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 Posted: Sat Mar 19, 2016 12:57 pm
This was not what she'd moved out here for. In fact, Autumn was feeling kind of cheated that none of her realtors or landlords had even vaguely hinted that this town was located in the heart of hell. Weird s**t was supposed to happen in the big city, not the boonies. And on top of that, she was supposed to pick up her Lush order from the mail center today.
The rainy town was eerily silent. Only the sound of her own breathing and the click-clack of her heels was reaching her ears. The negative was that it was giving Autumn plenty of alone time to silently lose her s**t. On the positive end of things, she'd hear anyone sneaking up on her coming from a mile away, and she wasn't afraid to put her heel through someone's foot.
Despite previous experiences, she checked her phone. Nothing. She couldn't even get an SOS out if something murdered her in this Silent Hill place. (She knew Silent Hill. Autumn had done her research, watched that Pewdie Guy to get some youtube popularity ideas. Any watching thereafter... well. Nobody had to know she actually found that s**t funny.) Was mace even useful on monsters? None of the zombie movies ever had people try to use mace. So, maybe if she didn't die here, she could report back on that s**t?
...Yeah. She was freaking out something fierce. At the very least, Autumn told herself, if she died here and she WAS found, her makeup was on fleek, even if the rain was killing her hair. Sighing to herself, Autumn slipped her phone back into her bag, running her hand over the can of mace and the kitty knuckles on her key ring. Not the world's best defense, but it was something.
Now, she just had to remember to actually breathe.
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Posted: Sat Mar 19, 2016 1:38 pm
All Chris had wanted to do today was just go to his job. So honestly, when he opened the front door to his house and was faced with rain and what felt like a deep, deep sense of foreboding, he considered entirely just closing the door and going back to bed. To just leave it for someone else to deal with and let him go and sleep for longer than six hours (which was currently, his longest record and something he was proud of).
But... the missing kids. The detective. If he was the sixth (and it was chalking up to look like he was now), there was a chance he could find them. What he would do after that, he didn't really know, but it was something. So he heaved a sigh, tugged his bag a little tighter, and grabbed an umbrella and headed out into the rain.
Now, what felt like an hour later, Chris was thoroughly freaked out and no closer to finding any answers. The sky hadn't changed color, was still that grey associated with rain and waking up too early (and god that six am alarm never got easier, even though he loved teaching with every fiber of his soul) and he had only gathered he was possibly the only person here and something was probably going to kill him. In fact, he was probably going to be the sixth person in a string of murders that were being called disappearances.
Turning a corner, Chris shifted his umbrella in his hand and- was that a person? His breath caught in his throat, an almost sob, and he forced it back down and tried to keep his cool. They didn't look like any of his students, or the person who had disappeared, but maybe they were here with him and they could figure something out?
That or Chris was about to meet his death at the hands of a murderer.
"H-Hello?" He called out, voice breaking and he cringed. That absolutely conveyed calmness about the situation, yep.
Moonstone Dazzle i know she wont stab him but tbh he's pretty sure she's going to anyways
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Posted: Sat Mar 19, 2016 1:56 pm
At the sudden voice, Autumn shrieked in terror and whirled around, mace from her bag now in her hand. Despite the knee-jerk reaction, she didn't actually fire. Instead, she stood with can in hand, trembling like a leaf in the wind. When it seemed that she was not, in fact, going to meet her end by a zombie or some weird other s**t, Autumn dropped the can onto the ground. As it rolled away with a faint clinking noise, she stared at the stranger, trying to decide how crazy she was willing to be. All things considered, since they were... wherever the hell it was they were... a little bit of crazy could probably be forgiven.
She took one uneasy step, followed by another. Eventually, her long stride put her face to face with the stranger. The same trembling hand that had previously held her mace was placed on his arm, and she dissolved into patting up and down the man frantically just to make sure he was actually real.
"Holy s**t. Holy s**t, there's someone else here. I thought I was gonna die here alone," she half-whispered, still afraid to break the choking silence of this place. Autumn held no respect for personal space in this hellhole and looped her arm through the stranger's, offering him a weak smile.
"Right. So. Okay. Horror movie rules. We're not separating, so we're just gonna have to be friends. Okay? Okay. I'm Autumn. I'd say it's nice to meet you, but it's not. It's really not." She sighed, shaking her head.
"We should try to find our way out of here."PeanutButterpies I'll take WHAT IS NO CHILL for 500, Alex!
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Posted: Sat Mar 19, 2016 3:51 pm
Oh god she had a weapon he was going to die. Chris flinched at the sight of the.. whatever she was holding (look he was far away and couldn't see that well) certain that she was about to put him in some serious pain. But instead she just stood there and Chris could only stare back in confusion, before the can was dropped and he was suddenly face to face with whoever was also out in this crazy place.
The patting was.. the patting was weird but he could deal with it. He could honestly deal with a whole lot, so long as it wasn't him getting murdered and so mutely he just stared at her and tried to calm himself down a little further.
He was fine. He was a teacher. He could totally handle this.
"God I am so glad you don't want to kill me," He murmured in reply, realizing a little belatedly that it probably wasn't the best thing to say but first impressions were all but gone at this point. He just wanted to survive.
"I'm Chris and please, do not let go of my arm," Chris offered back with his own shaky smile, patting her hand with his one free hand. "So getting out of here. Right. Do you um. Have any idea how to accomplish that? I've been wandering for like, an hour, and you're the first person I've seen and honestly I just wanted to go to my job today..." He trailed off, mouth thinning into a line.
God they were ******** weren't they.
Moonstone Dazzle Chris is so chill. totally. he isn't about to cry or anything. nope.
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Posted: Sat Mar 19, 2016 5:14 pm
"The feeling's mutual, buddy. I'm pretty sure I've gone through the stages of grief like, four times since getting here." With anger coming and going quite a few more times than that. But hey, her new buddy Chris didn't need to know just how many near-breakdowns she'd experienced. Autumn laughed shakily at the request not to let go of his arm, and lord, she wasn't going to do THAT any time soon. Hell, if they got out of here alive, he'd still probably have a hard time prying her off. Strength in numbers and all of that.
"No offense, but if I knew how to get out of here, I would've booked it out a while ago." She sighed. Which Came First? was calling her NAME. Autumn looked forward to her seasonal bath bombs like, all year. Avobath was nice, but a girl needed some variety in her life. And now, after splurging on the damn things, she was probably going to die before she got to use them. Pursing her lips, she looked about the empty city.
"But I was thinking. First off, we're not splitting up. Don't you dare try to pull that horror movie bullshit on me, or I'll just kill you myself. Second... what if we made it to the edge of town? Like, the border? Doesn't magical s**t tend to end at the end of a town or whatever?" She stopped a moment, then groaned aloud.
"Lord listen to me, I'm talking about magical s**t. With a stranger. I don't even know you're not a friendly hallucination or something to keep me from snapping."
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Posted: Sat Mar 19, 2016 5:51 pm
"Isn't acceptance part of that? All I've done is increasingly become on edge, so you're doing a bit better than me at least," he laughed, feeling some of the panic loosen. This was a little easier with someone around, less of a feeling of "the rapture has come and you've been left behind" and more "you're in a horror movie and probably about to die but hey you've got company for now".
"No I don't blame you, I honestly considered just going back to bed when I walked out of my door this morning. Still not sure if I regret it or not." It didn't really matter though, in the end, since he certainly wasn't going back to bed anytime soon. Hell, he wasn't probably going to sleep in the next week. He just knew this would bleed through into his dreams and make things way, way worse than before.
"I wasn't going to split up, thank you. I know how minorities are treated in action movies and I'd rather not be the asian dude killed first. Although you're really not easing my worries of you being some killer," Chris squinted at her, eyebrows furrowing together for relaxing. She probably wasn't going to kill him and if she was, well, edge of town was a nice place for it.
"Sounds a good of place of any to start with though, this s**t doesn't happen in New York obviously. I do have to object to me being a hallucination though, I am obviously very real," He frowned. "First of all, what kind of hallucination is a teacher? Which I am, obviously, I work at the highschool. I knew some of the kids that went missing. Also, I have a key to the highschool, so unless you're really into teachers or something, I think I'm pretty real." The aforementioned object was dug out of his pocket, an ill-gotten master key which he waggled before dropping it back into his khakis. He was probably going to get it taken back one day, which is why it wasn't attached to his main keys, but for now it worked.
"Anyways, what else are you going to talk with me about? The weather? It's pretty clear we're in some magical s**t," Chris laughed, waggling his eyebrows as he moved the umbrella to make sure it was covering Autumn a little more. It wasn't really raining, more of a light sprinkle, but it was still some nice protection.
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Posted: Sat Mar 19, 2016 6:12 pm
"Excuse you? Name one movie where the asian guy dies before the black one. Go on. I'm waiting." She gave a mock dramatic tap of her foot, pursing her lips and giving Chris a look. It was the same disappointed look her mother had given her for YEARS. Between genetics and practice, Autumn was basically the queen of 'I'm not mad, just disappointed', and she didn't even have to say a word.
She couldn't help but snort-laugh at the defense of him not being a hallucination by being a teacher, and wound up waving her free hand dismissively.
"Okay, okay! It was a joke, goody-two-shoes, not a life insult. Even if, personally, I'd lose my damn mind being a teacher." When he pulled the key out of his pocket, however, Autumn found herself distracted from her previous train of thought. High school kids... they were all high school kids who'd gone missing at first, weren't they?
"Hey. So... it was all kids that went missing, right? What if it's something at the school? Like. The mystical demon s**t has a base there, and the kids going missing are the ones too close to finding the truth. Maybe we should go there instead?" Okay. Maybe she HAD watched one too many scary movies. But at the very least, they were kind of coming in handy now? If not exacerbating her paranoia something fierce.
At his mention of the weather, Autumn rolled her eyes.
"But it IS weird, on that weather noise, that we went from pouring rain to... this. I think that's what tipped me off. Besides from, you know. Everyone else not being here." Autumn paused a moment.
"...s**t. This isn't the crazy Christian end times, is it?"
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Posted: Sat Mar 19, 2016 6:46 pm
There was a moment of silence as Chris groped around trying to find a movie and quietly, embarrassingly, failed. "..Okay point taken. Can you stop giving me that look? You're reminding me of my mom." He rubbed a hand on the back of his head sheepishly, trying to avoid her gaze. Geeze that was weirdly effective, did every girl have that talent?
"It's not for everyone, that's for sure. Although honestly, I'm pretty sure I've already lost my mind and that was long before all of-" Chris swiped an arm around broadly at their landscape, unsure how to word it. Hell was probably a good way to put it or Silent Hill. Or maybe Hellmouth from Buffy? He entertained the thought for a moment, then put it away for later. They had s**t to do.
"You know, it's a worth a try. I wouldn't be surprised, honestly. There's something hellish going on in those halls that isn't just explained by teenagers going through puberty." He gave a shrug, but his mind was working through the thought slowly. "Adoelle was the first to go missing too and she was incredibly smart, so if there was something going on I wouldn't be surprised she found it. Heliodora was acting strange too later on but... well. I just thought." He pressed his lips together, the guilt that he had been keeping at bay creeping up on him once more. That he shouldn't done more, done something.
Too late now.
"Anyways, I have a key so we might as well check it out. Good plan." He nodded, giving a sort of hum at her thought of the weather. It was really weird, like most of the town, but he hadn't given it much thought. He gave a startled laugh at her mentioning of the rapture.
"You know for like the past hour I've been wondering if this is the rapture. I've come to the conclusion that the town would be a lot more full if it was, so I think we're good on that front."
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Posted: Sat Mar 19, 2016 7:46 pm
"We trade out peeing standing up for mastering dirty looks. Don't tell anyone I told you that, though. I'd be excommunicated from the girl community for spilling our secrets." Was humor her coping mechanism? Probably. More than probably, definitely. It was a lot easier to focus on being clever and funny than it was to think about their imminent demise. At the very least, the last person to see her alive saw A, the fantastic makeup she'd put on, and B, her incredible sense of humor.
"I hope they're okay. The kids, I mean." She frowned to herself and scooted a little bit closer to Chris. The thought of the little ones getting messed up in this nonsense was disparaging. They might've been discouraged and disinterested in their lives, but they had futures. Opportunities outside of this town, if they wanted them. Now... well, it'd be a miracle if they turned up alive at the end of the day.
"What do you mean, she was acting weird? Like, normal teenager weird? Or something was going on with her life weird? It might guide us in the right direction," Autumn mused aloud, as they headed in the direction of the high school. It was a good thing she hadn't gone to school here- she probably would've lost her mind.
"We're all probably too much of Godless heathens for that many of us to disappear, huh?" Autumn rolled her eyes. "You'd think we'd get some props from the big guy for being independent, but no."
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Posted: Sat Mar 19, 2016 8:16 pm
"It'll stay between us. Us, and whatever is in this freaky place, I guess. I must admit, that's a pretty good trade though. I'd make it," Chris mused, thinking of how effective it would work on some of his classes. If it worked on him, a stressed twenty four year old, it would have to be effective on some sixteen year old kid.
"Me too. I kind of hope we can find them, as small of a shot as it is," He admitted quietly, thinking of when he had last seen them. He hadn't been connected deeply to them, but they were still students and he still cared about them. He could've helped, at least. Now they were just here, with too many questions and absolutely no answers.
"Mm.. I would say life-weird I suppose. She was kind of a problem kid for awhile, loud and disruptive in class, you know? But after winter break she was completely different, just totally silent. Most of us thought maybe something had happened at home, but then her friends began to disappear and it all turned into a mess." It was a bitter admission and Chris frowned after it, worrying the handle of the umbrella. He should've known something was up when a once loud student just went silent, but the teachers had just been grateful for the break and he hadn't wanted to push.
"Nah, don't you know? Parents always prize the kids who are most like them, to him we're probably the rebellious ones of the family," He sniggered, "If anything the rapture is like, the good kids getting a raise on their allowance or something while we're stuck with what we got."
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Posted: Sun Mar 20, 2016 2:47 pm
"Really, though, if some crazy-a** monster goes around spreading my secrets, I'm gonna be pissed. I don't care if you kill me and let me go with dignity, but ruining my reputation when I'm dead? That's just stone cold." Like, seriously. Monsters were dicks, but they could at least have some respect for a girl's place in the world. She wasn't asking for a funeral, or a proper burial, or anything. Just not to have some freaky-a** zombie thing spreading around her secrets or her social media passwords.
At Chris's obvious distress, Autumn reached around and patted his back gently. She couldn't, in good conscience, tell him it was going to be okay. For all she knew, they were already dead- and the two of them were next. At the very least, he was a caring guy.
"You probably give more of a s**t than anyone else at that school, man. It probably would've changed my life, having a teacher like you around who cared." She offered him another uneasy smile, but it quickly faded as she listened to the apparent change of heart in the girl. That... wasn't a typical change at all. Poor girl had probably seen some s**t that the rest of them didn't want to know about. Vaguely, Autumn wondered if she was getting too far in over her head, buddying up with her Horror Movie Minority Buddy and racing into danger's path.
"Aw man. Come on god, I really wanted a new pair of shoes," She grumbled good-naturedly, carrying on with their trip to the high school. When they arrived, she swallowed thickly.
"So uh. This get-out-of-jail-free-key of yours. It can lock s**t in if need be, right?"
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Posted: Sun Mar 20, 2016 8:27 pm
Out of nowhere, a voice comes. It is less a voice and more a sensation, a hand grabbing your chin and pulling you away from your current goal, whatever that may be, to look a certain way. There is a taste to it, like black smoke and burnt meat. It feels like walking over bones. It says, "COME AND SEE." You know, suddenly and with total clarity, that you should be going towards Waite State Park.
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Posted: Sun Mar 20, 2016 8:39 pm
"So if I kill you and don't let you go with dignity, that's what you're going to be mad about?" Chris joked, mouth quirked into a grin. "Who's to say the monster can talk anyways? For all you and I know, it's a blind, deaf, mute thing who's just wandering around. Kinda like a clicker. Except this isn't the zombie apocalypse."
He paused for a moment, mouth twisting in contemplation. "At least I don't think it is? It totally could be though, which isn't a great thought." He had a plan for the apocalypse at least though, so it wasn't a totally lost situation. It was a terrible situation, yeah, but at least he knew what to do. This was completely out of his scope.
"..You really think?" Chris asked softly, giving a bit of a smile. "I'm just a student teacher right now, working on my certification but... but it's nice to know you think that. Thank you." It didn't ease his guilt totally, but he did feel a slight bit better at her words. She didn't know that was his reasoning for teaching, but it was nice to have it confirmed he was working towards something worth it. At least if he survived, anyways.
He pulled the key out of his pocket, tapping it on his lip for a moment as he studied the door. "It should, I mean it's just a key. I don't see how keys couldn't do that, even in this weird place."
There was a rounding of a corner, the final step to get to the school and then- a blank empty field of grass. Chris blinked once, twice, mouth dropping open. Where the ******** was the highschool? He turned to Autumn, and then-
"COME AND SEE."
Chris openly screamed like a girl, clung to Autumn, and tried to backpedal as fast as he could. <******** THIS s**t." He yelled, fumbling the key back into his pocket.
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