the train to the afterlife meme.

[bottecellie]

The Train to the Afterlife Meme

Congratulations: You are dead.

 

Maybe you know how, maybe you don't. Perhaps the memory is fuzzy, or perhaps it's crystal clear down to the look in your comrades' eyes. Maybe it was your time; you've done all you wanted to. Or maybe you weren't at all ready to go, maybe you went out kicking and screaming - but none of it matters. You know you're dead, and the train is taking you to an afterlife. Perhaps an afterlife of your choice; you might've earned that heaven. Or perhaps you've earned something else entirely.

 

It'll be a bit of a journey, though, so you might as well take your time and talk to the other people in your coach. Death knows no place: most of them are strangers, even from faraway worlds. But death knows no time either, so who knows, some of them may be people you know, even if last you knew, they were alive - or long gone.

 

Oh look, here comes the snack cart.

 

All the usual:

 

• Post with your character's name and canon in the subject line.

• Said character is now dead for whatever reason - canon, AU, what have you. They are on a train with other dead people from many other times, places and worlds.

• Characters don't know for a fact where they're headed - just a general awareness that they're going to some kind of afterlife. Whatever they think it is is up to the player.

• This meme is built especially for cross-canon interaction, and potentially for threadjacking and group threading - if you're interested, may be a good idea to state as much in your subject line.

• Tag around and play nice!

• TRIGGER WARNING: Meme obviously deals with death and may deal with other unpleasant themes as a result. Please be cautious.

Comments

Tifa Lockheart/Final Fantasy VII

[more_than_words]

[kinetosis]

(Until we meet again...)

[ The windows are dark, only a touch of sallow neon light illuminating the interior of the train car as it rattles along its battered, old track, but it's a familiar darkness. A familiar train, running downward on a route that spirals toward home, in the shadow of the Plate and the city that rests upon it.

Only the last seat on the left-hand side is occupied, on this ghostly memory made real. He's doubled over his own knees, hands in his hair, dressed in not the same SOLDIER uniform but one that seems now a size too big to fit him well, stained black with mud and darker. The glow of yellow light paints him in bright, unhealthy color, surreal and somehow less - even if whole, once more.

It was twice, now, that he'd fallen into that blazing, brilliant green and been swept away from the strange, jumbled mess he called his life. From the burden of memory and identity and knowing neither. Three times that he'd woken up nobody, losing his mind over and over again, as if it were the easiest thing in the world.

But this time-

When his body washes ashore in Mideel, it won't be alone. ]

I'm sorry.

(But I never meant... To drag you down with me.)

[ This time, it's really over, and without one ounce of finality. ]

[more_than_words]

{there's a flicker of the lights as the train jostles slightly and she's there next to him somewhere between that split second of darkness and light, a flicker ghost on a transit train for tired workers at the end of the day except for the solid feel of her hip against his, the length of her thigh down the outside of his, steady warmth and pressure even through the fabric of the pants. She's his own personal ghost, or he's hers on this train, twin stars that never managed to pull out of each others gravity. She looks like herself, except her hair is loose and in the fickle light it seems to move at its edges, already shifting seaweed with the deep, lost currents of the Planet and her eyes hold the opal colors of green and orange sparks lost in rich burgundy wine. Her touch is still solid though as she leans forward, body shifting to drape over his back, arms slipping around him that way, her face against the now familiar feel of the short hair at the back of his neck. Her exhale is warm against his skin as she answers.}

I'm not.

[kinetosis]

[ The sudden weight of her leaning against him is soft and real and completely unbearable; if she lingers too long, the blood spreading across his chest and spilling down the side of his face, seeping continuously from invisible wounds, might begin to corrupt her, too, and he won't allow that.

But he doesn't have it in him to shake her off, either. No measure of guilt is heavy enough yet to sweep him away from his responsibility in this, his fault, and if he's damned them both inexorably to sink to the depths of the Lifestream together, he won't risk abandoning that last mercy.

Dropping his hands, empty and open and still turned up, he lifts his head by a fraction, barely at all, as if in surprise. ]

(How can you say that?)

I lied to you. To everyone.

[ But she's already forgiven him that, hasn't she? Somehow. It's the others who might have reason to hold it against him (or, perhaps better put, no reason not to). Though now he'll never have to tell them, death in the depths of the Planet more comeuppance than reprieve.

The train jumps in its tracks, clattering along and picking up speed, and the light above them gutters like a dying flame before settling over their strange, lonely huddle once more. ]

And now...

[ It's gotten them killed, and the rest of the world stuck cleaning up his mess. The Black Materia. Meteor. He should ask what's become of things, up there, but he can't quite find the words. ]

[more_than_words]

{her arms wind tighter, fingers spreading to catch at more of him and she presses down into his back as if afraid someone ~ something ~ will try to pull her away. Her hair falls around him as well, a second covering, a blanket that drapes and fits better than his ill worn gear, over bare arms in shadow strands that seem like just another manifestation of the sallow light through the dirty windows except for its texture.

She's already forgiven him. Had before the truth had even come out completely. Doesn't even see the reason to say the words because it would imply anything was being held in the first place. Her faith in their friends is stronger, or perhaps simply clearer sighted, than his as well. The train sways ever onward, downward. Homeward. Her cheek nestles at the base of his neck, content between the hollow of his shoulder blades.}

And now we go on. Together.

[kinetosis]

...We go on?

[ To where? To what?

The imminence of death has never weighed on his mind with any particular persistence, especially not so during his only so recently ended days of faux SOLDIER fame - even after losing Aerith, it had been the unfairness, the anger, the same outrage that had overcome him all those years ago in Nibelheim, that he'd focused on. What was done, and not what might be.

The future is not something he's ever imagined (to what limited capacity for such he does possess) he might have to consider, after the inevitable, but now it seems unavoidable. Like the most natural thing in the world.

In spite of his concern, thin threads of his guilty blood spill down over the arms around him, red-black rivulets cutting ugly swaths through so much deathly pale skin. And for the first time he reckons it might wash off - of her, at least, bright and blameless in this weird shadow of purgatory.

He looks up just far enough to take in the rest of the car's interior without disrupting her, the question quietly wondering when he speaks, again. ]

Where do you think we're going?

[more_than_words]

I don't know.

{it's honest and if there's a small shiver at that acknowledgement she will blame it on the sway of the train and not the brief, screaming flashback of soul shredding green. Zack was strong enough to hold himself and her together. She can be too - for Cloud.

It doesn't mean the thought doesn't scare her.

It has her fingers tightening on the loose fabric of his sweater, locking tightly because she's not going to lose him again, not when he's finally himself and he's come so far and deserves so much and been so much braver and more determined about facing his demons than she ever will. She doesn't mind the blood over her skin because he may have forgotten the drip of red soaked gloves but she hasn't. Just because they don't leave their own trail behind her anymore doesn't mean her own hands aren't invisibly coated with more, she suspects, than his ever have or will be. Right now though, they're the hands that will hold onto him and defend him come what may, as fierce and stubborn as any Nibel she-wolf and Tifa can't afford to have them slick and slippery with blood. It's for comfort when she presses in closer and it's for strength. Things are different now. She thinks - she thinks Cloud wants her by his side and that he has for a very long time. It gives her the right, and the determination, to stay there. No matter where they go next.}

We'll either wake up when the train stops - or we won't. Blue skies or green. {her eyes stay tightly closed.} But it will be okay. As long as we're together.

[kinetosis]

[ Underneath the shuddering, clattering procession of the train, his silence weighs heavy in the air (if it even is air - for the dead and disembodied don't need it to breathe, surely). Rather than rattle him further, though, her uncertainty is queerly reassuring, in its own way. Maybe it means they're on even footing, now, for the first time in a long while.

(Probably for the first time, ever, and even in the face of his own imminent death or destruction, drowning in the Lifestream, there's something in the idea that makes him feel a little stronger. To the touch and to himself, even as he wears the red-black marks of his ruin.)

He closes his eyes and his head lolls forward, again, bows almost to his knees, but under her arms some fundamental point of tension fades to nothing. If he's honest with himself, he doesn't truly believe they'll ever see blue skies, again. They're headed downward, after all, with no sign or possibility of turning back.

And a part if him knows that this certainty should fill him with dread, bleak as death tends to look as an only outcome. But the terror that still lingers has already begun to grow stale, and though he isn't without his fair share of apprehension, yet, it isn't the gut-wrenching grip of panic, any longer.

His head dips again, in a nod, ]

We'll see. Together.

[ and he lifts a hand to one of hers, clutched at the end of one of those slim arms locked around him like steel bands (only warm and vital and living even if not). The promise turns knots out of his stomach, but at least it's lost that leaden feeling; whenever their train rolls to a stop (and that's hoping it may), he might be able to face whatever waits at the station. ]

[more_than_words]

{she doesn't make a sound in response to his words, his hand, not outwardly at least but inside something whispers what might have been a whimper. It's not fear though, instead a relief so much deeper than she's felt before and she squeezes her eyes shut. For the first time since so much longer than their fall into green though, her lips lift, soften. Smile. Her cheek between his shoulder blades shifts, nestles there and it's not with the desperation of before. She's still scared. She's still unsure. She's still worried that she won't be strong enough and still determined to be strong enough anyway. She's just not so lost feeling anymore and her hand shifts under the touch of his. She belongs here and it's not, as she'd thought for so long, because she'd forced her place there. It's because she's been wanted there all along. Knowing that, she won't tolerate the thought of losing it now that she's finally in place. Her fingers shift to weave through his, the way their lives have been woven together all along even when she didn't know it.}

Together.

{it's a magic word on par with home and yes and Cloud... A sacred word of power. It makes her stronger and because it makes her stronger, she softens against his back, body relaxing into his in small fragments and pieces. There's no loss of the fierceness or determination. She won't lose him now. She won't let him be lost. If the train wants to keep spiraling down a bit longer though, she won't protest this chance to be with him. She can't tell him that she loves him, still not brave enough for that yet but...

she thinks he may already know and that's all right too. Overhead the red lights flash briefly. Security checkpoint approaching. For the first time, they both really are who they claim. Tifa thinks, if nothing else, it's something to be proud of finally reaching. For both of them.}