The first tomahawk flies. The first Connecticut disappears. And yet CT staggers back, mouth ajar with silent agony that blooms across her ribcage like a stain that will never come out. (It feels just the way that she remembers.)
Tick.
She does not know if it's under her own power that a hand reaches out into the shadow-drowned space between them, as if pleading for mercy she knows won't come. One last indulgence in the idea of a world fairer than it is, of a dream she once had where she saw a way to survive and felt joy.
This is not that dream.
Tick.
The second tomahawk flies.
Tick.
Every well-worn regret flashes in front of her eyes all over again. Every flash of rage and hurt and longing and guilt. The authentic experience, drawn up from the deep maw of unhealed wounds back to the surface like spilling blood.
Tick.
The blade strikes. The clock stops. That it is not real does not make the pain any less tangible, does not make the way it settles into the cavernous old wound any less exact. The force throws her across the stage so hard she hits a set wall that she does not remember being there and collapses, pitifully, to her hands and knees where she chokes on the feel and taste of blood that is not really there.
You deserve this.
Tears blot out the bits of the world that aren't yet black and pool on the floor beneath her shaking form.
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The first tomahawk flies. The first Connecticut disappears. And yet CT staggers back, mouth ajar with silent agony that blooms across her ribcage like a stain that will never come out. (It feels just the way that she remembers.)
Tick.
She does not know if it's under her own power that a hand reaches out into the shadow-drowned space between them, as if pleading for mercy she knows won't come. One last indulgence in the idea of a world fairer than it is, of a dream she once had where she saw a way to survive and felt joy.
This is not that dream.
Tick.
The second tomahawk flies.
Tick.
Every well-worn regret flashes in front of her eyes all over again. Every flash of rage and hurt and longing and guilt. The authentic experience, drawn up from the deep maw of unhealed wounds back to the surface like spilling blood.
Tick.
The blade strikes. The clock stops. That it is not real does not make the pain any less tangible, does not make the way it settles into the cavernous old wound any less exact. The force throws her across the stage so hard she hits a set wall that she does not remember being there and collapses, pitifully, to her hands and knees where she chokes on the feel and taste of blood that is not really there.
You deserve this.
Tears blot out the bits of the world that aren't yet black and pool on the floor beneath her shaking form.
It doesn't feel like an act.