Automaton Girl

Part 1 - Chapter 4 - Roots

I've been having a recurring dream that I just noticed was recurring right now.

Perhaps I hadn't cared much about it before, or just failed to remember it because I was caught up in a lot before, but I can remember it so vividly now.

I'm lying on the bow of a boat. The sky is a cloudless blue. The sun is bright and radiant. The water splashes as we power through it. I turn my head and I unnaturally feel soggy and exausted. And beside my sits a girl, her head turned away from me. Her hair is cut to her shoulders. It's a strawberry blonde color. She's wearing a white crop dress.

I don't remember much of what happens next. All I can feel is myself just staring at her. Motionless and speechless. I feel like I've just woken up from a sleep where I never really slept. I wonder if, just if, I could speak to this woman, how things would turn out.

When my eyes open, I see a cloudless, blue sky. A bright, radiant sun. A woman sitting beside me, her back turned to me.

Determination runs through me and I decide that today, I'll try and talk to her. And ask her why she has continuously invaded my dreams.

[.......]

I can't speak.

Why can't I speak?

It's as if no matter how I try, words won't process out of my mouth.

[.......]

I can't . . . speak.

I feel myself mentally screaming but physically mute.

This feeling of helplessness . . . is quite familiar.

I . . .

What do I . . .

What do I do?!

[........................]

Learn from her.

A voice as quick as the wind passed through me as I can feel my vision go black and then return to me. And here I am, back in my room. My heart feels like it's beating so fast it's going to burst.

The plain, almost-mockingly white ceiling stares back at me. My unmade bed is in another tangle today. I sit up, my hand palming my face.

"Learn from her" . . . learn from who?

A deep sigh.

Returned by a startling drop of something heavy.

I jump up. And with her back facing away from me, kneeled over and in the cabinets of my kitchen, is the girl who appeared in my room however many hours ago. A silent, phaseless girl who has introduced herself as 'Test Subject 1 - CR 0'.

It feels almost immoral to call someone that, yet she says it so . . . bluntly, to be honest.

"What are you doing?" I ask her. Her long hair touches the floor as she bends down to grab the pan she dropped.

"Organizing Darren's room." She says in a monotonal voice. She grabs the pan and puts it in the cabinet.

I look around my room. For the first time in years, my room looks immaculately clean. My book case is organizied according to author's last name, my clothes that were previously scattered upon the floor are picked up and hung in the closet I never bothered the use, my kitchen utensils are in order and my side tables are organized and trash thrown away.

"I was waiting until Darren woke up so I could make his bed," she says as she continues to put away pans, making a clinking sound she tries to tame.

"---you don't have to do that." I say.

She doesn't stop.

"This is what I am supposed to do."

"Supposed to do?"

"I was created to organize . . . that is the third other memory Creator left me with. The other two are that my memories were taken, and that I am not a human."

I stood out of my bed.

She finishes organizing the pans, and stands up. Her beauty is incredibly capitivating. Her face is very stotic . . . and somewhat cold. Her eyes are a breathtaking hazel that never fail to capture me. Her white dress that looks fitted to go to the beach compliments her snow-white skin. Her long, dark hair cut like a hime falls over her shoulders.

She walks over to my bed and begins making it. My house looks almost approachable now. It gives me awe.

"---done. Are you pleased, Darren?" She finishes making my bed.

"Err . . . yes, I suppose? But you really didn't have to do this, uhm . . . CR 0. It's unneeded. You're not my personal maid."

"But Creator said I was to stay with you from now on. You are his successor."

"Creator?"

"My Creator. The person who gave me life."

"I don't even know who this is. I haven't spoken to anyone in five years. Everyone I have ever known has died or left me. It is impossible that anyone could possibly choose me as their 'successor.'"

She is silent.

She looks away, out the window that looks out onto the rainy streets of Joultry.

"I have nowhere to go." She replies.

The patter of rain.

I turn around.

And give a big, deep sigh.

"You can stay here for now," I say. "But not for long."

She stands. She looks at me with such electric eyes that are used for nothing more than just a blank stare. Her eyes bat downward and she lifts her dress with her hands slightly, creating a curtsy. Her hair falls off her shoulders.

"Thank you, Darren. I will serve you well unless otherwise."

I sigh.

I would've gone back to playing video games or reading more books, but that's impossible to do now ---

--- Since there's a gun pointed at the back of my head.

End of Part 1