"Hey, Domino. I feel like… I feel like total shit." Audrey buried her head between her knees, staring down at the cracked concrete floor. The morning sun beat down on her scalp, a dry, prickly heat that felt too much like an interrogation lamp.
[I can tell. We share the same body, remember? But I can't seem to grasp the specific why. It's not like I enjoy scrolling through your memories like a bad movie.] Domino's voice resonated in the back of her skull, dry, bored, and irritatingly clear.
Audrey let out a weak laugh. "Lucky you."
"Fuck, I want to kill myself." Audrey grasped onto her hair, pulling until the roots stung, trying to ground herself in the physical pain.
[If you die then I die as well. Speak up. What is the root of such a pathetic display?]
"Umm, how do I put this?"
[Stop dragging it out. Just… say it. You're making my head hurt, which is impressive considering I don't physically have one.]
"I think I like him."
The words hung there, naked.
[Yea no shit, that was obvious.] Audrey could feel the phantom sensation of Domino rolling her eyes, a heavy mental sigh echoing in her psyche.
[How does some silly little high school romance make you this clinically depressed? It's chemicals, Audrey. Dopamine and oxytocin misfiring.]
Audrey flinched. "I just… I don't know what he thinks of me. He's always close, but he's never reaching back. Like I'm talking to a wall that answers politely."
[He doesn't like you. I think it's so fucking clear that it might as well be transparent.]
"You don't know that," Audrey said, but the fight in her voice was thin. "He held my hand. He stayed with me."
[Wow.] Domino replied, she was appalled. [And hospitals are full of people whose hands were held by nurses who didn't love them, are you one of those people that fall in love as soon as someone shows you a single sign of kindness?....] Domino started scrolling through Audrey's memories like they were pages in a book. [Oh… yea I was right. I almost forgot that you went through all that]
Audrey's shoulders slumped.
"Maybe I'm just convenient," she whispered. "Easy to protect. Easy to feel good about."
[Exactly.]
Her chest tightened. Tears burned but didn't fall.
"So it's unrequited," she said quietly. "I gave him everything I could, and he gave me safety. That's all."
[Oh, spare me the self-pity poetry,] Domino interjected sharply. The air around Audrey seemed to shimmer with the heat, but inside her mind, the temperature dropped.
[It's not that he dislikes you. It's that he's empty. I looked at him, there's something wrong with him.] Domino's voice lost its mocking edge, replaced by a cold, analytical detachment.
[That boy… Hoshimi. He isn't operating on the same frequency as you. It's like he's doing exactly what he's being told, a puppet following a script.]
Audrey hugged her knees tighter.
"I keep replaying it," she admitted. "Every look. Every word. Trying to find the moment where he meant it. Like maybe if I look hard enough, I'll find proof that I wasn't just… imagining it."
Domino didn't hesitate.
[He's acting, you idiot. Like everything around him is a play and he's a background actor.]
Domino's presence felt heavy in Audrey's chest.
[I saw it in his eyes when he promised you things. 'You're not a burden,' 'I'll save you.' It was perfectly delivered. What he is, is an actor. He feels sympathy for you, sure. Pity, perhaps. But love? Passion?] Domino scoffed. [He's a soldier. He told you himself, didn't he? Don't expect too much from him]
Audrey's heart sank, a heavy stone dropping into a deep well.
"He said… he said he tries his best. He took me on that date. He held my hand in the library."
[And then he stood there with a blank face while you cried about your identity crisis. Audrey, you're just way too pitiful. He knows that a calm asset is a useful asset. Making you fall in love with him is just the most efficient way to keep you compliant and safe.]
"So it was all fake?" Audrey whispered. "Me opening up to him?"
[I don't think so at the very least, to be honest Audrey, I think you're just being a bitch, suck it up and stop being a crybaby.]
Audrey hugged her knees tighter. "Maybe you're right. I'm in love with a mirror that's just showing me what I want to see."
[Welcome to the real world,] Domino muttered. [Everyone uses everyone. He's using you to complete his mission. You're using him to feel normal. That doesn't mean it's worthless, it just means you need to stop deluding yourself that this ends with a wedding dress.]
"I just wanted to be normal," Audrey's cheeks flushed, her nails digging into her jeans. "I just wanted someone to look at me and see me, I thought.."
[He sees you,] Domino said, her voice surprisingly soft, though still devoid of warmth. [He sees a fragile girl he has to protect. That's more than most people give you. But don't mistake a shield for a lover, Audrey. He sees you as someone that he needs to guard, not the princess of his story, not his lover.]
Audrey closed her eyes, picturing Hoshimi's violet eyes—cool, distant, unreadable.
"I'm really alone, aren't I?"
[Yea,] Domino replied, and Audrey couldn't tell if it was a threat or a comfort. [Find someone else that will love you back Audrey, survive and walk this Earth, become free of the burden that is my soul.]
[You were alone before him.]
[You're just aware of it now.]
Audrey stayed there, letting the realization settle—not explode, not rot—just exist.
"You know what hurts the most?" Audrey said after a while. "He never rejected me. I could survive rejection."
[Because you never confessed in the first place.] Domino replied.
Audrey nodded slowly.
"Maybe I should."
[Do whatever you want to]
Audrey stayed still for a long moment after that.
The sun crawled higher. The concrete beneath her radiated heat into her legs. Somewhere far away, metal doors slammed. Machinery hummed. Life continued with or without her consent.
"Why do you say that?" Audrey murmured. "That I should leave you behind."
[Because it's true.]
Audrey exhaled slowly. Her hands loosened from her hair.
"But you don't really want that, do you?"
There was silence.
Not the usual instant reply. Not the familiar pressure behind her eyes.
[Want is irrelevant,] Domino said at last. [But I don't want to disappear.]
Audrey frowned. "That hesitation—was that guilt?"
[Don't anthropomorphize me.]
Audrey almost laughed. The sound came out thin and broken, but it was a laugh.
"You call me naïve, but you're terrified," she said softly. "You're terrified of disappearing, yet you say that you should go instead of me."
The air inside her skull tightened.
[I've lived far longer than you.]
"By far longer, do you mean like a couple years," Audrey chuckled, lifting her head fully now. Her eyes stung, but they were steady. "Speaking of which, you never really told me about your death."
Another pause.
[I…. I was left to die alone, father was always engrossed in his work, I had cerebral palsy so I couldn't really move well either. Mother, not yours, my birth mother was…. Well she was dead. No one really had time for me either, I was practically left alone. Alone to die slowly. What date is it anyways?]
Audrey pushed herself to her feet. Her legs trembled, but she stood anyway. The sun burned, the world was loud, and her chest still hurt—but she was upright.
"That's so fucking sad, how did you even manage?." She stared down at the phone in her hands.
The date read: February 19th 2027
[I passed away from lung problems in the 2000s, so probably around 25 years ago, that makes me 27 years older]
Audrey brushed dust from her knees.
"I don't want to disappear, I'll manage, I'll do my best to get you out of my body, no… I'll definitely let you pass on."
[Careful,] Domino warned. [That sounds like hope.]
"Yeah," Audrey said quietly. "I'm going to get you out of my body."
In the distance, something moved, a low vibration through the ground, subtle but wrong. Audrey felt it before she heard it, a pressure through her soles, through her ribs.
Domino felt it too.
Then the pressure increased, the faraway roof of the estate began to bulge outwards, a large blob of flesh came ballooning out, an amalgamation of human bits reaching out towards the sky, eyes that were scattered throughout its body, that stared around.
"W-what the hell!?"
[Audrey.]
[We need to move. Now.]
Audrey turned toward the estate, heart hammering—not with despair this time, but with something sharper.