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.