SOTF Archive/SOTF Classic

Their finger twitched too late to catch Dolly's retreating form, catching on a trigger held fast by safety. They should have known that. They did somewhere in the chaotic chain reaction her stupid decision had triggered, and whether there had been no time to fit in every action or they had wanted to give her one more chance she'd slipped away. Blaise could hear her feet pounding towards the doorway. If their reaction was slow enough she could end up anywhere. Unarmed, half naked, without supplies, no threat to Blaise or anyone else. Uninjured as well. Faith had been much the same but with less dignity and Blaise had not heard her name yet. Dolly would be fine if they let her go. Packed up their things, listened for her pounding footsteps, and went another way. They never had to see each other again.

Dolly had seen them though. Unlike Katelynne she had seen and heard them in passable light. Unlike Thomas and Sven she was not an idiot. If anyone was going to bring the entire identity down around them, they would be hard pressed to find another candidate.

It wasn't worth it.

She wasn't worth it.

Blaise let out a snarl and sent their products scattering in their path. Dolly was already a ways the road when they made their way out the door, but not so far that they didn't see her duck into a doorway. Running might have been a better option but in the context of what was to come it wasn't the worst decision she'd made today. Blaise was going to make sure of that.

The safety clicked off just before they crossed the doorway.

One house, two house, red house, blue house. Dolly found a doorway, skittered inside, and understood before she even made it to the near-identical bedroom that she had run herself into a dead end.

It wouldn't have been much of a chase, anyway. She wouldn't have made it far out in the open. She didn't have time to think over whether she wanted to make it very far for any reason other than to lead Blaise away from Marceline.

Once Blaise smelled blood, they couldn't let it go. She had always known that much about them.

She spent a minute staring blankly at the solid wall of the bedroom, and then turned to face the footsteps behind her.

She'd never been in a fight before. Nothing to prepare her for how it felt to get sucker punched right in the stomach. Even less for the burning that followed it.

It didn't send her flying backwards like she thought it ought to have. She staggered back, but didn't hit the wall. Instead, her knees buckled. She dropped, almost sitting down hard with her legs beneath herself, catching herself with one hand while the other reflexively slapped over the wound.

She'd stood there next to Violet yesterday, wondering whose blood it was on her hands. It had always been her own. She knew that now.

In the deafening silence that followed the roll of thunder from the gun, Dolly's shoulders began to shake. When Blaise stepped closer, she turned her face up so they could see that she was laughing.

Marceline awkwardly shuffled around the west housing block, twisting her head and slinging droplets of water off of her hair in the process, looking around for anything that might be useful. Any bags, weapons, or medical supplies—like Dolly had suggested—would be a welcome sight.

But she didn't have much time to really look before she heard the crack of a gunshot in the distance.

Immediately, her heart started racing, her eyes going wide as she spun around to face the noise, before freezing in place. She knew that sound, she had plenty of experience hearing the noise made by guns going off. Even though the sound was dampened by the rain, it was clear that somebody was firing not too far from where she was. And, it was...

Time seemed to slow down as the realization began to dawn on her. Full-blown panic began to set in, her heart thumping loudly in her ears as overwhelming dread came upon her like an avalanche. She started breathing hard, her breaths shallow and fast, her body not moving despite her mind screaming for it to move, to run. She had to move, she had to go, now was not the time for her to just stand here like a deer in headlights, unable to fully process the fact that a gunshot just went off in the direction her girlfriend had gone. It was a mistake to let Dolly out of her sight, to not be there when she was most needed. How could she make a mistake like this? How...

She closed her eyes and slowed her breathing as much as she could. Now wasn't the time to blame herself, or Dolly, or anyone. Now was the time to act. After what felt like an eternity of standing still, she finally summoned the will to move, clenching her fists and lurching forward.

Her mind and heart racing as one, Marceline wordlessly began to run towards the danger.

Dante didn't speak another word when the gun went to his temple. They had been grateful for that. Certainty that he had wanted their mercy was a choice, one made easier by lack of protest. They could have spun it if he spoke some last word of shock, knowing his best interests was not among his strengths and it was all too much for him to comprehend. That sounded reasonable, no? It would require effort, though. It introduced doubt. What if he had had more time? What if he'd known? Would he beg? Would he try to run? Was there a world where he fought back? All of these thoughts were banished with the serenity they imagined on his face even now. It would not have been much longer before he was begging them in a voice that no longer sounded human rather than with a face that no longer looked alive. His silence gave them the power to decide that.

That's how they knew the shot was an accident. Wild reflex without intent behind it. Dolly did not fall to the ground like she should have, limbs that should have been lifeless quaked with defiance against the ground. If they had meant to pull the trigger she would be dead. Things worked out that way for them, it was a simple fact of reality. If she was alive, then Blaise did not mean to kill her, and they were being mocked for it. Not just mocked, provoked. Dolly's eyes dared to feel cold metal between them. She didn't think they could do it. That was the only explanation. Teeth bared in an angry half frown. "Idiot. You giggling idiot. Is this a joke?"

They steadied their aim on her forehead. "Have you not heard what I did? Do you, of all fucking people, not know what I am? Why call my attention? Why spit in my face when I offer you an exit? Do you have so little to live for?"

Her fault.

It was all her fault.

Any other combination of decisions would have led her to safety but she antagonized them from the very beginning. Blaise didn't want this. Dolly had brought it on herself with her recklessness, her spite, she begged in language self-destructive just as much as Dante had.

Yes. That would do. It was mercy for sickness of the mind rather than the body, no different than what they'd already done.

They should have pulled the trigger, but they didn't.

It hurt. Oh God, God with a capital G that she'd spoken to in every half-baked prayer service she'd gone to, it hurt. Even if Blaise hadn't closed in to spit venom at her one last time, this wasn't the kind of thing you walked away from.

"Of course I know." Drawing in breath was agony, even as it hissed out again in her spotty laughter. Speaking was worse. Dolly tasted blood. "But it's not my problem anymore, is it?"

Even with the gun aimed right at her head, there wasn't a guarantee that Blaise would even finish her off. They could very well just walk away and leave her to bleed out. She couldn't ever be sure which way their pendulum would swing.

Marceline would have heard the shot. She couldn't know exactly where they were, but she wouldn't dally. Dolly had to speak quickly.

"My problems are yours now, actually. So listen, before you do anything else. You can have my things. I don't care. I don't need them. Just listen."

Dolly interrupted herself with a cough. She spat. No point in decorum. Unsurprisingly, everything was turning red.

"If you see Tyrell or Lorenzo, I need you to kill them."

Liar. Monster. When will men like you understand that your actions have consequences?

She'd been afraid of what she would do, what she had the potential to become. In the end, she couldn't face herself. She couldn't share it with Marceline for fear of what Marceline would want to do and the danger she'd put herself in. Violet had made her own choices, so Dolly hadn't needed to ask anything of her except to believe the tiniest silver lining.

She had no qualms about throwing Blaise to the wolves instead. They'd made their choice too.

Their eyes narrowed. Dolly had chosen a strange time to start playing games without any incentive for Blaise to join her. Even granting the ridiculous proposition that somehow this mistake made the countless others she must have committed in the last 48 hours Blaise's problem, what did Dolly have to gain from Tyrell and Lorenzo dying? They had no history Blaise was aware of, and while they were murderers neither had harmed anyone especially close to Dolly that they could recall. Given their reputations she could be hatching an extremely crude plan to get them killed, but that was a brainless revenge scheme even for someone rapidly losing oxygen saturation.

The best retort was a bullet to the skull. Blaise could take whatever they wanted with or without her permission.

They didn't pull the trigger.

Their frown warped into a smirk. Any guilt they felt melted away at the revelation that Dolly was not only no better than they were but far worse, petty and murderous to her dying breath. "Why would I do that?" Arms relaxed as the gun hang low, swaying with the shake of their head. "I do not know what you have done. Nothing important enough to be mentioned. Your messes are between you and your creator, darling. I have more than enough problems without yours."

They turned to the door. After they left there would be nothing of value here to linger on.

"You know why. You were there. Violet told me."

Dolly peeled her shaking, bloodied hand away from her stomach and reached for Blaise, but they were beyond her grasp. She wasn't laughing anymore.

There was no guarantee of anything, of course. But Blaise was the one person Dolly could think of that had the means and the mindset that fit. They'd made their bed. They had a strange sense of possession about people that caught their eye, and Artem was one of those people.

"They don't have the right. I can tell you it's a lie, if you'll believe me, but even if you don't-" She coughed again, and this time the metallic taste in her mouth overwhelmed her for a moment. Her tongue felt loose and clumsy, like she had been drinking. It was a far cry from the pleasant, fuzzy feeling that overtook her whenever she'd accepted Artem's offers to share from his marijuana stash. She hoped he had enough to get to sleep at night.

If she had been alone, she might have survived. Marceline and Violet, Tyrell and Lorenzo, even Ariana and Rhonda and Emeka - they had robbed her of her distance. Given her a reason to tear loose from the civilization she so carefully cultivated around herself in response to all that she knew of the world and of humans. Rooted her to the ground so that she didn't want to. If it was just Dolly and the monsters, then God, let her be a monster.

Instead, she just had to put her dying curse on Blaise. It was her last recourse.

"I don't think you care about justice,"

her words were beginning to slur

"but I know you're good for retribution. And I promised."

Dolly closed her eyes. Her head was swimming.

"That's all. Thank you for listening. Now get out."

Artem.

In all the chaos of these last days they had-no, they hadn't forgotten. They had put aside the fury stirred up inside them that first morning because it was not useful. Dante had come first, then their own survival. Revenge came in flashes against whoever wronged them most recently and burned away just as quickly. It did not give them anything. If the object of their hatred was not right in front of them the feelings faded regardless of how brightly they had burned moments beforehand, and Dolly was judging them for it. They could feel it in her voice. Condemnation bordering on contempt that they had not already put Lorenzo in the ground. Arrogance that killing them would end any fraction of Artem's pain. Ignorance to her own inadequacy, no blood on her hands but her own. Perhaps that last piece was unfair. This must have been her plan all along, some insane suicidal ploy to make sure that Blaise did the things she was incapable of, and yet despite that she still looked down on them. Banished them to the killing fields like her personal soldier.

They hung in the doorway without response. Stiff, slow movements brought them back to face her. Words would be wasted on the dying just as so much else would. A courtesy, then, to allow her to have the last one. They would say no more, and they would even go as far as to follow on the warpath set before them. It wasn't enough to kill Lorenzo, Dolly had made sure of that. Tyrell had to die as well. Going that far they might as well kill Violet. Dante was already dead, so that would leave Blaise and Dolly the last living souls who knew the truth, at least that they were aware.

Hmm.

Not quite right, though. It was unfair to her present circumstances to count Dolly.

Not after a second shot echoed out from the house into the rain.

Blaise did not stay to observe her last moments. There was much to collect in the mess she'd left behind. When they stepped back into their original hide-out they collected what they could find of their kit in silence. Unzipped Dolly's bags to take stock of her supplies, her clothes. Hefted the folded weapon she'd discarded by the door into one of them, secure that it would not slow them down long. As they stomped down the road they caught their reflection in a murky puddle. Unfinished make-up dripped like melting wax caught between the mirrored glare of their eyes. Already they couldn't envision what it was meant to look like.

There was no purpose in finishing the guise of a name they'd already erased from memory.

It was time for something new.

((Blaise D'Aramtiz Continued In I Know In Darkness, I Will Find You(Giving Up Inside Like Me)))

One last horror: she'd never know if it worked.

She'd never know anything after this.

The second shot wasn't as good as the first. It clipped the side of her skull, sent a spray of blood and chunks of flesh and hair splattering on the wall behind her. Maybe some brain matter, too. It wasn't as though she'd be able to pick through her own leavings to figure it out.

Dolly collapsed. Footsteps led away. Different footsteps approached.

Dolly still breathed, cheek pressed to the floor. Eyes open. She wasn't sure if she saw a camera looking back at her, but she imagined that she did. Dog chewing off its leg to escape from a trap, only to bleed to death just meters away.

Heart pounding. Blood rushing in her ears. The sound of water splashing beneath her feet.

"Please be okay. Please be okay..."

Marceline sprinted down the road between the rows of houses, frantically searching her surroundings, trying to catch any sort of glimpse of anything that might let her know where Dolly was. The worst part of all of this is that she didn't even know which house Dolly had gone into. She should've asked, she should've made sure she knew where Dolly was. Did Dolly not tell her because Marceline had said too much? Is that also why she wanted to get away from her? This entire situation was all her fault. She shouldn't have said anything, she should've stayed with her, she should've-

The wicked crack of a second gunshot echoing through the neighborhood derailed her train of thought, causing her to briefly freeze in place once again, only for Marceline to immediately resume sprinting towards the source of the second noise. She thought she knew where that had come from. She just had to round the corner and-

A door, left ajar. A sign of activity.

Racing towards it, Marceline flew into the room, only to recoil in alarm at what she saw. The scene inside looked like something out of a horror movie, except her girlfriend was the victim. Blood pooling on the ground, viscera painting the wall, eyes still open.

Still breathing.

"Dolly!"

Marceline crossed the room in less than a second before crouching next to her girlfriend, gripping and yanking at her hair in a panic as she tried to assess the damage.

"Don't worry, Dolly, I'm here. I-I can... I can fix this."

Reaching into her bag, unable to accept the reality of the grotesque injury and blood loss in front of her, she fumbled for her medical kit, trying to think of anything she could do to save her.

"I'm so sorry, this is all my fault. I was a bad girlfriend, I..."

As she brought out the gauze with violently trembling hands, Marceline finally got a good look at the damage that had been done.

There was no way. She couldn't...

"No... no, wait, no..."

She couldn't fix this.

The truth hit her like a freight train, overwhelming her completely. A knot formed in the pit of her stomach as she tried to think of something, anything she could do, but she came up with nothing.

There was nothing. She was nothing. Her girlfriend was dying right in front of her and she wasn't a damn thing she could do to stop it. The entire world she had built up over the years, the world that she had finally felt at peace with, was crashing down around her, and she was just watching it happen.

She couldn't bear to lose Dolly. She couldn't go back to the way things were before. She so badly wanted to run away, to pretend this wasn't happening, but...

Sitting down and swallowing hard, Marceline carefully inserted her arms underneath Dolly, ignoring the blood that she was now soaking herself with, and began to slowly, gently, pick her up.

...this was going to be their last moment together, and...

Cradling Dolly's wounded head in her lap, she brought her hands up to hold her close, finally beginning to weep.

...it wasn't about her.

"There, there..."

Softly stroking her hair, she curled her fingers around her, gripping her tighter as her voice broke, sniffling making her pause.

"...I've got you."

She'd found the inevitable. Maybe she really had gone looking. She could have run from Blaise without saying anything, but she had known. If not then, when? If not someone she knew and understood, who? She'd already said everything she had to say. She'd done the metaphorical gazing into the abyss, and she had decided that she wanted no part of what it required her to do. If she was lesser for that, so be it. She'd always been that way.

Footsteps. Marceline, mercifully stepping between Dolly and the black void eye of the camera.

"Don't..."

Her lips barely moved. She wasn't sure if any sound really came out. Don't let them see me.

Marceline's words reached her as though from far away, garbled through water. They would never truly penetrate through the darkness enveloping her, but the gentle touch did.

Dolly let it send her off without further struggle.

She knew her way through the dark well enough.

G023 DOLORES UPTON: DECEASED

There Marceline was, still holding Dolly close to her chest.

The light had left Dolly's eyes a long time ago. She didn't know how long ago. Minutes? Hours? Days?

Time didn't matter.

Her sobbing had only grown more intense, tears wetting a cold, unresponsive cheek.

She remembered all the times she cried before, with Dolly. All the times that Dolly would hold her close and tell her it was okay. She always tried so hard to make her feel better, even though she never knew why she was so prone to getting emotional when it was just the two of them together.

She never knew, until today. Until the day that she was so cruelly snatched away.

Darkness swirled around Marceline, encroaching upon her, nipping at her sides and threatening to eat her alive. She tightened her grip, brought the bleeding body of her beloved closer, hoping futilely that it would go away. Even as her insides twisted into knots, she kept holding on.

She remembered every touch they ever shared. Every caress, every pinch, every gentle hug. Every kiss, every handhold, every little movement. She remembered the feeling of Dolly lying in her lap. She remembered how her weight felt, as she slept so soundly, safe and secure in her arms.

How different that weight was, now that she was gone.

The darkness closed in, leaving the outside world behind. The only sound she heard was her own ragged breaths. Now, it was just her and the broken vessel of the woman she loved, in this quiet dark.

She remembered the sound of her voice. How sweet it was, how gentle it sounded. Dolly could have sat there reading the dictionary and Marceline would have listened, beginning to end. She remembered how wonderful it was to hear her laugh, to listen to the joy in it. She remembered how all she wanted was to hear that sweet sound as much as possible.

And now, she would never hear it again.

The darkness settled around her, swallowing her up. Filling her with its emptiness, its numbness. She wanted to scream, to cry out, but there was no one there to help her.

Not anymore.

As the darkness filled her lungs, ripping apart her insides and choking the life out of her, she finally gave in.

And it drowned her.

---

Swollen, dead eyes stared upon the shattered, leaking body of her dead lover. Nothing left behind but a drained corpse, guarded by the Wretch, the Failure, the pathetic creature that did not prevent this crime from occurring. Despairing eyes flitted elsewhere, trying to clear the image burned into her mind, only for a monochrome fog to settle all around her.

The world was gray. Everything, drained of any vibrancy it might have once had, replaced by barren shapes and empty echoes. Nothing but barren, despairing shapes. Nothing but empty, sorrowful echoes.

All of it, devoid of any meaning.

Perhaps it was mercy, to be severed from a place such as this. To be ripped away and denied the misery inherent in existing within it. In the same way that Dolly had been granted this mercy, the Wretch, in turn, wanted to be given it. She wanted nothing more than to rejoin her love.

A dagger, drawn. Presented to the throat, like an adder ready to strike. Poised to rip open the dam holding back the embrace of oblivion and unleash a tide of crimson from the Failure's neck.

"Don't worry Dolly, I'll be with you again, soon."

When the Wretch spoke, she sounded distant, muffled, ethereal. A meaningless echo from a worthless collection of shapes. Nothing but scum, ready to purge her valueless existence from this empty world.

"If anything happens to me, you have to live."

Remnants of a last request, reverberating through her mind. The lost one's weeping, ringing in her ears like a song of sorrow that wouldn't stop playing.

A dagger, dropped. A new one, piercing the heart, tearing it asunder. Want as she might, this was not an oath she could violate.

But, even with the oath, there was nothing left for the Wretch. There was no point in persisting. Any further struggle would be futile, the end was inevitable. In the present or the future, the finale of the Failure's story would come, and everything in between now and then would mean nothing in this world of barren shapes and empty echoes.

In this world of sorrow. In this world of guilt. In this world of despair.

In this world without love.

And Dolly would never know if the oath was kept. Trying to fulfill it would be a wasted endeavor, just as any attempt to fight the inevitability of entropy would be. As far as the Wretch was concerned, any goal, any outlook, anything in this entire, miserable existence would be nothing but a waste, now that Dolly was gone. Everything that she could do, now reduced to nothing but a futile attempt at screaming into the void and hoping it screamed back.

It was all pointless.

Pointless.

POINTLESS.

The Wretch screeched, her arm flying forward, hand balled into a hateful fist. The wall in front of the Failure, the gravestone of her lost lover, buckled underneath the force, a crater left in the wake of her fist. Bruised and bloody knuckles were drawn back, angry wheezing and mournful weeping echoing into the emptiness of the air around her.

As meaningless as the oath was, as much as she tried to think her way out of it, she still cared. She still wanted to love even if she didn't get any back. She still wanted to dry the tears of her lost one's weeping.

"Why, why, WHY?" The Wretch bellowed, her words choked by sobs as she clawed and yanked at her hair. "Why do I still have to care? Why can't I let myself die?"

Why, after losing the only meaning to life she has ever had, was she still trying to find meaning in this loveless void?

The Failure battered the ground with her shattered fist in a fury, only to raise her chin, and for her gaze to lock onto the black, cyclopean, voyeuristic gaze of the camera in the room. Watching her suffering, mocking her and her struggles. An emotionless gaze fixated upon her and, only barely obscured behind her, her dead lover.

Dolly had wanted to be unseen. For her death to be a mystery. The Wretch wanted so badly to smash it, to stop its voyeurism once and for all, but that would result in swift and deadly retribution, and break the already fragile oath that she had taken. Destroy the only meaning she had left, that she was holding onto out of love and sentimentality.

If she was damned to continue to live, she would have to be more careful than that.

A bloody shirt, removed and tossed, to obscure the black, empty eye of the voyeur. Quick movement. A table flipped on its side and moved, to obscure the deceased. Quicker still, to the voyeur, as beeping, like the not-so-metaphorical ticking of a timer attached to a bomb, began to ring out from the Wretch's neck, building her anxiety.

The shirt removed, the cyclops, unblocked, the beeping, ceased.

A sigh of relief. Then, a collapse to the floor. Examination of the bloody rags, of the faded and now ruined color. An unsuitable outfit for her continued survival.

Her sack of belongings, opened. The spare outfit, drawn out. A black tank top and black pants. An outfit befitting of a woman in mourning.

The Wretch's head craned back towards the broken form of the woman she loved. On one hand, she could not bear to stay in this place of tragedy a moment longer. One the other, she would prefer to never leave her lover's side again. To leave, to her, would be to forget. To abandon the love they shared.

But this was not her home. This was not where she belonged. There could only be further sorrow, here.

Instead, a memento would be kept. A constant reminder to not repeat the failures of the past. Like the bloody locket, strung around her lover's neck. A key-shaped pendant, worn by her constantly like the key to the Failure's heart. A suitable token of love, and a sufficient reminder.

Her belongings, hastily collected. Her outfit, begrudgingly changed. Her memento, worn round her neck like a noose.

Her parting words...

"Goodbye, Dolly. No matter what, you'll always be in my heart. I love you."

...hesitantly given.

((And her house of sorrows, departed.))