Les Murs Ont Des Oreilles - [TBtP: Rem]

[Lyra d'Aiglemort]

She slipped through the cool night air like a diver slicing through the water. Shadow to shadow, eve to eve, Lyra surged, leaving her breath and any oxygen for her brain to percolate behind. There was only this moment. Only the buzzing under her skin that no amount of running could displace.

Ducking a tree branch, Lyra came at her target sideways. Up the hilly embankment and through the bushes towards the darkest corner of the playground. Mulch squelched underfoot, the scent sharp and spicy and utterly ignored, as Lyra made a beeline for the jungle gym.

Her hands were shaking. She slipped. A muted flash of pain abandoning her far too quickly. Lyra ignored that, too, as she crouched and slithered her way into the hollow beneath the slide.

It was child-sized. Lyra was decidedly not.

Still, she curled, spine pressed against the rough wood and knees to her chest. Just enough. Just enough.

Lyra shoved her knees against her mouth to stifle the little noises she was making. Silence settled around her. The blanket of the night so much warmer and gentler than an artificial darkness. The kind that seeped into your bones and went on unending. The kind that stole away even moonlight, even the faintly perceptible dark-against-black silhouettes of the world. Like a cloth wiping away dirt, in one motion taking everything away.

Lyra knew she would have to go back. She knew she knew she knew she knew. Before anyone came looking – it was always best to be contrite. Lyra made mistakes and apologized for them, Lyra tried to get better – to be better – Lyra did not run off without a flash of shame, of remembrance.

And Lyra certainly did not fantasize about taking her knife and shoving it through that grating smile, swapping silky words for bloody gurgling, until the only thing left was the echo of silence.

Besides – the playground was empty now, not in use, out of order – but tomorrow when the sun rose, and children awoke, it would return to its natural function. The mother and her three little ones would leave the house next door between the ranges of 7:30 am and 8:15 am. They would run down the sidewalk ignorant to their mother’s chidings, and race across the playground like it was their home turf. And for a moment, for hours really, the playground would shelter them.

They would play and scream and run and forget what happened a scant few yards away.

Lyra’s home was further – and she was no child prone to fantasy or escapism – this place was not meant for her. And yet she kept returning. In the silence of the night when no one would notice. Stealing minutes or hours as she could.

The guilt came finally. The last of her crystalline protection, the icy particles holding it at bay, melted to release the floodwaters. And with it the rage. Quieter, colder, furious – and deep deep down, so packed with salt it could only sink. Down down down, even now, even with the waters burst free of the dam, her anger took care to sink.

Her hands were shaking. Lyra curled them into fists and squeezed until her bones creaked. Until her chest went tight, the strain pressing every last ounce of feeling out of her body. Tighter and tighter she coiled, compressed, falling in on herself like the earth forcing coal to diamond.

The rupture, when it came, was as sudden as the doctor shaking their head. Perfect stillness broken by a flurry of violence as Lyra burst from her rock-like state to pound fists against the wood of her enclosure. Stars sprang white-gold across her vision as she smacked her head into a support beam, boots drumming a death march.

And still, Lyra sunk her teeth into her wrist, muffling her screams under thick layers of fabric.

[Rem]

There was a grim calculus at play here. Rem could plant a seed anywhere in the world, but there was a cost to the enterprise. Could it expect to reap more from its harvest than it would exhaust in its planting? Some seeds were placed in locations sure to garner attention eventually and the risk was paid off in the value it expected for the time it might expect. It had become a calculated endeavour. Around the world, hundreds of seeds, all of them for a unique purpose. As Rem gained more power, it planted more, ensuring a rich harvest in one or many.

The location here was one such location. The location was full of life and yet the plethora of individuals it encountered was unique enough that no single one would supply Rem with more than it could bear to lose. This was not done for any sense of vain sentimentality, it didn't care less about the fertilizer it used to tend its crop but the less victims it took the less attention it tended to garner. The wasted energy in dealing with interlopers was perhaps the most critical element of the equation, never mind the risk.

Some small part of it delighted in the labor, inevitable, unavoidable, pointless. It knew what awaited all who struggled and yet the hunger made its demands and Rem obliged.

It pulled back the curtain of the world and passed through.

Still and quiet. Rem felt the bareness of the night's wind against its gunmetal flesh and it lingered silently for a moment, crouched and observant. It chose this time for its ease, it could cross into the boundary of this world whenever it needed providing it could pay the cost. This was not a day of planting but of harvest.

It made its movements, broad sweeping steps but silent as a wraith as it melted through the night, invisible to all but the most cursed. The garden was not far and it could smell the harvest in the air. Delightful and, something else within it too, a curious note which hit the air. It hesitated, uncertain.

There were often interlopers, but none that felt like this. Different. Amiable. Not one the same as Rem itself, those could always be assured to entertain, but one alike Rem. Similar in an unfamiliar way.

It made its approach, silent under the cover of the stranger's laments and observed in silence as it neared and watched as the noisy chaotic violence subsided for a worse and quieter one.

It had witnessed countless scenes of misery before, worse and lesser and yet for all its familiarity, it could never bring itself to look away. Fascinating, so fascinating. Rem delighted to watch the way a mortal would twist itself against the reality of the world. So many of them would never bear witness to that truth until the very end of their life, but some, they would glimpse the pureness of futility. What could Rem do but watch how they writhe against it the barest glimmer?

But, this one was different? Could it observe the -fullness- of that reality? It could tell there was something else about this one.

A harvest with a promise so enticing that for the moment it forgot the void tinted bloom it had originally come to collect. If only Rem could nurture it properly.

Two eyes peered through the solid white mask, a maw of terrible perfectly aligned white teeth regarded Lyra and then a voice spoke thus, rumbling out in a deep baritone which filled the air at once.

"Strange place to find a mortal like you."

[Lyra d'Aiglemort]

It was her heart that beat as if to claw itself from her chest. Pounding in great bursts of adrenaline as her blood flowed. Danger skittered at the edges of her cocoon, a spider crawling across exposed skin, but Lyra was too caught up in her release to catch it. Her stomach was full of spiders so what was one more touch?

The world was broken down into that one slice, a fragile glimpse, air like knives as she took in shuddering gulps. It could have rained fire for all Lyra would have noticed. Tucked as she was inside a child’s dream of the void. Fingers knotted around the ragged blanket of belief as she tried desperately to wind herself back under the illusion of safety.

That’s all it was, though. An illusion.

Even in her escape Lyra understood that. This entire moment was an idle passing reverie. The oasis shimmering on the horizon. Whether it was real or not mattered far less than her desire to feel something. To remember the thunder of blood through her veins. This was her. Still.

She ceased her flailing, breathless, fingers digging furrows in the mulch. Dust tickled her nose and she sneezed, eyes watering, just as a mask bleached bone-white in the moonlight appeared through the entrance to her hiding place.

Lyra went still as the mouse pretending it had never existed. The spider skittered up her spine.

She blinked.

“Ah… Would you like me to move?”

[Rem]

Utterly still, Rem remained unmoving, unblinking, a passive observer. It watched the chemical shift with great interest, the thickening of the vein against the neck as adrenaline was pumped freely into its body, watching as the skin gained the faintest sheen. Like electricity passing over the surface and hairs standing up on end. This was the look of a thing about die.

Rem considered for a moment if it would make it so, but Rem was not beset by the hunger now. A harvest was close at hand and a second one was within its grasp. It could be patient, would be patient to make the most of the opportunity.

It was able to perceive them, how delightful. This was not the first of such an encounter but it could count so few times its prey was able to notice and register Rem's existence. Far from common, it held novelty with each, no two had been alike yet. This one had such potential, such potential.

Rem's maw would widen in some twisted facsimile of a human's grin. Upon noticing him it went still, quiet, did the fear subside? Was this relief or something else? How lovely to be so uncertain.

A moment of silence lingered between them as Rem observed.

"No," it uttered in a quiet boom. For if it tried to leave then Rem would lunge, it wouldn't be able to help itself. Such was the implacable nature of the beast.

Rem stared a moment longer. "Why have you come to this place. Is it familiar to you? Are you drawn?" The questions came swiftly, each demanding an answer. Why here? Why had it come at such an hour to such a strange place, to offer itself freely as food.

"What were you hoping to accomplish?" Ah that was key wasn't it. That was the real question. The one that mattered.

[Lyra d'Aiglemort]

Questions. Questions Lyra could deal with. She stayed frozen in place, willing tired muscles to hold their shape, and allowed herself to be comforted by the familiarity. Questions required answers. Responses. One shouldn’t pause too long before answering. The truth should be easy.

“Yes. I come here sometimes when – just, occasionally.” Lyra battled the need to blink but her body's weakness won out. She bit her lip and pushed on. “I’ve been coming for - I think a year, maybe two. Only when no one else is using it though! If I knew you were coming, I wouldn’t have.”

She halted, picking through the monster’s questions bit by bit. What was she missing? What hadn’t she addressed?

“I’m sorry. I just wanted… it’s very quiet here. But not too quiet.”

Lyra was hiding. Had come here to hide and was now trying to erase the trail to her crime. But it had asked.

“I feel things when I’m here,” she whispered. Even if she had been told not to move her eyes still flicked, up, down, towards the row of teeth. A smile full of knives, wasn’t that a phrase from a book? Only the monster wasn’t smiling.

[Rem]

Oh. Oh how delightful. It knew, on some level it knew and it sought Rem out. Rapturous joy filtered through Rem although it had little awareness of what the source of it truly was. Oh. What was this feeling it wondered? But it had no time to dwell and consider such a thing.

Could a mortal truly understand?

It spoke so diligently, seeking perhaps to curry favour, or please the monster poised so, or perhaps solely because deference was its nature. Rem listened in silence, a stony statue of stark features and delighted in its answers. But that last one was what truly caught its attention. It had to be certain, it had to know, it had to hear the words out loud.

"Tell me what you feel."

Show me how close you are to understanding, and I promise I will help you the rest of the way.

[Lyra d'Aiglemort]

Lyra wavered, cattail in the marsh, and stared at the creature. If she reached out she could have touched it -- pressed skin to inky darkness and felt... felt what?

What did she feel?

"I..." Lyra licked her lips, throat thick after her earlier histrionics, but her lips remained dry. She ran her teeth over them until a fissure opened. Blood beaded warm and she licked it away, coming back twice as quick with a sharper astringent sting.

"I feel angry. And sad. And -- and scared." She started her recitation slowly, hesitant in the way of a navigator feeling out each syllable lest she fall beneath rotten ice.

When the monster failed to react, Lyra went on, speed picking up. "I feel alive. Like this is real. This place. The dirt -- it's here." Forgetting his command, Lyra reached out and pressed her fingers to the mulch, curling them deep heedless of the dirt under her nails, just to relish the texture. "It's here. I'm here. But no one else ever is. No one looks. So it's safe. Kind of -- it feels safe."

"I want to stay." Her eyes were wide, transfixed, distant but utterly focused. Seeing but not. Fingers convulsed in the mulch, kneading with a reflexive trance-like quality. "I feel like if I stay something awful will happen -- something real -- and only the night will remember it."

That same face narrowed, darkening as the girl peeled back her lips in a visceral snarl. "And I hate her! I hate her! I want to kill her. I want to cut her throat and bury her so deeply not even plants will think about her."

Lyra blinked, shrinking back as if the ferocity of her response could be retracted. It couldn't. It couldn't and she had a monster too. That ugly black pit in her stomach, the ravening edges that whispered in her ear, the voice of madness that egged on thoughts too dangerous for even fantasy.

Tonight she was her monster. It had crawled out from behind her ribcage and it wouldn't be satisfied until it too said its piece. She didn't want to be violent. Lyra hated it. Her inescapable nature. How easily she fell to such base instincts. That she could never just accept it, admit what she was, so she had to keep hurting people until she learned. And Lyra never learned.

"I want to cut her; so gently she won't even feel it, until she's bleeding, everywhere, and then when she realizes -- when she knows she's going to die -- I'll leave her there. I'll... I'll close the door so no one can hear her. And I'll let her die alone."

Lyra didn't want to be violent but why did it have to feel so good?

[Rem]

It listened in its continual passive stoicism.

Rem's mortal life was long lost but the echoes remained. It remembered anger. A futile gesture, a sensation that demanded action, retribution, mollification. It served to propel you into mistakes, an impulse of self-destruction that begot the very emotion in others who would then revisit it. Delightful in the operation, the way that emotion worked within the bounds of meaninglessness. How well they anchored people central to the maelstrom. Sadness, an emotion of weakness. To be sad was a path to acceptance. When one lacked the means to rage against their circumstances sadness was the natural recourse. Understandable, if only for the truth of its origins. As good as any. At last fear, the tremoring sense of awakening to the naked truth of reality.

Its stoicism faltered with delight. Oh, that was new. It leaned forward just so. She was right of course, something -would- happen. Some people recognize the threat of Rem's seedling for what it was and had enough wherewithal to flee. Never before had Rem encountered someone who sought it out, reaching out gingerly towards oblivion. Oh, how it wished it could teach her to seize it.

Even more, that black and bubbling pit of human misery resided strong in her. To slay one's kin was sinful, and for Rem that sin was well walked but it knew that salvation was a dark lie. Did this creature know that too? What did it mean to imagine paradise and turn away? Rem couldn't imagine such a thing, could it be that this creature could?

Oh, it thought to pretend it didn't mean it, it shrank away from the reality of its dark sin but it couldn't because Rem had heard it. And so it became real, no longer words whispered in the mind, but the shape of an action given shape? Could it be pushed to do it? What was the taste of such a thing it wondered?

"You could, I suspect, but you haven't, why didn't you? Why won't you?"

Its wide maw remained in an open grin, it leered towards her.

"I could do it for you if you wish."

[Lyra d'Aiglemort]

Lyra stared. She blinked once and felt a rush of déjà vu, like the world was falling backward. The spiders were back, a cluster of them, skittering along her collarbones and towards her throat.

She swallowed heavily. “You’re a Hollow, aren’t you?”

She’d known. This feeling – the electric tingle, the skin-crawling fear – Lyra had felt it before. But she wasn’t afraid right now. Or, rather, there was no terror. Like in a dreamscape Lyra looked at her demise and felt calm.

Digging furrows into the mulch, Lyra responded as if she had never interrupted the monster, empty enough after her release that she could admit the truth with a numb detachment. If Lyra didn’t think about it it was like it hadn’t even happened.

“I can’t.”

She left the mulch alone, reaching for the blade at her side, only to rub her thumb against the silky smoothness rhythmically. Could she? Could she kill one of Father’s projects? Before he was done with them, she amended.

Physically the answer was undeniable. Yes. Of course. A human body had so many weaknesses. Lyra could make it look like an accident even.

But he would know. He knew everything.

“I can’t because if I do something bad will happen.” She repeated her earlier wording unintentionally, vagaries not protecting her mind from flicking towards the possibilities. It wasn’t something you said out loud. As if in the silence everyone could look away.

He would be so disappointed.

“But you…?” The teen tilted her head back, shifting out of her huddle to a kneel. She exhaled, counting to five and with each breath running her thumb up and then down the hilt of her knife.

“Why would you do that?”

[Rem]

It knew the name for Rem's kind in its own tongue, uncommon. That too was the space subject not of the realm of mortals. But since it knew, and had known, and hadn't left yet, Rem did nothing. It merely observed the question and the creature and watched it closely in answer. No denial or answer was necessary, it trusted the point was clear.

Oh, the creature couldn't possibly do it after all, of course not. Rem almost sneered but of course, such an expression was beyond its meagre abilities anyway. Of course, she could, she wanted to, and was able and she knew that too. Ah, the delight of a lie spoken aloud while the truth hung close. Denial was acceptable because Rem was patient. Denial was merely a dam for the weight of the truth to build against. Rem could feel that this one was about to crack.

Even now she fantasized about making herself a liar.

But then the lie changed to something perhaps closer to the truth. It wouldn't be worth it to slay her kin because something bad might happen? Rem pondered at that and offered a single reply.

"Isn't something bad already happening?"

Of course, whether she chose to do it or not was utterly irrelevant. The delight of corruption pressed against a pragmatic sense of greed. Either outcome was suitable to Rem. A mortal that might bring it meals? Perhaps even help it tend to the garden. Oh how delightful a thought. The possibility stretched out before it. But failing that...

a delightful meal.

"Do my motives truly matter? If I slay your kin because I altruistically desire your happiness, would that make you feel better than my indifference? Perhaps I tell you, I simply enjoy the act, does that chill you worse than if I ask you for exchange? Perhaps I simply hunger, and if you do not provide them, I will settle myself with you."

Rem leaned back, crouched and low, eyes locked on hers.

"Perhaps there is some truth in all of those. But are you sure you'd even wish for me to take the opportunity from you? You look shackled, like a caged bird. Do you not think this a path to freedom? There is great power in the ability to do such things."

[Lyra d'Aiglemort]

Lyra sucked in a sharp breath at the placid counterclaim. She closed her eyes against a wave of dizziness but the monster was still there when she reopened them. His undeniable truth was unmoved.

Bad was a relative term. Things could always get worse, and they would get worse if she forced the envelope. It was just, even with that gradient, wasn’t the Hollow right in some way? Maybe the repercussions would be horrible, but they would be a different flavor of horrible.

Wasn’t that important too?

And in the end, Father would know whether Lyra got rid of his new project or not. All he would have to do was look at her and he would know everything. So, if Lyra was already in trouble why not reap the benefits of her supposed crime?

Her stomach swooped. The thought was too big to remain quietly inside. It bat at her chest like a dove trying to break free of a wicker basket.

It was wrong. Bad. Lyra was thinking about killing someone. But… but… she deserved it. She was going to die anyway when Father tired of her. Lyra just wanted her gone now. If it was inevitable either way, did it matter when events unfolded? Was she any more bad for speeding the process up?

“No,” Lyra murmured, staring at the abyss of her own choices. “Your indifference is better. Because… because this is my problem. It doesn’t matter what sort of monster you are – it matters what I am.”

She always thought, somewhere deep down, that she could get better. That the fact that she wanted to meant she wasn’t as damned a soul as her actions indicated. All those things she did that she never wanted to do – it was silly though. To cling to something so insubstantial.

What difference did it make if Lyra wanted or didn’t want to hurt someone? She still did it. This wasn’t a new descent into darkness – Lyra had already fallen this far, she just refused to open her eyes and admit it.

“I don’t want you to eat me.” Shoulders straightening, Lyra looked into that empty mask and faced her truth. “I don’t want to die. But I want her to. And… and I don’t care how it happens. It doesn’t have to be my hand because even if you do it – if you eat her – it will be because of me, right? It will still have been me.”

[Rem]

Wait all you wish, I will remain, Rem thought as it was observed uncertainly.

There was a lot of silence, a lot of consideration. Rem was fine with this, it had played its hand as well as it could have expected. A little nudge here, a little prod there. No matter your intent, overcare of a seed could spoil it. They drowned when overly watered and Rem had no intention of drowning this one if it could help it.

Then the creature spoke again. Indifference was better, was it? Of course, the creature was wrong, it truly did not matter because nothing did. Its existence was one destined to be dust, but as Rem had a purpose for it there was interest in the reasoning. Indifference perhaps because she didn't wish to bear Rem's weight in her decision? Curious.

it matters what I am

Rem nearly hissed at that line, a slow ripple of movement in its otherwise statuesque features. Nonsense. It would have to disabuse them of such a notion if it had any hope, didn't it? Perhaps in time-or perhaps some more drastic measures? It wondered, the march of time wore down all things, like the steady trickle against the stone. Patience was key.

"You are correct." Rem intoned, ensuring that it had calmed by the time it spoke. Whether by her hand or if she allowed him to she was right to bear responsibility. Good, it thought. There's sense in that, an acceptance of grim truths, a willingness to accept the naked reality of the sin. One way or the other. All Rem hoped is that it had the capacity to accept it no matter the method it used. Rem's offer was a trojan horse, the sin would be the sin. If she failed to recognize that, and accepted Rem's offer then all the better. But, it didn't matter, so long as she made the decision.

"Then if you do not wish to be devoured," Rem decided to free her of one last excuse. "I will not eat you this night. Regardless of the decision made."

It rose up, its full height and looked down upon its quarry with great interest.

"You have decided then?"

[Lyra d'Aiglemort]

There was always a point, a precipice, from which no amount of excuses or regret could take you backward. The tipping point. Isn’t that what people called it? It was there in all the books and stories.

Lyra learned early that once you got to the act you were already past the point of no return. Eve’s mistake was the moment she laid eyes on the apple. From then on the story flowed inevitably towards its conclusion. She could never have turned around and forgotten what it was to desire.

Whatever Lyra did now it would never erase this moment from her mind. She had shaped the thoughts of jealousy and hate. They could lay dormant in her for weeks or months, maybe Father would never decide to get rid of his latest project, maybe Lyra would never be called to act upon her urges, but she would have thought them all the same. Felt the desire.

Wanted it.

You couldn’t put the genie back in the bottle.

She followed the Hollow when he moved – crawling out from her hiding place to stand upright before it. Lyra brushed dirt from her pants and considered how mundane this was – how odd, to be speaking of murder with grass stains streaking her palms.

She tilted her head back. Direct and sure. “Yes, I’ve decided. But I would like to know your name, please. If that’s alright. I know it doesn’t matter, but I want to know who you are.”

[Rem]

It would have smiled if it were able to. It wondered what effect it had if any on the outcome of this decision. How did it effect the creature? Would she blame Rem's intercession for setting her down this path? Was the only influence it had to provide a symbol to blame? Or had it altered a course of potential, could she have been righteous or was she already set along this path by others that had come before?

Ah, it would find out. It would have its answers in time. Rem was certain of that, if nothing else, that this was the first moment in a chain of decisions that it would delight to watch unfold. A seedling unlike others it had planted in the past, but perhaps the first of others it would guide. What a world of possibility that unfolded before it. It often watched, the effect of its seeds went on in a passive way. Over time there was collapse, and then at last when all the potential of their former lives had faded it would harvest.

But what if Rem did not need to merely observe?

"Of course," it replied easily. "You may call me Rem."

It didn't ask in return, the silence was an offer telling her to share it if she wished.

[Lyra d'Aiglemort]

“Rem,” she repeated with careful enunciation.

Lyra nodded, firmer now on her decision in a way that she couldn’t explain. Father would say she wasn’t being rational but there were many reasons for what she was going to do; just none of them that he would agree with.

“Good evening, Rem. My name is Lyra.”

“And I want you to eat her. I can bring her to you.” She licked her lips, shifting her weight from left to right. It was getting late. Lyra would have an easier time avoiding Father if she went back now but it wouldn’t be easy convincing his project to go outside at a time like this.

She felt a twinge of shame, but no guilt. "If you eat her then her death won't be wasted."