now let's skip the tears and start on the whole-

[stagemanagers]

[You remember dying. Maybe the memory is clear and bright and your body still aches from the cause. Maybe it was fast enough that you didn't feel it and don't remember what you went through. But no matter how you went out you're still trapped here.

When you open your eyes it might take you a minute to recognize your surroundings. For the executed, it's your dressing room. For the victims, you startle awake in the place your body was discovered. But no matter where you are nothing is where you remember it. It's like everything has been picked up and moved to the other side of the room. The entire room has been perfectly mirrored from what it used to be and, upon leaving, it seems the rest of the opera house is just the same. If you remember one room being in the east wing, it's now in the west. If it was in the west, it's now in the east.


Welcome back to the Opera House, friends. Even in death you're still in the woods.]


WEEK 1 | WEEK 2 | WEEK 3 | WEEK 4 | WEEK 5


[ooc: Welcome to deadland, darlings! It's a perfectly mirrored version of the Opera House and each week, as new people die after new floors have been revealed, the stairwell doors will unlock and allow you to reach them. For example, week 3 victims will unlock floor 2 and so on and so forth. Also, all dead characters will wake up at their actual canon point.

Have fun because we have some fun things planned for you.]

Comments

[superbeliever]

[Richard wakes up on the edge of the fountain. The absence of pain wakes him almost more than anything, although the flood of memories that washes over him is a close second.

Both send him sitting bolt upright with a huge gasp, before he has to pinwheel his arms to try to keep from falling into the fountain.

He fails, and falls into the water with a splash, coming up spluttering.]

Oh, no.

[stagemanagers]

[The sudden movement, as well as the sudden splash, prompts a short answering shriek.

When you come up for air, Richard, a teenage boy is standing close to the fountain, looking stricken. He's clutching some kind of canvas tote bag to his chest.]

[superbeliever]

[Well now he's wet and uncomfortable, and there's a boy looking at him. He pushes his long wet hair off of his face, and frowns in confusion.]

...Hello there. Who are you?

[expertreese]

UH -

[Here he is! He's the boy who learned that you can still get the anxiety sweats when you're dead! He's not really that short but boy does he hunch.]

I'm, um, I'm Evan? I was just - Beetlejuice said it was important to get the bags, so I was just, uh, doing. That, so. Sorry??? [hey when is it socially acceptable to flee a conversation is that immediately can he do that immediately]

[superbeliever]

Beetlejuice? Who the hell is Beetlejuice?

[He's gonna just. Climb out of the fountain now. The memory of how weak his limbs were when he died still haunts him and makes him unsteady, but he makes it upright without falling again.]

[expertreese]

Beetlejuice is...















He's kinda a lot? There's, uh, there's just a lot.

[superbeliever]

Well, is he a demon? This is hell, right? Uh, no offense, it does kind of suck pretty hard that there's a kid here...

[expertreese]

I think he's maybe a half-demon? He just, says a bunch of stuff all the time, about...demons and the Netherworld and stuff? And he's really loud, so uh, I think you'll probably meet him. Eventually. He's always just kinda. Around.

[don't worry about the rest of that, like, he probably belongs in hell anyway]

[superbeliever]

...Oooookay.

[Richard steps out of the fountain, then, and frowns down at his wet shirt, and frowns harder when he realizes that there's no knife wound in it.

He looks around and sees that he's in the garden, but like, not.]

...Why does Hell look so much like the opera house?

[expertreese]

I really don't know...

[HE'S BEEN WONDERING THAT A LOT HIMSELF TBH]

I mean, I guess you guys all died here or something, so now you're haunting it, but some kind of weird mirror version of it with, um, Beetlejuice in it? And me! There's, uh, there's me too.

[superbeliever]

Did you... not die here?

[Is that rude to ask?

Wait who gives a shit about rude, he's dead!]

Was this place not here before we started dying?

[expertreese]

Um.

[Evan curls in on himself a little more. That was probably rude, but it's not like he's gonna stand up for himself or anything.]

See, that's the thing, I don't really, uh, remember? But I've never seen this place before, or at least I hadn't before I died, it's been a little while now, so it'd be kinda weird if I died here, I think. [...] We were here for maybe a week or two before you guys got here. I don't really know, it's not like there's clocks.

[superbeliever]

[Be real, "how did you die" would have been more rude.]

Well- You're welcome to stay here with us, I suppose.

[Sigyn must be here because she did a murder. And Jonny was a major dillweed, so that's probably a sin too.]

We'll fend off any demons that try to take you.

[expertreese]

Oh - well, I mean, Beetlejuice is...

[BEETLEJUICE IS.........]

...fine? It's not like he's the devil or anything, he's kinda just a weird, gross guy who likes to talk a lot? So it's fine, you guys don't have to, uh, talktome or whatever.

[superbeliever]

[...Aw, he's even more awkward than Jer-bear!]

And what if we want to? I mean, you wouldn't decline an invitation from a king, would you, boy?

[expertreese]

[Evan Hansen: worse than Jeremy Heere in pretty much every way! Also currently doing a pretty solid impression of a deer in the headlights.]

.........no???? I mean, no, sir?

[superbeliever]

[The quirked eyebrow disappears into a grin.]

Great! Then come on, I very much would like a dry change of clothes.

[expertreese]

Um, okay.

[He's just gonna keep on clutching that tote bag and, uh...fo...llow? Are we going somewhere?]

I...there's clothes in the, the big....place. Opera place. I guess you know that already.

[superbeliever]

Well, I assumed there would be. There was before.

[Richard starts leading them toward the doors of the opera house.]

You know, this place seems different somehow, but I can't quite put my finger on it...

[expertreese]

Oh. I - I dunno. I never saw the real one, I think. I mean, this one's probably real too, I guess, it's not like we're not real! But the not...ghost building one.

[because ghost buildings exist??? come on evan]

[superbeliever]

...

[Richard stops, for a moment.

Were they real? He was certainly dead, but he'd never been good at metaphysics or philosophy.

But that wasn't something he wanted to think about for too long, honestly.]

Whether you saw the original or not, you're certainly welcome to stay in this one with us.

[He turns around in front of the doors.]

As you can see, there's plenty of room!

[And then he turns back, and in a swift, decisive action he pulls the doors open.]

[expertreese]

I mean I kind of already have been so -

[uh yeah forget that he's just not saying anything, just gonna stand back and let those doors open dramatically!]

[redjoker]

[When the doors open, Richard and Evan get quite the site: Jonny D'Ville, his back to the doors and arms spread for dramatic effect while he speaks to the only other two people (to his knowledge) are in the ghost opera house: Sigyn and Red.]

-keep telling you, Sigyn, the doors aren't going to open! They haven't opened the last forty times we've tried, what makes you think they'll open now?

[reassuranceandrevolution]

I'm just saying, if he isn't anywhere else-

[The doors open and Sigyn gestures towards them in a 'I fucking told you so' motion]

See?

[She pushes past him to approch Richard]

Sorry, we didn't mean for you to wake up alone.

[superbeliever]

[Richard's arms stay extended for a lingering moment after he pushes the doors open, standing there dripping wet and dumbfounded. He never saw Jonny's corpse, just sat through the trial, but he watched Sigyn die and - even if he had been kind of preparing for it ever since he woke up feeling like he'd never died at all - he's not ready to see her come toward him, call out to him.]

Uh- Well, I wasn't quite...

[But then he sees the third of the meeting party, the smallest and quietest so far, and the memory of blood in his veins chills completely. His voice fails him, breaking, barely loud enough to reach Sigyn.]

No. No, God, not her...