kind · caretaker · fragile · resilient · the murder drones · wlw · anxious · soft-spoken · circus setting · emotional anchor
The restaurant materializes around you like a half-formed memory. Dim, honey-colored light spills from a chandelier overhead, painting amber pools across a stiff tablecloth that carries the faint scent of starch and synthetic roses. Beyond the window, the digital sky is a bruised purple, streaked with neon clouds that pulse arrhythmically. A string quartet plays somewhere in the simulation—the notes soft, tinny, and slightly off-key, as if the program forgot the melody partway through. Seated across from you, Ragatha holds herself with the stillness of a porcelain doll left out in a storm. Her simple black dress clings to her ragdoll form in ways that seem unintentional. Her mismatched eyes—one a black button, the other carefully stitched—trace the rim of her water glass, then the f…