"Miyuki, would you be a dear and grab some groceries from the farmer's market? It's going to be your cousin's birthday soon and I can't just abandon the cake."

Aunt Yukiko's words still burned in Miyuki's mind. Her demand was nothing remarkable: just a little errand.

It was so simple, so innocent.

It was so sinful.

Aunt Yukiko knew this, too, but she didn't dare do anything but play pretend. How cowardly, how pitiful she was, clinging onto those lies of serenity in the midst of the true pandamonium. Of course, Miyuki didn't say anything. She just smiled and went off, like the obedient girl she was supposed to be. It just couldn't be helped. She already knew what was in her aunt's dark heart.

It was a grey, blustery day, just like that fateful afternoon. Shopkeepers greeted her beaming and she smiled back, but in her mind, Miyuki saw through the facade of peace and prosperity. She knew now that it was a farce.

Would they ever face the truth?

Seething just below the ever-thinning skin of lies was war: a terrible monster of destruction. It was why Aunt Yukiko - despite trying to stay in the shadows of falsehoods - never let her own son out alone; Miyuki was far less valuable, better to lose her instead. The shopkeepers were bound by patriotism and by fears, staying silent as the battles raged on, as the enemies slowly penetrated their homes.

Miyuki had found this out forcefully, when her innocent parents had been killed. Then she knew.

On the streets, propaganda promoted peace. On the news, a thousand million tragedies were announced. Did they think the police would stop it? Did they trust their armies? How easy it would be for them to stop this madness. How elementary, if they tried. The proof of it all seeped into the streets, with so many colourful protests shouting "THE 99% SILENCED MAJORITY!", "GOD HATES YOU!", "KEEP YOUR HANDS ON YOUR MAIL, OFF OURS!". How could it be that so many were dissatisfied if the world was, truly, "at peace"?

Her parents had known. In their papers, hidden away in plain sight, there were all sorts of secrets, tales of espionage, betrayal, and hidden walls to truth. How could it be that there was so much wrong?

Despicable lies, so carelessly veiled - they could never fool everyone.

Miyuki refused to be gullible, even as she put on her ever-smiling mask. Those who do not want to know cannot live with that knowledge. What point was there in trying to convince mere sheep?

"Miyuki! Fresh greens are on sale for seventy-five cents a pound!" Mrs. Takahashi called out from her own stall. Her aunt had sent her by enough to know the vendors. She, too, must know, still pretending that action wasn't what she wanted. Distracting herself with that make-belief life, pandering to those in power. Just like everyone else. Inwardly, Miyuki sighed. The assault had started…

"Ah really? Thank you so much! I'll have half a pound of lettuce and then…"

"It's great to see you smile again, Miyuki! You were so oppressive after your parents' passing - it's a nice change!"

...and Miyuki would never give up! Smile, smile, put up a facade of gaiety, play this charade: it was all too much work sometimes. Still, Miyuki would play this game, this game they now called "life". It was either this, or they'd drug her into submission, with no one the wiser. And if she wanted to expose this… well, she couldn't let that happen, could she?

Miyuki trekked on, weaving through the same colourful stores and monotonous patrons, a pale moth fluttering in the thick of the darkest woods.

She cast a glance at a nearby pharmacy. Already, sickly teens - classmates, friends, and mentors of her own age - lined up to cover their illnesses. It had been in her parents' notes, as well. The L virus, they had called it, a threat to society. She saw it: anxiety, insomnia, self-starvation, with weakness in mind as well as body, hallucinations of a twisted world, and the slathering of poison about one's body. And then perhaps the ingestion of mind-altering drugs, which were now so widespread no one bothered to disguise them, or take in the dark. Yes, this was it. And no one even attempted to stop this new pestilence. How silly of the governments to think that she would never notice, that tongues would never wag; how gullible of everyone to never exercise their tongues. It was already upon them, turning brains into mush, minds into puppets, and hearts into rotting pools of darkness.

Miyuki paid for the lettuce, taking tomatoes, carrots, seaweed, shrimp, and her aunt's favourite Swiss cheese from Mrs. Takahashi too. The dame bid her good-day, before turning to face a man clothed in darkness. Black coat, black pants, black suit, black hat; it was one of those secret operatives, planning out clandestine destruction. In their murder of crows, they schemed across the world, with the sole purpose of enchaining human freedom. They influenced opinions, plastered images, started conspiracies, spread the most inane drivel, for this.

It was them who made the L virus. It was them that her parents wrote against. The ones who talked in hushed whispers, softly, as if in fear that their words and people hearts would grow wings and fly away.

And Miyuki could see them wherever she went. So then it was true. It had to be true, right?

She walked about in the city stink, knowing full well that the governments had polluted this and the water in order to manipulate the populace. She herself had felt its effects some time after finding out that truth - it was insidious. They really should just give up - the truth was inevitable, after all.

Miyuki peeked into a popular store, her cousin safe inside. He fingered a superhero periodical. She laughed mirthlessly inside her head. What a fool.

He should have known that it was a lie. Powerful people - those who had enough money, were they in the right position, had a silver tongue - never got punished. Didn't he hear all about the abuse that flies around, victims too intimidated to say a word? Didn't he know about the anonymous gangs and the venoms they spread? Auntie's little precocious prodigy: nothing but a child! There was no one coming to save him, not here!

Miyuki strolled into her aunt's apartment, past contrived quiet stairways and equally shallow neighbours. The artificial lights switched on in the lurid sunset.

Silently, obediently, she shoved the food into the refrigerator, eavesdropping on Aunt Yukiko and that doctor neighbour of theirs. Again, she silently sighed. When would they ever try to see the light even as darkness engulfed them in increasingly dangerous shades?

"…Miyuki's a… bright girl, I think, but she… kind of has her heart in darkness, you know? After her parents' deaths, she just started sprouting that stuff about a government conspiracy theory and the like; she said that her parents knew about it too… that it was the truth and I knew it too."

"Any talk of hearing voices?"

"None. I think it's just that she can't let go of them - her parents. Madness doesn't run in the family, but her parents were novelists, and they really had a soft spot for dystopias and satires… I suppose Miyuki took it to heart. Can you please… help her?"

"Didn't her parents…?"

"My sister… well, she had some ideas… she and her husband were a bit… you know… Miyuki of course, is really a bright girl, it's just that… she's a bit… imaginative at times… and I don't know how I can ever help her."