Despite the doctor's explicit order to "go home and take a detox night", Jenna was sitting in the recording room with bulky headphones slipped over her ears and a takeout container of chicken and broccoli in hand. Splitting the chopsticks provided in the bright red wrapper, she opened the container and got out her notepad, flipping to a new page and clicking her pen three times, checking the ink on the corner as she wrote the standard header: her name, the time, screen number, subject number, and clip. In slanted and curvy letters bleeding slightly from the freshness of the gel, Jenna wrote out hers: Jenna Black, 2232, 0701, 21, 335109. Assuming this wasn't the first time this clip had been previewed, she wrote in smaller letters beneath "SECOND(?) OBSERVATION". Deftly scooping broccoli into her mouth with the wooden utensils, she adjusted the volume and looked at the empty page, listening for now.
The soft ping of a cellphone receiving a text message continuously repeated in Jenna's ears. The subject was seemingly texting, slouched over his phone and staring intensely at the illuminated screen; he was so focused on the messages she could practically feel his urgency through the screen dividing recording and reality. Jenna skimmed over the texts, finding what she could only dub as the frantic questioning between lovers, hurriedly trying to find time to meet. She wrote that down. Jenna had to have known this could happen; her grandpa warned her that some things could get "mildly" embarrassing, especially since she'd basically been downloaded into 21's brain ("a computer addition designed to leave a major impact on the brain chemistry of the subject to alter their current simulated reality"). Silence followed and 21 kept looking up at the door. From his floral surroundings, Jenna could tell he was in a hotel room but he was dressed rather oddly for a hotel, in a black button up and matching pants and very bright red socks, which she found to be an extremely amusing fashion choice. When the knock he must have been waiting for sounded, 21 jumped to his feet from his position on the small sofa to answer it. Jenna, who'd been poking through the contents of her meal during the silence and occasionally jotted down observations, stuffed a chunk of broccoli into her mouth before looking up. The chopsticks hadn't quite left her mouth but were frozen there when she saw herself. Her first thought was, Well damn I'm good looking, followed closely by, Why am I dressed like that? The scientist began to correct these thoughts, reminding her that this wasn't really her. This was a string of code meant to accurately sound and look like her, and act in some ways. This Jenna wore a white dress, mid-thigh, made of a soft and almost lacy material. She wore boots that were tightly laced with reasonable heels, so they were of approximate equal height.
"You came." 21 quietly murmured to this Jenna, gently touching the back of his hand to her cheek. She tilted her head to feel his caress, eyes blinking as she nodded. Jenna jotted this down – the gentle behavior and the actions that differentiated greatly from previous ones displayed before her "addition". His Jenna looked up, meeting and holding his gaze before something changed in their timid expressions. Something much stronger, deeper, and uncontrollable; something controlled by temptation and tempted by control. 21 collided his lips against hers and they kissed like their lips were fighting at war to see who could do it the hardest and the longest. They moved out of the door way and she kicked the door closed, tangling her hands at the back of his neck.
This must have been the embarrassing stuff Dr. Black had meant. Nonetheless, Jenna kept at it professionally; trying not to dribble some MSG-heavy sauce onto her notes and eyes flitting back and forth between her handwriting and another version of herself tangled in a heated kiss with someone under comatose. The black button up was hastily unbuttoned, discarded and thrown to the floor; the fancy boots unlaced, tugged, and pried off. She ran her finger across the ink on his skin, tracing the designs. Jenna, unknowingly, leaned in as she watched, halfway done with the takeout container. She still couldn't shake off that weird feeling, seeing herself here, heavily breathing and tangling and kissing and whispering with someone that she'd never talked to in real life. They moved, almost floated, to the bed and locked hands tightly, gripping one another as if for dear life. Foreheads touching as they sat in a momentary silence, everything slowed to a still in the midst of their heated moment. Jenna took note of that; they were thinking...and they were not. Acting on a gut urge based off of chemical imbalances but just taking a moment to accept the beauty of their sins. And then it continued, just like that, but in complete utter silence as she ran her finger over the buckle of his pants and he buried his nose in her shoulder and kissed her. Although it churned some sort of discomfort and weirdness in the pit of her stomach, Jenna kept a perfect mask of collective calmness as movements beneath the white sheets occasionally revealed the slightest slivers of human anatomy. To see her knuckles knead the mattress as their breaths met in syncopated heaves. Jotting down notes and what she could understand of sweet-nothings being exchanged, Jenna tried to hold back the heat crawling up her neck and tickling her cheeks.
Jenna was completely frozen to the spot until she was tapped on the shoulder. Unfortunately, it was also the worst time. Slight escalations in tension had mounted, and just as Jenna slid off her headphones a rather unholy loud noise came from the headphones, which Jenna tried to cover up as she, obviously embarrassed and flustered for being caught at such a moment, met the tired eyes of one of the janitors.
"Miss Black, it's almost 12 AM. Are you going to stay long?" The janitor, a rather old woman named Mels who Jenna had fond memories of as a child (The woman used to show her around the building and pick her up and show her the sights and machines that Jenna was too short to see). Now her strong, mocha-colored arms had lost that muscle tone of youth, and the only weight she carried was a mop and the worn expression of someone who'd just seen too much in life.
"Yes, I am." Jenna breathlessly answered, still in disbelief that she was as unlucky as to have, essentially, a mother figure, walk in on her like that. Now she had the slightest clue what it was like when she heard men talk about the first time their mothers found their special magazines and CDs. Mels seemed to not have noticed the moan or the content on the screen, or was just too exhausted to point it out.
"Alright, Miss. Don't stay here too long. This place just does somethin' to you. Kills your head and your heart. Burdens you until you feel nothing but guilt; you'll find you've just got a heavy, dirty soul. Wouldn't want your pretty heart and smart head to suffer any troubles." Mels warned.
"I'll find something to save my 'heavy dirty soul' if need be. For now, I have work to do." Jenna cleared her throat. Mels was already halfway out the door, slightly disappointed that the little girl she'd once used to give red lollipops because she had been well behaved was now all grown up and giving her the orders.
"Some nice work too; don't have too much fun. You're not getting paid for that overtime."
Jenna's blushing only maddeningly increased and she sat down, slipping the headphones on and chewing her lip. The scene, fortunately, was over, but the two lay tangled in the sheets with his arms around her and her head on his chest. This Jenna was madly in love with 21 ("He's just irresistible," the real one muttered sarcastically) and he practically worshiped her. He watched her drift off to sleep and continued watching late into the night, finding peace in the way she breathed and held onto him. Everything about them was beautiful and made Jenna almost envious that this reality was so...perfect. If love could ever be as easy to understand as it was in this simulation, maybe the world wouldn't be such a terrible place. But Jenna knew that reality and simulation were two completely different universes. Isle, this terrible and awful city she called home, was a place where the classes butted heads, where crime staggered at frightening levels, secrets were made and told, lies were rattled about, evil lurked in every corner, and love was bought in back alleys. Jenna knew that the sector she lived in, Hightown, where everything was beautiful and clean and rich, was a lie. That wasn't the real Isle; the city's black heart beat in the streets of the slums and she pulsed with the nightmares that the rich told their children about at night. Only people like Jenna's grandfather pulled the strings to the puppets and invented characters whose bloodthirst lead to more wrong and death being done. Characters, for example, like a madman in a red beanie and charcoal hands looking for a woman in a white dress and his best friend who knew and hid more than he ever dare revealed.
a/n: Push me off a cliff and I'll probably thank you because this chapter.
Also Josh didn't do it so stfu and back away, merci beaucoup (:
psa kids: don't sext on snapchat and talk to strangers obviously pretending to be someone they're not and you probably won't get raped!!11!!! And it's only probably even then because THIS WORLD IS SHIT :DDDDD
Also this was the most awkward thing I've ever had to write for wattpad ever. EVER. Half of this was written with my parents hovering around me now and then EEK. But seriously I'd be jelly in Jenna's position having to watch that so I'm out, potatoes.
also I got sick on vacation but I'm back AYYY. Deds to blurryphase for the sweetest imagines for our sweetest boys and also I love them (she's a cutie patootie and I 10934344109% support her stuff). I may potentially publish a short story soon, most of which was written during post-game-depression in a moment of internal tears (I'm a machine I don't cry), sickness, and sleepiness about the quest Mine Massacre in DA2????
DONE NOW ADIOS
YOU ARE READING
project vessel (twenty one pilots)
Fanfictionwhen he was young (too young to remember), tyler was pried from his family by the government to participate in experiments known to the world as "project vessel". it failed, and he was returned to society as an outcast. with his "mentor", josh, tyle...
