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Annabelle Cane was bored. She had decided that toying with one independent avatar of the Eye Sasha James was going to be her new great mission while Mother was pleasantly awaiting the next movement from The Magnus Institute. However, she was way too busy with her…fiery partner, that ridicule of a man that Tim Stoker was in Cane’s eyes, so she was certain the Eye avatar would not pay attention to her in, at the very least, a couple of days.
Therefore, no hobby, no official mission…she made herself home at the aforementioned Institute and walked its halls until she found one of those tape recorders Archivist Keay was not even close to guess where they came from, with a recording already on it.
She smiled; she loved hearing those poor misfits’ stories, even if almost none of them had any valuable nutritional value for her. Still, precisely this one…she felt it was actually one to be one to honest-to-Mother truly endearing for her.
Statement of Cecilia Perry, regarding the death of her former roommate’s boss and her alleged implications in the matter.
Original statement given January 21st, 2017. Audio recording by Gerard Keay, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London.
Statement begins.
My roommate didn’t kill her boss. Well, former boss, I guess. He was an absolute…not a good person, though. So, good riddance either way.
I was a student at the community college version of MIT (money is what it is, I am afraid) and had just graduated when a teacher we had done a couple of extracurricular activities with asked her whether she would want to start working for him.
I know this doesn’t sound as something that would have affected me, but, the thing is…I hated it at home. Not because I felt animosity towards my parents, but because… It was just… They never stopped treating me as a child, making all important decisions for me. Therefore, the moment Shirley (that was my roommate’s name) offered me a room, I jumped on board without a second of hesitation.
At the beginning, there was no surprise when working with our former teacher wasn’t the daydream we had joked about a few months before. I don’t want to generalise but… Men; don’t expect anything, and you won’t get disappointed.
However, the minute Shirley received a personal call when we get to her very grandmother’s funeral…that was the moment when I knew this was no my-boss-is-a-jerk regular scenario. He screamed at her for allowing her grandmother to die when they had been drowning on paperwork, in need of all the interns possible as fish need water to survive.
I should have left, moved in with my partner of the time (though that is a horror story on its own…), or actively helped Shirley. I really liked her, after all (maybe a little too much, but that is, again, another story for another day). Instead, I just…stayed. Passively. It was safer, it was easier, to let The World decide for me.
The World decided I was deemed to witness the absolute descent into madness of someone I truly cared about and I choose not to have an opinion about it.
At least, not at the time.
Step by step, more and more under the clutches of the boss, she kept degrading as a sentient being. She stopped having a life of her own. Shirley was never a the social butterfly type, but she loved her silly reality shows, the shitty poetry she wrote while waiting for a demented vampire to fancy her looks and take her away forever, the healthy cooking that made you forget any prestige backed goods you could ever dream about… Eventually, she let it all go so could keep her job.
Because, here is the most horrible thing: if she had lost her job for not reaching the (unreachable) goals given by her boss, or if she had left a company that was giving actual potent results…both scenarios would have made her look, when looking of r anw job, as an untrustworthy asset, instead of as a potentially promising new acquisition. Therefore, she had to carry on as I watched her state weakening until…it didn’t.
Her arms began to be rather muscular, though she hadn’t gone to the gym once in her whole existence and her body used to have a quite tender complexion. Her sight became one worthy of a magical creature, where she once used to wear glasses that would made me faint with a simple stranded look into them. Her skin was glowing and her hair…her hair became peppered with silver, but a silver that, instead of significant of old age (or stress, or excruciating pain), felt as a sign of a strength beyond our comprehension.
It was about that time when she…when she began to use me.
I didn’t know. Actually, I wouldn’t have known hasn’t she eventually stopped. I just noticed I was more tired and had less free time, but I didn’t connect it to anything, couldn’t connect it to anything. We still met in the couch some nights, she complained about work but, somehow, even though the work-load kept increasing, she no longer had problems maintaining her part of the house chores, in addition to keeping her personal hygiene on point and sleeping well.
Between jawing and jawing on my side, I didn’t even think about it, even if my skin was filled with what look far too much like spider bites.
Spider bites from which silk was constantly coming out.
Then, one day… when the fingers… I know you have noticed… I suddenly woke up to a world of pain and delicious buttered meat being cooked. Shirley was crying next to me, asking for forgiveness while her eight arms were help upon me. She told me she just needed to control me in order to handle her job, that she thought it would be temporary, but that she was getting so much hungrier and I was being such a good pray, already used to not having control over my very life, and I smelled so good…
She stopped, stared at me and I yelled as her eye-sockets, filled with hundreds of small regular human eyes of purple iris not unlike her original ones, begged for forgiveness.
I… I fainted and, when I woke up at the hospital, alone (she had left me there and ran off, for what I could make out from the information provided by the nurses and receptionist); without any fingers left on my right hand and a body filled with small sting marks that will never go away.
After that, I found a new roommate and things have been going…quite well. However, I needed a proper conclusion, so I went to where it all began. I went to her workplace and I found one of the most disgusting yet polished places I have ever seen.
It was a spider’s net, a spider’s net build out of computers, paperwork and substances of clear human origin. No-one was there, though I thought I spotted a couple of humanoid hunched figures observing from within the shadows. In the centre of it all, a human scrawny short figure.
My former teacher; the man that has destroyed my friend.
He was tied up in what looked like the silken version of old-fashioned film roll. He heard me, but, luckily enough for me, never got to see me. Instead, we both heard the almost jumpy steps of a third party and he began pleading to get freed while I hid as quickly as humanly possible.
It was young man, late twenties, early thirties. Short, dark hair and pale skin. Kind of cute, but with a…born-to-be-a-loser vibe to him, if that makes any sense; he was smoking and wearing a tad too big NIN T-shirt and jeans. His pose was relaxed, almost a bit tired, and he let himself fell to the ground, where he hugged his own multiple legs.
Not precisely something to be afraid of.
“You know? I really don’t like my job, but, ey, it was either this or die a horrible and slow death and never get to get R-rated with an actual Doctor, so…I chose my new Mom. Still better than the previous one…though they have something in common” he dropped his cigarette into one of the weirdly connected computers and it ate it (I didn’t give it a second thought); “neither of them like to have far too much children and, with your little abuse-system here…man, you gave me a shit-ton of little siblings my Mother is supposed to take care of and, see, since she didn´t chose to have them…they are not as grounded as I am. Some might even call them regular scary-ass monsters. At least, eventually. All because of a regular guy; you are always the WORST, aren’t you?” he looked to the ground. “Look…I…they are going to die. All of them, my mother will take care of that, but…my fia…boyfriend and my best friend and this other guy that is kind of my best friend’s older brother when they are not trying to kill each other have a business of, basically, Poetic Justice: the Hellraiser approach to life, without the sex-bit, and I thought…before letting you keep living a live you don’t deserve and having caused the death of dozens of people I am LITERALY FEELING INSIDE OF ME RIGHT NOW, AS MY OWN FLESH AND BONE UNTIL THEY STOPPED BELONGING TO THE MOTHER OF PUPPETS” he sang that a bit, yes, this was a nerd “I decided…your accidental creations are all in this room, except for a girl called Shirley, she has reversed into a bit too human for eating you (not enough for mommy dearest, though), and they all still have made themselves into your loyal servants…Eventually, they will ate you, but you can choose who you prefer to eat which part and how quickly. If you are smart enough, that is.
Let your fucking game began” and he left, nodding as he passed next to me. “That will not be worth the therapy you will have to pay if you stay for watching” he said to me; so I left, running away as quickly as possible.
I still miss my friend, but I am kind of glad she reverted to human. Even if she had to almost eat my fingers for it.
They were actually rather good, I must add.
Statement ends.
Annabelle smiled to the statement: she knew about Adam, the American guy her Mother had pulled away from certain inanition after being trapped by an absolute psycho with a man a bit too similar in certain things to Sims.
She guessed Adam knew about her too, after all, as much as he was “a rising star” (The Eye might know why) for her patron, she was her fiercest asset.
And she never killed a puny human simply because he was bad, what a concept!
“Miss?” she jumped in her seat, to see The Spiral boy she knew was doing deliveries for Breekon and Hope right behind her. Deliver, if she recalled correctly (she always did).
“Yes? I didn’t know I required your services”.
“Well…then...I know you asked for a wedding ring”.
“Sorry, a what? The only person I am currently seeing has a rather stupid flame-head partner that wouldn’t like that very much”.
“But…you are Mother’s Favourite Player, right?”
Fuck, apparently, finding that statement had even been a tad prophetical.
“I am not a player, Deliver, I am a beyond that. Furthermore, Annabelle Cane is not a loser, as the owner of that thing is. In America” the other avatar sight.
“America again?! I hate that place”.
“Me too” the voice belonged to the loser in question, looking from the window. Of course, he had chosen to act like Peter Parker.
“Why did Mother choose you, again?”
“If you lurk enough, you get good at manipulating too. And you? Were simply your previous mommy issues?”
“Said the pot to the kettle”.
“Fair point, sis”.
“I am not your sister”.
“Agree to disagree. So…Deliver, my ring?” the boy, looking at the pair as if it were a tennis match, gave it to the man. “Thank you, Larry won’t see this coming…as Sasha won’t see a surprise visit today; I made sure Tim had other plans, some extra kayaking tickets. You are welcome. Deliver…see… I don’t want to sneak into a plane to go back to my God-awful country” did he sound Australian in there for a bit? “Mind taking me? And you can update me in your whole crush-thing, Diana wants to know how it is going with Breekon and Hope’s kid…” and they were gone.
Annabelle smiled to herself and thought about an extra evening with Sasha James and, for a second, she might have been a bit of a loser.