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You are every color of the rainbow. A wonderful, wonderful, hue of white; that shines so brightly it blinds everyone-because they sure never see you.
You live in a run down apartment next to an acid river-that bubbles and pops and stings your skin. No one bothers to put in rails, if you fall in- tough luck. Everyone has learn to sink or swim. You'll be the first to crawl out. You must.
No one believes in you. You barely get clicks, voice to thin, frame to small, unnoticeable. Your name? Does it matter if no one remembers it?
You get a phone call.
You are every color of the rainbow. A flicker of light so wonderful-that you have a room in queen's castle. Where the acid is poured in glass, and the taste stings like gold coins down your throat. It is the nectar of the elite. And you will bleed for it.
You have strings tied around every business in the city. Deals in your back pocket and heart on your cheek. Everyone loves you. Everyone see's you. Everyone want's to be you-
Your name? Who doesn't know it! You are Spamton G. Spamton. And you are a wonderful, wonderful, liar.
The person in the mirror is stranger.
There's no hiding it now.
That attack should have killed you.
The scar pulsates red, stitched across half your face and leading down the rest of your body. It's stark against the white; bold, mangled, crimson. Bits of code glitch from your body. Yellow shards cling to where you eye had once been. Monstrous. Painful Your barely kept together my spaghetti code.
(A miracle-so Tenna says. )
(One big joke the snarkier part of you thinks.)
Recovery is a long journey your not sure you have the stamina for. Physical challenges were never your foray-that z-rank door sure didn't exist before you-and you might just hurl if another darkner sends you a 'get-better-soon' card.
The lightners at least…make it fun. They bribe you. You may be an honest man but you were never a honest business man. And if they want you walking around town limping, they better pay up!
(Tenna calls you a weirdo, they did save you after all- so what? Your supposed to be kissing their gold shoes? Nah. )
You wanted Tenna to live with the best parts of you, instead of the scraps scraped from the snow floor; you wanted him to find someone better, someone younger, brighter, easier. And maybe, at night, to take the time to dream of you.
(Of course, all Tenna gets now are nightmares. Buzzing black static that keeps you awake at night. )
Guilt gnaws you to the core, but there is nothing you can do about it. (No phone calls, no easy fixes, no more fates to defy.)
The Clown heckles you constantly. And swinging at him with your cane only makes you more unbalanced then him.
"You know this is not the end end!" the clown sings, and pokes at your face. His rubbery smile all shark-toothed and wild.
He's crazy-
He's crazy but he's right.
And you shouldn't listen to a thing he says, shouldn't let him get under you skin, shouldn't let his mania take you away too. (Because it almost did didn't it?)
You'll never forget the way they looked a you.
(Your coming apart at the seams: the strings tangle until you choke, trip, left to fumble in the dark. They can tell-they all know. The ringing stopped, the phone calls stopped coming, what happened?)
This world was never meant for you of all the little programs to see beyond the veil.
(Was it breaking your mind? Or was that just you?)
You swallow your guilt, you swallow the fear. It tastes like rusted copper coins slotting into your chest; to wind you up and rattle away. Like some toy-
Maybes that's all you are, and all you will be.
But..
As Tenna, the kids, and for some god-forsaken reason your employees like to remind you-
You are loved. You are wanted.
(But for how long?)
(The world hated you once; who's to say it won't again?)
The Final act was supposed to be the end of your story. But if the audience calls for an encore there is nothing you can do but dance.
(Because its much more than your life on the line now. Isn't it?)