trans_9 | Lie in Peace [Open]

It was both difficult and easy to sleep. Easy, because no matter how much she tried to fight it, Miku's eyes would slide closed any time of the day despite getting plenty of sleep. But, difficult because her sleep wasn't restful at all. Miku thrashed and whimpered, moaned and sighed. Upon waking, she held her breath as the Snake and Holly wound down her torso and her back. Her time was growing shorter with each centimeter the tattoo claimed.

Mafuyu was waiting for her, she wanted to go to him, and see him. Just... one more time. Who wouldn't want that? Who wouldn't want to see loved ones they'd never meet again? The Manor of Sleep drew her further and further in, beckoning with her brother's shade. For now, she avoided that room that was waiting for her. If she had just a little more time, if she could figure out some way...

But not tonight. In the wee hours of the morning, stumbling blindly down the hallways of the ship, the tattoos drove her onward with sheer, unimaginable pain. They burned in her skin, until they were bone-deep, the constant tap-tap-tap of an ancient needle on her skin. Miku covered her mouth to keep her sobs choked and muffled, and hid herself away in a hall. She just... she just needed to wait out the wave without going to sleep. She was sure, so sure that she could do that.

Just a little longer. What would Tess-san think if she just let it overwhelm her? What would Rei?

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There is—something. Following her.

A shadowed figure in a black cloak slowly crouches, watching her.

Miku sobs softly, hunkered down against the wall with her face in her hands. Her ghostsense is telling her to look up, to move, to run away, but she can't.

Because it hurts.

The parts of her visible tell the story in stark, red ink. It's crept up the back of her neck and over her hands, staining them red with her sorrow for living. Miku's sobs shook her small frame with each little breath. Please, make it stop, please... Oh, God...

The ghost reaches forward, forward—

Gently, so gently it could almost not be a touch at all, a light hand, mostly hidden by the long shroud of the cloak, touches Miku's chin. With it comes a cool, numbing chill that spreads across and down her neck.

Her hands fell from her face as she tried to back into a wall, away from the ghost, away from the numbing sensation that soothed the tattoos momentarily. She didn't want to die with her soul drained from her body.

"Stop! Stop that!" Miku reached out and pushed the ghost away from her. "Stay away!"

The ghost is pushed, but in a manner that might suggest it let itself be pushed, gliding back a little away from her.

"You wanted it to stop," says a low, ethereal, feminine voice.

This...

This was abnormal, even by Miku's standards. Ghosts didn't talk back. Not unless it was the same thing their twisted souls had said in life. Like, My eyes! My eyes! Though it wasn't possible for Miku to push herself any further into Stacy's wall, she certainly tried her best.

She whimpered in alarm.

"Do you want it to stop?" the ghost asks her, leaning in towards her.

One might wonder what the ghost's definition of 'stop' is, though.

Miku nodded numbly, her eyes wide and terrified. "I don't... I don't want to die." But that was at the end of this, wasn't it? She was going to die and be trapped in that dream mansion forever. Or worse, the ghost was going to kill her, and she'd be just like them.

Why wasn't there ever a third, positive, option?

"It's not your time yet," the ghost says, and reaches to touch Miku again.

If she lets the hand touch her, the numbing cool will spread again, helping blot out the pain from the spreading tattoos.

Miku flinched, but didn't pull back, though the heavy stone in her stomach was telling her that this wasn't a good idea. That she should probably push away from the wall and around the ghost, limping madly for the safety of her her room.

But she held still and let the ghost touch her. It didn't hurt, a revelation that still made Miku tense and be on edge. What was the cost of this? Did she really want to know, or was she satisfied with it?

The cool numbness spreads, across her shoulders and down her back. It isn't total, but—it helps dull the pain, like a deep-set anesthetic.

And then the ghost rises and turns to leave her.

Lie in Peace [Open]

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