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 Posted: Mon Nov 07, 2011 1:14 pm
It was easy to fall back into the same routine. After much bargaining, squabbling - though mostly not on his part and on the other faculty members who were outraged at being told nothing about the entire post Haunted House situation - and then more bargaining, the Boogeymen had finally left. Their presence on the campus had left a bad taste in everyone's mouth, though Arel was simply just relieved to see them go. It had been a long week, and a longer one was coming up: filling up his usual shoes the undervalued and underpaid secretary. Vacation, his a**.
Granted, as a secretary, Arel really never did much. Walking around on campus, punting gnomes when necessary, and occasionally scouring Breck's shed for any leftover supplies was really not a hard duty. The difficult part was avoiding students.
He was doing a good job today too, skirting around the edge of the first hallway, to use the unused emergency stairs of the second. Arel half-pondered cutting through the co-ed washroom when he suddenly remembered that it was not-so-friendly Horsemen territory. Around the Gymnasium it was then.
It was quiet, even more so. The gym was still half-full of propped up tents in whatever areas it could occupy: and there were no sounds of pool splashing or screaming, or a voice that hollered over everyone else telling everyone to just 'Shut up and run.' Granted, Red had in a moment of pure whim left the land shark up to the secretary to maintain but there was no way in all of the nine levels of the Inferno that he was touching that creature.
It was quiet. And for once, he was bothered by this.
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Posted: Mon Nov 07, 2011 1:28 pm
Routine was something that had never suited Sammy, classes where infrequent enough and her desire to attend certain ones seemed even more fleeting. Lately the lack of proper closure did little to motivate the ghoul to go to class. Instead she wandered the halls, hid in her room, and generally went about with other plans then that of attending class.
In today's case she was lingering around the gym. What was left of the tents still remained, it wasn't like it needed to be cleaned out anytime soon, they would need a new gym teacher to make use of the space and that was something the school sorely lacked at the moment.
So she wandered among the cots, blood stains from her peers, empty boxes and bottles of whatever Cricket and her assistants handed out. Part of it seemed a dream to her, the idea that they where all jammed into this gym being treated for wounds.
Well, it seemed like a dream till she noticed her left arm again, burned black from Red's last breath of fire. When she had her fil she moved towards the door, the only sound Arel would catch from that room, was the sound of a lone ghouls footsteps before she pushed her way through the door.
She paused when she made it through and found Arel on the other side, "Sir I... I'm sorry I know we were told to leave the gym be till it was cleaned up..." she paused again looking back behind her, "I was just passing through I didn't make a mess of anything. I just... I miss this place when it was a gym and not... this."
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Posted: Mon Nov 07, 2011 2:18 pm
"Sir."
What was that strange voice?
"I'm sorry I know we were told to leave the gym..."-
- Arel suddenly clued in that it was a student. Talking, as he took a brief glance around the empty area, to him. Talking to him. Spilling her guts out, to be honest. Awkward gut spilling.
The secretary actually, despite appearances, had quite the ability to remember names - this was Sammy, a second year, always getting into trouble with the usual crowd - but that did not make him any more comfortable to simply talk with them. Considering that most conversations with students started out with either why their grades were so low, why they were late or sustaining detention again, or information sharing that was often Way Too Much Information For Any Faculty Member To Hear, and this was no exception. He wasn't even sitting in the comfort of his nice desk for crying out loud: the entire experience of being at least remotely authoritative was just not there.
He waited for the ghoul to finish talking, eyes somewhat comically spread wide, face a mild expression of panic. He needed to make a clean and efficient getaway: this could not get any more awkward, and dear Jack if there was any crying involved perhaps he should just run into an oven right now and put himself out of his misery.
"I see." The secretary praised himself on being at least able to control his voice from panic at the first two words, though his eyes were already scanning for immediate Efficient Exit Areas. "Yes- " no, the stupid co-ed washroom was on the left, and he really did not want to run into the forest any time soon "-there are some ah... matters we can't avoid and..."
Maybe Sammy was a really slow runner - no wait, weren't undead fast runners? Risks, too many risks. He tried to play it up, crossing his arms and making his best 'I Am Indifferent' pretense, "I don't really see why you need to talk to me about this don't you have your ahh... friends?"
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Posted: Mon Nov 07, 2011 2:31 pm
Authority would be the last thing Sammy wanted, in a way it was the last thing anyone on campus wanted. With a sham of a 'good-bye' reeking of Boogiemen lingering around to make sure it was a proper lie most students had little taste for 'authority' of any kind lately.
This case was an interesting one though, it didn't seem like Arel was exactly upset at her presence, but his eyes seemed, shocked? They where rather wide but otherwise the secretary seemed all together for the most part.
Just as easily as he crossed his arms she stuffed her fists into the pocket of her usual green jacket. "What's there to talk to my friends about? Half of them where there." She paused for a moment studying Arel as they stood there alone in the hallway, no one would come by, why would they, the Gym was closed essentially less you wanted to see a bunch of half packed supplies.
She continued to watch his face, looking for something that had been there when he walked into the purple tent escorted by the boogiemen, when they leaned over to Cricket. Or the face he wore when he spoke the lies he was forced to tell. "I want to talk to you sir...." She paused again, "...because we know you lied during that ceremony."
Let him run, if he had good memory he might recall it was her who landed a solid punch when he was running around as a snowpile; in this case Sammy fell in the class of faster undead, and one who's record implied she would not simply let him walk away from this conversation.
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Posted: Mon Nov 07, 2011 8:32 pm
He visibly flinched at the word there. It wasn't like the secretary had not tried to warn them about the danger, yet at the same time-
- he had been concerned about Red. She had needed help. But in the end she pushed everything away-
- including everyone else. But this was now past history. The world was unfair: affairs in Halloween were unfair, and not everyone could get along. This was the world beyond being a student, a glimpse of something spiraling out of control that one day, when students graduated, would not be able to be protected or sheltered from.
Arel sighed at Sammy's little outburst. "I did what was necessary at that time," his eyes flickered down to his boots as he fidgeted with his scarf temporarily, "In order to prevent... unfortunate circumstances." He was, in his own way, protecting the students. As the rest of the staff looked out for them, as the school watched over, there to rescue them in the end, but not there to fight their battles. "Circumstances that are beyond anyone's control."
That was it. No ifs, but, whys or ands. Just a simple cannot.
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Posted: Mon Nov 07, 2011 8:57 pm
What caught her most off guard was that what she had said last had caused almost less reaction then the start. The flinch could heave meant any number of things. She didn't know Red on a personal level, what she had been going through. So much of the incident, even the world was a mystery to the ghoul.
"To prevent panic, or the school being closed... that's what others have guessed at least from what we know." She watched as his eyes flickered down her own doing the same. This had to be the most informal situation she had ever had with a teacher right now. " I don't mean to blame you sir it's just... it's not right, for any of us. Not you, not the students, and you know the truths going to get out, that everyone is already talking about it."
She glanced down both ends of the hallway for a moment, "Do you mind if we walk a bit? I want to show you something," It was an honest request, she figured if Arel was wandering the halls right now he could spare the time if he was willing.
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Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2011 3:37 pm
Dear Jack, was he this uppity and annoying when he was still learning? Arel rubbed his forehead. "If you are so prepared in understanding all of this, why are you telling me?" Or more so, what honestly did she expect from him.
Half of him did not want to humour Sammy, in fact most of him, ninety-nine percent of him did not. There was a way around things and this was not it. No matter how much he or anyone else fought, the result would always be-
-"pointless." The secretary gave another exaggerated sigh. "I'll tell you right now, whatever you try, it is pointless-" he probably already tried it -" but let's make a deal. You show me this... whatever it is and then please don't intrude any further. There are less destructive methods to go around this."
He was already walking with her, letting her slowly lead him.
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Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2011 8:03 pm
"Too see what you do, if it confirms that we're right." She paused unsure how to judge what he said if it confirmed her thoughts and others. It really didn't sadly.
"I haven't done anything. Yet." She shrugged, "I could do far worse, it would be stupid, self destructive. I won't intrude, but I still want to know more acting or not." She started walking for now leading towards the grounds of the school and veering slightly to the lake.
"How destructive is it, to want the truth of things, honestly? I used to want to be a boogiemen, but if it means to tell lies like that. Is it worth it?" She was pacing herself as she walked a graveyard lingering just ahead of them. Memories of a conversation floating into her head as they walked. Was it worth it? Did they make a difference at all when they agreed to go on this trip?
Lately it seemed like all they learned was what it was like to feel a pain that no physical wound could compare too.
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Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2011 11:24 am
Arel narrowed his eyes but remained silent for the duration of Sammy's lecture, until they stood next to the isolated setting. He stood there in awkward silence, eyes fixated on ground.
"You... should not give up what you want to be." The sentence was extremely awkward for the secretary to say, in the least. He shuffled on both feet and fidgeted again with his scarf. "If the boogeymen are intent on covering up this situation, it probably means... there is a bigger picture that they are also covering. Something beyond-" And here his eyes shifted back to the ground - "Red's absence."
Once again, he skipped over the word. It seemed he still had problems adapting as well. He pressed on, slowly, one word painfully uttered at a time as if it was just just dawning on the secretary himself as well. "If there is indeed something beyond Red's... absence... and we have no idea what it is, it will simply lead us to more trouble in the future if we meddle. I am not too sure what we need right now is to get involved." A pause. "This is a school. This is not a place for students to fight and should never have been."
It was clear that Arel disagreed with Red greatly on this issue: the gymnasium teacher had always been a fan of making the students stronger, of letting them endure and thus, become powerful guardians.
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Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2011 12:22 pm
His first bit of advice almost made Sammy light up with a smile, almost. Instead he only saw a flicker of a smile, a slight raise in the corner of her lips at his suggestion to never give up. It was reassuring but it did little to change her stance on how she felt about most boogeymen right now.
What came next made sense but the ending was like a record skipping, the absence, the denial, it was plain and clear like a needle bouncing off the track. "Regardless of why it causes just as much trouble. People will want to know more, people deserve to know more for the prices they paid in bearing witness to it all." Slowly they stopped, her hand reaching up to stroke a large cross like tombstone that she had sat on when talking to Barth.
"We are involved sir," She turned around holding up her blackened arm, "We bear the marks to prove it." She grew quiest during his pause glancing up at the tombstone again.
"This place, where we are is the reason I got this arm, the reason I saw what happened..." her eyes dropped for a moment remembering the conversation, the hesitation and worry lingering behind every word she and Barth shared. "We thought we could make a difference, protect other students, the headmistress called me arrogant, and I was, I thought I could honestly make a difference and here we are again minus one member of the school, a student body half in shambles and living in a nightmare, the rest all blissfully unaware or confused." She rubbed at her neck as if the three chains around it weighed more then a few ounces. "Was it supposed to be like this? An ambush a slaughter to teach us some kind of lesson?"
She turned around slowly facing Arel, her blackened arm reaching to lift the dog tags tucked in her shirt, "What ever this school is, that's what it's become for some of us." She dropped the first tag made of chipped and dented steel, "From the day I was risen," she dropped another, silver with her named scratched in, "From the island where I saw half my friends slaughtered." Finally the last one, grey and white it was made of stone that looked eerily close to bone, "And from the day Red died." Her voice cracked ever so slightly saying the last part as she let the last dog tag drop to rattle among the others.
"Some of us sir, have only known how to fight for what we believe in."
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Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2011 10:10 pm
Silence again.
"I never said not to fight, ever." Arel had turned away from Sammy, his face unreadable. "I don't think any of us expected some of you to stop fighting." A sigh. "Only of course, there are different ways around it. Not everything is solved with heavy public outbursts and violent actions. That is what becomes pointless."
Another, heavier sigh. "Noone can predict what will happen or what is going to happen. As long as you're still here, you can continue to move on. A good friend taught me that. I think you're a lot like them, in that respect, all of you."
At last, the secretary moved back, pushing past Sammy towards the direction of the campus. "I-I think my part of the deal is done." At some point, he realized he was looking rather honest and featured his expression into the usual trademark scowl. "It'll be good for you to head your ways too, how in Jack's name did you students find this place anyway, it's supposed to be off limits."
And then everything was normal again. Or at least, the way it should have been.
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Posted: Thu Nov 10, 2011 6:02 am
"Not everything is a public outburst, we haven't had any riots yet, as a whole we students have been fairly quiet I'd say." She glanced over at him from the side, his back was turned and she couldn't make out much from anything other then his heavy sighs. "Maybe it will be pointless one day, maybe it won't. We can't say until something happens, and when it does, it'll probably be big. What ever it is."
Again he sighed, but what he said seemed different, like somewhere behind that giant scarf the secretary was actually more then just a frowning face who always handled student affairs with bitter irritation. Suddenly he was moving past her towards the campus and she had to actually take a few steps to catch up fumbling in her pocket.
"Almost done," she added as she pressed something into his hand as she ran to move past him. It looked like a dog tag made of the same material as her third one, though this piece was jagged and chipped on one side like it was taken from the edge of a larger piece.
"We brought back what we could, for the people that cared about her."
She continued to move past him as he lamented the area being off limits.
"Limits don't matter anymore! Society is apparently nothing but lies and rules can bite my slowly decaying a** if that's how it is," she shouted back as she started to sprint off towards the demon dorms.
For now maybe things where back to normal, at least as close to it as one could get now a days.
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Posted: Thu Nov 10, 2011 10:31 pm
The secretary watched Sammy sprint off - ha! he knew that she was the running sort of undead type - with an odd sort of expression. It wasn't until the second year was far away from distance that he peeled off his glove and actually touched the tag, the barest hints of frost seeping against the solid material: it was a familiar Fear.
A small, sad smile. "Are you still going to make me do paperwork for you even when you're gone?"
No-one replied back.
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