𝐉𝐀𝐍𝐄 𝐃𝐎𝐄.

He hadn’t lost his shit like this since his first battle.

“Come again,” Mark whispered into his ear piece, his hands suddenly unsteady on the steering wheel. “I am going to need you to repeat yourself. Slowly. As if you are speaking to an imbecile.” Because that was how he felt in that moment - his entire brain felt like it was soaking in a tub of honey. Sticky, stuck and slow.

So the other person repeated the information, but second time receiving it didn’t necessarily mean he absorbed it better.

The first thing he experienced - once he finally accepted what he was told - was happiness. It was sweet, undiluted and his heart expanded with so much of that foreign joy that he thought he was going to faint. Mark didn’t want to see his family here at the Umbrella, but he missed them so much. He spent months trying to forget, and when that failed, he devoted years compartmentalizing…carefully tucking away his love to a place where it could not harm anyone - especially himself.

“Do I look okay?” He turned and asked one of his squad members the moment the car came to a stop. “Actually, it is fine, don’t answer that.” It didn’t matter how he looked - he wasn’t about to delay this any longer.

Raking his hand through his hair in a last ditch attempt at looking semi-decent, Mark pushed his way through the crowd. “Jaehee!” His eyes scanned for his little sister. “Jaehee!” A hint of frustration appeared in his voice when he couldn’t spot her right away. The guy said she was here, and that she was looking for him-

Wait. Was that her right there?

She got really tall! And slender. What was that in her mouth and why did she get so many piercings?

Also who made her cry?

“Hey…” Mark rushed forward, but didn’t actually know what to say next. Come on, think. Oh, right! On impulse, he had stolen his dorm mate’s gummy candies while getting out of the car. It was a half-eaten bag of little colourful bears, hardly a great offering, but he felt like he needed to present Jaehee with something. “So, I may have gotten really lost on my way to the candy store.” He laughed, humorlessly of course. “Yeah…Uh…Terrible joke. I am really sorry.”

with her fingers still twisted in her bright pink hair, jane stares wildly at the vision of her brother who she still assumes is a ghost.  perhaps she’s going crazy, maybe she’s actually finally snapped  -  with her heart beating wildly in her chest, jane shuts her eyes to the world and whimpers behind the gag.  there is a desperate desire to scream ripping through her chest, but even if she could, she shouldn’t.  she knows just what kind of destruction her despair would cause.

and yet, the vision keeps talking.  as if mark is actually there, as if he’s alive and well and breathing right in front of her.  did the uniform not just tell her that he was gone? jane wonders that if she dies, too, if her family would never be informed.  if she’d just rot away beneath the ground, with no one to mourn her or wonder if she was still alive.

at least jane would no longer be haunted by the ghosts.

this one is persistent.

then again, mark always was.  he had his ways of slithering into her mind and convincing her of things that jane never would have believed had it been anyone else, like that time he promised he was just going to the candy store only to be led to umbrella to die.

well.  if this was a ghost, she’d be the one who looks crazy when punching something invisible.  jane finds in this moment, when this vision of mark brings up that day, brings up the candy, drudges up every memory of being heartbroken and crying herself to sleep, she can’t hold it in.  so since she cannot scream, she punches him hard, right in the belly.

it would be a lie if jane said that she wanted to be at umbrella, but at the very least, she thought that she’d be able to see mark again.  her elder brother, the one who left and promised her candies from the corner store when he got back when she was much smaller than she is now.  it was a lie.  she probably knew that from the very beginning but tiny jane put all her faith in the only person who ever understood that there was something strange about her.

but to find out this way ... that he was gone? without any notice, to be slapped in the face with it when she asked with her little notebook and pen since she couldn’t dare to speak the words aloud.  her voice is much too dangerous for that, and even jane was sure that she would be screaming if not for the gag that binds her voice.

the person in front of her looks like he’s about to panic when her eyes begin to well up with tears  -  probably from confusion, maybe from pity.  jane doesn’t know the reason, but the book falls from her fingers and inwardly, she’s wailing.

poor mark, taken to umbrella far too young.  poor mark, who never had a chance in a place like this.  poor mark, set to face a monster and didn’t make it back  -  poor mark, whose family couldn’t grieve.  poor mark, who only has jane to cry for him and everyone knows that she is not much of a person at all.

her hands tremble as they reach up to her head, nails digging into her scalp and ripping through her hair.  again, loss.  will she see his body hanging over her bed with a bent neck too?

but she couldn’t, for he is here, in front of her and all jane wants to do is scream.  do you see the ghost? do you see him?  he looks whole but he’s only here to haunt me -

go away

go away

𝐆𝐎 𝐀𝐖𝐀𝐘.

              𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐆𝐇𝐎𝐒𝐓𝐒 𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐀𝐓𝐓𝐈𝐂 𝐍𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑 𝐐𝐔𝐈𝐓𝐄 𝐋𝐄𝐀𝐕𝐄.

                  ━━━━━   jane doe  JANE SEO , THE HOUSE OF GHOULS.