Lirilì doesn't remember walking here.
She doesn't remember where "here" is.
There's no geography. No sky. Just architecture made of almosts.Chandeliers that flicker in languages.Marble staircases descending into memories that never happened.
This is the Pre-Stage.
The place the Score skips over.The pause between final notes.A place that cannot exist—unless two people remember it at the same time.
She clutches Tralalero's veil to her chest.
And when she turns—
—Tralalero is already there.
They don't speak.
At first.
Their eyes do.
A thousand forgotten kisses surge forward between them.
Not yet given.
Not yet taken.
Lirilì steps back.
"We said we wouldn't try again unless the world was ending."
Tralalero nods.
"It is."
Lirilì's voice cracks.
"Do you still want to?"
"Yes," says Tralalero.
"But I want to be wanted back."
Lirilì looks up.
Eyes burning.
"Then come take me."
They run.
Toward each other.
But the Pre-Stage begins to fracture.
The Score rejects the moment.
The Gate tries to pull Tralalero back.The Opposition — La Frattura — rips into the fabric of the space from all corners of unreality.
Bombardiro Crocodillo emerges from a spiral of broken rosaries.
"Not yet," he growls."Not here."
He throws his sword—not at Tralalero—
—at the space between her and Lirilì.
The distance.
The longing.
The tension.
The sword embeds itself into the floor of the Pre-Stage, and time stops again.
But the girls don't freeze.
They fall.
Together.
Into a space beneath the memory of gravity.
And they land—
—in the real world.
They wake up in Florence.
Naked.
Bleeding.
Hands still clasped.
The opera house bell tolls in the distance.
They have crossed the boundary.
The kiss is now inevitable.
Unless someone kills them first.
Elsewhere, the Opposition regroups:
Bombardiro sharpening a blade made of dead verses.
Tung Tung Tung Sahur building a tower of sonic weapons tuned to shatter harmony.
Cappuccina weeping, torn between sides, dancing prophecies under her breath.
And Chimpanzini Bananini?
He's found a second banana.This one says:
KISS THEM YOURSELF AND IT ENDS DIFFERENTLY.
He begins to panic.
"What the hell did I trade last time?"