ArchivedLogs:Conversations With Dead People
| Conversations With Dead People | |
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Sort of. | |
| Dramatis Personae | |
| In Absentia
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2013-02-01 Doug and his roommate contact their apartment ghosts. |
| Location
<NYC> 503 {Doug} - Village Lofts - East Village | |
It's a dark and stormy night...well, okay. It's dark and /cold/, but the only storm is the beginnings of a rainy snow that plasters itself against the windows in tiny frozen beads. It's a good night for any kind of indoor activity, even the one that Doug and Anwyn are planning. The blonde walks around the apartment, lighting candles and making sure there's no risk of fire as Anwyn -- now with blood-red hair -- gets the small round table that serves as their sole dining spot ready. A silk scarf has ben put over the top, and an honest-to-cheeses crystal ball sits in the middle, being polished by the girl, who has a wide smile on her face. "This is going to be so exciting! What kind of ghost do you think it is?" she asks, tossing the cloth into the sink. Excitement and fearful anticipation run through her thoughts like a river.
"I'm hoping the kind that doesn't actually exist," Doug says, lighting the last candle and moving towards the table to take a seat. This is ridiculous. There aren't any ghosts. Sebastian's friend was putting him on. He frowns at the crystal ball, and squints at his roommate. "What exactly are we supposed to do?"
Anwyn sits down across from her roommate, and reaches over the table to take his hands. "We have to concentrate on the ghost, and ask him to reveal himself," she says solemnly, the pages of the books she read on the subject floating in her mind's eye. "And when it does, we can ask it questions!" Eee. Exciting! "Now close your eyes and concentrate."
"But with our eyes closed, how will we see this alleged ghost?" Aha! Logic defeats superstition!
"We open our eyes /after/ he reveals himself," Anwyn explains in a patient voice. Which you'd know if you read the book I gave you. "But we have to close our eyes right now."
Doug looks dubious, but complies, screwing his eyes shut and concentrating. This is ridiculous. There aren't any ghosts. Sebastian's friend was putting him on.
"OH GHOST," Anwyn begins in a loud voice that rings like an honest-to-dogs soothsayer's. "OH GHOST! We are those who dwell in your -- "
"Those who dwell? Really?"
"Shut /up/, Doug! OH GHOST. We are THOSE WHO DWELL IN THIS YOUR HOME. We wish to speak to the spirit trapped here!"
"Oh, God. I should totally have the web cam on for this. You sound ridiculous."
"I swear to God, Doug. Shut /up/."
There's quiet. Mostly-quiet, at least. The soft rattle of snow against the windows. The steady thrum of traffic somewhere outside. For a while that's all there is, prosaic-plain city noises providing background to Anwyn's Seance Voice. And then -- well, still quiet. But there's a darkness creeping in around the edges of the room. It's subtle, at first. Some of the candles flicker, and seem to suddenly be giving out less light, encroaching pools of faint shadow dimming the glow from their flames.
In a corner, one candle goes out.
The eerie, dark silence that follows Anwyn's first entreaty is unnoticed by the girl. Her mind is firmly on the Task, which is making contact with whatever spirit might be listening. She rocks back and forth, pulling at Doug's hands as she continues. "OH GHOST. Hear me! COME! And speeeeeeaaaaaak toooooo uuuuuuuuuussssss."
Doug cracks an eye open at the drawn out intonation, his mouth twitching as he suppresses a smile (or possibly laugh). Then he notices the extinguished candle, and he frowns. "Oh, hey, that candle's gone out. Should I relight it?"
Anwyn opens her eyes to glare at her roommate, and squeezes his fingers, hard. "Doug, if you don't shut up, I'm going to bop you one," she warns. "This is /serious/."
"Oh, well, if it's /serious/," Doug says, allowing himself to grin. She's cute, but so weird. Too bad I don't go her way. "If it's /serious/, we should be using a Ouija board, shouldn't we?"
"OH GHOST." Anwyn opts to continue, instead of blasting her roomie with the evil thoughts in her brain. "OH GHOST. Come and SPEAK TO US!"
This time, the darkness rushes in quicker. It's silent, still, though it comes with a barely-tangible brush of contact, chill and cool and soft like a faint prickle of breeze as shadow fills the room. All the candles snuff out, in the wake of this, save one central flame. It, too, does not seem to give as much light as it should, a small dim glow against a backdrop of deepening dark.
Anwyn squeals at the contact, releasing Doug's hands. "I felt it! I felt the ghost!" she says, opening her eyes, and looking around. Then, there is silence, and a yawning apprehension in the girl as she takes in the extinguished candles. "Um. I think I really /did/ feel it," she offers in a less-enthusiastic voice.
Doug wrinkles his nose at Anwyn's excitement, and frowns. "It's an old building, Ahn. It gets drafty, someti --" he, too, breaks off as he notices the candles. It doesn't get /that/ drafty. "Cheap candles," he decides. "I hate those."
Anwyn shakes herself, allowing Doug's explanation to soothe her fear back into excitement, and moves to reclaim his hands. "Well, maybe it isn't," she insists. "Let's keep going, and see if anything else happens. You like science, right?"
"Well, no, actually, my field is more --"
"Right! So, think of this as, like, an /experiment/. You can write a blog or something on it, if you want...OH GHOST! Are you HERE?"
There's another rush. Cool-chil, brushing in soft flickers against skin and then returning to a pool of darkness around the lone remaining candle. The darkness is slowly /solidifying/, taking shape into something human. Human/shaped/, anyway, though it remains made out of nothing but deep-dark shadow, flickering firelight at its wispy ill-formed edges. The voice that eventually speaks is soft, a rasping whisper that seems formed as much in their minds as to their ears. "Why," it creaky-whispers, "have you disturbed us?"
HOLY MOTHERFUCKING CRAP IN AN ASSLICKING HAT SWEET MOTHER OF MERCY IT'S REAL. Anwyn's fingers clench Doug's hard enough to turn the flesh beneath her grip white, and her eyes go completely round as she regards the inky figure in fascinated horror.
Doug makes a pained noise, trying to pull his hands from that vice-like grip even as he, too, stares at the figure that coalesces. Ghost are real? Maybe Sebastian's friend wasn't putting him on. "Um. I might have just wet myself," he admits, to Anwyn's dirty look.
"Are you the ghost who lives here?" she asks, inhaling deeply. Got to be brave. Never get this chance again. "The one people told my roommate about?"
There is silence. The shadow-figure grows paler, smoky-hazy like it is dissolving into wisps of nothing. It coalesces again, nearer a window. "/Lives/ here." The edges of the room are dark with shadow again, and through this something is moving. Human-shaped, too, though it blinks in and out of existence too fast to catch much, through the darkness, save a vaguely human blue drifting rapid in a loop around the walls. It comes with laughter, quick and drifting in and out of existence in time with the not-quite-there person. "We," is spoken still whisper-soft, but deliberate, "/lived/," just as deliberate, "here. Once."
"We?" Doug asks, ignoring the look Anwyn shoots in his direction and sitting up straighter. This is actually kind of interesting, talking to the dead. "There's more than one of you?" Anwyn, in the meanwhile, peers into the gloom, squinting.
"There's a...something here," she whispers. This is more scary than anticipated.
"Yeah, I know," Doug whispers back. "I'm talking to it."
"No, something el --"
"What were your names, when you lived?" 'Cause that's easy to verify, for someone with superior Google-Fu.
"We," is affirmed, even softer, and then there's quiet. The room goes completely dark with shadow, though for a moment a shuffling noise can be heard, like soft feet against floor. The light returns, flickering-dim by the candle. The dark shadowy-figure is behind Anwyn, now, still ill-defined at its edges, still vaguely person-shaped. The next voice that speaks does not come from this figure, though, but from a darker pool of shadow -- there are /many/ pools of shadow -- somewhere behind Doug. It is low, but less raspy. Less whispery. Just a quiet murmur, deep-voiced in question rather than answer: "Why have you called us?"
Anwyn emits a small shriek when the light goes completely out, and she releases Doug's hands to flutter them near her face. Ohgoddontletitgetme. When the inky figure appears behind her, she jumps, and trembles in her chair, casting wide eyes on the blonde. "Doug...maybe we should stop...."
Doug winces when the light goes out, and his eyes try to track whatever's moving around. Could be the cats. Maybe a rat. Should get us on the extermination schedule. When his hands are released, he scrubs them against his denim-clad thighs with a grimace. Man, my schedule won't allow for that. Maybe I'll buy some humane traps. See that cute guy at the hardware store. Oh, right. "Curiosity," he admits. "Everyone I've met from the building has acted squirrelly about the apartment when I bring it up. A couple said ghosts, so we'd thought we'd see."
"Maybe," the deep voice murmurs from behind Doug, "you should stop." There's more shuffling. Footsteps. The shadows at the room's edge stir, and then are still. The first voice speaks up again, still raspy-soft like it is a strain to even achieve this whisper. "Maybe you should let us rest." By the window there's a draft -- no, a flutter of wings. They're only there briefly, like a very large /bat/ rather than like a bird, and then vanish. "Maybe," says the deeper voice, by the window, now, though the city beyond is obscured by a thick cloak of shadow, "you should let us return. To our work."
Okay. This is too much. These are Not Casper. Anwyn stands, suddenly, her face pale in the dim light. "I'm sorry!" she says, her voice rising in alarm. "I didn't mean to disturb you!" Then she's /fleeing/ into her room, which is apparently Safe From Ghosts. The door slams, and there's the squeak of bedsprings that says she's flung herself into the safety of her comforter.
Doug wrinkles his nose. "If you want to go, go," he says, tilting his head. "I certainly wouldn't want to keep you from your work." He wrinkles his nose, looking at the shadowy figure, since it's the most visible. "What kind of work do ghosts do?"
Even with Anwyn fled, the answer comes to her room as clearly as to the living room, whisper-soft, still, and still sounding like maybe it is aloud and maybe it is just in their heads. "Watch out," says the voice, quietly, "for those still living."
And then there is darkness, again.
And then there is light. The figures are gone.
Doug frowns at the sudden departure, sitting alone at the table and watching the space where the inky figure had been. His mind whirls with a myriad of thoughts, the general gist being HOLY CRAP WHAT JUST HAPPENED? That's followed by a rush of logical and technical explanations, which only raises /more/ questions. Delete appears from somewhere, jumping up on the table to butt his small kitty head against the blonde's hand for rubs. Something that Doug surrenders freely, frowning a smile at the kitten as he rubs a finger along the tiny jaw. "This building gets weirder by the day," he murmurs to the cat. Delete only purrs in reply. Well, /duh/. | |
