Ava staggered back to her room.
Her mind was blank; an exhaustion crippled her, as though cold water soaked into her bone marrow. She felt like a piece of blank paper; she wasn’t happy, nor sad. She was just there.
Flopping onto her massive bed, facing the sun above, she waved her hand, and the glass ceiling instantly turned into the starry night sky.
She didn’t want to move.
Could she just lie here, for a while longer?
A throbbing slowly grew in her head. The pricks of a pin grew into the smashing of a hammer; the agony grew with every passing second, yet she didn’t move nor twitch, as though she were an unfeeling statue.
When the pain got to the level where the world swam, seemingly distorting the very air, a blue panel suddenly appeared above her, parallel to her body, right before her eyes.
A woman’s face was displayed on it; for a brief second, Ava could make out that it was the face of the current body, the unknown Tyrant, before it suddenly zoomed in, showing only her plump, red lips that had curled back into a sinister smile.
Ava’s face was still expressionless. She asked flatly, “Who are you?”
The woman’s lips replied in an identical voice, tone flat and devoid of joy, unlike the curl of her lips, “I’m you.”
Ava closed her eyes. “How nice. I don’t suppose I’ve joined you in crazy land?” She opened them again, gaze still blank.
The screen finally zoomed out to reveal the woman’s face from the shoulders up. The blue screen looked to be the background wallpaper. “No, not really. Or I suppose yes? Hmm. Perhaps yesn’t is a better term. What do you think?”
Ava didn’t answer her; instead she asked, “Then, what should I call you? What is your name?”
The woman paused before replying, “My name is also Ava, but that’s rather confusing, I think. Why don’t you call me Eva?”
Ava nodded to the air.
Eva smiled. She lifted her hand, pressing it against the screen, smiling as if looking at her beloved twin. With a sweet, loving smile, her hand slowly pressed harder and harder, the skin flattening against the glass. Her smile grew and grew, the flattened skin turning paler and paler, when suddenly with a smashing of glass, her hand burst through the screen, her bloodless limb stretching out to caress Ava below.
Eva smiled, “My beautiful twin, why don’t we become one, yes?”
When Eva’s hand touched Ava, Ava became Eva.
She could see all of Eva’s memories.
Eva could see all of hers.
Ava experienced what Eva did.
Eva turned out to be the native resident of this Dead Secondary World, the villainess; she was also the most misfortunate, for she was the first to become aware of the cycle.
Dawn of Hope had a very lacklustre plot; at first, she was a stereotypical antagonist, vile and foul to the extreme, but in the middle of the text, miserable and pitiful antagonists were popular, so the author cooked up a sad backstory to slap on her head. Later on, after the backstory was revealed, some fans clamoured for a yuri route, culminating in the conflicts of yuri baiting. As a result, the villainess’s personality was rather inconsistent throughout the novel.
So when the Secondary World manifested, it added a lot of context to Eva’s history to explain her conflicting actions and personality.
Unfortunately, the writing was so bad and random the Secondary World simply decided that Eva was insane, traumatised, and bisexual, abused for her sexuality.
Hilariously enough, even the Secondary World made a reason for why no-one pitied Eva’s past—the previous ruler was just and kind, the near-perfect idealistic ruler, the perfect gold foil to Eva’s handful of bloody blades.
The more that characters or setting was altered in Secondary Worlds, the faster these characters would realise and the sooner the World would collapse.
On the thirty-first rewind, when Eva was a child being abused by her alcoholic father, she realised…
She felt a sense of deja vu.
The bottle shards that cut into her skin; the beer that splashed onto her wounds; the cutting, scathing words of hatred that seemed too familiar.
She was near-positive; she had experienced this exact scene before.
Her fists clenched in the bloody carpet, curled up against the blows.
The next time she felt such a sense of certainty was three years later, when she met the protagonist for the first time; meeting across the street, the dirty, filthy twelve-year-old digging through the garbage looked up, gaze snagging on the clear, shining eyes of pity and sympathy from across the street.
The protagonist crossed the road.
She was like a ray of clean, pure light falling into the dark foulness of the rotten alley; an angel extending her hand to those sinners, offering liberation and freedom.
Eva felt it.
A certainty that she had seen this before, far too many times.
She even had a feeling of knowing what she was supposed to do.
She needed to be grateful, to cherish this careless moment and worship the angel’s kindness and soft heart.
Like that was how it was to be.
But instead, a feeling of vile disgust rose instead.
Who was this woman to pity? Who gave her the right? When seeing an impoverished, starving child running around the streets, what person would hand them a sandwich, pat off their butt and declare their job done??
The current ruler was a very kind and just person; the laws clearly stated that all children and minors should be under the custody of a guardian or parent, or at least under the care of an orphanage!
What person, when finding a clearly abused, wounded, starving and malnourished child, didn’t call the police and instead gave them a fucking sandwich?
What the hell?
And who were you to pity them, who were you look at me with those eyes, who were you to think yourself so high and mighty, to think yourself a fucking god-blessed Mother Mary?? Who do you think you are, what, the Buddha?!
I’m a fucking human, a living being, not someone for you to take as a way to make yourself feel better!
Broiling in my fury, in my absolute anger, I slap away that woman’s hand with mine. I snapped in anger, “I don’t need your pity!”
The woman’s eyes showed some surprise, with a drop of disdain. I could see it in her golden pupils: Who are you to bite the hand that feeds you?
I literally just met her! What kind of idiot eats food given by a stranger? What if it was drugged?
The woman sighed—that foul slight smile never left her face—and asked me softly, “Little girl, what are you doing here? Where are your parents? Don’t you have a home~?”
The heck—
The fucking gall—
I’m a minor.
I’m wearing rags.
I’m malnutritioned.
I’m scarred and wounded.
You actually think I have parents—?
More like I have A FUCKING DICK—
I’m done.
I march off to the alley, stubbornly ignoring the woman who merely heaves a sigh and walks off, lamenting that children these days really don’t know how to appreciate kindness.
What was this?
Since when was it compulsory to accept others’ ‘kindness’?
Couldn’t I just suffer by myself, support only myself, climb up to the top by myself and owe nobody?
Why would I need kindness in my life?
After suffering for so long, being beaten for so long, being abused for so long, why must I still believe in ‘kindness’?
Who exactly do I owe my kindness and trust to?
Can’t I be ungrateful?
Can’t I be rude?
Can’t I be disliked?
My emotions, my thoughts, my life—
They’re mine.
All mine.
Who are you to judge me for it?
Your emotions, your thoughts, your life—
It has nothing to do with me.
I don’t care.
