Trigger Warnings: language, death, blood, slight gore, slight, suicidal themes.


"First thing's first: I did not intend to die, I swear..."


Chapter 1

August 17, 2***

All things considered, one could say that Move In Day was a success. Meaning that it was organized, there was chaos, parents were clingy at times, and dorms were no longer empty. So to celebrate the start of a new semester as well as welcome students to the campus, new and old, the university was hosting a late-night cookout to kick everything off as the first night of Campus Kickoff Week.

It was 9:45 at night and with the lure of free food, quite a few students were milling about the campus green around the clock tower, some catching up and some just there for the was live music, multiple grills going out on the campus green, tables and tables of snacks, and quite a few coolers of sodas for all the students that bothered to show. By 10:15, Addie, a rather petite blonde with a bob cut and looking rather tiny in all black, snagged a table a little further out so her and her friends wouldn't be overly crowded by all the freshmen that turned up, but near enough that the other girls were able to people watch to their satisfaction. Or rather, scope out the guys as they caught up after not seeing each other all summer.

Addie playfully kicked one of the girls under the table. "No! I am not going to just walk up to him and start up a conversation. What would I say? 'Hey I watched you all last year cause we had classes together and I think you're kinda cute?' How does that not sound stalkerish?"

Lydia, her long brown hair swept up in a bun and a figure to die for in a crop top and Daisy Dukes, cackled at Addie's blush and held her hand out while the other girls groaned

"Pay up, bitches! I called it!"

"Shut up!" She hissed at her friend and smacked her hand down.

Lydia's grin stretched across her face. "After that lovely tidbit you just gave me, Ads? Never."

"Ugh." Her head hit the table. " I hate you. I hate you all for betting on that."

A gal with a green pixie cut -Vicki, Lydia's girlfriend- pecked Lydia on the cheek and reached around her girlfriend to poke Addie.

"At least you know she's gonna split it with you. Though if you'd waited a week or two more, I'd have made bank on you."

"I hate you all. I'm getting drinks."

She barely stood up when two sets of arms draped across her shoulders and sat her back down.

"Nope! You're staying here and you get to tell us more about the guy you've supposedly been stalking."

Addie groaned. "Nope. Nu-uh. Not happening. Why don't you bug them-" she waves her hand at their approaching hall mates. "-or scope out the guys like y'all normally do?"

"Hmmmm." Jessica purred on her left. "Perhaps."

Jessi grinned on her right. "Or we scope guys and see if we can pick out your little crush?"

Addie said nothing and slumped in her seat on the bench while her friends ribbed her before moving on to more interesting topics as she clock chimed 11. Said topicsincluded, but were not limited to, guys- "Heeeey, I bet that kid is a freshman but daaamn he looks fine." "You've said that about the last five guys, Jess, including the one you said had a punchable face." "His face was only punchable after he started talking."- classes, roommates- "Ugh. I've got her this year." "Thought she was suspended after-" "Apparently not. Fuck my life."- and everything in between.

A couple of students passed by within earshot and the table of girls were more or less amused by the bit of conversation they overheard.

"So, excited to finally start college?!"

"Oh yeah. Super excited." The quiet words were practically soaked in sarcasm.

"Ah, don't be like that. Think of all the girls we get to meet!"

"Ah, yes. The fairer sex. I will keep that in mind."

Anything else was lost as they continued out of earshot and the girls broke down giggling. Then Jessi perked up.

"Oh heeeey. Check him out!" She rather discreetly, for her, pointed to an athletic looking guy milling around talking to a group of people.

They watched as he grinned at the group that formed not too far away from them a few tables down.

"Sup guys? How's it going? How was y'alls summer?"

It came out louder and clearer than the rest of the group, who were all milling around in excitement like they hadn't just seen each other recently.

Jess eyed him like a piece of meat- "Man, I bet he's got some muscles under that hoodie." "Ugh. Just shut up, you perv." "Make me!" "Fine. No baked goods for you." "Eep! Shutting up now!"- and Addie rolled her eyes with a snort.

It was 11:58. Addie stood up with and grabbed her empty plate, ignoring the other conversations that didn't concern her or her friends. It was all the same as the last Campus Kickoff Cookout. With eyes on the prize, she tossed her trash in the can and grabbed several cans of soda for the table since it looked like a couple more people had joined their table. It was 11:59. Passing the drinks out, she thought that maybe this would be a good semester.

The clock tower struck midnight right as Addie blinked.

The low bell toll hung ominously in the stagnant air, echoing across the jarringly silent campus green. The sudden stench of iron wafted through the air, lingering in nostrils and lingering on tongues. Where there was a welcoming summer sky, half-lit with stars and a full grown moon, a sickly green glow from a yellowing moon reflected off windows and ominous puddles slowly spreading along the ground. The green haze of light twisted soft, vibrant colors into semblances of dull, dying shades.

Horrified eyes widened as she processed that caskets loomed before her, instead of the people she knew. Ebony caskets with silver edging, standing tall and ominous on benches where people had been sitting, on the grass by the games, standing at the grills. Shaking hands knocked a cup of soda- but it wasn't. Something warm and wet trickled over her fingers, thick and sticking to her fingers as she jerked her hand back from the table. Her hand glistened red in the sickening green glow.

A single shriek tore through the unsettling moment of quiet with all the subtlety of glass shattering. It was the breaking of the proverbial dam as the disturbing new reality settled in across the campus. The tiny blonde scrambled away from the table, scrubbing her hand on her jeans to just get it off of my hand! Her bag thumped against her legs as her back hit something solid, a casket behind her that did not even rock with the force of her body and with the tiniest of cracks barely visible along the edge. She leapt away, heart pounding through her ribs and stomach threatening to riot.

"What the actual fuck?!" It was half whimpered, as it tore out of her throat and she bit down on her fist. Her other arm shakily wrapped around herself.

The resounding screams that echoed across the green informed her she was not the only one suddenly trapped in a demented version of their college campus. No one else seemed to know what was going on, either, as some collapsed in on themselves, rocking and crying in a way she was trying not to do. Others panicked and ran. But some stayed, yelling and banging on the looming caskets, or attempting to pull them open.

"What the hell, man!"

The popular Jock guy was surrounded by caskets, instead of the people he had been talking to. He yanked on the lids, really yanked, but they did nothing but just… be. It was pristine and eerie, no cracks or blemishes from the abuse before she watched him give up on forcing them open and move out of the group of caskets.

Something moved at the edge of her vision and she snapped her head to look. A black mass slinking across the ground with thin, rope-like tendrils grasping at the ones collapsed on the ground, not running away. Then she saw it. A black tendril slithering across the ground, through the disturbingly red pools of what she hoped was anything but blood, and she scrambled backwards, hopefully out of reach.

"What the fuck, what the fuck, what the actual fuuuck…" Her voice trailed off in a whimper as she backed away from the tendril-shadow-thing that couldn't quite reach her but continued slinking forward towards her as she kept backing away. She was really trying not to scream. Because if she screamed, she was pretty sure she wouldn't stop screaming.

"Get the hell away from me!"

Her head snapped towards the yell, a guy's yell, and she whimpered under her breath as she bit down hard on her lip when she stumbled over a rock and hit the ground. It was a split second of time but she noticed the girl in a leather jacket with long black hair ending in purple frosted tips running towards the yell and a guy with white hair in a hoodie following at her heels. Behind them was the athlete in the black hoodie that had been surrounded earlier, yelling at others to avoid the tendrils while he followed the other two.

She blinked and they were running at normal speed towards the yell. Shakily, she made herself get to her feet as her hand reached into her bag to grab her taser while ignoring the warm wet parts of her clothes from hitting the ground.

"W-Well… here goes no-nothing I guess." It wasn't the best way to motivate herself, admittedly.

Taser held in a white knuckle grip, she followed the other students only to see a kid attempting to fight off a thick black tentacle that was spiraling up his leg and squeezing as it went. The first two had already reached him, having grabbed him by an arm each as they pulled but the tentacle grasped and moved up his leg, unwilling to relinquish its grip.

"Fuck!" The white haired guy in the hoodie -both him and the girl in the leather jacket had lean muscles that she could see as they struggled- swore. "If I had known I'd be visiting a nightmare, I'd have stayed in bed!"

She fumbled for a moment; trying to put her taser back in her bag without dropping it was a slight challenge at the moment. The quiet, sarcastic kid she'd over heard earlier -she hadn't realized he wasn't replaced with a casket and definitely didn't know how he'd gotten from wherever he was to the kid so fast- leapt at the tentacle with a drawn knife as the kid whimpered and cried. Her hands shook. The athletic guy followed him up with a blade of his own while the first two kept trying to pull the kid free.

"If I had known this would happen, I'd have gone home early." The athletic guy swung down on the tentacle with his knife again.

Her hands continued to shake and she bit down on her lip. She told herself she wasn't going to do nothing. She dashed forward, legs slightly unsteady but she didn't fall, reaching out to help pull the kid. Someone else had the same idea as arms reached under the kid's arms to haul him by his upper body. Just as they had joined in to help, several tentacles snapped out of the surrounding darkness and swung at them while two others lashed out at the kid, one wrapping his waist and the other wrapping an arm, both beginning to pull and twist at awkward angles that slowly contorted the now screaming kid's body.

Addie scrambled to duck one of the tentacles lashing out at them and just barely managed to not get hit but at the cost of letting go of the kid. Same as the athletic guy who jumped back in with his knife though the other three were thrown across the ground. But somehow, the redheaded guy that she'd noticed sitting alone earlier had managed to hang on to the kid and not get hit at the same time while the kid was holding on with a death grip.

"Please, please, pleASE! DON'T LET ME GO! YOU CAN'T LET ME GO!"

Addie just stared in horror for a split second before she lunged forward to grab the kid, pulling as hard as she can to try to free him. A black tendril shot out from the darkness and wrapped his neck, slowly squeezing as it pulled back ever so slightly. A second creeped up his body, sliding under and over clothing, twisting around his body to snake up his arm, creeping closer towards them and using the kid as a bridge to them.

She shrieked and released the kid, heart in her throat as she shook. She was almost too late, she was almost caught, she couldn't-! The red head jerked back at her shriek and he let go just before the tentacle wrapped him as well, leaving it grasping at empty air above the kid's outstretched arm. The kid with his mouth open and gasping for air, with crying eyes pleading for help and fingers twitching in their direction.

"There- There's no chance of saving him! Everybody run!"

The athlete backed away, knife at the ready as he pulled at Addie then at the red head to get them moving, and she didn't think twice about backing away.

"Let's go! We can grab the other three and get away from here before it gets another one of us!"

She heard him, knew he wasn't speaking to her as he heard him head towards the three that had been smacked around like ragdolls. She knew he wasn't speaking to her because the other guy was in front of her, panting a little and staring at the kid, not moving back but leaning forwards as if he was going to try again anyway. He doubled over, screaming and grasping at his own head. There was a flash of light, a roar of wind and a blur of black-striped orange lunging towards the kid-!

The tentacles fell to the ground, chunks and pieces twitching and curling on the ground, but the kid was untouched as the blur vanished. The Redhead, still bent over, was gasping for air as he slowly took upright and she saw the way the kid flinched back, saw the terror in his eyes.

She gaped, not any more terrified than she already was by this point. "What in the actual hell…"

"What in the heavenly fuckin' hell…"

The quiet guy mimicked her, having come up behind them and with his knife out. He was staring in the same direction, and she watched as the guy grabbed the freed kid. Watched as he pulled the kid, dragged him away as more tentacles started crawling out of the shadows towards them.

She saw the quiet guy start backing away from the corner of her eye, saw the redhead helping the kid and she froze, eyes staring behind them into the dark.

Skittering sounds were growing louder from in front of her, behind the redhead and the rescued kid, and she took a shaky step back. Something was there, something was coming, something was in the shadows. It screeched as it jerked into the light. It's body jerked side to side as it skittered and shambled it's way across the ground on spider-like legs that moved out-of-sync and over each other. Tentacles spilled over from the top of the thing, like some demented vase full of vines that reached and grasped at any moving thing within its reach as it tilted and jerked with its out-of-sync movements. Those spidery limbs would cross the distance between them in no time at all and she began to scramble backwards to get away, knowing that the thing could swallow her whole if it got a hold of her given that it stood at twice her height at the least. Addie whimpered, and gripped her taser so tight her knuckles were white.

"Can you run?" The guy was looking at the kid he was dragging.

"Y-y-yes." Terror filled his voice and he wasn't even looking behind him.

"Then move."

They started moving and she backed up, staring at the creature, definitely starting to freak out herself. "Oh god. Ooooh my god…."

"I think it would be a good idea to run."

He was talking to her, pushing her to move, so she did, staying ahead of the kid but not by much. The guy took off, running ahead of them and expecting them to follow, which they did. Addie, being the least physically fit, was at the back but just ahead of the kid they rescued when the demon-creature-tentacle-spider let out a shrill shriek before charging after them on skittering legs.

"Hey! What's his problem?"

The athlete's question made her look back at the kid only to see him frozen in his tracks and his eyes rolled back in his head. She wasn't sure if the others could see it but she was close enough that she could see something was not right. His jaw was slack, limbs were hanging limply at his sides and it looked like something was… like something was moving under his skin. She watched in confusion, which quickly turned to abject horror, as his skin began to ripple and writhe like there was a mass of snakes just under the surface trying to find a way out. Tiny tendrils of black began to spread across his eyes like spider web cracks threading through glass just before it shattered.

"O-oh Christ. Guys. S-something isn't right."

Addie started backing up, instincts screaming to get away and pulse thundering in her ears as black-red ooze began to fill his mouth, leaking from the corner of his lips in a slow drip and splattering on the ground. The same black-red ooze began to leak from the corners of his eyes, run from his ears, from his nose. His fingers twitched and jerked, the writhing mass building and building under his skin like a slowly inflating balloon about to rupture, all centered around his throat.

Warmth splattered across her face, her hands. Large drops began rolling down from her hairline, down her neck, under her clothes. The stench of something partly rotten filled her nose as her eyes registered the red-black flecks all over her hands. She froze for a moment, a scream building up in her throat because ohmygodwhatthefuckitsbloodthisisbloodthisishisbloodohmygod-

"You gotta be shitting me." The quiet sarcastic guy's voice snapped her back to reality.

The ki- body was twitching, arms spasming while legs bent at unnatural angles to keep itself upright as tentacles writhed from a torn, bloody shirt collar, shredded bone and musculature tearing at the collar as it began to shamble towards them on twisting, unstable legs.

"What the fuck." The redhead, the guy that had run ahead, had come back and she knew he was pissed off, hearing it in his voice with undertones of confusion, without her having to look at his face for confirmation.

Then the demon-creature-thing and the ki- the tentacled hellspawn started to advance on them. She turned tail and ran as the redheaded guy- he had only one glove on, what the hell?- pushed her as he turned tail himself. She was still at the back of the group but managing to not fall behind. Then she blinked because there were two people fucking walking towards them looking calm and collected as if they weren't in some freakish hellscape like the rest of them. The red headed woman was wielding a red-bladed rapier in one hand and a pistol in the other while the white haired guy had on red gloves and a gun in hand as well. Both even looked like they could have been on a date with him in a white suit and black collared shirt while the woman had killer boots, a black skirt and a fitted white blouse. Or maybe organized crime with how comfortable they were walking through the red puddles of -holy fuck they were puddles of blood- the puddles like this was normal, like there was no reason to panic after seeing someone turn into some kind of tentacled zombie hellspawn right before their very eyes.

"That thing just killed a man!" He still sounded pissed, even running and out of breath.

Which they ignored and- they put guns to their temples! What the ever living fuck?! Addie did a double take as she looked behind her at the things, then at them. Were they just going to-?!

"W-What-"

They cut her off, speaking in unison, voices calm and collected as the stared down the creature and its shambling spawn.

"Persona."

They pulled the triggers.