Entry tags:

hello

You open your eyes.

And you scream.

Four long gashes tear your sleeve to ribbons and arm to searing pain, something sharp clamps down on your ankle and sinks into flesh and bone, down the hall another student dangles half a foot off the ground with their hair slowly separating from their scalp, and littered across the floor are bodies pooling blood and occasionally twitching— not in a last bid for life, but in the way strips of skin and muscle and fabric pull away from a person's limbs when several dozen invisible hungry imps have decided they don't want to be banished and would rather feast on the blood of their enemies if that's what it takes to survive.

For every instance of blood that touches the floor, the school pitches and transforms into a dilapidated version of itself, what npcs that were in the hall with you turning into shadow versions of themselves and taking hold of the fallen bodies to drag them to the auditorium. There, the empty room is pitch black. There, the threshold at the doorway crumbles and expands with each shadow that stands and feeds the void another sacrifice. In this school, in its darkness and its silence and its faceless students that cannot be touched, you may at least find some reprieve from the imps that do not exist, find fresh water flowing from the bathroom sinks, and scenes of normal school life playing out in the cracked mirrors that if you break even further you find that you return.

You open your eyes, and no time has passed. Something invisible tears open a student's throat, so close you can see their vocal cords bright white and vibrating as they scream. Blood splatters on the ground, and the school pitches and turns once again.

hi

For each fallen student, a new one transfers in to replace them. Between the student council election and the imp infestation, more and more you seem to be surrounded by unfamiliar faces. The contrast is stark between those veteran students with bandaged arms and a limp to their stride and long sleeves and pants despite the growing heat, and those students with bright and smiling faces, the ones who coo over the cats and share their lunches with anybody who looks hungry and sit in small groups outside by the wisteria tree to chat during breaks, ignorant of what keeps it fed.

With all the new transfer students, many teachers have decided to assign group projects for their classes: poster presentations on their favorite myth or legend, short skits portraying famous historical scenes, and, everybody say thank you Cain and Kelly, taking care of flour sack babies. Projects are by homeroom and can be done in groups of 2-4, because sometimes a family is a dad and a dad and a wine aunt and a dog. The projects are all due at the end of the month, and if you're able to keep your flour sack baby from being turned into a cake or torn apart by imps, you may notice that they start to feel... warm... after one week. At the end of the second week, they begin to make short, quiet noises— a gurgle, a breath, a whine. At the end of the third week, while you're cradling the sack in your arms, you swear it moves. At the end of the fourth week, well. The project is over. Maybe it'll hatch? Let me know if you make it.

can you hear me?

The veteran students don't seem very keen on working with transfer students who make excuses about not wanting to work outside of school, but newer students are more willing, eager to meet people and get to know them and learn about the school. They gravitate towards the bulletin board to check out the class ranks, new clubs, a new section on the board with several dozen slips of colored paper tacked onto it and a little container below containing blank slips and a pen so you can add your own wishes:

"I want to be normal. --XX, 1-A"
"I want to live. --XX, 2-B"
"I want my friends back. --XX, 3-D"
"I want life to go back to normal. --XX, 2-A"
"I want my brother back. --XX, 2-A"
"I want more power. --XX, 1-A"
"I want to be loved. --XX, 1-B"
"I want to fix the past. --XX, 2-A"
"I want to find my family. --XX, 3-B"
"I want to be loved. --XX, 2-A"
"I want a normal life. --XX, 1-A"
"I want my brother back. --XX, 2-B" "I want to see my family. --XX, 1-C"
"I want to die. --XX, 2-D"
"I want my friends back. --XX, 2-D"
"I want to fix the past. --XX, 3-D"
"I want freedom. --XX, 1-D"
"I want to live. --XX, 1-C"
"LUNCH DATE WITH IZUMI SENA!!! --XX, 1-A"
"I want to be strong. --XX, 2-E"
"I want freedom. --XX, 3-E"
"I want to live. --XX, 2-E"
"I want to die. --XX, 3-E"
"I want to remember. --XX, 3-C"

Wishes are meant to be granted, but... Some of the newer students make an attempt at being a little more realistic and add things like "I want the answers to next week's math exam" and "I want a pony" and do check the board occasionally, so it never hurts to leave a wish of your own.

That's certainly the thought as the month goes on and there are more and more wishes for the construction in the clock tower stairwell to hurry up and finish already, as the entire month of June, from 6AM to 6PM, six days a week, the sounds of drilling and hammering and screaming and sawing can be heard in the stairwell despite no construction workers being seen entering or exiting the school. The clock tower itself is inaccessible while the stairs are being taken down and replaced with a brand new elevator— veteran students are particularly grateful, because it's hard to climb stairs and go to class when your shin is splintered and a thin layer of bandage is the only thing keeping your guts from spilling out onto the floor.

In the evening after the npcs leave, characters are able to open the doors on the second and fourth floors to find... that nothing looks any different. On the first floor, however, a set of elevator doors has been installed right by the front doors, and while the button to open the doors don't work, they can be wrenched apart and entered, revealing a barren space with metal walls, a clock hung on the back wall that ticks backwards, and too many buttons on the panel by the double doors. Most buttons are white, numbered -6 to 27 though out of order and not all the numbers are there. Some are black, one is red, neither colors having symbols etched into them. None of the buttons work when pressed.

Not yet.

it'll be alright

Until then, the clock tower can be reached as normal up several flights of stairs, the room at the very top bright and sunny with clock faces in the glass on all four sides, floorboards stained copper red and the air thick and difficult to breathe. For some, it's still worth it for the view of the wisteria tree in perpetual bloom in the courtyard below, especially as the heat and humidity of summer approaches and with it comes clouds of gnats that have taken up residence in the courtyard, hovering over puddles of light pink water left over from watering the courtyard overnight. Classes are no longer held outdoors, as teachers find it impossible to speak without gnats entering their mouths at any given opportunity, and the heat inside the school becomes near unbearable towards the latter half of the month as there is no air conditioning and teachers hesitate to open their windows. The homeroom teachers in 1-B, 1-D, and 2-C made that mistake once, opening the windows facing the courtyard and the gnats had gotten in, little homing missiles to their favorite food: blood, sweat, and tears. But if you don't cry, sweat, or bleed and aren't afraid of the gnats squeezing their way through the mesh screen in the windows, it can be nice to sit by the window and hope a breeze comes your way.

Those in classes 3-A, 3-B, 2-C, 2-D, 2-E, and all of the first year classes can find that they're able to open the windows in classrooms 1-B, 1-D, and 2-C to enjoy the breeze, but find an invisible barrier blocking their way and preventing any part of them from reaching out into the open space. 3-A, 2-C, 2-D, 2-E, 1-B, 1-D, and 1-E are able to remove the screen and exit through those windows facing the courtyard, keeping in mind it is the 3rd and 4th floors and they will have to climb back up to reenter the school. 2-C, 1-B, and 1-D can go a step further and find that the front door to the school opens for them, except when they try to leave, they run into an invisible barrier, unable to take another step out the door. But they can stand there and take in the sight of the school gates in the near distance, of the forest just beyond, of the npc students slipping past them on their way to and from home. At this threshold it is chilly despite the heat that smothers the school in waves, the air is fresh, invigorating, and when the sun passes overhead you swear you can feel it staring.

OOC

✽ Sometimes you summon murder imps and you gotta get rid of them yourselves. The imps are invisible unless supernatural sight (eg Nene, Clamor) or form (eg Moriarty, Sherlock) is regained, or are seen through an adder stone (possessed by Arthur, Gundham), but can still be fought either way through physical or magical means, or banished with the proper materials. They will NOT be rampaging and attacking everybody all the time, so this prompt is avoidable if you'd rather not, but they will gravitate towards 1) students who are alone, and 2) areas where there is already bloodshed happening.
✽ For the flour sack group project, groups are by homeroom and can number between 2-4 students. You may also assume npc students are part of your group if you wish.
✽ Characters may notice that physically, an elevator can't make sense without demolishing the first floor locker area, and they will have to accept the fact that not everything will make sense, and that sometimes, Ori just does not want to redraw floorplans. The elevator will be functional starting next month, maybe.
✽ Only windows in classrooms 1-B, 1-D, and 2-C can be opened by characters in classes that have gained at least one class rank to date. Those classes that gained at least one class rank last month are able to exit out the windows facing the courtyard only. Those classes with 30 or more ranks are able to open the front door to the school but not exit through it. To anybody else watching them open the door, they will see that character turn into a shadow and go through the motions of opening the door without exiting, exactly how npc students appear when they enter and exit the school.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ !!! Praise... Haruka brightens up immensely, looking back and forth from Natsume and Noah and, forgetting her shyness for a moment, scoots a little closer to Noah so she can show him the full page instead of peering over the small distance at her work. ]

Hehe... It's Whitey!

[ guess the black cat's name ]

Which makes the other one Blacky, HM? ( they're so simple...... ) I wonder if they respond better to those than anything we've come up WITH.

[Kids are so fucking funny.]

...y-yeah, I wonder... The cats are scared of me, so...

[Yes Noah that's because you made whole-ass shadow cats and spooked them! That's how you end up in the void, dumbass.]

Maybe you should show the cats your art, Haruka...?

Mmhm! Whitey and Blacky!

[ But, mm... She deflates just a little when Noah says they're scared of him, because it's the same with her, and the other way around, even. She's a ghost, after all, so there's been more than once where she's turned a corner and found a cat staring directly at her, eyes shining in the dead of night, and that itself is scary. ]

Do you think they'll like it...? They're cats.

[ what's the point, noah ]

Cats are much smarter than you THINK. One of mine back home learned how to open the washroom DOOR.

( it is Not a good time. )

They're more likely to lay on it or play with it than appreciate it for the art that it IS, but that in and of itself is a way they show they like IT... You'd have given them something new and exciting to mess WITH.

[honestly Noah doesn't know how to talk to kids nor people his own age nor adults nor robots nor anything that exists within 60 lightyears of him, so he thinks sparking a kid's imagination by telling her to show cats her crayon drawing is a good fucking idea okAY it's what Harque would've done]

Y-yeah. They're not going to draw or say thanks but they might flop on it. Uh... did you know cats meow because they're trying to talk to us? They don't do that to each other. It's, um... a special way of talking to us.

[ She looks a little nervous at the idea of cats being able to open doors, because then they will be unstoppable, but the idea of talking to cats? like she always imagined in her picture books... ]

I want to... Can we?

( He almost agrees, then glances at his crystal ball; he doesn't want to leave it, and he wonders if leaving the séance area will make Haruka disappear... but it isn't like he's a real medium or has any actual experience doing these things, and she came because they called a name that sounded close enough to hers for her to get curious, so okay. )

I don't see why NOT. We can find Lucy - that IS, Whitey - and show THEM, since they're the friendlier of the TWO. ( ...man how gullible is noah- ) To keep the séance going, however, we're going to have to keep holding HANDS... Is that alright with YOU, Noah-kun? To help keep Haruka-chan with US.

( How Gullible Is Noah. )

O-oh, okay. That makes sense.

[He's not usually gullible. But he's faced with unfamiliar magic and he'd like to trust Natsume, so maybe he's a little gullible right now. How's he supposed to no better? No one's ever done a séance with him before!

So they're holding hands now, and Noah's beginning to think people are going to see this and get the wrong idea. He's got a track record going now, doesn't he? Who's going to Talk... ~~someone go to the store real quick and bring this kid back a bi pride bracelet because they totally made those in 1990s Japan ok~~ If Komaeda sees this and calls Noah a cheater or whatever it was last time he's going to be so confused.]

Where do the cats usually hang out...?

[ Gullible is Haruka, who doesn't know what a séance is, knows she always exists no matter what, but doesn't want them to stop seeing her when they exit the room, if that's what Natsume means. Natsume seems to be the one knowing what's going on, so she takes his other hand, holding onto his pinky finger with her tiny hand, cold and soft to the touch, reminiscent of mist in the early morning before the sun rises.

His leg might start to feel a little numb too as he walks, with her pressed so close against his side that she sometimes phases through him without thinking. ]

( One day they'll learn not to trust him, but today isn't that day, and he gives a worried look back to his crystal ball for a second before he thinks: Lucy's much easier to find, and off they go. Holding hands is odd, but they're something cute and touching about the way Haruka does it, and he doesn't mind it or the every-so-often numbness he gets when she gets too close.

Mental notes for spirits later, but not minding it so much, no. )

Sena-san and I found Blacky on the lower floors and Whitey on the higher ones ONCE, but they're cats: they tend to just go wherever they WANT. ( No food, but he clicks his tongue as they walk, ye olde cat-calling tradition. ) Whitey, Lucy, Lily...♪ Kitty kitty, we've got a treat for you ♪

( if nothing else cats recognize "treat" he knows this. also neither of you are allowed to make fun of him for cooing over cats, this séance business is PRIVATE. )

[Why would Noah make fun of anyone for cooing over cats when Noah is canonically catboy-adjacent?

He'll keep his eyes peeled though, glancing all over the halls and even on top of the lockers to see if he can see the cats (who hate him) (RIP). He doesn't let go of Natsume's hand because he was told not to, but sometimes he glances over at Haruka to see if they can still see her, and he looks away when he's satisfied she's still there.

So. Where are cats. Pspspspsps cats.]

[ Haruka keeps a lookout for the cats too, glancing around Natsume's legs and catching Noah's eyes from time to time and generally trusting Natsume not to let her run into any walls or trip over anything because she's not looking where she's going—- ]

Ah!

[ She starts to run down the hall, but she's only a little ghost girl and can't tug their little chain of people, not that she needs to because peering out from behind the next corner is little Blacky, aka my downstairs neighbor for two months while I was at university. It stares at Noah and starts to bristle. ]

( NO IT'S THE ONE THAT WON'T LET HIM CUDDLE............... i felt in my bones they would find blacky. )

Well, if it isn't Belphegor... ( Blacky is the cuter name, so after a moment: ) Little Blacky.

( .......looking at noah, )

It isn't mad to see ME, so what exactly did you do to offend such a sweet kitty CAT?

[Haha okay so about that—]

It... listen, the black cat was attacking Clamor.

[Noah goes on to explain the entire incident from start to finish, ish, leaving out the part about the void and Nao dying in the bathroom because what if Haruka gets scared? And he absolutely does that thing shitty teenagers do where they twist the story in their favour like so:]

The white cat will play with the shadow cats I make sometimes, and I thought maybe the black cat would either do the same thing or leave Clamor alone if another cat was nearby. Uh... I guess it backfired.

[You're an asshole, Noah.]

Shadow cats...? Like shadow puppets?

[ She does this thing with her free hand that's a little different from how shadow puppets work, but it's good enough and momentarily distracts her from the real live living cat death glaring their way. ]

I want to see!

( Ohhhh, well, if it involved all that then he's not surprised that the cat got at them, it's very protective of dead things. )

If he does it NOW, it might just make things with Blacky WORSE. ( cmon baby ) Let's approach it slowly and apologize, oKAY? And you can show it your drawing TOO.

Y-yeah, I'll come to the library later and show you, okay? But, uh... I don't want to make Blacky mad at me, [Noah, still holding Natsume's hand, crouches and maneuvers so that he's eye-level with Haruka. Can't break the magic! But also he has to talk to the kid like how Harque used to talk to him when he was that tiny. This is how you talk to kids obviously.] so you should go show Blacky what you drew, okay?

Oh... okay!

[ She's a little disappointed, but even more excited over the prospect of having Noah come play with her sometime later, like today isn't just a one-off thing and she doesn't get to play with everybody again.

That said, the number of instructions she can hold in her little library ghost brain is only one at a time, so approaching slowly and apologizing gets tossed out for showing the cat what she drew, Haruka running forward and forgetting that she's holding hands with Natsume and the sudden jerking motion when she gets caught startles the black cat which hisses and spits and run away.

...

Q_______Q ]

( me when i read this tag

There it goes........ Natsume stares after it too, looks at Haruka and- oh no, oh no. )

Shhhh, there THERE... I haven't had much luck befriending that one eiTHER, to be honest with YOU, and animals usually like ME. ( He'll ... take the chance and pull his hand away from Noah's so he can pet her, it's okay, it's okay... A quick and thoughtful look down the hall, hmm— ) Noah-kun, do you suppose you could herd Blacky back here with your shaDOWS?

[Looks at his hand

Looks at Natsume, looks at Haruka

Processing...

Bitch.]

I... yeah, I could try, but are you sure that's a good idea? [He steals another glance at Haruka and you know what fuck it that's a great idea.] ...If the cat doesn't come back in five minutes, assume the worst happened to me.

["Assume the cat killed me" is what he means, but again, can't freak out the already-dead child. Would she freak out about that? Speculation isn't gonna get him anywhere, so he takes off down the hall with shadows already wreathing around his left arm.

Assuming he finds the cat, does he get attacked instantly? Can he scare the cat back over to them with more cats... is Noah going to die via cat-inflicted injury...]

[ Her face scrunches up to keep from crying, but she nods solemnly and looks at Noah with wet, hopeful eyes. At the very very least, it doesn't seem she's disappeared when Natsume breaks physical contact with Noah, but she does start to look a little more translucent, especially in brighter areas of the hall.

Better hurry up!

By which I mean, does Noah think this is a good idea, because the cat's already freaked and it runs to the end of the hallway to find itself trapped, needing time to squeeze under a door if it's to escape but it sees Noah already running after it and has no choice but to raise its hackles and stand its ground.

He can absolutely scare the cat back down the hall to Natsume and Haruka.

He would be chasing a very scared, very angry, very bloodthirsty cat back to them, Haruka leaning against Natsume while she waits but crouching down and opening her arms wide for the cat when she sees it coming. ]

( So they do have to keep holding hands for her to stay more opaque... Noted for next time and to soothe any embarrassment Noah might have, very good to know.

Natsume's glad he doesn't have to walk right now, given Haruka's probably phasing into his leg more often if she's leaning against him, and if Noah's actually going to chase it back and it's going to, like, look like that... Logically, Haruka is a ghost and she'll be fine, but unfortunately as much as he likes to pretend he doesn't run on emotions

he does, so he's gonna step in front of her to catch the cat instead :'| Give him the claws, he's used to it, girls like battle scars.

Of course if Noah deems it a bad idea in the end he'll just be waiting very nicely with fading-Haruka but she'll be disappointed the kitty isn't coming back so like )

[Oh no that cat's coming back, you think he's not committed? He's going to get killed in his sleep by this thing but it's in the name of making a little kid smile so it's fine.

Anyway Noah's just going to stand there uselessly in the hallway and watch Natsume eat it to an angry cat I guess, you know, keeping his distance so that they don't have to repeat this incident (maybe).

When we all get yeeted into the void you can blame Noah for it.]

[ The black cat comes tearing towards Natsume and shreds his hands and/or ankles depending on whether he manages to get his hands around it or not, blood either splattering onto the ground or carried there on the tips of the cat's claws as it touches back down on the ground in an attempt to side step him.

Y'all get yeeted into the void. The cat turns into a shadow cat, which doesn't look any different from a normal black cat. Haruka, on the other hand, turns into a cute little owl ]

hello

hi

can you hear me?

it'll be alright

OOC

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