My rasping breath - and my heart - leaped into my throat as the witch said my name the second time.
"Finn McGill."
Shivering and wet - I could run no more, and the thunderstorm over this hilly moor flashed in her eyes. Smirking, she stalked down to just outside the circle of pale blue light cast by my night herald.
"The last Bard to fall to the Dark. So hard We have worked to take your soul, fought so hard, and have been cheated so many times." Her words were whispered echoes of what the shadows surrounding us sussurated; She was their walking space in this world, their latest champion. They promised her power, and asked for nothing more in return from her than to swallow the spirit that fueled my bardic magics. "The power of your words, your songs will be Ours, your soul as well ..."
Her eyes locked with mine, the cold and swimming hypnotic depths prying into me as she said my birth name the third time.
"Finn McGill." she intoned. I shuddered. The Awen lifted from me.
— The look upon her face as that soul of love and bravery passed to her, as it entered her mind and her body — and as she realised the price she'd have to pay …
I think that when she finally screamed, I could hear the echoes of Weird Al Yankovic's "White And Nerdy" in the tremulous cadences of her last gasp for breath. That means she'd managed to get past Kenny and Dolly's "Islands in the Stream", past even MC Hammer's "Addams Groove", had managed to cope with the glacial mass of the advertisement jingles in major keys, and the torrent of pop songs in I-V-vi-IV.
Maybe "Unskinny Bop" broke her will, maybe it was Vitamin C's "Smile".
The shadows slipped from her, and she was cold, wet, and ashamed, lying naked on the ground.
Her last words were … "what is a «motherfucking birdplane?»".
The nebulous, pale blue warble in the air that had hung over her body floated back to me, rested on my shoulders, melded into me as if it was a pair of wings. I sighed. Concentrating, I pushed down LEN's "If You Steal My Sunshine", and began humming "The Red Shoes" to myself - to drown it out.
Resisting the urge to dance, caper, spin, pirouette and leap (Simultaneously), I began the walk home.
Damn it all.
She almost survived it, too.
This was actually written by me over a decade ago, and I felt it fell within the prompt, though not technically a strict schizophrenia. I updated it a bit with some more references and a nod to the Axis of Awesome for the purposes of posting it. This is the short I use to describe the RPG character that this username — bardfinn — was created for … over two decades ago.
Both the character and I constantly have music going through our heads. However, at this time I think I will take Lin Manuel-Miranda's advice from his Aaron Burr.