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This is the life, Marcy thinks. Well afterlife, she amends after some thought. Visiting all her own haunts (pun not intended), staying at the library long past closing hours… there was something freeing about being dead. She gets to do so many things now she would never have been alive to do in life. Life for Marcy had consisted of grades, uncomfortable clothing, and the knowledge that nothing would change.
Until amphibia.
Marcy paused. She didn't want to think about Amphibia.
Sure it, was fun at first, she supposed, but nothing lasts forever.
And now Marcy was dead.
Her small hands that wouldn't ever have the chance to grow tightened around the chains of the swings. She couldn't even rely on pain to ground her, ghosts didn't feel pain. She hopped off the swing set, her converse making no impact on the ground. She walked away from the playground, no real destination in mind.
Marcy had the oddest feeling she was forgetting something.
LA is a big city, loud and chaotic, almost impossible to get anywhere unless you were familiar with the area. Marcy had plenty of time to explore it, but there was still only a select few places she frequented the most often. The park, the school, the library, and… her grave.
It was across town, but when you're a ghost, distance means almost nothing.
That was until she got a certain distance away.
More specifically, where LA ended and the neighboring towns and cities began.
No matter, LA was entertaining enough, Marcy supposed.
And besides, she had Anne and Sasha.
Far too soon, Marcy saw her tombstone come into view. it was nothing dramatic, a simple epitaph reading, Marcy Wu: beloved daughter and friend.
Marcy hates it.
Her parents had picked it out, the simple design and words were far too bland. Marcy wished she had had a say, she would have picked something a little more interesting. Perhaps, "Game Over." It clever and reflected Marcy's love of gaming.
Marcy chuckled at her own joke, and it was only then that she saw the cupcake sitting on her grave, a single candle sticking out. The wick was blackened, it had been lit previously. She cocked her head and crouched down to inspect it. Vanilla with colored specks.
Birthday cake flavor.
Her eyes focused on the gravestone behind the cupcake, the small inscription at the bottom stating her date of birth and death.
If she had any breath left, it would surely be caught in her throat.
It was her birthday.
It was her birthday, and she'd forgotten.
Marcy collapsed right then and there, the gravity seemingly increasing on her frail body, pulling her towards the earth's core to rest one final time. She felt like crying, but nothing came out. She wanted to scream and cry and die all over again, she wanted to pull out her hair and yell at the heavens at the injustice, she wanted to bang her head on that stupid tombstones until she felt something, anything.
And yet, despite all her efforts, despite all her desperate attempts to make a sound, cause an impact, to make the world acknowledge her presence, nothing happened.
Marcy manages to collect herself, lifting herself from the ground to stare down that stupid tombstone.
Marcy should be used to this by now.
She should be used to this, but somehow it surprises her every time at her lack of existence.
She wonders, not for the first time, if it's really anything new.