I Never Wanted to Be This Tragic

"Hi, this is...this is Anna. This is so weird. I can't come to the phone right now, but if you leave a message I'll try to get back to you."

BEEP

((OOC: In creating this journal, the author has assumed the identity of a fictional person for use in the role-playing game fandomhigh, for the sole purpose of entertainment, without intending to obtain a benefit or to injure or defraud either the person who created the fictional person, or any reader of this content. The author does not purport to be the creator of the fictional person, or to be affiliated with the creator, or with any person or entity with an interest in the fictional person. The author does not claim to be the person who is being used as the graphical representation of that fictional person, nor intend to obtain a benefit or to injure or defraud that person by use of their image.

So: long story short, my grandfather is on hospice and in really bad shape, and I barely have the presence of mind to remember what day it is and whether I've brushed my teeth right now, so don't expect to see me around for a while. I don't know how much longer this is going to last, honestly, so...I'll be back when I'm back. This goes for all my crew. I don't have the ability to come up with a reason why, so everyone just pretend they're around but super quiet. Except Natasha, Natasha's probably off assassining again.

I want also to apologize to everyone I've blown off or dropped threads with over the last few months, this is the thing I wasn't talking about that was behind all of that.

In conclusion, fuck cancer.

Amid the rain of adorable that held the rest of the island in its grip, one person was afraid to leave her room. Cats, after all, tended to freak out around ghosts. And there were suddenly cats everywhere. Puppies too, of course, but the kittens were more of a concern. She didn't want to ruin it for everyone else when the kittens suddenly freaked out and ran away when she entered a room.

So Anna was just going to sit here on her bed, her creepy doll in her lap, feeling sorry for herself. Being dead was the pits.

((Open door, open post, mopey ghost.))

Long ago in days of yore, it all began with a god named Thor...okay, on Wednesday afternoon, Anna stood on the dock and waited for the arrival of the others who were going (along with anyone else who wanted to show up; this was hardly a private trip) and a shuttle-longboat from the Isle of Ikea. She'd cashed in her first paychecks from the Devil's Nest, and now needed stuff beyond a dress and a creepy doll. She'd taken the precaution of writing down a tentative shopping list in case she couldn't leave the island this way, either, in hopes the others would help her out. She was actually excited about the outing, enough so that she felt a bit silly.

((A few have been invited, but if anyone else wants to tag along they're totally welcome! Events on the Isle of Ikea NFB due to off-islandness.))

Anna was having one of her bad days.

She'd been okay during Pinkie Pie's class--the city had been beautiful, and even when the dolls had showed up, she hadn't really understood what the big deal was at first. But then she got back to her room, and looked at her half, still completely bare like no one lived there, and it hit her that no one did. Because she was dead, and this was all just some kind of sick joke by the universe. What was the point of a ghost going to high school, really?

So she was curled up on her bare mattress, sobbing streaky grey tears into her hands, when she...heard something or felt something, she couldn't say which, and looked up, hurriedly wiping her face, to find a doll in a weirdly appropriate dress sitting in the middle of the floor. She thought dimly that if the doll had had dark hair, it could have been her. "You can't hurt me," she told it in a tear-choked voice. "I'm already dead." Then came a fresh flood of tears, and she buried her face in her hands again.

When she looked up again, the doll was sitting on the edge of the mattress. Anna eyed it for a moment, then looked away to sniffle and wipe at her face with the hem of her dress. She felt a small weight settle against her side, and when she looked, startled, the doll was right there, leaning against her. She looked down at it, and the doll...turned its head to look up at her. Right. Anna tentatively wrapped her arms around the doll, and when it didn't attempt to claw her face off or anything, she curled up around it, pressed her face to its head, and quietly let tears like charcoal-tinted water seep into the doll's already dirty synthetic blonde hair.

((Door is closed but post is open if anyone wants to deal with an emo ghost girl! Yes, Anna has made a friend. I couldn't resist.))

Anna dimly knew there was a fight going on, that she was supposed to...she was supposed to be helping. But the athame had cut deep, like it had a mind of its own (maybe it did) and it was pulling her, and she'd lost so much blood...

( Anna engages in a little violent remodeling. )

((Establishy! Heavily adapted from Chapter 23 of Anna Dressed in Blood. Contains spoilers.))