A field? A temple? A path? A city? A cloud? Where was she?
Elise turned and looked around. She had never been there before. The environment seemed like an unusual representation of the mystical lands described in holy books, where the fruits and vegetables grew bountifully and animals ran about in complete freedom and happiness.
Dream was gone. She was no longer within the safety of the Crate or the womb of Dream's voices. There was no one to talk to here, only plants and animals. She couldn't see beyond the small hills all around her. Yet, she didn't want to leave the park bench on which she was sitting. Wasn't she standing up just a second ago?
Or was it a minute ago? She had forgotten all about time.
She looked around again. The scene had changed. The grass was even more green, and instead of wild animals, she saw a couple of cows and a golden retriever in a nearby field. A young farmer was playing fetch with the dog. Elise didn't have the idea to say hello. Her mind felt blank and full at the same time. Whenever her head turned, it spun, like a man too drunk to distinguish fact from fantasy.
She felt light, light as a feather. Smiling, she floated, she flew, she went all around the park bench and hovered over it in a spread-eagle position, protected by the shade of the trimmed maple trees there. Under the first branches was a cedar fence, blocking the view there. As far as her will was concerned, she wasn't able to go any higher than this. Resigned to her low level position, she found it easier to just stay feet on the ground.
In the distance, a temple stood on the far hill that had not been there a second ago. In the corner of her eye, she saw the farmer throw two tennis balls in opposite directions, and the dog split in two copies to chase them both, and she thought it was perfectly normal.
She sat on the park bench. It had changed from comfortable wood to green painted iron. She looked to her right and noticed a shape clothed in white and covered by green.
"Shrike!"
She tried to hug her, but her hands stopped all of a sudden, somehow the victim of an unspoken taboo. Without realizing it, Elise withdrew and looked at the figure. It was human.
"You've changed..."
Her last syllable was almost unhearable. She didn't recognize Shrike after all. The form looked like a fallen angel, its wings missing and its robe stained by past deeds. Her face was completely hidden behind her shimmering bright green hair. Her head was hung. The hair formed a protective wall between her and the android.
Two hands touched. Elise looked down and noticed a white human hand over hers.
"You're dreaming, Elise." Shrike said.
"How do you know?"
"I know. I'm part of your dream. I saw it from the outside."
The android stared at her old friend but didn't dare move closer. "What are you...?"
"I'm dead, Elise."
"Huh?! No, that's not true! I can feel you! I know you're alive somewhere!"
"No. My body is dead, even though it appears to be moving. I was expelled from it a long time ago. Then, I got thrown around a bit in cyberspace and then finally got deleted. That was my death."
Elise looked forward and reached to put a hand on Shrike's ghostly shoulder. However, her head was now locked into place. Now that she was touching her old idol, she couldn't look at it at the same time.
"Hey Shrike..." She said with the voice of a little child. "What does it feel like... to die, for an android?"
"For me, it was horrible. But for someone like you, it's nothing impressive. You just get sent to some other reality and wait to reincarnate, if you feel like it. I'm not sure how things operate. I'm really confused. I haven't spoken to anyone. Didn't have the guts for it."
"The guts?!"
"I hate myself, Elise. I hate myself for all the things I have done and that I couldn't justify then. I hate myself for killing people who didn't have anything to do with me. I fucked up on my life."
"You fucked up?!"
"Yeah. I fucked up bad. I was born shit, I was shit, and I died shit. Elise, can you look at me?"
"Look at you?!"
"Yeah. Please look at me. Hug me. You're safe here. Nothing can hurt you in a dream. Come on, hug me Elise. Please..."
"Oh Shrike!!"
She fell into the ghost's arms and cried. Her hands went around and felt every inch of Shrike's body. She looked foreign to her, so different than the android Elise was used to... but it didn't matter now. She knew it was Shrike. Through her clouded mind, through her impaired judgment, she was certain that person was Shrike, just as she was certain a dog could simply split in two to chase after two tennis balls. She didn't realize it.
"Look at yourself, Elise."
The android turned her head and stared at the ground. There lay a mirror. Peeking at the reflection, she saw a beautiful young woman, with black and pink hair, a pair of warm pink eyes and smooth sand-colored skin. She wore a pink arrangement composed of a tight tank top piece and a rippled skirt. Her long legs ended in cute, perfect feet. She moved her own feet, and the reflection moved its own. Her gaze went up her own body, as she realized her legs had changed color. Touching her face, not believing it, she looked at her hands, her smooth human hands.
"It's beautiful, isn't it?" Shrike continued. "Don't expect to come anywhere close to that."
"NO!"
"Don't worry Elise. Though you always become more human, you will stay an android. Appreciate your gifts and make good use of them, because I think they will be useful soon. And please, do this for me okay? Take pride in yourself. Take pride in the fact that you're an android. There will come one day where you will appreciate it more than anything else in the world. Okay?"
Elise gulped. "Okay..."
Shrike nodded slowly. "That's good. I don't know if I wanna come back to earth anymore. I'm too afraid I'll screw up again."
"No! Please, give me a sign of life, okay? I'll be so happy if you could be alive again!"
"I'll try... On one condition."
Elise's eyes brightened. "Anything!"
"My body is hidden somewhere and going crazy. Free it and let it go."
"...How come?"
Shrike smiled, though Elise couldn't see it. "I want to confront this haunting one last time. If I succeed, I will be at peace and will consider myself a new and better person. If I fail, I will kill myself and take my sorry state along with me."
"Kill yourself?"
"Yeah... I know how to kill myself. Not as a body, but as a person. It's an unspoken rule here that I should never speak of that. But, I'm thinking the unthinkable... as always."
Elise's eyes filled up with tears again. "You mean you could die... forever?"
"Yeah. I know how to kill myself and never come back."
"You won't do that! Please tell me you'll never do that! There's people out there who love you way too much to let you do that!"
"I doubt it."
No one said anything for a while. The farmer and his pets had disappeared. The temple on the hill was gone. The fields had turned to grass. The trees had turned into little sprouts and shrubs. The land lay at its simplest expression.
Elise looked heavenwards.
"Hey Shrike... Let's fly."
"Okay."
They took off. This time, the barriers were nonexistant. Elise the human, feeling her lifelong goal, went cloud after cloud, rising into a sky that seemed to have no top or outer space. Below, she could still see clearly, every field, every town, everything. She looked at Shrike. The ghost's hair was waving behind her, but her face was still featureless, showing no eyes or mouth. Though, a face seemed to be forming, though it was still in very early stages. All Elise could see was the blurry shape of a nose.
Without fear, she let go of Shrike's hand and began some maneuvers. She tried every angle and attitude, she flew with wings, without wings, with a robe, with a shirt, with a swimsuit, in underwear, in a business suit, in pajamas, naked, any configuration and any shape. Shrike, without a word, followed along with the twists and turns.
Elise then looked down and recognized New Colombus. Despite her will, she felt herself inexorably pulled towards a dark and filthy district. She looked at herself. Her legs were black. Her body was pink. Her face and arms were white. Her hands had turned back to metal. It was like wearing an old and dirty shirt.
Before she could realize it, she was back at the Crate.
Resigned, she turned around and frowned at Shrike.
"I guess it's goodbye?"
"Yeah... I'm already very proud of you. You've lived through a lot of hardships."
"So... What am I supposed to do now?"
"Just do what you have set your mind to in the first place. Someone down there, just like I, needs to learn a very important lesson."
"Okay..."
"Now, go to sleep."
"But I can't go to sleep!..."
Yet, without knowing why, she walked to the lounge and laid on the couch. Shrike, sitting down next to her, began singing a lullaby, a series of hums and tones commonly sung to little children.
"She's asleep..." The ghost commented after a while.
Elise had curled up into a ball and closed her eyes. One of her arms was under her head and supporting the cushion, while the other was next to her mouth, as if she was going to suck her thumb. Her legs were bent, the tense skin had become unnaturally smooth and welcoming to the touch.
She was touched by this unusual sight. She slowly stood up so as to not wake up the android, and tiptoed around the table to watch her from another angle. Bending over, she heard a light, almost inaudible snore.
A tear fell on the floor..
"...Wow."