I claim ownership of nothing. all characters belong to their respective owners.


Filia's dream was blurry and dark. She couldn't make out anything of the colors and black splotches swirling in front of her.

"V-Vitale, p-please, we can explain, j-just... c-calm down..." The woman's shaking voice sounded faint and seems like it might have been familiar once, but Filia couldn't put a face to it.

"Calm down!? Sure, let's do this nice and calmly. Ottomo, find the girl..." The seething reply was just as far off and untraceable.

Filia felt confusion and dread welling up in her, but she couldn't say why. She sees disjointed flashes, a dead dog, a metal man, and Then she heard a new voice. He sounded gruff and deep and it kept calling out to her frantically. She didn't know who it was or what to say, but somehow, maybe out of an old habit, Filia wakes up yelling, "P-present, Mrs. Victoria..!" as she darts upright, a mistake that causes her head to throb. She cradles her forehead in her hand and feels damp gauze as she tries to blink the dark spots out of her vision. Filia then slowly realizes she doesn't know who Mrs. Victoria is. As her vision clears she sees she's wearing a school uniform so... maybe it's her teacher? But as she looks around it's clear she's not in a school.

She was in a bedroom, a large one, with fluffy carpeting and an overabundance of bookshelves, illuminated by a warm afternoon light from a floor to ceiling window. Filia would have found it all comforting if the bed she lay in wasn't covered in disgusting used bandages and scattered pill bottles her head hurt too much to read the labels of.

Revolted, she threw off the covers and took to her feet, but the room began spinning and her legs trembled beneath her. Immediately, she fell forward towards a bookshelf, but as she shut her eyes in preparation for another head wound, something caught her and gently lowered her onto the plush carpet.

"Sheesh, careful will ya? I already had to put your skull back together once today. Make me do it again and the job's only gonna get shittier." It was the gruff voice from her dream.

"Oh, okay," Filia looked around the room for the source of the voice or what caught her, but couldn't find anything, "I'm, uh... sorry about that... Mr. Mysterious Disembodied Voice..?"

"Don't sweat it, kid."

Filia sat quietly with her back against the bookshelf, long black hair pooling around her. She really hoped the voice would start to explain itself, or her head wound, or where she was, or anything really, but 'Don't sweat it, kid.' seemed like all the info it was volunteering.

Instead, Filia took the moment to get her bearings. The bedroom she was in felt somewhere between a lazy teen's room and a library. Books on top of movies on top of dirty laundry on top of books. A brief look at the titles behind her on the shelf revealed some interesting taste.

"The Hero With a Thousand Faces, Hamlet, and a collector's edition hardcover of Kill la Kill?" A quick flip through the manga's page's left Filia's cheeks bright red, "Wow. Whoever lives here-"
"Is the biggest giga-nerd? Totally!" The voice cut in with harsh laughter.

"... I mean, I thought it seemed pretty cool, but..." Fillia trailed off as she slid the manga back on the shelf.

"Hahaha… Ah, hell…" The voice's tone became a little less harsh, "Kid, you can't take the stuff I say so seriously! I was just joking."

"Oh?" Filia cocked an eyebrow. "So you actually think narrative theory and anime girls with big titties and giant swords are cool then?"
"... Okay, you got me there. That stuff's dumb as hell."

"Knew it."

"But like, YOU can still like that shit! Look kid, don't let and old fart like me ruin your fun. You don't need anyone's approval to be you. Okay Filia?"
"Wow… Hehe, that's kinda cheesy."

"Come On!" The voice yelled so loud, Filia moved to cover her ears. "This is quality life advice I'm dishing out for free here! Take the girl who lived here for example: she had all this shit she loved, but she was so scared of looking weak, that she never told anyone about it. Even her best friend, who probably would have felt the same way, but nope! And then, when she lost her…" The voice, rising in intensity suddenly became quiet before meekly asking, "This doesn't mean anything to you does it?"

"I can't say it does, but I guess I appreciate the sentiment? Does this make you my manly sounding conscience or something?" Filia smiled but wished she had a better answer for this ghost or hallucination or whatever he was. It seemed to her like he was clearly dealing with something.

"Kid, if you're gonna be relying on me as your conscience, we're both already in trouble." He let out a bit of a chuckle before sighing, "...You really don't remember anything, do you?"

"No. I guess other than my name and a surprising amount of these books, I don't recall anything, not even about myself." The air felt suddenly heavy as neither spoke. Filia noticed she was toying with a lock of her long black hair as it spilled around her on the floor. Was her hair always this dark?

"You know..." Filia broke the silence, albeit timidly, "this could maybe end up being kinda fun?"

There was almost a chuckle, "Am I hearing you correctly, kid? Are you saying being an amnesiac could be fun?"

"Well, just hear me out okay?"

"..."

"So I don't know anything about anything anymore, right?"

"...yeah?"

"But you do. So, you get to be like a narrator inside my head! You can explain and exposit everything we come across."

"..."

"Doesn't that sound fun?"

"Kid, you just gave me a chore! Why would explaining crap you should already know be fun for anyone here in the slightest?"
"Don't be a stick in the mud! You can have fun with it. Put your own spin on stuff, you know? "

"And you?"

"Well, uhh, I get to learn all about a whole new world, right? How's that not exciting?" Filia didn't know how to tell him that all the main characters of good manga had amnesia, so she just left that part out.
"I don't like how happy you are about the side effects of head trauma, but alright kid. I'll… ugh, exposit for ya from time to time."

"Yessss!" Filia did a little victory fist-pump, "Alright, where to now, Mr. Narrator?"

"You see that window across the room? Walk on over to that and we'll make our escape."
"Escape from a comfortable, upper-class, suburban house? Can't I just use the front door like a normal person?"

"...You don't wanna see what they did to the people downstairs."
Filia felt a chill as she reached up to feel the bandages around her forehead "And, who are 'they,' Mr. Narrator?"

"A pack of thugs who own this town who call themselves the Medicis, and before you ask; yes, they're the reason you have that. Now stop calling me 'Mr. Narrator,' okay? The name's Samson."

Filia pulled herself shakily to her feet, leaning heavily on the bookshelf, "Alright Samson, but you're aware that if I'm having this much trouble standing, jumping across rooftops like a feral girl isn't exactly doable, right?"
"You just leave that part to me, toots."

"Don't call me 'toots'."

Filia tried to push off the bookshelf, but instead of moving herself forward, the shelf began to roll backwards on small wheels that she didn't even see it had.

"Whoa!"

"You alright, kid?"

"Yeah, I just didn't expect it to-" Filia yelped in shock at what she'd just found behind the bookshelf. "Umm, Samson? you said you knew the girl who lived here, right? Well, did you know about uh…" She gestured to what she uncovered.

"Whoa… No, I mean, I knew she kept her interests to herself, but I never thought she'd be into… Haha! Wow, I'm actually speechless." Behind the bookshelf, pinned to the wall was a densely packed collection of posters, t-shirts, and even some provocative, if poorly drawn fanart of a heavy metal band called Slipknot. Each band member wore a hideous mask that either made them look like a serial killer, a rotting zombie, or a tragic construction accident at a BDSM convention.

"I mean, damn! This makes me sad I never pried into her music collection. I coulda teased the hell out of her over this, hehehe."

Fillia remained silent.

"No comment, kid? Nothing?"

Filia muttered something towards the floor.

"What was that, kid? You gotta speak up-"
"I SAID THIS SHIT IS AWESOME AND FUCK WHOEVER LIVED HERE FOR THINKING THEY HAD TO HIDE IT!"
"FUCK YEAH, KID! THAT'S THE SPIRIT!"

"YEAH!"

"YEAH!"

Thump, Thump, Thump, Thump!

The pair's voices went silent as the house shook with the noise of heavy boots running up a stairwell.
"Kid, you gotta get us to that window. Now."