#can't believe no oc had escaped from the cult in this story

[lyraarylfyrefly]

oh no! i had thoughts about one of my characters. i decided her name is/was Idris which does NOT help cause i still don't have an actual name for her

she's heavily linked to flat out destruction and escaped a death cult that instilled the idea that she was only meant for destruction

she escaped when she was like 12 and both idolizes and hates the person who seems to be the cult's prophesied savior who will either end the world or the cult bc it was meant to be her and she's glad it wasn't.

she subconsciously believes that she can only destroy and makes herself miserable because of it

she decides to become a magical girl bc maybe then a monster can kill her but she lies to everyone (including herself) and says it's for the money

she's great at fighting but never strategizes unless direct fighting is not an option

she inherently thinks everyone but her relatives from the death cult are better people than her morally

she thinks she's a weapon, and she thinks she doesn't deserve anything she's ever gotten since she escaped

[notsogreatpotoo]

my guy my girlboss my mushroom bud what ocs do you have please share them <3

hihihi i love u

this might be long as shit sorry

I will start with my son

Alder Scott is my OC for my hunger games fic (called Written In The Sand by nightjar_writing on ao3) and he is my child. I love him so much. He's a black kid from District 7 and his story starts when he is sixteen. He has a shit relationship with his parents but he absolutely adores his baby sister Ash, and he is really protective over anyone he gets attached to. He has a problem with interpreting or letting himself feel all of his emotions because he's often forced to repress emotions like anger and fear. I made a playlist for him. His only healthy coping mechanism is forcing himself to stop and take a few deep breaths every once in a while. He does embroidery. Reminders of his life and his trauma lurk around every corner. I have drawn him multiple times. Anything he does to escape leads him back down a parallel road. He's good at manipulating the Capitol but also gets manipulated pretty easily. He sucks at remembering names. He has so much trauma.

Emmet and Elliot are my time and dimension hopping self insert OCs. They're the characters I use to figure shit out; if I haven't written about a certain character, time period, fandom, AU, etc before (or in a while), I plop one of them into the world and see how their interactions go. Emmet is current me, hence the name, and tey came first as a way to cope with dysphoria. (Writing in third person about myself being gendered correctly helps bc I can't come out rn.) Elliot is child or teen me.

Dolohar currently lives in my head, but he's a trans man who became a god of irreversible change after being kidnapped and nearly sacrificed by a cult. The goddess the cult tried to summon was mistakenly called the goddess of blood, but she was actually the goddess of war, and she rescued him and gave him his godhood because she rarely has the chance to save innocents and she wasn't going to pass up the opportunity. Dolohar is brown with choppy black hair and eyes that appear orange in his more divine form. He's most commonly interpreted as a god of grief, and so he's associated with funeral flowers and mourning clothes, but he's scarred all over and some of his scars are visible no matter what he wears. A friend he had in his mortal life grows a bit too obsessive and starts a cult in his name, but Dolohar trusts his friend and doesn't realize this isn't normal god worship until after many people have been hurt.

I could make a whole post about a dormant WIP called Runaways and Soldiers, remind me to do that later bc that project has six main characters

Daisy also mostly lives in my head, but she's a trans girl in a coming of age romance story where she comes out to a guy she's been friends with basically forever and the more she starts to act more like herself around him the more he starts to fall for her. She loves blogging and playing video games.

Erch, Krit, and Seki all belong to the same story. Erch is a young human man who grew up in a militaristic organization as a recruiter in a world ravaged by radioactive aftereffects of a nuclear war. Mutations were common, but as someone born underground, Erch only has some adverse affects on his health. The underground was a mess of ongoing war and fortresses containing the super rich, but Erch was raised to believe that the organization was a safe haven that provides resources and work for all. It was only when he was a young teenager that his thoughts changed, because a girl with pointed ears and white freckles is rumored to have survived a white zone- zones that were the epicenter of nuclear impact, named for the blinding white flashes that occurred during detonation. He's sent on a suicide mission to investigate, and the girl presses a hand covered in light (aka, healing magic) to his uniform just before he leaves, which ultimately saves him from breaking down too soon. He discovers a portal in the white zone that leads him to a world in which elves, dwarves, and other mythical peoples are common, and while they are more resistant to radiation poisoning than humans, it is still affecting them to the point where all creatures living near the open portal take health potions or practice healing magic. Erch is then faced with a choice; does he risk condemning the world that he knows but one that is full of warlike, desperate, and corrupt people by closing the portal? or does he risk killing an entirely new world full of magic and people who have only shown kindness to him? It is at this time that he is taken in by Krit, a nonbinary goblin who was raised by a human witch a long time ago. Humans have become rarer and rarer ever since most of the portals between worlds closed, so Krit shields him from those who are too curious or obsessive about humans. Krit lives on the floor above their business (Taproot's Bar and Restaurant), but they're regularly harassed by dwarven customers (due to a series of wars that previously happened in the region called the Goblo-Dwarven Wars) and Erch doesn't want to add more stress to Krit's plate so he stays quiet about the portal situation and basically feels like he has to figure it all out himself until he has a breakdown one night and tells Krit, who reassures him that that's not the type of decision a child should have to make and a council made up of representatives from the surrounding regions eventually decide to close the portal after attempts to communicate with the humans on the other side end in attacks. As Erch grows up, he eventually becomes a vigilante type helper in his town after a corrupt leader is replaced by a pack of lycanthrope women. He's around thirty when he and Krit meet Seki, a young elf girl who was banished for becoming friends with a centaur (elves have hated the centaurs for centuries). Seki is chased into Taproot's after trying to pickpocket a group of dwarves (who also hate her on principle because the elves used to tax the dwarves) and she hides under a table. Krit is accused of hiding her on purpose when she comes out of the kitchen, the dwarves go to find the Guardian (aka, Erch), Erch finds Seki and returns the money to the dwarves, and Krit asks if Seki is hungry. Erch is wary of elves due to having a centaur friend who was killed by one, but once he hears Seki's story he no longer wants to turn her in and he bids them goodbye. Krit basically adopts Seki, and Erch eventually becomes a big brother figure to her and helps them sort out all the paperwork. Krit has never actually paid taxes. Erch is tired. Seki is glad to have a family.

Jasper Broadbank is a serial killer and amateur writer who swore off killing after becoming attached to his last target; he killed his fiance and now is reminded of that fact all the time because William Rexburgs's (his dead fiance's) family practically took him in after William's death (which they did not know he caused). He dies in a car accident after driving on icy roads, and the only ones who come to his funeral are the Rexburgs. He is guilt and manipulation and lying personified, and while his story needs a lot of editing since I wrote it my sophomore year of high school, it's a great example when showing how much better my writing is now.

Maxwell Anderson is a high school theater teacher by day, supervillain with a dramatic flair by night, and after finding out that his vigilante archnemesis is a child, he ends up parenting the boy from the sidelines while trying to execute his own plans and flirting with the boy's superhero mentor.

Nolan Cormier is part of an AU where the Avengers get a YouTube channel in order to control their image a little better and it butterfly effects the way for the Sokovia Accords to be thwarted before they're a big problem. Nolan is a marketing dude who works for Stark and gets caught up in their bullshit because he gets to know them through filming the videos and conducting interviews.

Ophelia Rousseau is a French woman who gets isekaied into the time right before the events of Phantom of the Opera and helps out Erik by writing an opera called cirque de l'éphémère, in which Honoré is a merchant who travels and sells his wares alongside a circus because it brings in the crowds, but falls in love with a beautiful acrobat in the show named Charlotte. Charlotte is the daughter of the strict old ringmaster, and she secretly longs to be away from the circus. When he confesses to her, she pretends to be in love with him to secure her freedom, and so they run away together and get married. Honoré notices that Charlotte has become distant and always wants to go out on trips and explore the world, and his insecurity turns him into a controlling, domineering type of husband. Charlotte, realizing that she has simply fled from one trap to another, tries to smuggle herself away in a chest he’s promised to another merchant, but she’s caught and poisoned to make a statement to her husband by the merchant, who thinks she’s been sent to trick him out of a good deal. Her body is sent back to Honoré, who is horrified to realize how he has driven her away and into more danger and slits his own throat. Basically, the opera forces Erik to confront his controlling attitude when it comes to Christine. Ophelia also is the reason why I know too much about enucleation, because her eye had to be taken out after an accident, and she wears an eye patch. She writes under the name Odin. She's a little pretentious, and a little standoffish, but mostly because she's never known how to act around other people.

thank u so much for this ask, if you ever want to hear more I will tell you, these are literally the OCs I could think of just off the top of my head bc I write a lot more fanfic than I do original fic but I have more lol

if you actually read this far you are the best :]

[aita-blorbos]

[OC AITA (anon so hopefully no one finds all those spoilers)]

Content Warning: cults, fictional religion, religious fanaticism, burning alive, asphyxiation mention, drug mentions, also this is a horror story

AITA for burning down a cult? Literally?

So, I (adult, F) was part of a religious cult that believed that there was a God in a realm between minds, I was there since I was little until around 17-18 when I did the "event".

This mind realm can be accessed through a powder that is sniffed (and is NOT cocaine before anyone assumes this) and kinda "deactivate" your senses, allowing you to go there, which is something all the cult members did at least once.

Their leader, which I'm gonna call Mask (adult, ??) cause Mask never showed their face, told the members that only those who are "pure" (like the Christian Inquisition meaning + never killing anyone) can talk to this God and live with it on the realm after death. And apparently only Mask and a few people ever got to, but Mask "decided to stay and spread the word".

But, when someone find they're "impure", the only act of redemption they can do is getting into the cult's gas chamber with a fire and burn themselves to death, a point that'll be important later.

Anyways, context aside, around 17-18 I started discovering secrets that Mask has hidden from the other members about the other few people that got to "ascend" as they call it. Their bodies were rotting in a hidden room with no life in their eyes, like they were stuck in the mind realm, but they could still talk and all I could hear is "get me outta here".

When I brought this up to my friends C and B (minors at the time, adults now, both M), they both were in denial that Mask would do anything like this, which I expected from them since they're part of Mask's family, but C changed his mind after going to see it by himself.

Me and C made a plan to tell this to the other members but we were caught and sent to the gas chamber for "conspiracy against Mask" which was never a rule since no one had attempted this before. B was still denying and didn't make part of the plan but got sent to the chamber too for knowing about the plan and not telling anything.

Since they would only open the chamber once there was an explosion or if there was no sound after some hours (died by asphyxiation), I put the gas in one side of the room flapping a sheet of paper and exploded it, giving some burns but nothing fatal. Once the door opened, we ran out of the room, but the gas kept leaking (guess they forgot to close it). I picked a torch to keep the guards away, and when we escaped, I threw the torch, unintentionally exploding the "house" and burning everyone inside.

I... I know this was years ago and it was a horrible thing to do, even accidentally but... I don't feel any remorse for it. The way they treated and threatened and traumatized me, C, B and other people is something I can't and won't forget, and I can't help but laugh at the irony of Mask dying the same way their cult "indirectly" (in their view) killed so many others.

But... since I reunited with C and B, I wonder if I was in the wrong here, at least in involving them. C still shivers at the mention of that day, though he did move on, but B has nightmares about that day and still hears Mask's voice in his head...

And... I feel like I'm no better than that cult, having traumatized B and C so much. So, AITA?

[six-of-ravens]

oc questionnaire

tagged by @princesshoneytea (thank you!!). apologies if this makes no sense cause i don't consistently talk about my writing here, but it looked like fun so im gonna do it anyway!!

favourite oc: probably James. Hot doctor, trans man, British expat who lives either on a spaceship or a cottage in Iceland. impeccable snark. originally from the 1830s, but then died trying to escape from a vampire blood mage and ended up on an intergalactic quest that....never ended, because he married the MacGuffin of said quest.

newest oc: uhhhh Kitty and Theo from a story just called "50s thing" about newlyweds who move to the desert to work on a secret scientific research base. Shenanigans and possible time travel ensue. Theo is a theoretical physicist and Kitty is a housewife (and happy about it, she considers housework, cooking, and sewing to be her "only" skills. Obviously there is more to her than that but, that's where she's at in her head after escaping from a neglectful household where she basically had to raise her younger siblings).

oldest oc: Ari! A healer who lives in a cottage in a fairytale-esque world i made up when I created her when i was 11, and refuse to change. She's tough as nails and yet soft when you need her, though if you get on her bad side she will make you clean her floors. Also, if you're a particular sort of miserable wet dog of a person and stand near her for more than 10 seconds, she will legally adopt you. Non-negotiable. That is how she became James' and Keiyel's mother.

meanest oc: this is a tough one but probably June from my urban fantasy world. She's not mean so much as mistrusting of new people, but she'll also go off on you if you treat her/others poorly (I believe one of her introductory scenes involves her Karening at a shop owner for trying to pass off opalite (glass) as moonstone). She's bi, and somewhat butch, but grew up in a very homophobic household and therefore has a massive chip on her shoulder that she's still healing.

softest oc: ironically, Seneca, June's younger sister, from that same story. She likes to think she's "not naive, I just have faith in humanity :)" but she's 18, so...she's super naive anyway. She means well though, and her plot involves learning how to function in the adult world (after a very sheltered childhood) while still keeping her softness.

most aloof/standoffish oc: Eliza from North! She doesn't mean to be, she's just a) socially awkward, b) an aristocrat who's expected to be a bit standoffish, and c) a bit deluded about her skills with the sword. A big chunk of the first part of North is her getting taken down a peg or three.

dumbest (affectionate) oc: I'm sure there's a dumber one but I can't think of them right now, so Maris from North. Upper class merchant's daughter who runs away to follow Eliza on a dangerous, impulsive trip to Anteria, the magical, arctic country next door. She's not dumb so much as sheltered and a bit too convinced of the reality of adventure novels.

smartest oc: Probably James, but I already talked about him so I'll say Keiyel, a "wizard" who "minmaxed wisdom and intelligence" and is therefore incredibly intellectually smart, and basically uses her magic to perform complex particle physics experiments, but also like, buys her acid from a cult on Etsy (this is real, there was (is still?) a cult called Weird Hollywood Youth who would make and sell acid on etsy labelled as "blotting paper." Their leader also has the Nbisco logo tattooed onto his head. Don't ask me why. I just co-opted that for Keiyel because it seemed like the kind of dumb thing she'd do lol). Is well-known for showing up injured horribly and proudly announcing "I learned how to turn radioactive isotopes into magical energy!" or some shit. She's very lucky James is her adoptive brother.

oc i'd like to be friends with: Eliza! I feel like we'd get along, and maybe she could teach me cool sword moves.

idk who to tag cause I don't know who's cool with talking about their OCs online (aside from @princesshoneytea lol) soooo if you wanna do this pls consider yourself tagged!

[dinoswordsb]

erm anyways. multiples of 7

7. Are your OCs part of any story or stories?

Um yes ^_^ Most of my characters are for my pet project sleepy creek which ive talked about on and off on this blog. I have a couple other ones that're part of a different project thats like a western apocalypse thing but i dont think ive really mentioned them at all because its still very much a rough concept. 14. Introduce an OC with a tragic backstory

umm -looking at the list- that's all of them but specifically I will go with Frenzy :] Frenzy is my fallout OC, they're a traveling merchant with a LOT of baggage. They're an escaped member of the cult of the mothman in pt pleasant. They were raised on violence and as such have a lot of blood on their hands, and on top of that were groomed from the time they were young into believing they had a grand fate within the cult. After they escape, this feeling that they must be destined for greatness never really goes away, and manifests as guilt for the things they had done while with the cult. As such they believe themselves to be a sort of martyr, somebody to suffer or even die for the assistance of others.

21. Your most artistic OC

Mmmmm this is tough. As far as traditional art goes like sculptures and painting and whatnot, it's a solid tie between Ben and Allistor. They both work with many mediums, but Ben prefers more three dimensional works like sculptures or taxidermy pieces, though he also enjoys charcoal, while Allistor is more inclined to paint or use pastels/colored pencils/things like that.

As for other forms of art, Cutler has a band and makes music for a living ^_^ There's more but off the top of my head I can't remember them

28. Your most dangerous OC?

Osiris......he is a serial killer. So.

35. Any sibling characters?

Yes. Like, all of them. It's honestly easier to list characters that DON'T have siblings than the ones that do. But as for the main ones, Alex and Allistor are brothers, Wren has a brother named Cameron that's important to their arc(and eventually has his own), Masaru has two siblings I haven't introduced that are important to his backstory. AND Travis has a baby sister named Beth that he is very close with.

42. Which one of your OCs would be the most interested in Greek gods?

Danny hands down. Actually canonically had a hyperfix on greek lit in high school. Oedipus, Antigone, all that good stuff.

49. Which one of your OCs would most likely enjoy memes

Tie between Danny and Castyn because they are best friends :)

[elusive---ivory]

13. "Let's match today." How would you describe your OC F/O's fashion taste? Send pictures if you'd like!

27. "Crank it up to 11!" What's your OC F/O's favorite song / what are some of their favorite songs? Do you have a song you feel reflects them in some way, and if so, which is it and why? If you have an OC F/O playlist that describes them and / or a playlist for y'all's relationship, feel free to post a link to it!

1. "I think I dreamed you to life." - What's your OC F/O's origin story? (As in, what motivated you to create your OC f/o? Did anything in particular inspire you to base their personality / looks off of?) Please tell us basic facts about them that you feel is important for us to know to better get to know them!

10. "This is my favorite chapter." What's one of your favorite moments spent with your OC F/O? Tell us about it- what happened? What made it so special?

For whichever f/o(s) you'd like to answer for ✨💚!!

Clover @tex-treasures

1. "I think I dreamed you to life." - What's your OC F/O's origin story? (As in, what motivated you to create your OC f/o? Did anything in particular inspire you to base their personality / looks off of?) Please tell us basic facts about them that you feel is important for us to know to better get to know them!

Finnegan: I made him while thinking of a series about the Loch Ness Monster, like the shape of water, the Loch Ness Monster is locked up, but falls in love with his captor, (which is not cool, but she managed to help him escape) eventually Finnegan was born, but his mother had died from a mysterious illness. He may or may not have killed his mothers killer, while searching for his father.

Matthew J.: He is a combination between Jeff the Killer and The Riddler from Batman (2022). He's my personal little scrumgly honestly. I actually dreamt him up one night, and I was the detective, I was trying to get him to confess, but apparently I didn't have any evidence. So, I have to let him go. But, like, I know he did it. I end up getting fired and so I just end up obsessing over him, because I know he's a serial killer. So, that's kinda the cat and mouse thing going on. I believe his parents weren't good to him, as most of my ocs have, but there was something particularly brutal about his.

Penelope: She used to be a self-insert of mine, until I started to grow out and flesh out her character. She's psychic and her ability comes from her parents weird cult. She's also from Texas, so that's the closest place to hell. She made all her friends die in a car crash just for thinking about it. And she has a twin brother, who's as strong as a paperclip.

13. "Let's match today." How would you describe your OC F/O's fashion taste? Send pictures if you'd like!

Dkfjfhfh alright.

Finnegan Ness: my Scottish fish man. He adores skirts and sweaters. He has a flare for anything green. He's not too flashy, but sometimes he feels himself.

Matthew J. King: He's your typical horror movie slasher, with the twist that he hasn't grown past his middle school era. He wears baggy clothes with suspicious red stains on them. Weird, wonder how they got there.

Penelope Gossamer: My sweet paranoid gf with trauma. Yeah, she may also be possessed by the spirit of a clown, but that doesn't mean she can't slay. She's got a whole wardrobe is awesome sweaters.

27. "Crank it up to 11!" What's your OC F/O's favorite song / what are some of their favorite songs? Do you have a song you feel reflects them in some way, and if so, which is it and why? If you have an OC F/O playlist that describes them and / or a playlist for y'all's relationship, feel free to post a link to it!

Ohhh!!! I love making character playlists (there's a hit of self ship), but I just recently made one for ratthew.

10. "This is my favorite chapter." What's one of your favorite moments spent with your OC F/O? Tell us about it- what happened? What made it so special?

Finnegan: I dream about him often. I feel bad for what he had to go through, (humans didn't like him/called him an abomination). He's quite sensitive and he often cries. His interior is a soft sweet man who hates pollution and he just wants to be able to breath. I'd imagine if i could transfer him over to where I am, he would live in my bathtub, but I don't think that'd be easy for him.

Matthew J. King: Other than the interrogation, I haven't had a compelling scene with him. I just know my character in that dream has been stalking him for a long time.

Penelope: I've had some very nice dates with her. She definitely gets me and understands who I am on a personal level. When her weird clown friend isn't there, she's a lot less paranoid.

[aita-blorbos]

(Oc story)

AITA for escaping a cult?

(TW cults, experimentation, death, trauma)

I (31 M) am the reincarnation of the 2nd king of hell who could be summed up as one thing: tyrannical. Not getting into what he did, but a cult formed and their goal is to bring "me" back to how I used to be and essentially make a second hell for me to rule over. Thing is though: I knew absolutely nothing about that until the cult told me and I didn't even want this, so they decided to use force and kidnapped me. During this time they started experimenting on me to make me more like the king.

I briefly managed to escape and met someone, C (38 M), who let me hide with him after hearing about the whole cult thing. We essentially became friends with benefits during this time. During this time I accidentally bit him and poisoned him due to the cult's experiments. C's health was rapidly declining to the point of massivechunks of his skin falling off, so I decided to pick up some groceries for him. The cult found me again and kidnapped me again before I'd even reached the store.

After a few weeks of no progress the cult decided that I'd probably be more accepting if I had "my" court. They found C, who was already about to die, and sacrificed him in a ritual that'd bring him back as a demonic version of himself. All in front of me despite me desperately pleading for them not to kill C. After he came back, the cult began manipulating C to think that I was still the 2nd King of Hell and refused to let us see each other still.

This agency finally broke into the cult and rescued C and I after the cult tried to convert their lead detective who was also a demon. We finally got to talk to each other again and that's how I found out that the cult managed to convince C that I'd abandoned him while he was suffering for the cult and that I still had the same powers I had from back when I was the King of Hell. He feels betrayed that I left him to die instead of curing him despite me not even being able. He doesn't even want to be near me anymore. I can't help but blame myself because I'm the reason he got killed in the first place. If I hadn't escaped that cult, I could've prevented all of this. Had I just played along and let them believe I was that monstrous king of hell, C wouldn't have even been involved in the first place. I'm not that king, I'm just his reincarnation. I'm just... me. I couldn’t save C no matter what I did.

AITA for escaping that cult?

[aita-blorbos]

[OC AITA (yep, same anon from the gas chambers one, highly recommend reading that one first, here's the link: https://www.tumblr.com/aita-blorbos/729589462028419072/oc-aita-anon-so-hopefully-no-one-finds-all-those?source=share, also my phone died in the middle of this ask so I'm rewriting it now at 11PM, sorry for any confusing parts, Octonine can explain later)]

Content Warnings: cult mention, internalized ableism and saneism, repressed memories, description of corpses, drugs, less-than-scientific experiments, bullying, self-harm, suicidal ideation, child... "death"? i guess..., oh and also it's a horror story.

AITA for accidentally "killing" a child?

That sounds horrible but let me give some context:

I (adult M), my brother B (also adult M) and my friend P (adult F) are cult survivors and recently we created an orphanage/child therapy clinic after P's Psychology graduation. We wanted to help mentally ill kids like we once were, giving them a safe and supportive space we didn't have.

Since we started this, me and B had problems with some of the children, mostly the ones that that cult taught us were "impure", so I started trying to, y'know, confront that. The problem is, differently from B, my memories of that era were really repressed after our escape years ago, which you can guess it's hard to confront your past and your mentality when you can't remember it.

P suggested that I tried doing therapy with her, but I needed something more immediate, so I got an idea... that could have gone really badly... and I guess it did turn out like this... I went back to the ruins of that cult's "house" and found the hidden backroom in the debris. The sight of the abandoned carbonized corpses of the ones who "ascended" unlocked some of my memories, but that was not what I was searching for.

Then I found it, the "mind powder", the same one we used to access our mind realms, surely that would be a faster way. I brought some of it to our orphanage and made a makeshift "sensory isolator" (pool filled with water and salt) on the basement (no one ever uses it anyways). It was weird going back there again, it was less chaotic than when I was a child, more empty.

I tried this about 3-4 times before anything happened, and then I found something, some balls of light (or seemed to be light, it was bright than the rest of that space) that when touched showed me my memories. I looked through many of them until I found any that I couldn't see, and the more of them I saw, more things started appearing: "shadows" of objects, people and places from the past. Until I found... the "house".

Inside it, there they were, all the memories my brain didn't let me see. After brute-forcing a bit, I found out how to see them and in a few hours, I have come to terms with my past... or at least I believed so.

After this, I told about what I discovered to P, that was horrified, as the results could have been catastrophic, and that I was looking really pale after this constant exposure (I used it every day for a week and this was used once a month max). I said to her that, with some development, this could be a really effective way to help the children we take care of, and she snapped, held me down, and made me promise that I wouldn't ever touch that powder again.

After some months, I started to look less pale, and P ended up rethinking the whole situation, and said she would allow it, as long as the children weren't involved, to which I agreed. A few days later, P's son D (14-15 M) came to me saying that he knew about the powder thing and asked me if he could try it. I denied saying that I promised to his mother I wouldn't do this experiment with the children.

I talked to about it to P, and she called D to talk with her there. She was trying to explain to him why that was dangerous, but it sounded a lot like she was fighting with him, all the while he was looking at me as if I had betrayed him, which I would soon come to understand. She asked why he would ever need to do this and... well...

...how do I say this?...

He lifted his arm, showing lots of scars he had kept hidden, apparently he was having problems with bullying (the verbal and psychological one I think) that lead into him cutting himself... gosh I don't know how to describe any of this right, but I think you got the idea.

So he thought that maybe, by confronting these thoughts and memories "directly", he could be better... somehow. There was a silence for a long while, until P broke down. I... didn't knew what to do, I didn't knew if what he was saying was possible, none of us knew, but he seemed so desperate that eventually I said that we could try it if he wanted to. P was enraged over this, yelling at me about how I dare suggest this in such a vulnerable moment, I argued that I was just trying to help him, and it kept escalating until D ran out of the room crying and went to the basement.

When me and P got there, he was picking the powder and throwing it in the water (which is definitely NOT the way to do it), and when we reached him, it was too late, he was already in his mind realm. Taking him out of the water didn't bring him back, we tried a few things to wake him up but nothing worked, so we waited. After half an hour, he started to whisper some words and phrases like "where", "lost", "i'm scared", "let me go" and "still alive". Slowly, he started talking more, and then he started screaming in terror of something. We panicked, we tried to talk to him, get him out of there, but he just screamed louder and louder until he says "get me outta here!!" and then he stops, and falls down with one last whisper: "thank you". P slowly open his eyes, and we both get mortified when we see it. He was with the same lifeless eyes of the "ascended", which makes me scream and curl into a corner of the room, starting to break down, memories flowing back in.

I... I feel like I'm the villain here. I decided to search for the powder, I used it to "fix myself" quicker, I had the idea of using it to help the children, I told P about what D asked to me forcing him to confess it to his mother, I left all the "equipment" to use it there lying on the basement... I... I killed him... didn't I? It sounds silly to ask it now but, AITA?