Chapter Text
There are six rules of Ouija:
1: Never use the Ouija Board alone.
2: Never play Ouija in a graveyard.
3: Never burn an Ouija Board.
4: Never leave the planchette on the board.
5: Never ask when you will die.
But possibly the most important rule:
6: Always say goodbye.
Lockwood pulled the suit sleeve down his wrist again. Fresh blood pooled at his feet, almost at place with the ectoplasm burns and loose silver filings. He tightened the rope. Hopefully this would answer his questions and give him what he wanted.
Since he had gone to the other side with Lucy, all that time ago, he had felt allured by the mysteries of the place. Where nights were cold and forever and death was the only thing anyone had in common with the world.
The rope was tied loosely to the stairwell, his hands shook as he grasped it firmly, slipping his head into the loop. He wanted to know. He wanted to know what was there on the other side. This was it.
He felt the rope around his neck not nearly as strongly as he felt like he was being freed. This house hid so much of his past, and by death being his fate would protect those secrets forever; from his friends, his enemies, his own self. This house had seen more death than the hunters in it.
He felt so close, so close to the release from the iron chains of mortality. Every breath taxes him another heartbeat, and every heartbeat contributed to the little blood he had left dripping away. The freezing opening to the other side felt like a tear in the expanse of the plain he was in. It was beautiful. An addictive kind of pain that left him wanting more. The cold of death’s fingers pressed into his skin, dragging him further into the depths of the other side.
It was like he was falling. Slipping through one world and into another. As if the crown of overture resting in defiance and courage had just slipped off his head. He was plummeting, further into this world he didn’t belong. He did though. He was dead now. But death hasn’t escorted him merely pushed him down and been expected to know what to do.
Down through the holes in our realm, down the memories that clung to it so desperately trying to stay as they were ripped from where they belonged, and given away. Blown into the wind as if they had never existed. His history seemingly forgotten by the world already.
And then he landed. Landed in a place so foreign that to walk forward would lead you in circles, that you had to fight just to stay alive. He had been torn from his body, snatched from his mind. All that was left was an empty longing. To do what it took to survive.
His instincts overruled his methodical thinking as a ghost. He stood there. He stood there and he realised. What had he done to Lucy? The conversation the night before…How could he go and say all those things and just leave her.
And now her abilities were fading, maybe he’d never get to see her again. Lucy. His Lucy. Would she even recognise him, the way he was? Dead and walking through the unforgiving world of the other side? He willed to see her, even his impulses.
He was dragged back to the chilling stabs that he felt as even breathing the air of the other side froze the insides of his throat. It was different, without the spirit cape. He felt every draft and blow the winds would inflict on him, despite the fact he was a ghost, he still felt the harshness of the other side.
The weight of the situation still hung heavy. His curiosity had bettered him, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that he minded. He’s lived his whole life feeling nothing. Nothing but fake arrogance and confidence he donned like a mask. And somehow this was more charismatic than his natural authenticity. He would slip in and out of personas, but he never felt right. He struggled to find a part of him that really cared. Really cared for anything.
And so he was met with disappointment. His death hadn’t been grand. It hasn’t solved his problems, or made him feel content or happy. The cold of the other side just ate into anything he had in him.
Lockwood wouldn’t say he particularly liked it here, it was confusing and cold and he could hardly think. He still felt like part of him had been lost while he was falling. Had he actually fallen though? What had that even been about?
Perhaps…he could find his source? Something to draw his connection back to the living world, just for a minute, just to give Lucy one final goodbye, one final kiss, to tell her he loved her one last time.
To apologise.
But then again maybe he wasn’t ready. Anthony Lockwood, in all his charm and confidence, he didn’t know how to tell her that. To confirm, to Lucy of all people, that he was gone. He had never had the opportunity to say goodbye to his parents or his sister.
Teach me how to say goodbye. Teach me how to find Luce and tell her I’m sorry.
All he needed was his source. His source and some time to summon everything it would require to speak to her. To assure her he was waiting for her here on the other side. He just needed that loose string tying him to the living world, and to hope that it was tied tight enough that when he pulled on it, it wouldn’t undo.
He’d found the sources of countless ghosts before, finding his shouldn’t be too hard. He just needed to find a way back to the living world. A part of his soul that was still attached to there. something that tied him between both worlds, before someone destroyed it. Some kind of beacon, to help bring him back.
Maybe he had to follow some kind of beacon! Lucy had been described as a beacon for ghosts. Her unique talents provided an extra harnessing connection to ghosts in either world. Maybe, if he couldn’t get back through for source, he could get back for Lucy? He would do anything to see her again, maybe she could help bring him back.
Her talents were fading though, that much was evident. She had peaked years ago and now it may be even harder to see her again. So if finding Lucy directly was plausible, but not likely, he had to find another way.
Perhaps the tear he fell out of? He willed his subconscious to look up, squinting as if to get a better view. He couldn’t see it. He paced, looking at his hands frustratedly. He knew it was his choice to die, he was well aware of that. But he didn’t realise dying would feel so…empty?
It was like he had killed himself to feel something, and when he did, he somehow felt even less than he did before. He felt hollow. He had been hanging then pushed down some invisible hole by death himself. Or dragged.
Dragged down, deeper and deeper. Saying goodbye to every part of himself that mattered. Dragged through the chilling depths of literal hell. Dragged through every living moment he has had the patience to bear through. Dragged through life and death.
And here he was. In the middle of the other side, cold, lost, lonely. He needed some way to get out and see Lucy. He needed to find her, to talk to her again. He had never liked physical touch, but now that it was impossible to get, he craved it more than anything.
At least when he found Luce-
Who was he kidding, if he touched her she would die. Besides he was getting off topic. First he needed to find her. To do that he needed to find some way to the living world.
Maybe—A Gate! That’s what he had forgotten. If one of his friends could break the barrier using sources, then he would be able to go see them. It would be dangerous for them though, more dangerous than him returning to the living world. He’d be hunted, skewered on the end of a rapier, burning from the silver.
Lucy could get him back, if she did he would be safe. Otherwise his source would find some way of attracting him like a moth to the light only to be hunted by some night patrol kids.
He looks at his hands, translucent and ghostly wisps overlay them, but he still sees the lines etching into them, from the steady and methodic muscle memory he developed with the rapier. He also had a little mark on his left hand from an ectoplasm burn when he was younger. When he grips them into fists, a strange pulsating energy goes through his hands. It was unnatural, unlike anything he had felt. It coursed like blood would, except it wasn’t blood. It was cold and it stung the insides of his veins like some sort of poison.
He just wanted his friends back, but there was no way of contacting where them now. No way to tell them to let him back, no way. He needed to trust that his friends would want to see him as much as he wanted to see them.
They would ask questions, which he didn’t have the answers to.
They’d ask why he did it, why he never said anything. But was it so bad, to not be able to justify himself? Was it so bad for him to do it. He couldn’t explain it to himself, let alone to them. He couldn’t explain the noose or the blood or the situation at all. He couldn’t face them again.
But he had to. One last time, before his friend’s abilities fully faded, before he was faded from their lives.
One last time.
He needed them, he needed them more than anything. And almost for the first time, he felt like he felt something. He felt something and it was different. Different than the numbness or the guile. Different from the pain or nothingness. The masks and shadows.
He felt lonely. He felt longing. Sentimental.
He felt sorry.
He would slice his skin, watch ruby trails trickle down his forearms. Little lines like red stitches would accent his skin. Blood would become salty with half dry tears.
And the during the day he would cover it up. Bandages or blazers. Anything to stop his friends worrying, to make sure that they weren’t concerned that anything would happen.
But all that had been a waste. If he covered them to protect his friends from himself, then he hadn’t done a good job. He had gone and hung himself anyway, he wasn’t hiding the cuts for them. He was hiding them for himself.
He was hiding them because every scar hinted at who he was. Who he pretended to be. Each time he looked at them he felt as if they dug deeper. Everything he did to himself.
What did his friends think now? What would they think of Anthony Lockwood? Pity? Dishonour? Would they even care?
Would they have anything to tell him?
Would they say goodbye?