Chapter Text
“Awareness, consciousness, life… Yes, the concept and philosophies behind it are still an enigma which continue to evade humanity’s knowledge, even to this day. Where does consciousness come from? Is it a biproduct of millions of individual cells working together, so deeply and intimately unified to create a malleable, imperfect perception we perceive as perfect awareness? Or perhaps, a consciousness is more than that. Perhaps it exists as a tiny speck of white light in a dark void, that void being space itself enveloping all planes of existence. This void, perhaps it exists beyond time and all mortality. Perhaps it exists through infinite dimensions and realities overlapping. Perhaps it is the combination of all colors we can’t comprehend, all foreign physics our mortal brains cannot imagine. Perhaps this void is not something than can be described using any of Earth’s many complex languages. Perhaps it cannot be comprehended by us as long as we are imprisoned in these suits of flesh and blood. It is a space, and it is pure. And perhaps it is our primary place of recluse between the many lives which we live. Peace, solidarity, and bliss… death is as beautiful as life. Our consciousness knows as much.
“Imagine this single speck of light. It is pure and unpolluted by experience, yet to be tainted by the dirty hands of time through a dirty, imperfect mortality. It is yet to be tainted by the dirty winds of change, yet to be tainted by the dirty colors of passion. It is yet to be tainted by the dirtiness of personality. Its memories do not exist. It is new, and it is pure. This, I believe, is where we all begin.
“The start of it all… it was actually, a bit of a blur, really. My first moment of awareness was as I’ve described. There was a thick fog of darkness, but within it a small realization of my existence. And in that very moment, my existence was suddenly capable, for it had been bonded with a mortal vessel on the physical plane. The consciousness, it was no longer pure; for, I was alive. New. Capable of learning, capable of perceiving, and capable of will. It would no longer stay clean, and only dirty from there.
“There were no words in my existence just yet. There were no feelings or opinions or even purpose or means – just, awareness. It was as simple as that, nothing more. And in this state, I did sleep. Too young, too innocent to fear life, and too distant to fear death. It was serenity, and I have since never experienced such a state.
“This awareness brought to me attentiveness to my surroundings, of which, I could not sense. Sight for me did not exist, nor did hearing. I could not feel, I could not taste, I could not smell. All I could do was sleep, and sleep I did. I slept a lot in this state of passive existence, and it was nice. This period of my growth seemed to last an eternity, of which I thoroughly indulged. I was alone, but incapable of experiencing loneliness. I was safe, but incapable of experiencing security. There really, truly was nothing beyond the simple awareness.
“I still have a faint memory of when I first began to sense light. At this time, I believe my eyes were beginning to develop and grow. Behind two membranic exteriors that would soon become my eyelids, I could detect the faintest of blurs in the form of dim light. And with that light, I could also detect occasional motion. Soon, my hearing developed as well, and I started to pick up on muffled noises around me. I didn’t have the ability to identify anything I was sensing from outside my awareness; I could only comprehend. I was aware of my own existence, and I was aware of the existence of things around me.
“Soon, my sense of touch developed. I could physically feel that my awareness existed within a vessel of flesh that was still so young to the world. This vessel, it had a heart that pumped blood through every vein within the body. I could feel every heartbeat, and I was entranced. It was as if I was engulfed in the sensation of every cell making up my body being in motion. Each individual cell housed energy and some semblance of life, pulsating and twitching in unity to construct that which was me. I began to feel almost painfully restless, twitching my fingers and trying to learn the mechanics of movement and the outline of my physical existence. Now that my soul had been dirtied with the slightest of knowledge, all it wanted to do was learn even more.
“Periods of low awareness, or perhaps ‘dormant sleep’, started coming and going in cycles. With every passing bout of wakefulness, I began to feel my awareness grow stronger. I began to suddenly know of things, but I didn’t know why. I recognized this odd phenomenon of awareness to be called ‘life’, and somehow became familiar with the concept of life and death and other instinctive aspects of existence. At the time, I did not understand where this knowledge was coming from. Regardless, I happily reveled.
“Soon, through practice by twitching and jerking the muscles which had been assigned to my consciousness, it became possible for me to open my eyes. Of course, my eyes still weren’t fully developed, and things were quite blurry. But I could finally perceive color, and it was a vibrant sensation. With the physical condition I was in, I had not the ability to look around much, but I could see that I was inside of a structure. All around me was translucent liquid, and in it I floated. Beyond this prison filled to the brim with this gooey substance, I could only perceive blobs of colors and blurs; nothing else.
“I was submissively riding on patience, allowing myself to grow. My eyesight grew more efficient, as did my hearing. I soon became aware of the many thin formations curling around me, twisting and looping within the confines of the concave structure housing my body. Each line was attached to my skin by means of what I would soon come to understand were needles and magnetic sensors. I was covered in them, and found myself considering that they may have been my source of growth.
“At some point I found that I was beginning to comprehend the utterings I heard beyond my chamber a bit more clearly. The words came from but one entity, and to his voice I grew an intimate familiarity with. I was beginning to pick up on meanings behind certain words, slowly coming to recognize speech as a means of communication itself. I was learning my first language, and I was doing so seemingly with no means of gaining such knowledge. As with the rest of my acquired intelligence, I was being fed knowledge by an outside source, and although my existence started slow, it seemed to only grow rapidly from there.
“From this point on, I began recognizing the rhythm of wakefulness and sleep a little more clearly in my largely dormant state. During wakeful times, I opened my eyes a little more frequently. Although things remained blurry, I often saw a familiar silhouette pass or linger. I became aware of whenever there was a change in my ever-stable surroundings, such as when a scan went off. It was like a line of light, not too terribly bright, waving along my skin. As I later would learn, these scans were capable of telling the operator everything there was to know about my present physical state. I suppose it was to track my growth and development.
“The time spent inside this chamber of liquid, covered in tubes and wires with a consciousness still new, seemed to last an eternity. And, it was a comfortable eternity. But of course, it didn’t last forever. I was becoming more restless, more eager to move and experience the act of living like a chick nudging at the interior of its egg hoping to soon hatch. It was inevitable; I was ready. And, my creator could see as such. It was finally time for me to exit my crib and emerge from a state of cunae, ascending to a greater state of control. It was time.
“With one last scan, I awoke to a sudden shift in my environment. I felt my body begin to sink as the gel I had, up until this point, resided in started to drain. I was gently set upon the floor of my chamber and could feel as the surface level of the liquid descended past my shoulders. I believe my instincts kicked in at this point, as I suddenly felt my lungs open for the very first time. As the gel disappeared below the soles of my feet, my lungs and esophagus burned. I struggled weakly, coughing and heaving and fighting as oxygen invaded my primary respiratory organ. Soon, these coughs diminished into exhausted gasping as the burning sensation faded away.
“As I sat there and breathed, I finally opened my eyes and looked up. Before me, I saw the figure I’d become intimately acquainted with over time standing before my now open chamber. Without the noise of the watery substance obscuring my perception, I could more easily make out his features as an entity. It was a human, of which I was created in his likeness. And this moment, I consider my birth.
“The apathetic entity lifted me from the floor of the testing tube and carried me in his arms, walking me from my place of birth and setting me in a new location that I didn’t recognize. In this room, I was dried with a towel, clothed, and finally placed on something that was soft. And there, I slept.
“I was a little more alert the next time I awoke. My body was now in the process of adjusting to the change in environment, and I found I had much more will and desire to get up and move. I opened my eyes and sat up, weak from the trauma of birth as I scanned my new surroundings. At first, I could only crawl as the muscles in my legs were hardly developed. Quickly though I learned. I explored my new room, feeling the hard ground and the plain walls and examining every inch of the area with intrigue. Then, after some time exploring, I curled up in a blanket on the soft mattress set out for me and rested.
“Some time was spent sleeping before I was soon aroused by the entering of the entity who had created me. At the start, I instinctively perceived him almost as a motherly figure. Our dynamic would soon change to a more bitter one, but at this point in time, I felt bonded with him. When he entered the room, he approached me and knelt, looking curiously into my eyes. He examined me, analyzing my face and body at all angles. Then, he spoke. And, I understood.”
I am The Creovorce, and I am your creator.
“I accepted these words deeply, entranced by this life I was experiencing for the first time.
“After studying my physical state, the man left and allowed me more time to rest. I spent hours sleeping, then exploring, then sleeping again before exploring some more. The bedroom was small and quite barren, but I never got tired of looking at it.
“Over the course of the next few days, my cognitive processes developed more and more to that of an adult human. That guy, The Creovorce, he visited often. He fed me orally and introduced me to the functions of the bathroom attached to my room. He spoke incessantly to me, and I consumed every word.
“By now my five senses were fully developed. I only slept a few hours a day, and my muscles had grown significantly stronger compared to the feeble state from which they began. My mentality had matured tenfold and that small, white light within me was already growing colorful with personality. It was becoming painted in thoughts, feelings, attitudes, and opinions that I never before could have imagined one could harbor. I didn’t care for questions; I just took everything I learned as it was and as it came.
“Over time, I learned more of the Creovorce himself as I picked up on nonverbal cues and the energy about him. I took in his voice and his words, his aura, his body language, and his behaviors – everything that made up who exactly this man was. And, although my bond with him started out innocent enough, it wouldn’t take long for me to come to resent him.
“It took about a week before I was first taken out of my room. It was an unexpected event, where he led me by hand out through my bedroom door. I observed my new surroundings with eyes wide and curiosity piqued, obedient to his dominance as I was walked through what became known to me as the facility he thrived in. It was a lonely facility, void of any other humans that I was aware of. At least, that was the case until that day.
“I ended up being led into a small, cubic room with a single chair in the center. I was sat and made to wait as the man left me alone. I looked around curiously and perceived that the room was largely empty like a blank canvas, save a long strip of window that ran from my far right to my far left. The window stretched across three adjacent walls, leaving only the wall behind me to be solid. I couldn’t yet see out these windows, as they were obscured by a structure at the time. But of course, it wouldn’t be long before the blinds were lifted. And when they were, I felt fear for the very first time.
“I was surprised at first, peering through the window to my left and perceiving on the other side two eyes that stared right back at me. This individual, he appeared no different from me. His hair, his face, his clothes, his stature – it was like looking into a mirror. He even harbored the same sense of fright upon looking at me – but this hint of panic quickly devolved into apprehension. His eyes narrowed into a hostile glare as his instincts kicked in, and in that moment, he looked ready to fight.
“Glancing now to my right, I perceived four more rooms lined up one after another, each housing yet another familiar face. All of them, all five of them, they looked the exact same, perhaps altered only slightly by a touch of personality and uniqueness. All appeared fearful for a brief moment, then apprehensive. And each look of apprehension differed. The individual to my left housed a cockier glare, overly confident and prideful in his prowess. The first to my right had a more calculating, robotic look about him, appearing to hold not the slightest of empathy. Beyond him, the next individual kept his head rolled back with an aggressive snarl plastered on his face, teeth baring like the monster he was. The second to last individual kept his eyes wide, shooting daggers through pupils mysterious in nature. Finally, the furthest individual from me wore a manic smile of sorts, anxiously eager to fight. Not a single one of them looked content to be there.
“Right outside our glass doors was a hallway connecting each of our rooms, and The Creovorce looking rather eager. With a grim smile, the man clicked his heels upon the hard floor as he approached the individual to my left. Standing outside of the collection of rooms, he looked this individual in the eyes and spoke.”
Your name, he announced, is Otsumatsu. You were born from the DNA of Osomatsu Matsuno.
“The individual, now officially known as Otsumatsu, winced upon hearing this. He squinted to the other, resenting the display of authority before finally opening his mouth to speak. His voice, it came out as a rather hoarse whisper, small and new. I’m fairly certain this moment was the first time any of us had ever spoken.”
What kind of a name is that, old man?
“His tone was sly, it was smug and defiant toward the other. I remember being astonished by this, almost as if I had only then realized that talking back and vocally responding to our creator was an option. It had just never occurred to me before.
“The Creovorce ignored Otsumatsu’s comment and walked on, stopping before my room and looking me in the eyes. With hands behind his back, he spoke formally, loud and clear for all to hear.”
Your name is Karumamatsu. You were born from the DNA of Karamatsu Matsuno.
“Karumamatsu… That was my assigned name. That name was mine and mine alone, and I would go on to define it for the rest of my life. Of course… that damn Otsumatsu snorted upon hearing my name. He laughed and clapped to himself, finding amusement in poking fun at me whilst sending me a look of pity. It appeared, at this time, he was the first to start relaxing. And he was the first one I decided to hate.
“The next creation, the individual to my immediate right, was given the title ‘Kyoromatsu’, having been born from the DNA of a so-called Choromatsu. After that was Shishimatsu, born from Ichimatsu’s DNA. Then Kuchimatsu from Jyushimatsu, and finally, Toramatsu from Todomatsu. Six names for six creations, all in the same boat, the same circumstances. I was no longer alone.
“Us six creatures were given life by a twisted man with twisted intentions. As you’ve come to listen and comprehend, our existence was manipulated down to our very DNA, and we were wired with a dark desire: to make people sleep. To deliver silence by death.
“I still remember the first time I caught myself lusting to end a person. Naturally, I wanted to kill the donor. I didn’t know who he was or why exactly him, but…
“I wanted to kill Karamatsu.
“After this significant day, our understanding of our living situation became just a bit clearer. We were test subjects, experiments. We were not born naturally, nor were we given a childhood full of love and care. Upon being thrown into this existence, we were immediately studied, trained, conditioned, and tested on. The Creovorce, he was not our mother; he was our owner. And we resented him strongly for it.
“As time went on, my… I suppose, for lack of a better term, ‘brothers’, and I were never permitted any circumstance which would allow us physical access to each other. The Creovorce knew what we were capable of. Hell, he’d programmed it into our very DNA – us as creatures, as ‘humans’, we were wired with an instinct and drive to kill. Prone to violence, infatuated by blood, we were not made to be what the universe would perceive as normal. And of course, this drive was hammered into us and studied from that moment on.
“Now that we were close to being fully developed individuals, the others and I were periodically taken from our rooms and given tests and trials that would serve to both train us and give knowledge to our creator. One trial stands out to me specifically. I was pulled into a room where I sat across a table from The Creovorce, the only thing separating me from him being a panel of glass. Of course, the moment his creations began to spout words and utterings of their own, he cut most physical contact with us. He was a monster-keeper keeping monsters, after all, and he knew he had to be careful.
“Anyway, I was in this room, and before me, I was presented with a large rat. This rat, it was caught in a dangerous mechanism of sorts, squeaking and flailing pathetically. There were two buttons on the trap. One button freed the creature allowing it another chance at life, and the other caused the trap to clamp and break the thing’s neck. The Creovorce looked me in the eyes and told me the choice was mine. Of course, I knew what I wanted to do. I pushed the button and set the thing free.
“How else could I have killed it myself?
“Clutching the small animal’s head in my fist, I gave my abhorrent creator one last glare before crushing it with my bare hands. There was a dying squeak and one violent jerk before all movement abruptly stopped, and in my hand, I held a lifeless carcass. A dark, warm substance trickled down from my closed fist, dripping from my arm and creating a dirty puddle on the table. At this time, I did not break eye contact with the man. I wanted him to know that, if I were ever given the opportunity, he would have the same fate. Nothing would ever stop me from plotting his demise.
“The trials were endless, and the tests were all the same. With every passing day the Creovorce searched our developing behaviors, our mentality, our way of thinking, our psychology, our physique, our way of handling certain emotions – everything and anything for flaws. He wanted us to be perfect, immaculate killing machines with no sense of empathy nor emotion. He wanted us to be aggressive, robotic, and calculated. And, every time he detected even the slightest of defects in any aspect of our beings – even if the flaw was only present in one of us – he would fix it. He would remove us from our bedrooms and, one by one, place us back inside our cribs, those testing tubes from which our lives first emerged. We would be given breathing tubes as the chambers filled with that familiar, liquidy goop, and our bodies would end up covered in tubes and wires. Sometimes we were conscious as he altered our brains and DNA, and other times we slept. It was uncomfortable at best, and we all hated being put in those damn testing tubes.
“As I mentioned, every single one of us would be taken back and ‘fixed’ if any flaws were detected in even just one of us. The worst at displaying these flaws was Shishimatsu. He became notorious for being the sole reason all of us ended up back in the crib, and he just became another outlet for our hate. We grew up with so much resentment and hatred. We hated the process of our upbringing, we hated the detestable scientist responsible for giving us life, we hated each other, and we wanted nothing more than to channel this negativity through a physical outlet. Many of us became violent in our bedrooms, destroying what little belongings we had and beating down on the door that kept is imprisoned within. Our desire to cause harm was only devolving into crazed madness.
“Five or six weeks had soon passed since our lungs had opened with air. You might say we were only five or six weeks old, and I never realized how much it showed. At the end of the day, we were still practically infants in our acquired intelligence. Despite this, we passionately understood our natural purpose in existence, and that was to kill. I suppose, yes, some of us were a bit prone to recklessness, but our view on destruction was more instinctual and perhaps even philosophical in some respects than The Creovorce. I’d argue we’re incredibly different, at that.
“The Creovorce… he was a psychotic man, to put it lightly. Manic with power, like a man playing God. Despicable.
“Anyway, sometime around this period, The Creovorce’s test rats began to die off from old age. You see, the others and I weren’t the first of intelligent life the crazed man had created. Before us, before Otsumatsu, he had done a similar trial involving rats. He had taken donor DNA from six different rats and created six clones. This, of course, paved the way to his work in cloning humans.
“Following the deaths of the original DNA donors, something peculiar came about. Almost immediately after the original rat passed, the new rat of the same DNA would collapse as it fell into sudden cardiac arrest. Within minutes of its heart stopping, the body would inevitably die.
“Without realizing it, the Creovorce had developed a method in which a bond was formed between the lives of the originals and the clones, and had now built six ‘perfect’ creations with a terrifying dependency. In other words, our lives were deeply intertwined with our DNA donors. If Karamatsu Matsuno were to die, I too would pass. And, this was the biggest flaw of them all in The Creovorce’s eyes.
“The psychotic man was distraught. He was a workaholic, and spent the following day working tirelessly. He analyzed every possible solution to his predicament, fighting wildly to break this dependency. He stopped taking proper care of himself and his anger and anguish grew visibly; it was unsettling to watch. He would just about rather have released us and let us kill him, than for him to have to euthanize us and attempt to restart his years of work. We were his ‘perfect little creations’ after all, the embodiment of his success. He loved us in the most calculated, robotic way.
“That night, he finally lost it. The others and I were moved back into the liquid-filled testing tubes, patiently watching as the madman did his work. He began having an episode with us present. He was shrieking and chattering incessantly to himself, breaking things and throwing furniture to the floor like a maniac. He even set off his own security alarms as he screamed at nothing. He pulled wires and destroyed all his work, injuring himself in the process. The others and I, we could do nothing but watch as we sent glances each other’s way.
“Something scary happened during this time. A nearby power generator, it was in the line of fire. In that instant, there was an electric boom that deafened us, roaring off the walls like a clap of thunder ringing in our ears. The lights in the facility flickered before immersing us in darkness. Then, we were suddenly blinded by a volt of electricity shooting up to the ceiling. The initial shock had us quite shaken. For an instant, primitive fear shot through my chest like a knife, and it took a moment of being frozen before I tried to breathe.
“That was when I realized I couldn’t. The blow had caused our chambers to stop functioning, and each and every one of our breathing tubes stopped providing us oxygen. I could feel every hair on my body stand as each pore instantly produced beads of sweat. I threw a hand to my throat and snatched the breathing tube in front of me, looking it over as my lungs began to yearn for air. I quickly peered to my left in the darkness, trying to make out anything or anyone. All I could hear was The Creovorce gasping on the outside, not yet realizing what the explosion had done.
“I was drowning. And… it was terrifying in the moment. Adrenaline raced through my veins as he stood inside the chamber, tried to bang on the glass but struggling to do so underwater. No one could hear me, as I could make no noise. And, I know the others were in the same situation as I.
“I… would rather not express the vulnerability required in explaining how the situation went down in my mind. But, the power didn’t return until I was on the verge of unconsciousness. The Creovorce managed to open the tubes in time and, we made it, but I still relive that experience sometimes.
“With my life permanently bonded with Karamatsu’s, I knew that I could no longer plan on killing him once I was freed from the prison that was the research facility. I was going to have to play it smart and safe. Whoever this ‘Karamatsu’ was, I was going to have to adapt and hope he was capable and strong enough to protect himself. Meanwhile, I was tasked with the new mission of killing each of the other DNA donors – that is, Osomatsu, Choromatsu, Ichimatsu, Jyushimatsu, and Todomatsu. After all, I recognized that it would be quite difficult for me to overpower their DNA counterparts. This was a competition, and the winner was going to be the last one standing. And that winner, I was certain, was going to be me.
“Of course… that could all happen as soon as we found a way to escape.”
“Killed the thing too, huh?”
It was a quiet environment, peaceful save for the intrusive voice speaking aloud and breaking the silence. Within this setting were two individuals, two beings of destruction hidden away in rooms separated by glass. The only furniture present in the rooms was a single chair each, upon which the two men sat. All in a row, these two rooms – along with four others, which were, at this time, empty – were separated by glass, where the occupants could see and speak to, but not access, the others.
The two individuals shared the same face, each one tainted with blood that did not belong to him. The blood was largely on their hands, but some stray droplets stained their clothing and faces as well. The first of the two – the eldest – had plastered upon his face a smug little grin. He eyed the other in intrigue, eager to initiate conversation with his younger playmate. The younger, however, was closed-off and disinterested, opting to glare forward at nothing whilst blatantly ignoring the other.
“Awe,” the more energetic creation whined. “Don’t ignore me, Karuma-kun~”
“Just stop,” the younger huffed. “And don’t call me ‘Karuma-kun’.”
“We never get to talk unsupervised,” sang the other. “Don’t you want to take advantage of this moment while we have the chance?”
“You’re being a nuisance, Otsumatsu,” stated Karumamatsu coldly. “And I have no obligation to waste my breath on you.”
“You’re so cold,” shivered Osomatsu’s counterpart.
“And you’re tiresome.”
“Come on, amuse me!” Eyeing the blood present on Karumamatsu’s hands, Otsumatsu asked, “How’d you do it? Break the neck?”
Karumamatsu hesitated. Then, without sparing the other a glance, muttered, “…Crushed the skull.”
“Haha, that’s so you,” he cooed, pointing playfully at the other. “I wonder how the others are going to do it. Watch that Toramatsu come in here acting all innocent in front of us, like he didn’t do a damn thing!”
The other did not respond, again opting to wordlessly glare forward. For a moment, there was silence. Otsumatsu’s smile faded to a calmer one as he set his head in the palm of his hand.
“It’s been some weeks since The Creovorce cut all direct contact with us,” the clone sighed. “He’s not stupid; he knows we’d do to him exactly what we did to those rats.”
“Especially with how quickly we’ve developed,” Karumamatsu remarked quietly.
“Heh, yeah,” the other grinned, rubbing his nose with his index finger. “That’s also why he won’t let me come out and play with all the dear little brothers he made for me.”
“Powerful is he who knows you better than you do, yourself,” stated the younger darkly.
“You know, Karuma, I’ve been thinking…” Otsumatsu side-eyed the other with a pleased expression. “What if…”
…
“We killed him and escaped?”
Upon hearing these words, Karumamatsu’s eyes widened. He snapped his attention over to the eldest, appearing wholly astonished by this suggestion.
“Awe, now you’ll look at me!” chuckled the other. “Look how cute you are – I bet the idea has never even crossed your mind!”
“You’re… suggesting that we actually…?”
Otsumatsu beamed with glee, relishing in the attention.
“Listen,” he began in secrecy. “I’ll tell you my plan. You’ve got to pass it along to the others though without getting caught. We’re all going to be in on this, together. Capiche?”
“…”
Karumamatsu paused for a long time, considering this idea. Then, finally, he nodded.
“What’s the plan?”
The other gave a devious smirk.