Where Does the Red String Go? -Miraculous Ladybug AU Soulmates

Chapter 36- Marionette

Marionette's POV

"L-Luka?..."

"What are you doing?..."

It's the only words I can muster. The cold metal of the gun is pressed into my head. It doesn't seem to register in me that one pull of the trigger can end my life. My heart isn't even racing, I just stand there in silence, looking into Luka's eyes. I don't know what to say.

"Marionette...Did you read my poem?" Luka breathes, his hot breath sending minute chills up my spine. Something is preventing me from moving, from speaking. If I move one twitch of my thumb the facade will break and the fear will rush in like a river. All I can do is stare into his eyes, his mouth curled in a sinister smile.

"You knew didn't you?" he sighs, slowly inching closer to me, the gun still firmly pressed on my forehead. His other hand moves to cup my face. He takes my chin, and lifts it. He studies my features, peering into my shining eyes and studying the invisible freckles on my cheeks. Something in them gratified him, as he releases me.

"Do you know why I called you a Marionette?" he says, inching his face closer to mine. He's so close that our chins are touching, and his lips are a hairsbreadth away.

"It's because you're a puppet." he breathes. "You're a puppet who can only move because I tell you to." he raises his voice. "Your limbs are strings, you listen to whoever tells you what to do and you never question it." He says, no longer whispering.

"And the fact that you'll do whatever I tell you..." he says, suddenly screaming. "IS LIKE HEAVEN." He shouts, his manic voice echoing across the streets. He takes the gun off my forehead and takes a few steps back. His eyes have taken on the animalistic side, wide and manic.

I don't move a muscle, still frozen in whatever trance has possessed me. I should run now, I think. Any sane human would run. But I'm still glued to the ground, unable to do anything, as Luka continues his psychotic show.

"Oh Marionette." he breathes, suddenly regaining his composure. "You're too naive for this world." He points the gun at me again. "But I still love you," he whispers, too quiet for him to hear. But I still know it anyway, the sound vibrating in my bones. "But why do I love you?" he wonders out loud, eyes wide like the moon. He turns to me again, stepping closer.

"I should teach you a lesson," he says, suddenly reverting back to normal Luka. "Because a Marionette should never be allowed to use her strings." his hand tightens on the trigger. "But I still let you use them anyway." His fingers flex, about to pull the trigger-

"Wait!" I shout although he's right next to me. "Why do you want to kill me?" The facade has broken, the fear rolling in like the tide, wave after wave. My heart is at my throat, I can barely talk without gasping for air. The question stumps him for a moment, as his eyes drift back and forth. But then he stops, and smiles, seeming to find the answer.

"I'm not going to kill you," Luka says, his eyes flickering. "I'll leave that for Adrien." But his fingers are still on the trigger, not removing the gun from my head.

I swallow the rising fear in my throat, so suffocating that tears leak out of my eyes. "B-But you're s-still h-holding the gun." I shakily say. It's takes everything I am to not hyperventilate right there.

"Oh Marionette, there's different ways to kill a person." He says, unruffled by my fear. This is the Luka I know. The calm collected mask, that's hiding the madman underneath. The snake.

"I-I trusted you." I force out. It's so painful, the panic. It's infecting my blood, spreading to my heart.

"And you still can." Luka says and pulls the trigger.

I collapse on the floor, my mind everywhere at once. I'm dying. I'm going to die. But in the colourful haze I register that there's no pain. He must of shot a warning.

The emotions start to come. I trusted him. I trusted him with every fiber of my being. Tears fall like buckets as I weep on the ground, senseless to everything. I'm going to die. This time there's no one to save me.

I've lost Adrien, the only ray of hope I have. This time, there's no one else messing up my life. It's only me now. The rough ground cuts my cheeks as I lay there, defeated. Goodbye world.

"Get up." I hear Luka from far away. "I said get up." I feel his hands as he roughly heaves me up. He shakes me, forcing me to open my swollen eyes and look at him. He puts the gun on my head again.

"This is for your own good Marionette. You'll find out someday." His whispers. And he moves his gun away from my head. For a moment time stills, and some stupid, delusional part of me believes he's going to put it down.

But instead, he points it to my stomach.

"No, NO! PLEASE! WAIT-" I beg as I hear the trigger being pulled.

And fireworks explode.

The pain is like molten lava, spreading through my bones in languishing throbs. Its light is blinding, rendering me senseless as bells ring everywhere. I can't move. I can't think.

I feel hot liquid running down my fingers, sticky and soluble. My mouth opens, trying to scream, to make any noise, but it only hangs there. My lungs constrict as more fireworks explode, the fire inside me growing.

A sound escapes my lips, a mixture between gasping and choking. It's a death rattle. My death rattle. My breath is like nails scraping against a chalkboard, my limbs reduced to nothing but cinders and ash. Blood is everywhere, filling my lungs, filling my heart, suffocating me to death.

How could I survive this?

Beneath the fireworks, beneath the pain, I'm so tired.

Oh so very tired.

I was tired of being a Marionette, tired of being manipulated. I just wanted...to be free.

My vision sways like a children's swing, spinning and spinning. There's only three colours I can see.

Red, crimson like lava, spreading across my vision like spiderwebs.

Blue, blue as summer sky. Blue as the sky I hope to never see again.

And finally, the last colour, a minute speck across my vision.

Green.