Sugarcane

You DON'T. You don't. You rage, and the room falls appart around you. There's a crash as a brass lamp finally clips a window and it shatters out onto the grass. Wind starts whpping through the room along with you and the curtain rods are torn from the wall.\n\nYou throw the armchairs and couches into walls and the remaining windows even as your connection to her falters with distance and your energy wanes. You scream when you can't summon the power to tear up the carpets and manage to tear down the lights from the the ceiling with a crackle of sparks and glass as light bulbs hit the ground.\n\nYour vision starts to fade out, and you don't want to scream anymore. You don't feel much of anything. There's a yawning nothing where your rage should be, and you feel so heavy. You feel so [[tired|Wake]].

You'd paid her almost no mind the first few weeks, and even that was surprising. 'Almost'. She'd pass you in the hallway or enter your usual haunts unexpectedly and you'd find yourself taking note, looking over at her sometimes. Once you noticed you even started to wonder why, between bouts of what passed for sleep for you now and just... existing.\n\nYou don't think she <<if $memory eq 0>>[[reminds|Memory]] you of anything, really.<<else>>reminds you of anything, really. Not anything in particular. When was the last time you thought about anything new?\n\nThe things you've noticed about her aren't even that unusual, mostly. She [[reads|Reading]], she [[knits|Knitting]]. She avoids her mother, but you haven't seen her leave the house often. Most of her [[smiles seem somehow angry|Smiles]]. She has something like a cross between a television and a typewriter you don't think you've seen before, and spends a lot of time using it in various parts of the house. She [[dresses strangely|Strange]], and not at all like her mother. Sometimes she'll suddenly look up, or around the room, as though she expects someone else to be there. \n\n<<if $personality gte 4>>And she has [[magic|Magic]].<<endif>><<endif>>

She seems to hear something of your horrified shout, and tilts her head almost in your direction.\n\n'Oh, are you here? Why are you not using the trumpet? I'm sure I have enough power to draw on, this can't be more strenuous than any other method.'\n\nTrumpet? This doesn't look like any instrument you've seen. What are you supposed to do? And how many spirits has she been talking to? You find yourself feeling a little jealous, despite how ridiculous that is. She probably wouldn't have noticed you at all, otherwise. And more urgent is how to get across to her that you don't understand.\n\nShe's still listening intently. Maybe if you [[shout again|Shout again]], she'll guess that you can't use this device?\n\n

<<silently>>\n<<set $her_room = 0>>\n<<set $memory = 0>>\n<<set $personality = 0>>\n<<endsilently>>\nWhen she'd first moved in, you'd barely noticed. Her mother set about redecorating for a few days with great enthusiasm before it was redirected elsewhere, and she'd stayed out of the way and in [[her room|Her Room]] most of the time. And it had been such a long time. You [[continued to drift|Continue to Drift]]. It was too hard to do anything else.

<<set $personality += 1>>She's all in blacks and pastel pinks and purples almost every time you see her. She wears long skirts and sleeves and fancy ribbon or flowers or lace that seems elaborate for everyday. \n\nHer make up is almost always bright against her dark skin, pink or light blue, shades you've never seen anyone wear before. Sometimes it glitters. Her hair is dark and short and very curly except where she's somehow turned it pink at the front and let it grow longer.\n\nEven in her all-black clothes she's a bright spot in the dark rooms she tends to frequent. When you notice her, the thought often crosses your mind that she's pretty, but that vanishes just as quickly as any other. Still, you notice [[her|Her]]

<<set $memory = 1>>Your memory has always faded quickly, only holding on to vague pictures and emotions with nothing to connect them. Even of the most important things tended to disappear within a year or so. This might have even been true [[when you were alive|When You Were Alive]], though most of that is [[gone now|Gone Now]].

<<set $personality += 1>>You see her reading all over the house, stacks of old books next to various favourite seats in almost every old room her mother hadn't gotten to yet. \n\nYou think you might even have recognized some of the books, if you'd cared enough to examine them. You'd read to pass the time and keep distracted for a while, back when the people who could see you stopped showing up at the house. \n\nYou begin to wonder where she would find such books, and you feel like there's something they should remind you of, but interest still fades quickly even when [[she|Her]] is near.

'So! Now that I have some confirmation that you exist and are paying attention, I was wondering what you want. I've suspected there was someone here since we moved in, and I've never met a ghost who didn't introduce themselves immediately, one way or another.'\n\nYou're unsure how to answer, and surprised that she's met so many others. Don't they fade out? How do they manage to 'introduce themselves'? You reply haltingly that you don't know.\n\n'You don't know? All ghosts want something. It's part of becoming a ghost. What did you think of when you first 'woke up', as it were?'\n\nYour head is spinning, you almost miss the days when almost everyone who could see you just screamed and ran away at the first meeting. You are almost entirely sure no one was ever so... casual?\n\n'I don't remember. It's been too long.'\n\n'How long is that?'\n\n'More than a few days'. You try to joke. That's what you do to show friendliness, right? \n\n'I've been dead for.. a long time. Maybe a hundred years? I tried to keep up with things...' You drift off. You're tired. Not as tired as before, but.\n\n'Really?!' She sounds shocked, but [[continues|Try]].

<<set $personality += 1>>You see her smile sometimes as she's typing at her non-a-typewriter, or as she's writing, or as she's talking to her mother when the words are all sweet and sharp. There's something about it that bothers you, in the moments you can care. \n\n[[Her|Her]] other smiles are so different.

<<set $personality += 1>>You haven't seen her actively working on them, but her little toys are spread across the house in all sorts of places, and you've drifted by while she's been putting them out more than once.\n\nLittle knitted animals, octopi and cat and mice, lizards and frogs and many you can't remember the names for, placed on end tables and book cases and inside desk drawers like she's hiding them. You find yourself noticing them around the house as well as [[her|Her]].

You spend most of your time just existing. It's not like you require anything else, even now, and it's so hard to care. People used to see you sometimes, and you [[remember|Memory]] having fun with that, though not the feeling. You know you had fun with a lot of people in this house, at one point. Before you were so tired, and it seemed worthwhile.

You stop, and it hurts. But if she can sense you somehow... you can't just.... \n\nYou've forgotten how to hold back emotions after so long, and derail bad thought patterns. In the back of your mind you recall being better at this, once. Though maybe even then you hadn't had this much energy to draw on, it feels like you're made of lightning and you can tell you aren't even a noticeable drain on her.\n\nShe asks again if you're here, and you focus on her voice and the soft play of light around her eyes. The hate fades back into a general anger, and you know it isn't really her fault. You know that. You just have to remind yourself. \n\nYou calm down enough to realize you should try to [[speak|Speak]] to her.

When you return to consciousness, the house is silent. The room is destroyed, and you see the damaged hallway through the holes in the wall you hazily remember causing. The feeling of energy, of power, that you remember is fading already and you can't quite hold on to why you had done that. You know you were angry, but what did that feel like? It's slipping through your fingers so easily.\n\nYou float out into the hallways to find boxes stacked within several doorways and near the exit, furnishings gone. You can't bring yourself to check all the rooms, but you know anyway. They're gone, and they're staying gone. You think you should feel something about this, but it's so fleeting you can't tell what the emotion is. Relief? Sadness? You wonder for a moment before the thought is lost too.\n\nYou're too tired to float with any purpose anymore, and start to float on the barely-there air currents of the house. \n\nYou drift.

Meeting

Anonymous

You find your voice and shriek and it won't matter, it can never matter because everyone who could see you is gone. They left and they died and they ignored you and now they're all gone, all of them. You can scream forever, you don't need to breathe or think and this is pointless and she's still there, looking up now. Not at you, of course, never at you, none of them anymore, and you hate her.\n\nAnd then she says 'Is that you?'.\n\n[[Stop.|Stop]]\n[[Rage.|ATTACK]]

You know you were alive once, and sometimes bits of that can still come back to you, when you're reminded. Or they used to.\n\nYou know you were an adult, but not very old. You can almost always remember your name, and your parents' names and those of your siblings, but faces and voices are lost to you.\n\nYou would mostly get flashes of experiences without the context, or things you can only recall secondhand. Remembering remembering a thing. Knowledge without the source. Too much of it is [[gone now|Gone Now]].

The energy is obvious, once you truly notice her. Like a glow on the skin. Maybe this is what caught your attention? That you can't remember the last time someone with any kind of power came here is unsurprising, but you're sure it's been a long time. \n\nThe new ones stopped talking to you long before that, though, and you stopped trying to talk to them soon after. So not quite an explanation.\n\nYou can't tell if she knows it. It's possible, though she seems young to find out without outside influence. Her interests don't mean much on their own. You wonder as you drift.\n\nShe's here now, reading again on the large, purple couch she favour in this room. You watch the shimmer play across her skin as she turns a page, and you can't remember the last time you felt as awake as you do in her presence.\n\n[[Touch her arm.|Touch her arm]]

<<set $her_room = 1>>You no longer remember much of the layout of the house, though you think you knew it well [[once upon a time|Memory]]. You can still recall its size, and its distance from the closest town, though [[you know her|Her]] old house was much farther than this, now. You've retained a surprising amount of what you've overheard about her, from her own mouth or her mother's on the telephone. Why can you remember this, when so many other, more important things are [[lost to you|Gone Now]]?

'That's incredible! I've never heard of anyone staying that long. How did you do it?'\n\n'I didn't know I had any other options.' You don't understand this conversation, and you're so tired, but.. it's been so long since another person heard you.\n\n'But the sheer amount of energy you'd need to keep a spirit going for more than fifty years! They hardly ever take more than a decade or two. You must be dedicated.'\n\nThis is getting frustrating.\n\n'I don't understand what you're talking about! I don't know why I'm here, I barely remember who I was. I don't know about any of the things you're talking about, none of the mediums who've come have ever mentioned any of this!'\n\n'But what about the other ghosts?' Her expression of bemusement cuts through the worst of my growing anger.\n\n'What other ghosts? Some people mentioned meeting others before...'\n\n'You've never met anyone? How is that possible? Where do you go?'\n\n'Go? I can't leave the house! I've tried! What are you talking about?'\n\n'I don't.. understand? You've never met any other ghosts? And you don't know what it is you want? What do you do?' She looks sincerely concerned now, as well as confused.\n\n'Not.. really anything. I wasn't really awake for a long time before you moved here.' It feels awkward to admit for some reason.\n\n'So you just.. float around, unpowered, without any resources to draw on?' You think she might even sound upset. Why should it matter to her?\n\n'I suppose so?'\n\n'Well, we can't have that! My dear mother and I should be her for a good while. Perhaps I could assist you in rediscovering your purpose?' She sounds so matter-of-fact about it.\n\n'You don't have to do that.' You're not even sure you have a purpose. Though you can't really be sure you don't. And it would be an excuse for her to talk to you...\n\n'Of course I don't. I want to. This is a good excuse for some mystical experimentation. Also...' Her voice softens a bit. 'It sounds like you haven't gotten anything like the help you should have, in your situation.'\n\nHer eyes wander the room as though you'll somehow appear so she can make eye contact. You wish you had the energy left to feel the emotions you think you would at this point, but you don't want to pull too hard on her energy, no matter what she says.\n\nShe holds a hand out as though to take yours. 'Would you accept my assistance?'\n\nYou're tired again, so tired, but she sounds hopeful. She actually wants to do this. Maybe you can hope, too, eventually. Even though she won't feel it, you reach out to take her hand.\n\n'It can't hurt to try.'

You do. She looks thoughtful.\n\n'So. Either you won't or can't use this? I wonder which. My online sources seemed to think you would be able to create an approximation of vocal cords on your own. I believe ectoplasm was involved. I wonder if this method just doesn't work?'\n\nCreating vocal cords? You've never tried anything like that, never had to. But maybe you don't need to know exactly how? You can't imagine everyone else dies knowing detailed anatomy information. You tentatively pull on her magic and focus on the idea of speaking through the trumpet. Then, you speak.\n\n'Hello?'\n\n'Ah!'\n\nFor all she acted so sure of herself, she sounds surprised. You can hardly blame her, as you're surprised by the sound of your voice as well. She gets over it quickly and begins a [[clearly-prepared speech|Listen]].

Her room is incredibly purple and incredibly messy. Clothes are scattered across the floor and the dressers and bookcases are piled high with unorganized books, hobbies, and knick-knacks. The curtains are only partially open, letting in what moonlight can shine through, but she doesn't bother to turn on the lights.\n\nShe crosses over the shelves on the far side of the room and retrieves something with a metallic shine that you can't quite make out in the darkness of the room.\n\n'I was never given the chance to try this one out. The Internet assured me it would work, though, and as we all know, the Internet never lies.'\n\nShe smiles after she says this, a real smile, and despite your confusion you almost want to smile back. But she can't see you anyway, it doesn't matter how you look. You begin wonder if you're meant to answer her when she sets the object on her bed before climbing on.\n\n'If you've chosen to accompany me here, you should [[come over|Go Over]] and make yourself comfortable.'

If she has this effect on you, could you get her to see you? To talk to you? She hasn't yet but... with so much magic swimming under her skin how could that be? The closer you look the brighter it is, sunshine on waves. How could you not be able to reach her? \n\nYou try to touch the arm nearest to you, maybe....\n\nYour hand passes through her like a ghost, because it is and oh, you haven't felt angry in so long but now you remember. Anger and disappointment and the edges of the despair that grew until it blocked out everything else and then you couldn't even feel it anymore, nothing. But you feel the edges now, can almost make out the shape of it and it's too much. It's wrong. And she's still just sitting, she doesn't care, she doesn't even know you EXIST, NO ONE DOES.\n\n[[SCREAM|SCREAM]]\n[[ATTACK|ATTACK]]

You used to try to hold on to your memories, and get so upset when you couldn't. You eventually gave up even on that, long after you stopped everything else. [[She|Her]]'s the first thing to catch your gaze or your thoughts in years.

How dare she?\n\nYou draw even harder on her power, enough to start throwing around heavy brass lamps and the books left on side tables. Curtains whip in the air and smaller objects in the room fly through the air while the lamps and books hit the floor. It's not enough. You want to break everything.\n\nShe looks surprised and a little frightened and you feel a flash of guilt before it's pushed out by void of 'trapped' and 'pointless' and 'never gets better, can't get better' swirling in what would have been your brain, your throat, if HAD those anymore. If it all wasn't gone GONE, like your memories, like everything you've ever tried to keep. You pull harder.\n\nShe flinches when a pen hits her cheek and her eyes narrow until the solid, oak bookcases tilt and crash to the floor and send books flying across the carpet. She standing now, and running to the door, and [[you don't CARE|Don't care]]. You don't need her.

You float after her, and notice again how different you feel. How had you forgetten this? Moving, even thinking properly. You're tiring more quickly now, but even so you feel better than you have in so many years. You try not to pull on the her energy again despite your fatigue, though. You can't believe the amount you took before didn't hurt her.\n\nYou're torn between gratitude and guilt for a moment before pushing them to the back of your mind. She's going up the stairs to the second floor now, and you follow closely. What does she have in her room that she thinks will help you speak to each other?\n\nYou follow her through the open door and [[into her bedroom|Enter]].

'I'm here'.\n\nHer face scrunches in concentration and she tilts her head, listening hard, and you start to feel guilty even as the intense feeling of energy starts to leave you. You remember thinking distantly that she was pretty, before, but now you realize she's cute. And she's trying, and you could have hurt her. You're distracted from these thoughts by her speaking again.\n\n'I can't... make out what you're saying. You're even more quiet now.' \n\nYou realize she probably couldn't tell you'd been screaming, before, and even a normal shout doesn't seem to be enough for her to hear anything. Your despair starts to reach out, she'll be convinced you're not real soon or that it's not worth the effort. Why did you get your hopes-\n\n'Here, perhaps we could make use of a different mode of communication?'\n\nShe gets up and makes a sort of [['follow me'|Follow]] gesture to the room before starting to walk away.

You move over to float gently above her bedspread and take a look at the contraption sitting between you. It reminds you of the old gramaphone someone had brought with them to the house a long time ago, back when you'd tried to keep up with new technology. You could almost always touch things back then, and you'd been fairly good at figuring it out.\n\nYou look up at her face to find her looking expectantly in your general direction. What could she be waiting for? You don't think this is really a gramaphone, and you're tired enough now you probably couldn't operate one if you tried. Her gaze turns confused, and you think you catch a flicker of disappointment before she takes on an expression of wry amusement.\n\n'Perhaps this offer wasn't as appealing as I thought. I spend far too much time alone talking to myself.'\n\n[['No!'|No!]]