cw: gore and mentioned death for like 2 lines, nervous breakdown (or at least on the edge of one). Spoilers for ISAT.
YIPPEE ONE OF THE 3 FUNNY LOOPS!!! YIPPEEEEEEE
readmore'd this one early because the cws are at the beginning (and this one's kinda chunky)
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You'd been doing so well, this loop. You didn't crab anything up, you made the bomb and yet, and yet here you crabbing are, in the same bloodstained halls as always, kicking through puddles of gore like it's a normal Sunday, which you GUESS it is now!
Nothing you do matters. It doesn't matter it doesn't matter IT DOESNT! MATTER! And you just have to crabbing LIVE with it, forever, twenty four hours over and over, twenty four big metal bars of your hand-crafted cage.
So you just. Stop. Pull off to the side and sit up against a wall that isn't coated lightless with death and just.
You break down in tears.
It's still going. You're still going YOU'RE STILL GOING. One for all. Just you suffering, because everyone will be okay after you loop back, but not you! You'll carry this with you, forever! You don't want to be here anymore. You just... want it to stop.
And.
It does?
The world fades out, and not in the way it does when you die, no; it just... is suddenly dark. Thick and heavy like syrup around you. It's hard to move, to breathe. You find yourself struggling.
There are. Footsteps, coming in your direction. You can hear them clearly, like a pin dropping in a silent room. You struggle to your feet-- and it's a struggle, because you still can't breathe right and your legs shake like a newborn animal. It's a struggle to see anything around you through the veil of pure darkness that sparkles and floats around you.
And here you stand, in the sky itself, facing yourself.
More correctly, a mockery of yourself. It pulls itself forwards like you'd been doing all day, tilted and shaking and exhausted. Painted pure lightless and sparkling, like the blood painted on the King's armor. You glare daggers at it, because it is not you and if you believe it even could possibly be, even just a little, you will probably be giving it some kind of power.
It faces your direction, and it's lack of eyes and mouth sends shivers down your spine. It's not real, it's not real it's not real!!! It can't be!!! Why would this be real? You're frozen, you have to be because this is a crabbing DREAM it has to be you have to be frozen because if it's not then what the crab IS THIS, is your brain working against you? Are you imagining the frost crawling up your spine and the burning in your throat, if you try speaking you'll spit pure fire because you have Changed yourself with a capital C and Destroyed yourself with a capital D. It's a big angry mockery of yourself and you want it to go away you want everything to stop, stop, stop please--
It shifts. You move in response, nails digging into your palm. It takes a step forwards. The floor ripples like waves and they roll over your shoes, washing the blood from them. You back up some in return.
You open your mouth to say something or try and ward it off, but only a cough comes out. Blood runs down your chin.
It tilts its head (your head, YOUR head, it's freaking you right the crab out) and opens its OWN mouth, and--
It. Speaks.
[BURNING ONE.]
The sound that comes out, it's the King's voice. It shocks you still, and your lungs stop pulling in air at the pure horror. The thought hits your brain, did the King make this thing?
[Claude?]
No. No wait, now it's Euphrasie.
What.
[Do you know what this is?] Now it's Mirabelle??? [Don't drink it? What do you mean it's toxic?!]
Okay. Stop. This is making your head hurt. Like your brain has been restarted, turned off and back on again. You've run directly into a brick wall and now you're just confused. It's... using other's voices. Mockeries. Pulling from random conversations that you've just barely remembered. Mirabelle poured one of your potions on a plant she tried to grow once and it killed it. You hadn't cared at the time, but now, now... you'll never leave your stuff out again. That very same potion killed you, and it could've killed HER.
You know damn well what you've worked with. The plants and chemicals, toxic in every way. You'd always liked to dance on the edge of safety, tempting death to come get you: maybe that's why you're here now, doomed to repeat the same day over and over. Death coming back to laugh at you and take your soul, over and over again.
Maybe this thing is Death, coming to mock you face to face. Wouldn't that be a crabbing laugh? The very concept of the end, pointing and laughing right in front of you, using the voices of the ones you love. What a crabbing joke.
[Claude,] it pulls from Euphie again. [Are you okay?]
No. Why would you be okay, at this point? It tilts its head, and you shake yours. Crab it. Why not. Your voice is failing, withering away in the furnace of your mouth.
[HOW HAVE YOU DONE IT?] It echoes the King's voice at a louder volume.
You know. You know, you know you know. You wished, and figured out something new, something different, and now you have eternity and you want it to stop.
[Are you enjoying yourself over there?] Ohhh, oh you need it to stop using her voice. Twisting your girlfriend's kindly voice into something wrong, using it against you. You throw a punch, and it surges back.
[What do you mean, you've done this before?] Why, why is it doing this to you. You want it to stop you want it to go away you want to. [Can you tell me what happened?]
You can't. You don't, you don't want to do this anymore. Make it stop. Make it stop.
It looks at you. At your clasped together hands.
[YOU?]
Your voice sputters to life. Gurgles over blood. "I don't remember."
It opens its mouth.
[I wish...] Oh... that's...
[I wish we had more time!]
It reaches out, and grabs you by the lapel of your draping coat. Pulls you forwards. Your legs buckle under you, and it slightly holds you up. Looks down at you.
It has eyes behind the glasses now. Irises curled with spirals, the same crabbed up shade yours are.
[I'M SORRY.]
That's... that's you.
[THIS WAS THE DESTINED OUTCOME OF THE EXPERIMENT.]
Ahh...
The ice creeps up your back. Daggers and pins in your spine, between the bones.
[IT'S TIME TO GO TO SLEEP.]
You wished for more time, and...
It lets you go. You fall limp.
You can't move.
That's okay.
[BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD.]
You
Let go.
(If you had held out for five more minutes, you could've been there, beside yourself, when your hopelessness ate you alive and turned you into a Sadness. Watched as they found you, how they screamed, and how they had to kill what was left of you. Lucky you!)
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