Day 4, Week 1: Chloe Parker Part 1

Alan woke to Ariadne at the dresser, laying out a neat stack of clothes that would fit her human form.

She was still a Crawler now, her long body curled across the bed like a heated cable. Sleeping beside her had been strange: not frightening, not unpleasant—just wrong in a way his mind kept trying to sand down into normal. Her skin was hot. Human-hot. Close enough that his body had accepted it while his thoughts refused.

Ariadne didn’t look at him as she smoothed a blouse with the precision of someone trying to control reality with folding.

“Ratings,” she said.

It wasn’t quite a joke. There was a thin edge of anger under it, the kind that only showed when she was tired.

“Being a Crawler with you is different from staying one the rest of the week,” Ariadne continued. “Stargazers…” She shook her head like she’d bitten something sour.

Alan pushed himself up on an elbow, frowning. “What are Stargazers, exactly?”

Ariadne paused, fingers hovering over a belt like the question had tugged on a thread she didn’t want pulled.

“So, a person from the UK might call someone from South Carolina a ‘Yankee’—using it the way they mean it,” she said carefully. “It’s one of those words.”

She sighed.

“I can use it for any baseline human. But most people who use it mean the Audience.” Her mouth twitched. “I don’t think anyone wants an etymology lesson before Chloe shows up.”

“So the people watching this show are humans?” Alan asked.

“Yeah,” Ariadne said, and then laughed, sharp and delighted in a way that didn’t match the topic. “But not all of them want to admit it.”

She glanced at him over her shoulder.

“If you ever feel like causing a flame war on the Harem Hotel message boards, pick a host and ask if they’re human. The thread about Lucian had people agreeing to literal sword duels in public before everyone got bored.”

Alan blinked. “That’s insane.”

“That’s fandom,” Ariadne corrected brightly, as if that explained everything.

He swallowed and rubbed his face. A day ago he would’ve said none of this is real. Now he was negotiating the social norms of a universe where “literal sword duel” was a plausible forum outcome.

“Well,” Alan said, forcing steadiness into his voice, “I guess we should get this over with.”

He reached out and placed his hand on one of her tendrils. It softened under his palm, then flowed upward as if it had been waiting for permission, reshaping into a curve of cheek. The intimacy of it hit him a beat late.

“Do you have plans for the day?” he asked, because talking was safer than thinking.

Ariadne went still.

“Prepare for Tess,” she said.

The name landed like a glass dropped in a quiet room.

“We’ve never been apart this long before,” Ariadne added, lower. “Not since we met.”

“How long has it been?” Alan asked.

Ariadne’s eyes flicked away, doing mental math that made his stomach tense.

“For me it’s day five,” she said. “She must’ve been in the laundry with my parents for a few extra months if she’s hosting.”

Her face tightened with something close to worry.

“That won’t be good for her.”

Alan frowned. “When did she go to prison?”

“It’s a boarding school,” Ariadne said immediately, and then, as if she couldn’t stop herself, added, “but my father was being dramatic.”

She exhaled, almost a laugh.

“She showed up when she was twelve. I was directing the school musical, and she played Ryoko in our adaptation of Song of Saya after she realized what we were doing.”

Alan’s brain stalled.

Not slowly. Not gracefully. Just—stopped.

His mouth opened. Nothing came out. His eyes went unfocused like an overheated computer.

“Oh,” said a voice from the corner. “You broke Alan.”

Alan’s head jerked.

Chloe was sitting in the shadows like she’d been there the whole time, calmly observing the conversation with the patient posture of someone waiting for a jump scare to do its job.

She smiled at him.

“I was wondering when you’d notice me.”

“Chloe,” Alan said hoarsely, “do you even know what Saya no Uta is?”

Chloe hesitated. “Um… I’m guessing that’s Japanese?”

“It’s a love story,” Ariadne said, cheerful and unhelpful. “We have recordings of the production, if you want to see them.”

Alan turned slowly toward Chloe with the expression of a man trying to save someone from a pit trap.

“Chloe,” he said, very seriously, “it’s a trap.”

Chloe looked between them. “Um. What?”

“Clearly,” Ariadne said, delighted, “what we need to do is watch the recordings together.”

Before Alan could protest, she made a small motion with her hands, palms opening like she was gently prying a lid off reality. The wall mirror shimmered and flattened. Its reflection dissolved into a dark screen with a faint glow at the center.

Alan’s heart sank as the mirror became a television.

On-screen, a title card appeared in cheerful school-production font:

THE MARY STUART SCHOOL FOR THE GIFTED AND INCONVENIENT PRESENTS:

SAYA’S SONG

DIRECTED BY ARTHUR BLACK

PRODUCED BY ARIADNE BLACK

There was a long, painful silence.

“Oh man,” Ariadne muttered, and her face went pink. “I forgot about the title card.”

She raised both hands like she could physically shield herself from her past.

“Um, yeah. I was Arthur half the time.” She grimaced. “And we thought it was clever.”

Alan made a sound that might have been a prayer.

Chloe leaned forward a little, the way you did when the car crash was already happening and you couldn’t look away.

Seven hours later, Alan and Chloe sat very still on the bed.

At some point they had started holding hands. Neither of them remembered choosing it. Their fingers were locked together like two survivors clinging to the same floating debris.

On-screen, “Saya” delivered her final song.

Welcome to my world—do the creepy-cute spin,
We got weird little hearts and we always let ’em win,
If you’re scared, hold hands, if you’re mad, take a breath,
It’s a dance-party castle with a tiny bit of ****!
Welcome to my world—don’t be fake, don’t be shy,
If the “normal” hurts your feelings, come and hang with my guys,
You can boo, you can gasp, you can scream “This is wrong!”
But the beat’s too sick—so you’ll still sing along!

The chorus hit with the confidence of middle schoolers who had tasted forbidden art and decided morality was optional.

"Everybody wants a happy ending."

The beat dropped out, leaving only a cute little music-box melody that should not have been anywhere near this story.

Saya spoke, answering the group line. "This is mine."

A narrator spoke, soft and reverent.

“Love wins.”

Another voice cut in, deeper, dryer.

“No—she wins.”

Saya’s actress smiled straight into the camera and spoke with the calm certainty of a child who has not yet learned which thoughts should stay inside.

“Same thing.”

The entire cast shouted together like a spell being cast with glitter:

"WELCOME TO MY WORRRRLD"

The lights snapped.

The curtain fell.

In the aftermath, the room felt too quiet. Even the air seemed embarrassed.

Ariadne rose from the bed and stretched like someone finishing a satisfying movie night.

“Well,” she said, chipper, “you two should have some privacy.”

Alan’s head turned slowly toward her.

Ariadne smiled at him with the serene cruelty of someone who knew exactly what she had done.

“I’ll see both of you later,” she said, and walked out.

Alan and Chloe stayed perfectly still until they heard the door click shut.

Only then did Alan exhale like a man surfacing from underwater.

“We have got to get out of here,” he whispered.

Chloe nodded, eyes wide and haunted in a brand-new way.

“Um,” she said weakly. “Yeah.”