@Kromer || audio

[gripper]

( Kromer's decided she quite doesn't like this place. It doesn't seem like her opinion is an unpopular one, looking at other posts that have cropped up, so that's great. Wonderful when all of humanity is on the same page.

smile.

A whistle comes through the phone first, then her voice. It's a little on the grating side. )

Testing, testing.... Looks like this works! How wonderful.

( It might also be a little familiar to certain people, too. )

What an interesting situation we've found ourselves in. ( "interesting". ) It looks like some of you are already starting to get to know each other a little and make allies, huh? Ahahaha...

( ...... )

Since everyone else is posing questions, let me do a few too. Did you get a waste-of-time text before you left the train? What did you answer? What is your "business"? What Nest are you from? And finally, of course, the most important question of them all...

( Kromer pauses deliberately, relishing in her own dramatics. )

Have we any heretics among our number? I'm looking forward to hearing your responses.

[ ooc: a reminder that her opt-out is here! i'd highly encourage at least glancing at it. ]

Comments

[gripper]

It hasn't "been finished" to me. I'll let you in on a secret, Sinclair, one I didn't divulge to your buddy.

( isn't that nice of her? it is nice of her. )

The last thing I remember, see, is this. ( she gestures between them: him, her, a steep climb, hatred, fear, obsession. ) I told you about the wonderful world I had glimpsed... And that wonderful bough had started to glow...

And then— ( she drops down a step, smile slanting. ) I woke up on a train. Your buddy told me I was a worm. You said you've seen me rent in half. Neither of those things are in my memories, so perhaps they're lies. How laughable, that you've learned to do that from your new friends—it's so unlike you, Sinclair!

( another step, but she stays on this one. )

Come, Sinclair. Put your blade through me if you can—you'll find I'm no ghost, though you sure might be soon.

[halbird]

I'm not lying. That's— it's... always been you.

[ in another context, this would be so romantic!!

but it's not. the way his name comes out in her sick, sweet voice still makes his stomach drop. his teeth clench. that smile, that perfect, unsettling thing— he hates it. he hates that despite the steps he's taken, despite knowing her fate, he still hasn't quite let go of this anchor completely. like demian had said.

but he's better. better than before, better than the beginning, better than the mess of a coward he was when he originally met her. he takes her comment as proof that the one time she dug into him and found something he'd hidden away didn't mean she knew him completely at all.

( he didn't just learn it.

all of it was a lie. didn't he lie about being okay with the things around him? to his family? to his classmates? just like she'd lied about being his friend? just like she lied about him starting it?

or... no— )

it's fine. if she won't come to meet him, he'll come to her. as he does. on his hands and knees, even if he has to crawl, again, he'll... this time, certainly... kill all those lies properly. ]

I-I'll show you, Kromer. The truth you don't remember... A future that- will... did come true. A world where you're dead, bleeding in front of me, and I'm... I'M—!

[ freer than anyone else. ignoring echoes of that truth of the wonderful world she spoke of overlapping over him in the past, he focuses only on this fragment of a world he saw, that she did not.

his hands shake. always, they always do, as he runs at her, ascending that hill and aiming to drive the knife into whatever part of her he can reach first. ]

[gripper]

( "lying" by going along with things isn't real lying: "real lying" is opening your mouth with the intent to twist truth, not resignation.

and besides, he'd never done it to her.

she catches the knife in her arm, her smile breaking into a grin. this close, isn't she alive? isn't she solid, real? isn't the knife in her other hand, which she plunges equally into the whatever part of him she can reach, so painfully. terribly. real?

like in old times, she leans closer, mouth hovering at his ear. )

Good boy.

( for coming to see her? for growing a spine? for being close enough to kill? knives are harder to handle than swords--not as easy to go in or come out--she's discovering that right now trying to pull her knife free so she can stab him again and again and again and aga )

[halbird]

[ hehe, they're twinsies, because that's going into his arm too, too slow to react and too hesitant to let go of the weapon in his hand, driven into her body. the red that spills from her is—

the red that spills from him is—

he tries not to give her the satisfaction of a pathetic sound of pain, but it comes out regardless. a harsh, hateful gasp — sharp, desperate, and scared as sinclair attempts to push her to the ground with her knife in him and his knife in her.

her fucking voice... shrill, close, is a whistle that drives him mad.

die die die die di— ]

Ah... Shut up... SHUT UP—!

[ it's so real.

her, the pain, the knife, the blood

it hurts, and it's so real. ]

[gripper]

( delight blossoms in her gaze at his gasp — pathetic, hateful, pained, desperate, raw — and she knows

she knows if she pushes back, if she lets go, sinclair will go tumbling down the stairs like in an old nursery rhyme she heard once. jack and jill went up the hill just to kill each other / jack fell down and broke his crown / and jill stood laughing after...

that isn't how it went. it isn't how it's going now, because her sinclair's grown stronger, and kromer recognizes something is off about herself. her leg slowly bends, first the left, until it hits the step, the odd angle driving stone beneath her knee. her right bends second, but she keeps her foot planted firmly. they look all the world like a couple mid-proposal, if not for the unmatched expressions on their faces.

despite her position, kromer tries anyway: she shoves her weight against him, not as steady as she could be on the stairs, not as overwhelmingly strong as she'd been before but nowhere near "weak", either. )