The Diligence in Being Dramatic

For too long, I had been immersed in reflection. The world changed, trying to leave me behind. I didn’t mind, not a bit. My boundless knowledge would catch me up in no time. A more pressing concern was how I should introduce myself to my new host, the person whose mind I had bunked in.

Imagine if a voice popped up without warning in your head; a welcome would probably be the last thing you’d give it. A little piece of background. My new host was Midorikawa Karasuya, and I would call her Raven, because her full name had too many syllables for my taste. Besides knowing what to call her, there was nothing else to note. It was not just her; I apply this attitude to all the humans living on this planet. None of their deaths would ever bother me. Never.

I couldn’t care less about Raven’s current project and her actions, but I had to keep an eye out, so I could seize the best moment to insert myself into her life, not unlike what an obsessive ex-girlfriend would do, except that Raven couldn’t break up with me if she tried.

Raven floated to wakefulness like any other day, inside the fluffy embrace of the feather bed. Black walls surrounded her, along with the curtains that swallowed the incoming sunlight. The room gave the sense that the night was still lingering.

But the alarm Raven set had something else to say. She had no excuses to cling to, forcing herself off the bed and starting this crucial day in her career.

In my memories, sights and sounds were vivid, but with the refreshing mint taste of toothpaste, the icy cold water splashing on Raven’s face, and the sketchy smell of perfume, these familiar aspects of being in an actual body washed through me.

Finding a new host is what I want. I repeated this statement to myself while Raven was adorning her face with an ungodly amount of makeup. She tied up her glossy black hair into a bun, so a blonde wig could cover all of it. Bronzer to make her skin tanner; contacts to change her eyes from green to blue. Frivolous top and shorts to appear harmless, and the most crucial tools, her smartphone and a separate recorder, were tucked into the hidden compartment of her pink leather purse for safekeeping.

These were the meager gears she had prepared for her upcoming battle.

***

A lot was happening overhead on a suburban street in Musashino. The disorganized power lines, the sun that tried to dodge the clouds, and the variety of personalized houses, each standing proud, represented the individuality of their owners. And let’s not forget the surveillance cameras, judging from the vantage point they had latched onto.

Down on the ground, Raven acted as her appearance suggested, texting on her phone, not the one she would normally use, but a clean one that fed false data to the corporate overlords that were watching. In their database, she was a typical gal you could find buying overpriced brand clothing. Regardless, her GPS data was one thing she wouldn’t give up, disabled at a hardware level; it was worth the price for the privacy it brought.

She arrived at her destination, a three-story apartment building with a set of public stairs leading to the roof. With light steps, she skipped up to the top, as naturally as possible. Imperceptible from the outside, her slightly deeper breathing revealed a hint of her nerves. And maybe she was trying to drown out her dense heartbeat with deliberate strides.

Though out of the watchful gazes of the machines, she couldn’t relax, not when the supposed meeting time was fast approaching. Around half an hour away, but both parties could arrive early.

She scrutinized the target building one block away, as the cameras had been doing all this time. A humble white slab with a dark-gray slanted roof and no windows. On paper, it was a warehouse. One that was suspiciously sitting in the middle of a residential area.

The widespread rumor painted the place as abandoned. They couldn’t be more wrong. The place wasn’t used frequently, but it still served as neutral ground for shady deals. And one such deal would happen soon. At least, that was what her source told her.

Raven let the time waddle by, with plenty of fidgeting and tapping on her end. I almost wanted to yell in this tension just to startle her, but I refrained, as the saying goes, good things come to those who wait.

A sign of activity. Five minutes before the appointed time. Standard stuff. A few dudes in Hawaiian shirts with sunglasses as scouts. This pattern appeared time and time again throughout my lifetimes. I almost yawned at how familiar this was.

Raven lay on the floor like a sniper, recording with her real phone through the gap in the fence. A spitting image of a dedicated paparazzo. In a sense, that was her job, sprinkling in a drop of entitlement and hero complex, but with an equally paltry amount of shame.

I took back what I said about the goons being stereotypical. One of them seemed to own an interesting gadget. At first glance, it could be mistaken for a tablet. It fooled Raven, but not me. Its structure was too specialized, and flowed with magic. Magic? Wait, I shouldn’t be able to detect magic. And the device looked too modern to be a magical artifact.

I set aside this not-yet-relevant tangent, because the goon pointed the tablet towards Raven, and so, me. Raven might not think much of this subtle motion, but I did. I had awareness beyond her reach, saw beyond her eyes, heard beyond her ears. That was how I knew the object was a tool to discover those who wished to stay hidden, and it had noticed us.

It took seconds for him to text the group chat. And a few seconds more for recipients to spring into action, hurrying towards our location. Modern technology might be a little too efficient.

And of course, Raven was blissfully ignorant of the developments in the background. She engrossed her attention wholly on the few goons in her vision. Ever narrow-sighted. To be fair, I wouldn’t know all of this either if I were human. But I wasn’t.

I could lend a hand. Perhaps I should. This danger presented an opportunity to bond. A little less dramatic than I envisioned, but as the saying goes, reality is often… a little less predictable than you think.

Quietly sighing, I then spoke into Raven’s mind. “They found you.”

I could be less ominous, but the theatrics just came naturally to me.