[ Max doesn't want to let Basil go. She doesn't want to be alone. But, she knows this is necessary, and that she has to. She doesn't quite release him as she lets all conscious tension leave her arms. The one around Basil's back is still stiff, unnaturally so, but it falls to her side, hitting the floor with a thunk. It makes her feel all the more dead, but Basil smiles, just for her sake, and it almost makes it feel like her still heart's beating again.
Then he leaves without looking back, and, for the next several hours... Max is alone.
It's almost suffocating how alone. It's as alone as she'd made herself the first few days of the song, as alone as she'd become by her own accord back home. Except now, she doesn't even have her music to comfort her. Nothing but the violin, which alternates between coaxing her to spill her guts to an empty bedroom and beckoning her to die.
During the former, she murmurs horrid truths, about how she wishes she'd kept trying to stand up to Neil even if it got her hurt because maybe it would've made Billy see her as an ally. How she wonders if she would've ever been enough for her mother, if she'd tried harder to be a better daughter she wouldn't have felt the need to seek her validation from the scumbags she dated. How the first time she wished Billy dead was before they even moved to Hawkins. How she worries if she weren't here her mother would've pulled the plug on her—the ultimate act of giving up on her own daughter.
During the latter, it's a blessing that rigor mortis has set in so severely that her muscles can barely twitch. The only reason she knows they're happening is the slight change to her posture, or the small groove her claw has dug into the floor where it futilely tried to pull her from the bed to the door. It's like falling asleep, except part of her is always a second away from snapping her eyes open. Like living on the edge of a lucid dream, reaching for control but never achieving it until she gasps awake.
What comforts her in this time is just one thing: Basil's familiar scent clinging to the blanket.
Max can't pull it closer around her, but she can let her head droop enough that her nose—dry instead of moist, because still, she feels mildly feverish—into its soft fabric. It's grounding, reminding her where she is and who she's waiting for. That she's not really alone. He's coming back for her.
At some point, she really does fall asleep, still sitting against the side of Basil's bed, whole body limp. There, without the rise and fall of her chest or the sound of steady breathing, she really does look like the corpse that she is.
Basil returns, and it's only the scent of fresh blood that wakes her. Her still, somewhat sunken eyes blink slowly open to a half-lidded gaze. The skin on her lips pulls as her jaw drops open, tearing slightly from how utterly dry they are. ]
Ah..... A-aahh...
[ Even her vocal cords are starting to stiffen.
In the time he's been gone, a layer of moss has grown over parts of Max—her antlers, her cheeks, her arms. Stretching out from under the carefully applied bandages. It's...actually more accurate to say, it hasn't grown over anything, but rather in place of it, fur and velvet turning to plant.
If there was any doubt before, it should be cleared up now: Waiting any longer would've been a death sentence. ]
B... B- aaah...
[ Sound cracks from her throat as her eyes try to focus. Her thoughts bounce sluggishly around her head, like ping-pong balls moving through molasses— He came back, he really came back and of course he would and i think i'm dying again.
Only the smell of blood. Only the smell of meat gets her mouth to fully open, fangs aching to sink into the strips of flesh, because she wants to live more than she hates herself for how she has to. ]
cw: hypnosis/domestic violence/euthanasia/lost time/dissociation/body horror/cannibalism
Then he leaves without looking back, and, for the next several hours... Max is alone.
It's almost suffocating how alone. It's as alone as she'd made herself the first few days of the song, as alone as she'd become by her own accord back home. Except now, she doesn't even have her music to comfort her. Nothing but the violin, which alternates between coaxing her to spill her guts to an empty bedroom and beckoning her to die.
During the former, she murmurs horrid truths, about how she wishes she'd kept trying to stand up to Neil even if it got her hurt because maybe it would've made Billy see her as an ally. How she wonders if she would've ever been enough for her mother, if she'd tried harder to be a better daughter she wouldn't have felt the need to seek her validation from the scumbags she dated. How the first time she wished Billy dead was before they even moved to Hawkins. How she worries if she weren't here her mother would've pulled the plug on her—the ultimate act of giving up on her own daughter.
During the latter, it's a blessing that rigor mortis has set in so severely that her muscles can barely twitch. The only reason she knows they're happening is the slight change to her posture, or the small groove her claw has dug into the floor where it futilely tried to pull her from the bed to the door. It's like falling asleep, except part of her is always a second away from snapping her eyes open. Like living on the edge of a lucid dream, reaching for control but never achieving it until she gasps awake.
What comforts her in this time is just one thing: Basil's familiar scent clinging to the blanket.
Max can't pull it closer around her, but she can let her head droop enough that her nose—dry instead of moist, because still, she feels mildly feverish—into its soft fabric. It's grounding, reminding her where she is and who she's waiting for. That she's not really alone. He's coming back for her.
At some point, she really does fall asleep, still sitting against the side of Basil's bed, whole body limp. There, without the rise and fall of her chest or the sound of steady breathing, she really does look like the corpse that she is.
Basil returns, and it's only the scent of fresh blood that wakes her. Her still, somewhat sunken eyes blink slowly open to a half-lidded gaze. The skin on her lips pulls as her jaw drops open, tearing slightly from how utterly dry they are. ]
Ah..... A-aahh...
[ Even her vocal cords are starting to stiffen.
In the time he's been gone, a layer of moss has grown over parts of Max—her antlers, her cheeks, her arms. Stretching out from under the carefully applied bandages. It's...actually more accurate to say, it hasn't grown over anything, but rather in place of it, fur and velvet turning to plant.
If there was any doubt before, it should be cleared up now: Waiting any longer would've been a death sentence. ]
B... B- aaah...
[ Sound cracks from her throat as her eyes try to focus. Her thoughts bounce sluggishly around her head, like ping-pong balls moving through molasses— He came back, he really came back and of course he would and i think i'm dying again.
Only the smell of blood. Only the smell of meat gets her mouth to fully open, fangs aching to sink into the strips of flesh, because she wants to live more than she hates herself for how she has to. ]