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]

[By the time Sunday rolls around, Vanity is fully back to moving without hurting all over and is checking up on the living. Hearing they all made it out isn't quite the same as actually seeing them still alive and well, especially after getting slammed into the bottom of the pool with her own disembodied ass held desperately in her hands.]

[So of course she eventually ends up in the library, warily eying Shadow Hawke and glancing down at the yearbooks Shadow-Was-My-Furry-Awakening Hawke is glancing through.]

Oh come on, at least go through the newer ones so we can maybe find the head bitch-

[And then Hawke pauses over one photo in particular.]

...oh shit, is that-

[Later on she can be found in the lounge, trying and failing to haunt the TV.]

Oh COME ON-

[She just kind of. Smacks at the box in futility.]

YOU ARE ELECTRONS, THIS SHOULD BE EASY-

[trustheart]

[ Chris is watching Vanity watch Hawke, having nothing better to do and wishing she were hanging out with Rinne instead, when suddenly she sees who Hawke and Vanity are both pointing out. ]

…Mom?!

[sweetsynergy]

[Vanity jumps a little at the sudden outburst, stepping back a bit as Chris rushes in.]

Your mom was an alum?

[trustheart]

[ Chris just gapes at the page before Hawke turns past it, blinking. ]

A-Apparently. It was in their will that I go here, but I thought they were just making sure I went to a decent school or something. I had no idea mom went here!

[sweetsynergy]

[That feels like a lot.]

...She looked a lot like you.

[trustheart]

…I guess so.

[ Chris looks down at the ground. ]

It’s weird. I never really felt like I had a real connection to her before, but now…

[sweetsynergy]

Did none of those assholes executing their will tell you this, really?

[trustheart]

No. Not really. None of them ever said anything more than they had to to me, honestly.

[sweetsynergy]

God do high-priced attorneys fucking suck- If we ever get better at this haunting shit you should definitely ghost-phone those guys and yell at them or something.

[trustheart]

I’m fucking going Poltergeist on their asses!

[sweetsynergy]

...you think with enough time we could travel through fiberoptic lines or something?

[trustheart]

I hope so, cuz I want to leave this dump someday.

[sweetsynergy]

[Sigh]

Ugh. Stuck in school forever, that'd definitely be a special kind of hell.

[eternalfuture]

Vanity? When you're done smacking at the television, can we talk?

[sweetsynergy]

[Vanity freezes, for just a second.]

How long were you watching- I mean- yeah. What, uh. Yes.

[She stands a little straighter, clearing her throat into a fist, arms tight and gaze not quite meeting Usagi's.]

[eternalfuture]

[Not long, she promises.]

...okay.

[She'll walk over to one side of the room, gesturing for Vanity to follow.]

...I should be angry at you. Was angry at you, when I wasn't just...sad.

But I'm not. Not anymore.

[sweetsynergy]

You probably should be.

[When Rinne walked into the kitchen, she'd been- angry, maybe? Desperate to keep her plan as on track as possible, trying to adapt on the fly. Running on adrenaline and survival instinct, no time to think.]

[The second time she was interrupted. She'd seen Usagi and felt cold panic. Hearing her talk and knowing it didn't matter, couldn't, if she wanted to survive.]

What happened- no. What I did. To you, specifically. It was fucked up.

[eternalfuture]

That's just it. I was. I've been avoiding you because I didn't know what I was going to say other than -

[Usagi stares off into the middle distance for a moment.]

- than ask why, and cry a lot, and...I realized, eventually, that all that anger wasn't going to actually get me anywhere. It wasn't going to get me an answer.

But that anger isn't there anymore.

[sweetsynergy]

Because-

[But she hesitates, looking away for a second. Down. And finally, with effort, meets Usagi's gaze.]

So no anger. What replaced it? And I swear if you say "forgiveness" or something I'm gonna need a minute to go scream into a pillow.

[eternalfuture]

Something that I think will eventually be forgiveness. It's not there yet, not completely, but...it's like a seed of it that's been planted. If we had more time, I think it would bloom.

[she sighs.]

I remember enough of the 'other me' from the dreams that we had, and that girl would have immediately jumped to forgiveness.

[but she's not that girl. she's not the girl that can have so much love in her heart that she can embrace whatever comes at her.]

[sweetsynergy]

Yeah, well.

[It stings, somehow, worse than if Usagi were saying she hated Vanity. The hatred was expected, what she'd always expected.]

[She chews her lip, looking away for another long second, foot tapping an erratic, rapid pattern.]

I remember my dream, too. The me I was- hell, I guess maybe who I was trying to be. I don't think she'd be sorry.

[Deep breath.]

But for whatever it might be worth, I am.

[eternalfuture]

[If this had happened immediately after her death, Usagi would have said she hated Vanity. Now, though, she just doesn't have the space in her heart for it.]

...thank you. Is it wrong of me to say that I'm sorry, too? I know I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, but...

[and that's when the tears well up in her eyes.]

[sweetsynergy]

Are you sorry for getting murdered-?

[tears]

[oh god not again]

Do you, um- ...okay is it gonna be weirder if I offer a hand here or if I go get someone who didn't kill you?

[eternalfuture]

Part of me still blames myself.

[It's said through her tears, but the act of saying it makes Usagi wipe her eyes and clear her throat. She's trying to pull it together.]

I don't think it's gonna be weird either way? But your call.

[sniffle.]

[sweetsynergy]

I'm. Literally. The one to blame.

[hhhhhhhhhhhh she hates this]

[hell is real, this is it]

[She. Very stiffly. Puts an attempt at a comforting hand on Usagi's shoulder, pulling an ephemeral handkerchief from a breast pocket and passing it over.]

[hate hate hate hate. don't be cry.]