Chapter Text
There were few things more demoralizing than trawling through listings for apartments within reasonable distance of 346's production building. Nana had gotten too old for hour-long commutes and simply couldn't trust herself not to fall asleep well before her destination, whether she was caffeinated or not.
And how miserable thinking about that made her feel.
Every time she followed up on an advertisement or listing that ended up being in overwhelming excess of her budget, it just reminded her how pathetic her plight must really seem to whatever higher entity was watching over her. Nothing got to her worse, though, than the times she figured she might actually have a shot at getting a place within her means only to be blindsided by some intolerable issue the realtor was desperately attempting to hide. It wasn't everyday one got an opportunity to see how a plumbing system entirely infested with wasps operated. Then there was the one studio that was shockingly missing a section of the roof. And then there was that creepy landlord who maintained that they had a sovereign right to drop in whenever they wanted to use the shower.
For a bit, Nana considered that she was entirely out of options.
That was until just a week prior. By pure chance, she ran into an advert for a two story apartment at an unbelievably good price point, all the accommodations she could ever need, and just one trip away from the production office. The landlord turned out to be almost a non-entity, communicating solely via email and in clipped, terse sentences at that. Nonetheless, it was clear they were eager to rent to Nana, however distant they seemed. No meet-and-greet was necessary- the key was left unceremoniously beneath the welcoming mat with a paper note taped over the peep hole.
"Welcome," was all it read. Nana wasn't sure whether it was an intimate gesture or a formal routine on the landlord's part, but either way it told her very little more about them.
The place was nice and spacious, homey even, despite the lack of furnishing. Layers of dust blanketed every inch of the wooden flooring, and when she explored into the living room, the blinds towards the back of it seemed to be weighed down with a layer of grime. The light bulb didn't respond for a good two seconds, but it eventually sputtered on reluctantly.
Bad wiring probably wouldn't bode well for the other utilities attached to this place, the dust indicated it hadn't been inspected in some time, and the lonely path all the way towards the back of the apartment complex meant it would be hell maneuvering her belongings around when the movers eventually arrived.
Nonetheless, Nana was smiling ear-to-ear.
Hands formally held to her thighs, she gave a clean and eager bow to her new home. "Thank you oh so much for having Nana," she said at first in her head, then out loud. She tucked the folded note in her pocket and commenced dragging her suitcase inside.
"I wanted to be saved. If I'm born again... I hope I'm born into a kind world."
Those were the last thoughts of ▅ ▃ ▂ ▃ ▂ ▅ ▂ ▃ ▂ ▃ ▃ .
But if fate had been that sweet, she never would have suffered the way she did in the first place. All of her pain and regret came back to torment her, and yet, she couldn't even cry, as her tears had been robbed from her. The world closed in on itself- on what used to be her only retreat from it all. As others found love, she brewed her hate. As others painted their new homes together, hers was peeling and decaying. As others moved on... she didn't.
Locked in this static hell of hers forever... at least... at least she could finally be alone. Or so she thought.
The sound of the creaking door was agonizing. It reminded her of horrible things. ... like going outside! Or squatters! Or was it a looter this time, here to steal whatever shitty electrical parts still remained in the walls? Peeking her head out of her room and looking down onto the first floor over the walkway, ▅ ▃ ▂ ▃ ▂ examined whoever dared to intrude upon her once more.
A short broad, no younger than 18 to the trained eye(which, of course, hers were), stood at the doorway with... a suitcase. Oh god, a suitcase?! This was the worst case scenario possible! Why? Why here? A place so old and forgotten was no fit for any new residents. ▅ ▃ ▂ ▃ ▂ approached the girl, who seemed to be looking the place up and down, probably thinking about which of ▅ ▃ ▂ ▃ ▂'s sacred rooms she would defile first. It would be nice if she could just… kill intruders like this. That’s right. Just kill them. As that girl poked around, humming some stupid song to herself, ▅ ▃ ▂ ▃ ▂ inched closer, looking at her flushed cheeks and bouncy movements. She was so full of life, and ▅ ▃ ▂ ▃ ▂ just… wanted to squeeze every last bit of it out of her.
Gently, at first, ▅ ▃ ▂ ▃ ▂ reached out and held her hands right over the woman's throat... and clenched.
... Of course, her hands harmlessly passed through, as always, and the woman didn't notice anything at all. But damn if it wasn't a good stress relief right now.
"GET OUT," she shouted, punching and kicking at the girl before her, "GET OUT, YOU TRESPASSING HAG!"
She wished she still was able to sob in moments like this. She was powerless to stop what was happening before her. Her words could do nothing in this state, and the girl walked right through her, suitcase in tow, smiling and skipping along.
"Damn it. Damn it all..." she started, muttering to herself with her voice cracking and shaking, "... I swear... I'll haunt this woman. I'll haunt her... for every year of my privacy that she just broke, like a sacred contract... or something like that! Geez... that WOULD be really cool, but... I can't even remember how long it's been. Maybe I should get a calendar..."
Clenching her fists, ▅ ▃ ▂ ▃ ▂ focused her anger on the door, and with a wave of her finger, it slammed shut. For now, at least, it was all she could do.
One sure fact of any empty house was that sound carries and resonates in such a way that new tenants are never really prepared for. The door slamming shut wasn't unlike a gunshot in the spacious abode, and frankly neither was Nana's subsequent pathetic squeal from the living room. The suitcase hit the floor hard enough that charged particles of dust took for the air in visible heaps where the minimal light peered through the slight gaps in the blinds. At least that was pleasing enough for ▅ ▃ ▂ ▃ ▂ to watch.
Then it was quiet.
It took Nana some degree of courage to actually turn her head around, and by then she'd already mentally categorized a dozen rational explanations in order of likelihood. "How... how silly of Nana! Leaving the door open like that. Heh..." She swallowed.
As soon as she said it, ▅ ▃ ▂ ▃ ▂ repeated it.
“Nana…?”
It was a name ▅ ▃ ▂ ▃ ▂ swore to remember. Time had stolen her own name from her, but yet, as long as Nana lived here, ▅ ▃ ▂ ▃ ▂ vowed to herself keep it close to her chest, allowing it to fuel her rage and her disgust as she followed Nana around, studying her every move in an attempt to familiarize herself with her. Nana had already seemed shaken up, and it was certainly a good start. The opening back to the living room seemed to spin a bit to her in the poor lighting to her, and the noisy feedback of her eyes gave off all kinds of false positives that felt increasingly difficult to dismiss. However, she continued to try and convince herself that she was just being paranoid or delusional, making her way up the stairs and to the bedroom at the end of the hall. But, still… there was just something about loud noises that silence only served to punctuate terribly.
"Must have just been the wind!" she said with a degree of confidence that wouldn’t fool a child.
She shook her head as though to mask how much she was still shivering. ▅ ▃ ▂ ▃ ▂ couldn’t help but giggle at it. Perhaps this wasn’t going to be as hard as she thought. Apparently trying to distract herself, Nana turned back around to fumble with the ragged blinds. Of course, the draw string was tangled, and it took her quite a bit more effort than she expected. Focusing on the task didn't distract her, really. In fact, it seemed like her attention towards her surroundings was only dialed up by the crummy task. And after a long, dragged out moment of attempting the string, Nana simply panicked and grabbed the whole damn thing, hoisting it up as high as she could and desperately surveying the room.
Empty, of course. Warm and welcoming in the renewed light.
"Jeez...!"
And just like that Nana felt relaxed again.
… To ▅ ▃ ▂ ▃ ▂ , though, the sunlight felt like fire. Nana had already stolen ▅ ▃ ▂ ▃ ▂'s own bedroom and filled it with blinding, horrible light. How awful. Peeking her head inside Nana's suitcase, she was eager to see what else her room would be defaced with.
"... What does a grown woman need a school swimsuit for, the hell?"
Clearly her new intruder had no sense of taste. Or she was just a pervert. Or both! If only she could project right now. If only, she told herself, squeezing her eyes shut and focusing. If only, she commanded, drawing in the skills that she had forgotten to train properly in her time here. "IF ONLY..." she yelled to herself alone. Dust swirled lazily around her feet, and with all of her effort... she reached out... and…
An incorporeal shockwave blew ▅ ▃ ▂ ▃ ▂ off of her feet, knocking her down on the floor. She had failed. Trying to do something so intensive during the day - when her power was at its weakest - was a tall order... and of course someone as garbage as herself couldn't manage it. But... the longer Nana stayed, the more likely it would be that she wouldn't leave. Scaring out the homeowner is much easier if they walk in and see a ghost right away. Resting on her elbows, she looked up. Nana was still there, opening up closets and clearing the dust off the shelves to help herself feel more at home.
"Why...?" She asked, pointlessly. "Why, Nana?"
Slamming her fist on the ground(which, as expected, made no noise), ▅ ▃ ▂ ▃ ▂ just wanted an answer. Gathering the last of her available strength, she turned to the window, pushing the dust that clung to it as if she was moving a freight train with nothing but her arms. Slowly, but steadily, she spelled out her question, "WHY?" and collapsed to the ground, aware that she had already spent all of her power until nightfall, and curled up in the corner, wanting nothing more than to get away from that terrible, evil woman... Nana. Maybe in different circumstances, Nana would've caught the faintly traced characters manifesting into the grime of the much-neglected window. As of that moment though, she'd resolved herself to paying as little attention as possible to the atmosphere of her new home. There was something odd to her about being so afraid of things so benign. The darkness, silence, isolation. She'd figured at some point she had grown out of all that. It almost reassured her to feel so childish. But she let the blinds fall back down without much further fussing. The light from the windows in the hall - peaking through the blinds ever so slightly - was at least enough to guide her through the walkway without going into a panic.
Stood on the front mat with the door closed behind her, Nana let out a little breath. When that proved deeply insufficient, she let herself breathe out far heavier, enough that she had to lean forward a bit. The key had pressed deep, red indents into her palms where she'd been clenching her fist around it, the sight of which caused her inordinate embarrassment.
In one go, she smacked two firm hands to either of her cheeks and straightened her back. "No! Nana will have no second thoughts!"
And that was that. More or less.
All in all, Nana had only brought a sleeping mat, two suitcases, and a duffle bag of idol merch she'd been too anxious to leave with the movers. Navigating them up from the lobby towards the back of the complex had proven every bit as cumbersome as she figured it would, but she was excited to start making the place her own. A little furniture and some sprucing up would surely make things more comfortable, she thought. Only, she was just finished unrolling her mat when a particular phone call immediately dashed her optimistic streak.
▅ ▃ ▂ ▃ ▂ , of course, had been eyeing her up with all the new bags she was bringing in. Just how much bullcrap did this woman intend to strew everywhere? While Nana was chatting away on the phone, ▅ ▃ ▂ ▃ ▂ took the moment to go through her stuff a little more. This suitcase she had brought in with her was different from the one laying on the floor in her room. Sure, it had a reasonable amount of normal attire inside, but there were also elaborate frilly dresses and strange costumes with bunny ears. Was Nana some sort of clown? Well, ▅ ▃ ▂ ▃ ▂ supposed it fit her well. Still, her noseyness not yet satisfied, ▅ ▃ ▂ ▃ ▂ floated up to the phone Nana talked into, pressing up against it and listening to their conversation.
"What?!" Nana's hair seemed to raise emphatically with her words as she fought with everything in her to avoid sounding like some pissed off middle-aged woman.
The bored sounding man on the line joylessly relayed the same information he'd just been imparted, beat-for-beat and not an octave more sympathetic. Somehow, Nana's belongings had ended up on an entirely different route out of the city and were quite thoroughly grounded for the time being in the middle of nowhere. Updated tracking information was still processing, of course.
Nana knew she should've purchased the delivery insurance.
"Six to eight business days?!" Nana cried inelegantly.
▅ ▃ ▂ ▃ ▂ smirked at that.
▅ ▃ ▂ ▃ ▂ had already started cataloging everything she hated about Nana. Of course, "no respect for the dwellings of the dead" was certainly on there, but now going on the list were wonderful things like:
- Loud. Far too loud. She's always so loud. What was she, an anime character?
- Installing new lights without permission. (Mine were fine! They flickered a lot, but that's really cool!)
- Putting candles in all the rooms without functional lights, as if this was some kind of witch dwelling. Was she deranged?
- Bringing booze into the house, reminding me once again that I can't even drink my sorrows away in this form! Thanks a lot for that!
(And the worst to ▅ ▃ ▂ ▃ ▂ by far-)
- Hanging up posters... of idols...
▅ ▃ ▂ ▃ ▂ wasn't sure that they were indeed idols, having not kept up to date on the latest scene and trends of what an idol concert might look like these days... but she knew enough to guess that it was the case. They were just like... her posters. Seeing those testaments to idoldom brandished in her face again hurt. It felt like a rail spike was getting hammered into her head. It felt like she was being poked and stabbed above a hellfire. It felt like she was being drowned with an anchor locked to her foot. Dancing women with silver hair and pink eyes, outrageous outfits, and a crowd of dedicated, loving fans shaking their glow sticks and calling their names…
It was too much on her mind. She just couldn’t handle it. ▅ ▃ ▂ ▃ ▂ punched and screamed at everything. At Nana, at the walls, at the world. A cruel joke had started to be played on her by god. To pull her into her regret, hatred, and jealousy of everyone around her... how sick. How evil. How... horrible. Her tantrum raged on for the rest of the evening, wishing she could cry and burn away the world... all while Nana cast away wrappings of greasy fast food and drank to her heart’s content without a single care in the world.
When the moon rose in the sky, and Nana laid on her mat in her room, drunk out of her mind, ▅ ▃ ▂ ▃ ▂ knew she had to get revenge. The witching hour hadn't yet approached, but she couldn't wait any longer. It was time to haunt.
Nana was in a familiar world of dizzy pleasantness, so familiar to her in fact that it almost bored her as much as it comforted her. Maybe the boringness came with the comfort, or vice versa. She certainly was in no position to know. Hell if she was in any position to know anything whatsoever. Nana laughed at herself aloud at the thought of how little she knew. She wondered to herself if she could tally all the things she actually knew if her hands weren't both shoved beneath her warm temple, nestled up in the curls of her messy hair, still tied up and bunching in the ribbon, enough that it tugged painfully, but not painful enough to get her to do anything about it. Maybe painful enough, though, that she could let out a little whine every now and again while her nose scrunched and she bristled in place counting the flaws in the off-white drywall not occupied by her many colorful posters, losing track every time she approached a double-digit and having to start over.
She burped, and as she did, she heard the loud cracks of the windows in the hall flying open. Or maybe that was just the sound of the house cooling at night. But that wasn’t all.
It was getting darker. Wasn't it supposed to? It was evening after all.
But she'd lit so many candles, hadn't she?
... Hadn't she?
She had.
Definitely, she had, she affirmed to herself.
Nana's fingers curled beneath her head in a maneuver she idly imagined to be reminiscent of a jack lifting a car up. Her head rose beneath those clasped palms, up, up, and up. She'd have made a pretty shitty jack, she thought. No structural integrity. Just look how much her vision was swimming in response to this terrible compulsion she'd just had. Why did she even want to lift her head in the first place?
To look around the room? What’s the point of that if it was so dark in here? … When did it get so dark, anyway?
Her candle had gone out.
Hadn't she lit more than one? This one had definitely just gone out though. She knew by the lifting smoke illuminated barely by what little evening ambiance was making its way through the cracks in the blinds that it had only just gone out, literally just then, that moment, right now.
Her thoughts slurred, but was sure she had lit more.
Nana giggled a bit. On account partially of the shoddy detection of her surroundings to not notice such a thing, and also because it was getting really… really quiet.
Quiet in a loud way, though, with the ringing in her ears and the way she could hear her heart beating in her wrists pressed as they were now to her neck as her droopy, dizzy head tilted round-n-round her pillow and her eyes spun round-n-round the room, taking in exactly how dark it had somehow gotten just now.
“Myyyy... candle..." She would've said "went out" if her phone didn't start vibrating.
Who the hell was messaging her so late, she wondered. The delivery men? Her mom? No, she'd just called her yesterday- the timing was all off, she realized.
It took a moment for Nana to come around and notice that it wasn't a vibration or even a ring. Words... hmm...? Through the speaker, garbled words came through, enunciated slowly as if to compensate.
“N...na. N...a...na… I h...te ...uo! I HA...E… Y...U…! I HATE… OU! NA...NA!”
Nana let the oppressive heaviness she had started to feel on her cheeks and neck smoosh her cold fingers back against the pillow where they could once again tangle with her hair and fall asleep painfully. Fall asleep painfully. Fall asleep painfully. One could learn a thing from her smooshed fingers, Nana thought, falling asleep so painfully...
"Mhm..." she whispered, more like breathing than speaking. "I hate Nana, too."
Nana blacked out.
…
‘I hate Nana, too...?’
What on earth was that supposed to mean? ▅ ▃ ▂ ▃ ▂ shouted more profanities into the phone, louder and louder, and yet, Nana didn't stir.
"W... What...?"
▅ ▃ ▂ ▃ ▂ leaned in close, hovering above Nana's face. She really had passed out.
"... Why...?" ▅ ▃ ▂ ▃ ▂ asked in a whimper, before her face scrunched up and she slammed her fist down upon Nana's head.
"WHY, WHY, WHY, WHY?! WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME, NANA?!"
▅ ▃ ▂ ▃ ▂'s outburst raged on, shaking everything around her. The nonfunctional lights jingled back and forth. The shutters on the windows swayed and clattered. The candles tipped and fell over. Yet, through it all, Nana still slept so peacefully.
▅ ▃ ▂ ▃ ▂ eventually collapsed onto her, whimpering and whining.
"Stupid... Nana. Mean, evil, cruel, dumb Nana... It's hard. It's so hard. Living like this and chasing people away. It's really, really hard, y'know? I hate it. I hate everyone and everything around here. But what I hate most right now... is myself."
▅ ▃ ▂ ▃ ▂'s voice softened.
"And... the worst part about it is..."
She sighed, pulling at the wind to move Nana’s bangs out of her face.
“Saying something like that to me is going to make it really hard to keep this up, Nana.”