(closed) did you hear the slamming door?

[coherer]

Who: jonas ward and plotted cr.
When: aereuer 13th.
Where: his mirror in the looking-glass house.
What: "dream a little dream (of me)" event.
Warnings: severe illness, suicide, assault, possession, nuclear disaster, drowning themes.

(jonas' oblong mirror is tall, its copper frame stained green by chemical weathering. it looks like an artifact dredged from the bowels of a sunken ship found on the bottom of the sea floor, but holds more character in its etched edges. music notes—that form a song if you can read them—spread the length of it, weaving through jail bars, sinking down into what appears to be the grate on the front of a car, and mounting hills with faint trees. the conifers stretch with fading detail into the "sky" of the frame where they form triangular fractals.

carvings may be lacking depending on how well you know him, missing elements that refuse to paint a whole picture, or they may be clear and feel characteristically jonas; however, one thing will always remain the same despite your relationship: when you touch the surface of your reflection, something looms beyond it, looking out as you look in.

the feeling of being watched settles at the back of your neck, persisting as the prevailing mood through each and every memory no matter how simple or happy. waiting and soaking.)

Comments

[coherer]

(he shudders to think that may be a possibility, so jonas turns his head to check for the mirror back. it's in the same place, waiting for them, open to all manner of entity. maybe they should get back, because an open door is just an invitation—the last thing he'd want is for the sunken to somehow get through.

ghosts need to be studied more, whatever school of magic it takes. divination, necromancy, hell, anything. he needs to learn how to deal with them.)

No, all this was in place before them. And the Fort on the other side of the island was abandoned before the Sunken came into being. It's become a vacation destination... people come here to... gawk at this shit, now. (it's sad to jonas, now, who'd never given any thought to how off-colour making an army base into a tourist trap was.) The ghosts used to be naval officers who died in the explosion of a nuclear submarine off the coast... I don't know if you're familiar with those, but they're underwater ships carrying radioactive cargo. Uh, bombs.

(it's hard to know what his friends' worlds have experienced.)

This was... Jesus, uh– (doing the math in his head, eyes searching the floor.) –almost seventy-five years ago? I think. During our planet's second World War.

[usurpers]

[ and people tell him not to worry about other nations wanting to destroy their little ass island. while he’s not too familiar with the event of nuclear warfare and the use of submarines, he could imagine with what’s briefly said. coupled with . . . other possibilities, eren knows mass destruction. eren knows what could befall his home and why he chooses to strike back. ]

To gawk. [ he repeats mostly out of not being able to imagine anything else. disappointing tragedies weren’t made to become entertainment pieces. eren’s arm-wing eventually fold into each other with the small of his back resting against whatever structure could prop him up.

even if what was seen and described of these ghosts, eren can’t help but to ask: ]

They’re still stuck here. And they’ll stay stuck until they’re freed?

[coherer]

... yeah. In a way. (watching eren from the doorframe, then glances back to the memory of alex leading their group past the communications shack to cross to the main part of the island.

it's odd, seeing her again. she's never seemed like more of a stranger than she does now, but there's still that familial connectiong that drives jonas into gritting his teeth in disappointment. they could've lived together for senior year, they could've become friends and then step-siblings the way their parents wanted. they could've made his dad happy again. now there's no hope of that.

blinking back a sting in his eyes, jonas shakes his head.)

They'll stay stuck until they find bodies to inhabit. Living humans, Eren, like me. (a pause, shoulder coming away from the wood panelling of the door.) And that's... how I died.

[usurpers]

[ oof. fucking oof, that was a bomb. one that eren has had gone off in his hands in aefenglom . . . three times, now. the dead can also end up in aefenglom, he remembers, not hit with abrupt shock but gradual melancholy.

it takes a few moments for him to break the silence. ]

The only thing that I'm glad about, [ quietly, carefully in this little enclosure of wires and radios, ] is that you get to live again. [ there's something else that's palpable in his next words: a layered comprehension of what that felt like rather than a reach of compassion. it wasn't that— he knew the personal burn of what this was, and his voice comes with a softened break. ] I'm sorry it's not the way you wanted.

[ it's not the way he ever wanted it, either. ]