Oh? Oh? What's this? What's this?
Her heart pounds against her chest, slamming in steady rhythm on her ribcage.
Alfendi? Is he dead? Is he dead?
What was that noise? What's that smell?
Whose shadow is that? Why is there more than two? It was just her and him, her and him, her and him and… him?
Her eyes shift to the side.
R-red?
Red? Why is there red?
She was…
She was wrong?
She couldn't be. She had worked out her plan to the exact detail. She had stolen evidence, she had seen photos taken of the incident, she had seen…
Everything? Had she really seen everything?
Thump, thump, thump.
Slowing?
Her legs went weak beneath her, a slight crack resounding through the room when she lost grip on her weapon.
What had happened?
Where was her father?
Father? Father? Father?
Why couldn't he have told her she were wrong?
Her lips curl into a smile as she felt her feet slip on the hard, stone floor. Everything is dark. Dark, dark, not black, darker than that. Beads fall from her various necklaces and bracelets to the ground with a soft clang. Petals of the roses that decorated her chest and headdress scattered over her face, some landing on the ground. The fragrant scent reminded her of home, a home with her father, the home she had for so short a time. The sole reason she wore them. But they, too, were gone now.
The irony of the whole situation amazed her. Instantaneous, she determined, but as her heartbeat slowed, so did the world around her. She heard a slow gasp leave the man's lips, and a gun drop in his lap. She heard someone run away. Heavy steps. Man.
They reminded her of the steps her father's feet took when he'd walk with her across the promenade. Guiding her to the fair. Walking along the wooden boards, avoiding nails, feeling the misty ocean spray in her hair.
They reminded her of childhood memories that had bled from her mind. The sweet scent of the roses, a deep, rich laugh, and the pearls he had bought for her. Fingertips intertwined with a larger, warmer hand. Seeing someone smile every day just because you were there. It was what Diane had loved, it was reality, it was the only reality she would accept.
Seeing that reality melt away was what killed her.
She always knew that he wouldn't come home one day. The thought haunted her, his potential gravestone haunted her. Every phone call sent chills down her spine and she dreaded to even answer for what troubling news it could bring. She thought she'd be older, more independent; she thought they would've grown apart when he passed. To her, it was not a question of why, it was a question of when.
She didn't expect the call to come when she was fifteen.
She didn't expect to follow in his footsteps four years later.
She landed on the ground with a heavy thud, her arms splayed out on the stone beneath her.
Layton was supposed to die.
He was supposed to suffer.
She was supposed to laugh.
She was supposed to be happy.
But this pain, the throbbing pain in her forehead –
It was nothing compared to the last four years she had endured.
Why hadn't she done this earlier?
It was all for nothing. Her pain, her plans, the people she had killed.
They were nothing, and now, she was nothing.
If she could laugh, she probably would have. The teenager could've died just as easily the day she received the phone call she had been expecting for such a long time and there would've been no difference.
But she had chosen not to.
Why?
She can practically hear his deep, soothing voice. Her soft, childish laughter mixed with his. Her lips part and she lets out a small puff of air. She tries to speak, but knows it's all in vain.
I want to go back.
The pleas of a lonely fifteen year old girl, all escaping her just as she died.
I want to see you smile again. I want you to yell at me for not doing the chores. I want you to garden with me again. I want to feel your warmth. I want you and I to walk on the promenade like we used to. I want to hear the piano and I want it to remind me of when you'd play my song.
I don't want the roses to make me think of you. I don't want to forget the feeling of your hand on mine. I don't want to hear your voice in my head and not remember what your voice sounds like.
I don't want to be sad when I think of you.
I don't want to have any regrets in my life.
I don't want to be alone.
It was a weak, empty request.
And Diane Makepeace died.
There were no sorrows in those four words, even for the girl herself. Like the final page of a book, it was sudden and uncalled for. But it didn't matter in the grand scheme of things. It was all a game really, even up until her very last breath.
Diane's turn came to end when she died.
The game ended with her death.
She didn't have a purpose beyond causing death and dying herself.
Which is quite sad, in a sense.
But to Diane, it was wonderful. To have a story end with, 'she died'.
Layton got away, Diane was wrong her entire life and had wasted four years chasing the wrong man, Lucy solved the case, and the man named Justin was put behind bars.
Diane never found this out, and to her, it all ended with a gunshot.
She died.