Cadmium Permanence

A sharp voice. Words I can’t untangle yet. The cold metal beneath me — no, around me — seems to vibrate, or maybe it’s just my body failing to steady itself. My senses return in staggered pieces: a breeze against my skin, the sound of shifting fabric, the dull clack of something wooden against something harder. A game piece?

“Oh, look what we have here?”

Suddenly my body feels the breeze of gravity as I was picked up. “What shall we do with him?”

“Let him stand.”

They let me stand on my leg, although still haven’t waked up fully. I tried to keep my leg upright even with brevity of the air. My mouth speak, though it’s closer to gibberish.

“Don’t shed a tear.” The voice seemingly the one with the authority speak again. My thoughts sharpen against the sound, like striking steel against flint. At that point, my sense has fully recovered. I look around my perimeter, anything within my peripheral.

No building, no horizon, nothing.

Only the glow of sickening red and orange that flow within each other, like nations wishes to expand its border, pushing against each other. Dying. Annoying.

The only object I can focus without losing my sanity is what is in front of me. A group of woman, one of them stand out with black straw bonnet decorated with veil that look like caul, white ribbon plaided to the back, matching tassels and silk cord that strapped the base, and inflorescence of what could be perceived as tulip though I am not sure. Other than that they wear chemisette and fichu. One of them, the one that carry my body before wear a black chemise de nuit muffed with white collar. White engageantes with striking flower pattern also decorate her arm.

They seemingly have higher ground despite no ground to be seen. Perched at somewhat similar to dais, but from how the other sit, it might be Kang. There is drink table with a bowl on top, filled with just as much candy as I can perceive. There is also kettle placed on the pillow. Though judged by the nonexistent steam it’s been cold for long time. In the middle where the seeming leader at, in between me and her, there is coffee table. Most of its burnished wooden area is filled with chessboard, look like they have been played. All I can see is she played Nxe7+ before she speaks in trivial manner.

“You reckon, where would you play from here?”

Something shoves me from behind. Not a push meant to knock me over, just enough force, to send a message — I am to move. I stumbled forward, legs scrambling deterrences, feet scraping against but not exactly. The ground, if it can be called that, is the same sickly red-orange flow stretching endlessly in all directions. It does not ripple beneath my weight. It does not react at all.

Another shove.

The one in the black chemise de nuit lingers just behind me, growing impatient, her hand still half-raised from the motion. Her face is blank as mountain of dried salt. The white collar at her throat is stiff, unmoving, her engageantes bobbed midway already full off itself. The flowers embroidered there are striking, precise and yet organic — a pattern of violets, or something like them. The pose she made with one foot pressing on the ground give way for the white crinoline beneath to show itself.

Though — in this happenstance — I shouldn’t scrutinize further, it already make me insane as is. Therefore, I sit. There is no chair, no cushion beneath me, yet I do not fall. I can hear the minion steps back, satisfied.

For a moment, I do nothing but exist in this place, struggling to understand the weight of my own body nor my mind. Then my gaze settles on the chessboard. It is easier to focus on that, on something structured, something that should make sense.

The game state unspools before me.

I can trace what the board played before. g6 meant to attack the knight, instead trigger his movement and worse weakens the dark squares. The king’s side breathes too much now, its defences paper-thin.

The woman played the only real move here, the best move — Nxe7+ — a clean check that forked knight, bishop and king. That means she did the only plausible move. No not Nh4 whish work, but no chance to advance. She find it, calculated the advantages, ensured no blunder. My eyes trace the pieces, the lines of attack, the way the board tilts in her favour.

If I advance my knight, I might gain a tactical edge while maintaining future positional strength. Denying it with knight on d6 does nothing. It’s too shallow, too reactionary. No pressure.

My fingers hover over a piece, hesitating.

The queen. If I move her, I can reinforce control over this file, ensure she governs the row with authority. But there’s seemingly no development from here. No future.

A slow, creeping awareness builds in my chest. The feeling that this game was played long before I arrived. That the moves, my moves, were already accounted for.

The woman across from me waits. The others do not move, do not breathe.

%% This might be it guys. %%

This is not just a game.

And yet to settle the raunching heart, I reach for the knight. As my fingers close around, it feels heavier than it should. The smoothness of the piece is unnatural, not wood, not ivory, something colder. As I lift it, the air itself seems to tighten, thick with anticipation.

A voice, not hers, but from one of the others.

“He hesitates.”

Another, softer, dripping with amusement.

“They always do.”

I ignore them. My focus locks onto the board, reexamining it yet again. Nxe7+ was forced; her move was the only real move. And now, I must answer.

The knight on e7 pins the king in place. He can’t escape. The queen on d8 could block, but the e-file is suffocated by the pawn on e4 — it’s an obstruction, a broken dam with water pressing against it.

The other option is Nc6. A move that feels… expected. Too neat. The pieces arrange themselves like whispers from a conversation I wasn’t invited to. Nc6 preserves position, but at what cost?

I hover over the knight, considering. If I reinforce c6, I hold the centre. If I let her take control, the position collapses further.

I hear fabric shift. A breath, though not from me.

I move the piece a breadth away. Nxc6.

The instant the piece lands, something changes.

Not on the board. Not in the game.

In me.

A ripple, silent and invisible, runs outward. My skin prickles with the sensation of something unwinding, something coming undone.

The woman in the black bonnet watches without expression. The tulip pinned at her veil looks paler now. No, not pale, drained. As if colour itself is something that can be spent.

Then, she moves.

Her hand glides across the board, her fingers brushing the queen, and in a single, deliberate motion—

Dxc5…

The weight in my chest tightens. Of course. Of course.

The position opens up for queen development. The file is still closed, the structure still weak, the air still thick with the same unspoken understanding.

The move I thought was mine was never mine.

“Again.”

She does not ask. She does not demand. She simply waits.

The board resets. It moves like there is pigeon biting into it’s head, dropping into places though doesn’t even manage a noise. Her knight, once again, still on e7, uncaptured, waiting for a decision I never truly owned. The concept of it just feels absurd to me now.

I stare at it. The others remain silent. The one in the chemise de nuit smiles, just slightly. Now, it is my turn.

I scrutinize the pieces again, from where they were before. The knight on e7. The king stranded on g8. The position demands an answer. And this time, I do not hesitate.

Qxd8.

The queen moves, effortless, as if it always belonged there. The weight of decision, of consequence, settles around me. There is no sound of impact, no solid confirmation that the piece has landed.

Only the feeling, like something shifting, tightening, rearranging itself in a pattern older than understanding.

The woman in the black bonnet does not look at the board. She looks at me. Her smile is wide, susceptible.

Then, she moves.

Not her hands, her whole body. She steps forward, lurching her upper body with the bone on her lower leg scrunching to the ground. Her sole face the air, bending the ankle, as if it’s trying to avoid the ground, despite the seeming non-existant of it. The veil shifts, the tassles bobbed, the tulip at its base appearing more withered now, drained of its former vitality. Each step is deliberate, silent.

She reaches me and without hesitation, grab my hand and pulls me from where I sit. My hand has been bounded hard, clawing deep into my skin, but I don’t try to get it free. Not because I lack the will, because the act of resistance itself feels absurd.

And suddenly her drag feels fluid, as if we are one, and always has been one. She moves, and I move with her.

She speaks, and her voice is different now. No longer casual, no longer trivial. “Who are you?”

The words are slow, deliberate, their weight pressing against the dissolving space between us. Not just a question, an incantation.

The others remain where they are, unmoving, their forms half-dissolved into the void of red and orange. Their presence no longer matters.

Only her.

Only this.

“Ay, You knowest not youself.” Her head tilts, just slightly. The veil shifts, and though I cannot see her eyes, I feel them. “What manner of wretch stands before me, unmade and unclaimed?”

I try to speak, but the words do not form. Swaying at the ragged detention.

Simply that, she just does not wait for an answer.

“You are none, yet you must be named. A thing unfixed is a thing wasted.”

Her grip does not tighten, but the weight of her presence coils further, pressing into the marrow of my being.

“Let it be so, then. I shall tell you what you are.”

Suddenly, the color shifts.

The red-orange glow stabilizes, now unlike a nations’ dream, it’s nations’ nightmare. Colder. Emptier. Unfurling in its place, an abyss that does not just call to me but expects me in its entirety.

An imaginary, cosmological line slices through my vision, bisecting the world along a horizontal axis. On one side, a deep, endless purple, pooling like ink. On the other, an overwhelming, near-blinding white. The two hues churn, pushing against each other, yet never mixing. A perfect division. Along the axis there exist my body, if I able to see it.

And somewhere within that void, a voice calls out—

‘Yajur’

From the sanskrit word, Yajus. It feels to resonate with me. In other manner that I would never have thought. Am I part of Yajur? Who am I?

“Your name is ‘You’.”

‘You’… or with the tone Yōu. Nice name, but something even deeper moves within me. Something that calls out my name yet strange and unknown. It echoed from garbled noise of the hand that grow, but of mess. And slowly I thought, I can take some of the word — though hissed — as coherent enough.

“Commander ‘You’, where are you?”

“Commander ‘You’, sorry for what happened, please.”

“Commander was last seen here, but he’s gone just like that.”

Those words pressed against me, their weight heavy yet slipping through my grasp like water through cupped hands. Familiar. But not. A history that belongs to me and yet—

It does not.

Then, softer, cutting through the noise—

“Pop, where you’ve been? I can’t find your signature.”

This one is different.

Not an order. Not a report. Something personal. Childlike, pleading. A voice reaching for me — not just calling a title, but something else. Something closer.

Pop.

A tug. Not at my body, not at my mind, but something deeper. A thread wound tight, unravelling with every syllable.

But then, she speaks. “You doth need to worry about those irrelevant data. They are nothing, be here, be part of you.”

The purple and white divide fades, replaced by something more vibrant, more structured — less sickening, yet more absolute. People begin to coalesce into view, their forms incomplete, shifting.

They look at me. No—

They are me.

I don’t know.

I don’t know.