castle_whims | WEEK 4

WEEK FOUR

Monsters come in all shapes and sizes, it would seem.

The students of Ira Academy will find themselves entering the new week with their hunger sated, but it's likely the grisly scene of Friday's murder and the demonstration of the execution make the food hit much heavier. The risk of death is still very real, and astute watchers might also find it haunting to think about what sort of twisted game could have forced Yuta to lose control of his own actions. Or perhaps, for the fifth week in a row, people are just finding themselves angrier at their circumstances and their captor than ever.

After her release from the washing machine last week, Nanami Kiryuu can be found more often shadowing the other students around, hanging out in the periphery and putting in appearances even if she doesn't have information to share or announcements to pass on to the rest of the group - as long as no one makes an attempt to shoo her away.

The stairs open up to another newly remodeled floor, offering new locations that may prompt more answers to your dilemma--or more questions. There's no way to know which it will be. Thankfully, there's always a new mind-numbing relaxation activity to take in.

How long can this keep going on?

Sunday | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday
Regains | AC | IC Profiles | Locations | Mystery Information | A Contact | Sheep Contact | Nanami Contact

OOC NOTES

Welcome to Week 4! New locations are now open, a couple of old ones have been tweaked, and characters have started the next week of their education. Please hit the mods with a ping in Discord and put INVESTIGATE in your subject line if you're interested in exploring a new location. Nanami may be putting in some public appearances in threads this week; otherwise, please ping + Discord tag her or the (SHEEP) if you want to speak with then. All NPCs are still available for their private contacts as well!

As a reminder, AC runs Sunday to Sunday concurrent with these posts and is collected based on the prior week; this means you have a whole week to get in AC for the week prior. AC for week 3 should be submitted no later than this coming Sunday. Remember to submit your regains, and sign up for a spot exploring this week's mystery if you want to!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[The door to the dance studio moves slightly and the lights turn on. It's just a shadow but the outline of a girl with long bird-like legs with her long hair draping down past her shoulders. She has no arms, being held up by long cables of some kind is projected on the wall of the hall everyone is in.

Her legs shuffle in a slow, hesitant way.]

Don't... look... at me...

[Ah. Yasu sees (even though she isn't, according to the girl's request, actually looking. The bangs just make it hard to tell).

She instead focuses on her notebook, making a few last-minute alterations before hesitantly nodding. This will be her first outing as the real deal, right? Better make it count.]

Come, come. Try to remember, [she says in a soft, lilting voice.] What form did you have? Surely it was a lovely form.

If you close your eyes and see with your mind, I'll let you guide my hand. [Yasu raises her notebook in the general direction of the spirit.] That will bring it back to your heart, even in your darkest hours.

[The book is opened to a page with a sketch of, contrary to Yasu's normal artistic stylings, a... perfectly ordinary, nondescript looking girl, with a few blanks left to fill the details in with. (If someone looks closely, they'll find pencil shavings where the first draft was very hastily erased.)]

Hold it close, and that form will always be with you to comfort you. Just help me summon it back.

[Is... is Yasu inviting this spirit to momentarily possess her to complete this drawing? Yes, she is.]

Yeah, sure, so let's just - huh???

[Okay, so Yass has a whole ass plan here. Cool, great! Possession as far as he knows is NEVER a good idea, but....other than that, this memory stuff is supposed to be his forte??]

So she needs to remember her true form?

[HE CAN TRY TO FOCUS HIS REMINDER ENERGIES!! But first he is still nodding at Hunter, if this goes south Give Him The Bat]

...Will that really work? [It's not violent, so she likes it, but...it could go really wrong really fast. She's still concerned.]

[ It's disturbing as hell, people are already jumping to crazy ideas, Hunter's not sure of any of this. ]

I. Have. No idea. [ Going to the back to let the other two do their thing. Better chance of sucessfully bolting if this ends badly. ]

[The question made her pause. What... did she look like? She... thinks. She doesn't move as the music continues. There's no shrieks. She moves slightly.]

No... no... I don't want anyone to know what I looked like if you saw me now... but...

[There's a slip of paper that falls into the hall.]

She told me to hide this but... if getting this means no one has to look at me then... please take it.

[Does anyone take it?]

[Yasu does, without hesitation.]

It's okay. It can be scary, being seen. I, um. Know that more than anyone.

But if we do meet again... let me know when, and I'll close my eyes first.

[That's the key to magic, after all.]

[The paper is a news article about the missing 'Girl T'. A young middle school student, she went missing after leaving her ballet lessons in S Ward. This article marks the sixth month since she went missing but there's been no leads in her disappearance. A small Polaroid picture is stapled to the article: of a group of young ballerinas in practice. They all are dressed in white with colorful stockings. One ballerina is circled.

There's also a streak of blood on the photograph.]

[As your fingers touch the blood, the vision overcomes you.

The vision is longer than the others put together. It feels like weeks, maybe months, even if it only lasts about a couple of minutes. The area is a place every student knows well by now: the containment room.

The air is choked with anger and hunger. Various monsters--the lunch lady, the clown, a large woman in a rabbit mask, a man with a bloodied knife--are mingling in the containers around the one the vision is centered on. A hunger deeper than even the hunger you must have felt during the starvation motive settles in on the scene. With it a burning rage.

Yet the scene continues. The monsters around slam their containers, yell for food, growl that there's no children around... a thought begins to form. A real thought, this time, not just a vague feeling. There's no particular voice to these thoughts.

Why did they have to wait? Did people think they were that childish? They're just as much of an adult as these other monsters? Growing up... growing up was the only solution, wasn't it?

A faint glow of purple in the shimmer of the glass of the container is the last thing in the vision before you regain yourself.]

Hey, it's cool! I mean... No one knew you were here before all this, but now we will know never to look for you!

[please let us sleep!! Yasu can touch the thing though]

I wasn’t in this room until—

[The voice suddenly cuts off, the light in the dance studio goes out as there’s a surprised scream from the girl until she’s finally silenced.]

Shit-!

[Welp, promises not to look at her aside, Fret is actually going to book it into the studio to see if he can catch whatever did that unless someone holds him back!]

[There isn’t any sign of who did this but there is a faint smell of burned flesh and a small pile of ashes. It seems the screaming girl is silenced for good.]

....

[Anya had reached for the paper at the same time, and her mind once more fills with a vision. She stumbles back a bit...

But her forehead creases.]

We will help you out.

Anya promises.

WEEK 4

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

1/2

2/2

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject