sinking down, down

[facultwist]

Death is a drop into a blackness that swallows you. You feel the movement of not air but shadow across your face as you plummet, and there is no bottom. No crash.

If there is another side, you do not reach it.

It is neither the light of heaven or the fires of hell that greets you when you wake. And wake you do, to the buzz and flicker of old fluorescent lights.

You are laid out beside a full-size competitive swimming pool, half-filled with stagnant water. The doors out are blocked off by locked doors covered in caution tape. The locker rooms are long since emptied, paint peeling from the humidity. The only signs of habitation are a few pieces of scattered graffiti.

Welcome to your new home. There's no sunlight, no indication of time passing. Just you and each other and your thoughts. the stagnant water bubbles a little occasionally, but there's nothing in it.

Before long you'll realize that you no longer need to eat or drink. You might notice your hand go through something if you don't focus. You're a ghost now. What's that they say about unfinished business?

Comments

[bellpepperexercise]

Um...I had some tea in the lounge while I was reading that book of Rinne's, then I started feeling really tired. I think Kohaku brought me somewhere else to lie down, then uh...nothing.

Oh.

Oh no.

[Something happened to her. To both of them.]

Are, uh...are yours any clearer?

[rosewitch]

[It's. Weird? But she's genuinely relieved. Way more than she expected to be, not that she expected much of anything. She wasn't happy with the way it went with Dorothy, not entirely. It makes her feel better knowing at least Kana didn't know what was happening.]

[That's probably not a healthy emotion. Oh, well.]

[Anyway. Time to navigate this mess.]

Yes. I killed Dorothy. Then I was stoned and drowned.

[. . . by bulldozing straight through it.]

cw victim-blaming language kind of

[bellpepperexercise]

You...oh my god.

[Kana isn't sure quite how to feel with the double-whammy of being dead and also Anthy revealing that she'd murdered a whole other person.]

She scared you, huh, Anthy?

She threatened who people cared about. I couldn't remember being that close with who she showed me, but I should have known...staying out that late was a bad idea.

[It's terrible to kill anyone, but...maybe it's her own death that makes it harder for Kana to feel that much spite towards Anthy. Whatever made such a gentle girl who struggled with how to deal with being apologized to decide to kill must have been horrible.]

[rosewitch]

[Oh, man. Oh, jeez. More empathy? She looks. Kind of scrungly and uncomfortable. With her hair wet, she looks like a weird sad rat.]

The person she showed me — my friend. I knew it was current because it was in the hospital. She was doing physical therapy after an injury. That's how I knew it wasn't a bluff. A lot of people thought it was, but . . .

Yes. I was scared. She's my most important person.

[bellpepperexercise]

...so not something that could be faked easily.

[Kana couldn't tell one way or the other with hers, since in her current memory, she's pretty sure it's been four years since she's seen Akane. A clearly recent photo, though? Of course Anthy would freak out.]

Of course you'd want to protect somebody so important to you. I don't think that's wrong by itself.

[She can't condemn or hate Anthy for an ultimately honest intention in her crimes. She's not sure she fully hates Kohaku either, even if the feelings are far more complicated.]

I'm more mad at her for putting everyone in the position to be scared of that. Even calling her an interim headmistress feels like way too much respect.