PERVERSE - Apply Fic

02

The others look around at Barry, confused.

"I'm sorry," Lydia exhales, batting her eyelashes, "do I know you?"

Here she is, in front of him, and all he hears is the music of her voice, not the words she is saying, "you... you had a stroke. You had a stroke and you died. I don't understand."

Lydia doesn't like this stranger. He knows her name, but so many people would recognize her voice. She feels like one of the more successful Canadians on the international scene. She acknowledges that opera is not an extremely popular art form, but that does not mean she truly understands she is not Celine Dion.

"I... I don't know what you're talking about," Lydia points out.

Knowing Este's husband, Este realizes what has happened to her. She pinches herself and feels the pain. Her husband disposed of her, correctly, yet somehow, she is alive.

"I'm dead too," Este offers. She looks at the trees, skeletal. It is not winter, for there is no snow on the ground, but the trees that have leaves are brown in colour, curled and dead.

Her parents were always Catholic. She wonders if because of the way her body was disposed of, she is living in purgatory.

"What?" Nico laughs, the nervous edge kicking them in the throat and they cough. "What do you mean, you're dead? Last thing I remember I was eating Christmas dinner, and-"

"It's June," Audrey points out. At least, it was June the last time she remembers. "I was at a tournament."

"The year is 2014," Ambrose says.

Este doesn't have any argument, but the others cannot agree.

"It's 2010," Lydia's voice is quiet. She looks at Barry, whose name she doesn't know, and wonders what else has happened that she cannot remember.

"It's 2021," Fallon says, wondering if anyone else remembers a time more recently than her. None of this makes sense in her head. It is at that moment, wearing the dress she was to be engaged in, that she realizes she doesn't have the ring on her. She never got to give it to Corrin.

"Let's not panic," Leo says.

Unfortunately, Clare can already feel her throat closing in. There is a pian in her chest, heavy and dull, like the ache of being slammed. She closes her eyes and tries to pretend that she isn't here, and this isn't happening.

"This is impossible," Ajay points out. He stands with his hands in his pockets, feeling nothing inside of them. He remembers it to be 2019. These strangers have no reason to tell falsehoods though. They are all stuck in the forest together. "I am not dead."

"Does anyone actually remember dying?" Leo continues, looking around. He does not remember much, but his condition has that effect on his brain.

No one answers, because no one remembers.

"We couldn't have died," Audrey points out, rolling their eyes. There must be some other explanation. "Maybe we have all time travelled."

"Lydia is dead," Barry insists. He does not remember dying himself, but it wouldn't surprise him if he had ripped his own beating heart out of his chest after her death. It seems to be the only logical thing to happen. She was his ever waking moment. He dreamed about her, had nightmares about her death. Without her, he was nothing.

"I am too," Este insists. "I don't remember it, but I'm sure of it."

Kaia thinks back to the last moments she remembers. What had happened to her? She remembers kissing Rory. She was so angry at the time, despite the attempt at romance. Kaia cannot reconcile the duality of her last thoughts with where she is now.