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

WEEK SIX

[facultwist]

[ Welcome, Kana, Dorothy, Anthy, and Kohaku.

If you observe the living this week, you'll notice the upper half of some kind of shadowy figure hanging from each of them, arms around their shoulders. The living will not notice. ]

[bellpepperexercise]

[Kana's head feels so heavy. She remembers drifting off a bit, not quite sure what's happening, and Kohaku leading her...somewhere? Is this the conservatory? Wherever it is, Kana rests her head. God, it's gonna be embarrassing if she falls asleep here, but maybe if she just closes her eyes for a few minutes, she can get up whenever Kohaku gets back...

...

...her eyes flicker open, and she's staring at the ceiling of the basement.]

...huh?

[Oh, and she's in a swimming pool.]

HUH?!

[Kana scrambles out of the pool with a confused slightly grossed out shriek.]

I'm in the seance pool?! Who the hell brought me all the way over here--crap. I-I have to...

[She looks around. If she's been dragged in here, somebody must be planning something. She needs to get back to the ground floor--]

...what...what is this?

[sweetsynergy]

Not Hell.

[She was waiting to at least see Dorothy and Kohaku pop in. Just for- she's not sure what. Closure? Gloating? Some undefined third thing?]

[But she's sitting on the edge of the pool, looking down as Kana wakes up. She gets up as Kana scrambles out.]

Technically.

[trustheart]

Kana…

[ Oh my god she has no idea. This is gonna be rough. She needs to put this gently. ]

Kana, it’s me, Chris. You’re dead now.

[lifegoalsorwifegoals]

[ She's here. Of course she's here. Chris was right, after all. What matters most... It's Kana.

Eyes red and brimming, face streaked with tears, she leans over Kana. ]

Kana-chan... Kana-chan, I... I'm so...

[thatsplato]

Hi Kana. [You know what’s so dire?

Waking up to find Misty perched on the edge of the pool, swinging her legs like she’s perched somewhere much less dire.]

cw lite suicidal ideation but it's a bit too late for that huh

[rosewitch]

[Anthy dies. And then, unfortunately, Anthy wakes up. Sits up. Looks around.]

[Sighs.]

Well. This is disappointing.

[What does it take for a bitch to properly die around here?]

[After looking around for a moment, she lies back down. At least for a little while. Maybe if she refuses to participate, this will stop being a thing.]

[bellpepperexercise]

Anthy, get out of the pool!

[Kana, while she's still oblivious to the fact that both of them are dead, is extremely concerned that Anthy's reaction is to lie right back down in the water.]

[protomartyr]

[ At some point, Lottie takes a seat beside Anthy's still body. It's kind of difficult for her to be mad at Anthy right now, given that Lottie is good and pissed at Misty. ]

Good morning, Anthy.

[trustheart]

…Get out of the pool, Anthy.

[ The voice of the very much dead Chris comes from the girl sitting at the edge of the pool, arms crossed. ]

The dead can’t rest here, and that goes for you same as it does the rest of us.

cw: gendered insult

[sweetsynergy]

You're in my spot, bitch.

[She's sitting on the edge of the pool, legs swinging slightly as she looks down.]

I'm not gonna pretend I can be any kind of superior about the murder thing, but I have dibs on using that part of the pool to be one with the scum and garbage.

[lifegoalsorwifegoals]

[ Rinne approaches Anthy...sometime after she's had her big weepy reunion with Kana. It's not like anything's that far, in the haunted pool and locker room. ]

Anthy-san. [ She bows a little. ] I'd like to apologize. I... I mistakenly assumed you were at fault for...Kana-chan.

[ It just kind of feels right you know, to apologize for the amount of absolute murderous rage she'd been directing Anthy's way. ]

[banishedfromparadise]

[Dorothy wakes coughing and sputtering, instinctively acting based on her last memory of being suffocated.

Her surroundings couldn't be more different than the kitchen, though. Once she catches her breath, if it can even be called that anymore, she starts to recognize the environment. It looks a little different, but...]

... Oh, shit.

[The underground pool. The séance. That Mari girl wasn't lying about their 'friends', was she?]

[trustheart]

That headmistress woman…who gets the 15,000 she owes for your hair, exactly?

[ Hi, Dorothy. Chris is offering you a hand up. ]

1/2

[thatsplato]

Oh, hey—— [Misty freezes, realizing too late who is in front of her.]

[rosewitch]

[Ah. Well. Here we go.]

[Anthy waits until Dorothy is no longer actively choking to draw attention to herself, given how closely associated she is with said choking. Seems kind of in poor taste to jumpscare her. Once she's begun to recalibrate, though . . .]

I can help you out.

[Anthy's made it over to the side of the pool now, toes drifting slowly back and forth just above the stagnant water.]

I understand if you'd prefer I didn't. You're welcome to any retribution you'd like.

[But she's not going to move until Dorothy says it's all right or moves herself.]

[sweetsynergy]

You're in it with the rest of us, yup.

[welcome to hell, Dorothy]

[There are no lights to flick on and off, at least none Vanity can control, but it's not NOT her tone.]

So scale of one to bullshit, how okay actually WERE you when you figured out what Himeya was doing?

[ergine]

[ Maybe she shouldn't be surprised. Well, no one really expects to wake up after a stoning, she supposes.

Still, the particulars of her surroundings are interesting. Tonelessly, she hums in thought, and to no one in particular, she asks: ]

Is there something special about the pool...?

[ That ghost—Mari—drowned there, but... ]

[protomartyr]

[ Lottie watches Kohaku up above, from the side of the pool. Her expression is neutral, but cold. ]

You and I are here. Doloris is not.

[ Yeah, Lottie is a little upset. ]

[rosewitch]

It seems so. I'm not the one to ask, though.

[Sitting on the edge of the pool, she regards Kohaku quietly for a moment. They didn't have the chance to talk or anything. Not really. But also, there's not much to say. Hm.]

. . . Waking up in water is in poor taste in this case, isn't it?

[banishedfromparadise]

[Having figured out where she is, Dorothy is shocked to see a familiar face that, for all she knows, shouldn't be.]

Kohaku?! What are you doing here?!

[Oh no...]

GHOST PICNIC MEETING

[thatsplato]

[Misty's been stalking Thomasin's preparations as much as she physically can -- there's the unfortunate aspect of needing to return to the pool semi-frequently, but she's relishing in the fact of lingering in the background, planning for a party that no one can tell her she's not invited to.

Shortly before the picnic starts, though, it gets to be too much. She has to share. So, she heads back to the pool, eyes glimmering with excitement.]

They're having a picnic and bonfire! We should go-- maybe we can talk with them again!

[And she's off again, before anyone can object or stop her or tell her she's not invited.

When they all arrive at the actual event, though, it's... kind of like how Misty always was at events when she was alive. She's just kind of hovering to the side, watching. Super creepy. But hey. It's a party? Probably.]

Satsuki Drawing Aftermath

[trustheart]

[ Satsuki isn't alone. Chris is passed out on the floor of her bathroom, all her energy spent from drawing the simple picture in the fogged up mirror in Satsuki's bathroom.

Regardless of what Satsuki does, someone will have to carry Chris back to the pool. ]

investigation; thursday

[rosewitch]

[Anthy is mcfucking fuming after Hawke gets unconstitutionally levitated. This is bullshit!! But she's going to try to figure out what's going on with the Interim Headmistress's (or whoever's) magic from this side, now that she can.]

[First things first: does the shadow on Hawke look any different than it did before, now that she's directly under the magic's influence?]

[Second things second: is there any clue — sensory or ~vibes~ based — around Hawke under the effect of the magic? Anything Anthy can see now that she wouldn't have been able to before? In an ideal world, she'd like a breadcrumb granola trail to follow, but she'll take anything.]

let's all be sad about trial five

[sweetsynergy]

[Vanity misses coffee. She is so goddamn tired after this week, trying to haunt people (Hawke) freaking out over people getting punished and strung up like a shitty Peter Pan (also Hawke), worrying someone was going to trust that the headmistress would hold her implied word to not double-murder them (you get it by now...). But despite the ghost exhaustion she's ghost dragged herself down to the non-ghost trial to ghost watch it.]

[She looks around the dwindling circle, sucking in a sharp breath as she does a headcount.]

Oh, this one's gonna get bad.