Artificial Tears

Chapter 42

"Edith." System asks quietly, with a voice that's strangely emotional: "Edith, you're not like him."

How can you be so sure?

System hesitates for a moment, but then finally answers: "You're a good person."

How can you be so sure? I'm not a 'person', after all.

I'm a machine.

I was made as an experiment, isn't that the same as him?

"Edith, you aren't."

You're wrong.

"Would he try to save a crying child?"

I only did because my personality is programmed to be like that.

"Fuck, why the hell am I supposed to make you change your mind?! You've always been so damn stubborn."

With a rather desperate look across his face, Liam starts trying to carry the killer himself.

The killer that took so many lives.

They look alike, don't they? Edith thinks to herself.

It's clear as day that Liam knows this monster.

With a simple glance Edith can see the gloved hands slash through the meat of her friends.

"---"

Hearing his breath, reminds her of his awful laughing.

"E---"

The slashing of throats is fresh in her mind.

"Ed---"

The sound of shattering bones haunts her ears.

"Edi---"

The agonizing screams that would hurt her ears and her weary mind.

"Edit---"

The feeling of someone following her every step she took.

"Edith, it's okay."

For a second the entire place turns white.

Edith looks around to find herself in System's room.

The mosaic floor greets her, almost as if calling for her.

"S-system?" The girl asks.

"No." A voice that sounds both familiar and unfamiliar sounds behind her.

It's her own, or perhaps that of another.

Edith slowly turns around.

Behind her and now in front of her stands almost a perfect copy of her, a copy that isn't her at all.

"Who are you?"

It's the person of whom she is a copy.

The other girl smiles kindly, almost motherly.

"I'm the one you have been based on."

Esther.

She knows her name, yet she doesn't know her at all.

Edith looks down at her dirtied hands.

"Why did you make me?"

Esther slowly takes a step closer.