❀| Town of Salem

drabble dump

i can't bring myself to write an actual, proper oneshot so have these random snippets instead. also, it's mostly dialogue because i need to practice it more.

these are half-arsed but i hope you enjoy them anyway???

...

"Ms. Mort?"

The young blonde stood idly by the old lady's door, knocking it in a frenzied sort of rhythmn. She'd been doing so for the past five minutes, calling out her name in case she hadn't heard the first couple of times. She had almost turned around to leave since she'd figured the elder was probably taking a nap when the door creaked open.

"Ari? Is that you?"

Ms. Mort appeared, door now fully opened. Her entire face seemed to be scrunched up into a tight ball of paper as she squinted her eyes. Her already completely white hair was tied back into a firm bun and the wrinkles across her forehead seemed to be more evident than usual. Ari had never seen old age catch up to the woman as much as now.

"Yes, it's me. Ari."

Ms. Mort gave her a slight nod, her hand loosening its grip on the doorknob. "Dear, there's no need to call me that. Eliza is fine."

"Ms. M- Eliza," Ari began, voice hushed down to a whisper. Her eyes suddenly started darting about as if she was afraid of someone noticing them. "We need to talk. About the.... 'team's' safety."

Eliza tilted her head slightly, eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "No need to worry, dear. We can discuss this later on during the night's meeting."

"We won't have a night's meeting if we don't talk about this now." Ari's eyes stopped their frantic movement, their gaze now instead focused on the shorter woman. Her entire demeanor practically screamed desperation (fear?).

"Oh dear, is it really that bad?"

"Yes."

...

"Have you always believed that ghosts existed?"

Anna shrugged her shoulders. "Kind of, I guess. I've always wondered what it would be like if they were actually real, but I didn't believe in them."

The floating, semi-transparent man formed an 'o' with his mouth at her response. His lanky arms dangled at their sides, almost as if he were really a puppet rather than a person that was once alive.

"I thought mediums weren't real back then, that their ability to talk to ghosts was all fake. But I know they are now, or uh, at least when I died."

Arms crossed over the clothed table, she looked up at Daniel. He was watching her with a hint of curiosity in his eyes, like he was studying her every move and expression. She squirmed a little under his gaze. She never really enjoyed being the center of attention, even if it was a one on one conversation.

"Aa- I'm sorry," he squeaked out, noticing her uncomfortableness. His eyes widened in guilt and he began waving his hands about wildly. "I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable, it's just, a force of habit. It's a bad excuse, I know, but I'm sorry. I.... really am.... sorry. I'm sorry."

"O-oh, it's fine. Really, it's fine! I'm just get a bit uncomfortable talking to others so much."

"If that's the case, I can leave if you want. I don't want to make you uncomfortable." He gave her a worried look and in return, she crumpled from regret for what she had said earlier. God, why did she always screw up in social situations?

"No, no, that's not what I meant!"

Daniel flinched at her sudden raise in volume. She quickly looked down, finding the floor to be suddenly the mostly interesting thing in the room.

"No, I like talking to you. I really do. I'm just not used to it, talking to other people so much. That's what I meant."

He didn't seem to buy her words; he was furrowing his brow in disbelief, after all. But he let his body relax anyway, turning his frown upside down into a small, slightly unsure smile.

"I like talking to you, too."

...

"You reek of cigarettes."

Ellis didn't bother saying anything new in response; he simply replied with the same old,"I smoked recently, so that's to be expected." Medea would always say the same thing afterwards, anyway.

"It's just not a very pleasant smell, and I was simply stating the obvious as a conversation starter. What's wrong with that?"

"There are plenty of other conversation starters you could've used instead. It's quite a stupid thing to say if you already knew what I was going to reply with beforehand."

"Well, look at what we're doing right now, Ellis. We're talking, so I think we both know who's really in the right."

"Yes, I can agree with that. It certainly was me."

Medea stopped dead in her tracks, turning to stare at the man with a dumbfounded expression. She crossed her arms over chest and knitted her eyebrows together into a firm deadpan, as if to say "Seriously?". She still, however, let out a laugh only moments later.

"You always laugh because of that. Doesn't that bore you, laughing at words that have been repeated so many times that it really shouldn't be considered funny anymore?"

"Oh, look who's talking again. I know that you know exactly what will happen right after this."

A small smile, tugging at the corner of Ellis's lips, was exactly what happened right after that.

...

Anthony Restin smoked. He'd spend a good chunk of his time with a cigarette in his mouth, eyes watching the grey smoke rise into the stagnant air of Salem. Maybe he did it too much for his own good, maybe he simply needed to find a better habit. He really couldn't care much, as long as he just had something to do other than sticking his nose into the local Mafia's business or making sure his sister wasn't doing anything stupid.

He'd always try and toke on at least one cigar before sneaking off to spy on the town's own little murderous syndicate. Inhaling those clouds of grey smog, they helped calm his nerves that in all honestly, actually didn't need to be calmed. He just needed some assurance that he was indeed awake, not stuck in some kind of nutjob dream where everybody was suspect to being some kind of crazy psycho.

There was a tree nearby him and his sister's shared house. It was a simple tree, with an unremarkable brown bark and dull green leaves clinging to its otherwise bare branches. It was nothing special, which was what he needed. Just somewhere he could smoke during the night when his sister was around; she couldn't stand the smell of smoke, always having coughing fits whenever she caught a whiff of it.

So he'd sit under that boring old tree every night, inhaling the practically toxic smell of tobacco. The moon and perhaps a few stars would hang in the darkness overhead, the only things emitting light though quite ominously.

Then again, what wasn't ominous in Salem? There was a reason he was doing what he did, after all.