"Now, what were you saying about this being your fault?” He asked, staring at her with his piercing gaze.
"I was one of the scientists at the laboratory where the technology was created that turned you half robot," she started reluctantly. "In fact, I was one of the main scientists working on it."
"The technology was stolen from the laboratory you worked at. It wasn't your fault it was used to experiment on me", he interrupted, staring at her puzzledly.
"No, you don't understand! I helped them steal it. It's my fault they got it in the first place. And what's more, I'm the one they asked to find the subject for their first tests! After weeks of searching, I decided you were the best candidate, and told them when and where to abduct you and bring you back. If it weren't for me, they never would have found you, and probably wouldn't have gotten the equipment in the first place!"
He stared at her in shock, before moving with lightning speed and pinning her against a rock. "You're the one who did this? You're the one who's responsible for the revulsion on everyone's face when they see me?" He asked, shaking her.
"Yes! I've been trying to tell you! All this time, teaching you and talking to you, I've been trying to make up for it!" She cried, staring at the ground.
He let go of her and stepped back. She was unable to meet his gaze. "You're the reason I've kept going, the reason I haven't just crawled under a rock somewhere and given up, and now it turns out that you're fake, that you've had your own reasons for helping me, all along" he stated bitterly. "Everything I've believed in has turned wrong, or been flung back in my face. I don't know what to do with myself now..."
She heard him walk away, and someone coming running up to her. "Miss! Are you all right? I saw what that monster did to you!" A brown tabby cat looked at her in concern. She stared after him, and said, half to herself, "It wasn't entirely rational. I took everything away from him. It was a natural, and completely expectable, reaction". The tabby cat looked at her in confusion, as she thought, Why do I always have to be like this? So cold, and logical, thinking scientifically about everything? That's what got me into this mess in the first place. And what got him into this....
I'm a happy person, really. I don't normally write such dark things. I blame it on Nidhiki (who I shall always think of as a belly dancer), and on Depeche Mode, bucause I had "Suffer Well" in my head all day, and I think this comes from that.
2 comments:
What an amazing, tantalizing fragment! I could relate with both characters, having lately been in both places. The dialogue is strong, the scene vivid (though you give few descriptive details, really). And the contrast of the spider's emotions, and her own guilt and regret, contrast so well with her cold analysis at the end...
I think the other thing that gets me about this fragment is how much story it hints at before and after. Very cool.
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