HOLE
To end something.
PSYCHE
What?
HOLE
The pain. The others are lost in it. I am consumed by it. And you are blind to it.
PSYCHE
I’m blind by pain? I’m blind by pain.
HOLE
I made you this way. I protected you…and I hurt you. You were the perfect victim to my suffering.
PSYCHE
Where are we?
HOLE
Nowhere. [Beat.] Can’t you hear the nothingness? It’s deafening.
PSYCHE
Why would you take me here?
HOLE
You…are my conscience. My mind. My psyche. I’m just a feeling. Unbound and dark. I need you to wake up.
PSYCHE is terrified by this possibility and tries to run away. HOLE grabs HER and forces HER to the ground.
HOLE
Wake up!
PSYCHE
Why are you hurting me like this?
HOLE
You need to feel it all. The pain. The suffering. All of it.
PSYCHE tries to free HERSELF, but HOLE pushes HER back down.
PSYCHE
Let me go!
HOLE
No!
PSYCHE starts to bawl.
PSYCHE
I don’t want to remember!
HOLE
You have to!
PSYCHE
No!
HOLE
Please!
PSYCHE
NO!
The last barrier has finally been broken, and all the pain rushes into PSYCHE’s entity. It cripples HER with its misery. HOLE, HIS power gone, falls limp to the floor. HE barely has the strength to lift HIS head.
PSYCHE
Why? Why, why, why?!
HOLE
Because. It can’t be this dark forever. The light has to make its way.
PSYCHE pushes HERSELF off the ground, wounded animal that SHE is, wipes HER eyes, and starts to walk away.
HOLE
Where are you going?
PSYCHE
I…I don’t…know. I just have to go. I have to leave here.
HOLE
Wait. Wait! Don’t leave me here!
PSYCHE
I have to—
HOLE
Don’t leave me!
PSYCHE
I have to leave. I have—[to leave--]
HOLE
DON’T LEAVE ME!
Beat. HOLE lets HIS head finally fall. HE is abandoned. HIS breathing is deep and slow.
SFX: The rising wind at the very beginning of the play returns. HOLE knows who’s coming, and HE has to laugh at HIS fate.
SFX: The wind dies down.
PANDORA enters, finishing the last page in HER book.
PANDORA
Something funny?
HOLE
Always.
PANDORA flips back and forth between the last two pages.
PANDORA
It’s wrong.
HOLE
The ending? I know it is.
PANDORA
Why did you do this?
HOLE
Do you really not know?
PANDORA slams the book shut.
PANDORA
It’s over. Whatever you were planning, whatever you wanted, it’s gone. Time to end this. [To Offstage.] I’m ready.
LILITH enters holding the small box from the first scene on a silver platter. It’s still open.
Beat.
PANDORA
Is the other one truly gone?
LILITH shrugs. PANDORA takes the box and places the book on the silver platter. LILITH goes to exit.
HOLE
[To LILITH.] You! You.
LILITH pauses.
HOLE
Thank you. For all the pain you’ve caused me. I needed it.
LILITH exits. PANDORA kneels down to HOLE, who is still too weak to sit up. SHE nears the box to HIM.
PANDORA
Are you ready? Do you think you can handle it again? You’re always so smug even to your last second. You think you have the ability to defy me, but you always end up in here…[Points to box.] …with all the others.
HOLE
Close the dam box already.
The curt insult strikes true. SHE shuts the box.
SFX: Electrical sparks from frayed wires. Distant, human howling that sounds more melodic than terrifying.
The lights flicker. PANDORA is frightened to HER core. All the control SHE’s enjoyed over the eons has suddenly been pulled out from underneath HER. SHE backs away from the screams from beyond as they come from all angles. HOLE stands straight up with pride at HIS side and a smirk on HIS face.
HOLE
Scared, my little prison warden? You should be.
PANDORA
What’s happening? Tell me!
HOLE
You tried to close the box without everyone in it. If everyone’s not in it, it doesn’t close. That’s the rules. Everyone in or everyone’s out.
LILITH enters from one side of the stage, and GOLIATH’s enters from the other. Both of them have murder glimmering in THEIR eyes. LILITH is graceful and elegant. GOLIATH has half HIS strength and moves as a rhino with a lame leg.
PANDORA is trapped.
PANDORA
I’m in control! You have to obey me!
HOLE
No, we don’t.
LILITH
Nevermore.
GOLIATH
Not ever again.
PANDORA
Do it! Stop this and get back in the box!
GOLIATH
One is gone.
LILITH
One of four has left the rest. Now, we get to be free. Free to cause all the destruction possible within our beings. Thank you, ma’am.
PANDORA
I have to get her back. Where is she?
PANDORA runs around the stage in HER search.
PANDORA
Where is she?! Come here! Come here, now! [Half-Beat.] [Whispers.] Come here.
HOLE
[Laughs.] No. Reality has changed for you. For all of us. And now, for the eternity that we spent under your control, we will release our every little dirty, horrible fantasy of pain we ever thought about you.
GOLIATH
There are many.
LILITH
And you deserve them all.
GOLIATH, LILITH, and HOLE corner PANDORA.
PANDORA
No. No! I’m in control! I’m in control!
PANDORA screams at the top of HER lungs. Blackout.
SFX: The wind hand howling rises in volume with PANDORA’s screams, and a few screams after, and then it dies down to nothing.
Lights rise. No one is onstage.
Beat.
HOLE walks out. HE’s pushing a comfortable chair which HE places carefully in the middle of the stage before exiting. HE comes out with another and places it next to the first.
PSYCHE [OS]
Deary?
HOLE
It’s almost ready.
HOLE exits. HE returns with the book PANDORA was reading earlier in one hand, and the other HE holds a newspaper. HE places the book in one chair and sits down in the other. HE reads the newspaper.
HOLE
Honey?
PSYCHE [OS]
Coming.
PSYCHE enters. SHE walks gracefully as a feather dancing on a frozen pond. SHE sits down next to HOLE.
PSYCHE
Is that the book you’re so desperate for me to read?
HOLE
Yes, it is. Would you?
HOLE hands over the book, and PSYCHE grabs it.
PSYCHE
I would.
SHE opens it and starts reading. HOLE starts to read the newspaper.
PSYCHE
Deary?
HOLE
Hm
m?
PSYCHE
This book seems awfully familiar. Have I read this before?
HOLE
No. You’ve never read it before. It must be one of those things.
PSYCHE
Must be.
SLOW fade of lights until blackout.
END SCENE VII
THE END
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