'Cause I'm spinning like a carousel, circling the drain

A cloud of tension hung over the common area as Cinder stared at the other girls. She thought that she was giving them a **** glare, but to her compatriots in Nick’s harem, they perceived the situation as much more analogous to an angry wild animal growling at them.

Which was a bit of a problem, because nobody knew how she was going to react if they even moved.

“…Want some more cake?” Holly offered cheerfully. Unlike the others, she wasn’t ruled by her fear, or paralyzed by indecision. She knew that Cinder couldn’t hurt her, and she was happy to be nice to the other woman.

Cinder turned her eyes on Holly, and then just stared at her.

“Are you serious right now?” She spat, shaking her head incredulously. “This is for real? You’re just going to offer me some more cake?”

“…It seemed like you really liked it,” Rose said quietly.

Mary remained silent, not sure what to say. She was convinced that “Cinder” as she called herself was something unholy possessing poor Ella; she didn’t know what else to make of the sudden and drastic personality shift the girl had undergone.

And if that was the case, then even Mary, as nice as she was, wouldn’t reach out a hand to something like Cinder. Demons should be opposed, not mollified!

Not that Cinder had any intention of playing nice herself.

“I’m not interested in your fucking cake!” Cinder spat, wiping crumbs and icing off her mouth. As she did, she couldn’t help but lick at her fingers. Neither she nor Ella had ever tasted anything this delicious before, she just had to!

That was a sign to Holly.

“I know!” She chirped. “Maybe you’re not interested in cake, since you live in that sweet suite? What if we make something else for you, then?”

“What?!” Mary gasped.

“I, uh… I’m not…” Rose stammered, glancing uncertainly between Cinder and Holly. Her skills at baking were far above her ability as a traditional chef, so she wasn’t sure if she should go along with Holly’s idea or not.

“Oooh, I could eat,” Vivian nodded. “I was going to just have Octavia whip something up for me later, but if you’re offering…”

“You’re aware that the faeries here can prepare food, correct?” Amelia pointed out. That was another thing Dawn had told her. “You don’t need to rely on your butler to cook your meals for you.”

“But then who am I going to get to taste it, to make sure it isn’t poisoned?” Vivian replied with a smirk. “That’s, like, Octavia’s whole job.”

For all her talk of supporting the little guy, Vivian sure did seem willing to sacrifice her butler for the sake of her own health.

“What nonsense are you all talking about!?” Cinder demanded, stomping her foot. “Faeries!? Making food!? This is ridiculous!”

“It is not,” Vivian said indignantly. “I had a nice little chat with a faerie earlier this afternoon, in fact! We talked about how cute that dress of hers is!”

Cinder’s jaw dropped. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

“…Puta madre,” she muttered to herself, shaking her head. “I’m fucking done with this!” She turned and headed for the elevator, but Amelia stepped in front of her.

“I don’t think it would be good for you to leave in this state,” she sternly admonished the younger woman.

Cinder’s eye twitched. Her fingers flexed and tensed as she made a fist and uncurled it.

“I don’t think it would be good for you to make me mad right now,” she replied, narrowing her eyes into a cold glare.

Amelia crossed her arms over her chest. “You can’t hurt me,” she pointed out. “So what are you going to do?”

Cinder restrained her impotent scream. The fact that Amelia was right pissed her off even more.

“I’ve worked with a lot of kids like you before,” Amelia said gently, taking a cautious step closer to Cinder. “When you get angry or upset, do you always resort to ****?”

Cinder was thrown off by the compassion in Amelia’s voice. She stared at the other woman in confusion, and Amelia took that as a good sign.

Yes! It’s working! Her chest swelled with triumph. She wasn’t very good at reaching out to others, but right now, it seemed that the steps she was making were right on point.

“I… I guess…” Cinder mumbled, her face flushing. Without being able to violently lash out at the people around her, she couldn’t properly unleash the emotions that were building up inside her, and that pissed her off even more.

“As an adult, you need to understand when to talk with the people around you and express yourself,” Amelia said, extending her hand to the violent girl. “That’s what my counselor is always telling me. And I think right now is a good time to talk. What do you say?”

Cinder’s eyes widened. “Counselor… you mean, like a doctor or something?”

Amelia paused. “Y-yes, that would be-”

“No way!” Cinder shouted, snapping any progress she’d made with Amelia like a twig as anger took over again. “I’m not listening to another fucking word from a doctor again!”

She pushed Amelia out of the way and charged towards the elevator. That may have been considered an act of ****, but if it was, Dakota hadn’t decided to count it. She fled the common area and waited for the elevator to close behind her.

Once it did, she could finally breathe again.

“RAAAARRRGH!” Cinder screamed in frustration, slamming her fists against the wall. It made a poor substitute for Amelia’s face, but she needed to do something to vent all her anger and frustration. It wasn’t fair! It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t fair, it wasn’t fair!

She was supposed to be protecting Ella from people like that, but she couldn’t! And if she couldn’t keep Ella safe, then what was even the point of her?!

The other women watched the elevator depart with shaken looks on their faces.

“I knew it…” Mary said, looking down. “There’s no way to reason with a demon…”

“She’s not a demon, Mary,” Rose said, shaking her head. “She just has some issues with her temper, that’s all.”

“It’s not just that!” Mary said, shaking her head. “She’s a completely different person from Ella, don’t you see? They’re nothing alike!”

“But that doesn’t make her a demon,” Rose said plainly. She believed in a lot of things, thanks to being brought onto this island. And maybe she even believed in demons in the abstract. But that was a far cry from labeling Cinder one.

“That wasn’t a demon,” Amelia said, walking back to the table. “That… I think that poor girl is sick.”

That was as far as she said on the matter. To Amelia, it was perfectly obvious that Ella/Cinder had dissociative identity disorder. And if she could see that, it made sense that the other girls could too, right? Now that they knew she was sick.

“What, like rabies?” Rose shivered.

Vivian burst out laughing. “Rabies! Ha! That’s something!”

Rose turned red. She didn’t like that Vivian was laughing at her, it made her feel like a loser. “I-I just… I mean…”

Amelia realized that maybe this was one of those times she should go into more detail.

“Have you heard of dissociative identity disorder before?” She inquired.

Mary, Rose, and Holly all shared looks with one another while Vivian leaned over the back of the couch to listen into the conversation.

“Never heard of it before,” Rose said, shaking her head.

“Neither have I,” Mary agreed.

Amelia sighed. “Now… I’m no doctor. So I shouldn’t be making any diagnosis. Maybe I’ve said too much as it is.”

“Well, we could always go get Dawn,” Rose suggested. “If you know about it, she definitely does.”

Amelia shook her head sharply. “Let that girl catch up on her rest. It isn’t that important if she’s here, anyway. I can… I can tell you. But again… I’m not a doctor. So I am not even close to being qualified to make a diagnosis. However… I have a significant amount of experience in early childhood education and child psychology.”

That made her more qualified than anyone in this room, at least.

“Dissociative identity disorder is a disorder that presents itself as the manifestation of two or more unique personality states in a single individual,” Amelia explained. “A person suffering from DID may alternate between different states to demonstrate different aspects of their personality. However, there is no universal signaling as to the presence of the disorder; it could be that she suffers from it, it could be that she doesn’t.”

The last part was Amelia’s attempt to hedge her bets. After all, she wasn’t a trained psychologist, even if she had taken a few classes on the subject. She knew that it was highly unethical to make a diagnosis of someone who wasn’t even a patient of hers.

But apparently her words rang true, because she could see the dawning realization on their faces.

“Oh, so like multiple-personality disorder!” Rose said. “I get it! Cinder is, like, a split personality for Ella, or something.”

Amelia was a little uncomfortable with that terminology, but she nodded. Adjusting her glasses, she gently corrected Rose, “The correct term is an ‘alter’ actually. I believe that Cinder is an alter that Ella developed as a coping mechanism.”

“A coping mechanism?” Mary’s face fell. “A coping mechanism for what?”

She remembered Cinder’s violent outburst and triggered response when she saw Amelia brandishing that riding crop. She had a pretty good idea what the other woman was getting at, but she didn’t feel comfortable saying it.

Amelia, sensing Mary’s hesitation, tightened her lips into a grim frown. “It isn’t my place to say anything more than that,” she said calmly. “I only wanted to correct your misunderstanding, so you would not think she was possessed by a demon. Such unscientific things would not help you connect with her any further.”

The other girls looked at each other uneasily.

“Uh… well, on that subject…” Rose scratched her head sheepishly.

“Come on, Teach! Didn’t you hear me say I saw a faerie earlier?” Vivian called out.

Amelia shot her a look. “I don’t trust your words,” she calmly informed the other woman.

Vivian smirked and stuck her tongue out. “Suit yourself!” She chortled. “But it doesn’t change the fact that I’m right. This hotel is full of ‘em!” She couldn’t wait until Amelia saw a faerie of her own. That would be quite a riot.

“Vivian’s right,” Holly said cheerfully. “This place is full of faeries! They’re really small, too!”

Amelia stared blankly at the other woman. To hear something like that… no, it couldn’t be possible, could it?

But she didn’t sense any lies coming from Holly.

“…I suppose it’s possible, given what I’ve seen from Dakota,” Amelia sighed, rubbing her temples. She remembered when Dakota and Nick were little kids, they would play around and Dakota would pretend to be a faerie trying to trap him and make him her husband. She thought it was just playing around, just puppy love, but if that girl from her memory had the powers she now displayed…

…

Actually, the more that she thought about it, the more likely it was than not that Dakota had created faeries for the island.

I suppose that means Dawn was being literal when she said that faeries do all the work on this island, Amelia thought. I imagined that she was speaking of the pink-haired girl, who called herself a leprechaun.

That was also an accurate statement.

The awkward silence had returned, even though Cinder was long gone. Everyone looked at each other, not sure what to say, before Rose broke the ice.

“So, uh… look, if Ella… Cinder… whoever she is, if she has this multiple-personality-”

“Dissociative identity disorder,” Amelia sharply corrected her. She wouldn’t abide imprecision of language, especially about something so serious as this.

“Right, that,” Rose nodded, swallowing. “If she has that… is there anything we can do? Some way to help her?”

Amelia sighed. A question of that magnitude was far outside her abilities.

That girl… her reaction when she saw my riding crop… I suspect that she was the victim of serious, severe ****. If she really is a murderer… that would explain a lot of her actions. But as far as curing her condition… is that even possible?

The important thing in Amelia’s mind was making sure that the others were safe. And a part of that would be ensuring that the environment around them wasn’t a hostile, dangerous place for someone like Ella.

Judging by Cinder’s words, Ella switches to her when she feels anxious or threatened, as a defense mechanism, Amelia reasoned. So if we want to keep her from manifesting, the best way to do that is to make sure that there isn’t anything to trigger her or set her off. But the problem is that she’s living with someone else, too.

Amelia sighed, and rose from the table.

“Where you goin’, Teach? Don’tcha want a bit more of your cake?” Vivian asked curiously.

“Is everything alright?” Mary asked, beating Rose to the punch by one second.

“Yeah, is everything okay?” Rose asked, shooting Mary a dirty look.

Amelia just nodded vaguely, not seeing a need to let the other girls in on her thoughts at the moment. She turned and headed for one of the rooms, but it wasn’t her own.

She focused her sights on Ella’s room, instead.

She needed to have a conversation with the Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin who was staying there.

The elevator opened and Ella stumbled out, feeling a little dizzy and confused. Cinder’s memories were locked away from her, but as usual when she switched back, Ella could still feel the traces of rage from her emotional high.

But she felt something else, too. A lingering sense of sadness and melancholy, and… remorse?

“Oh no…” Ella groaned, slumping against the wall. “What did I do…?”

This was not a position she was thrilled to be in. She had agreed to come onto this show because she thought it was her last, best chance of getting to experience things a normal person would. Things that she had been deprived of, like falling in love.

And she’d had her chance. Nick seemed like a nice enough guy. But Cinder didn’t trust him. And she’d appeared and ruined the whole thing. Then, when her roommate had approached her, Cinder had taken over once again.

Because Ella was too scared and uneasy about everything. It was just the worst.

“I just want to be normal,” she mumbled, curling up into a ball and hugging her knees to her chest. “I didn’t ask for any of this…”

Her words echoed uselessly through the hallway. Regardless of her own wishes, a desire for normalcy was a pointless one.

After all… “normal” had nothing to do with her anymore.

She’d taken human lives. Even if she couldn’t remember doing it, those were her hands that had swung that axe.

“Cinder… are you okay?” Ella asked quietly. She knew, of course, that she couldn’t get an answer. She couldn’t communicate with her other self. But it was strange; even though her emotions were so twisted up into knots, she didn’t feel like she needed her rubber band to suppress them.

Cinder had given up control, and was letting her be herself for once.

If only she could understand why her eyes were filled with tears…

Ella shook her head quickly and rubbed the tears away. She couldn’t just sit here crying. But she was paralyzed by indecision.

That was the worst thing about having another you floating around in your head. Whenever Ella woke up in the morning, she had to worry about if Cinder had come for her in the night. Whenever she regained consciousness from her fugue and stumbled around with barely any memories bouncing in her head, she dreaded what Cinder had said or done, and what the results of that would be.

Ella was completely at the mercy of her other self. And even now, Cinder was letting her go- for what purpose, she didn’t know, but she was certain that her alter had done something.

That made her feel even worse.

“I’m sorry…” She whispered an apology for whoever Cinder had tormented today. She wanted to just go to bed, curl up, and go to sleep.

But she couldn’t.

The assassin girl was still in her room. And if she put herself back into that situation… who knows what Cinder had done? How she’d antagonized the Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin?

Ella could be walking into a confrontation with someone who would like nothing more than to strangle her to ****.

That thought made her feel sick to her stomach.

Biting back her frustration, Ella rose shakily to her feet, snapping her rubber band on her wrist for good measure. “Thwap!”

She didn’t need to do that; it wasn’t like she could feel Cinder trying to take hold. But at this point, she’d gotten so used to the rubber band that it actually helped calm her down, Cinder or no Cinder.

As she moved, though, a crumpled-up piece of paper fell out of the pocket of her jumpsuit. She looked down at it curiously and picked it up, unfolding it so she could get a better look.

She gasped.

“Oh! This… um…” She squinted, and tried to make out the words.

Shamefully, Ella could barely read. She’d learned a little, before her father died, but she’d seldom had the need to actually do anything with it. Then, after getting arrested, she’d studied a little more. But whenever she put her mind to it, her anxiety always reared up and threatened her with the idea of Cinder taking over.

But that wouldn’t happen now.

So she stared at the sheet Cinder had crumpled up, and tried to parse through the words. Then she gasped. It was a list of things she could buy from the shop!

Turning the paper over, she looked at the purchases that were unique for her.

• 500 BP: Charmed Apple – Contestant Ella will receive a magic apple that will put whoever takes the first bite of it to sleep. In that charmed sleep, they will receive a pleasurable and erotic dream and wake up the next morning fully-rested, without any feelings of stress or worry.
• 3000 BP: The Housekeeper’s Apprentice – Contestant Ella will receive a set of enchanted cleaning equipment that is designed to help her with her chores. Dusting, mopping, sweeping, scrubbing, they can do it all, leaving more time for her to do sexy things as a maid should. (NOTE: As the magic fades, the tools will become less efficient at their tasks. Repeated use for multiple days at a time is not advised. The more they’re used, the longer it takes to return to peak efficiency.)
• 8000 BP: Magic Mirror – Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the fairest one of all? Certainly not Cinder, that’s for sure. Contestant Ella will receive a magic mirror that will allow her to communicate with her alternate self, and vice-versa. The mirror only has enough magic to work for a total of 30 minutes each day, and then must recharge.

Ella was pretty sure she’d read them all correctly. And if what she read was true, then she really needed to get her hands on some BP; some of the stuff here looked like it could save her from much more difficulty in the future.