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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

[tempingforatlas]

I'm not exactly an expert on the subject. [Ritsuka sighs, leaning against the door. Dangit, normally someone way more competent than her is around to explain this kind of stuff. Now she's really regretting not paying attention during EMIYA's lectures.] ...really, I know basically nothing other than a few terms that get tossed around pretty often by people a lot smarter than I am.

But, yeah. Magecraft is a fancy word for magic. [She can already hear so many of her poor teachers quibbling about how magecraft is not, in fact, magic, but she barely remembers the specifics of that distinction anyways and definitely isn't the one to try and explain it.] This kind of thing has a tendency to happen to me a lot because of my job, so at least some of the knowledge has managed to penetrate my thick skull.

...if not the actual know-how, haha.

From what I understand and, well, personal experience, Bounded Fields are places where some kind of magic rule is applied across the whole area, and it's typically really hard for people to get in and/or out. Which seems like what's happening here, given this school's... everything.

[phoenixhearted]

That's ridiculous-

[ Is what Kai says instinctively, but he quickly shuts his mouth. He can't exactly dismiss the idea of magic existing out of hand... after all, he knows all about Sacred Beasts, and the kind of power they have. Can he really claim with certainty that magic doesn't exist?

This is... a bit different from that, though. Really, he'd have to be incredibly naive to believe her so easily... but... ]

Let's say I believe you. What kind of a job do you have that makes you experienced in magic?

[ ...This is the part where she starts laughing, and makes fun of him for falling for it, right? ]

[tempingforatlas]

Not so much "job" as "sedated and hauled to An-" [Wait, is the location of Chaldea still supposed to be a secret even though the world has been wiped clean of all life and replaced with horrifying alien trees projecting dreams of dead end histories? Ritsuka decides to stay on the safe side, she does not want to catch any more flak from Goredolf when she figures out a way home.] "-nnnnnn undisclosed location because they needed just one more guy to have an even forty-eight members on the team and I apparently have just barely enough magic circuits to fit the bill except I was the only one who dodged the explosion that took out every other candidate so I was stuck with all of their jobs and had no idea that magic even existed before I stumbled into the blazing command room and was punted back to the year 2004."

[Yeah, that just about sums up the first day of Ritsuka's past two years. It's been a wild ride, Kai.]

Again, though, I'm, like, the worst mage. I can't even do the standard shooty spell unless I put on a special jumpsuit and concentrate really hard, and even then it takes a long time for me to get enough energy to do it again. Plus, like I said, most magecraft theory stuff goes straight over my head.

[phoenixhearted]

[ ...Okay, so she's serious. And making absolutely no sense whatsoever.

Thinking about it, there was Team Shadows in Europe... They clearly had supernatural powers, and were capable of doing things that shouldn't be possible. So Ritsuka's words aren't exactly out of the realm of possibility.

Even so.... ]

You're talking like I should know what you're talking about. But, whatever. You're saying these- Bounded Fields mean that we can't escape this place?

[tempingforatlas]

[Hey, it's not Ritsuka's fault her life is a nonsense nightmare that gives most people migraines just thinking about it!]

Until we find the source and shut it down, we're probably stuck in here.

I... honestly have no idea where to look, though. [She slumps.] Like I said, I'm not really the magic person.

My best guess is the clock tower, but really, everywhere in this place is suspicious.

[phoenixhearted]

The clock tower?

[ Right. Kai vaguely remembers this school having a clock tower. But, wait- that can't be right. How does he remember a place he's never been before? Or... has he been there?

Suddenly, Kai's holding a hand to his head as his eyes squeeze shut and he grits his teeth. Thinking about it, what the hell is going on? Only a few minutes ago, he'd been sure that nothing was wrong with him being here, but now everything seems wrong, in a way that's difficult to explain but makes him feel like he's going to be sick. How did he not notice before?

When he opens his eyes, Kai tries his best to cover up everything he's feeling. There's a gut-churning feeling in his stomach that he can't quite identify. ]

Well, we have to start looking somewhere - it's a start. ...Hey. Do you... remember how you got to this place?

[ The moment he asks, he feels like he's crossing some kind of invisible boundary. Like he's asking a question that can't be unasked. ]