Author's Note:

Sorry for this long author's note right here at the beginning, but… I feel like I owe you all some kind of explanation for the delay.

I know that I mentioned in my chapter one author's note for this story that I had begun it on paper while stuck in a hospital. That's because… I've got some pretty serious health things, and I'd really rather not get into them (this isn't even really the place for that), but basically I'd been in and out of hospitals since my last post (I haven't been in a hospital for about two and a half months at this point, though, so that's nice, and I'm starting to get some will to live back) and just had… no time or energy for anything at all.

To top it all off, at some point during the whole mess my computer died and took everything with it, so that was… fun to discover.

I've recompleted my outline for this story, and I'm going to try to get back on track with updating it, but I'm not going to make any promises about speed or days or anything because I just don't know what my situation is going to be like on any given day. I'm really sorry, but I promise I'm going to do my best.

What does this mean for my other stories? Bonds isn't abandoned, though it'll probably be some time before I get back to it because I'll need to replay the game up to the point where I was in order to continue it due to the way that I was handling writing that, and the motivation to do that is kinda weighed down by the fact that I was about forty chapters ahead in terms of buffer. Acheron's buffer was 'only' sixteen chapters and I still had to deal with a lot of demotivation in terms of returning to it.

Bloom is still Bloom — if and when I write some more for it, that'll go up. No change.

As for other projects, I did do some writing when I was in the hospital, or I'd have gone insane — one of my friends was kind enough to keep bringing in my PS4 for me so that I could play P5. I have some pretty mixed feelings about that game, but I have a handwritten manuscript for a very long (by my standards, at least), almost entirely complete fic for that. I'll need to type that stuff up and edit it, since a lot of it was written on painkillers and I'm sure it's a mess. I'll probably start posting that up at some point in the next few weeks, maybe a chapter every few days or something. It really depends.

Anyway… Sorry again for disappearing, and sorry for an author's note that's nearly as long as this (tiny) chapter is. I just… needed to get something out for this or I'd never build back up the motivation to continue. Half of why it's taken me so long to do anything is the fact that I just feel like I've let down anyone who enjoyed the story by not being able to keep posting it regularly.

I can't promise that I won't disappear into the hospital again, and I hate that, but I will try to set it up so that one of my friends will let you all know if that happens. I'm sorry.

Disclaimer: I do not own Worm. It belongs to Wildbow — I'm just playing with it for now. Also, this chapter is unbetaed, and any errors are totally on me.

Remnant

"You okay over there?"

Taylor was too busy freaking out over the fact that she hadn't freaked out to even try to respond — not that it would have mattered.

"Those are some, uh… Really complicated feelings you've got going on." Cherie wandered over and stared at me. "Doesn't seem like you're pissed at me, though, so that's good."

The ghost glared.

"Whoops, spoke too soon." Cherie flashed a smile. "But that means you're really not pissed about the blood-drinking shit, huh. Why not?"

"I wish I knew," Taylor moaned.

"And you don't know. That's… Great, really great." The vampire looked uncomfortable. "You're not, uh, discovering your inner serial killer or anything, right? You don't feel crazy enough for that, but I should probably ch- Oh, yeah, no." She glanced around. "We need to get out of here. Nobody's headed this way, but getting complacent and sticking around? That's how you get caught. We can talk when we find another alley."

Taylor could only follow.

"So. Seriously, what's up?"

Cherie was sprawled across a worn-down couch abandoned behind a warehouse. It was full of holes that had no doubt been nibbled by rats and bugs, and patches of mildew dotted the surface. Taylor wasn't sure if she envied the girl's ability to ignore the filth surrounding her or pitied it.

"You sure get distracted easily, huh? Were you always like that, or is your brain just rotting?"

Taylor froze. Cherie's grin indicated a joke, but… What if that were true? Was it possible that she was losing parts of herself as she remained a ghost?

"Whoa, calm down there. It's zombies that have rotting brains, ghost girl." Cherie rolled her eyes. "Seriously, the point of a ghost is that it's a bundle of memories wrapped in a sheet. Haven't you seen any horror movies?"

Truth be told, Taylor hadn't seen all that many horror movies, and most of the ones she'd seen hadn't featured ghosts. She also wasn't sure how useful they were when it came to the dealing with the actual reality of ghosts.

"And there you go again." Cherie flipped around to perch on her toes. Her brow was furrowed. "You're seriously scattered. Do you even remember what I wanted to talk about?"

There was something Cherie had wanted to talk about?

The blood drinking.

Taylor felt sick. How had she forgotten?

"Oh, wow." Cherie's eyes were wide. "Okay. Uh." She ran her hand through her hair. "Do you remember when you woke up as a ghost?"

Taylor nodded slowly. It had been two days ago, right?

"Okay, good. So. How much do you remember between that point and now?"

She had woken up at her grave, and… The ghost strained her memory. There had been… someone? …a man? Her father? She desperately tried to remember.

Nothing.

"Shit," Cherie hissed. "Okay, that… that ain't good at all." She shook her head. "You remember who I am, right?"

Taylor was able to nod immediately for that one. She was Cherie, a vampire with mind-control powers.

"Uh… close enough." The vampire winced. "So… why do you remember that, then?" She shook her head again. "Nah, guess you wouldn't know, huh?" She threw her head back and let out a sigh. "Damn, this sucks. It's like you've got some weirdass anterograde amnesia going on."

Taylor was a little surprised Cherie knew that word.

"I'm going to ignore that, 'cause I'm more interested in why you're not scared by the idea."

…She wasn't scared?

She wasn't scared.

"…Starting to wonder if I'm not the lucky one after all." Cherie gnawed on her lip. "Bein' a ghost fucks you up, huh?"

Taylor couldn't disagree.

"…Okay, tell you what. I'll try to put a priority on gettin' cleaned up." Cherie looked pained. "Maybe we can figure out something if you get to see your Dad again, like you wanted to. But, uh… Seriously, can't make any promises on how long it's gonna take me. I'll just… try harder, for all the nothin' that's gonna do. Sound good?"

Taylor was oddly touched. Maybe Cherie wasn't so bad, after all.

…But why would she be bad in the first place?

The ghost couldn't remember.