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You turn the dagger over in your hands, considering. It's this or the banana peel; not really a question at all. You just need to make sure you're somewhere none of them will see you.
Good thing you know exactly where they are at all times! Haha, good going, Siffrin!!! This will be easy!!!!
Actually, the easiest place to do it would be the Favor Tree, wouldn't it? Isa has already left to follow his second stage direction, and Loop... well, it's not as if they'd do anything to stop you, is it?
You might as well just go do it in front of them. If you try to be furtive, they'll just get up in your face with that "Gasp! Stardust! How could you, et cetera!" crab they'd given you when you first realized you could just use the dagger.
You've only done this once before. It had hurt, of course. They all hurt. But this kind of pain was strangely cathartic, in a way. It had felt almost good, just for a second, before you saw Isa's panicked face, and then it was over, nice and quick.
Maybe you could take it a little slower, this time.
"Stardust, something is seriously off with you this loop."
You aren't even under the crabbing tree yet, Loop!! Why do they have to do this every time? Look into your thoughts, or read you like a book, like they know what you're going to feel before you feel it. You think, more and more, that your offhand guess that Loop is you might be more right than you think.
And if that's true, that makes what you're about to do even better.
"I want you to do it this time." You hadn't come here with that intention, but now that it's been spoken out loud, you realize that it's what you want. To be carved open, filleted like that fish whose head you usually don't eat, for Loop to hold your beating heart in their hand and crush it. To be swallowed and consumed the way you do to your friends in your nightmares.
Loop's lashes flutter as they blink rapidly, stunned. There's almost a hint of a blush on their darkless face. You get the sense that if they had a mouth in the traditional sense, it'd be gaping open like that fish.
You stare at them, at the softly pulsing star of their head, at its neighbor on their chest. A miniature constellation. It's nice to be able to remember that word. How long will it be before it slips away again?
Your finger traces the shape of the star on their chest, hovering in the air, not touching them. You've been trying to keep up with your "touch therapy" in the gardening room, brushing against your family as again and again they do not acknowledge your warmth, but you have never touched Loop.
You can feel their warmth through your gloves, through the distance.
Wordlessly, they take the dagger from your outstretched hand. No witty quips this time, just silence, stretched out like taffy.
"Make it like yours," you say. Your voice is hoarse, raw.
Loop understands. They always do.
You sling your cloak back over your shoulders, exposing as much as you'll allow of your chest and stomach. They do your clothes first, two long slashes, down then across. The very tip grazes your skin on the second stroke, beads of dark blood welling up.
You shudder at the sting, something settling inside you. It's like that piece of glass, if they didn't interrupt you every time you try to look at it, a bright sharp pain that blooms over you.
"You're... sure about this, stardust?" Loop's voice is soft, almost tentative. The hand holding the dagger trembles a little.
"I'm sure." You peel back your clothes, holding bloodied cloth to the side as you wait for the pain.
They carve out the shape carefully. At first it's just a light touch, the sharp point of your dagger tracing the outline of a star. Your body warms.
Then they press harder, following the lines. The cut is clean, your dagger sharp enough that you'd barely notice how deep it went in if it weren't for the dark blood drenching the blade and running down Loop's arm.
"It's warm," they say, sounding almost awed. You shudder.
"You can touch," you choke out, blood bubbling up in your throat. Please, please touch, you want—you need—
Loop slips a finger along the line of the cut, featherlight. You don't have long now, your breath coming short and blood pouring from the wound with every gasp, and it feels almost euphoric to die like this.
Their hand slips inside, both of you gasping simultaneously at the feeling. Raw flesh and muscle and bone, places you have never been touched before, come alive under their fingertips. They skim the edges of your ribs, trace the star shape, their mark on you, coax out more warm blood as dizziness overtakes you. Two fingers slip between two ribs, disappearing inside you, so far you think they might come out the other side, press their way through viscera and skin and tear you open.
Loop presses their forehead to yours as you take a final, gasping breath, their fingers twisting inside you, and that shade is behind your eye but it's warmer than before, the one the books call red and then
YOU WERE K I L L E D . . .
You wake up.
You dreamed of a hand, plucking out your heart and swallowing it whole.
Your stomach, for the first time in who knows how many loops, does not churn.