un: likesflowers | late night thoughts about mortality with a ten year old

[alreadyhuman]

[ This post shows up at one of those 'no reasonable person should be awake at this time' hours, like 4 in the morning. ]

If you knew you were going to die

How would you feel? what are you meant to feel?

[ Vivi is not even remotely tech-savvy enough to know how to conceal his identity, so this is a great look into his mental state right now.

Which is to say: not good. ]

Comments

un: Ahania

[ofexperience]

To tell you the truth, I'm not certain.

[Because guess who's also up, yaaaaay.]

The feelings are something I'm still wrestling with myself, without being able to pin down a proper answer. But... I'm not certain there is a proper answer.

UN: Integreatest

[emergensirations]

I've died. In a way. Not the permanent way, but the way it feels with the body stopping.

It depends on the death itself. Sometimes it hurts. Sometimes it doesn't.

How I feel depends on how I felt before it too. I might feel scared or calm or something else. I think I feel alone most of all.

Someday I will die for good and that makes me want everything now to be as good as possible. I want to not feel alone when it happens for good. I do not know if that's possible however.

[alreadyhuman]

[ Yaaaay. Vivi isn't sure whether to be relieved someone answered or not. Mostly he just feels sad that someone else seems to be in the same position as him. ]

oh. im sorry

Is that something you have to decide for yourself too?
Im not sure how good i am at that
Deciding how i feel about things i mean
Its really hard

[ofexperience]

You have my sympathies as well.

I think it is. It's okay to not be good at it, however. Emotions are... messy things at best, and something like this is... difficult.

[alreadyhuman]

I think friends will help you feel not alone but it feels like a big sad thing to ask too. maybe its better for friends to be alone when you die. [ vivi no ]

i dont think i get more than one death though. i dont think its going to hurt but i dont think it hurting changes things does it?

Action

[hattersgonnahat]

[Since the mark, sleep had been a weird fickle thing that comes and goes at unusual hours. As one might after sleeping for a whole day. Needless to say, she heard the sound of someone messing with their phone, or caught a glimpse of that all too familiar screen glow.]

[...Should she actually say anything or continue to ignore it? Hmmm...]

[alreadyhuman]

[ Vivi is trying to be unobtrusive and hide his phone under the covers so it doesn't light up the room. He's not doing very well with it so far.

If he apologises, will he make it awkward? Should he just pretend like he's not typing on his phone?? aaaaaaa

The end result of this internal trainwreck is that Vivi is hiding under the covers but Puella can hear him still tapping on the phone. ]

[emergensirations]

Perhaps. I don't know. My friends die before I do. I make sure they are not alone but I can't ask if it's better then.

Sometimes hurting can be distracting. It can help you not think if your thoughts hurt more. But other kinds of hurting just make it worse. I think you have to figure out yourself.

[hattersgonnahat]

[He could have been doing a wide number of things!! A lot of people play on phones and such when they're not actually tired. It's normal.]

[...]

[Which really Puella shouldn't be that ashamed for being wide awake either, in that case.]

Can't sleep too? [Pokes head out from under sheets.]

[alreadyhuman]

Dyings so hard already i dont know why having feelings about it is hard too
and everyones is different so i dont know how to feel either!!

Its unfair!! i dont like it!!

[alreadyhuman]

[ He thinks about saying 'yeah' and just leaving it at that but that just feels...bad. Like lying.

Puella is so nice and his friend, so he doesn't want to make her sad and bother her with his problems. But, still. ]

Uh-huh.

I've just been thinking a lot about stuff. [ About dying, about whether it's right, about how to feel... ] It's hard to sleep when I think about it, so I just...don't sleep as much. Anymore.

[alreadyhuman]

Its so hard to figure things out myself though

I think so much and it hasnt helped. It just hurts more. I dont know how to feel and i wish i did. It would be easier that way.

[ofexperience]

It's okay to not know, I think. It's not really something most people think about until they're directly confronted with it. Some handle it better than others.

It's extremely unfair. Death is unfair and emotions are unfair, so the both of them combined is perhaps not even doubly so, but more.

... To tell you the truth, I wish I could be more helpful. My apologies.

[hattersgonnahat]

[--What no. Vivi that's bad.]

Why can't you stop thinking about the other thing?

[alreadyhuman]

Um.

It's just...really difficult, I guess? To stop thinking about it. Cause it's...big, and heavy, and it just kinda sits there. [ He's putting off actually saying what it is for as long as possible. ]

[alreadyhuman]

i mean
you have to think about it too right? so im not mad or anything! were kinda the same. its really difficult

i dont know what kind of answers i wanted i guess. maybe i just wanted there to be something i could hold onto to make things better

but i guess there isnt anything that makes this better really

[hattersgonnahat]

[Another big heavy thing, oh boy.]

[But hey, she's proving to be a self-proclaimed expert on these sorts of things lately.] What is it?

[ofexperience]

Nobody can begrudge you for that. Having something concrete would be far easier... unfortunately, being in our position is by no means an easy one.

I think the important thing is to make sure you have as few regrets as possible.

[There's not a lot of hope for him on that front, but...]

[alreadyhuman]

...It's really sad.

Are you sure you wanna talk about it? Cause it's not really something you can, um...forget. [ It's only fair that he asks, right? It's such a big burden. He can't just say it like that.]

[hattersgonnahat]

I can handle it!!

[It's probably no better or worse than everything else she knows so far, to be fair. Though she refrains from saying that. Not many needed to know that.]

un: ornithology

[hawkwardness]

[Lord only knows why he's awake this early, long before sunrise. The nights are so lonely now when he can't sleep... though he doesn't quite know why they wouldn't have been in the past.]

There's no right or wrong way to feel. Scared, angry, sad, a hundred other things. And it can change, it might change fifty times a day. That's normal. Sometimes it might be all of those at once.

[What an incredibly fucked up thing to have to say to a ten year in the middle of the time. Maybe he shouldn't where everyone else can see, but the post was already out there. Maybe they should see what's going on.]

I've thought I was going to die. I wasn't trying to feel any one thing. Just... feeling it.

[alreadyhuman]

i dont even know what comes after dying so i dunno how to feel about that either.....

regrets?
id feel sad about making my friends sad...
but i dont think i can stop that even if i want them to not be.

UN: ThreeCoffins, Private

[improbablenotimpossible]

There's no right or wrong way.

Long ago, when I faced that question - I thought I'd be fine with it - perhaps the person I was back then truly was at peace with the prospect. Now? I think it'd be a fearful thing for me, even without my complications.

...Perhaps we should talk in person, I won't lie - I am worried about you.

[alreadyhuman]

...Okay.

You know how I was, um...made, right? That I'm a construct, and everything? [ He twists his blankets in his hands, his voice small. ]

I got made with a, um...time limit, I guess. Like all the other black mages did. So, after Nightfall...all the stuff that keeps me together stops working. Forever.

[ Saying 'I'm going to die' is hard, at least out loud. ] So...I've been thinking about it a lot...cause there's only a few months left.

[alreadyhuman]

I guess there really isnt a right answer...

[ One of the things he learned under Sherlock was that there was always - mostly - usually - some truth, something right, and if you could just find it then everything else, no matter how convoluted or painful, would make just a little more sense.

Reading that there isn't one, from a person he'd considered to have every answer in the world, makes him...he doesn't know how to feel. Sadder, maybe.

Rather than reply, he shuffles out of his room to go and meet Sherlock, which results in a concerning amount of radio silence before there's a timid knock on Sherlock's door. ]