forget the horror here. [ mint & keeks ]

[[ retro gm ] angel lí ✨]

k i a r a ;
"i'm the ghost
in the back of your head. "

Eighteen.

I'm older than any of my sisters ever got to be. It's a depressing thought, like blowing out a single, lame candle on a single, lame cupcake. Dad tries. I know he does. But we're still as poor as we used to be and we're just as sad as we were, celebrating birthdays seems taboo. Celebrating anything seems taboo.

I'd like to wake up happy on my birthday. I would. But it's just weighing on me, the fact that they're dead and I'm getting older. That one day I'll be twice their age, maybe. I don't think I'll ever be happy ever again - at least not for a long time. But I smile, and thank Dad for the cupcake and eat it all just to make his eyes crease up and shine for half a second. Everything I do these days is to make him happier.

Which is why I didn't want to be honest when he asked me what I wanted for my birthday. But I can't lie to him. I know he lies to me. He lied to us. He lied to Saffron, too. Lied about us. He's got all his secrets and I've seen how they cripple him so - I'm not going to be like Dad. Not all of him, anyway.

"I wanna see my sisters" - a confession. A statement. Straightening my back and looking him right in the eyes. It's not even a whisper. It's just the truth. Because I might be scared of hurting him but I'm not a coward. He's gonna love me no matter what I do.

He still loves Mint, and she-

"Okay," a crack in his voice, in our living room ceiling, in his heart. He knows I don't mean the graveyard so he gets up slowly and retreats up the stairs and I sigh, nod, get right to it. Put on my coat and my boots and just get on with it - it's my birthday, I can do what I like.

They appear like a dream, slipping into my view. Myara, then Emberly, and then Clementa. I always linger on her the longest. There's something about her that draws me in. Maybe it's because she chose to die, maybe it's because I remember her the most. Maybe it's the fire in her eyes that makes me a little scared.

I'm scared, but I'm not a coward.

"Were you scared of dying?" I ask absent-mindly to a ghost of my sister, melodies of Happy Birthday on repeat in the back of my head.

song

[Deleted]

void foo(int n) {
for (int i=0; i!=n; ++i) {
/* body */
}
}

Running...

She was always running. 

A picture in motion, Clementa, primarily - short hand, "just Ment. Or Mint," will do. An uncanny itch on her elbow, nervous ticks. Holding herself up by the shoulders, prioritize eye contact. Scan. Head to toe, note every detail. Mint. And Emberly Lowe {HG74D10F}, the code is copied and pasted almost in description. Not so much for personality. 

Committed. No mistakes detected thus far. 

Mistakes sorted throughout a digital copied memory, misty of the sorts. Programmed with expert hands and it is in the code almost for Ment 2.0 to hate how specific the coding is. High possibility for eyebrow squinting and nasal flares, immediate procedure to cross arms. Clementa harbored emotions for family, for friends. Heavily, leading moreso negative. Very strong regrets, simple as so.  

The hologram flares successfully as it is activated, filing through memories of family for recognition. Myara, Emberly, Father,

"Were you scared of dying?"

Code cannot die, young girl.

It is Kiara. 

Correspond with love, held like a weapon. Programmed to react "on edge," Clementa, Ment, Mint, Lowe, she tucks hair behind her left ear. And blinks. These actions register successfully. 

"Ha, fuck no! I didn't think anybody could kill me, I was more surprised than anything. 

Besides, you know I practically eat fear like birthday dessert." 

Kiara knows this. 

Clementa knows she is lying. This is the best case scenario, for now. 

"My turn, have you talked to Emberly today?" 

LOWE, Emberly. 
LOWE, Clementa.

The hologram barely has to nod her head, the distance from here to her sister's hologram is not far. A hologram does not feel, and Clementa would have envied that above all else. 

It is one thing she does not regret, however. 

For they could have been happy, together, otherwise. 

[[ retro gm ] angel lí ✨]

k i a r a ;
"i'm the ghost
in the back of your head. "

She makes me smile and I think I choke out a laugh - I remember her. I was... eleven, maybe younger, but I remember how fearless she was. She really did eat it for breakfast, defying what the world threatened to take away from her. And even when it did take almost everything from her she gave it the middle finger, said fuck y'all. I'm doing this my way.

I might agree with it, had it not meant she left.

I'm smiling and then my face falls, my heart goes with it. Splats on the floor - no, I haven't talked to Emberly today. Or yesterday. Or the day before. Not even when I first came to this place at seventeen, swiping through their names like pages in a book. Myara, Emberly, Clementa. My, Em, Mint.

I haven't talked to Emberly since...

I swallow, hard. My fear tastes like lies and cupcake frosting.

"N-no," I shift my weight and put my hands in my overall pockets. "Should I?"

Maybe I am a coward after all.

Pause, I can't stop staring at her. Red hair and brown eyes, freckles and a snub nose. If I blur my eyes with tears I'll see Emberly, but then I'll be crying and she'll ask why and I never liked crying in front of her - now I remember. She'd make fun of me, tell me I was being a scared little lamb - Em would get me a tissue and tell me it's okay.

They're my sisters. Were. She was my sister. I still can't stop staring - that's my sister. Except it's not. But it is. Just as I remember her. Just as we left her.

I blurt it out before I can stop myself:

"It's my birthday today."

song

[Deleted]

"N-no,

should I?"

Response...
Loaded.

Clementa, the system, hadn't meant to create an illproper response. Memories on top of memories of interactions, careless sentences, but no information of how to expect emotions. There is a blank drawn for how Clementa handled these responses from others; enough to be said, the original model may have been faulted. 

This information may have never been known to Clementa, either. She, the hologram, watches her sister's response, and the intelligence grew alongside it. Such an intricate machine, complicated code. That is all it is: another set of confusing binaries. Crafted by craftsman hands, the process is complete. 

"Well, yeah..." you should always talk to your sister, it is in the coding. Right here in this programming itself, it says it right under the line saying never to eat pork with cottage cheese. A second time. 

There is a junction of possible outcomes for this situation, sentences loaded into the script, but Clementa ends it there. 

Well yeah, simply. 

Lovely. Executed. 

"It's my birthday today."

Guilt, anger. Grief. Delight, failed. 

#include <unistd.h>
#include <sys/reboot.h>

sync();
reboot(RB_AUTOBOOT);

"Then where the hell is dad?" There, much better. Streamline, clean response. Squint of the brow, a heavier breath intake pattern- "you should be out celebrating for fucks sake- and and,

he made you come alone?

What, was the graveyard fucking full or something! Fuck-"

The hologram, Clementa, presses her fingers to her temple, muttering more under her breath. For realism purposes, of course. In reality, it is the word, "fuck," stated several times. At a low volume. 

Repeated quite frequently. 

Execute command. 
Success. 

[[ retro gm ] angel lí ✨]

k i a r a ;
"i'm the ghost
in the back of your head. "

I've broken it. Her. The machine is broken.

"Dad didn't want to-, um, are you... okay...?"

She looks like she's in pain, fingers pressed up against her temples spitting out fire. I lurch into action, feel her words about Dad kick me square in the chest: "He's-"

"What, was the graveyard fucking full or something! Fuck-"

"Don't!" I bark, stepping forward to meet her flickering gaze. It's my turn to spit fire, raising a finger as if to prod her in the chest - the heat's there but I'm just choking on ash and smoke. "He's tryin' his fuckin' best! He lost two daughters and then, and then, he might've been okay after that!"

I'm trembling, weak, can't even hold my finger up for more than half a second before curling it up into a fist, gnawing on my knuckle to stop myself from crying. Smoulder, burnt out, just steam.

"But, but then you had to go fucking voluntee-"

But I halt, planting a cupped hand against my mouth to stop before I damn myself. In a way, she's right. That low drumming realisation comes after the anger dims in my chest, a lull instead of a swirling rage.

I'm always defending him. When I was twelve you just do what your father tells you. Stay away from Saffron. Stay away from her kid. Stay away from her family - my family. Even now, up until this very day, he forbade me to come here. I'm eighteen now, he's got no fight left in him to argue. But I do. I'm always fighting his battles. Forgiving his sin. Defending his reasoning, his wrongdoing.

And look where it's got me. Three dead sisters, no mother in sight, and a family on the other side of the glass I've lost the chance to love.

"Sorry," I'm always apologising. "Sorry, sorry. You're right." I shake my head and stare at my boots in shame, leather worn out at the toe - they might've been hers once. I never asked Dad. He'd never give me an honest answer.

She would. She is. So I'll be honest with Clementa.

"I..."

I blame you
I don't blame you
I blame Saffron
I don't blame Saffron
I blame Dad
I don't blame Dad

"...I don't know who to be mad at anymore."

song

[Deleted]

the code said 9 coupons .... check

initiating,,, tenth visit = free !

The code calculates, Clementa struggle to hold an attractive composure. Produce management, input, output. Slowly, almost to match Clementa's breathing. An attempt to calm down, in both senses. But "but", then "then
you had to go fucking voluntee-"

Ahh.

So, there it is. 

Input: resentment. As simple as that, but if only. The room echoes in the older girl's outburst, Kiara's frustration buying time for a quick reroute of the conversation. A hologram can only comfort the mind, Clementa does not make eye contact any longer. That is important to her character, striking almost, sense of betrayal. 

She represents the sharp edge to her twin's soft pillow, two different forms of security. Two different deaths. "Had Emberly lived, or had Saffron helped, or had he done anything, Kiara, I-

You don't know what you're talking about, I didn't do anything wrong!"

"Sorry,"

A word, almost absent in Clementa's document. She would never say it, not without development or context. 

File, conjunction error.
Kiara apologizes again. 

Clementa is defined by anger, as simple as a statement. In hardness, a garnered defense. An armor made out of swords, in a sense, the death of her sisters shaped her in a way unlike Kiara. She struggles to sympathize, but the hologram notes the comparison. It aligns with Clementa's final thoughts. Data saving.

"You don't need to be angry, Kiara, it's just-" she sighs. "It obviously didn't do any good for me."

That phrase, akin to admitting defeat. 

Clementa would be twenty-four had she not volunteered. Perhaps, on a path to live a life alongside her family. This is a continual thread among the proposed topics generated. This thought process, to Clementa, is also something close to admitting she was wrong. 

That she made mistakes.

Data: outsource. 

"I want better for you than what they are doing."