i didn't want to see you die like this

Content warnings:

i'm watching my corpse.

i'm floating an arms-length, give or take a few, behind, flowing through the chair at the computer desk at myself the body. the screen's on — too blurred for me to care. the ceiling and bedside lights twist around, entering clockwise deathspirals that spin to dangling glowing points before fizzling out. the ritual setup netting my desk isn't fluid, though. the bones and incense are Concrete Spokes. Fixed. Static. they try to drive through my vision like Anchors but i turn away because i don't need that, never needed it, never do.

blade's in my body's hands. frozen. absence of red, on it or my wrists. the silver of the edges is a soft one, almost inviting if it weren't for, well. you know. Dad would be proud to know his shaving lessons will go to use.

this is why i went astral? right?

because i couldn't go through with it otherwise?

yes

yes?

right

right.

..

jesus get a grip on yourself

intangibility doesn't give you permission to be indecisive again, this isn't some wavering 'oh how ethereal' spirit realm. reality doesn't work that way, this isn't some narrative. life never went that way. look at how wishing it did went — there was never the chance for a tearful reveal, some swelling orchestral score drowning out the 'she's' and 'her's' and 'you'll always be our daughter's of my Parents' affection. not enough of a daydream for it to have worked that way.

so pull the trigger

razor

metaphor

semantics. just go.

i spin my nonexistent hand, wafting trails of astral ink, bleeding from my form and bubbling upwards in thin clouds that nobody who isn't projecting can ever see or ever will see. with enough fumbling i sense a tug — invisible strings taut between my real and unreal fingertips. twitch one, body twitches too.

splay, clench, splay clench. the actions slowly sync until i'm a puppeteer bound to the future grave stuffer. i barely recognize myself from here. in jerking motions the blade raises

raises

raise

…

raise

just. up. over. closer. closer. closer. closer

this isn't my body. this should never have been my body. i shouldn't have been dragged out of some soul vacuum and stuffed inside this thing. maybe it was like that thing Lilith told me about — where sometimes a soul drops out of the ether too fast and misses the body it was being summoned into, landing into the wrong brain stem and being ensnared by the neurons even when it was wrong and the soul knows it was wrong but the body doesn't know because bodies never know they don't

i should ask Lilith more about that. ze knows a lot about this stuff. it's cool—

RAISE

no, the blade aims too high. it's cutting at the air, at the incense still spewing higher than even my astral arms can reach. i need to lower it, gently, like this. downwards. sweeping. controlled. unhesitant. unhesitant unhesitant i never had a point to this life, so why does it have to be so hard?

i

i catch the light glinting off the edge. somehow it traces a line (electromagnetism working differently here? could be interesting to ask Lilith about). before the razor lowers a hair's length over me and disrupts the line, there's a beam piercing straight to the opposite side of my bedroom. i twist my head (do astral forms have heads?) and look over and see the light fizzle right off of

.

.

.

no

gods, no

why did you have to remind me

why did you have to fucking remind me

it's not the bed that it had to hit. it's not the rocketry posters. it's not the eva unit figures, or the textbooks, or the pride month sigils Vesta sent me, or any of the other things the light could've fucking hit by my bed that wasn't

that

wasn't

…

no, of course it would.

where the light hit is every failed body. every time i've tried to fix myself into what i want. a cheap bargain buy binder Dad got for school that I used instead to compile every sigil and incantation i'd need to make my body me. it's come close to working. sometimes, when i've layered the symbols over my floor and drip my blood onto a dais of my tears, i feel a twinge, the pull of a locked away piece of my head finally unchaining my body. there is Breath in my lungs. and then it just.

it stops.

it just stops.

it's never gone through, not once, doesn't matter how many times i try because it just. doesn't. it stalls out Every Single Time, and trying to see my actual body, see my actual self, see MYSELF crumbles. i'm not skilled enough for it. Lilith could teach me, ze's good at this. i wonder how much effor

no

no no no

don't be a fucking idiot about this tayler

you know why you can't do this. i know EXACTLY why i DON'T DO THIS

it's because you can't take a goddamn stand for the life of you

you can do it but noooooo you just can't show Dad that you're above him, that you're better than him, that you're better than those godforsaken Jailers he licks the boot of every waking hour of his life

he thinks he has it hidden but no

you've heard the radio

you've PROJECTED into the radio

you've HEARD EVERY ONE OF THE REQUESTS PASSED DOWN TO HIM

BUT

YOU

CAN'T

ACT

because i'm a coward

because i can't do anything against the Person who'd get me hauled to a cell if He ever found a single one of the sigils i stash under the bed every night hoping he never looks under there because he looks everywhere else but there

Lilith and Chloe had the strength to run away from their homes because they could take a stand but I couldn't I i couldn't even if i tried because i'm fucking pathetic. Lilith even cut off her wings for gods' sake. i could never do that. ze should be ashamed of me why does anyone bother with me when i'm worthless

i should run away

i shouldn't run away

i should run away

i mustn't run away GODS YOU'RE REPEATING REFERENCES TO A SHOW ABOUT OVERCOMING DEPRESSION IN YOUR HEAD THAT DOESN'T EVEN APPLY HERE BECAUSE YOU'RE THAT SHALLOW?

i don't have a home here

i never had a home here

i don't have a home anywhere

i belong in a cell

i can't bring myself to run away because i'm pathetic

i deserve to have a jailer blow my head open across a wall with a 12 gauge shotgun.

i could never bring myself to do everything my friends do because they're stronger and i'm loading them down like worthless baggage

i deserve to be chained in a room with sigils that make my mind bleed and rites that make my body rip

i deserve to be isolated underground for centuries because nobody deserves to deal with me

my friends don't want me. i know they shouldn't want me.

i'll never have a home anywhere

i deserve to be killed



WHY HAVENT I USED THE RAZOR YET I SHOULDVE USED THE RAZOR I CANT EVEN DO THIS ONE THING RIGHT JUST LOWER IT LOWER IT LOWER IT MY MAGICS WORTHLESS MY FRIENDS PRETEND THEY WANT ME BECAUSE THEY IM WORTHLESS ILL NEVER HAVE THE BODY I WANTLOWERWHYDIDNTYOUKILLYOURSELFWHENYOUHADTHECHANCE LOWER IHAVENOTHINGOINGFORMELIKELILITHORCHLOE LOWER VESTANOVADOVEBONESTHEYALLHAVE

LOWER

THERECANTBEAHOME

THERECANTBEAHOMEBECAUSEIDESERVENOHOME

LOWER

THERECANTBE

LOWER

THERECANT

LOWER

THERECANT

LOWER

THERE

THERE

THERE

I

I

I

I

i

lower

i

lower

i i i lower i lower i. lower .. lower … lower … lower . . . . . . . . . .

.

.

..

. ..

i know what'd happen if i told dad.

about the sigils.

he'd call the jailers on me. he'd have me locked up. the teams would check my computer, find the chatlogs, find out about everything i did and planned to do. once they did that they'll either confiscate it or scrub it.

could be preferable. dunno.

after that i'd be wheeled off on a gurney, brought into a room with bright lights. they'd, i think, want to see what makes me tick. a surgeon with combat fatigues under his biohazard suit, after shutting the door behind him, would approach me with scalpels in his hands. just before the remaining equipment is wheeled in, just before they shine the spotlight on the table my organs are soon to be on, he'll kneel next to me. lean towards my ear.

and then

he'll whisper, the last words

i'll

ever

hear

:

.

.

"Did you know that world-renowned writer Stephen King was once hit by a car? Just someth—

pfffft

okay, okay

i

gods. i'm such a fucking wreck.

i. gods. okay.

someone had to have seen the message i sent before i left, right? the one that—

…

probably getting messaged about it by now…

…

i — my body — still holds the razor, a hair's length from my wrist. it hadn't moved any lower. i can still see the incense, the last curls of it puffing up and out. the ink still bleeds from my astral form. i'm still here.

i still hold the razor.

.

.

.

.

oh fuck this.

i swing the razor up, right, over, and slam—



Downwards.

—

Tayler crashes onto the floor. Her head aches, both from the projection and the astral-to-physical contact she made into the wood paneling. Wincing, she heaves herself up, shivering in the returning cold of the room. She collapses back into her chair. Scattered across the desk before her are the remnants of the ritual: a wreck of wax, bone, and ink, razor cracking through the central iconography like a hammer — a fractured astral rite.

She breathes. Shakily; slowly.

Taking in accidental whiffs of choking incense, she raises her left hand up, splaying the fingers like they were newly affixed to her body. Then, with the right.

Her wrists are intact.

The razor is on her desk.

She isn't holding it anymore.

.

.

.

Tayler breathes.

.

.

.

This place isn't home. Not in the slightest.

.

.

.

Behind the ritual setup, her laptop glows dimly. A red light blinks in the corner of her screen — part of a notification masking a purple-and-green mecha charging over her wallpaper. A ping dated 11:23 PM, one hour ago, sent from the channel 'queer of the unknown.'

She smirks. Still not emotionally dead enough that Vesta's dumb pun game can't get a reaction out of her. Counts for something.

Sweeping an arm over the desk, the occult rubble is thrust off the table in a clatter (she can clean it up later). The razor goes clattering into some out-of-sight crack (she won't need to go looking for it). She pulls the laptop over, placing her hands back onto the keys. For a moment, she freezes. Fingers unable to press downwards.

She breathes.

In.

Out.

Then, Tayler types.

> tabris has entered the chat.

tabris: hey

tabris: is anyone up right now?

tabris: i need to talk

At least she'll always have a home somewhere.







