first investigation

[stagemanagers]

Your second Friday in the gilded cage that is the Opera House feels very much like the one before. The only real exception is that today is the deadline for the Phantom’s offer, to erase a single person from existence in exchange for one of their lives. The morning is quiet as you all filter out of your rooms with no immediate signs that anyone’s taken your house manager up on his offer.

That is, except for the very small, dark stains on the carpet of the dressing room hallway but that’s probably unrelated.

Comments

[holyspit]

AAH-!

[The shield farts in and out of existence for just a second as Steven's fight-or-flight immediately spikes to 110%.]

[herwiggles]

[Riley screams. Steven screams. Spinel screams!]

AAAA! Heheheha! What- why are we yelling?

[garbageface]

[ santana, who was blissfully doing her hair in the nearby room 17 emerges, hair only half-done, to yell down the hall: ]

Oh my god, will you shut up?

[holyspit]

AH-!

[NOT HELPING]

OKAY! Okay. Okay.

[musacal]

[ Okay Nana's actually awake now and she's also sleepily popping her head out of room 9. ]

Mmmgh... what's going on?

[isawallflower]

[ Riley, in the same hysterical tone as the night before: ]

THERE'S A BODY OUT HERE SPINEL OH MY GOD WOULD YOU STOP FREAKING DOING THAT?!

[holyspit]

There's a what-?!

[REALLY not helping!]

[isawallflower]

THERE'S A- oh my God, Christine--! [ yeah whoever that was FELL ON HER good on you for realizing, Riley. She turns to see, you know! The dead body and goes even paler. ]

[musacal]

....Huh!?

[ Okay nevermind, she's awake now and bolting out of her dressing room!! ]

[isawallflower]

[ sorry nana dreamland was probably better than this ]

[garbageface]

I told you! I told all of you, there was a murder and everyone was like "oh no Santana ew why are you invading my pwecious personal space!" Well, you know what! I was right!

[isawallflower]

Oh my god, this is so not the time, would you shut up?!

[ Oh! Yelling! ]

[herwiggles]

[ ! ]

Oh, hehe, sorry.

[She'll let Riley go.]

There's a body whaaaa...?

[etincelledefierte]

There's a - [insert French curse word here] - dead body out here, so no, we will not shut up!

[stagemanagers]

[Well, Spinel, the yelling might just be about the dead man slumped over Christine. How fun!

But even hanging listlessly over the shoulders of Christine, it's hard not to notice the deep red staining his once white shirt and the slightly smeared lines of black around his open but unseeing eyes.

Jonny D'Ville is dead.]

[justmeheere]

Hey, why're we all -

[A pause. Like a really long pause.]

- oh. I guess there was treble.

[JEREMY NOW IS NOT THE TIME.]

[revelfree]

[Oh. Fuck.

Right, okay. First thing's first? As the one (1) adult, he will work on picking that body up off of Christine and. at least roll him over onto the ground on his back.

It's probably feeble to check for a pulse but he's trying? While simultaneously also trying to check on Christine? Uhhh]

Christine? Christine -- Say something.

[madgiganticfeelings]

[Christine slowly sits up. She's stopped screaming, at the very least, but now she's just... staring.

There's blood all over her arms. All over her dress. She holds shaking hands up to her face, but they're stained red too.

Ariel wants her to say something. Which should be easy, all she ever does is ramble, but...]

I-I...

[holyspit]

No, no, no no no no-

[He didn't know Jonny that well? But he'd seemed-]

[...Interesting. Is probably the best word. And no one deserved all of this. It's enough for tears to prick at the edges of Steven's eyes, which he hastily wipes at- and. Um.]

[Yeah, he's trying to wipe those onto Jonny's dead face.]

Please work please work please work this has to still work-

[musacal]

[ Oh... oh no there's... there's a lot going on and a lot to process and... oh... oh no.

Nana's coping by immediately switch into caring mode because CHRIST THE OTHER TEENS SURE ARE GONNA NEED IT. ]

Steven...? [ Oh hey no honorifics this time. ] What are you doing...?

[ Crying obviously but she's worried about what he's asking to "please work" ]

[garbageface]

Oh, yeah, we should probably fix his mascara.

[ That's...what Steven is doing with the tears, right? Santana doesn't particularly want to touch the corpse, though. ]

[stagemanagers]

[Nothing happens.

No happy endings here, Steven.]

[herwiggles]

[Spinel plods over to the body, without fear... more confused than anything.]

What's s'matter with this guy? [snaps her fingers] Sleeping standing up like that?

[mcfife]

[EVERYONE IS SCREAMING WHAT IS HAPPENING

Angus McFife runs down the hallway from his dressing room where everyone is crowded in front of the closer yelling at each other.]

What happened? Is there-

[Looks down.]

A body.

[bloodycape]

It's terrible. There was blood everywhere and--

[Well. He can see now.

Also "everywhere" is not accurate but LISTEN. It's SO MUCH BLOOD.]

We need to... find out who did it... don't we?