descent

[cancrymods]

growing heavy for the vintage

Like flakes of snow, the days spent in the Sloth Layer slowly but surely begin piling up. Life here is quiet and easy, even with the anxiety that comes with needing to move onto the next layer. But as the days drag out, so do the mysteries at play here – with the gradual uncovering of the odd doppelgangers and the seeming lack of any way to proceed to the next layer, it leaves the Executors at a loss for what to do. Until one day, everything changes. It comes entirely without warning – the ground lurches under everyone's feet in a sickeningly familiar way as a brief but violent earthquake rattles through the town. Then all of you feel it; a snapping sensation deep from the very foundations of Purgatory followed by the most cataclysmic impact any of you have experienced in your lives – or unlives. Snow explodes up from the ground, houses creak and lurch and the whole layer seems as though it might shatter apart under your feet. It seems like it's going to last forever. Then, finally, it stops. The silence that follows is even more pronounced in comparison to the hell-rattling noise from before, but as some semblance of calm starts to return, you realize several things. First is how eerily quiet the town is. Surely after all that, you'd hear a Specter or two... but there's nothing. Secondly – a splash of something wet strikes your cheek. Then again. Until it becomes clear that the weather has taken a sudden drastic turn and in place of the gentle snowfall from before, the heavens have opened with a torrential rainfall. Why? Possibly because of the steadily growing heat you suddenly feel burning up through the foundation of the layer and radiating out through the town. Will you investigate?

Comments

[schardynfreude]

No. I don't. I want us to do better. I want us to make something better of this wretched place.

[emberserker]

And what, languish here forever? Just because you want to give up and rest and embrace whatever it is you are now doesn't mean everybody else does. Was it not you who took umbrage with my assuming we all wanted to fight, that we were meant for something more than sitting and waiting? Why are you assuming now that everyone wants the opposite?

[schardynfreude]

Was it not you who thought it was fate and the will of the gods that we're here, that we were put here specifically to fix the afterlife? I have not been interested in being the puppet of any kings or gods in a very long time.

What do you want, Wolfsbane? Do you think accomplishing this is your ultimate goal? That you were not allowed to win in your living life, but this, oh, this is what you were always meant to do, to finally succeed? Do you think if you shed this life and pass through to whatever is beyond, perhaps then you will succeed? And what if you make the same wretched mistakes, and end up right back here, and go through again, forget, again, in this tiresome cycle?

What if...we could make it better? What if we could make it so if one wanted to pass on, they could, but with memories, feelings, lessons learned intact?

[emberserker]

...Puppet, am I?

[She tenses, something calling back to something she barely knows. And while she doesn't move, she looks up at him.]

Do you think you can manage that?