Survival Of The Fittest

“There might be a ghost costume behind me, but there’s no ghosts,” Marshall said firmly. “But if there was, I’m sure they’d want you to drink safely, too.”

As Ethan raised his hand to check Liya’s perception, Marshall’s gaze darted over the party once more. As it did, he saw someone with a mask over his face scoop up a near-full bottle of something brown and in a bottle and bolt, possibly aware that Marshall was watching.

“Hey! You can’t consume that entire bottle! That is grossly irresponsible!” Marshall bellowed, before be bolted in that direction. Though not before pointing back at Ethan and going, “You got this!”

Yeah, Ethan had the responsibilities here handled. Marshall had to stop this potential overdose before it happened, or at least check that he was sharing the bottle with another… well, he didn’t know how many standard drinks were in a bottle of brown whatever, but that many.

With that, Marshall sprinted off into the party to be a buzzkill elsewhere.

((Marshall West continued elsewhere.))

Liya slowly blinked.

Then burst out in rapturous laughter. Oh my fucking god, he really thought he was doing something. This wasn't even Liya at her weirdest, and he's already breaking out the "how many fingers am I holding up" like she was about to drink herself to death. And in reaction to what? A slavic word he didn't understand? The fairly widespread belief that ghosts were real?

Fucking little boy.

The laughter stopped very suddenly. "Three."

Something was missing from the scene. Her eyes darted to the side. The guy who gave her the ice water she nearly choked on had vanished from the scene of his crime.

He was also a little boy. Like a little baby. Liya knew for a fact some of those ghosts wanted her to drink herself merry. To death, even.

The laughter was weird and sudden, but the girl managed to asnwer his question correctly. That seemed good enough.

"Well then," Ethan took a quick look at the remaining boze. "Guess i will go and see what else is up. Take care."

With this words, he gave a short nod and disappeared into the mass of people.

((Ethan Kemp continued elsewhere))








... or at least that was what he wanted her to believe.

In truth he stuck around, hopefully barely out of her sight, to watch what she would do now that she was seemingly unsupervised once more. If her first action was to down a bottle wine, he would have to interfere again.

Liya nodded - once, and carefully - as he left.

Good riddance.

She tipped her cup ever so slightly towards her. It hadn't even been a minute and she was having trouble remembering how full it was, which was not at all. She opened her mouth, as if to yell where's the tap?!

And then, her phone rang. When she lifted it to her face and squinted, she saw Anna's name on the screen. Her breath caught. What a weird time to call. What happened now?

"Huh- hey, Anna. What's up?"

"...Oh, no, yeah, I'm at a party. Got a little fucked up. No worries though. But uh... you sound upset."

"...oh no... go on?"

"...oh my god. That's just-"

"...wha- no! Don't say that! You-" She sighed. "I know that's what- that's what she wants you to think yeah? That if you behaved better, if you did better in school, it'd all be better. She'd be better."

"...but that's a lie. It's not your fault. Don't say that about yourself!"

"...you wanna go for waffles? I can't exactly drive right now, but-"

"...yeah. Yeah. The one near your place. Yeah, I can get there."

"...yeah. Take care of yourself, okay? See you soon."

And with that the call ended. Liya put her phone away, and made her way out of the party.

[Iliya Polaris continued in Skateballing, Anyone?]

Ethan watched the non-witchy ghost-believer leave.

In a different universe where the phone call didn't interrupt her, she might have gone for another drink, forcing Ethan to take action. But that were the problems of another Ethan.

Seeing how Marshal was still around, this universe's Ethan figured that he might as well have some fun. That was the point of a party, after all.

Time to awkwardly shuffle around on the dancefloor!

((Ethan Kemp continued elsewhere))