Heart/Understanding

“Let me see your arms,” Daiya whispered to me; the silence of the city made it seem like an echo.

We were surrounded by the same trash that heaped all around us. It smelled horrendous. The junkyard overflowed with bins of waste, broken glass and bags full of who knows what. If this was an image projection, what would make her choose this as a place to live in?

"Why? And what is the reasoning behind us being here alone?"

She walked a little closer towards me, naturally I backed away. I don't understand her. She says she wants safety yet approaches me. She wants me to speak to her, without giving me a reason to do so. But there's an undeniable connection I feel between us. A person with a hyper fixation on how people viewed her. It was exactly as he said, is that what I felt? All these years. Something in me wants to resist these words, yet they weigh me down like an anchor at the same time. 

She rolled up her pant legs and revealed scars that cut deep across her ankles on up. "I wanted to see if you had them too, these scars," She covered them back up, "I didn't ask, but what is your name?"

My name? No one has ever asked me my name, yet I was told it was Reia Ozuma. The more I talk with this person, the less I seem to know about myself. Maybe there's something that I want to know. "Reia. Reia Ozuma. Why do you ask?"

She sighed, "Well, I guess, it's because no one has ever asked mine. I never had one."

"But you've claimed to call yourself Daiya. Why is that?"

"What is a name anyway?" she paused, rubbing her arms, "I can't figure out why it was important that I chose mine. It was Dr. Vex. He saved my life. I grew up in a lab above ground.  They always tested, and prodded, and poked me. Tracked my every move. It was hell. The same is true for you too, no?"

I paused and stopped, horrified at the similarities in our lives. Why was she telling me this? I didn't care, yet a small hum deep within told me to listen. To share what I've been through. Will it even change anything if I do? Will I stop feeling the way that I've always felt?

Before I could answer, she spoke again, "Well, I can't change how I grew up. It sucked. Can't lie about that. I was always a question, something to be solved. The way they looked at me, especially that man with violet eyes."

Something in my heart sunk upon hearing those words and I was brought back to the effervescent field of purple flowers, the way he put them to his nose. And how he slammed my face against the city wall. With his persistent question: Who are you? I don't know what scared me more, his question or what he would do to find out the answer. His face was etched into my mind.

"Did he have metal on his ears?"

She started punching and kicking the air at the same time. "Yup, that's him. That guy, a woman, Dr. Vex, and another strange looking person. They always watched me behind some sort of film or whatever, I don't know. Dr. Vex was the only one who tried to talk to me. One time he gave me a book," she smiled.

"A book? What was it about?" I had only known about such things because I found one in the labs below ground one time. It was filled with structures of the human body and had a picture of small things that grew out of the ground named flowers. I can't really imagine it being real. 

"It was a book with a bunch of weird landscapes and colors, all sorts of stuff like that. For the first time, someone spoke to me. That day he asked me a question, "What do you think of these things? Do you think they are real and exist?". It was weird. But there was a word, I saw it in the book. Daiya. It meant powerful and strong. I didn't have the words then, but I imagine that's when it started."

"What?"

"My manifestation," she paused for a second, "If it wasn't for that book, I would've never realized who I was. Why I felt the way that I did. It made me question things. I had to escape and find out what else was out there. Who else was out there. Ever since then, I've been below ground, right here. Training, and thinking. Ironically, I'm still trapped. I hate it. Yet, I'm terrified to leave."

I couldn't understand. Something stirred inside of me, something foreign. I found a piece of glass on the ground and stared into it once more. That distorted person who stared back at me, the one that had scars all across them, with cracked skin and a drooped face. Stringy purple hair that covered the glasses I hated. It wanted to say something, to speak to me. 

"What is a manifestation? What did it change about you? Did people stop staring at you the way they did?"

"I don't know. Maybe it never stops, you know. The stares. That weird feeling that boils inside you when you ask a question. Everything hurts, but I know it's the answer. I'll teach you," she smiled, "but you have to listen to everything I say. Got it?"

I stared at her. Only now had I truly took a glance at her. Maybe it was that I never truly saw anyone. Only what I wanted to see. Maybe Dr. Vex had a point. I want to know why he called me Experience II. And if there were any more out there who felt as I did. 

I simply nodded.

*_*

She paced around the junkyard and found a metal pipe and started to swing it around. It had been a while since she had spoken, but continued to pace and pace, "So, I can't really explain it. One day it happened. Boom. My heart fell out of my chest, and I picked it up off of the ground. Has something like that happened to you?"

I thought about it for a second and the only thing I could think of was that girl. The one who looked like me. The one who was chained up to that table, straining against the pressure. I grabbed my wrists at the pain.

"Judging by your reaction, I'm going to say yes. Yes?"

I nodded.

"Ok, good, good. We're getting somewhere. I don't know, it's like a word or something. At first, when I saw all of those things in the book, and I heard someone speak to me, I don't know. It was like...uh, I don't know. A trigger."

"A trigger?"

"Yeah," she swung the metal in her hand close to my face and I winced, thinking she was going to hit me, "Sorry. A little close. It's just, I've never talked to anyone like this before. A friend. Someone who understands what I'm going through. It's a good feeling, you know?"

I guess, I don't know. A friend, hm. A bond between two people. Still an abstract term to me, an idea with no basis. I want to know what it's like. 

"So, you said, a trigger. Can you show me how you did the thing with your heart?"

She backed up and put the metal pipe down with her hand and started smiling, "Sure. Watch very closely. It's important that you can control this, I, well," she paused, rubbing her arms once again, "It's just important, okay?"

I nodded.

"At first I could only access it randomly, my heart would just leave on its own. It's weird, I know. But after a while there were signs. Then I paid attention to them and found a pattern. The first one was the seal word." She raised her pointer and middle finger and wrapped her other hand around them, "Open: Heart Sanctimony"

The space around her heart widened, forming an open hole where it should've been. Blood began dripping as I saw it spill over with her heart beating into her hand. She sat there and looked at it, as if she had never done it before, "It still feels strange, even after all of this time. To see yourself from a different perspective. This is my heart, no one else's," she paused, 

"Think back to the first time it happened to you. How did you feel? Was it fear, intrigue, worry, what was happening? Was there anybody there or was it just you? The word for me was open, because I told myself I wished to open my heart to something. In that moment what did you want?"

It was painful, to remember that day. The sheer pain I felt when he slammed me into the glitching wall. The eeriness of him following me, appearing right before my eyes. His persistent questioning of who I was. I laid on the ground so helpless, just like when those men attacked us in that tunnel. I wanted nothing more to have been born someone different. To sp-...I paused. I wanted to sp-...what did I want?

"Think, Reia. A desire, a want, something that felt important in that moment. Anything, but only you would know. After all, we all go through different things."

What did I want? What did I want? What do I want? I want to change. To be someone different, I want to split from this version from myself and look at someone else in the hologram. Split.

"Split." I muttered, putting up my pointer and middle finger while wrapping my other hand around it. Is this going to work?

 All of a sudden, there was silence. A slow, rhythmic pump of my heart sounded off in my brain. I could hear the blood sloshing through my arteries. It sped up and ran rapid until a gut-wrenching knot clutched my insides, tearing apart each organ shred by shred.

And there she stood, exactly as I last remembered her. The one I've been looking for, my body double. 

The one who looked like me.

[*_*]