Half in Fire

“P-PLEASE! MAKE IT STOP!” The real and unreal had become inseparable.

The sounds of that day hammered my ears. The smell of Maia’s blood seemed so palpable that my stomach revolted. I vomited. The walls were the same as that day. I wasn’t merely remembering. I was reliving the day she left. The day her absence gave birth to a void within my essence.

Even after so long, I still needed to remind myself. The doorbell would ring, and I would run to the door, but Maia wouldn’t be there. No unexpected message. No invitation to something random. No sign of her. She was gone. I would look beside me, and those honey-colored eyes would fade. I wouldn’t hear her silence laden with meaning.

I needed to relearn how to live on a plane without Maia. A gray plane. Dead. Flavorless. Linear days, all the same, disconnected from emotion. Without the presence of her loving essence.

Maia, who had made me feel, at an intense rhythm, that the world was colorful, greater than the apathetic reality I lived in, greater than my acceptance of solitude. She appeared and showed me I could lower my defenses, trust another person, and let myself live intensely. Imagine a life with someone beside me. After she showed me what living by her side was like, I began wanting to share every experience of existence. I wanted to stay with her. Why did she leave me? Why did she go?

“Looking for me?” The illusion of Maia appeared before me, smiling contentedly.

Why did she seem so real? None of it was real. She was no longer there. The figure before me was a delusion. “G-go away, please.” My swollen face and eyes burned from crying.

Maia brought her face close to mine and raised an eyebrow. “Do you really want that?”

“I-if you knew… knew how much…” If she knew how much seeing her hurt. Knowing she was only a hallucination.

“If I knew…?”

A knot formed in my throat. “No…” I could no longer reason. I was lost in matter, in space, in myself. Part of me still fought against it. Resisted even when I had given up. Live for what? A blade tore through my soul, reopening a wound that filled my emptiness with sadness. It hurt like an irremediable hemorrhage. “Wh-why did you leave me?” I asked.

I knew that figure’s answers originated in my own mind. But did it matter? I fragmented away from myself. Wanted to find some comfort in the moments of sanity, even if it meant resorting to lies. “I dream about you.”

“Dream about me? What about?” Maia touched my cheek.

“I-I…” I lowered my eyes. “I dream that you’re with me.” Then I wake up, and you disappear.

Her smile widened. “Is that good?”

“I-I think about you all the time. Even now… I refuse to accept what happened.” I raised my eyes to her. “My heart beats, but honestly, I’m an empty shell. My life went on, but I only exist. It was…”

I squeezed my eyes shut. My consciousness slowly drained away. “Wh-why do you think I’m here?”

“Because you love me?!”

I almost smiled. I let the unreal Maia soothe me. She had left, but her image stood before me. So this was a permitted madness. “Damn it. Being happy with you is irresistible. Even if you’re an illusion… seeing you, imagine how much I wanted to find you again. Hear your voice after so many cycles… I felt that…” She wouldn’t return. I repeated it to crush the hope that insisted on being born. It was a mirage.

“See? You’re naturally drawn to me. And my whole existence vibrates for you.” I let out a brief laugh as everything around me began to darken. “Don’t even know anymore whether my heart beats for you or the nanodrug.”

“For me, of course.”

I sighed. How long would I live this torment? How long would I be subjected to it? What would Riki do when he achieved his goal? Tear out, twist, and break every piece of me until nothing remained? What would he do with my empty shell? Irrelevant. Unimportant. I no longer felt anything, as though I were dead.

Suddenly, the lights came on.

I closed my eyes against the discomfort. A searing pain traveled through my body, detonating my head and heart.

Riki burst through the door. “Let’s analyze today’s results.” His analytical posture and rigid tone remained unbreakable. He moved majestically around the room, switching on holoscreens and preparing syringes.

A day like any other. Me, just anyone. No. Not even a being. I was a test subject. An experiment. “I’m impressed. Five days, and you’ve maintained your resistance.” His voice sounded almost reproachful.

I could barely follow his words. Maia’s image circled him, examining him. “That’s your father? You have the same air…”

“S-stop,” I murmured.

“We’ll get nowhere like this.” Riki pressed his lips together, displeased with the data, and picked up another syringe.

Why did I still imagine he cared about me? I was merely a means to his ends. I needed to extinguish the persistent hope that this being was my father and that, at any moment, he would recognize what he was doing to his own daughter. After all, this was only a fit of madness. Riki would look at me and realize none of it made sense.

But my numb body, too weakened to protest, kept being crushed from within. Whatever he intended to do to me, I would eventually yield. I wanted to give up. I was imprisoned in an endless nightmare, disillusioned with the possibility of escape. Accepting my fate seemed easier. I was ready to surrender.

When Riki injected something into my neck again, I was so numb I didn’t even feel the needle. I was more dead than alive.

“What’s that?” Maia asked.

“Let’s talk.” Riki leaned against the table and checked the time. “In a few minutes, this will suspend the inducer.”

My head hung, moving slowly from side to side. Body, mind, soul, and spirit seemed shattered beyond repair. “Wh-what…?” Lightning traveled through my veins, awakening me like an avalanche.

Adrenaline accelerated my breathing, heartbeat, and blood pressure. My vision cleared. Pain disappeared. A powerful fury emerged. All the accumulated anger and sadness rose at once, possessing me. He had injected nanoadrenaline and nanocortisol. Why?

“Seems it worked.” Riki removed his gloves impatiently.

He knew I was lucid enough to hear him.

“I hear your screams, your desperation, all that nonsense. Just give me what I need already. This part…” He pointed at one of the holoscreens. The image showed a tiny grayish region of my brain that his nanoinducer’s nanites were trying to occupy. “That’s what I need.”

I felt that region powerfully awake and alive. Though emotions dominated my being, my mind was clear. I laughed. A laugh that released a little of my madness.

Riki clenched his teeth, walked toward me, and pulled my hair to lift my head. “Find this amusing?”

Fire burned in my eyes. I smiled. “You’re a monster.”

That being emptied of life stepped away. “Monster? How am I different from the scientists who created Vaktiria? How—”

“The strange thing would be your absence from that profane project. They’re monsters like you.”

Riki shook his head, exuding superiority. “Perhaps you mean that I act with boundless cynicism?”

I narrowed my eyes. A crystallization of my thoughts. I saw everything as I should. The perception of that man’s monstrosity, offering me what I needed to face him. All my hatred pointed toward him. “You act as though humans aren’t living beings. But you forget, Riki, that you’re one too.”

“What are humans if not dead matter? I merely do something about it.” His indifference disgusted me. He wasn’t trying to justify himself. Merely stating what seemed obvious to his mind. Something that made sense only within his sick worldview.

How had I expected anything different? My stomach churned. I clenched my fists, pressing my fingers into my palms. The abundant cortisol seemed to strip away my good sense and pump ferocity through my veins, heating my body.

My muscles tensed. Anger made me feverish. My pupils dilated, and my gaze focused exclusively on Riki. I smiled as the rage grew. “You play god, sealing people’s fates and justifying everything with that calculated coldness. Think you can mold everyone’s perception to your will? That vision of yours is just a distorted version of science.”

Riki sighed impatiently. Perhaps he considered me too inferior to understand his ideas and recognize the greatness of his genius. “You’re sane enough to formulate mediocrities.” He leaned over me. His eyes shone with indifference.

“Will you stop resisting? We’ll recreate nanoscience together, Akiko. With Mentis Imperium, no one will oppose us. We’ll control what you call human. Give life to that dead material!” There was no bluff. No mask. Riki was lucid. Aware of what he did. Convinced of what he said. It was the most appalling lucidity I had ever witnessed.

All I could do was laugh. “Are you insane?! Think I’m like you? That I’d take part in this delusion? Do you know what I went through because of you? What I felt?”

And it wasn’t only this grotesqueness. There were all the times he had attacked Hideaki. Deprived us of joy. Reprimanded us. I recoiled. Every time I cried, wanting comfort, and received only indifference. Every effort to earn crumbs of affection, rewarded only with disregard beneath his apathetic gaze.

I feared what he would do, not to me, but to my mother. Riki avoided physically attacking me, but always took his misery out on her. I needed to stop my mistakes from hurting her. ‘Why did you give me a useless daughter?’ He screamed that into Hideaki’s ear.

I remembered when he let go of my hand, forcing Hideaki to do the same, and they both abandoned me. But worst of all was having wished, at least once, that he would call me his daughter.

Riki tightened his jaw. “I suppose I was mistaken. You’re a failure, just like that woman. Useless, as always. I’ll try once more.” He began rummaging through the case.

His disdain fed the fire burning inside my heart. Wood for a bonfire becoming a blaze. My body burned. Every ounce of my strength kindled the desire to pour my fury over him. Nothing but hatred. Rage. I was already resigned to my fate. To him, I would never be more than a thing.

I closed my eyes and let wrath overflow. “Imagine how much I hate you. I hate you!”

I hated this. Hated everything he had done to me. The reasons for my hatred of Riki fed me. What he had done to Hideaki. What he had done to me since childhood. Never treated me like a daughter. Not even like a human. And as he continued subjecting me to that suffering, he showed only pride and contempt. Pride in a project that would consecrate his genius. Contempt at having to deal with me, an obstacle between him and his goals.

“I hate you!” My throat burned with the force of the scream. “I-I… I… I HATE YOUUUUUU! HATE YOU! HATE YOU!”

Click

An unexpected sensation crossed my body. I felt light. No. It wasn’t lightness. I was loose. Free. The nanocuffs had opened.

I acted on impulse. “AAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!” I screamed and ran at Riki, colliding with him so hard we both fell to the floor.

The Maiden’s fury possessed and blinded me. It was as though an invisible force controlled me. I no longer saw only Riki. I saw the soulless patriarch. I unleashed the first charge of rage. Clenched my fists and punched his face. Pain traveled through the bones of my hand, but I ignored it. Adrenaline reigned. I struck again. Blood gushed from his nose and mouth.

Riki could barely react.

My strength seemed unstoppable. I felt invincible. “I HAAAAATE YOU!!!” I bellowed with every punch. “HATE YOU FOR EVERYTHING! EVERYTHING, EVERYTHING! HATE YOU! HATE YOU!” I grabbed his clothes and slammed his body against the floor. My desperation seemed to collide with him, flooding the room. “I HATE YOU SO MUCH, SO MUCH!” I cried tears of hatred and sadness. “I-I hate you!” The wrath I had poured over his face, now marked in blood, began to dissipate.

Riki stared at me with wide eyes.

He tried to hold my arms. “I-I hate you! Hate you so much!” I released his clothes. My fists trembled. Anger lost strength, but the fire kept burning. “Why did you do this to me? Why?!”

No justification. No apology. He showed no sign of feeling anything. Why did I still care? He was a monster. He was… My father. I clung to him. But found no comfort. “Why?”

Warmth enveloped me. Hands held my arms and lifted me. More than the comfort I wanted, it was what I needed at that moment. “Hey, hey. He still has to live.”

I trembled. My chest heaved. I couldn’t breathe. Adrenaline had consumed my energy.

“Wh-what are you doing here?” Riki struggled to rise. Hesitantly, he rubbed his bloodied face. Blood stained his clothes. Wounds on his eyebrows, lips, cheeks, and forehead began to swell.

“Hmm…” Saymon purred. “Came to check the situation. Right on time, huh? This would’ve gotten ugly.” He smirked slowly, foxlike. Saymon seemed to savor the scene like a predator amused by his prey. He rested his hands on my shoulders.

Riki placed his bloodied hands between us and drew back, leaning against the table. “Everything is fine, as you can see.” He gestured around. “Soon, I’ll achieve the perfect substance.”

Saymon pressed his lips together, still smiling. “Yeah, about that… there’s been a change of plans.”

“A change?” Riki let out a desperate laugh.

Saymon clicked his tongue and released me. Then he ambled toward him. His presence seemed to darken the room’s atmosphere. He pointed at me without even looking my way. “Her. She’s untouchable, understand?”

“What do you mean? I paid for this. I PAID!”

The distance between them closed.

Saymon leaned over him. “Better lower your voice.” He turned and returned to me, narrowing his eyes like a fox. “There’s been a change of plans. She’s become one of us.”

The flame went out. The inhibitor’s effect was waning. Sentisurge began acting again. My heartbeat dropped drastically. Chills shook my body. My heart was about to stop once more.

Fragments of that memory returned like a tsunami. A faded Maia appeared before me. No. Please. Anger vanished. Desperation spread like poison. “N-no…” My body weakened. I fell to my knees. Gripped my hair. “N-not again…”