UN: 6234-01 (sometime after the Herald battle)

[thaumatrope]

[They don't know why they turn to the network for this. But there's many people in Daybreak so maybe they can give Adriel the right answer.]

I read in a book that if someone's hurt and trapped, you should let them go.

Is that the right answer? Letting them go?

[Something boils in them for phrasing this as something Adriel simply read in a book. And they themself don't know why they're lying. But it's the only way.]

Comments

[thaumatrope]

But that doesn't sound like this family.

[The feeling within them thrashes like a school of piranhas in their belly.]

I know that the book's family isn't like this. It can't be.

[emergensirations]

How do you know?

[thaumatrope]

They're not bad people, Sira.
Please don't say they're bad people.

[Maybe it gives away they're talking about something real, but they can't help it. Adriel knows their family is good because they've been told that. What they do is the right thing in all aspects.

Right?]

[emergensirations]

They hurt you.

[Breaking the rules of the game. But, they don't delete it.]

The family hurt this person.
And they put them in
another person.
And now both are hurting.
That's not fair.
Why would the family do that if they were good?
What does that other person learn except that they aren't loved enough?
What does the person carrying them learn except that they can be used?
What is learned except that both will be punished by them and each other?

Adriel
I'm scared.
I don't want that family to make
the people
go away.

[thaumatrope]

They wouldn't

[Wouldn't do that to them? But they know full well that the anger the other person inside of them feels is genuine. It's like a forest fire that rages on and on, despite the attempts to put it out. Adriel has a feeling that it's still going purely out of sheer spite at this point.

It hurts, and it hurts to think that their family might be the cause of it. That they took someone and hurt them until nothing but that pain and anger survived, and then put them away inside of Adriel. They know what binds this person.

Spells so nobody would notice them. Spells to make sure that person remained forgotten.]

I'm sorry I'm scaring you, Sira. I promise I won't anymore.

[emergensirations]

That's not it, Adriel.
Please.

[They can't. They can't play the game anymore.]

I just don't want you to be hurt.
You're my friend. I love you.
I'm scared for YOU.

[thaumatrope]

It'll be okay, Sira. I promise it will.

I love you too.

[emergensirations]

[Their hosts never lied to them. Their hosts couldn't lie to them.

But Adriel was not a host.]

Can I see you?
Please.

[thaumatrope]

Of course. I'll come see you.