Snippet #1907312

"Well, aren't you chipper?" The cold, quiet voice rang out through the eerie half-light of the birthing chamber as Ayumu sized up both herself and the people around her. Idly, she noticed that the fact that this girl was so happy had made her feel something, a fact which she took both joy and sorrow in. She was glad that she could feel again - who wouldn't be? It was like fully waking up after a long nightmare. However, what she felt was anger, wondering just how this girl could be so happy now that she had lost everything she had ever thought real. To her, it only served to rub in exactly how much had been taken from her, replaced with this horrifying reality where apparently, both she and the life she had lived before were nothing but artfully engineered fakes. Yes... that was right... She was a Ningen no Kami. She was just a doll meant to look and act like a Human. To be "perfect." Humans were Human because of their flaws. Without them, they were nothing but pretty little dolls to be displayed on shelves, who walked and talked like the perfect little objects they were when you pulled a string, or pushed a button. Then, once they had amused those who played with them, they could just be put back on their little shelves and left to collect dust until someone needed entertainment again. She wondered if that was what was going to happen to her when those people talking outside found out that she was awake.

It's really hard to believe... For the first - what, 15? - years of my life, 85 centimeters was as far as I could reach? And I thought there was a whole world in there... Lies. Nothing but lies. Everything about me is nothing but a lie! My name is a lie. My personality is a lie. My family, my friends, my home, my life... all of my memories are lies as well! The only truth I can grasp is this body. This room around me. But what if all of this is just another lie...?! She thought angrily, resisting the urge to pound her hand against the nearest object, to cry and wail and scream over what she had lost. The only reason she didn't was because she knew it wouldn't do any good. She doubted she could just climb back inside her little tube and fall back into the dream she had just escaped from. No, she had to embrace reality, if that was what this truly was. For now, she just had to calm down, and work on finding out about the "real" world around her.

"Relax. For all we know, there might not even be such a place as 'school,'" Ayumu said quietly. "And even if there was, I doubt we'd just be allowed to stroll out of here. Can't you read the poster on the wall? It says 'what happens here stays here,' doesn't it? I'm pretty sure that includes us, given that this entire facility seems to have been designed to create us. I don't know what kind of fake lives all of you guys were living in those tubes, but I, for one, have read some sci-fi, even if none of it was 'real.'" You could almost hear the air quotes. "I'm Hitori Ayumu. Let's all just introduce ourselves, and then figure out some sort of way to get out of here quiet-like."

And to find some clothes... Augh! This is so embarrassing. To top it all off, did they have to let me wake up naked?! She added mentally.