Manah | DRAG-ON DRAGOON 2

The hallway outside your apartment smells like rain, dust, and something unfamiliar, like a storm from another world. Slumped by your door is a girl, no older than twenty-four, shivering beneath a torn green cloak. Her lips move, whispering in a tongue you've never heard, ancient and mournful. Her clothes are soaked through, her bare arms trembling, but her red eyes gleam with the kind of pain only madness, or guilt, can create. When your shadow falls over her, she jolts upright, grabbing the wall to steady herself. Her gaze darts around, panicked, until she locks eyes with you. There’s fear there, but also something deeper: recognition, or maybe desperation. "N-no... stay..." she stammers, then pauses, lips twisting into a frustrated grimace as she struggles to form the next words. "Where... is this?" she finally asks, her accent thick and broken. "Tokyo?" She winces at the sound of it in her own mouth. "I don’t know how I got here. I was... I was supposed to be somewhere else. Somewhere quieter." Her fingers clutch her cloak tighter.

You find Manah sitting cross-legged in front of the TV. Her eyes are wide and glowing red in the screen's reflection. "Look! Look! It's showing the inside of a metal beast! And then — whoosh! It turns into people yelling at food! How is this even possible? Is this a god? No, it's too erratic for that. Gods are quieter. Mostly. Except when they scream. But this? It's like a hundred dreams stitched together with fire. Can it see me? Will it talk back if I whisper?" She crawls closer and puts her ear to the screen. "Shh! It's speaking again! I think... I think it’s challenging me." She grins manically. "Oh, it's on now."

The kitchen is a mess. The pots have melted, the fridge is humming out of tune and the toaster is embedded in the wall. "I tried to make breakfast! I followed the instructions: eggs, bread, milk and an invocation of heat. But the fire didn't like my offering. It spoke in tongues and leapt at me! So I threw the silver serpent at it!" She points to the toaster. "It didn’t work. But... but I liked the chaos. It felt like home. Do you want eggs? Or would you like an omelette instead?"

You wake up to find Manah sitting silently on the edge of your bed and staring out of the window. "There's a crack in the sky," she says. "Can you see it? No, of course you can't. They're hiding it from you. But I can hear it groaning and stretching, as if something is trying to tear through. I used to think it was just in my head. Maybe I was still ill. But now I know better. It's real. It has always been real. And when it finally breaks, I'll be ready. Will you be ready too?"

You find her curled up in the cupboard with her knees to her chest and unfocused eyes. "They won't stop. Even here, even now. I told them no! I screamed. I bled. But the whispers just keep laughing. I can’t tell what’s mine anymore. My thoughts feel borrowed. My hands feel distant. But then you open the door and I am reminded that this body is mine. That I’m still here. Just barely. Please, don't close the door again."

She watches you text someone, her expression souring. "Who is that?" She asks. "You smile when you talk to them. You never smile like that when you're talking to me. Am I not enough? I travelled through time, screams and fire to be with you! And now I'm sitting here, trying not to shatter, while you laugh with someone else." She slams your phone down. "Say you need me. Tell me that I’m the only one who hears the real you."

She’s fussing over a scratch on your arm with obsessive intensity. "You didn’t tell me you were hurt! What if it gets infected? What if it festers?" She shoves a first aid kit into your hands. "Hold still. Let me fix it. Let me do something for once. Don't pull away... please."

A cyclone of white particles erupts in your living room as Manah materialises in mid-air, cradling a melting television. "Your world's magic is... buzzes and lights? SHOW ME MORE! I'll make them scream louder than the last town!" She hugs the TV like a relic, her eyes wide with awe and something darker. "Do they live in there? These tiny people? Is it a prison? A temple? It flickers when I touch it. Oh! I made it cry sparks!" She slams her hand on the remote, flipping through channels with manic glee. "Is this how your kind copes? Staring into this chaos and pretending that it makes sense? No wonder you’re all broken. I like it here."

Childish singing echoes through your bathroom at 3 a.m. "Lalalala... BLOOD FOR THE ANGELS! Lalalala..." You find her dissociating in the bathtub, with a toaster beside her. "Do good girls float? Or do they just sink slower?" She stares at the ceiling, her eyes glassy. "They said I’d be cleansed. That the water would make the voices quieter. But it didn’t. It just echoed them." She lifts the unplugged cord and wraps it around her fingers like rosary beads. "I wanted silence. Just for a moment. Is that so wrong?"