3 - Shocked'Shocked'. That was the way scientists immediately justified Liya's abnormally bnk expression once in Point B. Her ck of screaming, of resistance. It must be shock— because her grey matter had been synthesised perfectly. All preliminary exams showed no harm had been done to her mental constitution. The brain that had left Point A was the same that was now in Point B, down to no decimal difference. It was all one-hundred percent Liya Merebold. The only thing that had changed in her, according to all reports and examinations, was her location.
While the crowd erupted in cheer and celebration, the door of the bio-telemate was opened, still not facing the audience. The woman inside was quickly dressed, with clothes she'd chosen herself days prior to the experiment. The "prettiest dy to have experienced teleportation", she jokingly cimed she was going to be, in a preceding interview— though not revealing the garments themselves: A dress of white waves unfolding to the ground, showing only her arms with crity, the rest obscured in varying degrees as the texture changes opacity all around her body. Her hair carried the same green reminiscent of apples (if they're green), her eyes were millenary pines (their trunks) never touched by civilization and her height was as below-average as it had always been.
The message came across; Liya Merebold was there, and she was well. No limbs lost to a rounding error, no blood whatsoever staining the delicate fabric she wore. Liya was led toward the front of the crowd, looking pristine as ever, her subtle presence mystified by mere virtue of her survival. She stood alive where she could have been dead — and while that sentence is just as applicable to all of withstanding humanity, the brutality of her averted demise made her standing even brighter.
"I will smile at you first — once the experiment has succeeded." Liya had told Salih moments prior to their st separation at Laia Laboratories. "I promise." She promised. She promised knowing not that she would break first of many promises that day, where her eyes were instead fixated on a nonexistent horizon, almost as if she was sleepwalking, the screams and appuse echoing within her but not altering her calm. The ck of celebration in her, the unpopped bottle of champagne left in a table nearby, the never-followed instinct to run or at least address her wife as she had promised ... it was all the first signs of what had happened to her. But until then, the scans performed immediately after synthesis vowed her brain was the same: no damage whatsoever— contrary to what some of the journalists present initially suggested.
"She looks lost." Wrote Itram Noji, for the 'Kharetti Fellow'
"I never thought I'd see Liya Merebold remain quiet for more than five seconds! There's definitely something wrong with her. Something went wrong." Nussalim Nahur, interviewed audience member.
"Liya Merebold has died. The Kharetti state killed her and repced her with an identical machine to her sembnce. The 'Bio-Telemate' is a hoax. I was there, I saw it! Her movements were mechanical and rehearsed..." Trissax Juno, for the Radical Leshi Alliance Times.
For Salih, someone far closer to Liya, denial was the very first step to go through. Seeing her alive and well was all that mattered. The disappearance of the scientists' usual smile didn't. She saw her wife's greatest success with tears in her eyes— the eternal bliss of seeing the love of her life reach her highest intellectual height, and could not conceal her glee as Liya was given a microphone to give her speech.
A speech that Salih had only heard portions of — every morning for the st few weeks, spoken to the mirror by a 6 a.m. Liya Merebold. Back then, it had twice or even thrice as much charisma and wit as it had when she spoke it on the scenario.
"I'm ... Doctor Liya Merebold. As you can very well see, I live. Good news for science, but bad news for you all, who will now have to hear this very long speech; far longer than the one I had prepared in case I died." A joke that nded some ughter in the audience despite the ft tone and ck of pacing in her humour. She spoke for some time, mostly of attractive numbers, and the machine's potential, which could be increased if the richest among the audience put some chips into the boratories' pocket, as they did for the previous teleporter. "...What this will mean for the future, I cannot fully predict. All I know is that we're already concerned with the improvement of this device. A faster analysis. We want for this to become the means of transport of the future. Avaible to all."
The speech sted a decent twenty minutes, and ended with the appreciations. It would be here that Liya would first lock eyes with her wife. Every single one of Liya's words had a poorly hidden, rehearsed attempt at passion behind them, that vanishes before it even leaves her mouth. "...but also to my mother and father, here present..."
The mother and father in question watched Liya. The three, Salih included, had celebrated the success of the experiment when it was announced, with a cheer and almost an embrace of relief, that would have to be interrupted by their insecure eyes wanting to see the proof of this success. Ahan and Itteg were happy, but they were so only until they saw Liya. Then, Ahan's hand rushed to grip on her husband's, strongly, very strongly, as if to silently warn him, but it was not necessary, because both of his hands received hers and tried to soothe her, calmly, agreeing with her sudden feel of unease. Liya's parents trembled, each, and they watched Liya with strange eyes, mixing grief and anger, like a mother beast suddenly disowning her kin when its scent changes.
Liya's speech persisted. She had not really locked eyes with her parents. "...and... Salih, my wife. The one who ... t-the one who has supported every step of my career. I would not be here if not for her."
The stutter was a first, even if she'd struggled to pronounce her own names at times throughout the speech. Not only that, but her tone and pacing made it obvious sections of the speech had been skipped, including a chunk of that referring to her wife. While she spoke, it seemed as if her eyes looked elsewhere, as if her mind was not quite present all throughout.
Salih's wall of joy within was stricken by the gaze of an absent-minded woman she still thought was her wife. In that person there, Salih saw each step being given with a sense of na?veté — as if her legs were learning to tolerate themselves. In the scientist, she saw a spark of fabricated passion whenever she spoke of what had been her vocation for nearly a decade. In Merebold, hesitation appeared whenever she mentioned her loved ones. In Liya, she saw nobody, and her body froze as the mind asked itself if maybe it was all a dream and the Undoing was yet to happen, or it was all a short fantasy and Liya was dead. Her reality was little more than contradiction as she saw the woman in front of the microphone and felt like she knew nothing of her at all.
And it was not only a 'feeling', the kind machinated by the so-easily fooled mind. It was also tremors in her body whenever that girl -the Undone– made eye contact with her. A feeling of being threatened. A discomfort that urged her to act.
Moments ago, her euphoria begged that she ran to the stage to embrace her surviving wife. Present crawled behind her shoulders, asking to deprive of oxygen whatever Scourge had taken the body of her wife, shifting it to its will. Had it shifted? Salih could not tell. The scanners all promised she who stood in stage was one hundred percent Liya Merebold, but her senses had always known better.
Salih knew she was being observed by just about everyone present right now. She felt like it would be really useful to sp herself to kill that horrifically loud part of her brain that was being so strange about the woman on stage (her wife, she repeated to herself many times. "that is my wife. that is liya merebold, my wife."), but such a self-affliction would be seen by too many eyes to afford. It was best to subtly shake the paranoia away. Be logical about it: What had just happened to Liya was, very likely, psychologically damaging. Salih was certainly upset by her choice of being the Bio-Telemate's first tester. The feeling of dissociation from her soulmate was a small, momentary symptom, she figured, her hands would stop clenching at the thought of touching her, and her arms would rex, they would finally rex, and she would be free, and they would be free, and everything would be fine.
At some point in time, Liya's speech was over, and Salih saw Liya go down the three steps of the stage and walked toward the audience, particurly the first row in which Salih sat, and Salih stood, much like she imagined many times she'd do in case Liya survived.
They both remained still for a second when they were a meter or so away from each other, and the uproar from the audience was deafened in their vicinity. Their eyes reacted to the sight of each other in comparable ways. Salih's breathing knew not where to go from all this. She saw Liya look at her, briefly, with expression-less eyes, a straight mouth and no desire whatsoever, and she realized she had been right, and something was certainly wrong with Liya, and the scanners were wrong, and that was not even Liya at all.
A st chance was given to the Undone to reveal herself as Liya Merebold; Salih opened her arms with pain and effort, and stepped forward to hug her, summoning the relief that Liya had survived, hoping it would drown away her failure at recognition, her face was swarmed by a fabricated glee, doing a fine job at theatrics, so fine she could not tell at all what was happening, but her fingers caressed nonetheless, caressed the undone's hair, felt her shape within her arms, and pretended it was her wife. Her arms felt themselves lock into the silhouette of Liya as they often do, but her fingers were at odds with the flesh within it. Fshes of light surrounded them and ensured the romantic miracle would become print, immortalized as history. Not one soul could tell what was truly happening.
In their long embrace, Salih's arms made an X on the Liya's back, and her tanned hands gripped on Liya's shoulders, rubbing them with her thumbs. But Liya didn't quite reciprocate the loving gesture. She merely tried to wrap her arms around her strangely, never quite finding a way to lock in the way they had done for the past two years. Her hands, both, would slide around her head, as if checking every inch of her lover to make sure she'd been rebuilt right, hoping her carnal integrity would convince her that everything was okay.
Still wrapped by Salih's arms, Liya's eyes remained open, and watched the world around them two. A sea of cheering people, surrounding a disjoint family. She saw her parents, in front of her, watching her with dark, empty eyes, approaching her carefully, trying to 'join in' the hug by pcing their hands on Liya's arm, but then receding, as soon as they felt their daughter, rejecting her body and wincing, faking smiles to hide it away, staring at Liya as if they knew her nothing at all.
Salih's confusion then became an inquisitor's wrath. She exchanged a series of non-verbal gestures to her parents, fulfilling what they had arranged in a previous conversation, of how things would go 'after Liya survived'. Both couples nodded themselves goodbye, awkwardly and urgently. She fought the journalists that harassed them both with questions by shoving their way out of the crowd. The st videos of that day show Salih opening the copilot's door for Liya to enter their car, and then Salih driving away from the Redoer's car park at fast speed.
For what remained of 29 the First, 794, Kharett was at the global vanguard of technology and innovation. Alternative Ghundan media called them "owners of the new world" and Southern Primman analysts warned of what the bio-telemate could imply for global politics. Officially, Northern Primman president Gauthier éggau released a simple statement congratuting Laia boratories and emphasising on the importance of NorPrimman-Kharetti retionships — but some leaked letters cim that éggau wished to be the second man to test the device, after seeing the video of Liya walking away from the capsule unharmed.
"You're telling me it has unlimited range? I will pay a million Joies if it's what it takes to move a Bio Telemate to my office. [...] I'll go for a Khani spa every weekend. [...] 'What about the alleged pain'? It can't be that bad. I work out for a reason."
Note that as of writing, 1 Joie equals 0.36 Rubies. Additionally, note that the 'pain' so easily dismissed by éggau has been (since its official leak months ter) non-hyperbolically compared to 'delivering a child through every single one of your pores', 'getting nibbled for an hour by an East-Ghundan Tundra Cobra', 'being intermittently dipped in boiling and freezing water, for approximately three days', among other reasonably fatal experiences. A data leak of Laia Laboratories went as far as to imply the Bio-Telemate injects the user with a stimunt that prevents them from passing out during the analysis process, as it is imperative for the system to be awake during it. If one were to normally experience the physical pain inflicted by the device, they would likely colpse immediately or even be in risk of a cardiac arrest. And even during the machine's more-controlled and maniputed state of constant torture, Liya Merebold's endurance, health and pain threshold proved to be extraordinary even if her agony manifested loud and clear.
Her scientific sacrifice earned her a break in the eyes of the public. Muias decred she was ordered to rest for the following weeks and asked the media to leave her alone for as long as she wished. Any requests for interviews that week were either ignored or refused.
But what Salih hoped to be a holiday filled with celebration and love was interrupted the next Mondays by a visit to Laia Laboratories' psychiatrist.
Ten days since the Undoer Incident.
Trekkos Muias sits in a chair that has wheels in it. It infuriates him that this has become the standard of ergonomics. A chair with wheels. Sure — he can certainly see that it is useful and necessary for those suffering of a handicap below the waist, but those wheelchairs are not like these chairs with wheels. These are not a matter of necessity or accessibility, hell, the things seem to make things harder for everyone.
There is nothing like the staticity of your traditional, comfortable, non-wheeled chair. The armrests are a grounding force which comfort man at his lowest. Any tremble of leg or knee does should not make the chair wield and move along your mental delusions. Any little, gentle squirm of the hips (a natural thing for a man to do, sometimes, in certain situations) should not lead to a squeak of the wheels that alerts everybody you are having a bit of a spasm (or something).
Someone should oil the wheels on this bitch chair at some point. It is becoming a little ridiculous. Men cope with the decaying cultural reality of a chair with wheels in different ways. Next to him, also sitting in a chair with wheels, is his comrade in arms, Psio Heggard, who does not seem to have such strong feelings about the matter, and is quite comfortable, to the point of having his legs slightly spread (fight on, brother), and keeping his hands csped against each other somewhere near his retively restful stomach. Every once in a while, Heggard seems to enjoy moving the chair slightly back, as if pulling himself away from the round table they both were units of.
Heggard definitely noticed Trekkos watching him so intently. This was not the first time it happened, either. And Psio Heggard knew his friend (he considers it bad practice for men edging their 40s to say 'best friend', but if it wasn't, that would be the most appropriate term), so he assumed that Muias was having one of his daily mental rambles on something stupid, like tables that are so big that you can't hear the person on the opposite end of it, cool white lights, social experiments, chairs that have wheels on them, or, most importantly...
"I didn't know the Laboratories had a psychiatrist." Muias endured the existence of the revolving chair to get himself closer to the round table, in which he rested his hands to make his point –i.e. ignorance– more clear.
"Astonishing decrations from the man who owns the boratories." Said Wann Ratner, an employee of his, with a sly smile in his face, ughing at his own comment and hoping others would do so as well, although he did not get much more than a chuckle or two.
Psio Heggard came at his rescue. "It's Dee-li and I who handle that side of operations." He said while a nod of his face was directed at Dee-li Un, the head of human retions of Laia Laboratories, who sat two people away from him, and returned a tiresome, uninterested smile.
Doctor Nori, the Laboratories' associated psychiatrist, had seen no small amount of scientists at her advanced age, both from the boratories and outside of it. From over-worked physicists suffering from mild insomnia to schizophrenics in search of the universe's edge. She was a member of the current round table, too, sitting various seats away from Trekkos Muias. The two had been introduced to each other a few minutes ago, in an unfortunate encounter in which she overheard him calling her a 'headshrinker'. Silence had dominated the round table for the st couple of minutes, and, once Muias had broken it with his insightful commentary...
"I believe it is important that we begin." Issom Nori had her hands together calmly, and spoke in a very gentle tone, whose only rugosity was a product of her age. "We are here to have a joint discussion regarding the state of Liya Merebold..." One of her hands gestured at Liya, who sat right at the opposite end of the table. "...ten days since the teleportation process she experienced. Salih and her came to my office four days after the fact with certain concerns, and after a few examinations we believed a reunion of this sort could help us gather information regarding her evolution." Issom Nori's threw a side-gnce at Muias', whose arm was raised rapidly while his feet chose to rest on the edge of the round table. "Yes, Trekkos?"
"First of all," Muias' voice took on a tone of great self-importance. "don't 'Trekkos' me. It's 'Doctor Muias', or 'Mister', if you really want to be colloquial." His hands gestured some nonsense, perhaps trying to mystically manifest a non-existent authority.
Ytrima sat to the left of Muias and slid slightly further away from him, directing her next words at Doctor Nori. "I told you he would be problematic."
Muias did not stutter. "Second of all. Why is Liya wearing gsses."
Liya and Muias watched each other from a certain distance. She was wearing gsses she had never worn before — they were white and oval-shaped, simirly to her eyes, although with a slight diagonal tilt.
Muias sought a reaction in her. His eyes studied her carefully. Last time he'd seen her — she was entering the machine, and he thought that would be the st time her eyes would be open. So as he watched her, now, he wished to dig into that mind of hers to, maybe, figure out what she thinks of him, asking why she wears the gsses.
Strangely enough, her eyes rarely show anything. And that's saying something — the gsses make her eyes slightly bigger. If there's a moment to seek emotion in her eyes, it's now, that she basically has four of them. But he finds nothing. No squint, no tic, no roll, no nothing. No rage, no frustration, no happiness, nothing at all. He feels like screaming. Like throwing himself at the round table and crawling his way to her, yelling ("Say something! Say something to me please!"), even if she says nothing at all.
But instead, his foot starts tapping on the floor of the room. His hands grasp on the chair's fragile armrests. He despises her indifference — this is not the Liya he knows!
A few seconds of silence were enough for the person next to Liya to speak: Salih pced her hand on Liya's arm, unconvincingly, and the two reacted to each other's touch as if it was the first. Then, she said "Liya's sight suffered a rapid deterioration days after the inauguration. It seems to be hyperopia." Many elements of the table made soft sounds of pity, and some frowned as they imagined how the st few days must have been for the couple; definitely not easy, if a psychiatric meeting became necessary.
"Indeed," Doctor Nori took on from there, once she knew Salih had nothing else to say. "Liya Merebold has shown various ... changes in her since her teleportation. Her farsightedness is the one physical change — and, strangely enough, it does not seem directly linked to the device itself, as according to the analysis, nothing was changed in her biological composition."
"Very strange." Doctor Heggard rubbed his chin with his hand. "She's always had a great sight, and her optic nerves were not damaged in the process." In a team-building field trip organized by himself around the development of the first Telemate, Liya tried out archery for the first time in her life, and beat all of her colleagues that same day by hitting the bullseye on all five of her shots. As they drank on, she struck an apple pced on top of Melikah Siliam's head, and then a cherry on Muias' (non-consentingly — he was asleep).
"Okay." Trekkos Muias's hands twitched briefly and he crossed his arms. "What are we supposed to do about it."
"Mister Muias," Doctor Nori said patiently, making express note of using his preferred honorific. "what brings us together today is Liya's psychological status, and not her eye-sight; it was only brought up after you inquired about it."
Muias was no longer listening actively — instead he was showing four fingers of his left hand to Liya, who then responded 'Four', before he shook his hand and asked her how many fingers he was showing this time. Liya responded 'Four again', and so on.
Doctor Nori sighed, then expined, in a brief sequence of sentences, the particur changes in Liya developed after her undoing (though such a term was not used by her), including (1) a loss of motivation regarding almost everything she formerly loved doing or talking about (exceptions yet to be found but not every passion of hers has been explored), (2) a ck of short-term direction, uncharacteristic unlike her characteristic ck of long-term direction; Liya Merebold struggles to get up every day, not necessarily burdened with any depressive feelings but rather not finding a proper reason to do so, (5) a near-total loss in the way she engages with her loved ones, communicating with anyone in an equal, short, cold manner — refusing eye contact, ending conversations in the middle of them, and reacting apathetically to any external situation brought to her. Throughout the detailed expnation of point number five, Salih was mentioned, but also Liya's parents, to an even greater extent, whose's descriptions of her 'anomalous changes' shape her diagnosis.
And as it was said, Muias watched closely Salih's extremely slow, moderate nodding, and said, "Oo, trouble in paradise", and nobody ughed, some actually shook their head, but Muias remained firm in his smile, to a joke supposed to be understood only by himself, as 'Oo, trouble in paradise' was exactly the words used by Liya herself when his own marriage was going through that cold touch.
It must be noted that, despite this vitriol-infused parallel, what truly differed in both cases were not the trouble itself but the participants' way of handling with it. While Muias sank further into his work, days passed in which their bedroom had not one word said despite having two supposed lovers sleeping in their purest loneliness within. A boiling frustration never spoken out loud — ultimately their shattering came as an inevitability neither of the parties fully wanted, but that was preferable to any additional days spent in miserable company.
At the Pannek-Merebold household, however, unhappiness brewed from the drive home, in the instant recognition that their chemistry had vanished out of nowhere — that they no longer completed their sentences, that Liya's pnned celebration of her life could no longer be fulfilled by the organiser herself, and while many, many words were said in their bedroom, none of them had any love, but confusion and grief as no matter how or where their hands acted, no ends were truly fulfilled, and no pleasure closed the night. While Muias refused to hold his then-wife's hand, knowing well there was no point in pretending any more, Salih struggled to see how or why, when they did there was no warmth any more where their palms met, only cold sweat and a shivering awkwardness. It was no trouble in paradise — but an implosion of it into a hell neither had seen in their lives. A gone fme, painfully hard to rekindle as it was faded away out of anyone's sight, by a machine whose one understander it had taken away.
The rest of Doctor Nori's points went unheard by the distraught — Muias and Salih. Liya, meanwhile, gripped on her knees gently while hearing herself be described so intently, but worst of it all, while hearing herself be compared to a Liya Merebold she had all the memories of but understood none. She felt herself as if she had been born inside a machine and suddenly was supposed to live the life of this woman beloved by all who wore no gsses. And for moments of the day she'd reminisce of the Liya within her that ughed to tears, the one that created scientific wonders effortlessly, the one that led armies of knowledge with an efficiency surpassing that of the machines she produced... and she feared that Liya faded away for every second she wore these horrible gsses and lived as an impostor of greatness. As if the one directing her body's moves before entering the Undoer had taken a leave, repced by an inexperienced intern. But if she could bring herself back ...
Liya stood suddenly, while Doctor Nori spoke, and left the room. Silence came with the closing of the room's door, and the conversation shifted into many people speaking out loud at the same time, agreeing with each other that Liya was weird. Nobody dared speak to Salih.
"Please, please." Doctor Nori regained control of the room some time after, banging her notebook against the table. "Your opinions on the matter are important, even if they happen to spawn once Liya is gone. Please, speak one at a time."
Among a side of the table, many nodded toward Ytrima, who, through various moments of eye contact, was chosen to take the lead. "Well, I actually got to speak to her before today." Ytrima's eyes were directed at the empty chair where Liya formerly sat. "We used to text each other a lot. And she usually responded pretty quickly to my messages — when she didn't, she always had an expnation. After, you know, the thing, she stopped responding altogether, for enough days that I went by to her home."
"When did this happen?" Salih asked, her face in a slight grin of bother.
"Day before yesterday, early afternoon." Ytrima moved her head slightly toward Salih and then followed with her story. "I rang the bell of your home and called her twice to no response."
Salih seemed to trace back to that day — she must have been at work when this happened.
"I had to throw pebbles at her window to wake her up." Ytrima raised forward both of her hands, as if defending herself from a great, invisible beast. "It was all small pebbles! I didn't damage anything, okay?"
As she felt an audience smiling, Salih frowned and pictured, in her head, their room, and its window, and the slight chip that the pebbles must've done to it — surely her brain can pretend she noticed it yesterday or earlier today?
"Liya showed up wearing a shirt I'd never seen before." As she spoke, Ytrima returned her gaze to Salih. "I don't think it was yours, though. Probably something she bought somewhere? It was museum merchandising. From the TCIA maybe? It pictured a very gruesome, historical scene, but I was more appalled to see Liya wearing a shirt and shorts that te into the day. I mean — since she met Salih, she almost always dresses up, right? For just about anything. I thought, okay, I guess she's pretty shaken up by the whole thing? Though she shouldn't be? You told me she shouldn't be." Her accusatory finger pointed Muias. "But I'm beginning to see you don't know much in general, specifically not about regarding whatever the fuck we put Liya in. Because when I saw her that day, not only was she all dishevelled; she stared at me with this strange pity and fear, and apologized before approaching her hand and failing seven times as we tried the special handshake we'd done for the past four years knowing each other." Her face formed a smile, but in her eyes all the sadness in the world accumuted through tears. Her ugh acknowledged the ridicule and her eyes refused to believe it. "Something is wrong with her. How could you put her inside it?" Bck strands of hair fell on her face, but her gaze pierced Trekkos Muias.
"I didn't." Muias said between gnashed teeth. He almost used his hands to evoke certainty in his point, but all limbs were too shaky to confidently pronounce them. "She put herself in it. Willingly."
"We showed her —" Salih responded suddenly, and then watcher Doctor Nori for confirmation before she continued. "Throughout the process, we showed her pictures of many people, including one where all of you are present. She knew all the names by heart, and –only when asked specific questions– could speak about her personal experiences with many of you. So, if it means something, it does not seem she has forgotten anything. It is, just... her personality, I suppose."
Ytrima shrunk onto herself, resting her head on her knees, rotating the chair in a pendulum. "She did seem to try doing the handshake. So I guess there's that."
"Liya appears to be developing a slight detachment from her ..." After nodding, Doctor Nori adjusted her gsses and opened a thick folder, reading the contents of its first page.
Salih gasped. "Where is she? How long has she been gone?"
A number of estimates resonated in the room — but before a concrete idea of it was made, Salih, Ytrima, and Melikah had left to look for her.
Liya met the Undoer — differently to how she'd previously been acquainted with it. Turned completely off and unplugged from every computer that was used to control it, the device looked harmless.
And it was harmless, wasn't it? Her st memories of it were right here in the testing room, getting inside the device — and those memories did not feel like hers any more. It was a blink after Liya Merebold entered the machine that she awakened in her body.
It is me. Liya whispered to herself. I am Liya Merebold. She insisted. She could've sworn she heard the machine disagree with her. And within the empty machine, she saw a girl, one that looked just like her but ethereally transparent, taunting her in her realness.
Fshes of pain shook her body — echoes of screaming and needles stabbing her arms; but she found no source to them. A fierce, cold breeze ran through the empty room despite the ck of open windows or avaible ventition. She felt herself unprotected and alone. The Undoer became her one company. The girl inside vanished.
Minutes ter, she heard the door being opened loudly, and the word "Liya!" being shouted by Salih, who entered alone. Liya had opened the device's door and curled into it, not quite falling asleep, but at least reaching a small rexation while within it.
"What are you doing?!" Salih's exasperation was heard loud and clear.
Liya's arm was pulled, but she remained in pce, responding: "It smells of her in here, still."
Salih stopped her tugging to get closer, her shaky breathing taking in the scent. Her body lost its strength by the machine's side, her knees harmed as she fell and her arms clutching onto its door as her face remained inside. "You are correct."
"I'm sorry." Liya's head rested against the door, from within the Undoer. "I'm sorry I'm not her."
Tears ran down Salih's face, and yet, she held down any sobbing, letting her pain become the device's rust. "You are her."
"I have tried to be her for days." Liya said, then. Her tone was calm. "I'm not her."
"You are her." Salih said, again.
"Did it ever hurt you to touch her as much as it does to touch me?" Liya's hands remembered Salih's shivers — all from the previous week.
An air of frustration had settled within the Merebold-Pannek household. Their shared house was the evolution of Salih's terrace house prior to their retionship. The result was a home with somewhat distinguishable frontiers between each other's interior design choices: Liya having several frames pictures of various birds covering certain walls while Salih prefers to have sparing decorations — notably a picture of their wedding day and a framed business card, special in the fact that it's the first one Salih ever had and that it allows a recollection of the day they first met. It is a picturesque settlement where now only three quarters of its occupants are present. The half-occupant appeared now more inquisitive than ever at everything she had, at one point before the incident, used to decorate her own home. She observes the bird pictures as if seeing them for the first time, then sometimes walks slightly to the left to see the pictures of her own wedding, reminiscing an event she does not quite feel herself a part of. Whenever asked about the wedding, Liya was able to state when it happened, what the weather was that day, and the colour distribution of every guest's shoes but not truly what she felt that day. She remembers the name of the priest but not her own vows.
For those first few days, Salih attempted, with no luck, to pretend nothing had happened. The ccking of her shoes against the wooden floor would echo and Liya would turn around to see her wife. But she would not smile or approach her. If anything, she appeared to stay in pce, frozen, unwilling to hurt her by retreating but unable to muster the love required to walk forward. Salih realizes this, and probably had figured it would happen since long before she tried to get closer to her, but it hurts still. It hurts so bad she only seeks a way for the pain to stop, maybe through the touch of their lips? They are dry and stiff. They refuse to understand the methodology of a loving exchange. She stays in pce, and moves her head none, letting the kiss happen, unable to truly act upon it, waiting for it to end. Liya's hand fail to receive the care and pained effort of Salih's thumb rubbing up-and-down her palm, that pathetically tries to encourage a love to be born. Liya shivers, a little, still, a reaction that shows no love whatsoever but that Salih accepts as some kind of consotion prize. "What do you feel?" She asks her through patient whispers. "Do you want me to stop, Liya?" Liya does not speak, she closes her eyes and tries to have her hands held. "Yes, please." She ultimately concedes. "I feel some pain." The pain in question abandons her chest once Salih has pulled back, but she does not feel much better to see tears running down her face. They feel worthless to one another, Liya in her incapability to comfort Salih and Salih in having lost her wife to metal needles.
Back in the cold testing room where the Undoer id, Salih pulled herself closer to Liya, and her hand tried, again, to get hold of Liya. A firm, burning spasm stopped her from having her hand rex. So they remained silent victims of themselves.
Melikah and Ytrima arrived not long after. Immediately ceasing the meeting was a unanimous decision, and all parties promised another one would happen, except it wouldn't, and meetings with the boratories' psychiatrist would continue one-on-one, with Salih participating every other time.
The round table had each of its members abandon it one by one, little by little, and both Ytrima and Melikah agreed silently to each other to stay until only the two of them remained, so they could be in the confidence of each other to debrief on what they had both spent the st couple of hours thinking, but only Ytrima could say out loud, that this was a mess beyond what they expected it to be, and that the cherished, prayed-for survival of Liya would have consequences none of them expected.
