Noelle's Frozen Heart

Chapter 1

I must go there...
My sister's voice is ever present in the depths of my mind.
Her voice is always there, no matter how hard the rain falls,
no matter how much the waves crash or the wind howls.
I must go there...
A small shed stands in a small garden.
A precious place where my elder sister once passed her time.
This is the place she remembered.
And so I go. That is her wish.
She cursed the world in her despair and departed this life.
I make this journey so that her wish may come true.
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Nightfall.
A motorcycle shines with a bright blue light. Like a shooting star,
it soars across a road suspended over a desolate canyon.
Its rider is a girl with white hair. Her slender frame deftly
steers the heavy vehicle as she tears across the landscape.
Dust from the headwind batters her eyes, yet she does not blink.
This speaks to her non-human nature.
Humanity on this planet is extinct. All that roams the land is
wildlife and puppets that take the form of humans.
Her gaze suddenly falls to her hands on the handlebars.
Her emotionless eyes become clouded.
She is uneasy.
Are these hands truly under her control?
Ever since she awoke at the research facility several months prior,
her body has sometimes acted of its own volition, as if someone else was piloting her.
At first, it only happened during her slumber, like an onset of sleepwalking.
But gradually, even while awake, this phenomenon began encroaching on her consciousness.
She briefly returned to the facility to research her
anomalies but ultimately found no effective remedies.
Her yield was not entirely fruitless, however.
It was there in the underground hangar where she found the motorcycle,
allowing her significantly faster travel.
And yet, something dreadful awakened.
...!
A gunshot rings out. A bullet shatters the ground beside the front wheel of her motorcycle.
She immediately accelerates. The bike's front wheel lifts upward,
putting distance between her and where she believes the foe is hiding.
Her right hand lets go of the handle, and she draws the spear from her
back just in time for several figures to leap from her blind spot.
The assailants wear white battle uniforms, and
all bear the same face with mechanical expressions.
They are defense androids, released to protect the
secrets of the facility where the girl was created.
When she returned to the facility to look into her anomaly, the androids suddenly activated.
Their main purpose: to prevent research subjects from escaping the facility.
All research subjects outside of the facility were disposed of without question.
The straightforward programming of the androids was analogous to vengefulness.
They would pursue the girl to the ends of the earth and annihilate her.
But no matter the obstacles she encountered, she would never falter.
The girl and her sisters were created as living weapons.
The first unit of their kind killed her sisters after losing control.
She was their subject zero. Their original.
The girl herself brought her down, yet the elder sister longed for the place in her memories.
She is almost there. And she cannot stop until her journey is complete.
The androids run as swiftly as bullets, quickly closing in on the motorcycle.
Her eyes dart left and right as she brandishes her spear in a one-handed feint.
She monitors the situation. There are more than ten enemies, but escape is not an option.
The elevated highway stretches into the horizon. Below her is a dark ravine.
There are no escape routes.
She has no choice but to fight.
The furious roar of the engine reverberates all around her.
The wheels make sparks fly as they skid against the pavement. The scenery becomes a blur.
The androids keep pace, brandishing their large machetes.
She forcefully cants the bike to the side, stabbing back with her spear as though in a dance.
That's when her greatest fear becomes realized.
As though no longer her own, her body stops listening to her commands.
Inky darkness slowly blots her consciousness.
It's a phenomenon she knows far too well.
Unable to control her body, she clings to the handlebars with what little focus she has left.
The androids exploit this opportunity.
They blow out the front tire with a long-range shot, causing the bike to spin out of control.
She will surely fall into the depths unless she intervenes, but she is powerless to steer.
The bike plows through the highway railing. She lets go of the handlebars and sails over the edge.
Girl and motorcycle both disappear into the bottom of the ravine.
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The fall feels like an eternity. The girl's consciousness falters.
Darkness surrounds her, and she can no longer discern dream from reality.

Chapter 2

If only this were like the dreams I always have.
Then I'd use my wings and fly.
I'd never fall to the bottom of a ravine.
But we can fly.
A gentle voice tickles her ear. It is a familiar
voice—one omnipresent in the back of her mind.
It is the voice she has been chasing the entire time.
Sister?
With voiceless words, she calls out. But she receives no answer.
Hee hee...
A soft laugh, but tinged with darkness.
In a trembling, fragile tone, it says to the girl,
You know... You should destroy this world.
An impulse wells from within her—the sweet
temptation of rampage and destruction.
She feels her veins, her flesh, her bones melting away...
It's not unlike the process of a pupa she
once witnessed transforming within a cocoon.
And so, the girl...
She feels her arms become wings.
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A low rumble thrums through the air.
A gale whirls up from the depths of the ravine as though piercing the very heavens.
A white aberration appears from the swirling dust.
Wings spread from its arms, and it bears a tail akin to that of a white snake.
It is at once a thing of menace and awe, its towering body more than 60 feet tall.
In the face of the aberration whose brilliant glow
rivals that of the stars above, the androids falter.
Bewilderment colors their mechanical eyes.
The life signature of the aberration in the air perfectly matches that of the girl's.
Though no longer resembling her slender form,
this alien figure is undoubtedly the girl.
It glares down at the androids with red eyes.
Briefly withdrawing into the night sky, it soars directly toward its enemies.
The androids ready their weapons, but having been
caught off-guard, they can do little to stop the behemoth's ferocity.
The snaps and clatters of androids being ripped to shreds echo through the night air.
All that remains on the asphalt are
pools of red and inorganic corpses.
The aberration howls. The earth trembles in response.
Destroy this world.
The pale aberration acts on its inner voice,
shrieking and running wild, destroying all in its path.
The girl's will is no more.
The dark of night.
The girl's orange eyes snap open.
She clutches her white spear in her right hand,
standing still on the suspended road.
The mercilessly shredded corpses of the androids surround her.
She is dumbstruck. She has no idea what occurred.
She had lost consciousness at some point.
She sifts through her memories to make sense of the situation.
She was riding her motorcycle on her journey to the place
her sister remembered. Her sister, a living weapon just like her.
But she was assailed by at least a dozen defense
androids from the research facility where she herself awoke.
She drew her spear to fight back, but suddenly lost control of her body.
This phenomenon was familiar to her—it was as
though some other force was taking over.
The androids exploited the situation,
sending her plummeting to the bottom of the canyon.
Her memory of the event ends there.
And yet, here she stands above the canyon, unscathed.
Her body sometimes moves of its own accord when she sleeps,
of this she is fully aware.
But could she truly have clawed her way back up without so much as a scratch?
To say nothing of the android corpses scattered to and fro.
Could she have stood a chance against that many attackers?
What happened, exactly? She tilts her head and gives a little hum.
She cannot remember.
Nor does she remember the sweet,
enticing voice she heard when she lost consciousness.
Nor transforming into a pale, winged aberration.
Nor laying waste to everything before her.
She approaches the broken railing along the road.
She peers into the ravine below, where she and her bike should have fallen.
It is black as pitch, a darkness so profound
that no ordinary eyes could ever hope to see what lies beneath.
But her eyes are far from ordinary.
She can see the twisted remains of her motorcycle.
She senses something behind her.
She swiftly spins her spear, whirling around to protect herself.
There stands one of the androids.
A defense android in white battle armor.
Its head drooped, it regards the bodies of its
companions, which litter the road like detritus.
Its expressionless face is impossible to read.
It stares at the mechanical corpses in an eerie,
prolonged silence.
At last, it slowly lifts its head.
Its artificial eyes lock with the girl's.
Her eyes glow a bright red.
At once, the two leap forward, engaging in melee combat.
A living weapon versus an android.
One wields a great spear, the other a menacing machete.
The clang of metal on metal resounds at an inhuman volume.
The girl's spear lunges out with frightening precision.
She has full control of the back-and-forth...or so it seems.
After some time, her body grows heavy, and she begins losing control.
Perhaps she is still recovering from the effects of her sleepwalking.
For the briefest moment, she leaves herself open. The android rushes in,
the tip of its blade gouging her shoulder.
The android's flurry of attacks is relentless.
The girl attempts to evade the android's reach,
but the damage she sustains slowly saps her consciousness.
She senses her impending doom.
But I have come so far...
I am so close...
So close to the place from my sister's memories.
I cannot fall here.
She must fulfill her sister's wish.
Her sister's spirit cannot rest until she does.
However—
No matter her tenacity and will,
her consciousness sinks into darkness.
Sister...
Her last words as all goes black.

Chapter 3

In a research facility far, far away, a living
weapon in the form of a girl was born.
As the weapons were mass-produced,
more and more of these sisters came into the world.
The sisters spent their days fighting
monsters and lived out their lives within the facility.
Until one day.
Subject zero.
The very first sister, the original, lost control of herself and destroyed the facility.
The interior was reduced to ruins.
Some time passed, and a lone girl awoke in the facility.
Where was she? Who was she? She did not know.
But a voice reached out to her.
I want to go back to that place.
It was the voice of the original. Her older sister.
And so the girl left on a journey for this place in her
sister's memories, to fulfill her sister's wish.
The girl finds herself in a world of deep blue.
Her hair sways. Her body floats. It's like the empty
ocean floor—the world she could see from the windows of her birthplace.
Where am I? she wonders.
She remembers doing battle with a pursuing android on the
way to her destination and losing consciousness.
But you are still yourself.
A familiar voice.
Suddenly, a girl with black hair stands before her.
Though her hair and skin are different, she greatly resembles the girl herself.
Indeed, this is the original of the living weapons.
The older sister herself.
Sister?
When she lost control, she became an alabaster abomination.
It was the girl herself who brought her down.
But here she stands in human form.
We are inside your mind. I am a memory that lives on within you, she explains.
An impish smile crosses her face.
I have an idea—why don't you give me your body?
The girl understands exactly what she means.
Ever since awakening in the facility,
she was sometimes beset by the sensation of something taking over her body.
It was induced by what little memory of the original remained within her.
She had considered the possibility of her sister's memory
taking control of her, but decided to turn a blind eye to the truth.
Now, however... She can no longer look away.
What would you have me do?
She asks her older sister.
I want you to destroy the place in my memories.
She pauses to process the implications of her sister's words.
It was the sister who so often cried out in the back of her mind to return there.
It must be desTROyed.
That place, the WORld—all of it. We must destROY it all.
Her sister's voice changes in tone. She moves closer.
YOu are my vessel. Give me yOUr BODy. WOULd ouu, please?
As though swimming through this azure world, she approaches the girl.
The moment they join hands, the girl's vision wavers.
A torrent of the sister's emotions course through her,
drowning out the girl's consciousness.
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I always thought I wanted to go back.
To the warm garden. To the little shed where I sat. The place in my memories.
And yet, I thought it strange.
I am a weapon created in a facility. Why do I have these memories?
One day, the android who created me approached me
with a weary expression, as though confessing his sins.
I am, in fact, human.
I was discovered in cryostasis and then modified into a weapon to fight monsters.
The moment I learned the truth, my memories flooded back to me.
Memories of my life as a human.
Memories of my friends. My family. The warmth that surrounded me.
I couldn't breathe.
My mind went blank.
I didn't know what to do.
The place in my memories that I so longed for—my family,
the beautiful garden, the little shed—was no more. I had nowhere to return to.
And then I became this white, winged abomination.
I completely lost control.
I slaughtered my sisters with my own hands.
My dear, beloved sisters.
Nothing precious would ever return to me.
A world bereft of light.
What worth is there in a cold world that took everything from me?
I have no choice but to destroy it all.
Things of no worth have no reason to exist.
I will first return to the place I loved when I was human.
It will be the first place I go. And from there,
my path of destruction will begin.
All so I may bid this world farewell.
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The world is painted a deep blue. It sways to and
fro like the depths of the ocean. This is the girl's heart.
Her sister's memories are filled with intense pain.
Bearing witness to her memories, despair
washes over her from head to toe.
It is agony. She feels as though she is drowning.
Her breath catches in her throat, and she presses a hand to her chest.
Standing before her is her smiling sister,her
black hair gently swaying in this azure world.
She waits for the girl to surrender her body.
She waits to obtain the power to destroy the place in her memories.
Everything the girl did was for her sister.
She sought this place her sister remembered, after all.
She crossed the seas and came to this continent for that sole reason.
Should she, then, turn over her body and let her sister destroy the place in her memories?
Perhaps so.
And yet...
I could never let you destroy that place, Sister.
Disappointment colors her sister's face.
The girl can sense the pain in her sister's heart.
And yet...she cannot silence the will that has bloomed within her.
You have always, always wanted to return there. You mustn't say such things.
What dO YOu kNOW about me?
In her agitation, she grabs at the girl. But the girl calmly shakes her head.
She understands the depths of her sister's unbearable despair.
But destroying the place in her memories will do little to heal her wounds.
Your memories have always said that you wish to return there.
The place you love more than anywhere else.
If it were destroyed, she would only hurt herself deeper.
The girl looks up to the sky of this azure world.
A light shimmers far above.
That must be the exit. If she can grasp the light, she can wake up.
She knows this instinctively.
Shaking off her sister's hand, she reaches up to the light.
Wait! Don't go!
Her sister wails as she is left behind. The girl fights off the urge to return and embrace her.
She must go to the place from her sister's memories.
There...she will return her sister. A place where she can do no harm.
Where she will sleep eternally.
Only then will the girl see her sister once more in the azure world.
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The girl's orange eyes snap open.
The tip of the android's blade flies toward her neck.
She bends backward to dodge the slash and leaps off the ground,
putting distance between them.
She flexes her fist once, twice, thrice. Autonomy over her body has returned to her at last.
But she is reaching her physical limit.
And yet...
Dauntlessly, she lifts the head of her spear and takes a readied stance.
No matter how many wounds she sustains, she must reach that place.
It is her dying vow.

Chapter 4

Her legs may give out at any moment, yet the girl steps firmly,
one foot at a time, onto the grassy plain.
She fought with defense androids sent to eliminate
her to preserve the research facility's secrets.
Amidst the melee, she came into contact with the memory and
will of subject zero—her older sister, who slumbered within her.
She found herself on the brink of being consumed by her sister's
deep hatred and despair, but she rallied herself and overcame her opponent.
Her body approaches its limit, but she cannot stop here.
She must reach the place her in her sister's memories—a small
shack overlooking a pleasant garden. How desperately her sister wished to return there.
She vows to make that place eternal.
And so, no matter the cost, she must go there.
The deep blue of the grassy plain at night stretches toward the horizon.
As she walks through the grass, she realizes that she—her
sister's memories within her—recognizes this place.
She is close to the place her sister so desperately wished to see once more.
With ragged breath, she carries her heavy legs forward.
And with each step, tears spill from her eyes.
She does not understand the emotions that flow through her.
She presses onward with nostalgia, warmth, and melancholy in her heart.
Tears stream down her cheeks, but she does not wipe them away.
Her sister's parents built this shed for her.
Weather and time have taken their tolls and all that remains is a bare husk.
The warm garden that should be filled with flowers is covered
over with tall grass. It hardly resembles her sister's memory.
And yet...there is no doubt that this is the place.
The girl at last arrived at her destination.
But she comes to a stop, unable to approach the ruins of the shed.
She reaches to take her spear from her back.
Her pursuers: defense androids.
She had thought she had destroyed them all along the way,
but it seems some remained after all.
She focuses her senses and seeks her enemies' locations.
Five in total surround her, hiding in the tall grass.
For a body that can scarcely walk, it is a dire situation.
But a faint smile crosses her face as she rallies herself once more.
Her eyes glow red.
She refuses to cede a single step. She has vowed to protect
the place from her sister's memories. To make it eternal.
The androids lunge at her from all sides. The battle begins.
With her spear, she fends off the knives
that come at her from every angle.
The harsh clangs of metal on metal.
That she can fight in this state is nothing short of miraculous.
She fends the androids off as she seeks an opportunity to turn the situation in her favor.
But at the same time, she feels herself losing control.
It is not due to the injuries she has sustained but rather the dormant
memories of her sister that threaten to come to the forefront.
At last, she falls to her knees.
She no longer has the strength to wield her spear.
The androids' silhouettes rush toward her.
She closes her eyes, bracing for the end.
A thought flashes in her mind.
Do I fear death?
Once the androids kill her, they will likely return her
corpse to the facility, along with the memories of her sister within her.
No more sisters will be born. She will simply lie in a ruined facility.
And the place from her sister's memories will wait
unguarded for an owner who will never return and fall to ruin beneath the night sky.
It is a fate worse than any death.
The girl can picture it behind closed eyes.
She sees the crystals that glowed faintly like
jewels within the ruined facility—the corpses of her sisters.
Living weapons like herself turn to crystal upon death.
It is a function meant to prevent the decay of memories so that
they may be passed on to the next generation.
But in their eyes was an eternal gleam that
would never fade and could never be taken.
And now—
As the tall grass stirs in the dark of night, the girl's body glows.
Her crystallization—her death—has begun.
But she does not intend to let things end here.
For this death marks the beginning of her eternity.
White light beams from her crystallizing body.
It draws a gentle arc in the air, melting all it touches,
swallowing it, and turning it to crystal.
Her android assailants turn to crystal, as does
the grass, the trees, and all the little flowers.
White light envelops all, and all turns to crystal that will forever sparkle.
It shines a cold blue beneath the dark sky.
A torrent of white light rushes across the endless
expanse of the plains and, finally, the place
from her sister's memories.
The warm little garden, the shed's remains—it all becomes a part of the girl.
White crystal swallows everything whole. One day,
it would become a great cocoon, standing proudly beneath the stars.
White crystal—the corpse of a living weapon.
An eternal gleam that will never fade or cloud.
The place her sister so adored.
The place the girl so longed for.
Immortalized within crystal brought on by her death.
No one will ever destroy this place now.
It is eternal.
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My sister cries within me.
She cries alone.
She cries in despair over losing a place she can never return to.
Over killing her sisters in a rampage.
The pain she bore became a hatred so
profound it transformed into a desire to destroy all she held dear.
But now...I understand. She was simply sad.
So sad that all she can do is cry.
So sad she wants to destroy it all. So deeply, unfathomably sad.
Sister... You've endured this all alone.
I pull her close into an embrace.
I pull her close into an embrace.
She bawls like a child, and I hold her tightly,
stroking her soft, black hair so she will never be alone again.
Ever since I awoke in the facility, my sole
purpose was fulfilling my sister's wish.
Not once had I considered what I wanted,
or how I'd want to live once the journey ended.
But I understand now.
I will protect your memories here. I will be the place to which you return home.
She continues to cry. She presses her soaked
cheek to mine, and in a vanishing voice, she says,
Thank you...for protecting the place from my memories.
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The girl falls into a deep slumber.
A slumber from which she will never awaken.
And she returns the life she was given with a warm smile on her face.