The time is mid day. The place, Angola. Fifteen years in the future, a brother will be seeing his sister's true self for the first time. He will realize they are both of the color red, and she is Queen, and he is King. But for now, there is a car on a rough road. It is an expensive car. The car in front of it is a jeep full of mercenaries. The car in front of that, and those beyond, are civilian. This car, this expensive car, is being escorted. Inside, an American raccoon is driving with his wife and kids. They are moving through a region that is largely a dangerous place to be, hence the mercenary escort. It's dangerous, but there hasn't been any action in this particular small region lately. Specifically speaking, this area is on the edge of the conflict. "Are you really sure we're going to be safe…?" his wife asks, pushing up her glasses and looking out the window. She's not exactly comfortable with this place that they have come to, working for this company. A diamond mine, wanting him to work in a startlingly high paid position. "Yes, of course. The company hired these guards. Paid them quite a lot of money, just for this short trip. Don't worry. We'll be in a more secure region in about twenty minutes and everything will be just fine," he says, giving an easy smile to her. She nods and gives a nervous smile back. The woman's name is Lia. She looks back between the seats at her children, a daughter and a son. Her son, she's not so worried about. Her daughter is another story. She's small, so very small. The doctors say there's nothing wrong with her, she's just at the very bottom of the normal range for her age. "You kids doing alright? Zilkas? Rilas?" "Fine mom," Rilas says, glancing up from his book. "Cramped, pissed of that we're in friggin' Africa, but other than that, fine." "Watch your language young man," she scolds, frowning. He rolls his eyes and raises his book, covering his face. Sighing heavily, she looks to her daughter. "Zilkas, honey?" The little raccoon looks up from her laptop, blinking. She is seventeen, eighteen in a month, and she's too damn old in her head for her own good. She's got the eyes of a much older woman, calculating and oddly cold. "What?" "I asked how you're doing sweetie. And what are you up to?" her mother asks softly, her smile a little calmer when she looks to her daughter. She hides her nervousness better just for the kids. "I'm great, mom. Writing a program to try and track weather patterns for the area and organize it all in one place, in an easy to read format. Should be able to provide a full region. Dad might be able to use it while managing the mine," she says, fingers never stopping flying across the keyboard. Her mother stares. "What?" "She's just always so surprised that you're a genius, dear. A cute little genius," her father says, smiling happily. Zilkas frowns and stops typing. "Don't… don't do that please. You know I don't like that," she mutters, reaching up to tug at her long reddish brown hair. Her bright, bright blue eyes flick down, and she stares at her keyboard. "Don't call me that." "Oh come on, little sister. We all know you are adorable," her brother says, smirking at her. "Tiny and cute, indeed," her mother adds. Those big blue eyes narrow. They glare at her brother. "I will seriously punch you. Them I won't punch, but you I'll totally punch," she mutters. He reaches out and pinches her cheek and she hisses and bites at his paw as he pulls it away. "Awww, her cheeks are all hot! She's blushing!" They all start laughing, except for her. She just glares out the window, pouting. For a moment, everything is just fine. Everything is happy and sweet and bright and then, as is often the way of the world in places where war is always happening… Gunfire shatters the calm. On instinct, with quick reflexes, her brother snatches her laptop from her and tosses it to the floor. Gunfire shatters the front windshield of the car and then one of the cars behind accelerates, manages to get excellent traction. It slams into the back of their car. As soon as they're to a stop, her brother shoves her down onto the floor. The windows of the car shatter. The gunfire is coming from closer now, from right behind them. Bullets seem to be zipping about everywhere. The air almost immediately stinks of blood and gun smoke and hot metal. She screams and instinctually makes herself as small as possible, shaking from head to toe. Her father looks back then, gasping for breath. He's dazed, confused. His seatbelt comes off and he twists in his seat, looking at his children, he looks as terrified as they are. "Are you two okay? Rilas get do-" he starts to say. Unfortunately, there's a fast moving lead interruption that makes his head jerk forward. Zilkas flinches as hot wetness hits her face, squeezing her eyes shut. She can taste the iron in his blood. For a time, all she can do is stay there, curled up, trembling. She's too afraid to scream. Her mind has locked up. Over and over in her head she repeats to herself. Not real. Not real. Has to be a nightmare. Not real. Can't be real. Not real. Nightmare. The mercs and the car that ran into them, plus the car behind that, are the only ones of the ten in the caravan that are fighting back. Machine gun fire sends bullets ripping through the vehicles. Fierce shouts and roars rip through the air only to be drowned out by the thunderclap of a grenade exploding. The explosion sends the car careening forward. Zilkas cries out as her head hits a sharp piece of metal on the under side of her mother's seat. Moments later, silence. The pain in her head and the hot blood soaking into her fur from the cut on it are enough to give her focus. Trembling, she rises a little to see what there is to see. Her father is slumped over still, the better part of his forehead missing with blood oozing out and dripping onto the center console. She stares at it for several long moments. It feels like pieces are breaking off inside of her head. Like she's cracking. Like her sanity itself is aching, strained to the point it doesn't seem like it'll hold much longer. She hears a wet sort of gurgle and looks to the side to see her brother clutching at his throat, blood all but squirting between his fingers. She has no idea what to do. Her mind freezes up again. And then his eyes roll back and he goes still, his hands falling. His throat and upper chest are shredded, blood sluggishly seeping through the holes in his shirt and soaking the material, dampening his dark fur. She kneels and vomits, nothing but bile and acid filling her mouth. Gritting her teeth, she half stands and looks to her mother. A bullet caught her in the temple. She looks away, feeling dizzy. Outside the car, she sees people on the road, moving through the smoke, poking their guns in one of the cars. There are screams, gunshots, and then silence. Her self preservation takes over. Operating on instinct with most of her mind refusing to function, she tugs at her brother's seat belt until the buckle lets her pull it free, and then drags his body down on top of her. His blood is all she can smell. She lays there, face down, shaking. Foosteps. Voices. The roaring of fire. There's a disgusting burnt hair smell in the air. She hears more screams, and then more gunshots. Her eyes are squeezed shut. Zilkas is, in fact, a genius. She's registered with several organizations. Her patents on a few things already make her a bit of money - money that goes into a college fund. She's brilliant. Her mind is mature for her age, beyond what most would ever expect. Right now, that beautiful mind is being torn to shreds. Deep down inside, there's something spreading out. Sprawling in the fertile neurons. Something else, far below that, is waking up. The blood in her mouth is doing something to her. Something is stirring inside. Something cold and dark and older than she by what could be centuries. This new dark force won't let her break. It can't. So, like someone stitching together a dress from pieces of cloth, it picks up the fragments and it forces them to be something new. On the surface, she hears them pass the car. One of them says something in a language she narrowly understands, from reading a few books and taking an online class before moving across the ocean. The dialect is different, but she's able to pick out some of the words in Bantu. "Throw the corpses in the pit. Frisk them first. Then get the bodies from inside the cars, do the same. We burn the vehicles after." Her heart skips a beat. You. Need. To. Move. The voice is in her head. It's low and growling and predatory and sounds like hers except darker and uglier and full of rage. She doesn't disagree with the voice. What little of her is still functioning knows she needs to go. A shaking paw reaches for the door and gives it a light push, finds it stuck. The handle has been shot off, so she slowly shifts out from under her brother, peeking out of the broken windows. She sees the men walking towards her and ducks down again, shaking so hard she's worried they might notice her just from the sound of the damn car raddling. They nearly pass her by, then stop. She shrinks back down, pulling her brother back on top. This time she's face up, staring into his lifeless eyes. "The fuck are you doing?" one of them asks, this time speaking Portuguese, a language she's much more familiar with. "Thought I saw something move in this car. Guess not." "Come on, we got shit to do." They're gone, but she's frozen in place again, her mind locked up. Her brother's eyes are all wrong. As she stares into them she realizes he's not there. Whatever he was is gone. They're just balls of useless jelly, no spark. No personality. Just a void. An emptiness that she stares into and in turn is stared into by, the creeping blackness crawling into her soul. You CANNOT stay here. Move. Move! Move! She jerks in shock and then shoves her brother off of her, pops up. Zilkas feels like a puppet. Like her entire body is not functioning under her own control but is being tugged awkwardly along. She's become detached, withdrawn, numb. She watches the men move away then drags herself through the window. Her shirt catches and rips on some metal, cutting the flesh below it shallowly. It's like she can't even feel it. Everything is so quiet but she knows there must be noise. She's just… losing her grip. Hitting the ground knocks the air out of her but she doesn't care. She moves fast, running away from where the men are, hoping the two men walking back towards the line of stopped, bullet riddled cars don't notice her. Her eyes are locked on them until she pitches face first into a shallow pit. Her head hits something hard and darkness swallows her. Wake up. For fuck's sake. WAKE UP. THEY BURIED ME. GET MY ASS UP, PLACEHOLDER! She jerks awake and realizes dully that it's hard to breathe. There's a stink, a horrific stink, and things pressing against her. Dead. Naked. Bodies. We're in a mass fucking grave. It's shallow. Scavenging ferals will be coming for dinner. HURRY! GET UP. CLIMB OUT. NOW! She jerks at the shouting of the voice in her head, and starts to crawl, gripping at the cold, cold flesh. Nightmare. This must be a nightmare. Please, she begs, let this be a nightmare. Even if she wakes, she feels this will break her for years and years to come. Stop whining. Your internal monologue is pissing me off, placeholder. You're not going to wake up. As soon as we have a moment, I'm destroying you. Split personalities are clichéd and stupid and I want the body, the voice says. She doesn't really understand. Idiot. She does a spit test, to clear her disorientation up. The spit drips down, giving her a clear idea of what is precisely up. Worming and squirming and wiggling, she manages to progress upwards. They can't have buried her long ago, or very deep. It looks like the air is largely kept in place by the tarp she runs into near the surface. Gagging on the stench, she squirms along the top of the grave, not wanting in any capacity to know precisely what it is she's grabbing onto to pull herself along until finally… Dirt. Dirt ahead. She pushes up, finds the edge of the tarp, and scrambles with her tiny claws. She makes quick progress, digging her way through about a foot of dirt until her face hits air. Don’t you god damn rest. Turn around, placeholder. See if any remain. She hacks up mouthful of dirt and blood and gasps for just a second before forcing herself to rise, to turn and face flickering light. There's no one to be seen, no one at all. Every one of the line of cars is burning, clearly doused in gasoline or kerosene. She reaches up, trying to brush the dirt from her eyes. Some of it is caught in the matted blood on her face. She ignores it and walks to the road. "What now, head voice?" she asks quietly, shaking. Enjoy the water. She's going to ask what it's talking about but then she's on a raft in the middle of clear blue water. She knows this place, the Caribbean. It was all just a dream. A horrible dream. Yes exactly. A dream. Now, enjoy yourself for a few minutes. It's the last time we likely ever will… enjoy anything but killing. She looks to the sky to see a pair of bright blue eyes in the clouds, watching her. She's not bothered by them. Not at all. For a few minutes, she paddles around, laughing brightly as fish swarm around her paws and brush against her wet fur. Then she sits cross legged on the raft and looks up. "You're the head voice, not god. There is no god. That means it wasn't a dream." I'm not sure your logic is sound there, but I suppose on some level you'd have to know this is the dream and that was the real world. I… are you having fun? "Yeah… I guess. I'm just kind of curious. What are you, head voice?" she asks, tilting her head. If the voice could frown, it would be frowning right now. I am the instinct and rage and magic boiling in your soul, personified by pieces of you. We're one now, and this is… not supposed to be happening. There's going to be a game in a long time. "A… game? What kind of game?" Like chess, sort of. But… worse. Lots of people will get killed, I think. Many of them by me. I am… the Knight. I don't know more than that. People like me and like you… like us, We're not supposed to have contact. We're not supposed to be awake yet. I'm not supposed to be… a conscious thing. I'm just supposed to be a part of you. She frowns then, frowns at the sky. "Why didn't you wake up sooner? Would it have saved them? And… why am I not sad?" she asks. I… cannibalized your emotions already. All those that you feel now are simulated, run through me. I… I needed you as a placeholder while I uh… constructed a new personality from the pieces of your shattered mind. That's why you were so… puppet like, out there. "What… what happens now, head voice?" … Soon you die. Or… rather, cease to exist. Essentially. I'm sorry. She nods. "I understand. To be honest, I think if I could feel the sadness, I wouldn't want to wake up. I'd feel… wrong. I'd never be okay and I know it. I guess you can be the leader now and… let me sleep?" Can you… play some more? For just a few minutes while I work? She gives it a tragically hollow smile. "Sure. I'd like to swim with the fish. I like the bright colors." The head voice watches her from the sky as she slips off the raft into the water. She swims around, laughing when she breaches the surface. The colorful fish swarm about her by the thousands, darting and flitting about and catching the light, glinting. After a few minutes, she feels an urgency and climbs back onto the raft, flopping on the sun warmed wood and looking to the eyes in the sky. "This is the end, isn't it? Why would you give me this…?" Suicide should never be taken lightly. I just wanted myself to smile. She gives head voice what it wants. A smile, simple and clean, honest. "I guess I'll still have some sweetness in me when I'm gone. Goodbye, head voice. Sorry for falling apart on you." You bore more than anyone could. Gave me time. Goodbye, Zilkas. The wind stops. The motion of the water stops. The raccoon girl sits up, peers around at the palm trees on the nearby beach. They're stopped completely right in the middle of being blown. And then they are gone. The beach vanishes, and the water, the sky, the raft. She lays there in the blackness, eyes closed, feeling nothing but warmth like she's still bathed in sunlight. Sleep well, forever. And so she goes. Z stands on the road, next to the burning cars. She looks down it, and sighs, then grabs a piece of bent metal off the ground. "Guess it's time to start walking."