Welcome to Gaia! ::

Alice the eager adventurer did not need to hard to convince her steadfast partner in crime to join her in an evening stroll into the woods. It was well past their curfew and the punishment for breaking that curfew was a steep price of a few recesses to pay, but that didn't seem to stop her as she vaulted over the fence of the academy gate. If they were to get caught this spooky midnight escapades would have been well worth it for the sudden adrenaline rush alone.

"Hurry up Thom!" Alice whispered loudly through the fence.

Alice watched Thom for a second after he gave her that wicked toothy smile. This is what she loved best about her partner in crime. He had no hesitation when it came to doing something exciting with her, even if it meant bending the rules a little bit, and he was cheeky about it too. Other kids she met would have been too scared to go out and have a little fun like this. She watched him for a second longer zig zagging towards the edge of the forest in admiration before ducking her own head under the board and jogging a direct path towards him.

“....into the woods?” he asked with that goofy smile and lowered head and paw.

She couldn't help to giggle at that. What was he trying to do, play the shining armored knight helping her break out of the academy castle and what did that make her? Snerking Alice grabbed her friend's paw in hers in an attempt to pull him forward into the woods along side her hand in hand. "I'm no lady. You know if you keep letting me go first I'm going to beat you to the woods and I wouldn't want to leave you in the dust." She said in almost a challenging tone before returning her own cheeky grin. "Want to race? It wouldn't be too far, just to the the big oak tree ahead of us that we usually play hide and go seek at. The first one there gets to lead the other into the woods."

Just as Alice was about to run deeper into the woods with the challenge of the race at hand a chill that ran all the way down from their neck to their tail making their hairs stand on end stopped them from moving forward. At first she didn't understand why their body had stiffened, as they were so caught up in conversation with Thom, but when she had stopped talking the faint and haunting sound of of the melody took recognition. She looked around frantically, clearly spooked by the odd offending noise that penetrated the woods, but could see nothing as to where it may have came from. It didn't take long however for the melody to fade off dissipating into the trees seemingly gone for the time being. Alice's eyebrows furrowed, narrowing towards their metaphorical third eye as their forehead tensed with worry staring hard at the trees in the direction she last heard the song. Probably some juniors or something sneaking out into the woods like themselves her mind tried to cope from the creepy encounter, but she still couldn't seem to relax herself even with the reasonable explanation.

Suddenly Alice reminded herself of who she was with. She couldn't let Thom see her so shaken. She was their bold leader that had no sense of danger for the adventure ahead, and she had to keep that appearance as she couldn't allow Thom to see her as a yellow bellied coward. Wiping her hands down the fabric of her sweater as if to clear it of wrinkles the bakeneko mentally scolded herself into calming down to help the hair of her tails standing up to ease back into their normal position before looking at her friend for their expression. Did he notice her get scare?