PERSONA 4: ADVENTURES IN INABA
CHAPTER 2: VELVET, VELVET...
Darkness. That was the first thing that greeted Trevor before he decided to open his eyes. Slowly, but surely, they adjusted to his new surroundings. He groaned as he felt a sharp pain pierce his head like a hammer driving a stake into the ground. Only in this case, the ground was meaty, very much alive, and covered in hair as opposed to grass.
It was at this point that he noticed that he was sitting upright on a dark blue couch, as if he had fallen asleep in his current position. He looked to the right and saw Phil and a boy with silver hair sitting next to him. The boy was in the middle, while Phil was all the way at the right end. Both of them were currently awakening from unconsciousness, yawning as they did so.
Deciding that they now probably wasn't the best time to question either of them as to where they were, Trevor returned his attention to the couch. Wow, he thought, gently touching the couch's arm with his left hand. The material on this couch is really soft. Smooth, too. Almost like...
And then he remembered what he had done a few minutes ago, and realized where he was.
Of course! We're in the Velvet Room! This is where the game's story begins and you have to pick the main character's name! Mother of god, I'm stupid! He glanced over at the boy in the middle, who was now fully alert and looking around. And that's Narukami right there. Which means that sitting at the other end of the limo should be...
"Ah..." a familiar voice greeted Trevor and Phil. "It seems we have three guests with an intriguing destiny..." There was a bizarre sounding chuckle that followed this sentence, as if the speaker found the idea humorous.
An old man sat on a couch ahead, a blonde woman sitting on the couch to his left. The man's nose was disturbingly long, and reminded Trevor of either a Saturday morning cartoon villain or some kind of flesh colored pepper. A creepy smile was present on his face, but Trevor knew that the old man meant no harm.
"My name is Igor...I am delighted to make your acquaintance."
"What is this place?" Trevor heard an obviously confused sounding Narukami ask.
"This place exists between dream and reality, mind and matter. It is a room that only those who are bound by a 'contract' may enter. It may be that such a fate awaits the three of you in the near future. Now then...why don't you introduce yourselves?"
There was a silence as each of the three waited for one of the other two to speak. About a few seconds later, the silence was broken.
"I'm...I'm Yu Narukami." Narukami spoke first, seeming taken aback by everything that was going on.
"I'm Phillip Bennington." Phil said next, managing to stay composed despite looking ready to burst from happiness.
"I'm Trevor Sgro." Trevor said last, feeling overwhelmed at the prospect of being in the Velvet Room for real.
"Hm...I see." Igor said, arching an eyebrow. "Now, let's take a look into your future, shall we?" He opened his hand above the small table in front of him, and it briefly glowed with light. A strange card appeared in the center.
"Do you believe in fortune telling?"
None of the trio were sure how to answer that question, so they kept silent and watched as he swept his hand across the table. Some more cards flew out onto it in a circle, as if on cue or by a magic trick.
"Each reading is done with the same cards, yet the result is always different..." Another chuckle. "Life itself follows the same principles, doesn't it?"
"I guess so." Narukami answered, by now not really sure what to make of all this.
"Hm..." The proprietor of the Velvet Room muttered after flipping over a card. "The Tower in the upright position represents the immediate future. It seems a terrible catastrophe is imminent. The card indicating the future beyond that is...The Moon, in the upright position. This card represents 'hesitation' and 'mystery'...very interesting, indeed."
Igor looked up at the three once more. "It seems that you will encounter a misfortune at your destination, and a great mystery will be imposed upon you. In the coming days, you will enter a contract of some sort, after which you will return here. The coming year is a turning point in your destiny. If the mystery goes unsolved, your future may be forever lost."
Trevor and Phil quietly gulped at this information, knowing all too well what Igor meant by that.
"My duty is to provide assistance to our guests, to ensure that does not happen." Igor continued, the cards vanishing as he swept his hand once more. "Ah! I have neglected to introduce my assistant to you." He directed their attention to the woman nearby, who had barely moved during all of this. "This is Margaret. She is a resident of this place, like myself."
The woman nodded silently. "My name is Margaret." she spoke to them in a clear, calm tone of voice. "I am here to accompany you through your journey."
Yu smiled politely in response, while Trevor and Phil settled for raising their hands in an awkward casual gesture.
"We shall attend to the details another time." Igor finished cryptically. "Until then...farewell."
The second after Igor finished his sentence, the vision of each visitor to the strange room slowly faded to black. All three boys felt consciousness slowly but surely slipping away from them.
And like that, everything was darkness once more.
Trevor jolted awake in his seat, Phil doing the same next to him. They were on the train to Inaba now, and pretty close by the looks of it. Trevor could see the buildings outside as the train rattled past them.
"Oh, good." Narukami said, sitting in the seat near the window of the train. "You guys are finally awake. Man, I had the weirdest dream just now. Or maybe it was a vision of some kind, I don't know. The three of us were in this limousine that was floating through a vortex, and almost everything was this dark blue-ish color."
"Was there a guy with a long nose and a woman with Marilyn Monroe-ish hair, by any chance?" Phil, who was leaning back and putting his hands behind his head as a makeshift pillow, asked him.
"Funnily enough, yeah. How'd you know about that?"
"Because I had the exact same dream you did."
"So did I." Trevor said, playing dumb as best as he could. "That was super weird. What did that guy mean by 'a terrible catastrophe'?"
Narukami checked his phone, presumably re-checking his texts. "I dunno," he said, shrugging after putting it away. "But we're here. C'mon, we're supposed to meet my uncle outside the station."
"Wait, we?" Trevor asked in surprise, cocking his head.
Narukami looked at him as if he had grown two heads. "Yeah, we. I asked you guys if you wanted to stay at my uncle's place with me while you were studying abroad in Inaba and you said yeah, remember?"
Aaaaah, that makes sense. Trevor thought, understanding what was going on. Since our names would stick out like a sore thumb in Japan, the game's giving our background as foreign students studying abroad. Very clever, Atlus...if it was them who designed this mode and not the game itself, that is.
Oh, right. I remember now. My brains must've gotten scrambled by that whole dream vision thing." Trevor chuckled sheepishly, getting up with Phil following his lead a moment later. "I forgot to say thanks for allowing us to hang with you, by the way."
"Don't worry, it's fine." Narukami assured him, now leading the way off of the train. "It happens to the best of us. Besides, you guys are my best friends."
Ok, another piece of info: We're his best friends in this mode. Trevor processed, storing the info in his mind for later use. I'm doing surprisingly well at fishing for information.
The trio stepped off of the train one by one and made their way through the crowd before regrouping outside of the train station. "Ok, then." Narukami began, scanning for any sign of his uncle. "My uncle should be around this area somewhe-"
"Hey! Over here!"
"There we go." Narukami confirmed, turning his gaze to a middle aged man waving and standing next to a little girl with pigtails. "That must be him. Come on, guys."
With that, he was walking down the steps. Trevor exchanged a look with Phil, both of them nodding before following him again. This was going to be very interesting, to say the least...