Contractor

II: Castle

On a dais in an empty room I find myself, reading this printed lie: "—evanescent fame, and transient riches. Phoebe shunned all those like who she had been before her binding agreement, failing to notice the angels of her own kind for the pulse of flashbulbs..."

Yes indeed, I have thrown away my life for my coveted "fifteen minutes of fame." I am only one of many girls who chose the same fate, sealing their souls into her Veil for an easy fulfillment to their own greed.

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Another tedious day awaits me in "Kurai Thanos, Contractor's" castle as I anticipate my doom as her next "meal." In order to live forever, she feeds off the youth of ungrateful girls like me who are weak and foolish enough to sign her indenture of promised fame and beauty.

I reside in an empty chamber, high in a tower with no doors and no windows. Since I am no longer in my own world, I need no sustenance. I could sleep all day if I wanted, or I could run without fatigue. Searching for other girls, I exit my chamber and open every door in my tower. The first few doors I come to are unresponsive. Growing impatient as was my first undoing, I push at the next door, finding it unlocked. This door reveals a chamber blank as my own, but with the hollow body of a soulless girl. I can tell that she was once pretty, but in death her exquisite lineaments began to fade, and fade they would until she is just as ugly outside as her heart always was.

I shut the door and move on. The next girl has decayed even more than the previous one, to the point where she is no longer unattractive but simply rotting. I am lucky that I now neither sense nor feel nothing physically since my body is only a vessel for my youth, this essence Kurai Thanos lost long ago and craves so ferociously. Otherwise I would have already vomited in slimy colors puddling on the ground, just like I had done countless times as a teen wannabe.

My middle school days were full of nothings. In order to lose my childhood shame—the chubbiness I no longer saw on my lip-glossed and spray-tanned idols—I let only the slightest scrap of food pass my Chapsticked lips. But I longed to nourish myself, and after two years I began to drown my ugly in everything that went into my revolting mouth. Then the day after I signed the Contract and went under the Veil, I saw one particularly striking senior girl slip into an open stall and purge herself of the life-fuel she found toxic. Both mesmerized and hypnotized by the horror of the spectacle, I had gaped at my idol, assuming this was where Hollywood girls found their beauty; after all, I had just traded myself to be a star shining even brighter than her. I threw up in disgust. But soon after I would follow in her footsteps, inducing myself to vomit nearly everything I consumed.

Slamming the door to rid my thoughts of what I have just seen, I continue my search. Finally a girl who calls herself Matilda Cato answers my knocks. "You all imbecile," she condemns, "obsess with being popular. You only want to be rich and famous and pretty. So stupid. I dress as boy and fight in China army, want to provide for poor family hundred year ago and Kurai Thanos offer me to sign name in blood. She say I will be officer and my family come live in city with me. She say we become rich enough for warm house and silk robe and lotus cake. So I come here and she eat stupid girl. Like you."

I feel nothing but insulted. "I regret it now! It wasn't worth it! I wish I could be anywhere else."

Matilda shakes her head violently, short dark hair creating a wheel around her head. "No. You have ugly heart. More ugly than face, before she see you. You still have ugly heart, cannot see how blind you were to all people who love you."

I remember a quiet, unassuming Asian girl who had always managed to appear in the corner of my eye. Indeed it was Matilda who had been watching me my whole life. She had asked me why I strived to be one of those girls, dancing damsels with perfect princes, when I could be happy as myself. "But you can't get out of here."

"I am not like other girls. I go back and forth, but cannot stay long because Contractor want to eat me. I know she will come for you but you never listen. Not to me, not to Yuuta Raymond."

"Who is he?"

"He ask you to prom. He hear you in child's choir and want you to sing in his band. He want to be rock star, but too shy, so Kurai Thanos come for him too. But he say no and tell her he would rather play music and nobody know him than sell his soul to be famous. So he know everything and try to tell you, but you never listen. He is in love with you. He think you are special and do not want her to eat you."

So this was the unkempt boy who had dared to ask me to prom. He had gone by a different name when I knew him, something along the lines of Jack Riley. Feeling a seed of hope begin to sprout, I wonder, "Will I ever get out?"

Matilda laughs. "I can save other people. But you choose Contract, you stuck. Either you die and rot, or Kurai Thanos eat you."

The image of the decayed girl floods me with a wave of nausea, and I am too busy gagging and retching to notice that Matilda has vanished.

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I return to my chamber and lie there for an indefinite while. When the door finally opens, however, I am not greeted by a sharp-tongued spy and introverted metal-head, but an empty black cloak. It leads me through Kurai Thanos's realm, a castle with towers like mine surrounded by a patchwork wall like the Great Wall of China, solid with the occasional lump of her victims' drained "bodies." On the dais where I read aloud my judgment to an empty theater I find myself again, but this time there is a single spectator: Kurai Thanos, universal Contractor. She extends her hand.

This time the fangs are real, and I feel a pull as the cord connecting me to my vessel is severed.

I wish Matilda and Yuuta success in saving others from my fate. I wish what is left of Matilda's family everything she wanted them to have; I wish Yuuta the true success that can only come from never compromising one's integrity. The feeling of triumph that comes from the heart.

I lie on the dais and let Kurai Thanos suck me dry.