[i refuse to play at the whims of this disaster.]

——xxx——

The only colour he saw was red.

Deep, screaming red that rained down in the ballroom through harsh slices of skin, or piercing nails. At least four had killed themselves, with a gun to their head or a sword through their body.

Group suicide.

Lucas spun to scowl at the youth kicking his legs, watching with those creepy, joyful eyes.

"This mess is your doing?"

"I only suggested it." He smiled, grinning wildly as he tilted his head. "After all, they have no choice in surviving. I told them they could die, or I could find their family and kill them instead~"

"...crazy bastard."

"Don't get me wrong, I need to survive! I absolutely, will, not, die! Do you think everybody can live? No! You have to be cruel in order to survive."

Lucas gazed at him calmly before sighing, an almost mocking slight of a chuckle in his breath. "You don't want to die? But you've just killed yourself."

"What?"

He stretched out a steady hand at the corpse. "When everybody dies, humanity loses. This is a no-killing Story."

"That... there's no such thing! This is a death game, isn't it? It's obvious! I've read things like this, the clear option is that everybody will die. You're lying!"

"Congratulations, you're dead and stupid. Happy?"

<Ahahahahaha...! You humans... woah~ really don't fail to disappoint! Didn't I kindly tell you, a story can't continue without its main cast! What is Cinderella without Cinderella?>

Lucas scowled, immediately spitting out, "Shut up, damn bunny."

<I am Cinderella, not a 'damn bunny'!>

At least he knew that Cinderella was definitely listening to him. 

Paying special attention to him, perhaps? That thought made him feel a little sick inside, and he frowned uncomfortably.

<Well, well... hehehe... doesn't this just mean our rules are over? You broke them first, of course! Hmm~ but I suppose, being the all-gracious Cinderella, I may~ give you another chance! Of course, not too much time! The dance has been cut short, and you're funeral is tomorrow! If I don't see 50 shoes by tomorrow... I'll leave it up to your scatterbrain imagination!>

Pressure. 

The pressure to survive, the desperation, obsession.

Cinderella's words ushered a demise for them all, and their hearts, minds, bodies went entirely crazy. Lucas swore, brushing back his disobedient strands of hair in frustration before kicking open the door, already falling at the hinges.

The youth behind him stared blankly, a simmering madness in his eyes. Laughter had long died in his throat at the revelation of his upcoming death, and instead, calmness had taken over.

"The name's Elliot Hales, Ghost!" He shouted loudly as Lucas casted a lingering glance back, frowning. "If we don't die tonight, I'll owe you one!"

In other words, the stupid youth, after making an incredible mess, was throwing the responsibility to Lucas. The man ignored the lingering youth, rushing through the crowd as madness begun to spread, slowly but surely.

Killing, blood, murder. Tearful desperation to live to the end.

He needed to find Nora.

Of course, saving everybody would be ideal considering the situation of the Story, but he wanted to make sure that polite woman, with an instinct for helping others, survived. He shoved through the crowd, pushing aside several people who lunged out for him, scrambling like fools.

He found her, still as a statue, eyes peering into a hidden room under the stairs that glowed with a faint warmth, contrasting the mess that was outside.

She spoke before he could say anything. "I noticed something else. In the apple seller's checkbook, there was a side amount of expenses that they lost. They were giving food away to somebody."

In the room was a beautiful woman, cascading golden hair and a pale blue dress that billowed in soft clouds, twirling around the marble floor. 

Laughter sparkled, with tinkles of bell-like giggles, full of happiness.

"I think, perhaps, there were hints everywhere, but nobody noticed. Because what we want to do is survive."

Lucas frowned. "What do you mean?"

"I've mentioned before that there was a diary in my house. About a poor, ragged child that would come scrambling for food, even a morsel. In the beginning, the apple seller gave them the rotting fruit that didn't sell, but after seeing the child grow skinnier and skinnier, they started to give more."

"...and?"

"She wasn't a child—she was a malnourished teenager, starved and abused at home. By her entire family. Did you know that the one version of the tale of Cinderella was nothing like the version we know?"

"I did."

The startling thing wasn't the smiling woman, gracefully dancing around the room. 

Four mutilated corpses hung from the ceiling, swaying with the beat of her imaginary music. They were covered in ash and soot, dressed in rags with their hair yanked or chopped off, fingernails peeled back and bleeding.

They were better off being called dangling chunks of meat.

There was another covered in beautiful satin, completely different from the others.

Then, her glass slippers collided onto the ground, and all bodies dropped. Her smile widened, and she scooped one of the limp corpses up—the elegant one with tumbling brown hair, and gentle, sleeping eyes—and danced around, holding it with a careful embrace.

It was morbidly tragic.

"Lucas, is this the other ending that Cinderella spoke about?"

There were two clearance methods. 

Lucas, having written one of them, was well aware of the secrets behind the words spoken behind Cinderella, and the other horrors they'd meet. The second one was something he didn't know—the world had already formed its own rules.

One way to complete the Story was to clear the objective given to the Characters.

The second way, what was it?

<...I didn't expect this to happen in the first Story! Should I give you wretched things a reward for coming so close to the true ending?>

Lucas, for once, listened carefully to the fluctuations in Cinderella's tone. Stressed, anxious. 

Pain of remembering, of seeing the joyful woman spinning with corpses in her arms. A forced sound twisted in her voice.

The bunny's static voice seemed to boom over the chaos.

<Cinderella demands an answer to this question. What is her desire?>

Honest to a fault, that was how the character of Cinderella was portrayed. Lucas' eyebrows furrowed together, Nora's expression mirroring his. 

The beautiful and kind-hearted princess had always chosen kindness, after years of abuse, of neglect. In fact, how much mental pain had it caused her, to be treated with disgust and scorn?

In one version of the tale, her father hadn't died. 

He, in fact, joined the stepmother's schemes and called her names, growing worse each time. She had endured the entire time, not once retaliating.

Some would call her weak for her gentleness, and others would call her strong.

But when Cinderella ended up in the ball, she lost track of time in the happy delusion of the prince, of the luxury and happiness. She became somebody she was not, dressed in flowing fabric cut from the finest cloth.

Perhaps that was why she was destined to fall back into rags, after losing sight of herself.

Did she crave the freedom the prince gave to her, while under disguise? 

Did a part of her not burn with hatred towards the injustice she faced, at least once? Did Cinderella endure because she wanted a family, because she wanted to be loved?

Because her failing hope never died?

"I don't know."

What was her desire? 

Lucas couldn't answer that with such lacking information. The question that was asked didn't refer to the singular existence of Cinderella he'd known, portrayed in dramatic re-tellings, each different people with similar stories.

The white bunny. What was its history? What was their version of 'Cinderella'?

<...buzz—! Wrong answer! The only destination for you fools now is deat—>

"I will give you an answer in 24 hours. When the deadline for completing this story is done," interrupted Lucas, loosening his stuffy collar with a tug, raising his eyes to stare directly at the dancing woman. 

Her head twisted completely, and turned to stare at him with wide, blue eyes.

A large smile spread across her cheeks, almost splitting her face in half. "Then, the time's ticking, human."