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

[protomartyr]

[ 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?

1/2

[facultwist]

[ 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. ]

2/2

[al_fresco]

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

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

[thatsplato]

In your defense, you were a little tied up.

[protomartyr]

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

[al_fresco]

I guess, but even before that...

[ She sighs. ]

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

[protomartyr]

[ 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.

[al_fresco]

[ 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...

[protomartyr]

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?

[al_fresco]

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?