I.

One thing has to be understood before anything else. Unfortunately, nobody can agree on what.

IV.

Cordelia Verhive IV remembers choosing her name on a whim. She's shivering, icicles cover the window of a shop selling hormone replacer implants. Far more expensive than she can afford on a class 7 non-functioner's existence compensation tokens.
They all look nice, though. On days where she feels hopeless she likes to come here and look at them and imagine what it would be like if she could get estradiol.
There's a bitter jealousy welling up in her like a vein about to pop.
"Sagittarius serpentarius," she repeats to herself like a mantra, "secretary bird."

V. (Verhive)

A most storied name at this point. The stories, however, were known to Cordelia at most subliminally. They weren't consciously a factor in choosing it.

II.

it all comes falling down
she can't hold together for very long
every little thing a needle in a haystack, every haystack a river of needles
nothing worth letting her guard down around
she cries to herself
"there's nothing inside me"

Trains

The trains don't run on time. They barely run at all.
Cordelia is lying on the floor in the train station muttering something indistinct.
People passing by shoot her glances somewhere between pity, indifference and hunger.

Red Dye

Her hair is long but it gets in her face a lot when she's outside, she doesn't like the way that feels.
Sometimes she moves her hair so it's in front of her instead of behind, when she looks in the mirror, just to remind herself it's at least long.
Cochineal, she thinks. Carmine. Under Night In-Birth.
Kill each other, but it's good inverses.
Her psychic labrat random encounter sense kicks in and she does a little tail-twitch to vent the energy, ducking out of the way of a beam, or where a beam might've been if someone thought it was worth firing.
Cochineal, carmine, King Crimson.
Raptoria would've liked that one.
21st Century Schizoid Man.
Clicking her painted claws together, hyperpink psycrowsister dayglo.
Lucid, Lucy Lacemaker... what was she thinking about again?
Red hair. Red riding hood.
3453
The year it all went wrong. Or right, if you like being whatever the hell you are right now. Some people adjust pretty well.
There are categories but they don't make a lot of sense.
Beastroid, catplayer, silicon-vector stimlord... seems like the words change every five minutes.

Existence Compensation Tokens

A vestige of pre-collapse social strata, mostly useless pseudomoney, but it buys the occasional pity friendplay RP if you're desperate enough for a hit of second-hand emotional connection.
It's rumoured that something similar could once buy food.
There's a quote printed on physical copies of an ECT, which are pretty rare but do still exist:
"Everyone's worthy of my pity" - Empress Raptoria Victrex I

5334

Present day, present time.
Cordelia is here.

V. (Victor)

Very few, but people are still playing to win anyway.
Empress Raptoria Victrex I fancied herself the winner at pretty much whatever one could name but she's dead now.
Cool teeth, though, sorta like cartoon sharks' teeth. Her whole vibe was pretty sharp.
Cordelia lives in sector 255 with her girlfriend for a while.
Her girlfriend's name is Griza Zara. No number, which is pretty unusual these days. Griza has light-up patterns all over her and wicked sick laser eyes and she's like, ten feet tall on a good day.
Today isn't a good day, but it might be someday.
"I think we should probably go get the estrogen from the storage unit," says Griza, "you forgot to take yours yet."
Cordelia slaps herself in the face, and then they both go get their estrogen.

Nightmares

The content isn't what's scary about a nightmare so much as the emotions it draws out.
Old ghosts die hard, but not every ghost even had a living form.
"Cordy, cordyceps..."
Ringing bells, suffering lambs, metal crying tears of lava.
"You'll always be here. I'll love you forever, so..."
She wakes up with a shock, screaming something indistinct or all too distinct.
Checkpoint. Unifaun. Checkmate.
Paperlate.
That face on the cover, remember vinyl?
"Course not, that was thousands of years ago," says Griza, "I guess I saw it too though, the face I mean."
Cordelia taps a specific spot on the wall absentmindedly.
"This..." she mumbles, "it's looking through this... no, it's gone."

A (Angel)

Cordelia is shocked awake, screaming of a vision of a destroying angel, vast and terrifying.

I. (Image)

Image Reflection Sickness is a condition in which images, such as cartoons and comics, have an outsized effect on the psyche.
In some cases, this can result in Identity Disintegration.
The only cure for it is there isn't one.
It's just bad luck.

V. (Voice)

Griza practices her voice and looks at herself in the mirror and breaks down crying and lies on the fllor for what feels to her like a long time.
Cordelia cries as well.

Awakening

Cordelia wakes up screaming from a dream in which she was holding a teddy bear and crying into a grating on the floor.
Griza is fiddling with the estrogen capsules again. "These are like, maybe 50% as efficient as they could be," she says, glancing at Cordelia who's still just glad she's finally getting any estradiol at all, "but I don't think we're gonna be given a better dosage any time soon."
"Gri... za hey. Hey hey. Griza hey can I... can I just..." Cordelia says, still incoherent from the aftereffects of the dream.
Griza passes an estrogen capsule from one hand to the other.
"Cordy, you okay?"
"Not real... really..."

No Phone: How to Read

Read in any order. Skip parts if desired.

How to Spend Time

Cordelia has a tablet she scavenged from a trash island in a flesh-river but it usually doesn't work.
When it does, she mostly uses it to check if anybody is talking about her online (they aren't). When it doesn't, she obsesses over whether someday they will and she'll catch it too late to do whatever she imagines she'd do in response.
Griza mostly isn't bothered by online but she can't be around cutlery, even spoons. Spoons make her feel like she can't be trusted with anything or she'll just hurt herself with it.
"Griza, hey, let's water the flowers again."
They're not flowers.
Close enough, but still.

No Phone: How to Swim

?????????
Win Big If
True: Enter
For Prize
?????????
Cordelia repeats the words, increasingly frustrated with her voice. Griza strokes her hair.
"What kinda prize?"
They both laugh.

Intermission

Cordelia takes a few deep breaths. She's not really good at self-care.

No Phone

"There's somebody reading my... phone," mutters Cordelia, waking up again.
"Cordy you literally don't have a phone." Griza is writing her own name on her arm repeatedly in silver gel pen. She can't sleep.
"No phone, no phone," sings Cordelia, "I just wanna be alone today..." her voice breaks, tears in her eyes. "I hate my voice."
"I hate mine too," Griza says, "and my facial hair. She's running her thumb across her chin compulsively.
"Hold me close, Griza..."
"Alright."

Flesh-Rivers

About as grotesque as they sound, if not more. Doesn't really bear thinking about.

III.

"Cordy-cord..."
"Huh?"
"Power chord."
"What?"
"Check it out." Griza is drumming the fingers of her right hand against her palm excitedly and pointing with her left toward something in the window of a long-abandoned shop.
Cordelia looks at it. It's an old plush toy, merchandise for some cartoon she can't identify but she can tell it must be something from a cartoon.
They both stare at it for a long time, quietly thinking about whether they should go inside and take it.
"If it's been there this long, and nobody's taken it yet..." Cordelia says, "then maybe it's supposed to stay there."
Griza nods. "Let's come back and look at it again tomorrow, though. I like it."