If a woman’s purity is forcefully taken from her regardless of her own will, is she tainted? Or is she abused? When a woman is defiled, why do we take it as a staple of lust, when it's a symbol of greed.
A tired woman, adorned in black pajamas, stirs from her short slumber awaking from a nap that lasted no longer than an hour. She finds herself in her small apartment's kitchen, concocting a cup of coffee. She stares into the dark drink, slowly her thoughts drift like the drink swirls as she twirls her small spoon through the brown liquid. “I don't even like coffee” A tear lands into the coffee disrupting the calm and still presence it once had. This will be her last cup of coffee. Her last cup of anything. She finds herself longing, longing to end her sad existence stapled onto a cruel world unforgiving at its finest. Sobbing into her soft hands that still clutch onto the mug, clutching with as much force as she could muster. It’d be the last time she’d be able to hold this mug, the last time she’d drink from it. The severity of her choice to end it all, all of it was hitting her, every part of it slowly breaking into her mind and assaulting her.
Though her decision was all the same. Her final moments were upon her, she decided the beretta her son had once previously owned would be enough for this. As she grabs the weapon that would finally release the pitiful woman of her pain her vision fades away and she awakens in a room full of mirrors, tied down to a chair in leather straps. In a desperate act of confusion she yells out “Where am i! Please, what's going on!” slowly a voice encapsulates the room and a figure is seen in one of the mirrors.
The voice speaks up and alerts the woman “Please lower your voice, disturbing the silence is not appreciated in the slightest.” The woman lowers her voice almost to a whisper but just high enough for the voice to hear, “can you please tell me what's going on”. She lets her words slip from her mouth as she grips the fabric of the chair, she struggles with the leather strap for a moment before her hands fall still, unmoving and stiff.
The voice starts to explain the situation to the woman “You Marienne, can consider me your judge in all this, you can refer to me as Mr. Fortunata. However as I said I’m your judge, your life is in my hands so you'd do well to treat me with respect. You will be faced with trials created from your mind and guilt, do try not to die. You all are a fine bunch of candidates this year.”
The woman attempts to question the voice once more until the voice’s figure becomes visible for a moment as he presses his index finger to his lips and blows a black gas into the room. The black gas seeps into her lungs slowly suffocating the distressed woman, scratching at the fabric with her long uncut nails. She fights against the leather straps with every bit of her strength, the light clacking of the straps buckles filling her ears, praying each moment that the straps would come off. The clacking intensified as the gas filled her lungs to the absolute brim, her tears dripping onto her navy blue shirt, staining it. She had grown tired and irritated with the clacking noise, practically begging for it to stop, and when the noise of the straps had finally stopped, so did her struggle.
The woman opened her tired eyes marked by the eyebags that left shadows under her eyes. Along with the blood red veins that had surrounded them. Her eyes slowly filling with tears moved and blinked, slowly scanning the room she'd found herself in. “Where am I now..? This fucking sucks. Come on get your head together I can do this… I should probably scout this place out right..?” She explores the strange place looking for anything that could help her on her new quest, what her quest was, she had no idea. She had come to a metallic door after walking through the hallway for a short time, she inhaled a deep breath and slowly pushed the door open, it appeared to be an office from the interior that the room had been lined with, and the obvious desk with a computer laid on it. In the office she finds her beretta laid on the desk, the weapon she had once thought would be taking her life, might be the only to help her protect it now. Left confused she decided on taking it nevertheless and kept it on hand with only 1 magazine inside the weapon.
She continues her search and stumbles into a room, falling and tripping over a stack of numerous boxes, she trippily walks around looking for a light that she ultimately found and switched on. Her eyes shone in the artificial light as she took in the sight of the new found pantry. Her hand finds food, she decides its best to keep any food on hand and stuffs numerous bars of nutritional snacks into her pockets, after her search tires her she walks down a long flight of stairs, almost intimidated by the length. When she finally reaches the bottom she is given the beautiful sight of a vintage theater box in perfect condition, she slowly moves her legs and walks over to the projector that sits nicely and prettily at the top of the theater box, attempting to play a movie on the projector. However the gaseous creatures that seemed to haunt this world did not allow said action to occur and immediately appeared in front of her and she mistakenly touched one of these creatures while trying to turn the knob on the projector.
The woman’s vision warps and her reality crumbles as the haunting voices of her past cloud her mind and she is forced from the one peaceful setting into a nightmare, her mind feels as if it's cracking and pulling apart, splitting itself into millions of pieces that each screech and burn as loud as the others. She spots a silhouette of a man, a man that looks oddly familiar. She could swear she'd seen that same figure, from where she didn't know, she simply recognized him. Before long another figure, slimmer and thinner had appeared standing up to the previous silhouette, the same uncanny feeling of remembrance touched her for this silhouette as well. The thinner figure began to grapple and wrestle with the larger man they'd seemed to be engaging in a desperate struggle, the confused woman began to reach her porcelain hand out as far as she could, splitting her thin soft lips to let her voice leave from the bottom of her throat, but the vision ends as quickly as it started. She slowly grasped at her face, in a state of hysteria she was becoming a danger to herself, her mind was unable to deal with the stress and its only method of coping was to shut down. The woman slowly fell unconscious from the stress and the fear that had intoxicated her.
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She had finally awoken after a considerable amount of time had passed, her mind no longer in shambles came to the decision for her own sanity to keep the thoughts of the vision away from her stress ridden mind. Opting to forget the contents of her nightmare for her own good.
Though after a moment of attempting to relax in the theater, the woman's ears prine up at the slight sound of thumping that resembles a man's footsteps, wasting no time she grabs her beretta and holds it still in her shaking hands, trembling slightly from the anxiety and paranoia and the fear that she could lose her life. She kept the iron sight of the weapon held at the entrance, taking no chances as her previous experience in this place destroyed her mental state. She sees a figure and pushes her finger down with all her strength onto the trigger at the sight of the unknown figure, the figure evades swiftly however and weaves between the incoming fire, they immediately take cover behind a row of seats. The woman's veins filling with adrenaline as the moments pass by like a ticking clock pushes her to take aim once again and try her luck, she fires into the row twice. All misfires and the figure continues its approach switching cover quickly, the woman already fearing her life takes 5 shots praying in her mind for her safety against this new foe.
The figure seemingly unfazed after evading these bullets continues his stride through the cover of the seats, slowly but surely making his way to the woman. The woman taking deep breaths calms herself and steels herself focusing on her sights and trigger. She looks through the row of seats, gun in hand ready to fire into the figure, she hears his footsteps and fires 4 bullets into a singular chair, no reaction. She swiftly aims at another seat she assumes he's behind and fires 3 shots, not a single bullet connects but suddenly the figure rushes out from behind a chair to her right side leaving her unable to react quickly enough to disarm the oncoming threat, the figure abuses that fact and is immediately in front of her knife in hand.
In this moment all the trembling woman's petrified eyes see is a monster, the only time she'd ever felt such fear was when her parents would warn her of fictional monsters that would take her had she not behaved as a child, something she should have never found herself encountering. The figure closes in making his way to her, like she was prey caught in his claws, he walks step by step, in a calming manner, complete confidence. She aims her gun up once more and pulls her trigger, the man however continues his pursuit only a few feet away right in firing distance. Yet he isn't hurt, the woman confused hears the click of her weapon, with no sound. No bullets were fired, no bullets were left, the woman's heart sank beneath the floor, as it had already been lying there since the man walked in. Suddenly the figure speaks up “A standard beretta only carries 15 bullets, you wasted all of them. You shot at me first, so I'll be ending this, practically self defense. Sorry about this I guess.” The figure raises his knife, time practically stopping in the woman's eyes as the blade sat right in her field of vision, she stared at the man's blade that was inevitably going to find its way inside her. The fear raced through her eyes as she watched the blade slit through her gut and her throat right after, her slim and pale body dropping to the floor as the infamous red liquid pools onto the floor, staining her clothing and her dark black hair a tint of red, however the figure tilts his head as a dark mist starts to spread over the woman.
In a grotesque manner the woman's once cut through throat is slowly realigning itself and the skin begins to reattach to form what it once was. The blood that once covered the floor seeps back to where it originated. The pungent smell begins to fade as the woman's lungs begin to contract and violent coughing fits surmise. Now no longer covered in blood and coughing her lungs out she stares at the figure with terror lining all parts of her sullen eyes, though as if from thin air a familiar voice enters the room and starts to speak “I wasn't expecting a team kill this early. Please refrain from killing your teammates. Introduce yourselves to each other, you'll be working together until this trial ends.” The voice dissipates and the man and woman are left to each other, in an awkward silence the man speaks up “sorry about that, didn't know we were on the same side…” the woman peeling on her nails, and her chattering teeth tries to ignore her anxious habits obviously still struck in the fear of what happened only moments ago, she can still vividly remember the way her blood simmered and how the cold steel like blade felt when it pierced through her flesh. Through her fear she refrains from stirring up the previous events but decides to comment on it “no no, it was my fault… I did shoot at you after all… but maybe no more, stabbing?” The woman says practically oozing with fear, her tone submissive and her body language showing that of a wounded fawn.
The figure nods and introduces himself “The names Solas, i'm guessing you went through the mirror room too?” The figure, now revealed as Solas questions. The woman responds in kind stating her name “I’m marienne and I did go through the mirror room…” The man nods his head thinking to himself for a bit, putting together multiple things Mr. Fortunata said. After a bit Solas decides to speak “I'll be leaving now, i've got multiple things i'd like to find out, Information is limited and we can't be sure time isn't. I'm sure we’ll see eachother soon. Goodbye now.” Solas, ready to leave, stores his knife and starts his stride, however the woman, shocked, begins to plead “W-wait! Don't you think we should stay together!” The dainty woman asks “practically speaking it's best to have someone on my team, but splitting up would be best for now. I'll explore by myself for now, if i find you again i'll most likely stay for a while. Until then, survive.” The man makes his escapade towards the exit, as the back of his shoes click and clack against the hard wood of the theater box floor. The woman falls to the floor, her knees buckling under her. She slowly envelopes her own arms around herself, embracing herself trying to comfort her trembling body as much as she can.