Experiment

Spirit's Epiphany

It's my birthday soon. Nearly a teenager. It doesn't feel any different than being a child, I don't know why I thought it would. I have my DWMA diploma as an EAT student already, and me and Spirit have been working on getting him to become a death scythe (we've caught seventy-eight corrupted souls!). Ah, Spirit. He's aged too. He's so old! I stand on our balcony with a cigarette in my lips, inhaling the stinging smoke and savouring the taste as it rushes down my young throat. Some people abhor the taste of smoke: I cherish it. I wish they made chewing-gun that tasted like cigarettes. I feel like a lot of people would quit chewing tobacco and smoking if they did. Hey, I could invent that and make millions!

My eyes narrow as I hear the lazy and drunken footsteps approach the door. The high-pitched laughing of that girl! The girl who stole my experiment on one too many an occasion. I think she's dating Spirit, but I can't be sure. He doesn't tell me anything anymore. I used to be his confidant. Now...? I'm a burden. A lackie. Someone who tags along even though they aren't welcome. I know I'm not welcome. But I want Spirit. I'd go as far as to say that I love him! So I'll overstay my welcome as much as I fucking want. Anyway, the door opens and Spirit and the girl stumble in, spilling the alcohol on the carpet. It shoots out from their bottle, the brown liquid staining the immaculate white rug. I twitch my eye, fighting the white nose in my head.

"Hey!" I pout. "You're cleaning that up!"

"Shut up," Spirit sneers and then forms a smirk, amused I even said anything, amused at my very existence. "You're just a little kid!"

I know that he's drunk but he can't be that drunk. Little kid? Hah! If only he knew what I have been doing do to him all this time in that underground's chasm of dissection. Half his organs aren't even his. Such a naive teen oblivious to everything I do to him. I should be able to brush off his comments. But I can't, for I hate that. I hate being called a child. I hate being patronised and spoken to in such a condescending tone like I don't even understand what's going on. I am a scientist. So what if I'm young? I want to snarl at him, to attack him. My head screams at me, the white noise getting louder and louder and louder, banging on the walls and trying to make my skull explode. An aneurysm would be bliss right now. But I resist. I need to wait. I want to experiment. I can't kill Spirit. And I can't kill that girl...yet. 

I call the girl's friend to take her back to her dorm, Spirit having given me her number a few weeks ago, because he thought we'd 'get along' since she is so quiet. Like me, once the friend arrives she looks at the girl disappointedly with her one eye (the other is behind an eyepatch, cool!) and she sighs in exasperation and rubs her forehead in her palms. She acts a little like me, I notice. But more sane. And she's cute. I manage a smile, the first time I've genuinely smiled in a long time. The girl has a nice grey eye like mine, no makeup and she looks like Spirit. Is she beautiful? I think so. I don't know what beautiful is, but I guess to me it's Spirit and therefore this girl must be too since she looks like him.

"Hi, I'm Marie," she smiles. Her smile is so small and pure. I want to dissect it. I recognise her from my science classes. Is she a scientist like me?

"Stein," I nod.

"You're the one with the Kishin's madness?" She asks, then covers her mouth and stares at me with wild, scared eyes. "I'm so sorry, I-"

"It's fine," I dismiss. "I know what people say about me. Yes, I'm the one with the madness. There's no reason to be scared of me," Unless you value your insides.

"I wasn't scared," Marie assures, and I believe her. "I gotta get her home. See you around!" She drags the comatose girl from my room, trying to wave goodbye to me but failing miserably. Her hands are so small and delicate. I chuckle a little and mimic her awful wave, to which she pouts at me.

Once she is gone, my eyes sharpen. My breath hitches. I have Spirit all to myself. And he's drunk. He's mine. He is mine to experiment on and use as I wish. I carry him, easier than I normally do, down to my little basement, the room all of this happens in. And I smile coldly, cruelly as I drop Spirit onto the hard table with a clang I've never been able to drop him before tonight. I'm always too scared he'll wake up. But he's drunk, I can afford to be a little careless.

I begin my experiment. The objective is to replace his heart valve with a plastic tube, an operation commonly performed on patients with heart disease. It will be stronger than his own heart valve anyway, he should be thanking me. So I get to work and begin to cut into his chest. The experiment goes well, and I successfully replace his heart valve. I was going to use a pig's valve, but that would get weak in ten years, and people would go snooping inside his body and find it. Then I'd be in trouble with Death. So instead I use a plastic one, inserting it through a vein in his wrist. Most doctors would need so much equipment to do this. I don't.

Just as I stitch the last thread I hear a stirring. I stop, glancing around frenetically but it seems I'm still alone. Pipes maybe, or rats? I sigh in relief, but hold my breath again as I hear metal cranking beneath me. I stare at the metal table below me, Sprit lying there so beautifully like a corpse. Except for his eyes. I see them...they're...open....SHIT! They're open!

"S-Stein?!" Spirit gasps in disbelief wriggling on the table, looking down in horror and recognition at his scars, the ones he never paid any mind to before but now couldn't get his mind off of. I freeze, not knowing what's about to happen next. Am I going to be arrested, killed? Will I never see my beauty experiment again? Spirit just looks at me before screaming.

"Get the fuck away from me you...you freak!" He screeches loud enough for the ceiling to crack, and I worry for a second that the walls are going to collapse. He runs out the room and I sink against the bed, feeling my hands thread through my own hair, tugging it in anguish. What the heck have I done?!

I could have fractured our relationship forever. Driven whatever kinship we had into a suicidal dive bomb. I stare between my legs at the carpet by suddenly it looks foreign. Something I can't remember or comprehend. And tears roll down my cheeks.

Crying. What an odd thing to do, in my position. I've suffered and overcome to much pain, so much rejection and hatred bubbling in my soul. But the thought of, just the possibility of losing whatever relationship I have with Spirit makes me cry.

I've become so weak.