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

[isawallflower]

[ A slow breath as she stops short. Her hands hover in front of her, stuck in a position of half-reaching out, half-protecting herself. And... ]

...It's okay. [ How can she say that? But- ] It's- ...I understand. I- ...I know.

[37773972]

[He wants to yell back that no, she doesn't, how could she possibly know what it's like to

betray

someone you

love.



She's probably the only person who understands. What it's like to deliberately go through this, hating every moment of it, but thinking, if only for a moment, that you can fix things.

Stephen doesn't collapse or fall, but he sort of...slumps against the vanity, head down. There's a shaky little nod of acknowledgement - acceptance? - of her words, but for the moment, he's just trying to focus on his breathing.]

[isawallflower]

[ Riley inches over again. She-- ]

I...did I ever tell you about Cairo? I...know I- in my letter. She- ...we were best friends... She was the only person who-

[ ...This hurts. This. Really hurts. And she can't- put it to words, she-

Ah. Like clockwork, there's a beat.

Okay. Riley gives herself over to it. ]

She was-
she was-
Everything I'm not, my whole universe.
And I was a footnote, a slim second verse.
But she was the chorus, the hook and the groove,
And without her there pushing, somehow I can't... move.

[ Abruptly, she turns away, breath quickening. She's- furious, but not at Stephen. He should be familiar with that, shouldn't he? She places a hand against the large mirror on the wall, to right herself. ]

So I sit in this place that I'm stuck inside,
Sinking down in this void like a crater!
Getting lost in a world that I can't rewind-
It's too late and it's just getting later!

[37773972]

[Stephen...is tired of giving in to the music. He let it swirl about him like a shield, before, but what good did that do? In the end, it was all for nothing. But he watches, and he listens, and after a few seconds, he moves to stand behind her.

Not touching her shoulders this time, just...support in presence. But...voice does come, before too long;]

We were mad to reach
Mad to try

[And he looks up from her, to the mirror, imagining, just for a moment, it's someone else he's standing behind]

They're still alive
The space we left
We left them there
Still we reach...

[isawallflower]

And still we care...!

[ She sucks in a breath and...gives him a look. It's haunted. She's been haunted for weeks and weeks, by her own actions. Pain, and shame, and hatred, and regret. ]

And time expands,
The beat goes on,
We were mad, mad-
And now we're...

[37773972]

He was...
He was...

[Stephen hasn't had...quite as much time to get used to this as Riley has. But the haunted look in his own face- he's spent the last few days holding back the trauma of watching the others die. Die, knowing he was at fault. The fact he erased it doesn't change it in his memories, nor, apparently, enough of anything to have prevented him from trying again.

His face is a mirror of hers.]

Over and over
His words to me echo
Over and over
As if I did not know...

[I hope that you burn. Oh, Mephisto, he already knows he will. If he ever gets out of this purgatory, he knows exactly where he's going, and if he doesn't? He's tried to force it, because it's only what he deserves.]

There's a black hole
A vacuum, it's deep in this place
It swallows what matters
And it leaves no trace
Where hope is suspended
In physics and time
Every word we say
Hangs like an unfinished...rhyme.

[isawallflower]

[ Her hand curls to a fist on the mirror. One single slam. Because that's it, that's how this feels. That's how all of this feels. ]

So we stay in the vacuum we're stuck inside,
And I sift through each day for an ember!
For a spark that will light,
'Cause I can't rewind.
I unravel until I remember...!

[ For a moment. For a moment, she can look at her own reflection and imagine...a different place. Two much younger girls. Cairo braiding her hair, chatting away about something and Riley just...serene.

Why couldn't she be satisfied, just with that? ]

Sitting on your bed,
'Fore I went too far.

[ The fist uncurls, and she reaches for the girls that aren't there. ]

When I was your orbit,
And you were my star.

[ She blinks. The moment's gone. ]

But now here's the black hole,
And I am left numb...

[ And. She keeps singing, but her eyes focus on Stephen, and she's almost confused, to still be here. ]

[37773972]

[It's not just Mephisto he sees. Christine, Santana, Nana, Anna- all of their faces. But unlike before, when he was sing-screaming, this is...

Purging, almost. This- this is how it feels like it's supposed to be. There's pain, but it's the sort he's brought upon himself. Themselves. And voicing it somehow...

It doesn't lessen the pain. But it makes it more bearable, somehow.]

From the loop of these memories

[He couldn't have done another loop, he realizes. He'd have shattered. Maybe he was already broken, but watching them die again, watching their faces...]

The loop of the...

[isawallflower]

[ Riley blinks. And it's all gone. Not just Cai. But, the hobbled-together family she'd tried to make.

Even if Claudine, Spinel, everyone she left behind- even if they forgive her, it can't erase what she did.

If she'd let herself be satisfied with...one person. The most important person. Would it have kept her from tearing all of them apart in her madness? ]

The loop of the...

[37773972]

The loop of the...

[And...he kneels down, now. Much as he had with Christine, bringing himself closer to her level- even lower than it. So that he's looking up at her, just a bit, when the spell breaks and he speaks;]

I'm sorry, Riley. For...everything.

[isawallflower]

[ She blinks out tears. They've been hanging there, for awhile. She hadn't noticed them. ]

I don't...have any right to be mad at you.

[37773972]

You have as much right to as anyone. Even if we both...have things in common. [Giving in.]

[isawallflower]

I broke everything first. Leaving all of you there, l-like that. I kept- trying, to...fix it, so I could fix- something, but- but I couldn't. I could just...watch, all of you get more and more...

[37773972]

Riley.

[So softly. More to grab her attention than anything]

You confessed. The first time- the only time before- I didn't. I let them die.

[And oh, that is raw pain in his voice, as much as he tries to keep it steady]

[isawallflower]

[ She can feel a part of her crumble, from that. ]

I c-c-couldn't- [ It shakes her, clearly. ] ...I couldn't...remember it? But I knew I- I already made a mistake...like that, before.

[ And her eyes drop. Away, to the side, somewhere she doesn't have to look at another person, telling her- ]

I couldn't...do it again.

[ As if feeling out his admission, she murmurs: ] They're all I have...left.

[37773972]

[He doesn't blame her. He hates himself for it, and he'll never be able to forget it - much less forgive. And Riley saying that - reminding him of that...]

Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got til its gone
I shunned paradise-
All for a desperate shot.

[He gets up, then, and starts to move away]

[isawallflower]

[ Riley reaches out a hand to grab his arm. To stop him. ]

Stay. Stay? ...They're my family. But you are too.

[37773972]

[I don't deserve a family. He deserves to be alone. He doesn't deserve her company, anyone's sympathy, even as he aches for someone to just understand he was just trying, he was so desperate...

Stephen swallows, and looks back]

...even after everything, Riley?

[isawallflower]

[ She nods. ]

...I told you. I would've done it too. [ ... ] I...am mad. That you didn't stay with them. B-but- but I'm so- s-so glad to s-s-see--!

[ That's it. She cracks, straight in two, tears flowing freely now, as she grabs for him. ]

[37773972]

[And he cracks, too. Two broken people grabbing on to one another as his arms instinctively wrap around to hold her close, and-yep. Those are tears. We have a (mostly) emotionally healthy grown man, he's not afraid to cry]

I am, too, Riley. It's so good to see you again.

[Even if this is just a stop on his way to Hell]

[isawallflower]

[ Honestly, Riley can't understand that. She'll never be able to, probably. If...even her- her favorite person wouldn't look at her, then why?

Why do any of them still love her? ]

Dad—!

[ It doesn't matter. Because that chokes out with a sob, and she clings tight. He'd held her when she deserved it the least. Even though she's like this. So... Returning that, it seems only right. ]

[37773972]

[Oh whup he's crying again. It's not broken sobs like he had with Sigyn, but them tears- they are there, and his shoulders, they be shuddering as he squeezes her tight]

My girl. My girl.

[He doesn't have a right to her- but he doesn't have a right to push her away, either.]

[isawallflower]

[ She can't know that their thoughts match. Riley knows- whatever happens, whether the Phantom makes good on reviving them or not, she's- she's going to be alone. Either in jail or burning in Hell.

She doesn't deserve this reprieve. But- but maybe she can give just a little of the comfort she's felt back? Maybe- she can stop framing this as a selfless action. ]

D- dad-! Don't- don't let go, okay? Pl- please, don't-

[ Don't think about your little girl when you think of me.

It'd been one of the hardest things for her to write that night. They were all difficult, in their own ways. But-

She liked it. That warm, warm feeling- that love she felt, that security. Rejecting it had been the hardest thing in the world. ]

Stay— [ What she'd said to Mephisto during that desperate haunt. My girl, he'd called her that, the night she murdered Claudine and left Spinel ripe for the picking, and it left her wanting for everything to be different. And now... He was so angry, for good reason, that Riley can't help but feel a twinge of guilt, like the guilt when she thinks of poor Christine begging Jeremy to listen, but

we can't help who we love, can we? Whatever horrible things her broken little family does, even to each other... Riley doesn't think she can hate any of them. Not in a way that outweighs the love.

Maybe that's something he's learned, too. ]

St-stay. Please- dad... Dad...!

[37773972]

I'm not going anywhere. [He can promise that now, at least, and mean it.] I'm not leaving you, I swear, I mean it. Not as long as I can choose.

[And god damn it, he's going to choose right this time.]

[isawallflower]

[ He doesn't have to let her go, leave her to her execution. There's no pressing, pushing need to escape. No secrets tearing her apart, no missing memories of another atrocity she's committed. Just...this.

Riley hopes this gives him some comfort. And she'll derive everything she can from it too, just crying there until she doesn't have any tears left to spare. ]