there's a place in the stars for when you get old

are we going to prom or to hell?

Veronica could feel all the terrified eyes locked onto her own before her hearing had all of a sudden vanished and her world had become black and void of anything. The looks she received, the many pairs of pupils shrunken to a pinprick and trembling with trepidation, had, for the first time in her apparently short life, failed to shake her. In any other circumstance, such a sight of hundreds of pairs of eyes looking at her with the same misgiving look would fill her with guilt and empathy, but alas once a person's will to live has diminished to the point of strapping a bomb to their own chest, then so has their compassion for their fellow humans.

Nothingness filled Veronica's new lack of a conscience for what felt like both a very long time and a very brisk time. It was a certain kind of nothingness, unlike the 'nothingness' that exists (or rather, cannot exist) on the Earth, this nothingness is true. Not even blackness, for blackness itself is a thing; Veronica was enveloped in nothing.

Eventually, Veronica stopped ceasing to exist, and found herself in a space she couldn't recognise, but... she also could. It was a place she was sure she had never once traversed or even seen, but it felt more familiar than any other environment she had ever been in. And it didn't even feel like she was coexisting with this strange location, it seemed more that she was in it, but she wasn't within it. Her consciousness felt fake and her body felt like an illusion.

Veronica's macabre thoughts were disturbed abruptly by the queerly comforting sound of a familiar guffaw nearby — Although it was less of a sound and more of a vibration that Veronica could feel, but not quite hear. The brunette swivelled her head in the direction of the sound and her gaze laid upon a large building that had not previously been present. The building looked vaguely like Westerburg, yet it also had no qualities about it at all. It wasn't a tangible item that could be described, yet Veronica perceived what it looked like.

Veronica advanced towards the building, where through the windows there could be seen slowly strobing colourful lights. Upon pushing through the doors, everything around Veronica seemed to disappear, save for the scene of a prom laid out before her. Her body had been suddenly donned in the gorgeous royal blue dress she had always wanted to wear to prom, and although she couldn't hear very well, it didn't take a genius to tell that everyone else in the room was somewhat content, if not happy.

Her gaze flitted all around the room and took in the sight of all her fellow students from Westerburg High being jovial and appreciative with each other, moreso than they ever were on Earth. That was another thing – Veronica wasn't sure where she was, however she was certain that it wasn't the same Earth she had lived on for the past seventeen years.

Veronica's brown eyed stare suddenly fixed upon someone she'd immediately recognised, even from the back: A woman of average height, frizzy dirty-blonde hair pulled up into a large and loose bun-adjacent updo and tied together with a bright red bow. Dolled up in a long sleeved turtleneck dress – black-and-white striped on the collar, sleeves and below the torso, black-and-red striped above the torso, with a large black shoulder pad affixed to the right shoulder – a black and white pinstripe corset and several thin black leather cuffs with silver buckles on various places of her body, the woman stood out to Veronica; She recognised that peculiar getup from a vividly harrowing dream she had not long ago.

Veronica pathetically attempted to pull herself up out of an anxious slouch and towards her, but her apparitional feet wouldn't budge. Her eyes followed the plastic cup that the enticing woman held in her slim and manicured hand as she held it above a punch bowl, her other hand reaching for the ladle and pouring a serving of toxically blue liquid into the cup before bringing the drink to her painted red lips.

The contents of the punch bowl were jarring enough to snap Veronica out of her trance, and her eyebrows quickly furrowed together. While she couldn't technically hear, the slow music that was clearly playing from the speakers in the corners of the room could be clearly heard in her head, just not in her ears.