Yeah, yeah. Call Puella sleep-deprived. It was probably true! She just...hadn't expected to be feeling it already. And she wouldn't have taken a nap without her human to watch for, anyway.
Wait - her human. Her hu - where had he gone? "They did not tell you," said someone conversationally. Wait, what? Were they talking about the human? No, no - they were speaking in her head. It echoed, and with each further word she wanted to stagger. "I know their secret weapon." Whose secret weapon? The humans'? But they were - they were - why was Puella's head hurting so much? "I will find it..."
"Stop," Puella mumbled. "I can't think..."
"Even if you do not know, it is a matter of eventuality."
Puella didn't remember what that word meant. She couldn't remember much, in all honesty: but she was...she was..."My knowledge increases," that someone said smugly. "This is my awakening."
Well, it was sleepytime for Puella. Where had her human gone? She needed to make sure he made it to the portal...she needed to. Where had she come from? There'd been something orange. It'd been bright. An elf? And mountains...
No, that'd been. That'd been. That wasn't her. She was greater, beyond that. Her history was something longer and greater, a legacy that was growing and evolving even now.
So she shut all eight of the tiny little eyes on this body, because it was but one vessel. The whole was more important.
OOC
Name: Puella Faction: Student Suspecies/Division: Demon General appearance: fluffy spider ghoul with a thousand yards of lace. tw spiders. HP: 30/30 lol
Posted: Tue Oct 06, 2015 5:43 am
[ RESCUER POV ]
The first thing Idaeus noticed was that he had reverted to his true form.
Not the darkness of his surroundings, not the low buzz in his consciousness, not even the pain in his... well... his fiery appendage. None of those struck him as particularly odd. Not yet anyway. No, his first waking thought was of how he had transformed, quite without intending to, from his usual good-looking form to his less cute base state.
It was rather like being naked.
That did not bode well. The accidental base state bit, not being naked (Idaeus was far less concerned with typical ideas of indecency, though showing his natural form was embarrassing). For him to have reverted while he was unconscious... It meant something foul was afoot. On his foot. Metaphorically speaking.
Eyeing the vines lashed around his shape, Idaeus wondered how they did not burn. Water douses fire, fire burns plants, plants break earth, so on and so forth. That was the natural order of things; the law of the universe. These plants seemed a little confused on how it worked though. They seemed to think that plants devoured fire in addition to fear and monster flesh. They probably thought they could get away with ignoring ice and hacksaws too. In other words, they were a bunch of dirty, rotten cheaters.
Idaeus tried to change his shape. Something simple like a cloud of smoke. Nothing happened. It was as he feared. The brambles had sapped away all his power. Other things too, he realised, as he tried to concoct a plan. His mind moved slower, and all his ideas vanished like a spark into the abyss. No, not vanished. Crushed, by an overwhelming hum at the front of his consciousness. He had awoke just in time to feel the last of his will drain away.
There would be no escape.
There would only be salvation.
OOC
Student Name: Idaeus Student Faction: Demon Student Subspecies: Djinn (Jann) Student Health: 30/30 Student Appearance: Dark skinned. Thick eyebrows. Dark eyes. White teeth. Curly black hair in a ponytail. Simple ancient Arabic clothing with Greek influence. Overall tidy appearance.
Green Minuet
Greedy Trickster
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Green Minuet
Greedy Trickster
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Posted: Tue Oct 06, 2015 6:03 am
[ DREAM SCENARIO: BLACK DOOR ]
Sawyer sat in a small, dark room, illuminated only by the light of a projector. The wall in front of her displayed a sepia photo of when she was younger. She and Renita had gone to the amusement park with their parents for the day. After a dozen or so rides, they had all gone for a round of ice cream. Sawyer had dropped hers by accident after eating only half of it. Mom's response had been tell her better luck next time. Sawyer cried. She thought about flushing all of mom's medication down the toilet as soon as they got home. But then Renita had given Sawyer her ice cream, and her tears and malice were temporarily abated.
Sawyer watched the clip without expression. She felt nothing. She always felt nothing. Nostalgia was an alien concept to her. Another clip passed. This one featured Freddy from elementary school. Poor Freddy... He never could keep his hands to himself. Sawyer made a note in her black book.
Scenes continued to flicker across the wall, and Sawyer watched with waning interest. As the projector played back a recent memory, she raised her hand and intercepted the light. Lifting her fingers she created a dog's head. The shadow cast onto the film chomped Wataru's head. He looked a mixture of appalled and apprehensive. Same as usual.
At last, Sawyer snapped her book shut. Swinging her feet out, she stood. “Come on! What's the hold up?” She asked. The projector hummed noisily behind her. “I've seen this before. So what? Am I dead? About to die? Is this what it looks like when your life flashes before your eyes? You could at least try for something a little more high-tech than a projector. Even public schools aren't using them any more.” There was a click and the pictures dimmed. As the motor wound down, the room turned dark.
“That's right... There's a point to all this, so why don't we get to it?”
No sooner had the words left her mouth, then the lights came back on. This time she stood in a limitless white space. There was no floor, no ceiling, no walls. Just white, on and on forever. Forever except for the spot directly in front of her, where there stood three doors. On the left a black door, in the middle a blue door, and on the right a white door. None of them moved.
Of course none of them moved. What a ridiculous thought. Doors were inanimate.
After hopping around, and peering at the doors from various angles, Sawyer's curiosity at last won out. Approaching the black door, she reached for the handle. The metal felt icy against her palm, as though it was warning her. She turned the knob regardless. The door slowly swung open.
Black was always an unlucky colour.
Actual black door prompt here and then violet door.
OOC
Character's name: Sawyer M. Hayes Character's faction: Apartments Character's journal link:Here Character's survival stats: Here Character's Health: 50/50 Appearance: Caucasion. Purple hair. Brown eyes. Wearing a leather jacket over a tattered sweater, both bloodied. Shorts and stripped leggings. Combat boots. Billed cap. Dog tags on chain around neck.
Posted: Tue Oct 06, 2015 5:57 pm
[ RESCUER POV ]
He was being pulled along, and he felt his shirt ride up, stomach raw, as he was pulled backwards, the ground stretching away from him. His head felt like bricks, filled with liquid lead that made it hard to keep his head up for longer than a few seconds. He was against being dragged and moved, wanting to stay still and keep his head from bouncing about like overturned jello, but he couldn't move his body aside from a few jerks in one direction or another before resting all his weight on the ground.
Pulled, he managed to look back to see the vines from before, and he half thought in his fogged mind that Barth was rescuing him, dragging him out of danger and towards home. But these vines hurt, were a sickly green than the lovely black and blues of the beloved demon, and he winced, looking away from them and wherever they were taking him.
With each tug, he started to hear the voices again. Voices he had heard in many a strange place, especially with fog, and he felt a treasure chest of memories from those terrifying times rush back into him, but this was also knew. This overbearing presence that sucked away at him, pulled at him by each fiber until he unraveled.
It wasn't a desummoning, but all parts , his mind, were as if they were dissolving. A small plume of being sucked in. The vines all about him connected and turned, and whatever the home was, whatever the main body, he was being dragged.
Awakened?
But what part of him? What parts of him were lingering now in this place? Why did it feel as if this was what was necessary, or even, just how things were. Not for everyone, just for him. That THIS somehow made sense for him, and yet, he thought of what he Feared the most.
Being alone. If anyone would miss him enough, that he had been worth keeping around for any sort of reason, for any sort of company.
He thought of Zar and Barth, the way he felt with them both, how things were changing, moving, and how he had recently been more and more eager, less afraid, less angry, about where it might all be going.
But at each tug, each inch, he felt it all growing dimmer, slimming away, bits and pieces being pulled away and dissolving away till he wasn't sure what he even was, who he even was, and his mind bounced between that panic of knowing he was loosing himself to the relief in not worrying anymore because he wasn't sure what he was even loosing.
Maybe this knew place would need him as much has he hoped.
MoonKitsune
Romantic Exhibitionist
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Posted: Tue Oct 06, 2015 6:46 pm
[RESCUER POV]
Wash started, achingly cold from a deep slumber -
Wait, he hadn't been asleep, had he? He'd been walking, carrying Jersey Oh Five, down the endless stretch of highway. He rubbed his head with one hand, eyesight still blurry. What-
"They did not tell you."
He wanted to scream but he didn't, he wanted to claw at his head and rip whatever it was inside it that was making this voice, this pain, the horrible sinuous thing that was dragging him toward the very edge of madness. He grunted instead, curling into a ball, knees touching his forhead and hands gripping his biceps, white-knuckled.
"I know their secret weapon. I will find it. Even if you do not know, it is a matter of eventuality. My knowledge increases. This is my awakening."
It was too much then, and he felt the blackness eat across his limited vision again.
When he came to again, it was to pain of a different kind - something pierced his leg, and he finally did yell, an ugly, gutteral sound. The caverns, the caverns and the bugs, they'd finally come for him, burrowing in his skin, and this time it would be his turn to go first, to be the coward -
But Wash's eyes flew open again, it wasn't horsemen or bugs he found, but vines, so many vicious, thorned vines. It was dragging him deeper in, toward some glowing, pulsating thing, at the center of its being. It hurt to look at, and he kicked hard, trying to free himself, but to no avail.
He felt himself weakening, felt something slipping away. He wanted to whisper a name, but he could no longer remember it. Everything was slipping away slowly, the pieces of himself that made him Washington Becker; the sins and the faults as well as the quiet successes and the warm undercurrent of someone who wanted more than anything to love and be loved, for who they were, in all their little broken bits-
"Sa- " he managed, and as the memory was stripped from him, he saw twofold; a young, wispy haired girl and a petite woman, one light and the other so very dark.
Beneath all that, a tiny nugget of himself continued to fight, continued to struggle, to struggle for a little boy whose name he couldn't remember but was oh so important, for words like father and daddy and husband and for everything he'd forsaken, everything he'd given up to be-
To be nothing. He was an empty husk now, and the dull green glow permeated everything. Maybe it was easier this way.
Maybe this was how it was meant to be.
Posted: Tue Oct 06, 2015 7:06 pm
[ DREAM SCENARIO: BLACK DOOR ]
James floated in a void.
It was like watching the last month of his life slowly unwind; a roll of film cut before the finale, all pictures without sound. He felt the emotions of each moment wash over him, but at his core it felt empty - meaningless. A ghostly hand raised to adjust his glasses.
At the end of the montage, three doors presented themselves. Hesitantly, he chose the black one. After all, maybe in the end, it'd be easier to just -
He lounged on a massive throne, made of a random mishmash of toys and brightly painted decor, once cheery and now fused together in some sort of macabre edifice, towering above him.
His subjects were arrayed on the ground below - and they were colorful and bright, and merry, with their candy-print dresses and bright suits with colorful tophats. But he could smell the fear on them, smell the sweat that even now dripped down their scrawny, pathetic necks.
"You silly-willys," he began in a light, chiding tone, and they collectively flinched.
Cowards, all of them.
He was not a tall man, yet somehow he seemed to gain height as he abruptly slid out of his chair, slinking down the steps while adjusting his bright-red cravat.
"Whatever were you thinking?" James petted the head of his nearest subject and she sobbed involuntarily, hands immediately flying to her mouth and face a mask of sheer terror. "Look at you, Susan. Your makeup is a mess now. How will anyone know that you're to be jolly?"
He knelt before her, an understanding smile spreading across his lips; but his eyes remained cold.
"That just won't do," he whispered sweetly, the knife sliding easily out his coat sleeve.
It was his kingdom, now. They hadn't wanted to accept him, before - the soft prince with his kind ideals and delicate hand. His father had hated him, his mother quietly disappointed - but he had shown them, just like he would show this girl. This witless fool, who no longer fit the pattern - who could not seem to get it right.
"Kill them with kindness," he murmured, carefully arranging her blood matted hair, brushing it away from the artfully painted face. As he rose, white suit now stained with darkening blots of deep, deep crimson, he smiled.
"Feed her body to the cats."
This was his world, and he would be their savior.
Ravvlet
Hygienic Waffles
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Posted: Tue Oct 06, 2015 7:20 pm
[ DREAM SCENARIO: VIOLET DOOR ]
The next set of doors appeared before he had time to fully digest the last vision, the violence and anger and shock settling over him as he tried to escape it, moving through the next threshold without thought -
James was surprised, above all else, by their strength.
Their small, chubby hands had grasped his hands and trousers and led him, yelling and crying and protesting, into the kitchen. A rattle was slammed into his shins, again and again until his knees buckled and he fell, sobbing, to the cheerfully-patterned tile of the downstairs kitchen.
It was blisteringly hot. He watched as a little red-headed boy turned the dial of the oven slowly, hotter, and he flailed desperately as they dragged him inevitably to a macabre conclusion.
"Why did you give Susan my toy?" the little boy whispered.
"You didn't tell me I had to share," a dark haired girl called from the back of the crowd of children. At least, they appeared to be children - but the expression on their faces was a tad too adult, something just a little bit off. They held him down as Susan and the boy stepped forward, pulling open the oven door and blasting them collectively with a jarring wave of heat. James was forced to close his eyes and he felt himself inching forward.
He had just given them what they had wanted.
Posted: Tue Oct 06, 2015 7:34 pm
[RESCUER POV]
Cady woke from her nap, feeling oddly well rested.
"Wait, I wasn't taking a nap-"
Then a horribly loud voice, somehow even louder than her own, drowned out her thoughts. It went on about weapons and knowledge and some such nonsense and Cady would probably have been really bored if it had not been so painful.
She blacked out, and a part of her was relieved. Taking a nap seemed a lot better-
And then she came to again, yowling as something stabbed at her leg, fighting and clawing as pieces of what were essential to who she was were stripped away, until she was a feral beast and had forgotten what she even fighting for.
Ravvlet
Hygienic Waffles
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thyPOPE
Devoted Hoarder
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Posted: Tue Oct 06, 2015 7:48 pm
[ DREAM SCENARIO: WHITE DOOR ]
Where in the world was Wataru Sugimoto?
He wasn't really sure, actually. A hallway, it looked like, with three extremely fancy doors. It was like a weird museum with no exit.
Well, three exits, maybe. Wataru eyed them warily, then pulled the white door open and stepped through. He could come back, right?
Wait - where had the door gone? He was in a white room, except he couldn't see the floor or the walls or the ceiling. Floating. There was solid ground, though; he could walk. He just couldn't see it. Did that mean the door was still here somewhere?
He walked.
He'd been here for so long, he thought. Maybe it was a treadmill: that would explain why he kept walking and seemed to move nowhere. He didn't have a shadow, he thought absently - maybe it was better to stand still. But he still wasn't moving.
He turned left. Wataru was going nowhere.
"That's the wrong way," someone giggled. Momoka, he thought, and lifted his head blearily. Where...where was she?
No, he couldn't - he couldn't see -
"Here," she said. "This is my hand." It appeared before him, disembodied and unreal. A delicate thing wrapped in a lacy white glove, accented dramatically with black. More importantly it was real. Wataru took it, and followed her briefly to an elegant tearoom. She was...she was the girl he remembered, and yet he'd never seen her before. Those silvery braided pigtails, the sharp definition of her skirt. They'd both been skilled.
"You'll feel better after some tea," she said, but her voice faded even as she talked. Her eyes shone in her heart-shaped face. The tea was clear and fragrant, jasmine-scented and then ashy. What? Wataru looked down at the cup - where a clear golden liquid had been, something black and briny now rested. The robin's egg teacup was cracked down the middle. The lace doilies were disintegrating. Momoka was watching, her sharply-defined lashes fluttering perfectly.
She was the only thing - she was - she was - why did she keep giving him things only to take them away again? Was it even her? She didn't act like this. Didshe? He couldn't remember talking to her. He couldn't...
Posted: Tue Oct 06, 2015 7:49 pm
[WHITE DOOR SOLO]
Esoom, who had once called himself THE MIGHTY MOOSE but was now quite uncertain about everything, found himself in empty dreamspace, surrounded by memories and presented with three ominous doors.
He chose the white one, almost at random. What did it matter, anyway?
He was in the ring, and it was the same but somehow different. The stadium doors were closed and seats all empty; he sat in the spotlight alone with his own thoughts for longer than he cared to remember. His mask was once again covering his face, but this time it was somehow fused to his flesh, half man and half moose. He spent his days pacing his makeshift cage, and waiting.
For an audience; for a cue.
"HEY!" A voice shouted, interrupting him from his revere. He couldn't make out the speaker in the glare, but he could plainly see the sheet of paper she held in her hand - his crudely made missing posters, depicting SMALLER MOOSE and requesting any info.
"I think I found your dog, mister."
He climbed out of the ring, and followed her offstage and into the sunlight.
It was as if the apocalypse had never happened; there was no fog and the sun shone bright over a peaceful suburban landscape. And, there, dancing on the pavement like he always had, was -
MOOSE knelt down immediately, overwhelmed with joy, but the tiny dog melted away into the sunlight at his touch.
"Oh, he's just a little further," the shadowy figure chided, and he followed her for some time. Each time he thought he'd recovered what he'd lost, it melted away. And every time her response was the same, only more joyous than the last.
She was enjoying this.
When she wasn't looking, he jumped down a sewer grate, back into the spotlit darkness. Alone.
It was easier than being constantly disappointed.
Ravvlet
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Posted: Tue Oct 06, 2015 7:51 pm
[ DREAM SCENARIO: GOLD DOOR ]
"I've gotta go," he said, mouth moving before his brain did. Fortunately there was another door in here - a shimmering gold one. He stepped through and he was a king.
He didn't want to be a king, but he kind of - he kind of had to, he thought. He had a son who was brown-haired and a wife who was blonde and both of them were white. How did he fit?
He just did. The kingdom had been made for him. He had its respect, but maybe not its love. He ruled.
It kept going. He grew old, and it grew with him. He died.
Posted: Tue Oct 06, 2015 7:53 pm
[RED DOOR SOLO]
Moose moved to the next door more quickly, perhaps to leave behind the last.
He was a god, half-man and half-beast, his clothing rags that were stained and bloody with the remains of his -
his loyal subjects.
He had seen it growing in them for some time, that telltale darkness, the kind of madness that was fertile ground for evils far worse than the finality of death. Things that could strip the humanity from a soul, things that made the shadows grow, things that were truly monstrous.
He could not allow this. He had to prune it, like weeds, but it spread, and the more he destroyed the more it grew, until it found a root inside of him too. Until he became the thing that went 'bump' in the night, and it was visions of his reddened visage that frightened children into behaving, that united mankind against him, until they would fell him and fall back into their own sin.
Ravvlet
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Zoobey Artist
Magical Incubator
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Posted: Tue Oct 06, 2015 8:17 pm
[ OUTSIDE ]
The last thing you see outside the tower is those around you. Your mind is already planning the next day, fueled by emotions and memories. You remember what it was like before all this started, and you hope, beyond all else that one day it would perhaps return. There had to be others, there had to be something, a life other than this. And worst case situation, it would be okay.
