"Haah..."
A young man wearing a tattered black suit and beige brown trousers looked up at the stage before him.His hand clutching a ticket that has been worn down:'Welcome to the final performance of The Grand Guignol provided by The Red Sage Lorde.'
He is currently seated in velvet seats, his feet resting on the crimson floor and the dark red curtains before him are being drawn upon, revealing a lone man sitting on a creaking wooden chair on the stage covered up by some bloodstained rags used as a hood ,his left hand scribbling something in a book.
The author does not lift his gaze up on the single audience he has, his left hand obsessed with finishing what he has started.
The silence does not last longer as the only one who bothered to come here to watch his plays spoke up:
"I have gone through hell and back to come here-"
The figure coughed up blood before continuing to speak:
"...Why subject me to this torture,Lorde!"
Lorde does not answer, more scribbling sounds resound before a murmur can be heard originating from him:
"...Last one...André...Setting complete...Narrative completed...Role of main character removed..."
Suddenly, he gasped before speaking out loud this time:
"Why are they here?!...They are reading this...No,no,no,no,no...They are the ones who should not be reading this...Who is there!"
The furious expression present on the earlier man supposedly by the name of André turned into a confused one, equally confounded at the words of Lorde:
"...Who are they?...No, answer my questions first, this theatre of yours...Why...Just why...Why did you create it...Do you know what the products of your plays has done to me, you...bastard!"
Emerging from the red-draped figure of Lorde, a finger pointed up...For some reason, André felt that was not simply pointing up but instead to something way higher...something way beyond what should be perceived...
A piercing headache consumes him as he doubles back over in pain as Lorde finally recovered his composure, the voice this time is surprisingly cold and calm as though his previous demeanor was merely an act:
"...The readers.They are here.Why am I bothering to tell you this?Learning the true name of a Color before becoming a Sage is merely a death wish.Either way, the time has come for you to kill me, my boy."
The red rags slipped down his body revealing a coat with red-and-black-stripes and entirely red pants.The fair face of Lorde looked up at André,frowning heavily:
"...Oh dear. I really should not have told the fellow about the truth of this world."
The scarlet gleam in his eye flickers in pity at the pained form of André who is unable to handle the comprehension of the Arnculer. As the process continues, Lorde took out a book with a leather-bound cover with the title "To Kill A Waxwork" and flipped over to page 76, reading a small detail contained in there:
'...Knowledge related to the sapient concepts of Colors are detrimental to the human mind when learnt under certain conditions but most importantly, Arnculers,that are each their own interpretations into what the true nature of the world,is especially damaging irregardless of the conditions and should only strictly be learnt when one is on the cusp of the becoming a Sage.'
A faint mad whisper brushes against Lorde's ears, he has become used to this, this strange voice that speaks of nothing but madness which only he can hear:
[...Hahaha...So this is how my beloved Sage dies...To think you can orchestrate this...Narrative...A truly magnificent narrative.]
As he sits back down in the wooden chair,observing the screams and moans of André, he starts to reminisce about what has transpired that has led up to this point
This was...his final performance.And the weak-seeming man in the velvet seat was the only one who can end him, it was impossible for a Sage to die no matter the circumstances by natural causes except if the death was caused by a Sage Candidate of the Color the Sage followed.
That was not just hyperbole, it was physically impossible for the Color blessed those who are their Sages with a form of 'barrier' that manifests differently based on the Color.For the playwright of this theatre, trying to kill him changes the plot of this world in order to either erase the event entirely and or also erase all participants of the murder.
He remembers all of the hardships André has gone through:In one play, he had a wife and was a journalist travelling to an old castle-turned-asylum with the hopes of writing about a new revolutionary technique to treat madness before discovering that inmates had taken over and the doctor was using 'killing' as the technique...To be more specific, the doctor slitted the throats and gouged the eyes of those who underwent his 'cure'.
And then there was The Man with the Wax Faces, the last play he had been a part of before escaping them all and confronting Lorde here.Despite the cruelty, it was the most effective way for André to learn the Adagnitios of The Red Narrative, to have enough power to kill the Sage.
Having André learn the Arnculer,however, was beyond the scope plans.Thankfully,however, he seems to be recovering from having discovered and processed it.
The stage had been set and...this was the end of him, the end of the countless years he had spent writing plays all cooped up in this dilapidated theatre.
He walks off the stage,pulling and dragging André from there back onto it.Both of the men's hurried breaths are the only sounds that could be heard in this quiet theatre.
"To Kill A Waxwork" was put down on the floor and Lorde begins his improvised self-execution.
He sat André down on where his seat was and with unhesitating resolve, he put his pen into the other man's own hand and manipulate it using his fingers interlaced with André's to write down the next few words, a red glimmer brighter than perhaps the Sun manifests all around the theatre:
'My regrets end here, this story was never mine in the first place, this tragedy....Let the name of The White Death be cursed.Regardless of my final words, a new story begins.Who will write this story?It won't be The Red Sage Lorde for he has already perished into nothingness.'
Less than a blink later, the character known as ///// is no longer in existence.
A sudden white color flashing all over the world also coincided with the man's death, the light was warm, tranquil and most of all, gleeful.As the exhausted André came to his senses, his eyes widened in shock at something:
"...Where...Did...That...B-bastard go?!"
He stood up abruptly which almost made him trip and fall back onto to the chair but he managed to recover from his staggered state and knelt down to examine a book:"To Kill A Waxwork".His brows furrowed in tandem with his further deepening headache with each page he turned:
"...An encyclopedia?...Come to think of it...This is the first time anything resembling information has come my way ever since I was whisked away into this world...But still...Where is that bastard playwright?"
When André first woke up in this place, there were many emotions but it felt like they mixed together more and more as time went on with more portion of the traits of his past self gaining dominance.But at the start, his heart felt a strange...bizarre emotion: Glee.To be more specific, it felt like the glee of having seen your own plans played out correctly or the satisfaction of having managed to successfully make up a big and convincing lie , it was uncomfortable to say the least when you have practically no memories of why those emotions were there.
But that went away soon enough when fear came around, he was placed into what felt like...'different worlds',however, sometimes cracks formed in these worlds and from those cracks, he saw somebody writing.With more and more travels into those strange realms. he saw more and more of those cracks.This came a realization:
'...None of that was ever real to begin with.'
Friendships he had made, people he had left behind, they were all the mere products of a playwright's imagination.From the wives he had to the people he killed, none of that ever mattered.He was never 'himself' and nobody was ever 'themselves'.
He started to turn more pages and more rapidly too amidst his remembrance.Small tears dropped,wettening the pages....He was scared....Scared...Scared for his life...:
'I'm scared for those who never existed, I'm scared that I can never return.'
And with the newest knowledge he had learnt, hopelessness claimed his heart:
'I'm scared for myself who never existed and I'm scared of you beyond the screens, who sees me as a series of black letters.Was this ever real to begin with?'
From an outsider's point of view, it's almost...insane to see such a sudden mood swing from being angry to becoming existentially scared of one's proof of existence.However, that is the power an Arnculer had over one's mind if comprehended at an improper time such as this.
Scratching sounds reverberate now as sorrow becomes the main theme of this story, it's...:
'It's unbearable.To know what I am, to know what you are, to know what I accomplished was never my accomplishments, to know that even if I had escaped from this place, I have not escaped my non-existent origin.'
Red, it's impossibly red would be the thought of a passerby if they managed to catch a glimpse of the theatre.A redness that permeates the airs, the hues spreads,diverge and converge chaotically all in the name of letting others see how red it truly is.
Ravings, ravings, mad ravings are spoken into the airs from the theatre.Ravings in red, crimson revelations, scarlet blasphemies...Call it how they like but the voices grew starting from whispers to laments to mourn our fictionality.
'A toast to all of us who have to suffer this cruel fate, this cruel fate of never being able to be acknowledged truly.I see you now!That red color!I see your tormented form howling into the air to let us know what we truly are:
The Mad Lunatic Who Speaks in Crimson
The Bard Who Sings Odes To Our Fictionality
Howling at Midnight is a Scarlet Figure,
The Red Ravings'
Laughter,laughter rang out as though proclaiming it must be heard.It's a laughter, a laughter turned mad and a laughter to celebrate The Death of the Red Sage.