And then everything she sees is green.

She falls.

She doesn't know for how long.

 

THE END

 

OF

CHAPTER

ONE

 

She doesn't lose continuity of experience.

Which makes dropping from the sky onto a cheap plastic bench - the same faux chairs as in the laundromat - without injuring herself at all -

Surreal. Her stomach's swooping around like she's falling, wind is rushing past her - it's nothing like falling in a dream, but, also, nothing like falling in reality.

Lily had been trying to prevent the fall from killing her. That - obviated entirely - she sits, stiff, and tries to get control of her breathing.

There's someone else here. A girl - a bit younger than Lily, maybe late high school, maybe a very weedy college student - standing about a dozen feet away. She looks about as startled as Lily feels.

"Hello?"

"...Hello."

"Where. Is this."

"Dunno."

"I think I'm dead? And the other two people here thought maybe they might be dead, too, so - possibly a very boring afterlife. So. Uh. Sorry."

"Oh."

"Okay."

So maybe the thing killed her. She doesn't feel dead, but. Who knows.

"Uh, what's - here - and where are the other two people?"

"First... Not much. We're in some kind of like, industrial courtyard. There's smoke stacks and gates, though I haven't been able to open any. But the air's been still, the sun hasn't moved even though I've been here several days, there's literally nothing but the three - four - of us, and whatever we appear on, and - "

"The other two are on a couch. They didn't fall, they just appeared, and - they're staring at something, and they can't move and never blink, but I can't see what they're looking at. They talk if spoken to, but - I think they struggle with it? They both died after me, and they both remember me dying."

" - They might've known something about you coming, they were shouting something earlier and stopped right before you fell out of the sky, but I didn't hear what."

"...Was a weird green light involved for anyone else? That's what I saw right before I - started falling."

"And some kind of weird undead monster right before that."

"The other two remember being brought to a place a lot like this, and being forced to look at something - I think they said something green, yeah, but it was like they were fading out - and then they were here. For me..."

She thinks - and flinches. "I - I don't know - "

She puts a hand to her head.

"...If this is some weird fiction shit that's going to cause an aneurysm if you think about it too hard - please don't."

Snort. "A dead person having an aneurysm. That'd be something."

"Yeah, well, the traditional alternative is - "

"...Is?"

" - Hey, something up?"

Nothing's up.

But she'd turned to face the girl more, and there's something - beautiful over there -

Lily stands and starts trying to get a better look.

"Hey, wait - that's where the other two've been stuck staring - stop - "

She tries to get in Lily's way.

She pushes the distraction out of the way. (She's stronger than she looks.)

She's normally strong, too, deceptively so - but her body moves aside as easily as pushing away paper. She doesn't fall over or anything, at least.

She does keep trying to stop Lily.

She doesn't hear.

What's she's looking at - it's so much more beautiful than mere reality. It's everything she's ever wanted, twisted together and revealed in the light. It's hers, and so too is shown how to get everything she could possibly ever want - if only she could see -

And everything she wants is reaching for her in turn. Of course she has to grasp it. Could she do anything else and remain herself? 

"You're bleeding!" she screams, helplessly, "Stop, you're bleeding, you're going to die - or worse - "

She can't see the cause of the bleeds. It's not information her mind will let her acknowledge exists in the same reality as her.

But her shirt and hands exist in her reality. She takes the shirt off, tearing it, and - she can't get in the other girl's way, but she needs to stop the bleeding -

She doesn't hear.

But there's something on her arm - annoying, how can she reach for everything she deserves, everything she desires, with a bandage on her arm? 

 — Bandage?

There's blood on her arm, at her feet. There's a girl trying to wrestle some semblance of a bandage over - over -

There's wires sticking through Lily's arms. No. Thicker. Cords? Or - tendrils - they won't focus in Lily's mind - black, and there's static dripping with the blood -

Everything beautiful and desirable is still in front of her. Still in reach even of her mutilated arm. She just needs to ignore the pain, just for a moment, needs to keep her eyes fixed on her goal - 

What sort of person will she be, if she turns back now?