005. 💥 (TXT) ⇁ CHARM

[opheliac]

CW: PTSD, Separation Anxiety, & Hallucinations.

this is jinx

i cant find my friend. ive been calling her all morning because we were going to make a bakery stand together and she wouldnt answer me. i broke into her room and all of her stuff is there but not her.

i think they took her.
she wouldnt just leave.

who else is still here? who else did they take? i cant be alone here in this place right?

if u know me, please tell me who u are and write back so i know im not here by myself. its hard to know who is who with these things.

but dont send a video or call me. just write to me or the monsters will know where i am.

Comments

[opheliac]

... So she's dead. Is that what you're telling me?

( numbers, cycles, it doesn't matter. what does matter is that there are gravestones as a replacement of those who were once here. she can feel her throat tightening all over again, and her voice is disgustingly uneven while trying to keep her emotions at bay. )

So all this "going home"-bullshit was just some fake-out so we would play nice with whatever they're fucking scheming.

[entreats]

.. it's not 100% for sure.

[ Ange is - if nothing else - accurate about these things, after all. She won't sugarcoat the truth, but she won't push anything without concrete proof either.

But there sure are a whole lot of signs pointing towards the conclusion Jinx is also drawing here, so-- ]

But it seems likely, yeah.

[ Her voice is a touch softer, perhaps not wanting to feed too much into the human equivalent of a near erupting volcano happening in front of her. ]

That's why we have to find the people behind this and stop them. Or else they'll do it to all of us. [ And it's bad enough that it's happened already.

Especially with Usagi, with how sweet the girl seemed. She didn't deserve this. A whole lot of the people who "left" didn't deserve it. ]

[opheliac]

( it's not one-hundred percent she says, but what else could it all mean? gravestones are a universal symbol of someone passing on -- usually coated with death. if they wanted to use something to represent a chosen's transitory that isn't about their decease, literally anything would have sufficed than using a damn gravestone.

her hands ball into boulders the more this sets with her, and here she assumed the council were just some fancy weaklings in high chairs who can only spit out orders. if every disappearance meant they're dead, then that would mean... — her heart then drops to the pit of her stomach and twists in all sorts of ways. jinx shakes her head in belief in her own realization. )

...No.

( she mutters the word at first, then narrowing her gaze up to her friend -- voice in quivers. )

... N-No, Ekko wouldn't die so easily. I know him. I've been trying to murder that bug for YEARS and he always got away. So there's... ( a pause, swallowing down a sob and blinking away tears. ) — There's no way in Hell there's some grave out there dedicated to him. I-I won't believe it 'till I see it.

[entreats]

[ Maybe it would have been easier for someone else to tell Jinx, Ange thinks. Someone who knows better how to comfort someone else - let alone how to comfort Jinx of all people, who's a special case in so many ways. But then again, who could have? The only other person Ange is aware of who knows this is Gogol, and he'd probably be worse at this than even her.

Still.. It's not like Ange doesn't try. Even if it's a little uncertainly, she holds out a hand, moving closer to put it on the other girl's shoulder, if Jinx will let her. ]

I didn't see any with names I recognize. [ She says, her voice still a touch softer than the usual.

This much is true, after all. It's why Ange says it's not 100% for certain yet - even though she feels like they'll end up like that anyway. Maybe they don't put up those gravestones until all the people from a certain cycle are goners. ]

They could be holding them somewhere. Maybe they want to get rid of all of us in one go.