Kakania: What are you talking about?
Kakania: The "Storm," the war ...? I don't understand.
Kakania covers her head, retreating backwards.
Kakania: If that's true, then the world we are living in, the era, and the people ...
Kakania: Everything will be destroyed in the near future?
Outside, the thick smoke of the riot rises. Far away, the windows of the café are shattered by debris, and people scatter in all directions.
And in the distant grand halls, and in the exquisite mansions filled with roses, the waltz of the great empire continues to play.
Kakania: "Only the chosen ones will survive the 'Storm.'" What about the others? Millions out there have never even heard of the "Storm"!
Isolde: Yes, only the chosen ones will survive the "Storm." This is a trial, doctor.
She remains smiling and calm, like an uncanny portrait of her former self.
A person Kakania feels she no longer knows ... or maybe never did.
Kakania: A trial?
Kakania: Then who started it? Who decided the standard?
Kakania: You? Or the so-called Guiding One? God? Or the supreme existence?
Kakania: Who gave them the power to decide the fate of others? Who allows such absurdities to happen?
She steps forward with each salvo in her barrage of questions, voicing the confusion burning in her mind.
Kakania: What is "the past with the right order"? If time just keeps going backwards, when and where will it stop?
Kakania: To a time when man did not exist? Or to a time before civilization?
Kakania: Then why did we write poems, pursue art, and develop civilization? Why did we try so hard to make progress? What was the point of it all?!
Her chest heaves like a burning furnace, rage red-hot in her face.
Meanwhile, the delicate figure ahead only slightly furrows its brow.
Isolde: I don't understand, doctor ...
The cold face tilts as if taken with genuine bewilderment.
Isolde: Why are you so concerned about "the others"?
Kakania: ...?!
Kakania suddenly feels a chill rising from her hands and feet.
Isolde: When we reach the new world ... we can fully realize your dream. We will create a kingdom of freedom for everyone!
Isolde: As for the embers of the old world ... they are like a tumor that should be removed ...
Isolde: Why care about them?
Kakania: A tumor that should be removed ...?
Kakania watches her bow.
She remains standing on the stage.
Isolde gently lifts her skirt, swaying her body as if dancing. Her voice melodious, as if singing.
No one else hears the silent waltz she's dancing to beneath the drumbeat of explosions outside.
Isolde: Look at this painting. How chaotic it is!
Isolde: Look at the repression in the darkness. Look at the beasts in the people's hearts, and the maggots under the golden surface.
Isolde: I listen to them, as they listen to me.
Isolde: The shadowy echoes inside the skulls, the cacophonies of chaotic colors, the smudges on the canvas of rationality, and the filth in front of magnificent boulevards ...
Isolde: They were excised, suppressed, the top paint scraped off and replaced with an empty, monotonous white.
Isolde: Yet in the end, they will be released, to the fullest, to everything!
She spins, performing the steps of her waltz, her skirt tracing a circle as demure as the satin shoes on her feet.
As she dances, a close cacophonous roar rises from the window.
Kakania: ...?!
Kakania: Downstairs ... Is that an explosion? You ...
The dancer before her suddenly seems more dangerous than ever, but her feet are stuck, as if coated in resin, unable to move a step.
Isolde: Theophil has left! He shone like a star in the end, just as he wished.
Isolde: But the rest of them, with their rocks and shattered windows, are still left to struggle.
Isolde: If only I could help them, just like how I helped Theophil.
Kakania: ... What do you mean you helped Theophil?
She smiles—an arc filled with saccharine pity.
Isolde: You didn't hear him! You were not there.
Isolde: He ran at me, stuttering my name.
Isolde: Every inch of his skin was ravaged by flame. So much pain. So much spectacle.
Isolde: "I need to get water!" But he was already on fire.
Isolde: And the only water I found was in his skull and veins.
She suddenly stops, as if the music score has reached a rest.
Isolde's arm extends straight. Her thumb points up, her index finger extends forward pointedly, her forearm lifts into a shooter's stance.
Isolde: Bang.
The sound of this empty gunshot pierces straight through Kakania, as surely as a bullet.
Kakania: No, Ms. Dittarsdorf ... Isolde ... You ...
Kakania: You shot Theophil on purpose ...?
The doctor's lips mutter, voicing the question as if to herself, as if searching for the proof in her own memory.
She still remembers the fragile trembling that filled her embrace that day, and the sensation of tears soaking her neck.
Kakania: So this is the truth you had repressed? You ...
The actress turns around, never before so true to life.
Isolde: You were right, doctor. Lifting your repression is the first step to liberation. I am fully cured!
Isolde: Look at me. Did I do a good job?
Kakania: ...!
Once again, an explosion rocks the ground from below, and smoke begins to pour over the streets, rising into view.
This room, so rich in history, is shaken by bursts of long-aged dust.
Isolde: Come with me, doctor. I am inviting you, just like how you invited me.
Isolde: Let's heal the world and save it together!
The actress turns and reaches out, but now there is no one before her.
Only an empty door.
Isolde: ...?
Isolde: Doctor ...?
Kakania: pants
She runs, her mind forcefully blank.
Without the luxury of reason, direction, or purpose, she flees on instinct alone.
Finding her way back quickly reaches a dead end. The path she came by is obscured. Everything warping beneath the unsettled dust.
Vendor I: There, is that Ms. Kakania?!
Vendor I: Relax, people. Ms. Kakania is on our side! She has helped us a lot!
Kakania: Illich ...
Behind Illich stands a throng of bizarre figures.
Immigrants without residence permits, workers who can't pay their rent, farmers who have lost their land, traders who can't afford their wares, critters with nowhere to go within the city.
Kakania: What are you doing ...?
Vendor I: A gentleman from America said we could do something big here, so I gathered everyone!
Vendor I: We will march down to the Carinthian Street, to the Vienna branch of the Foundation. Our slogan will be "EQUAL RIGHTS AND FREEDOM FOR ARCANISTS" ... How American is that?
The peddler feigns a smile, yet his expression remains spirited.
Vendor I: He seems to be quite a big shot with wads of cash in his pocket and reliable connections in the government!
Vendor I: He said we no longer have to worry about the residence permit and the arcanum license after this job!
Kakania: ...
Kakania: No longer ...
Kakania chews on the words absentmindedly, but the hopeful figure immersed does not seem to notice.
Vendor I: Aren't you coming with us, miss? This kind of activity is your favorite, isn't it?
Vendor I: ... Hey, where are you going?
Right. Where are you headed?
"Doctor Kakania, isn't this exactly what you've always been so passionate about?"
"Doctor, isn't this exactly what you've espoused, just put in practice?"
Out of nowhere, she recalls the words of that poem.
"Seeking Silenus in the woods, I asked him."
A sharp question shoots up out of her skull.
???: Kakania, you should be tried and punished!
Kakania: Why?
???: You gave your friends hope, prescribed them treatment, and vowed to stand by their side. But now you're silent and turning away. This is a betrayal!
???: You betrayed your patient, you ran away from your kind. You are unfit to be a psychiatrist, you're not worthy to be a human being!
Kakania: What am I supposed to do then?!
Kakania: My patient, I never figured out her true thoughts and feelings. And my fellow kinfolk, they were innocent and unaware of the manipulations of the influential.
Kakania: Even I was in confusion. How could I tell them the truth that I didn't know?
Kakania: How am I supposed to face the overwhelming madness and destruction on my own?!
???: So, you're just someone who happens to stumble upon the truth, a bystander who happens to be watching from the shore!
???: This is why you are a disgrace.
???: It's a sin to just stand by and watch; it's a sin to promise salvation but fail to bring them ashore; it's an even greater sin to ignore this tragedy and turn away!
Kakania: ... Yes. I admit.
Kakania: I'm a hypocrite.
Kakania: I used to be so eager to help my friends, but when they really needed me, I turned my back on them.
Kakania: I told her to release her repressions, but when she actually did, I couldn't face the destructive consequences.
Kakania: I propagated my dream with great enthusiasm, hoping all my kith could live in a free world. But if it's realized in this way, it's the worst nightmare imaginable for everyone!
Kakania: I said I would start the secession of the arcanists, but what is the essence of this movement? A rebirth, or a complete betrayal?
Kakania: I'm just like my father, mother, and brother, who tried to shed the label of "arcanists selling small wares" as soon as they climbed up the social ladder.
Kakania: I'm lost. So please, tell me ... What should I do?
The reply is a cold laugh.
???: You already know, don't you?
???: "Who shall vanish in the rain?"
???: "Who shall be granted the eternal happiness, the grace from above—"
???: "And that emptiness, the cessation of existence?"
In a daze, she stands in the middle of the Ring Road, letting the chaos pass by around her.
A stone debris from another explosion flies toward her, but her stance remains unchanged, as if oblivious or welcoming of it.
Marcus: Ms. Kakania!
The stone suddenly changes its trajectory.
Her body is pulled away. The figure shaking her is a familiar face.
Marcus: You are fine. Thank goodness! I've been trying so hard to find you.
Marcus: I have something important to tell you.
The young assistant clutches the doctor's sleeve tightly.
Marcus: A catastrophe is about to sweep across the globe.
Marcus: But there are still things we can do. If it goes smoothly ... perhaps we can save plenty of lives.
