Chapter Text
“Katarina! Katarina! Please wake up!”
“mmmmrghhh…it’s too early Anna…”
“Katarina, please!”
I groggily try to ignore the voice speaking to me and try to find a comfortable spot on my bed. Hmmm, my bed feels unusually hard, like stone. And what’s that weird noise? I open my eyes. Wait, where am I!?!
I awaken to a cold stone floor surrounded by grey stone walls. Am I imprisoned? Did I meet a bad end already!?! Oh to be taken in my sleep! The game developers are truly cruel! It was then that I noticed that I was imprisoned in a weird grey cage. The bars seemed to be made of a clear material that makes a noise like static. I reached out to touch it, curious.
“NO”
“KATARINA!”
“YOU MUSN’T!”
I jerk my hand back and take a look around. In another cage like mine stand three of my friends: my fiancé Geordo Stuart, my brother Keith Claes, and my closest friend Maria Campbell. What are they doing here? I try to remember the events of last night. That’s right! We were investigating a possible Dark Magic incident when someone managed to make all of us fall asleep with a spell! “Maria! Gerodo! Keith! Are you ok?”
“We are fine!” Maria says as the others declare that they are ok. “Please don’t touch the edges of the cages, they are dangerous!”
I look at the cage again, realizing that it looks familiar. The material seems to have shadow stuck on it like…like...
“…like Dark Magic Miss Claes.” The door opens and a woman in a robe walks in. She removes her hood to reveal a pretty if tired face with straight black hair. “Hello again.”
“Sarah!” I shout in surprise. I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised, in the last few incidents involving dark magic, she has appeared to be the instigator behind those events. But still, it would be rude to assume. “What are you doing here?”
“My master believes you four have been a nuisance to his plans for long enough. However, we can’t have any of you dead just yet so you will be kept here for the foreseeable future.”
“How do you plan on keeping us here for long?” Maria asks. “Surely this spell will get weak enough for my Light Magic to counteract it.”
Sarah laughs, though I feel no joy from them. She points to a pedestal next to here, on top of which holds a crystal ball. Really game developers? A crystal ball? Did you lose all originality in making this sequel? “This crystal ball will keep the magic at its full power. You will be trapped here until it is removed.”
“Really?” I ask, “The walls looks like I can pass through them…”
“You may try,” Sarah says, “but you won’t get very far. No living being can pass through these walls. Only those who have tasted death itself can pass freely, and Raphael Walt is not with you.”
Tasted death? “…How do you “taste” death? I don’t think it would taste good.”
Sarah stops and stares at me, confusion on her face. I hear a sigh and my brother speaks “Sis, could you please not think with your stomach at this time?”
I can’t help it! I haven’t eaten anything the day we were ambushed! Maria sighs and says “To taste death is to experience it. Except for extreme cases like Raphael’s, no one alive can say they have experienced it.”
No one alive huh… Well, would I count? My memories are why I’ve been trying to fight my doom all this time. I remember my past life, as a young girl playing this very game I know live in. I died before reincarnating here. In addition, from playing the game I know this character’s fate is to die. Have I “tasted death”?
Sarah looks at me and says “That attitude…how? How can a Dark Magic user have such a cheerful face?” She looks at me, with anger in her eyes. “How are you worthy for the Dark Prognosticus?” I never asked for that power! You can have it! “What pain could you have possibly experienced to be worthy of such dark majesty!” Her eyes start to fill with tears.
She looks so scared. Looking at her, I once again reach for the bars of my cage. Despite the protests of my friends, my fingers reach them and pass through them, I walk out a few moments later. For a few seconds, there is silence. My friends look worried and fearful. Sarah looks shocked. I was right. My past memories do affect me now. I guess I have “tasted death”. I take a single step forward, and suddenly the entire room changes.
I am back in the halls of the Academy. Weird, why would I be back here? I look around and see Maria, but her eyes are full of fear, her hand shielding herself from me. I look confused but then realize to my horror I have a knife in my hand ready to attack her. Wait…this is… My thoughts are interrupted by a loud and angry yell “Stay away from her you Villainess!”
I turn and see Geordo, eyes steeled in anger as he slashes his sword across my body. I scream, but can only gurgle blood as I fall to the floor. The wound goes deep and I find myself blacking out, my last moments alive seeing the sneer on my fiance’s face. “You were a useful tool,” he sneers at me, “but villainesses like you belong in the dirt.” I lose consciousness.
And yet…I’m also staring at the scene. Like watching a cutscene in a video game, I’m both a part of my doom and apart from it as an observer. I notice the dark orb on its column and take another step towards it.
Once again I am transported back to the Academy, knife in my hand, ready to kill the heroine of this Otome game, when I am suddenly and violently punched aside. A stone golem appears, protecting Maria from me. My brother Keith runs forward, controlling the golem with his superior Earth Magic. “Stay away from her, you vile sister!” The golem pins me down on the ground. I struggle, desperately trying to free myself, but the weight is too strong. It begins to crush me.
My brother looks over me, hatred in his eyes. “For years you’ve abused me and toyed with me! You treated me like dirt even though I was better at Earth Magic than you will ever be! You denied me love and now you try and take the one shining spot in my life!?!” Each word he grows more and more angry. “Villainesses like you belong in the dirt!” With his magic the golem raises its fist and brings it down on my head. My skull shatters and though it lasts but a moment, the searing pain is unbearable.
And yet once again, I am still in the same position I was before, another step towards the orb. Is this the orb’s doing? Is it making me relive the dooms I have experienced? It is quite unpleasant but nothing I wasn’t expecting. Realizing this, I start walking towards the orb.
Every step I take, I experience another doom. Some I am aware of, such as when Raphael Walt, under the disguise of Sirius Dieke, cast a Dark Magic spell to kill me and everyone in the school while under the influence of Dark Magic. Others are new, such as seeing my friend Mary Hunt drown me in a bubble of water. I note with sadness and more than a little annoyance that it seems every character in this Otome game has a chance to kill me. Did the developers of this game just have it out for this character? How many death scenes are necessary in an Otome game!?! I also note with much more sadness that every time Maria is there, watching it happen. It makes sense, since she’s the staring character and as such she needs to be there, but it is sad to see her as a witness to such ends.
Finally, I near the orb and am teleported again. This time it is a battlefield, Maria with her Light Prognosticus and looking stunning. Her Light Magic radiating off her. Wait, this is one of the dooms I’m trying to prevent right now! Maybe I can get a clue from this! Maria raised a white staff from her hand and declares “You have haunted my steps for too long now. Though it will sadden friends, I am not afraid of sacrificing my own life if it means you won’t harm my love! Goodbye you villainess. We shall go together.” And with that she radiates so much light that my body burns. Darn, that didn’t give any hints at all. But at least she got a cool staff.
I take another step, this time within arm’s reach of the orb and I am suddenly jerked to the side as I hear a loud honking. I see the truck that took my life before I reincarnated and unlike the others this one truly hurts. This was the death I truly experienced rather than observed. I fall to the ground, remembering how much pain I was in. No! Not this time! I don’t want to die! I made a promise! I promised that for once I would grow old! That I would live to be old and grey and wrinkled and have a lap cat and a rocking chair! Let me live! Let me live please! I struggle to stand, using the column holding the crystal ball to right myself up. Finally, I take the ball and drop it to the floor. It crashes and I am finally truly back to the dungeon I was in.
I am panting from that experience. I look around and next to the column is Sarah. She looks at me in pure terror. “…how?” she mutters. “How are you even able to stand? How could anyone be able to even smile after such…such…” I reach out to her, trying to comfort her, but she flinches back. In the next moment she is gone, using her Dark Magic to disappear. Darn, I was hoping to comfort her. She looked like she needed someone. Maybe if I could talk to her I could understand why she kidnapped me and…my friends! Oh, I hope that breaking the orb freed them and didn’t leave them trapped!
I turn around “Is everyone al-“the words stop in my throat. I had thought that what I had experienced only happened in my head. To my horror I see after images of every doom I’ve experienced, every death I have encountered in the game, frozen like an scene in a video game. The cage is still there but it and the images slowly fade away, leaving my three friends looking mortified. “I..i…I can…” I stammer. I need to get out of here! My bad end is here! Where is my shovel? Where is my snake! Do I have my sword? I take a step back.
“Katarina!” Maria cries out! But hearing that, I run. I take my legs as fast as they can out of that room. I notice that we were in a small building. I look around and see an open door to the outside. I run through that door and out into the night sky, knowing my doom has come.