Chapter Text
It's been days..at least Ocean thinks its been days. Since she's seen anyone, or anything for that matter. Anything alive that is, she's seen tons of dumb carney toys and she's sick of it. She missed her friends, could she even call them her friends? Yes. She could, she knew especially for one person. Her Penny.
She didn't like calling things hers, except for Penny. Penny was her girlfriend. No one else's, at least until Penny decided to move on from Ocean. All Ocean knew is as long as she was in this warehouse, which would most likely be for the rest of forever. She could only imagine how everyone felt when they returned and Ocean wasn’t with them, it wasn’t her choice. Some Barrier-like force stopped her from following them into the light.
Ocean was upset at this herself, why wouldn’t she be? However she had a feeling this was her punishment for not getting to know the others, and for treating them all wrong. Except Penny of course, she had always had a soft spot for Penny. Her tall figure with a small gap between her teeth, long curly brown hair, the greenest eyes she's ever seen, and freckles spattered across her face. It just set in that she will never see the girl she considers the love of her life ever again.
This fact distraught Ocean, after losing everything else in her life, she couldn't lose her Penny. She started to cry, she didn't usually cry, but now she couldn't help it. She curled up bringing her knees to her chest and moving to lie on her side mumbling Penny's name over and over. All she heard was choked sobs, she sounded pathetic, but she didn't care. She didn't have to act anymore, she was alone, she was alone. Ocean had always wished she would be left alone, but not like this.
There was no visible entrance or exit to the warehouse, she had noted that the past few cycles shes snooped around, at this point she wanted to give up. She wanted to fade into nothing, as here she was nothing, nothing but a dumb teen who died in some accident. She never knew she would be this afraid of death, of the afterlife, but she was. She was traumatized from the events. Seeing all her friends die beside her, seeing them recover and being forced to watch them return to their normal lives on the screen Karnak forced her to watch till he blew his final fuse. Sleep didn't exist here, food didn't, water didn't, nothing did, yet she still craved all those things. She couldn't help but cry harder, seemingly attempting to melt into a puddle of her own tears, when a bright light appeared.
Ocean ran, she didn't know where she was running too but this warehouse seemed to be quite spacious, so she ran to a corner where she could see the whole room. She covered her ears tightly and hid her eyes in her knees curling up again, she didn't want whatever was going to appear from the light to find her. As if curling up was going to stop that.
“O–an..?” Ocean looked up uncovering her ears seeing a group of five people emerge from the light, she was seeing things, she knew she was. She started crying harder and more audibly and hit her head back into the wall of the warehouse. “Leave me alone! They aren't here, they aren't!”
She heard footsteps, the fake people were moving forward. She stood up grabbing a piece of plastic she had sharpened and held it out towards them taking shaky breaths, they eventually got close enough for her to make out their faces. In front of the group Penny, Noel on her left with Ricky behind him and Mischa on her right with Constance behind him. “No..You aren't real! Y-you are fake again. You can't trick me again. You WON'T trick me again!” Oceans' voice broke as she loosened her grip on the piece of plastic but quickly tightened it back on.
“My darling..” She heard Penny's voice, but it wasn't her, it couldn't be her..
“P-penny..?” Ocean dropped the piece of plastic still looking at her, wondering if she was real or not. “Yes, love..it's me I promise you, I'm real.” Penny slowly moved towards her, holding her hands towards her. Ocean was hesitant but she ran over jumping into her hold, wrapping her arms around her trying to get as close to her as she could. Penny rubbed her back picking her up, she held her close slowly rocking her.
“Yoo I don’t mean to be a mood killer but we should leave before the light thingy closes.” Ocean kept herself buried into her girlfriends neck but she could tell it was Mischa. The rest of the group agreed and the next thing Ocean knew she was in the St Cassions Choir Room, Penny sat down on a set of bleachers holding Ocean in her lap as the group sat around them. Ocean looked outside seeing that it was night, she also saw the trees, she loved the trees that surrounded the choir building. Despite how tiny their choir was, the school decided to give them their own tiny Choir building, which Ocean thought was pretty cool.
She looked at the group around her realizing they all had their eyes on her, watching her. She looked at each of them seeing their outfits, they all fit them so much. Mischa was in a white button up shirt with a gray flannel over it, wearing gray jeans as well as his classic hat. Noel was wearing a cardigan and khakis, surprisingly looking good. Ricky was wearing a T-shirt with a cat on it as well as some skinny jeans, looking as nice as Ocean remembered. Constance in a pink jacket and skirt. And Penny. Penny had Ocean's over sized green sweater on, wearing jean shorts and beat up converse, her hair up in a messy ponytail.
The mood was clearly gloomy, there wasn't the same homey feel. “How is Father Marcus?” Ocean looked at Noel. “He passed Ocean, 7 hours after the accident.”