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]

[Kana stares blankly for what feels like forever trying to find someone that’s missing. There’s no way that she missed that specifically, though, because who she’s looking for is too tall to blend into the crowd.]

Satsuki.

No, no, no, oh god no…

[lifegoalsorwifegoals]

[ Rinne does not hesitate this time. She takes Kana's hand. ]

Kana-chan... I'm sorry.

[bellpepperexercise]

…thank you.

[Kana squeezes Rinne’s hand, grateful that she’s here as selfish as that is. She wipes at her eyes with her other hand. She’s doing her best not to instantly break down sobbing, because she’s tired of how much crying she’s done this whole time, but hearing that Satsuki died in her room, on her bed, makes something in Kana start to crumble.]

A-a locked room? What…Satsuki, what did you do?

[lifegoalsorwifegoals]

[ Yeah, it being Kana's bed specifically is...

Rinne frowns. A locked room... ]

She...was she responsible for some of it herself...?

[bellpepperexercise]

I…I don’t know. People fake locked rooms all the time, right? Why would she lock herself in while she was dying, that’s…

[lifegoalsorwifegoals]

...You're right. It must be to mislead us- aah, them. Perhaps... I can only imagine...if Satsuki-san were frightened of something...?

[bellpepperexercise]

…you’re onto something, I think.

Satsuki must have realized something was wrong and tried to protect herself.