In which Taylor Hebert dies. She doesn't let that slow her down at all.
Post-Mortem Activities (Undead!Taylor, Slight Crack)
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Time Of Death
We Just Write
Blatantly Plural
- Location
- New England
- Pronouns
- Plural
Bugs, crawling all over me, biting in as I was trapped in the dark-
-Couldn't let them win, had to keep trying to escape-
-Dying, heart stopped, fuck you Emma, fuck you Winslow, FUCK YOU UNIVERSE IN GENERAL!-
The next thing I knew, I was standing in front of a large hardwood desk, the man in front of me a bored-looking clerk wearing a skull-shaped badge and a ridiculous pink-and-blue striped hairdo. Before I could find it in me to question what was happening, the man greeted me with "Welcome to the Afterlife Processing Center. Now that you're dead, we'll be going over your options."
I couldn't help but scream at him "Options!? What do you mean by options? I can't be dead!"
The man simply frowned and replied "I'm afraid you are, miss. All newly deceased individuals are routed through here, with particularly traumatized cases being sent to the counseling department before they reach processing. Anyway, since there are so many afterlives it's common policy among the United Dead to allow the newly deceased to choose any afterlife they meet the requirements for."
To this, I couldn't help but retort "I don't want an afterlife. I refuse to let those three bitches win by staying dead."
The clerk frowned at this, noting "Miss, that cannot be arranged. Are you sure you don't want to meet up with some of your relatives? I'm sure that they would be happy to see you, though perhaps a bit sad that it had to happen so soon."
Now that actually had me listening. My mother's death still burned strong in my memory, and the urge to see her again was very, very tempting. The desire to be hugged by her again conflicted deeply with an equally strong desire to deny the Trio their victory. Ultimately, I decided that I could afford to give Mom a quick visit, but that I'd be heading right back to the land of the living as soon as possible. Given that, I told the man at the desk "I'd like to see my mom, please?"
The clerk nodded, before he noted "I can arrange that, though I'll need a name and date of death in order to figure out who that is and where she would be."
Without any hesitation, I said "Annette Rose Hebert, she died on the Fifteenth of August, 2008."
The clerk replied "Understood. I'll be back in a few minutes; I just need to check the archives." With that, he stood up, and walked out the door in the back of the office behind his desk.
Now unaccompanied, I took the opportunity to look around the office I was in. The room was fairly small, with various framed documents hung on the walls. Behind me, another door was clearly labelled 'Exit', and I was so very tempted to try and sneak out through there and back to the world of the living. But no, I had already decided that I was going to talk to mom first.
Sure enough, after a few minutes the clerk came back, a filing folder held firmly in-hand. As he sat back down, he noted "Your mother is on record as having come through here on the date specified. She's on record as having chosen Hel as her primary residence, but is currently on a vacation in Yomi. Pages three through five detail instructions for finding the hotel she is currently staying at. She has been informed of your demise, and is waiting for your arrival."
I accepted the documents graciously, before noting, "I'll just be on my way, then."
The clerk simply nodded, before replying "Glad to be of service, miss." and gesturing to the door.
Exiting the processing facility, I found myself on what looked to be a cobblestone footpath floating in the void. Looking to the left, I could clearly see a vision of Earth, overlaid with the inside of that fucking locker. Yeah, I think I'll wait until they pry my corpse out of there to come back. Meanwhile, off to the right was a cluster of worlds. Looking at the papers, I quickly identified which one was Yomi, and walked down the path. Ahead of me, geometry apparently decided it could slack off, as despite looking several miles long I only took about three steps before suddenly I crashed right into Yomi, through the entrance gate, past the hotel lobby, and tumbled right into the waiting arms of my mom.
The first thing out of my mom's mouth as we hugged was "Taylor, I'm so sorry that we had to be reunited so soon, but I'm also so happy to see you again."
I just hugged deeper, before I replied "I really, really missed you."
As mom released, she said "I know you did, my little Owl. But please tell me that you didn't take matters into your own hands to come meet me."
I jolted back slightly, saying "What? NO! I was murdered by Emma and her gang of cronies. They shoved me in my locker after filling it with used tampons and locked me in."
This revelation struck my mother like getting slapped in the face, as she immediately asked "EMMA did that? As in the same Emma who's been your sister in all but blood since elementary school?"
My answer was "Yeah, about the time high school started Emma changed for some reason, started hanging out with some other girls and began tormenting me for no good reason. As soon as the cops get around to pulling my corpse out of the locker I'm going to come right back and haunt her ass."
With that, mom simply nodded, noting "Well, make sure to tell me how it goes at the very least. Anyway, there's at least a few hours before you should get back, if you're aiming to arrive at the morgue. Mind catching me up on what else I've missed these last few years, aside from Emma going off the deep end?"
To this I answered "Sure thing."
Just before I was about to start in though, there was a knock at the door of the room, as mom noted "Also, when I heard you were coming, I ordered room service."
After a greatly relieving conversation with mom, I was ready to make my way back to the land of the living. Getting out of Yomi was as simple as taking a single step with intent to leave, and I was once more among the tangle of footpaths. Ahead of me was the image of Earth, now showing the view of several people in medical scrubs in what I guessed was my official autopsy.
Without further delay, I charged straight towards that image, the path's strange geometry once more yielding before me. Then I slammed straight into a transparent barrier stretching back almost like a trampoline membrane. I could feel it deep in my existence that this barrier was in place specifically to keep people like me from smashing their way back into the world of the living. In response, I pushed harder, basically daring this barrier to smite me where I stood.
So, the barrier did, blasting me backwards with some sort of ridiculous lightning zap. Honestly, while it certainly hurt, the fact was that I was already dead, so more pain really didn't matter. So I ran forwards again, and again. After the fiftieth time or so, I started swearing.
"Fuck you, barrier!"
-ZAP!-
"Emma, you are an irredeemable-"
-ZAP!-
"-stain upon reality! FUCK YOU!"
-ZAP!-
"AND FUCK THE EDUCATION SYSTEM-"
-ZAP!-
"-FOR BEING SHITTY ENOUGH THAT YOU-"
-ZAP!-
"-COULD GET AWAY WITH TORTURING ME-"
-ZAP!-
"-FOR LITERALLY YEARS!"
Clearly, a change of tactics was required. Now, instead of just charging at the barrier like a complete idiot, I walked forwards slowly. When the barrier appeared once more, I stuck my hand out and poked it directly into the zappiness. Unsurprisingly, my hand got zapped, but this time I held my ground. Feeling the sensation, it was definitely one of heat and fire. I countered with a flame of my own, but a cold flame forged from the sheer spite I had about my fate, hammered into the shape of a chainsaw. Hey, if I'm in a non-physical world I might as well see if lucid dreaming tricks work. Turns out the answer is yes.
Revving up my spitesaw, I stabbed it forwards into the barrier, creating a massive gash. As I walked onwards, I looked back towards the afterlives, observing the massive gash I'd left in the structure blocking the dead from rejoining the living. Meh, that probably wasn't important.
I took one final step, and suddenly I was looking up at a bright light, the three or so men in the room with my suddenly stumbling backwards as I sat up. Wait, no, don't run away!
Before any of them could leave, I said "For the record, I don't mind that you were autopsying me, seeing as I am actually dead, but could I please have some clothes?"
Then I thought to look at my reflection in one of the mirrors they had hanging here. Yep, green flames for eyes, rotting maggot-infested wounds all over, and a distinctly deathly pallor. I definitely looked like I'd just walked out of a horror movie. Perfect.
-Couldn't let them win, had to keep trying to escape-
-Dying, heart stopped, fuck you Emma, fuck you Winslow, FUCK YOU UNIVERSE IN GENERAL!-
The next thing I knew, I was standing in front of a large hardwood desk, the man in front of me a bored-looking clerk wearing a skull-shaped badge and a ridiculous pink-and-blue striped hairdo. Before I could find it in me to question what was happening, the man greeted me with "Welcome to the Afterlife Processing Center. Now that you're dead, we'll be going over your options."
I couldn't help but scream at him "Options!? What do you mean by options? I can't be dead!"
The man simply frowned and replied "I'm afraid you are, miss. All newly deceased individuals are routed through here, with particularly traumatized cases being sent to the counseling department before they reach processing. Anyway, since there are so many afterlives it's common policy among the United Dead to allow the newly deceased to choose any afterlife they meet the requirements for."
To this, I couldn't help but retort "I don't want an afterlife. I refuse to let those three bitches win by staying dead."
The clerk frowned at this, noting "Miss, that cannot be arranged. Are you sure you don't want to meet up with some of your relatives? I'm sure that they would be happy to see you, though perhaps a bit sad that it had to happen so soon."
Now that actually had me listening. My mother's death still burned strong in my memory, and the urge to see her again was very, very tempting. The desire to be hugged by her again conflicted deeply with an equally strong desire to deny the Trio their victory. Ultimately, I decided that I could afford to give Mom a quick visit, but that I'd be heading right back to the land of the living as soon as possible. Given that, I told the man at the desk "I'd like to see my mom, please?"
The clerk nodded, before he noted "I can arrange that, though I'll need a name and date of death in order to figure out who that is and where she would be."
Without any hesitation, I said "Annette Rose Hebert, she died on the Fifteenth of August, 2008."
The clerk replied "Understood. I'll be back in a few minutes; I just need to check the archives." With that, he stood up, and walked out the door in the back of the office behind his desk.
Now unaccompanied, I took the opportunity to look around the office I was in. The room was fairly small, with various framed documents hung on the walls. Behind me, another door was clearly labelled 'Exit', and I was so very tempted to try and sneak out through there and back to the world of the living. But no, I had already decided that I was going to talk to mom first.
Sure enough, after a few minutes the clerk came back, a filing folder held firmly in-hand. As he sat back down, he noted "Your mother is on record as having come through here on the date specified. She's on record as having chosen Hel as her primary residence, but is currently on a vacation in Yomi. Pages three through five detail instructions for finding the hotel she is currently staying at. She has been informed of your demise, and is waiting for your arrival."
I accepted the documents graciously, before noting, "I'll just be on my way, then."
The clerk simply nodded, before replying "Glad to be of service, miss." and gesturing to the door.
Exiting the processing facility, I found myself on what looked to be a cobblestone footpath floating in the void. Looking to the left, I could clearly see a vision of Earth, overlaid with the inside of that fucking locker. Yeah, I think I'll wait until they pry my corpse out of there to come back. Meanwhile, off to the right was a cluster of worlds. Looking at the papers, I quickly identified which one was Yomi, and walked down the path. Ahead of me, geometry apparently decided it could slack off, as despite looking several miles long I only took about three steps before suddenly I crashed right into Yomi, through the entrance gate, past the hotel lobby, and tumbled right into the waiting arms of my mom.
The first thing out of my mom's mouth as we hugged was "Taylor, I'm so sorry that we had to be reunited so soon, but I'm also so happy to see you again."
I just hugged deeper, before I replied "I really, really missed you."
As mom released, she said "I know you did, my little Owl. But please tell me that you didn't take matters into your own hands to come meet me."
I jolted back slightly, saying "What? NO! I was murdered by Emma and her gang of cronies. They shoved me in my locker after filling it with used tampons and locked me in."
This revelation struck my mother like getting slapped in the face, as she immediately asked "EMMA did that? As in the same Emma who's been your sister in all but blood since elementary school?"
My answer was "Yeah, about the time high school started Emma changed for some reason, started hanging out with some other girls and began tormenting me for no good reason. As soon as the cops get around to pulling my corpse out of the locker I'm going to come right back and haunt her ass."
With that, mom simply nodded, noting "Well, make sure to tell me how it goes at the very least. Anyway, there's at least a few hours before you should get back, if you're aiming to arrive at the morgue. Mind catching me up on what else I've missed these last few years, aside from Emma going off the deep end?"
To this I answered "Sure thing."
Just before I was about to start in though, there was a knock at the door of the room, as mom noted "Also, when I heard you were coming, I ordered room service."
After a greatly relieving conversation with mom, I was ready to make my way back to the land of the living. Getting out of Yomi was as simple as taking a single step with intent to leave, and I was once more among the tangle of footpaths. Ahead of me was the image of Earth, now showing the view of several people in medical scrubs in what I guessed was my official autopsy.
Without further delay, I charged straight towards that image, the path's strange geometry once more yielding before me. Then I slammed straight into a transparent barrier stretching back almost like a trampoline membrane. I could feel it deep in my existence that this barrier was in place specifically to keep people like me from smashing their way back into the world of the living. In response, I pushed harder, basically daring this barrier to smite me where I stood.
So, the barrier did, blasting me backwards with some sort of ridiculous lightning zap. Honestly, while it certainly hurt, the fact was that I was already dead, so more pain really didn't matter. So I ran forwards again, and again. After the fiftieth time or so, I started swearing.
"Fuck you, barrier!"
-ZAP!-
"Emma, you are an irredeemable-"
-ZAP!-
"-stain upon reality! FUCK YOU!"
-ZAP!-
"AND FUCK THE EDUCATION SYSTEM-"
-ZAP!-
"-FOR BEING SHITTY ENOUGH THAT YOU-"
-ZAP!-
"-COULD GET AWAY WITH TORTURING ME-"
-ZAP!-
"-FOR LITERALLY YEARS!"
Clearly, a change of tactics was required. Now, instead of just charging at the barrier like a complete idiot, I walked forwards slowly. When the barrier appeared once more, I stuck my hand out and poked it directly into the zappiness. Unsurprisingly, my hand got zapped, but this time I held my ground. Feeling the sensation, it was definitely one of heat and fire. I countered with a flame of my own, but a cold flame forged from the sheer spite I had about my fate, hammered into the shape of a chainsaw. Hey, if I'm in a non-physical world I might as well see if lucid dreaming tricks work. Turns out the answer is yes.
Revving up my spitesaw, I stabbed it forwards into the barrier, creating a massive gash. As I walked onwards, I looked back towards the afterlives, observing the massive gash I'd left in the structure blocking the dead from rejoining the living. Meh, that probably wasn't important.
I took one final step, and suddenly I was looking up at a bright light, the three or so men in the room with my suddenly stumbling backwards as I sat up. Wait, no, don't run away!
Before any of them could leave, I said "For the record, I don't mind that you were autopsying me, seeing as I am actually dead, but could I please have some clothes?"
Then I thought to look at my reflection in one of the mirrors they had hanging here. Yep, green flames for eyes, rotting maggot-infested wounds all over, and a distinctly deathly pallor. I definitely looked like I'd just walked out of a horror movie. Perfect.
Revenant 1.1
We Just Write
Blatantly Plural
- Location
- New England
- Pronouns
- Plural
To their credit, the medical examiners recovered quickly from my sudden reanimation. One of them almost immediately replied with "Certainly, miss Hebert. We'll get right on that."
As the man left the autopsy room, I yelled after him "Also, could you please get my dad on the phone? I need to let him know that I've reanimated."
Forty minutes later, I was about as cleaned up as I could get, my rotting carcass thoroughly hosed down with disinfectants and bandages applied over most of my open wounds. I was also sitting at a table directly across from Armsmaster, a man from the CDC, and a couple grumpy-looking detectives. Notably, all of them were wearing breathing masks, with Armsmaster's suit being locked down in full hazmat mode.
The detective on the left asked the first question, "Are you in fact Taylor Hebert?"
My answer was an incredibly blunt "Yes, yes I am. Deceased as of probably eight hours ago, I think?"
Another question, this time raised by the same detective "Why did you reanimate during the autopsy, rather than at any point prior?"
I decided to once again be extremely blunt, saying "Well, it was about half an hour at the Afterlife Processing Center to get some paperwork in order. After that I could tell my corpse was still in the locker and I really didn't want to be stuck in there, so I killed some time by going to visit mom before I came back. Oh, then I had to break a hole in the barrier between life and death, which took a little while. Wasn't really keeping track."
To my surprise, it was Armsmaster who spoke up next, noting "You seem oddly well-adjusted for someone who just spent several hours in a locker full of biohazardous waste."
To this, I responded "Well, yeah. A lot of that can be chalked up to seeing mom again after being separated for three years. Also, I'm rather looking forward to haunting the shit out of Emma and her gang of cronies."
At this, the second detective asked "Please, tell us more about this Emma person, and why you're interested in haunting her in particular?"
I nodded, before I replied "So, some context is required. Until high school started, Emma Barnes and I were absolute best friends, sisters in all but blood. Then she changed over the summer, started hanging out with Sophia Hess, and made it her personal mission to make my every waking hour hell. This culminated in her, Sophia Hess, and Madison Clements murdering me by locking me in my locker after filling it with used, rotten feminine hygiene products."
This caused Armsmaster to straighten up immediately, as he asked me "Could you please repeat those names?"
I shrugged, before saying "Yeah, I was murdered by Emma Barnes, Sophia Hess, and Madison Clements. Why?"
Things moved quite quickly after that; dad had already retrieved the notebooks detailing the bullying I underwent, and that coupled with a video of me getting stuffed in there recorded by some idiot and posted to the internet was more than enough to get a warrant for Emma, Sophia, and Madison's arrests. Since I wasn't a member of law enforcement I wasn't invited along for the ride, but I did ask for an opportunity to visit the three of them in their cells once they were taken in.
Much to my surprise, the police actually agreed to let me visit Emma and Madison, but they refused to let me see Sophia. Something about her needing extra security. Eh, two out of three isn't so bad. Either way, soon I was walking down the hallway towards Emma's temporary holding cell, lingering just outside her sight long enough to hear her retch, followed by an exclamation of "Eugh, what's that awful stench!?"
In response, I walked in front of the bars and noted "Oh, that's just MY ROTTING CORPSE, Emma." watching with barely disguised satisfaction as the redhead stumbled backwards in shock.
After several moments of incoherent gibbering, Emma managed to respond "You're dead! I saw them pulling your corpse out of the locker!"'
In response, I just finger gunned and spat out a couple particularly enterprising maggots before saying "Got it in one! You and the rest of your bitch brigade are the ones I've got to thank for that. Though honestly, between me dying and you going to jail for decades I probably got the better deal. After all, thanks to you I not only got to see mom again, but I also got an opportunity to tell dad that she's doing fine, and is waiting patiently for him to arrive."
Emma snarled, before she remarked "Just like a weakling like you to go running back to your mother! You probably didn't even try to get out of that locker we shoved you in."
In response, I just grinned and noted "Thanks for confessing in front of the security cameras! I'll be seeing you in court later." Then, I spun on my heel and walked right out of there.
That said, just as I was about to leave a pair of burly men in hazmat suits blocked my path through the hallway, their tags identifying them as being with the CDC. The one on the left asked "Where do you think you're going, miss?"
I fired back "Home, duh. I need to get ready for school tomorrow."
In response, the one on the left cracked his knuckles, and the one on the right said "Not like this you won't. Your ongoing decomposition poses a massive health risk to the public in general. You won't be leaving until we've thoroughly decontaminated you."
I paused for a moment, asking "Define thorough, please?"
Hazmat on the right answered "We'll need to reduce you to a skeleton, basically. Near as we can tell, you aren't using any of your organs or muscles anyway, so they all need to go."
I thought for a moment, before I replied "Alright, just let me see if I can grab verified undead status on PHO first. Also, don't expect me to be sticking around while you're scooping out my organs or whatever. I've got way more of the afterlife I want to explore."
As the man left the autopsy room, I yelled after him "Also, could you please get my dad on the phone? I need to let him know that I've reanimated."
Forty minutes later, I was about as cleaned up as I could get, my rotting carcass thoroughly hosed down with disinfectants and bandages applied over most of my open wounds. I was also sitting at a table directly across from Armsmaster, a man from the CDC, and a couple grumpy-looking detectives. Notably, all of them were wearing breathing masks, with Armsmaster's suit being locked down in full hazmat mode.
The detective on the left asked the first question, "Are you in fact Taylor Hebert?"
My answer was an incredibly blunt "Yes, yes I am. Deceased as of probably eight hours ago, I think?"
Another question, this time raised by the same detective "Why did you reanimate during the autopsy, rather than at any point prior?"
I decided to once again be extremely blunt, saying "Well, it was about half an hour at the Afterlife Processing Center to get some paperwork in order. After that I could tell my corpse was still in the locker and I really didn't want to be stuck in there, so I killed some time by going to visit mom before I came back. Oh, then I had to break a hole in the barrier between life and death, which took a little while. Wasn't really keeping track."
To my surprise, it was Armsmaster who spoke up next, noting "You seem oddly well-adjusted for someone who just spent several hours in a locker full of biohazardous waste."
To this, I responded "Well, yeah. A lot of that can be chalked up to seeing mom again after being separated for three years. Also, I'm rather looking forward to haunting the shit out of Emma and her gang of cronies."
At this, the second detective asked "Please, tell us more about this Emma person, and why you're interested in haunting her in particular?"
I nodded, before I replied "So, some context is required. Until high school started, Emma Barnes and I were absolute best friends, sisters in all but blood. Then she changed over the summer, started hanging out with Sophia Hess, and made it her personal mission to make my every waking hour hell. This culminated in her, Sophia Hess, and Madison Clements murdering me by locking me in my locker after filling it with used, rotten feminine hygiene products."
This caused Armsmaster to straighten up immediately, as he asked me "Could you please repeat those names?"
I shrugged, before saying "Yeah, I was murdered by Emma Barnes, Sophia Hess, and Madison Clements. Why?"
Things moved quite quickly after that; dad had already retrieved the notebooks detailing the bullying I underwent, and that coupled with a video of me getting stuffed in there recorded by some idiot and posted to the internet was more than enough to get a warrant for Emma, Sophia, and Madison's arrests. Since I wasn't a member of law enforcement I wasn't invited along for the ride, but I did ask for an opportunity to visit the three of them in their cells once they were taken in.
Much to my surprise, the police actually agreed to let me visit Emma and Madison, but they refused to let me see Sophia. Something about her needing extra security. Eh, two out of three isn't so bad. Either way, soon I was walking down the hallway towards Emma's temporary holding cell, lingering just outside her sight long enough to hear her retch, followed by an exclamation of "Eugh, what's that awful stench!?"
In response, I walked in front of the bars and noted "Oh, that's just MY ROTTING CORPSE, Emma." watching with barely disguised satisfaction as the redhead stumbled backwards in shock.
After several moments of incoherent gibbering, Emma managed to respond "You're dead! I saw them pulling your corpse out of the locker!"'
In response, I just finger gunned and spat out a couple particularly enterprising maggots before saying "Got it in one! You and the rest of your bitch brigade are the ones I've got to thank for that. Though honestly, between me dying and you going to jail for decades I probably got the better deal. After all, thanks to you I not only got to see mom again, but I also got an opportunity to tell dad that she's doing fine, and is waiting patiently for him to arrive."
Emma snarled, before she remarked "Just like a weakling like you to go running back to your mother! You probably didn't even try to get out of that locker we shoved you in."
In response, I just grinned and noted "Thanks for confessing in front of the security cameras! I'll be seeing you in court later." Then, I spun on my heel and walked right out of there.
That said, just as I was about to leave a pair of burly men in hazmat suits blocked my path through the hallway, their tags identifying them as being with the CDC. The one on the left asked "Where do you think you're going, miss?"
I fired back "Home, duh. I need to get ready for school tomorrow."
In response, the one on the left cracked his knuckles, and the one on the right said "Not like this you won't. Your ongoing decomposition poses a massive health risk to the public in general. You won't be leaving until we've thoroughly decontaminated you."
I paused for a moment, asking "Define thorough, please?"
Hazmat on the right answered "We'll need to reduce you to a skeleton, basically. Near as we can tell, you aren't using any of your organs or muscles anyway, so they all need to go."
I thought for a moment, before I replied "Alright, just let me see if I can grab verified undead status on PHO first. Also, don't expect me to be sticking around while you're scooping out my organs or whatever. I've got way more of the afterlife I want to explore."
Revenant 1.2
We Just Write
Blatantly Plural
- Location
- New England
- Pronouns
- Plural
Turns out, recording a verification video for PHO was WAY too much fun. The CDC guys had a clean room all set up, the walls, floor, and ceiling firmly wrapped in sanitary plastic for my upcoming organ and tissue removal. The webcam was set up just outside the door, a roll of string was on the table, and I was holding a knife.
One of the hazmat dudes shot me a thumbs-up and said "We're rolling!"
In response, I waved to the camera, took off my shirt, and immediately plunged the knife into my torso just below my ribcage. Digging around with the blade felt a bit odd, but pretty soon a massive block of my internal tissues fell out on the table. Digging around in the disgusting chunk of rotting flesh, I found my heart pretty quick, the organ already obviously dead. It took a few minutes to tie the string around the useless lump of tissue and wind it up, but soon I was ready.
Thus, my verification video prominently featured me carving out my own heart and using it to do yoyo tricks. I started with walking the dog, then did a sleeper, finishing things off with doing an around the world. In the process, I noticed that I was having a WAY easier time moving the heart yoyo around than I really should be. Surreptitiously, I decided to check if this was something I could generalize, willing the knife to float about a centimeter over the table, and grinning internally when it worked.
Either way, soon my utterly grotesque verification video was done, and I signaled to the CDC dude to cut the video. A couple minutes later, I posted it to the PHO mods with the following message.
Subject: Requesting (Verified Undead) Tag
From: DeadGirl
So, I died, busted my way out of the afterlife, and now I'm a rotting undead zombie-ghost, pretty much. Anyway, I've got a video here showcasing my deadness which I'll be using for verification proof; you should probably put a gore warning on it, just FYI. Since I don't plan on doing much heroing or villainy in the near future, I REALLY don't want (Verified Cape).
With that done, I logged out from the computer, walked over to the slab the CDC hazmat duo would be taking me apart on, and gave them the thumbs-up.
Turns out, popping back to the afterlife was as easy as wanting to do so. One second I was lying down on the slab, the next I was back on the paths in the void. Seeing as I'd only been gone for a day or so, I figured mom was still at the hotel in Yomi, so I trotted back down the path that way. This time I was ready for its weird crazy geometry tricks, and as soon as I was in Yomi I stopped walking.
Looking around, I could clearly see that I was indeed in a pretty standard 'underworld' type realm. Stalactites could be seen sticking down out of the blue-ish gloom above, everything had luminescent mushrooms and mosses growing in random places, and all the buildings had been painted in bright cheerful colors. I mean, I guess that makes sense; just gray and dreary would get pretty boring after a while.
This was also the case for the hotel mom was currently visiting, done up in bright sky blues and whites, with murals all over the ground floor exterior. The doorframe meanwhile was done up with either gold or brass framing a large stained glass revolving door. I walked through, and finding myself in the lobby, I quickly found the desk being run by what looked like a young Japanese woman wearing a frilly black-and-red dress. I mean, I guess that makes sense, given which afterlife this is.
Either way, I asked "Hello, is my mother Annette Hebert still checked in?"
To this, the woman at the desk replied "Yes, though she is due to check out within the next hour."
I nodded in response, before walking up to mom's hotel room and saying "Hey mom, I'm back."
The door opened, and I once more found myself being hugged as my mom welcomed me back into the hotel room, saying "So, how did your attempt to haunt Emma work out?"
I sat down on the couch and said "It went great! I cut through the barrier with a chainsaw, slipped right back into my corpse, and sat up during my autopsy. A quick chat with the police later, and Emma's whole gang got arrested. Anyway, the CDC's currently picking my bones clean of soft tissues so I won't present a health hazard while walking around, so I decided to pop back over here for a few hours while they deal with it."
Mom chuckled, before noting "Makes perfect sense to me. Anyway, I'm planning on heading back to Hel soon, so if you would help with getting my luggage dealt with, that would be much appreciated."
Sure enough, an hour or so later mom and I were on the train from Yomi to Hel, and I thought to ask "Hey mom, why are we even bothering with taking the train if the funky geometry of the afterlife allows pretty much instant travel?"
Looking out the window, mom noted "Well, it's mostly because the train takes a bit longer that people use it. You can meet all sorts of interesting people on a train, and there's interesting scenery to comment on along the way. Case in point, this train goes right through the Forest of Echoes; turns out that trees get an afterlife too."
Looking out the train window at the chaotic mix of assorted trees from literally every climate zone on Earth, I did have to admit that the scenery was quite interesting. Still, one thing stuck out to me as I asked "Wait, I also saw plenty of trees back in Yomi, but if the Forest of Echoes is the afterlife for trees, then why are they there?"
To my surprise, a bearded man across the aisle from me spoke up, saying "Well, some of them are actual trees transplanted from the forest, but a lot are just scenery designed to look like trees. Some of them even make fruit, but they're not actually real dead trees; you can tell because chopping them down would actually work, instead of the tree just pulling itself back together."
After a few moments of thought, it occurred to me to ask "So wait, are you saying that I might see someone walking around with their head cut off or something?"
At this, the man noted "Yeah. We don't really have physical bodies down here, so we can do basically anything we want to ourselves and still be fine. Most people keep themselves in one piece for practical reasons, but I've outright seen Guillotines being advertised as both fetish gear and beautifying devices. Usually not both in the same advertisement, though."
Rather unexpectedly, mom spoke up at this point, saying "Huh, I got mine to get ready for a costume party. Pretty sure I've still got it in my basement somewhere, though I haven't used it in almost a year."
Immediately making a time-out gesture with my hands, I asked mom "Wait, you decapitated yourself for a costume party? Care to elaborate?"
Shrugging as if it were the most normal thing in the world -- which I guess it was because everyone here is dead -- mom replied "Well, I was going as Princess Langwidere, so it was rather required."
One of the hazmat dudes shot me a thumbs-up and said "We're rolling!"
In response, I waved to the camera, took off my shirt, and immediately plunged the knife into my torso just below my ribcage. Digging around with the blade felt a bit odd, but pretty soon a massive block of my internal tissues fell out on the table. Digging around in the disgusting chunk of rotting flesh, I found my heart pretty quick, the organ already obviously dead. It took a few minutes to tie the string around the useless lump of tissue and wind it up, but soon I was ready.
Thus, my verification video prominently featured me carving out my own heart and using it to do yoyo tricks. I started with walking the dog, then did a sleeper, finishing things off with doing an around the world. In the process, I noticed that I was having a WAY easier time moving the heart yoyo around than I really should be. Surreptitiously, I decided to check if this was something I could generalize, willing the knife to float about a centimeter over the table, and grinning internally when it worked.
Either way, soon my utterly grotesque verification video was done, and I signaled to the CDC dude to cut the video. A couple minutes later, I posted it to the PHO mods with the following message.
Subject: Requesting (Verified Undead) Tag
From: DeadGirl
So, I died, busted my way out of the afterlife, and now I'm a rotting undead zombie-ghost, pretty much. Anyway, I've got a video here showcasing my deadness which I'll be using for verification proof; you should probably put a gore warning on it, just FYI. Since I don't plan on doing much heroing or villainy in the near future, I REALLY don't want (Verified Cape).
With that done, I logged out from the computer, walked over to the slab the CDC hazmat duo would be taking me apart on, and gave them the thumbs-up.
Turns out, popping back to the afterlife was as easy as wanting to do so. One second I was lying down on the slab, the next I was back on the paths in the void. Seeing as I'd only been gone for a day or so, I figured mom was still at the hotel in Yomi, so I trotted back down the path that way. This time I was ready for its weird crazy geometry tricks, and as soon as I was in Yomi I stopped walking.
Looking around, I could clearly see that I was indeed in a pretty standard 'underworld' type realm. Stalactites could be seen sticking down out of the blue-ish gloom above, everything had luminescent mushrooms and mosses growing in random places, and all the buildings had been painted in bright cheerful colors. I mean, I guess that makes sense; just gray and dreary would get pretty boring after a while.
This was also the case for the hotel mom was currently visiting, done up in bright sky blues and whites, with murals all over the ground floor exterior. The doorframe meanwhile was done up with either gold or brass framing a large stained glass revolving door. I walked through, and finding myself in the lobby, I quickly found the desk being run by what looked like a young Japanese woman wearing a frilly black-and-red dress. I mean, I guess that makes sense, given which afterlife this is.
Either way, I asked "Hello, is my mother Annette Hebert still checked in?"
To this, the woman at the desk replied "Yes, though she is due to check out within the next hour."
I nodded in response, before walking up to mom's hotel room and saying "Hey mom, I'm back."
The door opened, and I once more found myself being hugged as my mom welcomed me back into the hotel room, saying "So, how did your attempt to haunt Emma work out?"
I sat down on the couch and said "It went great! I cut through the barrier with a chainsaw, slipped right back into my corpse, and sat up during my autopsy. A quick chat with the police later, and Emma's whole gang got arrested. Anyway, the CDC's currently picking my bones clean of soft tissues so I won't present a health hazard while walking around, so I decided to pop back over here for a few hours while they deal with it."
Mom chuckled, before noting "Makes perfect sense to me. Anyway, I'm planning on heading back to Hel soon, so if you would help with getting my luggage dealt with, that would be much appreciated."
Sure enough, an hour or so later mom and I were on the train from Yomi to Hel, and I thought to ask "Hey mom, why are we even bothering with taking the train if the funky geometry of the afterlife allows pretty much instant travel?"
Looking out the window, mom noted "Well, it's mostly because the train takes a bit longer that people use it. You can meet all sorts of interesting people on a train, and there's interesting scenery to comment on along the way. Case in point, this train goes right through the Forest of Echoes; turns out that trees get an afterlife too."
Looking out the train window at the chaotic mix of assorted trees from literally every climate zone on Earth, I did have to admit that the scenery was quite interesting. Still, one thing stuck out to me as I asked "Wait, I also saw plenty of trees back in Yomi, but if the Forest of Echoes is the afterlife for trees, then why are they there?"
To my surprise, a bearded man across the aisle from me spoke up, saying "Well, some of them are actual trees transplanted from the forest, but a lot are just scenery designed to look like trees. Some of them even make fruit, but they're not actually real dead trees; you can tell because chopping them down would actually work, instead of the tree just pulling itself back together."
After a few moments of thought, it occurred to me to ask "So wait, are you saying that I might see someone walking around with their head cut off or something?"
At this, the man noted "Yeah. We don't really have physical bodies down here, so we can do basically anything we want to ourselves and still be fine. Most people keep themselves in one piece for practical reasons, but I've outright seen Guillotines being advertised as both fetish gear and beautifying devices. Usually not both in the same advertisement, though."
Rather unexpectedly, mom spoke up at this point, saying "Huh, I got mine to get ready for a costume party. Pretty sure I've still got it in my basement somewhere, though I haven't used it in almost a year."
Immediately making a time-out gesture with my hands, I asked mom "Wait, you decapitated yourself for a costume party? Care to elaborate?"
Shrugging as if it were the most normal thing in the world -- which I guess it was because everyone here is dead -- mom replied "Well, I was going as Princess Langwidere, so it was rather required."
Interlude 1: PHO
We Just Write
Blatantly Plural
- Location
- New England
- Pronouns
- Plural
■
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♦ Topic: Hey, guess what, I'm dead. No big deal.
In: Boards ► Brockton Bay ► General
Deadgirl (Original Poster) (Verified Undead)
Posted On Jan 2nd 2011:
So I just died by getting shoved into my locker and locked in for way too long with rotting feminine hygiene products. Anyway, that's when I found out that the afterlife is 100% real, and that all you need to get back to the living world is a giant-ass chainsaw, determination, and a whole lot of spite. Please note that the chainsaw is meant for use in the barrier between the living world and the afterlife, not for on people. Meanderings aside, I scared the crap out of the coroners when I sat my corpse up during my autopsy.
Anyway, proof of my demise can be found with both my obituary and my verification video (WARNING: GORE). I don't have much in the way of soft tissues anymore though; the CDC had to skeletonize me to prevent me being a disease vector of horrific proportions.
Like any self-respecting ghost, I've got some unfinished business to deal with.
-Haunt my murderers (Done, got them arrested too! Thanks Brockton Bay PD! Gonna need to face off in court to make the charges stick though.)
-Finish school somewhere OTHER than Winslow.
-Advocate education reform; the fact that the educational system was in such a sorry state as to allow what happened to me is a disgrace.
-Answer questions about the afterlife.
-Get mom to come back to the living world and visit dad sometimes.
Pretty sure I'll come up with more stuff as I stick around longer. Undead need to keep busy!
(Showing page 3 of 17) ►XxVoid_CowboyxX
Replied On Jan 3rd 2011:
Er, since the verification video isn't masked, would I get in trouble for saying I know this girl? Because I definitely bumped into her quite often back when she was alive. That is 100% Taylor.
►GstringGirl
Replied On Jan 3rd 2011:
*looks upthread*
Considering that Deadgirl literally posted her actual Obituary (and isn't that a surreal sentence to type), I'd say you're probably in the clear.
►Deadgirl (Original Poster) (Verified Undead)
Replied On Jan 3rd 2011:
@XxVoid_CowboyxX
Well, I'm a little ticked at you for not calling the police the instant you saw me getting locker'd, or maybe all those times I was pushed down the stairs. Most of my ire's still directed at my murderers though, so I'll only haunt you a little.
I mean, I outright posted a link to my obituary. Pretty hard to be more open about things than that.
Edit: Ninja'd
►Deadman (Not Actually Deceased)
Replied On Jan 3rd 2011:
Can I just say how weirded out about this whole situation I am? I go to sleep one night, next thing I know I'm strongly considering changing my username because a certain someone literally decided to chainsaw her way out of the afterlife and rise from her grave. Well, autopsy slab. Same difference.
I hereby recommend that breaking out of the afterlife be referred to as "pulling a Hebert." in future.
►Vista (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE)
Replied On Jan 3rd 2011:
Firmly agreed on calling it "Pulling a Hebert". Not sure what else to say except that getting stuffed in a locker full of rotting tampons sounds like an AWFUL way to go, and if she'd lived that could have DEFINITELY qualified as Trigger material.
►Bagrat (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)
Replied On Jan 3rd 2011:
Yet another person joining the group saying "Wait, what just happened?" Seriously, even for Capes this whole thing came straight out of left field.
►SpecificProtagonist
Replied On Jan 3rd 2011:
So, on a completely unrelated note, how's the PRT taking this whole mess?
►Feychick
Replied On Jan 3rd 2011:
Seconded; seriously, this situation seems like it falls squarely under their jurisdiction just due to the incredibly weird shit happening. Well, either that or the CDC, considering the interest they seem to have taken.
►Reave (Verified PRT Agent)
Replied On Jan 3rd 2011:
In my official capacity as a representative of the PRT, we have no comment at this time.
In a completely unofficial capacity, Director Piggot looks sufficiently furious about the events leading up to this situation that we're pretty sure she's at risk of pulling a Hebert if no-one calms her down.
Take that as you will.
►Deadgirl (Original Poster) (Verified Undead)
Replied On Jan 3rd 2011:
Well, the Protectorate at least took some interest, since Armsmaster was at my debriefing immediately after I got back from the afterlife. He had his armor in full hazmat mode and everything.
►XxVoid_CowboyxX
Replied On Jan 3rd 2011:
@Deadgirl
Wait, you met Armsmaster? Did you get his autograph?
►Cattyness (Verified Undead)
Replied On Jan 3rd 2011:
So guys, you know how I had that whole thread about my cystic fibrosis finally catching up with me and having a couple weeks to live? Yeah, I read Deadgirl's OP, and asked the doctors to pull the plug. Turns out, every last thing she said about the afterlife is 100% true. Told the lady in afterlife processing about Deadgirl's stunt with the afterlife barrier and my intent to try it out, and she went to watch as I chainsawed a hole right through.
Anyway, I'm currently wearing my corpse right now. I've got an embalming appointment in a little while, though I'll probably go skelly in a couple months or so. Anyway, since the afterlife *is* quite an interesting place a lot more of my time will be tied up with exploring over there, but you can still expect me to hang around PHO for the next decade or so.
►Procto the Unfortunate Tinker (Not a tinker)
Replied On Jan 3rd 2011:
Wait, you mean that returning from the dead is REPEATABLE!? Holy shit.
►Space Zombie (Not Actually Deceased) (Banned)
Replied On Jan 3rd 2011:
@Cattyness I'm going to call your bluff. This is totally a hoax on your part to get more attention and I'm not buying it. Powers just don't work that way, and I don't care what sort of trippy hallucinations Deadgirl went through in that locker, she isn't actually dead.
(User was infracted for this post)
►Winged One
Replied On Jan 3rd 2011:
You know, until now I'd never even considered suicide as a solution to my specific personal problems, but the fact that the afterlife now has multiple verifications is making me strongly consider it. Before anyone says "But why don't you just leave?" I've tried. It hasn't worked.
So yeah, I'm going to try and pull a Hebert. Probably sometime in the next month or two.
■
Ugh, writing this was legitimately awful.
Revenant 1.3
We Just Write
Blatantly Plural
- Location
- New England
- Pronouns
- Plural
After a few hours with mom helping her unpack in Hel, I asked "Hey, do you think you'd be able to come back and visit dad with me? The barrier isn't a problem, so there shouldn't be any issues."
At this, mom noted "You do realize my body's been buried for about three years, right? I'm pretty sure that getting it out from under that headstone is pretty far outside the realm of feasibility."
I only grinned, before noting "Back in the land of the living I was actually able to pull off a bit of telekinesis, and I'm pretty sure that's what I'm using to move my bones around in the first place. I'm thinking that us dead folks are probably able to muster a lot more spookiness than that if we put our minds to it, meaning that our bodies probably aren't actually necessary for anything."
After a few moments of thinking, mom nodded, before saying "Well, it's worth a shot at the very least."
The decision made, we left mom's house in the snowy norse underworld behind and made our way to the world of the living. Both of us slipped through the gash I'd already chainsawed in the afterlife barrier around the police station, making the last step out of the afterlife simultaneously.
Sitting my corpse up again, I noted that I was no longer in the cleanroom, but that was definitely still the police station. To be more specific, it was the main lobby. Apparently once my bones had been cleaned, the CDC folks had been nice enough to wire me together, and they'd even provided a plain white sundress held in place by shoulder straps. Also, dad had just jumped me for a hug, probably as soon as he saw my eye sockets light up green.
Pulling back slightly, I told dad "Don't worry, I'm still here. I'm still Taylor. I'm just a bit spookier now."
Sniveling, and barely wiping the tears from his eyes, dad nodded. After nearly a minute of hugging, he released, and I could finally stand up properly. Looking around to see if mom was present, I noticed a vaguely humanoid area of heat haze in the room in a spot where it had no reason to be. The heat haze I suspected to be my mom waved, and with a slight nod all three of us made our way to the car.
Getting into the truck next to dad, I buckled up out of sheer habit, the lower seatbelt pulling the dress back and settling up against my spine. Huh, just realized I could actually feel that, despite not having any nerve endings. Meh, I'm a spooky ghost wearing her skeleton, none of this makes any sense, so let's just roll with it.
Either way, as dad drove through Brockton Bay, it only took him a few minutes to ask "So, how's the afterlife?"
Thinking on things for a few moments, I replied "This is going to take a bit to explain. So, start with your stereotypical mythological underworld."
Dad nodded, before saying "I can do that. Dreary cave atmosphere, rocks everywhere, that sort of thing."
Nodding, I elaborated "Then have massive numbers of regular people in charge of the decorating for who knows how long, knowing they'll be there forever, and with the ability to literally imagine new scenery into existence."
As we pulled up to a traffic light, dad answered "Ah, that seems like it would change things."
While the light was still very firmly red, mom spoke up from the back seat, suddenly visible (if a bit translucent, with blue eye-flames) as she said "Yes, it most certainly would. You wouldn't believe some of the ludicrous architecture trends I've seen."
Jumping in his seat slightly as the light turned green, dad replied "Annette? Have you really come back?"
Mom smiled before saying "Well, I'm still dead, if that's what you're asking. However, thanks to our little girl here chainsawing a hole in the afterlife that doesn't seem to matter quite so much any more."
That evening, dad was the only one to eat dinner; in the case of both mom and I it seemed rather silly to try that considering that the most likely result was it falling right through to the floor the instant we weren't paying attention to it any more. I really didn't want to spend ages trying to get bits of cheese sauce out from all the little nooks and crannies in my pelvis.
Either way, as we all sat around the kitchen table, mom asked "So, now that we're all together again, what's the plan?"
I immediately replied "Well, I for one intend on getting some education reforms rammed through so that a case of bullying like what happened to me can't happen again. I should probably also get ready for Emma, Madison, and Sophia's trials, since I'm somewhat likely to get called as a witness. Never going back to Winslow, though."
Mom just nodded, while dad replied "Firmly agreed on that point. I'd still like if you finished your education, though."
Shrugging, I replied "Well, my options there are to either try and transfer to Arcadia, or attend one of the schools in the afterlife. Not like I'm the first girl who died before she could finish her education. The only problem is that the diploma may not be transferable to stuff in the living world."
Either way, after dinner mom and dad both went upstairs. In mom's case, she just floated up and phased through the ceiling, while dad took the stairs up. Personally, I opted to stay downstairs for about an hour to use the computer, looking up the laws relevant to my situation, and browsing PHO. Huh, apparently I'd become a meme, also good going Cattyness!
Either way, I got pretty bored, so I wandered upstairs and knocked on the door to my parent's room. After a few seconds I heard dad mutter "Come in." so I opened the door.
Looking upon the scene in front of me, I quickly saw rumpled sheets hastily placed over dad's pelvis, a small blob of barely-visible white goop floating inside mom's ghostly form, and some rather specialized props in use. Knowing exactly what I had just walked in on, I hurriedly stammered out "MomdadI'mgoingforawalkdon'tworryI'vegotmychainsawseeyoulater!" and vacated the area immediately.
Yeah, I was already planning for that walk, but now the awkwardness level made it pretty much mandatory. Either way, I got my keys, opened the door, locked up behind me, and strode out into the night.
At this, mom noted "You do realize my body's been buried for about three years, right? I'm pretty sure that getting it out from under that headstone is pretty far outside the realm of feasibility."
I only grinned, before noting "Back in the land of the living I was actually able to pull off a bit of telekinesis, and I'm pretty sure that's what I'm using to move my bones around in the first place. I'm thinking that us dead folks are probably able to muster a lot more spookiness than that if we put our minds to it, meaning that our bodies probably aren't actually necessary for anything."
After a few moments of thinking, mom nodded, before saying "Well, it's worth a shot at the very least."
The decision made, we left mom's house in the snowy norse underworld behind and made our way to the world of the living. Both of us slipped through the gash I'd already chainsawed in the afterlife barrier around the police station, making the last step out of the afterlife simultaneously.
Sitting my corpse up again, I noted that I was no longer in the cleanroom, but that was definitely still the police station. To be more specific, it was the main lobby. Apparently once my bones had been cleaned, the CDC folks had been nice enough to wire me together, and they'd even provided a plain white sundress held in place by shoulder straps. Also, dad had just jumped me for a hug, probably as soon as he saw my eye sockets light up green.
Pulling back slightly, I told dad "Don't worry, I'm still here. I'm still Taylor. I'm just a bit spookier now."
Sniveling, and barely wiping the tears from his eyes, dad nodded. After nearly a minute of hugging, he released, and I could finally stand up properly. Looking around to see if mom was present, I noticed a vaguely humanoid area of heat haze in the room in a spot where it had no reason to be. The heat haze I suspected to be my mom waved, and with a slight nod all three of us made our way to the car.
Getting into the truck next to dad, I buckled up out of sheer habit, the lower seatbelt pulling the dress back and settling up against my spine. Huh, just realized I could actually feel that, despite not having any nerve endings. Meh, I'm a spooky ghost wearing her skeleton, none of this makes any sense, so let's just roll with it.
Either way, as dad drove through Brockton Bay, it only took him a few minutes to ask "So, how's the afterlife?"
Thinking on things for a few moments, I replied "This is going to take a bit to explain. So, start with your stereotypical mythological underworld."
Dad nodded, before saying "I can do that. Dreary cave atmosphere, rocks everywhere, that sort of thing."
Nodding, I elaborated "Then have massive numbers of regular people in charge of the decorating for who knows how long, knowing they'll be there forever, and with the ability to literally imagine new scenery into existence."
As we pulled up to a traffic light, dad answered "Ah, that seems like it would change things."
While the light was still very firmly red, mom spoke up from the back seat, suddenly visible (if a bit translucent, with blue eye-flames) as she said "Yes, it most certainly would. You wouldn't believe some of the ludicrous architecture trends I've seen."
Jumping in his seat slightly as the light turned green, dad replied "Annette? Have you really come back?"
Mom smiled before saying "Well, I'm still dead, if that's what you're asking. However, thanks to our little girl here chainsawing a hole in the afterlife that doesn't seem to matter quite so much any more."
That evening, dad was the only one to eat dinner; in the case of both mom and I it seemed rather silly to try that considering that the most likely result was it falling right through to the floor the instant we weren't paying attention to it any more. I really didn't want to spend ages trying to get bits of cheese sauce out from all the little nooks and crannies in my pelvis.
Either way, as we all sat around the kitchen table, mom asked "So, now that we're all together again, what's the plan?"
I immediately replied "Well, I for one intend on getting some education reforms rammed through so that a case of bullying like what happened to me can't happen again. I should probably also get ready for Emma, Madison, and Sophia's trials, since I'm somewhat likely to get called as a witness. Never going back to Winslow, though."
Mom just nodded, while dad replied "Firmly agreed on that point. I'd still like if you finished your education, though."
Shrugging, I replied "Well, my options there are to either try and transfer to Arcadia, or attend one of the schools in the afterlife. Not like I'm the first girl who died before she could finish her education. The only problem is that the diploma may not be transferable to stuff in the living world."
Either way, after dinner mom and dad both went upstairs. In mom's case, she just floated up and phased through the ceiling, while dad took the stairs up. Personally, I opted to stay downstairs for about an hour to use the computer, looking up the laws relevant to my situation, and browsing PHO. Huh, apparently I'd become a meme, also good going Cattyness!
Either way, I got pretty bored, so I wandered upstairs and knocked on the door to my parent's room. After a few seconds I heard dad mutter "Come in." so I opened the door.
Looking upon the scene in front of me, I quickly saw rumpled sheets hastily placed over dad's pelvis, a small blob of barely-visible white goop floating inside mom's ghostly form, and some rather specialized props in use. Knowing exactly what I had just walked in on, I hurriedly stammered out "MomdadI'mgoingforawalkdon'tworryI'vegotmychainsawseeyoulater!" and vacated the area immediately.
Yeah, I was already planning for that walk, but now the awkwardness level made it pretty much mandatory. Either way, I got my keys, opened the door, locked up behind me, and strode out into the night.
Last edited:
Revenant 1.4
We Just Write
Blatantly Plural
- Location
- New England
- Pronouns
- Plural
Strolling out into the brisk night air of Brockton Bay in January, I figured that I may as well go sightseeing. I mean, it's not like I was in any real danger if I happened to stumble onto a supervillain; what would they do, kill me?
Either way, I figured I might as well see what I could do, now that I was quite firmly no longer among the living. I mean, I was among the living, but I pretty obviously wasn't one of them anymore. That thought complete, I broke out into a sprint, moving my legs in an outright blur. Shockingly, this didn't end with my reduced mass to drag ratio knocking me on my bony rear end, as I kept running out into the night. Another oddity is that even as I ran through areas with the street-lights off, I wasn't having any trouble seeing at all.
Musings on how surprisingly beneficial dying had been for me aside, I was happily running along for maybe twenty minutes. Then I noticed a blonde in purple sprinting along next to me, panting as she called "Slow down! I want to talk!"
Obliging this mystery girl, I slowed down to a normal walking pace and asked "So, what was it you wanted to talk to me about?" noting the domino mask she wore, along with the fact that her purple outfit was made out of Spandex. Obvious cape, though the half-eaten doughnut she was holding ruined the image a bit.
The mystery blonde shrugged, before saying "I'm Tattletale, and I figured that when I saw a new cape running by I might as well ask what your deal was."
Figuring I had no reason to lie, I replied "I'm not actually a cape, I'm just dead. Only reason I'm here instead of the afterlife is on account of wanting to haunt my murderers."
It was hard to see, courtesy of her domino mask, but I could have sworn that Tattletale raised an eyebrow as she asked "Are you sure that you aren't just a Changer or something? Even with Capes around, that seems rather implausible."
Shaking my skull, I remarked "There's a couple big reasons why I'm pretty sure that's not the case. First, when I reanimated I still had most of my flesh on and rotting, seriously, it was really gross. Anyway, the CDC refused to let me go without skeletonizing me so I wouldn't be a biohazard; pretty sure that if I were a Parahuman that would have either re-killed me or just not worked. Second, my actions have been proven repeatable, seeing as I convinced my mom to come back over as a ghost. Also in that vein, someone else who had a terminal illness apparently told the doctors to pull the plug, then followed the instructions I posted online. So you should probably start looking for users on PHO with the verified undead tag."
There was an awkward silence for several moments as Tattletale just stared, her face contorting slightly as she tried to reconcile what I had just said with her pre-existing worldview. Apparently, she couldn't quite manage that, as she glared intensely at me as she asked "You're absolutely sure about that, aren't you? You aren't bullshitting me?"
Spinning on my bony heel to directly face her, I practically shouted at Tattletale while waving my arms around, saying "What more proof could you possibly want!? I've got literally no incentive to be lying here, so why do you so very obviously think I'm lying, or crazy, or something!?"
In response, Tattletale fired back "I'm not saying that you're lying, but people generally come up with explanations for their powers that have nothing to do with reality. Have you heard of Glaistig Uaine and her faerie bit?"
Groaning, I told her "Tell you what. You've probably lost someone you cared about at some point. Tell me who and I'll see about digging them out of the afterlife for a visit, or at least bringing a message back. I'll need a name and cause of death."
There was another awkward pause, Tattletale looking deeply conflicted, before she replied "No, sorry, but I just can't bring myself to believe you."
Nodding, I noted "Well, I guess I'd better get on with the rest of my walk, then. If you change your mind after looking up the verified undead tag on PHO, I'll be willing to talk to you again."
With that, we parted ways, and I continued my walk. Getting back up to a run, I dashed through the streets of Brockton Bay for another few minutes, hoping to find something else interesting before I went home. That was when I heard suspicious noises from a nearby alleyway. Spinning on my bony heel, I saw a couple of obvious Empire thugs standing over a young man in the fetal position, the two of them occasionally kicking him in between rifling through his pockets.
Before I knew quite what I was doing, the Spitesaw was gripped in my bony hand once more, the spiritual chainsaw manifesting on this plane as a construct of green fire. The loud revving from the weapon immediately attracted the Empire thugs' gazes as I charged forwards and swung. The two thugs jumped away, and I could tell by their expressions that a flaming-eyed skeleton wearing a dress and weilding a chainsaw was well beyond their 'nope' threshold. I chased after the two of them for a few paces, but stopped pursuing at the end of the alley, turning around to go check on the person they'd been beating up.
Oh, that was a lot of blood.
Sitting down next to the young Hispanic man, I gently prodded him with a tiny spark of spiritual fire, which immediately jolted him into awareness.
The man looked up at me, and after a few moments he asked "Are you death?"
I answered "No, I'm Taylor. How are you feeling?"
The man answered "Like I'm going to die. I'm Gael."
I nodded, saying "I mean, you're right. That is a lot of blood you're losing."
Gael (?) sighed, before asking a short question of "Is Heaven real?" his pleading eyes looking into my flaming green sockets.
"Yes. You'll see."
Half an hour, a quick trip through processing, and another hole chainsawed in the afterlife later, Gael Hernandez and I were at the police station again. Gael submitted himself as evidence and arranged for an embalming, while I made my way home.
You know, it occurs to me that if I'm moving my bones around through spooky telekinesis anyway, I probably don't even need to care about gravity. Figuring I might as well give it a whirl since crashing was a non-issue, I tried visualizing myself floating into the air. It worked, and I was able to move around at a respectable speed, but I was actually slightly faster when not flying.
That said, not needing to worry about street patterns and such made travel a whole lot quicker and more convenient, so I did in fact fly all the way home. Landing on the front lawn, I unlocked the door, closed it behind me, and went to bed after hugging my mom and dad.
I tossed and turned for an hour trying to get to sleep, my sheets constantly getting caught in the gaps between my bones, before eventually figuring I'd try it in the afterlife and see if I had an easier time of things there. Unexpectedly however, when I moved out of the land of the living, I found myself sitting in a conference room in front of a bunch of people wearing the Afterlife Processing uniform.
The clerk who had originally informed me of my demise spoke up, saying "Miss Hebert. You aren't in trouble, but we need to talk. Please, sit down."
A/N: Well, Halloween approaches. Let's see if I can get this thing back in gear. Also, props to @CmptrWz for providing some of Tattletale's lines. Also, I wanted to have Tattletale befriend Taylor, but she just flat out refused to co-operate.
Either way, I figured I might as well see what I could do, now that I was quite firmly no longer among the living. I mean, I was among the living, but I pretty obviously wasn't one of them anymore. That thought complete, I broke out into a sprint, moving my legs in an outright blur. Shockingly, this didn't end with my reduced mass to drag ratio knocking me on my bony rear end, as I kept running out into the night. Another oddity is that even as I ran through areas with the street-lights off, I wasn't having any trouble seeing at all.
Musings on how surprisingly beneficial dying had been for me aside, I was happily running along for maybe twenty minutes. Then I noticed a blonde in purple sprinting along next to me, panting as she called "Slow down! I want to talk!"
Obliging this mystery girl, I slowed down to a normal walking pace and asked "So, what was it you wanted to talk to me about?" noting the domino mask she wore, along with the fact that her purple outfit was made out of Spandex. Obvious cape, though the half-eaten doughnut she was holding ruined the image a bit.
The mystery blonde shrugged, before saying "I'm Tattletale, and I figured that when I saw a new cape running by I might as well ask what your deal was."
Figuring I had no reason to lie, I replied "I'm not actually a cape, I'm just dead. Only reason I'm here instead of the afterlife is on account of wanting to haunt my murderers."
It was hard to see, courtesy of her domino mask, but I could have sworn that Tattletale raised an eyebrow as she asked "Are you sure that you aren't just a Changer or something? Even with Capes around, that seems rather implausible."
Shaking my skull, I remarked "There's a couple big reasons why I'm pretty sure that's not the case. First, when I reanimated I still had most of my flesh on and rotting, seriously, it was really gross. Anyway, the CDC refused to let me go without skeletonizing me so I wouldn't be a biohazard; pretty sure that if I were a Parahuman that would have either re-killed me or just not worked. Second, my actions have been proven repeatable, seeing as I convinced my mom to come back over as a ghost. Also in that vein, someone else who had a terminal illness apparently told the doctors to pull the plug, then followed the instructions I posted online. So you should probably start looking for users on PHO with the verified undead tag."
There was an awkward silence for several moments as Tattletale just stared, her face contorting slightly as she tried to reconcile what I had just said with her pre-existing worldview. Apparently, she couldn't quite manage that, as she glared intensely at me as she asked "You're absolutely sure about that, aren't you? You aren't bullshitting me?"
Spinning on my bony heel to directly face her, I practically shouted at Tattletale while waving my arms around, saying "What more proof could you possibly want!? I've got literally no incentive to be lying here, so why do you so very obviously think I'm lying, or crazy, or something!?"
In response, Tattletale fired back "I'm not saying that you're lying, but people generally come up with explanations for their powers that have nothing to do with reality. Have you heard of Glaistig Uaine and her faerie bit?"
Groaning, I told her "Tell you what. You've probably lost someone you cared about at some point. Tell me who and I'll see about digging them out of the afterlife for a visit, or at least bringing a message back. I'll need a name and cause of death."
There was another awkward pause, Tattletale looking deeply conflicted, before she replied "No, sorry, but I just can't bring myself to believe you."
Nodding, I noted "Well, I guess I'd better get on with the rest of my walk, then. If you change your mind after looking up the verified undead tag on PHO, I'll be willing to talk to you again."
With that, we parted ways, and I continued my walk. Getting back up to a run, I dashed through the streets of Brockton Bay for another few minutes, hoping to find something else interesting before I went home. That was when I heard suspicious noises from a nearby alleyway. Spinning on my bony heel, I saw a couple of obvious Empire thugs standing over a young man in the fetal position, the two of them occasionally kicking him in between rifling through his pockets.
Before I knew quite what I was doing, the Spitesaw was gripped in my bony hand once more, the spiritual chainsaw manifesting on this plane as a construct of green fire. The loud revving from the weapon immediately attracted the Empire thugs' gazes as I charged forwards and swung. The two thugs jumped away, and I could tell by their expressions that a flaming-eyed skeleton wearing a dress and weilding a chainsaw was well beyond their 'nope' threshold. I chased after the two of them for a few paces, but stopped pursuing at the end of the alley, turning around to go check on the person they'd been beating up.
Oh, that was a lot of blood.
Sitting down next to the young Hispanic man, I gently prodded him with a tiny spark of spiritual fire, which immediately jolted him into awareness.
The man looked up at me, and after a few moments he asked "Are you death?"
I answered "No, I'm Taylor. How are you feeling?"
The man answered "Like I'm going to die. I'm Gael."
I nodded, saying "I mean, you're right. That is a lot of blood you're losing."
Gael (?) sighed, before asking a short question of "Is Heaven real?" his pleading eyes looking into my flaming green sockets.
"Yes. You'll see."
Half an hour, a quick trip through processing, and another hole chainsawed in the afterlife later, Gael Hernandez and I were at the police station again. Gael submitted himself as evidence and arranged for an embalming, while I made my way home.
You know, it occurs to me that if I'm moving my bones around through spooky telekinesis anyway, I probably don't even need to care about gravity. Figuring I might as well give it a whirl since crashing was a non-issue, I tried visualizing myself floating into the air. It worked, and I was able to move around at a respectable speed, but I was actually slightly faster when not flying.
That said, not needing to worry about street patterns and such made travel a whole lot quicker and more convenient, so I did in fact fly all the way home. Landing on the front lawn, I unlocked the door, closed it behind me, and went to bed after hugging my mom and dad.
I tossed and turned for an hour trying to get to sleep, my sheets constantly getting caught in the gaps between my bones, before eventually figuring I'd try it in the afterlife and see if I had an easier time of things there. Unexpectedly however, when I moved out of the land of the living, I found myself sitting in a conference room in front of a bunch of people wearing the Afterlife Processing uniform.
The clerk who had originally informed me of my demise spoke up, saying "Miss Hebert. You aren't in trouble, but we need to talk. Please, sit down."
A/N: Well, Halloween approaches. Let's see if I can get this thing back in gear. Also, props to @CmptrWz for providing some of Tattletale's lines. Also, I wanted to have Tattletale befriend Taylor, but she just flat out refused to co-operate.
Interlude Vote
We Just Write
Blatantly Plural
- Location
- New England
- Pronouns
- Plural
I'm having trouble deciding what to write for the end-of-arc Interlude. Place your votes here. No write-ins.
[] Tattletale
[] Piggot
[] Afterlife Processing
[] Tattletale
[] Piggot
[] Afterlife Processing
Wild Speculation from Anfan
All I can picture here is those Zombie games that I've seen adds for on my phone. Where there are literal ladders of undead trying to pull themselves over a wall like ants, only with a lot less success. My point being, none of the dead Heroes or Villains will have powers. 💀
Other than Hax Undead Skillls 👻 that they are behind the curve learning work in the living world, unlike Taylor who has already pulled out the Flaming eyes and chainsaw to scare off a miscreant. I speculate later on how this is possible.
It's unlikely that they will all fail to try things that they have done in the after life though, so it's up to @I just write on whether those work or not. My ideas follow and are likely to be way off, but if @I just write likes them, feel free to make use. Or claim I'm reading your notes! I don't need credit for anything. If it's similar, it's just a case of great minds thinking alike. More than likely I'm just wandering off into left field with speculation.
If the Afterlife Processing Group that is meeting with Taylor has a say in what can be done outside the bounds of the veil, it might come up in the meeting.
And it would be likely that Taylor is going to be handed an awful lot of responsibilities and powers when the group decides it's her fault this is happening and she is going to have to create the Afterlife Response Team (ART, or Possibly the Haunting Response Team HRT) and the tie-in aspect of Haunters (similar to the Protectorate) that will try to be affiliated with the Protectorate if the Afterlife Processing Group, or it's backer(s), can restrict things undead can do that is. Might even be that said powers and effects that Taylor is pulling off are pulling their energy from the afterlife and can be restricted. I imagine that Taylor has created an awful lot of work behind the scenes with her antics. Especially if that energy is what maintains and creates the various environments that exist in the Afterlife.
Or she might become the first member of Haunters, the new organization set up to deal with what's happened, and become the "Poster Child" for the new setup. Whether she likes it or not. Drafted into service due to the hullabaloo she's created. Membership reenrollment mandatory baring review every 100 years. Review every 10 if exemplary service is noted. Depends on how much of a grudge the ones being troubled by all this are likely to hold against her.
Also depends on how long the joke is fresh if she's unintentionally provided a service to the afterlife. Afterlife powers that allow for the chainsaw, flight, and any other things that an undead member can figure out are only available to those who register and join Haunters. Said powers might be limited by how much energy it takes to manifest them and who is sponsoring the new Haunter by providing said energy. And might be packaged as a theme, leading to power groupings like live Heroes have. Afterlife Research and Entertainment groups are still trying to determine the best way to package this to keep things interesting enough to catch the interest of dead spirits that are really really old and have the extra power to enable the entire system. Taylor has been pulling off her stunts using the ambient energy that said older beings make available to try and encourage new ideas in young spirits, thus staving off boredom. This energy being available in Brockton Bay due to the tear she created leaking it into the area.
Undead can still get passports to visit the living, but it will only be at points where the veil is weakened specifically for transfer (likely linked to cemeteries in the living world), the rest of the veil having been reinforced to become a barrier again. Or possiblye the energy enabling spirits to manifest will be more specifically channeled and regulated outside the veil. A simple thing like flaming eyes, possessing your own corpse, and being extra creepy coming with the passport that allows visits. Funding for digging up said corpse available as said funding becomes generated by services rendered to the living. Anyone jumping the fence, so to speak, will be limited to a ghostly haunting that has little to no impact on the living world and are hard to see only enabled by said spirits own ability to generate effects. It encourages lawful traffic after all and allows usage of my supposed link for the energy requirement allowing for said control. This is all an experiment to determine if it will help the newest dead spirits be more creative in what they do when they die. Providing new and diverse ideas for the Afterlife Entertainment Group.
For those who don't "Play Nice" with the system, we can even have various Villainy groups of spirits that will be powered by a very old spirit that wants to play against the system and leaves the afterlife for the living world. This older spirit providing powers to younger ones who want to rebel. This will take quite some time to develop, however, given that it's the main reason for the tales of haunting that exist in the living world. Most remaining spirits don't really feel the desire to lash out that way, or don't play well for others and wear themselves out after making it to the living world and fade away, using up all their own energy. After all, said energy only is generated in the Afterlife. Moving to the living world for a spirit is a good way to end one's existence.
Taylor is lucking out here, because of the way she pierced the Veil. It's caused a leak of said energy into the region around her that's allowed her to perform more than she normally could as a new spirit. The meeting with the Afterlife Processing Group will be to determine how to handle this situation. And they aren't likely to let Taylor know right away if she's provided a Problem or a Service to the Afterlife. Depends on how much of a Troll Writer @I just write is and how that would impact the Afterlife Processing Group.
Hope my speculation was at least entertaining to those following this thread. I was in a creative mood tonight and it just seemed to flow easily. Normally I have a terrible time writing out my ideas, or putting words in order. I'm at that sweet spot where I'm feeling creative and my overly critical and picky side is either asleep or off visiting others.
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Interlude 2: Piggot/Afterlife Processing
We Just Write
Blatantly Plural
- Location
- New England
- Pronouns
- Plural
Being director of the PRT ENE was a stressful job at the best of times. Not only were there the constant worries about funding and obstructive bureaucrats that would come with being in any similar position, but then there were the particular difficulties unique to the PRT. First, there were the staffing problems; since there was no reliable way to induce Parahuman powers, this made it very difficult to actually choose who was working in the local Protectorate. On top of that, this same factor meant that the local hero roster was greatly outnumbered by their villainous counterparts.
That wasn't Emily Piggot's biggest grievance with her position however. No, that dubious honor went to the fact that every single time something sufficiently bizarre and unexpected happened, it was presumed to be a Parahuman's fault. This meant that in 90% of such cases, the responsibility to deal with it was dumped right on her. Case in point, a call over the intercom to her office had just arrived, saying "Ma'am. The coroners at the police station just reported that the corpse they were autopsying; a Taylor Hebert who attended Winslow, reanimated and asked for pants. Prior to the autopsy, the CDC retrieved her body from her locker at Winslow, which had been filled with biohazardous waste."
Hitting the button to return the message, Emily asked "Are you sure this isn't a case of her being in a coma and waking up at just the right time? That's happened before."
The clerk on the other end of the call replied "No Ma'am. Coma patients aren't undergoing rigor mortis, still have a heartbeat, and don't have green flames for eyes."
Groaning, the PRT Director replied "Sounds like we've either got a biotinker on the loose, or someone just Triggered. Tell Armsmaster to button up his armor in hazmat mode and go join in the interrogation to find out which is the case."
With that annoyance hopefully dealt with, Piggot returned to paperwork, and imagined nightmare scenarios about a biotinker unleashing a zombie army on Brockton Bay, hoping against hope that this was just a fluke.
Less than two hours later, that hope was unceremoniously dashed, though not in a way Piggot had ever expected. The debriefing had started fairly straightforward, until Emily asked Armsmaster "What was the subject's general condition during the interview?"
Much to the PRT director's surprise, Armsmaster answered "Completely and totally deceased. No body heat, no heartbeat, no brain activity, no signs of respiration, nothing. In addition, her soft tissues are actively undergoing decomposition. I have no explanation for how she was moving around and talking despite these factors, as Taylor passed a cursory Master/Stranger analysis and there are no Parahumans on record capable of both puppeting a corpse with such precision while also causing them to manifest green flames for eyes."
There were several moments of awkward silence, before Emily got her thoughts together enough to ask "Does the subject have any sort of explanation for this state of affairs?" it was probably wrong, whatever she'd come up with, but it would at least grant some insight into how the latest addition to the shitshow that was Brockton Bay thought.
Without delay, Armsmaster stated "According to Taylor, she is in fact actually deceased, visited the afterlife, and forcibly made an exit with a chainsaw she imagined into existence. At least legally speaking, she's correct when it comes to being deceased, as she meets the official definitions."
There was a brief pause, as Armsmaster caught his breath. "In addition, Taylor claims that she was murdered by a trio of assailants including Shadow Stalker's civilian identity, and has provided additional evidence in the form of detailed documentation of a vicious ongoing bullying campaign."
Narrowing her eyes, Piggot simply hit the intercom and stated "Renick, have both of Shadow Stalker's phones confiscated immediately and confine her to quarters. She has been recently implicated in a potential parole violation and her phones may have incriminating evidence in them."
Turning back to Armsmaster, Piggot practically growled "Is there anything else I need to know?" while stewing in such immense amounts of rage that if it were a form of energy, she would have slagged the entire solar system.
Spurius Marsus, now simply going by Spur among friends and co-workers, had been dead for a bit over two millenia now. He had also been working with Afterlife Processing for about a century, enjoying the work of welcoming new souls to the afterlife greatly. With such a massive amount of experience, he had seen many people declaring that they'd be going right back to land of the living, followed by their attempts inevitably failing. Therefore, when miss Hebert came through making the exact same declaration he'd seen made time and time again (including by her mother), Spur hadn't paid the matter much attention.
Then Rosy, one of his co-workers had burst into his office and loudly proclaimed "Spur, I just saw a new arrival successfully chainsaw a hole in the afterlife barrier! According to her she got the instructions for how to do it from someone else who figured it out first, which means that someone who died recently succeeded."
Completely staggered by the implications of this, Spur took a few moments to come up with a response, before asking "Did she just use a chainsaw, or did she employ some sort of other trick in addition to that?"
Awkwardly waving the catlike tail she'd altered her appearance to have, Rosy fired back immediately "Just the chainsaw, as far as I could tell."
Thinking for a moment, Spur rubbed his chin and noted "We should go through the records of recent arrivals who made a Lazarus Declaration. If we find any who can't be located in the afterlife, or have been recorded entering multiple times by the entry machine, there's our first example of a successful Lazarus Declaration."
Blood red eyes focused intently on Spur as Rosy asked "So, shall we get to it?"
Two minutes later, and both Rosy and Spur were at a terminal for Afterlife Processing's Filing and Locating Engine, quite possibly the single oldest computer-like device in existence. It had been actively worked on and tinkered with since records started being kept of new arrivals to the afterlife, and it swiftly became clear that a large enough team of clerks to keep track of everything manually would be almost entirely self-defeating. As such, the Engine was comprised of a mishmash of components from nearly every era. There were parts literally made by mesolithic stonecrafters right next to hyper-modern integrated circuit chips, mostly held together by what could only be described as literal magic. It was a common suspicion among workers of Afterlife Processing that the Engine was in fact deliberately failing the sapience tests it had been regularly subjected to ever since Alan Turing died.
Oddities aside, the Filing Engine still performed its task with the extreme efficiency of a system that had been continuously improved and refined for millenia, rapidly returning all files matching the search terms. Those search terms were for files within the last 72 hours with a positive Lazarus Declaration checkmark, who were not instances of Tess Richter AKA Dragon, and who had either been detected entering the afterlife more than once, or were not present in the afterlife despite having previously entered. Half a second later, six files were produced:
Samantha J. Parish, the lady Rosy had watched chainsaw a hole in the barrier.
Brandon Morris
Taylor Hebert
Arseniy Krupin
Casey Fowler
Dalubuhle (Born Beautiful) Mbhodwe
Of this list, Morris, Krupin, Fowler, and Mbhodwe were currently in the afterlife and thus easily queried; meanwhile Parish was confirmed as being in the land of the living at the moment, which left only Taylor Hebert unaccounted for. Now the only remaining question was to figure out why Taylor had been successful in her Lazarus Declaration when so many before using the exact same method had failed...
Piggot's chest hurt. So did everything else.
"No pulse!"
Her vision was darkening around the edges, and she felt very tired.
"We need that defibrilator NOW!"
Maybe she could just nap for a little while.
"Clear!"
Suddenly, nothing hurt anymore.
"Hello, and welcome to the Afterlife Processing Center."
That wasn't Emily Piggot's biggest grievance with her position however. No, that dubious honor went to the fact that every single time something sufficiently bizarre and unexpected happened, it was presumed to be a Parahuman's fault. This meant that in 90% of such cases, the responsibility to deal with it was dumped right on her. Case in point, a call over the intercom to her office had just arrived, saying "Ma'am. The coroners at the police station just reported that the corpse they were autopsying; a Taylor Hebert who attended Winslow, reanimated and asked for pants. Prior to the autopsy, the CDC retrieved her body from her locker at Winslow, which had been filled with biohazardous waste."
Hitting the button to return the message, Emily asked "Are you sure this isn't a case of her being in a coma and waking up at just the right time? That's happened before."
The clerk on the other end of the call replied "No Ma'am. Coma patients aren't undergoing rigor mortis, still have a heartbeat, and don't have green flames for eyes."
Groaning, the PRT Director replied "Sounds like we've either got a biotinker on the loose, or someone just Triggered. Tell Armsmaster to button up his armor in hazmat mode and go join in the interrogation to find out which is the case."
With that annoyance hopefully dealt with, Piggot returned to paperwork, and imagined nightmare scenarios about a biotinker unleashing a zombie army on Brockton Bay, hoping against hope that this was just a fluke.
Less than two hours later, that hope was unceremoniously dashed, though not in a way Piggot had ever expected. The debriefing had started fairly straightforward, until Emily asked Armsmaster "What was the subject's general condition during the interview?"
Much to the PRT director's surprise, Armsmaster answered "Completely and totally deceased. No body heat, no heartbeat, no brain activity, no signs of respiration, nothing. In addition, her soft tissues are actively undergoing decomposition. I have no explanation for how she was moving around and talking despite these factors, as Taylor passed a cursory Master/Stranger analysis and there are no Parahumans on record capable of both puppeting a corpse with such precision while also causing them to manifest green flames for eyes."
There were several moments of awkward silence, before Emily got her thoughts together enough to ask "Does the subject have any sort of explanation for this state of affairs?" it was probably wrong, whatever she'd come up with, but it would at least grant some insight into how the latest addition to the shitshow that was Brockton Bay thought.
Without delay, Armsmaster stated "According to Taylor, she is in fact actually deceased, visited the afterlife, and forcibly made an exit with a chainsaw she imagined into existence. At least legally speaking, she's correct when it comes to being deceased, as she meets the official definitions."
There was a brief pause, as Armsmaster caught his breath. "In addition, Taylor claims that she was murdered by a trio of assailants including Shadow Stalker's civilian identity, and has provided additional evidence in the form of detailed documentation of a vicious ongoing bullying campaign."
Narrowing her eyes, Piggot simply hit the intercom and stated "Renick, have both of Shadow Stalker's phones confiscated immediately and confine her to quarters. She has been recently implicated in a potential parole violation and her phones may have incriminating evidence in them."
Turning back to Armsmaster, Piggot practically growled "Is there anything else I need to know?" while stewing in such immense amounts of rage that if it were a form of energy, she would have slagged the entire solar system.
Spurius Marsus, now simply going by Spur among friends and co-workers, had been dead for a bit over two millenia now. He had also been working with Afterlife Processing for about a century, enjoying the work of welcoming new souls to the afterlife greatly. With such a massive amount of experience, he had seen many people declaring that they'd be going right back to land of the living, followed by their attempts inevitably failing. Therefore, when miss Hebert came through making the exact same declaration he'd seen made time and time again (including by her mother), Spur hadn't paid the matter much attention.
Then Rosy, one of his co-workers had burst into his office and loudly proclaimed "Spur, I just saw a new arrival successfully chainsaw a hole in the afterlife barrier! According to her she got the instructions for how to do it from someone else who figured it out first, which means that someone who died recently succeeded."
Completely staggered by the implications of this, Spur took a few moments to come up with a response, before asking "Did she just use a chainsaw, or did she employ some sort of other trick in addition to that?"
Awkwardly waving the catlike tail she'd altered her appearance to have, Rosy fired back immediately "Just the chainsaw, as far as I could tell."
Thinking for a moment, Spur rubbed his chin and noted "We should go through the records of recent arrivals who made a Lazarus Declaration. If we find any who can't be located in the afterlife, or have been recorded entering multiple times by the entry machine, there's our first example of a successful Lazarus Declaration."
Blood red eyes focused intently on Spur as Rosy asked "So, shall we get to it?"
Two minutes later, and both Rosy and Spur were at a terminal for Afterlife Processing's Filing and Locating Engine, quite possibly the single oldest computer-like device in existence. It had been actively worked on and tinkered with since records started being kept of new arrivals to the afterlife, and it swiftly became clear that a large enough team of clerks to keep track of everything manually would be almost entirely self-defeating. As such, the Engine was comprised of a mishmash of components from nearly every era. There were parts literally made by mesolithic stonecrafters right next to hyper-modern integrated circuit chips, mostly held together by what could only be described as literal magic. It was a common suspicion among workers of Afterlife Processing that the Engine was in fact deliberately failing the sapience tests it had been regularly subjected to ever since Alan Turing died.
Oddities aside, the Filing Engine still performed its task with the extreme efficiency of a system that had been continuously improved and refined for millenia, rapidly returning all files matching the search terms. Those search terms were for files within the last 72 hours with a positive Lazarus Declaration checkmark, who were not instances of Tess Richter AKA Dragon, and who had either been detected entering the afterlife more than once, or were not present in the afterlife despite having previously entered. Half a second later, six files were produced:
Samantha J. Parish, the lady Rosy had watched chainsaw a hole in the barrier.
Brandon Morris
Taylor Hebert
Arseniy Krupin
Casey Fowler
Dalubuhle (Born Beautiful) Mbhodwe
Of this list, Morris, Krupin, Fowler, and Mbhodwe were currently in the afterlife and thus easily queried; meanwhile Parish was confirmed as being in the land of the living at the moment, which left only Taylor Hebert unaccounted for. Now the only remaining question was to figure out why Taylor had been successful in her Lazarus Declaration when so many before using the exact same method had failed...
Piggot's chest hurt. So did everything else.
"No pulse!"
Her vision was darkening around the edges, and she felt very tired.
"We need that defibrilator NOW!"
Maybe she could just nap for a little while.
"Clear!"
Suddenly, nothing hurt anymore.
"Hello, and welcome to the Afterlife Processing Center."
On soulflames
We Just Write
Blatantly Plural
- Location
- New England
- Pronouns
- Plural
Strictly speaking, there's no guarantee it would be green. Yeah, Taylor's is, but that's because she's Taylor. For example, Annette's eye flames are blue.