From the Vast

Chapter 23: Trauma

The silence filling the clinic room lingered for a while as everyone either processed, or tried to process the implications of Anne's realization. Autumn's eyes went wide after just a moment as it all clicked for her, but others were much less successful.

And that included Sage.

"~Huh?~"

As astonished as this human was at something, the Phantump couldn't quite piece together what it was exactly. She recognized the last word the girl had said from somewhere, but not what it meant, leading her to tilt her head a bit.

"~Wh-what do you mean?~"

Anne didn't expect that reaction in the slightest. It made her doubt her own observation for a moment before she shook it aside. Regardless of whether they understood her, they still clearly spoke Unovan, and almost certainly used to be a human.

Used to.

Maybe they just didn't remember what 'Unovan' meant? Not a word most use often in their daily lives, very few people spoke anything other than it, outside of large cities, at least. Ultimately, though, none of that truly mattered. What mattered is that Anne felt both concerned and sorry for the ghost child in front of her, and wanted to help them somehow.

And that required them to meet each other first.

"~Umm... nevermind. Hi, m-my name is Anne! What's yours?~"

Thankfully, the human's meeting had the desired result. Her understandable voice, unknowingly made even more so with Autumn's help, was friendly and warm, something Sage couldn't get enough of. After shaking some of her previous shock, she hovered over closer and spoke up again, her words much more upbeat this time.

"~I'm Sage! Nice to meet you, Anne!~"

The ghost's greeting clarified two things in Anne's mind, one much more harrowing than the other. They were obviously a girl, and clearly a young one at that, younger than even her. The slight distortion when Sage spoke made it difficult to estimate exactly how old she sounded, but she couldn't have been older than seven or eight years old.

"Hello, Sage!"

Ember's woofed greeting took the hauntling aback, but she got over her own surprise quickly. In no time, she had hovered over to the firefox and introduced herself to her too—and then, the rest of the room. Each of her greetings were warmer and more energetic, all the pleasant interactions only making her more eager towards having more and more of them. She was rather skittish when talking to Grace in particular, though, which Anne... couldn't blame her for.

A nice—if slightly blunt—Zangoose was still a Zangoose after all, and even the older girl would need a lot more exposure before she could finish reclassifying the sight from 'run away NOW' to 'person'. She knew full well that broad categorizations like that helped nobody, but they lingered in her mind, whether she liked that fact or not.

Might as well take them head-on and work through them instead of pretending they aren't a thing.

Autumn ended up being the last person to meet the ghostie, still rather stunned. Enough so to make Sage speak up and ask if there was something wrong, making the Indeedee lightly shake her head and offer the lil' one a hug. One gladly taken—surprisingly so, considering Sage's previous skittishness.

The most welcome kind of 'surprisingly'.

As the situation in the room calmed down enough for the visiting kids to gradually drift back chattering among themselves and for Anne to come to terms with this Phantump some two feet away from her being a dead girl, the human heard a familiar voice in her head. It was clearly Autumn's, but... slightly muffled, its contents quickly clarifying why that was.