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

[facultwist]

[ They appear to be running in roughly chronological order, which makes it a little easier to note that, though the conversations themselves are not familiar, the motives and names of the dead are the same as they have been so far here. ]

[rosewitch]

[Okay. So the conversations aren't conversations Anthy specifically remembers, but there's no indication that they're not from this . . . loop, or whatever. Right?]

[facultwist]

[ Well... if she listens really closely? The locations are a little different, and they speak much worse of Isabella when she comes up. ]

[rosewitch]

[Isabella, you've got some fucking splaining to do.]

[Okay. Okay. Anthy is developing a stress migraine, but okay. She pinches the bridge of her nose and thinks. Is there anything else unusual about the way that they're speaking that would mark it as different from this . . . round? Any specifics about the way they're talking about Isabella, or is it coming specifically from any individual shadow?]

[facultwist]

[ There's nothing concrete for a while, but eventually someone unfamiliar does get mentioned.

It's mumbled too softly to make out the name itself, but none of you have names that begin with O, right? ]

[rosewitch]

[We sure the fuck do not! And Anthy's ears are perked! She's gonna follow that line of conversation until it peters out and be on the lookout (listen out?) for a name starting with O being mentioned again.]

[Character development is her not immediately assuming O is for Ohtori.]

[facultwist]

[ It gets mentioned occasionally! Usually in a pretty friendly or neutral way. Mostly neutral. ]

[trustheart]

[ Sometime later, Chris has heard from Anthy about the name and is digging deeper; she decides to approach Mari. ]

Hey, girl. I wanted to ask you a question. You know about any students whose name begins with the letter "O"?

[al_fresco]

[ Mari blinks, considering for a moment. ]

Odtsetseg? She was a transfer from Mongolia, started the horseback archery club but I think it was just all the girls who had crushes on her. Which, you know. I understood.

[trustheart]

[ ... ]

That doesn't sound like who we're dealing with. Unless she had any megalomaniacal tendencies?

[al_fresco]

Probably not. I don't see a lot of current students, though, if that's what you're asking about. And the Headmistress and the other ghost didn't really refer to each other by name.

[trustheart]

Dammit. I thought we were close to an answer by now...!