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mor-beck-more-problems · 4 years

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Monsters of the Museum || Dakota and Morgan

TIMING: Current

PARTIES: @dakotasgrant & @mor-beck-more-problems

SUMMARY: Dakota and Morgan try to open up to one another. Some things are scarier than glass-cased monstrosities.

CONTAINS: Mentions of alcoholism, parental abuse, death, and car accident

Despite the weird shit that happened when she and Morgan hung out last, Dakota still felt as though she needed to water this seed, because when it came to everyone else in town so far… Well, this was the only one that was growing. She felt a little bad about getting defensive, and she had already planned on apologizing again once she saw Morgan at the museum, but… Well, technically what she’d said had been true. Morgan knew a sensitive detail about Dakota, but she didn’t really know her. And if she was going to take her only friend’s advice when it came to making more friends, then she needed to know more about Morgan first.

The museum had been her own idea, and even as she sat on the steps waiting patiently for her company to arrive, she still thought it would be fun with or without her. In an effort to be a nicer person, though, she did have two coffees set by her side, her hands in her pockets. She hoped Morgan liked hot bean water sans cream and sugar.

Morgan’s nerves prickled like needles as she pulled up to the museum. For all the effort they’d put into their pop up display during the carnival, the actual building was kind of dull looking, like a refurbished old train station no one had ever cared about. She steadied herself, trying to narrate a version of this visit to herself that both didn’t end with more attempted theft, or factual education, and had her leave with her conscience intact. She couldn’t exactly coax Dakota into making a scene while she smashed her way through reclaiming some supernatural artifacts to restore to their rightful communities, like she had with Deirdre. Nothing came to mind, so maybe she would just ignore everything in the museum and focus on the conversation around them. They were here to get to know each other. She didn’t need to worry about corpses being disrespected by being called creations and elaborate hoaxes, or photographs of supernaturals who hadn’t wanted to be seen dismissed, or magic relics categorized as superstition. She would be fine, and the afternoon with Dakota would be a good one.

Morgan finally got out of her Subaru and jogged up to meet her friend. “Hey! It’s a great day to be inside where it’s warm, huh? Let’s go, yeah?” She offered a hand to help Dakota up. “I tried to come up with some kind of random fact like they make you come up with in cheesy ice breakers on the way but--” I was too distracted by knowing how much wrongful nonsense you’re about to fall for in here. “--I just couldn’t. I’ve had some memorable shitty jobs in the past? I used to have an online crystal shop? My cat that’s been with me the longest, Anya, liked to be walked on a leash and harness?” She held open the door for them as they went in. “What I’m trying to say is, I will try to be as much of an open book as possible, okay?” And as long as they kept talking, how hard could that be?

She stepped onto the shiny tile floor and came face to face with half a dozen dull-eyed, incorporeal school children in their uniforms. She squealed, covering her mouth a second too late and jumped back close to Dakota. “Sorry! This place is just--” Haunted. Full to the brim and fucking haunted within an inch of its life. Morgan couldn’t look in any direction without catching sight of at least two spirits hovering near the display cases. Shit, shit, shit. “--so impressive! Like, way more than I thought it would be!”

Dakota was a little bit more excited than she wanted to admit, especially when Morgan showed up. She wasn’t the kind of person she ever thought she’d be friends with -- she was quirky, and weird, and confusing… But she was bright and bubbly and seemed to be this kind of oddly positive, always “chipper” sort of person. Which, as anyone could see, was the complete opposite of herself. But it made her happy to see that even if she was such a cynic, the people around her could still exist in this sort of.. Care-free innocence, it seemed. Of course, that was all her own perception, but she still firmly believed that Morgan did have some sort of sweet innocence to her, whether or not that was actually true. And she was also a firm believer that being friends with someone like Morgan was the closest she’d ever come to being that bright and bubbly and kind and sweet.

“Hey,” she greeted, but within a short amount of time she was bombarded with words. She forgot that Morgan did that, but this time it was slightly more endearing than the last. From a crystal shop to her cat, she did realize that all she was trying to do was tell her that she was going to be as genuine as possible. Whether or not Dakota chose to believe whatever she was about to say for the next few hours was up for discussion, but who would lie about a cat being walked on a harness? “Right, yeah -- Um. I guess I just wanted to know more about who you are as a person, you know?” she began, holding the door for the both of them to shuffle in. “So, let’s start with --” she began, but was quickly shut up by Morgan’s reaction to the museum.

While Dakota was impressed by the tile and artwork, Morgan seemed to have jumped back only a few moments after being inside -- as if she’d just seen a scary bug. This forced Dakota’s brows to knit together, looking at her in pure confusion. “Uh.. Yeah, I guess so..” It’s not that impressive. “I mean, it’s just a museum -- in my opinion. Have you been to the MET? I heard it’s crazy nice in there.”

“Uh…” Morgan winced with genuine embarrassment. “Sorry. I think my bar was just set really low. I mean, stars, they even have headsets! Not that I want one, you can’t really be with someone when you’re doing that.” Another nervous smile. She glared at the school children floating in front of them in a way that she hoped said, get lost. But they only glanced at Dakota with their cataract eyes and floated, dripping, back to the display case they seemed bound to. Morgan side stepped them carefully as she started down the nearest open corridor. “I did go to the MET actually! It’s so incredible, I didn’t even get to see half of it. It was just a few hours, when I took that trip to New York City with my girlfriend. We wanted our second day to be more chill and get back to our room before Times Square got too crowded, so we just walked the parts of the MET together that we could, popped out and found a bakery, and walked to a historical cemetery after. But here was this great collection of Dutch and German renaissance art and some pottery from indigenous tribes from the southwest. You should go, if you ever get the chance. I just, you know, didn’t think it would be this nice or roomy here.” She cleared her throat, hiding the impulse to seize up at the sight of a headless woman drifting up and down the corridor with them, phasing through half the patrons as she did.

“I’m not really sure how to define what kind of person I am,” she admitted, lowering her gaze to gather herself better. “I feel like I’m in a state of flux. I’m afraid you really will just have to play detective on that one.”

In the spirit of trying to make friends, Dakota tried her best to ignore the way Morgan was acting at the moment. If she’d been to the MET, she shouldn’t have been this surprised by the roominess of the museum… But, of course, she had to remind herself of Morgan’s excitability, and simply dismissed the issue. You can’t dismiss everything entirely, though can you? She didn’t want to think about that. The Nordica was weeks ago, and she hadn’t seen anything other than a big open showfloor with a few intrigued patrons wandering. All who seemed normal, all who seemed human, and no sign of anything with horns, so.. Maybe that’s just how Morgan was. Excitable. A little strange. Definitely weird. All true statements, sure, but she was also a friend.

“Everyone’s always in flux, Morgan. That’s sort of what life does to people. So tell me about your stages, and… I guess I’ll tell you mine.” she stated -- not in a malicious or rude manner, because to Dakota, she was just stating facts. If she listed all the changes she’s been through in the last 30 years of her life, she was sure she could come up with a way she was changing even now, approaching 40 in the next three years. Ooh, don’t think about that, either. They started at the Mutated Dog Remains exhibit, which was really just a bunch of old bones reassembled that showed minor mutations, but she had to admit they all looked rather large. The plaque below a particularly strange looking resemblance of a creature that must have died a while ago mentioned the word hellhound, but debunked the term by stating it was an urban legend, a made-up story, folklore.

“I know that you’re a lesbian, and a wiccan, and that you like deathly stuff. I know you had a best friend when you were younger that made you realize you were gay, and I know you have a girlfriend, and I know you’ve been to New York City. I also know that you have a cat. I guess the reason we’re here is because -- I mean, if you want to talk to me about letting people get to know me, least of all Marley Stryder, then I think it’s fair that I get to know the person who’s giving this crazy advice. So what’s the stuff you never tell anybody? Or were your parents like, happy when you were a kid?”

“Well, I flux more or harder than most people,” Morgan said with a low laugh. “And that’s three cats, total. I got Anya in Houston, and my girlfriend and I got Moira together, and we took in Niamh when her owner, a friend of ours, died suddenly late last year.” She couldn’t help but laugh again, shaking her head ruefully now as the suggestion that her parents were happy. “Oh, stars above, no. I mean, we tried. They tried. And we had moments, like most families, and that’s what I try to focus on but…” Another dry laugh. How did you explain, ‘well my mom was magically cursed with true suffering and shared that curse with me when I was born, so!’ “It was really complicated. My mother was…a really hurt woman. She did what she thought was best, but by the time she had me, her perception of ‘best’ had been warped by a lot of fear and bad experiences. She was really accepting of me when I came out, but that didn't really make all the times she dragged me screaming to my room and locked me in for awhile go away, you know?” Morgan winced, wondering if this was already oversharing. “I’m okay now, obviously,” she hastened to say. “I was just raised under some really specific circumstances that are hard for a lot of people to understand.”

“More or harder than most people?” Dakota repeated, trying her best not to sound judgmental. Lord knows she was the last person to judge, but.. It still came somewhat natural to her. Gotta work on that. She listened, though, about the cats -- reading plaque after plaque of random artifacts that didn’t look more or less interesting than what she could find at Pottery Barn. The place was probably filled with hoaxes, but she wasn’t about to comment, because.. God, wasn’t she so tired of being cynical all the time? Despite her overall standoffishness, Dakota really did care about what Morgan had to say. She could relate in a lot of ways to the story she told -- the half truths she was narrating. She’d been locked in her room before, but probably not for too long, because she always found a way out. And the more she thought about it, it was probably because dad was angry, and nobody wanted to be around when he started yelling. He never hit, though. If she loved him for anything other than ABBA, it was because he never hit. But she wasn’t going to tell Morgan any of that. Fucking hypocrite, she thought to herself. Asking this woman to bare her deepest darkest secrets while you can’t even tell her the truth. If there was one good intention of Dakota’s, though, it was that she cared about Morgan, and if she wanted to get any closer than an arm’s length, she’d need to read the footnotes. “Kind of sounds like Sparknotes there, Beck.” she said, tucking her hands into the pockets of the coat she was wearing while they aimlessly strolled the museum. “You don’t have to go any deeper than that if you don’t want. I’m just.. Saying that you can. If that’s what you want.”

“Wow,” Morgan said, laughing unsteadily. “And here I thought I was oversharing.” She shifted a little closer to Dakota, dodging the spectre of a man with burnt, twisted limbs. He glowered at her, condemning her denial of him. “I’m sorry,” she hissed under her breath. And she was. But smashing glass and striking up conversation with the air in a room full of normies wasn’t going to fix anything. “Um, if you pick a number that’s a multiple of three I can give you the Nightline Edition of some quality trauma. We can pull up one of those number generators on my phone if we really want to play with fate.” She laughed at her own bad joke. No one knew better than her that fate didn’t let you play when she’d made up her mind. It had only been, what, fifteen minutes from the banshee scream on her life to the rebar pole skewering her insides? “Last year counts too,” she added. “I’m not trying to be cagey on purpose. Shockingly, I am actually trying not to scare you off by dumping too much all at once.”

She stopped in front of a framed photograph of the Bachman House, now a pile of rubble in the bend. The placard mentioned the number of unusual deaths on the property, with the usual highlights of trampled by own horse, impaled by own farm tools, unlucky trip down stairs, and those were just the ones that could be ruled by accidents. On the other balcony, she could see teeth in glass boxes and a singular framed wing. “Can I ask you something first?” Morgan asked, her eyes settling into an empty middle distance where there was nothing to see, nothing to hide, no problem. “Where do you think all this stuff comes from? The stories, the pain around it all. What do you believe about it?”

“A multiple of three, huh?” Dakota inquired, mainly just to amuse her. If she was going to be friends with Morgan, it was quite obvious that she was going to have to play by her rules -- meaning that she probably would have to settle for the goofiness, or the kindness, or the sunshine and rainbows of it all. Weirdest part about all of that was the fact that Dakota usually scoffed at people who seemed to be full of so much joy. What the fuck was there to be joyful about, ever? You’re born, you live, you work for fifty years or so, and you die. The monotony of life… The mundanity of it all. So what the fuck was Morgan Beck even smiling about, even if she did have a Nightlife Edition highlight reel of her trauma ready to share? Jesus, dude, go to therapy.

Morgan caught her off guard, just a tad, with her next question. Where did she think all of this stuff came from? What does she believe about all of it? Dakota simply shrugged, unsure of how to put her thoughts into words, which was a first. “I.. Guess the bones come from a bunch of different animals. Some of the artifacts have to be mass produced or ordered off, like, Etsy. The pictures and stuff? Well, anyone can go up to a creepy looking house that hasn’t had any tender love and care for a few decades and make up a story.” Dakota paused, bringing her attention back to the Bachman house. “I guess that’s what it is, in a nutshell. People wanting to believe things bad enough. People wanting other people to believe them bad enough. But the key is in making up the story -- because you can’t spell believe without L-I-E.”

Dakota let a lull in the conversation pass, tucking her hands back into her pockets, wandering off from the picture.“I pick 27, by the way. For the multiples thing.” she tossed over her shoulder.

Morgan nodded along. She couldn’t fault Dakota for speaking so callously without knowing how it all tied to Morgan. And there was some kind of awful experience sitting under her stiffness, something that made her mistrust goodness and acceptance. “I’ll give you a two for one special,” she said quietly. “The house in that picture is mine. And everything in that placard is true. I have the documents from the town archives to prove it. And there’s a few more deaths that happened off the property tied to my family. There was a servant girl named Constance who wanted to run away with one of the Bachman daughters, Agnes. They were found out by Agnes’ mother, Hannah Bachman, and the story suddenly went from a desperate romantic getaway to coercion. Constance didn’t have any family or friends to stick up for her, so word of her preying upon the innocent Bachman daughter spread, and she spent about a month living in the woods like an animal until she finally died.” Died because she surrendered her form to power a generational curse, but Morgan didn’t feel like arguing those particulars with a skeptic. “There are some truly horrible, inexplicable things that happen here that are just as real as the morning weather.”

She turned to Dakota, smiling sadly. “When I was twenty-seven, I was supposed to be finishing up my Masters’ in literature. I was living in this nice apartment with some other students and one of them was in my program. And she was so beautiful, and I would’ve done anything for her except say I liked her. One day I’m making sun tea and she pulls me aside about something, how behind on my share of the rent I am, and it’s going okay, but I decide to start opening up about--” The curse. Stupidly, she’d tried to tell her about the curse. “Some of the smaller crises that were going on, and she didn’t believe me and got really upset. And...okay, so the super swore later on that he had replaced all the windows so they were double insulated. This one windowpane had been missed. So when the girl threw one of my plants at the window, the whole thing shattered. I went to pick up the glass and she wanted me to stay away from her, and she pushed me, but because of the glass around her, she also cut herself and slipped and she went backwards just right out the window and fell through what was left of it. We were on the fourth floor, so…” Morgan winced. “Everyone heard us screaming before then, and my standing over the window-- I mean, it was so fast I was too late before I even tried to get close enough to catch her-- it didn’t look good, and they made me re-hash everything we’d been talking about and they didn’t like or believe it either, so I spent the evening answering questions from the authorities, and being yelled at by my roommates, and packing up my stuff. Then came the psych evaluation, which I was too anxious and scared to refuse, and that was pretty scary. And by that time it was eight o’clock or something, so I holed up in a Whataburger for a little bit and then drove around our college town trying to figure out where I was supposed to go next. I got a shitty little Motel 6 place for a few months before I could get leave of absence paperwork going and do depressed 20-something shit until I could start back again with a cohort that didn’t know me.” She thought back on that day, shivering at the memory of the body ragdolled on the gravel, the blood framing her and soaking her hair, the glare of the sun on her empty face… “Sometimes things just happen.” Sometimes they happened because the neutrality of the universe could hurt, and sometimes they happened because you were cursed to carry your great-great grandmother’s crimes on your shoulders.

Dakota had fully intended on continuing to browse the museum, already halfway to the next display whenever Morgan spoke up about the Bachman house. She listened, of course, but part of her didn’t believe a word coming out of her mouth. But she remembered something Erin had said a few weeks ago, something about how she herself had nothing to gain from lying to her, and Dakota couldn’t help but wonder if the same was true for Morgan. What would she have gained by lying to her? What would she get out of a story like that? Unless the woman standing before her was severely mentally ill, suffering from some sort of psychosis or a personality disorder, then what was Morgan getting out of lying about a picture of a house? She stopped in her path, turned back to look at her, and just as she was about to grill her for the evidence, she started talking about grad school.

Morgan shared, and after she’d finished, the exhibit they’d been standing in had been emptied of all people, most of whom had gone on to go see whatever else this place had to offer. Dakota didn’t mean to stare, but she was looking at Morgan for what felt like forever, and suddenly, deciding on whether or not the Bachman story was true wasn’t exactly the most pressing issue anymore. “Jesus Christ,” she murmured, because it was the only thing she really knew to say. She almost wanted to give Morgan a hug, but she wasn’t a touchy person, and she wasn’t even sure if they were close enough for that anyways, so she refrained. “Not sure I can follow that. You win on the trauma stories.”

“It’s not a contest,” Morgan said softly. “Honestly, it’s…” She exhaled slowly. It had been awful, yes. And it had taken her longer than usual to bounce back, to make friends without wanting to run or panic. She didn’t bother telling anyone about the curse at all after that, at least until White Crest. It was the kind of hurt you didn’t think about too much. Besides, there was always another one three years ahead. On and on until the day she died. “I’ve had worse. And it was over ten years ago. I don’t really, you know, think about it that much in the grand scheme of things. I have other, bigger things to worry about.” She did her best to brush it off as no big deal, but in the wake of the confession, she mostly felt bewilderment at her forming any attachments in White Crest at all. “Why don’t you tell me something about yourself, huh? I mean, I know you’ve shared a lot already, and I don’t mind talking more, I just don’t want to take all the air in here, either.” She looked sidelong at Dakota, unsure at how she was really taking all this. Did she think she was making this up? Did she think she was crazy?

Morgan was right. It wasn’t a competition. But if you did compare the two stories -- Dakota’s entire life and then the one incident that happened to Morgan when she was 27 -- Dakota would look like a spoiled goddamned brat. Of course, she could tell her about The Nordica… But she was still in denial about the events that unfolded that night. Erin was the only one she trusted enough to talk about that with because she was the only one she knew that had seen the event take place. She was the only one she really felt safe enough with to talk about the possibility that maybe that thing wasn’t just some rare animal, and maybe it was a monster. Regardless of that, though, it didn’t matter how many times Dakota showed up at Erin’s place to talk about it, because denial was more than just a river in Egypt. Dakota took the opportunity to lean against the railing that blocked museum goers from getting too close to any artifacts that weren’t held behind plexiglass, folded her arms over her chest and let out a little sigh. “I don’t feel like going by multiples of any particular number, so I’m just going to tell you everything, so try to keep up.” Here goes nothing. Or everything.

“I was born and raised in Detroit, but you knew that. It wasn’t the nice part of Detroit because we were really fucking poor. My mom worked at Valentino’s Diner on 8 Mile Road and I never saw her because she was always working -- double shifts, almost every day. I literally remember being a kid and dipping into the drug store to buy her cigarettes and dropping them off on my way home from school. My dad was an alcoholic. I still don’t really know much about him, but I know that he fell asleep in his recliner every night with old ass tv shows on with usually some type of scotch or brandy at his side. One time our house almost burnt down because he blacked out with a lit cigar in his hand -- he must’ve dropped it, because there was a huge cinched patch in our living room that we had to cut out of the carpet.” You’re really going for it, huh? “They fought… A lot. Because mom was doing the double shifts I told you about, and Dad bled their savings dry for booze, and they were always yelling at each other about money. When I was younger I remember asking my mom who “Bill” was. I used to think that we must have just had a lot of thunderstorms because the power kept going out, but really the power just kept getting shut off. Dad referred to her as a “ball and chain” to his buddies, but I think it was the other way around, because my mom was smart. And really fucking brave. And he knew that if he ever hit her, he’d be a dead man, because she wasn’t afraid to fight back. So I know what it’s like to be locked in your room. I didn’t understand then, but I know now that really she was just trying to protect me from seeing things I didn’t need to see, but must’ve forgot that I had ears. When I got older, I started sneaking out of my bedroom window when shit like that happened. Went and rode my bike, that sort of thing. I remember always being so pissed that I never knew what was going on, which is probably why I do what I do. I hate it when nobody knows what’s going on. All that misinformation..” she trailed off. Yeah, you’re one to talk. “Anyways, I was the poor kid with really greasy hair and hand-me-down clothes, and people talked. Kids are fucking assholes. But I took after my mom, because I’m pretty smart, too, and I worked my ass off and got to college. Chris -- my, uh, ex that I told you about -- he followed me. He was going to be a big businessman or whatever the fuck, and really I just wanted the stability, so.. I stayed. For a while. Then I ended up here. And you’d think that the bullshit would’ve stopped, but I know what it feels like to see someone die now, so.. I guess we’re on the same page there.”

“Oh, Dakota…” Morgan pulled her into her arms as best she could. “That’s not something you should have to know. Sorry doesn’t change anything, but… I am. And I don’t--I don’t think it’s too late for you to leave, if that’s what you want. This place is violent. Whatever, whoever you saw die...it’s just a lot more common here than it is in some other places. This place is violent and cruel and you have definitely suffered enough.” From Dakota’s expression, the same could maybe be said for her, but there was too much here. She felt bound to it, or maybe she was just mired and didn’t realize. “I know you’re just starting to find your way, but no one would blame you if you went.”

She pulled back, still touching the woman’s arm, lingering there. “Listen...if you…” Morgan hesitated. Dakota had made herself so vulnerable and Morgan knew exactly what she really wanted to know about her, and who was she to push Dakota to be more vulnerable and open with new people if she couldn’t even try to offer this? “Do you still really want to know what’s...why my body is the way that it is? Because I can tell you, or I can try to. But we should probably find somewhere to sit first.”

Can’t leave yet. “Yeah, but if I skipped town now, who would I cry to about personal shit in the middle of a museum full of hoaxes? Seriously, this is invaluable.” Dakota sounded a bit sarcastic, but she did mean it -- if she were to get the next plane ticket outta this place, she would most definitely be losing one of the only relationships she ever cared about in her life and leaving it behind. Even if White Crest was a cursed place, she’d still feel bad for leaving Morgan.

After she had pulled back from the hug -- which was accepted but not necessarily invited -- something was offered that had piqued her interest. An actual explanation as to why Morgan was the way that Morgan was. At least… Why her blood looked like tar and her skin healed at a superhuman speed. She was ready for the vegan preaching, and now a little more prepared for a cyborg arm than she had been before. If you can see Krampus in a movie theater, I’m sure doctors can create a superhuman arm. “I mean, I’d love to know, but you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” she offered politely, even though she was practically crawling out of her skin with anticipation. “I think there’s a cafe near the entrance, if you wanna..?

Morgan glanced quickly at the cafe area and thought better of it. Too many people. If this went badly, she didn’t want to be the center of a scene. She looked around the gallery and found a relatively empty bench. Well, empty of living people. There was a rather large group of ghost pirates floating around a piece of a ship encased in glass. Morgan made her way toward them, making a face she hoped indicated that she wanted some privacy. The pirates, however, had been dead long enough to not care and just cleared the bench so no one would be sitting through their ghostly bodies.

Morgan shouldered off her jacket and sat very close to Dakota, who she pulled down with her. “So, last April I was kind of in an accident. There was this light malfunction and that caused this huge wreck and it was so fast there was debris everywhere. And I was um…” She winced, remembering. “I was on the sidewalk. I was supposed to go home after work, but I stopped for ice cream with my friend, at this little stand. And it was just some terrible Final Destination bullshit, but my foot was caught and I couldn’t run and then I was on the ground, and there was this…” That pole. That fucking pole of rebar. Morgan had seen it almost every night during those magic nightmares. She couldn’t talk about that, not without knowing how Dakota would take the truth. “It was really bad,” she said. “I don’t know what the best way to explain is, but you can track the….change in my pulse, my heartbeat.” She rolled up her sleeve and held out her wrist. “Will you see? Please?” Her voice trembled with trepidation. Already, she was scrambling to brace herself for the worst; trouble was, she didn’t really know what ‘worst’ looked like yet.

As Morgan ushered them over to a nearby bench, Dakota started to realize that maybe this was a bigger deal than just some blood disorder or bionic arm thing. Whatever it was, she still thought that Morgan would be a friend regardless, because you’re not friends with people just because their bodies function normally. Besides, even if it freaked her out, Morgan was the closest thing to a friend Dakota had ever had -- and she didn’t mean that lightly. Not when she’d grown up the outcast, and not when fitting in always felt like jamming a puzzle piece where it didn’t fit. As far as she was concerned, Morgan could admit she’d committed several murders and partook in some shady drug lord businesses and she’d probably still be her friend.

As they sat, and Morgan spoke about an accident, Dakota just listened. She was good at listening, but it was more of the “getting it” part she hadn’t mastered -- at least...not when it came to people. The accident she’d described seemed horrific enough. Something Dakota prayed to a God she didn’t believe in that would never happen to her. At first, she was confused as to why she needed to feel her pulse, but her voice trembled, and she could tell this was important to her, so.. She gave it a shot, even though she didn’t quite understand. Placing two fingers on her wrist, Dakota searched for her pulse. She tried several different spots, but she didn’t feel a single beat, and her skin was still ice cold. “So… You have a weak pulse? Because of the accident?” she asked.

“You have to hold it for longer than that,” Morgan hissed. “Here.” She took Dakota by the sleeve and pressed her hand over her heart, firmly, where it would’ve been easy for anyone to feel at least a faint impression of a heartbeat. Morgan held it, and held it, and held it. “I’m trying to tell you I don’t have one anymore,” she whispered. “But I’m trying to prove it to you first. You need to understand that this is real.” She drew in a deep breath (In. Hold. Out.) and made sure Dakota felt it. Her chest expanded, the air flowed, but only because she willed it consciously. There was nothing in her that regulated her existence, no internal rhythm to keep up. Her will and her steady feeding were the only things maintaining her existence. “You can try checking on my neck, you can ask me to hold my breath, whatever you feel like you need to do, but I am trying, very hard, to show you the truth.”

Maybe laughing was a knee-jerk response. Actually, she knew exactly why she started to laugh -- because people laugh when they need to project dignity and control during times of stress and anxiety. In situations like this one, right here and right now, when Dakota was confused on all fronts, and anxious because she knew the truth was that Morgan didn’t have a pulse, or a heartbeat, nor was there even the faintest thumb against the palm of her hand through her chest, her response was to laugh. If there was no pulse -- if there was no beat, no rhythm rattling around in her ribcage, then she must have been… She had to be… Dead. Right? People usually laugh in a subconscious attempt to reduce stress and calm down. However, for Dakota, it often works otherwise.

It took a few moments, but she retracted her hand as if recoiling from a hot flame, and stood up immediately. She didn’t know what to say, much less what to do. She could make a break for it and get the hell out of there, but that depended solely on whether or not her legs would move, because they felt made of lead at the moment. She could continue the awkward, anxious laughter that had first bubbled up but has since dissipated to breathing somewhat shallow, quick breaths. Her thoughts raced, so much so that her words wouldn’t come out, and when they finally did, she sputtered. “Am I -- Am I fucking crazy?”

Morgan let Dakota withdraw her hand and grabbed her jacket, started double checking her pockets and bags to make sure she wouldn’t leave anything behind when she made her hasty exit.

“Them’s the breaks,” One of the pirates said. “Head empty as prawns, these humans.”

“Yes, thank you,” Morgan hissed. He was trying to be comforting, but she didn’t want to hear any of it.

She didn’t meet Dakota’s eyes or look in her vicinity as the woman continued to laugh (laugh) deliriously at what she was being shown. “No, you’re not fucking crazy. What’s fucking crazy is having to spend most of my daylight hours pretending to be alive when I’m not. We don’t have to keep doing this. I can go. You can stay and enjoy the--whatever.”

Dakota realized Morgan was moving quickly, like she was ready to flee the scene of a terrible accident. Pun most definitely not intended. She swallowed thickly, trying to think of something to say, but nothing came, not for a few moments that felt like an eternity when Morgan was getting ready to run. “Morgan, wait, I --” she cut herself off, because she didn’t know what she was asking her to wait for. It was like her mind had shutdown, only functioning on the essentials. “I didn’t mean to -- I just -- I don’t -- It’s not possible, which means you’re a -- You’re dead, but that.. You’re...” she was probably sounding like a basket case at this point, and she decided at that moment to stand up a little straighter, brush the hair out of her eyes. “I… I’ve got to go.” And with that, she practically ran to her car, fired up the engine, and got the hell out of there.

“The word you’re looking for is ‘zombie’,” Morgan said, grumbled between Dakota’s desperate stutters for understanding. She was ready to run right there, but Dakota beat her to it, and she had just enough pride not to race her out of this stupid, stupid idea of an afternoon. Slowly, she pulled on her jacket and arranged her hair over the collar just so, and put on her scarf. There was no need to rush anymore and no one curious enough to see her furiously blink back the sting in her eyes and swallow the lump forming in her throat. “Fucking humans, am I right?” She rasped.

The ghosts agreed, but only in silence.

#alcoholism tw #car accident tw #domestic abuse tw #monsters of the museum #wr dakota #wr chatzy #wr dakota chatzy #wickedswriting

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