Two young girls explore a shattered world, filled with sound: a past to be uncovered...
Each awakens in this blank, ruin-dotted world to discover that she is equally blank, remembering nothing of what came before.
And then they make a second discove...
Between her teeth, the flat, hard surfaces feel—they FEEL right, and comfortable.
The sharp and jagged edge tickles her tongue.
A memory of loss: of desperation, failure, and ultimately anguish. These aren't the words she'd use... She would describe this memory as "sad", herself. In anticipation, her lips tug upward with a giddiness she cannot hide.
She already knows—this will be savory.
Now, she bites into the glass.
"Ahh," utters the white and black (and orange, and green), bat-like creature at her right. "Well, that's fine."
This is Fans.
"Were you hungry?" asks the black and white (and green, and orange), bat-like creature at her left. "Tell us when you are!"
This is Drem.
"Mmm!" she moans with glee, holding her cheek. The glass has broken between her teeth. The shards and dust coat her tongue. It feels warm. It tastes like a fine dinner: like meat, with flowing, salt-kissed juices.
But her vocabulary is, again, somewhat limited. All she has to say to describe the taste, as a bit of saliva drops from the corner of her mouth, is "Delicious!"
"That's great, Ayu!" Fans exclaims, flapping its wings excitedly.
"It's yummy!" she declares before swallowing the remaining fragments.
Drem hovers behind her with some curiosity. "Huh, 'yummy'." It repeats. "What sort of 'yummy', Ayu?"
"Like... steak!" With this stated, she begins to march forward, and her "bat" familiars follow.
"What does steak taste like?"
"Oh, Drem..." she sighs, with the same intonation that she might use for a lost child. "You're so dumb!"
"I just don't know what steak tastes like," Drem asserts. "Like what?" it asks.
"Like meat!" she declares, and—spotting something unusual—she plucks a shining piece of glass from the air.
"So, salty?" asks Drem.
"And yummy!" she reminds it, popping the new glass between her lips. It is a memory of celebration: accomplishment, new life, and mirth. She would call it "happy".
And Fans announces, "Yeah! Having something sweet after something salty is common sense!"
"See? Fans is smarter than you, Drem," she says, laughing once through her nose.
"I was going to say that," says Drem. "I knew that, and I was going to say it."
Sucking on her new glass, she absently answers "Uh-huh" and begins to hum, swinging her arms to her chosen time. The glass tastes and feels like sugar.
A world of white stretches out before them. Behind them, the land is filled with ruins. Before and behind are the same—
And everywhere, there is glass.
Everywhere, a waiting meal.
She splits the memory apart with her molars. Its history dies.
The world is full of food, and ever since she awakened, she has been ceaselessly hungry.
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They never tire: not her, nor her bats.
Drem sits on her head and beats its wings into her face. Fans is flying high, and shouting about crowds—
"Crowds of... white!" the familiar cries. "White glass, Ayu!"
"Sweets?" Ayu asks through the still-beating wings. As it continues to thump her mouth and nose, her second bat enunciates:
"Go. To. The. Right!"
Fans adds, "Yeah! The right!"
"More sweets?" Ayu asks once more. "More sweets..." she groans as her shoulders sink. Wings continue to strike her forehead softly. "You already know I like it more with some, y'know... That I like VARIETY more, guys..."
"That's not how it works," Fans tells her.
And she asks, "It's not how 'what' works?"
Finally, Drem lifts from her head.
"Ayu," it addresses her, flapping now in front of her face rather than into it, "aren't you hungry?"
"I'm always hungry," she replies. And, she rolls her eyes, saying, "Come on, Drem."
"Then it's better if you have a big meal!" Drem cries, beating its wings enthusiastically. She recognizes the motions, slouches slowly, and her gaze begins to drift. "There's a lot of gla—... if you ea—... Have a better... That's... And..."
She spots a menagerie of shards on a path between two houses from two cultures. She can tell at a glance that memories of pleasures and memories of pains await her there. She glances at Drem, then starts wandering toward the path.
"Mm-hmm?" she replies, hearing the upward inflection of a question from her more pestering bat.
"That's right!" it shouts. "So—"
She continues to walk, and soon finds herself along the path proper, queer glass floating overhead. She sees old days in the reflections. Her stomach growls.
And she grabs an opposing pair.
With light in one hand, and conflict in the other, Ayu brings both pieces of glass toward her mouth... and chomps down.
The mixture is at once a delight.
"Aaah... there you go again," Drem sighs, finally realizing that it has lost her attention.
"Wrong, wrong, wrong," bemoans her bat Fans. "It's not HERE that's a problem, it's the... The big mess we were telling you to...! Hahhh..." It sighs. It relents. And, it admits: "At least she looks happy."
"Well," Drem begins, pausing a little while before it says, "yes. At least she looks happy."
It is only the truth: these are two tastes that taste great together. It is a rare thing to find them side by side, and so she always feels coaxed by the opportunity. What this is is a treasure trove. Now, her smile is interminable.
But after, her bats will beckon her again. Next time, she will listen. Like glass between her teeth, she finds that hearing them, sometimes, feels altogether "correct". And that correctness is satisfying. She is driven by satisfaction—she acts to the end of satiation. It is a simple existence, but does existence need to be anything more?
Ultimately, if listening might let her be sated...
And if silence will sate her too, now and then...
Then her ears will be open, and her tongue will, for a time, be still.
They lose sight of the swarm of sweets, but soon find themselves at something wide, dark, and most probably very delicious.
Ayu, Fans, and Drem stand at a fractured ledge leering above a pit of black glass, which swirls, churns, and kills light. Its pieces scrape against one another, and the sound produced is reminiscent of a wail. Those confined memories of ends and falls seem to be screaming in agony. Ayu looks upon it all—in a word—curiously. The world feels odd.
"Ayu," says Drem, causing her to glance its way. "Fly into it," the bat bids.
She answers, "'Kay," and she steps from the ledge.
With her arms held out, her descent slows immediately. Glass whips around her carelessly, unbidden and unrepelled. She holds her hand out, and the vortex ceases. She calls the shards to her hand.
And so, she begins to eat.
"Good, Ayu."
"Great, Ayu!"
She smiles. She frowns.
Truly, the hunger never fades.
The shards, the fragments, the dust—they all seem to vanish into nothing when she gulps them down.
It is for that reason she values taste. Cracking glass between her teeth accomplishes little else. In fact, what she thinks is a stomach often merely feels like a void she is continually compelled to feed.
For the feeling. For the ache. And, of course, for her waiting tongue. She bites, she feasts, and light slowly returns.
Her curiosity fades, and the odd sensation of the world along with it. In little time, the vortex is gone, and she is running her tongue along the edge of her teeth.
Satisfied.
She grins brightly.
"That was great!" she shouts.
"Yeah!" Fans agrees.
"It looked delicious," Drem affirms.
She does not hate her bats. They want her to smile, and she knows that.
And they know her stomach is always empty.
She lands on the earth and frolics ahead. They chat about colors. They chat about flight, and food.
This is the world to them, and this is why they are here.
"What's that?" Drem speaks up suddenly.
"Oh... What is it?" Fans adds, looking to where its fellow familiar is staring.
Ayu lifts her gaze to the skies.
Above, a shard of glass, entirely alone, floats still and steady in the air. It shifts that air. Its reflection is unreadable.
"Eat that, Ayu," says Fans.
"Go eat it," says Drem.
And easily, Ayu agrees with a strong and cheerful nod. Her bats take flight, and she does too. With a smile, she faces the aberrant glass.
"Who knows?" she says as they approach. "Maybe it'll fill me up."
