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

text; un: tabris

[peripheries]

why did you do it?

[hauntedsavior]

It was going to save the world.

[peripheries]

did it?

[hauntedsavior]

Eventually, yeah.
But by the time it came around, she was already on her way out of it.

[peripheries]

Was the world worth it?

[hauntedsavior]

It was for me.
For however much that matters, now that I can't even be there to see what it's like.

[peripheries]

You sacrificed so much and didn't even get to see the outcome. Life is like that, isn't it? Perhaps fate was all predetermined.

[hauntedsavior]

I don't know.
Somehow I doubt it's all written in some cosmic plan.
Otherwise, the future version of myself I met has some explaining to do. She didn't mention squids.

[peripheries]

Even if it was, most of us would likely never know.

Was there a funeral? Or did you leave before that happened?

[hauntedsavior]

I went.
They found my number in her phone. Guess she never deleted the mystery girl with hearts by her name.
No one else there really wondered who I was, either.
Don't know if they cared. I tried not to talk too much.

[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.