The Restoration Protocol

47 || binary dreams

She can block out nothing. Her strained voice pleading him, nor the force of her hands crushing the sides of her head. If anything, her vain efforts only serve to amplify Claude's words.

"I don't say all this to taunt you, my dear," he speaks softly. "Believe me...I know the pain that has driven your heart to reflect this blank slate around you. Much bleaker than a sun overshadowed by dark clouds is a sky with no sun at all. But I can bring it back. I can bring back the sun, and you won't have to run into a burning building to stay warm anymore..."

With this last sentence, Claude's voice finally becomes quiet, tapering off like a train passing through a long and dark tunnel. Yet the sensation of sharp ringing is left behind in her ears. Mariko doesn't move. She doesn't take her hands away from her head or dare to look up to see if Claude truly had left. In this world, he is everywhere, and everything. The Warden of Paracosia. The creator of dreams and the architect of nightmares. Everything is as he says.

Everything.

Down to the last detail of what happened in the flames of that building. The last wall Mariko's brain had built to shield her heart has crumbled to dust. The last thing she saw before she lost consciousness, burned into the surface of her memory bank as deep as the burn on her forearm. The ceiling did fall on him. Just a part of it, but it made no difference. He collapsed instantly and she watched it happen. Just after he had pulled her from a tight spot and pushed her through the doorway...he was struck. The firefighters probably arrived soon after, but she wasn't awake at the time. She couldn't know. She only knows what she saw.

And she thinks she saw Sebastian's final moments.

Maybe his brain held on just long enough to let her meet him here, in Paracosia, and to remember everything. But now, he's gone 'home.' To awake from a dream could be the death of the body.

If only she hadn't run inside. The fire had already started by that point – she had every chance to get to safety before it grew to the size that it did. But she had left something behind she couldn't bear to lose. She had to find it, even at the expense of her life. She was convinced she didn't want to live, anyway.

With her forehead pressed against the ground, Mariko continues to cry alone. The memory of Sebastian lifting her into his arms and carrying her from that room as the flames grew around them replays in her mind. As much as she recalls the scent and taste of smoke, she remembers that feeling just as well. And the echo of his words, his promise that he would ask Mariko's uncle about letting her stay with him.

She clutches her arms tighter. Nothing could replicate that embrace, the source of warmth and comfort that he was to her. Nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing.

As one of many tears rolls off her cheek, Mariko has an abrupt realization that the ground beneath her has changed. A texture like that of soft grass brushes against her exposed ankle. She opens her eyes a crack. It is grass. There's a patch of grass beneath her, a warm shade of green. Mariko's ears stop pounding. Her throat clears as well. She lifts her head slightly, only to discover someone standing over her.

Well, it's hard to say they're 'standing.' The ghost-like apparition Mariko has believed to be a virus since she first saw it at Alias's concert now floats in front of her. Silent and calm. Though it still has no face, Mariko can make out a vague outline of eyes a tint brighter than the rest of the virus's body. Slowly, she rises to her feet while watching it with care. It's not here to hurt her. By this point, the virus has proved itself to be an ally, albeit one no less mysterious than the day it appeared.

"What...what do you want?" Mariko asks.

The virus does not speak. But as it did on the airship, it replies with text on a screen, one which appears floating in the space between them.