damedana | [UMINEKO SPOILERS] Heart (Scored)

[logically, she knows she's alone in here, but this is EVA-Beatrice so SHE COULD JUST MANIFEST IN HERE IF SHE WANTED?

she spins around abruptly, fully expecting her to be there]

A-Aunt Eva?!

Could she? She's nowhere to be seen, but her laughter does echo in the space. Fades after a moment of that. Was that just you? Or...

[she sighs, almost a little... disappointed?

listen, it's complicated.

but she will in fact try and use cold water to see if the blood comes out...]

The blood does come out... it doesn't completely remove the stain, but the coloring is less vivid, the memory of the horrible deaths less intense, fading into just lingering horror as the red goes down, down, down the drain.

[wrings as much of the water as she can out so the fabric isn't as heavy and... heads out, back to the window, to try and clean the red there with her significantly less red but moist bed sheet.

did she do all of this just to try and wipe the splatter on the window? yes.]

Gosh, Rosa sure had a mixed bag of being murdered but some of the bigger moments really are...

Sometimes, you are thoroughly broken and discouraged, you even let yourself become furniture, get thrown to be eaten alive, and start to believe there really are witches and this one has killed everyone.

And then you hear the screams, the begging and pleading. Talk of human blood wine and faces on plates and baked apple Maria pie and somehow, somehow, you get just enough strength...

It's strange because, earlier, the woman crying now had accused you and left you to die in the mansion in the last game.

Or how about the time when EVA-Beatrice first went mad with power, watching this in the tea room with horror while Beato laughs and laughs and laughs--until you strike her across the cheek.

Rosa was put through it, wasn't she? For good reason, maybe. But of course, behind all that immediate red, there's the true stain of blood, the actual way Rosa died was...

You can feel the image start to take a stronger shape in your mind, slowly coming into focus...

Keep going?

[a lot of this isn't really anything new to Ange. both in terms of the cruelty and torture involved, but also in terms of being aware of how these games went. she's read all about it before, spectated it herself...

but there is something different now. something about reliving it from a first person perspective... even without being the direct victim. the full awareness that what your eyes are seeing is real, that these people are being murdered over and over again in the most grotesque ways and there is little you can do to stop it. the sheer rawness of it all.

the first memory alone is enough for Ange to end up crouching on the floor, emptying her stomach and crying. she barely has any time to recover, the rest of it continues to play in her mind and all she can do is cry at the horror of seeing her family hurt each other like this, both physically and emotionally. by the time the EVA-Beatrice memory comes into play there's really nothing left for her to throw up, but her body doesn't care. it's just water now... water coming out of her mouth, out of her eyes that won't stop crying, out of her pores that cannot stop sweating both because of the adrenaline and the physical exertion...

and then... finally, the impending awareness of her aunt's true death.

she has to keep going. she knows it's useless to stay here crying like a little girl, but she'll also need a few minutes to regain her strength, after this.

for now, she's going to remain crouched on the floor... trying to get her breathing back in control before she ends up hyperventilating as well.

she weakly reaches for the sheet again to wipe her face with it, which may or may not be a good idea, but she's too spent to care at the moment.]

[eventually, after a few long minutes have passed, she reaches for the wall to help herself up again. once she's back on her feet she takes a deep breath and looks around the room again... noticing the now open door.

but before that, there's one more red photo on the dresser so... she heavily walks over there and starts to clean it with her other sleeve. bracing herself for the inevitable memory again]

Wiping your face is a bad idea. The awareness of that True death... the way the image sharpens more and more, details that won't be easily forgotten--you know without a doubt, continuing to work at this stain will prove that the aftermath of that death was truly witnessed, and truly... lingering. As if unable to move away from the horror of it.

The reality is, for as terrible as the torment of the previous memories, you know without a doubt, it's that Truth that is the worst of it.

But leaving off there, moving on back to the dresser...

Wiping at that photo brings about bittersweet memories of a youth spent on an island with cousins and a servant who were very fun to play with. George, a bit awkward but mimicking the adults, in his teen years. Jessica, more tomboyish and loud than she even is--was before that day, getting the scolding along with Battler. Two peas in a pod of so-called crude and rude delinquency. Shannon, of course, standing back and watching it all with a bemused kind of smile, patiently waiting for the playful activities to start up again. Maria was too young, then, to play with everyone. So when the play on the beach resumes, Jessica runs toward the waves, George warns her to be careful, and Shannon laughs, but it's Battler who insists Shannon follow along with them, uncaring of the difference in statuses. George and Jessica quickly join in on the calls to Shannon. Shannon seems hesitant and shy, but then eventually comes over just in time to recoil from Battler splashing her in the shallows with a shriek of laughter and maybe something about how she should get her dress wet.

He just wanted to see her smile again.

It's a picture of the cousins and Shannon, presumably something taken by an adult who thought the image too cute not to take. They're all smiling. George trying to look older than he is, Jessica bright and cheerful, Battler in an open-mouth laugh, and Shannon with her shy and small upward turn of the lip as though she still wasn't sure how to smile for the image but a faint pink to her cheeks giving away her true happiness of being included.

It's a better picture than how [Jessica with her face beaten in on the floor of the dining hall] it all [George with bullet holes in his side and in his head, glasses barely on his face and out in the rain under a bush] ended--

"Please... don't go away. Don't leave me alone... Battler-san..."

[she is... at this point, genuinely too tired to manage to shed proper tears anymore. all she does is stand there by the dresser letting the bittersweetness of it all wash over her only to eventually be left with nothing but the bitterness. the all too vivid and undeniable sense of what truly happened and the hopelessness she's felt her whole life.

these are red truths that can't be challenged.

not by her.

not in this state.

she leaves the photograph back where it was and moves for the door. she could probably try to clean up more of this room, but is that even something she should keep doing? is it even helping anyone? certainly not her, at any rate.]

It's very possible that she should have paced herself a little.

[UMINEKO SPOILERS] Heart (Scored) - Kyrie, Rika, Ange

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cw: emeto

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