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

[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.]

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[Richard thought he was doing good! The bottom of his stomach drops out when Riley just...starts crying.

But at least he has something he can do with this.

He turns so that he can pull her in against him in a tight hug, one hand rubbing her shoulder and the other carefully pulling back her long, straight hair and petting it in long, soothing strokes. He's more used to, well, doing the crying in these situations, but that just means he knows what's the most soothing.]

Shh... Shhh... You're alright. Let it out, that's it.

[ Oh, he was doing just wonderfully! But, Riley's got five months of crying this out to do—at least, five months of denial, repression of just what she did, five months of crying where she's...actually letting someone reach out to her. There's about eight years of friendship to mourn, too. And...what that friendship could've been, if she'd just...

Opened her eyes.

How many people's arms has she cried in? Before, it was only Cairo. She'd give all this...validation, all this comfort up, if she could do that just one more time, but it—god, Riley leans into the hug. She relishes the feeling of someone's strong arms, holding her. Later she'll wonder just how fucked up it is that she had to be kidnapped to an Opera House of Hell to even feel a little of this. To die to keep feeling it.

Riley...will kind of seriously wonder, for the first time, if she really deserved that.

But, that's for later. For now, she sniffles and wails, loud and ugly, Cairo's name caught on her tongue. ]

[Richard is very open with touch and affection. But Riley hasn't been, so far, so even though he was quick to hug her, he initially remained ready to let her go, as well.

But, well, when she leans into him, all that goes out the window. He keeps his breathing deep and even, starting with a sympathetic sigh as he presses his beardy cheek to the top of her head.

All he can do to help her is to keep holding her, keep breathing. When he runs out of nothings to murmur, he starts to hum, slow and rumbling, the same old lullaby that brings him so much comfort. Maybe later he'll ask her to tell happy stories about this "Cairo." Maybe he'll start by telling his own stories about growing up with Bobby.

But for now, all he can do is hold her like an anchor, while she rides out the worst of the storm.]

[ By the time she's cried herself out, Riley is just... Well, it's hard to tell she's slept any, because she looks exhausted. The bear's all wrapped up in her arms and she's...breathing heavily, shoulders slumped.

It's...nice to have someone here with her, though. She wishes-- ]

I was alone. Wh-whole time, when I wrote the Phantom. H-he said I was alone. When he found me. I didn't- didn't remember that.

[ It spills out in huffy breaths. She doesn't mean for it to. ]

[Even when she starts to calm down, Richard doesn't let go of her. He breathes deeply, almost a sigh, and rubs her shoulder gently, reassuringly.]

He- or maybe someone else- tampered with our memories. It's not your fault you didn't know.

[You're not alone now, he tries to say without needing to say it, by being there and holding her now.]

Didn't want to think that...that something else was happening. That she... That I'd- I'd done something to...

[ One of her hands tentatively wraps around his wrist. To keep herself in place, maybe. ]

I don't. I don't- know what I'm s-saying, anymore.

[When she reaches up and takes his wrist, he stops moving his hand. But at what she says next, he exhales softly, and gives her a squeeze.]

That's alright. You're okay now. Just take a deep breath, my dear.

[ He says she's okay and she- she wants to laugh, because how could anyone say that? But. The physical comfort's lulled her back to that tired, gentle state. She's so sick of crying, but- she held so much in while alive, didn't she? ]

I... I can't screw up like that again. [ Murmurs, while breathing slowly. ] I can't... I have to be better.

[It's hard for him. He's always been the one needing to be comforted, and that's historically involved surrounding himself with more yes-men than it probably should have (man, he really stepped up after there was no one coddling him anymore).

He's not sure what he's supposed to say. Because, yeah, he agrees with what she's saying, like- she can't kill somebody again. That is a bar she has to meet.

But the way that she says it strikes him wrong, like the wrong lesson learned from the right words.]

It doesn't work like... one of those "switches."

Sometimes you vow you're not going to do anything evil anymore, and then you burn down a rec center because it was built with the bricks from your old castle and if you can't have it, they can't either.

[...That is. A very specific example, Richard. Anyway, moving on!]

My point is, you don't have to get better overnight, my dear. You just have to keep trying. And remember that you're not alone. You have people who care about you, and who are going to keep caring no matter what.

[ Okay, that weirdly specific example draws her attention a bit, like. Even through her tired sniffles, she raises an eyebrow. But, it's brushed aside. He calls her my dear and it doesn't sound like something...mocking or as a courtesy. It reminds her of-

My girl. He'd called her that, and yet. It sinks a pit into her stomach. ]

...They probably shouldn't. [ Cai doesn't. ] What if I hurt them?

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

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cw: parental neglect

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