#ecto rp

Arthur rubbed at his forehead, blinking away stars. His head hurt like hell and he was pretty sure he felt a bump forming. “Ah..y-yeah, yeah. im fine. Im good”

Wham The sound echoed through the caverns. Arthur didn’t pick himself up immediately. There was a part of him wondering why pick himself up at all. It wasn’t like he was ever going to leave the cave not...not as he was.

He should be dead, just like Lewis. It was a painful truth, but one he couldn’t look away from. It was his fault, after all. Him and whatever had taken control of his body. He wasn’t sure what had happened to it. There had certainly been no murderous impulses since he woke up, but at the same time there wasn’t anyone left to murder.

Arthur felt strong familiar hands pick him up and pull him into a sitting position. “Thanks Lew,” he muttered. 

“You need to be more careful,” The ghost chided, “You could have hurt yourself.” 

Arthur snorted. “If the first fall didn’t kill me, I doubt a stumble will.”

It took all of Lewis’s will power not to glance to the other side of the cave, where his own body was impaled on a stalagmite. And next to it a stalagmite still stained with a ring of blood. Or would it be ichor? He supposed the exact name of the bodily fluid didn’t matter, in the end.

Lewis placed both hands on the cave floor and summoned a small warm flames that chased away the chill of the cave. It was the first ‘power’ he had discovered and he was grateful it was something to bring at least some comfort to Arthur.

Death was cruel, but to wake up from it only to have your body be twisted into that of a demon’s was far worse. Especially when that same demon was responsible for Lewis’s own death.

Almost despite himself Arthur relaxed. The green wings slide into a less defensive position and the tail stopped twitching. They were too far from the cave entrance to see how much time had passed, but Lewis was sure it had at least been a few days. A few days that had gone from both of them being dead to otherworldly. To say it was an adjustment would be an understatement, but while Lewis adjustment was mostly mental and emotional, Arthur couldn’t quite seem to get a handle on just moving his body. Moving around for Arthur had been via a mix of scrambling around on all fours (all sixes since he used the wings too) and bracing himself on the many stalagmites on the cave floor. (In comparison, floating seemed almost automatic to Lewis).  But every time Arthur tried to stand on his own two feet, he had fallen.

“Why are you still here?” 

The question was so quiet Lewis almost didn’t here it. “On this plane of existence?”

“No, the cave.” Arthur gestured to the stone around them. “I can’t leave. Not only can I barely move but I would cause a mass panic if I were seen. You can look normal though. You have your parents, sisters, Vivi  who need to know you’re still around.  They need you, Lewis. You should go to them.”

Lewis sighed. “I want to.” He felt an ache in his anchor as he thought of his loved ones. “But Mom, Dad, Belle, Cayenne, Paprika. They all have each other to help them through. Vivi has them, plus Mystery, and Duet. And Mystery has Vivi. If I go, you’ll be alone. I’m not leaving you to that.”

“The sooner I get used to it, the better. I’m stuck, Lewis. But you don’t have to be. And I don’t want to be the reason you’re stuck here.”

Not for the first time, Lewis wished his or Arthur’s cell phones had survived their respective falls. He wished he could just call Vivi. There was no arguing with her. But he had to help Arthur on his own.

“I’ll make you a deal.” Lewis said finally. “I’ll find some way to contact Vivi and my family, but only after you’re able to leave the cave.”

“I can’t leave the cave Lewis it’s not safe.” Not for Arthur and not for anyone Arthur encountered.

“I know going back to Tempo is probably a bad idea, but I can’t just leave you here. We’ll find another place you can stay.” At the very least a place without so much baggage for both of them. “And I won’t be abandoning you wherever that it. I’ll come back. But we need you to be able to leave first.” Lewis floated over to Arthur and held both arms out. “Come one, I taught two of my sisters how to walk, I’ll teach you too.”

“I’m not a toddler,” Arthur muttered, but let himself be pulled up. Lewis didn’t let go as he reached full height.

“I’ll keep you steady.” Lewis promised. “Just adjust your wings and tail until it feels like they’re not unbalancing you.”

@ecto-rp​

Hurry, hurry. Vivi was running down a corridor with no end in sight. She’d heard an all-too-familiar scream and knew she had to get to its source, lest something worse happen than whatever already had. Hurry up! He can’t wait forever! She kept telling herself it was just a little farther and she’d be at his side, but it was getting harder and harder to believe. Hurry, before it’s too late! Her footsteps echoed off stone walls, or maybe they were muffled by scarlet carpet, it was hard to tell. Everything kept shifting. Now there were paintings on the walls, grinning at her menacingly. Now there was sickly green fog drifting around her feet. Now there were neon pink flames threatening to engulf her from behind. Now there was blood pooling on the ground. Now he was calling her name desperately, over and over. “Vivi! Vivi! Viv’, please!”

“Viv’, wake up!” Vivi’s eyes shot open and she gasped for breath. It was dark in her room, but she could still just about make out the outline of her beloved dog Mystery. He’d been pawing at her face, trying to wake her.

“I’m up! ... I’m up.” She couldn’t help breathing a bit shakily after that awful dream. Hugging Mystery helped a little, at least.

“That must’ve been one hell of a nightmare,” he said. “You were tossing and turning like wild.”

“Yeah, it was... Bring me my phone?”

“It’s two in the morning. Who are you gonna call? ...And before you say it, I don’t think the Ghostbusters can help you out here.”

“Very funny.” Vivi rolled her eyes. “I need to make sure Kingsmen’s okay.”

“You know, he needs the sleep even more than you do.”

“Yeah, but do you really think he’s actually getting it?”

“Realistically... Probably not. But do you wanna take the chance on waking him the one time he is?”

“I... Look, I’ll just text him real quick, and if he’s asleep he can respond with something simple and go right back to bed.”

“Alright, then. I just hope for your sake and his that he’s actually sleeping for once.” Mystery went and fetched the phone, and soon Vivi was upright in her bed, sending the text to check on Arthur.

The sense of unease had been there for months now. Cliche as the notion was, Faith could find no better way to describe it than as a coming storm-- it was the same sort of untraceable tension, a subtle but omnipresent pressure. It made her want to huddle and hide in the underwater caverns in the rockier parts of the coast, the way she had when she’d been a ‘newborn’ ghost and in terror of everything.

Rumors about strange encounters in the woods began to trickle into the conversations between locals; about tourists swearing up and down they’d seen something. She normally wouldn’t pay them much mind-- wild stories about ufos weren’t uncommon during the warmer months-- but some of these seemed oddly consistent. Too much so to all be the products of drunken tourist misadventures. She began to wonder.

Curiosity eventually overcame her as it often did, and she found herself wandering between trees painted silver under the moon. It was the furthest she’d ever wandered from the shore since she’d passed, and she could feel the sea calling her back-- something half like homesickness and half physical pull.

But the first glimpse of yellowish sparks among the shadows of a nearby, particularly dense copse of pine trees set off an intrigue that called louder. The yellow light was gone by the time she arrived at the spot where she’d seen it, but the lingering static in the air told her she wasn’t alone.