Was that… the automaton breathing?
When they emerged into the light emitted by countless candelabras, she saw a radically transformed Denzel.
He wore a long coat reaching down to his heels. His curly hair had been straightened and backcombed. Heavy boots in the style of grinders adorned his feet, and his face had acquired a deathly pallor thanks to many layers of powder. And those lined eyes…
— Prototype: "Young Brian Molko Before a Concert" completed, — The Lieutenant reported.
Stepping up to the mirror, Denzel ran a hand through the strands cascading neatly over his shoulders. Then he shared a thought:
— Doesn't this look a bit overdone and pompous to you?
SeaAsia let out a breath of delight.
— Classics never go out of place. It suits you perfectly.
— My thanks. — Denzel pressed his palms together and bowed his head slightly. — You're very kind to me.
— And how do I look?!
— Same. — Lieutenant and the "young Brian Molko" replied in unison.
— Meaning?!
— Why change perfection? — the young man said, and even the automaton, finally assembled, froze as if agreeing.
She blushed so hard she didn't know what to do with herself. The girl stammered again, shifting the focus back to her companion:
— Why don't you like yourself?
— Because I don't feel like myself. Not in this place, not in this image. I wanted to have fun, but it backfired. I saw mockery, distortion — not the person I'd hoped to see.
— Sir, that's exactly what my last clients told me when I assured them the undercut and top knot were back in style. They argued and cursed. — Lieutenant shared touchingly.
The pink began to irritate first her suspicious nature, then SeaAsia herself, who always followed that whisper. And compassion switched on. She didn't want to see her companion upset. Her hand slid into her jeans pocket and closed around the Sphere.
An intuition — or something else — made her do it.
Maybe it was simply that she wanted this endless day to remain just as wonderful, without letting its turquoise (her favorite color) fade into half-tones and shadows. And that Denzel would see and feel it with her...
"Okay, now I want to break into the narration myself and speak directly to you, dear alt-girl. Happy now? Enough emotion?
Alright, listen.
I'll try to stay friends with stereotypes after breaking up with them, and I won't imagine you sad, with pink-blue hair, a septum piercing, complicated father issues, taking antidepressants since conception, and the only creature guiding you to other worlds being your cat, who validates your social anxiety.
So give me the kind of review that will differ slightly from the one I expect to hear.
Alt-girl: 'I need more Depth… to plunge into the inner world of the characters and understand that—'
Voice: 'Ugh, screw off! Oh sorry, I'm not like that… I'm exactly like you. Please, let's go to a poetry reading together and drink coffee from a cup we personally recycle from the plastic-unsafe bones of a cyclops. Love you.'
SeaAsia traced the surface of the stone with her fingertips, and it pulsed, as if humming a faint melody. The space shrank, expanded, and for a moment she was crushed by a weight, likely akin to the pressure of the ocean depths, possessing the same property.
When the murkiness in her eyes and the trailing bubbles dissolved, she found herself standing amid the ruins of children's games. She held Denzel by the shoulder, and he did the same.
They stood frozen, staring at the ferris wheel spinning in an invisible wind.
Someone must have flicked a switch in the sky; the place reclaimed its space from the darkness and glowed the way only swamp-side ghost mushrooms can glow.
No neon, no twinkling garlands or festive bulbs.
Every object in this fun park emitted its own inner light, as if that were the natural order of things.