Post by wblstudios on May 10, 2006 14:39:22 GMT -5
Yagami Apartments was a one-floor series of long out walkways surrounded by low-rent, cut-rate rooms headed by a racist super and at this time, barely illuminated by a series of bug-slathered overhead lights cutting through the evening dusk. As Ellis made her way from apartment 26 to apartment 5 and all it’s crystal goodness, scythe in hand, she kept her dead eyes on her immediate surroundings. In a rundown shithole of a solitary living community, all she’d have to do was keep her eyes out for someone who didn’t fit in. Someone with an ounce of class. Someone with an ounce of sophistication.
Someone in a black business suit stumbling out a makeshift meth lab in confusion.
Yoshimitsu Daioh, as he would later introduce himself, was a man barely shorter than Ellis herself. Strong Asian features framing a balding head, features lost on the soft face of his daughter Kikyo, Yoshimitsu was a topic of idle conversation that Kikyo loved to keep coming back to. A topic Ellis herself kept trying to stay away from, feeling that the topic of loving and caring parents was something she’d never be an expert on. Her father an abusive, violent bastard of the highest caliber, and her mother... of all the secrets she’d exposed of this severed soul, of all the things Jack had drawn out and humiliated her for, her birth mother was a secret she kept close to her chest.
“All of you had better get your lives together! Stop living in the days of drugs and extravagance! And you’re sure nobody among you is named Ellis? Oh?”
Yoshimitsu’s voice was similar to his daughter’s, high pitched with a thick accent, but held a deep power inside it. Ellis stopped, letting the lamplight glint off of her Second Stage, and observed the man. At least, until the meth-heads in apartment 5 realized that there was no sale imminent and slammed the door. A tiny little figure made it’s way from the relative darkness and plowed it’s way to the old man, squealing “DADDY!” cheerfully as the old man scooped up his daughter in his arms.
“Daddy, I was worried about you! I didn’t see you at the airport!”
“Then it’s a good thing I called! I don’t need to be chauffeured, Mr. Daioh always travels in the classiest of style!”
“So how’d you get here?”
“Taxicab. Oh crap... the meter‘s still running...”
The old man’s eyes opened wide, pulling out a wallet ripe with hundred dollar bills and barreling to the entrance as fast as his stubby little legs could carry him. Kikyo simply smiled her million yen smile to the living corpse girl.
“That’s my daddy.”
---
Evening found the three making plans at a local restaurant, one of the classic all-you-can-eat buffet institutions that made America great... and fat at the same time. Regardless that the three all ate like birds, “Yosh-Yosh” as Kikyo called him insisted on paying the full buffet price. A relative quiet in the barely-occupied Red Rock Restaurant meant the three were well-attended to. Drinks were refilled, rolls were restocked, and tips were given generously. Regardless of how hard Kikyo tried to include her, however, Ellis knew she was a third wheel on this night, and was on the verge of asking to leave before Yoshimitsu, plate full of french fries in hand, tapped the corpse girl on the shoulder.
“Watch this. Kikyo!”
The little prodigy giggled and opened her mouth wide as the old man grabbed a fry in one hand, and with an overhead hook shot, landed the fry right in Kikyo’s mouth. Ten in a row without a single brick, Yoshimitsu, seeming so different from the prominent captain of industry he was, did the moonwalk. Crotch grab and all.
It was all too much. It wasn’t that she was angry at seeing Kikyo and her father so happy together. It was almost jealousy. Almost a fury. How dare she flaunt a relationship that Ellis could never have with the abusive fucking bastard currently behind bars. But she knew the irrational anger at seeing a girl and her father so happy together was wrong, and that drove her even deeper. Blaming herself for these feelings. For this violent depression. For her father’s abuse. For tossing down a plate of sparsely dressed salad and blazing a path to the women’s room, locking herself in a stall and breaking down in tears. For leaving her Second Stage at home.
Not home, she reminded herself. In her apartment. There was no home for her on this side of the grave. Ever since she was thrown in a dumpster all those years ago and left to die, she truly felt her home on the other side of that invisible divide that everyone must eventually cross.
In reaching for the boxcutter she knew she’d left back in 26, her eyes went right to the exposed flesh of her arms. The violent scars and slashes of a lifetime of abuse and three years shackled to a wall in Jersey City. Scars all over her body, prominently on her face, which her hands trailed to, feeling the ridges and the slashes, the cuts and scars that would make even New Jack jealous.
No boxcutter. No switchblade. No scythe. No hope. No love No respect. No future. Words burning through Ellis’ mind as the corpse girl broke down in tears.
You’re all too human after all, Ellis, a voice from deep inside told her.
---
“I’ve ruined everyone’s good time. I broke down again, and I ruined everything.”
Ellis stared at the ceiling of the PT Cruiser she’d yet had a chance to drive, manned now by little Kikyo, Yoshimitsu riding passenger to allow Ellis to lie down.
“No, it’s alright. Really.”
So deep inside her fragile, bloodied mind was Ellis, she wasn’t sure which of the two the reply came from.
---
She almost went directly for her scythe the minute the three crossed the frame back into Apartment 26 and locked themselves in, deterred only by a hand on her shoulder and a calm voice.
“Miss Ellis... is there a place where we can talk alone?”
The living corpse sighed, staring down for a few seconds before looking over at her tiny manager.
“Kikyo... would you mind watching television out here? Your father and I are going to talk in my bedroom.”
With a tiny nod, a flicker of the HD-ready plasma screen (Another gift that Ellis had yet to fully toy with), and a welcome to American Idol, Kikyo more tried to block out what she had a feeling would be another emotional breakdown moreso than entertain herself as Yoshimitsu and Ellis locked the bedroom door behind them. All she could muster was a whispered prayer.
---
~Ellis
Someone in a black business suit stumbling out a makeshift meth lab in confusion.
Yoshimitsu Daioh, as he would later introduce himself, was a man barely shorter than Ellis herself. Strong Asian features framing a balding head, features lost on the soft face of his daughter Kikyo, Yoshimitsu was a topic of idle conversation that Kikyo loved to keep coming back to. A topic Ellis herself kept trying to stay away from, feeling that the topic of loving and caring parents was something she’d never be an expert on. Her father an abusive, violent bastard of the highest caliber, and her mother... of all the secrets she’d exposed of this severed soul, of all the things Jack had drawn out and humiliated her for, her birth mother was a secret she kept close to her chest.
“All of you had better get your lives together! Stop living in the days of drugs and extravagance! And you’re sure nobody among you is named Ellis? Oh?”
Yoshimitsu’s voice was similar to his daughter’s, high pitched with a thick accent, but held a deep power inside it. Ellis stopped, letting the lamplight glint off of her Second Stage, and observed the man. At least, until the meth-heads in apartment 5 realized that there was no sale imminent and slammed the door. A tiny little figure made it’s way from the relative darkness and plowed it’s way to the old man, squealing “DADDY!” cheerfully as the old man scooped up his daughter in his arms.
“Daddy, I was worried about you! I didn’t see you at the airport!”
“Then it’s a good thing I called! I don’t need to be chauffeured, Mr. Daioh always travels in the classiest of style!”
“So how’d you get here?”
“Taxicab. Oh crap... the meter‘s still running...”
The old man’s eyes opened wide, pulling out a wallet ripe with hundred dollar bills and barreling to the entrance as fast as his stubby little legs could carry him. Kikyo simply smiled her million yen smile to the living corpse girl.
“That’s my daddy.”
---
Evening found the three making plans at a local restaurant, one of the classic all-you-can-eat buffet institutions that made America great... and fat at the same time. Regardless that the three all ate like birds, “Yosh-Yosh” as Kikyo called him insisted on paying the full buffet price. A relative quiet in the barely-occupied Red Rock Restaurant meant the three were well-attended to. Drinks were refilled, rolls were restocked, and tips were given generously. Regardless of how hard Kikyo tried to include her, however, Ellis knew she was a third wheel on this night, and was on the verge of asking to leave before Yoshimitsu, plate full of french fries in hand, tapped the corpse girl on the shoulder.
“Watch this. Kikyo!”
The little prodigy giggled and opened her mouth wide as the old man grabbed a fry in one hand, and with an overhead hook shot, landed the fry right in Kikyo’s mouth. Ten in a row without a single brick, Yoshimitsu, seeming so different from the prominent captain of industry he was, did the moonwalk. Crotch grab and all.
It was all too much. It wasn’t that she was angry at seeing Kikyo and her father so happy together. It was almost jealousy. Almost a fury. How dare she flaunt a relationship that Ellis could never have with the abusive fucking bastard currently behind bars. But she knew the irrational anger at seeing a girl and her father so happy together was wrong, and that drove her even deeper. Blaming herself for these feelings. For this violent depression. For her father’s abuse. For tossing down a plate of sparsely dressed salad and blazing a path to the women’s room, locking herself in a stall and breaking down in tears. For leaving her Second Stage at home.
Not home, she reminded herself. In her apartment. There was no home for her on this side of the grave. Ever since she was thrown in a dumpster all those years ago and left to die, she truly felt her home on the other side of that invisible divide that everyone must eventually cross.
In reaching for the boxcutter she knew she’d left back in 26, her eyes went right to the exposed flesh of her arms. The violent scars and slashes of a lifetime of abuse and three years shackled to a wall in Jersey City. Scars all over her body, prominently on her face, which her hands trailed to, feeling the ridges and the slashes, the cuts and scars that would make even New Jack jealous.
No boxcutter. No switchblade. No scythe. No hope. No love No respect. No future. Words burning through Ellis’ mind as the corpse girl broke down in tears.
You’re all too human after all, Ellis, a voice from deep inside told her.
---
“I’ve ruined everyone’s good time. I broke down again, and I ruined everything.”
Ellis stared at the ceiling of the PT Cruiser she’d yet had a chance to drive, manned now by little Kikyo, Yoshimitsu riding passenger to allow Ellis to lie down.
“No, it’s alright. Really.”
So deep inside her fragile, bloodied mind was Ellis, she wasn’t sure which of the two the reply came from.
---
She almost went directly for her scythe the minute the three crossed the frame back into Apartment 26 and locked themselves in, deterred only by a hand on her shoulder and a calm voice.
“Miss Ellis... is there a place where we can talk alone?”
The living corpse sighed, staring down for a few seconds before looking over at her tiny manager.
“Kikyo... would you mind watching television out here? Your father and I are going to talk in my bedroom.”
With a tiny nod, a flicker of the HD-ready plasma screen (Another gift that Ellis had yet to fully toy with), and a welcome to American Idol, Kikyo more tried to block out what she had a feeling would be another emotional breakdown moreso than entertain herself as Yoshimitsu and Ellis locked the bedroom door behind them. All she could muster was a whispered prayer.
---
~Ellis
