elliot testino-lee [six]

You are slowly dissolving away. Your body floats weightless in the congealed blue liquid of a cryotank, a silouette dancing to the rythm of your mistakes. You are memorialised here between the other pods - look upon the cost of failure.

Ever since you were a little girl, people have been telling you that you're destined for great things. They told you that you had gifts that would better humanity and change the entire world around you as you shaped it to your own image. Limitless potential, incredible talent, a thirst for knowledge. Child prodigy.

A man's hand on your shoulder, a gentle smile behind dark sunglasses. You remember a cheque being passed to your father, and words beind exchanged too. He would come visit your parents every few weeks, bring you chocolate or toys each time.

In the weeks that followed, district officials signed off on scholarships, on education grants, moved you to a nicer house, made sure you had food and comfort and everything you ever needed to achieve your potential. It was all so fast, so sudden.

You suppose that made you arrogant. Entitled even. You're not sure that you care. You are you, and you're now living up to everything they said you would be. That's your goal, isn't it - to be the best of us? So why bother to bask in the opinions of the cruel and the jealous? It serves you no purpose but to sow unwanted doubt in your head.

"Hey, don'tcha know you're not s'posed to cry on your first day?"

When you're six years old you just want to be friends with everyone. You always had lots of friends, didn't you? Do you think they really liked you, or if they just wanted to hitch a ride on your success?

Eileen wasn't like that. She didn't care about any of that stuff. She said things that other people didn't. With a twitch of the mouth and a flick of cigarette ash, she'd often make you question the way you viewed things. No one else ever came close to doing that.

She did stupid shit, of course, that you never understood - like put all these toxins in her body, and let weird guys with strange agendas have sex with her. Guys she barely knew. And when you confronted her in some strangers back garden, prodded your finger aggressively at her chest, she told you exactly where to go.

"After what he did to you, you're just gonna go right back to him? Where's your god-damn self-pride? Even for you, that's really stupid."

You can't be responsible for how she feels, or what she does. She's her own person, and you have important work to do. Spending your life feeling guilty for how she has turned out will hold you back. Holding on to her is selfish. You deserve more.

She's never there for you when you need her to be, and damn it all if she's nothing but a crushing disappointment in everything she does, but through all that you just see a young girl crying in a classroom, and you're still brushing your thumb against her cheek. She brings out the best in you, she brings out the worst in you. You think that's why you love her.

She's lavender in the spring. She's the smell of rain after the dry season - a fresh start, again. Her gentle laugh is infectious, bringing out your ugly cackle. You worry about her when you go to bed. When you see rain out the window you know she's left her laundry on the line. She's your best friend.

She's your only friend.

"Why? Why?! Because you're too fucking spiteful to be happy for me!"

You regretted it the moment you said it. You can't come back from that, you don't think. You are truly sorry, but you'll never be able to express it adequately enough to her. Loathing is what you've become now, driven by what's ahead - always ahead. The mission, the job that you were born to do. That's all there is, now that you've lost her.

Your sync rate has been declining. You're getting sloppy. The muttations converge on you, and you're just that bit slower than usual. You're able to dispatch a few with a sharp thrust of your arm, your body twitching in the stasis of your cryotank whilst the mechsuit fights off the creatures some two-hundred miles away, its limbs responding to your neurons firing.

You remember her face when you broke her heart, and the mech slips.

The mutts gain on you, their claws dig into the suit. You call mayday, following protocol. They don't hear you properly. You've lost control. You're not big, you're not clever, you're no child prodigy. You're just a scared little girl in a suit of metal, and you failed.

And the whole world goes dark.

You go under.

And under.

And under.