thevoidsdarkhorse | Heart Game (Continued)

Heart Game (Continued)

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[She shrugged.]

Game mechanic. First death can be revived from with use of dream self. S'long as the corpse of the dead player is kissed in a certain time frame.

How I got my first kiss, actually. I was dead at the time.

This...this isn't the game, it's your heart! You can change whatever rules you want in here, can't you?

[Multiple painful suicides in rapid succession = totally, absolutely a-okay

Kissing on the lips = NOPENOPENOPE ABORT MISSION]

...you are a strange girl.

And no. The others probably could, but I can't change the rules.

[Excuse you I didn't have to kiss the BLOOD to get the job done this is just unreasonable!!!]

That's...so incredibly, impossibly stupid, I...who would ever...

[Have you ever seen someone devolve into a flustered mess so quickly, wow. She actually needs to step back and turn away for a minute this is so embarrassing.]

Well, Dirk apparently.

Your world is stupid.

[She blurts it out and it's so childish that she's ashamed immediately. Siiigh, dragging a hand through her hair.]

...there's absolutely no other way?

Oh jegus christ it is, but it's stubborn too.

Nope.

...I guess it was only a matter of time, given this place's obsession with kissing. But I honestly thought I'd be able to properly blame someone when it happened. Katie, most likely.

[Fuck my life. Let's get this over with.]

You can blame Paradox Space. It's kind of an asshole.

[Sitting here, waiting.]

[no how dare you why do I have to do it myself

Spins on her heel and marches right back over to that throne because she is not embarrassed, this is not embarrassing or uncomfortable at all, nope. She does appreciate the fact that Roxy is still sitting, however, because it makes it much easier for Fade to cup her chin and tilt it up, leaning down and pressing her mouth against those blue lips. It's chaste and awkward and not romantic at all, because this isn't even remotely about romance, but she puts feeling into the action anyway; whatever emotion she can dredge from Heart to make the ritual mean something more than an arbitrary mechanic.]

[Oh, but there already was. You're the one who made the move to understand her, and that alone is Important.]

[You kiss her, and her lips are cold, almost burning.]

[You're afraid to die. You don't actually want to die, and there's that niggling thought of what if you DON'T come back, but it keeps happening.]

[You feel a piece of glass pierce through your heart. The vines twisting, twining around you, tearing your flesh and bleeding you dry.]

[If you live, someone else will have to die. Like every other time you were spared, every other time you lived, it's because someone else died in your place.]

[Something unknown running you through along with a sword from someone who is supposed to be your ally.]

[It's easy to take everything wrong with your head and use it. It's so ridiculously simple the first time self sacrifice is an option. You've had worse. You've died before. You destroy those fears and doubts, bury them deep in the void that is your soul until you no longer feel them anymore. You probably couldn't now if you tried.]

[You feel the burn of poison in your veins, the heat of total soul deconstruction.]

[But you'll be damned if you let someone die just so you could live ever again.]

[Finally ending with the burn of total incineration.]

[And a feeling, a desire.]

[Please, please just let it all end. Let nothingness take me.]

[But the clock goes, and you come back, because there is no heroic or just. You're completely fine.]

[And Roxy is still sitting in the chair, waiting.]

[She closes her eyes and breathes out slowly, trying to process those feelings. It hurts, it's painful and it's familiar but different and she wasn't wrong about this room but she wishes she'd realized it sooner, before this so-called game ever started.

She looks up at Roxy again, unsure what to say. What do you say, after someone shows you something like that that?]

....so, what is the room?

You already said it. It's 'doom'. It's...an ill fortune. Death.

[Pauses.]

...no, not death. Not really. Death is simple. Death is easy. It's...more. Everything you can't escape. Everything you couldn't avoid. Everything that happened to you, everything that held you, as long as you could remember.

Because you were always alone, weren't you? It's all you ever knew. Even when you had your friends, they weren't really there. No one ever was. No one ever saw you. Every time you were hurt, no one saw. Every time you were sad or scared or lost, no one saw. No one could. Like you didn't even exist.

But...you did exist. You were always there. Whether anyone wanted to see or not.

[She looks around the room again, at each of the objects in turn.]

These things...these memories. You wanted someone to see them, didn't you? You wanted someone to feel what you felt. To understand. That's...what I wanted, too. I didn't want to tell anyone...I don't even want to think about that other life. Because I thought no one could ever, ever understand. But...I still...wanted someone to notice. I know it can't be helped. I know it can't be changed. I just wanted...someone to...acknowledge it. To acknowledge me.

Because I existed. Because I was there.

[She trails off, staring down at her feet, unable to look at Roxy. Because she wonders if she's not just seeing what she wants to see, and making this about herself when it's really not. But she can't not look at her, not right now. "Give 'em a reason to stick."]

...I don't know. I still don't know what I'm supposed to change in here. I still don't know how to do it. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I can't understand either.

But...I see you, Roxy.

...

[She stands up.]

This room was never about change. It's like you said, it can't be. But it needed to be acknowledge, because it's part of who I am.

[She reaches forward, and her hand is cold as death, but the touch is gentle, raising her chin to have her look up. And the smile is sad, forlorn, but it is genuine.]

When I'm awake again, and preferably when I'm done reeling from this, tell me. I'll listen. I'll see.

Edited 2015-01-25 08:03 (UTC)

[She obeys the touch and looks up, into those blank, dead eyes, and the cold can't even begin to bother her.]

I...I will. I promise.

[She nods.]

[Then she bends forward, and it's a light, cold, kiss on her forehead.]

[You hate it.]

[It's not as if you don't understand. You know to Jane, it makes no sense, the things you tell her. She's centuries in the past, of course she wouldn't believe you when you tell her how you grew up.]

[About what you've lost.]

[Because to her, it hasn't happened.]

[But it hurts. It still hurts as she denies such basic facts of your life.]

[How she treats it like it doesn't exist.]

[And it feels like you don't exist]

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Heart Game (Continued)

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