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Chapter Text

Water does not break when Sua is born.

Perhaps it’s because she was born with an genetic code that was already chosen for her before she was brought into the world – predetermined, so to speak. Twin amethyst eyes do not blink open to harsh lights and the elusive gloved hands of human doctors as ordinary babies do.

Or rather, had.

Amethyst eyes gradually part open. Instead, they fixate upon two bulbous bug-like eyes peering at her with fascination. The sort of predatory intrigue in which one might examine an exotic animal caged in a zoo, dissecting it with a cruel ruby red gaze to see what truly was so unique about it.

She is not born within a hospital in a mother’s arms, nor with the gaze of approval from a father or the crying of relatives in the background.

She can only float in the cold, small pod she is confined within. Sets of tubes and lines affix to her pale skin, having pumped in the chosen genes and characteristics of who she was soon to become.

The glinting rubies have a barbarous delight to their gaze, sharp and inhuman. A singular claw rests against the surface of her pod – the only obstructing barrier between them. Antennas swish back and forth as a ghastly gape curves beneath a set of honed mandibles.

The claw taps against the pod as the creature smiles, the stretch of its jaw too wide for comfort and the intent in those gleaming eyes vile.

Its voice is uncomfortably smooth and frictionless, like oil pooling across a slick surface.

“I’ll buy these ones.”

Sua is purchased in a family sale from this human editing shop by the ruby-eyed segyein who Sua learns she will call Mother. 

To the public, Mother is renowned as a successful industrialist who is dedicated to her career of designing wear for pet humans. She owns many female pet humans, all of which are always immaculately-dressed to reflect her wealth and genius.

Sua, being an investment – to say she is raised by Mother is a stretch – amongst many of the other pet humans, begs to differ. 

But perhaps that’s because Sua falls short in comparison to the other pet humans in terms of assisting Mother to promote her industry.

Growing up under Mother’s strict rules, Sua is forced to learn quite a few things early in her life that other pet humans usually don’t have the burden of carrying. Discipline is beaten into Sua’s mindset as she carries on with her daily schedule.

Wake up, dress up, take photoshoots for Mother’s designs, eat the specialized gruel that fills Sua with enough nutrients to survive but not for her belly to be full, go to sleep.

There is no room for error in these seemingly simple objectives.

Error is not tolerated within these simple objectives when it comes to Mother.

Even if it's her first photoshoot.

“Sua.” Mother’s smooth voice edges the territory of danger, the distant sort of frequency to her tone that Sua nor the other pet humans have when they speak.

Sua feels a shiver run down her spine, her small five year-old hands digging uncomfortably at the itchy ruffles in the flowy dress Mother picked out for her. Her pale skin is sensitive, especially to kinds of materials like the ruffles.

“Smile.” 

Sua casts her amethyst eyes down at her dress, biting her protruding lip as camera flashes click in front of her. Many of the other pet humans stand obediently by Mother’s side as the segyein takes photos of them.

“It’s itchy.” Sua mumbles quietly, fingers tugging at the ruffles around her sleeves.

Mother’s claws tighten around the emerald leash that wraps around Sua’s neck beneath the hood of the dress. Sua flinches as her air circulation is cut off when Mother pulls harshly, choking her.

Sua feels Mother’s presence dip down beside her, the buzzing sensation in the air that draws a sharp tremor through her body. She gulps, amethyst eyes straying downwards defiantly. The hooked tip of a claw touches the end of her chin in such a way that could be mistaken for affection.

But Sua is not a child for Mother to coddle or care for properly – she is an investment.

Investments should behave as they were bought to have done.

Every bone in Sua’s trembling body freezes when she comes face-to-face with Mother’s insectoid expression. The crimson rubies are muted, regarding her cruelly with a vicious glint in them that meant no good for Sua.

Goosebumps rise across Sua’s skin.

“Sua.” There’s a sickeningly sweet tone to Mother’s voice. 

“You do not get to complain.” 

The next rule after the zero toleration of errors, are no complaints.

“You do not get to whine – you comply with what I tell you to do, is that so hard for a pet human like you?”

Sua does not shake or nod her head, frozen. 

“Comply.” Mother’s voice is sharp and dark, leaving no room for argument. “The only reason I keep you despite your shortcomings is because of your kin.”

At the reminder of her sister, Sua complies. 

Her smile is forced and not as pretty as the other girls and Sua does not receive any of the gruel that night. She is locked in her pod next to the ones of all the other pet humans and floats in the darkness, belly rumbling while all the others eat outside.

She gets rashes from the ruffles but she doesn’t complain.

Because in the middle of the night, her pod hisses open with a slide. Her bleary amethyst eyes blink open tiredly and her skin jumps at the sensation of something touching her. She is reminded of Mother’s touch hours earlier, scraping and painful against her skin.

They are so much softer than Mother’s harsh scrape of her claws, gentler.

She clamps her mouth shut when she meets a pair of familiar and warm eyes in the darkness while all the other girls are fast asleep in their pods. Sua reaches out her small hands towards those eyes – with a singular heterochromatic darker pupil in comparison to that familiar amethyst blend in the other.

Her sister’s hands are large and sure when they grasp around her tiny hips, hefting her up with little to no effort. Sua immediately wraps her arms around her sister, burying her face against her chest and latching onto her like a koala clinging to its mother.

“Sua.” Sua can feel Syla’s voice from her face pressing against her chest, hearing her firm and solid heartbeat go thud-thud-thud against her ear.

There’s a reason why Mother keeps Sua around and that’s because of Syla. To Mother, Syla is her star pet human. With dark luscious locks of hair falling past her slender shoulders and framing her prettily pale complexion, no one could ever look away from a catch like Syla.

Syla’s beauty is plain even while adorning Mother’s worst designs.

“Sylaaa.” Sua mumbles against her sister’s comforting and solid embrace, pressing her face tightly against her. 

Syla only chuckles, indulging her for a minute or so before setting her down. Sua visibly pouts but her frown fades instantly when Syla rifles in the pockets of her ruffled dress for a moment before handing a small pot to Sua.

Even though its aroma is not the most enticing, Sua’s mouth practically waters as Syla unscrews the lid of the pot, filled with gruel. Being favoured over most of the other girls, the quality of Syla’s gruel is much better than theirs. 

While theirs taste of rough grain, hers is honeyed and soft porridge.

But in saying that, her portions are considerably smaller to maintain her slender and lithe figure despite how she even goes nights with her stomach growling.

So when Syla hands over the pot filled with more than half her portion of gruel for the day to her younger sister, Sua doesn’t think too much of it. She is only five after all and her stomach has been growling nonstop for the past hour or so.

As Sua munches down on the gruel, she looks up at her sister’s face curiously. She holds out the pot out to her as an invitation.

Syla only smiles, the same one that wins over all the sponsors and gets Mother her customers. Her curve of her lips is graceful, as everything about her is. She sets a gentle hand into Sua’s shorter locks of raven hair, ruffling it affectionately.

“Don’t worry about me, little star.” Syla hums, brows creasing. “I’m more worried about you.”

Little star.

It’s always been a staple part of their relationship as sisters, the fond nickname Syla calls her for her love of watching stars when she gets the chance. Sua can’t quite remember the first time she saw the stars because she was too young.

But Syla told her that when she looked at them, her eyes had lit up like the stars. And still now, when Sua gets a chance to see them – she feels so excited.

“Me?” Sua shifts her head back to look up at her older sister, gruel smeared across her lips messily.

Syla sighs. She crouches down to meet Sua’s height, darker and older eyes watching her with a serious undertone. Her dark hair cascades down to almost meet her waist. The older the girls are, the more long they’re allowed to keep their hair – as per Mother’s rules and standards.

Another thing to keep them reminded of how much control Mother holds over their heads as their owner.

“Stop getting in trouble, okay?” Syla tucks a loose strand of hair behind Sua’s ear, smiling warmly. 

“But it's itchy.” Sua mumbles under her breath, the uncomfortably itching and warm sensation underneath her paper-thin tunic lingering.

Syla frowns.

“Show me.” 

Sua lifts up the edge of her tunic, biting her lip. Syla’s face falls at the sight of the angry-red hives spread across her younger sister’s stomach, all up to her arms that she hadn’t noticed before. Why hadn’t she noticed it before?

“Will I die?” Sua asks fretfully, bottom lip quivering. “It’s itchy.”

“No, you won’t.” Syla shakes her head with that same firm tone that immediately calms Sua’s worries. “Stay here for me, unnie will be back in a moment.”

Sua stays there. She sits still as she watches her older sister exit the room full of the pods of sleeping girls. Sua doesn’t move an inch from where she’s standing because she trusts her sister and will do anything Syla tells her to.

Simply put, Sua adores her sister.

From the moment Sua has gained the consciousness of living, Syla has always been there for her. As her older sister, Syla has protected her from Mother’s wrath and kept her safe from things she shouldn’t know.

She’s fed Sua and taken care of her where Mother hasn’t and where the other girls had to go through it all by themselves.

She proves it again when Syla comes back with a wet cloth in her hands and a small bucket in the other. The bucket is filled to the brim with ice cubes and water. Syla sets the bucket down and crouches yet again by Sua’s side, concern creasing her brow.

“Lift up your shirt, little star.”

Sua obliges and doesn’t question her sister.

Because it’s her sister.

Sua sighs in relief when her sister presses the ice-cold cloth against her stomach, chilling the heated skin and insatiable itch. The cold water trickles down her belly but she doesn’t mind. Syla repeats the action across the rashes on her arms and legs where the ruffles have irritated her skin.

Sua’s amethyst eyes sparkle when she looks at her sister, concentrating and face all kind and caring.

She doesn’t know how to describe the full and affectionate feeling in her chest then but she decides that she likes it. Sua hums when the itching sensations are alleviated for the time being and she lets her tunic back down, grinning lopsidedly at her sister.

Syla’s face is dark now, her brows turned inwards as she chews her lips. Sua recognizes this expression on her – she wears it quite often after some of the girls Sua’s age don’t return to their pods at night or when she sees Sua looking especially tired.

“Little star, can you promise unnie something?” Syla says slowly, her intelligent darker eyes gazing upwards into Sua’s brighter eyes.

“Anything!” Sua immediately replies excitedly.

“Listen to Mother, okay?” Syla’s eyes have that same firm look to them like Mother’s ruby eyes when she’s telling her to do something or else there would be consequences – except for the fact that there’s something else in Syla’s eyes that she’s never seen before.

It quivers, dilating in her heterochromatic eyes like leaves in the wind. If Sua didn’t know any better she would think that emotion in her eyes draws perilously close to fear. But her sister isn’t afraid of anything in the world. She chases away Sua’s monsters at night and protects her from everything.

“Why?” Sua questions, fiddling with the hem of her tunic.

Syla’s long fingers capture Sua’s smaller ones in their tight but gentle grasp, pausing her from her fidgeting. Sua looks up at her sister curiously, chest tightening at the sight of that same look in her sister’s eyes.

She doesn’t quite like that look.

“Because if you do what Mother tells you to, you will be safe.” Syla answers, her fingers tightening around Sua’s. 

Safe.

“Safe?” Sua echoes her sister’s words with a frown.

“It means unnie won’t need to worry so much about you anymore.” 

Sua’s amethyst eyes look up at Syla. Syla, her sister, with her bright and charming smiles in front of the camera and obedience with Mother. But underneath all those pretty dresses, her face is gaunt and she is but skin and bones.

The last thing Sua wants to do is put more burden on her.

“Promise me, little star?” Syla’s voice turns so quiet, pleading.

“I promise!” Sua replies without any further hesitation.

Syla offers her pinky to Sua, who only stares curiously at her finger with a quizzical tilt of her head.

“Back on the humans’ home planet, this is what they do when they promise each other things.” Syla whispers to Sua with a secretive smile growing on her lips. 

Sua sticks out her own pinky and Syla hooks it with her own, locking the promise.

“Now, you’re bound to it.” Syla’s voice gains a lighter, more relaxed tone as the tension in her body dissipates. “If you break it, unnie will be very angry.”

“I won’t break it.” Sua declares loudly and Syla hushes her with a giggle as to not disturb all the sleeping girls in their pods.

“Good girl.” 

Syla smiles, ruffling Sua’s dark hair again as Sua giggles. Sua doesn’t let go of Syla’s pinky, instead holding her hand with her own little fingers entirely.

“Can we go look at the stars?”

“Of course, little star. But we’ll have to be quiet, okay?”

“Yes, unnie!”

When they watch the stars, Sua’s eyes are pools of sparkling amethyst. Her small palms press against the glass in the corner of the room full of pods, lips parted in awe. The stars are conspiciously bright and beautiful, even from miles away.

“The sanctars say that star is where the Great Anakt lives.” Syla says with a smile, pointing at one of the stars.

Syla combs her fingers through Sua’s raven locks as Sua points out the rest of the stars and the shapes some of them, humming a small tune. She smiles. Sua pauses for a moment, listening to the sweet melody of her sister’s voice.

When Syla falls silent, Sua picks up the melody – short and sweet, like a songbird.

“You have a pretty voice, little star.” Syla smiles.

Sua giggles. “Really?”

“But don’t ever let Mother catch you singing in front of her, okay?”

❋❋❋

Syla has always been an important part of Sua’s life, from the moment they were taken from that human editing shop. Syla protected her from things that harmed her and her innocence, ensuring nothing could ever hurt her.

But she was an important part of so many other girls’ lives underneath Mother’s ownership.

Sua watched as girls cried, clutching their sore limbs or reddened skin from Mother’s wrath. They sniffle in their pods at night, hugging themselves because no one else would. No one else but Syla.

Syla bandages their wounds for them, puts cooling cloths on their heated skin and hugs them tight. At times, Sua will get a little jealous but then Syla will always come back to her, remind her that Syla will always be Sua’s sister first and foremost.

Syla has a dream, simply put.

She wants to create a world for these girls and Sua where they don’t have to suffer through these kinds of things. Obviously, as a pet-human, these kinds of things are really out of her control and power.

But she wants to lessen their pain. Syla is the only one who hasn’t faced Mother’s wrath or been forced underneath a leash or collar. Freedom. She wants the rest of them to have this treatment and live as humanely as possible, even in this environment.

Ironic, isn’t it?

Syla whispers her dreams into Sua’s small ears at night, hugging her tightly. She wants to change things.

She will change things.

But for now, Syla tells all of them to listen to Mother. She tells them to follow her instructions and to not rebel. Escape trouble, bow their heads and submit.

Do not fight back, it is futile. I want you all to be safe.

So when Syla comes back with a bandage wrapped around her left eye, stark with dark blood – alarms are set off inside Sua’s five year-old brain. 

Syla doesn’t stop to visit by Sua’s pod, nor any of the other girls’ as she usually does. She goes straight to the glass window by the corner of the room and stands there, scarily still and silent. A couple of the other girls exchange worried looks with Sua, who bites her fingernails.

Sua approaches her sister tentatively from behind.

“Syla?”

Her sister is still and silent. Wordless.

Sua pokes at her still hand hesitantly. “Syla–”

Syla whips around instantly, speed akin to that of a bursting comet. Her singular uninjured eye, the darker heterochromatic one is uncanny and it twitches. Her jaw is set firmly and there’s this twisted vacancy to her usual warm expression that makes goosebumps rise on Sua’s skin.

For a moment there, her sister almost looks–

“Sua.”

The expression is gone. Her sister smiles warmly, a striking contrast to the blood staining her covered amethyst eye. She crouches down to Sua’s height, grinning at her like nothing just happened.

Sua finds her words.

“What are you doing here, little star?” Syla tilts her head, as if confused.

“This is… our room.” Sua answers slowly, frowning. “Syla?”

There’s that blank look in her eyes again, the one that strikes fear up Sua’s tiny body.

Syla shakes her head, disoriented. “It is?”

She scratches her head, glancing around for a moment. Then, Syla laughs. While her laugh would’ve normally brought a sense of peace to Sua – now it just feels wrong in the moment and she doesn’t understand why.

“I suppose I just forgot.”

Sua stares at her sister, tooth pressing down on her lip anxiously.

Ever since her sister began picking up more roles to contribute to within Mother’s industry, she’s been acting… weird. The other girls have been whispering it to each other too at night. Sua doesn’t know the manner of these roles but she thinks its in relation to modelling in a partnership with different pet human customizations.

She thinks one of the girls mentioned it.

Temporary feature customization – whatever that means.

It’s meant to make the wearer look even prettier and customized to the owner’s needs if they hadn’t picked their wanted appearance when they were purchased at the human editing shop.

Syla is prettiest out of all of them so Sua didn’t really get why she needed to do it. But each time she comes back, Syla is exhausted. Sometimes, she looks different too. These side effects usually last for a few hours but ever since a few weeks ago when Syla had been getting more busy, Sua wonders if they are really temporary.

When Syla starts acting different, it scares the rest of the girls. She’s angrier, more snappish and prone to her temper – which is not all like the kind and comforting sister Sua knows.  But this time, she’s not angry. She’s got that horrible vacancy in her eyes which Sua is personally more afraid of than angry Syla. She sits there, staring out the window.

Sua is the only one brave enough to approach her.

It’s her sister, after all.

It’s just Syla.

“What’s wrong with your eye?” Sua points at her eye, frowning.

“My eye?”

Syla raises a hand to touch the bloodied bandage before blinking twice as if just realising it was there.

“Oh.” Syla says, eye unfocussed. 

“Mother.”

“Mother hit you?” Sua whispers, eyes wide with shock.

Syla? Hit by Mother?

The girls behind Sua go silent. Syla only nods, as if this was merely a daily happening. 

“Why?” 

“I… I don’t really remember, little star.” Syla scratches her head, brows creasing.

“I haven’t been able to remember much lately at all, Sua.”

Sua doesn’t say anything else. She presses up onto her toes and hugs her big sister.

It starts happening more often. Syla forgets things. She starts acting and looking different. When she takes off the bandage, her amethyst eye has turned pale – like a ghost. Syla wears the collar and leash when they go out in public and she receives the same meals as the rest of the girls.

Sua begins noticing a pattern in all her moods. 

Her sister will come back from those sessions with a warped face and red markings of a claw etched along her thighs. Her eyes are upturned and uncannily-seductive and her lips are plumper. They look so wrong on Sua’s big sister, her soft and warm sister.

The customizations’ side-effects eventually begin reverting.

But what doesn’t revert is Syla herself.

At the beginning, nobody but Sua goes to bother her. Syla snaps at Sua, Sua sits there and hugs her leg until she calms down. Then, there’s the next phase of the patterns that Sua noticed.

The one where Syla sits at the window but she doesn’t fume. She just sits and stares. It’s horrible and worrying when no one has any idea what’s wrong with Syla. Whenever Sua asks, Syla gives her one-worded responses and smiles hollowly at her.

It’s horrible.

Sua hates it more than anything, to see the sparkle in her sister’s bright eyes gone. The scar on her eye from that night hasn’t yet to fade and it serves as a reminder of what had happened – of how Mother would even hurt her star models.

Tonight, like many others before, they don’t sleep in the pods. 

They sit together by the window, watching the stars with Syla’s fingers woven in Sua’s soft hair until they’ll eventually fall asleep. Sua leans against her warm sister, letting her eyes flutter shut momentarily.

Today her sister’s moodswings weren’t so bad. She was a little snappish when she came back but other than that, Syla was fine. But Sua has seen this too many times to think that everything was okay with Syla because when she went back to work with Mother and their partnership the next day, she would come back different.

But it doesn’t mean Sua doesn’t appreciate these moments where her sister is lucid and happy.

Syla’s nose still looks a bit different but it’s okay. She’s still Sua’s sister. 

“You should take care of your hair better, little star.” Syla remarks quietly, fingers catching onto a knotted tangle in Sua’s hair.

Sua only sticks her tongue out at Syla, who only giggles. “So immature, hmm? Does Sua need to be punished?”

Syla’s other hand glides down near Sua’s stomach and the feathery fingertips begin brushing against her sensitive skin. Sua starts giggling hysterically, pressing closer into her sister as she tickles her with no mercy.

Today surely is different, though – Sua feels it. Syla is lucid and happy enough to joke around with Sua, which is uncommon these days because she’s often too exhausted or angry to do anything at all.

And yesterday, she was like this too.

Maybe.

Sua can only hope.

She doesn’t want to ever lose her big sister.

They spend the next few minutes merely staring out into the dark void that is space.

The stars.

They look especially beautiful today.

They’re small but just as bright as comets, burning brightly like guardian angels – twinkling as they watch over Sua and Syla. They shine like hope in the darkness, bright and everlasting.

Sua’s eyes sparkle like the stars before her.

“That’s the Great Anakt, isn’t it?” Sua says, locating the brightest star.

“Is it?” Syla asks, detangling Sua’s knots with her lithe fingers. 

I haven’t been able to remember much lately.

It’s okay. As her younger sister, Sua will remind her.

“It’s the brightest star in the sky..” Sua grins lopsidedly, glancing back to her sister.

“Is that so?”

“Mm!”

They fall into comfortable silence once again and Sua is just content to fall asleep in her sister’s arms like this. If she prays enough to the Great Anakt, maybe they will protect her sister from whatever is hurting her this much whenever she works with Mother’s partners.

As she always does when it’s too quiet, Sua lets her throat fall open to sing that sweet melody her sister taught her before. She doesn’t think it had words but it’s simple, short and pretty. She likes it – maybe that’s why it’s stuck to her head for so long.

“You’ve got a pretty voice, little star.” Syla says brightly.

Sua doesn’t tell her that Syla’s told her that before. Or that she’s told her that multiple times when Sua sings to her sister before they fall asleep together like this.

“Really?” Sua grins at her big sister.

“But don’t let Mother catch you singing in front of her, okay?”

“I’ll try.”

But instead of her usual next reply, Syla’s eyes turn unfocussed and distant. “You make unnie worry whenever you sing with that pretty little voice of yours.”

“Worried that our little immature Sua could die in that hellish place.” 

There’s a different tone to Syla’s voice now, cold and serious in a way that makes Sua stiffen instantly – her amethyst eyes widening.

“Die…?” she whispers, voice breaking. “Die where?”

“The partners’ pet humans tell me. They say that corpses fall from the sky in that place.” Syla continues, unperturbed by the trepidation clear in Sua’s dilated eyes. “When an frail girl like Sua dies, they burn those kids in a hot, hot fire.”

“And then they open the sky lid to sprinkle them over the living kids.”

“Like snow.”

Syla turns to her then fully, a dark and deranged shine in her slack eyes. Her smile isn’t so warm or fond anymore, but rather unsettling and unhinged – her face distorted with her own features and someone else’s.

“You’re already so stupid.” Syla’s words cut like a blade through water, sharp and jarring to Sua – whose sister has never spoken to her in this way. “What if you just die in that place like the rest of them?”

Sua’s jaw is frozen.

Die?

“W – what are you talking about, unnie?” Sua whispers, unsettled. “Where?”

“Where all songbirds go when they get finally get caught.” Syla turns to her, expression haunted and words deliriously-slurred. “They get caged for a long time before they get to sing for the audience.”

“I…”

Sua, at five years old, is at a loss of words.

Surely, Syla has acted different and looked different but she has never began talking differently like this.

Her expression teeters on the brink of what Sua would think to be of delirium.

“I think we should go to sleep now, unnie.”

“I think so too, little star.”

❋❋❋

Sua is six years old when Syla doesn’t come back one night. There is an accident in the workplace where she and Mother work alongside Mother’s new collaborative partners for temporary human feature customization. Sua waits hours for her big sister to come back, tap on her pod and watch the stars with her.

Syla does not come back.

When Sua gathers the courage to dare to ask Mother, she is given a singular and deadpan response.

“She is dead.” said simply as if talking about the weather.

There is no explanation as to how Sua’s big sister is killed.

Syla is dead.

Syla does not succeed in creating a world where Sua doesn’t get to suffer, because it means that she will too. She does not succeed in changing things and she never will, because Syla dies at the age of fourteen – the most common lifespan of a pet human working in industries like modelling.

Sua grieves. She hugs herself in her pod and cries herself to sleep every night. Sua stops eating the gruel they feed her and she stops listening to Mother because she simply can’t. Her brain shuts down and everything shuts down because Syla is dead.

Sua’s sister is dead. How does she live a world without her older sister?

The girls don’t understand.

How could they?

Mother doesn’t either.

Sua is six when she is hit for the first time, without her sister’s protection against Mother’s wrath. She clutches a hand to her stomach, the ruffled fabric having torn through from the sharp edge of Mother’s unforgiving claw.

Blood stains the pale white fabric as Sua cries.

“Insolent trench,” Mother hisses, ruby-red eyes glowing with ferocity. “The only good thing about you was your sister. I have no reason to keep you.”

Sua does not beg to be spared. She does not beg to be kept. She wants her sister. 

Mother keeps her.

Sua sleeps with dark red blood staining her tunic and rashes all over her skin, tearstains streaked beneath her heavy amethyst eyes.

In the daytime, Sua is unresponsive.

Because her sister is dead.

She barely gets past their ordinary schedule, performs the worst out of all the other girls and looks pretty horrible most of the time too. The dark eyebags don’t do any good for her appearance to be used as a model.

Every night, Sua sleeps with puffy eyes and red marks on her skin.

I have no reason to keep you.

Sua has no reason to be alive.

Her sister is dead. Gone.

“Get up.” one of the girls force the doors of her pod open, voice harsh. “Mother wants us to go to the shrine.”

“I don’t want to.” Sua turns in her uncomfortable position, burying her face into the itchy sheets.

“For Great Anakt’s sake, Get up.” the girl repeats, voice filled with disdain. “Syla’s been dead for months, get over it before Mother hits another one of us for your mistakes.”

They get hit for Sua’s mistakes.

“I’m sorry.” Sua whimpers, her throat tightening. “I didn’t mean to–”

“I don’t care if you’re sorry. I don’t care if you’re sad, I don’t care if you’re grieving over your dead sister – I don’t fucking care!” 

The girl’s words echo through the silence of the room filled with pods, reverbrating thrice inside Sua’s mind. When she turns to look at the girl standing before her, Sua’s entire body freezes up.

A fresh gash runs across the skin of her neck downwards beneath her ruffle dress, poorly-hidden but very familiar to Sua ever since her sister’s death. Her eyes are hard and dark, unlike the warm purple of Syla’s kind gaze.

Did Mother hit her for Sua’s–

“Just get up.” the girl says sharply, eyes narrowing. “Or don’t. Personally, I don’t care what happens to you when Mother comes in to fetch you herself.”

Sua gets up.

She receives a deep gouge on her back, hidden by her dress, for her ‘death-like’ appearance and staining Mother’s reputation. Mother attaches her collar, leashing them altogether alongside all the other girls for the day.

The shrine is far so they take one of the ships Mother owns. Even when soaring through the skies, Sua wills herself to not look at the stars.

She can’t.

They are welcomed to the shrine by segyein sanctars, their lumpy and disfigured faces hidden beneath veils. Many segyein and their pet humans span across the vast crowd below the humungous statue in the courtyard of the Great Anakt.

The Great Anakt, to Sua, resembles that of a human and a segyein put together. Though if she said that aloud to anyone but Syla, she’d probably get her tongue cut out.

The Great Anakt carries the figure of a human, though its features are distorted in some kind of manner. With a face hidden by a veil similar to the sanctars, hundreds of thorns protrude from beneath. 

Arms, tentacles and claws reach outwards from the Great Anakt like the explosion of an asteroid, reaching towards the skies. The Great Anakt perches on its built stone pillar, limbs intertwined and crossed to form a complicated religious symbol.

All of the segyein and their pet humans kneel.

Mother kneels before the Great Anakt.

As do the other girls.

“You know, little star, the humans used to have a Great Anakt of their own back on their home planet.”

“Really?”

“They called him, God.”

“Sua.” one of the girls shove her roughly, hissing.

Syla’s smile is bright and thoughtful, fingers curling around a raven strand of Sua’s hair.

“They believed that things that cannot be solved by human power are believed to be by God’s will.”

“Everything?”

“Kneel.” she hisses.

“Everything. Everything was by God’s plan – he orchestrates everything we do for a reason.”

“Even this?”

A scaly claw drags up the back of her thigh beneath her ruffle dress, slow and warning. 

“Even this. Everything has a reason. I like to believe that our God is out there and he’s waiting. After all this suffering, he will bless us and we will all be free.”

It punctures the skin and Sua bites back a whimper, falling to her knees instantly. Tears well up in the back of her eyes but Sua takes in ragged breaths, trying really hard not to cry right here. If anything, showing that she was upset in public would stain Mother’s reputation and earn her another punishment.

Sua can already feel the blood dripping from the back of her thigh when the claw retracts.

“But how long do we have to wait in suffering, unnie?”

Syla had turned away from her then, a bittersweet smile gracing her pretty features. She twirls another lock of Sua’s hair between her thumb and forefinger, stroking her scalp softly.

“I don’t know how long, little star. But soon, very soon. Whatever happens is all part of God’s plan and his will is going to save us all, okay? Believe in it – because I do.”

Sua gazes across the crowd. Not a single pet human is uncollared or unleashed, all wearing either rags or pretty clothing to appease their owners. Their faces all look the same – miserable and hopeless.

How could this be part of God’s plan?

All these kids, Syla’s death, Mother’s punishment.

If God really was out there, why didn’t he save Syla?

Syla, her soft words and kind face. Syla, her hopes and dreams of creating a safer place for them. Syla and everything she’s done to protect Sua and all of the other girls from all the suffering and pain all the other pet humans have to endure.

Syla, Sua’s big sister.

If anyone was to be saved by God’s will, why not it be Syla, one of his believers?

Sua only realises that she’s crying then, tears dribbling down her cheeks like thick waterdrops. They roll down and splatter onto the ground before her, her chest heaving up and down hysterically.

She can’t stop.

Sua hears the shuffling and discomfort of the girls next to her, some of them shifting away from her as if disassociating from her. If Syla was here, she wouldn’t care. She would wrap Sua in her arms and let her cry until she stopped.

If Syla was here, she wouldn’t let anything happen to to Sua.

She can feel Mother’s ruby-eyed gaze searing into the side of her head, dangerous and threatening. She can’t stop crying. They’re in public so Mother wouldn’t dare lay a single claw on her now but when they get home…

Sua tries to suck back the tears but she can’t.

She can’t.

But then, she hears voices.

Not just voices though.

Sua looks up.

It’s a group of pet humans, bunched together below the Great Anakt statue. Their faces are also covered with the veil and they’re dressed clad in fully black, not a single piece of skin exposed. But from the way their shoulders slouch and curl inwards miserably, Sua can tell.

She can always tell.

But their voices – they’re singing.

And it sounds beautiful.

The way their melodic voices blend into a singular harmony is hypnotic, their pretty cadences projecting throughout the entire courtyard of the shrine. There’s no particular words to the song, rather just a reflection of their vocal cords, ringing out for the world to hear.

God, does it absolutely hit a place deep in Sua she didn’t know before.

The tears in her eyes sting even more and her lips part.

Sua sings with them.

Eyes are on her all around but Sua doesn’t care. She couldn’t give less of a shit to whatever all these people thought, especially Mother. It doesn’t matter if Mother hits her hard enough to scar like with Syla because Syla is dead.

Nothing matters anymore when Sua’s big sister is dead.

Singing in the only thing that reminds Sua of Syla anymore, the way she’d compliment Sua’s soft lilts.

Mother’s gaze is close to lasering her skin but Sua keeps singing, following along with their sweet melody.

It’s the only thing she knows how to do right.

Alongside the choir’s beautiful harmonizing, she hears one of the sanctars begin to preach the Great Anakt. The segyein language is different from the human language, both the frequency and the pronunciation.

It’s a high frequency, pitched with the sound of throat gargling and hissing – unintelligible majority of the time to humans. Beside the sanctar is a pet human in a veil, slow voice pressed into a microphone to allow for all the pet humans to understand as well.

“The Great Anakt, our creator.” he speaks, voice quiet and serious as the higher frequencies of the segyein language echo through the courtyard from the sanctar.

“They who created the universe, its lifeforms and beings.”

“The Great Anakt, for who we must bow down to for all their generosity.”

Sua has heard these preachings a few times. All of the times, she was bored out of her mind and playing with Syla’s fingers. But now the silence is sombre, with rows of pet humans kneeled beside towering aliens who are also kneeling.

But now, Syla is dead and her belief in the humans’ God was futile.

Her belief that their suffering was essential as part of God’s plan was futile.

“The Great Anakt, our saviour.”

“He will save us all, little star. Believe in it.”

“They who brought an end to suffering to every corner in the universe.”

“After all this suffering, he will bless us.”

“How long?”

“The Great Anakt, for who we must bow down for all their kindness.”

“The Great Anakt, the most superior entity gracing us with their presence.”

“I don’t know.”

“They who brings peace and prosperity to all worlds, ending the abomination that is suffering and pain, leaving a hope to bloom even in the deepest of abysses in the darkness.”

“The Great Anakt, for who we must bow down for their existence.”

It’s spontaneous. Like the phenomenon where adjacent stars wink out of existence. Each and every segyein and human bows down, kneeling and pressing their heads to the floor before them. Mother bows and so do all the other girls.

The bleeding wound on the back of her thigh pulsates.

Sua kneels.

❋❋❋

Sua does not receive a punishment for singing with the choir when they arrive back to Mother’s estate. She does not receive a punishment for crying in front of Mother’s associates, nor does she get one for disobeying her direct orders.

Instead, Sua gets more than just a taste of honeyed porridge that night.

And each and every following night after that.

Chapter Text

“Where should I stand?”

Sua shuffles slightly over to where all the other girls are, all dressed in matching ruffle dresses. It’s been a year since Syla’s death and while Sua would’ve thought that her sister’s death would’ve brought all of them closer together, it’s only done the opposite.

But at seven years old, Sua doesn’t understand the reason why their eyes narrow upon looking at her – the way their lips curl tightly at the corners in distaste.

The girls shift away from her and something inside Sua breaks just a little. She bites her lip, hanging her head. One of the girls approach her, brows tense and mouth taut as she regards Sua.

“Mother already favours you.” she says simply, voice filled with distaste – as if she were stating something that cast Sua apart from everybody else. “Don’t stand with us.”

“Why not?” Sua’s bottom lip trembles slightly.

What did I do to them?

She jerks her head over to Mother’s empty side, nose scrunched. “Go stand over there!”

“Oh… okay.”

Sua’s amethyst eyes stray downwards as she makes her way over to Mother’s other side, her neck free of the leash in comparsion to the other girls. Sua feels Mother’s gaze following her this time but it’s quite different from the way Mother used to look at her last year.

It’s less full of disappointment but never viewing her any more than just an investment.

The segyein cameraman’s tentacles are readjusting the lens while Sua finds her rightful place by Mother’s side, leash-free and collar-free.

But there’s a difference. On Mother’s other side, the girls are leashed but they press close together. At night, they huddle together as they’d once done with Syla and comfort each other. During dinner, they sit altogether and tell each other jokes to distract themselves from the gashes they receive for their incompetent performances that day.

Sua stands alone on this side. She sits alone, sleeps alone and eats alone. 

“Many investors approached me last night after your performance at the shrine.” Mother’s voice rumbles in her ear quietly. 

You met expectations.

Sua nods her head silently.

“They’ve ordered another performance to be done tonight.” Mother continues offhandedly.

Sua hears the giggles of the girls beside Mother. One of them poke at the other’s ruffles, before fixing it with the sort of sisterly affection in their eyes that hits home so closely in Sua’s heart. Sua looks down at her feet.

“I… I feel ill. I don’t want to sing today.” Sua mumbles under her breath.

“You will go and sing for the investors.” Mother’s ruby gaze pierces her own, voice cold in a way that leaves no room for arguing.

“I – I’m tired, Mother. I can’t.”

That night Sua sings for the investors. She sings a religious song dedicated to the Great Anakt, so it isn’t too bad. She sings well, her vocal cords expanding and her voice projecting throughout the entire venue.

But she sees the girls pressed up together in the corner of the audience, giggling to each other.

Mother gets her investors and for her good mood, all of the girls get honeyed porridge. They don’t thank Sua – of course they don’t, because they all sit together in the pod room to share stories.

Sua sits by the window where she and Syla used to sit, a pang of nostalgia striking her then. 

“That one’s the Great Anakt, Sua. They will protect you if I’m not there for you.”

Syla’s gentle fingers ruffling her hair. Syla’s soft and kind laugh.

Her tears begin welling in her eyes and she breathes in deeply, even as she hears the girls laughing on the other side of the pod room. Her small fingers bunch around the itchy tunic, her skin long-adapted to the rashes after several months of not treating them at all.

Sua misses her big sister all the time. She sees her big sister all the time. Whenever she looks in the mirror, when she sees an older girl brush the hair of another girl or when she stares into that bowl of honeyed porridge that tastes like dirt now to her.

Maybe her big sister would’ve proud of her for listening to Mother. Or maybe now, after her death because of what Mother had done, she wants Sua to fight back and fight for the world she wanted.

Sua will never know, will she?

She rubs the wetness from her eyes with the back of her palm. She will not cry. She has no reason to cry now. She has everything she’s ever needed or wanted; favouritism from Mother and a good meal. Isn’t that enough?

But it’s not the same without Syla.

She tilts her head back to look up at the sky. It’s natural the way her eyes draw over to find the brightest star. 

The Great Anakt.

Her God.

Her only hope in all this madness. 

Sua presses her palms together, interlocking specific fingers to form the religious symbol that the Great Anakt holds in every statue. Although she doesn’t have the anatomy of a segyein to do so, she tries with her ten tiny fingers.

She holds it to her lips, shutting her eyes.

She breathes in shallowly.

“Great Anakt – my father, my universe.” Sua begins to recite the verse that she learnt at the shrine from the sanctars. 

Quietly, she preaches the Great Anakt. She preaches their creation of the universe, their devotion to end all suffering and war and the very existence. As she preaches her god, Sua’s tense shoulders begin to relax. The tautness of her body unravels.

It’s the Great Anakt who she prays to every night.

When her voice is on the verge of breaking from exhaustion in her body during back-to-back performances, she prays to the Great Anakt.

When Mother finally snaps and takes it out on Sua, she prays to the Great Anakt.

Whenever she sees the stars, she prays.

She prays and prays, hoping that one day they will give her proof that they’re truly there.

❋❋❋

When Sua earns Mother her first record-breaking deal with another musically-centered company, Mother takes her somewhere without the other girls. It’s strange and the silence between them is stiff – Sua never having been alone with Mother before.

Perhaps it was for the better that she’s never had the experience.

Mother takes her to this great dome in the middle of nowhere by her ship. The first thing Sua notices when she steps foot out of the great ship is the sky.  Her eyes sparkle as she takes in the vastness of the starry sky before her, twinkling and winking out of sight. She’s pulled along with Mother inside the large dome doors that slide open, fog hissing.

It takes her a moment to adjust to the dark lights but when her nose perks up and catches a whiff of the familiar smell, her hackles immediately raise.

This place is full of segyein.

Although Sua is used to it by now after countless performances in the shrine and other venues, it never fails to make her skin crawl by the very prospect of how many aliens are in this building altogether.

She catches sight of pet humans leashed by their segyein, seemingly looking staring into nothingness in the darkness. In fact, all of the segyein and Mother are too – their expectant eyes glued to the dark.

What are they–

CLICK.

Sua starts suddenly at the noise. She looks up to see a big screen in the darkness, lit with neon. It briefly flashes a silver set of letters that takes Sua a few moments to decipher and recognize, not having been familiar with the alphabet of the human language.

Alien… Stage?

Just as quickly, the screen changes.

ROUND 1.

Two frames are displayed side by side onscreen against one another, the darkness flickering before revealing two faces of pet humans that resemble Sua’s age. Sua understands now, it’s a sort of stage game involving pet humans.

Though something tells Sua that’s not all there is to it.

One on side depicts a girl with a short haircut, quite similar to Sua’s, if not for her wild fiery ginger hair framing her youthful snarl. On the other is a dark-eyed boy who looks scared out of his life, eyes downturned and saggy with dark circles.

The screen darkens.

FWOOM.

Suddenly, a bright light bursts from within the darkness before them. Sua flinches, her amethyst eyes dilating to adjust to the light to find a stage within the dark. The platform rises above the crowd, links of neon light stretching across its borders.

Then, in the centre of the platform – two figures rise.

It’s the two faces that have appeared onscreen but instead, they look must older than they do in those photos. Perhaps their late teens or early twenties. But one thing was certain, they’ve both retained their charm from their youth.

The woman’s ginger hair falls down to her back, the front of her hair braided back into what resembles a crown. Her green eyes glow almost neon in the darkness like this, flashing with a newfound sense of determination as she beholds the crowd – her blood-red dress swishing by her tall platforms.

Beside her, the scraggly boy’s shoulders have filled out and his height exceeds her indefinitely. His hair’s been groomed perfectly in the way that reminds Sua of the pet humans she would find in Mother’s company but even that isn’t enough to hide the darkening shadows beneath his eyes.

In front of them are two microphones, having risen from the platform.

A drum beat punctuates the silence then, rumbling through the floor beneath the platform as the cymbals clash. Only when the bass joins, melting through the floor, does Sua realize what this really is.

A singing battle onstage.

Alien Stage.

The bold woman steps forward first, throwing her long locks of ginger hair over her shoulder as she takes the microphone in her hand.

“Deny you’ve kissed me,” the woman’s voice is rough with the lilt of a countryside accent and nothing like the shrine choir songs Sua has heard. “Diss me, pretending you don’t miss me.”

But it’s beautiful. Captivating, even – the way she shifts the microphone, taps her foot with the beat, flutters her eyes shut.

“Lying through your pretty teeth.” 

She ends off the verse with an almost growl-like purr. “While you fake it with that phony creed.”

The man’s eyes follow her loosely, the darkness in them almost detached in a way that brings goosebumps to Sua’s skin. Why does he look like that?

Why does he look so…

Crushed?

The instrumental shifts and Sua feels her chest expand with the way the harmonies within the soundtrack work so effortlessly with the song’s change of key. Her religious songs she recites are nothing compared to the kind of song that this Alien Stage produces.

The woman spins around suddenly to the crowd with the clash of the cymbals, ginger hair displacing as she holds the microphone up to her lips.

“Oh, what? Cat got your tongue?”

“Can’t lie, losing you – shit stung.”

Her green eyes grow distant then as her voice adds on a more harder tone, firmer. “Bet with him, you’ll only think of me.”

“Kissing him, does it set you free?”

Sua follows the pathway of the ginger-haired woman’s eyes, to find her gaze having touched on the lower right of the platform where a couple of pods sit. They remind her of her own pods back in Mother’s estate, yet they’re larger and transparent.

Inside the pods are other people dressed in the same manner – other contestants perhaps?

“Go on, keep pretending to your heart.” the ginger woman turns away from the pods, stepping even closer towards the crowd and kneeling down with her microphone to her lips – eyes smouldering.

She stands up then, crossing back to where the other man stands passively. “Keep playing the part they chart.”

“Just kissing that pretty boy, too.” Sharp green eyes narrow at the other man’s respective dark ones. “Sinks and strips away your real truth.”

The ginger woman’s voice cuts off and she lowers her microphone as the beat continues expectantly – inviting another incoming verse.

Her lips move incessantly as she seemingly says something to the other man, who’s expression reveals nothing of their conversation. She passes the microphone over to him and his fingers close firmly around it before he steps forward.

Instead of the woman’s hardier and louder approach, his voice drops to almost a whisper.

“Tell me you’d never leave me.”

“Left me hurting and a broken heart, see.”

His gaze flickers to the pods again before reverting back to the crowd, the enthusiasm and loudness of the ginger woman absent.

“Cause I know your lies, little pretty lady. Damn it all – why won’t you ever let me?”

His voice is slightly breathier and more taut in comparison to the ginger woman’s as he repeats the same chorus and post-choruses, instead replacing the masculine pronouns with feminine ones.

He does so as he looks back at the ginger woman, almost as if taunting her.

Green eyes turn dangerous and flare before she stalks forward, tearing the microphone from his hands as his chorus ends.

The bass drops.

“Feeling oh-so envious and all-too mad.” she almost mimicks the breathy and softer tone of his voice as she glares at him, hand fisting around the microphone. “What–? Couldn’t get her to love you back?”

Her voice abruptly grows louder in a crescendo. “Deal’s done and you’re the only one left cursing. Acting like you’re somebody who’d ever be worth it.”

Her words suddenly burst forward rapidly, enunciating each syllable and word precisely within the short moment before the section ends. It almost sounds like a string of curses meant to insult the man rather than sung as a verse.

“Telling her you’d give her your everything when your everything’s nothin’ more than a load of shit!”

She lowers the microphone then but her glare is equivalent to daggers to the man’s, who remains impassively still. The song ends off after a short instrumental filled with the tenseness between the two contestants.

Behind them, the screen lights up with a set of climbing numbers.

When Sua glances over to Mother, she finds a neon remote in her hand – almost resembling a light stick. Mother’s light turns green, like that of the ginger woman’s eyes as well as other segyein’s around them do.

The number on the ginger woman’s side exceeds that of the man’s.

The numbers suddenly vanish behind them, replaced with big bold letters.

BARA WIN.

Sua only has just registered those letters when a gunshot goes off with a BOOM. She claps her hands to her ears, chest tightening at how loud it was. Was it close to them? Onstage the contestants are unperturbed.

Until cherry red blooms in the man’s pale white suit and he falls to the ground with a thud.

Sua shuts her eyes instantly.

The platform turns dark once more.

What just happened? Why did they kill off the man? Sua has never seen a live killing of a pet human before and–

The way the light had left his eyes.

“Sua.” a cold claw meets her shoulder and Sua jerks back instinctively, her chest feeling extremely tight as she struggles to breathe properly.

She looks up at Mother, bottom lip quivering.

“Don’t look away.” Mother says coldly. 

Sua can only nod robotically. 

Is death of a pet human far too insignificant to the segyein around them? Because no one seems to have had such a guttural reaction as Sua. Is it normal to not care? Or are they far too used to it to–

“Familiarize yourself with the concept of death. Or else you’ll be just like that man, killed where he stood.” 

The concept of death. 

Sua has never seen it with her two own eyes before and perhaps she wishes she never has. She wishes it only remains as a thought in the back of her mind when she remembers Syla. When she does remember Syla, she only remembers her bright smile and warm hands.

She won’t think about the way the light leaves her eyes or blood bubbles from her lips as she falls to the ground in a heap.

Or perhaps was she killed in a different way?

How many ways can a pet human be killed?

Sua wonders how much time has passed when the screen lights up again. Her tongue feels like cotton and her innards are bile. She wonders whether they’ve cleaned the blood stain off the stage because the man’s body is nowhere to be found.

Sua wants to fucking vomit.

ROUND 2 lights up the screen, followed by the face of a pink-haired boy and another boy with dark spiky hair.

When the round begins, neither seem like they want to sing. The intro stretches on without anyone stepping forward and Sua hears the click of something in the crowd –  a gun? The man with the rose-coloured undercut steps forward hesitantly and takes the microphone.

This song is quieter and softer in comparison to the last one. The man’s voice is delicate and smooth, ending off the chorus with a hum as he hands the microphone over to the other contestant.

The dark haired man’s voice is deeper and huskier, seemingly reluctant to sing but he does. 

JIDORI WINS.

When the song ends, the man with dark hair is shot in the neck.

Blood pools on the ground where his body lays. His spiky locks are stained with sticky red blood. The other man runs forward, a scream tearing from his lips as he shakes the man on the floor repeatedly.

Denial.

Sua crouches down, pupils dilating.

She retches.

Over and over, the sticky honey porridge from yesterday coming down her throat as she empties it out at the feet of segyein. They shoot her disgusted looks with their beady and bulbous eyes and press away from the pool of Sua’s vomit.

A claw punctates the skin on Sua’s back.

Reminding her.

Sua gets up, wiping the spit from her lips with the back of her hand dazedly. It’s so hard to breathe in here.

“I said to not look away.” Mother repeats, voice edging the territory of danger. “Did you hear me, Sua?”

“Y – yes, Mother.”

The following rounds pass. Blood stains the stage over and over. Some contestants remain calm and uncaring as their opponent is killed. Others, like Jidori, are in the state of denial of the death of their opponent.

It seems to Sua that some of these contestants know each other.

Friends, perhaps?

The bad blood between Bara and the dark-eyed man seemed different, though.

Far too different.

Round 3 and 4 are won by a golden-eyed woman with dark scruffy locks and a tall white-haired man with an impressive vocal range.

In Round 5, Jidori and Bara are put against each other.

The song is upbeat and loud but Jidori’s eyes have lost their cobalt spark as they cast to the ground. Bara finishes her verse and it’s Jidori’s turn. She hands the microphone over to him.

Jidori doesn’t take it.

As the song drags on, Bara increasingly becomes desperate. 

“Sing, you fucker. What are you doing?!”

Jidori is emotionless.

Unresponsive.

Sua wonders if that is how she looked after she heard about Syla’s death. But Jidori watched his friend get shot in front of him only a few rounds back.

“Jidori – I swear to God. Just–”

BANG.

Thud.

Jidori’s body meets the ground.

Bara’s eyes don’t retain the seething hatred and satisfaction as they did in Round 1. She just stands there.

Unresponsive.

The lights wink out.

Sua’s stomach churns.

In Round 6, the white-haired man loses to the golden-eyed woman by the name of Shioreru.

The final is where the crowd begins to amp up their cheering. It’s quite sadistic really, the way the crowd’s screams grow the loudest at the end of each song where opponents’ bodies are leaking blood to the ground.

Shioreru versus Bara.

By the look on Bara’s face, it seems that these two know each other too unfortunately. The song begins, sombre and slow. Likely the first one after Round 2. Bara takes the microphone first as always but something’s different.

Her hand shakes.

Her eyes keep darting over to Shioreru and there’s sweat shining across her brow.

“Say you’re a bust.” 

One thing Sua has noticed about all these songs is that they seem to be personal between these contestants – which is perhaps why they have so much emotion within them. Or maybe they write these songs themselves.

Bara shifts her grip hesitantly. “Just throw out the bad batch – they say.”

“But doesn’t matter if I already got a taste of you.”

“Drive me mad.

“And kill my head.”

“Poison my streams.”

“And I’ll keep coming back.”

The song heightens here as the drums grow louder as do the instruments. Bara’s voice seems on the verge of breaking as she powers through. She is no longer the confident singing star she was back on the first round, she’s exhausted and likely traumatised by the death of her friends before her.

“Such a pretty little drug.” Bara sings, swerving around to face Shioreru.

Sua can’t see well from here but it seems as though Shioreru’s mouth is moving frantically as she steps towards Bara. It occurs to her then that Shioreru might’ve been the one that Bara and that other man were looking at during Round 1 – or perhaps, singing to.

“Messing up my brain.” Bara takes a step back towards the edge of the stage, into the crowd behind her.  “Clouding all my senses.”

“Do you know what they say about addiction…?” 

The silence hangs before the instrumental resumes. Bara offers the microphone to Shioreru.

Her scarred fingers take the microphone from manicured ones.

“Not so pretty anymore. When your brains ‘cross the floor…” Shioreru’s voice is deeper, smoother than Bara’s. 

“Should’ve thrown out the batch.”

“Should’ve gotten it someplace else.”

Shioreru steps towards Bara, golden eyes softening. She raises a hand to card it through Bara’s ginger hair so fondly and affectionately Sua would rethink them as friends. Bara’s visibly hardened expression cracks just a bit.

“Such a pretty little drug.” Shioreru almost croons, offering the microphone between them.

“Pretty drug…” Bara echoes her, providing a gentle harmony backing Shioreru’s voice.

There’s a different light to Bara’s green eyes now – one that Sua’s never seen in her throughout all the rounds or she’s ever seen in a pet human really. It’s difficult to describe but there’s a sparkle, some sort of spark that wasn’t there before.

Bara leans into Shioreru’s touch.

“Messing up my brain.” 

“My brain…” Bara hums along.

“Clouding all my senses.” Shioreru’s voice drops to a mere whisper then. “They say addiction kills.”

Bara smiles. They harmonize and sing the chorus together once more, their voices complimenting each other in such a way that is so pleasing to Sua’s ears. She forgets she’s surrounded by segyein in the moment, forgets that this is all just a game.

Bara and Shioreru’s smiles are radiant as they behold each other, sharing the microphone. This reunion is so heartwarming that Sua forgets how the game will end.

The bubble pops when the bright neon screen lights up behind the two women as the song ends. The crowd bursts into cheer, waving each woman’s respective colours in the air with lightsticks and posters.

Sua holds her breath.

The numbers climb up and up.

90 // 90.

Is it a tie?

Confusion seems to make its way across the segyein audience, some’s voices even making it through the crowd. The two women look confused as well, glancing back up at the screen behind them and then at each other.

Have they never seen a tie before?

If according to the rules of this game, then would it mean they are both allowed to live as they both win the final?

It seems as though Bara comes to this realisation as a huge grin spreads it way across her face.

Before blood splatters across her cheek.

Shioreru’s blood. She’s been shot. 

The light in her golden eyes wink out like stars before they roll back, her eyes fluttering shut as her body topples over.

Thud.

Bara’s face only morphs into one of horror and hysteria for a moment, her mouth tearing open into what would’ve been a scream.

Had a bullet not shot through the direct side of her head, piercing straight through as blood spurts out from the exit wound. The confidence in her angular body, the straightness of her posture all slumps downwards as Bara chokes on her own blood.

She kneels downwards, before joining Shioreru on the stage floor.

Thud.

The screen lights up once more.

NO WIN – SHIORERU // BARA TIE.

Sua finds sensation in her feet. Everywhere else is numb when darkness overcomes the dome once more. 

Everything is spinning.

Everything is so loud.

Sua can’t breathe.

Her feet stumble. They move. 

Sua can’t breathe.

Her feet haven’t stopped moving. She doesn’t know where she’s going. She’s lost sight of Mother. She wants to get away from every single segyein in a league radius of her existence.

Sua can’t breathe.

Sua goes to her pod that night with long ragged gashes stretching down the expanse of her pale back. One for vomiting. One for screaming apparently. One for running away. Another one for good measure.

Perhaps it’s for the better it’s on her back and she can’t see the blood.

She curls up in her pod, sobbing and crying into her pillow.

No one gets it.

The girls wouldn’t get it. They wouldn’t care either.

To call the state Sua was in for the rest of that night sleep would be a lie. She did not rest, she was tortured in a state of comatose with her eyes shut but her body wide awake. She sees things behind her shut eyes, she feels things crawl up her helpless body in her comatose and she can’t breathe.

Blood spurts across her skin and the heavy, iron taste evades her tongue. She sees the stars wink out time and time again, in their eyes, in the sky and in Syla’s. The sounds, the gunshots, the screams.

When the Great Anakt takes her out of her misery, Sua breaks out of the nightmare jail with a scream – her spine shooting ramrod straight as though she were struck by lightning.

She can’t see in the dark whether the uncomfortable moisture on her skin is blood or sweat, probably both. The darkness isn’t a kindness though, it gives her imagination space to do whatever the hell it wants.

Sua sees it over and over again. She hears it.

The thud of their bodies on the ground and the slackjaw expression on their faces as they fell.

She wonders if that’s how she’ll die. She wonders if that was what Syla was talking about back then in her crazed state. She wonders if that’s what Mother was hinting at by bringing her to that deranged place.

Did she want to put Sua in Alien Stage?

Her mouth goes dry at the thought and her body freezes, tears streaming down her cheeks. Sua digs her fingernails roughly into her forearms at the thought, squeezing her eyes shut with a shrill sob into her pillow.

She doesn’t want to, she really doesn’t want to.

She can’t make Sua do it right? Sua’s only six, she’s only six and she can’t, she can’t do it.

Sua doesn’t want to die.

She doesn’t want to die at all.

❋❋❋

“I don’t want to.”

“Sua.”

“I don’t want to.”

“You don’t get a choice, you–”

“I SAID I’M NOT WEARING THE DRESS!”

It takes Sua a year to get over the nightmares. When Mother presents to her a modelling dress for her next performance in the colour of deep blood red, Sua’s chest tightens up again and she remembers the permanent half-moon imprints inlaid on her forearms from nights of crying.

“Please don’t make me wear it, I don’t want to wear it – please, please, please.”

The dress looks elegant on Sua’s bones and skin. It makes her stomach violently churn and everything turns dizzy when Sua remembers the thuds and the gunshots. She doesn’t have to imagine when a sharp pain strikes across her cheek for the first time in her life.

Slick blood drips down her hands and Sua’s stomach threatens to spill its insides.

Sua can’t breathe.

Flashes of pooling blood and flickering lights.

Mother has never struck her on her face before.

“Disobey me again and your dress won’t be the only thing the colour of blood, filthy creature.” 

At her silence, Mother’s beady eyes shift. “Don’t act so surprised. I don’t care if I ruin a face like yours or any of the other brats, you all could never live up to Syla. Your singing is the only thing acceptable about you.”

When Sua performs in the dress onstage, she can’t stop looking at the floor. She can’t stop waiting for blood to spill from somewhere or looking into the crowd to find a gun aimed at her neck.

When she goes backstage, she vomits. She retches and the pool of vomit is almost large as the pool of blood sinking by the feet of the contestants of Alien Stage. The images flash across her mind again and again.

Again and again.

And again.

Mother seems to realize Sua’s trigger of seeing blood. She exploits it. Time and time again, she purposely colours things the colour of Sua’s nightmares. She purposely strikes Sua across her face or her hands, so that she can see the stain of the deep red colour on her bandages.

There’s no particular reason to it.

Mother probably finds it entertaining.

Sua just has to comply. She always has to comply. Her feelings do not matter when Mother tells her what to do. Syla was wrong about her needing to follow Mother’s instructions, she has to follow Mother’s instructions unless she wants to be hit so badly she dies from her wounds.

Then comes the time where Mother takes her alone on the ship again.

Sua pleads to the Great Anakt.

The Great Anakt does not answer because Sua attends the Alien Stage again after last year’s one. By the time Sua leaves that fucking dome, she’s desensitized and familiarized herself to the sight of blood.

And the concept of death.

Chapter Text

The next time Mother takes Sua alone on her ship is when she’s eight, with blood caking the back of her thighs and spine. It drags along her skin, narrowly avoiding important organs and gauging deep in her skin but not deep enough to damage anything important.

She’s slumped against the window of Mother’s ship, eyes fluttering open and close every few seconds. She’s edging the territory of losing consciousness overall. Sua wonders what would happen if she let go of that entirely.

Tonight Mother has killed one of the girls. Not by coincidence during work like Syla’s case. One of them disobeyed her. They stole a serving of the honeyed porridge. Mother was already in a foulul mood after coming back from work when one of their investors pulled out.

Sua knew that Mother’s claws were sharp enough to cause destruction and pain. She’d never thought of them possible of imposing death on another individual. By the time the girl’s screams had stopped, her blood stained across the entire floor of where they ate – even pooling across to the doorway of their pod room.

The girls whimpered and cried.

Sua sidestepped across the puddle of blood.

The girl was unrecognizable. A piece of raw, bloodied meat on the ground with her features barely human and free of blood.

Nobody dared approach Mother after that.

No one but Sua.

“Leave her body be, I’ll give her over to the investors as a treat.”

Sua broke her promise with Syla.

For the first time ever, Sua disobeyed Mother. Not in her little rebellious ways like refusing small things before eventually caving in to Mother’s instructions. She directly disobeyed Mother’s orders.

Sua raised her voice for something other than singing. She screamed for something other than fear. She didn’t know what it was. Seeing that girl’s body on the floor like that, mutilated by Mother’s whim, made something inside her snap.

Sua is lucky that she gives Mother the most revenue in comparison to all of the other girls. She is lucky she is ‘favoured’ by Mother.

She is lucky she does not end up a piece of unrecognisable meat on the floor.

She feels light-headed. More than usual after her punishments. Probably because this has been her worst punishment yet. She was scheduled to go someplace today with Mother anyway. She’d wondered if it was Alien Stage and had hoped Mother would cancel it in her rage.

But of course, Sua wouldn’t ever be so lucky in her life.

It’s not a dome – it sits in the middle of nowhere in space with several other ships parked outside. Other segyein. 

“Get up, brat.”

Sua is so tired. She is so, so exhausted. Her body feels like lead and her throat raw, her back like minced meat. But Sua obeys. She complies. She gets up weakly, dragging her feet across the floor in the itchy white ruffle dress she hates with her entire being.

Mother’s leash tugs on her neck hard.

There’s big bold letters on the top of the building in the middle of nowhere. Sua’s mind is too heavy to decipher whether it’s in human or segyein language. 

The interior is stark white, the hallways empty and lifeless. After contemplating the concept of death hundreds of times, this would be what Sua would assume to be death. It seems to practically hang over the building’s atmosphere like a guardian devil, watching them as they pass through the hallways.

There’s eyes on the ceiling.

There’s eyes everywhere.

Sua’s feet stumble over each other as she breathes out raggedly, her limbs having gained the weight of the sun. Her head is cotton and fuzzy. Where is she? Where are they? Where is Mother taking her?

This isn’t Alien Stage.

Is it?

Before she knows it, she finds herself standing on the edge of a pale platform. Her amethyst eyes defocus as she barely registers Mother’s stern voice saying something. She’s saying something.

Sua can’t understand what she’s saying, her mouth is moving so fast.

What is she saying?

The lights are so bright in here.

What is this place?

Where is Sua? Where is she going?

She thinks of the mutiliated girl on the floor of their pod room. She thinks of the gashes running along her back and Syla’s delirious state. 

Does she even care?

“–don’t disappoint me, disgusting creature. Do we understand each other?”

Sua stares at Mother. She stares at this creature who raised her and killed her sister. Killed that girl right where she stood. Sua turns her head. In front of her is some sort of large cage-like capsule, transparent and clear. 

Her arms feel so heavy.

The capsule is supported by pale pipes running across the ceiling – like some sort of trackway. 

Why is it so bright in here?

Across the capsules and on a different platform, something disturbs the achromacy.

Sua’s dead amethyst eyes glue to a pair of golden jewels across the platforms.

They’re like suns, Sua thinks stupidly. 

Sua remembers Syla told her about the sun one time. She thinks they even passed it from afar because she remembers Syla pointing it out to her. It’s like a really big and bright star – almost as big as the Great Anakt’s.

Bright and yellow.

A big, bright yellow star.

Sua likes stars.

The suns hide behind a pair of round-rimmed glasses perching on a button nose. They sparkle as the girl, with pale rose-coloured locks spilling down her shoulders, grins toothily up at her segyein owner.

Her smile is like the sun.

There is an expression Sua has never seen a pet human wear whilst in the presence of a segyein, other than her sister. But her sister only kept up these appearances in order to protect her.

Sua feels the grip of sharp claws close tightly around her ruffled headpiece roughly. She submits while Mother deposits her inside the clear capsule as she would a piece of trash. Uncaring, unworried and most importantly – with disinterest.

Her heavy head knocks hard against the glass as Sua breathes shallowly. It’s so cold in here.

The pink-haired girl jumps up and wraps her segyein owner in a hug.

If Sua had the energy to, her eyes would widen and she would gape. That was also something that no pet human ever did, or even had the right to do with a segyein as their owner. 

Sua waits for her owner to strike back, for those pristine crystals for eyes to narrow in disgust. The girl’s owner does no such thing. The segyein wraps its fabric-covered tentacles around the girl with… affection?

Affection.

From a segyein?

Sua briefly wonders if she has somehow been transported to an alternate universe.

Just watching the girl with pink hair and her segyein fills Sua with a pit of longing. She can only watch and remember Syla. It hurts. It really does hurt to think about it.  The girl jumps inside the capsule eagerly and Sua’s eyes follow the segyein owner who gives her pet human an assortment of blankets, toys and pillows. 

She doesn’t even have to look back to know that Mother has already left.

The girl with the sun in her eyes gives her segyein a tearful goodbye and wraps herself in her blankets.

Sua closes her eyes.

She doesn’t know how long she sits there. Once all the segyein have left their pet humans in these strange capsules, the lights in the building wink out. Sua floats in the darkness of her capsule, curling against herself and the itchy dress.

It’s so cold in here.

It’s so cold.

Where is Sua?

Did Mother forsake her?

Sua feels the familiar dig of her nails in the side of her forearms and she releases a pained breath. 

She wonders where she’s going. Maybe they’re going to take her to Alien Stage to sing. She wouldn’t mind, though, if just died or won any rounds. The only person she ever cared and will care about is Syla.

But Syla’s dead.

Maybe they’re going to burn Sua for the frail little girl she is.

In a hot, hot fire. When she turns to ash, maybe they’ll sprinkle her across the skies like snow.

Sua wonders about the girls back in Mother’s estate. Are they mourning the death of that girl together in their pod room? Are they huddling together, crying and hugging each other? Sua knows that most of them have grown close enough across the years akin to what Sua and Syla had with each other.

When Mother comes back and Sua’s pod remains permanently empty, will they notice?

Will they even care?

Maybe Mother’s still mad. Maybe she’ll take all of the girls to different spots like these to have them all killed. But that segyein owner of the pink-haired girl seemed fond of her – so this place mustn’t be for killing pet humans.

Right?

Sua wonders just what kind of life that pink-haired girl had back home. She probably doesn’t have any white scars on the back of her thighs and body by the looks of her unblemished pale skin. 

She probably couldn’t even imagine the way Mother looked at Sua, at Syla, at the other girls when her segyein smiled at her so fondly.

Dark, narrowing ruby-red crystals. 

Disappointment. Expectation. Disgust.

The sort of intent behind those eyes would be unimaginable for that girl.

There’s a burning sensation on the back of Sua’s head. Her dark raven locks spill from the frilly headpiece adorning her head. Sua opens her eyes tiredly, tilting her head slightly to the side to alleviate the sensation on her skin.

The suns stare right back at her.

She doesn’t even stop to wonder about how their capsules got so close. She doesn’t wonder why the girl’s hands are pressed against the glass as if she were trying to close the distance between them by pushing them together. 

Nor does she wonder about how dark it is around them, or how all the things that girl’s segyein gave to her are spilling – magenta ribbons twisting across the dark air and small toys flying free from the bag.

Sua remembers.

“The sun is really bright, Sua! And since it’s fiery, it’ll burn if you get too close. Can you see it from here, little star?”

Sua is close to the sun. It does burn, tearing through her skin and laying her out for the world to see.

She – she– why is she looking at Sua like that?

Like–

The suns have stars in them when they look at Sua. They sparkle brightly, burn oh-so brightly. It’s hard to look away from something so beautiful and blindingly captivating. Sua leans her head against the glass as the girl presses her cheeks against it innocently.

Innocence.

The way the suns behold Sua as if she were worth something are so innocent. Full of nothing, no evil intent. There is no disappointment or disgust in those adorable, golden eyes. There’s no expectation for Sua to do anything right now – nor has she done anything.

So what has she done to deserve those curious and starstruck eyes to gaze at her with such pure intent?

Such… kindness? Warmth?

Click.

Click. Click. Click.

Sua is faintly aware of the machinery above their capsules holding them together clicking as they detach. All she can focus on is those golden suns enrapturing her in their gaze and a small, pale hand pressed against the glass.

Almost as if she reaches through, they can–

Their capsules begin moving in opposite directions. The bubble is broken but Sua can’t stop looking at her, this pink-haired girl with the sunlight streaming from her eyes that begin to widen as they move away.

Sua sees the girl’s bottom lip jut out as her lips part. Her pink brows furrowing together furiously as tears begin to fill her eyes, her hand pressing even tighter against the glass as if trying to reach out to Sua.

Sua doesn’t know what makes her do it. Her entire body has been far too exhausted to do anything but lay but her hand lifts up to press against the glass. Only inches separate their hands from touching and this seems to distress the pink-haired girl even more, her bottom lip quivering.

Sua moves her hands hesitantly up the glass, palms against it as she watches the pink-haired girl struggle.

There’s this strange feeling in her sternum when she sees tears begin to stream from the girl’s eyes filled with sunlight. It’s tight and Sua feels like choking but not quite. The pink-haired girl weeps as they are pulled further apart, her hands hitting the glass again and again weakly. 

She does not like this. Sua does not like this girl’s innocence stripped away like this, in replacement of this anguish. She does not like it at all. Their capsules move further apart as the girl’s hands come to press against the glass again, fisting as if she’s trying to break the glass to get to Sua.

Sua lifts her hand up once more before hesitating.

She waves it back and forth gently.

Syla told her that back in the human’s home planet, humans waved their hands like this as a greeting and goodbye. A see-you-later, Syla had called it. Sua just hopes it gives those weeping suns the comfort they deserve.

At one point, the outline of the glass of the capsule fades.

The girl is still crying.

It hurts Sua to see it.

She doesn’t want this innocent girl to cry anymore.

She watches as the girl and her ribbons and toys become a mere pink dot, fading further and further away.

Sua does not stop waving, even when her hand gets tired.

See you later, Sua hopes the girl understands.

See you later, Sua can only hope.

❋❋❋

“This is all your fault.”

One might think that the only thing needed to be feared as a pet human is the wrath of the segyein owners. They are ferocious, unforgiving and see humans as nothing more as entertainment.

Sua thinks that this mindset is both terribly limited and wrong.

The next thing worse than a segyein’s wrath is a group of hungry and hurt girls looking for someone to blame for their problems.

She is curled on the ground into a ball as the girls throw things at her. Nails rake along her sensitive skin and pull at her short scruffs of hair. Laughter and curses echo the back of her head as Sua whimpers.

“Please, don’t hurt me.”

“This is all your fault.”

The girl’s face is disfigured, blood pouring from her like a fountain. It drips from her slack mouth, trickling down from empty eye sockets and the mess of the meat that has become her face. Sua has long overcome her fear of blood and gore but this is truly something else.

“This is all your fault!” the girl screams.

“This is all your fault!”

Something cold and sharp is touching Sua’s neck.

Sua’s eyes fling open instantly, her body arching upwards as if she were struck by lightning. The sudden movement causes her head to spin, having not recovered from the dizziness of just waking up. 

Glittering rubies burn bright with vicious ferocity, wretched words spilling from Mother’s lips as Sua’s skin is met with the same strikes by her claw over and over.

Sua’s lips part in a scream, her legs kicking haphazardly outwards as she backs away on the ground. 

The red bulbous eyes before her blink impassively, its paws retreating away from her.

It’s not Mother.

Sua’s heart calms down but she is still tense. It is a segyein, after all.

She swallows heavily, feeling the sweat trickle down the back of her neck. It’s only then that she is aware of the tight and cold sensation of something around her neck. A hand unconsciously comes up to rub at the skin on her throat, only to find she can’t.

There’s something there – cold, metallic and firm around her throat. A collar? And since when did she change from her dress to this itchy, threadbare tunic?

Her eyes shoot back up to the segyein standing before her in the dim room – where is she? She turns her head around tentatively and looks behind her. There is the capsule she was set in and it just sits behind her now, motionless. There are several other empty capsules to her right.

Were all those children inside those capsules taken away. Will Sua be taken away too? 

She thinks about those golden eyes as well as long pink locks and her chest tightens.

She doesn’t want to be taken away.

The segyein is expressionless but then it unhinges its jaw as a scuttling and sharp noise comes out. It is almost robotic. “Welcome to the intermission stage to be admitted into ANAKT Garden. Your guardian has applied for you to be a part of ANAKT Garden’s 50th Class.”

The sound is almost familial to Sua now, the scratchiness and strange frequency of the way segyein pronounce the human language. And although this segyein’s dull and less-threatening appearance gives her some peace when she remembers Mother, her hackles are still indefinitely raised.

She can never trust a segyein for that matter.

At Sua’s silence and confusion, it continues. “In the next month, you will be assessed and evaluated on your musical and academic ability before entering the selection process by the end.”

Her fingers curl tightly around the collar on her neck, tugging at it. It’s really not budging. The segyein’s seven red eyes follow the movement. “The collar is set for your safety. Please do not attempt to remove the collar or an electrical shock will be administered.” 

Sua’s hand immediately flies from off the collar as her eyes widen. Electrical shock? 

“Do you have any questions?”

Sua’s brows furrow. For a segyein, that is definitely a first for her. Caring whether she understood or not but then again, this ANAKT Garden seems to be targeted towards pet humans.

“W – what… what is ANAKT Garden?”

The segyein’s response is so immediate and robotic Sua almost wonders if it is a robot itself. “ANAKT Garden is a music specialized kindergarten that helps the participants improve their musical literacy while practicing to take part in the the Alien Stage competitions.”

The blood drains from Sua’s face.

At first she’d been relieved she wasn’t going to be sent to any pet human disposal place or sent to Alien Stage itself but surely this, this is much worse. They’re prepping her before putting her in the slaughterhouse. 

“Do you have any questions?” the segyein repeats.

Sua shakes her head slowly, staring down at her hands.

“Please make your way down the hallway to your left to meet with your orientation group. You will stay with this group of pet humans until the end of the intermission stage for classes and may combine with others for certain classes.”

Sua glances to her left, finding a bright and stark-looking hallway that reminded her vividly of the place Mother had brought her to transport her here. It is a straight path however and Sua does not see any bisecting hallways where she could make a run for it.

“Please do not attempt to run away, damage other pet humans or remove your collar. Your guardian has signed a contract with ANAKT Garden to minimize and allow us to take responsibility for your survival.”

Sua freezes.

Did it read her mind? She whips her head back to the segyein, who’s expression remains as passive as it was from the beginning.

“Please make your way down the hallway to your left to meet with your orientation group. There are cameras stationed by the hallway for your safety.”

Sua does wonder how many pet humans have tried to break out for these segyein to install these collars and cameras. Though considering their nature, Sua wouldn’t think many would take for the distrusting and superior segyein to make this a rule.

Sua stumbles to her pale feet meekly, her back still sore and raw from Mother’s ministrations. She crosses over to the hallway, practically feeling the segyein’s gaze burn on her back and the tightness of the collar around her neck – both a reminder that they are watching her now.

It’s no different from her everyday life in Mother’s commercial industries, she is always being watched.

By the segyein, by the cameras. Privacy was a blessing and even that was stripped from her.

She finds herself in a room full of about twenty pet humans, all silent and wearing the same grey tunic as her. Even so, Sua can’t help but search her gaze through the bobbing heads of the pet humans to try and find one of pink hair – perhaps golden eyes beneath them. 

But she is to no avail. No one here has any sort of bright colour to their hair, in fact they’re all dull and none of them look quite as miserable as Sua does. She wonders if they know the truth behind ANAKT Garden and why they’re here from their innocent expressions.

Or perhaps they do and they’re still happy about it.

Sua finds disappointment curling in her chest when she doesn’t find the girl in her orientation group. Perhaps she’s in another one, then. 

There’s that same crawling and burning sensation on the side of Sua’s head then, the one she’s so familiar with. She dips her head down slightly, curling in her shoulders and hoping that it goes away.

She hopes whatever is looking at her will stop.

It doesn’t for a while and the discomfort lingers. She lifts her head marginally to look to find the culprit.

She locks eyes with a pair of obsidian eyes, soulless and dark as a night sky untouched by stars.

She jerks back by pure surprise and perhaps even by the abnormality of those eyes. The boy is unperturbed by her sudden movement and only shifts his dark gaze over to her wordlessly, crimson specks reminding her violently of Mother’s red eyes. His snaggletooth peeks out from the corner of his mouth but he remains unnervingly silent.

He doesn’t look away, only watching her intently.

“What are you looking at?” Sua retorts.

He still doesn’t look away. Sua clamps her mouth shut, brows furrowing tautly. It isn’t uncommon for a pet human to not respond to her own words but it’s even stranger for them to look like that. For all her life, Sua has seen the girls be put down, hit and abused yet they always get back up.

The spark in their eyes always retain.

But this boy, with his bangs falling over his mute eyes, doesn’t have it.

And it surely creeps Sua the hell out.

“Our tour of ANAKT Garden will now commence. Please get along with your fellow pet humans as you will be remaining in this group until the end of the intermission period.” 

The sharp and surprisingly-fluent voice of a segyein at the front draws everyone’s attention. Thank the Great Anakt, the boy’s burning gaze falls away from her to the front as does everyone else’s.

“Follow me and do not attempt to separate yourselves from the group.”

It seems the segyein are really heavy on this ‘not-running-away’ rule. The group of children form a singular line behind the segyein, shuffling silently. A huge door in the front of the room hisses as it slides open horizontally.

They all step out.

The first thing everyone notices is that the sun beams down on them from the sky, overhead and bright. The children gasp, some of joy at the sensation of sunlight touching their skins for the first time and others at the beauty of it.

Sua recoils and takes a step back inside the room.

She notices that the boy with the snaggletooth does too.

The sun? 

She thought that the sun existed lightyears away from the segyein planets – now a mere husk of its original form after the segyein destroyed it. But here it is before her, it surely can’t be real… right?

The segyein turns.

“Do not attempt to separate yourselves from the group.” its crawling and uncomfortable eight-eyed gaze falls on them both.

The boy steps out first reluctantly. Sua follows meekly.

The segyein takes them on a tour around ANAKT Garden. The place is lively and is exactly what Syla used to describe to Sua of the places filled with nature on the humans’ home planet were like.

Lush grasses and greenery strewn across the whole place, willowy trees drifting in the wind and an endless sky with pretty clouds. Children are laughing and running around the place, climbing on trees and playing with each other.

The sight is foreign to Sua, who frowns as she follows her group.

Every-so often, they catch sight of another orientation group wandering about with their own tour segyein. And everytime they do, Sua’s amethyst gaze unconsciously goes through each of the children to try and find that same head of pink pretty hair.

It’s always futile.

But as they wander around the place, Sua notices one thing that she’s sure the other humans don’t. When she looks up at the sky for too long – while yes, it does hurt her eyes – it starts looking distorted.

She doesn’t know if she’s crazy but she doesn’t remember Syla ever telling her that the sky had edges.

It’s supposed to be a blue endless thing.

“This is the library. You will be free to come here whenever you please, as long as it is not during class hours. ANAKT Garden provides study resources and every book you will need.” the segyein speaks firmly. 

Sua’s jaw does drop when she sees the library for the first time. Although it’s only a brief look at the inside, Sua feels like the tension oozes from inside her when she steps inside, a comforting sensation settling upon her shoulders. She’s only heard of books from what Syla tells her, capsules full of information but she couldn’t ever imagine this.

Capsules, some of real paper from the human world, all stacked up in an orderly fashion amongst the shelves in an almost human manner. The sight brings Sua a sense of thrill and peace and she almost smiles.

“Do avoid the restricted section however, only authorized students and segyein are allowed in.”

Now, that certainly piques Sua’s interest but at the memory of these cameras and collars, she thinks that maybe she shouldn’t.

Unfortunately, they need to move on from the library to begin classes. It’s safe to say that none of the children have experienced something like this, all of them standing idle and confused at the door of the classrooms – with Sua included.

The room is of the same, stark white walls that lined everywhere else in ANAKT Garden but something about it feels different.

It feels almost… not threatening.

“Take a seat. This class will be your first on Expression of Music.” a different segyein at the front calls, with a more feminine and sickly-sweet tone to her dry voice.

It’s safe to say everyone in that class did not understand a single thing on Expression of Music. It’s known for being the hardest subject in ANAKT Garden and definitely for the correct reason. They rotate through classes with different segyeins as their teachers. They go through lessons of Human History, Interpretation and Appreciation of Music and Religion.

In terms of Religion, Sua knew the most out of everyone on the Great Anakt and their contributions to the world while others barely knew of this god. It gave her a sense of overwhelming pride – a rare visitor in her life – and a bit of annoyance that some of these children weren’t aware of the Great Anakt’s importance in their lives.

Ignorant. 

It turns out that lots of the children in her orientation group are not only ignorant but also plain dumb. Sua can already tell which one will be making it to the selection process and which ones will be left behind in the dust.

And frustratingly, the dumb boy with the snaggletooth won’t be one of those. 

Ivan, as she learns his name, has an annoyingly-good knack for these basic music concepts from the get-go.

“The dynamics convey the expression shown throughout the piece and vary in volume.” he says with a raised hand as the segyein picks on him to answer one of the basic knowledge quiz questions.

“Oh, so you can speak – huh.” Sua grumbles under her breath, head perched on her hand that is propped up on the table beside Ivan.

Ivan turns to Sua then, his inky eyes slightly wide and puzzled. He smiles weirdly then, his snaggletooth poking out oddly and the turn of his lips looks strangely crooked that makes Sua want to laugh if it weren’t so unnerving.

Weirdo.

And he keeps looking at her in a funny way. Not in the way the segyein do, or the way that pink-haired girl did. It’s more careful and observant, like he’s dissecting her apart with his gaze as he would a common bug.

It creeps her out.

Their last class before the day ends for them to be led to their dormitories after playtime is Vocal Training. The prospect excites Sua really because she hasn’t sung in a while, maybe almost abandoned it after being brought to Alien Stage.

For this lesson, another orientation group is joining them as they are all put together inside a white classroom.

At the front are two segyein, one with a severe look to his mandibles and the other looking quite focussed when the children enter. A chilling sensation tells Sua that this is some sort of pretest that will set the children apart from the others for the selection process.

While the idea of Alien Stage sounds terrifying to Sua, she remembers the girl on the floor of their dining room back home after facing Mother’s wrath. If Sua fails the application, no doubt she might end in a similar state.

At least if she makes it in, they will let her survive until the end of her education – she supposes.

They are organized in rows with a set song placed in front of them to learn. Upon hearing the repeats of the song, they are then instructed by the segyein to sing in unison. Sua can hardly contain her excitement as they run through vocal exercises, their voices all forming a messy but pretty harmony.

Its definitely the fault of those dumb tonedeaf acornheads standing to her left.

When the instrumental of the song plays, Sua begins to hum the melody over in her head. It’s short and pretty, unlike the commercial songs they play at Mother’s studio. Her voice begins to sing along to the harmony when the first verse comes.

The lilts and familiar tight sensation in her throat and chest brings Sua satisfaction in singing. She widens her mouth, changes where her voice sits in her register as the song heightens.

All through the song Sua feels nothing but euphoria. It’s a feeling she hasn’t felt in ages and it’s beautiful. Amazing, even. Her voice rings out clearest and highest out of the others, something she is in fact proud of.

The song ends on a comforting note and all the fatigue and earlier hatred from Sua has faded. 

That same damn burning sensation filters in on the right side of her head as the segyein begin to assess their vocals together, leaving the children to stand in their rows quietly. Sua huffs and resists to shoot an annoyed look.

To her frustration, Ivan is also very naturally talented at singing. His voice can reach both high and low registers and has a sort of buttery tone to it that Sua can begrudgingly admit sounds nice. But when she looks to her right, she remembers that Ivan isn’t in the same row as her but right in the back.

Sua meets a pair of curious golden eyes watching her.

Chapter Text

Much to Sua’s dismay, she doesn’t find the girl with pink hair anywhere after class . She can’t help the note of sadness in her chest after finally finding the girl yet she disappears right after.

It’s fine.

Why does it matter to me anyway? She’s just some random girl in my class.

Sua finds herself perched on the highest hill by the large tree, watching all the children and scanning each and everyone of them every-so often. After a while of futile searching, Sua relents and plops herself down on the hill with a frustrated sigh.

She doesn’t even know why she’s so invested in trying to find and talk to this pink-haired girl.

It’s not as if they’re friends or anything. 

But Sua… she feels drawn to the girl. Perhaps its because of her colourful hair or bright soulful eyes – or the way she’d looked at Sua in those glass capsules as if–

As if Sua was worth something.

As if she were more than just a doll with a pretty voice to show off. It was the kind of gaze that Sua hadn’t seen anyone show her in almost three years and even then, it was always tinged with a sort of bittersweetness and pity.

But no, her gaze was all warmth and curiosity.

It’s foreign in the way that draws goosebumps on Sua’s arms. Like she’s indulging in something that she shouldn’t – something that surely isn’t meant for somebody like her. The need to pull away and forget this girl forever is strong yet…

A traitorous part of Sua whispers that she likes that gaze.

She shakes her head annoyedly then, bringing both hands to slap slightly against her cheeks before resting her face against them. It’s probably a bad idea to try and make friends with anyone here when she remembers the reason why she’s here.

Sua doesn’t like to think about it.

“Her name is Mizi.”

“What the fuck–!” 

Sua jumps right up as if she’d been hit by lightning, stumbling on both feet before falling back onto her ass again. Ivan only stares at her blankly, almost confusedly while sitting a mere inch beside where she was sitting before.

“Fuck?” Ivan says, speaking past his snaggletooth as if trying the word out on his tongue. “What does that mean?”

“None of your – none of your business.” Sua snaps, glaring at him. “What are you doing here?”

How long was he sitting there?

How did I not notice?

“A change of scenery.” Ivan answers honestly, unaware of the solid frown Sua was making at him. 

The urge to say go find somewhere else to sit harbors strongly on Sua’s tongue but she decides to hold it.

“What were you talking about?” Sua crosses her arms, still sitting a fair amount of distance from Ivan on the hill.

“Mizi.” Ivan answers, wholeheartedly staring off into the distance like some sort of schizophrenic. “She likes the flower fields.”

Great Anakt – give me strength, this kid is weird.

“Who’s Mizi?” 

Ivan looks at her fully then, obsidian eyes shining like dark opals.

“That girl you were ogling during Vocal Training.”

Sua gasps, fully offended. “I was not ogling her!”

On the inside, Sua runs the name over in her head.

Mizi.

It’s a nice name.

“Yeah, you were. Anyone could see it.” Ivan shrugs. “It was so obvious you wanted to be friends with her.”

“I – I never said that! What’s it to you, huh?”

Ivan seems surprised. “Nothing? I just wanted to tell you.”

“Well, maybe next time – keep stuff you want to tell me to yourself.” she grumbles.

“Okay.”

By the Great Anakt, please don’t let this kid hang around me for the next month.

To Sua’s dismay, he does. All the time. He comes around when he feels like it just to annoy Sua and she purposely does not answer some of the things he asks her. Ivan asks her pretty weird things if she’s being honest.

“Did you know that there’s segyein-human crossed offspring?”

“Stop talking to me, please.”

Though, Sua finds herself drawn to Mizi lately for some odd reason. Perhaps it’s because of her bright pink hair, or her expressions?

“Can you pass me a sheet?” 

Mizi’s face turns bright pink upon being called, her head of wild pink hair whipping over to look at Sua in surprise. As if she is surprised that Sua is talking to her. It tugs weirdly at Sua’s heart in a way, when she sees that dumb gawking expression on her face.

“S – sure!” Mizi stammers, immediately snatching one of the vocal sheets and handing them over to Sua, staring at her feet with her round glasses affixed out of place.

Sua learns that despite her very outgoing appearance, Mizi is very awkward and anxious around quite literally everyone.  But often times whenever Sua talks to her during those classes, even harmless comments, Mizi’s collar is always red.

“It’s a shame she doesn’t want to be your friend, though.” Ivan comments one time. “She looks so uncomfortable around you.”

“Shut the fuck up, Ivan.” Sua snaps sharply.

I don’t need friends. Ivan’s just being dumb.

She gets up and finds herself another hill, while Ivan just stares at her retreating back listlessly.

“Fuck.” he mumbles to himself like an idiot before giggling like a psychotic freak. “Fuck.”

Thank the Great Anakt that Ivan does leave her alone after this time. Or perhaps its because she’s found a spot so obscure that he can’t find her if he tried. Hopefully. Please. The quietness and lack of Ivan brings peace when Sua sits on this other hill, staring out into the distance by herself.

She thinks its only been perhaps one or two weeks since the beginning of the intermission stage. On the boards, they’re scheduled to have vocal, dance, genetic, memory and potential-based assessments in the next couple of weeks.

Sua… has been going pretty okay with the stuff they teach in ANAKT Garden. It’s easy enough to memorize and understand while she’s naturally skilled at her vocals and memory. She’s never quite learned to dance and she doesn’t know what the hell genetics mean.

But when she asked, the dance segyein instructor took one look at her with his massive eye and said that she’d be fine in terms of genetics with the sort of creepy smile that make her shiver.

In terms of everything else… like getting along with the others…

Not so much.

After she left Ivan at that hill, she’d realized that she really doesn’t have anyone to talk to. It doesn’t bother her that much because she’s been so used to it. Seeing even the loneliest of children at the beginning having made friends now brings a sort of tight feeling to her chest that she doesn’t want to admit.

She does not need to be friends with other humans. She survived a couple of years without Syla by her side and without talking to any of the girls Mother kept, she will be fine here.

In the dormitories they’re assigned to, it’s separated by pet human gender and each contain bunk beds. Often it’s supposed to be one pet human per bed but sometimes Sua spies two girls cuddling each other in one singular bed, giggling things into each other’s ears.

She is not jealous, it just reminds her of Syla.

That’s all.

Sua sleeps on the bottom bed of a bunk where two girls share the one above her. Throughout the night, they constantly talk and whisper things to each other’s ears. It’s hard for Sua to fall asleep but it’s not just that.

Sua misses her stars. She misses being able to get out of her pod whenever she liked and pressing up to that one window and watch the stars. 

Even now as she sits on the different hill from Ivan, staring into the distance where faint haphazard forms of supposedly-faraway mountains appear to be, she knows that the chance of her seeing them again is faint. 

It didn’t take her long to figure it out after her first day.

The sky is fake. The sun is fake. This entire place is fake.

But it’s okay. As long as Sua is away from Mother, she finds herself not caring much.

But staring up into that fake sun for as long as she can, her eyes beginning to hurt, it disgusts her. That even after taking away humanity’s life source in the sun and destroying it, they tried to recreate a mockery of what the great star had been.

Sua wouldn’t be surprised if she climbed up there one day and unscrewed it only to find a very brightly-lit light source.

It could never compare to the real thing.

The only thing that ever came close to comparing to the real sun was…

Sua closes her eyes.

If she imagines it, she can see stars behind her eyes. She can count them out one by one – from the tiniest one to the Great Anakt. She can pretend if she tries. She pretends she’s not sitting on this fake hill alone with herself while looking into the fake sky.

She pretends she’s back in Mother’s estate when she was five and when Syla was alive, even with her crooked eyes and scars. Syla is stroking her hair and singing to her – humming that pretty melody.

Unconsciously, Sua begins to follow along with the melody. She hums to start off, before parting her mouth to vocalize softly with the set of notes. She hasn’t sung with it in so long yet it never fails to bring her comfort, perhaps a little bit of bittersweetness.

“You have a pretty voice, little star.”

“But don’t ever let Mother catch you singing in front of her, okay?”

As she sings softly to herself, Sua pauses to laugh just a little bit under her breath at the prospect of it. After all those warnings, after Syla’s every careful precaution to keep her safe with instructions even after her death, look where Sua ended up.

“Worried that our immature little Sua could die in that hellish place.”

Perhaps this was what Syla was talking about all along, even during her delirious state. While it doesn’t seem hellish, the events that take place after all of them graduate surely will be. Sua faintly recalls the sound of gunshots that used to make her violently shake and vomit every night and the sight of pooling blood.

It still bothers her somewhat.

Sua continues the melody before ending off on a gentle note, humming the rest to herself before fading it out. She lets her fingers intertangle in the fake grass, letting it brush along her sensitive skin.

She does wonder about that–

Shhhff.

Sua pauses.

The bushes behind her rustle again, and again. It isn’t particularly windy either. Then it stops rustling.

Sua stands up, closing her eyes with an annoyed huff. She’d known he would find her eventually, she couldn’t hide from those annoying eyes that seemed to dissect her apart everywhere she went.

“I swear to Great Anakt, Ivan…” she grumbles under her breath.

But when Sua turns around, nobody’s there. She frowns. The bushes have stopped rustling completely. She takes a few tentative steps towards the bushes, cautious. It’s not like she hasn’t been approached by the artificial creatures inspired by the ones from the human world but she feels like it’s not that.

When she looks inside the bushes, nothing’s there.

There’s only a singular flower petal out of place within the lush greenery, the colour of blood.

How odd, she thinks strangely.

When they have dinner, Mizi sits by herself, head lowered as she picks at her food.

“Why don’t you go sit with her?”

Sua thought she’d gotten used to Ivan’s silent feet but apparently not because she starts so bad that she nearly knocks the tray from his hands as he stands behind her. 

“By the Great Anakt, Ivan – will you stop doing that?!” Sua shoots him an annoyed look as he shrugs, sitting down in the seat in front of her uninvited. 

“I thought you’d gotten used to it.”

Sua thought she did as well.

“Shush.” Sua huffs, staring down at her food.

It’s definitely better quality than the gruel and even the honeyed porridge Mother used to feed them at her estate but there’s something about it that’s weird. It’s some kind of food derived from the humans’ home planet but Sua doesn’t know who in their right mind would eat this.

The main stuff is a bunch of beige slimy things that grosses Sua out with the texture, covered with this weird-tasting red sauce. Sua’s only ever had meat once when she was younger, from some lower lifeform in the alien planet that was distantly related to the segyein.

The only thing she can digest in this meal is the meat, as chewy and surprisingly-filling it is.

“It’s called spaghetti.” Ivan adds at her look of distaste.

“Ew. What do you have? Why does yours look different?”

While Sua and all of the other children get this weird spaghetti, Ivan’s bowl looks completely different. But it definitely looks more appetizing. White grain – Sua thinks – with a pale creamy sauce and chunks of red meat?

Is that egg? The real ones from the chicken creatures from the human world?

Sua scrutinizes it. No, it couldn’t be. It must be from the livestock in the alien world, though it is a delicacy that only few segyein can afford. So why does Ivan have it?

“They call it rice bowl.” Ivan answers, pointing at the bowl. “Because it’s rice in a bowl, get it?”

“Obviously but why do you have that?” Sua frowns, making a face at the spaghetti in her bowl. “And I get this disgusting concoction of wormy things and blood? Along with everyone else?”

Ivan just smiles.

“I guess the segyein just like me then.”

Sua has to resist to roll her eyes. She decides to ignore his presence completely which is when her gaze drifts naturally back over to Mizi. 

Her pink hair falls around her face like a curtain, hiding her bright golden eyes underneath her glasses as she works at the spaghetti distastefully. She clearly doesn’t like it either. She starts using her fork to swirl the worm-like strings around its edges curiously, brows furrowing as–

“Sit with her.”

Sua glares at him. “No.”

“Why not?”

“You told me she gets uncomfortable around me.” Sua huffs, sitting back in her chair and crossing her arms. “Do you think that telling me that would encourage me to go sit with her?”

“Well, no. I thought it wouldn’t bother you at all.” Ivan frowns. “If you want to sit next to her which you clearly do, go sit next to her.”

Sua frowns. Why does Ivan think she wants to sit next to Mizi? She’s merely been observing the girl, that is all! Her goal here isn’t to make friends at all, which is absurd of him to think. No wonder he talks to no one here, well – besides her against her own will.

“I make her uncomfortable.”

“So?”

Sua stares at him incredulously.

“What do you mean so?”

“So what if you make her uncomfortable?” Ivan looks genuinely confused, damn him. “You want to sit next to her and you can, so do it.”

“Ivan, you dingbat, I don’t want her to be uncomfortable so I’m not going to sit next to her!”

Now it’s Ivan’s turn to look astounded. “Why?”

Sua just stares at him. 

“I’m not having this conversation with a stupid person.” Sua casts her gaze down at her spaghetti glumly.

“I’m not stupid.” he says as a matter-of-factly, thick brows furrowing. “I do better than you in Music Interpretation and Appreciation.”

“And you know rat’s ass about Religion so I guess we’re both even.” Sua huffs.

Ivan thankfully decides to shut up then, letting her dissect her spaghetti in peace. She only gets to twist and turn the spaghetti strings around her fork for a few minutes before Ivan speaks up again.

“What are you going to do for the vocal assessment?” Ivan asks. “I heard they give extra points for those who sing their own lyrical lines.”

“That sounds like a lot of effort.” Sua mumbles under her breath.

“But I’ll think about it.”

Sua already has a line in her head.

During their next scheduled playtime, Sua sits on her hill again and Ivan doesn’t come to bother her. She hums Syla’s melody again and again, trying to think of some words to put into the song. 

Thinking of things about Syla to put in the song makes Sua’s chest feel tight so she doesn’t want to go with that?

What does Sua want to put in her song?

She sits there for majority of the break, vocalizing and humming the melody but finding no words to her frustration. When playtime is almost over, Sua hears a rustle in the bushes behind her again.

But instead of going to investigate again, Sua just sits there and remembers the flower petal that had appeared in those bushes.

Sua remembers Syla bringing home a flower one time from Mother’s studio as part of her accessory for all the girls to ooh and aah over. It wasn’t artificial like the ones Mother kept as decoration but real.

The petals were blood red.

“It’s called a clematis flower.” Syla grinned as she let Sua touch the petals.

The next morning, it had wilted. It was a real flower, after all. It had no nourishment or water.

Sua turns back to the horizon thoughtfully.

“Oh my clematis.” she sings softly alongside Syla’s melody.

There was her first line complete.

❋❋❋

“Hey.”

Sua pointedly ignores the group of girls, scribbling down her notes diligently. She’s done the same thing over and over since the beginning of the intermission stage. There’s no need to talk to anyone when she knows that these other humans are her competition.

These other children are only obstacles in her way into getting admitted into ANAKT Garden.

“Can she speak?” one of the girls ask the other annoyedly. 

Sua ignores them. 

“Hey, Sua.” one of the older-looking girls stand in front of Sua’s table.

Sua ignores them.

“Hey, stupid – we’re talking to you!”

Her tone of voice strikes a memory of the girls at home deep in Sua, when they used to kick her around after Syla’s death. Her shoulders instinctively curl inwards and Sua looks up.

Her hair is dark and silky, like Syla’s. But unlike Syla, the girl’s face is all hard edges and brute.

“Give us the answers.” the girl huffs.

Sua does not answer them. She never answered the girls back at home whenever they came to provoke her. They take her sheet of answers for themselves. It doesn’t happen often but Sua tries to ignore them.

The intermission stage flies by quite slower than Sua anticipated it would. Sua completes her practice tests after memorizing what they tell her in class and based off of her own knowledge and skill. At night time, Sua curls up in the hard mattresses given to them alone – missing the compactness of the tight pods she used to sleep in.

During playtime, Ivan leaves her alone. When Ivan leaves her alone, Sua gets a chance to sing. For the vocal assessment, it is left until all others are complete. For Syla’s melody, Sua finishes writing what she thinks is called a verse. 

She isn’t sure if that’s enough for the vocal assessment but it’s something.

But lately, Sua’s been finding it hard to remember the lyrics to her own song. She finds it quite odd, for something she pours so much of her heart and soul into – she can’t remember its words. 

For countless breaks, Sua finds herself sitting on top of her hill doing nothing after this block in her memory. It’s hard to do anything at all when its nagging her at the back of her mind – how could she forget this one lyric of the song?

She had spent so much of her playtime figuring out that lyric, singing it again and again and again until it sounded okay. Then, the next playtime break, she had forgotten it. How could she forget something so important?

Sua even gets herself to ask Ivan, of all people, on how she can remember the lyrics to her song.

“How am I supposed to know?” Ivan says with that annoying snaggletooth poking out as he tilts his head cartoonishly. “I didn’t write your song.”

Sua remembers again why she stopped sitting next to him on that hill that she originally picked first. But then, he tells her something of actual use. For the first time. Sort of.

“Maybe go back to what made you think of it.” he says vaguely before disappearing.

Sua never knows what he gets up to anymore because sometimes he will or he won’t inhabit the hill he stole from her. It’s a pity because she likes the view on that hill more than the one she sits on now.

Now that Sua’s sitting on the same exact hill she’d written the lyrics, she feels stupid. Why did she listen to Ivan? She had already done this in all her breaks. She doesn’t know what made her think of that lyric because she forgot it.

She shouldn’t try and listen to Ivan’s advice again.

Annoyed, she simply closes her eyes and stands up. Although she had already run over the first few lines she’d written to try and remember it countless times, it never hurts to try again. The vocal assessment isn’t too far away.

Despite how many times she sings it, the lyrics never come back to her. She frowns.

“Oh my clematis.” Sua sings quietly, hearing the slight rustle of bushes behind her. “Hope that bloomed from the depths.”

The rustle of bushes grow louder, as if giving way to footsteps in the grass as Sua realizes that there’s someone behind her. Just as she realizes it, someone joins her next to her – their voice joining in with hers.

“Oh my clematis.”

Sua tilts her head to the side, amethyst eyes wide.

“Always stay by my side.”

Blossom-coloured locks cascade freely in the gentle wind beside her. Golden irises peek beneath rimmed glasses nervously at her, resembling suns kissing the horizon as it watches over the sea. The wind brushes a cherry-like scent over Sua’s nose.

A strange sensation washes over Sua then, her amethyst eyes meeting those golden suns with a wide-eyed look.

What is it? Sua ponders briefly.

It feels… warm.

“You know my song.” is the first thing that comes out of Sua’s mouth.

Mizi averts her gaze, her lips curling bashfully at the ends as she presses them together into an embarrassed smile. It’s much unlike the polite smiles Mizi gives the segyein instructors when they complete the lesson.

It’s a different sort of smile.

“Yeah.” Mizi mumbles, turning her head to stare into the distance.

The wind causes her pink tresses to displace, several strands cruising with the breeze as they stand side-by-side on the grass.

“How?” Sua asks, brows furrowed.

Why?

How does Mizi know her song? When she, herself, managed to forget it somehow? Her own song? And some complete stranger knows her song?

“I’ve… I listen to you sing.” Mizi says, eyes downcast as if ashamed. 

Sua’s eyes flit over to the bush behind her, the one that’s always rustling in which Sua has assumed by the wind or the artificial worldly creatures. She connects the dots and her gaze veers back to Mizi.

She asks the question sitting on the tip of her tongue. “Why?”

Mizi’s cheeks bloom with a fierce blush as her golden pupils shoot up to meet Sua’s own, as if surprised she asked that question. “W – well…”

It hits Sua then that she doesn’t see Mizi interact often with the students in class, same as Sua. She doesn’t see Mizi during playtime at all. So why does Mizi approach Sua like this out of the blue, despite her collar still being red?

“I think you have a very pretty voice!” Mizi blurts, words spilling out.

She clamps her mouth shut then. Sua’s eyes widen, brows furrowing inquisitively.

I think you have a very pretty voice.

You’ve got a pretty voice, little star.

Except Mizi’s words weren’t a warning to the curse in which Sua beheld. The curse of the ability to sing well. The curse of potentially being captured to perform in Alien Stage, in which Sua has.

There’s no shallow fear or foreboding tone beneath Mizi’s words like the ones of Syla’s, or the cruel venomous words of Mother to use Sua’s voice with a darker intent in order to gain herself money and fame.

There’s none of that.

It’s just pure innocence – a simple compliment, Sua can see. Full of genuine admiration and without… other intent.

“I’m sorry for listening to you without asking!” Mizi bursts out, voice quivering and breaking Sua from her trance.

Sua realizes that in her moment of thought, Mizi probably took it as her taking offense or silently judging Mizi. Ivan tells her that she looks the part quite often. Mizi falls silent then, eyes glued to the ground resolutely as if she were a child about to get scolded.

Her bottom lip wobbles, rose-hued curtains of hair falling around and hiding her expression.

Sua doesn’t quite like this look on her. The joyful and bright look Mizi adopts while they are practising singing suits her much more. In fact, the sight of her like this – upset and ashamed – brings a tight sensation to Sua’s chest that she finds she dislikes.

“Mizi.” Sua says quietly, leaning over slightly to get a better look of her expression beneath her hair.

It’s almost endearing how Mizi’s head snaps up instantly to attention at her name, perked up like that of a puppy. There’s that wide-eyed look in her expression again that Sua saw last time, as if surprised that Sua knows her name.

“Yes?” Mizi murmurs, fiddling with her hands as her golden eyes lock with Sua’s.

“Thank you.” Sua smiles gently.

A genuine one, not the one that Mother has taught her to wear in front of audiences or potential segyein investors because there are none here. There is no audience to impress or enemies nearby, only Mizi and her on this little hill far away from Mother.

Mizi tilts her head, as if a question mark was popping from her confused eyes.

“I forgot that part of my song and you helped me remember.” Sua explains.

Mizi’s eyes light up and she nods in understanding, her enthusiasm strangely clear. “You’re welcome, Sua!”

Sua.

She knows my name.

Why?