#phantomtastic023

Spirits and Pain (part 5)

Breadstick Boy and Carol sit at a small table playing a classic game of Go Fish, childish yes, but who says ghosts can’t have fun centuries after they died? they have WiFi in the land of the dead after all. Breadstick looks up from his deck before saying “got any eights carol?”

The French woman glances up from her deck a sweet smile across her face, “No, go fish Breadstick. Go fish.”

Breadstick Boy leans toward the pile of cards in the center of the table just as carol lowers her deck for a moment, he catches an eight in her hand. He jumps up from his seat bumping the table and exclaims “CAZZATE!” He yells at carol who flinches kicking the table on accident, “You do have an eight!” He continues.

“Well your seeing things you small Italian boy. I do not have an eight so kindly faire chier, thank you.” The French woman smiles once again only receiving angry Italian yelling which she can only assume is a string of cuss words before getting hit in the throat with a breadstick unfortunately not a fresh one, she falls back out of her chair, her deck falling to the floor revealing the eight card.

Breadstick Boy laughs before going to retrieve the card only getting a throwing star to his chest, in a puff of light blue glittering smoke he dies.

Carol pulls out her pocket watch and watched the little black needle tick by with every second watching for an entire minute before putting it away again and standing up, in a puff of blue smoke Breadstick reappears looking fairly pissed.

“I call a rematch you lying asshole.” He says arms folded before snapping his fingers resetting everything.

-==~~+~~==-

Phantom forces herself up off the floor fishing through her pockets for a red marker until she pulls one out of her jacket pocket, why she carries markers she will never know but she just does. She places herself in front of the wall uncapping the marker and placing it on the other end staring at the wall before simply closing her eyes and just rolling with it and letting her hand and emotions take over. She sits there doing that for god knows how long before opening her eyes, feeling tired like always, and pulling her red permanent marker away from the wall just staring at what she did. Across the area she drew on is so many different things, fires, dead bodies, items used for torture and killing on the left while the right is just a cascade of cute little flowers and butterflies, dogs, cats, little hearts sweet things, but in the middle below both is an array of words, two different paragraphs next to each other. She reads over one paragraph finding it consists of more exciting good things, reading over the other she finds that one consists of more depressing things. There’s a small amount of space below it all, she lies down on her stomach and draws two little people holding each other close.

She continues doodling on the walls while silently singing until she gets bored, somehow managing to silently sing the entire Black Parade album by My Chemical Romance through all the way, not missing one verse from The End to Blood. God she needs a life and some hot chocolate. She sits and stares at the wall fiddling with her lighter, it’s torture to her being locked in a brick cell and not have anyone to talk to other than herself. Just plain torture. Maybe someone will bail her out?

-==~~+~~==-

Circus sprints at full speed from these basically jogging zombies, well most are walking slow as shit but she’s not taking a chance slowing her pace. She’d like to keep her brain, it’s very valuable. She continues running slowly staring to trip over her own feet ‘god, I need to exercise more. This is basically torture. Right when I get back I’m so playing Just Dance until I pass out from the physical pain that is dancing.’ She thinks to herself trying not to face plant and smash her skull on the dangerous grass that lies below her feet. She looks at her surroundings a forest is to her left and an old house to her right, she looks behind her and screams as the zombies slowly, very slowly, catch up. In a panic she bolts towards the house, which wasn’t as far as she expected and slams into the door which is locked? Great well at least someone’s alive.

She bangs on the door breathing heavily until it opens and she falls in scooting back. She’s greeted by a fifteen year old with short brown hair pulled back, a hoodie, skinny jeans, sneakers, with glasses a small crack on the right lense and a knife at her side while another person with long curly hair, a t-shirt with thin jean jacket, skinny jeans, and a small backpack, and round glasses, both living people, the curly haired girl stands in the door way knife in hand just in case and slamming the door shut locking it tight. Both girls look at circus somewhat skeptically yet somehow calmly, she won’t question, they help her up the curly haired girl speaking up first simply saying “hey, I’m Grace this is Abigail, your alive which is good so welcome. What do you want?” She says her tone slightly worried. The other girl, Abigail, pipes up saying “Grace that’s fucking rude. She’s not here to rob us. If she was she wouldn’t have been running like a monkey on drugs.” Circus stares at the pair both look fifteen, Grace looks a little skeptical and slightly bewildered while Abigail seems to take visitors, or rather surprised monkeys on drugs, very lightly, and not to mention both look like they’ve seen some shit. They stand in awkward silence for a moment before circus says “so would you guys mind if I opened a portal to another universe in your what I’m assuming is your front hall?” Grace takes a step back pulling Abigail along with her, a look that says ok your fucking insane on her face. “I’m not insane I swear. I’m just trying to get to my sister is all.” Circus says putting her hands up hoping not to get stabbed. Grace gives a skeptical look before sighing deeply and saying “alright. Just don’t break anything.” Both girls smile brightly, wish circus luck before walking upstairs discussing some sort of battle plan. She once again waves her wand like a conductors stick three times before flicking it, a couple seconds go by before a white and baby blue swirl appears once again opening to god knows where, she leaps through crashing into a table sending cards and breadsticks flying before hearing strings of French and Italian cussing.

-==~~+~~==-

Fandom: oh boy! This was hell to write I might have gotten a tiny bit of writers block and then accidentally deleted the whole thing on accident. Oof. But hey it’s out now so here you go.

TRIGGER WARNING: mentions of self harm, suicide and torture, if you are sensitive to that stuff either don't read or proceed with caution.

-==~~+~~==-

Circus wakes up feeling…nothing, she can't feel anything, her sisters physical body still slumped against the couch. She looks around, too tired to get up, she feels a sudden urge to drink. Phantom has whisky somewhere, she could get completely wasted or just tipsy. She gets up to look for wherever her sister keeps the alcohol, she gets half way to the kitchen before stopping and thinking about all those times she's had to watch Phantom because she was so drunk, she would talk about random things and ask pointless questions until she fell asleep, sometimes if she got too drunk she would end up talking about more personal stuff, circus never listened, she just passed it off as pointless blabbering. But now that she thinks about it it was more that pointless, it was her life.

"Y'know top hat? My life has been just great, yeah, I had a life once, it was great, I was still depressed but I didn't fuck up my arms like I do now, I was happy. I was ACTUALLY happy, then it went to shit, that parade thing went to shit, I couldn't save him, he was so young, merely 5 at the time, I couldn't fucking save him, he died because he was slashed across the side, he bleed out, cried in pain when I tried to pick him up, I couldn't do anything, so what did my dumbass do? I laid down, I laid down next to him in the middle of chaos, shooting, stabbing, I didn't even care. He wasn't even my child, I didn't even have one, he died. I wasn't fine for a few months I didn't know what to do, I just wanted to numb it, to get rid of the thought or push it away for awhile, even for just one fucking night. Sometimes I drink till I couldn't stand, other times get high until I felt like I could actually touch the clouds, sometimes just get drunk find a guy and make him fuck me till I couldn't move. I just wanted to be numb, to make it where I didn't have to think about. A distraction! I love you top hat, even though it seems like I don't I do. I love you."

Circus stood there and thought about that, she'd gotten trashed that night, had no idea what she was talking about. She couldn't imagine her sister having sex until she couldn't move, the drinking and getting high yeah she can imagine that because she's seen it, she's had to handle it. Thinking back on what she's heard she turns around heading for phantoms bedroom, swinging the door open and beginning to look through the closet until she finds phantoms black backpack, mostly with everything's she'd need plus a few extra things. She turn around going back to the living room grabbing the binder, phantoms copy of Death Note and her own backpack. If she's gonna get back to that world she's gonna need to jump her way to it.

-==~~+~~==-

All Phantom can feel is her own blood flowing down her back, they won't stop, it's just lash after lash after lash, she can't count them. She hasn't screamed, she's refusing to scream, she knows that's what they want, she won't give them the satisfaction of a scream. At point this she's just flinching, surprisingly she's gotten used to it, a few more lashes and she's just sitting there, staring down, head against the pole, having gone numb to it, it's not hard to resist screaming anymore. Eventually they stop, her back and the floor covered in blood, she's just staring blankly.

They unchain her pick her up and carry her back to the cell literally throwing her in landing on her back getting a small wince of pain but still no scream, she's just laying there. Two minutes later they bring her shirt and jacket back throwing them down next to her and leave. She just stares at the stone ceiling

Sort of able to move, she can move her arms, legs and head. She manages to shift into her stomach, her head now resting on top of her hoodie and shirt, she reaches forward just enough to grab her knife, still with a blank face, not feeling anything she starts to cut, small cuts not too deep, but when she doesn't feel those she goes deeper, pushing the knife deep into her skin and slowly pulling, she does this twenty times, ten on each arm. If she's already soaked in blood on her back she might as well soak her arms in blood again maybe legs if she can manage to sit up.

-==~~+~~==-

Circus pulls out her wand and spell book flipping through it until she finds the spell she needs. She waves her wand like a conductors stick three times before flicking it, a couple seconds go by before a white and baby blue swirl appears, a portal, not really knowing where it's going to take her or how many worlds she's gonna have to jump and run through she jumps through the portal.

Circus lands, nearly face planting into dry grass. She puts her wand away while looking for signs of life, she's standing in a field, the air smells like, oh god, it smells like rotting flesh that can only mean zombies, she pulls out a knife for phantoms bag and starts moving, she needs to find a safe place to cast another spell to get to another world, she's tossing the knife between hands kinda bored just listening for both zombies and signs of living people, she tosses the knife up and watches as it flips twice and grows into a sword, double edged blade made out of steel, not too heavy, a perfect fitted grip made of leather. She gives it a few swings to see if she's going be able to keep balanced before she continues walking.

She's been walking for probably thirty minutes, no sign of life or the undead she's been trying to busy herself while looking for a place that's not out in the open, so she's been hacking away at the grass and anything she can find to swing at with out destroying the blade, it's another ten minutes before she hears a low groan. She stops and looks around, beginning to back up before feeling something grab her shoulders, before she knows what's happening her arm jerks around impaling the creature in its ribs before spinning around herself, her arm jerking out from the zombies ribs and swinging around splitting the upper body from the lower and watching it collapse before impaling it in its skull. She looks up breathing hard, before looking back down and the zombies corpse. It's flesh is tinted grey with a very small mix of green, it's missing an arm, it's flesh it's torn up, muscles decayed, skull caved it, some teeth sharp others regular human teeth. She looks back up seeing another horde immediately turning around and once again running from a dark force. Only difference is this force eats the living.

-==~~+~~==-

Phantom can't stop imagining everything what she's going to suffer through again, all that torture, all the pain, drinking, smoking, loss, experiments, losing him, she can't stop imagining it, she can't cry because there's nothing she can do, she just wants it to end. She can't move, she's in too much pain, too weak, that's what she gets for averaging an amazing 94 pounds. She should be dead, but she can't seem to die, she's tried and tried but she can't. She's just given up it best she can't get out and no ones going to help her. Besides what's the point in resisting anyway when she knows it's all pointless. She's done.

-==~~+~~==-

Fandom: the beans seem to be in a bit of trouble, ones given up and the other is being chased by zombies. Oh dear. The poor things. Hope you enjoyed this part! :D

TRIGGER WARNING: mentions of self harm and suicide, if your sensitive to that stuff either don't read or proceed with caution.

-==~~+~~==-

Phantom doesn't fight back when they shove her into a cell. She won't fight back, she crawls to the corner of the cell curling into a ball, pulling her knees to her chest and putting her head down beginning to cry. They won't start the torture for two days, they will feed her but not that she'll eat it. She doesn't hear the door open, she doesn't hear Carols voice call out to her, she doesn't hear Breadstick Boy knock on the cell, nor does she hear her own gasps of breath as she cries out fully knowing what that fucking council is planning for her, she knows what they're gonna do to her, what they're gonna make her live through again, that's the only reason she went with out a fight, god knows what they would have do to her sister. Yeah sister, some sister she is, she almost got her sister into a brand new world of pain.

Thirty minutes later she's still shaking and crying covering her ears by now, just sobbing loudly, Carol and Breadstick Boy left, having given up on getting through to her. She ran dry on tears having cried herself dry, now just slouched against the cell wall fiddling with her knife, they didn't take away her things, she still had her gun, her knife, her jacket, necklace, clothes in general they're not gonna strip her and leave her that's just fucking cruel, the most they'll do is forcibly remove her shirt and give her lashes, really bad ones, just more scars to add to her list. She's got too many scars to even count anymore, lashes, cuts, stab wounds, bullet wounds, self harm, too many to count.

Phantom runs her finger across the blade immediately drawing blood, she sits and stares at the sliver knife, she doesn't know for how long she lost track of time, she can't feel anything, she's gone numb, she needs to feel something. She removes the bandages from her wrist, so many cuts, each different sized, some small others big. With out a second thought she takes the knife placing it to her skin and starts cutting again, deep cuts, ones that would surely cause her to bleed out and die.

She doesn't know how many times she actually cut, she lost track, all she sees is her bloodied arms, the knife abandoned next to her, its sharp edge soaked in crimson. All she can do is sit here at this point. There's not much to do, she's tired, emotionally unstable, she just wants a hug, she wants to be able to lay down in bed and not be bothered again, she wants to be able to watch her favorite shows and movies on Netflix, read her favorite books, talk to circus one more time. Even if it's just a minute. She wants to talk to her sister again. Make her feel better, she was so scared and broken, that's a side Phantom had never seen before, she didn't like it that's for sure.

-==~~+~~==-

Circus sits there staring at her sisters physical body, new cuts appearing bleeding heavily, it's upsetting to watch, she wishes her sister would stop hurting herself. She gets up off the couch and starts to pick up Phantoms void, she picks up the clothes, folds them and puts them away, picks up the books putting them all back on the shelf with the exception of Death Note she leaves that on the coffee table, she then starts picking up the empty bottles that once held alcohol and throws them away, she cleans for god knows how long, Phantoms void wasn't even all that messy it was just trash and basic chores that never get done.

She finishes and sits back down on the couch leaning her head to the side and closing her eyes, she's tired, way too tired, she feels weak, really she just wants to go to bed and sleep all day. She falls asleep for about an hour and a half waking up to see another book in the table, well it's not really a book it's more of a binder with a shit ton of paper inside, the same binder everyone in that room was holding. She shifted her body enough to where she doesn't have to look at it closing her eyes and going back to sleep.

-==~~+~~==-

"Did she really just go back to sleep and ignore it?" Breadstick Boy asks Carol.

"I'm afraid so Breadstick. We have to get her to at least read it." Carol says tapping her foot while thinking of different ways to get Circus to read the binder.

"Carol id hate to break it to ya but no one in their right mind is going to want to read an entire binder of every person that's ever died and the cause of their death."

"Yeah, your right, no ones going to want to read about how and eight year old Italian boy was murdered because he stole breadsticks from a demonic couple." Carol says.

Breadstick Boy gasps in offense before saying "Carol don't fuck with me I have the power of god and anime on my side."

Carol, looking slightly confused goes to say "wait you-"

"AGGGGHHHHHH" Breadstick Boy yells cracking up at the mere thought of the vine.

"Focus Breadstick." Carol says with a slightly disappointed look on her face. "Look we've gotta get her to at least read the book. It's really the only way we could help Phantom. You know that. We know what they're going to do to her."

"Can't we just go talk to the council?"

"If you'd like to join Phantom in eternal torture go right ahead Breadstick. I'm sure they'll just make you relive your fucking murder."

Breadstick Boy shudders at the thought of being put through the torture of being murdered by that psychotic murdering couple. "No, id rather not live through that again."

"Well then I suggest you don't tell the council about this." Carol says sitting down."

"You do realize that if they catch us we're fucked over and be joining Phantom in eternal torture?"

"Yes I do I fact realize that. You guys will be in pain but I'll be fine. A quick death. I was beheaded."

"Yeah. But you'll have be beheaded for eternity dumbass."

"OKAY! I get it. Let's just get back on topic, we need to help, who knows how long we have before she starts hearing deafening shrieks of pain."

-==~~+~~==-

Phantom is still sat against the cell wall, her legs now bleeding from several cuts, god knows how much blood she's lost, she's feels so weak and tired, she can't do anything, she knew what she was doing, she knew the consequences. At this point she just wants to die, but she can't, that's what she hates about herself, she can't die. She just wants it all to stop. "Just don't let her go deaf, I don't know what I'd do knowing that she'd gone deaf because of some genius fucking idea I had. I wasn't thinking at the time it was stupid of me to think I could help, I can't even help myself, I'm so fucking useless. Just keep her safe. Make sure she's okay." She says tears starting to stream down her cheeks, staring at the ceiling like someone's going help. "Yeah, like it's gonna help talking to myself fucking idiot."

Suddenly two guards walk in pulling her off the ground dragging her out of the room into another room chaining her to a pole, her back facing out. "No. No no no no no please anything but this. I can't. Not again. It hurt so much, please just make it stop. I'm sorry, I'm so fucking sorry, it was my fault. Please…just let me go, I already have scars from previous lashes. Just let me go…please." She say crying, no ones listening, not that they would. Well, maybe she can pass out from blood loss.

-==~~+~~==-

Fandom: well then. Torture is gonna be fun to write. Yay! Breadstick Boy and Carol seem to have something planned don't they? Poor Circus, I hope she can keep I together long enough to get somethings and get out. I'm tired.

Circus' legs stiffen upon being pushed into a crowd of dead people, there is no way in hell she is going to be pushed into a crowd where the sixteenth president of the United States is having tea and crumpets with Bloody Mary and listening to Elvis Presley. She manages to shift to a stop before they can even enter the crowd turning around and looking at her sister who obviously wasn't very amused by a sudden stop. "Explain Phantom. Now."

"Ugh, ok here's the deal, your a ghost. Your not dead, your just a temporary ghost it's something I can do, I don't know how to explain it okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, okay. But I'm not walking into a crowd where the sixteenth president is having tea with Bloody Mary. I'd rather be sent to hell."

"Too bad. You asked for this."

"No phantom. I didn't. You could have just left me alone and let me die. Let's just go. I don't wanna be here." Circus says folding her arms looking down. She waits for a moment before looking back up to find that Phantom is gone, slightly concerned she looks around finding that all of the ghosts are gone. Well all but two. Circus looks around one more time before making her way towards the ghosts, when she gets closer she finds that one is a little boy and the other is a woman. The little boy holding a small basket of breadsticks and the woman holding a cup of tea.

The little boy seems around the age of eight or nine with dark brown hair and green eyes, wearing jeans and a t-shirt with some sneakers and a dark gray flat cap, he seems to be Italian as he's speaking the language but why he's holding breadsticks circus has no idea, maybe he died because of them?.

The woman is somewhat tall yet still short, she's wearing black skinny jeans, no shoes, a lovely crimson red shirt, her long blonde hair tied up in a bun. She seems to have vampiric fangs, crimson red iris' and she seems to be glitching. Circus walks up to them slowly, slightly nervous, should she be nervous? It's probably right to be nervous one of them has breadsticks and she's learned that people holding breadsticks are not to be messed with. She stops awkwardly a couple feet away from them, the woman glancing over then looking back at the boy before looking back at circus with a questionable face, one that says ok what the fuck? She stares at her for another moment before calmly going "can I help you?"

Caught slightly off guard Circus manages to get out "um…have you seen a ghost?"

The woman looks at her like she's insane, she's about to say something when the little boy pipes up and says in perfect English, surprisingly, "we're all ghosts, we all died. Some were assassinated other were put on trial and executed, some were murdered and some just got blown up like Darkiishu here." He says jabbing a thumb at the woman, apparently Darkiishu, next to him. All circus can do is stare, she's so confused, overwhelmed, where the fuck did Phantom go? Where did all the other ghosts go? Millions of ghosts don't just disappear like that. She looks around again starting to panic, she can't be dead? This can't be the land of the dead can it? Oh god where did Phantom go?! She starts to frantically fidget looking around more frantically just wanting to see her sister again, she doesn't know what came over her she doesn't want to stay here she CAN'T stay here. Once again she breaks down falling to her knees starting to cry in fear she may actually be dead.

Darkiishu and Breadstick Boy just stand and watch, never really having to deal with something like this before, it's kinda strange, and concerning.

Circus can't stop crying, she just wants her sister next to her again, it was nice, what she had said before, whatever it was, she knew Phantom did in fact care she just never showed it. She feels as if she's hanging off the edge of a cliff, she just wants someone to pull her up and tell her is okay, that she's safe, that she won't slip into a state of depression she can't get out of.

-==~~+~~==-

Phantom and the other millions of ghosts disappear quickly, it wasn't planned, phantom was going to take Circus back but apparently the Council of The Dead said otherwise. Great.

Everyone's seated in a chair, holding the same book each, a book full of every single death in history, a very large book to say the least, everyone's whispering wondering why they suddenly appeared here, two seats remain empty closer to the front, something went wrong and someone's in trouble.

The council members walk in and the room falls silent as they take a seat in their chairs lined up next to each other looking down on the millions of ghosts before them. The head of the council, Elizabeth the 1st, takes the gavel in hand pounding it on the desk calling the assembly to order.

"Someone has brought a living person into the land of the dead." She announces clearly. Almost immediately the room erupts in a wave of yelling, different languages all over filling the room, Phantom sinks lower into her chair fully knowing what she did and fully aware of the punishment her and her sister would have to endure if caught.

The twelve council members raise their gavels in unison and slam them down together creating a single bang silencing the room. Elizabeth stands folding her arms behind her back and announcing very clearly "I want the ghost or spirit who did this in front of this table and crowd immediately. Or else everyone in this land will be questioned until you break. Now who ever did this come up here now!".

No one gets up, Phantom considers getting up, just to get it over with, she knows the punishment, she's had to inflict it several times before and she knows it's painful as all hell. Worst part is, it's for an eternity. She sinks a little lower into her chair pulling out a cigarette and lighting it, it doesn't affect anyone in the room, they're all fucking dead. Others smoke cigars, some drink, some vigorously tap their knees, some fiddle with weapons, others have seemingly fallen asleep.

"Very well. If no one is going to come up here then why don't we bring in the living." The queen says snapping her fingers. Immediately Darkii and Breadstick Boy appear holding Circus in their grip, she looks broken and scared.

Phantom can't take it anymore. She jumps up and screams "I DID IT!" Everyone turns their heads toward her, some in slight shock, others not so much. Two guards come up and pull Phantom along to the front of the room, she's not even gonna try to fight.

-==~~+~~==-

Circus feels Darkii and Breadstick Boy, who apparently doesn't have a name, pull her up to her feet, not bothering to help her calm down, as soon as she's standing the three explode into baby blue smoke and reappear in a room, every single ghost in the room, even Phantom. Oh god? What's happening? Is she in trouble?! Circus starts getting visibly scared and overwhelmed, on the verge of panicking and breaking down again, she's about to fall over and start crying again when suddenly Phantom is literally thrown down right next to her.

The twelve council members stand, having come to an agreement immediately, all clearly angry.

Circus feels phantom place her arm around her shoulder helping her stand and keep balanced. Circus glances at Phantom who is clearly scared to death of these twelve ghosts. She looks back at the members of the council, Elizabeth standing in the center looking at Phantom before stating "you have broken the biggest rule in this world. You were strictly told to not bring any living into this world ever. For your crime you shall be punished in the same way you have punished others. Now you," she says looking at Circus who's showing clear fear in her eyes. "You will be sent back to the living and you will not be allowed into this world ever again. As for your sister she will not be allowed back into the world of the living and will be eternally tortured. Do you both understand me?" The queen says sternly, both girls nod, Phantom letting go and walking away with four guards surrounding her. Circus, in a single puff of smoke reappears back in Phantoms void, her sisters physical body slumped down against the couch as if she's just asleep.

-==~~+~~==-

Fandom: ohhh it's getting good huh? So punishment is gonna be fun to write! Poor Circus what's she gonna do fully knowing that her sister is gonna be punished in the same ways she's punished others. Well I guess you'll have to wait and see won't you? :3