Last Simsrise

3.5 - From Bad to Worse

Published: 2025-07-26

Ajei's life is changed forever, Doba pleads to whatever force is out there, and the Basilio legacy finally begins.

Winter comes, Doba and Ajei (mostly Ajei) decide to build a pool in the family lot. She’d noticed Doba had stopped working out as much as he used to, and seemed to be working on his garden to an obsessive degree. Wanting him to keep his interests diverse (and away from doting on her), she tugged on his heartstrings about it and the construction was quick.

Ajei, the smartest person alive, decided to give it a test swim on the day it was filled with water. In the dead of winter. With no swim practice prior to this point in time.

Doba, very fortunately, heard the struggles from his greenhouse nearby and was able to run to Ajei, his heart, as the Grim Reaper appeared. He begged and pleaded, offering anything to save his daughter, the only person he had left in this cruel world. This time, the Reaper took pity on him, after Elmira and after Miguel and Salim before her. He returned Ajei’s soul to her body and said the consequences hereafter were Doba’s own, before vanishing back to his domain in a plume of smoke.

Ajei, dazed, returned to herself spitting chlorinated water all over the snow as Doba sobbed, cradling her in his arms. She was rushed to a hospital and kept for the hazy next few days for testing.

Ajei, of course, didn’t remember anything of what happened. All she remembered was blood red skies, arms shielding her from the freezing cold, and a feminine voice telling her it would be okay. She remembered how comforting that moment was, how it was physically painful to be pulled away from the strangers’ embrace, and that she opened her eyes to Doba’s tear-stricken face begging her to never do something like that again.

Ajei came out of the hospital a week later with a Diabetes and Anemia diagnosis, some comments about how her growth might be stunted, and a new desperation to research whatever she could about the place she went between life and death.

To Doba and Ajei’s delight, doctors reccommended she take the rest of the semester off and to try school again next year. The break gave her plenty of time to research anything and everything about death and beyond. It also turns out, that without the pressures of school breathing perpetually down her neck, she had a much easier time finding the energy to paint and practice guitar.

Ajei was even allowed to go to Copperdale’s prom that year, despite being on an academic sabbatical. The chance to hang out with Stevie was welcome, and Ajei’s hallway crush was even there! She rallied all the confidence she had in her, despite not even knowing the girl’s name…

The rejection hurt, but Ajei felt okay despite that. She and Stevie had an awesome night laughing at all the dweebs who thought they were in love.

And after telling her crush, who she’d finally found out was named Adriana, Ajei felt confident enough to say she was bisexual for the very first time. And of course, the first person she told was Auncle Etan, now an elder.

All things considered, Ajei felt alright. Her scrape with death though got her thinking about a lot of things, namely how close her family was to being gone. It was a scary thought, realizing how close she was to having no one left to pass on her legacy, her mother’s legacy, and her grandfathers’ too. From that point onward, Ajei vowed to give back to the world, and to make sure the Basilio name was one remembered long after her time.

And with her 18th birthday coming up soon, she started looking into the possibility of having a science baby immediately, and even began drafting entirely new plans for the house.

Of course, she hadn’t told Doba about her grand plans for the future. Things were beginning to get tense between the two, where Ajei started feeling that Doba’s love for her (while appreciated) was suffocating. Every conversation between them felt like a balancing act, that he disapproved of her wanting to go on and live her life. That everything she might do would hurt her again.

It was a conversation that would have to happen soon, Ajei knew. But that day wasn’t today.