So, it's been a few days since I started working on the Reality Breaker. Progress, of course, has been slow because I don't even know how to build it. Making sure it works is going to be another nightmare since I can't really test things. This isn't like some novel where the device somehow works because it has to work for the plot line to be resolved. This is real life, where failures will happen in scientific experiments, and they are expected to happen.

I needed to complete the reality breaker project soon!

I fled back to my room, clutching my head in my human hands. With this mask, I could see the truth, but the sights were so cursed!

My nose wrinkled in disgust. The true reality of Corty was sickening. 

Corty thought he was a pregnant woman, and what was next? 

Faked labor as he pulled a pillow from his shirt?

Nursing some bed sheets with a total sum of zero breasts? He didn't even have man boobs like Terry Cruz or muscled anime men.

I leaned forward into the workings of the machine, metal needles for soldering in hand. 

Gas trickled through the gears, pushing them like waterwheels but on flame. Water canisters boiled from the free heat, creating the electricity needed for the rest of the reality machine's system. A veritable river of copper wires wicked away the electricity, with no insulation but his own nondescript clothes. 

Sparks of blue electricity cast the mask aglow, a question mark cast in sharp relief. Behind it, an otherwise-placid expression was marred by frenzied concentration.

"There aren't many who incite the interest of the Stars," whispered the puppet.

I knew immediately who it was, for I did my due diligence in notating all of the students' various voices and appearances in his records.

That is not to say I did not stiffen at the voice either way. An insane serial killer and religious zealot was an insane serial killer and religious zealot regardless of whether they believed they were a puppet or not.

I dropped my soldering needles immediately and jumped up into a ready position, whipping my head back and forth. All that was visible was the basement's shadowed exterior.

"Where are you?" I called out.

Two human eyes floated merrily in the darkness, staring at the ??? hair. Their colorful irises lowered upon upturned grey skin in great amusement, the lower eyelid bunching up in mocking joy. Akin to two sunsets' coronas over black-lined plains of grey, yet the sun was removed, and the shades of sunset were replaced with a clear sky's blue.

"They see you trying to change their channel," giggled the eyes. Invisible hands clapped a spiky blast of shocking WHITE air right in the corner of his eyes, almost like a comic-book-style impact illustration.

I spun around, my Gucci sneakers scraping across the bare concrete to widen my stance as I reached out to grab the girl. I knew I could overpower her with my greater weight class.

"AHA!" I shout victoriously, my face flattening into disappointment. The light dulled in my eyes, my outstretched arms going slack. There's nothing. -_-

"The Monotone Puppet, I know it's you," I called out, still unsure of where she was. A bead of sweat slid down the gorge of my neck, tickling my collar.

"Of course you do! You would be most colorless if you didn't," she chuckled.

Bare feet slapped across the ground, skin sewn out of chalky-WHITE fabric. Almost impatiently, human toes made of the sleek leather-like WHITE tapped on the cold grey concrete.

I almost flinched at the sound, but instead, I ignored my emotions. My shoe inched under my trusty mallet propped up on my reality machine, but I waited. It was not the right moment. 

And so, I queried the right question for a villainous monologue. "What do you want?"

Some of the Scribble Hub students put themselves under the cringe and archaic designation of villains. If I remember correctly, more than a few villainous groups have labeled The Monotone Puppet as part of their faction. 

And I always remembered correctly because I was the single, sane human of the class, the only human to be true to their humanity. 

The only true human.

MatchaChocolate viewed The Monotone Puppet as a protagonist, a pinnacle of villainy. 

According to the rest of the Scribble Hub High School students, SsemouyOnan was the one with this view, a girl who was, in fact, the minion Matcha deluded into existence due to the freely given permission of Corty. 

But she did not exist.

With my mask on, I could notice effects; they all chalked up to her seeming existence. 

I knew better. 

It must be Matcha's sleight of hand. I am certain she does not exist in reality.

A phone, black and white and oh so dull, powered on. In all respects, it was a normal phone. It selected an app of the real world, the mask alerting me to no differences between what the realities of Corty should be. 

Orchestral rock built up. I didn't recognize the artist, but I would have been surprised if I did.

Behind him, the puppet's tongue lolled out of a wide grin, GREY felt, and long. She crossed her arms in an 'x,' each hand up in a pitchfork sign. She sniggered.

I jumped up with a skeeved shiver, nearly out of my socks, as a tongue dragged across the nape of my neck. It felt like a wet washcloth coated in algal slime had just been dragged across my neck. 

The mallet fell off of my foot, but I was too busy dabbing off the GREY slobber dripping down my back.

'Drat!' I thought furiously.

"Want to hear something funny?" slurred the puppet, gone from cheery to a miserable drunk. She propped her arms up on me, casually invading my private space.

I went very still. Her teeth were right near my earlobe, and she was acting how she should… human. Insane, but human. She would have leapt up on my shoulder and pretended to be much smaller than she actually was if she continued her twisted roleplaying. Instead, slender arms and thin, long fingers embraced me in what should not have been a comforting hug.

Droplets of water started raining down on my shoulder. It was so out of place. I looked askance at the puppet-cosplaying human, but her eyes were as bare as bones.

I had started crying…

But I was not sad! I swear! And I definitely was not afraid. 

I was touched. As if every single little emotion was seen so thoroughly

Emotionally, her touch was reassuring…

But.

A chill clenched at my ribs, invading my heart and freezing my lungs.

"The mask's not working," I listlessly said.

She grins. I can hear it in a wordless vocalization, tickling my ear.

The hug should just make me hate her. But since the mask is not working, it's actually having an effect.

"They sing a Reverie of Dying and Hunger," I heard her say listlessly from behind me, a faint smile in her voice as if that explained anything. 

I turned my head to stare at her, and she stopped staring wanly into the distance, a sharp focus in her crow's-foot beset eyes, as if she saw something in me. "The Dreamers Outside of the Dream are so colorful; they give the best hugs. I simply shared a hug with you. Is that an issue?"

"Stop telling me nonsense," I coldly said.

She grinned wider, her smile creaking. It must just be her teeth gritting in frustration.

Not her inhuman skin stretching in the rictus of a smile. That is not possible.

"Don't worry! I won't hug you anymore. That was very monotone of me. I am sincerely sorry. I know you likely won't believe me, but I am genuine. It is hard to get my point across, so my apologies will likely be miscon-"

Finally, I finally got her to monologue. I kicked up my huge mallet into my hands, putting all of my weight to bear.

Firmly, my fingers wrap around the dense rubber as I take in a quick, huge breath.

I pivot, swinging the thick metal head around, wind whistling in my hoodie.

I should have known.

She moved out the way long before I brought the blow to bear.

With a deep giggle, she threw herself right in the way of the blow again.

COMPLETELY NONSENSICAL!

WHY?

"The Bleeding Eyes hunger for your sight so much…" she whispered, "and I'll move as much of the empty flesh until your artistic perspective fulfills their taste. It is just so… HAHAHAHA-" blood burbled out of her nose and the eye above the cheek she let me hit "-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA…!!!" her laughter continued on and on. She flicked her thumb across the tip of her nose, licking it happily.

The red stains her grey tongue.

She leered at me, head askew and hair hanging in a fluffy grey cascade. Just looking at her hair made me want to sneeze. 

It felt as if I was swaddled in moisture-hungry blankets that dehydrated me, removing the sensation of feeling the world. I wanted to close my eyes, the corners squished with cotton. 

"Everything exists within the dreams of the Stars. You were never going to be able to change them without help." She leans forward, closing space.

I hold out my fists in a boxer's stance, guarding.

Her elbow swung out, belonging to one of her arms, both of which had been previously limp and held to her side, up to be slammed against my chin, knocking my head so far back as to make it face up. The drab, wood ceiling in my vision blurred from the whiplash. The weighty bone she had under the leather skin left a dazed expression.

So painful.

Strings wrapped around my swaying, yet still upright, body. It tightened around my midriff, making a metallic scraping against itself.

And then her grinning face lit up with an impossible series of colors loomed with my vision. It was a hallucinogenic LSD trip, as her face worked together to create the most extreme, ill-proportioned smiling expression. 

One she used to finish her playfully cringe dab right into my face.

I screamed in excruciating pain, feeling the bridge of my nose crimp and bow under too much stress. It is not meant to do that. Just in the same way that actual bridges are not meant to do the exact same thing under too much weight. My breathing sped up in response to the closing of one of my airways, panic setting in. Breath became difficult to pull within my lungs.

She reaffirmed her purchase on my clothing. My hoodie was twirled around and over long and slender fingers like spaghetti over a sharp, oxidized-silver fork. 

My boring, yet expensive, sweater was pulled taut, and clenched by those pianist fingers of hers, and she brutally nuzzled further into my nose. 

As a result, the cartilage making up the nose split open like a watermelon in a metal compress. Her cheekbones compacted my cheekbones in a bruising mess, but she left only me with PURPLE and BLUE.

My breathing was getting choked off even worse! 

To no relief, she pulled back. The pain was now too much to discern the difference between her cuddles, done for the sake of torture, and their absence. He had met the threshold for the amount of pain he could feel.

Spatters of my crushed nose's blood were left behind on her forehead.

A thousand shades of fluorescent greens filled her mouth and nose. As she leaned back, the maw gaped so wide as to fit a tower, or it would have been able to fit a tower if the spires of jagged silver shards lining her woven gums did not prevent such hypothetical entry. 

Wheezing, hacking laughs blasted out from her throat, broadcast from her towering mouth into the open air to set a city a-trembling. And it did not need to be cleared up as to whether this was from fear or vibration, for both applied.

Her neck shined shades of gold and daffodil-yellow, lengthening up to the ceiling.

A shrill, scratchy note of desire rattled out of the back of her sunshine-colored throat, made of a ring of thick string columns attached to her collarbone.

 He was certain the monster before him was about to unleash some deluded magical blast before it shrunk and widened into a shockingly stretched slit of YELLOW lips, distorting her cheeks like an empty shirt pulled in two directions.

She was repeating her headbutt again.

Reds fanned all around him, an embrace of her hair dangling around him, the basement disappearing in blood, ginger-red, crimson, and more. 

Sharp, crude stitching around the mouth gouged out bits of his already-mashed-up face. The thin, carbon-BLACK wires scraped bits and pieces of human flesh off his facial features.

She released him, letting him fall to the ground in a limp heap.

A joyous smile filled her bloodied face perfectly.

"Shame I had to do this. Psych! I have no regrets!" she tee-heed.

"At least I know I could threaten you under all of those stupid delusions. It proved my reality machine was a real threat to you all," I groaned out, feeling a faint sense of victory. She looked on, a hint of confusion in her smile.

"Your imaginary Stars are terrible idols-" I fell into a fit of coughing, my vision swimming as I keeled over. "-if they feel the need to move to action and stop me," I wheezed.

Her face turned stormy, her first expression of any emotion other than happiness. She still smiled despite her frustration.

"Insult my Stars!? Why you-" she stopped, her head twitching.

She took a deep breath, calming herself.

"You really are a genius. You aren't wrong that you are intelligent! But I admire your commitment, not hate it! You've got the wrong idea," she said enthusiastically.

"Ahhh, such an interesting phrase… to say someone has the wrong idea… the more apt description would be to call it an ugly lie…" she mumbled to herself. Her voice trailed off.

I couldn't care about her admiring my commitment. This is just a stupid twist as she tried to claw back control. I rolled my eyes, bloodshot and wincing as they were.

Since I was already on the floor, having been knocked down, I even reclined onto the hard concrete floor to show how much I wasn't taking the Monotone Puppet seriously.

"Hah. You are here to stop my machine from making you give up your delusional reality. Any other alternative explanation you could possibly offer me would just prove me right." 

I shrug.

"Because any other objective you would have would require your delusional reality to carry to fruition." At least I win the argument.

Her eyes flashed cunningly, and he saw the toothless, lipless smile she had seen while she had smashed his face while taking center stage once more. 

"We'll help you finish your machine," shaking her head as if it was obvious. "The Stars have decided to become your patrons. All geniuses deserve their ideas to come to fruition. That is why you are down here, no? You are down here to figure out the finishing touches on your machine." 

She brought her fingers up to her lips teasingly as if there was an inside joke to it.

"This is obviously a monkey's paw deal. You won't even let me decide for myself whether I want your help," I immediately mumbled back through split lips and smashed nose.

"The problem is… you were never going to finish your machine. You require a bit of delusion to make it when you have none to spare. You need our help."

You want the real world to come into this delusional space?"

You want to overwrite the COLORS of roleplay and institute your own reality?"

"Well-" her grin stretched off of her face, before something glitched and it resumed normal proportions. "-here is a dose of reality. Without the Stars, you cannot bring their dream, or your reality as you so call it, into here," she crowed.

The roof crumbled and cracked behind her at the crescendo of her voice. BLACK sine waves wriggled through the cracks. 

Something… or multiple things… were falling on the school.

A brief moment of hesitation crossed my face.

I scoffed. "I already intend to reject this reality and substitute my own. I can certainly reject your supposed knowledge in the process."

The human girl's expression flattened, drab grey pants and long sleeves replacing her dress of horrid grey clothes. Her eyes appeared as if they would brook no disagreement.

"If you could have done this on your own-" she paused, pure cruelty creeping along the corners of her growing smile "-you would have built this machine outside in the real world."

She outstretched her hands, the shadowy barebones of the concrete basement flipping on its head in one dizzying motion.

At the end of the disorienting motion, I found myself laid flat on the floor, staring into harsh white light. An office with zip tied rectangular lights had consumed the entirety of the basement. Cardboard boxes filled with miscellaneous items spattered the hard floors like paint drops over a canvas.

Half of the expanse was filled with a library of books. Computers appeared and then disintegrated into bits of HACKER'S GREEN. A welcoming light tried, yet failed, to overcome the harsh white light of the office.

A celestial panorama of hallucinogenic quantities of color broke through the ceiling of the office, rubble and concrete shattering. The debris floated in the air, eagerly bouncing off the walls like they were a funhouse.

The Stars were descending.

I stumbled desperately to my feet as she glorified and worshiped these friendly COLORS.

I had to stop her. I whisper it over and over to myself.

"I have to stop her. I have to stop her. I have to stop her." I muttered into my hoodie. Blood poured down my expensive sweater's collar.

My vision swam.

"Stawwwwwwp…" I slurred.

Or maybe it is the hallucination allowed in by Corty and Tony that the puppet brought in that is making me dizzy and unsteady? 

"All religions are their own reality, and thus, they take precedence no matter what," she enunciated off-key. "Normally, they are what stifles the progress of science… but not in this case. The chromatic coffers of my faith will accelerate your progress, and the Stars shall be your patrons through me as their proxy, their FRIEND, on this world."

With a grandiloquent gesture all for the show, the zealot held out her hand, palm out, fingers splayed towards my machine.

"WAIT!" I shouted. "Don't damage it!" I hold out my hand, drunkenly flinging myself towards her.

She turned towards me, her hand still held out towards it.

Calmly, she moved to the side.

I fell flat on the floor with a none-too-amusing and none-too-painless smack.

And she crouched down, grabbing me gently by the chin with one hand. Her other hand reached behind me as she considered my expression. Within her black button eyes, my startlingly fierce expression reflected back at me.

"Doon't do… it. Yeearrr aaauullll hue-mans." I vomited blood over her soft lap. A wheezing gasp and ugly retching split through the cruel, callous descent of the Stars. 

"You're all humans. You should live like that," I finished defiantly, clear of voice. 

Her shoulder rotated a small bit. It was the shoulder attached to her hand outside of my vision, behind me.

I heard a moist sound, a sensation of wet spray leaving me, with just a bit of wait-time where I was left wondering when I would hear the wetness would fall back down.

My legs are numb.

My legs are numb?

Something turned behind me. It rotated in something it should have.

An ear-splitting squelch went squidgy, squidgy, squidgy, squidgy, squidgy, squidgy, squidgy, squidgy, squidgy, squidgy, squidgy, squidgy, squidgy, squidgy, squidgy, squidgy, squidgy, squidgy, squidgy, squidgy… 

Space curled and wiggled and waved at me. Very friendly.

My ears popped as if the atmospheric pressure changed, but I knew it hadn't. This was confusing. I was confused.

With a sense of relief, I figured out why my ears had popped because the muscles in my face all seized up and knotted at once. Like a Charlie horse scrunching my brow and ripping the inside of my cheeks.

I had grimaced to such an extent, to such a level of intensity, that my muscles could not keep up with the demands. And so they put pressure on the insides of my ears.

My teeth cracked like my set of expensive teacups.

Why was I grimacing?

Then something leaves my back.

Why was the Monotone Puppet's hand so bloody? 

What is she holding?

She had stabbed a knife right into my back. The realization was so… delayed it was almost humorous.

WHITE-HOT PAIN.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!” I screamed.

"THAT HURTS!"

"OH MY FUCKING GOD! OH… HOLY SHIT! FUUUUUUUUUUCK! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!”

My screams continued.

It scraped between my vertebrae. The knife hurt bad.

It…

I sobbed. 

"So, it hurt, bad, bad, bad, bad," I half-said/half-exhaled nearly silently. Grammar is eschewed in the disgusting face of pain.

Threads of dullness and apathy, GREY in color, wove throughout the gears, halting them. The cloth soaked up all of the gas, becoming sodden and greasy. Sprouting out from the rectangular frame of the reality breaker, a braided rope began weaving together.

Wide and dense wires are easily capable of restraining a moon that is lengthened. The GREY built upon itself, the depression and misery of the puppet twisting and tangling into physicality.

Greater and greater, it traversed the INDIGO expanse. The empty void hilariously crossed by such a measly string.

Strings attached to the puppet were made real, the metaphorical strings that had always been invisible, not real, growing to match the string now attached to the machine. They were of the same vast girth and strength. Similarly unbreakable. Sprouting from her wrists, lining her arms like gossamer-thin panels placed at random, they fanned up to the skies. They twirled around the minuscule string/the work of art/the final piece/the moon-sized chain.

Traveling through the INDIGO, they eventually reached the aberrations in a crescendo of space-rattling ripples of the dream's nonexistent flesh. The Stars welcome the string with great COLOR, uncountable COLORS, with a great, awe-inspiring hug.

So sweet and remarkably comforting.

The puppet held out her hands madly, a colorless silhouette of a marionette held up by equally colorless strings against a backdrop of the innumerable colors of the alien things that are the Stars.

The gears of the reality breaker started turning once more.

And this time…

Yes, this time.

It worked.

And under the ever-curious, yet never caring, gaze of the Stars, the Monotone Puppet wept.

The puppet was so human.

And yet…

I could not call the puppet "she" because it was…

So…

Disgustingly…

Ugly.

My gorge bulged unconsciously.

It was… unsightly.

My broken nose twitched. It had tried to flare in an unintentional gesture of disgust.

It was more of an 'it' than a girl.

I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that this was the Monotone Puppet's true self. The mask was in reach, and I put it on. I wanted to confirm this was not some eldritch magic convincing my gut that it was true. For a brief moment, though the protection was broken, it glitched into working condition.

It really was a filthy human. Unfortunately, it is such a trashy thing. And so needlessly hysterical.

It rolled up its sleeves, not paying attention to me. Scars lining its arms wept blood, the rest of the skin scars changing its unhealthy complexion to mottled pink, purple, and brown. 

Skin peeled. Flakes and rashes riddled its shoulders.

Human teeth marks yellowed over sallow muscle.

The mallet was next to me. I yearned deeply to be able to use it.

I sighed.

"I really hate you," it whispered into my house. "You know, the Stars were dearly happy that you were up to these tricks. But I…"

I hate it. I hate this." It brought the knife it had paralyzed me with and cut more open wounds in its arm.

A chill ran up my back. 

IT. IS. IN. MY. HOUSE.

I wheezed out in terror.

My elbows knocked awkwardly as I tried to push my paralyzed lower body backward.

It's in my bedroom.

Tears ran down my face.

"Please don't-" I coughed wetly. I tried to swallow the blood running down my nasal cavity. It was copious enough that it wouldn't all fit down my esophagus. 

I'm choking on my blood. Coughing racks my cold body more, goosebumps rising. 

"Please don't do me like SSSniperWolf," I cried softly.

"Don't worry… nothing so permanent… genius." All admiration it had had for my intelligence had left its voice.

"In reality… while the Stars adore your idea," it said as it walked through my bedroom. Its tennis shoes dirtied the nice carpet. "I myself hate how you managed to make me even more uncolorful. Even though I am puppeteered by them, as their eyes glisten with desire… they wanted their saccharine world changed by the machinations of one of the monotone fueled on themselves."

It was saying nonsense again.

I shivered, little bits of loose flesh flapping on my face in response to the movement. But what would have been a full-body shiver stopped in the middle of my back.

"AHHHH-" I choked off my scream forcefully.

Its hands trailed along the white paint of my bedroom, leaving a bloody smear on my walls. My bedroom genuinely looked like that in real life, down to the carpet.

I affirmed it. It really, really was my normal bedroom. I couldn't believe it.

"It is against what some of them want… but to not go after what I passionately desire would make me uncolorful. And some of them do not want that, and they are distasteful of the contrast we have going on with them. They hunger for more of a matchey-matchey type deal between friends, you know?"

…

If reality had not just been fixed to 'normal,' my face would have become an 'expressionless face' emoji at its absurd illogic.

No. 

I don't know.

"My ramblings aside-" it loomed over me. I scoot away, leaving behind my pool of blood. I feel faint. "I am feeling petty. You take away my protection from my loathful body, and so I will screw you over in turn.

"Now, many of you might want to know what a Reality Breaker is; it's a machine that is powered by gas and uses lighter fluid. However, it also has the unique ability to alter the reality for others. Because everyone is delusional, I must use the Reality Breaker to bring them back to their senses," it parroted from my head.

"But all realities are merely delusions of the Stars. So-so-so, they won't mind if I ruin their playdate plans, right?!" it hissed into my ear as its hands went around my neck and came back to be in front of my smashed, bloody RED face.

Oh my God. It is truly delusional.

"This is a good thing?" it questioned. "Bullshit. Don't make me laugh! You should not make me have to live like a human. Why would you be so cruel to rip away my comforting, gorgeous, beautiful, deliciously pretty lies?!

An expressionless face stared at me.

My eyes flitted to the space beside it, disturbed by the face.

It was not meant to be so dull. Its face was meant to be pulled into a smile. 

The cheeks sagged, exhausted grey pits under its blue eyes. The chin resembled a pelican's gullet. The neck was too long.

If the Monotone Puppet just smiled, it would have all looked perfectly normal. It would have looked normal. Like everything should.

But it didn't.

Holding something taut between its human fingers, it wrapped the thing around my neck. I coughed. It dug into my skin, creating a ring of indented skin that became deeper and deeper.

I held my breath, my ugly, human opponent having never strangled anyone before, and so I stayed alive still.

"You're all humans. You should live like that…" the now-metaphorical puppet repeated, enraged, as I felt my face puff up without air.

"HAHAHAHAHA!!!" it laughed. It was shockingly sweet, like a child's innocent giggles. 

I gaped open in surprise, reeling from whiplash.

"You look like the Marshmallow Man from Ghostbusters as it melted away, just under a grey filter," it said. Chuckles joyously chimed under its breath.

Still strangling me with one hand, with a grey string, it wiped a tear of laughter or misery away with a bloody finger. 

No one would have been able to tell a tear of misery apart from one of laughter because it had cried enough to outrival Alice from Wonderland. 

It only added to my blood on its face.

She looked better with a smile.

"OH ANON!" it screamed at me, so close its teeth crushed into my skull with every word. Strings of flesh and fat were like nooses around the tiny, white squares of enamel lining its lower gums. Two sharp canines dripped fetid drool on my face. Shards of my bone fell back onto my skull. 

"THEY WILL BE YOUR PATRONS, OH MAD GENIUS! BUT- OHOHOHOHO!!! - THIS WILL BE THE REAL WORLD, WILL IT NOT?! SO, LIKE IN THE REAL WORLD, ALL GENIUSES MUST COMPROMISE! SEE YOUR DREAM COMPROMISED BY CRUEL REALITY LIKE MINE WAS BY YOU!"

It thumbed a tear of blood from my face, mockingly pouting and winking.

"I suppose you were right in the end. I might as well have been here to destroy your machine. The result is the same…." She smiled sadly.

"But it is plenty real enough. After all… now you are dead."

"People don't come back to life in the real world, and so."

Her lips tilted further up. 

"Neither will you see the light of the reality you pined for."