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

[sweetsynergy]

Where exactly is "there," in this specific context?

[thatsplato]

Mostly Reddit.

[sweetsynergy]

...Reddit, seriously?

[She is almost judging the choice of news sources here more than the way logic is being twisted into an Escher painting.]

[thatsplato]

You'd be surprised at what social media can tell you about a person.

[sweetsynergy]

This was information Hawke posted herself on Reddit, was it.

[thatsplato]

You have a real talent, Vanity! You can take anything anyone says, and spin it in the complete worst-faith direction. Maybe you should see someone about that.

[sweetsynergy]

That'd be a no, then.

[thatsplato]

I learned a lot about the people of Kirkwall. And the way they talk about things. Awful, really, the things they said.

[sweetsynergy]

Yeah, people suck. Sometimes they treat their alleged friends like a fun serial drama instead of a person.

[She thinks for a second.]

You. I am talking about what you did. To Hawke.

[thatsplato]

It’s okay, Vanity.

I took initiative to learn more about her. I didn’t even tell you the best part.

[sweetsynergy]

Good. I don't want to know. Not from you.

[thatsplato]

No one else can tell you this part.

[sweetsynergy]

Well darn.