and I know things now, many valuable things

[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. It's your dressing room, that much is certain, but 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, you're not out of the woods yet.]





[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

[lifegoalsorwifegoals]

Well, to summon something dangerous is to feel an adrenaline rush, for starters. For another! Bloody Mary is much like Hanako-san in Japan. The girl can be malicious, but she may also be simply a mischievous ghost or even benign. You see, depending on the storyteller, her nature is variable. She can be a victim, or a culprit.

[rockthistown]

So it's interesting because the story goes different ways and you never know what's real?

[lifegoalsorwifegoals]

Exactly. The "truth" can be anything the narrator desires, or that the audience believes. The girl herself...all that's left of her is the ever-malleable story.

[...]

She is, the more I think of it, a relatable figure.

[rockthistown]

...You said you died a bunch of times, then waited around. So that means you lived a bunch of times. You lived endless variations, right? On the same kind of idea!

[lifegoalsorwifegoals]

I wouldn't say "lived" exactly. That would...imply a full life, wouldn't it? The story has repeated over and over, Hime-san. And in that time...

[She tilts her head and runs a finger over one of the DVD's spines.]

...what do you think of my name?

[rockthistown]

D-ne, my name is weird. I just thought that was what people call their kids where you're from.

[lifegoalsorwifegoals]

[She laughs lightly.] No, no. Presumably, I had a normal name once. I don't remember it. No... Maybe I should say... It might have never been mine to begin with?

I'm from a story, Hime-san.

[rockthistown]

Huh?

[lifegoalsorwifegoals]

[She laughs, and it's kind.]

You're confused? I am too, honestly. I'll probably never understand it, because a key piece of the mystery is still hidden. But I'll explain as best I can.

I, and my friends, are from songs, and books. The place I exist, after I die, it can be called limbo, but it is more accurate to call it backstage. When we're on the stage, we have one purpose, and that is to try and solve the mystery of the Bookmark of Demise. We have no awareness of the fact that we've done this before, or that we exist in this alternating way. Oftentimes, I'm a culprit, but sometimes it's written so I can be a victim as well. That's how it is with all of us, you see. I am Girl D of the mystery, a minor who's committed a crime, whose name is protected from the public.

Maybe, we were once normal kids. But now we are slaves to the story's whims.

[rockthistown]

[Hime gasps. Her hands fidget with the fabric of her skirt, and she shakes her head.]

Living in a story, out of the real world just to stay in an endless dream... though it goes bad every time. Why do people do this to you? And-- and to all of us, with these roles and the stage and the Opera House? It's not fair!

[lifegoalsorwifegoals]

[She smiles wide.]

It's not! I don't know who's done it. There were others before us, and solving their mystery is the key to our own...but it's impossible. Compared to that... This mystery, with the Balladeer, with the leads we can follow here- this story's infinitely more solvable.

Isn't that reassuring, Hime-san? [Wider.] It could be much worse! For your sakes...I hope solving the mystery can save you. In these times of stories, it usually does.

[rockthistown]

What about you, D-ne? You're one of us, too. You're part of the Cast, like us, so you're under the same circumstances.

[lifegoalsorwifegoals]

Hm?

Ah... Well, I'd just return to my other mystery, wouldn't I?

[rockthistown]

No way! We can't let you be stuck in a mystery you can't solve, suffering over and over. No matter what you did or didn't do, you were a regular person, and this isn't even letting you live through it!

[lifegoalsorwifegoals]

Hime-san... It's sweet that you think you can, but... I think there's nothing you can do.

[rockthistown]

There's always something. I've thought in the past that there was no hope, but it turns out that all you need is love. For your friends, your family, even things like food. Even love for love itself. That will always pull a smile out in the end.

[lifegoalsorwifegoals]

[She sighs.]

I did say I'd never tell you not to hope... But don't try to reawaken my hopes. Alright?

[She turns away, examining the DVDs again. She has one, it's some kind of love story...]

As long as I can be with B-ko-chan, I don't mind what happens.

[rockthistown]

[Hime's shoulders slump. She picks at imaginary lint.]

You said you wanted to know what happened, right?

[lifegoalsorwifegoals]

[Still looking over the DVD cases.]

With everything you've been through? I can't lie and say I'm not curious. You make it all sound...so eventful.

[rockthistown]

There's a lot. Um... some people already figured this out, but I really am a Precure. I wasn't very good at first, but I had to accept when God asked me to be one. You know the Blue Sky Kingdom was overrun when the Phantom Empire was freed from Axia, the box they'd been sealed in, and I had to escape to Earth.

Th-that's, that's because... I was the one who opened Axia.

[lifegoalsorwifegoals]

[Her perusing stops, for a moment.]

Like...Pandora, is it? You opened a box, and horrors broke loose? Why did you?

[rockthistown]

It was the day I was supposed to pray at Axia for a ceremony every heir of the Blue Sky Kingdom has to do, but when I walked up to the box, I heard a voice. "Help, help me, let me out..." I didn't know it would hurt anything! The next thing I knew, they were everywhere. They defeated my parents and imprisoned them in mirrors, started doing the same to everyone else... I escaped with Ribbon through a secret passage only I knew about, but I had to run to a whole other world. That's how I ended up on Earth, living in the embassy.

[lifegoalsorwifegoals]

So you tried to help someone, and you caused a calamity, and to fix it, you had to become a magical girl, like in fiction.

My... That does make me want to know more. What happened next, Hime-san?

[rockthistown]

I wasn't very good at it. I lost every fight with the monsters they created out of human emotion. There were other Precure out there, but I still had to fight, even though it was scary and I always lost and had to run away. Not to mention there was another Precure who didn't get her powers from God, Cure Fortune, and she knew I'd opened Axia. She blamed me for everything and would never help me. I'd lose a fight, she'd come in and save the civilians only after that, and then she'd say I was unforgivable and she'd never work with me.

[Hime flails her arms.]

It sucked! I hated it! For a long time, I didn't know what to do! But...

[lifegoalsorwifegoals]

[D-ne's turned around to look at her. She appears impassive, but there's something kind about her gaze- genuinely kind, not the mask she so desperately tries to perfect.]

But?