Inside the Fire

Chapter 18: Loss

    TW: Self Harm

Days blend together, I'm learning more and more about the lives lived around me. Like the soap opera's a few humans enjoy after a day of work, I watch the humans grow and learn. In their simplicities they can be complicated, their minds working in differing ways, colors, scents and experiences. Some think not in words at all, behaving more like the scents living things put out when experiencing emotions. One mind, I grow familiar with, only by proximity and conversation.
    Fai is happier these days, her stress grows but so does her excitement. Her scent is like lightless fireworks, sparking off with subtle emotions she can't quite contain. I'd like to think me sticking around has improved her mood, it makes it easier to stay in this one spot.
    Diversion day came fast. As it rushed forward, I blinked and my hunger returned, Diversion day is being held tomorrow. I stare at my ceiling, as a part of my now daily routine, and wait for the day to start. Fai hums in her room, another tenant rushes out their door to make it to a distribution center to pick up any last minute food and gifts.
    There's a man down the street with a meager gift card made out to the name of his girlfriend's secret lover. He'd gotten the genetics test back from her doctor's appointment, their baby, isn't his. Instead, results show it's his father's. A woman in an office plays games exclusively while at work. She hadn't done her job in years, but still recieves a paycheck for showing up. She feels guilty about it, but not enough to work. Another person waits outside a building, sweating, it their first day back at work since they got a day off. They're psyching themselves up to say a welcome to the receptionist before taking the stairs to the 30th floor of the building, hoping no one else would be there.
  These moments of human life are captivating to me, I can almost immerse myself into them. I imagine what I would do if I was them, or if in a different life, I'd been born human and ran into them during their day to day. How could I affect their lives, how would I affect their lives. With so many different people on different times zones of the day, they rarely interact with each other themselves. Would the spurned husband be a good fit for the nervous man? Or perhaps the woman that games? Maybe not, I grimace, the nervous man wouldn't like the interruption to his schedule. And the woman, maybe she wouldn't want to deal with someone else that has heavier baggage than herself.
  Then there's the story I try not to pry on, but is easily viewable to me. Fai next door. She doesn't dream, she barely sleeps, and when she's not cooking, eating or working, she flips through books. She doesn't read them, just looks at the patterns of words, tracing in the blank spaces and imagining things in them. There was a day she did try to read one, it made her so emotional, she cried into it's pages. On days like that, I feel disgusted with myself for watching such a private moment.
  A knock on my door pulls me from my human experiences, Fai is here. I push myself back into a human form and hurriedly get dressed, it takes only a few moments. Fai blinks at me, surprised again at my growing height.
  "Kid, you need to stop the suppliments."
She teases.
  "I can't help it," I reply, "I was born different." My voice breaks on the last word.
"Hmmmm." She sighs disapprovingly, "One of these days I'll learn where your getting your juice."
  Fai taps her vaccine scarred shoulder as she speaks.
    "Then I'll get some for myself."
   I roll my eyes,
    "You wouldn't be able to afford it, it'd cost, and arm and a leg?" I cock a brow at her, and close the apartment door behind me.
    She shivers at a brisk breeze, the sun hasn't risen yet.
    "That's awful, you'd make such an awful joke to a cripple?"
    "Cripple?" I scoff, "Where?"
    "Ha. Ha." Fai deadpans, "Please tell me, do you get your miracle grow from the same place you get your audacity from?"
    "Maybe." I flash a grin.
    "Good Goddesses, put those pearlies away, first you dare to grow an extra inch over night, now you show off your teeth?" She grumbles, "The worst people get the best genetics."
    "What?" I ask, "Would you like to trade?"
    My stumach turns over hungrily, and I'm reminded that I haven't eaten in weeks. Should I eat before dinner tomorrow, or would that be rude? I've had mixed results with people food, ice cream has been okay so far... Does that mean I could eat a whole meal? Fai is still mulling over what her with my "genetics" would be like, far from the horrible truth, her musings are flattering.
    I'll need to contact... hm... the person is on the fringes of my memory. Wait, I don't think I contact them? Goddesses trying to remember them makes my head hurt.
    "Oh no," Fai shakes her head, "To have my genes you'd need to be a part of my family and you would never survive."
    "What?" I ask looking at her.
    She smirks,
    "I know I'm nice, but they are cutthroat." And mimes running her thumb along her throat.
    The motion reminds me of my last moment with Tom. I shrug,
    "You don't know, I could be cutthroat too."
    I can't help but feel sad, I failed him in the worst way. He begged for vengeance, and here I am, working with the icecream equivalent of a barista. Getting him what he wanted, I know I told him no, but if any of the humans I lived vicariously through were wronged, I'd want to right it. My stumach turns uncomfortably, but not with hunger this time. Shut up, I rebuke that part of me. I want to be better, I won't let you hold me back from that.
    "Right,-" her eyes are wistful, "but you don't have to worry about them tomorrow, they're nicer when you aren't family."
    The day passes by as blissfully boring as the rest, I waited for the person just beyond my recal to show up, but it was in vain. Before long it was the next day, * Day. Fai woke up early to start on dinner. She hums happily while preparing ingredients l, content with what she thought of her cooking, 'basic alchemy' she laughed to herself.
    I left her to it, focusing in on my soap opera's, the mistress is pregnant, sadoku crashes before she wins, and a proposal is harshly turned down. Engrossed as I was, my ears picked up on Fai receiving a call, to give her privacy, I more thoroughly ignore the others'. A room over from one of my regulars has an interesting approach to dinner today, they've added a mild poison to their food. They want to avoid having to keep making the family gathering meals, their mother-in-law heavily criticizes them every time. But with the food poisoning, they believe they'll finally be free. My mind gets ripped away from my human expiriances from a horrible familiar sound.
    Fai is crying next door. Without hesitation I read her mind and, oh. Her family isn't coming. A memory so painful for her, that even she can't pull it up is the reason why. She heats her mother's voice ringing in her head. It was her responsibility, what was the point of having her, she was now dead to the family. The weight of her mother's words push her to the ground, and she silently weeps leaning on a wall. She'd wished they'd loved her anyway, that their "love" hadn't been conditional. Of course they had hired a PI to check in on her. And said PI had informed them of her gifting the family heirloom to a museum.
    What's the appropriate way to react to this? Should I go over? I need to make myself feel sorry for her, I pull up a memory of loss from Tom, trying to sew it into my chest. If I'm to be human, I need to mirror her pain with her. All I can feel is guilt. The guilt that I know, deep down, I don't care that she's hurting. Is this a defense mechanism my old self had built up? A way to avoid other's suffering? The people I watch, I didn't want to avenge their pains because I cared for them. I wanted to "defend" them because I had convinced myself that they belonged to me. How could I have been so blind to my own mind's machinations?
    And Fai, she doesn't belong to me, she's never been mine. She's her own person. Fuck, when will I untangle the hornets nest my mind is? Fai gathers herself enough to stand, determined to finish cooking, afterall, she does have at least one guest tonight.
    I'm already standing at my door when she knocks, I wait an appropriate amount of time before unlocking it to look at her. Her eyes are swollen from crying, and there's only a slight tremble to her lower lip. I feign worry, kicking myself internally for not feeling it.
    "Dinners ready, if-" her eyes glance over me listless, "You are?"
    I nod, holding that worry in my eyes,
    "Lead the way."
    Seeing her apartment with my eyes is surreal, my eyes wander to an empty display and chest aches.
    "Feel free to sit wherever," Fai getters vaguely at the chairs around her table, "My family won't be joining us."
    I take a breath,
    "Oh Fai, I'm so sorry." I grip the back of a chair, my thumb nervously rubbing it. Time to fake it until I feel it.
    She shrugs,
    "It's not your fault, they had made other plans." Fai lies flawlessly.
    Both of us are performing? It's almost a relief,
    "But it is their fault that they're missing out on all this great food," I smile, sympathetic. "So, where do I start?" I ask, sitting down.
    Dinner is a quiet affair, each of us not quite up to conversation, but I think she prefers it. The less we say, the more she doesn't have to pretend to be okay. I don't know if the food is good or not, it burns in my mouth and settles in uneasily. She made so much though, so I keep shoveling it in and try to make the right faces while eating. Vegetables are my least favorite, slimy.
    After dinner she walks me back to my door, fighting with her hands. I think she's waiting for me to talk first?
    "Thank you for the food, -" Goddesses, what can I say? "And the company." I finish lamely.
    She nods appreciatively, not meeting my eyes.
    "I'll see you tomorrow." I whisper gently, clenching and unclenching my hand. Some people find physical touch comforting, but I think mine might be a rare exception. It'd be a headache if she thought I have a fever.
    "Yeah," she breaths, "See you."
    I close my door between us and I can hear her shuffle back into room, barring her face in her hands.