06: Written

[ghostly_heiress]

I'm sorry if no one could contact me for the last two weeks.

And I have a question for the Network.

How common is it for people to temporarily lose all their echoes?

[For anyone who knows her in real life and might have paid attention, she was in the hospital for a good chunk of that time. Nothing like relapsing illnesses.]

Comments

[ghostly_heiress]

At least others have heard about it and it's not necessarily a bad sign.

Thank you.

[evowhisperer]

There don't appear to be any negative side effects beyond those inherent in disappearing from a given group for an extended period of time. Still, if you begin to notice anything out of the ordinary, don't hesitate to let the rest of us know.

*Guess who's been retreating into data and statistical probabilities to cope with loss, lately? Yeah. Three guesses are two more than anyone needs.*

[ghostly_heiress]

Beyond my heart's stopped? Oh, nothing at all.

That's an echo I already had, by the way.

You're being very scientific today.

[evowhisperer]

It's an echo? And you're otherwise still alive and--ah, 'well'?

I am. I've recently opened a few old projects.

[ghostly_heiress]

Alive is a bit of a complicated answer, but I am well and can still function normally. I was apparently a half ghost in the other life.

Which makes no sense, but more than one person has remembered it.

Oh? Anything interesting?

[evowhisperer]

Really?

You're right, that doesn't make much sense. Is it presenting any other problems beyond a probable case of poor circulation?

As for interesting projects, yes, I find them interesting. I've been compiling available data on what powers have been awakened in the numbered, trying to find any repeating trends.

[ghostly_heiress]

Yes. And it's not really a problem of poor circulation as I don't think I have organs. At all.

There does seem to be a lot of variation, though ghost is surprisingly common.

[evowhisperer]

... That does sound problematic. How have you been dealing with this so far?

Are ghosts common? You're the second one I've heard about so far, unless you were actually the first, as well. Are there others?

[ghostly_heiress]

The biggest challenge is to remember to make sure I'm actually breathing, and I can still eat fine. Sleep still seems to be necessary. For some reason ghosts from that life are surprisingly...solid.

There's a few others. Anyone with green blasters, apparently.

[evowhisperer]

That's extremely unusual. How do you eat without internal organs? How do you breath, for that matter?

... Ghosts have green blasters in that past?

[ghostly_heiress]

I'm not sure, actually. I imagine the form reacts to some sort of mental picture. It would explain why the clothes keep manifesting if I take parts off. So if I think I should be breathing, my chest will still move right.

I couldn't tell you about the eating, but it may be under the same premise.

Apparently. It was the first active power I got and others have been saying the same thing.

[evowhisperer]

I would agree on both accounts. Your current body (form?) may be treating the environment and moving with it as it did in life, but actually be absorbing no nutrients from food or oxygen from air. I wonder... If we could get our hands on some sort of spirometer, we could measure to see if your lungs' intake has noticeably changed from that of an ordinary human. A blood sample might show if your lungs are still taking in oxygen.

If you don't have organs, do you still have blood?

Intriguing, if a little bewildering. I'll need to do some research into common ghost and folk stories, to see if anything has changed from current traditional records. It's a common color trick to use green to symbolize the supernatural, but who knows how connected this is to your green blasts.

[ghostly_heiress]

I do. It's the same bright green as the blasts. And I suspect the green my eyes might be? When I get the ghost form echo, at any rate. [NTS: Buy colored contacts and hair dye.] I have someone studying a sample of it from someone else, I didn't have that echo then.

I haven't found much in folk lore about actual energy blasts, or the solidity. Though perhaps it could be something like a derivative of poltergeists, since they're supposed to be able to affect the world more.

[evowhisperer]

Fascinating. Let me know if they find anything out, I'm curious now.

Colorful energy blasts does sound like something more likely found in a book about magic than about ghosts, but poltergeists is probably the easiest place to start of anything ghostly. Are you sure that you're a ghost and not some other supernatural entity whose name you haven't yet found, by the way?

[ghostly_heiress]

Sure. It's always good to have more than one person looking over data.

Half ghost, actually. It's been confirmed I'm related in that life to someone whose had another call him that and it's apparently something that can happen in the...universe? Timeline? We're from.

It may involve aliens.

[evowhisperer]

A half ghost? ... That sounds profoundly unusual, all things considered, but it also sounds like a place to start researching. Thank you.

Oh? Do continue.

[ghostly_heiress]

It is. I'm still not sure how it's possible, but three sources have brought it up now.

Yes. I haven't actually gotten a lot of information on the alien aspect yet, but we might be one too? It may explain how it can be a halfway state.

[evowhisperer]

Three? There are three examples of this phenomenon, then?

That would make sense, if you consider that alien life forms might not be necessarily restricted to the living-dead dichotomy that humans are generally lumped into.

[ghostly_heiress]

Two of the phenomenon, just three who've remembered seeing it.

Yes. It may also explain why we're so solid as ghosts.

[evowhisperer]

Ah.

Solid ghosts? Most stories seem to treat ghosts as singularly unable to interact with the world around them directly, so this could lend further credence to this theory.

Does it appear as though your past selves were otherwise human in appearance, if not in behavior?

[ghostly_heiress]

Yes. All of the other powers, there's at least been something in myths related in some way. The easy solidity is the only part that's really abnormal, though we can become intangible.

There are humans around. He even goes to a school, I believe a high school with how tall most of them were.

[evowhisperer]

I see.

Intriguing. It might not be a reflection of your current biological state as much as one of what echoes you have or haven't yet gotten, but have you had enough time to see if any of you continue to age? If you're half ghost, then initial human appearance aside, it could make blending in at a school very difficult over time.

[ghostly_heiress]

No, I think the solidity is something normal enough. I displayed a super strength in a high stress situation, and if the natural state is intangible, that wouldn't happen.

I think the idea is a ghost and a human had a child somehow, so if that's the case, we'd have to age. I don't have too many memories yet, but it's the impression he's gotten.

[evowhisperer]

Fascinating. Developing super strength sounds like an amplification of an already human tendency, implying that whatever your status is, it relies heavily on human biology for its response cues.

I agree: If you were born as this half-ghost state, then you must have aged to reach the age you're in now. How strange... Do you remember if your ghostly parent aged, and if this was likely a result of your human heritage?

[ghostly_heiress]

So you think the super strength may only exist because I'm half alive and the dead part can copy that and it's not a natural ghost trait?

Not yet. I haven't remembered much of any family besides the other like me on the Network.