a simple question; (cw: death/dying discussion)

[icanhearscreams]

[An unsigned note appears on the bulletin board, written in extremely neat handwriting. There's a few smudges on it from erased lines, as if the author wrote it over and over again.]

Is anyone else here dead?

[Just five words. No signature. He'll see how this turns out.]

Comments

[unsheathedfromreality]

Yes.

[Also no signature.]

[icanhearscreams]

At least I'm not the only one. It's weird when people insist I'm not.

[unsheathedfromreality]

Agreed.

Can't blame the living too much though. Conventionally they are the ones to declare things dead.

Not often the dead have a voice in the matter.

[icanhearscreams]

Not usually, no. And I can't decide whether or not to be mad that I'm here rather than just gone.

[unsheathedfromreality]

Easy to be angry if you were expecting rest until the next life.

Would it be useful?

[icanhearscreams]

The anger? Probably not. It's just hard to know what to feel.

[unsheathedfromreality]

Not much precedent to go on, is there. For what the dead should feel.

But you do still feel things? Like you did before death?

[icanhearscreams]

I can, yes. At least as far as I can tell.

Sometimes I wish I didn't.

[unsheathedfromreality]

It can be useful not to.

It can also be a liability.

Why? [Why does he wish that, sometimes?]

[icanhearscreams]

[He pauses. He's being anonymous, but he's not sure how much to reveal.]

Saw a lot of things I should be angry about. And upset in general about.

[unsheathedfromreality]

So it might not serve but it would be just.

I can understand that.

Anything you're worried would happen again here?

[icanhearscreams]

I don't know if this counts as a version of Earth, so it might not have to participate in the 'game' that I did. But if you see giant robots around... I don't know. I just hope we don't.

[unsheathedfromreality]

A version of Earth? If it were some other place it wouldn't count?

[icanhearscreams]

As far as I know it was only versions of Earth that were fighting each other. But as far as I know there's only life on Earth in my universe.

[unsheathedfromreality]

[That ... is a very interesting notion. An interesting potential parallel.]

Why were they fighting?

[icanhearscreams]

Because if they didn't, they would be destroyed.

Why the 'game' was there in the first place, no idea.

[unsheathedfromreality]

I assume the losers were destroyed anyway regardless of participation.

[icanhearscreams]

Yes. Running away counts as losing.

[unsheathedfromreality]

A familiar 'game' then.

Beasts that are too alike often don't abide each other in their territory. Why should realities be any different?

[That's. ... He only realizes long after he's written it that that's awfully dispassionate. Dismissive.]

I would be angry, too. To be caught in that.

Thinking beings should be able to compromise not murder each other.