Heheh... It's currently a dark Friday night, precisely nine thirty-seven PM, as I settle down and begin to write of the tale about to unfold in front of my very own writer eyes... :3 The perfect setting to start a story on horror and spiritual biz! It's got the tone of a corpse party tale, but some fossil fighters characters show up in it. Why? Heheheh... you'll have to read and find out, young mortal. X3
Dino: Stop talking weird.
Me: Ignore him.
So! My name is Starry's Light, as I am referred to on this lovely website, and this is a story woven from decades of darkness, horror, blood, and...
Dino: little girls. TERRIFYING LITTLE GIRLS.
Me: Sorry, new readers. He is a completely irrelevant character and I don't even know what he's doing here.
Dino: Wah.
Me: Moving on... Well, he's probably going to interrupt s'more, so I'll just end it off here. Get ready for what I trust shall be quite the interesting story... heheh. Enjoy~
Corpse Party: Broken Bones: Bloody Bonds I
Chapter One: He was Selfish
The tiny silhouette trounced upon its usual grounds, the floorboards creaking and the bloodstains smelling, quite as they always did. Long, whiplike locks of nightmare black hair curled down her back to the small of her spine, and other rather long, gnarled bangs tore over her face and left parts of it seemingly blocked by the black lines of pure hair. Oddly, given her circumstances, they were presently neat locks of hair, albeit somewhat oily or mussed. Still, given her unexpected age, one would find she'd matured quite well. In fact... she hadn't aged physically at all, for a long time. And the days only stretched longer, shadows ablaze under a trying sun that continued to squeeze and pull the silhouettes like these goddamned people were pulling her own mind. She didn't look all that much, with her slate-gray skin, dry and plain, and her dark, shiny eyes and her tattered, scarlet dress, but she happened to hold the fate of the world. Some world, in the least.
Raising a doll-like hand and compressing it onto her forehead, a flash echoed throughout the old, smelly chamber and she appeared older than she looked at first glance, even through her childish facade. Whether the girl happened to be more or not, she looked tired, like she hadn't achieved quite as much rest as she rightfully deserved in a long, harrowing time, and it compressed at her as well, just as her hand did at the moment, looking as if it might reach out and tear into her own skin, peel it open, and let hot-red spilling of blood inch down her face. It wouldn't have hurt all that much.
But this was no time to dawdle.
Unimportant and meaningless as she looked, stress tried at her worse than those people out in the real world with their businesses to run and monsters to fight, whatever kind of creature they may be. It pulled through her body, squeezed at her heart, sent her in a relentless tizzy, and otherwise didn't seem to let go. And she knew why. Oh she damn well knew why. For a seven year old, she was well versed in the art of the darkness smattering all about her, her soul, her body, her dress, her eyes, her mind, and with a shriek, her hands flung up high above her head and she cried, "Stop it!" Of course, being the small girl she was, the voice didn't carry and it sat in the dead air encircling her miniature, doll-like self. She angrily crumpled into a ball and tore at the floorboards in front of her, whispering words that couldn't click or make sense, that didn't dig in and desire meaning. They fell flat and left to rot.
Ghosts toiled about her in further-out rooms, mostly minding their own hopeless wailing, screeching, and tattered sobs, proving their ethereal, eternal agonies. She honestly didn't even remember the mass majority's names or how they'd died. One would think she'd have those locked in her skull forever, but she could hardly focus because of another cause that was messing with the world.
They just couldn't stop living—now could they?
They just couldn't stop losing—now could they?
They just couldn't stop loving—how could they?
Stubborn teenagers and the girl and the teacher. How unbearably familial they'd grown and how much they relied on one another, only to die over and over and over again... still not enough to completely kill their sorry selves off, because somebody aaaalllways had to live. And then the torture ensued, and honestly, it sickened the little girl. Why wouldn't the just die or something already? She'd let them be the first group of people to live through her hell if they'd just leave her alone. But their souls were trapped until something happened. And it was stupid, but a small plan, hugged closely to her black heart, coldly tapped her and sucked her in, and it sounded like it may work. It'd do something, at least.
About time she had some new blood enter.
It had been a long, harrowing night that would not seem to end. Ceaseless, a mind only it controlled: the dimly-lit hotel room in the chilly atmosphere of an altogether snug home. She never did quite manage to slide into slumber any longer, always just hanging on the edge after that first nightmare triggering the need to awaken; but her body most certainly desired sleep. It only seemed the dreams stretched out longer, now, taking the orange-haired girl down paths and hallways she had never seen before in her entire life. The eerie, homeless corridors had strange, sickly-red walls on display, and the crumple of her pale, pale toes on creaking, wooden floors or a strange, matted, dirtied ground sent chills racing down her spine. No one else to turn to, no one else she had the courage to ask for, auburn eyes continued to trace over the white-haired boy with his arms draped about her, his head pressed gently against hers, showing presence without assertive power. Dina felt safe in the warmth of the boy, and she had never felt safe like so prior. Her spindly, brown nightdress only worn from the much more assertive authority of another friend—Dina had rags for clothes and this was what happened after someone she knew figured it out—pressed thin against the warm, red coat cloaking her shoulders that Rupert had fetched for her rather... kindly, thoughtfully.
How he managed to notice these sorts of little things flourished her incredulity, but she could only profusely thank him and apologize, to which his soft, yellow orbs would lie upon her auburn and his face would draw close to hers, and they could feel their breaths upon one another, and he would tell her the promise he had given to her one time ago: you are always forgiven. Given by the patient, everlasting numbers of what he gave to her, Dina felt contemptuously spoiled by the rich, prince-like boy. It did tinge her cheeks with color and nearly spun her stutter to key, but she did not know what to say, only that... Rupert must have cared an awful lot for her. He treated no one else with this gentleness that she had ever seen before, and even as the night wore on and it became evident just how well he fared having to be brutally woken every night by her nightmares. And yet he continued, and yet he wore a snug, thankful look every time he came near to her. His fingers interlaced over hers, and a sudden rush of warm gratitude surged within the tiny Dina. She smiled unto herself, she smiled unto him, and he leaned closely into her and lifted one of their joined hands, his own fingers to lightly stroke her cheek. This happened often, the mutual need for one another, and though he never caught a full night of sleep any longer, he appreciated those times to spend alone with his sweet Dina.
Both felt a strong, mutual assurance, even as the shrunken, squirmy figures of two creatures the girl recognized particularly well came up and nigh spat upon the boy. The fiery quadrupled, with the red fan arcing across his back and cold, lemony orbs in full-glare, snorted flame and smoke. I don't know what to say other than damn, Torn politely acquitted into conversation.
My gosh, Dina, if you weren't such a pushover maybe this poor soul would have some manners, brusquely stated the stout, blue-scaled and also shrunken tricera to the side of Torn. Dimetro and tricera happened to be game, and close as well, so neither actually used their petty insults as firewood for a flare of a fight any longer. They simply made tacky remarks, and the other felt need to assist their friend in such wording. Also, the prior had an issue with Dina and her feelings for Rupert—he probably always would, honestly—and he took any moment he caught as a chance to say some rude thing or another.
Torn opened his sharp-toothed maw to retort another silly factor when instead a rough sound split past his voice: crrrrrrruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhnnnnnK. As if the soft carpeting beneath the bed had begun to peel off alone, like the cusp of fruit and skin tearing away from one another, splitting to reveal the juicy, fleshy interior. Dina, slower to react but submissive with such noises, immediately stood on end and flinched, Rupert hugging her closely to his richly-dressed figure, even in rest his red-striped, white-set pajamas posh and obvious to their princely owner. His cool, yellow orbs glittered carefully upon the small face of the girl he held so dearly, and she closed her eyes, managing to stuff down a whimper successfully. She worked up the courage to open an orb when a shattering SPLORT cut their bedroom in two and the cry she had been holding back burst out without another moment wasted, fingernails drawing into her palms and pulsating blood into the fleshy midst of her hands. Rupert gently pried open their flinched, shaking confines and, scooping her up as to keep her safe, lifted himself off of the bed and turned his glittering orbs to the ground below.
It had begun to peel open, sure to the suspicions Dina had so feared. Sighting this, she mumbled a few incoherent words and shook tighter. She tried to pull herself together which never worked, and eyes deciding to stay shut from now on, she squirmed somewhat and, pale toes wriggling, hugged herself against Rupert, who silently debated which step would be the least of the lethal to take and try to counter such movements. Dammit, just let me grow to size or something and I'll—
Torn, no! a third voice chimed in, this the fluttering call of a green, birdlike female. You'll just break them further. Here..let me see if—
None of the four ever heard the bird finish her sentence. An earsplitting hunk of wood screeched in place, yanking off from the safety it provided and shattering into both boy and girl who stared up in slow realization of the moment. Rupert, who did pertain to faster reflexes, might have moved, but the sheer incredulity of the moment and the fear breathing from her lips knocked him off-guard and he lost any momentum he should have mustered on his own. Torn and Trikko, shrunken dimetro and tricera, seemed to screw the fact that they would have been safer staying their own size and struggled to blimp up to their regular vivosaur heights, quickly stirring further torment and causing a symphony of floorboards to lift up and cry out. The virtually unending roll of ammonia lifted and burst into the breath of each of the four in question and, had their flawed selves had any hope prior, the scent took their minds away and any hopes of them escaping whatever lay before was knocked out cold rather quickly.
The inhumane whining, grinding, crying noises of churning wood met open air and the humans and vivosaurs respectively lost themselves slipping into cracks of wood and splinters, the last catch of them the long locks of orange hair from the girl. Not a soul screamed—none of them were well-known to burst out in guttural horror—but the frozen looks on their faces were not the most inviting. Dina, eyes twisting and curving as she took in her sudden loss of surroundings, took a mental blow to her mind and her head snapped back, consciousness rendered unable to connect. She lost herself to the rush of blood in her ears and the echoing swoop of their bodies... falling. No idle wonders struck her fancy—she simply was lost with the light into the sudden rush of black.
Little did she know that she was not the only one to be experiencing the same unfortunate fall. Other humans and vivosaurs alike in the world of Vivaldi-Isles happened to be losing themselves from dreamland to a very real nightmare soon enough. How real was a question that as her own old nightmares come from years rippling down her life all the way to her first moments encrusted with her child self writhing in amnesia, no such luck on escaping: as those set into motion and the horrible, overpowering redness struck her dizzy, she could recognize things. Things that had clawed down her neck and crushed her skull open in a pulp of messy red, tore her skin into strips and adorned them like streamers onto walls and cut off her fingers and toes and accessorized them as keychains and necklaces and the like. Dina herself felt her soul accosted into her throat as she began to uncontrollably quiver and just on her own, the inky darkness of unconsciousness not even reacting and scaring her: she crumpled into a ball and shook to herself. She did not like this. She did not like this at all. And it had hardly even begun, she felt sure enough of that.
Slowly, gently tossing her waves of silvery-orange hair back through pools of shaking, white fingers, hard and cold like ice, the voice in her head instructed her to move instead of lying on the ground. Black punctured objects swam in her vision, until they set into motion and the earth became a bleached, dark brown with shattering ricochets of holes splintering up and down what seemed to be a long, semi-lit hallway. The curdling stench of metallic—old, so very old—blood pushed up her nose until she could taste it down in her throat: Dina recoiled into nothing and fell flat on her back, squeaking profusely even through her attempts to stop it up. The only layers keeping her beige-clothed self from completely swamping in whatever lie behind her had been the coat wrapped around her shoulders, and seeing the red sleeves with the dusky blue cuffs sparked a hope in her. As if her traumatic events had not happened, Dina pushed herself into a sitting position and, pulling her hair back, gently fastened the collar of the coat round her neck and slid her arms into the warm sleeves.
He tended to let her wear it as was, what with how easily frightened Dina would become, and how easily concerned Rupert would draw in response. She had never met someone who cared as much about her—none she could remember—and it felt nice to think of him, the white-haired boy with his locks of silvery and white hair down to his chin, possibly further, with bangs lied atop his forehead. He never quite smiled, but his yellow orbs would soften a great deal, and any otherwise he made her feel safe. She suddenly wished she could see his figure in this strange corridor with her. Tossing her head around frantically, Dina saw that she recognized nobody, not her beloved vivosaurs that had apparently and carelessly fallen through as well—she had a few others, but the ones she knew came cascading in were Torn and Trikko. And the chain earthquake, so... strange, what if it had knocked off more than the lonesome room on the cold, snowy island and somehow: what if her other friends faced danger just as likely? The thought kicked her and Dina cried softly, instinctively: "Rupert? O-oh, Rupert... wh-where... a-...are... y-y-y...you..." She had no doubt it would be highly unlikely if not impossible that a soul caught her wording, and Dina heftily stood to her bare feet, the wood creaking unceremoniously beneath her, sending an ominous message out through her.
But it had to be old, splintered wood, bare with missing patches and an interesting shade of shifty brown. Parts of it curled and seemed as if in the need for a hug, but Dina stared down at those floorboards and quaked slightly in place. She knew she had to... she had to find Rupert, somehow. He had—he had fallen in, too, r-right? Did he? He did not... he did not... leave—her—here?—alone? Though she did not blame him if he had found an entrance and left her. Dina was simply like that, to assume all others would cast her aside. It... it deemed to be how she worked, and carving past all of her emotions for the boy, did he truly find and exit and leave her here—who was she to judge?
"Would it... b-b-be... nice, then... d-did I... did I... f-find... him..?" she asked herself softly. Nobody responded, but the air around her grew chillier, waiting for her next move as if to come out and abduct her or—or worse yet, with the tang of blood thoroughly coating the breath she gave off and everything around her—worse yet, something sat in the shadows just out of sight, waiting for the perfect moment to swoop down and strike her. Having repeated nightmares about these sorts of things in general and being an embarrassingly clumsy person meant the odds fell over and stopped stacking in her favor. Dina nervously lifted her hands and linked them together, staring at her united, frigid fingertips and wishing them to find safety somewhere.
Of course, safety did not come; she had had a vain hope it may have shown. Though it did not, and that was okay. She expected it to stay locked up inside of her, only able to come after she could find her dear Rupert, or perhaps one of her vivosaurs. She had seen each of them fall through that split of the earth too vividly, and the groans and shrieks of the wood still bounced in her head and sent Dina nigh to tears again. Obvious as it was: Dina had been scared out of her mind, and she could not both stop thinking toward the ordeal or simply stop her shivering self in general. She wanted to sit on the ground and cry the color out of her auburn orbs; having no clue what else to do, perhaps it would feel safer.
Then the hallway in front of her lit with a blue glow. A squeak emitted out of her mouth but it was not enough to set her moving and the glow was faster than she could have ever imagined as it burned a hole straight through her chest and—and it went straight through her chest. A fire lit up inside her heart, but, tentatively reaching out a finger and poking the soft, beige material shimmering with vibrant color: no holes, as if nothing happened and only the fiery touch was to remain. Then suddenly the spiraling blue light glided through her again and came to a stop, hovering the area from her chest to her neck and taking up an awful lot of her focus. "You!" it cried out in rapid succession, cutting through Dina further and making her shudder, cringe back, and bumble into the wall on her left that lie so near. "YOU!" She shook harder and tears began to spout from the corner of her eyes. Sighting this, the blue thing spoke softer: "you..."
Feeling stupid and terrified out of her wits, the girl mumbled, "M-m-me..?" and pointed a flurry of a finger at her chest. The ghost nodded in accordance and swooped back some, seeing it must have just sent a shock wave of fear rippling inside of her, blackening her insides with petrified shaking.
"Ah, I'm sorry! Please forgive me!" spoke the blue orb ideal, shifting in position. It reminded her of a time when she had seen the soul of another person—a long story a time ago that did not matter at the moment. But the soul vaguely looked similar to the blue ball, and the longer she looked, the more the apparition became to look like a boy much taller than her with slicked-back blue curls and a swanky grin on his sharp-toothed face. He dressed in some odd, pressed suit-like clothing that had what appeared to be his name pinned on it. Why did he..? "I didn't think you'd be so easy to scare! Well of course you are you're in this sort of school—but! But but but! That's not important right now! See, there was this boy passed out on the ground"—he had her at the word "boy"—"and he, and he like was all sprawled out but he kept calling out this name, and it sounded a lot like a girl's name and you look really lost and—it doesn't matter if you don't even know who he is! This is the kind of place where you want to be with people all the time!"
Dina wanted to beg to differ, being the shy human as she was but—but boy. A boy, lying flat on the ground, calling out a female-sounding name. Of course, female-sounding names could be differing than from what this male thought it might be, with his loud, blaring, though slightly-chipper tone—mostly loud and blaring that caught attention between shaking eyes—but... a chance. "So anyways, I might as well tell you my name," the blue creature told her as he strode down the hall, waiting as she got the message and continued walking on. Her heart had landed in her throat and she could hardly dare to breathe. "I'm Takahiro Shozoka, and, as you can plainly, tell, I'm a ghost. Yeah. I'm dead." He just blew her mind straight open; Dina would have fallen did the ghost not continue his pace suddenly and force her to catch along. "The boy kept calling out this cute little name, I remember—blah, anyways! You probably figured this out by now, but you're in a school." She idly wondered what the word "school" meant and felt shamefully stupid. "It's called Heavenly Host Elementary School, if I'm right. And I am. I've been dead here for years, man." She was liking the sound of this place less and less as the moments passed by. "Aaaanyways, I've no idea how you got sent here, I thought people stopped coming at some point because... I dunno. I dunno. But victims stopped... Well... something like that, at least..." He seemed just as befuddled as she, and he had apparently been living here as a trapped, dead soul for years on end.
Fear crawled up and struggled to take full control of her as her hands began feverishly scraping at her eyes to try and stop the flowing tears that cooled her cheeks and left her nauseous and pathetic-feeling. Dina... she wanted Rupert; she needed to find him. A coherent thought slid through, though; she would rather he did not end up in this school than that he had been trapped here, too. Perhaps she did not see him or Torn or Trikko anywhere because she had gone into the bad place and they had... fallen into somewhere... h-happier? That became her first hope as she lumbered and shuddered down the hallway, eyes on anything but everything around her and mind wired on the name that she found herself groping for. She could only hope the boy they had found—that it was not Rupert, and Rupert was not here, and he was safe somewhere. She could live with the notion if he happened to be alright and she had simply become trapped here to die.
Still, a cold thought poked her. Rupert... how would he feel about her being stuck here, all alone? He would... He would not like that very much... would he..? He might... become upset by it, was Dina in a place like this that smelled of blood and other bodily liquids she did not search for or, by all means, want to sniff out and identify: the only true sniffing she did was to prevent the streak of snot running with her tear-stained cheeks. Her shoulders sagged and she nearly pitched over again, this time the single thing stopping her the fact that the next thing in front of her was an open door that instead her head banged into.
An intricate surface, the same, crushed brown as the walls and the ceiling, with a parchment white slitting through the front-top part of the door like it be where a window should go, only it was not. Did these—these schools, all, have windows like such? Perhaps they did. She did now know. One thing about Dina was how little she knew, especially when it came to her memories. But at the time, this was not quite as important as she took off running her bare feet over the sifting, crumpled wood and took for the person lying at what she assumed would be the front, with strange, small, cubical desks that appeared to be for children. Why would children need desks? She knew of people who had them and used them to write upon or some of the sort but—what would a child do with a desk? Perhaps the schools needed them. At the time being Dina stopped thinking of desks and began to wonder why she had sunk when she realized her foot had stubbed through a hole and she was about to glide down it. Letting out another high-pitched squeak, the tears running faster no matter how hard she rubbed at her face, Dina plastered her hands to the sides of the hole and hoped above all hopes she would not fall through.
If it be any hope, one of her feet had bent at an awkward angle, the left leg, which did not sidle up into the hole but let out a spurting, inhumane CRACCCK that let her know the feeling in her leg, which had ebbed and thus sprung back as ripping shock and pain, bloody, ripping, tearing, smearing pain, was not good at all. She struggled with her arms clawed out at the floor, keeping her from truly falling, but she... she was stuck. And just in front of her, eyes widening with sickening disgust and fear—adrenaline pumping to fear and her squirming only growing with apprehensive fear—she saw a body with red on it, and judging by the stench it gave off, it could have just died or been killed a long time ago. Still, it... it was—it was red. Was it—no... it could not have been. Her head swam; she hoped wherever Rupert was, he was okay.
Something apparently heard her, and footsteps slowly clomped, clomped, clomped closer to her struggling figure with the reddening cheeks and tearful gaze. Dina squirmed and wriggled and struggled: in dashed hopes. There was no way she could pop out of this thing on her own. And the terrifying clomp of those boots—why, it... it could be anyone. What if it was the person that had killed—killed the boy ghost? Killed that corpse that was red and could have been anyone it was so coated—could have been... him. Dina did not know what to say as killers simply killed they did not not listen did they when hands crossed hers and she pulled back and began to cry out loud, utter fear pulverizing her entire being. "D-Dina..!" She only heard her name, not the voice inside of it. Squeaking and sobbing, she only wanted to pull back; she was afraid, she was so, so terribly afraid, and she quaked and revealed as much as the person squeezed onto her hands as if testing which one was the plumper, which to cut off and perhaps eat first, she did not know. She wept and feared and mumbled the only name she could catch onto, and the person whispered something.
"Dina, it is me."
Slow realization dawned upon her, and a reluctant, auburn orb peeped open. Only—she did recognize the face, and her tears grew stronger and her quaking harder, her body succumbing to what she saw in front of her and her gaze blurring weakly. She stopped struggling and puled out his name: "Rupert... Ruuuupert..." A hiccup embossed inside of her scratchy, curdled throat, and a hand removed from one of hers and gently stroked her head. Leaving her to cry out her fears for a moment, Rupert waited for her to regain at least a handful of senses, though truly she seemed to have been drained of practically all reason, and thus he waited a little longer than that as well, until the tears began to dry up and Dina seemed to recall she was stuck in a collapsed bit of floorboard, too tight to wriggle out of but somehow easy enough for a foot to accidentally slide into and crush her inside. He took careful, gentle maneuvers—whether others realized it or not, Rupert had a soft touch to everything, not just Dina but everything, though this was only easy to sight when he was with Dina—and eventually lifted his dear girl out of her hole and welcomed her into an embrace.
He spoke to her softly, kindly. "I... woke... as I heard something fall and crash into what sounded like wood. I knew none of what it could be, but I had to check, sitting on those wooden floorboards did me no good and I... I was mystified, thoroughly unable to believe that I... it was you. You happened to be trapped here with me, and I had... found you..." Her head curled and rested beside his, and he gently stroked his dear, shaking girl. "I did, at first, hope you would not be put through this same, strange place, but I find relief that you are here as it is, and... I can be by your side once more..." Not knowing what else to say, and having both a stutter and a dwindling sob to keep her steady, Dina simply nodded. She hardly knew how the boy could talk so gently and fuel such nice words from it, and she had stopped questioning it at some point. She was simply overwhelmed with joy of that she had him here, too, and did not have to go without Rupert. The last thing she wanted was for him to be in such a hazardous area, but admittedly, she felt relief Rupert would be with her, and as her head raised, the tears finally out of her system, she softly pressed her lips against his cheek and felt a security rising up inside of her. Though the creaky school—whatever a school could be—was it perchance a horror house?—rose amongst them, she had Rupert, and she felt safe.
"Dina..."
They stayed clutching at one another for moments longer, extremely reluctant to move even though they sort of had to figure out how to get out of this place: there was a corpse sitting to their side, and that did set Dina on edge and cross concern over Rupert, for both her and the well-being of this place, when the blue spirit descended down upon them. "Oh, so I guess you do know each other!" Takahiro cried merrily. "Well that's fine and dandy!" Though it could have been in a mocking tone, he seemed genuinely happy for the two living humans, that they still stood a chance in the world, even as the slicked-back-bluenette had evidently lost such chance of his own.
Quickly, recalling he did not know of this boy, Dina explained her own scenario to him in as little words as she could spare. "I woke up in a further... h-hallway... and... saw-s-saw this gh-host ev-entu-tually... T-ta-ka...hiro... and he... l-led me to-to you... sa-aying you were p-passed out and... and... c-call-linng my... name..."
"Yeah, baaasically," he stated somewhat tacitly in response, though the glint in his eyes proved anything but deadly. "So... I dunno. It's been awhile since stuff has happened around here. Do you guys happen to know what Heavenly Host Elementary School is?" A furious shake of heads. "Mm... how about a school? Do you know what a school is?" Another smattering of shakes. He seemed unable to believe this at first, but continued on anyways. "Then... do you know... what charms are? And did you use one to get here?" More shaking.
Dina piped up with a gleeful, "The floor broke open in the middle of the night... a-and we fell th-through it... with m-m-my... t-two viv-vivosaurs." He seemed incredulous to what a vivosaur was. "U-um... they are v-very l-arge... c-creatures.. with scales. But th-th...they can shrink, t-too. And some.. b-breathe fire... and-and others shoot w-water..."
She left off there, feeling a little ill will. "Nope. Never heard of them. Hmm, wonder why. Weelllll, you fell through a hole, and that's how we all pretty much end up going here. We fall through the hole, pass out, and sometimes get lucky and have someone we did the charm with show up in the same space as us—but you know what sometimes that doesn't happen, and it's a very lonely thing to do when you end up dying because you're so lonely." Dina did not know of this charm he spoke of, but nevertheless felt the emotion locked up inside of this poor boy and felt the need to reach out and... she felt horrible for him. She simply felt beside herself with a perturbed, upset emotion clogging the drain that was connected to her entity.
"Hmm... I might as well try to explain a few things, seeing as we haven't had visitors in so long and I mean there's so many dead people everywhere but... it's nice to try to help others. Blaaah, moving past my sadistic life, let me set some ground rules: schools, first of all... are places where kids from age five to like eighteen go to learn stuff. From teachers." They evidently knew what both kids and teachers were, just not in this schooling fashion. "They teach them stuff like, y'know, math, and language arts and... history. Which have wars and stuff." Dina and Rupert each, though raised in completely differentiating climates, had both learned what they simply grew up learning without this institution of education required: words, basic numbers, fossil fighting: all they needed to truly understand was all they had to go through, and there was no school they learned that from. Parental beings, or guardians, or Torn, taught these all well enough. Simple topics. Simple.
"Oh, and Heavenly Host—it's an elementary school. Like little kids go to this one. And... well... some really bad stuff happened—like kids got kidnapped and murdered—and then this... nexus, in a sort, of different spaces that all make up this school, occurred from it. I'm sensing there to be... mm... There's—w-wow, so many people entering. I sense a lot of different presences in this school now, let me try to count them..." M-many..? Dina flinched back at that. Did it mean... who else would have been brought through this further-confusing pit, dragged through the earth so untimely and without accordance? Certainly, she felt certain, in some sort of these "spaces" the ghost spoke of, presently meaning their friends were technically not in this... area... Torn and Trikko had to be here somewhere, she felt certain. As well... who else could have been forced down here into this ensnarement? Who else could be here now, slowly draining of their sanity? Would... could it be others she knew? Could—could her foster brother—could Todd be here? The small, brown-haired, brown-eyed boy with the tan and the freckles and his love of dresses—could he—could he...
Sucking in frantic breaths, heart pattering inside of her at an unstable rate, Dina leaned against Rupert and attempted to catch her breath. He traced one arm around her back and hugged her gently, assured he was not moving. "Aha! So we've got you two, and... five more. Then there's four... weird entities I can't really explain. Probably those vivosaurs you mentioned earlier." Seven humans... four vivosaurs... Surely, these were people she could r-recognize, did they come up face-to-face by her side. Dina shuddered uncontrollably and shared a glance with the white-haired boy to her side, a quiet agreement broached betwixt them. Whatever went on, they... had to try and find a wave of sense through this sea of nonsense. Also, an escape plan sounded keen and something they should most certainly aim for finding. Perchance there was—an entrance, secret exit, trap door: something had to provide a way out. This "school" entity, being a location for temporary educational standings, would not be a permanent place for students to stay, though it seemed that this bloodied root of chambers, interlocked with multiple rooms, surely, just like this room, to teach the other children—when it had been alive, a living school and not so old, crusted, bloody: so the cracks in the ground were not natural. And the ghost was not natural. And the blood and the ammonia scent and the uneasy darkness: none of this had a natural sense to it. School did not serve the need to be... scary. Why would they try to frighten the poor children?
Takahiro had continued his ranting while her mind reeled, and Dina attempted to focus on his words once more, honing in on the speech so hard to miss with his loud, carrying tone. "...and saying that this school is built on such spaces, then it's highly unlikely you'll see any of the others that just entered the school with you." She had apparently lost focus at the worst moment, and meekly glimpsed at the dear boy beside her in hope he had paid the ghost male attention. The serious and presentable boy he was, the knowledge swirling in his star-like orbs, Rupert softly nodded to the girl that he could assist her later; the confusion crossing over her orbs must have been unbearably obvious. And yet, Takahiro took no notice of the sort. She found that more than somewhat refreshing and smiled beside herself. " So... you're basically here in this space on your own. But you guys look pretty content to who you ended up with. A lot of the time, the person you grabbed onto before your depart or the one you were hoping most to end up with... a lot of the time you'll be summoned here with them. But not always." The lonely male—glancing at him more closely assured that he happened to be slightly younger than Rupert and Dina, she being not even a year under Rupert, and this boy perhaps nearing the age of Todd—he looked so sad, although, without his friends. Without anyone, dead or alive, to accompany him. Unable to ever see them again, and trapped as a cold-blue ghost in this maze for eternity. She shuddered weakly at the thought.
"So... the charm. Most of the last group of people who came here were summoned by it. When I say group... I mean like... thousands of different people who saw this. The first horde was from the monsters in this nexus themselves just going out to the real world and killing, sending their souls here. Then somehow this charm leaked out on the Internet and people from all over found it and used it with their friends... and they never made it back out again. The only reason I know of it is because I'm here. Anyone who dies here... I heard their existence was forgotten or something ugly like that. I dunno." Neither knew of such in-tur-nit, but apparently it held the capacity of these charms. Both had a fair enough understanding of the word to make it by on it. "So... you'd do this charm, this Sachiko Ever-After thing, and you'd end up here... and you'd get killed by the end of it. Simple as that."
Turning his head away, he grumbled, "At least... you're supposed to." His glassy, foggy eyes glinted with a hint of the malice they had never seen in this boy prior.
Dina had the curiosity to wonder what that could have meant, but the fear enough of speaking that she did not outright question it. Rupert did not show it, but she could feel a small length of unease coiling off of him. His emotions were not visible; she felt them, though, especially when sitting right beside him, their arms and shoulders shadowed over one another. Perhaps this meant she stood a chance of escaping..? Did... did Takahiro not want them to leave, so that he could be... he could be... without such a lonesome presence any longer, and tear through his loss of others? But Dina: they had to... go home. Unsafe fingerprints pressed against her on all edges, and she wanted to escape with Rupert and Torn and Trikko and whomever else may have fallen in here as soon as she possibly could. They did not belong in this strange place.
"Anyway, I have no idea why the heck you guys came here. Last I saw... apparently the charm had gotten enough people that it was starting to wipe out... across nations, or something insane like that. No one who goes through this nexus can really escape, so there's no way it'd stop, you know?" Takahiro grew terse and distant again, so the boy to her side quickly turned his head and whispered to her what the ghost had spoken of earlier.
"Apparently... we are in a nexus of this school. A cursed version of it created by some horrible creature that... honestly reminded me perhaps of rogue vivosaurs still without revival that... come back and haunt us. And there is one school, but there happens to be... multiple different versions of the single one. Different spaces. And... we are the only two living beings in this space, at this time. We are all that is here." His soft, gently-cold murmur filled her, and she nearly forgot to focus on the actual meaning within. Dina... really liked his voice, simply. Shaking herself, she stared up at the ghost boy again and the creaky walls, the bloodstained floor, the strange podium up at the front and the chalkboard behind it, each filled with strange markings the color of blood that she had to squint in order to read filthy lines of curses and hatred. It splashed a gelid refresher of where she and he were, and that they had to get out of here.
At the moment, the place did not seem too bad, now that she had Rupert. But then the corpse underneath the chalkboard, hastily shoved against the wooden podium, swam into her vision again, and her gag made a sudden reflex at her. Dina bit her lip and forced whatever could have been in there down, down, down. Her breath pulsated somewhere inside of her, and she could feel every single gasp she took from the atmosphere outside. The blood on the walls began closing in on her, and her mind throbbed, missing beats and giving an odd, splayed texture that splattered over her temples and threatened to drive her wild. She clasped for the hand of the boy next to her and squeezed it gently, and he squeezed back after a passing of moments.
Taking another glance at Takahiro and his slicked-back outlook, the nice suit, perhaps to be worn for this school he had gone to prior to dying, she did not know, his eyes seemed to cross and whatever tranquility Dina had prior slipped through her fingers. All that anchored her to the world and drifted in safety to the shoreline of her tangled mind was the boy who stood as she suddenly, dizzily did, and the ghost boy, not even glancing at them but at the window facing the outside of the school, this one providing a clean view of long streaks of rainwater and an endless row of dark trees, had such a stare in his eye. Almost a... bloody, lustful one that tugged at her heart the wrong way and nigh yanked it out of her chest. Dina collapsed almost as soon as she had risen, with her twisted, possibly broken, leg, the cracks jumbled in a clump of a few messy areas, and the prince-like boy to her side gently guided her away from that room. She took a glance at one of the signs at the front of it and read in old, scrawled handwriting, like that of gnarled bits of hair, Classroom 1-A. As long as she lived, she quickly decided that she never wanted to be in that classroom, this simple chamber for studying and learning, ever, ever again. If she ever saw a school once she left this terrifying realm she would step away and never look back.
This was... scary. This was... scary. Her breath clumped in ragged heaps and her leg pulsed with red streaks of blood that cut over her pale skin like red-and-white stripes, like the pajamas Rupert wore. He hugged her slightly-shorter, coat-cloaked figure to himself and guided her further from the classroom, gingerly stepping over holes in the dark, elaborate boots that he had on and keeping a watch over the shivering girl at all times. Of all things, he had had the ability to put on his boots prior to being struck into this strange nexus, this labyrinthine monster full of spaces and blood and holes to fall into and the staggering, rancid stenches blowing into them. Neither of them had even the slightest clue exactly where they were, and exactly what to do, but Dina took her small steps and she allowed Rupert to lead her, not objecting or criticizing or pulling back whenever he took the next step, his boot crafting a hollow echo in the strangely cold rooms.
This place seemed to press dark, tainted thoughts—dark, tainted breath—against the boy and the girl huddled in reliance upon one another, but neither spoke, neither voiced a word. Dina could feel the cold, unsafe, hazardous home of spirits and death choking down on her, and she idly wondered how old the atmosphere here could have been, and why it must have been so tainted to crumble down and try to consume her and the boy she felt so dearly upon.
Wherever they went, whichever path was crossed, as soon as a scrawl or writing could be found on the walls, or a voice echoed and bounded along, Rupert would read it out to her. It felt oddly dangerous to speak in this place, so he saved his voice only for reading aloud things he could keep his eyes centered upon and not let derail from. Testimonies and scripts from a multitude of other children, boys and girls, young and old, even a few adults, it seemed, held their own story to share, none of them ending all too happily ever after. One spoke boldly of a girl and her best friend who played a game to see which of them would eat the other, as they had run out of food and needed such to go on—sustenance upon one or the other. Having never even considered devouring any type of meat, Dina felt a cold chill sharpen on her back and chip at her. Others whispered about groups who would turn upon themselves and shriek and kill and—Dina shriveled up and held particularly closer to him at those. She could not imagine... that happening to her, or her friends that could be there, for that matter... or seeing Trikko and Torn tear apart, losing themselves and: she shuddered again, half expecting Rupert to tell her off upon that, upon her fear.
Of course he did no such thing, but this place teemed with lies and... and this cord of black a few letters and whispers called the Darkening. And that it took characters by the throat and pulverized them from the inside out until they could not even recognize their own selves and practically turned feral. As Rupert finished reading another one of such tales, Dina rapidly grabbed one of his hands that held her and mumbled a few scattered words. He calmly asked her to take in a breath and try again.
So she did, and, "I am n-never lett-i...ing... g-go of you... No matter what happens I want... I want you to know that... I trust you."
He was stunned at the quiet outburst. It was what to expect from his sweet Dina, who could never quite bring herself to harm another through word, and murmured back, "And I will do the same."
Some feral thing in the shadows hissed at their hushed promises.
Dina, shameful about her clumsy soul and how often she stumbled back and how much her leg ached, felt hot embarrassment creep into her eyes and stain her cheeks as time wended on and words seemed to repeat in her head, and she continued to stumble, as she always did. Rupert noticed many things, as he did this, as he did her repeated stumbles, and decided it was time they took a break. He gently led her down a staircase they had chanced upon and at the fall she had at the bottom, mindlessly scooped her up as he always did and carried her the rest of the journey to the room left unlocked on the one side, where he took no mind of what sat on the walls and laid her down on the first cot he reached, it somehow not covered in blood or dust but instead felt warm to the touch, even before Dina rested against it. He joined her on the small, springy bed, finding his own heart settling when he stayed to her side than without, and watched her as the orbs fluttered.
"Rupert..." she breathed, and his eyes turned to her. "Do you... wish to rest?"
He thought of it for a moment. Of the tiring walking, of the scaling up and down the stairs and the periodic carrying of the girl he so felt such strong liking to, of all he had done, and he considered the ghost boy they had met, and he quickly reached a decision. "No. I just want to sit here for a moment, perhaps consider what we have gone through." His eyes glittered toward the entrance, facing the far right of their room. "Infirmary," he then mused, "how... quaint."
A shifting, and the orange-haired girl with the silvery highlights settled sitting beside him, their legs dangling off the cot together. "Then I will sit and consider with you." She had a soft, melted-ice sort of tone that did not hold strong, but her voice sounded sure that she wanted to stay awake with him. "Perchance... I would sleep better in this environment but: no... I want to stay here with you. I... w-would like to, Rupert... as... as l-long as... you do-do not mind, of... of course." Her head bounced some at that.
"Of course not, Dina." He gently kissed her, and left them entwined for a moment, prior to pulling back and examining this strange, admittedly creepy room. Bloodied fingerprints lined the cabinets facing all walls, and an assortment of bottled chemicals set on the shelves, dusty and old, giving off faint, singeing scents. His hand held over hers, and he squeezed it lightly as he observed the strange collection of sharp-bladed scissors adorning the walls, all on their own racks. Dark, mud-like substances caked each one, but one could never be too sure. Dina snuggled against him, and he rested against her, and they did not speak for a time, only focused on the one beside them and nothing else to that matter. Neither could rest with what sat in their heads; neither tried to. And they enjoyed the quiet acquiesce, nevertheless.
It felt safer in the room than it did the creepy, creaking hallways. For all of its strange ornaments, the infirmary was the most-cared room he had seen in the school thus far. And it also had beds that sure, were not the softest, but he still felt an ease to sit on something that did happen to be of enough comfort and have Dina by his side.
Their voices never rose, both easygoing whisperers as was, and they spoke of what they had seen in their gentle tones. It was a comfort they both found incredible strength and safety to have.
"What did... did you think of all of those letters, Dina..?"
"They... s-scared me. I want to just... t-take everyone out of here... and... get them away..."
"I do not like it here."
"M-me neither."
Oddly, they each took this situation calmly. Given their background as fossil fighters, these sorts of things did not quite take over their minds, at least, just yet. They could hold their own in such situations. Or, at least, hold enough of it. And they had one another, a privilege they never caught prior. Either way, their own responses to fear were not as painstakingly frenzied as others they knew so well. "What do you suppose... those messages meant?"
"A lot of... p-eople, m-musth-have passed here... and th-they all... did not qu-quite make it... ou-out. And they fell... t-to loss..."
"I believe there were multiple reasons to their demises. Certainly one of them was... this darkness in its own."
"Yes..."
"Whatever beasts could lie in wait here, as well as... Children do charms like so, and they do them too early, before they meet others that they care about, at times. And when they do chance upon those people—perhaps it is never enough. They use the wrong souls and somehow end up here. It's... wrong. Completely, simply wrong."
It... it made some sense. That this school, an upturned mess of utter horror, easily capsized those without strong enough spirits, or strong enough others, with them. "I am thankful I woke up and found you here. It would be... very hard... to... to go on... o-otherwise."
Each took a moment to let those words sink in, and he nodded gently. "Yes..."
"What do you think... they meant about... about the... gh-ghost children..?" There had been an alarming number of newspaper articles and simple testimonies speaking of these certain three children over and over again, like a repeating plea for reason inside of the heads of the two still alive—a warning, possibly. And every once in awhile, one in every batch of such wordings, a shadow of a fourth child had hovered over those. As she rested there, Dina began to realize just how little she had to intake from what her dear boy had read out to her, only snippets of what must have been significant texts, like the faint imprint of memory upon the triplet ghost children. The cold fingerprints covered her skin again and suggested she had hit something with that question, hit something hard.
Though he understood enough and had ingested the words easily himself. "Judging by all that we had seen, they must be related to the school, of course..." He tried the words on his tongue and grimaced. "Heavenly Host... Elementary School." A silent agreement passed to never call it by the exact name again. Spooks trickled down the girl and stabbed her. "Somehow... saying they did die here, and that they are so commonly repeated, they must have to do with the entire foundation of this... strange place." His golden orbs buzzed with ideas, and as if asking for permission, he glanced to the girl leaning against him, who smiled readily back.
"It seems... to me, at least, that they are... deeply connected to this school. Certainly. And... whatever sort of cruel mistress must be at the top of this nexus... these children could be connected to it." Dina was drawn into listening to him quietly think and pull together his own thoughts of what could be going on. "I... I don't know what could have caused this mass of pain and crafted such an old, dark... excruciating building and left other people to suffer in it for... what seems to have been for decades in the most minimal time frame, but... I feel as if those three children, so... tortured... it is as if they would have... nowhere else to go, of a sort. And... the man that was found with them—the inhumanely large man that disappeared without a trace months later...
"This is all such a strange conflict to be torn and upturned upon." She did not know whether the boy meant to use those words or not—Mistress—Torn—names of vivosaurs they both grew fond of—but she smiled albeit. "It is all we can do but try to see through it. We each have... gone through times not unlike this place, and it festers wounds I doubt either of us would enjoy remembering. Dina... I want you to not have to be near this... I want you to be away from the darkness you have had to go through... and yet here it comes... and here it comes..." His already-gentle-and-soft whisper drew quieter. "And... how does one stop it?"
They sat and brooded over the thought for a long, simple moment. "How does one stop it?" She did not know, but her heartbeat lost a few paces and thumped rigid in her chest: he did want it to stop. She... she personally did not mind all the much... about it, about her well-being, and to see him and understand that he cared through that...
"It pains me to see you hurt like this... I honestly... I cannot take seeing you in such harmful situations, Dina..."
And it pained her to see him going through such motions... She recalled the father of Rupert, a strange man of violent greed... and it plucked at her coldly to be reminded of him. He was a darkness... but his darkness seemed to be a much stronger gray than the one she faced with her dear now. In the midst of the warming infirmary, Dina snuggled closer to the boy and closed her eyes bleakly, her fingers connecting to his arm and holding herself to him tightly. His other arm stretched over and a hand was placed over one of hers.
Cold breath shattered whatever warmth was proposed in the action, and Dina instinctively shuddered back. The door to the infirmary respired open and in came cold, pulsating nudges of the air, drawing the girl and her eyes to nuzzle open as a hand intersected with her side and she was pushed down, off the cot, and took a quick trip to the ground below. Any air remaining in her lungs crushed and the strength in her legs feebly melted. Rupert, golden orbs flicking over her, churned from the position of Dina weakly sprawled on the ground to the glowing-blue creature diving for the collection of scissors hanging on the wall, pointing for a particularly small size. Then grabbing a second, just-as-caked one as well. The rancid scent of her moving musty scissors forced the girl to gag, and Rupert watched over her gently, petrified in space as thoughts set to motion and Dina herself could not even stand she had to stand and move Rupert and get them both away when the creature turned around in her small, flowery dress and each saw she was missing... why was she missing—her head? Where had her... her head gone off to?
Just the grazed look of that thing set Dina and her heart aflame. She was going to die. She was going to lose her life, right now, and she cringed as the child stepped with a THUK off the tall cabinet reaching for the scissors aligned so nice and neat but at least Rupert could recover and do something. She sat there, frozen with slushy terror and cold, breathless pain, her leg bent and self sprawled out on the floor, landed on her rump but unable to move otherwise, frozen and sucking in breaths that refused to come, the room growing staggering and red with darkness and thumps: and it was okay, Rupert would live, he could see to another day, and therefore, knowing that in her head made Dina smile to herself.
Skiiishhhh—
She had been pushed once more, more like a lurching shove, and Dina tumbled out the door to the strange infirmary just as the ghostly child hand made a stab with the scissors that did not come down on her. A pale face, in tempo with hers, caught her eyes and held onto them, when he glanced upon her and their lips melded together and then the warmth was gone and consciousness fell like a flower to the cold of winter as Dina lost all sight of anything.
On the other side of the door, another soul was not as lucky. The crumpling, silvery blade of the metal had injected into his arm and left a slithering gash open, tearing past his sleeves with superhuman strength and completely shooting chunks of thick, red conglomerate out of his leaking line of red and came again, and again, mashing in and in and into the skin, past the muscle and sinew and fluid until the white mark of bone showed, and then past that as well. Holes began to puncture a pattern through his arm, and Rupert merely stared with a mock curiosity. He knew fairly well he would not live, seeing this ghost child and how locked he had come...
It was completely irrational: his talk with Dina, his actions, her actions, the uncanny timing of the little headless girl with the scissors. All of it: completely irrational. And the younger fellow had commented that no such as another soul had ever creeped into this space, and it slowly drove him insane: this all did not connect whatsoever. And now he was being stabbed to death by a pair of child's scissors.
And he felt none of it. All that collected in his mind was that Dina would live. He had saved her from her own frozen shock and she would live, she would live, she would live. The stabs had finished poking messes through his arm and, after taking a long stare at his own face, dove for the other arm on his right side, instead gently holding it taut and slitting rows upon rows of gashed into it, collecting and collecting pools of unhealed scars and melding them all into a mix of bright, cherry red that glistened as it dripped, and the amount of blood, it was irrational as well.
As soon as the girl finished his next limb and turned to another, a shock of cold, wet grief plummeted into his soul, and a selfishness seeped inside of him. He... It was obvious... It was obvious why he had truly saved Dina. He had seen the stripe of glee alight her face when she realized she would be the one to die, himself spared, and the shock and confusion as he pushed her out. He did it not—not because of some kindness in his heart that stirred him to be noble, but for the fact that: he let it seep out: without this girl, he would lose himself. He absolutely could not stand a world where he lost his sweet Dina and lived out on his own. He refused. And so he would rather die than commit with such, and he did. And he felt nothing but how selfish he had been to not think of how much—how would Dina feel... without him?
A cold chill set in, and he took the rest of the stabbing with no resistance, feeling the jolt of his flesh every time the gelid, slithering blade set in and yanked out, and he could feel the floor rotting with his blood and the crumble of his body, and the release as he was to be killed and his soul set out. Perhaps... if this place had been a little more rational, perhaps they both could have lived.
All the blue-turned boy felt as he left his old body into a white light and called out the name of the one he held dearest to him was that he had left her behind, and it would hurt her more than anything else, ethereal, surreal, or true.
Me: ...Yeaah. Ow. Ow. That was quite a first chapter... no? All of you who don't really know these characters and grew interested, if you enjoyed that, heh, I'm excited to see what you'll think of in the upcoming chapters... heeheeeeeeeee...
Dino: this is all so messed up
Me: WHY are you still here
Dino: because I dunno
Me: -banishes him-
So, anyways, this has been the first chapter! I trust you guys... uh... aren't near scissors right now... haaahh... -awkward chuckle-