Well, I had a kickass time at the Linkin Park/Incubus concert. Especially when my day went as follows: Supernatural and House ALL DAY LONG. Dean is a sexy beast :) especially when fighting demons.
If I could combine Ib with another anime, I'd combine it with Ouran High School Host Club. Tamaki would be best friends with Garry and Ib and Haruhi would be like sisters. I'd also do it with Pokémon, because I could do some epic pairings (i.e. either Zoruark or Gardevoir for Garry)
Oh and question: What's better, wizards at a boarding school or wizards in an orphanage? My story ideas are clashing.
Rate and review. MTFBWYA. Here's a rather long chapter for you:
It was dark for a moment, then Ib felt herself growing weightless. She realized that she was falling, and she hit the cold stone with a thud. Her breath escaped her and she regained her lung function as Garry and Adrian toppled over to either side of her. This area was darker than the gallery, and Ib realized with a chill that they had succeeded.
"We did it," Garry laughed hoarsely as he propped himself up on his elbows. Adrian helped Ib get up and they in turn helped Garry get off the floor. "We actually did it!"
"Wow," Adrian said bluntly. "So you were telling the truth."
"Come on, Ib!" Garry said, pointing down the hall. "This way!"
How can he be so excited? Ib thought, her face twisting into a confused expression. This was the worst and most scarring experience of my life. Both he and I almost died on several occasions and back then I could barely read let alone fight back. Then again, we know what to expect. At least, we think we do…
They went down the hallway and into a room. The room was empty and had gray walls that had a faint flush of mauve. Something in the middle of the room was glowing. As they approached, Ib realized that the object in the middle of the room was a table. On top of that table was a beautiful vase, and inside the vase was a rose. It was a rich purple color and seemed to glow as long as it was in the clear water of the vase.
"That looks a lot like our roses," Garry said."But… mine is more of a sky blue and hers is more of a maroon red. Who's could this be?"
"Maybe it's mine," Adrian stepped forward, the purple light of the rose illuminating his dark looks. His eyes and the rose's petals were almost the exact same color and when he reached out and took the rose, it glowed brighter in his hand. "Those words at the painting said 'Come Adrian', so I must have a reason to be here."
"But if his rose is here," Ib turned to Garry with a concerned expression. "Then where are ours?"
Their question as soon answered, because when Adrian put his rose in the inside pocket of his coat, the room began to rumble. The floor shook, and they all nearly fell over. Ib gripped Garry's coat and Adrian hung on to the table until the tremors ceased. Suddenly, something came up from the floor and jutted towards the ceiling. It was a large sharp pillar and it hung on to the floor like a stalactite. It had something scripted in it. Ib, Garry, and Adrian moved closer to the pillar and saw that there was writing on it. When Ib looked closer, she cried out and reeled back, clinging to Garry in fear.
"Garry!" she cried. "That's Mary's handwriting!"
"No," Garry's eyes widened. "No. that's impossible. We killed her, didn't we? We burned her painting! I watched her die!"
"This has to be a trick the gallery is playing," said Adrian. "But the handwriting isn't what's important. It's what it says that concerns us."
They looked closer, and saw that on the front face it said:
ARE YOU LOOKING FOR SOMETHING?
YOU'LL HAVE TO FIND ME TO FIND THEM
AND I HAVE A NEW HOME
SO PLAYING HIDE AND SEEK WILL BE A WASTE OF TIME
They walked around and saw that on the second side it said:
I'M LOOKING FOR SOMETHING TOO
FIND HER, BRING HER TO ME
AND I WILL BURN HER
LIKE YOU BURNED ME, REMEMBER?
Garry and Ib exchanged worried glances and Adrian lifted an eyebrow. "This just keeps getting freakier and freakier," he said. They moved to the other side and read the last panel:
DO IT, AND DO IT FAST
OR I'LL PLUCK THEM UNTIL THEY'RE BARE
ONE PETAL AT A TIME, UNTIL YOU DIE
OR YOU GET HER TO ME
"Mary," Ib hissed. "It has to be her."
"We don't know that," Garry said.
"'Like you burned me'? It HAS to be her," Ib said. "She's back, and she wants something from us. But how? How did she get our roses? How did she survive the fire? We watched her die."
"I don't know, Ib," Garry looked terrified as well. "All we can do is hope for the best."
"Hope? No," Ib shook her head. "We have to find whoever Mary is looking for. Or, we find where she's hiding. Whichever comes first."
"Or you die?" Adrian said.
"Or we die…"
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
"Oh gosh," Holly said, burying her face in Cassia's shirt. "Please tell me that's not what I think it is."
But it was. There was no door, only four walls. The entire room was covered in mannequin heads. Creepy, staring mannequin heads. They littered the floor, all placed strategically in groups or alone, and they must have been twenty of them. The wall before them was splattered with red paint like blood and there were words written in the blood with what looked like fingers… like a child was finger painting in someone's blood. This was certainly NOT Belle's handwriting:
FIND THE ONE WHO CRIES IN BLOOD
USE THE TEARS TO OPEN THE BOOK
BUT ALL WRONG CHOICES HAVE A PRICE
"Book?" Holly looked around. "I don't see a book."
"Maybe we have to find that too," Cassia said.
"So what should we do?" Holly asked.
"I think we have to smash the heads until we find the one with red inside," Cassia said. "So let's start."
She kicked over the nearest mannequin head and watched as the fissures appeared in its skull. One more kick and it smashed into a million pieces, scattering across the floor. There was no blood inside. Suddenly, there was a crashing, like a hatch falling open, and Cassia's head snapped towards the sound. A square had opened in the wall and red liquid was pouring out in bucketfuls. It spilled onto the floor, covering the soles of their shoes.
All wrong choices have a price…
"Holly, we can't just smash whatever we see," Cassia said as the red paint covered her shoes. Suddenly, as the paint came up to her ankles, it stopped. "Every wrong move will trigger more paint until the whole room is full, and I have a feeling there's going to be more next time we make a mistake."
"Maybe they're set up in a kind of pattern," Holly said.
Cassia and Holly both looked at the different groups of heads, but saw no pattern. They were randomly placed; some in groups, some in doubles, some singular. Holly sighed and put a mannequin head down, defeated. Cassia's head steamed, and in the heat of the moment, she threw the mannequin head she was holding and it smashed into shards when it hit the wall. Her heart skipped a beat when she heard a new hatch opening and red paint began to fill the room again. After thirty second or so, it was up to their waists. Holly waded over to another head and shook it inside, listening for swishing, and tossed it lightly to one side. It floated away as the paint rose. Then Cassia had a revelation just as she was beginning to get scared.
"Holly!" She sloshed over to her and saw that it was up to Holly's neck. She was almost treading in the paint (which in retrospect shouldn't have been scientifically possible) which worried Cassia. "The hollow heads float! We have to find the one that sinks!"
"And it will be the one full of the red tears!" Holly cried.
Cassia frantically felt around at her feet as the paint slowly crept up her torso. Soon, she was forced to hold her breath and dive into the paint. It was the worst sensation in the world because she felt blind and sticky. She broke the surface, dripping with paint. She wiped it from her eyes and waded to a new area. Holly wasn't doing well; the paint was making them rise and Holly couldn't touch the floor. She came up for air again and was beginning to give up hope. The room was just so big…
That's when her foot brushed up against something. She cried, "Holly, I think I've found it!"
She dove down and grabbed the head. It was heavier then the others and as she hefted it above the surface and cracked it open, dark maroon paint spilled out. It came out of the tear ducts, and Cassia knew they were in the clear.
"Now we just need the book!" Holly sputtered, trying to keep her head above the surface. They had about five or six feet until they hit the ceiling, so they had to act fast. She dove below again and felt around for another heavy head that might have this "book" in it. She broke the surface and made her way over to the other side, and when she finally found the other head, they had about three feet until the ceiling.
"Here!" Cassia cried, cracking the head open.
Inside was a leather bound notebook and it was bone dry. She discarded the empty shell of the mannequin head and tried to pry open the book. She saw that the notebook was tied, and tied tightly. She took her fingers and scooped up some of the mannequin's paint. She smeared it over the tie, and before her eyes the strap untied itself. Inside there were entries, like a diary or a field journal. She looked at the title page:
The Diary or Guertena Weiss
"This is Guertena's diary!" Cassia called to Holly.
"Read it! Find something!" Holly said. Her face was pale with fear.
She flipped through it, her eyes quickly scanning the pages. It talked about his life and his works of art. It seemed like he became more erratic, so she looked for the source of this. The last normal entry she found was a tear splattered page that said this:
May 13th
My dear daughter passed away this morning. I'm coping with the loss slowly, but there's not much my mind can do to wrap around a second death. First their mother, then my first, then my second…? Does God have a score to settle with me? What did I do to deserve this? All I want to do is use my artistic view to help those around me, but all I've done is create this horrible life for myself. I now wish to immortalize all three of them in my art, and they will be the finest things I've ever painted in my career.
-Guertena-
"Hurry it up, Cassia!" Holly said, and Cassia saw with a jolt that they were about two feet from running out of air.
She flipped through the diary and found a strange page in the middle, and something was circled in red. It was a word, and it seemed to be marked by a crayon in a very childlike manner. She looked up and all she saw was ceiling. Holly screamed and went under, and Cassia's heart went cold. She knew what she needed to do.
"Charmaria!" She shrieked, and her head was forced under the red paint.