Pretend I'm Dead.

well, it was a life worth saving.               /              @galaxycrxss​ (echo)

                          ❝ yours is too. ❞  

as if in deathly agreement - or disdain - a demobat screeched from somewhere far off. chrissy felt shivers wrack from her shoulders all the way down her spine like frigid minnows; one demobat close enough to hear was one too close, in her humble opinion. the hollow in which they huddled felt marginally warmer than the shadows outside and for that she was grateful, but warmth could not defend against dread in this dark underworld. 

                         ❝ you’ve done so well to stay alive down here. i don’t think i could have. it’s not life, though. you should be home with your brother. ❞  easier said than done, if still true. it solidified the roiling, everpresent discomfort roiling in chrissy’s gut to watch the bags stretch below echo’s eyes and track the aches of survival made physical across the poor boy’s frame. this form of him looked nothing like the echo she’d so often spotted supporting his exuberant twin on the sidelines just above and behind the cheer squad during games. a not-so-special edition of the real echo who needed to be anywhere else but here and could he please take her with him? him to his sibling and her to matty. 

                         ❝ there’s got to be a way out. right? ❞

Franny Choi, from “Catastrophe is Next to Godliness”

okay i think i’ve waited a healthy amount of time — here’s the inaugural starter call! any and all verses are open as options. lengths will range from several inches to a mile. may or may not also include bonus musical tracks.   no cap / no expiration.

𝔻𝔼𝔸ℝ   𝔼𝕃𝔼ℕ𝕆ℝ𝔼   𝕎ℍ𝕀𝕋𝔼,                                       (bakcr​)

*  ―      settling dust.   |  accepting.

            “ come on… wake up. please… please wake up… “ 🙃

* .  ♡ she should have gone home. should have tried to make her way BACK to home ages ago. maybe none of this would have happened. maybe she would have been able to wake up, in her bed, in her time. but of course - life was a bitch and none of that happened. ellie knew that there was SOME trauma in her life, but she didn’t think that it was enough to gain the attention of vecna. that fucking clock chiming was enough to give her MORE trauma and she wondered if that was WHY it was there in the first place. but then, all of a sudden - it had stopped. no more chimes, no more bad dreams, it was silent. until her paranoia and night terrors kicked in again. and this was the 80s, working through something was hard.

                                                              so when she and @greenscrunchy​ got closer, she knew that at least SOMEONE would understand what she was going through. it had been a really bad night terror - one where she would scream bloody murder and people would think there actually WAS a murder. ellie could feel hands gripping onto her shoulders, shaking her slightly - nails digging into her skin. she was on the cusp of consciousness, but it was taking a longer time than normal for her to wake up. almost a solid ten seconds later, did ellie’s eyes snap open. her breathing heavy, like she had just run a marathon without stopping - a sob and a cry. ellie sits up and falls onto chrissy - arms wrapping around the slender girl, who had been hovering over her - trying to wake her up for the past ten minutes. “ i’m sorry - ” the brunette kept repeating. “ i’m sorry, i’m sorry. ” she doesn’t want the trauma of vecna to come back, but sometimes her nightmares wouldn’t let her escape. “ chrissy … ” she groaned. “ fuck. ”

                                      ❝ don’t do this, not now. ellie…. ❞  the motions blurred feverish, superheated by chrissy’s depths of alarm and thunderous eagerness not to find out what happened when a girl out of time faded from one that wasn’t her own. if ellie were to be snatched by another something from a nightmare dimension… if at this very moment, in another place, ellie was screaming for help while chrissy cluelessly tried to give it without making a mite of difference, the cheerleader would never forgive herself. she’d never forgive herself, she’d never  ――

                                      ❝ oh, thank god, ❞  gasped sharply in tandem with ellie’s own jolted resurrection. chrissy flung her arms around all of her shaking friend available to reach. one set of fingers tangled with another as if to weave a net strong enough for the both of them to collapse on and keep steady.   ❝ it’s okay. i’ve got you. it’s alright. hey, breathe with me? ❞   this of course required chrissy to herself model some form of controlled lung motion – easier said than done. but years of cheer and airborne spills prepared her for this. it’s all about staying calm. staying focused. knowing where you were in space and how to contort to land safely. right now they were in the park, prickled by emeraldine grass around a picnic table, on a saturday in the beginning of may. all small things, but so weighty in the moment.

chrissy hated to admit it, but ellie was right. fuck was right.   ❝ don’t be sorry. those things in your head aren’t your fault. i just hoped… ❞  the urge to fidget seemed better redirected toward hauling the both of them squarely upright and leaning against the bench.  ❝ …that you wouldn’t get sucked somewhere no one could find you. or that you couldn’t come home from. ❞ 

( had this been how it felt to watch her float, to break? )

they should never put this in the kitchen, chrissy thought through her hazy bubble cloud of wine cooler and winter break-fueled good mood. it was almost a languid sort of cheer that had hit her this late in the evening; she rarely stayed this late at parties but the smiles in every direction passively persuaded her to let the night drag on further and further until everyone would inevitably become a half-drunk and sleepy mess of laughter and jokes that never quite landed yet sounded hilarious regardless. but she’d forgotten about the trademark seasonal trap the party host had hung in a kitchen entryway, beyond which the siren song of a sofa crooned chrissy’s name. ....right - she’d been meaning to watch out for the mistletoe earlier. and missed her cue to glance up before nearly sliding past nancy right under it — until she noticed nancy’s movement grind to a halt, too. stupid little plant thing.

before her already alcohol-pinked cheeks could bloom any darker, chrissy giggled with all the air she had left in her lungs. oh, this would be easy, actually. no problems here.

                          ❝ oops, i guess! merry christmas break, nancy. ❞  there was no needing to think her plan through twice before swinging an arm about nancy’s shoulders and giving her a smack square on the cheek. perfect.  ❝ that counts, right? since we’re under here, i think we should make the rules. ❞  

                    —     a      🌿     for    @rebelcliche​

reblog this to give the person you reblogged this from a gold star because they’ve been stellar today and they deserve it ⭐️

SOMEWHERE BETWEEN DUSK AND DAWN I LEFT THE CHILD I WAS BEHIND, WITH ALL HER HOPES AND DREAMS AT HER SIDE (BUT I STILL HEAR HER CALLING) /// landslide (2), r.i.p to my youth, iguanamouth (3), portugal (2), older than i am 

chrissy + dustin content <3