FINAL WEEK

[strangerpeople]

FINAL WEEK

[Well. What else can be said? The Little Courtesy is over. You have all survived. You are now going to your final destination-with invitations to boot. And Charlotte will be getting that private audience, as promised.

But it's not over. Everyone knows it. Confrontation is inevitable. The question is what, exactly, will happen when that confrontation happens-or if anyone will in fact be able to go with Charlotte when it happens. But you've gone this far. There's no turning back. There has to be a way.

Nothing has been certain, or simple. Whatever happens will be no different from the horrors of the Little Courtesy. Perhaps the saying might still hold. Will all be well? Will it?

It must. God help everyone if it isn't.

Seven is the Number, but there are nine strangers left in this place.]

Comments

[technicolourdifficulties]

Just make sure that you have a spot to lay down before you do so, and allow me space between us. If this thing is inducing dreams-

[He cuts himself off, but it's definitely noticeable that he's already put about ten feet between the group playing with needles and himself.]

[charmingheroine]

[She looks at him for a moment, eyebrows raised, and then nods.]

I'll be sure to give you time to get clear, and lying down first is a good idea.

[Good thing the lounge has couches in the direction away from RGB!]

Minato, if you could bring the other one here, please?

[biddentodance]

Sure, alright.

[He'll bring it over, then....probably best to hold both together to have it simultaneous...]

Pretty intense, so....if you're sure. Can do it instead.

CW: vague suicidality/suicide imagery

[charmingheroine]

Well, there's a tradition to this sort of thing, isn't there? The fair maiden stabs her own fingertip... just hold them steady.

[She stares at the paired needles and regrets those words. The fair maiden accidentally pricks herself; Miss Lucy goes sleepwalking; the cunning queen whose mind made Mark Antony lose his holds a snake up to her chest; Ophelia tears at roses then goes deliberately not swimming. There's tradition for you, it always has a body count.

In hindsight, perhaps she should clear her mind before doing this. So she hesitates, and then remembers - ]

RGB, you'll want to step back about now, I think!

cw: existentialism

[strangerpeople]

[Charlotte pricks her finger, and-



She is on the Eventide.

It's impossible. But the person she was is quietly staggering through the engine car, slowly making her way to the engine. A shaky, bloodied hand stops, pressing against the plaque which reads the name, the owner, the everything. Upon releasing it, there is a bloody hand print.

There's nothing left to believe in. You had searched for answers. This whole time, you had been certain, once you got here, you would know what to do. Now you are here, staggering towards the back, and the truth is, you are no closer to saving anyone then you were before.

You are trapped. There is only one alternative now. It is dangerous. It may mortally wound you. Very well. It must be done. But you will never see this again. You will never see the ones you love again. Never. Your grief at this understanding, this realization, is profound indeed.

You stagger out. Through the armaments car; through the mess; to the end. In the end, the machine awaits, and within it, the Science.

You scream as you make contact with it. It is like burning fire that shocks through the body, incinerating everything you were. Everything you are. Everything you might have been, had you not found this abomination of the firmament.

It hurts.

it hurts so much-


And then Charlotte is back. She is in the present, and all is fine.

But the sorrow, and the agony, remain.]

[charmingheroine]

[Nothing is fine.

Charlotte's eyes are open, but she can't move.

There's a high, strange animalistic noise coming from somewhere, she thinks maybe her throat, and everything is still burning. It's hard to breathe, there's no way she can speak.

She has to remember - she can't just lie here she has to tell them -

Tell them what, that she saw someone else who thought she had it all figured out die horribly, and that she knows now she will too? That there's no hope? The machine, was it even possible to tell what that was? If it wasn't there wasn't any point to this, there's just pain, someone else's broken heart and broken will and broken body and she can't move she can't move and she needs to get out of here they can't stay they can't they can't they can't -

All this, to say that yes, it is visible to any onlooker that yes, something is wrong, and it was a very good idea indeed that she do this already laid flat.]