D E A D S P E A K

Dalton is on his last bandaid. And straw. Last straw too, but mostly the bandaid thing. He'd just bought a new box of them, all different colors (but his favorites were the blues) and he’d thought, hey, maybe these will last. But searching for your dead sister in all the places you know you aren’t going to find her is surprisingly stressful, and without Mina to hold his hands down to keep from picking his skin he’s stuck in a loop of scratches and scars and bandaids. It’s not just looking for Mina, it’s what he finds in her place. Because everywhere he goes that he hopes she’ll be and she isn’t (the school, the grocery store, their apartment), he’s confronted with the fact that she’s probably somewhere he doesn’t want her to be (the basketball court behind the school, the alley next to the grocery store, some asshole’s apartment). Dalton isn't entirely sure how this whole [[seeing and talking to ghosts]] thing works, but his guess is that ghosts stay in places they left their mark on before they died. Dalton would rather break his own fingers than think of how many marks Mina left on the back alleys and asshole haunts of the city. How many of those are rust-colored and splattered. (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[===>->1.2]]

//So I can see ghosts now.// The mysterious, cold feeling tugged at his eyes with a (font: "Courier New")+(text-style:"shadow","expand")[yes.] //So I can talk to ghosts now.// The mysterious, cold feeling tugged at his lips with a (font: "Courier New")+(text-style:"shadow","expand")[yes.] //So I can feel ghosts now.// The mysterious, cold feeling tugged at his fingertips with a (font: "Courier New")+(text-style:"shadow","expand")[yes.] //Okay.// The mysterious, cold feeling waited. //Help me find my sister.// (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[BACK TO MAIN->1.1]]

So here he is, on his third pass through the library, hoping she'll come floating through a wall while he picks at the peeling bandaids on his face. Dalton's midstep around a corner when he's hit with a wave of nausea that almost blows him over. The urge to gag strengthens as he clutches the tightening in his stomach. He's gonna be sick. Again. Maybe it's his body’s way of dealing with this mess he’s gotten himself into by [[deciding to keep going]]. God, if Mina could see him now, he thinks. Bent over and panting, weaving his last unopened bandaid through the fingers in his pocket, he looks pathetic. But he knows (hopes) she’d be proud. Knows (//hopes//) she'll get to tell him herself. His stomach is still doing cartwheels and he's starting to feel dizzy. Is it hot in here or is that just him? And why is his chest so cold? Dalton kneels on the ground and waits for the overwhelming feeling to pass. It doesn't. (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[===>->1.3]]

Dalton was on his last bandaid. It was shiny purple, bright. There were flecks of glitter coating the surface. The bandaid didn't look anything like the purple of Mina's braids, but it still reminded him of her. It was all he had left. He’d bought this box a few days before [[That Night]]. That Night. The reason he was doing this. Well, not the whole reason, because Mina’d kill him. //Not for me,// she’d say, //you better not be doing this for me, Dee.// But one of many. And Mina wasn’t here—that was the point—so who cared. Dalton could do whatever he wanted. And this was what he wanted. For it to stop. For him to stop it. So he was driving to Congress Avenue, to the bat bridge (because Mina had always liked bats) and he was going to just. [[Jump]].

A librarian rounds on him and asks if he's okay and he says, //yes, just fine, ma’am.// Even when his insides feel like they're about to come out. The librarian leaves, but not before tutting something about calling emergency services if he passes out. He isn't going to pass out. He figures if he did, he’d never find Mina because she’d never want to see his embarrassing face ever again. Once, she’d come home with three broken ribs and a cut across her side that needed 26 stitches and she’d been conscious enough to make a joke about [[Dalton’s newly-shaved head.]] (He knew she loved it, though. Sometimes she’d just sit with his head in her lap and rub her hands all along the buzzed hair.) He hits the floor before he realizes. The tiles feels cool against his skin, and the relief shocks him. Some time must pass because a different librarian comes around, politely telling him he needs to go to the hospital. He rasps out a, //someone’s coming for me, ma’am, if you could just help me to the door.// A lie, but he's never setting foot in a hospital again if he can help it. She helps him to his feet and they hobble out the main entrance. That’s when he sees it. Her. (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[===>->1.4]]

//Mina’s voice on the phone//, Please, Dee, you should see the other guy,// a cough and a wet sound and a//, Yeah, just get here soon-ish. Love you, //and then nothing because she hung up like she always does without waiting. Dalton, driving faster than he thought their shitty car could go, thanking everything he could think to thank that Mina didn’t take the car when she went out because she knew driving with bruised and bloody knuckles was a pain. Cursing everything he could think to curse that she knew what driving with bruised and bloody knuckles was like. Dalton, wondering how long someone had after they started coughing up blood, thinking of everything he’d ever read on WebMD when wrapping up Mina’s eye or shoulder or ribs. Dalton, arriving at the scene of the crime behind a convenience store, Mina hunched over to cover up whatever injuries she thought she needed to hide, her purple fingerless gloves soaked dark and her fists clenched tight. Dalton, trying not to make a scene but walking to her as fast as could still be considered walking, clutching her hands and letting her breathe dark red on his blue shirt, staining it but he didn’t fucking care. Dalton, hauling her to the car because on the phone she’d said someone was probably calling the cops, trying not to jostle her body as he loaded her into the front seat, unresponsive. Dalton, listening to her shallow breathing on the way to the hospital until it stopped almost abruptly. Dalton, pulling over as fast as he could but not fast enough. Dalton. Mina. (text-style:"shadow")[[Gone->deciding to keep going]].//

The closer he got, the slower the world seemed to move, like he was driving through molasses. The sky turned from a bright blue to a faded pink. His chest ached. He spent so long staring at the sky that he didn’t notice himself veering off into the next lane until there was the squeal of tires and a loud, //“WHAT THE FUCK, DUDE?”// And he felt himself collapse forward onto the steering wheel, cracking his head on the edge. His hands moved of their own accord, turning the car into the right lane. Dalton's foot pressed the gas pedal without a second thought. He was driving down Congress Avenue and then he drove past the Congress Avenue Bridge and then he dazedly realized he needed to check to make sure his car wasn’t damaged and then he realized that he didn’t want to die. [[Dalton didn’t want to die.]]

“You look like an egg,” Mina laughed just a bit, and clutched her stomach with a start, like she hadn’t expected it to hurt, like she hadn’t been hurt enough to know what it would feel like. “You’re not allowed to crack jokes until we’re at the hospital,” Dalton said. “Crackin’ jokes like you crack eggs. Eggs like what you look like now that you don’t have any hair.” “That’s not even funny.” “I don’t have to be funny, my ribs are broken. Injured people get a pass.” “Not in this car, then you’d always get to make fun of me with bad jokes.” He glanced at her in the passenger seat, just long enough to see the purple of her fingerless gloves. “And you don’t know about the ribs, they could be bruised.” “Oh, trust me, Dee, I know what broken ribs feel like. This ain’t my first rodeo.” “That’s what I’m worried about.” (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[BACK TO MAIN->1.3]]

There's Mina. Her eyes are bright and a wide smile overtakes her face. Dalton's insides settle into their place like they haven't been squirming throughout his body looking for a way out. He isn't sick or dizzy or feverish, he's running up to his dead sister and throwing his arms around her. “What’s good, Dee?” She says into his shirt. He almost forgot how short she is compared to him. Dalton laughs, what else could he do? “My dead sister's giving me a hug.” “Oh, so the usual,” she laughs with him and squeezes her arms around his waist tighter. He wishes they could stay like this forever, wrapped around each other and trying not to cry, but a family in the parking lot is giving him an odd look and he realizes that he's got his arms encased in empty air to anyone who isn't like him. He gestures for Mina to follow him around the back of the building. (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[===>->1.5]]

Once they're out of sight, Dalton hugs Mina again. Holding her like this, he can feel the way her body is too cold, the way the edges of her skin have too much give in his arms. Dalton read once that after you've thought about something enough, you're never remembering what actually happened, you only remember the last time you remembered it. That's what hugging Mina is like. He remembers the shape of his sister in his mind, the way his arms feel around her when he's alone and sees her blank-eyed school photos or her favorite shirt or her childhood stuffed rabbit. The memory of the memory of holding her. “Where have you been this whole time?" He asks. "I’ve been looking for you for a week.” The light in her eyes dims just a little. Dalton hears a sigh building up in her throat before she lets out a breath through her nose. “Wandering,” she says. “Dazed, confused, tired. Missing you like hell." Dalton gives a wet laugh and says, "You can say that again." "Missing you like hell," his sister responds cheekily. (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[===>->1.5.1]]

Dalton startles. The cold feeling dances along his spine as he realizes that Mina isn't the only ghost he can see. Surrounding him and his sister are four other figures with varying opacities. Their presences sit like stones in his gut. Dalton's eyes widen at the large pair of wings on the back of the person who spoke. //I can handle ghosts, but angels were not part of the deal.// “It’s—who are you?” Dalton gestures to the rest of the gathered dead. They all blink at him. "Who are any of you?" “Cole,” the angel says. Their skin is a light brown and their hair is stark white against the blue sky. Their feet aren't touching the ground. “Mendoza. He/him.” No one speaks for a moment. Dalton coughs. "Nice to meet you," he says, unsure. Cole nods and jerks his arm towards another ghost, a white person with long, tangled blonde hair floating around their body as if underwater. “They’re Jessamine." He says. "Jessamine Summers I think she said? She doesn’t talk much.” Jessamine herself stares blankly at Dalton. He waves slightly. Her expression doesn't change. “And I’m Ace. Ace Reeves, he/him.” A pale white person with slick, dirty blonde hair sticks out his hand. Dalton reaches over and shakes it, blinking at his bright hazel eyes. “But I’m the one you really want to know," says the ghost to Ace's right. They look almost identical to him except for their chin-length bob. "Name’s Ava, she/her.” She smiles crookedly. “Cool,” Dalton says. He can feel himself start to crash. He was already running on empty when he entered the library, and the adrenaline rush of seeing Mina isn't enough to keep him juggling the existence of //more// ghosts. “Cool. Can someone explain why he has wings? And where you all came from? I just wanted to find Mina, I didn't mean to—summon you or whatever you think I did." Ace rolls his eyes. "We know. We saw the whole exchange. Touching." Dalton tries not to feel embarassed about the peanut gallery watching him yell at his sister. "You really didn't do it on purpose?" Mina asks, glaring at Ace. “Cole and Jessie—” “[[Jessamine]].” It was the first time she’d spoken. (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[===>->1.7]]

Jessamine shifted, fingers flitting on the waistband of their skirt, as if that would stop it from flowing in a creek that wasn’t there. After so long as a spirit, they’d almost gotten used to the tug of a current, but the movement continued to make them uncomfortable. Reminders of their [[death]] left a creek-fed taste in the back of their mouth. But it was strange, this time the current hadn’t been slow and easy and almost ignorable. She’d been ripped from her old bedroom and racing along I-35, a leaf caught in an unnatural wind, until she’d arrived outside of an unfamiliar library surrounded by unfamiliar people with peculiarities she knew meant they were like her. Dead. A handsome bronze-skinned person with stark white hair and stark white wings was talking to a Black person with purple-tipped braids, but Jessamine couldn’t bring themself to pay attention. They spun their finger, [[turning the volume down]] on the conversation, choosing to consider what this might mean. Jessamine hadn’t met another person like them in so long. They could barely remember what interacting with another person entailed. They weren’t even sure their voice worked properly [[anymore.]]

She wasn’t supposed to go out at night. Jessamine knew that, knew the world of trouble they would be in if they were caught, but the temperature was in the 90s again and it was a calm night. A little romp to the creek wouldn’t hurt anybody. They wouldn’t—couldn’t—swim, just dip their feet in and braid their hair as invisible fish swam through their toes. She pedaled her bike as fast as she could, not taking the time to enjoy the crisp air or the hollow bird calls. Or the stars, polluted and diluted but still beautiful. Soon, she'd have all the time in the world to soak in the world around her. Not that she knew that then. For now, they were racing down hill after hill on their way to the waterfront, their mind wandering to their first day of senior year in two weeks. Their parents transfered them to a new school, even if they didn't see the point with only one year left. And Sebastian was zoned for the same bus as them now. They’d finally have their only friend there to eat lunch with. Really, Jessamine’s life was [[looking up]].

(text-style:"bold","outline","blink")+(css: "font-size: 200%;")[[BEEP BEEP BEEP]]

“And who’re you?” The person with purple braids rounded on Jessamine while the winged person watched. Their fists practically glowed with bruises as they jabbed a finger in her face. “Jess—” she coughed, “Jessamine.” “Jessamine... and?” Jessamine blinked. “You know, pronouns? I’m Mina, she/her. You’re Jessamine and... ” “Jessamine.” They coughed again. They weren’t used to this. “She or they.” “Cool, that’s Cole, he/him. He’s not an angel, we don’t think.” Cole gave a little wave and Jessamine felt her water-logged heart beat fast. She would’ve believed he was an angel, getting a closer look at him. “Hey,” they said. “Nice to meet you,” Cole said. His voice was beautiful, a song, a symphony. He had warm-ovaltine eyes and Jessamine felt themself get lost in them. “Awesome, we all know each other. Quick aside: what the hell is going on? I’ve been trying to get here for weeks looking for my brother and—” The air shifted like it was trying to make room for something. With a drop in pressure that would've made Jessamine's ears pop if she were alive, two new ghosts existed in their little space outside the—what was that? Some building? Jessamine couldn't remember leaving her house in 20 years. They looked the same, big teeth grinning at each other. Then one with a flapper-style haircut laughed, “Holy fuck!” Jessamine blinked. The other, with cheekbones that Jessamine’s old best friend Sebastian would die for, hugged the flapper tight. [[“It worked!”]] “We’re alive—well,” they surveyed Jessamine and Mina and Cole, “Not really, but we’re not gone.” “You sure showed that fucker, B,” Cheekbones said. “Please, all I did was curse. You were the one who flipped him off, A.” “And now we never have to see him again.” The one called "A" pushed a hand through their dirty blonde hair. “We’re not even in Giddings anymore. What’s this building?” Mina stepped up, “Library. Sign’s right there.” "Why do you think—" B started, but they were cut off when Mina took off for the door, almost taking out a tall person with a shaved head. //Interesting,// Jessamine thought. “They can see her,” she said. It wasn’t a question. “They can see all of us.” (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[BACK TO MAIN->1.6]]

“Number 12, please step into the adjacent room," a monotone voice echoed around the office where Ace and Ava sat in plastic chairs arranged in a hastily constructed waiting area. Together, they watched as a scruffy-faced person in their twenties followed someone with a clipboard through the only door besides the exit. The place was laid out almost like a doctor's office, if a doctor's office had been set up in an abandoned factory. With high ceilings and metal piping woven throughout the space, it was the kind of place someone with too much money would try to renovate into a trendy loft. As is, the building only appeared to be popular with the rats. Ace had spotted three of them in the twenty minutes they'd been waiting. [[“We’re next,”]] Ava whispered.

Jessamine’s Hello Kitty alarm clock went off and she glared before schooling her features into a blank expression. She wouldn’t be needing that anymore, what with being dead now. They flapped their hand at it, turning their wrist, aware that it would just phase through. They didn’t even feel the cool plastic, just an all-encompassing cold, like their hand was submerged in water. They shuddered. But the beeping stopped. Blinking, Jessamine stuck her hand through Hello Kitty’s head towards the snooze button again. Maybe she’d missed something the first time around. Her hand didn’t meet any resistance, just the water-cold creeping up her arm, but when she turned her wrist the beeping returned. Hm. They flicked a finger and the sound grew louder, much louder than the incessant beeping ought to be. Much louder than the cheap alarm clock should’ve been able to go. Another flick of the finger and the noise quieted, faint but still there. She turned her wrist and it disappeared completely. “Interesting,” Jessamine said. The first thing they’d said aloud since dying. It came out louder than a word should, echoing against the walls of their bedroom. Jessamine watched as their parents burst into the room, as if Jessamine’s death was a cruel trick. As if Jessamine liked tricks. [[Interesting.->Jessamine]]

The twins stared at each other. Ava’s eyes were dry, but her shoulders were trembling. Ace recognized his sister’s brave face better than anyone. He held out a hand and she took it. "After you," Ace said to the attendant. Their expression didn't change as they led him and his sister down a long hallway and through another door. They arrived at a room that was barren, save for the examination table in the center and a man in a lab coat pushing up his glasses at them. “Have a seat," the man said, almost kindly. "Usually these procedures are meant for one, but I understand that you’re only here on a package deal?” He had a nasally voice. The twins nodded. “I am Dr. Keeler. As you know from the ad, I'm a professor at UT. I've worked in the Pre-Med department for over ten years, but my research interests lie in a slightly less broad field than medicine. More of a subset, really." Ava resisted the urge to roll her eyes. The Reeves' didn't need backstory, they needed $600 and the longer this guy talked, [[the longer it took to get.]]

“Sorry, Jessamine. They were here with me all of a sudden, but I've never seen 'em before today. Then the wonder twins popped up and you came running out of the building like you were dying.” She looks him up and down with her fists clenched and glinting in the sun. “You better not be fucking dying, Dee.” “No, I’m not—no one is dying. Again.” None of this makes sense, but the scattered pieces of this puzzle have sharp enough edges to cut Dalton's fingers when he tries to put them together. And he's running out of bandaids. “Good.” Mina taps a finger to her side in a familiar beat. She's nervous, Dalton realizes. "But I still don't understand why we haven't run into each other before, or why you only brought me here now." Ace holds up a hand. “Well," he says, as if imparting some grand secret, "obviously it was Fate.” (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[===>->1.8]]

“I’m sorry?” Dalton says. “You know," Ace rolls his eyes, "that you never saw each other. Had to be Fate.” He shrugs dismissively, as if the answer isn't nearly as interesting as Dalton and Mina think it is. Mina’s voice shakes as she says, “So my brother and I were never supposed to see each other again because of, what, destiny? That's a load of crap." “No, not that fate. Capital ‘F’ Fate.” Ace's voice takes on the tone of an adult explaining to a four year old why they can't have too much chocolate. Dalton can see Mina getting worked up at the condescending tilt of Ace's head. She's never liked pompous idiots that don't give you what you ask for and act like you're stupid for bothering to try to understand them. (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[===>->1.9]]

“The being that controls our lives?” Ava pipes up, glancing around for some recognition. “The reason we’re all here today?” “Because we were meant to die?” Cole asks. His tone is steady, but his wings quiver like a leaf in the wind. Dalton and Mina aren't the only people tired of the twins, it seems. “No. Because we //weren’t.//” At the blank looks blinking back at her, Ava cuffs Ace on the shoulder. "You explain," she says. Ace mimes adjusting a pair of glasses and his posture straightens. With the air of a teacher addressing a class of kindergartners, he asks, “What are ghosts?” The class is silent. Ace gestures with his left hand like //Go on then.// //Oh, what the hell,// Dalton thinks. “Dead people?” he says. Ace shakes his head and opens his mouth, but before he can speak, Jessamine clears her throat. The sound should be quiet but it echoes around the gathered dead like a cannon. “Spirits.” (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[===>->1.10]]

“Close," Ace says dismissively. "Not quite there, though. We're souls.” Ace looks each of them in the eye before continuing. “Our bodies are dead but our souls stuck around instead of passing on. Why do we think that is?" He says it like he already knows the answer. "Because we've got bad luck?" Cole tries. "Because we never learned the power of friendship?" Mina asks sarcastically. Dalton can tell she doesn't like where Ace is going. "Because our bodies were suposed to stick around with them," Jessamine says. Ace nods. He getures with both hands at the gathered dead like he's trying to envelope them all. "We’re problems. Glitches in the system, little blips in destiny. The people that died before their bodies knew they were going to. Fate’s mistakes.” (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[===>->1.11]]

"Mistakes... [[Are these mistakes too?"]] Cole asks. His wings shudder and everyone hears each feather ruffle. Jessamine blushes. “I'm not sure," Ace says, rubbing his chin. "Could be a mistranslation. The soul getting twisted up in the process of leaving the body. They might have something to do with how you died." Ava glances at her hands. She looks at her brother and says, “Hey A, what do you think we got?” Without missing a beat, Ace replies, “Lethal injection could mean poison of some kind?” Ace flexes his fingers and closes his eyes, unneeded breath caught in concentration. From the palms of his hand, a small ripple spreads through the air and everyone tastes something rotten. Dalton starts coughing into his shirt and pulls it up around his nose. "It's like a toxic wave," Ava says wonderingly. "Do you think I can do the same thing?" “Only one way to find out, B." (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[===>->1.13]]

Everyone takes a step back. Cole flutters a few more feet up in the air. A foggy buildup starts collecting in Ava’s palm. It swirls like the smoldering remains of a campfire in the wind. After coalescing for a few seconds, an acrid smell fills the air and the settled smoke looks almost solid and ash-like. The ghosts are captivated. Jessamine reaches out to touch the ball sitting in Ava's hand, her expression transfixed. No one stops her. As soon as her fingers ghost the edge, she hisses and pulls back. There's an angry red mark spreading on her palm. "That answers that question," Ava says quietly. She closes her fist around the murky ball of smoke. (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[===>->1.14]]

“Okay, great. You have poison powers. What the hell do we do with that?” Mina asks. Her voice is on the edge of angry, and Dalton watches as her knuckles glow a little brighter. He remembers the way he heard them scrape against her fingers earlier. That might be her mistranslation. “So we’re Fate’s fuckups, what exactly does that mean?” She holds a finger up when Ace opens his mouth. “Yeah, ghost, got it. I meant what does it mean for us, now? What are we doing? I don't know about y'all, but I've felt like I'm stuffed with cotton for weeks until I saw my brother, and I don't want to feel like that again." Dalton puts a hand on her shoulder. His voice is soft when he says, "Mina..." “Do I stay here? Am I haunting this library? Am I going to disappear when you have to get home for dinner? How much longer do we have, Dee?" (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[===>->1.15]]

“I don't know—I can't—I don't know how this deadspeak thing works." Dalton runs a hand along his head. “I did—//something// to call all of you here. Maybe I can get better. You could try to come home with me." “What about us?” Cole asks, landing softly. “This is the first time I've talked to people in—in months. I don't want things to go back to how they were." Dalton opens his mouth and closes it. There's nothing he can think to say to that. "We'll stay together," Mina says. She smiles at Cole. "Why not haunt me and Dee's apartment?" Cole digests that for a moment. He looks back-and-forth between Mina and Dalton a few times before his eyes settle on Dalton. "And you're fine with that? With... me?" He considers it. He just got Mina back, how does he feel about inviting another person into their lives? It's only a few seconds before he realizes he doesn't mind. Not just that, he //wants// Cole to stay with them. After weeks of living alone in that cavernous apartment, haunted by grief and nothing else, some company would be nice. "Sounds fun," Dalton says, short and sweet. "Then I think I'd like that." Mina nods. She wraps an arm around Cole's floating waist like she wishes she could wrap it around his shoulders. "Alright, Peter Pan's in! What about the rest of you? Wanna be tombmates?" Cole mutters, //Tombmates?// under his breath, but Mina ignores him. (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[===>->1.17]]

Jessamine looks around at the gathered dead. Their hair twists and turns around them. With a small sigh, they say, "I don't think I can." "What? 'Course you can. Dalton just needs to—" "No. I don't think I want to," she says more resolutely. "But I don't think I will disappear." Mina's expression falters for just a second before she shakes her shoulders and shrugs. "Okay, so we'll see you around, I guess. Or try to. I can work with that." She turns to Ace and Ava and asks, "What about the wonder twins? You guys interested?" (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[===>->1.18]]

Ace and Ava glance at each other. They shrug. “Nah.” Ava smiles. (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[===>->1.19]]

Ace grins wickedly. “I can think of a few better things to do.” (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[===>->1.20]]

Dalton coughs. (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[===>->1.21]]

He doesn't like the sound of that but, really, they’re ghosts. (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[===>->1.22]]

[[What’s the worst that could happen?->END ONE]]

Cole was tired. The thing about being depressed was that he was always tired. And, yeah, he could down another Monster, shake himself off, and do some jumping jacks until he couldn’t feel his legs properly anymore. Or he could fall. It wouldn’t even be a jump—not really. Almost like a trust exercise. Cole was getting ready to trust the fall into oncoming traffic to kill him before he had a chance to regret it. Not that he thought he’d regret letting himself topple off the overpass, but there was always a moment in the eyes of the side character they killed off for shock value when they realized what they were doing and almost decided not to. Maybe if [[circumstances had been different.]]

Or it seemed that way, until she reached the bottom of the hill, feet slipping off the pedals and wheels skidding a mile a minute. She thought,// this is what you get for not paying attention, you space case//, just as she tried to turn to avoid careening into the small creek. It didn’t work. [[And they fell in.]]

The water was cool, brush and trees surrounding the creekbed, branches getting tangled in Jessamine’s unusually long blonde hair. She shouted out, but her head was submerged. It wasn’t that deep, all things considered, but her head was submerged and she didn’t know what to do. Lights flickered in her peripheral but her head was submerged. She was flailing, splashing water every which way, but her head was submerged. And Jessamine screamed a final time, the sound seeming to echo off the soft ripples in the current, [[but her head was submerged]].

And no one (text-style:"bold","shadow")[[heard.->Jessamine]]

Though circumstances weren't different and Cole was not some side character getting killed off for ratings, he was his own goddamn person and if he wanted the attention of a suicide when his life was shit and his brain was fucked, so be it. Two years of therapy and he was sitting on the overpass and he couldn't think of a single damn thing he’d rather be doing than destroying whatever ounce of a life he had left. He’d done the math. With any luck, the 17 foot drop would snap his neck, break his spine, some irreversible life-ending damage quick and to the point, but if that failed, he’d have the cars zipping below him at 80 miles an hour to finish the job. Sure, it wasn't the cleanest way to go, but Cole had always been a fan of gruesome deaths, buckets of ketchup-blood and badly-made entrails leaking out. A kid with his guts strewn across I-69 was bound to get more news coverage than a dead body bleeding out in a bathtub. And all he had to do was fall, just lie back and wait the few seconds it would take for him to hit pavement. No effort to it. [[Cole lined himself up, arms outstretched and eyes as wide as he could open them.]]

[[Cole Mendoza welcomed death after so long of trying to keep it at bay.]]

[[Cole Mendoza was ready.]]

Cole Mendoza (text-style:"bold","fade-in-out")[fell.] (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[BACK TO MAIN->1.11]]

“So...where are they?” Mina asks, tapping her knuckles together, listening to them clink. Dalton flexes his fingers. She's been hounding him for the past half hour, like if she taps her knuckles long enough, he'll remember how to do this right. “Give me a minute, will you?” “You’ve had weeks to practice, Dee. I’ve given you a lot of minutes.” “No more talking,” Dalton says as he takes a breath. “Let me concentrate.” “Just think of Cole’s big, beautiful brown eyes and—” Mina laughs as he swats at her, dodging out of the way much faster than Dalton can move. His face burns. “We’re not doing this.” “Not doing what? Not talking about the ridiculously huge crush you’ve had on him since you first laid eyes on those gorgeous—" “Not talking at all.” Dalton flexes his fingers again. The tips of his ears grow colder, like the air around them's turned icy. “I’ve got magic to work.” (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[===>->2.2]]

Mina rolls her eyes and scoffs. “Well, now I know you’re embarrassed, pulling out the m-word. We both know it’s not magic, it’s Fate.” “And it’s not going to work unless I can focus.” He points an accusatory finger at her. “Do you wanna see them or not?” Mina frowns, her face contorting uncomfortably before she shrugs and mimes zipping her lips shut. It's funny how quickly they fell back into being //Dee and Mina,// as if Mina's death was just one more black eye to ice overnight. When she was alive, Dalton would spend a few hours angry at her—shaky and clingy and scared for her—before cooling down enough to get her an icepack and let his vice grip on her hand slacken. This time is a little more permenant, but after a day of adjusting the rhythm of their relationship, they slotted into place like two puzzle pieces meant to sit next to each other. Dalton closes his eyes and takes a deep, measured breath. He reaches inside himself and tugs at the little strings connecting him to Fate’s immeasurable power. //Just pull//, he tells himself. (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[===>->2.3]]

Mina makes an impatient sound and Dalton cracks his eye open. She shifts from foot to foot. “You done?” She asks, looking excited. “Do you see them?” “Well, no, but—actually, yes!” Mina doesn't give Dalton time to react. She takes off running towards the dumpster in the parking lot they're waiting in. Dalton follows close behind once he shakes the cold from his hands. Sure enough, two ghosts have appeared, one with long tendrils of floating hair and one with stark white wings. Jessamine and Cole, looking like they’d been in the middle of an [[awkward conversation]] before Mina clobbered Cole in a [[hug.]] Cole stiffens and blinks wildly when Dalton approaches. Dalton notes the way the feathers of his wings ruffle like a startled bird. “Hey,” Cole says in a small voice. He gives a little wave. (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[===>->2.4]]

“Basically—what I’m trying to say is—I mean—” Jessamine floated absently as Cole began explanation after explanation, rambling on until no one could blame her for tuning out his platitudes. She wasn’t stupid. She knew what this meant. Cole didn’t love her. Cole didn’t want to spend his eternity with her. Cole was breaking her heart as gently as he knew how (not very). Jessamine decided to put their heart on their sleeve, but—of course—had to rip it from their chest first. The day that they’d taken a leap and kissed Cole had been one of the worst days of their afterlife so far. They’d been an idiot, chasing after some boy that they knew had eyes for [[someone else.]] They’d thought Cole was something special, something to be cherished, and they’d been convinced, however briefly, that they were the right one to cherish him. Now Jessamine could see that she wasn’t what Cole wanted and knew in her heart that that meant she wasn’t what he [[needed]] either.

Dalton waves back, just as small. “Hey." He rubs a hand across the back of his shaved head. “Haven’t seen you in—what, [[a week?]]” Cole's complexion doesn't show a blush well, but Dalton hears the whisper of deadspeak telling him about the other's warm cheeks. “Yeah... been a while.” “That’s nothing!” Mina shouts off to the side, leaping at Jessamine. “I haven’t seen my girl Jessie in [[almost a month!]]” Jessamine floats uncertainly towards Mina. With a wide smile and a muttered, “missed you," Mina plants a sloppy kiss on Jessamine's cheek. Jessamine lets it happen, nodding back. “Me too.” (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[===>->2.5]]

Dalton was nervous. Understandably. It wasn't every day that you decided to meet up with the dead guy you have a crush on. It wasn't every day that you decided you were going to actually //ask out// the dead guy you have a crush on. So, yeah, he wasn't doing super [[great.]]

Jessamine floated uncertainly. Her hair lay wet and stringy against the breeze like it always did. She didn't know how to change it. She didn't know how to do a lot of things. She didn't care. Mina stared at them with a look like she expected them to care, like she expected them to learn how to. Like she expected them to stop experiencing the world with the volume down. And maybe Jessamine should try. The world was awfully dull when you died and didn't bother living. She hadn't taken a breath since she'd drowned all those years ago, and so her lungs hadn't shaken with laughter, her heart hadn't beat with excitement, her fingertips stayed a pale, ghostly blue. Mina's expression shifted from one of hope to a resigned sort of smile. It was the kind of acceptance that Jessamine had never known Mina to take head on, but maybe this was different. Mina knew them well enough to know when something was a boundary versus a particularly stubborn stack of crates sitting [[in the way.]]

“Where are the twins?” Cole asks. He looks like he was desperately searching for something to say and grabbed at the first thing that came to mind. “I don’t know,” Dalton says, frowning. He could've sworn he'd tuned into Ace and Ava's frequencies just as clearly as Jessamine and Cole's. Their souls were distant, but not far behind. “They should’ve been summoned here with y’all…” The air shifts between the gathered friends. “Ugh, really? Back here again?” (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[===>->2.6]]

Speak of the devil. Or devils, in this case. Ace and Ava pop into a space that should be empty, filling it the way ghosts tend to. They look slick as ever, their hair shiny and eyes bright. Dalton hasn't seen them in weeks but looking at them now it's like no time has passed. Ghosts were like that: static. He’s gotten used to that comforting consistency in his sister after she’d spent so long barreling off the cliff of change every week when she was alive. Still, where it's soothing in Mina’s case, it's strange in the twins’. Dalton half expects them to look years older. Instead they seem almost impossibly young now that he's aging ahead of them. There's a long silence where no one knows what to say. The twins hadn't exactly been enthusiastic about the others when they'd last seen each other. Then Cole speaks up, clearing his throat as if he still needs to and giving another self-conscious wave, “Hey, guys. Long time no see, huh?” (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[===>->2.7]]

His awkward greeting breaks all of them out of their stupor. Mina immediately pounces on Ace and Ava as if to give them a hug before she thinks better of it and settles for holding out her hands for two high fives. “Hey, you wild kids, where the hell’ve you been?” she asks. “Busy,” Ace says. He eyes the way her knuckles glint with distaste and makes no motion to return the gesture. Ava laughs and doesn't leave Mina hanging, flexing her fingers after their joined hands boom together. “We’ve been getting into all sorts of [[fun trouble]]." Dalton doesn't like the sound of that. He raises an eyebrow. “Care to share?” “Nothing that should concern you.” Ace scowls. “Just some research, some vengeance, some evil plotting thrown in for flavor. We’re only trying to make things right in the best way we know how: fucking everything up." (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[===>->2.8]]

"Hey, A?" "Yeah, B?" "If you make me read over the shoulder of another one of these occultists on the //off-chance// they're reading about Fate and //might// come across a chapter about her untimely demise, I will personally send you spiraling into whatever exists of an afterlife for us before you can open your mouth to ask." "...I'll cover this shift then." (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[BACK TO MAIN->2.7]]

The gathered friends all share a glance. Cole and Dalton’s eyes say,// I’m very uncomfortable with the idea of a revenge quest when we could ostensibly be a part of that revenge story//, while Mina’s eyes say, //Good for them but the use of the word ‘evil’ has me worried when they've proven to be very good at causing trouble//, and Jessamine’s eyes say, //I don’t know where this is going and I’m not entirely sure I want to find out but I can’t think of a way out of this, or any, conversation.// It's more information than one two-second look should carry. Dalton knows his deadspeak has only gotten better in the weeks he’s taken to actually [[refine it]], but it's still strange to be in a group of ghosts and know exactly what everyone's thinking without needing to hear them say a word. (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[===>->2.9]]

Dalton snapped his fingers, feeling the spark of language zip through his veins. Mina's thoughts drifted across his skin but they were too loose to grasp. He snapped again. He would get this. [[He //would.//->He would.]]

“Everything, huh?” Mina says, making a wild gesture with the hand that Ace hadn’t high-fived. “Like //everything// everything?” Ava’s eyes flash. The feral excitement in her expression leaves a bad taste in Dalton's mouth. “Oh yeah, we’re taking it straight to the top,” she says. There's an uncomfortable shift in the air. “The top…” Cole mutters. “Do you mean, like, actual Fate?” “The very same." (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[===>->2.10]]

"That... sounds like a bad idea," Dalton says. In a show of the level of maturity that Dalton's come to expect from the twins, Ava sticks her tongue out at him. "//You// sound like a bad idea." "What?" "Isn't that why we're all here?" Ace asks. "Because we were all 'bad ideas'? Fate's little mistakes that got left out in the cold. Fate's chew toys that she forgot she'd spit out." (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[===>->2.11]]

"Cole," they stopped him. "It's okay. I understand." "You...you do?" "Yes." Her words didn't even shake when she ran a hand through the long tendrils of hair that trailed after her. They were still matted with water and mud even after all these years since she drowned. The silt was a comfort now. "I am not [[who you want]]."

"Well, I wouldn't go that far. I still want to be your friend, it's only—" Jessamine was saved from hearing Cole's stuttered explanation by a familiar //whooshing// surrounding them both. It seemed Jessamine had some catching up to do. (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[BACK TO MAIN->2.3]]

After a few minutes of shuffling his feet and trying to figure out if he was being stood up before he'd even gotten the chance to tell Cole this was a date, the dead guy in question appeared in a whirlwind of white wings and a familiar coldness seeping into his ears. This was deadspeak. This was that language that flowed around the living and made a home in Dalton's head like it was meant to sit there comfortably. This was the opposite of life and words and meaning. Of course, none of that mattered much to him at the moment, not with Cole looking at him like //that//, his brown eyes bright and the shadows of his face warped. A ghost in every sense the word, yet an angel in his own respect. His wings shuddered against the air like they were fighting to exist. Dalton could hear each feather singing the song of deadspeak as the breeze refused to ruffle them. Cole's skin was ashen but the longer he swayed in front of Dalton, the more that language sunk into his pores and filled them with afterlife. God, he was [[beautiful.]]

"Hey..." Dalton said, as if waking up from a dream. Jesus, if Mina could hear him now, she'd never stop teasing him about how far gone he was for someone he wasn't ever supposed to meet, at least according to Fate. But fuck Fate. "Hi." There was an awkward few moments where Cole's form grew stronger and Dalton's resolve for the conversation he wanted to have grew weaker. [["So...What've you been up to?"]]

Cole blinked once before he smiled that perfect, crooked smile. "Considering I saw you a couple days ago, nothing much. I went to the movies a few times to people-watch. Did you know that the movie theater will let people bring whole bottles of wine in?" "Like, in a bag?" "Nope," Cole popped the //p.// "Just carrying an entire bottle of wine under their shirt like they've got some kind of cylyndrical limb protruding from their stomach. There's been at least one time where someone dropped their bottle and it shattered and they still let them see their movie!" Dalton watched the way Cole moved his hands around enthusiastically, his whole body thrown into his excitement. It always felt comforting to know that Cole wore his emotions on his sleeve like this. It made it easier to quiet the panicked deadspeak whispering in the back of his mind trying to read Cole's intentions built into the fiber of his [[soul.]]

"Which movie theater is this again? It has to be some dollar theater, because there's no way an Alamo Drafthouse or something would let people get away with all that." "Uh, I think it's called CinemaTown." Cole's form flickered in a blush. "I'm not sure where it is... I don't usually pay attention to where I end up." Dalton couldn't imagine that, the disorganized weightlessness of a consciousness out of time. He was //too// aware of his body usually. It felt like a wet wool coat wrapped around his insides and keeping him from spilling through the universe. Sometimes he'd let a piece of himself slip through the threads holding him together to communicate in ways his flesh couldn't, but he was always present in that weight, no matter how much of himself he [[let go.]]

The two lapsed into silence. Cole's face was expectant, but waiting; Dalton's heart was expectant, but waiting. The cold November air felt like another presence altogether. "Is there...a reason you called me here?" Cole asked. Dalton breathed out through his nose. "There's not //not// a reason I called you here." [["Dalton."->Dalton.]]

"Okay, okay." Dalton put a hand up and ran it over the freshly-shaved hair on the back of his neck. "There was something I had in mind. Something I wanted to tell you—ask you, more like." "Yeah?" "Yeah. It's—Well, it's not exactly... it's not exactly something I have a lot of experience in asking people." "Oh?" "Yeah. So... so go easy on me." [["Okay."->Okay.]]

"Cole, I was wondering if..." Dalton hesitated. "Yes?" "Well, we've known each other for a bit now and, you know, we've gotten to know each other." "Go on," Cole said, shit-eating grin taking over his flighty features. Dalton huffed a breath. "Now you're just making fun of me." "No, no, I promise I wanna hear what you have to say!" [["Maybe I won't tell you after all."]]

"Dalton, just spit it out." "Cole, I—Mrph!" Cole's lips smashed against Dalton's, sending a chill through his spine like a cord being pulled taught. He felt the deadspeak that tickled the back of his throat whenever he was around any of the ghosts //sing.// After an awkward mesh of sensation and cold and //feeling//, Cole pulled away. In a language that Dalton was still learning to master, he felt a hope that wasn't his flicker through his veins and get lost in the labriynth of his body. "Oh," was all that came out of his [[mouth.]]

With a sigh so deep that the echoes shook Dalton's bones, Cole (text-style:"bold","shadow","fade-in-out")[vanished.] (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[BACK TO MAIN->2.4]]

"So...I guess that's a no, then?" Mina's voice didn't even waver, Jessamine observed. She was too used to this. "It's a 'not right now'," Jessamine felt herself say. She didn't know why. But Jessamine rarely knew why she did anything, and seeing Mina's hesitant smile shine brighter just might make it worth it. (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[BACK TO MAIN->2.4]]

"So can you read my mind yet?" Mina asked, tapping her knuckles together and listening to the //ka-chunk.// "That's not how it works." "Really?" She raised an eyebrow. "Because to me it feels like your bandaid-ed fingers are rooting around in my DNA and trying to pick out the best bits." Dalton blinked. "That—uh—that doesn't sound [[great."]]

"Eh, it's kind of like being zapped with lightning on the inside, but it's not so bad." "Do you really want me to keep trying?" Dalton asked. He felt the hollow notes of deadspeak drift between him and Mina but he shook his head to get rid of the lingering sensation. He didn't need to be reading Mina's mind right now. "Yeah, I'm sure! Once you figure this out, who knows what you'll be able to do. I wanna be there for [[all of it."]]

Dalton took a breath. "Okay...if you're sure." "Hell yes!" Dalton took another breath. And another. And another. He cracked his knuckles one by one and shook his hands out. Rubbing at his shaved scalp, Dalton closed his eyes and let himself stretch the part of him that [[called to the dead.]]

Everything grew lighter behind his eyelids. A song sprung into his head, whispering notes through all of his senses. He didn't see/hear/smell/taste Mina, but he //felt// her. She was... nervous. And excited and jumpy and full of love but underneath it all, trying to be buried in the background of her soul, was a nervousness that even Dalton hadn't heard before. "Well? [[Did it work?"]]

"Uh, yeah. Yeah, I think it did." (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[BACK TO MAIN->2.8]]

Cole scowls. His feathers flutter again. "No need to have a complex about it," he mutters so that only Dalton can hear—//feel// really—his words. Jessamine feels one minute away from muting all of them and ending this encounter with the way her [[usually-smooth deadspeak]] runs across every bump on Dalton's skin. "What will that mean?" she asks. "If you go after Fate?" (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[===>->2.12]]

"The real question is what //won't// it mean, my dear!" Ava proclaims. "We're getting out, friends. All of us," Ace says, linking arms with his sister. "If Fate can't translate us properly into her language, we're making our own. A code for the recently-deceased and newly alive." Cole shakes his head. "What are you talking about?" "Our souls persisted, even after our bodies died. It stands to reason they can handle rebirth just fine. Fate mistakenly took our lives, but they don't have to be gone forever. After all, if her fuckups gave us ghostly superpowers, then she must be capable of generating more than just a path to fall off of." "You're going to... what? Reincarnate?" Dalton asks. Something is ringing behind his ears. "More like demand a recount," Ava says with a sharp grin. (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[===>->2.13]]

"That sounds like a //really// bad idea," Dalton repeats. The ringing gets louder. "How?" Jessamine asks. Ace and Ava shrug in unison, their joined arms bouncing with their shoulders. "We thought we'd figure that out as we went," they say together. (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[===>->2.14]]

Dalton feels a few seconds away from pulling out hair he doesn't have. "I shouldn't have to keep saying how bad of an idea this is!" "Look, she's Fate, right? All-seeing, all-powerful, et cetera." Ava flaps her hand. "So we'll just... get her attention? Mess around with the fabric of reality with the tools she accidentally gave us. And then see how scared those tools can make her." "The fabric of reality?" Cole yelps. "We've been doing research," Ace says. "Deadspeak is rare, ghosts few and far between, but the language comes with more than just fluency. Once you know how to talk to the universe's DNA, you can see more than just ghosts. People have been stuying Fate's power for centuries, learning the limits of how she operates. We're all dead proof of those limits." Ava nods along with her brother. "She's //technically// everything that exists, but so are we, in a way. We're made of the same stuff she uses to craft the cosmos. It stands to reason that if she can mess with our lives, we can mess back. Maybe we can't take her out, but we can at least demand a ransom." Jessamine's voice echoes like it always does when she's nervous. "That sounds dangerous." (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[===>->2.15]]

"Life's dangerous," Ace says. "Or death, more like it." Ava chuckles. All ghostly eyes turn to Dalton, the supposed authority on what makes death so dangerous, the one who can speak to the fabric of destiny itself and knows a language no one with a still-beating heart should know. It's a lot of pressure to put on a guy. (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[===>->2.16]]

He opens his mouth to say... something. Something smart, insightful, maybe even impressive. But before the words can leave his soul, someone puts something new in their place. (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[===>->2.17]]

(font: "Courier New")+(text-style:"shadow","expand")[//Hello.//] The voice doesn't come from Dalton. The voice doesn't come from anyone. The voice comes from the worn lines of time that wrinkle Dalton's face after so many years of worrying about Mina. The voice comes from between each ruffled feather on Cole's large wings. The voice comes from everywhere in between every crevice of every one of the gathered friends. (font: "Courier New")+(text-style:"shadow","expand")[//Is this where it ends?//] (font: "Courier New")+(text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[===>->2.18]]

The gathered friends turn to look at—nothing. There's nothing //to// look at. Mina is the first to speak. "Is it?" (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[===>->2.19]]

(font: "Courier New")+(text-style:"shadow","expand")[//That is not my question to answer.//] "Then it's... ours?" Mina asks. "No," Ava cuts in. "It's //ours.//" (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[===>->2.20]]

(font: "Courier New")+(text-style:"shadow","expand")[//Ace.//] (font: "Courier New")+(text-style:"shadow","expand")[//Ava.//] The two turn to look at each other. They shrug simultaneously, but their hands shake with forced casualness. They are scared. "Yeah?" they ask. (font: "Courier New")+(text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[===>->2.21]]

(font: "Courier New")+(text-style:"shadow","expand")[//Neither of you are supposed to exist.//] (font: "Courier New")+(text-style:"shadow","expand")[//None of you,//] the voice echoes through the gaps in the gathered friends less-than-solid and slightly-more-solid bodies, (font: "Courier New")+(text-style:"shadow","expand")[//are supposed to exist.//] "Gee, thanks, we hadn't gotten the memo," Ace quips because he can't help himself. (font: "Courier New")[(text-style:"shadow","expand")[//None of you should be here.//] (text-style:"shadow","expand")[//Yet you are.//]] (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[===>->2.22]]

(font: "Courier New")+(text-style:"shadow","expand")[//It is almost like my omnipotence has been greatly exaggerated.//] Cole blinks, an air of timidness falling away from his clouded eyes like shedding a worn coat on a cold day. "Was that a joke?" The voice pays him no mind. (font: "Courier New")+(text-style:"shadow","expand")[//I understand your grievances.//] (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")+(font: "Courier New")[[===>->2.23]]

"Oh, do you now?" Ava laughs derisively. (text-style:"shadow","expand")+(font: "Courier New")[//Yes.//] (text-style:"shadow","expand")+(font: "Courier New")[//That is what I just said.//] (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[===>->2.24]]

"Not all of us have 'grievances'," Cole mutters. (text-style:"shadow","expand")+(font: "Courier New")[//Trust me, children, when I tell you that you are not the first to question the order of the universe.//] (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[===>->2.25]]

(text-style:"shadow","expand")+(font: "Courier New")[//I believe you may be the first to threaten it with violence however.//] (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[===>->2.26]]

The gathered friends stare at each other, some with open mouths, others with wide eyes, all with frantic hearts-that-shouldn't-beat. "So can we?" Ava breaks the silence. (font: "Courier New")[(text-style:"shadow","expand")[//The question is not one of can,//] (text-style:"shadow","expand")[//But one of may//]] (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[===>->2.27]]

Dalton shakes his head in disbelief. "Is Fate giving you a grammar lesson?" Mina has a more pressing question: "Are you giving us //permission// to 'threaten you with violence'?" "Who is this us?" Ace says under his breath. "It was //our// plan." (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[===>->2.28]]

(font: "Courier New")[(text-style:"shadow","expand")[//I am all.// //I am the fabric of every reality, the turning of every tide, the death of every star and the birth of every life.// //Nothing exists without a path to place it on.//]] (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[===>->2.29]]

(font: "Courier New")[(text-style:"shadow","expand")[//Nothing, except those that wander off the path like so few are aware or able to do.// //Nothing except the six embodiments of nothing that stand before me now.// //Nothing except the glitches who cannot undo themselves.//]] (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[===>->2.30]]

(font: "Courier New")+(text-style:"shadow","expand")[//So now I must ask you all a question:// //May I undo you?//] (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[===>->2.31]]

The language of the dead exists in every living thing. Life begets death begets life begets death. We're born with the knowledge of dying encrusted in each strand of DNA. We spend our whole lives preventing it from happening until we don't anymore. And our DNA unravels the songs and whispers and shouts that it heard before it was even aware of words. No one learns deadspeak— We only remember. (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[===>->2.32]]

When Fate asks the gathered friends that question, she isn't teaching them anything about how the world works. Each of them? They remember. The question is: would they like to forget? (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[===>->2.33]]

(font: "Courier New")+(text-style:"shadow","expand")[[[The only one who can answer it is you.->END TWO]]]

(align:"=><=")+(box:"X")[(text-style:"bold","strike","outline")+(text-colour:#00aeef)+(css: "font-size: 300%;")[END OF ACT TWO] (css: "font-size: 150%;")[[[REPLAY ACT ONE->TITLE ONE]] || [[REPLAY ACT TWO->TITLE TWO]] [[W A R N I N G S->CWs]] [[C R E D I T S->credits]]] (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")+(css: "font-size: 150%;")[[[BACK TO START->START]]]]

(text-colour:#00aeef)+(css: "font-size: 300%;")+(text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[CREDITS] Written and designed by: (Link:"a.c.d")[(gotourl:"https://www.acd.works")] Cover by: (Link:"a.c.d")[(gotourl:"https://www.acd.works")] Sensitivity read by: Noelle S Edited by: Leviticus Greenley and (Link:"Jude C")[(gotourl:"https://www.twitter.com/judaciously")] (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")+(css: "font-size: 150%;")[[[BACK TO START->START]]]

(align:"=><=")+(box:"X")[This game is told semi-linearly. Clicking highlighted text such as [[this]] brings you to a MEMORY. Clicking arrows such as (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[===>->example]] brings you to the next passage. Saving your game will save the current passage you're on Loading your game will load the last passage you saved Restarting will take you back to the title screen] (align:"=><=")+(box:"X")+(css: "font-size: 150%;")[[[BEGIN ACT ONE->TITLE ONE]] || [[BEGIN ACT TWO->TITLE TWO]] [[W A R N I N G S->CWs]] [[C R E D I T S->credits]]]

(text-colour:#00aeef)+(css: "font-size: 250%;")+(text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[CONTENT WARNINGS] * Frank discussions of death * Skin picking * A narrowly avoided car accident * Death of a sibling * Death via injury from a fight * Both attempted and successful suicide * Drowning * Unethical medical experimentation * Depiction of a lethal injection * References to murder (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")+(css: "font-size: 150%;")[[[BACK TO START->START]]]

(align:"=><=")+(box:"=XXX=")[(text-colour:#00aeef)+(css: "font-size: 300%;")+(text-style:"bold","strike","outline","expand")[ACT ONE] (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[===>->1.1]]]

(align:"=><=")+(box:"=XXX=")[(text-colour:#00aeef)+(css: "font-size: 300%;")+(text-style:"bold","strike","outline","expand")[ACT TWO] (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[===>->2.1]]]

(align:"=><=")+(box:"X")[(text-style:"bold","strike","outline")+(text-colour:#00aeef)+(css: "font-size: 300%;")[END OF ACT ONE] (css: "font-size: 150%;")[[[BEGIN ACT TWO->TITLE TWO]] || [[REPLAY ACT ONE->TITLE ONE]] [[W A R N I N G S->CWs]] [[C R E D I T S->credits]]] (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")+(css: "font-size: 150%;")[[[BACK TO START->START]]]]

He kept driving. (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[BACK TO MAIN->1.2]].

(align:"=><=")+(box:"=XXX=")[(text-colour:#00aeef)+(css: "font-size: 400%;")+(text-style:"bold","strike","expand","outline")[D E A D S P E A K] (css: "font-size: 150%;")[a game by a.c.d [[B E G I N->START]]]]

That startles another laugh out of him. Scrubbing at his eyes with the back of his hand, Dalton tries not to think about driving on Congress at night. He focuses on the cool air on his skin and the sounds of laughter floating towards them from the parking lot. He isn't sitting alone in a beat up Honda Civic getting ready to careen off a bridge. He's never going to be there again, not with his sister in his sight like this. Mina must notice his expression shift, because her ice-cold hand reaches out to cuff his shoulder. "Hey, chin up, Dee," she says with a shaky smile. "You did it. You found me." "Yeah," Dalton breathes. "Yeah, I did." (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[===>->1.5.2]]

They're both silent for a few moments. The air around them is still, but Dalton is dimly aware of the families going in and out of the library entrance around the corner. He can hear sounds of the city in the background, cars driving down streets he'd torn apart trying to get to where he is now. "Mina... " Dalton mutters, so quiet he's not sure she'll be able to hear him. "You—you died." A scraping sound, like metal on bone, fills the air as Mina rubs at her knuckles. "Tell me something I don't know." She chuckles clumsily, like a child tasked with disabling a nuclear reactor. The tension around them grows thick and clouded. "You died for—for what, Mina?" "Dee—" "No, let me say this. You died in some back alley because of a fight you knew you couldn't win. You died because you were stubborn and scared and you thought getting the shit kicked out of you would make you feel better. Well, did it?" (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[===>->1.5.3]]

"Dalton—" "I'll answer for you: it didn't. Because it never did. You kept picking fights and I kept patching you up and I think you wanted it to change something, but the only thing that changed was the fact that you left me alone!" He's breathing heavy now, and he knows that the nice little families with fully alive siblings spending a day at the library can hear him shouting, but Dalton doesn't care. He cares about one thing: his sister. And for the first time since she’d died in the passenger seat of their ten year old Honda Civic, he’s looking her in the eye. It's strange. Dalton's spent the last month grieving. He's spent the last week searching. He's spent hours and hours imagining what he would say to what was left of Mina Smith, how holding her would feel when she had no steady heartbeat to keep him grounded. What could he say to the memory of a memory to make her more real? And now that he's standing in front of a faded picture of the only person who's ever understood him, all he wants to do is shake her by the shoulders and demand what gave her the right to put him through this. (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[===>->1.5.4]]

Mina stares at him. He feels like he's just peeled away a layer of skin and left his insides exposed to the breeze drifting around them. His ribs are cold under his shirt. Time walks slowly forward. Mina stares at him. He stares back. Only one of them breathes. "I'm sorry," Dalton says eventually. “I didn’t mean to yell.” "No, Dee, don't apologize." Mina sighs. "You're grieving. I guess I just—didn't realize it got this bad." “You could say that… “ Dalton mutters. He clears his throat. “But it’s not your fault. None of this—neither of us could’ve known it would happen. We’ve had too many close calls to know this one would stick.” “You mean me,” Mina says bitterly, her expression twisting. “I’ve had too many close calls.” Dalton opens his mouth to argue with her, if only because he doesn’t like seeing his sister’s face screwed up like she’s in pain, but then he realizes that he’d only be lying. He’s never lied to Mina before. “Yeah... I mean you.” "How long have I been... gone?" "A few weeks," Dalton says lightly, his expression flat. //Three weeks and four days, give or take a few hours,// he thinks. (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[===>->1.5.5]]

"Jesus," Mina says. She rubs her knuckles more. Dalton sniffles once, twice. "Well, I'm here now.” "You really are, huh?" His voice sounds disbelieving even to himself. Mina chuckles, but it’s clumsy, falling from her mouth like a tumble down the stairs. "Always, Dee." A bird chirps somewhere in the parking lot. Dalton can smell the dumpster sitting a few yards away. The sky is taking on a pink-ish tinge as the day fades. For the first time in almost a month, the turning of Dalton's stomach stops. His fingers flex and still. He doesn't feel the weight of death squeezing the air from his lungs like a deflating balloon. The memory of a memory is more real than blood on the seat of a car he doesn't drive anymore, right now. It's standing in front of him and smiling with a chipped tooth and scarred knuckles. That has to be enough. (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[===>->1.5.6]]

“We can do this,” Ace said, clearing his throat. Somewhere in the distance, metal clanged against concrete. The ad stated that this was an experiment being conducted by a professor from UT on sabbatical. It promised a payout of $300 per person, as long as you completed the entire trial. Why a professor from UT was conducting experiments in Giddings was the first sign that something about the situation didn't smell right. But Ace and Ava were behind on car payments and rent was due in a few days. If they didn't get that $600 soon, they'd have more to worry about than [[unethical science.]]

Ace guessed that he and Ava were waiting for another ten minutes before the same person with the clipboard opened the door again, although it was hard to tell. They'd both had to surrender their phones when they entered the building. The attendants had even taken Ace's watch, no matter how many times he insisted the only thing it was good for was telling time and direction. [[“Subject 13-A and 13-B, please step into the adjacent room,"]] they said flatly.

"Mortuary science," Dr. Keeler said. "A fascinating field. One that's called to me for years. I'm glad that I'll finally be making headway where my true interests lie with this experiment that you're helping make possible." The professor laughed. He took off his glasses and began wiping them on his lab coat. "For today's procedure, I'll need you both sitting on the table for me." Ace made a move for the table but Ava's grip on his arm stopped him. She glared at Dr. Keeler as she said, "What exactly //is// the procedure? The flyer didn't say anything about mortuary science. That's like a coroner, right?" "Ah, good job, Miss. You've hit the nail on the head. Yes, one who studies mortuary science can indeed become a coroner, although the more common position is that of a mortician or funeral director." "What does that have to do with us?" Ava asked. "Quite a lot. Do you children have any experience with death?" The twins looked at each other. Silently, they agreed on their answer. "No," Ace said matter-of-factly. "Then you aren't aware of the toll it can take, not just for those left behind, but for those too close to it themselves." Dr. Keeler cleared his throat. "I was supposed to die twenty three years ago on the operating table, [[but I didn’t.]]"

"It was a routine colonoscopy. Simply a check up due to my age. I'd never had a procedure of that nature done, never even broken a bone. I reacted poorly to the anesthesia. I was clinically dead for a full minute before they brought me back." Dr. Keeler stared meaingfully at Ace and Ava. He looked as if he was expecting them to say something. Ace pushed his expression into one of sympathy. "I'm sorry you had to go through that," he said. "Thank you, my boy. But not to worry, the experience left me stronger than ever, both in an emotional and literal sense." Dr. Keeler once again stared meaningfully at the twins. "Tell me, children, [[do you believe in ghosts?"]]

Mina doesn't take her eyes off him, but Dalton can feel his awareness start to drift, like a tugging down his vertebrae. A cold feeling at the edge of his fingertips sparks. There's something moving behind his eyes. Mina seems to notice his attention shift and she tilts her head at him. "What I don't get," she says, "is that if you were looking for me for a week, why you didn't just do this before?" “Do what?” She rolls her eyes, “Don’t act dumb, it’s not gonna make me uncomfortable, I’m already dead.” “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” “The whole, ‘summoning ghosts’, thing.” She waggles her fingers as if to demonstrate. “What?” "There was this pull, like a rope yanking me here." “I didn’t do anything.” But as he says it, the cold feeling whispers in his ear about (text-style:"bold","shadow")+(font: "Courier New")[deadspeak.] He whispers along with it. A new voice speaks, soft and hesitant. “What’s deadspeak?” (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[===>->1.6]]

Jessamine watched Dalton's television bathe the small apartment living room in washed-out blue light. She sighed as the shadows of Cole's face adjusted to the new dimensions around them. No doubt her own features appeared to be shifting, but she knew it didn't look nearly as ethereal. The gathered friends were sitting on the floor of Dalton and Mina's place, getting ready to watch some ridiculous ghost movie that none of them had ever seen. Couches were difficult; they didn't always like supporting the empty air of a soul without a body and fading through furntiure was a bad kind of rush so no one bothered to take a real seat besides Dalton. Cole was sitting between Jessamine and Mina. His wings stretched onto the loveseat behind him and almost pushed Dalton off the side. Jessamine watched with rapt interest as they shuffled seemingly of their own [[accord.]]

Mina's tongue lulled out of the corner of her mouth as she squinted in concentration at the screen in front of her. With careful movements, she navigated the controller in her hand until a blob-like finger pointed at her goal. A high-pitched voice echoed from the speakers of the TV she and Dalton snagged from a garage sale two years ago. "Mario Kart...Wii!" it proclaimed. Cole eyed her with a nervous flutter of feathers. He opened his mouth, probably to comment on the intensity of her focus, but Mina held up a finger with her free hand and shook her head. "No talking," she said softly. "This is [[harder than it looks."]]

Mina was saying something, making some joke that went in one water-logged ear and out the other, but Dalton laughed like she'd made his day and Cole covered his mouth to keep a snort from bursting out. He was so handsome when he laughed. Before long, someone started the movie and the atmosphere calmed enough for Cole to lean his head to the side and relax onto Jessamine's shoulder. They tried very hard to keep their breath from catching. But Cole's wings curled around Dalton's spot on the couch like outstretched arms. She watched a smile bloom on his face when Dalton whispered something in his ear. The brightness of Cole's brown eyes lit up the room more than any television screen could. In their heart, Jessamine knew the sound of Cole's heartbeat in her ears wasn't real, but when it started beating faster as Dalton cuffed his shoulder and grinned so wide his face looked like it would crack in two, she couldn't help let out a sigh that echoed louder than the movie everyone but Mina appeared to be [[ignoring.]]

She wanted. She wanted, which wasn't something that usually happened. She wanted and she didn't think she would get. Not with the way Cole and Dalton smiled at each other. But she couldn't stop the growing pit in her stomach, the pumping of a heart that hadn't worked in decades. The want. [[Jessamine sighed.->awkward conversation]]

//This// was trying to set up a game of Mario Kart when the only thing solid about her was her glinting knuckles. Fate's mistranslation meant that Mina's hands still had a bit of body left in them, there was something more solid than her soul keeping them together. Unlike the rest of the ghosts she and Dalton had befriended, she could actually //touch// things. Of course, the hard steel of her hands only extended so far. Her fingertips phased through objects nine times out of ten, unless she was really focusing. Her palms could hold weight as long as she paid attention to what she was carrying. Which was why—with nothing better to do and no little brother to annoy—Mina was so determined to concentrate on the screen in front of her and the plastic weight of a Wiimote in her [[left hand.]]

"So, do you want me to just watch you play?" Cole asked timidly as Mina got a feel for the controller and hovered at the player select menu. She handily pressed //A// once the pointer hit the option for two players. "Don't be silly, we're playing together." Cole gaped at her. He made a loose gesture towards the second Wiimote she'd made Dalton dig out of storage earlier that morning. "I can't exactly hold my own," he all but whined. "Aren't you an artist, Cole? Where's your creativity? Your imagination?" "Did Dalton tell you I was an artist?" Cole asked, flustered. Then, he hastily added, "I can't //imagine// my way to first place." Laughing her way through the game selection menus, Mina reached for the other Wiimote. "He may have mentioned it. And don't worry about getting first place, because that's not gonna happen even if you could [[hold the controller yourself."]]

Cole's wings beat once, then twice against the couch before he shrugged his shoulders to his ears and shook his head. The charming sounds of Nintendo's finest franchise played around them. "Those would be fighting words if I had any way to fight back," he said. "Then I present to you: a way to fight back," Mina chuckled at him as she stretched her arm in front of his face and waved the controller around the character select screen. "Now pick a racer. I call dibs on Bowser." Cole blinked at her. "Wh—How? I still can't touch it." "Then don't touch it, my hand is right there." His eyes widened the moment it dawned on him what she meant. Mina smiled encouragingly as he reached out and adjusted her grip on the Wiimote. Tentatively, he pushed his palm against hers and navigated the pointer to hover over Toad. [["There, you've got it!"]] Mina exclaimed.

"This is going to go badly," Cole said, but he pressed her index finger against the //A// button to select Toad. Having her concentration fractured between two solid objects was giving Mina whatever the ghost equivalent of a splitting headache was, but she was determined to make this work. Her independence wouldn't be dependent on Dalton's whims, as much as she loved and trusted her brother. Death hadn't stopped Mina from hugging him and it wouldn't stop her from wasting time on a video game with a friend either. "That's the spirit!" she said to Cole. "I'll even let you pick the track I'm gonna beat you on." Cole's expression slowly shifted from trepidatious to eager as he moved his hands more comfortably around her knuckles. She wasn't the only one excited about the prospect of ghostly competition. "We'll see about that..." he muttered, a grin spreading across his cheeks. "Let's ride!" (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[BACK TO MAIN->2.3]]

"I really appreciate you doing this," Dalton said as earnestly as he could muster. He knew his smile was a fraction too wide, but he wanted Jessamine to feel as welcome as possible. //Yeah, Dee,// he could almost hear Mina saying, //what's more welcoming than a nervous man faking a manic grin?// Jessamine, for their part, didn't reply, only swayed slightly like a soggy willow tree in the breeze. Tendrils of their wet hair curled around their body as if they had a mind of their own. They nodded at Dalton's awkward posture and the spark of their meaning traveled through his shrugged shoulders. It whispered passive disinterest in his ear. "I know you have better things to do," he went on. "Or—I mean I assume you have better things to do. I guess I haven't really thought about what you //do// exactly, when we're not around, but I'm sure it's not as boring as being my [[guinea pig."]]

Jessamine shrugged one shoulder and Dalton watched as a flop of hair //splat// across her cheek at the motion. She said, "I don't do anything when you're not around." "Oh... well at least now we can pass some time?" "Time passes no matter what," Jessamine intoned softly, "but I'm curious how I fit into the world now that I'm not just spectating. And guinea pigs are my favorite animal." It took him longer than he was proud of to realize that the last sentence was her attempt at a joke. Her voice stayed level and her expression didn't change, but a burst of laughter echoed through his chest to puncuate her words. Learning to listen with more than just his ears, learning to hear more than just sounds—all of it was overwhelming and exhausting and exactly what Dalton's soul needed to fit inside his body. That's why he was here with Jessamine: to fit the puzzle pieces that made up Dalton Smith together snugly without relying on the fact that he already knew how to assemble Mina [[together.]]

Yes, he could interpret his sister's deadspeak from his head to his heart, but could he learn the language of a ghost who'd been dead for over 20 years? A ghost he had virtually nothing in common with? If the song of river rocks and silt that played in the back of his mind while Jessamine swayed next to him was anything to go by, the answer was yes. "Let's start with something simple," he said. "Tell me a lie." Blinking, Jessamine scrunched her nose in thought. It was the most emotive Dalton had seen her face since she'd agreed to help him pracitce. [["What kind of lie?"]] She asked.

He shrugged. "Doesn't matter, just can't be true. I've tried doing this one with Mina, but even before I learned the language of her dead soul, I could still tell when she was full of it. I figured doing this with you would be a good way to see how much of that is being Mina's younger brother and how much of it is everything else." "Any lie..." Jessamine murmured. Their hair curled closer around their shoulders. There was still a tendril stuck to the side of their cheek that made Dalton want to reach out and brush it away. His fingertips felt damp. "I'm warm." Dalton let the words filter through Jessamine's silt in his head. He clenched his fist to keep from wiping his hands on his pants. The whispers of emotion radiating from from her soul rang false. She wasn't warm. And he was better at this than he thought. (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[[BACK TO MAIN->2.11]]

Ace's last words were telling Dr. Keeler to fuck off. His vision faded on the sight of Ava holding her middle finger up at the man. He didn't let his body go peacefully as the poison Dr. Keeler injected them with thrashed through his veins. He thrashed with it. Ava's screams didn't quiet until her throat swelled closed. She always was good at projecting. The doctor had explained the language of the dead and the people who had access to it. He'd gone over the way he was blessed by Fate to interact with ghosts. He'd called the attendant that led them into the room over to pin them down while he jabbed a white-hot needle into each of their necks. He'd laughed and told them he hoped they survived against the odds. They didn't. Ace and Ava's world lost color like a poorly developed photograph. They died like Dr. Keeler was supposed to, all those years ago. And then they felt a pull. And then they remembered something their souls had forgotten. And then they were [[something new.->anymore.]]

Now you're getting it! Click highlighted text to proceed through MEMORIES. At the end of a MEMORY, click to go (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")[BACK TO MAIN] where you can continue through the MAIN story. All MEMORIES eventually lead back to MAIN. Don't be shy about clicking through them. (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")+(css: "font-size: 150%;")[[[BACK TO START->START]]]

Now you're getting it! Click the arrows to proceed through the MAIN story. Don't forget to go though MEMORIES as well. They'll help you form a complete picture, and all MEMORIES lead back to MAIN. (text-style:"bold","strike","outline")+(css: "font-size: 150%;")[[[BACK TO START->START]]]

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