The Loved and the Lies and the Lost (Salvia and Yasmin X Reader)

Chapter 5

(A/N: There's a House of Horrors spoiler in this chapter.)

The darkest of shadows were known for secrecy. Usually for the secrecy of crime, hiding sticky-fingered thieves and cold murderers and their glinting guns and bloody blades. But sometimes, those dark shadows were good for the little, bright people, the shy skinny boys and freckled anxious women who just wanted to be left alone. These darkest shadows cloaked their faces from the earth, their voices blocked from their peers. So they could breathe calm, warm air in the solitude.

The next morning, you awoke with a pulling ache in your chest, and tension like a knot of tightly wrapped wires, but weren't certain where it was coming from.

You lay there, sunk into your deep mattress, staring up at the smooth white ceiling. I'm still here... Yes, you were. Was that bad? Were you in pain in this place?

That thought began to bring last night and its myriad emotions back into focus. Salvia... That was the main thing you remembered. You recalled Salvia standing a few feet in front of yours, speaking to you. You had handed her her top lantern gift—you recalled it now—and its shiny gold frame and colorful fruits and vegetables. And with the crawling, scratching feeling down your back that vanished... Had Lucky Jerry done that? So you would get out of your room and meet her?

More importantly, had Salvia seemed to like you? Or had she seemed to not care? You thought about these things for a few minutes until you remembered you weren't supposed to be chasing her.

You had already introduced yourself. You had to stay away from now on.

Throughout the day, as you stuck to the shadows and watched for flashes, pain roiled beneath your skin like stinging venom. Perhaps it was even more painful because hope kept battling it with sharp swords and powerful pistols. What if Salvia really would like me? What if... But no. You wouldn't be the best person for Salvia. For Yasmin, either.

Too soon, the time of the next competition arrived. According to the tablet, it was a makeup contest. Yet, when you arrived in a group to the Big Room that day, and walked down the matte white stairs and their lemonade pink cloth pathways into the coliseum, many marble tables and plush, rose pink seats were arranged in neat rows and columns... and with a small spotlight on each, a different potted plant, with anything from only emerald green leaves to golden blooms to silver spines, was seated in the center of each desk.

Women, men, and nonbinary people raced to the plants of their choosing. Two men with dark hair nearly got into a fistfight over one plant that bore wide leaves and Barbie pink blooms.

You just took what was left, a seat in a back corner with a spider plant with many thin leaves bursting from the center, but they were half-wilting and crusting with brown. I'm not trying to attract attention.

The plant truly was a sorry thing. Most of the other competitors had bright, blooming greens. Why did Lucky Jerry set out this plant?

Excited chatter from the love interests echoed through the room, extra loud now. People shouted at each other from across the space, them being more spread out than usual. But today, things were a little different. Some women sulked in corners, turned in on themselves. One young person in a short pink dress had tears rolling silently down their cheeks. Things were not turning out happy for everyone. It wasn't only you. Yet, it reiterated in your mind that pain and heartbreak were possible here, in this hallucinatory world. No, this world is real. It has to be real.

Lucky Jerry again floated over the coliseum and its rose pink ribbons with his glittering golden microphone. "Love interests and companions! For today's competition, our love interests will be putting makeup on plants!" He snapped his little hamster... fingers... together, and a wide array of makeup products appeared to the right of your greenery in stacked glass drawers and compartments. Shimmering foundations, glittering eyeshadow, and shining lipstick and nail polish. Mascara, and eyebrow pencils, and lip gloss. In all the colors of the rainbow and many more. You could see them all.