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Penny wraps her arms around Ricky's waist, trying not to show how awkward she feels as her and Noel half-support, half-drag him into his seat. His crutches are left on the platform, and Penny pulls the seat belt down over him. He smiles at her.
The greasy ride operator who can’t be more than a few months older than Penny looks constipated, his face practically purple from the clear effort it’s taking to stop himself from rolling his eyes at the choir group. Penny hopes Ricky knows the attitude isn't fully aimed at him- still on the side of the platform, Ocean is shaking and crying and pleading Constance not to make her get on.
“Come on, Ocean, you know you'll have fun.” Constance coaxes. Ocean sobs something unintelligible, and in front of Penny, Noel snorts. Penny focuses herself on pulling her own seat belt down.
“Alright!” The ride operator barks, making Penny and Constance jump. “Girl, either get on the ride or get out of the damn way!”
Ocean is still crying- inconsolable, Penny's mind helpfully supplies- but this time, when Constance tries to guide her into her seat, she comes. They sort their seat belts out, and the ride operator rolls his eyes.
“Three.. two… one.” There's no fanfare in his mannerisms as he pushes the button. Penny wonders for half a second if he wasn't supposed to check that they were safely secured in, but decides it doesn’t matter. She just wants to get home.
“I wanna get off, I wanna get off-” Ocean is saying over and over again. Noel reaches forward as if to hit her, but the ride begins to speed up and he is pushed back into his seat. Penny wonders if maybe putting Ocean at the very front was a bad idea, because she only begins to wail louder the closer they get to the first drop.
Something bumps Penny’s leg, but she chooses to ignore it, instead looking to her left at the view of the town. Uranium. She found it a little weird that a travelling fair would visit such a small town, but whatever, she enjoyed the view from up here.
Up, up, up- and now down, down, down. Mischa and Noel have their arms up. She thinks they’re laughing, but she can’t quite tell. Ocean is silent, and a glance forward at her head lolling back against the seat confirms that she's unconscious.
Another ascent, quicker this time. Something is touching her leg insistently now, and looking over she realises it's Ricky. He looks afraid- not rollercoaster, adrenaline-filled afraid, actually scared. Now that he has her attention, he grabs her seat belt and wiggles it- it wiggles. It rises off her shoulders. She hadn’t clipped it in. Why hadn't she? Oh, right, the ride operator started yelling at Ocean and scared her.
“Fuck.” Penny mutters, grabbing the belt with both hands and trying to fasten it. Ricky reaches out to help, but suddenly they’re going down again and he closes his hand around her upper arm instead. Penny isn't having fun anymore, as the rollercoaster twists and turns but doesn't slow down long enough for her to lock her belt in place.
There's a loop-de-loop coming up. The cart jolts and makes a strange noise, and she suddenly regrets ever coming here. She hooks her feet around Noel's seat in front of her, and she feels Ricky's grip tighten.
It doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter, because her seatbelt is not the biggest problem.
The cart goes hurtling up the side of the loop, and Penny squeezes her eyes shut, not wanting to see whatever comes next. There is a loud noise, and a shudder, and suddenly her stomach drops even further- but Ricky's hand is still on her arm and she can still feel the seat underneath her, which causes her to open her eyes.
She wishes she hadn't.
Everything seems to slow down and speed up at the same time. All she can hear is screaming. The loop-de-loop is no longer under the cart- they're rocketing through the air, upside down. She can feel the blood rushing to her head.
And then they lose momentum, and the bottom-heavy cart starts to twist, and Ricky instinctively grabs hold of his own seat belt, and Penny's lifts off of her, and she is alone in the sky.
For a moment she is frozen there, arms flailing, the cart falling below her as its momentum sends her forwards, back toward the track. She watches the cart smash into the ground, hears the horrible silence that replaces the screams.
And then her own reality sets in once more, watching the remaining carts of the rollercoaster speeding along the track towards her airborne body. She makes eye contact with a woman in the front row of what would have been the second cart. She wants to say something, shout some last words, even just beg for something to change, but everything is too fast and her chest hits the edge of the track and it all goes dark.
Ricky finds himself staring at her- at Jane Doe. It doesn't make sense, it isn't right. How can there have been a six choir member he doesn't know? He knows it's true, because there's a hole in his memory with strange torn edges where somebody else should be, but try as he might he can't remember a thing about her. All he knows is that he doesn't seem to be afraid of her the way the others are. Constance jumps whenever she speaks, and Ocean ran from her, but all he feels is some kind of… comfort?
It isn't fair. He doesn't like it. She was a part of the choir, she died with them, she was only a kid, and yet no one at all knew who she was? The lack of memories he has about the crash infuriates him. Sure, it may just be his mind trying to protect him, but for someone who relies on their brain and only just got a voice, it's bullshit.
After the new Happy Birthday song, he sits beside her, and God this feels so familiar. Sitting in silence, it's like they’ve done this a hundred times, but why can't he see her? Why can't he know her? Girl's names circle endlessly through his head, and the one he keeps coming back to is ‘Savannah’, but that might be because he keeps thinking about her catchphrase about the lions. He offers it to her anyway, and she accepts.
“Can she have the greenest eyes?”
Green eyes. The bells ringing in his head are practically deafening, but he still can't figure it out.
Ocean chooses her. He knew she would, because behind this ‘I'm better than everyone’ exterior, Ocean is a good person. He would've chosen Jane- Savannah- her as well, even though it means not having her presence go with him to the other side.
Karnak shows them snippets of the life she lives without them, before he dies with a final “Ride the cyclone.” Everything is dark for a long moment, and then Ricky finds himself back on the ride, but it feels safer now, and he can still talk, and there is no track, only light ahead of them. There's a girl beside him. He can't see her face, but he remembers her now. Penny.
Everything hurts. That's the first thing that registers in her mind. The second thing is that her head hurts. Her head. She has a head! The joy of discovering this is enough to force her eyes open.
People are shouting around her. She's lying on warm grass- grass . She takes a deep breath in. She rolls over, and someone is beside her.
“Oh my god, oh my god. Don't move. Holy shit, I can't believe you- What's your name?”
She blinks up at the woman. There's a flash of something like a memory- free falling, making eye contact, but then it's gone.
What was the question? Oh, her name. She doesn't have a name.
Wait- yes she does, now. What was it again? Susanna? Ricky named her.
That doesn't make sense. Ricky can't talk.
“Penny.” Her voice feels like knives, but it feels like her. “What- what happened?”
“The rollercoaster malfunctioned.” The woman says. She's prodding Penny- checking for injuries. “You were flung out of your seat. I have no idea how you survived.”
Another flash of memory. Limbo, a headless doll, a competition. It feels like a dream. Maybe it was.
They don't let her look at the cart. They ask her the names of the choir members, and she makes sure to name every one and something about them. She doesn't know why she's so specific. Something tells her they need to be known. They cart her away to hospital, and are shocked at the miracle that is her unbroken body. Bruises and scrapes, but nothing internal.
She returns to the fair one night. It's all taped off, but she has to go, she has to find… Something.
Her feet trace the path she walked just days ago with her frien- with the choir. She comes across a game that already looks run down, as if it’s been abandoned for years. A fortune teller, apparently. She tries to turn it on with no luck. A dead rat lies nearby.
Penny wants to leave, but something inside of her tells her that this is what she was looking for, though she can't figure why. That is, until her eyes reach the base of the game.
A rollercoaster is drawn there, with five children on it. They all look happy, and she can name every one of them. The boy at the back isn't looking ahead like the others, though. He's looking at her. As if saying, ‘take your time. We'll wait for you.’
There's a small doll on the ground. She picks it up, looking down at its dark eyes.
“Hello, Jane.” She whispers.