Solo Haunted

[Ash Vargold]

The sky is dark when Aisling removes the headset. The sodium glare of a streetlight illuminates her office, casting deep shadows across the walls, and the sound of rain drowns out the noise of the road just beyond.

She lies there a moment, eyes on the ceiling as she settles back into herself. Fingers, hands, feet, limbs, all flexed and stretched in meticulous order as she shakes off the phantom of being someone else. She carefully sifts through her own thoughts and discards the ones that don't belong in a process that is nearly automatic by now.

Aisling takes a deep, shuddering breath. She stands up, but only long enough to toddle from the comfort of the dive chair to the creaking task chair in front of her desk. She sets one headset down, picks up another, and gets to work.

Jittering screens bloom into her vision, drawn into reality by the AR glasses she wears. She's softened on her avoidance of modern conceits, if only because it makes her current job easier. Even this is technically outdated, but Aisling spends enough time diving already. In that sense, the AR glasses feel like a way to maintain control over her life.

(But only barely. It reminds her of the interface in Terrasphere in a way that makes her shiver.)​

One faceless AI agent regurgitates the results of an algorithm set to sift through the news - another, obituaries. She already knows most of it is junk, but she takes a moment to look it over anyway. It only takes a few video transcripts to convince her that there's nothing useful there. Fuck VRSA, she thinks, and moves on to the obituaries.

Names, ages, dates. The causes of the death are the important part - sudden heart failure in otherwise healthy young people. Many are young, survived only by their immediate family. It's the exact demographic that Terrasphere draws, and every name could be another one of it's victims, but she can never be sure. It isn't as if an obituary would talk about the headset latched onto a sleeping corpse, and making phone calls to grieving strangers is far above her pay grade.

Instead, she carefully adds the name to her list, and checks the comments for any new confirmations.

(It's not just Ash that's haunted by the dead. How could he not be, when Aisling herself spends so much time chasing ghosts?)​

 

[Ash Vargold]

In the aftermath of Fearless...

Aisling flung her headset to the ground the moment she was out of dive.

"What the fuck, what was that-"

She clutched at her chest, half expecting to feel something wrong there. Her heart beat fast, echoing his heartbeat, albeit following the mundane tempo of anxiety and not something more-

Breathe in, breathe out. This was an anxiety attack. Normal, something she knew how to deal with.

Cotton shirt. Road noise. Vinyl armrest...

What had happened in there wasn't real. It was an aspect of the game, like Red Fever. It had twisted her perceptions, forced her into a corner-

(But she could clearly remember her thought process that took her from point A to Point B to swordpoint going through Lune's chest-)

"It wasn't real."

Lune could heal, and that included herself. That part of Brisshal was quiet. She'd probably felt worse, playing without the pain limiter. She wasn't dead.

(So long as she didn't see an article the next day proving otherwise-)

Computer beeping. Red hair. Heartbeat.

A heartbeat that was beginning to settle into a more comfortable rhythm, one that had none of the unnatural edge of Ash's. Aisling slowed her breathing, letting the tension trickle away with each exhalation, until she felt... well, not good, but better than before.

Aisling slumped backwards in her chair and stared at the ceiling. A few plastic stars, more than a decade old now, glowed dimly back at her.

"...what am I supposed to do now?"

The stars, of course, had no answer, and neither did she.

One thing was for sure, though.

"Hah... I guess I'm not talking to Lune anytime soon, either...

 

[Ash Vargold]

‎

‎

‎

‎

The blade pierces through.

There is nothing to distract from the sensations that follow. The brief moment of resistance before cloth and flesh gave way, like pressing a knife through a too-rare steak. The coppery-iron smell of fresh blood. The look on Lune's face as she reaches for the blade

no, this isn't happening, not again​

the look on Erick's face, hopeful desperation shifting to haunted mask

nononono​

the look on Tick's face, false smile betraying the pain

wakeupwakeupwakeup​

the look on A-

WAKE UP​

Aisling tears away like a cicada leaving its shell. I'm dreaming, she thinks, a realization that would normally be enough to wake her.

It doesn't.

The sick scene is frozen in time, but jitters with potential energy, ready to restart the endless cycle. And standing between her and it is...

"..."

For all the time Aisling has spent being Ash, she does not know much of how he looks from the outside.

Her mind pieces together fragments like a collage. Here are the hands, sharp as reality. Here is the coat, each stitch and stain sharper than the unmarred fabric. Ears and a tail, but ones that don't quite align on the broad strokes of a body glimpsed in mirrors and water.

It's uncomfortable, seeing this. He shouldn't be there, an empty thing.

Or maybe she shouldn't be here, a shelless thing.

One sense of self begins to slip, subsumed by another. The dream calls, blood and pain and fear and

"I can't keep doing this."

it stops, broken by his voice, buzzing in that way a voice only sounds when heard from within your own skull

"Something's going to give."

or the voice in your head

"...something already has."

when playing out a conversation with yourself, one where you already know the ending.

And then he lets go of the sword-​

-and the scene, devoid of its primary actor, fragments in his wake.

He straightens up, and sighs-​

-doing exactly as she can't help but predict, because that's always how its been - but with her inside.

He turns to face - no, I don't want that-​

But he turns nonetheless, because that is what he would do, and Aisling can't stop that, and squeezes her eyes shut before she can catch a glimpse of what the nightmare has done to his face as he speaks-

"What do you want?"

‎

‎

Aisling wakes up, and stays awake until the sun rises.

 

[Ash Vargold]

In the aftermath of Will They Stare Back at You?

"Y'know, I'm pretty sure it's illegal to set the state on fire."

Aisling looked up from her laptop, glaring blearily at her roommate's smirking face. She tugged the still burning cigarette from her mouth and set it in the ashtray sitting on the deck table, leaving it to join the growing number of spent butts. "Hello to you too, Jake," she grumbled, then turned her attention back to the screen.

Jake was over her shoulder moments later, arm draping over her and a little too close to the keyboard. "Missed ya last night. Must have been quite the party if it kept you in there." His smile was unpleasant, and it only became worse once he looked at the screen. "Oho, what's this? 'flor de maga'?"

It was a social media page Aisling was looking at, adorned with pictures of a young - and to Aisling, familiar looking woman. Some casual, some in costume, all clearly demonstrating that this "Valeria" had been in the business of influencing for quite a while.

"Huh, thought you weren't into chicks, Ice." Jake rubbed his chin in an exaggerated display of pondering. "I mean, nothing against you widening your horizons-"

"Jake."

"-but she's a bit young, isn't she? Never pegged you for a cougar... oh, wait-"

"Jake."

"-don't tell me you were diving all night because-"

"Jacob, if you finish that sentence I am going to make headlines."

Jake burst into laughter as he pulled away from Aisling. She reached for the cigarette and took another puff, making sure that the first exhale of smoke was carried right into her roommate's face. As he coughed and swore Aisling shook her head and returned to the screen. "You aren't wrong though. She is someone I met in... online. I've known her for a while, actually."

"And you're reaching out IRL? Thought you were against that kind of thing, Ice." Jake swung over the deck couch and took a seat next to Aisling, legs crossed and arms stretched across the backrest. "Sure it's a good idea?"

"No." Aisling clicked the "message", button and let her hands hover over the keyboard. She didn't know how big "Lúthien" was, but there were a lot of followers. Would she even see her message among however many she got? Would it get filtered out by some moderator? "But I... owe her this much, I think."

Jake frowned, looking more confused than anything. He shrugged and squinted at the screen. "...'greenieonthestare?' Finally run out of good username ideas?"

"I'm hoping she'll get the reference. If not, I'll just tell her its from me later." Aisling took a deep breath and tapped out the message she'd been composing in her mind for hours.

From: greenieonthestare
To: flor de maga

When you gave me your username, you didn't tell me that you were an /influencer/. That caught me off guard. Hopefully this doesn't get caught in any filters - I had to make a new account for this site and it looks like the one you're most active on.

Anyway, this is me reaching out. Thanks for introducing me to that tailor. I'll get you a better way to contact me later - probably havok chat, if you use that.

Aisling raised her hands and hesitated. There would be no going back after this...

"Boop!"

...and then Jake reached over and pressed "Send" before she could stop him.

"Jake, why did you do that?"

"You were taking too long. No take-backs!"

He stood up, waving away the cigarette smoke as he moved away from the furniture. "Anyway, I'm gonna start dinner. Just let me know if you're having any guests over. I'll make sure to give you some privacy~"

He never saw the ashtray coming.