Author's Note: Anemone's thoughts about humanity and they are unusually psychotic.

Also, this is a mildly manga-centric story with only a vague reference to Dominic and his grey eyes.

Disclaimer: I don't own Eureka Seven.

Come and Play

#

She's lying on her bed, flat on her back, arms and legs sprawled across the soft bedding in careless abandon, half asleep and bored out of her skull, when the door to her room silently slides open. Her senses, enhanced and tuned to perfection, instantly tremble with anticipation – give us an enemy to outmanoeuvre, give us a prey to play with, give us blood, give us, give us! – but she doesn't look up. She doesn't even move. In fact, she does nothing to acknowledge that her peace has been disturbed, because there is only one person she does not treat with indifference (or worse).

But he doesn't visit her as often as he used to and sometimes she fears that Dewey might have forgotten.

Eyes still firmly closed, she simply waits for it to come closer.

Oh, how wicked of her! She suddenly feels a pleasant tightness over her chest, but urges back the giggle, because that would give her away. She will make her awareness known, yes, but not now.

(Not yet.)

It will have to make the first move.

Of course, really, she shouldn't call them it. Her attendants are human beings, a jolly assortment of quivering chunks of meat held together by skin, tendons, and bone; all which bleed so easily. She knows that well, because if she buries her fingernails deeply enough in that soft flesh, dark red liquid emerges from somewhere beneath, oozing out deliciously – slowly – before hardening into a brittle crust that just begs to be picked. That vulnerability is pitiful, so pathetic that it makes her sick; she hates to think that that could have been her in another life. But she admits that it also makes them vaguely interesting to study, because no matter how many times she tries, it is a pattern – puncture, scream, ooze, crust, puncture, scream, ooze, crust – that does not change. Just as their steps are always hurried and their demands fortified with syringes and metal, it does not change, and that comforts her somewhat for reasons she doesn't truly care about.

So who will it be today? Whose task will it be to forcefully remove her from her bed? She never leaves willingly unless they sedate her, or he requests her to.

But it is not Dewey who is lingering in her doorway.

(Dewey would not be hesitating.)

So is it the woman with the shrill voice and impossibly large nose? Or the boy with the large, grey eyes? She rather hopes that it is the latter, because there is more satisfaction – more accomplishment – in marring something whole, than disturbing that which is already flawed.

But regardless of what she does or the tantrums she throws, she knows that they cannot hurt her. They cannot retaliate, because her life is more important than theirs. Theirs are expendable, easily replaceable, but not hers. Hers is necessary. And always will be.

(That is why they fear her.)

Oh?

The door is finally sliding shut, hurried footsteps approaching. The wait is over.

Come. Her lips curl upwards into a satisfied sneer. Come and play.