He stared at the picture for a long time, thinking about each of the girls. Until he was bored. Nothing else was happening, and he had been left in this darkness by himself for a long while.

He got it.

The girls were important. They were sisters? They certainly looked similar, the lot of them.

“They’re your sisters, aren’t they? Are you looking for them?” He asked out loud. He remembered his own sister and felt his miserable failure creep up into his gut.

“I had a sister, too, you know,” he said, “She…I really only cared about her.”

He remembered when she was born, how small and weak she was, how she cried and wailed as his mother comforted her. He remembered her small fingers, splayed out, her tiny ears the size of small coins, her dark eyes looking at him, thinking to herself. He remembered how he felt a strong sense of responsibility to her, to make sure she was well, to make sure she was taken care of, even if he wasn’t.

“You see her, Eien?” his dad asked, smiling.

His dad looked a lot like he did, with black hair and dark eyes. He was short, slight of build, strong, but small. His eyes were hollowed out, like pits, dark and deep, and the shadow around them was like blackened sand. Sometimes his fingers trembled, and he clutched them close to his chest to still them.

Eien had also inherited his mothers’s mouth, the shape of her eyes, the way her fingers could stretch and bend. She was slight, thin. Her hair was long and black, usually taken up in braids and adhered to her head. She was usually quiet, calm, and tended to her small family with a gentleness that Mari also demonstrated as she grew older.

Now, his mom was sleeping, exhausted, head lolled to the side. Her neat hair was now splayed out everywhere, braids tangled in a jumble, like an inverse cobweb against the faded yellow bedding. Blood still stained the sheets, even after Eien and his father had tried to clean it as best they could. When mother got up, she would do a better job.

Mari was staring at him.

“Yes, father,” Eien replied.

“This is Mari, son. Isn’t she beautiful?” His dad looked at the baby, staring.

“I remember you. When you were born. You were beautiful, too.”

“Only girls are beautiful,” Eien said, twisting his mouth a bit.

“All babies are beautiful,” his father replied, “Boys get handsome when they get older.” His father grinned at him, putting his hand on Eien’s shoulder.

They sat there in silence, watching Mari’s eyes slowly close as she fell asleep.

“Eien,” his father said, “Do you love her?” His father removed his hand from Eien as his fingers started to tremble again, clutching his hand to his chest. Eien looked up at him.

“Yes. I love Mari!” he said, smiling widely. His father looked sad for a moment, his mouth turning down.

“Then…I think it’s time you learned the family trade. Come with me.”

—

That feeling of brotherly affection was gone now. Gone with Mari. Gone with the ashes of her burned body.

Her face appeared in his mind, and he pushed it away.

He still loved her.

But now, perhaps, he also hated her.

How dare she die when he did everything he could for her?

Everything he did was with her in mind, almost singularly! And she had the nerve to get blown up! After all the stress, the work, the abuse, the lies, she had the nerve to die! He started to get angry, his temper beating at the inside of him.

“Are you gonna disconnect me yet?” he asked loudly, pushing those feelings into a box, burying the box in a hole in his heart. Nothing happened. He was still suspended, incorporeal and helpless.

He inspected the girls more closely. The one that stood out was the green-haired girl. She was on the far end away from Aino and had a sour look on her face, as if she found it an imposition to have her picture taken. Wait. Was this a picture? From Aino’s memory? A file? Were there names on their hospital gowns?

No, just numbers. Aino’s said, “204AE.” He noticed that there was someone standing in the background. Someone tall, but their head was cut off as the picture only focused on the girls. He looked at the shoes, determining it must be a man by the style.

“There’s someone else in the picture. Who is it?” Silence.

They were in a lab, like the ones he had been in during the training. The man behind them was wearing a white lab coat with a nice suit underneath.

“Are your sisters in…different cities? Is one of your sisters here?” Still silence.

He wondered what he was supposed to say, to do, to get out of this weird memory. What did she want him to know? What did she want him to see?

“I know I said that I didn’t want to do this anymore, and…I guess I really owe you, for more than one thing, so…let’s make a deal,” Eien said, “I’ll help you out with finding all your sisters. After that, you have to help me find a place to settle, where I can…just live. But…if I do this you gotta tell me what you plan. I can’t just be going in blind anymore. Is that a deal?” Eien offered. He felt himself being pulled again, the picture of the girls fading from his sight.

He was in black.

—

“Deal,” Aino responded as Eien’s eyes focused on her. His pith was still attached to hers.

“Deal,” his mouth formed before she let go and wandered off back to the screen at the front of the room.

He closed the flap of skin, sighing. Why was it always so complicated?

“Isn’t it easier just to tell me? Why all the secrecy?” She pulled out part of the screen machine, examining some colored wires. He wished she would wash up a little and get rid of some of the stench emanating from her skin.

“Bugs,” she replied, “There are always so many damn bugs.”