The Theatre (Pt.2)

The final roses were tossed onto the stage towards the eighteen-year-old girl as the curtain came down. Just as soon as the velvety red drapes reached the ground her expression had faltered.

Ophelia turned sharply on her heels to head off the stage area and back to her dressing room. He had to be waiting there... He had to be. He would explain everything to her then.

He had promised her mere nights before they landed in the city that he would stand on the balcony when the curtain rose. He had followed her throughout the cities she had performed in that year, faithful to watch the young star sing with a voice of an angel.

He had missed not a single one, paying his way to spend that time with her. He had promised her that when all was done, and she was finished seeing the world, he would be there to begin another chapter.

--These were the thoughts that plagued her mind and caused tears to well up at the corners of her eyes.
He promised her.

Such thoughts were interrupted just as swiftly as they started, by a shoulder on her hand that was so sudden that her heart jumped. Ophelia turned around. A man with a stern expression stood before her.

"Miss... I am sorry, but-"

The man wasn't her Kei.

As he started to speak her lips formed a pout, brows furrowing in questioning. The man before her was an officer; she had recognized the uniform from when they first entered the city the night before.

"What... What do you..?"

"They are investigating as we speak-"

"K..KEI!?"
The eighteen-year-old shrieked in a tone that would only later be familiar to the ghostly shell of herself. Passing by the officer, Ophelia need not hear any more of his words. Something was wrong, horribly wrong. She made her way down the hallway as fast as her ballroom dress would allow her. Two more officers were seen speaking down the hallway, to which she would pass them by as well.

Oh... no. no no no no no... what happened?
Ophelia's warpath halted when she shoved open the back doors to the theatre, hearing commotion outside. By now the rain was falling steadily in heavy drops, leaving shallow puddles along the street. Up ahead more officers were standing, blocking the alleyway across from the theatre from her vision.

Oh no no no...

"KEI..!"
The young woman shrieked once more.
She was running, holding up the heavy dress as she crossed the empty road. The edges of the gown dipped into the rainwater that flowed like rivers at the edges of the road.

The officers on the scene were quick to watch Ophelia before she reached the scene, shielding her from the view of a man that lay dead in the alley. Rainwater saturated what was left of the blood- a single gunshot wound to the head that ultimately put the now face-forward man to death.

"No... no no no.. No! No! No!"

Ophelia shrieked as the officers pulled her back. She could see the opaque redness in the rainwater that joined with that of the street. Her eyes had teared up until reaching their limit, pooling over to streak down her face. The young star's legs failed her as she collapsed into a fit of sobs.

The young singer never did see the fate of the man that she waited on for every one of her shows. The reports read it as a man robbed at gunpoint, a situation that relied on it being the wrong place, the wrong time.
If left her with too many 'What ifs' to bear.

Come to the end of the night, the crew had packed up to move onto the next city, leaving the eighteen-year-old to her thoughts, her grieving. They turned a blind eye not knowing how to comfort the young lady. No one even noticed her slip away.

When the time came to leave, her manager finally came looking. A loud, hollow THUD was heard.

Porcelain skin somehow was whiter, dappled with crimson, her body motionless. The infamous "Ophelia Melody" had thrown herself from the top balcony within the back of the theatre, with the hopes of joining her beloved Kei.

...If only she had received the ending in which she hoped for.