002 // text; username: grollschwert

[hauntedsavior]

cw: chronic illness, ruminations on death

Fun one for you tonight.

[this message comes in the middle of the night, when no one in their right mind should be awake. but that's never stopped anna. she can't sleep, and if flynn and ruby and everybody are right then she has to at least try not to keep this stuff inside her at all times. sorrow's silence we needn't bear, or whatever.]

You know a girl. Her body is breaking down and her meds are failing her.
She has years left. Maybe months, if it gets worse.
But something happens, and she gets access to amazing new technology. Things that prevent her body from attacking itself.
Things that stop her timer from ticking faster than everyone else's.
Great, right?
You get to know her better. You entertain her little crush on you. Maybe you like her back a little and maybe things aren't gonna be so bad.

But one day, you do something.
Something that sets off a chain of events that you couldn't have predicted. Not in a million years.
Small things collide into medium things collide into big huge massive things.
And after the butterfly version of you is done flapping its wings, she doesn't have access to that technology anymore.
She's back on the timer.

She doesn't know you did anything.
She never finds out.
You can't bring yourself to tell her, and she wouldn't believe it if you did.

She barely recognizes you anymore, by the end of it.
Her family finds your name on her phone and invites you to pay respects.

Do you still go to her funeral?

Did you kill her?

Comments

[peripheries]

Did it help? My understanding is that humans have funerals to try and cope with the loss around them. More for the living than the one who is dead.

It must have made you happy, knowing how she thought of you...?

[hauntedsavior]

[well, this is not the first and wouldn't be the last nonhuman she's talked to, if she gets the right read from that.]

I don't know if it helped.
I was one more person than would've been there otherwise. That probably made everyone else feel better.

I never really thought about her leaving my name in her phone.

[peripheries]

[That would be correct. He's not subtle about it.]

I never really understood how it was supposed to. But I've never been to one either.

And really? It means you meant something to her in the end. To be thought of when you aren't there... seems like proof her feelings were strong.

[He also moonlights as a projector sometimes]

[hauntedsavior]

She always told me she was never the type to get attached.
Maybe she lied.
Maybe she changed her mind.

Christ, dude.
What makes you think that instead of she just forgot to clear out her phone?

[peripheries]

Maybe. Humans are unpredictable and they contradict themselves. Their feelings are mysterious, even to themselves.

Hah. Because they seek connection. If she still had your number, it means that there was still a connection there that she couldn't leave behind. And hearts are way humans express their affection.

[hauntedsavior]

So you think it's possible that she didn't forget everything.

I need a second.
Talk amongst yourself, or whatever.

[even the possibility hits her where her heart should be, in the state she's in right now. she's just glad she isn't on voice, 'cause she thought she'd locked these things down pretty tight.]

[peripheries]

[He's just going to... sit there. Looking at his phone. Not comprehending why his words may have hit her so hard. He was just stating the obvious, right? How can such words illicit a reaction such as this.]

[hauntedsavior]

All right, cool. I'm back.
Thanks for your patience.

[everyone was supposed to forget when they fell off the app. but beyond one or two people she checked on, she only ever took that at retrospec's word. vanderweele's word, eventually. what if they didn't, entirely? what if those memories still existed, somewhere deep within them? what if there were still little traces of anna's existence with the people she left behind? what if there still are now, even when she's stuck here?]

Just had to take a sec to chew on, you know.
The persistence of memory.
It's fine, it's cool.
Leave it to someone who isn't human to make me think about shit that's supposed to be obvious to everyone else.

[peripheries]

Memory is important, it makes us what who we are. It is not so easily erased.

[It's his own turn to pause.]

I was sent to observe. Humans just live their lives.

[hauntedsavior]

Sure feels that way sometimes.
But I guess if memories can survive every apocalypse every universe has ever seen...
Maybe it was stupid to think that a tech company could erase them forever.

You ever observe anyone miss something staring her right in the face for years?

[peripheries]

Not unless they also aimed to erase the entire soul, leaving them nothing but a husk.

Hah. Well, I do not know if it was years, but I did see someone completely refuse to see the reality of her situation despite how obvious the problem was. Or perhaps, she simply did not want to admit the problem even if she knew the truth in her heart.

[hauntedsavior]

Sheesh, dude, no need to subtweet me in my own thread.
It's really that obvious, huh?

[peripheries]

...

[It takes him awhile to (sorta) get it.]

Only obvious in that I have seen humans act that way before. In that way, maybe it's best not to blame yourself and instead chalk it up to the very nature of being human.

[hauntedsavior]

Well.
There's probably worse ways to find out I'm still human even with 90% of my body being metal.

Mind if I ask where you're coming from?
Considering I already got the attention of both a devil and the Devil by being fucked up about my dead friend.

[peripheries]

I'm an Angel, a messenger on a pre-ordained quest. Though, due to the meddling of humanity, my soul has been forced into this human-shaped form so I can live amongst them.

[hauntedsavior]

Oh, dope, now I got both sides of the fence paying attention to me.
Welcome to the party, coats go in the room on the left, smiting anyone is a serious foul that will result in me asking you to leave.
Corrupting people is still on the table, though.

Anyway I know I just made a joke about it 15 words ago so it kind of defeats my point, but,
Yeah, humans sure do love messing with souls.
Sorry for your loss.
And/or welcome to humanity.

[peripheries]

Well, I'm technically not human. But I'm not quite inhuman either. My existence is somewhat hard to define.

And while my mission was to end humanity, it wasn't done out of a desire to smite or anything like that, nor is doing such a thing possible here. Besides, I failed anyway.

[hauntedsavior]

Well, I sure fuckin' hope you failed.
Otherwise I've got a whole host of apocalypses with a real convenient answer all of a sudden.
(That was another joke.)

For real, though.
Your soul got shoved into this weird halfway place because of humans? Not because you failed a mission from big G?
I mean, I assume that's who you took orders from.

[peripheries]

That's right. It was an attempt by humans to create gods. Because there are no gods, just what humans wish to create to find meaning in their lives.

[hauntedsavior]

Okay, but, like.
You know you're an angel, right?
Like, you just told me. I was here for that.
How the hell do angels work if there's no capital G?
What, do you just exist 'cause people believe we should have angels?

[peripheries]

No.

We are are descendents of a being called Adam, sent to Earth by an ancient race far far in space. Earth was meant to be our home but another seed of life, Lilith, usurped Adam and gave birth to the Lilin, humans, who populate the planet.

We seek to regain the earth as our birthright.

[hauntedsavior]

[well. that's a hell of a cosmology. compels her, though.]

Huh.
Feels like the whole "be not afraid" thing needs a word removed in the middle.

You asked me earlier. Your turn.
Would getting the world back have been worth it?

cw: death mention

[peripheries]

By the time I arrived, Adam was already lost to us, so I cannot say. But if I had some into contact with Lilith, all of humanity would have been erased, fused into a single being and I too would cease to exist. And if I abandoned my mission, my creators would have punished and killed me.

So I chose death on my own terms.

[hauntedsavior]

[he chose it, huh. that gives a not small amount of insight to everything he's told her tonight. he's observed humanity—he observes humanity, and the answer he's sticking with so far is that he would rather choose how he dies than follow a cosmic plan that leaves him without that choice.]

[that's heavy as shit, anna thinks.]

Wish we could all be that lucky.
I guess you don't regret it so far?
Giving up divinity to live and die on your own terms.

[peripheries]

Well. I don't know if I have the capacity to regret. But it was one thing I was able to do to show my own will.