date/time: november 3rd, 2178. 2:30pm location: septima’s lab status: closed for @just-pam
Dreams are fragile, fluttering things -- like children, you have to love and care for them, but the more they grow, the more needy they get, fingers turning into claws scratching the back of your mind to be born, to be made true, to be shared. But sometimes being born isn’t enough, and dreams continue to be shaped and destroyed, rebuilt and reshaped. And sometimes, dreams grow desires of their own.
Septima was wide-eyed and naive, like every child must be, unaware of the dangers that lurked outside and oblivious to the monster that pried inside her own home and they called father. So when He told them, ‘Cut here, let it bleed, let it die. You’re the one holding the knife.’ they never doubted that was how it was supposed to be, for the rest of their life. And so they kept holding it and cutting and letting others bleed, in the secret of a dark room where Dreams were born in the corner and there they stayed until she picked them up and nourished them -- until she met someone to share them with.
Until she met her. She was beautiful, so beautiful it mattered when she turned into a disappointment, and brilliant, and she shared a Dream, too. A different shade of the same dream Septima birthed, so when they told them and found the same fervor and fascination in her eyes, they knew: this is how dreams are born and made true. Now, she sits with somebody else’s dream on their palm, a ruthless God casting down the mortals who defied them, who tried to double cross her. She remembers standing tall, holding their faces and, with a last kiss of depriving life and what could only be qualified as hurt and disappointment in her eyes, send them away from Purgatory. But Gods can be kind, too, and Septima proves it by not letting their reveries die.
When the door opens and PAM appears on the other side of the glass window, Septima takes her attention away from her research and smiles. Perhaps the most genuine smile to ever cross their features, for all the practice and premeditation in the mirror. “PAM,” they exclaim, a fabricated sample of a mother’s warmth on her voice as they put down the scalpel next to the bloody corpse. Organic skin peeled off reveal the skull and a long, cirurgical cut along their abdominal is wide enough to see through the tissue, into the organs. With still bloody gloves, a crimson contrast against white latex, they call the android inside, “Just one more second before I finish this.”
They go back to their subject on the table, not waiting to see if PAM is doing as instructed, as she should: it’s the beginning of a test. With the scalpel cast aside, Septima resorts to her own hands, digging in inside the corpse until they get to the rib cage and the sound of bones cracking fills in the room, and she reaches what she’s looking for: the heart. “Inmate 3510-P9VPO-1054“ a pause, before continuing “Can you look them up for me?” But of course, they already know where they are: a dead corpse on their table, another subject who perished at the hands of her research, another failure. At last, she looks up to face the android, to study her face and see: do dreams come true?
