twenty two | vitamin D & calcium & razor blades

[strike_you_out]

726 Anderson Lane; Saturday morning
[Every morning, a row of fresh milk bottles greets the first resident to step foot out onto the front porch of 726 Anderson Lane. Today, the foot belongs to Slugger. After witnessing firsthand what sort of punishment awaited those who didn't go along with the Milkman's latest folly, he's decided that straight-up

Comments

[birthclod]

[... Ah. It's him, isn't it?

Even while being droned, Clod remembered Slugger and his words to her. She didn't expect she would be droned... not after drinking the milk anyway.

She walks over to Slugger, but along the way, she notices that he's spitting out razor blades.]

... The milkman. He enjoys hiding all of these... surprises inside his milk.

Sometimes, he doesn't put anything into them.

[strike_you_out]

[Slugger looks up in time after spitting out one more razor blade to spot Clod approaching. Finally, they meet as themselves and not as drones.]

Nothing new. He's always done that.

[birthclod]

[Clod gives a noticeable grimace. The experiences with the special milk and the droning both left a bad taste in the girl's mouth. She never accomplished murdering anybody with her own hands before. Even when she spread madness into her world, none of that was accomplished directly.

No, she's human too. The guilt can only be nothing short of unbearable.]

Sadistic cad.

... Hm. You seem to be taking the pain surprisingly well. I... remembered how you couldn't bleed that time.

[strike_you_out]

[The milkman's sadism wouldn't bother Slugger in the least if it didn't directly effect him or the small group of people he's learned to care about. He meets her eyes at the mention of 'that time'.]

I don't, normally.

[birthclod]

[There's a short pause between Clod's words. She... regrets having tried to kill Slugger. Of course, it wasn't her fault. She and Pokey tried sharing the pain from the milk so that neither would have to suffer as much. It was just a miscalculation that ended up this way.

It wasn't her fault and yet, she wishes to apologize. Clod regrets it all and there's little point in lying to herself, but at the same time... She is the one who also said that one of the most useless things anybody could do was feel sorry for themselves. The world will move on regardless of a single utterance of "I'm sorry".]

... I... I apolo... No.

... How... have you been dealing with this? How long have you been here?

[strike_you_out]

[It occurs to him, given Clod is a new resident, that she may never have been warned about the milk even before this law was instated.]

A year. No one drank the milk for as long as I've been here. But now it's mandatory.

[birthclod]

I thought the milk was strange at first, but I drank it anyway out of curiosity... and to see how much trust my "brother" deserved... and because laws always have punishments when broken.

Droning is the natural punishment, but I've never heard they could become this violent. This town... likes making new rules and conditions.

[strike_you_out]

So... are you really a kid?

[Eyeing the bottle of milk, he contemplates taking another sip.]

[birthclod]

[Her grin returns at this comment. It was gone for a while.]

No, not really. Not anymore.

[strike_you_out]

[She doesn't talk like a kid. She doesn't even talk like a human.]

Were you ever human?

[birthclod]

Once, a very long time ago.

But my body was taken and put through different methods of experimentation and mutation. I have become the carrier for the two attributes that exist within all lifeforms, but constantly fight one another for dominance... Silhouette and Mirage.

Actually, you could even say that I'm the perfect human. That was what they wanted to create, after all. But non-human works just as well.

[strike_you_out]

Silhouette and Mirage...? Are those like shadows and illusions?

[birthclod]

Yes. Shadows are cast from physical objects. Illusions are what you believe you see inside your mind.

Silhouette is the active quality within lifeforms. Mirage is passive. Silhouette is defined by physical strength. Mirage is defined by mental strength. One force is always more prominent over the other and they're always at odds. But New Humanity believed they could a way to make them co-exist.

The products of this quest are called Guardian Angels. Silhouette and Mirage occupy different parts of their bodies isolated from each other. I, however, am Armageddon... Silhouette and Mirage blended well inside my body. I am... a "Normal" entity.

[strike_you_out]

[This all sounds very familiar, though in a somewhat different way, but Slugger won't be mentioning that... Instead, he tapes another sip from the bottle and waits for his body to mend the cuts in his throat before speaking again.]

What do Guardian Angels do?

[birthclod]

The Guardian Angels were all candidates for the position of Messiah, the one in charge of rebooting the giant supercomputer Edo and the world if something went wrong. They weren't total failures and had some physical advantage over the other, but most of them were quite brain-dead.

Once the Messiah was chosen, the rest were simply doomed to rot away. An aspect of myself reprogrammed and made them all into bodyguards.

... Heh. But why the interest?

[strike_you_out]

Just curious.

...

So. Are you the Messiah?