The moment she's in the abyss, the music that touched her is gone. The alluring sound, the gentle tones that were in part nothing more than hallucination of desire-all of it vanishes, and with it so does the world. Despite being unable to see herself, it feels as though parts of her are fading before her eyes. Her light, filled with golds and reds and blues and greens and white, white, white...snuffed out, a flame to a gust of cold chilled wind, dragged out into clouds as ink upon the ice and blood upon the seas, until it fades and disperses so thinly it might well have not existed at all.
Until there is only the Void.
Carly is scared. Where was this? What happened, to bring her here, and why was it so lonely, so empty, so distant so cold so wrong?. But no one answers, and no one can, not even in her imagination. Not even in her memories, where taunting voices of ancient gods claim 'whose fault is it, but your own?'
Aslla Piscu needed to die, she tells herself, and she feels the sensation of his laughter upon her soul, his power crawling up her spine as tremors. Aslla Piscu needed to die, because of what he would cause if he were ever allowed.
Because of what she had done at his hand-
Jack Atlas needed to stay away, she thinks, as her heart clenches, and the could bites. The King of Riding Duels, the man she loved, safe from the dangers they would encounter or at least while her eyes could witness them. Safe from her eyes, and she from his, lest they see the worst happen to each other again, that was the source of this new lonliness that could not quite be shook.
Safe from witnessing the worst in each other-
Death was a necessary act, sometimes. The ultimate task with the ultimate of responsibilities, and who could ever say why someone had felt it wise to trust her with those. The leader, the organizer, she may have worked behind the scenes but what was it she had always said after all, that she felt more comfortable watching others obtain the spotlight, that she desired to document and ensure that future in others? To ensure the comfort of those around her, their fame, their fortune-
While so many suffered, while she suffered-
Send them soaring into the stars, leave the others in the mud, what use was that? What use when there was so much pain left behind anyway? Kill the man to realize there was another way, arrange the wardrobe only to crush the hearts of her own employees in the time they needed it most. Cheer her lover to never see him succeed-it was all just fooling herself when the time was calm, when the skies were clear enough that the dark could not be seen but here the dark was, to remind her-
She could cheer and shout and encourage and sing and laugh but when it came to the final countdown and curtain call even if she succeeded in that final push for someone else the world was selfish.
'You remember how you died, don't you?' her mind supplies, cutting through self-made promises of change and re-focus and desperation. 'And what about how Misty died, how Kiryu died?' About deaths rife with betrayal, suffering, injustice, a lack of good in all corners of but one of millions of worlds. And it wasn't right. To do so much for so little, for so much pain instead, for herself to twist the blade and claim forced hands and necessities and so on, so on, so on, so on-
...
She could tell herself
'The people you help forward have thanked you for even the most minor of pushes'
'You were forgiven of your crimes, of the deaths, of the emotionally shattered'
'There are people who care for you, people you have cared for, who know just who you really are, just look to the Ringmaster just look at the Ringmaster just look how far you've come, look at where your heart lies, look at how the heart lies, look-'
Your Heart is Lying.
She formed a flimsy contract with a devil for a lover who could not look her in the eye after seeing what such kind hands were capable of, she formed a yet flimsier one in the name of days of memories, days of foolish crushes that were elevated upon pedestals and forced to bloom in the chaos of war before the focus she had granted direction took a direction she could never follow again, she formed desperate, desperate, desperate contracts of attachment, devotion, lingering, lingering, lingering, just say what you mean already just admit what you cannot do, just admit what you cannot choose, just ADMIT-
But aaah, Carly cries at last, holding herself close, she cannot.
She cannot bring the words forward, because something inside just continues to weep for what was lost, for when it was simple and neat and single stranded. It weeps for the tattered strings she wove together in hopes of creating something beautiful, leaving messy knots and fraying edges and uneven ends that lead to more nothingness. No art in the reality. No truth in the screen covering the vision.
And she knows what she is capable of, and she knows people are capable of so much worse, and she knows people she has helped onward in their dreams have crushed the dreams of others in their past, that they are capable of so many more things so many more terrible things than even her own bloodstaind hands are capable of, because she helped them there, didn't she?
And she praises and cheers and ignores the bad and turns her eyes to the good but she knows what lies in the darkness of another's heart and she's seen it within herself, seen it and felt it and held it in her trembling hands while muttering cursed and ancient tongues over painted lines and cut runes for the name of One.
Single.
Thing.
Existing.
What kind of existence, she finally determines, her heart at last devoid of all light, should be allowed to persist in nothing but selfish steps forward into its own glory, at the cost of so many others underfoot.
What kind of existence could deserve to quietly age itself into the end, snuff itself in a whisper, and simply pass on into the night, when it had yet to suffer the bang and the buck of all pain left upon those who struggled to help it forward?
...
None.
===========================
It is easy, as her eyes open, to embrace her 'old self' even while embracing the void, that tiny thing allowed back into her heart, that shadow of itself, the eclipsed 'sun' from which all things end and reverse. Carly stands silent when she 'wakes', ponderous and perhaps dangerous in that quiet as she ruminates on what is already so well understood. At the very beginning, she was a reporter. One who documented the 'scoop' of the day, the story on the streets, the news that needed and deserved to be news.
Life, Existence, Reality...that in itself was a story. A tale to be completed, brought to its final end, for until something was destroyed, it was nothing more than an ongoing tale. There were no real 'happy endings'-and like all stories, the world would have to come to its own end, to be wiped clean for a new 'happy beginning', something new, something incomprehensible, because even what followed destruction did not matter.
It was not her story to write, after all. This one was-her story to finish, and end, and cast aside into the ether, tying it off with final 'big bang'.
Carly turns, and turns with perhaps the most unsettlingly cheerful smile one could ever have. "....Good Mornnning..~!" she begins, knitting her fingers behind her back and spinning around to face the nearest set of others in full. "...So... ...Do you know what we need to do, now?"
It'll be over soon. The final 'dot' at the end of a sentence, before that last empty splash page to finish it all is added in.
CARLY NAGISA | OTA | when u type so much u break the voidbreak off from the tagging prompt-
Until there is only the Void.
Carly is scared. Where was this? What happened, to bring her here, and why was it so lonely, so empty, so distant so cold so wrong?. But no one answers, and no one can, not even in her imagination. Not even in her memories, where taunting voices of ancient gods claim 'whose fault is it, but your own?'
Aslla Piscu needed to die, she tells herself, and she feels the sensation of his laughter upon her soul, his power crawling up her spine as tremors. Aslla Piscu needed to die, because of what he would cause if he were ever allowed.
Because of what she had done at his hand-
Jack Atlas needed to stay away, she thinks, as her heart clenches, and the could bites. The King of Riding Duels, the man she loved, safe from the dangers they would encounter or at least while her eyes could witness them. Safe from her eyes, and she from his, lest they see the worst happen to each other again, that was the source of this new lonliness that could not quite be shook.
Safe from witnessing the worst in each other-
Death was a necessary act, sometimes. The ultimate task with the ultimate of responsibilities, and who could ever say why someone had felt it wise to trust her with those. The leader, the organizer, she may have worked behind the scenes but what was it she had always said after all, that she felt more comfortable watching others obtain the spotlight, that she desired to document and ensure that future in others? To ensure the comfort of those around her, their fame, their fortune-
While so many suffered, while she suffered-
Send them soaring into the stars, leave the others in the mud, what use was that? What use when there was so much pain left behind anyway? Kill the man to realize there was another way, arrange the wardrobe only to crush the hearts of her own employees in the time they needed it most. Cheer her lover to never see him succeed-it was all just fooling herself when the time was calm, when the skies were clear enough that the dark could not be seen but here the dark was, to remind her-
She could cheer and shout and encourage and sing and laugh but when it came to the final countdown and curtain call even if she succeeded in that final push for someone else the world was selfish.
'You remember how you died, don't you?' her mind supplies, cutting through self-made promises of change and re-focus and desperation. 'And what about how Misty died, how Kiryu died?' About deaths rife with betrayal, suffering, injustice, a lack of good in all corners of but one of millions of worlds. And it wasn't right. To do so much for so little, for so much pain instead, for herself to twist the blade and claim forced hands and necessities and so on, so on, so on, so on-
...
She could tell herself
'The people you help forward have thanked you for even the most minor of pushes'
'You were forgiven of your crimes, of the deaths, of the emotionally shattered'
'There are people who care for you, people you have cared for, who know just who you really are, just look to the Ringmaster just look at the Ringmaster just look how far you've come, look at where your heart lies, look at how the heart lies, look-'
Your Heart is Lying.
She formed a flimsy contract with a devil for a lover who could not look her in the eye after seeing what such kind hands were capable of, she formed a yet flimsier one in the name of days of memories, days of foolish crushes that were elevated upon pedestals and forced to bloom in the chaos of war before the focus she had granted direction took a direction she could never follow again, she formed desperate, desperate, desperate contracts of attachment, devotion, lingering, lingering, lingering, just say what you mean already just admit what you cannot do, just admit what you cannot choose, just ADMIT-
But aaah, Carly cries at last, holding herself close, she cannot.
She cannot bring the words forward, because something inside just continues to weep for what was lost, for when it was simple and neat and single stranded. It weeps for the tattered strings she wove together in hopes of creating something beautiful, leaving messy knots and fraying edges and uneven ends that lead to more nothingness. No art in the reality. No truth in the screen covering the vision.
And she knows what she is capable of, and she knows people are capable of so much worse, and she knows people she has helped onward in their dreams have crushed the dreams of others in their past, that they are capable of so many more things so many more terrible things than even her own bloodstaind hands are capable of, because she helped them there, didn't she?
And she praises and cheers and ignores the bad and turns her eyes to the good but she knows what lies in the darkness of another's heart and she's seen it within herself, seen it and felt it and held it in her trembling hands while muttering cursed and ancient tongues over painted lines and cut runes for the name of One.
Single.
Thing.
Existing.
What kind of existence, she finally determines, her heart at last devoid of all light, should be allowed to persist in nothing but selfish steps forward into its own glory, at the cost of so many others underfoot.
What kind of existence could deserve to quietly age itself into the end, snuff itself in a whisper, and simply pass on into the night, when it had yet to suffer the bang and the buck of all pain left upon those who struggled to help it forward?
...
None.
===========================
It is easy, as her eyes open, to embrace her 'old self' even while embracing the void, that tiny thing allowed back into her heart, that shadow of itself, the eclipsed 'sun' from which all things end and reverse. Carly stands silent when she 'wakes', ponderous and perhaps dangerous in that quiet as she ruminates on what is already so well understood. At the very beginning, she was a reporter. One who documented the 'scoop' of the day, the story on the streets, the news that needed and deserved to be news.
Life, Existence, Reality...that in itself was a story. A tale to be completed, brought to its final end, for until something was destroyed, it was nothing more than an ongoing tale. There were no real 'happy endings'-and like all stories, the world would have to come to its own end, to be wiped clean for a new 'happy beginning', something new, something incomprehensible, because even what followed destruction did not matter.
It was not her story to write, after all. This one was-her story to finish, and end, and cast aside into the ether, tying it off with final 'big bang'.
Carly turns, and turns with perhaps the most unsettlingly cheerful smile one could ever have. "....Good Mornnning..~!" she begins, knitting her fingers behind her back and spinning around to face the nearest set of others in full. "...So... ...Do you know what we need to do, now?"
It'll be over soon. The final 'dot' at the end of a sentence, before that last empty splash page to finish it all is added in.
Because all stories need a worthy ending.