Does it snow often there?
Hello, nice to meet you! I am good. I wish it were snowing here. Hate to say this right after meeting you, but um. Your signature violates some...
Anguish.
"Oh? So you DID choose ...Not even an ATTEMPT to make a DEAL. Not even a sacrifice of your OWN life. Very well, then. GOOD job. You're not as GENTLE as even I THOUGHT." The room went dark again. When the light returned, it was the normal light from outside. Sounds from the hallway filled the room. Madeline's eyes slowly returned to their normal hue and she dropped to the library floor, completely unconscious.
Yuna looked at Madeline's body, which was hoisted up. It was unreal, meeting Crestatia like this. What the hell did she look like? And... What did she mean "a choice"? She was gonna choose who died next? But she couldn't. She wouldn't. "I won't..." Yuna said quietly. "I won't choose someone to die." Yuna was really scared. In her mind, she had sounded more fierce, but she was sure that Crestatia could barely hear her. Yuna decided to try again. "W-what if I say no?" There it was, "What if I refuse?" Yuna felt a bead of sweat drip down the side of her head. Why did I say that? Now I'm gonna die for sure... Yuna thought nervously. But... If she doesn't, what then? Do I tell everyone what happened? Would they even believe me? the young blonde woman wondered. Madeline knelt delicately and sat on the edge of the table. Her smile never left her. "I'll kill THREE tonight, including YOU." The body convulsed once and then calmed after a raspy gasp. Suddenly, her expression was very blank. She stared at Yuna with no hint of her previous amusement.
【WEARING| LATEST TUMBLR UPDATE | OOC: Last day. Hurry, hurry. | ♪】 "Madeline, can you use your phone or something to light up the darkness? I can't see a thing and I seriously do not want to trip over a chair." She flinched. Her phone... Her CAR! She scrunched her face up, stopping herself from moving towards Yuna. No. It wasn't her fault for reminding her of what happened, but if she was already becoming this irritated with her (and this entire situation), then no good would come of them finding a way out together. Instead, she pressed onward by herself, moving in the opposite direction and using the backs of more chairs as a guide and trying to stay as quiet as possible. This darkness was ridiculous. It was starting to freak her out. It seemed endless. Even as time passed, her eyes didn't adjust. The light that should have come from outside did not. Instead, it was almost as if someone had just taped up a thick sheet of black over the windows. She must have been close to exit, but there was no noise or light coming from outside. If Yuna hadn't been here, Madeline would have thought she had slipped into a coma or something. Her knuckles burned as she clenched the piece of paper in her hand for dear life. Thunder boomed, but it sounded muffled somehow. Where were they? Her chair plan was going perfectly until she unexpectedly ran out of the chairs she was leaning on and fell straight on her face. This was terrible. The ground felt different. Spongy and plush. Actually...it smelled like...Grass? She reached out and felt the same rough texture as earlier brush against her fingertips. Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to abandon Yuna. It was selfish, but she may need her, after all. "Yu--" ❝NO.❞Light suddenly flooded the room. Yes, it was still the library, simply altered a bit. Thick vines and roots coiled up through the floorboards and around the grayed out furniture and bookcases. The windows remained black. If you looked up to the ceiling, you would see nothing but darkness. With a spine chilling rip, the pages of a large encyclopedia tore straight out of the book and swirled collectively underneath the fallen Madeline. Her eyes blackened and her body slouched (releasing the paper); hair draping over her face as her body was lifted up by an invisible force and placed upright in front of Yuna. Her head snapped back and her mouth curled up into a familiar smile. "Welcome, dear YUNA!" She swung her arms around theatrically. "You are in one of the MIDDLE realms. A temporary WORLD I do not have FULL control over. It would have KILLED you to meet me DIRECTLY, but I WANTED to SPEAK to you in a place devoid of TIME." Madeline's body was yanked upwards until she was standing on top of one of the library's tables, as if to get a better look at the blonde-haired girl's figure. "I want to give you a CHOICE, young Yuna," she licked her lips slowly and tilted her head. Her expression was almost a loving one. "tell ME...WHO should be the NEXT to DIE?"
Okay, today is the last of the 3rd day, so please do something with yourselves by the end of the night (you have about 6 hours and 30 minutes.) End whatever scenarios you're in, find a place to sleep for the night, figure yourselves out. Seriously, please. Don't just stop posting and try to make up for it tomorrow, lol. Stop doing that. You have to put yourself somewhere and finish your day. If someone is holding you up, then move on and navigate around it. Speaking of which, if HoT doesn't get on or post in about 40 minutes then I'm moving M on.
Can I reserve a scout please? Wow. I thought I posted asking for a reservation a long time ago. Must have not gone through... /anguish Maybe not.
The rain won't be letting up anytime soon.Bellhurst High is now on LOCKDOWN. No one gets in or out (without a parent present).This is an attempt to protect the students fromthe intense--and extremely sudden--flooding of Coy City, as well as from a few thieves/thugs making the most of the panic. Classes have been cancelled while staff work on gathering emergency supplies. You can find warm cider in the cafeteria and blankets in the auditorium. Outside of Bellhurst, emergency services encourage everyone to stay / go home. They are currentlyclearing the streets and moving people who need it to high ground.Bellhurst High is on high ground. If you are not at school, you are not there. If you haveyet to engage yourself, you are not at school. Good Luck. - Crestatia 【WEARING| LATEST TUMBLR UPDATE | OOC: in other words, if you've yet to post, you're not at the school. You should be elsewhere. | ♪】 ...Yuna? How rude. She didn't understand how the girl could just call out for her like that in the middle of the library. Was she scared? It was just a storm. Haha. Hah. Madeline grasped the thin sheet of paper between her fingers tighter. So long as she held onto this, there was nothing to worry about. Keeping hold of these numbers...they were priority. She considered ignoring Yuna as she nervously used the chairs of the library to guide herself forward, but M was afraid she would just make a larger spectacle out of them both. She wondered why she cared about that anymore. Her reputation was beyond ruined at this point. It must have been after all of those meltdowns. Thunder roared, and Madeline awaited the inevitable lightning (planning to use the flash as a means to help her find the door), but it never came. This was frustrating. Nothing was reliable anymore. Nothing was normal. Nothing was right. Was it because she had found the code? Then what was Yuna doing here? She hadn't done shit, it was all Madeline. A jolt of fear suddenly wracked her small body. M cleared her throat, sugarcoating her words as if she had never planned on completely abandoning Yuna in the first place. "Y-Yuna? That's you, right?" Her voice was just a hint of hysterical. All of this excitement was really starting to get to her. She reached out blindly in an attempt to find the girl. This darkness was unreal. It was cold and malicious. They had to still be in the library, though. She could feel her hip bump up against one of the bookcases. ...Assuming that's what the hard, velvety caress was from.
Before any of you do it, don't interact with M or Yuna.
【WEARING| LATEST TUMBLR UPDATE | OOC | ♪】 The rain-pour from outside was incredibly loud. It gave her a headache as it drummed violently against the windows and rooftop. Madeline felt like the walls were caving in. Everything was so chaotic lately, even the simple things. Before she could register it, she found a pen in her hand. "What the hell?" With a low mutter, she rolled her eyes and hunched over the large desk again, focusing all of her attention on these numbers. She was almost done writing them all when she heard another loud thunder clap followed by a blindingly bright flash from outside that illuminated the entire library for just a second. The computer monitor switched off rather suddenly and darkness took over. Okay, no big deal, no big deal. She got most of the code. She got most of it. That's all that mattered, right? Right. Right. They could just look it up again, probably, maybe. She doubted it, actually. Her eyes were burning. This darkness...Why was it so dark? There was no light coming from the windows either. Weird. Worrisome. Awful.
【WEARING| LATEST TUMBLR UPDATE | OOC | ♪】 Figuring it best not to trust technology, M traveled the short distance to the library's front desk and grabbed a sheet of paper from the printer. When she returned, Altair was still there for some reason. She narrowed her eyes, not feeling a pinch of guilt for her earlier aggression, and sat back down in her seat. The upperclassmen from before had left his pencil so she shamelessly stole that and scribbled the numbers down. Good thing, too; because as she was writing, the lights flickered twice and then completely shut off. One by one the computer screens blackened and darkness crept up through the aisle of the library. She had figured some freaky crap may happen the closer they got to figuring this out, but not something as invasive as a blackout. She wondered if the entire school was affected and then flinched upon hearing a loud thunder clap from somewhere in the skies above them. Nope. Nope, nope, nope. She began to scribble the numbers down faster and then the tip of the pencil broke. "Nope, nope, nope, shit, nope." She searched desperately for a pen, trying to memorize parts of the code. The darkness hadn't reached them yet. Her heart was drumming in her ears. "Whyyyyy...?"
【WEARING| LATEST TUMBLR UPDATE | OOC | ♪ !!】 Google. Google was her savior. Beautiful, beautiful Google. She had forgotten how much she missed the internet until this moment of pure indulgence. Peace and quiet...Such serenity and stability. Death and reality seemed so far away when you wasted enough time staring at a computer screen. Her thoughts flashed back to her precious laptop and she physically cringed, burying her face halfway into her arms. She wondered if her mother had touched it. She would have to go back home eventually, wouldn't she? For now, though, all of her attention had to be on Google. Lunch would end soon, and there was so much to do using this crumby library computer. ✜ CRESTATIA. Absolutely nothing of interest at all came up on the search. ✜ DEMONESS. Disturbing images, mostly sexy. (She shrunk further into her seat at these, hurrying through the results.) "How helpful, thank you so much." ✜ DEMON. Wikipedia was the first result. If there was anything she had learned in high school, it was unrelated to not trusting Wikipedia. "Tell me more, tell me more..." She clicked on 'conjured' and was redirected to a less-complete page titled 'Evocation'. This was nothing new to her, but she was getting the chills regardless. She had been heavily involved in occultism long ago, but had grown out of it. She was still very interested in such things, they had just taken a backseat to everything else going on in her life. Her stomach dropped. There was something very wrong with fooling around with this sort of stuff, wasn't there? It was dangerous, wasn't it? Especially if it was real...Or is that just what religion taught? Maybe John would know. She minimized the current tabs and searched through the computer programs for Photoshop. While that was loading, she opened up another internet window and logged onto her Gmail account. Time to figure out this motherfucker. She quickly screenshot the email and leaned back into her chair with a small yawn. From the corner of her eye, she saw an upperclassmen sneak a glance at her. She must have looked like a crazy person, having been sitting there typing so furiously and whispering to herself. Her cheeks burned and she tried to ignore the stare. This whole ordeal was disastrous. She rubbed her eyes as Photoshop CS3 consumed her screen. She had never really used the editor before, except for in a Technology class a year ago, but it couldn't be that hard. She was good at retaining information. She wished Thomas was around, though. It would have been much less lonely if he were there, annoying her without relent, and guiding her through the program. Her face lit up again and she shuddered, gritting her teeth before continuing onward. Could you just copy and paste straight into Photoshop? She didn't know, but she tried it after mashing the 'prt sc' button on the sticky keyboard. It didn't work. She opened up a new document and pasted the screenshot of the email into it. There we go! Except the document was too small...She considered Googling How To Photoshop, but that would take too long. She spent several minutes trying to figure out how to expand the document and why the screenshot was cut off and how to undo more than a few times before she finally got the whole thing up on the screen. The tiny print was still there, giving her the middle finger in it's little corner. Not today. Today she would figure it out. She would solve the puzzle. What missing rule, hm? Or maybe not a rule? Maybe a spell or a charm? Or a way to beat this horrible game? Now was the time to find out--the time to zoom into the truth, if you will... But how to do that? Aah, hell! I can't even be dramatic. How do you work this? How do you zoom--?! There it was. A magnifying glass. Okay, good! She was making progress. Her face felt clammy and her fingertips were burning. She felt like her heart was going to just give out on her, it was pounding so loudly. She zoomed into the blurry pixels with a suddenly jolt of energy. What was this adrenaline? She wasn't sure anymore if she was doing it to find the truth, or just to have the satisfaction of figuring it out herself. It would provide her confirmation that she could still function alone. That she didn't need anyone. As she zoomed in, the pixels became clearer and clearer--and legible! But...wait... What. The. Fuck? Spoiler 66825546422256673235546466735444666622 23782623667373683623662625966366367448 36377666372966546363776656836646736624 262372839687735367343896********** She leaned in closer. All of that, just for a bunch of...of... But why? Madeline was...so close... Maybe she could decode this? Maybe she could...A-alone? Her nose brushed up against the monitor and she heard the schoolmate beside her get up and leave. This had to make sense, she just had to focus...really focus. Spoiler "Heya Madeline nice to see you again" DEAR FUCKING JESUS. She flinched, then she let out some inhuman wail. His annoying voice shot a stab of fear into the back of her neck. The world spun and she almost blacked out. She resisted it, though, and when she stabled herself she shot up and reached her arms out to shove Altair back into one of the library chairs; out of both anger and pride. "You asshole, you scared me!" Her voice was shrill. She ran a trembling hand through her hair as John approached them. "Cherno has something planned, and personally wants you to meet him at the church. Well..my church. After school. But only you, Altair." Oh. She didn't know how she felt about this, so she just turned back around towards the library computer. She had to save these numbers.
