Shrike's Heart (#2)

[idolpro]

The woman before you is beautiful—fair of features, with lovely golden skin and luxurious long black hair, petite. You have the immediate and distinct impression that she's just let go of your hand, and she steps back, and smiles.

It's not quite a happy smile.

"I'm sorry," she says. "There's just nothing I can do, as things are. But the way is there; it just needs to be lit."

You open your mouth—maybe to say something, or to express confusion—but you have to cough, and taste something metallic, spattering black blood onto the ground in front of you. Then you realize—blood seeps from opening wounds in your arms, your chest, your stomach, your face. It rims your eyes and trails from your nose and you feel like you're dissolving—

—and you fall through the ground like it's the surface of a lake, and go down, down, down.

> Wake Up

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[handpuppets]

[ As you continue walking, the sight far off in the darkness starts to resolve into view—a sort of... it's an edifice, of some massive, incomprehensible architecture that stretches into the dark, or, or maybe, a face—

something about it is deeply uncomfortable to think about. but the whispers don't lead you towards there, anyway, as they get louder and louder. The louder they get the more impossible it seems to turn from your path. And then you see the hole.

It's only the rush of water that gives it away, in the darkness—a wide, circular hole in the ground ahead, the dark water falling down the edges in sheets, the roar blending with the voices until it's overwhelming. ]

[romanticlove]

[The architecture makes her uneasy - not that it's very hard to feel uneasy after the smell of corpses started permeating her senses. The voices are leading her away from it anyway so she doesn't spare it more than a cursory glance.]

Ah-

[The water drowned everything else out and it takes her a moment's hesitation to debate with herself whether she should jump in. The fall could be long and dangerous. It could very well lead to her dying. There was no way to know.]

Right. I can't stay here. I have to keep moving.

[Closing her eyes for a moment, she takes a breath before opening them again and jumping into the hole.]

[handpuppets]

[ you intend to, but—

from all around you, there is a sort of pressure radiating—maybe from the hole, or from something watching.

there will be a time, but not now. not for you. not yet.

you have work to do.

and you find yourself frozen in place, on the edge, just shy of falling.

not you. just a piece. just your name.

what is your name? ]

[romanticlove]

[Ah. She can't move. She meant to jump, but now she's unable to.]

Ren. My name is Ren Kiryuu.

[She tries to step back from the edge, to see if there might be another way past the hole.]

What work do I have to do? Tell me what you want me to do.

[handpuppets]

[ Your voice emerges when you speak your name, but the words are muffled, garbled, warped, and swallowed into the nothingness that surrounds you.

What was your name? You don't remember, anymore.

You hear a whisper, though—

There's always an ending, it says.

and then— ]