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]

Shit.

[trustheart]

…Oh, now you have fucking standards.

[sweetsynergy]

Standards have nothing to do with the fact that that's BAD, Chris.

[she should not be getting into this, she should not be getting into this-]

An incentive like that could push- absolutely anyone into killing.

[Vanity manages to not glance at Hawke directly in that half-heartbeat pause.]

[trustheart]

As cold and dispassionate a way of looking at it as ever. Knew we could count on you, Vanity.

[sweetsynergy]

Yeah, yeah, that's what I'm here for.

[She looks away. This is what she wanted, after all.]

[trustheart]

…

[ Chris lets out a heavy sigh. ]

Hawke didn’t do this. She’s not the type of person who would, okay?

[sweetsynergy]

I wasn't worried about that.

[Boy does that response come a little too quick.]

[trustheart]

The hell you weren’t! You keep glancing at her, you dipshit!

[sweetsynergy]

Don't waste your concern on me, Chris.

[That gets her to look back in Chris' direction.]

I don't need it, especially not from you.

[trustheart]

…This is officially fucking sad. I can show a willingness to talk to Misty “Dismemberment For Fun And Games” Quigley, I can show you a modicum of pity, you fucking asshole.

All we have here is each other, Vanity. Are we going to keep making each other miserable, or are we going to do something to at least make this tolerable? Or do you want us to treat you like a sad fucking wet cat until the end of time?

[sweetsynergy]

You should! What the hell is wrong with you, trying to pity me after all this?

[You're supposed to hate her, everyone's supposed to hate her, SHE would hate herself in your position-]

You want everyone else to hate you too, or do you think this will score you points or something?

[trustheart]

This has nothing to do with that, it has everything to do with making this hell we're trapped in a fraction less miserable! Now are you going to stop making things worse for yourself, or are you going to finally woman up and start trying to be decent for once in your miserable life?!

[ Chris gestures to everything around her. ]

Look around, Vanity! We're fucking dead! There are no more plans! No more schemes! No more points to earn! Rinne is in shock because the girl she loves is dead, and yet she's here bravely watching to see who killed her! Everyone here is trying to face our afterlife head-on! Everyone but you! I fucking hate you more than anyone, but there's still a part of me that loves you and hates to see you torture yourself and set yourself up to be roasted like this, over and over...you're a fencing master and you STILL let me, a fucking archer who's never gotten in a close up fight in her life, beat the fuck out of you!

[ She walks forward and attempts to shake Vanity by the shoulders. ]

You're Vanity vonAegis! You're the cruelest, most vindictive bitch I know! And I knew both Mariko and Dorothy! GET THE FUCK OVER YOURSELF!

[protomartyr]

[ Quietly: ]

I think we shouldn't call Misty names.

[ It's bad for your health. ]

[thatsplato]

It wasn’t fun and games—-

[thatsplato]

She’ll be fine. [Just like Chris, she’s quick to defend Hawke. But Misty sounds resolute.]

It’s hard, because it’s Bethany, but she’s okay.

[sweetsynergy]

She's alive. She's surviving. But like fuck she's okay right now.

because she has to because she has to

[thatsplato]

… I know. Especially after Carver died. But… she will be okay. She always is.

Re: because she has to because she has to

[sweetsynergy]

Will be, sure. Once the Interim Headmistress is- dead, or in prison, or sealed up in the fucking Ark of the Covenant or something, I don't know.

[Look she can't deny the supernatural anymore, maybe they do need to shove her into Rita Repulsa's garbage can and fire her to the moon or something-]

But right now? My best friend is FUCKING HURTING-

[because of her]

[not all because of her]

[but because of her]

-and when people are hurting they do DANGEROUS STUPID SHIT, and sooner or later her luck is going to run out.

[thatsplato]

[And Misty, who has no reason to smile right now? She smiles, so brightly, because it’s just hit her.]

You have no idea.

Your best friend. You think you know her, and you have no idea.

[sweetsynergy]

[she really shouldn't utter the words that are about to leave her mouth-]

Enlighten me.

[thatsplato]

She’s so much more resilient than you know. It’s no surprise, after everything that happened with the accident. The way everyone treated her.

Kind of how Lottie and I were treated, after the accident.

[sweetsynergy]

...Is that it? I'm waiting for this big revelation and what, it's that she got shit for having mono when the bus broke down?

[Hang on.]

Did she actually fucking tell you about her brother or were you fucking creeping on her?

[thatsplato]

[Misty just grins.]

[sweetsynergy]

Okay, you were creeping on her, cool.

[thatsplato]

It’s public information!