Chapter 9:
Our Perfect Isekai World is Spoiled by a Demon Girl?!
After our ‘punishment’, we were left to our own devices; Lila didn’t appear again for the whole day. I can't say why for sure, but come evening I snuck off from the others and set course for her usual spot.
As I step out onto the fort's ceiling, a chill in the night air greets me, as does the sight of our little demon. She’s floating over the parapets, messing with some sort of spell circle floating in the air before her. She’s told us that her spells are located here, hence why we mostly live on the fort’s upper floors, close by if ‘something’ were to happen faster than expected. Whatever the something may be.
Lila is quick to call to me, "Here to stab me in the back now or still in the scheming stages?"
"What? No, of course not."
She lets the spell circle disperse into little particles in the air, turning to look out at the stars. It's beautiful honestly. The black of night painted in stars, her slender body framed by the pale glow of Escape's blue moon - she looks less like an imp and more like one of the fae in old myth books.
"The moon is full tonight," Lila says without turning as I step up beside her and lean against the blockwork. Truthfully, despite having a celestial cycle, I've never considered the moon much since coming to Escape. I mean, such cycles are a ‘real-world’ thing, most games that have them are just a fun detail for lore nerds. In that sense, have I been treating this like an actual new start? Or just as a video game...
"Your human lands are so different from my home, but the moon is the exact same. The same we used to look up to so long ago," Lila adds sullenly, seemingly more to herself than me.
"We?"
"Ah..." she falters. "I'm the sole member of clan Rowan now, but I had a family long ago. We didn't have tea or anime or a place to call home, but we'd lie on the ground and stare up at the night sky, and we'd smile, you know?" She turns to me with this forlorn expression so tender that I feel it chip at my heart.
"I-I'm sorry we talked about that stuff..." I stutter.
She shakes her head, "You didn't actually try to run away, that's what counts. And even so, I punished you. If anything, I’m in the wrong, acting so insecure hardly sets a good example.”
"Ah-ha, well, I'm not sure that's what Eshu would call it."
Lila chuckles at that, and it warms me to see that sorrow recede a little, "That girl is tricky for sure."
"To be honest. I didn't mind so much either." That gets me a funny look, then a sigh, "You're all way too kinky, sheesh. But seriously, you girls should want to run. Sek is right, you know, I did kidnap you guys, steal your stuff, turn your house into a fortress and your lives into a boot camp. You’ve got a lot of reasons to dislike me."
"If we’re speaking plainly? The truth is, it's been a lot of fun. We were aimless before. Happier than in real life, sure, but for how long? Eventually, the chemicals they pumped into our brains will wear off, and even copious amounts of the 'game' will get boring. I think maybe life needs some goals, things to work towards, people to encourage you in that pursuit."
"Chemicals into your heads?" Lila has that appalled look of hers, "you guys gave up so very much to come here, you do know that? To come to another world, one 'made' just for you." She looks me in the eyes firmly. There's a vulnerability tonight that I haven't seen her show before. What Sek said a few days ago, or my big mouth with all that talk of running away - I get the feeling we may have really hurt her, "Say Ko, am I real?"
"I...I, I mean...In the sense of…ah…"
"Shessh, break it softly won't ya!" She laughs, that floating, full-bodied laugh of hers, but it doesn't seem as genuine as usual, just a hint of something bitter.
"It's funny, though, I feel real. I remember my whole life, I remember the good times with my siblings just as vividly as the day each was taken from me. I remember wanting to give up so many times, to go join them. I remember all the battles and training, and living I've done! Every morning hangover, every last push of overtime to achieve just a little fraction more. Real stuff, dramatic things and mundane shit alike. Things I regret so deeply, such loss, actions I had to take, but can never say were ‘right’ to do so. So much living!
But you guys tell me it's all just lines of data, numbers on a screen. I'm what, barely a few months old by that logic? I've lived nearly thirty years, a lot of it really shit, K’? And you tell me none of that was real, that these feelings and all this pain and hard work and triumph - none of it actually happened? That I just feel all this to be a more convincing prop in a world made for others."
"I... I guess so.” Our demonic captor seems to wither at my reply, but I'm not done, “So then what is real or not? I mean us three can never leave here. Escape is a one-way ticket, so how are we different? Aren't we just lines of code, too? Who's to say we're even right? Maybe our memories of another world are the fake ones, bad data in our heads, and yours are the real ones. Our lives before this were so worthless; it would be much better if we were the ones with fake lives! So really, who can say..."
She sighs lightly, trying to offer me a smile, "Maybe so, maybe so. And you guys volunteered for this ehhhh? Crazy."
"Well, actually..." Now it's my turn to hesitate. I've never even told Sek this before, and yet, I don't know why; maybe it is as simple as Stockholm syndrome, but I want to tell her. As we stand, staring out at the beautiful stars, I finally admit something ‘real’: "I didn't."
"Huh? But I thought?" Lila turns to me, wide-eyed.
"You have to be an adult, and you have to consent, true enough, but I never applied to Escape. My parents did."
I bend down a little, coiling my legs like my pet cat on the outside always used to before knocking over a plant or the like. With a spring, I flip through the air and onto the top surface of the parapet, throwing out my arms and silly ‘neko-tail’ to regain my balance.
"These legs, they're amazing, aren't they? Real human legs couldn't do that,” a draft gushes over the rooftop, beneath a skirt, my legs bask in the cool breeze - my legs.
Lila nods cautiously, "Not quite like what you just did anyway."
"They feel more authentic with every day that passes, like whatever is happening with the boundaries of the world collapsing makes Escape more legitimate. We can feel pain again, we stop to look up at the sky. My legs are real, just like you, Lady Lila."
"In your past world, did you not have? Ko, I..."
"Yup," I nod with my best smile, "I think it's why once you showed me how, I got the hang of them in this world so fast. Back home, I was a burden. My parents hated me. No, don't give me that look, I moved past it long ago. I was an object, a failure who couldn't even manage to try prosthetic alternatives; who ate and exercised so little she couldn't even push her own chair. You see all those inspirational stories about rehabilitation, about Paralympic miracles and feats of human strength and amazing determined willpower, but that wasn't me. I was tiny, malnourished and pasty. I couldn't move on my own, I couldn't mind myself, and I was anything but fun to be around.
Sek and Eshu, they wouldn't be able to recognise the old me, no matter how hard they looked, and they certainly wouldn't be able to love that person. I doubt my folks even cared about the money incentive; maybe they even paid to ensure I'd be on the beta-list; it was my parents who volunteered me to Escape. But I'm glad you know, these legs of mine are so very real, Mistress Lila, they're the best thing those people ever gave me."
"Y-you, you poor child," before I can rebuff her, I'm enveloped in warmth, Lila wraps her arms around my head, drawing me in a hug. I feel tears tugging at my eyes, how embarrassing, ugho…
Images of it pass through my mind, of the chair, of the looks from everyone, always so disappointed. Of huddling into the chair, of trying to be small, to be less of a burden. Of sitting beneath my windowsill, watching the moon, watching my cat walk and jump happily along the garden walls.
"I didn't know," Lila says softly, "I didn't see it. I'm sorry, I should have.”
"Thank you," I mumble, "I say I'm over it, but honestly..." The words catch in my mouth. Are we ever truly over something like that? But here in her embrace, it almost feels as though I truly am.
"Shhh, it's ok. It’s over now. I'd never treat you like that, I swear Ko."
"No but," I take a deep breath, leaning into the hug all the more. She's soft and warm and even smells nice - she really is an awfully strange ‘demon’.
"I don't think I care why you choose us or if that makes you evil or immoral or if I'm just some masochistic freak or whatever. Having someone like you care about me, for absolutely no reason, just being nice to me and showing me stuff and spoiling me with cakes and, and.... Just, thank you."
"Ya kid, happy to oblige," Lila whispers in turn, and we stand there for a while, holding one another, bathing in the light of the blue moon. And in that moment, everything else fades away, and it's just us and the moon, and it feels right.
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