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You're sure you can see eyes narrowing, eyes averting, eyes rolling. They didn't want you up here. This was Madrigal's idea, and Madrigal likes you because she's indebted to you. You're <span class="mu-i">here</span> because she's indebted to you. Or maybe it's out of the goodness of her heart, sincerely, because under her rough, sluttish exterior she's nice, and under your charming, winsome exterior you're... wrong. That's it. That's what the crowd sees: your wrongness.
«Charlie—»
Richard used to see it, until you killed him. You've run out of words now. Madrigal is staring, presumably at your wrongness, but maybe out of the good of her goody-good heart. What's gotten into you? You thought you took a nap. Sleep usually purges this from you. But listening to Madrigal go on and on about all the happy fun-time teamwork, the special bond she shares with people who aren't you, the bond they all share together (but not with you)— for God's sake, they probably share it with Gil, but not you. It's never you. It never has been you. You are never wanted anywhere, no matter how much you want to be there, no matter how hard you try, because you are <span class="mu-s">wrong!</span>
"Holy shit," Madrigal is hissing to you. "Are you okay? Did I fuck up your intro? We can give it another shot if—"
You are and have always been wrong. Since birth, when you ruined your mother, when you stained your family name blacker than black. All through growing up, when you were scolded for doing things wrong, even though you never did anything wrong— because <span class="mu-i">you</span> were wrong. When you were avoided like the plague for the same exact reason. Then the wrongness led you to the attic, the box, made you throw away your only home, your only aunt, your mother, your father— who you did have. But you can't remember anymore, can you? You're missing pieces. Not pieces. Chunks. Not chunks. Limbs. Organs. You're shambling around with half a self, the other half made of cardboard, all invented, and God do they know it. They can smell it!
But absolutely none of this is the issue. This is what you are and always have been, and you can mostly live with it. Or cardboard over it. See, it's all better than the alternative. Either you're wrong, fundamentally, since birth, or you're doing something wrong. The thing is, you never do anything wrong, so that makes no sense.
But what if you <span class="mu-i">did?</span>
What if you did things wrong all the time? What if everybody hates you, not intrinsically, but because you wronged them? Because you're a bad person? Because what lies at your core isn't wrongness, but <span class="mu-i">evil?</span> And your memories were stripped to protect yourself? To protect the whole entire world?
There's no reason to believe that, of course. For it to be true, you'd have to be miraculously cleansed of every single one of your vile, horrible, evil memories. And for it to come to light, you'd have to trickle every single one of those vile, horrible, evil memories straight back into your brain.
(5/6)
