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]

[Vanity is here. She spends a few fruitless moments trying to swat away the shadowy figure clinging to Hawke before actually focusing on the meeting itself.]

[This exchange gets a bit of an annoyed huff, because REALLY, you two. Harold-]

...Did anyone else have more of those weird dreams before they died?

[thatsplato]

You had weird dreams too?

[sweetsynergy]

[Vanity opens her mouth. Closes it. Recalls when the dreams started, specifically in relation to Misty's fun little body scavenger hunt.]

[And, with the air of someone who knows this is going to lead to nothing but regret-]

What dreams did you have here.

[thatsplato]

I had one where Caligula could talk, in full conversations.

[sweetsynergy]

Caligula.

[thatsplato]

My soulmate.

[sweetsynergy]

[Running some quick mental math.]

...So Caligula is a pet what, exactly.

[rosewitch]

I had another dream after you died.

[sweetsynergy]

Sounds like a lot of people did.

[Like holy shit Hawke.]

Did yours involve magic swordfights too?

[rosewitch]

Why would I tell you that?

[sweetsynergy]

Because it might be relevant to whatever the hell is going on here. I'm not twisting your damn arm.

[rosewitch]

I told Thomasin and Dagr about my dream. If they think it's relevant, they can bring it up themselves.

Please understand. You've given me no reason whatsoever to want to cooperate with you, in fact have exclusively insulted me since I arrived, and yet you expect me to trust you with personal information. Trust is earned.

[ergine]

It sounds like Thomasin and I had the same dream. [ Regarding running away with another girl, she means. ] Oh—and another one where I was me... Though, it was the aftermath that felt truly unpleasant.

[sweetsynergy]

["Yes, I'm sure the aftermath of being you WOULD be unpleasant-" ...is a response that doesn't quite make it to her lips. This is perhaps progress? Or the bare minimum.]

Your life, but not your life, right?

[ergine]

[ probably for the best, seeing as Kohaku is no longer making an effort and would just be like "yeah :)" to make Vanity uncomfortable ]

Yes. Hisui-chan was the same, but everything around the two of us was different.

Still, that isn't the point that really disturbed me. After I woke up... It felt like something was crawling around inside me. Like there was something burrowing under my skin.

[sweetsynergy]

Ew.

[She has nothing else, that sounds gross.]

[ergine]

Indeed.

In any case... Could that have something to do with the shadows that are hanging onto them now?

[ She points toward the nearest one she can see. ]

[protomartyr]

I only had a dream about fire. Not...another version of me.

cw: parental death

[sweetsynergy]

We all had the fire dream.

[Except for Sayo, Kanon, and Misty, for obvious reasons.]

The week after, though-

[Sigh.]

For me it was. My father. The night- things ended. Except it kept changing between what actually happened, and the two of us- it was similar, but we were in space, I think?

[protomartyr]

[ Drily: ]

That's nice. I was dead.

[ Come on Lottie lock the fuck in ]

Was your father any different? Besides being in space, I guess.

[sweetsynergy]

[With brief consideration-]

He was calling me by a number instead of my name, does that count?

[protomartyr]

[ That actually gets an eyebrow raise out of Lottie. ]

Mm. Fucked up.

[rosewitch]

Did he not already?

[This sounds like a dig, but it's a genuine curious question. Guy seemed like a real fuckhead.]

[thatsplato]

I didn’t—-

[sweetsynergy]

[Not really looking as she continues her other conversations.]

Uh-huh.