The side of my head felt sticky with something which I managed to deduct was blood. Of course, it only made sense with the impact of the blows.

One of the researchers took the time to spit in my long, now red-matted hair before the voices slowly faded until I couldn't hear them anymore. My thoughts were an incoherent mess, my brain perhaps unable to deal with the severity of the injuries. Yet, I recall faintly wondering if perhaps this would be the time I was waiting for. Perhaps the blood would drain from my head quickly enough that my body wouldn't be able to recover. Just maybe I would finally be allowed to die, along with Chami.

I wish it would be so as my consciousness finally failed me.

White. That was all I saw.

As I blinked my weary eyes open, the blur of white slowly came into focus. It was a ceiling – a white ceiling that I knew far too well.

I hated that ceiling.

The scene slowly came back to me. That researcher had killed Chami. I had snapped and tried to kill him, and been beaten like a stray dog for my efforts. I had no sense of time, so I didn't know if it had been hours or more than a day since the events had transpired. I only knew that it was dark outside since no light peeked through the thick curtains.

It was then I realized that I was still lying on the floor. Rolling over to my side, I slowly pushed myself up onto my hands and knees. Drying blood and a small trace of spit still littered the floor. I was sure that my hair looked lovely. Not that it mattered. Of course, my wounds had healed themselves. If anything, I only felt a bit light-headed as I stood up. I glanced to the side of the room and stumbled over towards the little blood stain that Chami had left behind on the wall. I pressed my hand lightly against the dried blood, a grave sense of loss filling me once more. My eyes remained dry. It was too late for tears. I wasn't sure that I even remembered how to cry them anymore.

Chami, of course, was gone. I knew that they must have taken him with them for whatever reason. It angered me, but I was too tired to bother making more of a scene. There wasn't any point, anyway. I had caused them trouble, and I'd even managed to probably hurt a few of them pretty badly, but I felt no gratification from it now. If it would have prevented them from doing this to someone else, perhaps it would have had purpose. Yet I knew that after beating me and nursing their injuries they went right back to their normal routine, no doubt cursing the crazy virus girl all the while. I didn't care what they thought of me, but it sickened me to be reminded that there was no justice.

Just then, I caught sight of something moving out of the corner of my eye. A bug? I jerked my head in the direction of the movement to see...a djungarian hamster making its way towards me. Chami? But it was impossible. I knew that a creature like him couldn't survive that kind of an impact. Yet, there he was. Still stunned, I reached down and cupped my hand for Chami to hop onto. He obliged, and I brought him close to my face to have a look at him.

There wasn't a scratch on him. He was perfectly fine, his eyes as beady and curious as ever. But how? He wasn't like me. He wasn't a carrier of the Cure Virus...

Or was he? That question burned into my mind, I recalled a scene from five years ago.

"Ow!" I cried, startled. A thin stream of blood began leaking out from the new, small wound on my finger. The hamster hadn't pulled away from the fresh wound. "Let go!"

"Chami," I whispered, recalling the first time that I had met the little hamster. At that time he'd come into contact with my blood, and a good bit of it considering his size. Had Chami been infected as well?

Of course he had. Even if not that time, somehow he had been infected. There was no other explanation for how Chami could have lived. I was stunned. Chami was just like me now, and like me, that was how it was whether he liked it or not. I felt my eyes dampen, but I blinked back the unfamiliar tears. I wondered silently if Chami would have been better off having the opportunity to die, but deep down I was relieved beyond words to have discovered that my only remaining companion was not only alive, but shared a closer bond with me than I ever realized.

I held Chami tightly to my chest in the darkness, but was forced to hold my tears in even tighter.

"Get out of here. It's time for you to leave."

I stared with wide eyes.

His neck was bruised and looked swollen, a large bandage wrapped around his head. He looked like hell. Of course, I wasn't surprised. I had done it to him. It wasn't his battered appearance that had shocked me so.

"Wh...what?" I asked, unable to believe that I had heard him right.

"I said get out of here!" he boomed.

Of course, he hated me now. It was obvious from his tone and expression. He didn't bother hiding his feelings now that he wouldn't be needing me anymore. I didn't care. It was a mutual feeling. He had used me as a tool for eight years to help line his pockets. But now, to say that I was suddenly to leave...where would I go? I had no idea. The outside was another world to me now.

I almost asked him where I would go, but I stopped myself. It was a meaningless question. This man didn't care where I would go or what happened to me. This man was proof of just how filthy humanity is.

"Get out of here," he repeated. "You'll be escorted out, so hurry up."

The door closed, and I was left alone again. Alone save for Chami, of course, who was resting inside the sleeve of my gown. I was leaving...I was going to be free. They probably decided that I'd become too dangerous or unpredictable to stay here. I also guessed that they couldn't exactly transfer me anywhere easily without answering too many pressing questions about their kind of work here. They wanted to erase the fact that I'd ever been here. And they knew that I'd have no one to tell; there was no one who would believe me. It was the simplest, yet the most efficient solution.

I looked up. I saw the same white ceiling that I'd seen when I awoke in this very bed eight years ago. It seemed like a lifetime had passed since then. The ceiling hadn't changed at all, but I was a completely different person than I had been eight years ago. For eight years I submitted to their testing. They'd stolen my life from me and taken my dearest friend away from me along the way. Now they meant to toss me out the door like garbage that had been sitting for too long. It infuriated me. I should have expected nothing less, but it raised my hatred for them to new heights.

As I stood from that bed for the last time, I found a new goal. I would discover more about this place. I would discover more about my disease. I would survive.

I would have my revenge.

Leiblich Pharmaceuticals.

On the surface they were a respectable pharmaceutical company whose stock shares were currently at an all-time high. Several VIPs owned most of the company's stock, and thus called the shots. They sold medicine for many things ranging from the common cold to sedation drugs exclusively for hospital use. Not satisfied to simply make a name for themselves with medicine, the company designed a marine theme park a couple of years back called LeMU. The name apparently originated from the legend of the lost continent of Lemuria. It's every entrepreneur's dream to grow to such heights. Leiblich was on top of the world.

I couldn't care less.

From my research, I was sure that LeMU held information about the Cure Virus somewhere within. There were even rumors of an undersea laboratory somewhere inside LeMU. I hadn't yet been able to conclusively link Leiblich to the research facility that I'd been held in for so many years, but I'd heard enough to have a strong suspicion that they were behind it. I had, after all, been investigating Leiblich on and off for the four years that I had been free of the research facility.

If not the Cure Virus itself, Leiblich was the culprit for my misery.

I planned to infiltrate LeMU, find the research on the Cure Virus, maybe ruin some of the research going on there, and finally make my escape. I had nothing to lose.

A cheery little girl tugged on my tail. I ignored her.

I certainly had no dignity to speak of, wearing this outfit. But it was necessary. It served two purposes: first, it would allow me to move through the park without paying and without suspicion since was a mascot costume, and second, it would keep the harsh rays of the sun from beating down on me. The giant lemur costume stood out, but in a good way. Everyone thought me to be an employee. I simply needed to keep quiet.

The child pulled on my tail again. I glanced back at her to find her smiling widely.

"Grrrrrr," the child growled. If she looked any less threatening...well, it would have been even more ridiculous. She couldn't have been older than fourteen, and that was being quite generous. A little dog was pulling on her as she tugged on my tail. It looked like some kind of comedy act.

I sighed and cast a glance back to the next person in line. He was a boy, probably nineteen or twenty years old. He was the rugged handsome sort, but that didn't matter to me one bit. Still, maybe he would help get rid of this kid.

"Hey," I called over. He looked from the little girl over to me. His expression? Perplexed. "Can you do something about this kid?"

The boy simply blinked his eyes at me, as though he were in a daze. He was going to be a useless one, I figured. Totally unreliable. Probably stupid, too. Sighing in exasperation, I turned away again, opting to ignore the kid until it was my turn to enter the park. My turn came soon enough.

A massive gate swung open, and I entered into a large entrance for visitors to the park. I immediately knew that this had to be the decompression chamber that compressed the air to roughly six atmospheres. I'd done my homework on this process so as not to be discovered. The park staff near the entrance were giving out little earphones as the visitors stepped inside. I didn't know about these, but I figured that they were to keep people's voices from sounding strange from the gases that were to be pumped into the complex. I stepped forward.

"Oh, don't have your voice alternators?" the worker asked, taking note of my outfit. I merely nodded. Such a stupid question...

The worker handed me the so-called 'voice alternators' without another word. I was about to move off to try blend in with the staff when the worker grabbed me by the arm. I clenched my jaw, but held my tongue. Surely they didn't suspect me?

"Hey, would you mind flipping the switch to call Sora through the door, there?" he asked.

I felt mildly relieved as I heard the question, and nodded once again. I stepped off towards the door he had indicated, shoving past a few stray visitors here and there, and opened the door. There was a console to the left, and a simple switch on the wall. I supposed that it was used to begin the decompression as well as to call this "Sora." I wondered briefly if she was the head of the park as I pulled the switch. The lights dimmed, and a moment later a female voice rung out enthusiastically over the whispering crowd.

"Hello everybody!"

A woman walked out from the shallow darkness. I scrutinized her with my infrared vision and immediately understood an important fact; this woman wasn't alive. Then I recalled a word that I had heard some time ago. "RSD." This woman had to be part of the LeMMIH system that controls the complex. So, she was called "Sora."

As Sora began her explanation of the decompression process, I felt Chami moving restlessly within my sleeve. He must have been getting hot inside. I couldn't blame him.

"Just a little longer Chami," I whispered, my eyes falling over the crowd.

"Co-co Ya-ga-mi!!" the young girl that bothered me in line earlier exclaimed, apparently introducing herself to Sora.

I turned my attention away again, glancing back to the unfamiliar console. The screen indicated that we were currently at two atmospheres of pressure. I worried a bit about how Chami would react to the pressure change, but I knew that he would survive. That was simply how it was, whether we liked it or not. I was here because of that. I wouldn't allow Leiblich to have their way.

When I broke away from my daydream of revenge, Sora was explaining about the level structure within LeMU. I knew this well enough already. We were on Insel Null, which was above sea level. The first floor down was Erste Boden, the second floor was Zweite Stock, and the third and lowest floor was Dritte Stock. Deciding to ignore this part of the lecture, I scanned the crowd once again.

The young girl from earlier and the spaced-out young man were talking with easy-going smiles on their faces. I wondered briefly just where they had come from. Just what was their story? Everyone has a story that explains how they've become what they are today. No one knows when their stories are going to end. Some are happy. Some are sad. Some are simple. Some are complicated. They had such simple, casual faces...they could probably never believe or understand a life like mine.

I was jealous, looking at the two unfamiliar people. Their story compared to mine would surely sound so simple, yet so much more desirable. I wanted my story to end while their faces clearly showed that they wanted their story to continue for as long as possible. But somehow, looking at the innocent happiness upon their faces, the strangest, most inexplicable feeling came over me.

My story had only just begun.

Author's notes:
And that's it! I sincerely hope that you enjoyed the story. My biggest problem with the final chapter by far was deciding what I should close the story out with. I toyed with the idea of using the final scene from Tsugumi's scenario, but I felt that would be too much of a downer after reading an entire story about a girl's already tragic past. In this way, I felt I could provide a sort of introspection with Tsugumi during the game's opening moments. My goal was to make a fairly smooth transition so that if people felt the urge to play the game, they could simply start a new game and feel as though they were picking up almost right where they just left off reading.

I also debated on how to have Tsugumi discover that the amnesiac kid had died. The way I went about it may not have been too clever, but I felt it was perhaps a more realistic way of presenting it. Having her actually witness it seemed too contrived even in my mind, so I thought it certainly would come off as such to the readers. I was pleased with Tsugumi's bestial rage, as I felt it gave her a chance to at least unleash some of her anger and frustration upon those that destroyed her life. I felt that after going through so much pain and unrelenting stress for eight years, Tsugumi needed to snap at least once.

Whether you want to mother my children, feel I should rot in the deepest level of Hell, or fall somewhere in the middle, please leave me a review and let me know what you think! In conclusion, thanks for reading!