curtainsdown | the mark of those who cannot be saved

[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, that's no excuse for truancy! Which is to say: you are still in the school.

For those executed, you will wake up in your beds. The dormitories look exactly as they did when you first arrived, without any of the changes or personal effects you and your dormmates might have made. The only real difference is that the little cot in Ambassador isn't there.

For those who were victims, you will wake where your body was discovered. All of your injuries are gone, and you feel fine. It's almost like you're still alive - but you remember what happened to you. It couldn't have just been a dream, could it?

The school looks much as you remember it, save perhaps for a few key differences. For one, there's no groundhog murals anywhere. Where things were green on the other side, like banners or paint, you'll find that here they're blood red.

The doors, for the moment, are still locked. Looks like even death couldn't free you.]

Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5

(( ooc: Welcome to deadland, everyone! It mostly resembles the school here, and new floors will be revealed after new people die. For example, the second area will unlock after the week 3 dead arrive, and so on. Also, all dead characters will wake up at their actual canonpoint, with all lost memories restored. Have fun being dead! ))

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[After seeing Orpheus, Sissi is on the run, looking for whoever might be new within this place. She knows there is never just one person. A murderer, and their victim, and-

She sees Elle, on the ground, and freezes for a moment. But only for a moment. Then, she is running again, this time towards Elle.]

Mademoiselle-!

[Hearing Elizabeth's call, Elle looks up, tears still in her eyes.]

Elizabeth!

[The moment she's close enough, she falls to her knees.]

I'm here...I'm here!

[She will pull the poor girl in for a hug, if she's allowed.]

[Elle was already reaching for a hug as Elizabeth drops to her side. She turns her head and lets out a sob into the woman's shoulder.]

I di-[hiccup] didn't want to go! But I co-couldn't see them hurting anymore!

[She squeezes her left hand tighter around the ring, feeling it press it's pattern into her palm.

He loved her. Really, truly loved her.]

[That-

She holds the woman's head as Elle cries into her shoulder, glad that the younger couldn't see the dawning horror in her expression at her words.]

Mademoiselle, what happened...?

W-we were all sick. It was the Wizard's motive.

[She sniffs loudly.]

Everyone was hallucinating or miserable or both. Something was going to happen, people were going to get hurt.

[She pulls back a little, but keeps her head down, not wanting to meet Elizabeth's eye.]

I thought if one person was the victim and the culprit, it would satisfy the requirements for the Wizard to make everyone okay again, but they'd only loose one person so...I ate the nightshade in the roof garden. I think I fell off the roof after that.

[Oh...oh, God.

For a moment, Sissi is back in Vienna again. One of her rare trips, she's holding a dinner party with her...husband, for lack of a better word at that point. That hurt is less fresh, especially with Madame Schratt in the picture. (Of course, she suspects her husband knows that not all of their initial meetings were as chance as Sissi had hoped they seemed, but-semantics. She's not here. This party's royal family only.)

In any case, her son is...upset.

"I've nowhere else to go...!"

Sissi was sympathetic, of course. But...

"...So it's politics."

It was a political disagreement between father and son, and Sissi was well aware that she's been shut away from that avenue since the creation of the dual monarchy. Her husband, and everyone else in his circle, made sure that she didn't meddle again-as it was so eloquently put.

So she told him...no.

If only she'd known how desperate he was, and how things had truly been.

But-she blinks, and finds herself back at the school. This, right now, is not about her. Her hand goes to Elle's face, gently caressing it.

Of course she was desperate. Desperate, and sick, and like her son, like Antonio-she didn't think there was any other option.

She...will have to tell Elle that she isn't the only one who's arrived here.

But not yet.]

I'm so sorry...

...

We must tell everyone. Mademoiselle-do not feel ashamed. The Wizard has manipulated us all, and you were not well.

[She closes her eyes. If they keep going like this, everyone really will be dead.]

[Elle looks at her hesitantly.]

You don't think...they'll be mad?

No, no, of course not!

[She does manage to smile.]

You wouldn't have done what you had, without the Wizard influencing your decisions, right?

[Elle shakes her head.]

They were all in pain, and sooner or later someone would do something terrible because of the hallucinations. I just...wanted to save them some of that.

[She opens her hand, revealing the ring pressed into her palms.]

Did it work?

I...

[She swallows. Saying no would be a bit too blunt, but.]

Monsieur Orpheus is also here.

[That, unfortunately, should suffice.]

What?

[Elle looks around, her eyes finally falling on Orpheus.]

No. [An icy pit forms in her stomach.] No no no no, they weren't suppose to loose anyone else! How- what happened?

[Her breath quickens and her heart races as the digs into her memories, trying to cut through the haze of the final moments. There had been someone else on the roof with her. Did they push her? Would Orpheus do that? No, but then who?]

I don't know, I'm afraid. He's not said much, other than you and mademoiselle Maya were there. He was in a great deal of shock...

[It is the truth, regardless of what she personally suspects based on what Orpheus had said when she found him.]

I- I should talk to him.

[Elle scrambles to her feet, in the process dropping the ring she'd been clutching. She hurries to pick it up, but not in a way that looks like she doesn't want anyone to see it, more like she's afraid of being without it.]

[She nods.]

Yes, of course-but, if you need anything, I'll be here, if you wish to talk about...anything.

[About...whatever, really. At least Elle can know someone else is there to talk to, if it's warranted.]

[Elle looks down at the ring and smiles, slipping it onto her finger.]

Thank you, Elizabeth. There's so much I need to catch you up on!

Oh, yes, of course! It's been quite awhile since we've even seen each other.

[She watches Elle slip the ring on her finger/]

...and you'll have to tell me who the lucky person is, over some coffee.

[Elle grins and nods, going back in for one more hug before running off to talk to Orpheus.]

the mark of those who cannot be saved

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cw: suicide reference, brief disassociation

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