witheredblum | sinking down, down

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?

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[ Something is going to happen soon. Lottie can feel it - or rather, smell it. That stench is a terrible omen.

It still doesn't prepare her for what happens next, though. Lottie yelps and scrambles backwards, keeping her eye on the apparition the entire time. ]

What are you? [ And then, to anyone nearby: ] Are you seeing this?

[ Lottie isn't sure which is worse: that this is real, or that it's not real. ]

[ Hundreds of eyes swivel to look at Lottie as this... whatever it is, tries to pull itself out of the pool. It groans, and the groan is an unfamiliar song.

The apparition reaches towards Lottie. ]

[ For a moment, Lottie freezes.

Then she decides: fuck it. She is a prophet of the wilderness. She is god's favorite sacrificial lamb. She is already dead, and will never see Laura Lee again. What does she have to lose?

Lottie reaches back. ]

[and Misty? Misty who never believed in the wilderness, who believed that Lottie saw something, but Misty, Misty's far beyond that---

Misty's screaming!]

[ When Lottie touches the hand - the hand that is clearly a little confused at the reciprocation, the scene lurches and shifts.

It is 2004. You do not know this by means of a calendar, but rather by the music in the background of the scene. The pool is clear of water and covered in... anti-George W Bush graffiti, mostly. You can't see the pool floor from where you're standing. All around it stand a bunch of teenage girls in hooded cloaks, chanting something in Latin. It's probably Latin. They definitely think it's Latin. ]

[ Come on Misty, Lottie's having a moment here! She doesn't have time to tell Misty to shut up before the scene shifts. Suddenly, there are several more important things than Misty's freak-out. ]

Shh.

[ Lottie looks for an opening in the circle, and steps into wherever there's space. She doesn't know the words, but a ritual is a ritual. Lottie can make do.

Can she see the bottom of the pool from here? Or touch any of the girls? ]

[ There's no touching any of the girls, I fear, and none of them even slightly seem to notice you.

At the bottom of the pool, struggling in some very shallow water, is another teenage girl. ]

Come on! This isn't funny!

[ You can see just how many eyes there are in the circle, watching her. ]

[ Not being noticed is fine by Lottie, because it gives her license to do whatever she likes, such as kneel by the side of the empty pool, trying to get a good look at the girl at the bottom. Does she look like the face from the apparition? ]

[ Yeah, as much as anyone's face looked like that thing? But she's down there, and she's struggling against...

... You know, most people wouldn't think it, but if someone's stuck in it? It's possible to drown in a couple inches of water. ]

[ When Lottie told Laura Lee about her visions, Laura Lee insisted they were a gift. That to discern the true from the false, all Lottie had to do was accept god into her heart. And so Laura Lee took Lottie out to her pool, and held her in a firm yet gentle embrace, and plunged Lottie under the water. As Lottie stares at this girl being drowned as punishment, held by nothing except mocking, leering eyes, Lottie feels Laura Lee's hand over hers.

She focuses, as Misty told her to, attempting to slip down the side of the pool, into the bottom of the basin. If she reaches the bottom, she will try to wrap an arm around the drowning girl, her thumb rubbing against her back.

This happened long ago. There's no way to change the outcome. But maybe in this version of events, the girl died comfortable. ]

It's okay. [ Lottie murmurs. ] It won't hurt. You're going somewhere beautiful.

[ The girl coughs weakly, sputters.

Someone from up above breaks rank ]

Uh... guys?

[ There's a flash, and you're back at the bottom of the pool in the present day, now empty.

Near you is a picnic basket, covered in a layer of mold that dries out and drops away, as if it's aging in reverse.

And at your feet is the girl, once again whole. ]

[ Lottie looks up at the voice. By the time she looks back down, the scene has changed. At least the girl is still there, though. That's a relief, even if it does mean that Lottie was kind of lying about her going someplace beautiful. This old pool is honestly pretty ugly.

Still! She reaches out to the girl, and if she can, lays a hand on her shoulder. ]

Hey. Can you hear me?

[ It turns out? She definitely can, in the same way she's been able to touch any other ghost here. ]

Mm... wha?

[ She starts to stir, turning over. ]

[ The girl looks pretty normal, giving a little bit of an embarrassed smile. ]

That wasn't very welcoming of me, was it?

In your defense, you were a little tied up.

[ SHUT UP MISTY they are having a MOMENT!!!! ]

I guess, but even before that...

[ She sighs. ]

When you spend too much time alone as a ghost, you can go a little wacky.

[ It's okay Lottie can salvage this come on Lottie lock the fuck in

Earnestly: ] I didn't think you were being wacky at all.

[ Is she blushing a little no it's probably just the bad lighting- ]

I appreciate it, but I definitely don't think I was in my right mind. Not that that's going to happen to you or anything! I don't know all the ghost rules, but... I guess I've been doing this for longer than you guys, so if you have any questions... um...

It's understandable that it happened to you. I would have been really angry, if I were in your position.

[ No one likes to be sacrificed to an audience. ]

Are you doing all right now?

Twenty years is enough to get over a lot of things... but also a lot of time to be alone in an abandoned pool. So... fifty-fifty?

[and weirdly enough? Lottie shushing her does shush Misty, enough that she can focus on the girls chanting. Because Misty does know some Latin. Are they.... speaking Latin?]

[ Yes! It's a little... broken, but they're definitely talking about Satan and... the witch of Rosenblum? ]

[She'd laugh at them if she wasn't currently a ghost.

As is, she turns to stare with Lottie, at the girl in the pool.]

sinking down, down

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cw drowning

cw drowning, ableism, conversion to christianity

cw drowning, mold

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