Paper Doll (closed for Miss_Vivi)

"She has awoken?"

"She has, and with no outward signs of creativity. She has been docile in accepting treatments from her Steward."

"Good. And the Steward Hunter? Shall he be replaced?"

"He has shown no outward signs of creativity, though we continue to monitor him closely. Should he show any more signs we shall have him removed from the situation, Sir."

"Good. I wonder if he realizes how close he is to being eliminated."

"I cannot tell you Sir. Only that he is following the dictates of his training, at this moment."



The day was nice.
The man, her Steward, as he called himself, was nice.
Her days were filled with her treatments, her nights were for sleep. There was nothing else that Inika was aware of.

She paid no attention to the man who watched her for sparks, or to the man who stood outside their door. She was quiet, and docilely watched Adin write his notes in those little books after each treatment. She didn't see that his brows were drawn together in worry. She only nodded at him and climbed off the the chair and walked into the kitchen to have her specially prepared dinner.

Once finished with that, she showered, carefully made sure her clothes were clean and folded and then climbed into her bed.

Tomorrow would be the same, and this was Inika Cole's waking life. She could not remember what came before this, and did not care what came after.

Till in her slumber she dreamt...

Her feet dashed over pale, white sand, that stuck to her toes, and she shrieked as the cold ocean water covered them, she looked up to see Adin nearby, not in the water, but watching her, she ran towards him laughing, the water leaving cold droplets up her thighs as she dashed up the beach.

"Adin! Please come in!"

He laughed with her, but didn't join her in the water.

Inika turned her head and watched the scene melt around her just before her arms were thrown around the neck of her dear Steward.

Fingers closed around the soft peach and she bent her head to taste it, to let the smell of summer slide over her lips and drip down her chin while she relished the fruit, her joy at this moment bubbling over her lips in soft delighted whimpers while Adin watched her.

"You must, mmm, you simply must have a bite!"

Another bit of laughter from her Steward but he made no move towards her, did not join her, only watched her devour the peach and lick her fingers clean. Though the moment she moved towards him the scene around her once more melted.

She couldn't take a step forward, at least that's what the sumptuous fabric tightly wound around her thighs made her feel, but she could walk, it only took a moment. A moment more, and she realized that the fabric was silk, that her dress clung to her body, and danced around her legs with every movement. A spin, a spin around while she giggled and felt that the music that flooded her ears must never die, that she would have to move for all time, to dance.

Inika turned and spied Adin across the dance floor, or at least that's what she guessed it was, she skipped her way to his side and fell into his arms, finally into his waiting, open arms. To her it felt like coming home. Was she home? Was he home?

"That is a beautiful shade of red, my beautiful girl." He whispered into her ears before he spun her around, and let her go, her trilling laughter filling the room. The music stopped when she turned and Adin was gone. It felt like part of her was drowning. She was drowning. He was gone. She was drowning!

She gasped.
She gasped.
Her eyes flew open.

Nothing.
No lights.
It was her room.
Was that a dream? What is a dream?

What was red?
What was red?

Time to get up. There is nothing here to concern her. Brush her teeth. Comb her hair. Pull your hair back. Please use the restroom.
What is red?
Walk downstairs. There is nothing here to concern you.
What is red?

Eat your breakfast meal. Please remember to go get dressed. What The outfit is ready. is Put on your socks. red? There is nothing here to concern you. What is red? It is time for treatment. Please get dressed. Red? Get dressed. Do not make your Steward wait.

Her fingers numbly opened a pair of socks, something fell out of them. Something that had been hidden. She didn't know why it had been hidden. Or what it meant.

It was red.
That was red.
This is what red is.
How did she forget?

She covered her mouth to keep from screaming. Something inside her was screaming to get away from it, but another part of her, the part that had twirled in Adin's arms was cheering. Inika stared at the fabric. It was precious. She felt like it was important, but she didn't quite understand why. Quickly, it was hidden in the sleeve of her sweater, she sighed softly as she realized that that was how the fabric felt in her dream, how her dress felt and it was then that she knew what to do.

She obediently made her way towards Adin's lab, where he was waiting for her.

"Good morning Adin." She said softly, while shaking his hand gently, then turned away and taking her seat in the observation chair. The fabric was no longer against her arm, it rested in her dear Steward's hand.

Adin would fix it.
This was a nice day.

Back in the lab, but not. It was a different one, a different apartment, a different floor... a different Inika. The floor, the apartment, the lab, these things didn't concern him. His Doll did. She was going in the wrong direction, seeming more like the fucking drones he passed on the street every fucking day of his life. Uncaring and unaware, and something inside him was tearing with the thought that he had done it to her. Made the beautiful girl that had entrusted herself to him, that had jumped across the table and hugged him the first day they met, the girl whose scent seem to have a spot of his brain set aside just to flood his every sense with it at any opportunity, this girl he l...

He had doubted himself for a time, tortured himself in waking and sleep, but everything seemed as it was supposed to be. His training was solid, and he had an insight into this that none of the others that had trained with him possibly could. He had checked - triple checked - everything before he'd even started with her.

No, something was wrong, but it was not in her, and it wasn't from him. Something had to be wrong with the process. Or with the materials he was given. Or the equipment in the lab. The pills she took to prepare her.

The list could quickly inflate beyond manageability, ballooned past the point that any one person could get their arms around it. He had to focus, narrow things down, work the problem.

And, most importantly, he had to fix Inika.

He had to fix Inika.


Standing in the lab, his heart pounded in his chest, the sound of his pulse filling his ears. He was truly nervous for the first time. Any jitters he'd felt at beginning their process would not be a welcome respite from what coursed through him, threatening to make his limbs shake. In his mind, thoughts tumbled like lost socks in a dryer, rolling one over the other, flashes of them streaking past before another took their place.

Her voice, her closeness,

and there was her smell again

shook him out of it, and he frowned at her slightly as she shook his hand, the rending of his soul advancing a step further. Watching her as she moved into the chair, all her movements undertaken as if she existed under water, he was unaware for a moment that anything was held in his hand. Only after she was sat calmly, waiting for him, did he move and realize she'd given him something. Turning his hand up, he opened his fingers to reveal the red silk in his palm.

Seconds ticked past as he stood staring, blinking slowly at the square of fabric. When he moved, it was to take two stumbling steps backwards and then fall, heavily, onto the rolling stool, his momentum carrying him back to bump into a counter, rattling a few glass bottles atop it. His eyes finally left his hand and rose to the chair where she sat, his few of her mostly obscured. On the armrest, her arm had seemed to fallen to a comfortable position and remained there, unmoving, the kinetic energy of his Creative girl gone.

His fingers closed around the fabric, tightened, his knuckles growing white, and he without looking he moved his hand over the counter, turned it over, and opened his fingers, dropping the fabric. He would leave it there for her, when she was ready to take it again. When she knew why she was taking it again.

But first, he had to get her back.

Pulling in a deep breath, he held it for a moment, letting the oxygen soak into his blood, hopefully taking a bit of courage with it, and then breathed out slowly through his mouth, letting his muscles relax, releasing the tension from them.

Planting his feet on the floor, he rolled over to her side and stood next to the chair, his hands reaching for the half dome that was suspended above her head.

"Just relax, Inika, I'm just going to pull this down over you so I..."

His voice trailed off, and he stopped with the dome halfway down, his eyes falling to her.

"This is going to make you sleep, Inika. But I'll be here the whole time. I'll be... right with you."

Pulling his eyes from her, he lowered the helmet over her head, paused for a moment to make sure it was aligned, then sat back on the stool and pushed himself away from her. A cabinet under a far shelf was his destination, and he pulled a small silver key from his pocket to open it with. He stared, for a moment, at the silver helmet within, almost identical to the one Inika now wore, before reaching in with a heavy sigh and taking it into his hands.






Rain whipped him in the face suddenly, violent and stinging, and his stomach lurched as the ground under him pitched and rolled. His arms pinwheeled, flashes of reflective yellow whirring past his vision as he fought desperately to gain his footing and keep from falling

overboard

down. The wind howled, driving rain into his eyes, his ears, up his nose. Despite his struggle his balance was lost, stolen from him, and he fell forward without a hint of grace, wood rushing up to meet his chin. His teeth clicked together - or would have, had his tongue not been in the way - and he tasted blood in his mouth as more ran down from his chin, diluting in the water as it spread across the

deck

floor.

Squeezing his eyes closed against the pain, they rolled behind his lids as the world continued to bounce under him. Planting his hands, he opened his eyes against the pricks of rain and pushed his chest up. The boat he was in was tiny, far smaller than any that a person should be in in weather like this, and it was proving no match for the roiling sea.

Pushing himself up to his knees, he reached his arms out to grab the sides of the small boat and steady himself. Against his thighs, two oars rolled with the motion of the turbulent water, and as he looked at them past the yellow slicker he wore, he wondered if they'd even have an effect in the storm. As if in answer, lightning flashed and a rumble of thunder shook him down to the marrow, deafening him to all but the wind for a time.

With nothing else to do but try, he kept on his knees as he locked first one, then the other oar into the pivoting metal loops. Sitting back on his heels, he took each of the rough wooden handles in hand, dipped the paddles into the foaming water, and then stopped.

Where to?

The question hadn't even occurred to him until it was actually time to try to go somewhere, and it seemed that pushing himself in the wrong direction would lead to him being lost forever. In here, the possibility of that happening was ever-present, and if it happened it would ruin them both. His body a shell where a person used to be, hers a banshee where a person used to be. He had to be-

A light flashed in the corner of his eyes - only one direction, not lightning - and he pivoted his head around in the direction it seemed to have come from. For a time there was nothing, darkness and rain and driving, driving, driving wind. Then, faintly, distant and reduced by the sheets of falling water, a beam of light forced it's way through, swept across him, and then faded down to nothingness again.

A lighthouse.

He didn't know if it was the right destination, but it was a destination, and the best he had until something else presented itself. Either way, he had to get off the water. Every moment risked them both more, and he couldn't do it to her.

Gritting his teeth, the tendons and muscles in his arms stood out as he fought against the swirling current.

Push!

Lift.

Pull.

Drop.

Push!

Lift.

Pull.

Drop.

He was driving himself hard, more than willing to completely exhaust himself if he had to, though he had no idea how far he had to go. Periodic glances over his shoulder managed to catch the light as it flashed past, and then again, and then again, and before too long he had the timing down. Counting the seconds until he'd see it again gave his mind something else to focus on besides the burning in his arms and shoulders and neck and back, and regular checks kept him oriented in the right direction.

How many eternities?

His arms were rubber by the time he reached a small wooden dock, a few of the planks missing, lifted and blown into the water, lost to the raging storm. Pulling himself up and out of the boat, he collapsed once on solid ground, letting his body be battered by the wind and rain, giving himself over for a moment to the storm. He didn't even give a thought to the boat, which was torn away the very moment his foot left it, and neared the bottom of the sea as he worked to gain his feet. A strong blast of wind shoved him down again, and he cursed at the sky as he lay on his chest.

Pushing himself instead to his hands and knees, he began to crawl towards the lighthouse at the end of the dock. Up close, the light was a powerful beam that swept overhead, the photons so strong here that they nearly ignited the air, it seemed. His head was down as he crawled, hand-over-hand, knee-over-knee, falling more than once as the wind hit his body and pushed him over.

He looked up as he found his hands in mud, and the lighthouse was closer. Through the rain, less than twenty yards in front of him now, he could see a single red door closed tight against the storm. He had to...

Through the mud he forced himself, his hands sinking in to the wrists and needing to be pulled free occasionally. The yellow of his slicker was stained, red with blood from his chin, black with mud at his cuffs and on his knees. He'd had a hat, sometime long ago, and didn't even remember when it blew away.

At the door at last, and he collapsed against it, his chest heaving, his muscles desperate for oxygen. More minutes blew past him, more sand through the hourglass, and finally he felt strong enough to move. Lifting himself onto his knees, he felt in the darkness - absurd for a light house, he thought distantly - and his fingers fought for purchase on the polished copper of the doorknob when he found it. Wrapping both hands tight around it, he pulled himself up to his feet, and turned the knob.

Yanking the door open, he stumbled into the dim light within, the handle of the door torn from his grasp as the wind caught it and swung it violently on it's hinges. Cursing again, he turned his back to the lighthouse's interior and groped out in the storm for the door's inside handle. One hand closed around smooth copper and he pulled in vain, the wind's grasp of the red door stronger than anything he had left in his arms.

Back into the abusive rain, and he closed both hands on the knob, a mirror image of his posture from moments before. Planting his feet in the mud, he pulled hard, a cry tearing from his throat as he fought the storm and, after a short struggle, finally won. He fell backwards, the door slamming closed, his feet going out from under him. Inside the faint light, he fell first on his backside, then onto his back.

Outside, the storm fell quiet instantly, as if flipped off by a switch.

Above him, his eyes slowly adjusting to the darkness, the lighthouse was utter silence.

"Inika?" he said, his voice hoarse and low.

"Inika?"