Ghosts Shouldn't Be This Annoying

Wait, Who Are All These People?

"V- vwait," you stutter. "But- Mayor English- he- he's in charge-"

She laughs in your faces, long and loud. "Mayor English? He's not in charge of anything! My name is Marie Serket- you should know me, Cronus," she sneers.

Recognition and memories hit you in a flash. Serket. The Serket family, the ones who lived in the house for a bit before your father chased them out because Eridan was making out with Vriska too much-

"Vwriska is your daughter. You're... Marie. You livwed in our house," you murmur.

She cackles, "I'm so glad you remember! I can't believe you would think English had anything to do with your deaths- although your father and him did have a petty rivalry going. Pathetic. It was nothing like the rivalry your father and I had! We both competed to rule the town, and collect more land than the other- it was thrilling." Her expression turns ugly suddenly, "Then he had to go and piss me off, didn't he? Yes, he didn't find our rivalry fuuuuuuuun anymore. He wanted to focus more on you brats, as I recall!"

You stand there, shocked. Orpheus never made an effort with you guys, alive or dead. That doesn't seem possible. Although...

In your teenage years (the alive ones), you focused a lot on school. And by school you mean picking up cat and kittens, and... getting rejected by said cats and kittens. You messed around with your brother sometimes, but because your dad never payed attention to you, you didn't pay attention to him. But you do vaguely remember him always going out on real estate calls, then that suddenly stopping and him... trying to talk to you more.

Aw, shit.

Marie is still monologuing, "So our exciting rivalry burned to a crisp. Sad, yes, and I was so angry! Nobody throws Marie away like that! His wife left him years ago, he had no reason to leave me! So I had no choice. He needed to go. And not to another town- nobody else could have a rivalry like that with him, since I'll never have a rivalry like that again. I recruited an... old friend, plus someone I found online, and we took your father out. We also took you and your brother out, because it would be a shame to orphan two beautiful boys, wouldn't it?" she pouts at you.

"Um, it's also a shame to, you knowv, kill tvwo teenage boys," you deadpan.

"Specifics, specifics! Point is, I took care of you, but you three seem to keep coming back, and with more friends," she turns to frown at Mituna, who had been silent this entire time, shocked into silence probably. "And he's alive. Amazing!"

You move protectively in front of Mituna, guarding him the best you can with your ghostly body that seems to be becoming more and more solid as time goes on. "Don't- don't look at him."

Marie pauses, obviously surprised, thinks a moment, then doubles over, laughing. "Oh, don't tell me you love him! Aw, how precious. And you think you can protect him! Truly amazing," she laughs even harder.

{}

Your name is again Simon Captor and you're dealing with your ex-wife and some angry dude.

"You came down here for- for money? And for fun? To kill a family you don't even know?" you interrupt her, still shocked but now confused too.

Anne shrugs, "Well, sure! It was exciting, for sure! My boss, as I was saying, she owns a lot of land and she said-"

"Woah, hang on, hold up. She? Isn't your boss Lord English?" you interrupt, even more confused.

Anne pauses, then laughs a laugh that hurts you right in your heart- it's the same laugh from when she cleaned up the twins' messes.

"No, of course not! In the diary, I changed my maiden name to my married name for privacy, and since we weren't naming the boss, we switched the pronouns around a little bit. You haven't met my boss, I don't believe. No, you haven't, I'm sure you would remember her. Although..." she turns to Orpheus. "You've met her! Oh, but I won't spoil your fun, I'm not telling you-"

"Marie." It's the first word Orpheus has said in a while, and he says it with such an awed tone, like a sudden realization, that you put your hand on his shoulder in concern, audience be damned. You don't even know who this Marie is, but she's a force to be reckoned with, by Orpheus's tone.

"No, no!" Anne whines, putting her hands on her hips. "You weren't supposed to guess! This wasn't a, uh- guessing game, it was supposed to be a surprise!"

"Who's Marie?" you murmur to Orpheus.

"She used to live in our house, but I knew her before I died," Orpheus replies quietly.

"You mean before we murdered you, yes! She reached out to me and when I arrived, I met her and her friend- oh, I don't believe I've introduced him! Since we're going to kill you anyway and get rid of your ghosts somehow, I might as well make pleasantries. This is Gaderel," Anne says, gesturing to the big scary dude.

He rolls his eyes, but nods at you and Orpheus anyway.

You have trouble processing that the dude's name is Gaderel, then that she said they were going to kill you. "What? You can't- hang on- kill us-"

"Hold on," Orpheus murmurs, then clears his throat. "Hold on," he repeats, then sends you a glance with a clear message.

Run.

"This has been a huge misunderstanding-" he starts, and you don't wait for another signal. You book it, right out of the doors. You hear sudden angry shouting behind you, and you spare a thought for Orpheus- no, he can go ghost or whatever, hopefully he's fine- and you're running down hallways.

You don't even know where you're going, all the hallways look fucking identical, but you guess that's a bonus, considering you're being chased. You can still hear footsteps thundering behind you, and more angry shouting- one in a deep voice, one in a higher-pitched voice- and they're all echoing around you, you don't even know where they are, you need to hide now-

You burst into a random room and close the door behind you as quickly but as quietly as you can, then, panting, survey the room in front of you. There's a knocked over chair, some rope lying next to it, and quiet voices coming from a door at the other end of the room. You're immediately on alert again, grabbing the nearest weapon-like thing- which happens to be the chair- and you walk towards the door slowly.

The voices get clearer as you get closer, and you can tell enough that there's two of them- just enough you can take down with a weapon. You get closer and closer until you reach the door, and you can see it's locked. Why would it be locked? Maybe whatever is inside is dangerous.

You heft your chair up, then slowly unlock the door. The voices continue inside- they haven't heard anything yet. You then grasp the doorknob, take a deep breath, and yank the door open with one hand, brandishing your chair weapon with the other.

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i'm all about those cliffhangers babey!!! some notes: marie is mindfang i just made up her name, it sounds vaguely frenchy and piratey so whoot. and gaderel is the grand highblood, i wanted to pick a badass name and so jewish demon it is yay!!