[memshare] Friends: part 1
May. 27th, 2024 11:14 pm((Note: I've linked several scenes from the manga here for context: clicking on them will show you the actual scenes!! Technically they're all optional, but I've marked with asterisks the ones I'd highly recommend viewing. Also just. Just ignore Allen being there. Sometimes the protagonist of your series gets dragged into a canonical memshare event and your business gets spilled everywhere. It's fine.))
*The first thing you hear is his voice.
You barely know what it is to be conscious, and already, he is overwhelming your senses--chattering excitedly, dashing off to get the researchers, tangling himself in their legs as he tries to get close to you and wish you a happy birthday, Yuu! He is noise and energy and joy and life, nothing at all like this dark, cold place: Research Lab 6, you learn, the place where you've been... not born, that's a word for humans--awakened. He, Alma, my name is Alma, Yuu! is the only other person your age: The rest are the researchers in charge, as the ones like you two continue to slumber in their cold pools.
He's delighted by you. You hate him immediately.
Of course, that's hardly surprising. You hate everything. You feel deeply furious all the time, and you see no reason to hide that. What reason is there to smile? There's nothing here that makes you happy. You hate this place of black and gray and white, reeking of the disinfectant they use to clean up your blood. (It should be--blue? Shouldn't it? When you look up? You don't know why you think that.) You hate your body, the way it feels all wrong for reasons you can't explain, the way it stitches itself back together no matter what you do to it, so different from the humans that watch you: different, but still excruciatingly painful, each and every time. You hate Alma, who smiles so brightly in such a dark, shitty place, who chats with the researchers that take you away each day--as if they're friends, or family, whatever the hell that is. As if they're not the people who hook you up and tear you to pieces each and every day, all for the sake of some holy war outside the lab walls. It's the entire reason you exist, but quite frankly, you don't care. As far as you're concerned, this is your life: darkness and torture and Alma.
Alma, who looks at you with wide eyes that shine with tears every time you rebuff him. Alma, who trails after you regardless of how cruel you are, pathetic in his desperation.
(Alma, who terrifies you, because you don't understand him, and you hate that you want to.)
-
When it's all said and done, you realize: You should've never told them about the hallucinations.
In your defense, you'd barely been conscious for a few months. How were you supposed to know? They were just flashes: flowers and blue and a faceless woman, a ghostly figure who makes your heart ache with a feeling you can't name. You had no way to know you were handing them a red flag on bended knee. It was just another thing to be angry about: the visions and dreams, and Alma, and the tests, and Alma. You're bitter and angry and you hate it all, still, always, you hate him--
*Until the day that something gives way, and then--you don't.
For the first time, you dare to feel happy.
(You should've trusted your instincts. Of course it couldn't last. There could never be happiness for the damned. But even now, you can't bring yourself to regret it. You wouldn't trade those days for the world.
The Order has taken so much from you but they can't ever take your love. You should know: They tried.)
*The first thing you hear is his voice.
You barely know what it is to be conscious, and already, he is overwhelming your senses--chattering excitedly, dashing off to get the researchers, tangling himself in their legs as he tries to get close to you and wish you a happy birthday, Yuu! He is noise and energy and joy and life, nothing at all like this dark, cold place: Research Lab 6, you learn, the place where you've been... not born, that's a word for humans--awakened. He, Alma, my name is Alma, Yuu! is the only other person your age: The rest are the researchers in charge, as the ones like you two continue to slumber in their cold pools.
He's delighted by you. You hate him immediately.
Of course, that's hardly surprising. You hate everything. You feel deeply furious all the time, and you see no reason to hide that. What reason is there to smile? There's nothing here that makes you happy. You hate this place of black and gray and white, reeking of the disinfectant they use to clean up your blood. (It should be--blue? Shouldn't it? When you look up? You don't know why you think that.) You hate your body, the way it feels all wrong for reasons you can't explain, the way it stitches itself back together no matter what you do to it, so different from the humans that watch you: different, but still excruciatingly painful, each and every time. You hate Alma, who smiles so brightly in such a dark, shitty place, who chats with the researchers that take you away each day--as if they're friends, or family, whatever the hell that is. As if they're not the people who hook you up and tear you to pieces each and every day, all for the sake of some holy war outside the lab walls. It's the entire reason you exist, but quite frankly, you don't care. As far as you're concerned, this is your life: darkness and torture and Alma.
Alma, who looks at you with wide eyes that shine with tears every time you rebuff him. Alma, who trails after you regardless of how cruel you are, pathetic in his desperation.
(Alma, who terrifies you, because you don't understand him, and you hate that you want to.)
-
When it's all said and done, you realize: You should've never told them about the hallucinations.
In your defense, you'd barely been conscious for a few months. How were you supposed to know? They were just flashes: flowers and blue and a faceless woman, a ghostly figure who makes your heart ache with a feeling you can't name. You had no way to know you were handing them a red flag on bended knee. It was just another thing to be angry about: the visions and dreams, and Alma, and the tests, and Alma. You're bitter and angry and you hate it all, still, always, you hate him--
*Until the day that something gives way, and then--you don't.
For the first time, you dare to feel happy.
(You should've trusted your instincts. Of course it couldn't last. There could never be happiness for the damned. But even now, you can't bring yourself to regret it. You wouldn't trade those days for the world.
The Order has taken so much from you but they can't ever take your love. You should know: They tried.)