Chapter Text
Mari couldn't not admit it, she didn't expect to die.
Not like that, at least. Quick as it was (Didn't the old writers always say a quick death was better, easier? She didn't have anything to compare it to, but it sure didn't feel that way.), it was sudden, and the snap she heard the start of right before... everything stopped- resonated within her mind (Or what was left of it, jumbled and scattered by the fall, it felt.) when she awoke again.
It had taken her a while to understand what was happening at first, what with her head feeling like it had split neatly in two and all (She knew now her neck had snapped, but at the time she'd wondered if she just cracked her skull on the floor and that's what scattered her memory.), but when she had finally come to, it was to the sound of sirens. She had been lying face-up directly where the violin had been, staring fuzzily at the ceiling while she tried to piece her thoughts back together.
"..... ∴⍑ᔑℸ ̣... ⍑ᔑ!¡!¡ᒷリᒷ↸...?" (She had tried to ask "What happened?", but the sounds came out all wrong and she didn't know what to think about it.)
She had quickly forgotten how she'd done it, but she ended up upright soon after, watching with an anxious confusion (Borne of her temporary disorientation, no doubt.) at the people inside the house. Mom had stood by the back door, hugging Sunny tightly as she sobbed. Dad was nowhere to be seen. Even in her muddled state, Mari knew she wanted to help in any way she could, so she had begun to move forward, making her way over to the others in her family.
She'd only noticed her lack of arms (Or legs, for that matter. How did she get up from the floor, let alone walk..?) when she tried to reach out to them. She hadn't tried her voice again in her attempt to comfort them, but this newfound knowledge brought a noise of surprise from her (Still foreign, which'd been scaring her more with this development.), and she had silently excused herself to speed up the stairs and into the bathroom. Up there, taking a shaky breath, she had kept her gaze on the tiled floor for a couple moments (Scared of what she would see when she finally looked ahead? Or just out of breath? It didn't matter.), before slowly sliding her gaze up to the mirror. There, in the reflection, she had seen the truth. A wisp of what was left of her, barely held together by an invisible force, had met her in her reflection, made of thin black fibers surrounding a single teary eye (She was so small, too; she could fit in Mom's hands at the time...). There was a faint lavender sheen to her new, haunting appearance, one that was most visible in her eye, but she'd barely noticed at the time.
"⍑... ⍑𝙹∴..? ∴⍑ᔑℸ ̣ ᔑᒲ...? ᔑᒲ....? ∴⍑ᔑℸ ̣ ⍑ᔑ!¡!¡ᒷリᒷ↸.... ℸ ̣ 𝙹 ᒲᒷ?" (She didn't remember what she said, and she didn't care enough about the words to try and recover that knowledge)
It had taken a while, but by the time she had picked herself off the ground (When did she get there? When did she fall? Could she fall?), her memory had started to fall into place, and she lingered in the bathroom to make sense of it all.
Mari had died. That's what had happened to her.
It was her fault.
There was no other option.
Nobody else put that much pressure on Sunny.
Not her friends. They'd known better than to do that, and were merely concerned with making sure the two were healthy and having fun.
Not her father. After the first word out of his mouth that went beyond light critique, she'd kindly banned him from their practicing sessions.
(She should've applied that to herself instead. Even if he knew next to nothing about music and simply liked the piano better.)
Certainly not her mother. She was the one making sure that they ate and drank and took good breaks.
Just her.
If she just stopped, just took one damn moment to breathe and look around her, maybe she could've seen how stressed Sunny had been.
But no, she pushed. She pushed and she didn't stop. It was never a "Let's just have fun" with her, it was always "This has to be perfect" and "We have to be perfect" and "Come on, again" and nothing less than pushing and shoving and bending.
She pushed and bent and then he snapped. And then she snapped too.
....
(... In more ways than one.)
... And now she was here. Mari, the dead fool, now a ghost. Phasing out of the bathroom (She completely blocked out that she went in through the door, without opening it. That... probably wasn't good.), she struggled to keep her composure as she looked down the stairs. Her body wasn't there, and neither was the violin... Not even a bloodstain or hair out of place. They cleaned up fast, didn't they..? She felt glad for it (Although it was fuzzed and distorted with the mix of numbness, guilt, horror, and sheer exhaustion she was already feeling.). Maybe that way it'd hurt less. She floated down the steps, looking for her family once more. Dad was still nowhere to be seen inside, but the back door was left ajar, Mom and Sunny also missing by the time she came back. Cautiously, she moved forward, pressing into the crack of the door even if it wasn't necessary, leaving the house and going outside.
Once there, she let her eye adjust to the darkness of the evening, the cries around her concerning her greatly as she looked ahead at-
... Oh.
What?
Wait, actually what.
The scene in front of her was unreal. Impossible, even. The cops and paramedics had just arrived, but their sirens did nothing to solidify the truth before her eyes.
First, closest to her, was Mom, still holding Sunny, but the latter was clinging to someone else as well. Basil.. Basil looked like a deer in the headlights, but when she navigated around him she saw his gaze, averted from the scene in front of him to look out into space, as if he was avoiding whatever the hell happened to her body. She couldn't blame him, she would be doing the same if this all wasn't so baffling.
Sunny wouldn't have done this. But if that was the case, then who did?
Next was Kel, who didn't seem able to comprehend the situation ahead of him (She felt the same.). He looked between the adults on the scene (One of which being Dad, who was pacing around with barely-concealed pain and rage roaring in his eyes, muttering wildly under his breath.), and his friends, trying to make sense of all this. Eventually, he gave up and ran over to hug Hero.
Hero. Oh, oh no, Hero... He was sobbing near her body, murmuring apology after apology between cries. How desperately she wanted to rush to him, insist she didn't do this, it was just some messed up accident that some messed up creep decided to take advantage of, or something like that. But truth be told, she didn't know how this happened.
Next to him (On the other side that Kel reached.) was Aubrey, who was also crying, but silently, shaking as she hugged her legs, staring at the grass past the scene. At some point, she glanced up, as if hoping something would magically change- like Mari coming back to life, landing on the ground to reassure everyone that she was fine, maybe it was a prank- but nothing ever did, so she simply cried more.
The adults were approaching the tree, prepared to take down the body- Mari's body. She didn't understand, but that's where it ended up. Her broken neck, holding the rest of her body off the ground by a jump-rope (Aubrey's jump-rope. Oh, gosh, she hoped she never made the connection..) tied to the branch of a tree. It looked like she had done that to herself.
And she didn't. But she couldn't exactly tell them that, could she?
(She began to regret feeling glad she hadn't found her body inside.)
The rest of the day had been a blur for Mari.
Her body had been taken away.
The funeral was set for a week from now.
Her family had gone straight to bed, although she could practically hear Dad's tossing and turning from all the way down the hall.
She had resigned to resting on top of her own bed for a couple minutes, trying to process what just happened, before she'd heard it.
That near-silent whimper. A sound Sunny only made when he was having a nightmare.
She hadn't wasted a moment longer before rushing to her brother's aid, her tiny ghostly form resting beside his head as she murmured quiet, soothing words to him.
The words themselves had still been impossible to interpret, but the tone they were said in remained, and that was all she could ask for, at that point.
No matter what had happened, no matter who was responsible for... that, she wasn't going to abandon her brother like that.
No way, no how.
(.... It's the least she could do after she messed everything up.)
Dad tried to cut down the tree first thing in the morning. Mari doubted he got much sleep the night before, if any.
Mom let him do it, even if she looked more and more tired every time he yelled his frustrations at the tree at a volume that could be heard from inside.
It survived for now. It's a sturdy one, so the ghost wasn't surprised.
(Maybe that's why it was the one chosen.)
Mewo didn't seem happy at all about the sudden change in atmosphere. She couldn't blame the feline- this all sucked.
After breakfast, Sunny went up to their room (Just his now, if ghosts don't count.) and shut the door. She couldn't blame him either.
(She just blamed herself. For this, for pushing Sunny so hard, for not landing in a way that wouldn't kill her, for-)
Dad entered the dining room suddenly, already angry expression darkening when he scanned the room, but he didn't say anything, just cracked open his newspaper.
(Was he upset that Sunny left early? That didn't make much sense... Of course he'd need a break. His sister just died, and he's the only one who knows what really happened. Everyone else thinks it was a suicide but he knows that she pushed him too hard and then he pushed her for real and now he's hurt and she can do so little and she's a fucking ghost and nobody knows she's even here-)
Abruptly, Dad put his newspaper down slightly, suddenly alert as he looked directly at her for a few moments. Her spiraling chain of thought paused, a ray of hope peeking through as she looked back. Could he see her? Did he know she was still here?
(Did he recognize her like this? Would he help her if she could figure out how to ask?)
.... Eventually, he blinked twice, a pained expression painting his face before he rubbed his eyes and went back to reading. Of course he couldn't see her. He must've just spotted a spider...
...
Someone else saw, though.