The end
The songwriter's dead
The blade fell upon him
Taking him to the White Lands
Of Empathica
Of Innocence
Empathica
Innocence
"Oh my god! What the fuck is that?"
"It was found dead here about a half hour ago. A neighbor found it like this. "
The coroner, police, and others arrived after a 911 call late at night. A neighbor had come over to check on him after hearing loud noise. The house was a clutter, and a body was lying on the floor of a study by a desk, motionless. Tavros Nitram had just been found dead.
The dreamer and the wine
Poet without a rhyme
A widowed writer torn apart by chains of hell
One last perfect verse
Is still the same old song
Oh Christ how I hate what I have become
Tavros bursts through the door of his house. Inside he quickly slams it shut and locks it. He begins to bawl there, leaning up against the oak surface.
He was once a well-known and beloved poet, basing most of his poetry and songs off of his and his friends' experiences in Sgrub. Somehow he survived, but now, he wishes he had died like everyone else. When he had entered the new universe, he didn't transform into one of the humans. Instead, he still kept his troll from; horns and all.
Only one other troll had survived, Aradia Megido. They soon fell into a flushed romance and married. Their life together couldn't have been any more perfect until they found a mother grub egg. They hatched it, raised it, and soon after had a few wigglers wiggling around.
Their happiness wouldn't last long however. Somehow, Aradia's dancestor found her way into the universe. Aradia and her dancestor Damara never did get along well. Actually, they were always trying to kill each other, or at least Damara was always trying to kill Aradia. She would finally prevail. Twenty years after their session, Damara Megido broke into their house and killed Aradia Nitram in her sleep. She made sure no trace of her bloodline was left, killing the wigglers and the mother grub as well.
Now, four months later, it is finally time for Tavros to die. It was time for relief: relief from depression, relief from the faux smile he would wear all day long so no one would suspect. Depression had gotten the best of him. He would try to find a new person to share the rest of his life with in the morning, but that would be too late. Tavros Nitram will die tonight.
He sits down in his study. Unbeknown to him, outside a storm was brewing…no, had already begun. The spirits of his past and pasts in which he had never lived had gathered around in some sort of party. Tavros, on the other hand, was trying to come up with one last poem, one which he would be remembered by. But the only thing he could think of was the line: "Take me home".
Getaway, runaway, fly away
Lead me astray to dreamer's hideaway
I cannot cry 'cause the shoulder cries more
I cannot die, I, a whore for the cold world
Forgive me
I have but two faces
One for the world
One for God
Save me!
I cannot cry 'cause the shoulder cries more
I cannot die, I, a whore for the cold world
He writes his emotions, which backfires. He thought he could release his pain on paper, but it only causes more pain in him. Writing about his dead family and friends has taken its toll and has turned into a self-mockery. He mocked himself for being so pathetic. His own self mocked him for thinking he could possibly make it in human society. He couldn't be in a worse situation.
My home was there 'n then
Those meadows of Heaven
Adventure-filled days
One with every smiling face
Please, no more words
Thoughts from a severed head
No more praise
Tell me once my heart goes right
"Take me home!"
How, Tavros can't even stand to pity himself. He starts to lose all of his self worth. He erases the entire page he had just written. As he does this he feels something pulling at the sides of his mouth. Is he...smiling? It has to be a false sense of happiness if so.
He had never thought that something like this could ever happen. He'd thought that Sgrub was to be the worst of his life. But no, of course it wouldn't be. He was never a lucky troll. That was always Vriska, but she's dead like all the others. He had the misfortune of being paralyzed from the waist down by her. He also had the misfortune of killing his own lusus. His own freaking lusus! Until now, those were the two worst days of his life.
Sparkle my scenery
With turquoise waterfall
With beauty underneath
The Ever Free
Tuck me in beneath the blue
Beneath the pain, beneath the rain
Goodnight kiss for a child in time
Swaying blade my lullaby
On the shore we sat and hoped
Under the same pale moon
Whose guiding light chose you
Chose you all
His self-mockery quickly changed to complete depression. For several months he had been expressing his depression through poems, all of which have yet to be published.
His life had quickly spiraled downward since Aradia was killed. He lost his appetite and lost almost thirty pounds. He was run-over by two cars, causing him to lose his robotic legs and having them replaced with normal prosthetics. He preferred the robotics.
About six weeks after Aradia was killed he attempted suicide. He overdosed on a pain killer he was put on when they had to "amputate" the robotic legs. Equius had attached them surgically into his abdomen and connected them to s healthy part of his spinal cord. He slipped into a coma for three days, only to wake up in the hospital because his neighbor called 911 when she found him unconscious. He was hoping to die, but instead woke up in the company of his "close" "friends".
And even now in his darkest moments, he can feel Aradia's kiss on his cheek. That same kiss that she always gave him before they went to sleep. He can't take the pain any longer.
I'm afraid. I'm so afraid.
Being raped again and again
I know I will die alone
But loved
You live long enough to hear the sounds of guns,
Long enough to find yourself screaming every night,
Long enough to see your friends betray you.
For years I've been strapped unto this alter,
Now I only have three minutes and counting.
I just wish the tide would catch me first and give me a death I always longed for.
He becomes afraid. But of what? He has nothing to fear except to die alone, unloved and forgotten. He's lived for thirty years on earth, or about 13.6 sweeps on Alternia, his homeworld. He's been hunted and betrayed by the ones he loved. He thought they loved him back.
His head is spinning. He comes out of what seemed to be some sort of trance. He looks around and sees tens, possibly hundreds of papers around him. He notices the words have all been erased-poorly. Even though he had planned for those all to be published, it is a relief to see those words destroyed. Those words were written in his emotions, and with them gone, it gives a sense of relief that everything is better; the depression being gone, the sickness of being alone having been erased. He can't describe it. It just feels...better.
But now, reality is once again beginning to set it. He is the last troll. After him, his race is dead. Period. He feels as though he could have prevented all this even though it was inevitable with that Gog damned Lord English controlling everything. Even though he is the last of his kind, he still wishes for death, just to end the pain. He has suffered enough already.
2nd robber to the right of Christ
Cut in half - infanticide
The world will rejoice today
As the crows feast on the rotting poet
Everyone must bury their own
No pack to bury the heart of stone
Now he's home in hell, serves him well
Slain by the bell, tolling for his farewell
Now he's angry. He's angry at the fact that the only thing he can do is wallow in self pity-if only he had any left. He's angry that he did nothing to prepare for any break-ins. He's angry that he lost touch with everyone he knows. Now, they probably don't even care about him. They've most likely forgotten about him by now.
His heart grew cold after Aradia was killed. He rarely ever left his house. He became rather rude and antisocial. He lost his kindness, especially toward himself. He couldn't understand this human concept of God and Heaven. What kind of a person is this God to destroy all things good in someone's life? He would much rather stay in this human concept of Hell, where all the creatures and beings are honest. Yes, they may be very hateful, but at least they aren't fooling into thinking they love them with a burning passion.
The morning dawned, upon his altar
Remains of the dark passion play
Performed by his friends without shame
Spitting on his grave as they came
In his hate-daze he erased at least two hundred more pages, and he was still erasing. He will not stop until every last painful word is done with existence. He envisions a sunrise shining on a lonely grave in the middle of nowhere, his grave, deteriorated by the disrespect his former "friends" showed him. The world will take little note about his life. And he doesn't give a shit about that anymore.
Today, in the year of our Lord 2005,
Tuomas was called from the cares of the world.
He stopped crying at the end of each beautiful day.
The music he wrote had too long been without silence.
He was found naked and dead,
With a smile in his face,a pen and 1000 pages of erased text.
He wrote under the pen name "Tuomas". He did this to sound more human. He kept his last name because he knew some humans had pretty weird ones. John Egbert is a good example of one, or at least he always thought so.
During his last few moments his mind finally short circuits. He begins to hallucinate and laugh hysterically. He flips his desk over in an insane rampage around his study. He smashes his bookshelf and throws his books everywhere. At the end of it all, he collapses. He lays there on the floor for a few seconds until he takes his last breath. Tavros Nitram's heart has stopped beating.
The last thing his mind shouts before his soul exits his mortal body is, "Save me!"
Be still, my son
You're home
Oh when did you become so cold?
The blade will keep on descending
All you need is to feel my love
Search for beauty, find your shore
Try to save them all, bleed no more
You have such oceans within
In the end
I will always love you
Tavros' neighbor Trisha heard loud noises, including screams and what appeared to be a reddish-orange light, like a fire, coming from his house's direction.
Trisha never developed any hard feelings toward Tavros because she sort of knew what he was going through. She had been the only survivor of her family when their cruise ship sank. She was put on his state for a few months before finally fully coming out of it two years later. She was confident that with support, Tavros cold come out of it as well.
Tavros always did enjoy her company. She helped out a lot after Aradia died. Unlike all the other humans she seemed unmoved by the fact that he wasn't one.
But for the past couple weeks she hadn't been able to help out much. Things have come up and she's been busy.
Just. Like. Tonight. The one night he needed her the most and she can't be there. She had just arrived home when the party erupted in Tavros' yard. For several minutes she wondered what could be happening. She headed over when she saw the light and was worried it was a fire.
It took her five minutes to get to his house. The noise and everything had already died down by time she got there.
She knocked on the door. After a few minutes with no answer she thought he might be in bed. But the lights were on. She knocked again. Still no answer. Perhaps he's in the shower. But the bathroom light is off as well. This time she pounds on the door. "Tavros, please open up.
When there wasn't an answer she found the spare key and let herself in. She searched through his house for him but it seemed he wasn't home. She walked down a hallway she'd never seen before. in it, there was one door on the right. She could barely get it open because something was blocking the doorway. She struggled and was finally able to get the door open. she walked in, and on a pile of paper in the middle of the room lay Tavros, cold and dead.
Trisha walked up to him, felt his pulse, and confirmed his death.
The beginning.
The coroner and police arrived. Trisha was shocked at what she'd just discovered. she'd also called John, who called Rose and everyone else. They were all just as surprised at the horrible news. The autopsy revealed that he just passed from depression. There was no self-harm or anything else inflicted. The number of papers in the pile his body was on was counted. There were one thousand papers in it.
Tavros' funeral was held three days later. To no one's surprise a lot of people showed up. He was, after all, a well beloved poet. And needless to say, they were all surprised at what exactly he was... a troll. But that didn't change their opinion. He was loved by everyone, even though he believed otherwise. And everyone hoped for his final works to be published, but alas, he had erased it all. There were a few pages that were just ever-so-slightly legible, but most were too completely erased.
But Tavros' story was never destined to end here. Though his life was over, his soul would never be damned to die again. But instead, damned to relive his final night of life forever.
Upon returning to his house after the funeral, John found a few papers that weren't erased. Tavros had died before he had the opportunity to do so. There were four. On these four papers was written one song, one final song which had summed up the last four hellish months of Tavros' life. The song was entitled "The Poet and the Pendulum," and the lyrics were written as follows:
"WHITE LANDS OF EMPATHICA"
The end.
The songwriter's dead.
The blade fell upon him
Taking him to the white lands
Of Empathica
Of Innocence
Empathica
Innocence
"HOME"
The dreamer and the wine
Poet without a rhyme
A widowed writer torn apart by chains of hell
One last perfect verse
Is still the same old song
Oh Christ how I hate what I have become
Take me home
Getaway, runaway, fly away
Lead me astray to dreamer's hideaway
I cannot cry 'cause the shoulder cries more
I cannot die, I, a whore for the cold world
Forgive me
I have but two faces
One for the world
One for God
Save me
I cannot cry 'cause the shoulder cries more
I cannot die, I, a whore for the cold world
My home was there 'n then
Those meadows of heaven
Adventure-filled days
One with every smiling face
Please, no more words
Thoughts from a severed head
No more praise
Tell me once my heart goes right
Take me home
Getaway, runaway, fly away
Lead me astray to dreamer's hideaway
I cannot cry 'cause the shoulder cries more
I cannot die, I, a whore for the cold world
Forgive me
I have but two faces
One for the world
One for God
Save me
I cannot cry 'cause the shoulder cries more
I cannot die, I, a whore for the cold world
Whore for the cold world
Whore for the cold world
"THE PACIFIC"
Sparkle my scenery
With turquoise waterfall
With beauty underneath
The Ever Free
Tuck me in beneath the blue
Beneath the pain, beneath the rain
Goodnight kiss for a child in time
Swaying blade my lullaby
On the shore we sat and hoped
Under the same pale moon
Whose guiding light chose you
Chose you all
"I'm afraid. I'm so afraid.
Being raped again, and again, and again
I know I will die alone.
But loved.
You live long enough to hear the sound of guns,
long enough to find yourself screaming every night,
long enough to see your friends betray you.
For years I've been strapped unto this altar.
Now I only have 3 minutes and counting.
I just wish the tide would catch me first and give me a death I always longed for ".
"DARK PASSION PLAY"
2nd robber to the right of Christ
Cut in half - infanticide
The world will rejoice today
As the crows feast on the rotting poet
Everyone must bury their own
No pack to bury the heart of stone
Now he's home in hell, serves him well
Slain by the bell, tolling for his farewell
The morning dawned, upon his altar
Remains of the dark passion play
Performed by his friends without shame
Spitting on his grave as they came
Getaway, runaway, fly away
Lead me astray to dreamer's hideaway
I cannot cry 'cause the shoulder cries more
I cannot die, I, a whore for the cold world
Forgive me
I have but two faces
One for the world
One for God
Save me
I cannot cry 'cause the shoulder cries more
I cannot die, I, a whore for the cold world
Whore for the cold world
Whore for the cold world!
"Today, in the year of our Lord 2005,
Tuomas was called from the cares of the world.
He stopped crying at the end of each beautiful day.
The music he wrote had too long been without silence.
He was found naked and dead,
With a smile in his face,a pen and 1000 pages of erased text."
Save me
"MOTHER & FATHER"
Be still, my son
You're home
Oh when did you become so cold?
The blade will keep on descending
All you need is to feel my love
Search for beauty, find your shore
Try to save them all, bleed no more
You have such oceans within
In the end
I will always love you
The beginning.