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It is bright. It is always bright here, in the land of Light and Rain. Your name is Rose Lalonde, and you are not sure why the game decided to make this your home (a word tentatively used, nothing has ever really felt like home to you)- this place doesn’t seem fitting for you, a girl whose first thirteen years of her life have been spent sneaking around corners in the dark, learning to memorise the outline of your mother’s shadow to best avoid her. Perhaps the game is mocking you, just as these trolls like to do - find your weak spots, make you open up to them so they can best insult you. You’re a smart girl, though, and you will not be falling for their tricks today.
You have alchemized yourself a purple raincoat; you have always disliked rain, it reminded you too much of an elaborate funeral for your cat, and your mother making a big show of her grief, or trying to find a single spot of WiFi so you could rejoin the online game you and your friends had been playing. You liked the symbolism of rain - but symbolism couldn’t keep you dry. A raincoat, on the other hand, certainly helped with that particular problem.
You are sitting outside, and the sun (which you are sure must be a game construct, and not the real thing - the light looks too damn artificial for it to be real, kind of pale and gentle) counteracts the relentless rain, throwing rainbows everywhere in a dramatic and extravagant way which reminds you of God in the Bible, had you ever read that damn book. Choosing a spot to sit underneath an overhanging part of your house which the game had rudely teleported along with yourself after you entered the game, you take out your laptop, and for the first time since you entered the game, you breathe. You relax. You let yourself think for a few seconds, and then you steel yourself to reply to some messages.
Oh, great. That troll again. They’re not as bad as the rest (do trolls have genders? You ask yourself), but still. You’re not sure you have the energy to deal with them today.
-- grimAuxiliatrix [GA] began trolling tentacleTherapist [TT] –
GA: Why Do You Insist On Doing This Every Time
TT: It appears I’m a little lost.
TT: Which one are you again?
GA: Come On Rose I Know You Are Not As Dumb As You Let On As Our First Conversation Led Me To Believe
GA: Please Accept The Compliment It Was Freely Given
GA: By The Way I Have Been Researching Human Anatomy And I Have Discovered That You Humans Seem To Have Pink Worms Living In Your Thinkpan
TT: You mean my brain?
TT: Oh. My mistake. You meant the eldritch monster that has strapped itself to my head, disguised as hair. It’s a parasite that slowly drains the human mind of all free will. When will anyone come save me from this horrific fate?
GA: That Sounds Painful
TT: Oh, it is. When I sleep it is as if a thousand rats are gnawing into my brain, and there is a pain burrowing deep into my skull as the tentacles slowly wrap about my head, crushing my head within their feeble grasp, like a grape.
GA: What Is A Grape
GA: Is That The Human Word For Non-Shrivelled Raisin
TT: You know, Kanaya, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you were trolling me.
TT: Are you trolling me?
GA: Use Of That Term Is Highly Culturally Insensitive Rose Who The Fuck Do You Think You Are
TT: Whoa, language! You’d better wash that mouth out with soap, as my darling mother used to say.
GA: Sorry Anyway I Was Not Offended I Was Employing Your Human Irony
GA: The Thing You Do When You Say Things That You Do Not Mean
GA: I Don’t Know How You Do It
GA: How Am I Expected To Know Exactly What You’re Thinking All The Time
GA: There Is A Psychic In Our Group Who Seems To Know Everything About Everyone
GA: So She Seems To Think As If She Is Entitled To Everyone’s Thoughts
GA: But She Doesn’t Need To Anticipate Anyone’s Thoughts Because She Can Make Them Do Anything She Wants Anyway
GA: But I Can’t So I Am Expected To Know Exactly What You Humans Are Talking About All The Time
TT: I
TT: Truth be told, Kanaya, most humans don’t know what they’re doing either.
TT: I certainly don’t.
TT: If you say what you mean all the time, you leave yourself open to attack. People have more leverage against you.
TT: Take John, for example. He’s letting himself be manipulated by Vriska because he’s so open and trusting.
GA: Whoa How Do You Know Who Vriska Is
TT: I don’t know. Maybe you mentioned her.
GA: Maybe
GA: Truth Be Told I Don’t Think This Is How This Conversation Was Supposed To Go
TT: I’m getting that impression too.
TT: Maybe we should carry on as we were before. I was actually intrigued. You say there’s a psychic in your group.
TT: Can you do anything like that?
TT: Watch as I suspend my disbelief that you are who you say you are. There. It is suspended. See as it dangles in front of your eyes.
GA: No I Can’t Do Anything Cool Though There Are A History of Rainbow Drinkers In My Family
TT: Fascinating. Am I supposed to know what a rainbow drinker is? As Dave would say, a rainbow drinker is “me at your mom’s house yesterday”.
GA: That Sounds Like A Human Vulgarity Pertaining To Copulation So If That’s Okay I Would Not Like To Pursue This Line of Conversation Further
GA: A Rainbow Drinker Is One Who Drinks Blood
TT: Oh. A vampire.
TT: Suddenly I am very interested.
GA: Was That Sarcasm
TT: That was sincerity, actually. I think vampires “kick ass”.
GA: I Believe The Correct Response Would Be Thank You Although I Am Not A Rainbow Drinker Yet
GA: Or Am I
TT: Or are you?
GA: That Was A Genuine Question I Am Suddenly Not Very Sure Who I Am At All
You look up. Absent-mindedly, you swirl the mug of hot chocolate in your hands, and you feel the warmth slowly dissipate into the air. Shivering, you pull your raincoat around your shoulders, the flimsy, alchemised material not doing much to keep your body heat in. The sun seems to have gone. Not gone behind a cloud, or momentarily disappeared, but gone.
Your name is Rose Lalonde, and your world has gone dark. You are suddenly not sure who you are, and Kanaya’s (why do you know her name? How could you know her name?) words seem to have awakened something in you.
Your name is Rose Lalonde. You start again, trying to remember something about yourself. You are thirteen years old. You are playing a game with your friends. You have just entered the game and are sitting down to reply to some messages.
She told you not to go. (Who’s ‘she’?)
TT: Kanaya.
GA: Yes It Appears I Am Remembering More And More
GA: I Am A Rainbow Drinker Though I Do Not Yet Know How
GA: I Must’ve Died But My Memory Is So Foggy
TT: Kanaya.
You pause while typing, and suddenly the grief overwhelms you, though you do not yet understand what for.
TT: Why am I crying?
There are tears on your face, and when you touch it, your hand comes away black.
Why can’t you type? Your hands shake. You try to speak, but nothing but a choked scream comes from your throat. The tears still flow, an endless black expanse that stains your dress. Since when were you wearing a dress? Where is your mom? What were you doing? Who are you?
TT: Where is my mom?
You cry, and it feels final.
GA: She’s
GA: Rose I Told You Not To Go Into The Dark
GA: I Remember Warning You
GA: Oh God
GA: If This Is A Dream Bubble Then I Guess I’m Asleep On The Meteor
GA: Rose
TT: I’m dead, aren’t I.
TT: I went to find my mom and John’s Dad and they were dead and Jack killed them and then Jack killed me.
TT: And now I’m dead.
You look up, and the dream bubble shifts. Kanaya is there, and you see her in real life for the first time, though it feels like every detail of her countenance has been burned into your retinas. She looks exactly how you’d imagined, slightly bug-eyed and wearing a dress that you feel is slightly grown-up for her, an evening gown that isn’t really appropriate for any occasion, really. She glows, and it is radiant. It suddenly occurs to you that she is alive, and you are not. It occurs to you that she is older than you, has seen you die, and she has gone on. She has the luxury of seeing you in a dream bubble, grieving, and then going back to life, while you stay here, alone, the black tears flowing, grimdark, half your words an incomprehensible mess.
You reach out to touch her, and she speaks.
“Rose,” She says. What is there to say? She tries to speak mindless comfort. “We can see each other.” You are dead, and she is not. “It’s a dream bubble. Feferi set them up for the dead to speak to the living. It’s not over, you see?” You can’t hear half the words she says over the din of the ancient gods screaming in your mind. You are dead and she is not. “I love you.” You are dead, and she is not.
Eventually, she stops trying to get through to you, and the light fades as she wakes up, just as your eyes fade to white.
---
“Hey,” Rose smiles. On the meteor, Kanaya looks up from the book she has tried to distract herself with. “I’m guessing you woke up in a dream bubble for the first time?”
“Yes,” Kanaya says.
“Who’d you speak to?” Rose asks, her voice tinged with slight curiosity. Not too much, though. “An alternate John, maybe? The dead version that died because Terezi tricked him? I’d love to speak to that one. There’d be much to learn from speaking to a doomed soul, I feel. I envy you.” She kissed Kanaya’s cheek, and poured herself a glass of wine. “So, who was it?”
Kanaya paused, then opened her book. “Oh, nobody important.”