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.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Sigyn was coming into the graveyard to check her own tombstone, but upon hearing Stephen singing she quickly switches missions]

Stephen? [She makes sure to approach from the side, making her footsteps purposefully audible.]

[He looks up from the slumped sitting position he's in- not unlike the one he took, occasionally, while lingering by Sigyn's grave. A wan smile of greeting is given to her, along with a vague attempt at a wave]

Right here.

[Sigyn steps next to him, looking at the letter in his hand but not attempting to read the words]

Who's it from?

Christine. [He looks down at it, then reaches up to rub the bridge of his nose] I told her not to blame herself. She's doing it anyway. Kids.

[Yeah, there's only so much of an age difference - he's only 32, for God's sake, but boy, does he feel like the past few months have aged him to twice that.]

[Sigyn looks over at her own tombstone where a fresh letter lays]

I don't think there's anything any of us could tell her to stop her from blaming herself.

It's like- she thinks she has more control than she does. She's never given anything less than her best, but just because it didn't work, it wasn't enough.

[He lowers his hand with a frustrated noise]

I hope Mephisto can get through to her.

Before she runs herself into the ground.

[She knows that feeling well - the overwhelming weight of thinking everyone is depending on you, that if anything goes wrong it's because you personally did something.]

Mephisto...Riley told me a little about him. I'm sad I didn't get to meet the real man when I was alive.

[A nod...and then, he manages a wistful smile]

I think he was still getting used to being a man? At least- living among them, anyway. But...your words, your reasons changed him, Sigyn. He realized that we were more than just...

[He makes a vague gesture. Pawns.]

...he showed me, afterwards. Who- what he was. But he said that you'd earned that night. Earned his respect. I get the feeling that's hard to do, doubly so before he started giving us a chance in the first place.

[A small, sort of sad smile]

So if I had lived, I probably wouldn't have gotten the chance to meet him anyways. He would have kept living as Ariel.

[She turns to look at Stephen, the sad smile now for him rather than herself]

It seems you two had grown closer.

Maybe. Maybe not.

[After all, he had hoped, that once he went back- that he'd be able to lure out Mephisto. The real Mephisto, who began to see humanity as more. Who saw Stephen as more.

Saw.

Stephen looks away at that, looking distant]

...had. He...I think it's over.

[Sigyn puts an arm around Stephen's shoulder]

Maybe after he reads your notes he'll realize why you did it. I mean, he'll still be angry with you, but not that kind of angry.

I barely had any. Nowhere near enough to stop this from happening again. [He seems more frustrated than anything] I should've pressed him more, damn it.

If you had he could have realized what you were doing and refused to send you back to where you wanted. Which, I will remind you, he probably would have done even if you'd gotten away with it the second time.

[The pained look on Stephen's expression suggests that he hadn't quite processed that second part. That the wizard would outright refuse- making everything for nothing. He swallows, then, looking down and grimacing]

God damn it. God damn it! [Don't mind him while he punches his headstone, it's fine]

[Sigyn doesn't stop him, it's not like they can permanently hurt themselves here.

She'll wait until he's wound down a little, however long that takes.]

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

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