Kainé's Dreams is a series of Kainé's backstories in NieR Replicant. It is only unlocked during the second playthrough. It explores Kainé's relationship with her grandmother, Kali, her life growing up outside The Aerie, how her half Shade form came to be because of Tyrann, and the fuel to her vengeance against Shades.
The sequence cannot be skipped during the first in-game encounter.
Discrimination
The sound of rain filled the village.
The steep cliffs that surrounded the area magnified sound,
causing even the slightest drizzle to rattle like a thunderstorm.
Thin wisps of smoke streamed from huts as the villagers
huddled in their homes and waited out the rain.
A single child, however, had braved the downpour and was
now wandering slowly toward the wooden, hawk-shaped
weather vane at the center of town.
The wanderer reached the vane, which had existed for as
long as any could remember, and stared. The child's face
was simultaneously delicate and fierce—like a teacup that
had survived a shipwreck. Those traits combined with pale
white skin to give the face an almost sexless quality.
If the beak turns east, I go home. If it stays west, then
I... I...
The child blinked. Rain slowly dripped down the young
one's short hair and began its long descent to the ground.
Come on. Come on!
The child felt a slight breeze and watched as the vane
slowly creaked to life. Spinning this way and that for a
moment, it finally settled with the beak pointing firmly
toward the east.
East? ...Really?
Before the vane could move again, a jagged rock came
spinning and tumbling through the air, finally striking home
against the child's head. The force of the blow dropped the
child to the ground as a hail of stones began to fall all
around.
Oh no. They found me...
A heartbreaking smile crept across the child's face as the
stones continued their assault. Through the rain, the sound
of multiple footsteps grew louder before a voice rang out.
"Yoo-hoo! Kainé!"
The voice belonged to Dimo, worst of all the bullies in The
Aerie.
As Kainé struggled to stand, a final stone came skittering
through the mud and bounced against her foot. Blood oozed
from a cut above her eye and blurred her vision, but she
could make out the shapes of Dimo and his usual gang of
idiots. The boy seemed taken aback for a moment by
Kainé's seeming indifference to the blood dripping from her
face, but quickly regained his bravado.
"What's up, freak? You like the rain? You like gettin' all
wet? Or did you finally decide to run away from home?"
Though she knew it was futile, Kainé turned to leave.
Before she could get more than a few steps, the other
children scrambled to surround her, cruelty burning in
their eyes.
Kainé knew those were not the only eyes on her; the
tormentors' parents watched from the safety of their
homes. She was attuned to this sensation—it was one she
had experienced many times before.
While some villagers simply turned a blind eye to the
actions of their children, many encouraged it openly.
In a society ruled by superstition and fear, Kainé was
something to be hated, and if possible, destroyed.
"I didn't say you could leave, freak."
Dimo's words chewed at her like a worm through an apple.
He can't hurt me, she lied to herself. Be strong. Be brave.
He can't hurt me. He can't hurt me. He can't hurt—
"Oh, look! The little freak's gonna cry! What's wrong? Are
you sad that everyone hates you and wants you dead?"
Kainé prayed for the rain to flood down and carry her away
from a world that seemed to have no place for her.
But if there were gods, they chose to ignore her. As Dimo
crept ever closer, the clouds began to thin and the rain
slowed.
Even the weather hates me. I'm useless. A failure.
...I wish Dimo's rock had taken my head off.
Kainé couldn't meet Dimo's leering gaze; she lowered her
eyes are stared at the muddy ground below. The bully
moved forward until he was inches away. She could smell
the scent of old meat on his breath.
The boy grabbed Kainé's face with thick fingers and yanked
it upward. She tried to turn away, but he forced her gaze
back and jammed his thumb against her eyelid to pry it
open.
"You're a freak."
"...N-no. I'm not."
"Did you just say no?" Dimo grinned evilly. "You don't say
no to me. No one says no to me." Not even taking his
attention from Kainé, he called to his cohorts, "Come on,
guys! Let's give the freak what she deserves!"
As soon as Dimo finished, kicks and blows began to rain
down upon Kainé.
Dimo paused, still grinning, as Kainé curled into a ball and
tried to make the pain stop.
"I don't get you, freak. Whatcha acting like a girl for, huh?
Everyone knows what you really are!"
Kainé ignored the question, choosing instead to stare at the
weather vane. It continued to point east, as if supremely
confident about the future it had chosen for her.
Go home? Yeah, that's a funny joke for someone with dead
parents and no home to go to.
"Freak!" chanted the children. "Freak, freak, freak!"
Kainé closed her eyes and listened to the rain, waiting for
the pain to start again. As the clutching hands of the village
children closed around her, she bent her mind to the sound
of the rain, letting it become her world entire.
The rain fell...
But the pain never came.
Only when the laughter of her tormentors turned to
terrified cries did she dare open a single blood-caked eye.
Kainé was shocked to see Dimo sprawled on the ground,
holding his head and screaming in pain. She could see
blood welling from spaces between his fat, twisted fingers.
Oh my god. He's crying. He's actually crying!
Deprived of their leader, the other children glanced back
and forth between themselves, as if waiting for someone to
step forward and take charge. When no savior emerged,
they began an uneasy shuffle away from Kainé.
But the young girl was the least of their concerns. Instead,
their attention was rapt on the ancient woman standing a
few feet away. After struggling for breath for a moment, she
finally spoke in a voice thick with rage.
"Hurts like a *****, don't it!? Now I suggest you scatter
before I throw another one. And if any of you little bastards
ever touch my Kainé again, I'll do far worse than throw a
rock! You can count on it."
The old woman crouched down and gently touched the
hand Dimo was using to cover the wound. Before he could
think to protest, she ground her palm into the wound and
twisted back and forth.
"Ow!" he screamed, leaping to his feet. "Stop it! What are
you doing?"
"Quit whinin'! Ain't no one ever died from a scratch."
"You hit me with a rock, you stupid *****! A big one! That
thing coulda killed me!"
The old woman shrugged.
"Death is the best cure for stupid."
Dimo's face twisted with rage at her words. Locking his
eyes on Kainé, he took a step backward and spat on the
ground.
"Get out! Leave this village! No one wants you here, either
of you!"
Seeing the old woman grab another stone, Dimo and his
companions turned tail and ran. As they fled, the old
woman grabbed her side and barked out a single laugh.
"Hah! Look at the fat boy go! Guess he's healthy enough to
run from a fight."
The woman's smile faded as she turned to
Kainé. Kneeling down, she removed her shawl and placed it
around the young girl's shoulders, then produced a cloth
from the folds of her dress and began blotting at the blood
on her forehead.
"Oh, Kainé," she said. "Why didn't you fight back? You're
stronger than that lot."
The words of her grandmother stung Kainé, and she turned
away.
"Don't be nice to me," she said. "I don't deserve it.
Nothing... nothing matters anymore."
Her tears, held in check for so long, finally began to fall on
the muddy ground below.
"Everyone h-hates me. They think I cause bad things to
happen. They think I'm a freak. I wish I was dead."
As Kainé's tears turned to sobs, she felt her grandmother's
hands on her shoulders. Despite her advanced age and
diminutive size, she was a woman of surprising strength,
and Kainé found herself unable to turn away.
"Don't talk like that, Kainé! It's a river wide and deep that
flows between the realms of this world and the next, and it
grants no mercy to any that attempt the crossin'. You got a
duty to fight until your last breath. Understand?"
The old woman tightened her grip and tried to still the
tremor in her voice.
"You know the pain of losin' someone close to you, Kainé.
You know because you survived it."
As the words hit home, Kainé was struck by the force of
her love for the old woman. As a young child, she didn't
even know of her grandmother, but when her parents died,
the woman quickly accepted her as her own. Grandma, as
Kainé called her, was cunning, vulgar, and quick to
violence—and their first few years together had not been
easy. But with each year that passed, Kainé and her
grandmother had grown closer.
However, it was only now, sitting in the mud with tears
and blood caking her face, that Kainé truly understood the
depths of her affection. Here was a woman who had seen
hard times; who had seen death; who had fought through
all these things and somehow emerged on the other side.
If anyone could understand Kainé's pain and loneliness,
it was her.
"Do... do I make you sick, Grandma?"
"Course not! Don't be an ass!"
Kainé drew her grandmother's moth-eaten shawl around
her body and shuddered.
"But... my body. It's... it's not... normal. If I was normal,
then Mom and Dad wouldn't—"
"Hush," interrupted Grandma. "I'll not hear another word of
this nonsense. You're my granddaughter, and I love you,
and if folks have a problem with that, they can just go to
hell."
With that, the old woman reached out and placed a wreath
of dried flowers in Kainé's hair. The skill it took to bend the
flowers without breaking the stems or losing a single petal
was remarkable, and the beauty of it made Kainé want to
cry all over again.
"Oh my gosh! These are Lunar Tears! Grandma, you made
this for me?"
Lunar Tears were legendary flowers; most people could live
their entire lives without ever seeing one. And yet her
grandmother had somehow collected a dozen or more.
Kainé reached up and touched the wreath as if she couldn't
believe it was real.
"Wh-where did you find these?"
"Oh, you know... Just stumbled on 'em one day while I was
out doing the shoppin'." The old woman turned away as she
was explaining, leading Kainé to suspect that the search
had been much more difficult than she was letting on.
The pains she took to construct the ornament—let alone
track down the flowers used in its construction—made
Kainé's heart hurt.
She reached up and gently adjusted the wreath, admiring
the way it felt between her fingers.
"Didn't quite turn out right," said her grandmother as she
squinted at it. "These old hands have trouble with delicate
work. But it sure looks good on a pretty girl like you."
Kainé blushed and turned away.
"You... you think I'm pretty?"
"Course you are! What a fool thing to say."
"Th-thank you, Grandma."
Her grandmother smiled.
"We're gonna be fine, you and me," she said. "Long as we
got each other, we'll be just fine."
Kainé took her grandmother's hand in hers, and the two of
them struggled to their feet. As they began the long walk
home, Kainé gripped the hand with all her might, as if
trying to stop smoke from drifting away on the wind.
The rain had stopped. Kainé stood beneath the weather
vane, watching it spin in lazy circles, no longer caring
about the direction it faced when it stopped.
I don't need to escape. I have a home now.
Grandma loves me, and that's enough. Even if it's us
against the world.
Kainé let her gaze drift up past the vane and into the
cloudy sky.
The last faint hints of a rainbow were slowly fading.
As she turned and headed for home, the light scattered into
a million particles and vanished, seemingly taken away on
the breeze.
Daily Life
In the distance, Kainé heard the steady sounds of an axe
striking wood. The noise had a purposeful quality to it, as if
she was hearing a master woodsman go about his work.
The firewood being produced, however, was as far from a
work of art as could be; pieces of every shape and size were
being flung about a barren yard with wild abandon. Anyone
trying to stack such wood would probably die of frustration
before the job was through.
"...Stupid piece of **** axe!"
Kainé’s grandmother flailed away with the axe, filling the
air with both splinters of wood and words that would make
the most hardened sailor blush.
"Grandma!" called Kainé.
"What!?" yelled the old woman, taking her eyes off the
wood for a moment. "Oh, it’s you, Kainé? Don’t get too
close, or I might take your goddamn foot off by mistake."
She brought the axe down on a piece of wood, sending
chips flying in every direction. One spun past Kainé close
enough for her to hear the whistle, at which point she
decided to step back.
Once she’d scuttled off to a safe distance, she cupped her
hands around her mouth and shouted.
"Grandma!"
"Do you need help? I can get water or lunch or... uh... a
new axe or something!"
The axe, poised to strike another wobbly blow, paused in
midair. The woman considered her granddaughter's
offer for a moment, then smiled.
"Hmmm... Tell you what. Since I’m doing such a piss-poor
job of choppin’, why don’t you come here and take over so I
can go get the water. Shades had been restless lately, you
know, and I don’t want you runnin’ into one of them
bastards."
Relinquishing the axe, her grandmother picked up a long
pole with wooden buckets on either end. Gathering water
was by far the more difficult of the two jobs, but Kainé
knew better than to complain. Once Grandma’s mind was
set, there was no changing it.
Kainé did her best to help with the chores, but Grandma took
every task that required travel to the village. Though she
had a long list of plausible excuses, Kainé knew the real
reason: She didn’t want her granddaughter to be taunted
and harassed by the villagers.
Once Kainé moved in, Grandma decided to take up
residence a good distance from The Aerie. Out of sight, out
of mind seemed to be the best policy when it came to the
villagers and her granddaughter, and rare were the days
when any but the two of them could be found on the rocky
acre of land they called home.
Kainé enjoyed the solitude, but harbored a secret
resentment that her grandmother was forced to spend her
golden years in such a place.
After watching her grandmother leave, Kainé turned her
attention to the task at hand. She had never chopped wood
before in her life, and soon discovered why the old woman
hated the chore. Swing after swing of the axe produced only
a tiny crack in the wood, and when she finally managed to
connect a solid stroke, the tool embedded itself in the
log and refused to budge. Frustrated, Kainé swung the axe
around her head and threw it, long and all, across the yard.
"Dammit! Dammit! Uh... crap!"
She suddenly understood the joy her grandmother felt in a
good curse. Happier now, she picked up the axe, forced it
from the wood, and resumed chopping. She had a natural
skill with a blade, but the task was challenging, and blisters
soon began to form on her small, pink hands.
This is tough. And all my logs are weird sizes.
Spitting on her palms and ignoring the pain, Kainé
redoubled her efforts.
Just as she was developing a rhythm, Grandma returned
from the village. Setting down her buckets with a small
sigh, she took one look at the logs and coughed out a
wheezy laugh. "Pretty clumsy, girl! You better practice if...
if you..."
Her grandmother suddenly collapsed to her knees, causing
one of the buckets to wobble precariously. Eyes wide, Kainé
dropped the axe and ran to her grandmother’s side.
"Grandma!"
The old woman shook her head and pointed a trembling
finger at the bucket.
"Get... get the bucket... C-can’t let it spill..."
Kainé steadied the bucket with a foot as she knelt by her
grandmother. A small bit of water sploshed over the side and
made a new home in the hem of her dress, but Kainé didn’t
notice.
"Grandma! Grandma, what’s happening!?"
Crazed with panic, she grabbed her grandmother by the
shoulders and shook. After a moment, the woman lifted her
arms and batted Kainé away.
"S-stop that! Just stop now!" she cried, breathing heavily.
"It ain’t like I'm dying! Just tired from the trip is all."
Kainé desperately wanted to believe her, but one look at the
old woman’s shaking hands and worn face told her more
than words ever could. Her grandmother had lived a long,
hard life, and it seemed the bill was coming due.
The time when her grandmother watched over Kainé was
ending. Sooner than either of them had feared, the
positions would be reversed.
The next morning, Kainé came to the side of her
grandmother’s bed and took her wrinkled hand.
"Grandma, you’re sick, and you need medicine. I’m going to
the village."
The old woman shook her head and tried to rise, but Kainé
gently pushed her down. "It’s all right," she said. "I’ll be
fine."
Her grandmother fixed her with a gaze that could melt
steel. After what seemed an eternity, she finally lowered
her eyes and sighed.
"Well, I don’t like it, goddammit. But I guess I should quit
bein’ so stubborn and let you grow up."
The old woman watched as Kainé strapped on her boots
and made her way down the road to the village. Hours
later, as an unseen sun made its way across a dark and
rainy sky, she was still watching.
Kainé moved at a brisk pace, checking her pockets every
few minutes to make sure the money her grandmother gave
her was still there. Every noise caused her to spin on her
heels, making sure she wasn’t being stalked by a Shade—or
worse, Dimo and his gang.
But she encountered neither tormentors nor Shades, and
Kainé finally found herself at the entrance to the village.
The few adults she could see glanced sideways at her, then
muttered to each other behind raised hands before slinking
away into the shadows.
Her heart racing, Kainé took a series of rapid, shallow
breaths and tried to calm herself.
I have to prove myself. I have to help Grandma.
I... I have to be strong.
She chanted those words to herself over and over as she
slowly made her way. Finally, her eyes settled on a rotund
older woman who was angrily waving her arms in the air
and telling anyone who would listen exactly what she
thought of Kainé’s presence.
"Hey, lady," said Kainé with a bravado she did not feel.
"Where’s the apothecary?"
The woman’s flabby cheeks shook in bewildered anger. How
dare this... this thing speak to me! they seemed to say. But
Kainé saw that her eyes held a different emotion: fear.
Yeah, we’re both scared, lady. Trust me on this one.
"Which way?" Kainé repeated.
The woman pointed at a small building to her right before
hitching up her dress and stumbling off in the other
direction. Kainé cringed, expecting a stone to come flying
from the assembled crowd, but none came.
Her mind was filled with a strange sense of pride as she
made her way to the apothecary. But the new emotion had
little time to take root, for as soon as she opened the door,
she noticed a familiar customer at the counter.
It was Dimo. He’d clearly been sent here on some kind of
family errand, because his gang of followers was nowhere
to be found.
"Oh my go..." he sputtered. "I mean, uh... What are you
doing here, freak!?"
The insult was delivered without force, and Kainé happily
ignored it. Stretching on tiptoes to see over the counter, she
asked the shopkeeper for the medication.
"Ha!" barked Dimo. "That old ***** finally keel over!?"
"Go to hell, Dimo!"
The boy’s eyes grew so wide they seemed ready to fall out
of his head. But before he could let fly a comeback—or
worse, a punch—the apothecary told them to knock it off
before he kicked them out of the store.
Dimo slunk out of the shop, cursing Kainé under his
breath. Once he was gone, she allowed herself to breathe
once more, taking a brief tour of the shop while the owner
prepared her medication.
Countless tiny bottles filled the cramped store, each with a
label written in some indecipherable language. An ocean of
aromas assaulted her nose, creating a scent that was exotic,
but not altogether unpleasant. Seeing such a variety of
supplies gave Kainé a sense of peace. Surely, in a world so
vast, there would be a place that she could call home.
On the far wall, behind the counter, rested a portrait of a
stunning young girl. The picture had once contained bright,
vibrant colors, but time had worked its magic, and they
were beginning to fade. The beauty of the work, however,
remained undiminished.
"You like that picture?"
Kainé turned to find the apothecary with a small vial of
medicine in his hand. His eyes were gentle but sad, and
they seemed to stare through her and into nothing as he
spoke.
"That’s my daughter. I sketched it when she was just a
little girl. ...She’s been dead a long time now."
Kainé didn’t know how to respond: she just stared at the
portrait and tried to come up with the right words.
"Pictures are wonderful things," continued the shopkeeper.
"They let the ones closest to you live on forever."
He shook his head slightly, then looked down at Kainé and
smiled. Handing her the medicine, he reached into his
sizeable green apron and produced a handful of old wax
crayons.
"You should have these. There’s no one left that I wish to
draw."
Kainé took an instinctive step back, causing the
shopkeeper’s face to darken.
"Yes, I’ve heard the rumors about you," he said. "It’s a
small village, and word travels quickly. Between you and
me, I’m not sure which of them to believe... but I also don’t
think they matter much. I knew your grandmother Kali,
and I think the way she was driven out of this town is just
deplorable."
Grandma’s name is Kali? thought Kainé suddenly. She was
still mulling this new fact over in her mind as she reached
out and gently took the crayons from the apothecary’s
hands.
"Your grandmother is an old friend of mine," he said as
Kainé scooted away yet again, "and I owe her much."
"I’m willing to wager that she would like it if you drew a
picture of her. Yes, I think she would like that very much."
Kainé murmured a quiet agreement, but inside her heart
was bursting. Never before had a villager treated her with
anything but complete contempt. It was a tiny, almost
imperceptible step, but it was a step nonetheless—and with
enough tiny steps, she might one day discover the rest of
the world.
When Kainé returned home, she found her grandmother
asleep in her bed. Her feet were blackened and raw—even
bleeding a bit in places—leading Kainé to think that she
had been pacing around the room until exhaustion finally
caught up with her.
She placed the medicine by her grandmother’s pillow and
turned to leave, but found the old woman’s hand clasped
around her arm.
"Back already, are you?" asked her grandmother with a
yawn. "Come here, let me have a look at you."
Grandma sat up and examined Kainé from head to toe.
Finally satisfied that nothing terrible had befallen her
grandchild, she leaned back and allowed herself to relax.
"Well, how was it? Did those bastards give you any
trouble?"
"It was kinda fun," said Kainé with a small smile. "No,
seriously, it was."
"It was fun, was it?" asked her grandmother in a voice
which implied she believed anything but.
"Uh-huh. So anytime you need me to run an errand, just let
me know!"
As she spoke, Kainé removed the crayons from her pocket.
After a brief explanation of their source, she informed her
grandmother that she was going to sketch her portrait.
"A portrait of me? Ridiculous. No one wants to stare at a
wrinkled old crone."
"But Grandma! It’ll make you live forever!"
"Horse manure!" said her grandmother, throwing back the
sheet from her bed. "Livin’ forever would just piss me off.
Now put those crayons away and help with dinner!"
But Kainé would not relent, and in the end, Grandma found
herself leaning against the wall of their house as if posing
for a master artist.
Kainé took up the crayons and eyed her subject carefully...
Just as her grandmother was about to nod off, Kainé
finished the work. After staring at it for a bit, she released
it from her grip and let it slowly drift to the floor.
"It’s... terrible! It doesn’t look like you at all.
I’m sorry, Grandma. I thought these crayons would... you
know? Make drawing easy or something."
The old woman’s eyes narrowed at her granddaughter’s
disappointment. "Let me be the judge of that," she said,
ignoring the pain in her back and reaching for the paper.
The sketch could have been a person’s face. It also could
have been a boulder, a lump of clay, or an incredibly
misshapen loaf of bread—all rendered in a chaotic array of
colors.
The old woman stared at the picture for a long time, then
slowly wheezed out a laugh.
"Oh, Kainé!," she said between laughter. "You truly are my
blood! You’re as clumsy as me, and I love it!"
"But—"
"Hush. I won’t hear any more bull about how ugly you
think it is. It came from the heart, and I’ll treasure it
always."
True to her word, the old woman gave the picture a place of
honor above the kitchen table. In the days that followed,
Kainé would often catch her staring at the portrait with a
strange smile on her face—an action she interpreted as
silent, mocking laughter. A week later, Kainé could stand it
no more, and asked her grandmother to take the artwork
down.
"Posh!" said the old woman. "I’ll take this down when they
roll me in my shroud!" She pondered this for a bit, then
turned to Kainé and dropped to one knee.
"Listen to me, girl. Seein’ this picture makes me happy in a
way I’ve never felt before. And it makes me want to go on,
so that someday you can feel the same happiness."
It was a moment that burned itself in Kainé’s memory: a
perfect blend of pride and love and joy that came together
to form a lifelong remembrance. She swore to never forget
this moment; to never forget the old woman who had made
her place in the world possible.
Time moves on. People and memories come in and out of a
life like ghosts passing through a hall. But this moment will
be different, Kainé swore, because I will remember it
forever.
...Forever.
Separation
Kainé listened to the sound of crackling firewood and stared
at the black object on her plate. She’d been pushing it
around the wooden disc for a good ten minutes, ignoring
the bemused stare of her grandmother. Finally, she
summoned her courage and gave the object a brief sniff. A
sharp, bitter scent flew up her nostrils and made its home
there, causing her face to twist with disgust.
"Grandma, I can’t believe you want me to eat a bug."
The old woman threw some more wood under the cooking
pot and snorted.
"It’s no bug, you fool girl! It’s a berry."
"Why in the hell would I be feedin’ you bugs?"
"Yeah, well, it sure looks like a bug!" said Kainé. "And I
think it’s burnt or something, because it smells terrible."
With that, Kainé held her nose and threw the berry in her
mouth, chewing as little as possible.
"Oh, yeah. That’s terrible, all right."
"Why, you little brat!" laughed the old woman.
"Look at the sass on you! You’ve been spendin’ too much
time with me, and that’s a fact."
Five years had passed since the moment when Kainé's
grandmother had saved her from the bullies. As is often the way
with two stubborn people, their relationship had grown in
fits and starts, but moved forward all the same. Meals that
used to be somber affairs were now filled with laughter and
hurled abuse in equal measure. Kainé could not remember
a time when she had been happier.
As the years went by, Kainé started to shoulder more and
more of the daily responsibilities. Her grandmother's legs
grew weaker by the day, and she could no longer do many
of the chores she used to take for granted. And so this
morning found Kainé lacing up her work boots with a
breakfast of burned berry rolling through her belly.
"Where are you going today?" asked Grandma suddenly.
Kainé looked up, surprised. The old woman rarely asked
for specifics anymore.
"Well, I was gonna check out the kelma trees and see if
they were ripe. I thought we could make jam or
something. Oh, and I’m going to pick up some flagstones,
so I need to take the wheelbarrow."
"...Flagstones? What in the hell for?"
Kainé stared at her grandmother, then held out an arm and
swept it around their home. Constructed mostly of cloth,
rope and rubble, the old place sagged like a boxer in the
final round.
"Grandma, a dying cat could chew through this house. I’m
going to build a stone wall so we have some protection."
The old woman laughed, exposing her toothless grin to the
world.
"Goddamn girl, if a buncha thieves want to ransack this old
place, let ‘em come! We got nothin’ worth stealin’ anyway."
"I’m not worried about thieves! I’m worried about Shades.
People saw one west of the village yesterday."
The old woman tilted her head and stared at her
granddaughter.
"Well, shoot. I don’t know why you have to do it today. We
can worry about it some other—"
"Grandma, no."
"If I don’t go to the kelma trees, we won’t eat tonight. You
know that!"
A confused expression passed across the old woman’s face,
and for a moment she was a small child lost at a carnival.
"Y-yes," she said after a bit. "Yes, of course you’re right.
I’m sorry, Kainé. Lately it seems my mind is..."
She didn’t finish the thought, instead walking over to her
nightstand and gently taking the wreath of Lunar Tears
from the drawer. The flowers’ petals had aged to a brilliant
whiteness, and Kainé thought it was more beautiful now
than the day she first received it.
"You’re going to be a true woman soon," Grandma said as she
placed the flowers in the girl’s hair. "So that means less
chatter about Shades and buildin’ defensive walls and more
talk about how beautiful you’ve become!"
Annoyed, Kainé reached up to remove the garland, but the
look on her grandmother’s face stopped her hand.
"You’re a beautiful thing," said the old woman, "and there
ain’t another like you in all the world. I’m very proud of
you."
"Okay, Grandma, that’s enough goddamn compliments for
one day."
"Such a mouth on you! Where did that come from?"
"Gee, I wonder."
"I’ll teach you to sass me, girl!" yelled Grandma. Suddenly,
she lurched forward and grabbed Kainé by the ears, pulling
her around the room with a crazed grin on her face.
"Grandma!" yelled Kainé in a quaking voice. "Grandma, stop
it! What the hell!?"
The old woman stared at her and blinked, then slowly held
her wrinkled hands out as if it was the first time she had
ever seen them.
"Oh! Oh, I... I don’t know what happened there. I’m sorry,
girl. Sometimes my mind just..."
Kainé though the look on her grandmother’s face was the
most heartbreaking thing she had ever seen. "Listen," she
began, "maybe I should stay home after all."
"No! I won’t have you stay here to keep an eye on an old
codger like me."
"You go get your fruit and your wall and whatnot. I’ll be
fine. And when you get back, I’ll have a nice grasshopper
dinner waitin’ for you."
Kainé rolled her eyes, then kissed her grandmother on the
forehead and made ready to depart, trying desperately to
ignore the worry that was gnawing at the walls of her heart.
Kainé could feel the old woman’s eyes watching her as she
moved down the path. Don’t turn around, don't turn
around, she told herself, but in the end the temptation was
too great. She spun on her heel for one final look and saw a
small, bent woman standing in front of a ramshackle hut
with a sad expression on her face. Gods, she looks so old
now. It’s like the wind could reach down and just carry her
away.
Kainé worried about her grandmother all day, causing her
work to suffer. What little fruit she could collect was tossed
carelessly into the wheelbarrow, and she only found a
couple of stones before losing interest in the project.
Finally, as dusk approached, she decided to call it a day.
Cursing herself for the lack of focus, Kainé pushed the
nearly-empty wheelbarrow back down the path.
As she crested the final hill, she suddenly froze in place.
The wheelbarrow fell from her fingers and collapsed on its
side, sending a few pieces of wrinkled brown fruit rolling
back down the hill.
Her gaze was transfixed by a thick black cloud that hovered
just ahead. Tracing its path with a finger, Kainé suddenly
felt her stomach knot in on itself.
No. Oh, gods, no!
Her grandmother's house was ablaze; the flames licking up
as if trying to touch the sky itself.
"Grandma? GRANDMA!"
Kainé ran then, faster than she had ever moved in her life.
Once she tripped on a stone and went sprawling into the
rocky ground, but she leapt to her feet and continued
running, unmindful of the blood that spilled from her
wounded hands and knees. As she got closer and closer,
Kainé’s mind began to race in time with her footfalls.
It’s too dark. It’s too dark. Not just fire. Can’t be fire. Too
much smoke. Gotta save her. Gotta save her.
She burst into the front yard and came to a sudden halt,
her worst suspicions confirmed. The smoke from the fire
was mingling with the thick inky blackness of an enormous
Shade. The massive creature supported itself on three
twisted feet, and achieved balance through a means of a
large, armored tail. Scales, horns, and claws sprouted from
its body in a random, chaotic pattern, giving it the
appearance of a lizard designed by some insane god.
Seeing Kainé, it let out a roar and flicked its tail, sending
small whirlwinds spinning around the yard.
For a moment the creature retreated into a shimmering
inky blackness, as if her mind was unable to comprehend
that such a thing could actually exist. But then the smell
hit her—a blend of rotted meat and excrement—and the
horror became real once more.
The creature bellowed again, and this time Kainé responded
with a scream of her own. All right, you bastard, she
thought as her scream echoed off the high cliffs around
them. It’s you or me. Let’s go.
The Shade eyed Kainé with bemused interest. Then it began
looking from her to the house and back again, as if urging
her to look at the destruction it had so gleefully wrought.
With dread building in her heart, Kainé glanced toward the
house. Through the smoke and flames, she spotted a small
figure struggling to escape the ruins.
"Grandma!"
At the sound of her voice, the old woman began waving
frantically. She’s alive! thought Kainé. She’s alive!
Kainé’s legs sprang to life as she raced across the yard
toward the flaming wreckage of the house.
Before she could advance more than a few steps, the Shade
opened its mouth and let out a roar powerful enough to
uproot trees and send them flying.
The blast sent Kainé tumbling through the air before
smashing her against the rocky earth. Stars danced in front
of her eyes as she tried to remember how her legs worked.
Get up. Get up! Get up get up get up get up get up NOW!
As Kainé struggled to her feet, the Shade stomped toward
the house and pinned her grandmother to the ground with
the tip of a claw.
The old woman struggled to move the claw from her
stomach, but she might well have been pushing a mountain.
She coughed briefly, sending a small spray of blood into the
air, then collapsed to the ground, her energy spent.
Kainé lurched to her feet only to fall back to earth with a
gasp. Her ankles were on fire; one or both of them were
surely broken.
Ignoring the pain that screamed through her body, she
began dragging herself across the ground, leaving a drunken
trail of dust and blood in her wake.
G-Grandma... Hold on... Just a... little longer...
Her grandmother’s face was turning blue, her eyes rolling
back until only the whites were exposed. Kainé pulled
herself across the ground with maddening slowness, the
distance seeming to increase with every second that passed.
The Shade glanced between the two women and flicked out
its tongue, its giant mouth turning up at the corners. Short,
panting breaths belched from somewhere deep inside its
core.
Bastard... Laughing at us...
She had no idea how such a mindless creature could
experience emotion, but there could be no doubt that the
Shade was taking joy in their suffering.
Yeah... I see your plan...
The Shade moved its claw slightly, allowing Grandma to
breathe again. It was clearly keeping her alive only to snuff
out her life when Kainé was close enough to touch her.
I’m gonna kill this bastard...
Summoning all her strength, Kainé rose to her feet. There
was a sickening snap from her right ankle as the foot
twisted backward, but she forced it from her mind and
began to hobble toward the monster. Pulling a small knife
from the pouch at her waist, she leapt on the foot that
pinned her grandmother and plunged the weapon deep.
"Give her back!" she screamed. "Give her back to me!"
It was like stabbing a rock. After a few swipes, the knife
broke at the hilt with a dull snap.
The Shade panted laughter again, then raised its tail and
sent it rushing through the air toward the young girl that
was latched to its foot.
Kainé never had a chance; the tail stuck her square in the
chest and sent her crashing into the burning wreckage of
the home. As she lay on the ground with blood pouring
from multiple wounds, a small, weak voice spoke up.
"K-Kainé...?"
Kainé’s vision blurred, but she forced herself to focus on
the sound. Finally, her eyes cleared enough for her to make
out her grandmother’s hands reaching out to her through
the smoke.
"G-Grandma…?"
"K-Kainé... You’ve gotta... run... You can’t... defeat him..."
Kainé grabbed the hands and held on with all her strength.
"Grandma... Come on... We have to go..."
The old woman coughed loudly. One of her hands, slick
with blood, slipped from Kainé’s grasp and thumped to the
ground below.
"Grandma, no... No!"
"I said run, goddammit. You have to... have to live... You
have to get through—"
The thought would stay forever unfinished. Before she
could say another word, the Shade’s clawed foot descended,
smashing through the remains of the roof and down upon
the shattered figure of the old woman.
Blood oozed thickly from gaps in the creature’s toes as the
terrible, putrid smell assaulted Kainé’s nose once again.
She stared at the foot, dumbfounded, convinced that what
she was seeing could not possibly be real. When the
creature finally lifted its appendage, all that remained
underneath was a twisted unrecognizable mass of rubble
and red.
...Her grandmother was gone.
Kainé blinked, trying to feel the hands which had been in
hers just a moment before. For a fleeting instant, she could
remember the warmth of that embrace, the trembling of the
fingers, but then the sensation drifted away on the breeze
and was gone.
Memories flashed through Kainé’s mind, one after the
other, faster and faster, until they became a meaningless
jangle of noise.
Kainé screamed then, a thunderous sound that echoed off
the cliffs and seemed to roll away forever.
The Shade eased forward, black ichor pouring from its
mouth and dissolving into smoke on the ground below. The
earth shook with every step as it crept toward its prey.
Kainé’s body slowly rose as if controlled by a mad
puppetmaster. Her arms and legs were bent at impossible
angles; her head lolled dangerously to the side. Yet
somehow, she managed to stand.
Staring at the Shade, her eyes began to glow with a deep
red fire. The creature, so confident just moments before,
took a slow, hesitant step backward, trying to discern if
this broken human could possibly pose a threat.
Kainé seized the moment. Laughing like a madwoman, she
leapt into the air and plunged the shattered hilt of her knife
deep into the leg of the Shade.
The Shade shook Kainé off like a fly, sending her crashing
to the earth once again. Her chest rose and fell slowly, as if
a great weight were resting on it. Moist sounds of pain
echoed through her mind. Something warm and thick oozed
from her ears.
Is that blood?
...Think it is. Think I’m bleeding to death.
...No. Can’t... can’t die. Grandma told me to live...
Deep inside Kainé’s mind, something finally broke.
The sound, the pain, the smoke and flames... all of it faded
away until all that remained was a single incantation
repeated over and over again.
Kill it! Kill it! Kill it! Kill it! Kill it! Kill it! Kill it! Kill it! Kill
it! Kill it! Kill it! Kill it! Kill it! Kill it! Kill it! Kill it! Kill it!
Kill it! Kill it! Kill it! Kill it! Kill it! Kill it! Kill it! Kill it!
Kill it! Kill it! Kill it now!
As the spark that was Kainé slowly began to flicker and die,
she felt her desire to kill and her desire to live blend into
one. The distance between heartbeats grew longer. And
longer. And longer.
Encounter
Gently... Weakly... Softly...
The Shade, sure that its tormentor was dead, turned and
stomped off toward the horizon, stopping along the way to
bellow one final roar.
...Couldn’t... kill it...
S-so sorry, Grandma... Couldn’t... couldn’t avenge you...
Shamed beyond imagining, Kainé turned her head to
the side, but only succeeded in coughing up a huge gout of
blood. It was getting difficult to see, and only after a
moment of fierce concentration did she realize that her left
eye was gone. Laughing to herself, she turned her
remaining eye to the ruins of her home and noticed a
ragged stump of arm resting a few feet away. Yeah, that’s
mine, she thought with a mad giggle. This is gonna make
clapping a real *****.
"Ha!" cried a sudden voice from the depths of her mind.
"Finally gonna die, are ya? Well, you had it coming!"
Go to hell, Dimo, she thought at the unseen assailant. Go
to hell before I pluck out your eyes and feed them to a dog.
The voice of her childhood terror evaporated into smoke,
only to be replaced by another, more recent voice.
"Hold still," said the apothecary, materializing from the
ruins like a ghost. "I want to draw you. That way you can
live forever."
No. Stop. Don’t want to live forever. Want to die right here.
"I see," he said quietly, "Well, if that’s how you want it..."
The spectral shopkeeper fluttered in and out of existence
for a moment, then produced a piece of paper and sketched
quickly. After a few seconds, he turned the page to Kainé
and smiled.
"Since you rejected my offer, I decided to draw someone
else."
It was a picture of her grandmother, real as life. Kainé
opened her mouth to thank the man, but stopped as the
picture began to blacken in the middle. Before she could
say anything, thousands of multi-legged insects began
to swarm across the image, tearing at it with sharpened
pincers.
Stop! No! Don’t hurt that picture!
Kainé reached out with her remaining hand and waved
futilely at the air. To her surprise, the insects fell off the
picture and to the ground below, where they vanished into
tiny black tendrils of smoke.
Relieved, Kainé turned her good eye back to the picture,
only to open her mouth in a silent scream. The sketch now
showed her grandmother as she truly was: a smashed,
unrecognizable lump of nothing.
The apothecary smiled, then broke into a jolly dance.
"See that!?" he cried as he danced his jig. "It’s perfect now!
She looks just like you! Ha cha cha cha!"
I look like that? Oh god. Oh god, I’m gonna die.
I’m gonna die.
Drowning in despair, Kainé laid her head back in the mud
and smoke of her ruined house and waited for the end to
come. But just before she let everything go, an unfamiliar
voice began whispering in her ear.
"Ain’t you got a wish, Sunshine?"
The voice was vulgar and fierce at the same time, as if
insanity had somehow found a way to take form. Kainé
wanted to scream as the voice crawled under her skin, but
her lungs refused to work.
"Ya know, a wish? Like a prayer or something? Why don't
ya get on your knees and start prayin' to heaven? 'Please,
invisible man in the sky! Save me! Saaave me!'
Kah hah hah hah!"
Kainé finally resorted to shouting at the voice with her
mind.
I don't make wishes! They don't come true for me!
I'm a curse. A freak. I should be left to die.
The other voice boomed in her ears.
"Bwaaah hah hah hah! Oh god, you are the best!"
Kainé glanced down and saw a black, shiny substance
oozing from her legs. She tried to brush it away, but her
remaining arm would no longer respond. The substance
slowly crept around her feet, and then began moving up
toward the rest of her body.
Is this death? Is this what it's like? Or is my mind just
losing itself?
She could feel the slime oozing upward, feel the hot searing
pain it left in its wake. Whatever else might be happening,
she was still alive, and this was real.
"Come on," said the voice. "Let it go."
Kainé tried to ignore the voice and concentrated on the pain,
but the newcomer would have none of it.
"Don't ignore me, Sunshine! You're ready to give up, ready
to die. So why not left me have it?"
H-have what?
"Your body! Come on, give it to me. Give it to me! I wanna
stand on the ground, feel the rain, taste the wind..."
The voice paused, as if licking its lips. When it resumed, it
was filled with mad, unabated joy.
"And I wanna take your hands and use 'em to choke the
goddamn life outta people! I wanna tear out their throats
and bathe in the blood, just like before!"
In response, Kainé shifted her head and vomited. The
warmth of it crept down her front and mingled with the
pain of the encroaching black ooze.
Are you... are you a Shade?
"Kah hah hah! Yeah, maybe. What of it?"
The slime reached her face, crept up past her nose, and
slowly oozed into the socket of her missing eye. The
moment it touched her brain, Kainé was struck by the most
powerful sensation she'd ever felt in her life. It was ecstasy.
She wanted to scream with delight, but all she could
manage was a small, whispered moan.
"Feels good, don't it?" asked the voice with a chuckle.
"Yeah, what can I say? I know how to please the ladies.
Now gimme that body. Come on, gimme the body and I'll
give you more of this feeling. It's a fair trade."
A black lump began to protrude from Kainé's side. As she
watched, it grew longer and thicker, eventually taking the
form of her missing arm. I can see better, she thought. My
eye must be growing back, too.
The slime reached up to envelop the rest of her face, but
she managed to brush it away.
"S-stop..." she whispered, marveling at how she had
regained her voice. "Stop..."
The black ooze hesitated, as if considering this request,
then quickly shimmered down her body before disappearing
in a cloud of smoke.
"Ah, what the hell, Sunshine!?" screamed the voice. "We
had a deal! I thought you wanted to die!"
"G-Grandma said... I can't die yet."
A brief image of her grandmother, bloodied and broken,
flashed before her eyes. She saw the Shade that had killed
her and heard its mocking laughter, then closed her eyes
and forced the image from her mind.
Her whole body was quaking with rage. When she opened
her eyes again, they burned bright red.
"That thing took my grandmother. I have to kill it before I
die."
Kainé glanced down and saw a mysterious pattern—the
pattern of the Shades—burn itself into her left arm.
"Well, I'll be damned," said the voice cheerfully. "Look at
that, Sunshine! I think you and me are gonna be good
friends now."
Kainé stared intently at her arm. The more emotional she
felt, the more the letters seemed ready to puncture her skin
and begin infecting the rest of her body. The arm clearly
had a will of its own now.
"S-stop. Gotta stop..."
Holding her left arm in her right, Kainé took a deep breath
and tried to calm herself.
"Come on, don't fight it!" pleaded the voice. "Hate's my
favorite dish, and I'm hungry! Let it go! Feel the anger!
Burn with the fire of revenge! Thirst for blood, then go out
there and—"
"Shut up! Shut up and get the hell out of my body!"
"Bwah hah hah hah! Your body? Oh, that's rich, Sunshine.
Reeeeeal rich. Look, why don't you just up and die so I can
have this body all to myself? What do you say? I bet those
buddies of yours in The Aerie would love to see ya dead!"
Kainé grabbed a nearby shard of glass and tried to saw off
the Shade-infected portion of her side. Before she could,
her darkened left arm grabbed her right wrist, crushing it.
Kainé screamed and dropped the shard as the sound of
bone crunching on bone filled the air.
"Kah hah hah! Stupid idiot girl! You're possessed now,
Sunshine! And there ain't no going back!"
The voice laughed again, a loud, long wail that seemed to
go on without end.
"P-possessed...?" whispered Kainé.
"Yeah. Possessed. You and me? We got what you might call
a timeshare arrangement. Remember how folks used to
think you were a freak? Well, wait till they get a load of
you now!"
Kainé looked up, tears in her eyes. The sky seemed smaller
somehow. Darker. Is this because of that... Shade? Is this
how they see the world?
"So, uh, listen," purred the voice. "I know this whole
possession thing seems a bit sudden, but it ain't all bad.
There's plenty in it for you, too."
"I'm a very powerful creature, Sunshine. And now that
power belongs to you."
"You got enemies? People you wanna kill? I can make it
happen! That little fat kid who kept picking on you? That
big ol' Shade that squashed your granny? We'll wrap 'em
up in their own *******s! No more abuse for you, Sunshine!
No more pain!"
"W-wait," said Kainé. "You're a Shade. Why would you help
me kill another Shade?"
"What, ya think I'm some kind of racist? Some killing
snob? I don't give a good goddamn who ya murder,
honeypants. I just wanna drink from the well."
Kainé considered this as she struggled to her feet, the
power of the Shade coursing through her. The smoke from
her house was drifting away with the wind, and she enjoyed
the way the cool evening breeze felt on her new left arm.
After a long pause, the voice spoke again.
"So, uh, how 'bout it? You and me? We could have some
good times together. Look, I'll even take care of the bloody
part if you don't want—"
"**** off, *******," muttered Kainé. "I'll handle the killing."
"Bwaaah hah hah!" screamed the voice. "Look at you go!
Oh, Sunshine, we're gonna have so much fun!"
"So listen, my name's Tyrann. And if you ever need me, I'll
just be hanging out in this piece of meat you call a heart.
Now get to it! The more you kill, the more your heart turns
rotten and sour... and I like rotten and sour!"
Kainé found herself nodding at the voice. "Yeah," she said.
"Yeah, I think this can work."
"I'm gonna find that Shade, and I'm gonna strangle it with
its own guts."
"And when I'm done, I'm gonna do the same to you,
Tyrann. Count on it."
"Hah!" laughed Tyrann. "I've **** bigger than you, so good
luck with that. Oh, and hey. One more thing. Right now,
you and me are sharing this body, but if you ever run out of
hate, if you ever... you know? Go soft? Then I'm gonna take
over everything."
"So keep on killin', Sunshine! And watch your back!"
The voice grew fainter and gradually faded away. Fading to
somewhere deep inside Kainé herself.
Kainé waited until she was sure the voice was gone, then
waved her new left arm around a few times. It feels
perfectly normal, she though. It feels... like mine.
Desperately, she began poking and prodding at the new
limb, determined to find something wrong with it. She
didn't want it to feel normal. That would mean the creature
inside her had already won.
I am not a Shade. I am Kainé.
Repeating this mantra in her mind, she slowly began
digging through the rubble of her house, being careful to
ignore a certain red-stained spot in the corner. Finally,
after what seemed like an eternity of heartbreaking work,
she found what she was looking for.
It was the wreath of Lunar Tears.
Though it had been through hell and back, the garland's
petals were as bright as ever.
Kainé started to place it in her hair, then slowly lowered
the wreath and stared at it.
I'm sorry, Grandma. I'm so sorry. But I don't deserve to
wear this anymore. I'm possessed. Corrupted. A freak.
And this time, I don't think there's any going back.
Holding the flowers to her heart, Kainé fell to the ground
and sobbed. As night gradually lightened to dawn and the
people of The Aerie arose to their daily lives, she remained
in that position, as if tears could somehow wash away the
horror that now infected her world.
