2. Self-Sustaining Nightmare

I want to laugh, I want to cry, I want to scream, I want to die. But a weapon can’t do any of those things.

I don’t understand what happened, how it could have happened, or why it happened. But I understand what I have to do. I am Melpomene’s weapon. That fact was etched into me the moment she spoke it into being. It doesn’t matter that I don’t want to be. It still falls on me now to determine what that means, and how to become it.

Why, why, why, why, why. No. Please. Someone help me.

‘You won’t ruin things for me by trying to be anything else, will you?’ It’s a cruel question, but it clarifies her intent. She wants me to be her weapon and only her weapon; doing otherwise could ‘ruin things’ for her in some way. I don’t know how, but if I ever learn I will need to avoid it.

I can’t escape even my own thoughts. They’re being used against me. Anything I believe is a chain becomes one. Why, why, why, why, why.

I need to be her weapon. That is a fact. But I don’t want to be. That’s something I can take comfort in, right? My body has been changed and my mind has been chained but I’m still me, right? I’m still me. I can still think for myself, feel for myself, and… yes. I move my hands, clenching and unclenching them into fists, watching the intricately-crafted metal replicas look and move almost exactly like a human’s, if a human were colored chrome. I can still control myself. I reach my hand up and gently (I can’t hurt her, it’s impossible) push Melpomene’s hands away from my face.

I can do that. A weapon, after all, shouldn’t be restricted in its movements.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.

“Interesting,” Melpomene coos, a manic grin on her face. “Oh, this is so interesting. This is the most complex artifact I’ve ever seen, and it’s actually working! Look at you! God, you are a marvel. Thea will be beside herself when she sees you.”

I don’t want your compliments I don’t want your happiness I don’t want your pity.

Thea, though. That’s a name. One of her allies, I guess? Potentially important, but it doesn’t matter right now. I want to escape this. Somehow. I need to escape this, I need to find a way.

“I don’t want you worrying her, you understand me?” Melpomene continues. “She’s a very sensitive girl. You can’t act with her the way you did with me just now.”

And so I can’t. Fuck you. Melpomene smiles.

“You will stay by my side unless I dismiss you,” she orders. “Come.”

She starts to walk and I follow her, my yearning to stay still and spite her casually swatted aside by my own mind. Just to see if I can, I position myself to the side and also slightly behind her. She didn’t order the slightly behind her bit, but it’s more of a bodyguardish subordinate soldier position, and this lady is really leaning into a sort of royal aesthetic, what with the fancy dress and the crown of crystal horns and all. I feel like she’d probably appreciate this specific position for me to walk. And I can. It works. I genuinely believe she’d like it, so I can do it.

I am horrified by how comforting that is to know. I’m so fucking pathetic, to even think of celebrating the knowledge that my cage is slightly larger than I feared.

I need to distract myself. I need something else to focus on. Where am I? That seems like a good question. I’m getting castle-like vibes from the area (which probably contributed to my assumption that this woman looks like a queen). The walls, floors, and ceiling all seem to be made primarily of stone—

I can feel the room around me with terrifying precision, parts of my mind churning through calculations about the structural integrity (solid, minimal damage, significant wear but only to superficial areas), carpets (organic material dating indicates average age of 150-300 years [standard]/230-460 years [Earth]) and potential dangers (angle of attack possibilities through windows, shot density requirements for penetrating walls).

—and so much of it is clearly decorative, especially the ceilings. The room I woke up in looks like it’s some kind of… small dining room, or something. Maybe a parlor with a tall table. The hallway afterwards is even more castle-like, with thick stone columns segmenting out parts of each wall and tall, elaborate windows. But for some reason, where there are occasional decorations on the walls and floor, the ceilings are always the most extravagant. It’s odd to me, since normally you’d design for the opposite, right? People look forward and down, but rarely up. Ceilings are usually left simple or outright blank, but here the ceilings are full-on artistic sculptures. They’re very abstract, swirls and patterns that twist in and out of each other, teasing you around their edges so it looks almost like a bunch of discrete ideas, but trying to find clear delineation between them is an exercise in futility. They’re… oddly calming to look at, though, and since I need every bit of calm I can scrape up right now I keep my eyes (my optical sensors, fuck) pointed above me as we walk.

I do steal a glance out of those windows from time to time, but I don’t like what I see. Outside is mostly darkness, though it flows and twists like fog in the wind, occasionally revealing glimpses of jagged cliffs and monstrous flashing shapes cutting through the sky.

An imposing set of double doors waits at the end of the hallway, though Melpomene just shoves them open and keeps walking. I follow into the room behind her, where—

That is a possible threat and I have to protect her. Time seems to slow down as my thoughts speed up, the drain on my power reserves accelerating as the world itself seems to expand, information and data I’ve been ignoring as much as possible forcing itself into my awareness. No, no, no, let me push it away, let me pretend to still be me, help me, help me…! But of course, I can’t push it away. I have to fight, I’m a weapon.

I resume my analysis of the target.

—an honest-to-god Dark World monster is prowling right in the middle of the room. It’s a horrific and alien thing, resting mainly on a thick, tube-like body like some monstrous medusa. Its lower half is largely snake-like, with its long body resting directly on the ground rather than on legs, but it does have legs—sort of. Two small limbs rest where the creature’s torso bends up off the ground, curled up like a spider’s chelicerae. They look far too small and weak to be legs, though, so I can’t divine their purpose.

Maybe this chaotic thing doesn’t have one. Near the top of its body emerge four tentacles, twisting idly as it sits, while its head is barely a head at all, more of a giant maw with two bulbous alien eyes resting on top of it. The creature’s enormous mouth gapes with ravenous hunger, its fangs gleaming as it twists slowly in our direction. The whole thing is covered in blue crystals, much like Melpomone’s purple ones but far more prevalent, growing all over the creature like a swarm of leeches.

I crouch low without thinking about it, my mind whirring on how I might fight it. Because I have to fight it. It doesn’t matter that I don’t know how. It doesn’t matter that I’m terrified. It doesn’t matter that this is torture, that I don’t deserve it, that I’m just some girl who hasn’t even graduated college. I’m a weapon. I have to fight. I have to fight I have to fight I have to—

“Stop,” Melpomene orders, putting her arm in front of me. “It’s harmless.”

I stop, relieved by the order and sickened by my relief. I don’t want to fight that thing, I don’t even know how I would fight that thing. It’s only a little bigger than I am, but it’s still… terrifying. That mouth alone, I just… why would Melpomene say it’s harmless?

I stare a little closer at it, waiting silently for it to do something, but it doesn’t. It looks at us, but it doesn’t attack. Its mouth just stays open, and I notice that the crystals growing around it, wrapping up and replacing its teeth with jagged blue blades, also grow down the jaw. Around the jaw, even, encasing it and fusing it in an open position. It can’t bite. In fact, crystals grow so thickly over its body that it can barely move at all. It just stays there, locked in position, somehow still alive as it remains trapped in an eternal silent scream.

It would be relatable, if it wasn’t so freakish.

These monsters, and many monsters like them, haunt the nightmares of nearly everyone on Earth. They say the Dark World is layered over Earth somehow, ‘dimensionally parallel’ or some such jargon, to the point that occasionally, the two worlds can overlap and it’s possible to cross between them. Unfortunately, humans who enter the Dark World die, and when things from the Dark World enter Earth, well… they kill.

These monsters are exactly the sorts of things that magical girls protect us against. But looking at this one now, it’s hard to feel fear. Part of me wants to kill it just to put it out of its misery. Melpomene, though, just walks past it, a sad expression on her face as she glances its way before continuing down another hall.

“You won’t need to worry about monsters,” Melpomene informs me. “They don’t attack us anymore. And they certainly won’t attack you.”

Anymore? Did they use to attack her? Why don’t they attack her now? Was she human before? Will they not attack me because I’m not human anymore? God, I’m not human anymore. Maybe I’m not even alive. Maybe I died when Melpomene threw me into the Dark World, and she somehow turned my corpse into this.

Why am I a robot? I can think about my new body and ‘remember’ things about it, as if I always knew them. Can I search my memory or my data banks or whatever and figure out why I have this body at all?

…

No. Nothing comes to mind. Great. Fantastic. Cool. I can think about temperature in fucking Pyulors but I can’t figure out why I’m suddenly made of metal. Have there at least been any clues? I replay what Melpomene said after I woke up—

“Stop,” Melpomene says, and I stop immediately. “What the fuck? Why is it… hmm. Hmm. How fascinating.”

She’s right there. Right in front of me. I want to scream at her, I want to strangle her, but I can’t, I literally can’t, my mind just slides off any intellectual attempt to hurt her, discarded as an intrusive thought that will never, can never be fulfilled.

“Resume,” she says, so… okay, fuck, I’ll go back to scraping my fingers across my face like steel on a chalkboard! I feel like that’s probably not what she meant, but… uh.

Uh.

I can’t anymore. I can’t. It’s probably not what she wants from me, so I can’t… I can’t…!

I clutch my head, careful to not make the sound because I can’t make the sound because she wouldn’t like that, this woman wouldn’t like that, and I can’t go against her I can’t I can’t I can’t…!

“…Hmm. There’s definitely something in there,” Melpomene muses to herself. “Maybe even someone. But you won’t tell anyone about that, will you?”

—which is apparently quite literal now, holy shit, holy fuck. My foot hits the ground and I realize I just relived that entire memory within the span of my stride. Oh god. Oh god, okay. Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it. Focus on what’s important here.

The important thing is that it sounded like Melpomene doesn’t know for sure that I’m in here.

This might not be very helpful, of course, considering that she also doesn’t seem to care, but… it’s worth remembering. Gathering information is important, especially about things Melpomene doesn’t care about, because… well, if she doesn’t care one way or the other, then I shouldn’t be prevented from handling it how I want, right?

Haha. Hahahahahaha. Leaning into coping mechanisms already, Luna? You’ve always been quick at those, you pathetic little coward.

“Remember, weapon,” Melpomene says as we approach the next set of doors. “You are nothing and no one.”

I am nothing and no one. Or at least, I have to act that way. She opens the doors to a room that, unlike the rest of the castle, is furnished more like it’s inhabited by college students than nobility. There’s a somewhat ratty-looking couch, a few other seating implements, a minifridge, and even a TV. More importantly, however, there are three more potential threats. The likelihood of them being aggressive is pretty low, however, because while they are monsters, they seem to be monsters very much like Melpomene.

Like her, they seem superficially human. All three are women, and they all hover around my age, at least in appearance. The tallest and most human-looking is an elfish girl, with long, pointed ears tipped with red crystals that match her crimson-red irises. Like Melpomene, her sclera are black and her teeth are fanged, at least from what little I can see through the slight opening of her snarl. What little I can see of her body is long and thin, but she moves with grace as she turns towards us. She’s wearing a thick, comfy-looking robe that I might be jealous of in other circumstances, but right now I want to think about literally anything besides clothes.

Beside her—and lounging on a giant beanbag chair, of all things—is the least human of the three, to the point that I was straight-up expecting her to be another full-on monster until she got up. I only realized she was like the others when she turned our way so I could see her very human-looking face… outside the consistent black sclera and fangs she shares with the others. Her irises and crystals are yellow, though, and unlike her fellows they are not understated accents but extremely prominent parts of her body. She yawns as she gets up, her mouth opening up like a cat’s to reveal an entire weapon shop’s worth of ivory knives, her pupils narrowing into vertical slits as she looks our way.

Her entire body seems to be covered in a mix of deadly hedgehog-like quills and thick gray fur, with the spiny parts of her body poking clean through the crop top and short shorts she has barely covering her body. To my surprise, however, most of the quills slowly soften as she glances over me and Melpomene, separating back out into just fur. She’s still covered in knives, of course, with long crystal claws and curved crystalline blades emerging from her forearms as fin-like swords. A thick, fuzzy tail flicks behind her, which poofs out so much like a squirrel’s tail that I’ll never be able to unsee it.

Lastly, the smallest of the three glances up in abject terror when we initially enter the room, but the fear quickly wipes away from her face, replaced with relief and affection. Her right eye has black sclera, but interestingly her left looks like a normal human’s. Unfortunately, her green-tinted skin and the chaotic growth of crystals all over her body make it hard to mistake her as human in any other way; unlike the others, she has few large growths, just a patchwork of small crystals running almost like scales down her body, mainly on her right side. They’re also green, like her inhuman eye and her skin, albeit a much deeper emerald color than the somewhat pale, almost sickly-looking green of her flesh. The only large crystal on her body is at the end of her long, lizard-like tail, which features a nearly foot-long green blade.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

The other main thing I note, mainly when she starts happily running towards us, are her feet. She’s wearing tan, baggy overalls and a white shirt, but she doesn’t have any shoes on; her feet are oddly small and webbed, almost like an otter’s, making little ‘pap-pap-pap’ sounds on the stone floor as she runs. Her right hand, I realize, is also clawed and webbed, but her left hand looks totally human apart from the green skin.

“Mel!” the green girl greets us excitedly. “Where have you been? What is that?”

She points at me. I’m a ‘what,’ after all. A ‘that.’ Not a ‘who.’

“You didn’t tell us you were leaving, again,” the tall one accuses.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Melpomene laughs, rubbing the green girl’s hair. “I just found something so exciting I couldn’t get it out of my head, and I finally got it working.”

“You mean this? Why didn’t you tell me!?” the green girl pouts, walking over to inspect me. “I would have totally helped you… oh. Oh, wow.”

She starts circling me, leaning forward uncomfortably close as she examines my body. I don’t react. I don’t think I’m supposed to, no matter how terrified, uncomfortable, or embarrassed I happen to be.

“I have so many questions,” the green girl says seriously.

“Later, Thea,” the tall one says flatly. “First we have to interrogate Mel about venturing into Dark World pockets alone. Again.”

“She’s not going to stop,” squirrel-tail drawls lazily. “You may as well give it up, Nana.”

“I’m sorry, Nanaya,” Melpomene says, almost sounding genuine. “I understand your concern for me, but I really wanted to make this a surprise. This is the most complex artifact we’ve found… well, ever, I think.”

“What does it do!?” the green girl—Thea, I guess—asks excitedly. “The design is so intricate! This crystal integration…”

“That’s the incredible part,” Melpomene beams. “It follows orders. It’s a fully intact servant robot. Effectively factory-fresh!”

“The Antipathy had servant robots?” the tall one (Nanaya, apparently) inquires. “I was under the impression they mostly made weapons.”

“You can’t have an entire society with nothing but weapons,” Thea protests, still circling me. “To get to an advanced enough state to make those weapons, you need all sorts of other essentials. Most of the artifacts we haven’t identified likely aren’t weapons, just by probability alone.”

“Okay, but servant robots aren’t exactly essential,” Nanaya frowns.

“It’s entirely possible that it is a weapon,” Melpomene says. “The runes I translated were almost exclusively about how to control it; I really have no idea what it’s actually capable of. I’m looking forward to finding out, however.”

“Okay!” Thea suddenly announces, her tail flicking happily (though also rather dangerously) behind her as she stands up straight. “First question! Why the heck is it a near-perfect replica of a human body shape? Like, this thing has a sculpted butt and articulated toes.”

“Toes are important,” squirrel-tail insists. “It walks like a human, so it needs to balance like a human.”

“Okay, that’s… true, but very much not the point, Anath,” Thea insists. “It’s an Antipathy artifact. So how does it look like a human? The Antipathy went extinct before the Dark World ever intersected with Earth!”

There’s a pause as everyone takes that in.