Chapter Text
The door opened with a confident ‘Fwoosh’ as she entered the private compartment, placing her overloaded suitcase beside her and getting settled onto the bench seat.
The moquette fabric was soft, providing her with comfort and allowing her to breathe a sigh of relief.
She picked up the suitcase from the floor and laid it across her lap.
Quickly, she opened it with a swift single motion and a loud ‘zzzzzzziiiiiiiiip.’
She took a deep breath and began unpacking for the three-day trip as the train pulled out of the station.
The entire cabin lurched backward as the slack action took effect.
“And we’re off,” she whispered to herself, a smile crept its way across her face.
She pulled a headband out of the suitcase, along with a vintage cassette player her adoptive mother had gifted her, and set them beside her.
She slipped the headband on and pulled a hand mirror out of the suitcase.
She opened her eyes and examined her gaunt, sheet-white face.
She pulled at her overly large eye bags, which seemed almost bigger than her eyes at that moment, then adjusted her glasses.
She softly grumbled as she thoughtfully ran her fingers through her thick, curled, yet oddly still frilly hair.
Although her grooming had some success, especially with her bangs remaining straight, her expression shifted from a smile to a neutral scowl as she continued rummaging through the suitcase, moving past some clothes until she found a cassette labeled ‘idiot tape volume 1.5’.
Her chicken-scratch handwriting made the protective cases illegible, so she used different-colored dot stickers, similar to those at grocery stores, on each case to distinguish them.
She removed the tape from its plastic shell case, then inserted it into the player, and it made a loud ‘KA-CHUNK’ as it began to wind.
She pressed stop, and it halted smoothly.
She took a few brown headphone wires from the suitcase, connected them to the A and B jacks on the device, and then attached them to her headphones, which she had integrated into her headband over many years of childhood to help manage her mental health struggles.
To keep focused and drown out the world around her with the sound of music.
The goosebumps that had plagued her since she packed up and left home finally went away, leaving the young woman with a sense of peace.
While humming a prog-rock tune, she moved to the window edge, observing the passing scenery and rubbing her thumb and index finger until it hurt.
She then slid her suitcase from her lap and positioned herself closer to the window.
She retrieved a journal and a pencil from her overshirt pocket; its high collar pressed against her neck.
After she adjusted the collar to stop it from irritating her, she rubbed her neck with a finger and thumb.
Every instance of contact with her skin felt wrong, a feeling rooted in her life’s outlook—her being a monster trapped in the wrong body, and additionally, born into the wrong gender.
Despite her doubts, it was true. Her perspective on life was not erroneous, considering the condition of her soul and the physical form into which she was born.
She was misaligned and struggled profoundly to accept that there seemed to be no progression from her current situation.
Her actions were utterly futile beyond superficial options such as facial paint and headphones that helped maintain her sense of sanity amid the relentless, overwhelming reality of her situation, at least from her hyper-negative point of view.
She exhaled softly, her gloved finger tracing her lower lip shortly thereafter.
Her lips, painfully dry and peeling, cracked and flaked, and the sting of her saliva as she licked them underscored her discomfort as she attempted to alleviate the dryness that continued to plague her.
Scratching at the distressing bags beneath her eyes, a few eyelashes fell onto her fingertips.
Her fist tightened into a ball, and she did her best to resist the impulse to punch the window that reflected her image.
Gritting her teeth, thoughts rushing through her mind as the vistas on the outside world faded into a blur, as the train picked up speed.
One thing that stuck in her mind was a very deceptively simple set of questions.
How many humans live in Soulario?
I don’t know who’s in the majority, how comfortable I’ll be.
I never really researched it…I just wanted to go to the best college that met my needs and that I could afford.
Why…why is this coming to me now?
I’m… I’m not getting cold feet, nope. Not me.
Minutes evolved into hours, hours extended into days, until ultimately, on the fourth day at 4:45 A.M. PST, the train arrived at the station, signaling the conclusion of an extensive consecutive journey.
She had done nothing but remain still for nearly an entire workweek, which she considered quite extraordinary, given her habit of being active and healthy.
She had already begun to miss the crisp, cool air along the shores of the Great Lakes, which she at one point had constant access to, watching as ships frequently sailed in and out of port with her younger brother after he completed his rehearsals for a school play during the academic year.
The siblings often spent their afternoons watching the bridge go up and down and tracking ships on his phone, since she refused even to own one.
They often waved at the crew, hoping to see ‘Dad’ sail by on one of the freighters again.
They had grown so distant then, physically and metaphorically.
It’s only been a few days, and I’m already this homesick.
God, I’m… hah, I’m so darn pathetic.
I just… wish I had the money to actually stay at home.
This… in reality, is probably better for me, though.
It’ll help me grow as a person. I think.
I’ll probably see him for my birthday and see mom and dad, too.
That’d be nice. It’s… only October.
I’ll see him in five months.
Yeah. That’d be nice.
As she waited for the train to come to a complete stop, she removed one glove from her hand.
Gazing at her hands, she focused on one bandaged finger that remained unhealed.
Nothing ever healed; it always remained with her.
Medical professionals had never been able to explain why definitively, but she had long suspected it related to her soul.
The moment they conducted that X-ray—when it was revealed that half of it had vanished, with the remaining portion beginning to crack and decay over time—marked a significant turning point.
This likely foreshadowed an early end to her life.
It was why she grew so distant from everything.
‘They wouldn’t miss you as much if they never got attached,’ was the outlook she burned into her brain, alongside her determination to survive; she had effectively nothing else aside from those two things.
The train halted, and the slack action jolted the coach once again as the buffers pushed against each other.
She nearly slipped off her seat and smashed the cassette player under her own weight.
Thankfully, she caught herself on a handrail near the window.
She slipped the glove back on shortly thereafter and gritted her teeth against the minor pain it caused.
After she overcame that potential mess of a situation and the resultant call home that would have broken her adoptive mother’s heart, she zipped up her suitcase and stepped out of the cabin into the corridor.
She moved swiftly along toward the front as people piled out, her among the crowd which poured from the fourth coach onto the busy station platform.
She began to walk, practically in a straight line, having printed a small map of the terminal and the plaza just outside it back home on the family computer.
After she rerouted herself out of the terminal and into the plaza, she flagged a cab; the first two passed her by, and after five minutes with no cabs coming, the third stopped in front of her.
The Cabbie stepped out of the car, revealing that he, in fact, was human, which was quite a shock to her, as humans weren’t very common where she came from.
While she stood in stunned silence at his appearance, he offered to help load her suitcase into the back.
On impulse, she nodded in response to his question, trying to break out of the funk she had put herself in over his appearance.
Slowly, he helped load her suitcase into the back before pointing at the cassette player and going, “Nice kid, hadn’t seen one of those in forever,” in a kind tone.
That was the final straw that broke her out of that perplexed state, leaving her wondering how many more humans she was going to encounter.
Though, regardless of her mixed feelings, she smiled at his statement, despite his voice, which felt like sandpaper on her ears.
“T-thank you.” She stammered back at him, trying to maintain composure as he opened the door for her and allowed her into the back seat, where the Taximeter sat, its vibrant red screen reflecting off her glasses for a moment.
The door slammed shut, and he looked over at her, simply asking, “So, where we goin’?” he asked, the smile on his face only grew wider. He was clearly trying his best.
She twiddled her thumbs and then responded with a simple, plain “Buttercup college.”
He shot a finger gun at her and clicked his tongue against his teeth, then responded, “alrighty. Let’s get ya there as fast as I can without breaking the law.”
They both scoffed after he said that, clearly picking up the jokey nature of the statement.
“Thank you,” she spoke with more assertion in her voice, as she tried to match his upbeat nature.
The smile that curled at the corners of her lips, she tried to force down to maintain some semblance of professional rapport with the driver.
Their drive was short and uneventful.
No issues were had other than a few inopportune stops due to the traffic near the dense city center.
Buttercup was practically across the city from the train station.
Thankfully, she wasn’t exactly the type to mind long drives while she got to admire the sights.
On the way to Buttercup’s proper campus, they passed by Westberry, the ‘premier’ college of the area, to her at least, nestled deep within the city center nearest to the townhalls and court-houses.
The envy within her heart grew just a bit that moment. She wished she were there rather than having to go to the ‘lesser’ school.
Though, to a certain extent, she was glad, internally, that she was stuck at Buttercup, as it had a higher monster population. Anything to make it feel more like home and less like a mistake was how she rationalized it in the moment.
As soon as they arrived near the dormitories building, he let her out, helped her remove the suitcase from the trunk, took his payment, and then sped off, leaving her standing there in the rising sun.
She looked at an old quartz watch her father had given her. It read 4:35 A.M., not at all in sync with the dashboard of the cab she was just in.
Due to its age, she’d had to adjust it a few times, to no avail; therefore, it fell in sync with 4:35 rather than the reality, 5:20 A.M.
She began to walk towards the lavish modern buildings of the Buttercup dormitories.
The smell of autumn and varnish filled her nostrils as she grew closer and closer to the entry hall.
The night-shift employees at the entry hall, while ironically spritely given the current time, quickly filed her into the system of students staying on campus and gave her the dorm key to put on her keychain.
“Welcome to Buttercup, glad to have you join us…Hope you love it here!” The last four words were spoken as she walked away, already having turned on her cassette player to listen to music as she found her dorm room, unable to hear what the clerk had said.
Following a short trip up a flight of stairs, she arrived at the 3rd floor, labeled ‘Floor-C’ by a sign in the stairwell.
Her heart was practically about to leap out of her chest as she walked down those halls and to that door, the door which would define her future to a certain extent.
The knob was covered in dust; it seemed like nobody had been in there for a decent while.
She shook off the fear, unlocked the door, and opened it. It revealed a plain room, a desk with a cup full of pencils sat on its crooked surface, a single bed with no sheets, an almost comically yellowed pillow and mattress, and a kitchenette.
She had spent the next hour and a half making it feel like ‘home’ or as close to it as she could get.
She adjusted things, tidied up.
Though it had occurred to her that she had no food, or cookware, or really any way to do much of anything short of sleeping, eating at the poorly built table, and using the restroom in the dorm…for now.
Certainly something to put her limited funds towards.
She wouldn’t dare put anything valuable on that table, not a damn single thing.
She sat at the bed, her head in her hands, staring deeply into her palms, feeling as if she could see right through them.
Like she was fading out of reality slowly, leaving nothing behind but the memories.
Though she wasn’t, it was just another hallucination. Every once in a while, she felt like something was pulling her along on a leash, like she was wrapped up in something she shouldn’t be.
Typically, the feeling would have been shaken out of her mind by now…yet this time it stuck to her brain like a tumor.
She stood up, lifted her hands from her face, and wiped her palms on the sides of her skirt, walking towards the suitcase and putting things up on the crooked shelves and the bedframe.
A video camera she once wanted to make films with sat at the bottom; she grabbed it and made sure it still worked.
She had 40 film tapes to record on, stuffed vaguely into the suitcase.
A box full of extra clothes was coming in the mail sooner rather than later, so she effectively packed all of her valuables into the suitcase, as she didn’t exactly trust the postal services with items so personally valuable to her.
She began to place them all into a small box near the desk, took out one of its protective sleeves, put it into the camera, propped it up on the desk shortly after, and hit record while she stared at the lens, clearly intent on using it as an anchor point for her eyes.
“Good morning, this is the first of these I intend to record, cataloging my time in Soulario and at college. I arrived on campus about an hour ago and have been cleaning up my living space for the past hour. I thought it would be good practice to record these rather than write, since my handwriting is still beyond unrecognizable, even by the most generous standards. These also take less time to record… goodbye.” Her voice was monotone, with the slightest twinge of forced formality in a situation where it didn’t belong.
She stood up and approached the camera, then hit the stop button on the recorder after a moment of hesitation.
She sat back on the bed, then lay down. Slowly drifting away into the early morning.
Thankfully, it was a Saturday, allowing her to sleep as much as she pleased.