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wake up

You open your eyes. And then immediately squeeze them shut as a cloud of chalk dust gets clapped in your face, the student next to you looking surprised— but the sort of surprised as if they're faking it, barely suppressing a laugh. "What're you dozing off for, transfer student?" they ask, going back to wiping clean the chalkboard you two are standing in front of. "The sooner we get everything cleaned up, the sooner we can go home!" Another classmate tosses a wet rag at the side of your face, laughing as if a joke— if it weren't strangely warm to the touch, with dark red stains smelling strongly of iron.

All characters open their eyes and wake up in one of the classrooms around school. Whatever they remember last, it's lost in a thick, sleepy fog, the drowsiness still wearing off and making it difficult to reconcile the fact that they've never seen this classroom or these people in their lives, but somehow, it feels like they've been here forever. The other students all act familiar towards you, calling you by name and encouraging you to help clean the classrooms as part of observing the Vernal Equinox. Buckets of soapy water are set on the desks around the classrooms, light pink suds spilling over the sides, and both students and faculty can be seen hard of work scrubbing dark, stubborn stains out of the walls and floors. "It must be absolutely spotless," they murmur under their breaths. "All evidence must be erased."

You don't have to stay and clean. You could throw the rag back into a bucket and flip these strangers the bird and exit the classroom. But those who don't help clean even a little will find that they leave sticky red footprints wherever they walk, creating more work for everybody else and becoming very easy to track down and """accidentally""" knock over the backside of the head with a mop handle. Besides, it's not like you can walk out of the school and get back to whatever you were doing before. Your feet may bring you to the front door on autopilot, but the doors do not open for you, and neither do any of the windows no matter how hard you try to pry them open or kick them in.

Careful, though. On some windowsills, particularly on the third and fourth floors, rests a stack of five flat stones one on top of another: a gorinto to those who recognize such a thing, a pile of rocks to those who do not. The stones are all damp with water, topped with a scattering of wisteria flowers, and flanked by cheap packaged snacks. Whether on accident or on purpose, the moment you touch any of it—-

wake up

You open your eyes. The last thing you remember is touching a wet stone or trying to swipe the rice cracker beside it, and in the next moment, you're somewhere else inside the school. Characters who touch the gorinto or its offerings will find themselves pulled into a memory of high school life, one that feels like theirs, although they recognize that that's impossible. There's the feeling of being classmates with the other characters- perhaps two characters are seat partners, or best friends, or rivals, or club members- but despite the familiarity, do not know each other's names or recall ever seeing their faces before. Essentially, live your pre-established cr high school au dreams.

The memories fade in and out of different scenarios, but they all start off the same: You open your eyes.

You open your eyes and the inside of your left wrist is stinging; you stop scratching, pulling your other hand away before the angry red lines on your skin splits and bleeds. Somebody calls your name, just as you see a pan slide off the stovetop out of the corner of your eye, and the stinging on your wrist flares to a searing burn, hot oil splattering you and the person next to you.

You open your eyes. You're flat on your back in a room that smells of paint thinner, your chest is heavy, and it's so hard to breathe. Something is crushing your throat- a fluffy white cat with golden eyes, purring and kneading away, but then somebody calls your name and its fluff puffs twice its size in surprise, claws sinking into your throat, hooking and tearing as the cat scampers away.

You open your eyes. A kendo shinai comes down hard on your head, the one in your hand failing to come up quick enough to guard, your classmates groaning in sympathy all around you. Your head is spinning, you feel sick.

You open your eyes. You and a friend are seated side by side in the clock tower, back to the walls and feeling the resounding toll of the bell fill your entire being as the count reaches ten, eleven, twelve. The world turns to silence. Your friend opens their mouth to speak, but you cannot hear them. You cannot hear anything.

(tw: implied suicide) You open your eyes. Your classmate sits on the other side of your desk, a spread of sandwiches and juice boxes between you and the window to your side providing a clear view of the upper branches of the wisteria tree in full bloom. And the strangled look on an upperclassman's face as they fall headfirst from the sky on the other side of the glass, hurtling towards the pavement of the courtyard below.

You open your eyes—-

You're standing in front of a window, cold fingers wrapped around your wrist and pulling it away from the pile of stones. Perhaps another character has come to your rescue, or else one student in particular who shakes his head, whispers "don't," and walks away.

wake up

You open your eyes and wipe a bit of drool off the corner of your mouth. There's really no shame, when half the students sitting around you in the auditorium are half asleep as well. As if coming out of a dream, the characters don't remember getting here, just that they are now- sitting in uncomfortably hard plastic chairs in the back rows in the auditorium, the school principal's flat, droning voice reverberating oddly off the walls of the large room. No matter how hard you try, you cannot get up out of your seat.

"...and now, let us congratulate the graduating class," the principal says, stepping back from the podium. A single student rises to her feet and meets the principal at the center of the stage, her long dark hair falling across her face as she bows and receives her diploma. "Congratulations, graduate. May your life be full and prosperous. Please, if you would say a few words..."

The girl straightens and pushes her hair out of her face with one hand— she has no other hand, the entire sleeve of her right rolled all the way up to the shoulder and pinned flat. She forgoes the podium and the microphone, but somehow, her voice rings out clearly and reaches all the way to the back of the room: "Keep your eyes open."

With that parting message, she steps off the stage, disappearing into the mass of students who stand and fill the room with applause, drawing the graduation ceremony to a close. Characters find that they can now get up and move, which is a good thing because the other students are all pushing and shoving to get out of the auditorium and out the front doors, phasing right through the closed doors. Like a sieve, the school empties out, leaving behind the dregs.

wake up

Your eyes are open and the school is quiet. None of the students or faculty remain in the school, and all the staff— the principal, faculty, nurse, and counselor's— offices are locked. A skinny black cat flicks its tail from where it sits on top one of the lockers, where characters can find a copy of the school calendar showing the next two weeks to be spring vacation, with the school being closed for the holiday.

At least, with school vacated, it's clear from those left who's in the same boat and allows the chance for exploration away from prying eyes of the other students and staff. Introductions are probably in order, a discussion of what the fuck is going on, maybe also a plan of attack— or a plan for survival, at the very least, because there is no way out of this school. What ingredients are left in the home economics kitchen is going to have to last everybody the next two weeks. The student store is already empty. The water runs pink. The vending machines don't respond to jostling or being kicked over and brought to the ground, only the last dozen "merit points" on your PDA that you can't earn any more of, with class out of session. The snack you've been hiding in your locker should probably be saved as a last resort. The cats are starting to look tasty.

Hang in there. School will be starting again real soon.

OOC

✽ Characters experience the recurring feeling of drifting in (school life) and out (canon life) of sleep up until the graduation ceremony, after which they will have full awareness and come to their senses. Pre-established cr is possible to some extent, as a varying degree of familiarity may remain, but all characters will be strangers to one another unless they know each other in canon. All npcs will know the characters' names, but characters will not know each other's names until introduced.

✽ The second prompt occurs upon a character touching a gorinto or any of the offerings surrounding it. While touching it, characters fall into a trance and experience different scenes of high school life, with examples given in the prompt but players are free to play out any aspect of normal school life taking place at any time during the school year.

✽ stopit is an npc and will be available for threading in his toplevel during the vernal equinox and graduation day, but not during spring break. After the game opens, he will be available as a student for threading on the npc contact page. The graduating student will not be available for threading in this TDM.

✽ During spring break, all npc students and faculty will be absent from the school, with exception of one white cat and one black cat. For this TDM, in addition to the areas greyed out and inaccessible on the locations page, the faculty office and nurse's office are locked and unavailable, as there is no staff. The library and club rooms remain open, but supplies will not replenish themselves.

✽ As a reminder, all doors and windows leading outside are locked and cannot be broken. From midnight until 6AM, all sound disappears from the world. Characters are free to use their PDA as a network, but it is text (and shitty touchpad art) only and all threads are public.

✽ TDM threads may be used for bonus activity after April AC is submitted.

Comments

himeko inaba | kokoro connect

[dereban]

↳ option i. [Cleaning was a pretty common class duty to go through, although doing something like this as a part of what seems to be something celebratory... ... is it something that you'd normally celebrate? It's kind of strange, really. But more importantly... It feels off, somehow. Like there's something wrong. Not just with this place, but... the words that they use in particular. Of course, it's because of that she tries to find someone else, looking a little desperate, but also strangely uncomfortable.] Excuse me - [She calls out, pushing politeness as if that could possibly work.] You don't think that there's some other reason why we're cleaning, do you...? [There's suspicion there. A heavy amount of doubt that's simply settled and made its way there. It's probably fine, though.] ↳ option ii. Fuck. [After the graduation ceremony ends, she finds herself cursing in frustration, even if the feeling of memories that don't slot correctly into place, or living a completely different life is familiar to her. In fact, it makes her even more annoyed, and now that the place seems practically emptied out and she's essentially her whole self again... It's time to investigate a little bit. Which is why people can find her snooping around the various rooms that are unlocked. Of course, if she finds someone near a locked door, she can't help but smile, her eyes brimming with curiosity:] You wouldn't happen to know how to unlock the door, would you? [Sometimes, you gotta do a B&E. Otherwise, you might find her in the library, looking through the massive amount of books for answers as she essentially tries to memorize everything she possibly can. People might even hear her murmur words like That's strange... and Is this like that, then...? but she doesn't seem to be paying much mind to the others around her. Although she wouldn't mind being bothered... probably.] ↳ option wildcard. [Want to play something else not written above? Feel free to plot something out with me, either via PM or hitting me up at tsundereban, I'm willing to write up a custom starter! As a heads up: Himeko herself is coming in from the end of the light novels, so if anybody is trying to avoid spoilers, feel free to also let me know.]

ii

[parhellia]

Hmmmmmmm...

[ Ala taps a finger to her chin, standing in front of the principal's office and feeling the goosebumps crawl up her bare shins with the draft coming out of it. If there's one place in this school to get into, she thinks it must be here: the principal's got to hold answers, and if there's a draft, doesn't that mean there's an open window? ]

Aside from kicking it down? I bet one of the cats can fit under the door! Have you ever seen one of those videos? They just schwoop! through, like jello!

[dereban]

Well, I'm definitely not making the attempt to kick it down.

[There's something dry in Himeko's voice, but it's not quite sarcasm as she finds herself with her arms folded, sighing a little bit.]

And what would the point of cats getting under it be, anyway? It's not like they'd open the door from the inside, or anything...

[parhellia]

[ She bets there's somebody here that can kick down a door. People do it in movies all the time, and... something about a fire hazard not to have easily kick-downable doors? She supposes it depends whether the door swings in or out. ]

Hehe... You've never seen those videos, huh? Cats can totally be trained to open doorknobs and stuff!

[ Which requires training and a receptive cat and a whole buttload of time they probably don't have. Ala crouches in front of the door and gives it a knock with her knuckles. There's no answer, which is to be expected, but the door also sounds very solid. ]

Maybe there's keys somewhere. The principal can't be the only one who carries 'em.

[dereban]

Unfortunately, I haven't... besides, we don't have the time to train a whole new cat to open a door for us.

[Not to mention the fact that she isn't sure if any sort of cat that showed up in a school like this one would be trustworthy at all.]

Maybe there is - janitors usually would carry them, right? Since they'd have to clean the place.

[parhellia]

[ This cat discrimination... Ala looks riling to go, though, because any idea is a good idea when it's the only once they've got. ]

Yeah! Let's go look for them— everybody was cleaning with mops and stuff before, so there's gotta be a storage closet somewhere where the janitor lives!

[ Where she has no idea, but they're already on one end of the floor— all they got to do is try each and every door until they come across that room— and so the next door is the boy's bathroom. ]

[dereban]

The janitor wouldn't actually live there, though...

[Himeko answers so dryly with a bit of a sigh, shaking her head a little.]

But yeah - let's go. Do you want to lead the way?

[Better Ala to do so than her, she thinks.]

ii

[uncommonsense]

[ When Haruhi got to the library, she had figured there had to be something hidden there. Something like a hidden message left in a book, or a key or something. So in her case, she was more just flipping through books without really taking in much of the contents. It was much more likely that the books weren't that strange.

The... somewhat odd typography aside.

As she looked around, she came across another person checking through the books. Someone else looking for a key? Except when she drew near, she noticed that this other girl was actually reading through them. Hm.

Haruhi opened her mouth to check her progress, but nothing came out when she tried to speak. The eerie silence was bothering her enough, but being unable to produce any noise was just plain creepy.

So, at the very least, she could wave a bit to try to get Himeko's attention. ]

[dereban]

[Well, an attempt at a wave is... most definitely not working, given just how absorbed and into the book Himeko is at, unfortunately. A little bit more than just a simple wave would probably do the trick, given that someone as noise-oriented as Himeko is definitely not noticing that there's even another person there.

Not that she means to ignore her, of course.]

[uncommonsense]

[ --okay, that didn't work.

Undeterred, she thinks about her next step. Slamming a book down probably wouldn't do anything if there's no noise being made. Well, okay then. In that case... tapping her on the shoulder might work! ]

[dereban]

['Huh?'

She opens her mouth to say that, but she can't even hear her own voice, which causes her to turn on her heel to see just who exactly tapped her shoulder, feeling rather surprised.

Or at least, jumping in surprise as the book drops suddenly onto the floor. Whoops.]

[uncommonsense]

[ That was the response she figured she'd get! Haruhi takes a step back once the book falls, and glances between Himeko and the book before reaching down to grab it.

She wants to ask if there was anything interesting in there, but every time she tries to make sound come out nothing happens, so she flips through as she had with the others. Looking for her key, or her hidden message! ]

[dereban]

[Well, the book certainly doesn't have anything interesting - it's just a history book.

Although she just... stares at Haruhi in confusion, tilting her head a little.]

i

[phoenixhearted]

...Not that I'm aware of.

[ Kai's response is even, and it doesn't give away much of what he's thinking. In truth, he'd been thinking that something was strange, too... not with the cleaning, though. Instead, it's just been a vague sense of wrongness - about this school, and the people in it. He can't figure out whether or not it's his imagination, but for some reason, he doesn't want to let Himeko know how he's feeling so easily. ]

Is there something that bothers you about it?

[dereban]

Of course there--

[She starts the words loudly, almost frustrated before she notices that the other students are watching, causing her to shake her head and sigh, lowering her volume quite a bit to calm herself down.

Himeko's... trying.]

Does it not seem odd to you?

[phoenixhearted]

Well, it's not the kind of thing a school should be doing.

[ Cleaning up blood, that is. As unfazed as Kai seems by it all, even he can recognize that. ]

Shouldn't you know? You're a student here just like everyone else, after all.

[ Of course, Kai, now that he thinks about it... he doesn't know either. But Himeko doesn't have to know that. ]

[dereban]

[Agreed, Himeko thinks but doesn't say aloud. This is her first time with any personal experience with blood and while there's discomfort there, she's doing her best to keep that out of her expression.

She's just glad she's used to dealing with nonsense like this...

... like this?

Hm.]

I just woke up. I wouldn't be asking if I knew.

[phoenixhearted]

You were just asleep, weren't you? And the other students certainly seemed like they expected us to know.

[ Still. The more he thinks about it, the stranger it becomes. It's like Himeko asking has set off something in Kai's brain, and he begins to wonder why he ever accepted this situation to begin with... What is he even doing here? This school- does he even know where it is? What it is? ]

ii

[takehold]

[ Junna is very, very confused. She has some experience with odd things happening and being swept off into seemingly magical realms but they were always in the form of Revues. Never something like this. Never something so menacing. She's heading down a hallway, checking various doors when another girl asks her if she can unlock something. Junna blinks, then reaches up to adjust her glasses. ]

Usually you need a key, don't you?

[dereban]

Usually, yeah.

[Her voice is pretty calm in spite of their situation; then again, she's managed to get a lot of her frustrations out pretty early on, with the whole... cleaning thing, and everyone trying to barge out of the auditorium after the strange graduation ceremony was done and over with.]

But you're not just going to find a key lying around, right?

[takehold]

I suppose you're not...

[ Junna rubs her chin. In a story there'd be some clue or way to find a key, wouldn't there? Or something like that. ]

If there was someone who could pick the lock, maybe they could help? Though usually I don't think you're supposed to go through locked doors at school.

[ Junna is still trying to cope, excuse her being a complete narc for the moment. ]

[dereban]

'Usually'. But these aren't normal circumstances.

[Because if this were, she wouldn't have suggested in the first place. She isn't any sort of villain. The only reason she wants inside a locked door is because if it's locked... there generally tends to be a good reason behind it.

And she wants to get home as fast as possible. Even if that means doing some things that are outside the norm to do it.]

Normal circumstances wouldn't be having these... these oddities.

[takehold]

I guess they aren't, are they?

[ This is beyond normal in a way that Junna isn't quite sure how to process. ]

This school is so strange. We've all just been... dragged here, I guess? There might be answers behind the locked doors, you're right. I'm no good at getting past locks, though.

i

[angelmort]

[ Shion shakes her head with a wry smile. ]

Don't be silly! We just have to make sure everything is ab-so-lute-ly spotless, remember? Hey, are you okay? Did you hit your head?

[ She speaks with the same easy familiarity as the other students, though her eyes harden as she looks the other girl over. A trap...? No, it's easy to see that this girl is just as lost as she is.

She glances to their company again - the enemy, no doubt, and quietly adds: ]

You noticed it too, huh?

[dereban]

[When Shion answers in such a way, she finds herself a little surprised, eyes widening a bit for a second before she notices the slight shift in expression.

Ah.

She sees how it is.

Himeko forces herself to groan a little bit, fingers threading through her head to play it up a little.]

Sorry, sorry... I just woke up from a real awful nap, so maybe I was mistaken... but yeah, [she emphasizes the 'yes' to answer Shion's question, trying to make sure the other students don't pick up on it too quickly] I'm okay, I think. Although we can always check the nurse's office to make sure...

[Her words trail off a little bit, her gaze shifting from Shion herself to the other students, slightly uncomfortable.]