Horror in the Head

There are many terrible things that can grow in a head, the fever pitch of ideology is only one. Dreams are another, but they have nothing on the self-parasitic flesh of a tumor. Aiga had been preparing to die since before their escape, her sister, her sister had been planning something else.

 “Are you there, God? It’s me…Your entertainment,” An over slim form spoke to a stolen room, “I’m due to appear any Day now, so you ought to know how I’ll settle the score. Cause, if I’m being honest. I likely won’t be meeting you alone.” 

Aiga listened, barely hidden, as Afonya held her grief like a threat to a god she’d only witnessed a belief in. It was silly, most of the time when her sister spoke to herself, it felt like mumbling no matter how loud she was.

Now?

“You shouldn’t be so dramatic.” She’d meant to use stronger words, but she didn’t have any at that hour.

Afonya didn’t even turn to face her as she said, “I’ll be exactly as dramatic as I’d like Aiga,” She turned the page of a pilfered book, “as surely as anything.” Aiga could see the weight of it on the small desk in front of her.

Stolen from a university, or something like that. Afonya had read it’s contents more times than she could count since they’d taken it as loot. Reading again and again, trying to find some 'magic spell' that would end this. That would save them both.

But she wouldn’t look up.

She wasn’t absorbed anymore, she hadn’t been before, but she still didn’t look away from the words.

It was like she wasn’t even there.

“As surly as anything,” Aiga smiled, saying it, like it was the funniest piece of wordplay in the world. She wanted to blame the overgrowth but really she was just in good humor.

“Quiet! I can’t even think!” Afonya seems smaller than she’d ever been in Aiga’s memory. Afonya was older than her, just enough so that she was never let down from Afonya’s arms. 

Between both their kinds that wasn’t much. Between them it was nothing. “I believe that.”

“What else do I have to do, Aiga? if you die.” 

She tilts her head, and Aiga can’t even stop herself. “Are you scared? Are you scared I’ll die? Or are you scared to be alone?” It was too late to be awake right then, but no matter how she felt about it, she needed to be.

“Who would I be if I wasn’t?”, She turns from her reading, just a little bit angry. It isn’t enough.

“What do you think will happen if I died? Do you think they’ll forgive you?” Aiga had to carry the thought, this one she’d bother having, “They don’t even see us as people, do you think they’ll let you have anyone after this?”, it was the most awful thing to her, not strange, not lovely, just the always turning cruelty of their world around her.

The one the Warden made, the prisoners, the guards. There were too many hands in their suffering.

“Do you think I’ll kill you? Do you not trust my hands?” Afonya asks, like it’s even a question. She’d seen her work. Their work. They weren’t people like the ones on earth, and in truth she couldn’t be surprised at their treatment just for the attempt.

It was always a marvel, what humans couldn’t do. But She didn’t ask for this, 

“What will change if I live, Afonya?!”, she asks, it’s a statement more than anything, “Do you think they’ll just leave us be? Do you think they won’t take me away?”, Aiga is playing dirty. She knows that, Afonya might imagine many things but she was always an optimist.

And Aiga couldn’t trust that against the promise of death. “Even if you save my life, to them, you’ll just be a butcher.”

Afonya moves toward her smiling bright madness, “What does it matter if you’re still here?!” she seemed happy to be strung, “What’s the difference if-”

“What if you break me?” Aiga interrupts, she doesn’t even mean to at first, as Afonya goes quiet, “What if I live broken for your need? Are you willing to risk it?” the pause goes on, as Afonya thinks for once.

She remembers, ‘How low would I be to trap you farther? Little Aiga,’ the first time she learned that the prison was half a choice for her sister. The difference between crocus and lime.

“Yes.” Afonya says she means it. The word is madness itself against what the world would inflict.

“You think they won’t make you pay just cause we aren’t people?” she asks cruelly. 

“We’re already paying!” Afonya admits, breaking a little that optimism, “What’s the point of pretending to them? We haven’t been anyone since we landed, Aiga.” 

Hand in hand she pulls Aiga back. “If you die-”

“If you die, I’ll at least know where to go.” Afonya says, and she sees the threat in it. A madness had taken hold, the thought of her death after such a long journey. They’d been forced between the stars, into a world that was much too small.

It chafed that she knew, but Aiga shouldn’t be greedy. She’d carried all the love she’d ever need, she’d breathed free air for the first time in her life. Aiga had watched her dearest friend create just as she was meant to.

But Afonya had abandoned her, she was letting go. 

Not of Aiga’s life, like would be sensible, but of all else.

Her future, her mind.

“So you’ve decided then? Do you plan on burying me on this wicked earth?”, Aiga didn’t mean to be so broken in saying it. So static, stuck in her own self.

“No.” Afonya said, tiredly. Letting go only to hold her close.

“Then why are you planning to die?” she finally found her thoughts, the ones beyond a fear of scalpels, “Why are you asking for god, when you should be beside me?” She'd woken up in a quiet room, a few hours ago. Alone like the warden kept her… kept them. 

“Why did I wake up alone?” She was really just a little girl, wasn’t she?

Afonya held her tightly, sniffed her hair, “I can’t just watch you, Aiga.” swaying a bit on her feet. “I can’t watch you die.” she held Aiga’s head, gentle around her healthy horn. “I don’t care about the Warden, I don’t care about the Law, I don’t care about the Help we were never going to Get.”

“I want to watch you live. If there was ever any reason to survive the end it’s that.” she said, evoking her father’s madness. Carrying it like her own.

“And if you die for this?” She could let go of the argument, but she couldn’t go in unprepared.

“You think they won’t pay for that? You trust my hands, I’ll trust your retribution,” Like Aiga could be so greedy after all that, such a small price if she lived.

“You need to sleep though, if I’m gonna let you cut into me.”