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

investigation 2: electric boogaloo

[rosewitch]

[Well. Time for some Severance board-esque behaviors. How's the trial room looking now?]

[facultwist]

[ The shadows in the room are starting to lengthen. Not the ones piggybacking on your friends, thank goodness. But all of the natural ones, they're getting longer. Bigger. ]

[sweetsynergy]

[Trying to square up, but- looking around, cause boy there's shadows EVERYWHERE here-]

Shit.

[rosewitch]

Oh.

There's someone new. Is that the witch?

[bellpepperexercise]

Sounds witch-like? ...what is she gonna do with those votes, then?

[sweetsynergy]

Unless we're dealing with fractal masterminds- and nothing good, I'd bet.

[rosewitch]

Kill Hatsune. Isn't she?

[lifegoalsorwifegoals]

...She'll break her own rules just to abide by this "game" now...

[bellpepperexercise]

That's what I'd think. But...what has the Headmistress sounding so freaked out about doing it?

[There's a pit in her stomach.]

[rosewitch]

[And when the witch's voice takes over on its own?]

[facultwist]

[ Visibly, nothing changes. But the aura of the room, the vibes, if you will, are getting rancid. That oppressive force you felt, Anthy? It's not pushing in on you or holding you down. But you can feel it all over. ]

[rosewitch]

[Hm. Gross!]

Brace yourselves.

cw: gendered insult

[sweetsynergy]

[To the air in general-]

Round two you overdramatic bitch-

[trustheart]

Nnngh. This is gonna suck!

[bellpepperexercise]

...do we get ready to hit something?

[bellpepperexercise]

The witch. What...what's gonna happen to her?

[To Hatsune, mainly. But also...the Interim Headmistress.]

The Headmistress is...if she's our age, who is she really?

[lifegoalsorwifegoals]

Does she sound...scared?

[rosewitch]

Yes. She has for a while.

[trustheart]

Forgive me if I don’t fucking feel bad for her.

[rosewitch]

I do. She's as trapped as we are.

Not very bad, though.

[trustheart]

[ Chris winces, recalling the feeling of terror. The feeling of being crushed. Of having the life squeezed out of her body. And then drifting, formless and tormented by the feeling she failed everyone for over a week. ]

Think what you want. My feelings are my own.

[banishedfromparadise]

If I held a grudge, I could say so much right now...

[Like "some of us didn't give in and kill," for instance.

But she's being nice and not saying that.]

[thatsplato]

What? You? Not forgiving?

Never.

[ergine]

Oh — Alena had an idea... She suggested to me that Miss Interim Headmistress is the twenty-second person we keep coming across evidence of. The more I think about it, the more I think that she is right about that.

[rosewitch]

I think so, too. I think she—

[And then the projector comes on, and the witch comes out.]