AU: this helped me get my groove back, at least temporarily. :)

Music:

The Test - The Academy Is...

ENJOY OR ELSE.

Curses.

Once upon a time, there was a girl. She lived in a world which was peculiar, as were all worlds, but in a way that would not be normal to most people who read this. You see, in this world, most people are on their own. Women conceive children, but the odd thing is that it’s because they’ve been ordered to. The men with which they do their business are not usually personally related to them in any way whatsoever. They have the babies, and then continue on with their ridiculously boring and routinely lives.

But there was something special about the woman and man who conceived this girl we will be talking about. These two people loved each other. The woman had somehow entered this world from ours, becoming interested in the way they lived without this so called love. But when she wanted to go back to her own world, she found it impossible. The doorway which led her to this world had been sealed, and she was stuck here, in a loveless and uncaring world.

The Government, tipped off, came for her. They had special medicines and concoctions for circumstances like these. They found her in an alley, dirty and weary and uncooperative. They were going to turn her into one of them, but he found her.

He explained, afterwards, that he had no idea why he had acted. He had been a dutiful citizen of the city, was ready for his call to impregnate women, had the average job and had led the same life since he could understand it. He never questioned anything, not until she came along. Why he had acted, no one would ever know, but all he was able to comprehend from then on after was that the woman he met was beautiful, a feeling that was strange and new to him. A feeling of desire from both sides erupted, and the two of them, after tediously overcoming various obstacles, because the Government’s secret.

However, there was one circumstance to their being together. They were not allowed to have any children whatsoever, since the productions of two different worlds could be disastrous. Perhaps the child would become mutilated, or maybe deformed. Or maybe the child would be too cold or too hot, figuratively of course. There were too many risks. The couple readily agreed.

But of course, nothing ever goes as planned. The Government soon forgot about the couple, and though they knew the consequences of the actions they made subsequently after, they did it anyway. And lo and behold, she became impregnated with the child. Obviously, if you read the beginning properly, you would know that this child was a girl.

The Government found out. They tried to destroy the woman, but the fact that she was originally from another world had kept them from doing that. At least, that was what they had originally thought. Trying other means to hurt the little family, they killed the man, attempting to push the woman over the edge. She stayed strong. They admitted her, reluctantly, into the hospital, in an attempt to deter the upheaval of the citizens, for if they found out that they had prohibited her from getting help, questions would be raised. Questions were horrible things to the Government.

The child was conceived. Soon after, due to birth complications and what they assumed were the repercussions of having children with someone from another world, the woman died with the baby in her arms. The nurses and doctors used to tend to the woman were promptly executed, but one nurse who had seen the scene was not. She avoided this because she had been conveniently outside of the room at the crucial point. They assumed that she had not been a part of it at all, and gave her the job of killing the child.

But she couldn’t. She begged and pleaded, something she never knew she could do, and the Government, angered by her actions but speaking to her in a public space, let her keep it. After all, the baby seemed to be a perfectly healthy little girl, and there were no differences between her and any other newborn. However, to insure that she wouldn’t cause trouble when she grew up, they had her injected with a sort of rare curse venom. The curse changes and varies with each person it enters, adapting itself to the person’s fears, dreams and future choices.

The nurse, having no idea of what the curse was, took the baby home. She’d never had a child of her own, and she was getting old. She assumed that this was because of a medical hiccup in her records, but she tried to be positive about it. She had never thought of it before; not before the little girl had arrived.

But as the girl grew up, it was obvious what her curse was. Whenever the little girl tried to call for the nurse, whom she knew as ‘Mother’, nothing came out. The little mouth, outlined by flushed lips, would open wide, but nothing would come out, as it she was mute. This worried the nurse deeply, but when she ran tests, the scans and tests told her that absolutely nothing was wrong. She alerted the Government, but after a check, she seemed to be perfectly fine. So this was the curse. The girl was to be mute.

However, the night the girl turned thirteen, something peculiar happened. For the first time, the girl dreamed. In her dream, a woman came from another world, and was to be killed but was saved. These two people, there was something very strong between them. Somehow, the girl was able to understand that these were her parents. That they loved each other. That they love her, love. She woke up, the word ringing in her head. She opened her mouth, and it rolled off her tongue. Her own voice sounded like a stranger’s, and she didn’t and couldn’t believe it was her. She rolled off her bed and sped to the nurse’s room, almost screaming the word.

“LOVE, LOVE, LOVE!” she cried joyfully, prancing about the room with more energy than the nurse had ever seen before in the young girl. A part of her was glad that she could talk now, but could she? The nurse asked gently for the girl to do so. The girl opened her mouth again, ready for the words to come out, ready to listen to her voice go high and low and curve around different syllables and sounds—but nothing. Nothing came out. She tested out ‘love’ again, and it was perfectly fine. The nurse began to cry, for the first time in her life, the nurse cried. She had heard about it before, but she didn’t know it was actually possible. The girl, not knowing whether the nurse was glad that she could at least say ‘love’ or if she was distraught at her not being able to say anything else, hugged the woman.

“I love you.” The girl sighed, and the woman was touched. On the bright side, the curse had been figured out. The girl was mute, with the exception of those three little words. How would she break the curse?

-

The woman died a few days after the girl had the dream. The Government, appalled by this, still thought that the girl’s curse was that she was mute. The girl, believing that the reason why the nurse had died was because she had said those fated words, had shut up. She refused to open her mouth, except to eat and drink water. Other than that, the lips seemed to be sealed shut.

The Government put her in school. They told the teachers that she was special, and that she was mute but was still proficient in reading and writing. She was fine, except for that one little thing. None of them questioned the authority, although her presence did make them wonder a little bit about the girl. The girl raised questions, against the will of the Government, but what else could they do? Kill her?

And so, the girl went to school. She learned quickly and efficiently, and was at the top of the school in academics and athletics. She stayed mute, and the people around her were the same in school as they were in the world; cold and apathetic, so nothing really happened. The dullness bothered the girl deeply. The girl began to carry around a notebook, recording thoughts. She didn’t know that this was not allowed. She was sitting under a tree, staring at the other people as they sat and ate robotically at tables in organized groups of six. She licked her dry and cracked lips, and glanced about. And then, she saw him.

He was good looking and attractive, more so than the norm. He had an air about him that was a little big arrogant, but there was no way to be sure. His eyes were aquamarine green, and his hair was burnt chestnut brown. He had a minimal amount of freckles splashed on his face, and he wore the usual clothes that people in that world wore, in the same fashion they wore it. He saw her looking at him, and immediately changed his course of direction to her. No one else noticed him, and he stood in front of her and stared into her eyes.

“Hello,” he said, rather robotically. But to the girl, it was something else. She took out her notebook and pen, and scrawled quickly on it.

Hello.

“Why are you alone?” he asked. To anyone else, it was the normal response. It was the apathetic and faked care for other citizens, something the Government had never gotten quite right. But to the girl, it was something else. She was falling fast in love.

The days progressed. The days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months, months turned into years, and before they knew it, the last year of educational training was about to finish. The girl harboured a secret crush on this boy she had met, and though she was not completely sure about what the feeling was exactly, she knew that it was it. The dream about her parents recurred frequently, and during the lonely and sleepless nights, she’d think about them and the boy. Maybe that would happen. Maybe the boy could fall in love with her too. He must’ve cared for her to some extent, right?

The graduation was nothing special, but it seemed so to the girl. The sun seemed to be shining brighter, her eyes seemed to be more brilliant, and her heart seemed to be beating faster. Eagerly, she slipped on her usual clothes quickly, did her morning routine and whisked out of her dingy and small apartment, thinking that it wasn’t as dingy and small as it seemed. She arrived at the facilities earlier than most people, since most people arrived exactly on time, even if it caused great amounts of traffic. There were no parents, there would only be the administrators and the graduating citizens. He would be there. This was the day.

The students filed in, and she was already in her spot. They nodded at her, acknowledging her or the generally accepted fact that she did things that weren’t in the norm. They sat down, and he sat down next to her, making her heart beat faster and faster. Something was special about this day. This was her day. Her name was called. The administrator handing her the certificate looked more tired than usual, but maybe it was just her. She smiled brightly, and the other citizens looked at her with even more incredulity. The administrator’s microphone had been on the podium, and impulsively, the girl reached for it. She had sat in the front row, and he had been beside her as well, rather close to the stage. She stood at the edge of the stage, and staring straight at him, yelled into the microphone.

“I LOVE YOU.”

The officials tried to drag her down, but she repeated the three words over and over again. She fought through them, and went to him, waiting for him to say it back like her father had to her mother. She fell in front of him, and he stared at her. She searched his eyes for any trace of emotion, but there was nothing.

“I don’t love you, whatever that means.”

Taken back, her emotions and all the composure from before spiralled downwards into a frenzy of confusion. She screamed, all the pent up feelings rushing out. She began to feel like she’d never felt before, a heart wrenching and suffocating feeling. She needed to get away. She began to run, and wanted the boy to come after her, but he didn’t. Suddenly, the world seemed to be the wrong place for her. She kept running, running, running, not knowing where she was going. She ended up in an alley, and she could hear people searching for her. There were other screams, other sources of shouts. She heard someone coming down the alley, and immediately began to delve deeper into its darkness. The space became confined. The darkness was consuming. The effect was dizzying. And suddenly, she lost sight of the light that seemed to be at the end of a tunnel, and everything, everything, everything was black, black, black.

--

She woke up. She didn’t know where she was, but the room was white, very white, the polar opposite of what she had been submerged in for who knows how long. She sat up, but a new and irritating and painful sensation shot through her body. She looked down at her bony hands, saw a needle inserted into the back of her hand. She looked around the room; it was unlike any she had seen in her world. Was she still in her world?

She took a deep breath. The air was different, but maybe she was just deluding herself again. She turned her sore neck slowly, and it cracked a few times. The door opened, and she turned her head as quickly as she could.

Him. It was him. It had to be him. He looked a little older though. She caught her reflection in a mirror; she looked older too. He stepped in front of the mirror, his long white coat swishing. Scared, she sank into the bed, or whatever it was.

“How are you today?” he said. The voice; it was the same. It was the exact same. Mustering up all the emotion she could remember, every little part of her that had screamed previously, she opened her mouth.

“I hate you.” She was surprised at herself. She spoke a different word. She tested out other things. “I… I feel like I have been in some sort of dream.” Amazed, she murmured to herself as he took down notes. Before she knew it, he had left. This was definitely a different world. This couldn’t be the other one, no, never. She smiled and sank even deeper into the covers, slightly uncomfortable but eager to face the new world.

Someone entered the room. If she had chosen to stay awake for a few more moments, she would’ve seen that outside the window was the same world she’d been born in. She would’ve seen that things were the exact same, and that she had deluded herself into thinking that it was something else, again. She would’ve seen the figure of the boy, tip toe into her room and inject her IV drip with a toxic chemical.

She would never face the new world, and wouldn’t face the old one ever again either.

R&R.

a good one-shot to celebrate the fact that it's FRIIIIDAY!

-chewyyyyyyyyyy.