GRAVEYARD

[dormheads]

graveyard

students in time out: 10

It's a little hard to wake up when the melody that drifts into your ears is so comforting that it'd be so much simpler to stay asleep. Maybe everything that you remember last - the cold seeping into your fingertips, the pain of injury, or the darkness creeping into your vision - will just be parts of a bad dream.

But it's not.

When you wake up, it's probably a little disorienting - you have to push off a blanket and rise from this nice comfortable mat on the floor. Seems like you were all curled up for nap time. Literally. The room that you're in has furniture meant for small humans, children as some might call them, and everything is soft and plush to the touch with rounded corners. Blocks with the alphabet etched onto them, coloring books and crayons, and even a rocking horse dot the room to really give it that childish charm. If you can think of a child-safe toy, it's probably in one of the baskets that line the shelves of the room!

Around the room they'll find baby monitors that broadcast the antics of the living. Hopefully that doesn't feel creepy.

There is a yard outside through the glass doors, but it currently seems to be locked - and the glass won't break no matter how hard you try. There's a large pink door that feels enormous, ten times as tall as you, on one side of the room, but there's no way through that either. At the very top, you might see a directory sign that says: TO ADMINISTRATION BUILDING.

Huh.

Well... for now, get comfortable. It looks like you might be here a while.

WEEK 3 UPDATES
WEEK 4 UPDATES

main navigation.
locations ◯ statuses ◯ profiles ◯ rulebook ◯ audiences ◯ tasks
murder proposals ⬤ private conversations ⬤ rooming ⬤ vouchers

Comments

[heartlands]

I don't think it's better that she went after anyone. The implications are kind of not great!

[he nods.]

Yeah. She can be... kind of violent, but nothing like that, especially not for some crazy made up reason. Something must have happened to her.

[ercnerd]

The implications, huh . . . I wonder if that means she'll strike again next week.

[heartlands]

I have no idea. It's hard to know without knowing why she did this in the first place? Maybe it's something that'll - wear off. I don't know.

[ercnerd]

Then we won't know until it's time again.

[Dang it.]

Hey, what was that about a list? Is that what you were going off of the last two weeks?

[heartlands]

[he nods!]

Oh, yeah. Uh, how it worked was basically... Chad would give us a list of three people who were being actively targeted to be assimilated, and if we didn't, uh, kill any of them - all three of them would be lost forever. Like, their souls would cease to exist. So we picked one of the three every week to save them all.

[he sighs.]

It's... a really messed up system, to say the least. I kept trying to find another way, but I hadn't managed it by the time I got expelled.

[ercnerd]

Chad, huh . . .

Why the secrecy, though? Was it to avoid detection from whatever's causing all of this?

[heartlands]

We were told that if anyone found out from us or even secondhand, the world itself might enact consequences that we had no way to control or predict. So... More innocent people could get hurt, basically.

[ercnerd]

Do you believe that?

[heartlands]

...I believe it enough that I wasn't willing to risk it. The same with - the reason that we had to kill in the first place.

[ercnerd]

[He sighs.]

I don't like it, but I probably would've done the same in your shoes. Did you know that everyone who died would be restored like this?

[heartlands]

We knew that death might not be permanent. That there was a chance to bring everyone back unless they were assimilated, but if they were... At that point there would be nothing we could do for them.

[he frowns.]

Trust me, I don't like it, either.

[ercnerd]

. . . You said there were three names. Were Catra and Mabel on the list last week?

[heartlands]

Yeah. The two people we don't pick are the ones are the people who wake up outside the dorms, or - inside, in this week's case, I guess?

[ercnerd]

Inside? What changed?

[heartlands]

...I have no idea, honestly. You didn't see Sakyou or Kon outside at all, did you? I guess Kaine could have put them back inside, but I don't see why.

[ercnerd]

So it was those two this time . . .

Kainé and I didn't exactly stay in one place for long, but I didn't see anyone while we were moving around.

[heartlands]

That's - bizarre. If it wasn't her, I have no idea who it might have been, and if it wasn't anybody... What changed?

[ercnerd]

. . . Speaking of change, what's going to happen now that you're here? Is Luxanna going to end up with your job?

[heartlands]

Well... That's one way to think of it. But I think it's more like - we were all members of a team, and not all members of the team had to act every week, so me being off the team doesn't really mean she's ending up with my job, just... joining everyone else who was already doing the same job. You know?

[ercnerd]

. . . Ugh.

What a mess. This is bigger than anyone thought.

[heartlands]

Yeah. It would have been great if we could let everyone know... But I guess we'll have to settle for telling them when this is all over.

[ercnerd]

They'll probably have pieced some of it together by then.

. . . I wonder if they'll be so forgiving, even with the whole truth.

[heartlands]

[he... quiets a little, glancing away.]

Yeah. I wonder.

[ercnerd]

. . . Well, there's no use getting worked up over it right now. You weren't the one who killed me, so I have no grudge against you.

[heartlands]

Yeah. Yeah, I will definitely not be thinking about that question for the next several days now that you brought it up, it's fine.