die thou, unsung, as tears unshed

“End communication.”

A trap with no escape, under a crumbling roof that shelters her from everything but her sins. What was once a fiery passion slowly dies with the growing tongues of fire that flanks her on all sides.

Trapped. It was all a trap. Not a gift. It was never a gift, not the present wrapped in a big red bow she had believed it to be.

Thoughts careen past her, they race as she paces with a mindless desperation. The heat almost solders her joints together.

I can't. I can't. Not like this. I have to do something, anything— I have to make him proud, anything to make him proud! I have to do something. Something with my life, at least. Something. Anything.

Her once relentless resolve can't help but crumble with the filthy cheap walls, melting with erratic grace under the inferno. What did she do? What could she have done to deserve this life of hers?

A voice whispers the answer before she could even finish thinking.

Nothing.

That's all she's done. Nothing, nothing remotely outstanding. Just average, average, so painfully average. She had nothing to be proud of. Under her sharp, cold, calculating facade—that's all it was, a nothing more than a facade, something to convince herself she knew more than she did—what did she have? Under her wits. Under her poker-face. What did she have?

The man takes off his mask. His face– his face looks familiar. But it can't be. Nobody was ever familiar, everything and everyone that could've been had packed up and moved away. Away from here. Away from her.

He turns for a moment. His eyebrows furrow. Is she imagining it, the way his very flesh almost seems to hesitate, flickering between alive and something that wasn't quite there? The way his eyes held a faint, luminescent pink buried deep beneath his irises?

For a moment, she thinks he'll run, fight, keep her out like he always does. Like he was no doubt told to do. His expression is unreadable. Fear? Disgust? He's frozen in place, it seems, even among this scalding amber.

And then he's not. His shoulders sag. He relaxes. He smiles—why is he smiling? Why is he still here? Get out. Get out! He takes a step toward her. She tries to yell, but the blaze chokes her throat dry. Scare him. Scare him away, away from this hell, away from this torture! Can't he feel it? Can’t you feel it? Why is he still here? Why does she want him to leave?

The voice returns, it rejects, it insists, the icy, blue-eyed beast. No, he has to stay. Stay and atone. He was a part of the plan after all, she remembered now. It's his fault. It's him, all him and the Cassette Man, all his fault, his fault, his fault. His fault for everything! A murderer, that's what he was. A murderer, though they weren't technically alive.

It's a thought tugging at her brain from the deepest, oldest parts of her, murderer, murderer, murderer, yet another voice argues back. Don't you understand! He's all we have. He's all I have.

The man reaches out. His wrinkled prune of a hand tells of a damage wreaked by something more than fire. She almost reaches back. She catches herself.

No, she knew better. She had nobody. Father said she had nobody, nobody but him. A part of her wished that was true.

But she saw no truth, none in the way his father spoke to their endless metal labyrinth like it could answer with anything more than a child's lofty giggle. Never an embrace, not a hug, not a meaningful word to her. Not even her own father could spare her a second glance.

The man’s hand is still outstretched, a defiant glint in his eyes that says she must take it. She has nobody. Amongst the vast universe, she was nobody. But maybe, if even for just a fleeting second, maybe she could have somebody.

She reaches for his hand. The barrier separating them falls. Good riddance, she thinks. She wants a hug. She wants to feel something more than a hand on hers—how long has it been since she’s had a hug?—and he steps forward too. He raises his other hand. A hug. The thought of it makes her smile. She can't feel the fire anymore. It's nothing.

The last of whatever was holding this wretched place together finally gives way, and his hands just fall short of hers before the building crumbles to ashes.

With a final glance into her brother's eyes—they look kinder now, the kindest she's ever seen them—she succumbs to the void as the evening wind whips the rowdy flames into submission.

And then she was nothing.

they live happily ever after right scottt?? right?? .

Pendleton wasn’t a lonely man. At least, he certainly didn’t think of himself as one.

He found that meetings with clients and long, lethargic periods of gazing mindlessly through large colonial windows, observing the happily unaware passers-by, were enough to keep his innate longing for human connection sated. Maybe not healthily so, but sated nonetheless.

Though sometimes, he had to admit, inventions, blueprints, and oil lamps simply weren’t enough to keep him company. It was unfortunately challenging to find comfort in cold, hard, metal, though it wasn't for lack of trying.

And today, as the sun rose on the morn of Valentines, proved to be one of those days. 

One of those dreaded days where his heart couldn’t help but mumble with the dull sting of loneliness, where his chest felt so oddly void of feeling even its absence wreaked a soft pain in its wake. 

Softly combing through his hair, Pendleton tucked the curtains to the side and peered out the window almost instinctively. It was something he had gotten so used to over the years, something to take his mind off his not-loneliness.

He watched as a young couple pranced carelessly by to the tune of the dawn wind’s distant whistle, their faces so unblemished by worry’s gray taint that the bags under his eyes could only retaliate with an envious scoff.

From the bouquet that the woman loosely held in her hands, rose petals broke free of their moorings and left a blood red trail behind them. Nevertheless, the couple faithfully maintained the blissful ignorance that Pendleton couldn’t help but long for.

He vigorously shook his head as if to pry the thought's claws from his mind, but it did little to help. The act prompted his hands to fly to his face to save his glasses from landing in an expensive mess on the floor. Thankfully he succeeded in his endeavor and resumed his observation, his eyes drifting despite his best efforts.

A lady in a meticulously ornate tapered skirt.

A man with a flower tucked into his breast pocket. 

Pendleton soaked it all in as his workshop lay expectantly, still untouched, unable to reel his gaze back.

A hastily drawn curtain over a waiting bedroom. (He looked away for that one.)

Men and women dressed in their best attire, all petticoats and ascots, intricate lace parasols and the most eye-catching timepiece they could find. 

Flowers. So many flowers.

He had lost count of how many he had seen, with all the lovesick fools tainting the sullen gray alleyway with their bubbling laughter, gazing with sickly sweetness into each other's eyes. 

Not in the slightest was he well-versed in the language of blossoms but a part of him longed to be now, just to find respite in the fact that maybe just one could be delivering a message that was anything other than an immense profession of their love for a significant other. 

Even the morning birds sounded like they sang with more passion. 

Pendleton, retreating from the windowsill, heaved a long sigh and turned to his desk. 

He swiped the curtains shut with far more bitterness than he wanted to admit, the room suddenly engulfed in a deep red as he pulled a pair of goggles over his eyes. 

Perhaps he was a little lonely, after all.

Perfect.

Ezra’s coronation had to be perfect.

Disgustingly lavish, it was only a little more than a disdainful exhibition of their riches. The halls were decked with their most expensive ornaments, refreshments served on the finest china they possessed. Privilege oozed from the golden embellishments, from between the spaces in the checkered tiles that lined the floors, from the light that reflected off the luxurious jewellery dangling from the necks of the highest of high class.

The weight of the thousands of leering eyes now observing his every move, like a predator ready to pounce if he made even the most subtle of mistakes, threatened to buckle his knees and make him crumple to the ground, a marionette pardoned from its strings.

From where he stood, it was a fitting metaphor. He was nothing more than a performer caught in a twisted play; a drama where he was forced to adorn a crown and smile like the very idea did not repulse him.

When he stepped up to sit on the grand throne that had accommodated hundreds before him, the thought clung to his mind, unshakeably stubborn. He did not dare meet any of the guests’ eyes, only drawing his eyes away from the space above their heads when an unfamiliar man approached him, the crown in his gloved hands handled as if it would shatter at a stray gust of wind. Ezra could only bow his head and resign himself to the inevitable.

The crown, golden arms embracing the plush velvet cushion at its heart, settled onto his head, taking its place among his chestnut curls. His neck very nearly betrayed him, faltering for barely a second under the unexpected weight of it. The icy shock soon dissipated, though the cold metal biting into his scalp was worthy compensation.

It was then that Ezra wanted nothing more than a sinkhole to open up beneath him and pull him so deep into the ground, he could rearrange the kingdom’s drainage system with his own hands. Ironically, it wouldn't make it any worse than it already is.

But, unfortunately, the show must go on.

Gritting his teeth behind his mechanical, practised smile, Ezra forced himself to meet the people’s eyes. The hall erupted in a damp cheer, intangible, hollered statements scattered among the cacophony.

He was King.

Yet he had never felt less like one.

BRO IT'S SO BAD I CAN'T. I SPENT SO LONG ON IT TOO UGH I'M GONNA START TWEAKING OUT 💔💔 might remake it when my hands don't ache as much 😞😞

mitski my love.. daisuke my love.. UGHHH ☹️☹️☹️☹️