Trish left her friend’s house as the party began to wind down, feeling slightly dizzy and with an annoying headache. She had only drank a bit, remembering that she’d have school next day, but she had drank enough to be more than a bit tipsy. She cursed as she almost tripped; taking high heel shoes to this party had been pure idiocy, especially when she knew she was going to drink.
The street was dark and empty, but she paid no attention to that fact as she ran out the house in a fury, nearly tripping again. Five minutes ago, she had caught her boyfriend getting more than friendly with another classmate, and while she couldn’t say she cared much about the boy, she had rarely felt so humiliated in her life. All that ran through her head were thoughts of wanting to get out of there and of sweet revenge. Oh yes, she would have her revenge, when all was said and done.
She noticed the headlights approaching in the street, and after ascertaining it was a taxi, she tried to hail it to no success, the car passing through, illuminating the darkness. That was when Trish got the feeling she wasn’t alone. She fixed her dress and kept moving.
At first, she just crossed over the street and continued for a few more blocks before trying to hail a cab again, with no success. This time, she could almost see, out the corner of her eye, a shadow following her. She started moving faster, forgetting her earlier rage, and for the third time called over a taxi, but was ignored once again. She felt as if she was invisible, invisible for the rest of the people in the city. And she could feel the thing… the things, surrounding her, one behind, one in front. She moved sluggishly, discarding her heels as she broke into a run and turned to the next corner and-
-and found herself surrounded by a humid darkness. Pale trees stood all around her, the leaves rustling around her, a strange heaviness pressing her down. She barely managed to recognize the place she was in. She barely managed to emit a scream before the thing reached her. She understood what was happening, but did not even have time to scream again nor did she even have time to struggle, as futile as it would have been. Fatality fell over her faster than her tipsy thoughts, faster than the terror that was encroaching her mind. At first she felt a sharp pain, then numbness. Her body relaxed, her mind relaxed, her soul relaxed. The thing was feeding on her, drinking on her, but Trish didn’t care.
Trish did not feel anything anymore.
Olivia Grace
Grace Residence – Olivia’s Room
Thursday 7th of November - Sunset
It was November, and yesterday had been a rather cold day, but this Thursday was surprisingly warm, especially for late autumn. Today, classes had been the normal routine, boring, with nothing interesting happening. Later, a part of the group had reunited at the gate of the school. Lily needed new shoes, and Abby had seen a jacket she wanted, so you had tagged along with them, the boys making themselves scarce as quickly as they could.
Along the way, Lily had expressed an interest in a cute set of clothes, and lamented the lack of money to buy them. So of course, Abby had immediately walked into the store, summoning that butler of hers that seemed to appear and disappear out of nowhere, and had walked out, forcing the set into the flustered Lily while laughing boisterously, and also adding in a dress for you, free of charge. Well, theoretically, since you knew that your father would probably scratch his head, be troubled for a moment, and then go pay the dress’ price to the butler behind your backs. Meanwhile, the Elwin household seemed to have become accustomed to Abby’s surprise gifts, and as attempts to return them had been met with failure, they had learned to live with it.
You finally had made your way back to your house, and had gone up to change your clothes just as the sun set. From your window, open to let the breeze go in, you could hear John Grace whistling as he hammered away at the shed, smoking a cigarette. Neither your mom nor you were very amused by your father’s smoking habit, but he was careful to smoke one or two per day, and never inside the house. Below, Helen Grace was busying herself preparing dinner. Usually, your father was the house’s cook, but the gardening shed had been in need of repairs for two years now, and it was high time someone took care of that issue.
This left you with some free time for yourself. You moved towards the window, and stared at the blood-red sunset. For some reason, the day felt strange. Maybe it was nothing, maybe it was because of the strange dreams you had lately that had kept you from sleeping well, dreams where you felt observed all the time and you saw strange eyes. Sometimes, the eyes would be ‘good’, it would feel like they were watching over you. However, the majority of the time they’d be bad, threatening, monstrous, or just plain strange. But much worse were the nightmares you had of your sister being pursued by strange shadows that closed upon her. Sometimes, it wouldn’t be your sister, but instead it would be Abby, or you. They all had started last month, and you felt they had been getting worse, and dug up rather painful memories…
You were startled when something touched your back. You suffocated a scream and turned around only to find Den, the family dog, a massive Newfoundland. He had apparently pushed the door open and sneaked in while you were lost in your thoughts. He let out a friendly bark upon seeing you had noticed him and them propped itself up, putting its paws on your shoulders and licking your face once. Perhaps sensing you were in a bad mood, he cut his affections there, and sat down in a corner of your room.
Finally, you noticed someone had talked to you over the chat client, NYX, which made you sit in front of your computer, and open the window, shaking off the survival-horror-like atmosphere.
Chatlog
You stared at the white words on the black window wordlessly, unable to make head or tails of it. You noticed Wilhelmina had disconnected after saying that, which was very rare, taking into account she was practically always online. What the hell was that? You opened the contact window from your chat client again, browsing through Nyx’s sleek, black window and seeing the usual contact list.
Contact List
Unsurprisingly, you noticed neither Tinker nor Dexir were connected. However, everyone else was, although you couldn’t be sure of who’d be AFK and who wouldn’t.
Clyde Madison
Madison Estate – Porch
Thursday 7th of November - Sunset
The shooting range closed at six, and the usual library was closed for some reason, so you had found yourself grudgingly dragging yourself back to the house. It wasn’t that bad: your father hadn’t returned yet, although your stepmother had been up and about. Elizabeth Madison nee Fallbrook, detective, had taken a gunshot to the abdominal region not too long ago, and had been on medical leave ever since. That made seeing her sitting on the living room quite surprising, but you noticed the reports on the table. It seemed that not even bullets were able to stop work, and she was very concentrated on her read, frowning ever slightly. She had smiled at you and greeted you, asking how your day at school had been, and you had answered evasively, eventually sneaking into your room to change. Then, deciding to take advantage of the warm day, you had taken a seat on the porch with your laptop, losing time while navigating through the internet.
Group activity had been fairly down since the beginning of the last month, not that you minded that much at times, given how tired the strange dreams had left you. You had been unable to drag any specific detail out of the muddy memories you were left with, except some strange, constant flashes of light, and a weird headache that made the first hours of your morning especially hellish. Last night, you hadn’t managed to get much sleep. And you could tell your stepmother had noticed something was slightly wrong with you, although she had diplomatically chosen to not breach the subject.
You looked up at the clear skies. Lately, it had been boring, as if everything had gone still. Yet, despite the fact that not a single cloud marred the spectacular red sunset, you felt a storm coming. You always had been able to sense when it was going to rain, and this time it was no different. It’d be a stormy weekend, but you were also feeling a different storm coming. Today was the day everything changed. The pulse in your veins told you so.
Your thoughts were interrupted when you saw your father’s car make its way through the street. The red, fancy car went past the white fence that signaled where the estate’s terrains began, and started towards the garage. Clyde Madison Sr always looked like an huge doofus in that sports car, but somehow it worked: the neighboring ladies were heads over heels for him, and he always managed to show a striking image no matter what. You weren’t sure of how he did.
From the garage, he marched directly to the living room from inside, not passing through the porch and the hall. You could see through an open window your father’s face, an uncharacteristic frown marring his stony features. Their voices reached your ears from there.
“You shouldn’t be up yet, dear.” He said, to his wife after greeting her. “Remember the doctor said you should stay in bed for at least one or two more weeks…”
“I couldn’t just leave it all in the hands of my partner.” Elizabeth replied. “I should do at least do the bare minimum of reading and signing the reports.” She sighed slightly, and then looked at her husband’s face.
“Is something the matter, honey? A hard day?” She asked.
Clyde Sr. slowly nodded. “The case of the disappearances isn’t going well…”
Now this was interesting. Your father almost never talked about his job, especially his individual cases. He always worked a lot, his job as a prosecuting attorney taking most of his time. Lately, he sometimes did a favor for his friends in the Big City, and took into some cases for the government, sometimes even penal cases. Elizabeth never had many regards on talking about her cases, but it was very rare for your father to do so.
This presented a choice to you. On one hand, you could have the rare occasion of hearing about this, and it seemed to be no common matter for your dad to talk about it at home. On the other hand, this was the perfect chance to sneak to your room and stall an awkward encounter with your parents.
Lumina Aurora
Aurora Residence – Luna’s Room
Thursday 7th of November - Sunset
It had been a slow day today. You had managed to get half a night’s sleep, but your usual dreams had been interrupted with some harrowing nightmare about a blonde girl being chased by shadows, and finally captured in some sort of grotesque grasp. You didn’t know what happened afterwards as the dream had faded away, but you had woken up covered in sweat and breathing hard, almost as if you had been the one being chased in your dream. You had been unable to get much sleep afterwards, and later, after showering, you had received a message from your parents telling you that they wouldn’t return home today either, and probably wouldn’t until the weekend. They weren’t the comforting news you’d have hoped for after a nightmare like that, but you were already accustomed to this.
You had gone to school. It had been uneventful and boring like always, and the math lesson had been especially difficult and frustrating. After school, because you didn’t wish to return to that house that was simply too big for you alone, you had stayed with Alice and Jack, and had gone to the mall. You had been a bit concerned about Alice, who looked really out of it (her insomnia issue had always been somewhat obvious). You had ended up playing air hockey, one of the few games where Jack could still consistently beat all of you, and then you had gone back home after listening to him harp hours on end about the bike he was planning to buy.
Now you were sitting in your room, staring at the bloody sunset through your window. It was pretty, but you always had felt a more instinctual connection and like for the stars in the night sky. They always felt somewhat comforting to you, although you didn’t have an idea why. At the very least, it made the strange dreams easier to deal with, as you’d often see flashes of a starry night sky, one very different from the one you knew.
Something would change today. You knew that with certainty, although you didn’t know how you knew. And you hoped it’d be for the better. Perhaps it meant that Wil would come up with a new group activity that’d serve to distract you.
Sitting in front of your computer, you turned it on and opened the Nyx client. You ascertained everyone was connected, except for Wil, Al and Dex.
David Baudelaire
Baudelaire Estate – Dave’s Room
Thursday 7th of November - Sunset
You hadn’t gotten any sleep yesterday. Whenever you closed your eyes, your dreams, normally a wonderful and nightmarish realm of stories untold, would resume. But it wasn’t like your normal dreams, or the strange realms you’d been having for a month already. When you closed your eyes, you could hear the sound of wings, feel a strange coldness, and the echo of a voice, the sensation of someone being smug at you, then the feeling of having to wake up. And you woke up, then you would close your eyes, and the dream would resume, and you would wake up. Again and again, the cycle repeated until the morning lights had found you haggard and tired. You couldn’t help but to feel that somehow you were waking up wrong, if such a thing was even possible.
A sharp headache pierced your head like a knife, no, perhaps a spear… or better, a sword. The maid didn’t hear any reason, and had efficiently ushered you into the black limousine that’d take you to school. Thankfully, it had been a quick day for you: sophomores had one class less on Thursday than the rest of the years. You had rejected Jack’s invitation to go hang out with him and two of the freshman girls, and instead you had gone straight home, the limousine taking you there as if jumping through the distance that kept you apart from the rest of the city. The maid had been, of course, the one driving the car, and you had caught a small look of concern from the rearview mirror in the normally emotionless face of the maid. But she hadn’t said anything and you felt too tired for explanations, so you had ended back home just as the sun began to set.
Once you finally were home, you quickly moved towards your room, not wanting to deal with the horrifying statuettes spread through the house, not with the red light of the sunset illuminating the home, which made it look more eerie than the blackest of lights. The manor always made strange noises, the old structure creaking and groaning all night, and your father’s obsession with cosmic horrors just wasn’t helping matters. You wished that at least the dumb Cthulhu sculpture in front of your room would just vanish or be moved away. One day you’d “accidentally trip” and break it, or something.
Either way, you had arrived at the refuge of your computer, and you pointedly ignored the forest you could see from your window, open to let the autumn breeze in. Someone had messaged you while you were away:
Chatlog
Well, this was new, although it wasn’t that strange for Al to send you weird things he found around the net, if he thought you’d get a kick out of it. You opened Nyx’s contact list, and opened the group’s contacts. Everyone was connected, except Wil, Al and Dex.
Tiera Artemis
Artemis Residence
Thursday 7th of November - Sunset
You were fresh like a rose, unlike the rest of your friends. You could see it in their faces; none of them had a good night’s sleep, probably due to the strange realms. From your part, you didn’t remember much about last night’s dream, except darkness, strange movements and then a startling, powerful roar that woke you up with a start, when it was already time for you to wake up anyway. After a month of troubled sleep, you felt refreshed, and ready to face the day. Your dad had made breakfast, and your mom drove you to school. She worked in the middle school right at the side of Rainfield High, so it was in the way to her job.
After classes (Thursday was a short day for second years), you were dragged, along with Julia, by Wilhelmina, who wanted to get tickets for some silly action movie she was excited about. Despite the girl’s boundless energy, it was clear she hadn’t slept much either, and after getting tickets for next Wednesday’s viewing, you had parted ways and returned home.
However, you simply didn’t have much to do yet. As always on Thursdays, you were the first to return home. Later on, your dad had called to say he was doing a double shift today, and he’d return home later at night. Your mother had arrived one hour later, and after talking with her a bit, you had gone back to your room. Staring out the window, you saw the sun had begun to set.
Once, what felt like ages ago, when you where in middle school, you and a few of your classmates had gone in a dare to the Old Town. You remembered the silhouettes of the burnt buildings, remaining there like creepy skeletons, their blackened frames creaking away under the pressure of the wind, and the discordant note of otherness you felt as you stared at the woods. Nobody had said anything, and you all had returned to your homes in introspective silence. Now, you felt a similar discordant feeling floating in the air.
Shaking off these gloomy thoughts, you decided to look at the Nyx chat client and see who was online: it’d be a while until dinner time. Everyone was on, except Wil, Alan and Dex. Or you could talk with your mother some more, it was up to you.
Alice Levitts
Levitts Residence – Alice’s Room
Thursday 7th of November – Sunset
You hadn’t slept at all yesterday.
You had lied down in your bed, feeling the headache pounding on your heart and the strange pulse you felt every sleepless night, a feeling that invaded your veins and arteries, that made your breath relax despite the anxiety that you felt. It was the homework, mainly: the sheer volume the advanced course gave was enough to make anyone despair, and you in particular were struggling to keep up. You had no idea of how you’d get the homework you had for Monday done, and the pressure had kept you up until dawn.
Given the last month of uncomfortable sleeping and strange dreams, you were feeling especially bad this morning, and hadn’t planned to go to school: you still had some slack on your attendance record, and you were feeling almost ill. However, your consciousness was wavering, and you soon found yourself on the way to school without being aware of what you were doing. It was simply your body moving itself through the routine, and you barely remember what classes you had, apart from a load more of math homework being added to the pile.
Despite that, you had gone with Luna and Jack to the Mall. You were feeling a bit better now, and perhaps you simply didn’t want to return to your surely empty house just yet. You had played some, and you could tell that Jack was keeping an eye on you: you must’ve looked really unsteady today. It was weird being practically escorted home by a guy who seemed to think it was a common courtesy to hit on you, but you had felt a lot better by the time you got to your house.
You met with your mother as she was on her way out the house, who had informed you that both she and your dad would work until late at night. You had nodded along, as always, and had entered the house, going straight into your homework. You had gotten math done very quickly, feeling a lot better, but you had stared at the philosophy book you had to read and explain next, and you felt you simply wouldn’t be able to handle it today.
You had finally gone up to your room. The red sunset illuminated the room with blood-like light, which you found slightly disquieting. It reminded you of the strange dreams and the strange light you felt in them, which was almost the same as this one. It was kind of creepy.
You had finished changing when you felt a long scratching noise on your door, and you felt your spine freezing.
Julia Miles
Miles Residence – Julia’s Room
Thursday 7th of November – Sunset
Today hadn’t been a particularly good day. You had slept about three hours, and had been feeling slightly bad, but you had brushed it off. At least you didn’t have any nightmare or weird dream tonight, which you much preferred. The disturbing singing you had often heard in your dreams was much worse than lacking sleep and you had felt refreshed with just one look at the clear sky.
However, the day had been rather dull and somewhat strange. During school, you had felt observed, almost followed, and afterwards, you had been dragged by Wil to grab tickets for some action movie she wanted to watch. You could notice almost everyone else in the group was having some sort of sleeping issue, except Tiera, who looked like always. You had then parted ways, and had gone straight home, only stopping to buy a snack. You still had a lot of allowance left for the month.
As always, your house was small but felt comfortable, not too big for you. Your father would return soon, and he’d be tired and haggard as always. For now, you had some hours to yourself.
You moved to your room, sparing a stare to the still clear skies. Last month had gone unchanging, almost tedious, interrupted only by weird dreams and the occasional homework. Nothing was happening, and it looked like nothing would happen. Boredom was settling in like a grey veil, and all you could do was to hope something would happen to interrupt the passing of the days, one after the other, heavy like lead. But the clear skies held the promise of something…
You interrupted your thoughts when you turned on your computer and saw the Nyx chat client illuminated, showing that someone had messaged you. You opened the window and saw it was Wil.
Chatlog
Seemed like you had missed her by a few hours. Everyone else seemed to be online, except for Alan and Dex.
Minnesota Flatts
Bulnei Apartments, 5th Floor – Minne’s Room
Thursday 7th of November – Sunset
You had skipped school today, and you were glad you had done so. Given the headache and the dreams and the general feeling you’d lost grasp of the passage of time, you were in no conditions to deal with a teacher droning to you about an hypotenuse or whatever they were about. Staying at night doing dumb jpg artifacts had been time well employed, in your opinion.
By sunset, you were feeling a bit better, although not quite alright. You had no idea of what you had done during that time. It was slipping away from you like a particularly well guarded purse in the pocket of a rich businessman…
Enough obvious foreshadowing.
You shook your head, clearing your thoughts, sent a wayward look towards the red sky, not bothering with introspection or anything like that, and readied yourself to troll some randoms until you felt like sleeping…
Someone was knocking on your door. How rare. At the same time, your chat client beeped, indicating that Jack was talking to you.
Chatlog
Originally Posted by Mike1984
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