The water was running over her clothed form. It was ice cold, soaking into her hair and robe and turning her body into a single area of complete numbness. Her eyes were raised, looking directly into the stream descending onto her.
The scratching in her head was currently quelled by the paralyzing cold, a steady stream of images intermingled with the water. A table in a makeshift quarter. The wet blanket lying above a man desperately trying to sleep in the trenches. A pistol in her face. The muzzle flashed. The last moment of a life.
Thana barely registered hastened steps coming down the hallway. They stopped in front of the bathroom door for a moment. “Thana? You in there?” The question caused the images to change for a moment. It was no longer something as precise as a faraway memory, just seven golden dots surrounded by a ring of the same colour.
Three of them started moving, like a liquid drop of paint that was suddenly pulled by a thin brush into one direction. They crossed through the ring as thin, almost invisible lines, creating an unsatisfactorily asymmetrical figure.
Her thoughts were just as dulled as her feelings were, and so she never answered. Never blinking as the water kept pouring, all she did was stare at the figure of crossed rings and untouched dots. It was washed away by new images.
The small boat of a fisher. A man without any sign of civilization bowing over with a stone knife. A number on her left forearm: 001. There were too many images to make sense of all of them. The memories of other people washed down together with the ones of Cecylia. Only images, no sounds.
The only sound here was the one of streaming, cold water. The same old streaming, cold water. Her robe stuck to her body like the sin of betrayal stuck to a person’s consciousness, and the reality of murder would always be a part of their soul.
Then the monotony of sound was interrupted by the smooth sound of the well-oiled joints of the door swinging inwards. John peeked through the door. “Thana?” he asked in a tone of deep concern. She just kept staring at the showerhead and the falling stream.
He knocked against the glass wall between them, a nigh invisible barrier, covered in sprinkles of water in which memories reflected like a fractured mirror showing hundreds of faces. As she continued to fail to react to anything, his heartbeat increased in panic, and he ripped open the shower door. “Thana!” he shouted and grabbed her by the shoulder.
Suddenly, as if that touch siphoned off all the energy in her body, Thana’s legs gave in. She fell towards John. The Gamer had not been expecting this, but he still managed to catch her. A moment later, he dragged her soaked body out of the cold water and pulled her down with him as he sat down on the floor.
Back leaning against the wall, arms wrapped around Thana, John’s suit was slowly getting drenched as the heat of his body radiated into her. An exchange of warmth and cold. “The hell are you doing?!” John wanted to know.
The question needed a few moments to register, and when she spoke, her words were sluggish, only slowly gaining clarity and speed as her body warmed up. “…I… I… wanted to… emulate the feeling of that tank…” her eyes went wide; “What the FUCK was I doing?”
When did the thought of that cursed tank suddenly become appealing? The cold, emotionless distance of streaming images something to be desired? Nothing about it should have appealed to her, what was going on?
Her heartbeat doubled, and heat rushed through her veins like liquid fire as she magically kicked up her metabolism. Nestling against John’s chest, her breathing quickened as she felt something rise from her stomach and cause a knot in her throat.
It was unavoidable, the certainty of impending nothingness. It was like she herself didn’t matter and all that was there was this something that eradicated all of her brashness, her agency and everything that made her herself. Even her many ticks and minor mental damages didn’t matter in the face of this. All she could do is laugh, an insane, helpless sound, and try not to drown in it.
The disgusting, hated feeling of helpless panic.
“Help me,” Thana pleaded, hands crumpling up the wet cloth of the black vest he was wearing. She looked up, the seven dots in her eyes standing still. John looked back with surprise, then pure anger.
“What did he do?” he asked.
The question didn’t make sense to Thana. Her consciousness was sinking into a muck of terrible implications, and the cold fingers of panic were grasping for her lungs. Her body heat increased to a feverish temperature.
John took her chin and kissed her. The panic flared against the sudden touch; surprise and the wish to run fought and intermingled, agreed and accused each other of being the wrong response. He pulled back and spoke, in a tone that was forcefully calm with remaining anger still inside.
“Listen to my voice, Thana.” The panic peaked, the scratching came back, her whole body quivered in his embrace. “Listen to me,” John repeated; “Take a deep breath, you know me, I mean no harm.”
Of course he didn’t, but that didn’t help Thana take anything more than a shallow, rattling breath that left her body quicker than it entered.
“Good, again,” John encouraged despite it being so lacklustre; “Concentrate on my scent if that helps you, damn pervert.” Another breath, it was just as shallow. He smelled of sweat, wet cloth, roses and bubble-gum. “Again, try relaxing your hands a bit.” It was the difference between a clenched fist and a tight one, barely noticeable.
Still, it was progress, and so, over the process of many minutes, her breathing calmed, her body temperature sunk back down to normal levels and the panic ebbed away.
“What did he do?” John finally repeated his question.
“What did who do?” Thana wondered, still not able to make sense of the question but now calm enough to probe what he meant.
“Alexej, or what else would you need help with?” John narrowed his brown eyes. “If he hurt you, I will murder that guy.”
“How do you know about that?” the blood mage asked.
“Horned Rat - don’t ask. Answer my question so I can decide whether or not I need to nuke someone,” John said with grit teeth. The fact that he was getting this worked up over her well-being was strangely attractive.
“That fucker tried to blackmail me,” Thana said and felt John tense up in response. The Gamer was about ready to jump up and stomp off in search of the blonde cocksucker. However, Thana kept him on the floor with a violent cuddle. “Calm your balls, you ragefest of a fuckwit, I took care of it,” she assured and then told him the gist of it; “He dug up everything he could about me and actually found some of Mengele’s notes, or at least some of the whore-hirer’s work’s copies. Had this whole situation set-up where he fed me a whole bunch of truths so I would believe him that the person laying in the bed was Eliza.”
“Slow down,” John said; “He found out who Eliza was?”
“Yeah, that’s the name of my fucking sister,” Thana shrugged. “Also, my name is Cecylia, but please don’t call me that.”
“Why not?”
“It feels wrong…” the blood mage struggled for an accurate description; “When I was about to fall for the lie, I remembered something: how Cecylia betrayed Eliza and sacrificed her to Mengele. She had her neck broken, and that was the end of her. That fucking bitch Cecylia, betraying her own sister in a heartbeat because she was different. I don’t give a flying fuck about whether or not I was such a snitch, I really don’t want to be her again. I don’t want that name, I don’t want my past if that’s what it is,” Thana looked at John; “I just want some sort of not sucking future with you and everyone else. I don’t need the same name, I don’t fucking want it.”
“I get that,” John said; “I have way smaller problems in my past than you do, but I get it…” he hesitated; for a moment, they were just two weirdos soaked in cold water on the bathroom floor. Then he asked, “And then?”
“Then I beat his stupid ass up and went here, went home,” Thana said, “but… I think I may have exchanged one mental disfunction for another, and it really fucking sucks.”
“Is that what you want help with?” John probed.
“Yes…” Thana took a deep breath before kissing him.
“The faces are gone, but now I see memories bubble up. I don’t want that shit, but it’s a constant… pressure against my skull. It’s just a small annoyance, but I don’t think it will stay that way. These memories will just keep tearing my thoughts up,” she made a self-deprecating smile; “The world just fucking hates seeing me happy, so now it wants to make me that miserable bitch Cecylia. So, I want you to try and help me with staying who I am,” Thana pleaded. “Don’t let me become a person all of you hate even more than you hate me already.”
“We don’t hate you,” John whispered, brushing back a strand of hair that clung to the side of her face. “Sure, you are an annoying oddball at times, and your swearing can be overbearing, but nobody is perfect.”
“Yes, yes, I fucking know,” Thana giggled; “Don’t take me too seriously, go suck Aclysia’s clit, you overly earnest 2D girl addict.”
“…I am not big into anime…” John mumbled but then grinned. “Good, so we just move on from the Eliza question to making sure you aren’t overtaken by some past version of yourself, right?”
“Yes, promise me that you will help me stay myself,” Thana said, and despite her reprimand just now, she was the one who was sounding completely serious. She didn’t even have the urge to curse, she just wanted to hear John say that he cared for her.
“I will do whatever is in my power to make sure you will be whoever you want to be until the end of your days,” John swore and then kissed her again; “And now we should dry up, go downstairs and eat. Make some happy memories about the current time so that the ones from back then will just seem like an obscure dream of another life.”
“Sounds perfect, you gigolo-maniac sex-addict,” Thana grinned.
