Encore

Stones

"I'm sorry," he tells Sypha when she follows him out. He doesn't want to look at her and he doesn't want to look away and he ends up staring at the space next to her so she's there in the corner of his vision. "I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry."

She shakes her head, says, "No, I am," and he can't make sense of that - sorry for what, for her belief decision recklessness haste asking that of him expecting that of him and he wants so badly for her to be sorry for any of it and he hates himself so much for wanting her to be sorry because how can he be angry at her how fucking dare he - and then she continues with, "I knew how much you didn't want to come here."

He laughs. And laughs. And slides down the side of the wall and keeps laughing, and then he manages, "No. It's fine. They're - they're all fine. They're not the ones who died."

"The people inside?"

"Yeah. They're fine."

Sypha asks, "Do you mean, you can see what happens to them?"

"What happened to them is they were never in there," Trevor explains. "Not the real ones."

"Oh," Sypha says, and she sounds despairing.

"What? What's wrong?"

"You're not getting it mixed up," she says.

For a moment, Trevor thinks that means this finally stops. But then the next moment comes, and the next, and he's still sitting there on the ground with his back against some gore-splattered wall.

And -

Maybe that's what makes it Hell, that even knowing what it is you can't let it go.

He wasn't forced to come here and he wasn't forced to get them and he knew there was no them and he did it anyway. And he could've just gone but he didn't and he doesn't. He almost says he's sorry again because he is, because how fucking selfish can he be, knowing she isn't really here but pretending anyway.

Not even the first fucking time he did that.

He thought when he died it'd all stop. Why can't anything work out for him?

"Sypha, did you figure something out or not?" Alucard asks. He's lurking in the shade of the doorway because lurking, that's a vampire thing. Cleaned the blood off the side of his face, at least.

"Yes, not right now, how is everyone?"

Alucard's voice drops to barely audible. "I doubt any of them will survive."

"I'm right, see, I told you," Trevor hisses, then, "Wait, so what the fuck was all that then? You understand pain, right? Not stupid emotional bullshit but what humans feel when you remove chunks of them? Why would you just do something like that when it's not even going to help?"

"It might work and it might not, I don't know very much about curses. I was only taught to recognize them."

"It's a curse?" Sypha repeats, then sadly, "Oh, that does make sense."

"It does not, curses aren't being sick," Trevor tells them.

"The timing is too fast," Sypha says. "And it's the same for everyone."

"Then why did you do all of that?" Trevor howls.

"It would need to be done either way. And it's transmitted by touch, so it's possible removing the contaminated area works." It's clear from Alucard's tone that he's aware that's not, at all, going to work.

Trevor stands up. "How did Dracula not tell you how to deal with curses? You had time to learn all about torture!"

"It was unlikely I'd need to deal with one and I did not torture anyone."