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

[ergine]

But... No matter what you did, it wouldn't have mattered. People would have gotten hurt. If it wasn't anyone here, it would have just been the people we were all threatened with. [ Softly, she sighs—and then she mutters, ] You're really too kind for your own good.

[ literally, seeing as it got her killed ]

[banishedfromparadise]

... You know I didn't want that to happen, either.

[She lets that hang for a moment. Whether she saw it or not, she knows who Kohaku was probably trying to protect, and it's someone Dorothy cares deeply about too.]

But I didn't believe she could actually do it. It didn't make sense. Why trap us all here if she can just reach people anywhere? Finding little trinkets to put in the dumbwaiter isn't the same as being able to do what she did to Chris to anyone, anywhere in the world.

[Was she being smart or stupid? She doesn't know. She was letting her heart lead this time, in a way she hasn't in a long time.]

[ergine]

[ Kohaku shakes her head—suddenly, sharply. ]

You didn't see our execution. When Anthy and I refused to play along, something took control of it away from her. I think she must be the same as Isabella... A tool of something higher up.

[ Which means she isn't the thing bound here. ]

[banishedfromparadise]

[Dorothy squirms a little with discomfort at the word 'execution'. Thinking of Kohaku in that kind of situation... it's almost a blessing she didn't see it, or have to vote. Even being displeased that Kohaku killed someone, Dorothy can still feel bad about whatever happened to her.]

There was something about that at the seance too. The Witch that ghost girl mentioned.

[She had assumed that and the headmistress were the same, but maybe they're separate beings?]

Even so, we still don't know for sure if they can do anything harmful outside of this place.

[She can't be too angry, though. She really can't blame Kohaku for doing what she had to do to keep Hisui safe, if she really believed it. Part of Dorothy is even relieved that she doesn't have to worry about Rachel being targeted either. Just in case it was true.]