Chapter Text
The last thing he remembered was the mirror, its dark, shimmering surface filling him with
wary curiosity, terror, shame, despair, contempt, panic, grim determination-
confusion. The world had ended, but- it also hadn’t? Not if they were still here.
Then again, that mirror… it felt like their end. Like if they looked into it, all they would see would be the somber darkness left behind after a tragedy’s final curtain call.
Their body stepped forward
despite encouragement, despite begging, despite anything he said or did, he wasn’t the one in charge, after all, and nothing ever let him forget how powerless he really was-
without his input, but that was normal. He wasn’t the one in charge; he never had been, and presumably never would be.
Their hand lifted towards the mirror, and it was
Dark. Numb. Silent. Lost in endless nothingness. Nothing but empty, endless nothingness, stretching on into eternity.
Is there something after eternity?
(Weathered stone walls, a tiny barred window, an empty set of iron shackles. A voice mutters to himself endlessly as he paces the border of his confines, more and more questions without answers presenting themselves to his spinning mind. There is no way out, but every problem can be solved, there is no way out, but if he just thinks hard enough-)
(Rocky walls pressing in on you, constricting, shutting out everything else; a broken chain, a tiny, useless window. A voice snarls death threats at whoever dared to trap him here, pounding against the walls that once confined his Princess, feeling along them for any sort of weakness. There’s bound to be a crack in them somewhere- if not there, then here- not there either, then it must be here-)
(A vast, overgrown cavern, every rustle of leaves sounding like the soft breaths of an unseen predator as they prepare to strike. A voice claws and scratches uselessly against the walls of the Princess’s cage turned his. A growing mass of senseless, animalistic panic chips away at the edges of his determination, steadily dissolving whatever rationality he has left.)
(Twisted vines coiled into the vague shape of a room, though something much more likely to constrict and choke the life out of you than simply protect you from the elements like a room should. A voice begs and pleads with empty air, the words rough and cracking with desperation despite his attempts to keep them nonchalant. He is certain that someone must be listening, someone with the power to free him if he gives them what they want; after all, who wouldn’t want a slave that would do anything for them?)
(A pitch-black pit surrounded with eyes that see everything. A voice is huddled away in the darkest corner he could find, though he knows full well that the eyes will follow him no matter where he goes or what he does. He is nearly catatonic with terror, the last dregs of his will used to keep up a near-silent chant reminding him of the body he once inhabited and the companions he had there with him.)
(A cave with walls of dented and battered metal, still stained in places with rusty splotches of old blood. A voice seethes in bitter silence, refusing to give his phantom captor the satisfaction of pitiful begging or audible despair. He reminds himself over and over how much he hates them, whether they're the Narrator, the Princess, or the friends he once thought he had- but he'll never hate them the way he hates himself for ever believing that his story could end happily.)
(Pristine, polished stone walls adorned with intricate tapestries, a wide window letting in the starlight, an empty set of shackles lying forgotten on the floor. A voice sits mourning what he used to be, whispering soft, sad poetry into the stillness before it snuffs his words out again. Everyone he's ever loved has left him, and being alone hurts like nothing else can.)
(A vast, temple-like room made of blindingly white marble, a stained-glass window casting an ethereal glow over everything within. A voice lies curled up near the empty shackle that once held his goddess. He doesn't know why it took everyone leaving him to realize that they'd never wanted him there in the first place, but he gets it now; he doesn't want himself, either.)
(An old, long-forgotten room, blanketed with dust, its wallpaper peeling and the corpse on the floor nothing more than a pile of bones. A voice cannot leave, and therefore he has stopped trying. He knows that the only way to deal with this is to stop feeling, to become empty, to become nothing at all, and that is what he will do.)
(Everything at once, and also none of it. A voice has nothing else to do but sit with the terrible, aching loneliness crushing him in its vice-like grip and the festering guilt left over from everything he's done. He wishes he'd had the chance to make it right.)
the end.
…
(A voice jolts awake with a gasp. He knows everything, sees everything, remembers everything, and yet he's certain of absolutely nothing- nothing but the fact that he is needed, right now.)