Her world was unjust. Before her surgery, Mag was unconcerned with being blind. It wasn't until speaking with Rotti that she started to view her condition as a disability and so, she'd signed her life and voice away for the sake of vision. But then after dear Marni died, leaving her alone to suffer under Rotti's thumb at GeneCo, she realized just how fortunate she had been to be blind, disadvantaged, and independent. Her life had been her own then and now she was nothing more than a registered trademark for a barbaric corporation.
In the weeks preceding her final performance at the opera, Mag's will to survive had been stronger than ever, being naively optimistic that the world would show her an exit; much like her cursed eyes had relieved her audience of their own fears and post-apocalyptic torment by way of spectacular journey and fantasy. She had done everything that had been expected of her. She'd vowed her life and her voice to GeneCo, and yet as the weeks progressed, she could sense that death was as near to her as the breath in her lungs.
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Above all else, Mag had requested black ostrich feathers for tonight's performance and she spent the entire morning beforehand carefully sewing them together. With each stitch, she prepared for the sacrifice she was being forced to make, begging for the strength to finish what she had started, to finish what Marni had started. Spreading out the lashes upon the vanity when she heard the orchestra warm up through the monitors, Mag looked to the door, eyes hopeless and tired though still searching for a way out.
Turning back to her vanity, Mag glanced at a picture of Marni taped to the mirror. Closing her gifted eyes in agony, she plucked the photograph from the glass and pressed it against the rooster plumage framing her corset. Breathing in a heavy sigh, Mag placed the treasured photograph into her costume, relieved to have Marni so close to her again. She ran her fingers delicately over the feather lashes on the dresser and curiously tilted her head to the side as she quietly accepted the fate that awaited her. Picking up one lash at a time, Mag took great care in applying a thin strip of glue to the edging before pressing the feathers to her upper and lower lash lines.
Once she finished, she glanced up into the mirror and stopped at the sight of herself. She recalled the first time she'd seen those eyes looking back at her, foolishly assuming that they were hers but also recognizing in the same moment that the face surrounding them truly was hers and that she was beautiful. She'd been just as terrified then as she was now, but then she had only been wary of the incomprehensible opportunities that awaited her once she could see. Now as she gazed into the mirror, taking in her still eerily unfamiliar face, Mag wondered who she had become and why she had allowed Rotti to mend her eyes only for her to see exactly how this world would ultimately betray and murder her for the sake of greed and shrewd entertainment.
Losing herself in her reflection, Mag visualized the thrill of her own fantasy play out in her mind and she licked her lips when she thought of her blood dripping down the flighty vanes around her eyes and then drenching her face with the hot sting of impending death. She knew that it wasn't in death that she'd ultimately find peace but rather in the fact that hundreds would witness and then applaud it. And so, with her neck already in the guillotine and her heart prepared to spill it's contents out of Rotti's eyes and onto her hands, Mag stood up from the dresser and followed the queer intonation of the oboe as it provoked a swell of violins, cellos, and woodwinds, all beckoning her entrance to the stage.