GRAVEYARD ✨

[probe]

POPULATION: GHOST TOWN

You die - and then you wake up.

For a second, it feels as though you can't breathe, and then your head breaks the surface. You crawl out of a pool of blood and into a large, crystalline room. Moving images play across the crystal walls, and if you watch close enough, you'll realize that you're seeing the land of the living; a familiar space station with familiar faces. You can watch these images for as long as you'd like - there are several very large benches (as in, you have to climb them to sit on them) around the room for you to rest on while you do.

Regardless of how you died, it seems as though you're not quite gone completely. You're in one piece, at least. That's good news. However, your surroundings are not exactly what you remember.

When you exit the first room, a bleak, empty city sprawls out ahead of you.

The city itself is large. The framework of it seems to tower higher and higher than you can see, up into the black opal sky that shivers and curls every so often. A river entirely made of blood runs through the city, winding around buildings and ending at the crystal room. The most noticeable thing about the buildings themselves is the fact that thorny vines made of pure white steel dig into the walls and floor, cracking the foundations.

The residential building is worn down and old. It's two floors, and has a few small studio apartments built for one or two people to live in. The beds are extremely uncomfortable. It has a communal area downstairs, but the TV is broken, and the couches are torn apart. Sometimes, this building feels obscenely hot in temperature, and smells like rotten eggs.

The grocery store is your typical convenience store. There's a large selection of food in this area, but it all tastes the same - like chalk. On top of this, every so often there will be bloodstains on the walls, the floor, and the displays. They change in size and location, each time you enter the store.

The clothing store is thrifty in nature. All the clothes here are uncomfortable and scratchy, and don't fit quite right. While you're here, time feels... weird. Distorted, almost dreamy. As you're picking out clothes and trying them on (no money needed, just take what you want), you swear you can hear a gunshot in the distance.

Enjoy your time in this city, and remember...your story isn't quite over yet.

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Comments

[commedia]

So, I am to be stuck here? Is that my fate...?

[niceguyferatu]

If you like. I, however, intend to find a way out of this place. If the avatars can go between here and the living world, I see no reason why we shouldn't be able to as well.

[commedia]

...

Maybe its better for you to be stuck here, honestly.

[niceguyferatu]

...and what, exactly, is that supposed to mean?

[ said cautiously, because he's come to expect hatred from most everyone, but not Douman. And it sounds like this is, but he's giving them the benefit of the doubt. ]

[commedia]

...

[Just gives him a narrowed, unamused look.]

You're the one who killed Steven, weren't you.

[niceguyferatu]

...Yes, I am.

Were you two close?

[commedia]

No. We never talked. I mean, he talked with them, though.

[Douman has their own feelings about Steven. :/]

[niceguyferatu]

With...them?

[commedia]

The one that was possessing me.

[niceguyferatu]

Ah.

...So you were possessed. By...yourself?

Are you yourself as you really are, now?

[commedia]

Yes, I was. When you asked them about it, they lied, of course. All to make it look like it wasn't anything but it was.

[A sigh.]

And...I believe I am. I am worried that the curse will linger...but for now, I am myself, in my own body.

[niceguyferatu]

Hmm. I've never heard of a human being possessed by their own ghost. Unless...was it an alternate version of yourself? Or a future one, via some sort of time travel?

...How long were you possessed for?

[commedia]

It was a magical being called a Servant. They are...an Alter Ego. A version of myself based on the future of who I would become.

I...don't know, honestly. Not too long, I think, but it was long enough for them to pretend to act on my duties as an onmyouji.

[niceguyferatu]

[ Vlad nods like this makes sense, because what he's hearing is "possessed by my own future self", which makes perfect sense to a man from a world with ghosts and time travel. and, although he doesn't know it, has literally happened in canon. ]

Pretend, hmm? I take it they didn't perform those duties properly?

Odd, that you can remember what they did in your body, but not for how long.

[commedia]

No, they did, but...they decided to enact a Grail War for their own plans, and the officials went with it. It is not something I would have ever suggested myself.

[A huff.]

Honestly, at the time...it felt like a fever dream. Like something unreal, but...after they completely took over, it was as if I was shoved aside, to the back of their mind.

[niceguyferatu]

Really now? So that's how possession feels...fascinating.

...What do you mean by "completely"? Was there a time where the two of you coexisted in the same body, or their control was otherwise incomplete?

[commedia]

Well, we always coexisted in the same body. But in the beginning...it just felt like I kept receding, like a tide. My body started acting on its own. By the time of complete unification...all I could do was watch.

[niceguyferatu]

Really? So they've been with you for your entire life, and slowly began to subsume you?

It sounds like possession works very differently between our worlds indeed.

[commedia]

It's...complicated. I mean, I guess...they were a form of my doubts, and fears, and then they just...became more. Perhaps it was because they already existed as another separate being in another world, as a form of my future self! Ah, so complicated. But I think you can think of that thing like...a tumor.

[niceguyferatu]

Really? They represented your doubts and fears?

[ cuz like. boy did that clown not seem to be very doubtful OR fearful. ]

[commedia]

...Well, yes. How else would they know my weaknesses?

[Their devil on the shoulder, if you will.]

[niceguyferatu]

Hmm. Very well.

I admit, though, I am curious as to how death excised their presence from your body.

[commedia]

I...have no idea. Probably being transferred over here? They couldn't make it?

[look this happens in canon too i don't know my guy]