dramatispersonae | Mirage Heart

Mirage Heart

At first, it feels like your limbs have gone totally limp and you’re floating gently underwater, slowly and serenely making your way down a dark blue abyss... and then it occurs to you you’re actually flying rather than being engulfed, and it's actually the deep blue sky stretching out around you in every direction. It’s awe inspiring, and it leaves you with a wonderful feeling of being completely capable and free...

That is, until you begin having difficulties, your body is too unbalanced and heavy to keep the flying up. It soon becomes apparent the floating feeling you’ve been having is actually falling, and as if to reflect the realization, the velocity changes immediately to a gut-wrenching DROP. The world blurs, the sound of something shattering echoes in your ears, and your body feels like it is about to be pulled apart as something CRUNCHES.

The experience leaves you utterly befuddled. It takes a while to regain your senses...

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As you slowly pull yourself together, you feel piercing pain not unlike jagged pieces of glass piercing your skin... oh. Wait. Those are jagged pieces of glass. Be grateful, if this were not a heart, you’d be dead. But somehow this all the damage you took, after you literally fell to your doom and... from the looks of it, through a glass ceiling of a grand atrium, landing on ground that is solid water which reflects the bright blue sky. No matter where you look, the atrium and ocean-like floor seems to go on endlessly into the horizon. The air around you is palpable, heavy.

At least you are not the only things that have been falling. There are continuous shattering sounds as things crumble from the sky above-- the sky which is not actually a bright blue, but just a glass reflection of the floor below you, the broken through glass of the ceiling showing that behind it the true sky is instead darker than midnight black with no galaxy in sight. Every-so-often that dark sky seems to press down on the atrium glass until it cracks and falls through itself, leaving shards and dark scars running along the water-floor under your feet.

Somehow, as you take this all in and become more aware, you get the feeling that it is the sky itself that is falling and that this is the End of the World.

In a small blessing, you're not the only one here? There are the companions who joined you, of course, and one person who didn't -- a young boy, around ten, with ruined clothing that seems to shed feathers is watching you all calmly from atop a throne of broken glass made in what you know is the center of the atrium. For those who would recognize him, he's almost certainly Mirage.

You find yourself in an overgrown courtyard surrounded by old, ruined apartments. There is a breeze coming from somewhere-- it comes strong, then slow, not unlike rhythmic breathing.

If you are looking for a direction to go, there is clearly a right and a left side to take -- on the left, the apartments completely barren and run down, grey and in run-down condition. There are bugs buzzing around it. On the right, while still abandoned, the apartment looks much more green-- almost Peridot green, in fact, covered in bright vines. It's almost like there has been some effort to remodel it in such a fashion.

There's no obvious safe entrances to both, but if you poked around, there's a chance you could find your way in... or maybe even a way to somewhere else.

A black cat crossing the courtyard, carrying a white bird in it's mouth, freezes at the sight of you.

The hospital looks like any other modern hospital, really, though out of the corner of your eye you imagine you see... things. Things like blood and hands beckoning and eyes watching. But when you turn to make sure, they're not there.

In fact, there's no one here. It's so very empty, absent of all life. But surely, there has to be something . . .

If you haven't closed your eyes in terror by now you'll notice that the walls around you are flesh and pulsate grossly as you fall, with some kind of black substance that is so unique that you couldn't place it if you tried. As if that's not bad enough, looking down you see a large caricature of a human baby awaiting you, but deformed as the body morphs and bulges constantly, barely held together in it's shape. It opens it's gaping maw of a mouth, carnivorous, clearly intending for you to be it's next meal --

Suddenly, everything is red. It seems you're on something warm and squishy... and the corruption you've had since you've entered the heart feels painful, your veins pumping painfully. What do you do?

Once again a bright blue sky stretches out above you-- but this time there's no broken glass, nothing falling down. The breeze is refreshing and rustles the bright green trees, the same shade as Peridot, surrounding the hospital. It's a beautiful day.

After everything you've been through to get here, it's almost hilariously simple how accessible everything suddenly seems. All that seems to be in your way now is a door to a small apartment mysteriously placed here on the top of the hospital.

[This . . . is already as bad as Kaoru worried, though it sure has happened so much sooner than he expected. He's biting down on his lip to keep from crying out (which really only serves to reduce him to pained whining)

All the same, he's tttrying to focus on Mirage, reaching uncertainly for him]

J-Jae Hoon??

[Shino needs a moment to pull himself together for sure, shaken, but trying to sit up and look around himself to make sense of everything.]

Where—?

[ While he doesn't move to Kaoru right away, Mirage seems a little concerned in the way he cocks his head at Kaoru. He swings his bare feet over the edge of his fragile throne, and doesn't seem injured at all, despite the surroundings. ]

Wow, you really came crashing right in.

I'm sorry . . .

Where do you think?

[ Mirage doesn't budge from his fragile throne, just watching Shino pull himself together. He doesn't seem injured at all, despite the surroundings. ]

Shouldn't you be more worried about yourself right now?

It's your heart.

[he does start to pick some of the glass out as he speaks though, trying very hard not to wince :(]

My heart is stronger than it looks!

[the voice surprises him, but when he spots Mirage he tries to stand up, more controlled now.]

Your heart?

[ Have fun doing that with glass stuck into you. ]

Ding ding ding!

Mine should have been too.

Mm, I suppose. But you really shouldn't underestimate it-- ah, look.

[ He points to Kaoru's cuts, bleeding now they're no longer stemmed from the glass. But the blood isn't... exactly a healthy red, right now, much darker than it should be. The glass itself seems to have some unidentifiable dark matter clinging to it too-- you got infected? ]

[Collects herself with one deep, shuddering breath—more due to the adrenaline from the fall than any pain—before taking in the scenery with composed interest, casually picking out pieces of glass as she does. Eventually her gaze settles on where Mirage is sitting.]

It's been a while since I've seen you looking like that.

[F. FRANTIC HIGH PITCHED WHINE WHAT IS THAT WHY IS THAT]

What's wrong with me??

[shit that's right. WINCING WHEN HE TRIES, falling on his ass again and just . . . tries to tug some of that glass out now.]

Ow, ow. This isn't going to be pleasant, is it.

[ When you manage to get some glass out, and if you are able to shove the pain and bloodloss aside, you might notice your blood isn't... exactly a healthy red, right now, much darker than it should be. The glass itself seems to have some unidentifiable dark matter clinging to it too-- you got infected? ]

It has, hasn't it? Even though it's the form I'm most comfortable with.

[ When you manage to get some glass out, and if you are able to shove the pain and bloodloss aside, you might notice your blood isn't... exactly a healthy red, right now, much darker than it should be. The glass itself seems to have some unidentifiable dark matter clinging to it too-- you got infected? ]

Oh, there'll be some good! And it'll be... interesting.

It looks like being inside me has gotten to you already~ It's a curse.

[OW. . .]

[s-slowly sitting up and wincing as he tries to pick a few of those glass shards from his arm. when he speaks, he addresses Mirage, and his voice is strained. . . like someone who is trying not to convey how much pain they are actually in]

M. . . Mirage. . .?

What kind of curse

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Mirage Heart

The Atrium

The Apartments

The Hospital

HUNGER

True Heart

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