“There it is.” Lykaia/b>“I do not like ghosts at all,” Tamar murmurs, her expression now turning wary as she tries to spot the silhouette. “Can you not see ghosts, Anna?” she asks, looking in the blonde’s direction. “Can you speak with them at all?”

“…the show must go on…” The voice is feminine, cultured, with the trained projection of a stage actress.

Near Lorelei’s feet, a white rose materializes on the pathway, its petals pristine despite lying on the damp ground. The theater program on the bench rustles without any breeze, pages turning to reveal a cast list with “Cordelia Marsh” circled in fading red ink.

From somewhere in the shadows between the oak trees comes another voice, masculine and sharp with criticism: “Mediocre performance. Lacks proper technique. The audience grows restless…“

The lamppost flame gutters lower, and the shadow by the fountain becomes clearer – a woman in an 1890s dress, her hand reaching toward something just out of sight.

The distant clock reads 5:28 AM.

The pre-dawn air hangs thick with humidity as the four women find themselves standing at the entrance to Portland Memorial Ground. The wrought iron gates stand open, revealing shadowy pathways that wind between towering oak trees. A few streetlights cast pools of amber light across the worn walkways, while the rest of the small park remains cloaked in darkness. The steady trickle of water from the central fountain provides a constant backdrop of sound, punctuated by the occasional rustle of leaves overhead.

Something feels off about this place. The air seems to shimmer slightly, like heat waves rising from summer pavement, though the morning is cool. A faint melody drifts through the trees – violin music, hauntingly beautiful but somehow melancholy. The sound seems to come from deeper within the park, near the fountain area where the pathways converge.

Lorelei notices her breath misting slightly in the air, despite the relatively warm temperature. Tamar feels a strange tingling sensation, as if the very atmosphere is charged with some unseen energy. Annabelle’s trained medical instincts pick up on an odd smell – not quite decay, but something stale and recycled. Lykaia’s supernatural senses detect layers of emotion saturating this space, like perfume that has been sprayed in the same spot for weeks.

The violin music continues, a complex piece that seems to build toward something but never quite reaches resolution. Through the trees, a figure can be glimpsed near the fountain, silhouetted against the pale stone.

Lykaia seems suddenly hit with something weird. She cringes and grimaces, holding her ears shut. “What the fuck.”

“Anyone can speak with ghosts.” Annabelle mutters back at Tamar, giving up on the pigeons and shielding her eyes from the shaded figure. “I see them hang over people sometimes. Just not everyone can hear. It’s in an out- they flash like-” She snaps her fingers off rhythm.

Lorelei drums her bubblegum-pink nails lightly against the bronze of her bracer for a little light ASMR, the soft metallic clicks keeping time as a faint shimmer of illusory glamour blooms around her. Her eyes narrow on the flicker of the figure beyond the trees. “Mm seems a little busy here,” she murmurs with a sly tilt of her lips, curls spilling forward as she leans in toward the others. “I hope we didn’t just stumble into another one of those double confluxes.”

“That sounds very confusing,” Tamar admits at Annabelle’s explanation, glancing back over to the shadow near the fountain for a moment. When Lykaia reacts so, she steps in closer, touching a hand on her shoulder. “Are you alright? What is it?” Her attention then drifts to Lorelei. “Do you know what this is about? She was a singer or some such?”

45 AM.

The musician pauses mid-phrase, looking up with bright, hopeful eyes that scan the park as if expecting someone. His gaze passes right through the four women as if they aren’t there. After a moment, he returns to his violin, starting the same complex passage over again from the beginning.

Annabelle’s weary, exhausted expression- filmed though it is behind her hands as she tunes into a spectral performance, relates entirely to Tamar’s statement. “..Hello? I’m Bananable.” She decides to greet- never give your first name to ghosts, “I think you’re dead, sir. And someone’s choking.”

“Where the fuck did the musician come from now?” Lykaia says, giving Tamar a look. “Negative. I was suddenly smelling and hearing more than I ever did for a few seconds. Fucking weird. Must been a brief curse or some-such-shit.” She keeps her grimace. “This is fucking weird.”

“She never could take direction properly. Always improvising, ruining the script…“

The shadow-woman by the fountain turns toward them, her mouth opening as if to speak, but only the sound of trickling water emerges. Her gestures become more frantic, pointing first to the locket, then to the white rose, then to the theater program that continues to flutter on the bench.

The gas flame flickers again, and for just a moment, the entire park seems to shimmer like a stage backdrop. The clock tower shows 5:30 AM – eight minutes remaining until something resets.

Annabelle approaches the bench like she’s been forced into approaching a boy she doesn’t like. She makes a dead drop, herself, on the side of the fountain, trying to only look at the woman from the corner of her eye. “That happens, yeah. Some people get into careers and-and like they take more time to learn, I guess. That’s okay, dead-person. There’s no bad acting in Heaven, I think.”

Lorelei sighs to herself, glancing between the two ongoing shows as if unsure they are even connected. “Usually you need to find something linking them to this place, or help them resolve whatever scheisse is keeping them here,” she says with a faint roll of her shoulders, curls bouncing. “Or we just exorcise them, though people usually get all fussy when I start doing the last one.” She closes her eyes and tries to sense if any emanations are coming from nearby.

Tamar turns her head to just stare, confused at someone, with the name she introduces herself as. She blinks a few times, head tilting to the side before shaking it and turning her attention back to Lykaia with agreement, “This is all very weird.” Going quiet at the voice continues to speak, she glances between the woman and the musician, then to the rose. “This is like a Sherlock Holmes story. Perhaps there was an abandoned lover?”

Tamar turns her head to just stare, confused at Annabelle, with the name she introduces herself as. She blinks a few times, head tilting to the side before shaking it and turning her attention back to Lykaia with agreement, “This is all very weird.” Going quiet at the voice continues to speak, she glances between the woman and the musician, then to the rose. “This is like a Sherlock Holmes story. Perhaps there was an abandoned lover?”

47 AM. The musician looks up again with that same hopeful expression, scanning the park with desperate eyes. This time, when his gaze passes over the women, there’s the faintest flicker of recognition, as if he almost sees them but can’t quite focus.

The violin music begins again, the exact same opening notes as before.

“They usually don’t stack on top. Disruptions.” Lykaia says, shaking her head. “You know. Sometimes you just destroy what you see.” She draws her glock, her small firearm, from its holster at her thigh and points it at the musician.

Lorelei laughs at that idea, and instead draws out a titanium diving knife, slashing into her palm before she starts to draw glyphs in the air using illusory light.

Annabelle hikes her shoulders from the breeze as it carries the cold. Staring at Tamar with social lament, not really getting the talkative start she’s looking for with the dead, she sees Lykaia pull a gun and widens her eyes. She plugs her own ears quickly.

“Amateur theatrics! She never understood true art. Always seeking attention rather than perfection.“

Cordelia flinches at the harsh words, her form flickering like candlelight. She begins to move through what appears to be a rehearsed scene – backing toward the lamppost, one hand pressed to her heart, the other reaching out as if grasping for help that will never come.

The clock shows 5:33 AM. Twelve minutes left.

“The final act approaches,” she whispers, her eyes fixed on the three women. “But I cannot… I have never had the chance to perform it properly. With dignity. With witnesses who truly see the art, not just the spectacle.“

The gas flame dims further, and shadows begin to lengthen unnaturally across the park.

“Terrible blocking! She stands in the wrong position entirely. No sense of dramatic timing!“

Suddenly, the park shimmers again, and for a brief moment, the women can see the scene as it was in 1897 – gas lamps instead of electric lights, different clothing scattered on the ground, and two figures by the fountain locked in what appears to be an argument.

The vision fades, but now they can see faint chalk marks on the ground near the lamppost – stage directions written in a careful hand: “Enter stage left,” “Final monologue here,” “Exit… eternal.“

The clock tower chimes 5:33 AM. Twelve minutes left in the cycle.

The shadow-woman raises her hands to her throat again, miming words they cannot hear, her eyes pleading with them to understand something crucial about her unfinished performance.

“No one wants to see this melodrama again! End it quickly, without all the theatrical nonsense!“

Cordelia’s shadow-form wavers, her movements becoming jerky and uncertain. She looks directly at the three women with desperate eyes that seem to plead for understanding. Her lips move silently, forming words they cannot quite hear over the critic’s harsh commentary.

The white rose begins to wilt at the edges, and the theater program’s pages flutter more violently. The silver locket catches the lamplight, reflecting it in fractured beams across the fountain’s surface.

“She was always too emotional, too… human for proper art,” the critic’s voice sneers from the darkness between the trees. “Real performance requires discipline, control, perfection!“

Cordelia shakes her head violently, pressing both hands to her ears. Her form flickers between solid and translucent, as if she’s fighting to maintain her presence against the critical voice.

The clock tower chimes 5:35 AM. Ten minutes remain.

The gas flame in the lamppost suddenly flares bright, illuminating Cordelia fully for the first time. She wears an elaborate Victorian gown, torn at the sleeve, with a silver locket at her throat. In her hand, she clutches what appears to be a crumpled piece of paper – a review.

She looks at each woman in turn, her mouth forming a single, silent word: “Please.“

Lorelei lets the knife hover in her grip, her bright gaze sweeping between Lykaia and Annabelle with a faint, amused curve to her lips. Her free hand flicks in a little wave toward Tamar, curls spilling forward with the motion before she turns her attention back to the wavering figure. “This is turning into a full cast,” she murmurs, lifting her bleeding palm again to trace another curling glyph through the air, the illusory light spiraling outward as if to frame Cordelia’s stage, spotlighting her and blinding her to the criticism with a distracting sound of applause.

Tamar shrugs her shoulders helplessly at Annabelle then catches the movement of Lykaia pulling out her clock in the corner of her vision. She quickly steps back, making sure she is well out of the field of fire. “But- are they not ghosts?” she asks, questioning rather than arguing with Lykaia before glancing at Lorelei. “Magic perhaps is better for this.”

The musician continues playing, oblivious to the weapons drawn around him. His fingers move with practiced precision across the strings, but there’s a growing frustration in his expression as he reaches the same point in the melody where it seems to falter and lose direction.

Lorelei’s glyphs flicker in the air, but they seem to slide off the musician like water off glass. The spectral energy here is too dense, too anchored to be easily disrupted by conventional means.

The woman on the bench suddenly looks up, her tear-streaked face turning toward the group with hollow, desperate eyes. “Have you seen him?” she whispers, her voice carrying despite the distance. “He promised he’d come back. He always comes back.” Her gaze fixes on the musician, who remains unaware of her presence.

A pigeon lands near the musician’s feet, pecking at invisible crumbs. He smiles down at it with genuine warmth. “Hello there, Melody,” he says softly. “Ready for breakfast?“

The air shimmers more intensely now, and there’s a sense of time pressing forward inexorably toward some unseen deadline.

The musician checks an old pocket watch, his face lighting up with anticipation. “Almost time,” he murmurs to himself, carefully placing his violin back in its case. He pulls out a small paper bag and begins scattering breadcrumbs around his feet. The pigeon he called Melody pecks eagerly at the offering, joined by several others that seem to materialize from the shadows.

The woman on the bench watches this ritual with growing agitation, her hands clenching and unclenching. “He’s leaving again,” she whispers, her voice cracking. “He always leaves.“

The musician’s movements are precise, practiced – clearly a routine he’s performed countless times. But there’s something urgent about the way he keeps glancing at his watch, as if he’s running out of time for something important.

The air continues to shimmer, and that strange recycled smell Annabelle noticed earlier grows stronger. The very atmosphere seems to be holding its breath, waiting for something to happen.

Lykaia angles the glock down at the musicians leg and fires off a bullet at it.

Annabelle puts on her helmet for safety’s sake, given that she’s downrange of a firearm and currently amidst a warring battle of ghostly attentions. Rather than, say, get up and start moving around, she trusts a bullet will not intentionally find a seated target and stays planted.

“..Maybe ghosts can’t hear.” She decides, belated and muffled from behind her visor.

Annabelle jolts.

“Miss Marsh brings unprecedented emotional truth to her roles, though some critics find her interpretations too passionate for proper society.“

“I need an audience,” Cordelia continues, moving toward the chalk marks near the lamppost. “Not critics who tear apart every choice, but witnesses who can see the soul of the performance. I have been rehearsing this final scene for over a century, but I cannot complete it alone.“

The clock tower shows 5:37 AM. Eight minutes left.

From the shadows comes Edmund’s voice again: “She’s manipulating you! Don’t let her draw you into her amateur dramatics!“

Cordelia flinches but stands straighter, lifting her chin with theatrical defiance. “Will you help me give the performance I was meant to give? Will you be my audience?“

The silver locket at her throat pulses with soft light, and the crumpled review in her hand begins to unfold.

“The locket… the rose… the review… they are the keys to my final scene. But I cannot reach them while his voice drowns out my truth.“

When the gas flame reignites a heartbeat later, the park has shifted. The silver locket now lies at the base of the fountain, glinting in the water. The white rose has moved to rest against the lamppost itself. The theater program on the bench now shows a different page – a handwritten review in elegant script, though the ink seems to be fading even as they watch.

“Cordelia Marsh’s performance transcends mere acting – she becomes the very embodiment of human emotion, raw and beautiful in its honesty.“

The critic’s voice hisses from the shadows: “Sentimental drivel! Art should elevate, not wallow in base feeling!“

Cordelia’s form solidifies slightly, and she begins to move through what appears to be a death scene – but it’s stilted, wrong, as if she’s fighting against invisible strings. Her movements are those of someone trying to perform while being constantly interrupted and corrected.

The clock shows 5:38 AM. Seven minutes left.

“I need… an audience that sees the art, not the tragedy,” Cordelia whispers, her voice growing fainter as the critic’s grows louder. “Someone who understands that even in death, there can be beauty, dignity, truth…“

The three items – locket, rose, and review – begin to glow faintly in the lamplight, as if waiting to be claimed.

Lorelei pads forward with a slow, unhurried grace, curls swaying as she skirts the edge of the chalk marks. Her free hand lowers to pluck the white rose from where it rests against the lamppost, fingers curling delicately around the stem as though she were lifting a stage prop mid-performance. She gives it a light turn between her fingertips before holding it up toward Cordelia, her bright gaze never leaving the wavering figure as she slowly lofts the flower towards the stage.

Tamar flinches slightly at the sound of the gun going off, her eyes closing for a brief moment before she lets them open again.

23,” he says with satisfaction, tucking the empty breadcrumb bag away. He picks up his violin again, bow poised. “Time for the final movement. This time I’ll get it right. I have to get it right.”

The woman on the bench suddenly stands, the white rose in Lorelei’s hand seeming to catch her attention. Her hollow eyes widen with recognition. “That’s… that’s mine,” she whispers, reaching out with trembling fingers. “He gave it to me. Before he…”

The musician begins playing again, but this time the melody is different – more complex, more desperate. His brow furrows in concentration as he struggles with a passage that seems to elude him, the notes becoming discordant and frustrated.“

“You know. I utterly hate disruptions because it always feels like going to the cinema and just watching until it resolves itself.” Lykaia says, rolling her eyes. “And someetimes they’re pure chaos.” She removes the mag from the glock, with another hand going into one of her pouches to fill in the bullet that was just expended and returns the mag to her glock. She turns the safety lock on again and returns it to its holster. “You usually just get to watch as it repeats.”

“..The last one spoke to me.” Annabelle calls, voice flat as she slouches over the end of the fountain and onto the ground to become a smaller target. “I mean. I guess this is a disturbance. It’s disruptive. I guess I was watching one show on a projector at home and now I’m watching another.”

Tamar observes Lorelei, seeing her pick up the flower and how the ghosts appear to react to that. She steps forward, scooping up the locket at the foot of the fountain and holding it out to the ghostly woman. “And this? Is it yours also?”

“The curtain falls in seven minutes! Please – I cannot bear another failed rehearsal!“

When the flame reignites a second later, the park has reset. The three women find themselves back at their starting positions, the clock tower chiming 5:22 AM once more. The theater program lies crisp and new on the bench, the white rose appears fresh on the pathway, and the silver locket gleams untouched at the fountain’s base.

But this time, they remember. The loop has begun again, and Cordelia’s shadow-form materializes immediately by the fountain, her eyes wide with recognition.

“You remember!” she gasps, her voice carrying both hope and urgency. “Then you understand – we have twenty-three minutes. Always twenty-three minutes. Help me break this endless dress rehearsal!“

From the shadows, Edmund’s critical voice begins its familiar refrain: “Another mediocre attempt begins…“

The clock shows 5:22 AM. Twenty-three minutes to solve this, or face the loop again.

39 AM. Six minutes remain.

Cordelia’s form wavers more violently as Edmund’s critical voice grows louder: “She never understood subtlety! Always overacting, always making everything about her emotions rather than proper technique!“

The actress presses her hands to her ears, her mouth opening in what should be a scream but produces only silence. The three glowing items – locket in the fountain, rose by the lamppost, review on the bench – pulse in rhythm with her distress.

“I cannot… I cannot perform with his voice drowning out my truth,” she whispers, looking desperately at the three women. “In life, he controlled my final moments. In death, he still directs my performance. But you… you are not bound by his criticism.“

The gas flame flickers dangerously low. The chalk marks on the ground near the lamppost begin to fade.

“Five minutes,” Cordelia says, her voice barely audible. “Five minutes to gather what was lost, to stand as my audience, to let me speak my final monologue as it was meant to be spoken – with dignity, with art, with witnesses who see the human soul beneath the performance.“

Edmund’s laughter echoes from the shadows: “They’ll abandon you just as everyone else did. No one wants to watch a mediocre actress die badly!“

Cordelia flinches but looks directly at each woman. “Will you help me prove him wrong?“

The clock shows 5:40 AM. Five minutes until the loop resets.

“Next time I go on patrol I’ll bring a snack and a folding chair for disruptions in reality. Quartz for another demon…” Lykaia answers to Annabelle, making a slight nod. “Already have salt.” She looks back at the other dramatic theater ghost and just tells her “How about you just shut the fuck up, stop wasting everyone’s time with whining and just fucking do. You are probably your own fucking critique. So just do and prove yourself. Fucking hell.”

30 AM frozen in time.

The air around them begins to pulse with increasing intensity, reality seeming to bend and waver as if the very fabric of time is straining against itself.

Annabelle holds up two thumbs up for the ghost and her future attempt at performance, the pulse of tiiimmmmmee, really anything and everyone involved that she has little bearing on.

Lorelei abandons the delicate pacing entirely, planting a sneakered foot on the low rim of the fountain before vaulting up into the chalk-marked space as if it were built for her. Curls bounce wildly with the movement, catching in the gaslight as she sweeps her arms wide, the rose still in one hand. With no script to lean on, she fills the space with her own improvised presence, spinning on the ball of one foot, leaning into exaggerated gestures, and throwing lines at the shadowed corners as though taunting Edmund himself to critique this, resorting to twerking if only to redirect some criticism and outrage.

Tamar looks confused when she finds that the locket is gone from her hand, looking around for it. “What? where?” she mutters, eventually looking over to Lykaia and Annabelle and then over to Lorelei. twerking. The girl’s eyes widen in a mixture of shock and distaste.

Lorelei says “Sorry, this is for science.“

It’s the sneaker scuff and noise accompanied by estranged, ghostly music that has Annabelle looking up. The moon casts a sheen on the black helmet as it finds it self looking at an upskirt angle of Lorelei’s twerk. “Science isn’t like this. Science can’t be like this.” She mumbles.

“Stop this amateur performance! You’re ruining everything with your emotional display!“

But Cordelia stands tall, one hand pressed to her heart, the other extended toward her audience of three. Her eyes shine with tears that catch the lamplight like diamonds.

“I have waited one hundred and twenty-six years for witnesses who would see the art in my ending,” she says, her trained voice carrying clearly across the park. “Will you stand as my audience? Will you let me finally perform my death as I choose – with beauty, with truth, with the dignity he denied me?“

The clock tower shows 5:41 AM. Four minutes remain.

The three glowing items pulse in unison, waiting to be claimed. Cordelia takes her position at the chalk marks, ready to begin her final monologue – but she cannot continue without her props, without her audience, without someone to bear witness to her truth rather than his criticism.

“Please,” she whispers. “Help me end this rehearsal. Help me give the performance of my life.“

Lorelei gives her the rose in a direct manner, handing it right to her so that she has it now.

“Better science than whatever these two freakshows are.” Lykaia answers, making a nod to Lorelei’s apology. Oh and then the ghost claims to have WAITED for a time. “Lady. You all should really know that this place hasn’t existed until a few months ago. Now stop wasting my fucking time and do your rehearsal. Just swing around your hands like you have them. Better performance that way. I’ll pretend to be your hateful audience. Impress me.”

30 AM, but the hands seem frozen.

The air around them begins to crack like glass. Reality is fracturing under the weight of the temporal loop. Cordelia steps forward, the rose glowing faintly in her hands. “You don’t have to be perfect, Marcus. You never did. The music was always beautiful, even unfinished.“

Marcus’s violin drops to his side as memories flood back – the accident, the impact, the darkness. “I… I died, didn’t I? Before the audition. Before I could prove myself.“

“We both did,” Cordelia says gently. “But we’ve been holding on too long.“

The loop shudders violently. Time itself seems to be unraveling around them. The four women feel reality pulling at them, demanding resolution.

Marcus raises his violin one final time, but instead of the frantic, desperate melody, he plays something simple and peaceful – a lullaby his grandmother once sang. As the last note fades, both spirits begin to dissolve into points of light.

The park snaps back to normal time. 6:31 AM. The sun rises properly over Portland Memorial Ground, and the oppressive weight of recycled time finally lifts.

The temporal loop has been broken. The spirits have found peace, and reality has returned to its natural flow. The four women stand in the quiet morning park, the only evidence of their supernatural encounter being the faint scent of roses lingering in the air.

“I feel like this wasn’t the last of it for some reason.” Lykaia says, shaking her head, glancing around. “This is so weird.”

Tamar shudders as the air crackles, staring at the ghosts until they fade. She looks relatively shocked by what just went down and looks at each of the other women in turn quietly.

Lorelei exhales through a crooked little smile, finally letting the knife vanish from her grip. She drops into an easy lean against the lamppost, arms folding loosely under her bust, curls spilling forward as she tilts her head toward the stage. No more glyphs, no more interruptions, just a bright, fixed gaze on Cordelia, the kind of unblinking, intent focus that says she is here to watch and nothing else, applause pending.

Annabelle’s body shivers in a guttural response, knowing not what else to do with itself in the moment. She takes her helmet off, swallowing painfully. “Clock’s broken.” She mumbles up to time. “Someone should fix that, mhm.” She stands up, not on the clock nor its maker, and hurries away from the fountain. “I guess, uhm. Anticlimax was what they needed to wake up, or something.”

“The performance is… concluded.“

Cordelia nods once more to each woman, then turns toward the rising sun. As the first true rays of dawn break through the canopy, her form dissolves into golden light that dances briefly among the oak leaves before fading entirely.

The clock tower chimes 6:00 AM – real time, moving forward at last. The pigeons resume their normal, chaotic pecking. The fountain’s water sounds natural again. Portland Memorial Ground has returned to being simply a small park between red brick buildings, no longer a stage trapped in eternal rehearsal.

The loop is broken. Cordelia Marsh has given her final performance.