Realistic or Modern Phantom Voices | ellarose & Syntra

[ellarose]

Midnight approached and the voices began rolling through Clara’s mind like thunder. It was miraculous that she hadn’t resorted to cracking her skull open against her desk yet.

She blamed it on the coffee. Saying no to caffeine past eight was a fundamental step to living a peaceful life. Or as peaceful as life can get for someone like her, anyway. Needless to say, she knew that mistakes had been made the moment her music struggled to compete with sharp screams and choppy, cryptic words ringing in her head. On and on, the voice would say. Clara knew better than to ask it any questions. Whenever she failed to mute the voices in her head, she chose to treat them the same way she treated the overly talkative people who lived outside of her head. She ignored them. Or, at least, put an impressive amount of effort in her attempts to ignore them. While the voices were always bad, they reached an entirely new level of bad tonight. On and on and on. Never again would she take Beth up on another late-night coffee run-- no matter how much she needed the extra kick to meet her deadline. Oh well. The sooner she finished her design, the sooner she could go home. Home, where her bed was waiting more patiently for her than any lover. She would press her pillow over her ears and officially close the miserable chapter that was this day.

“You’re still here, huh. What’s up?” The unceremonious thump of an elbow hitting the desk crashed through the voices in her head. George. Gross. Somehow, she could feel his eyes on her sketchpad as prominently as she might feel a chill slipping down her spine. He went on to give a few low, judgmental hums that made it impossible to know whether he approved or disapproved of what he was looking at. The guy always seemed to get high off dangling his honest opinions just out of her reach. Because they were oh-so important and all. Except the real joke was on him— because she never cared about him or his opinions.

“Oh, you know. The usual. Listening to the screams of the damned." Clara deadpanned. Even the most serious truths are simple enough to hide in plain sight if her answer only sounds serious enough. She couldn't be bothered to bat an eyelash or grant him with so much as a cursory glance. Eventually, the productive scritch-scratching of her pen should articulate that she was too busy for his nonsense. Then she wouldn't even have to bother opening her mouth to say so herself. Hm. The sketch was nearly finished. All it needed were a few finishing touches. Highlights, in other words. Easy enough. And as soon as she finished, she could go home. With that in mind, she filed through her case for a white pen.

"Hah. Funny. Real funny." The thing about these routinely exchanges was that she didn't need to look up to know the man was flapping his hand around and smiling that forced smile where he somehow managed to flash all his prized pearly-whites at once. Unfortunately, he stood close enough for her to smell and identify the flavor of gum he was chomping on. (An obnoxious winter-fresh that exceeded the definition of fresh to the point where it no longer qualified as fresh. At a certain point the scent became more headache inducing than paint fumes.) "You young people and your sense of humor. Gets me every time." Sure, George. Like clockwork, his elbow disappeared from her peripheral and his sauntering footsteps tap-tapped towards the exit. This was promptly followed by the jangle of keys and a sing-song goodbye. "Remember to lock up before you leave!"

Lock up? Clara unraveled herself from her project when the door clicked shut, surveying what she only just now realized was an empty studio. On and on, the voice said. Ah. Well, cool. Cool, cool, cool. It really was fantastic, the way she loved being alone and hated being alone at the exact same time. It made her life a really fun paradox in which her conditions for true contentment were rarely ever met. But what made matters infinitely worse was the tiny window in the back exposed the velvety black of a late night sky, the only source of light coming from a faint gold halo indicative of the streetlight just below it. Meaning she’ll be walking home alone... in the dark. Classic nightmare fuel, wasn't it? Add the convenient halloween soundtrack looping in her brain and you've got the perfect recipe for a C-list horror flick!

Clara glimpsed her phone. If Raoul were home this week, she might have swallowed her pride and called him. Sure it would have been embarrassing. And, in her opinion, embarrassment sucked harder than just about anything. Which was nothing if not a testament as to just how uneasy she felt about this day— this night as a whole. Caffeine had a way of blowing the mere spark of her worst fears into a destructive blaze. And this was worse than normal. Piercing through her, engraving each syllable with the sharpest of knives. On and on. Jesus. Even embarrassment would be easier to cope with than all this batshit anxiety. But alas, calling her big brother was not a viable option and she would just have to make do on her own. What are the odds that something terrible will happen out there, anyway? ...On second thought, she doesn't even want to think about it. Resolving not to prolong her suffering, she forced herself to finish her work with a steady hand, slipped it onto Beth's desk and braced herself by counting to ten as she gathered her things to leave.

And out into the world she went. Three minutes passed and everything was fine. One earbud makes a valiant attempt to blast the voices away while the other dangles freely. Clara might have preferred to wear them both on a night such as this... but reason would dictate she ought to be aware of her surroundings if she wanted to stay safe. Reason would be right. Because it was only another minute before she noticed the sound of footsteps snapping on the asphalt behind her. While that doesn't necessarily have to mean anything-- the voice decided it was appropriate to say something new in that very same moment. Left. It didn't help that it sounded so pained and desperate. Now, reason certainly wouldn't ask her to respond to these voices in her head, let alone listen to their directions. They weren't a freaking GPS! And she's walked this road enough to know she's got to turn right at the upcoming juncture. Except there seemed to be a long, suspicious van parked on the right. Waiting. Waiting for what? Paranoia might say that van was waiting for her, but... that's paranoia speaking. Lowering her head, the ash brown of her hair slips over her shoulder and provides a sort of makeshift curtain over the right side of her face. Should have grabbed a hat today. Something more to cover her face. Not that any of that mattered, now. If she moved any closer, it wouldn't matter what she did or didn't do. They were going to notice her one way or another! Left, the voice spoke again. The footsteps grew louder and more oppressive. So did her heartbeat. The vibrations that accompanied each one was urgent, stirring her insides like a storm. Behind. Behind as in behind her? Or-- no. No. There was no time! She needed to make her choice-- and fast.

Clara decided to listen to the voice in her head for the first time in years. She turned left. And ran.

 

[Syntra]

They thought she was fucking stupid.

That, of course, was an entirely valid interpretation-- Thea also kinda thought she was stupid now, given that she had placed any faith into this establishment at all. 'Come,' they had said. 'You'll get better,' they had said. (They, of course, didn't refer to the grumpy nurses or to the doctors who came to see her once a week, peered at her from behind their stupid files and concluded that, hmmm, maybe a higher dosage would help. Nah, not at all. The bastards generally didn't speak to her, and Thea preferred it that way. Fewer voices to deal with, y'know? It was crowded enough as it was, with those whispers and wails and, yeah, even screams at times, when she stuck her thumbs in her ears. So, who were these mysterious people? Why, her family! One perfect architect father, one perfect homemaking mother, a younger sister, who was studying her ass off at some college whose name Thea had forgotten, and... her. Heh. Yeah, no wonder they'd wanted her out of sight! A totally batshit good-for-nothing firstborn didn't exactly fit into their pretty little house full of pretty little smiles-- especially since it was tragically devoid of weed, too. Like, what was there to smile at, huh?)

Fireflies... dancing... graves...

Shut up, Thea rolled her eyes. It wouldn't have been as bad had they actually provided something new-- you know, weather forecast, or maybe latest movie recommendations. Some kind of story, even! Friends were in short supply in this fucking cell, so she wouldn't really mind listening to some background noise had it not been... this. Just words, repeated over and over. What was the goddamn point? (One of the doctors had babbled something about 'overactive imagination,' but like, try again, bitch. Thea didn't claim to be an expert, but shouldn't imagination... dunno... translate into some fucking variety? This was about as exciting as watching paint dry, and about as distracting as huffing it! ...not that Thea had any personal experiences like that, of course. No, she was a good Christian girl!)

Fireflies... dancing... graves...

Aaargh! Shut up, shut up, shut up! Thea was trying to focus here, you know? That was right-- focus, for the first time in... months, probably. On what? Her Grand Escape Plan, naturally! This wasn't fucking working, you see, and if she had to choose between hearing voices while staring at this depressing ceiling and hearing voices while doing literally anything else, Thea didn't have to think twice. So, in other words? The performance was over, idiots. It was over, and she was going... well, probably not home. Thea Holloway had no idea where she was going, actually, but one more day spent here would massacre the rest of her braincells, which wasn't a prospect she enjoyed. Like, she wanted to destroy them herself! Via something fun, if possible! ...so she'd figure it out, sooner or later. Now, though. Now...

"Miss Dorothea," one of the nurses opened the door, "how are you feeling today?"

Dunno, like I'm locked in an asylum? "Just peachy," Thea smiled a stupid smile, choosing to ignore the 'Dorothea' bit for once. (Just, ugh. Names like that should have been illegal! Clearly, this was an act of violence perpetuated against a harmless child, and-- fire... YES, I KNOW!)

"Ah, I'm glad to hear that! You do seem calmer than usual. The new medication is helping, isn't it?"

If I swallowed it, then yeah, it could have. That was actually an instrumental part of her plan-- to make them believe she had been eating all those Not So Fun pills they had provided. (Again, not an expert, but shouldn't have they tried something else instead of throwing more pills that didn't work at her? It kinda seemed like the equivalent of finding you couldn't shoot a mosquito with a glock, and so pulling out an AK-47 for the task. ...plus, geez, they also could have gone for something that actually made her feel good! Not cheap shit that generated this-- this fucking mist inside of her head, which, by the way, did absolutely nothing to silence the voices. ...if anything, it had made her own voice quieter, somehow. In these moments, Thea had been afraid she'd fucking wake up someday and she wouldn't be there, you know? Just her body, running on autopilot, and that stupid random word generator.)

Maybe that was the plan, now that she thought of it. To get rid of her, not of the voices!

"It is," she replied mechanically, and gave another smile. (Subconsciously, her hand fell to her pocket, and, ah, there it was! Her beloved spoon-- the one she had stolen from the kitchen and sharpened, sharpened, sharpened, till it rivaled pretty much any knife. It had taken her weeks, but boredom was a pretty powerful motivation, you see? Boredom, and not wanting to become a fucking vegetable.) "It is... uh, really good." There, there. That should work, right? Just... avoid complex works and smile like an idiot and the bitch would believe her, Thea just knew.

"Good! I will notify the doctors, Miss Dorothea. Your parents will be overjoyed to hear the news, too. Now, is there anything you need?"

"I... yes! I need to pee. Can you take me there?" Thea batted her eyelashes, innocence personified.

"But of course! Come, Miss Dorothea. It's just behind the corner, remember? If you behave well enough, you will be able to go there on your own soon, and..." The woman wanted to add something, but couldn't-- mostly because that was the moment the improvised knife ended up somewhere in her stomach.

"It's Thea, dumbass."

***

And to think her parents had said that stealing cars wasn't an important skill to have! 'You'll get nowhere in life like this,' Thea mocked her mother's voice in her head. 'Learn algebra instead.' Pffft, yeah, right! As if algebra could get her out of that stupid fucking asylum. Like, what was she supposed to have done? Counted the number of days she still remained semi-sane? No, Thea enjoyed the wind in her hair and the smell of gasoline much, much better.

Fireflies... dancing... graves...

Yeah, yeah, I know! I'm fucking going. What else do you want from me, huh?

She thought she was going, at least. After reading through a number of touristic pamphlets much larger than could have been healthy for just about anyone, Thea had stumbled upon this... well. Place, she guessed? Anyway, it was a cemetery which was supposedly AestheticTM at nights, mostly because a large colony of fireflies lived there. A perfect bait for edgy tourists! Especially since an abandoned school was nearby, and fans of the supernatural ate that shit up.

(It wasn't like she had anywhere to go at this point, so might as well try, right? Besides, Thea was a certified lunatic now-- which gave her the justification to do anything she pleased. Haha!)

Parking her car somewhere near the fence, Thea opened the gate and... nothing happened. Duh. Only tombstones stood there, tens and tens of middle fingers erected towards the concept of impermanence, as the fireflies gathered. (Well, technically they were erected towards the sky, but Thea liked that phrase better. Sue her, if you want to!) "Hellooo! Is anyone there?" she shouted, experimentally. Something was supposed to happen here, right? Right?!

 

[ellarose]

On and on. Said the voice. Left behind.

The longer she ran, the less she trusted the validity of her choice. Because together, those two words began to sound less like directions and more like, you know, an actual phrase? Left behind. And yet-- and yet. Clara couldn't exactly discredit them entirely when the sound of her pursuer's footsteps persisted, snap-snapping in her ears. Or maybe she finally snapped. Honestly, if she had lived her life just a little more awake, she might have seen it coming. This could be her overactive imagination going on a rampage, the nightmare fuel, even the caffeine... but she was fairly certain the footsteps she heard were only getting louder. Don't look back. Clara looked back. Funny. That was supposed to be the part where she confirmed with her own eyes that her big bad fears weren't really so bad once she shed a little light on them.

Like-- no, that wasn't a monster in your closet. It was just an odd, misshapen shadow cast by the full moon.

Instead-- holy shit-- turned out those footsteps belonged to an asshole in a mask and hood. Honestly, it might have come as a relief that her fears weren't born from a place of irrationality if a potential serial killer wasn't on her heels. Whoever they were, they weren't exactly dressed for subtly. No one throws on disguise like that to make a good first impression at parties. Whoever this is, they probably want to kill her or-- or who knows what. (...Or finish whatever the hell they started. All those years ago.) Either way, Clara was determined not to find out what this person intended to do with her. Adrenaline gave her the kick she needed to run much, much faster.

For now, she needs to keep going as far as her feet can carry her. But where to? Not home, that's for sure. On and on.

Cursed, unhelpful voices. She was so busy listening to the noise in her head that she lost focus on what really mattered. For instance, where the hell was she going? After so much frenzied, directionless running, she steered herself onto a deserted street. A deserted street that she wasn't entirely familiar with. Deserted, that is, aside from one car parked by-- ah. That's the cemetery. Perfect. She could visit her dear departed mother one last time before she joined her in the afterlife. Or if she dared to be optimistic about it (a bold move-- for she was rarely optimistic) maybe, just maybe, she would find someone who could help her inside.

In... the cemetery.

Yeah, unlikely. But at this point, it was her only viable option. Better than nothing, right? Clara could hardly breathe, her lungs burned, and her knees threatened to give. (Not only that, but the heavy satchel on her shoulder smashed repeatedly against her hip as she ran. If she lived to see another tomorrow, she had no doubt a nasty bruise would blossom there overnight.) She couldn't keep this up forever. --Is anyone there?

Yes, her sentiments exactly. Oh wait. Was that a-- a voice! And not one in her head. This was a real, legitimate voice that belonged to a real, legitimate person. She slipped through the gates and gradually slowed to a stop as she approached the source of the noise.

Fire, the voice said just as she laid eyes on the woman up close. Breathless, Clara realized a moment too late that she had grabbed onto her sleeve without meaning to. Yep, she really just did that. Like she was nothing but a scared little girl. Well, she might as well try and look on the bright side. If she died, she wouldn't have to live with the shame of embarrassing herself in front of a total stranger. (Hm. And yet-- yet.)

"Hey-- hey." She rasped out, immediately retracting her hand in attempt to save face. Heck, she was relieved enough to see another person that she neglected to question how strange it was, that this woman was, apparently, searching for someone in an otherwise empty cemetery. That might have raised some red flags on a normal day. But compared side by side with the masked man (and could-be murderer) chasing after her? Hah. She'd take her chances, thank you very much.

"Talk to me like you know me. Act casual." Clara's serious brow furrowed over her serious brown eyes. They only betrayed a hint of fear when they flicked towards the gates. A subtle attempt to direct other woman's attention towards the source of her-- er-- odd introduction. "Natural."

Surreptitiously, she reached for her satchel. Brushed her fingers over the outside pockets. Her phone was lost to the depths of the innermost pocket, so calling for help was out for now. Instead, she sought out that old can of pepper spray Raoul bought her. (Yeah... pepper spray. Years ago, he included it in a gift basket to commemorate the day she 'overcame her muteness'. He took it as a good sign. Thought that she was preparing herself to 'rejoin society'. At the time, he couldn't have been more wrong.) It never served a purpose... until now. So yeah. If things escalated from here, she'd just-- uh-- spray and hope for the best? Oh, I'm so dead.

 

[Syntra]

Did Thea look as if she had come to this cemetery to... dunno, look for random encounters with random women? Like, was that the kind of vibe she was giving off? Not that she didn't enjoy the company of pretty ladies, mind you, but her general expectations had been more along the lines of a séance, or something like that. You know, conversing with spirits! And unless spirits looked remarkably like normal, human, fleshy people, this girl didn't really fit the criteria. (Especially not the spookiness factor. The stranger looked more like a spookee than a spooker, which honestly didn't impress Thea. Like, why wander cemeteries if you were afraid of your own shadow, huh? Was that supposed to be some new company insurance fraud, in which you went fishing for a heart attack deliberately? A cool trick, Thea supposed, though she guessed electric shocks would get you there faster.) "And why the hell should I do that?" she asked, her eyebrow raised so high that it almost left her forehead. "I'm not an extra on your set, lady. Give me one good reason."

And maybe she shouldn't have asked for that, really, because the second she finished her sentence? That Good Reason emerged from behind one of those tombstones, straight out of some cheap horror flick. It was a guy, which was a bummer on its own, though Thea did her best not to give in to her prejudices. Like, men had dead relatives as well, right? Not every male specimen you met in a SuspiciousTM location had to be an axe murderer! The mask kinda spoke against him, but, again, some people just liked their privacy. It was entirely possible he had just escaped from a Halloween party, too-- people who walked around in their scary costumes were pieces of shit and deserved to step on several pieces of Lego every goddamn day, but again, what was new? Humanity sucked in general. Thea was part of it, so you could bet your ass she knew what she was talking about!

...the axe he held in his hand, though? An actual fucking axe that shimmered in the moonlight? Yeah, it was safe to say that Thea ran out of excuses. "Oh shit. Shit, shit, shit." Which, hey, not the most eloquent description of their situation, but a fitting one! (...their, for some reason. Not her, but their. What the fuck had happened to her solo player mentality? Well, the girl had a pepper spray and Thea distinctly didn't, so like, good for her! From now on, the two were to be best friends. ...still, though. An axe versus a pepper spray? Not great odds, mostly because, you know, an axe didn't generally turn against you once the wind started blowing. Soooo, what now?)

The answer, as so many times before, was strategic retreat!

Firef-- I KNOW, YOU STUPID PIECE OF SHIT!

Without a hint of hesitation, she grabbed the stranger's sleeve and ran. The guy behind them screamed something, but did she care? No. Thea, in fact, did not have a few minutes to speak about their lord and savior, or whatever unhinged bullshit he wanted to discuss! "C'mon," she shouted at the girl, silently cursing the fact that she had ditched her morning runs for one more hour of sleep and thus she was rusty as fuck. Who knew this 'healthy lifestyle' shit wasn't just a propaganda piece?! "I have a... car parked outside... it's not... far..." Better than trying to play the hero, right? Like yeah, technically, this wouldn't have been the first fucker Thea had killed, but she had had the moment of surprise at her side and everything. Not pushing her luck seemed to be the recipe to survival!

And far it wasn't, really, except that when they reached the gate, it was fucking locked. Desperately, Thea grabbed the handle, but it just would. not. budge!

"What, did you think I wouldn't secure the exits?" the guy smirked from under his mask, now close enough for them to hear. Oh, shit. Oh, fuck. Was he Terminator's scarier brother? Since it sure as hell seemed that way to Thea, with the way he moved forward, forward and forward, like some unstoppable fucking machine. "Stupid, stupid girls. I've been searching for you all over the country, and what do you do? Run straight into my arms! Now, be good and let me do my job. If you don't give me too much trouble, I'll make it quick." ...what? Job? Searching for them all over the country? That sort of shit only happened to people who were, like, involved with the mafia, which Thea wasn't. (Or was she? That one dealer from two years ago had seemed kinda suspicious, now that she thought of it, and-- no! No, she'd knew it if she was involved with something like that, dammit. You didn't piss of the mafia by accident.)

Either way, Thea had pretty much no interest in making this easy for the guy. So, this was his job, huh? Fine, that meant they should make him work for his bread! The rules of capitalism, bitch. Instinctively, she reached somewhere behind her, and her fingers wrapped around... something. Something firm, with a metallic feel to it. Good. Splendid, even! (Probably not, actually, but it would have to do. Damn, damn, damn! The cold sweat running down her back wasn't exactly filling her with confidence, either.) "Not yet," she whispered to the girl. "Let him come closer. When I say now, you pepper spray the fucker. Got it? Aaaaand, NOW!"

 

[ellarose]

At her blatant refusal to cooperate, Clara fixed the stranger with a glare of the most unimpressed caliber. She's asking for help, here, not a confrontation! Well, great. This was a sign-- a sign that spelled doom for her. Time to bid farewell to her last glimmer of hope as it flickered and faded like a dying firefly in the night. Dignifying the other woman with a response at this point was unnecessary. (Words often were unnecessary. When you lived a few years as the odd duck who vehemently refused to use them, you found all sorts of alternative ways to communicate your intentions.) In this case, the unfolding circumstances articulated her reasoning quite clearly for her. Crunch-crunch went the killer's footsteps. 'Oh shit. Shit, shit, shit,' went the stranger. Yep. There it was.

How clean-cut it sounded, when she put it like that. 'Circumstances'. The circumstances being her masked pursuer creeping ever closer. With an axe. Oh. Oh, lovely. Lizzie Borden took an axe, uninvited as the tremor in her hands, the rhyme echoed unhelpfully in her head, gave her mother forty whacks. Huh. Was the acceptance stage of this ordeal creeping in too soon? Maybe not. Death was always waiting just around the corner. Waiting for her. And she heard it's voice in her head along with all the others, beckoning her closer. Like that shapeless mass of darkness that inhabited her nightmares. For so long, she was reluctant to live her life when she scarcely believed she'd make it past eighteen. Then she hit eighteen and the expiration date she had slapped on her lifespan climbed with every year that passed after that. Eventually, she decided she'd try to live her life. That said, it turns out death's more of a dick than she thought. Gunning for her when she was nearly ready to live and all. On and on. Graveyards, axes-- somehow, all of this was inevitable.

When she saw what she had done, Not that Clara wasn't afraid of the big shiny axe. The moniker of 'ice queen' may have been tossed her way more than once-- but beyond her surface level, she's far from a stone-cold badass. Shallow breaths, clammy palms and a pounding heart suggested as much. Instead of taking a fight or flight response-- she froze. Her feet were planted firmly on the ground, as if daring her to wait and get it over with. Inevitable, inevitable. --gave her father forty-one.

She can't recall the moment she decided screaming at fate was pointless. When the urge to say anything at all had withered and died in her throat.

...Inevitable, except-- except. She hadn't accounted for having company at the end. When the stranger yanked her into motion, her sedated instincts woke up. Oh. Huh. She didn't have to take my arm, Clara thought. Honestly, she could have left her behind to fend for herself. Maybe even gotten away in one piece and escaped while the killer busied himself with the paralyzed deer in headlights. Left behind. (Guilt wrapped itself around her throat. It occurred to her that she may have doomed them both by talking to her in the first place.) The cold of the night air whipped through her hair as they ran. She clutched the pepper spray, her only means of defense, tighter in her hand.

"...The back." Clara flinched upon hearing the stubborn clang of a gate that refused to open. Seeing no other option, she pressed her back against it as the man drew closer. Kept her voice low enough that he wouldn't hear it. "...there's a narrow opening... in the back. A shortcut. A-- a path that leads to that old school."

That creepy old school was attached to one too many urban legends for her liking. But, again, she would prefer to take her chances there as opposed to here. If they ever got there, anyway. The man starts talking and-- well, what he said essentially aligned with her hunch. Of course this wasn't some kind of freak coincidence! Yet she wasn't prepared for the way each of his words collided with her gut like a fist.

Clara and Raoul never discussed the 'kidnapping incident' outright. But they had to live with the knowledge that the perpetrators were never caught. It haunted her-- them, really-- ever since. She made a conscious effort. Kept her head down. Treaded the sidelines quietly. Avoided having her picture taken at all costs. Like all those times Beth had practically begged her to model her brand. 'It's such a waste.' she whined, ever the dramatic. 'You have that look where you could step on someone and they'd thank you, for it.' (Apparently it was supposed to be a compliment. Clara took it more as a weird way of saying she had a chronic case of resting bitch face.) Either way, she stayed under the radar. So why now? It had happened so long ago. Did she have company? Were there other kids involved-- including this girl? She couldn't remember. All her memories from back then are hazy, blocked by whatever defense mechanisms she had built to endure it all. Left behind. Intriguing as it might have been to snap the puzzle pieces together... there was still the obvious issue regarding the axe.

Her newfound companion's ability to encourage action at a time like this was beneficial, considering how infectious it was. Clara gritted her teeth, deactivating the safety behind her back to keep it out of their attacker's sight. When the time comes, she brandishes it, putting those hours she practiced at home to good use, steadying her aim and pressing her finger down--

Click. Uh... nothing. Click. Nothing. Oh god. It's not defective, is-- "Aw, is that pepper spray? Cute. Maybe you should've--" Karma chose to kick in with comedic timing when the third and final 'click' rewarded her with the satisfying hiss of what turned out to be a fully-functioning spray. Even more satisfying was the wimpy noise he made when he cried out. The axe missed her and hit the gate instead with a loud clang. He staggered backward and tripped over a root. "Fuck-- fucking-- bitch." And the axe. The axe fell out of his hands.

Refusing to waste another second, Clara lunged to snatch it up from the ground. Better they had it than him, right? Well, while it seemed like a prime opportunity... it might've actually been a mistake. Because the man, reaching blindly for his axe, ended up finding her wrist instead. Recognizing that, he clamped down with a death grip and twisted hard.

 

[Syntra]

...an old school, huh? Awesome! Perfect, even, because it wasn't like old schools were the hotbed for Suspicious Paranormal Activity, or anything like that. All those horror flick directors that had picked a similar spot for their setting? Surely, they had just been drawing upon their own trauma-- with their education system being what it was, you could hardly find a scarier place, plus it was also relatable. Everyone had gone to school at some point, you know? So, just imagine your least favorite teacher having demonic powers, and boom! Instant fucking psychological horror, 10/10. Nightmares for years, and so on and so forth. Now, in reality (ie., where supernatural stuff didn't fucking exist), Thea was sure it would work out just fine-- they'd just, uh, hide under the desks, and the ghosts of homework ignored would... ignore them as well, she guessed. Like, wouldn't they want them to suffer in the way they themselves had suffered? Maybe? ...unless, of course, decapitation looked like a more appealing option to the undead fuckers. That was a distinct possibility, too. (Fine, fine, so Thea didn't like this! Sue her if you want to, really, but she just did not enjoy the idea of an abandoned school. Which, by the way, was a totally mainstream thing! Kind of like not liking moldy bread, or cops following your ass around, or, uhhh, waking up with a spider crawling on your face. Perfectly. Fucking. Normal.)

Still, those reservations? They kinda dissolved the second Thea had the chance to look at the attacker's face from up close. (Ooo, shiny! Shiny, but also sharp, and the way it gleamed in the moonlight didn't make it any less threatening. It made it more attractive to magpies, probably, but no heroic bird swooped down to save them! ...were magpies even nocturnal? Thea couldn't remember, mostly because she had made the point of sleeping through all the Biology classes that weren't about human reproduction.)

Anyway, yeah, it probably shouldn't have surprised her when the pepper spray refused to work. Like, why should it? The universe made sure to stab her in the back whenever possible, so this only fit the established pattern. This was on brand, really-- one final fuck you before she turned into a typical cautionary tale. 'Don't run away from asylums, kids! 'Cause if you do, you'll run into a weirdo with a broken pepper spray and an insane murderer with an axe. If you absolutely have to run away from an asylum, get a gun first, or avoid going to suspicious cemeteries. And oh, oh, oh! Don't listen to the voices inside of your head. They had gotten you into this mess in the first place, so what do you say to them when they try to lead you down the dark path? Not today, Satan!" ...okay, it wasn't a typical cautionary tale, but it was certainly something. Something that Thea didn't feel like analyzing, really, because thinking was kinda hard with an axe this close to your fucking head!

"Ah, shit," the woman yelped and pulled on the thing behind her-- which, as it turned out, was a shovel. Duh. A cemetery was a good place for a shovel, wasn't it? In case you needed to bury some corpses, which seemed like a thing you'd want to do regularly here. (Those corpses would be theirs if she fucked up, Thea knew, but like, no pressure! Everything was fine, or at least as fine as it could get with a maniac trying to murder her. Admittedly, that made the score kinda low by default, though you know what her annoyingly optimistic mother would say? 'It could always be worse, honey, so treasure what you have!' And, technically, this was true, Thea supposed. Like, her hands could have been bound, or the lunatic could have enlisted the help of angry spirits, or a bunch of aliens could have kidnapped her to conduct their unholy experiments on her instead. See? All infinitely worse scenarios. One murderer couldn't be that bad, right? Especially since they were outnumbering him!)

Some kind of god had taken pity upon them then, it seemed, because the pepper spray? Yup, finally worked. "Haha! This is what you get for opposing science, bitch," Thea began gloating, but she found out rather quickly that maybe, just maybe she shouldn't have done that before the threat was actually neutralized. "Oh, shit. The fuck you think you're doing, mate?" With the shovel now securely in her hands, the woman practically jumped to the struggling duo-- she jumped there and aimed straight for the guy's head because, really, the whole fair play shtick had gone out the window the second he'd pulled out a motherfucking axe.

Crack. Wow, wow, wow. Who would have thought the sound of bones breaking could be this satisfying, huh? Certainly not Thea! (Now she kinda understood the historical appeal of maces and such, though. Swords had always seemed way cooler to her, but the blunt force thing was valid as well.)

"You okay?" she turned to the girl. "I'm Thea, by the way. Just figured you'd like to know the name of your accomplice. This is definitely getting classified as murder, you see? Disproportionate force is a bitch-- I bet they'll claim his intentions weren't clear enough."

Thea would have chatted on, mostly because there were few things as worth bonding over as murdering a bastard together, but, uh. It turned out they hadn't actually murdered him? Not very successfully, anyway. There was this... unsettling, strangely familiar sound, and when the woman turned around, she did it just in time to see him rising. (He was covered in blood, sure. His skull was split open as well, so Thea got a much closer look at the inner workings of the human body than she would have liked to, but somehow, that still hadn't fucking stopped him. Oh, shit. Shit, shit, shit!)

"Finish... my... mission," the guy murmured, his lips barely moving.

Thea waited for nothing and grabbed the axe, along with her companion's hand. "That school of yours! Where is it?!" Because anything, literally anything, seemed better than this!

 

[ellarose]

Oh, wow. It was really something, watching as fate itself was struck down with a shovel of all things. Just 'something', because Clara's brain couldn't rouse the appropriate words to describe the situation she was stuck in. Face to face with the inevitable and now... something else. A new path branched out before her with a slew of variables that she couldn't even begin to contemplate in the mere seconds she had now. Without assessing the damage, she cradled her injured wrist and stared unblinkingly at the man on the ground. Moaning, bleeding, and then falling silent. Exposed as a fallible human being instead of the reaper she thought him to be. Then and there, she froze for the second time. Not with horror-- not necessarily-- but with disbelief. Disbelief and a few shades of fascination.

The wielder of the mighty fate-breaking shovel-- Thea-- was fully capable of making complete sentences. That too was fascinating in its own way. Especially since Clara was still miles behind her when it came to processing the whole murder part of this absolute shitshow.

She breathed out audibly, opting to give a non-verbal answer by climbing to her feet. Squared her jaw and adjusted her satchel. On one hand, she was not okay. Not even close. But on the other, she was okay enough to stand. Alive, in other words, which was all that really mattered. Now to address that introduction. Introductions used to be pretty awkward, you know, back when she refused to talk. By now she was capable of at least that, so her lips parted and--

--and the dead man's lips moved first. (Huh. There was a metaphor in there somewhere. Not that she was about to go looking for it while a freaking zombie rose in their vicinity. No way!) The mention of his mission piqued her curiosity, but not enough to hold her still. Whatever it was, it involved getting their blood on his hands. That was enough incentive to get the hell out of there, wasn't it?

Clara nods with determination she didn't know she possessed, holding Thea's hand tighter in her own. Warmth floods through her with their touch. Refusing to freeze this time around, she led the way and ran. Ran, ran, ran. Hurtled towards her mother's grave. Towards that lonely, back corner of the cemetery, where she used to stand and fidget during visits, never knowing what to say. So she would stare at the gap in the gate, all bent out of shape. Her childhood imagination often took her wandering through it, down the grassy path and into her own personal version of Wonderland. Now that she was finally slipping through it and storming down the weathered, barely-visible path so many years later, it was apparent the reality was far more dull than whatever it was she imagined. Wasn't it always?

Running out of breath, Clara slowed as they reached the school's rickety old playground and risked a glance over her shoulder. The masked man wasn't on their heels, let alone on the path behind them. He very well still could have been following behind them, but there were plenty of tombstones to wind around. Finding the exit they used could take him some time, too. Especially in his current... state. Yeah. His 'state' after rising from the fucking dead.

On and on. Unless none of this is real and she snapped a long time ago. Because now-- now the voices sounded louder than ever. On and on and on.

"Okay." Clara took a sharp inhale, releasing Thea's hand in favor of clutching the side of her head. Miraculously, her own voice maintained a pretty solid monotone. Sounded much calmer than she felt on the inside, anyway, while her heart threatened to explode from her ribcage. "Okay. Okay... Okay."

Circle, the voices continue to speak, as if they were eager to find her there. Find. Well. Those ones are new. And loud. And choppy and unhelpful as ever. Find what--? Circle, circle. Ugh. As if to make the atmosphere that much creepier, the swing-set creaked with a rush of the chilly night air.

Listening to the voices would get her nowhere fast. Clara was probably better off talking to Thea. Her only living companion, as luck would have it. "Seemed pretty determined. You know... for a dead guy." She sighed, clutching her fingers tighter in her hair just having to say it aloud. To acknowledge what just happened. God. What even was that? "Guess we should look for a way inside." She began walking towards the school with a relatively steady gait. "Unless you're afraid of ghosts? Rumor has it this place is haunted." There was a faraway quality to the way she felt. Like her soul had exited her body and was waiting above as a reluctant spectator at this point. "...Although I might believe anything after tonight."

 

[Syntra]

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fucking fuck! Monothematic? Maybe, Thea supposed, but like, that was what her life had been reduced to. Did you even need other words when you were being pursued by... by... a murderous zombie, or something? (Aside from a magical spell word thingy that would make it disappear for good, but sadly, she had never received her Hogwarts acceptance letter. No magic for her, then! ...if you didn't count the voices in her head, which, ugh. Why did she never get to have the cool stuff, like telekinesis or clairvoyance or telepathy or, you know, things that actually fucking worked instead of just landing her in an asylum?! Was that that really too much to ask for? Thea didn't think so, but then again, mother had always called her an entitled brat.)

Blood, one of the voices murmured, key. Remember... fireflies...

...okay, now that? That was new. Fascinating, really, or it would have been, had they not been hunted by someone she had fucking killed already. (What the hell, man. Murder was supposed to solve all of your problems! If Thea couldn't place her faith in this tried and tested method, how was she supposed to believe in literally anything? When even the laws of biology gave her a middle finger, stuff like the social security system seemed ridiculously flimsy. ...not that that mattered, of course. Corpses generally didn't need social fucking security, and Thea was about to join their ranks now! Unless, hmmm...)

"You think that... this is it?" she asked her mysterious companion who, by the way, still hadn't introduced herself. Rude! (Miss Mysterious? Missterious? Good enough nickname for a superhero, Thea guessed, which meant that the girl over here couldn't possibly complain about it. Like, this was an upgrade, right? Since superheroes were super and everything. Super = excellent = a positive fucking thing-- everyone with two brain cells to rub together could see that!) "The start of zombie apocalypse, I mean. Maybe, uh, maybe we'll rise when he kills us, too. Like bread, but deader. What if he's really determined to do his job, and will try to kill us over and over even if we're dead already? Man oh man, that would suck. I don't wanna spend the whole eternity running away from some cray cray! If I gotta be a zombie, I wanna live my best zombie life-- eat people and shit." So yeah, maybe she was rambling, but so fucking what? Words > silence, especially if that silence would be immediately filled with those stupid voices, anyway. (Like flies to honey, you know? Always, always they demanded her attention, similarly to That guy in the subway who seemed to think her wearing her headphones was a great conversation starter. Just, no, bitches! Thea had her own thoughts already, thank you very much, and didn't need someone else to pour their ideas into her fucking head.)

One tiny little thing Thea could be thankful for, though? The murderer didn't seem to follow them to the schoolyard, and no, she didn't want to think about the implications of that. (Like, hahaha, surely this was because his IQ had taken a hit and so he couldn't figure out he needed to crouch, right? Not because the school was full of demons, creepy enough to give even an immortal a run for his money. No, no, no. Everything was totally fine here! Just her, this suspicious stranger and... and a scenery straight out of her fucking nightmares. Oh, and the murderer who was still running loose! A regular October night, all things considered.)

"Afraid?" Thea pursed her lips. "Moi? Pffft. The ghosts should fear me, baby. I mean, they died, so they couldn't have been too badass. I have a better track record. Also, have you maybe happened to piss off some mafioso recently? I understand this is a pretty personal question to ask, especially since I don't even know your name yet, but like, I think I deserve some answers."

First things first, though. Getting inside shouldn't be too difficult, right? This school was pretty much a ruin, so all the locks were bound to be rusted by now, and... of course. Of fucking course! The handle, when gripped, refused to budge. And the windows? There were bars inside, which was a really neat social commentary about the true nature of schools, by the way, though it didn't really help. Not at all!

Blood... key...

"Jesus fucking Christ," Thea rolled her eyes, entirely done with this bullshit, "are you just going to spout the edgiest nonsense you can come up with now? That, uh, wasn't directed at you," she turned to Missterious, mostly because she only realized now what that must have sounded like. "I'm a certified cuckoo. No, really, the voices in my head wouldn't shut up. No need to be afraid, though-- they haven't told me to kill anyone yet." Yeah, that was MY idea. "Right now? They are talking about 'keys' and 'blood,' and it's pretty fucking distracting. What I wouldn't give for a key now!" Needless to say, the people in charge of this building weren't kind enough to leave one in the lock-- they had drawn an ominous-looking circle on the door, though. (Ominous, as in it being this weird shade of reddish brown.) "Hmm. This does look like blood, don't you think?"

 

[ellarose]

Clara tilted her head. Somehow, listening to Thea work through all of this aloud helped calm her own nerves. At least, for once, she wasn't alone with the weirdness in her life. In her mind, she provides her own answers. See, if she were a zombie and still had her wits about her, she'd play dead with the hope of convincing her assailant to leave her alone. And then she would continue to play dead, maybe try to sleep. Wait for the earth to eat her up the way it was supposed to. Because the 'eternal sleep' part of death was the comforting part, wasn't it? (Thea's idea of living 'her best zombie life' honestly sounded like too much work. Briefly, she wondered if this girl was the sort of person who had the guts to bite schoolyard bullies as a child.) Then again, Clara couldn't consciously accept death right away if she were to rise from the dead. Not tonight, anyway, while Raoul was out of town. Zombie or not, she would limp on home to take care of Spooks. Poor dog was undoubtably sulking, wondering where she was right about now.

Blinking as the topic of conversation settled on her, she squinted as if she had to think about it for a second before opting to shrug her shoulders. "Oh, yeah. I've been running my whole life. Legally changed my name and everything." Clara confessed the honest-to-god truth with her subtle brand of sarcasm mixed in to muddy it. (The part about her name, that is. The running part hasn't been true for years. Well, until tonight.) "Just a typical Friday night for me. Escaping the zombie mafia." ...that last bit, though, was obviously a lie. Find... find... find...

Find what--? Ack. If this were a normal night, she would be curled up in bed by now, blasting the voices away with catchy show tunes. (...Not a complete reflection of her taste in music. Per se. She was very versatile about exploring new genres, okay? And by now there was a very simple method to the playlists she selected to fall asleep to. Case and point? Voices weren't so bad when she played something ridiculously chipper to offset their vibes.) The lights would stay on. Maybe she would burn her honeysuckle candle. And Spooks, her loyal companion, would be snoring away on the carpet, chasing squirrels and trash pandas in her dreams.

...And then she tensed when Thea decided to insult her tone. 'Edgy', really? Well. Beth told Clara numerous times that she even breathed sarcastically. But her sarcasm never carried the same asshole-ish entitlement of those guys who could get away with sleeping in the back of the classroom while simultaneously managing to score amazingly on their tests. She wasn't making an active effort to be an edgy, annoying piece of shit, you know? It was more casual sarcasm. Just subtle enough that most people would glide on past it if they were oblivious enough. Well. Okay, then.

Until-- oh. Oh. With the context, Clara's expression softens. Brow furrowing, like she couldn't quite figure Thea out. Voices, huh. Wait-- what?

What a coincidence.

...Really? Really?

Clara realized then that she was holding her breath. How? How can Thea just... admit it so openly? And meanwhile, here she was, shackled with the very same issues. Only she made an effort to lock them up for years and years. Years and years that led her to this very moment. Words got stuck in her throat like glue. If there was ever a safe time and place to admit it, it would be right--

"Keys and blood, huh." Clara murmured distractedly, following her lead towards the door. Owning up to it won't be easy. Because this was not at all the same as when she told George earlier. If she admitted it now, Thea would believe her. And then it'd officially be out in the world, no take-backs. And, well, maybe she won't open up and confess her problems like she's in some kind of support group-- not right away. But she won't make Thea feel like shit for being brave enough to admit to it. Circle. She stepped up to the door, tracing her fingers gently over the outline of the circle. Blood circle. Slowly, she traced them down, down, down to the door handle and tugged on it experimentally. No dice. Locked. Find. "Find the... key?"

Where? Clara thought. No answer, not right away. She clamped her eyes shut tight, shaking her head and taking a step back from the door as a scream pierced through her head. Great. Even worse than the voices were the screams! With a steadying breath, she surveyed their surroundings. There were rocks piled on either side of the door. Forgotten and covered in faded paint. Some were solid colors, covered in glitter, or decorated with primitive drawings of animals. Some were flecked with the same red that covered the door. Yikes. She really hoped that was paint.

"Oh, right. I must've thought my introduction was unnecessary. Since you were hanging out on my set and all." Clara overcame the bout of nausea and spoke up. She turned to Thea with a pointed look, then, crossing her arms. "...I'm Clara. Would've introduced myself sooner, but I guess I got sort of distracted after we murdered a man." She hissed out an exasperated breath after that. And her wrist was still throbbing on top of everything else. "Didn't help that he decided to get up afterwards."

She kneeled down by the rocks, then, to get a closer look. "Your voice wouldn't happen to be giving you any colors right now, would it?" She ventured. "Or... I don't know. Animals?" Because she would wager that their key might be hiding under one of them.

 

[Syntra]

"Zombie mafia," Thea muttered, as if she needed to roll the words in her mouth for a bit before judging whether they were ridiculous or not. And her verdict? Duh, of course they fucking were! Then again, the whole night had been nothing short of ridiculous, so it wasn't like the girl must have been lying to her. Not necessarily, anyway. (Plus, why the hell should that matter in the first place? Thea had never really intended to pursue the career of a fucking polygraph, and there was no reason to explore that option now. Especially since a headless knight could emerge out of the building at any second and decapitate them for having the gall to ~disturb its resting place~, or something! ...or maybe a headless teacher? In Thea's experience, most teachers acted as if they were missing like eighty percent of their brain, so losing the entire head couldn't have been that difficult of an adjustment.) "Cool, cool," she nodded. "You could say we're peers, then. Like, I haven't been running away from the mafia," yet, because at that point, it seemed like an inevitability, "but I have escaped from a... reputable institution recently. Not telling you what it is, though. Personal data protection, baby. I assure you it was quite a feat, though! Like, Indiana Jones level shit." Which was almost true! No, really-- you just had to add certain details, and remove others, and jump on the bandwagon of wild, wild accusations. See? A few tiny edits in the narrative was all it took to get a one hundred percent match!

Upon admitting to hearing voices, though? Yeah, Thea was ready for the usual spectacle-- for all those nervous stares, that was, and also for the oh so subtle backing away. (Why people behaved like that, that she'd never understand. Like??? The conversation had been going smoothly less than ten minutes ago, so what exactly had changed? Did Normal PeopleTM unironically think that her bringing the voices up activated some sort of murder virus in her brain? That they heard her and were like: 'Oh yeah, I guess I should be making her kill someone. So, kill, Thea. Kill, kill, kill, and kill that fucker you spoke to especially!' Because, newsflash: not how it worked. Literally the only fucking thing that had changed was that they knew about her condition now, so they could shove their stupid excuses about 'leaving their stove on' and 'forgetting to lock their door' where the sun didn't shine! Like, if they were going to be chickenshit about it, they should at least embrace their clownery and put on their fucking clown shoes and-- oh, alright. The girl... didn't seem to mind, actually. Wow, okay! That sure as hell was a first, and not in the usual 'shit, I had no idea this could blow up in my face, too'. No, this felt... fuck, Thea felt kinda stupid about it, but pleasant, sort of. Like finding a nickel you had forgotten about in your pocket! (Except that this nickel accepted you for what you were, with all your flaws and imperfections included. Nickel of Friendship? Something like that.)

Rapidly, however, Thea was realizing that this Clara (a pretty name, by the way) may have only been so nonchalant about her Issue because she was... uhhh, kinda cuckoo herself. Not that there was anything wrong with that, of course! Everyone was at least a little crazy in this shit world, which yeah, she would be the last person to judge. Still, there was a line between the harmless sort of madness you indulged in for funsies and seriously thinking you were some kind of holy prophet, and her companion was dancing dangerously close to that line. (...did she want to step into that abyss? You know, the one on whose edge she'd been balancing for pretty much her entire life? Don't get her wrong, the falling sensation might be nice, but Thea was still kinda worried about the impact.)

"Are you suggesting I should fucking listen to them?" she narrowed her eyes, looking about as dubious as if Clara had just advised her to go play in the traffic. "I am hardly an expert on these things, but I usually try to do the opposite of that. Plus, it's not like what they say ever makes any fucking sense. They're just... snippets. Must have bombed their English class, I'm telling you, because the syntax just sucks. You think they are crying out to me because they want, like, remedial classes? I've never been a model student, though."

Bones. Teeth.

"And, no. No colors, no animals. Just... bones and teeth, which feeds my theory that they're just trying to be edgy. I mean, seriously! What am I supposed to get out of this? If it's like, a prophecy, I rate it 0/10, and-- oh, shit. Shit, what the fuck!" So, uh. Remember her hypothesis about their pursuer not... pursuing them... any further because he couldn't figure out he had to crouch? Apparently, that was closer to the truth than even Thea herself had expected, because it looked like the guy had gotten stuck in the opening now. He was staring at them as he bled from the giant gash on his head, and snarling like some fucking animal-- which, ugh. Calm the fuck down, mate! Taking your job this seriously would only lead you to an early grave, Thea could guarantee that, and... um. What was shiny thing, actually? The one that... he seemed to be holding in his mouth... No fucking way.

"Clara?" Thea began, somewhat hesitantly. "I think he has the key. Between his teeth. Look."

Which would have been real convenient, actually, had he not been pushing, pushing and pushing forward. (What would give up first? His body or the gate? Given their respective track records, Thea would bet on the latter. Shit, shit, shit!)

 

[ellarose]

"I just thought..." Clara trailed off, words evaporating from her tongue. What was she thinking? Something about the way their inner voices clicked together in a way that almost made sense. And the way they were seemingly being hunted together. All of this-- it couldn't have been a coincidence. Right? Seeing as they were led to this door, wasn't it safe to assume that legitimate answers might be hidden behind it? Except... working together to find those answers wouldn't be possible unless she spit the truth out. The truth about the voices she heard inside her own head. And that truth was a secret she protected behind her tallest walls with a padlock forged of hardened steel. As it was now, they should be searching for a place to hide from their assailant. Their assailant who might not even be coming after them anymore, in his zombiefied state. Hell, they could easily walk around the school to the front and leave all of this behind. (The school was set for demolition. Would they ever get another chance like this? ...Would it matter? The piercing screams should have been enough to discourage her. What if they don't like what they find behind this door? What if it was something they could never come back from after seeing?)

Find. The voice stressed once more with feeling, as if sensing her reluctance. Left behind. Ah. It was learning to rhyme. How nice. Then, with a stubborn push, it offered her something new. White roses, white roses.

Already losing interest in her search, Clara cast her distrusting eyes over the rocks. Nope. No paintings of white roses to be found among them. As far as she knew, there weren't any roses growing in the area, either. As Thea continued expressing her stance on rejecting the voices in her head, she decided she'd best follow suit and leave all this behind. Bones and teeth, huh. That was about as unhelpful as Clara's white roses. Find. Left behind.

She has a point, you know. She considered, What do you want from us?

'From me', Clara nearly thought. But for once, that wouldn't have been correct. 'Us' had a strange, almost hopeful ring to it. Misery loved company, didn't it? And it sure seemed like Thea was stuck in this sinking boat with her, whether she knew it yet or not. Maybe-- she took a sharp breath-- maybe she should tell...

"...What?" Jostled out of a reverie by Thea's outburst, Clara rose from her position over the rocks and checked over her shoulder. Oh. Teeth. He, uh, definitely has them clenched in his teeth. "Oh. Great." (This was anything but great.) With every second that passed, the man got closer and closer to freeing himself. It was one thing, entertaining the voice's clues if it meant finding the key they needed under a painted rock or, say, in the playground tunnel. Fetching them from a murderer's teeth, however? The gate rattled violently and the man fell halfway through it. His nails raked into the earth and he began clawing his way free and forward. Inch by inch. Eyes wide, wild, bloodshot. The twisted expression contorting his bloodied face burned into her retinas and would undoubtably resurface in nightmares to come. If she survived, that was. And their chances of that got slimmer and slimmer the longer they stood around.

Dizzy with an amalgam of fear and exhaustion, her heart pumped itself back into an absolute frenzy.

"Yeah, no. Fuck that." Clara shook her head. Honestly, it wasn't often that she dropped the f-bomb in conversation. But these are special circumstances. Special circumstances in which no other word could possibly encapsulate her feelings. No way was she going to face that guy again-- let alone reach inside of his mouth! Sure, her scope of knowledge on this subject was purely fiction-based-- but didn't a zombie bite typically doom you to the same fate? Nope, nope, nope. "Come on. Unless you're ready to live your best zombie life." She broke off into a run along the side of the building, motioning for Thea to follow. "We... we can go 'round to the front and get out of--"

Before turning the corner and into what should have been a deserted courtyard, Clara stopped short. It should have been deserted, anyway. Except there was a van parked outside. Waiting silently, its headlights beaming a warning that shone through the night like a lighthouse. But instead of promising a safe harbor, it promised danger. It was the very same van she noticed on her route home. Another coincidence? No way. Too many coincidences pile up and at some point they shouldn't even qualify as coincidences anymore. That zombie guy tailing them obviously had some friends. And if they were spotted by any of those said friends, who's to say they wouldn't hunt them down the same way?

"Wait a sec." Clara held up her arm to make sure Thea also stayed out of their line of vision. "See that van? They helped him corner me here." Breathing out heavily, she pressed her hands over her brow and clamped her eyes shut. Blood rushed in her ears. "They're with him for sure. We can't let them see us." ...Shit. So what are their options, then? Attempt to sneak around and hope for the best? But if they get caught, they might get cornered. Surrounded. Worse off than before, in other words. And she preferred the odds of two against one over the alternative. Who knew how many people were staked out in that van?

That leaves the inside of the school, then. Their blood circle door. Maybe they could find an alternative exit from the inside-- one they could use to sneak past them unnoticed.

"You're an... an escapist, right? Think you could, I don't know... break the lock with the axe?" After hyper-fixating on the phenomenon of their shared inner voices, Clara sort of skimmed over the whole 'escaped from a reputable institution' part of Thea's introduction. Normally that might have been cause for at least an raised eyebrow, maybe a wee bit of concern... but these were nowhere near normal circumstances. Besides, if this woman was capable of pulling some self-proclaimed Indiana Jones level shit, now would be an opportune time to show off! "...It's either that or one of us is gonna have to touch some zombie spit."

 

[Syntra]

Jesus. fucking. Christ. Was this going to be her life from now on? Just a series of bizarre incidents, connected by a logic so dream-like it could pass for one of those artsy French movies only pretentious fucks gave a damn about? (Just, what the hell. How come the bastard had the key? Did zombies have, like, an access to the Dimension of Lost Things so that they could bait their prey easily? 'Oooh, look, Future Victim number 86, found a photo of your kitten! Don't you want it? It's free, and I'll throw in some candy as a bonus, too!' Well, either that, or he had swallowed it beforehand to... dunno, conduct some ritual, maybe. Look, Thea wasn't an expert here. No, her brain was just trying to identify some semblance of a fucking pattern in this mess, and-- and maybe that was the mistake, actually, because this seemed almost deliberately nonsensical. Like, had some Halloween ritual finally gone too far and torn the veil of reality, or something? No. No, bad Thea! You're still fucking trying to understand this shit. From now on, only daydreaming unicorns is allowed!)

Those daydreams had to wait, though, because their assailant couldn't understand the simple concept of 'no' indeed meaning 'no'. "Honestly? At this point, I kinda am," Thea tilted her head aside. "I mean, if you can't beat them, you should joim them. And wouldn't a zombie life be easier? When was the last time a zombie had to pay her fucking taxes, for example?" Again, not an expert, but she'd wager the answer was 'never'. (...maybe voting for the Zombie Party had been the answer all along! To hell with both Democrats and Republicans, really-- just status quo supporters in dressed in slightly differing ideologies, who by the way probably still cooperated behind the closed door. No, zombies were the ones who would bring the true change. Finally, they would have a government without pointless bureaucracy! And nobody would go hungry, either, because people continuously produced new people with new, fresh brains, totally free of charge. No, really, Thea was becoming a believer! ...a zombiever, perhaps? Yeah, no, this would require some work.)

"But yeah, can't say I'm too eager about getting eaten." Maybe, if there was an instazombie vaccine, then... No! You're fucking thinking again, Thea. Remember what we decided re: ideas? No actual thought processes allowed! Excessive intellectualism wasn't something she had worried about previously, buuut here she was, Thea supposed. Here she fucking was! "Great," she rolled her eyes. "So what you're saying is that this isn't a single guy, but a whole fucking army of murderous stalkers?" ...once upon a time, she had dreamed about being popular, but, uhh, this wasn't really how she had been picturing it. No, Thea had just wanted the pretty popular girl at school to braid her hair or something, so honestly, fuck the universe for twisting her wish so cruelly! (Hurr, durr, be cAReful whAt you WIsh fOR. Like, why the fuck should she have to do that? Her thoughts were her own, and reading them must have been illegal, she was sure, and... and who did you talk to if you wanted to sue the universe itself, anyway? God? 'Cause he had never returned her calls, either!)

"For sure," Thea agreed, because honestly, why the fuck not? "Might as well try, if nothing else. Some locks are a bit too complicated for the axe treatment, but," she gripped the axe tighter, "won't know till I try!" And, with that, the woman swung the weapon, putting all of her weight into the motion. ...which, uh, had the interesting effect of knocking her back. Also, ouch! Why the fuck did her arm hurt so... oh. Oh, okay. It was bleeding, the droplets obviously ruby-red even in the moonlight, and, umm, the wound actually looked as if it had been caused by something sharp? An axe, maybe? Ooookay, now they were officially entering the realm of supernatural fuckery, because this-- this wasn't funny. "Um, so, I dunno, but it seems to me that the lock didn't appreciate my attempt. Do you have something I could--"

Bones, teeth. TEETH, TEETH, TEETH.

Speaking of things that weren't funny, though? Yeah, it actually seemed that the scent of blood in the air the guy, because he screamed. Saliva was running down his mouth as well, in these disgusting ropes, and then the gate shook, shook and screamed, too-- screamed in the way only metal could scream, really, and, shit. Shit, shit, shit! It fucking collapsed, as if it had been made of paper. ...great, just great. Just what they needed, really!

Every single fiber in her body was shouting at her to fucking run, but she couldn't exactly do that, you see? Not when all of their escape routes had been cut off, anyway. Oh, god. What now, what now, what now? Some kind of strange confidence seized was poured into her veins, or maybe it was madness-- same difference in most cases, actually. Anyway, what Thea did was that she took lifted the axe and swung, with all her might, in the man's general direction. Better to die like an action hero, right? That, at least, would be a cool epitaph on her fucking grave! At last, her parents could be proud. ('Thea Holloway, died while defending a stranger's life.' Better than 'Thea Holloway, finally fucking overdosed,' she guessed!) ...except that then the axe met a fleshy sort of resistance and cut through it, quite easily, in fact, so Thea could watch with some amazement as the severed head flew through the air. Wow. Wow, okay, that was badass as hell!)

The head landed a few metres away from the body, motionless. (For now, at least.) "Ah. Wanna try prying the key from his mouth? You can use... some stick, I guess," Thea shrugged. "I mean, I don't know about you, but I don't feel like fucking with the lock anymore." Especially since the blood was coloring her sleeve redder and redder by the second! Ah, shit. Would she bleed out in the fucking cemetery? That would save some time to the funeral services, she supposed, but still. Not cool, man!

 

[ellarose]

Clara stepped back, giving Thea space as she lifted the axe and lined up her strike. In the meantime, she chanced a reluctant glance behind. Their pursuer continued to thrash with the reckless abandon of a rabid animal, refusing to let up. What have they ever done to him, anyway? Like, what could have possibly warranted this level of fervent desperation? All of this resembled one big, unsolved puzzle. The mission he spoke of? The voices? The connection between herself and her axe-wielding ally, here? Even the hazy kidnapping incident that sent her life on the equivalent of a rollercoaster track all those years ago? They could very well be considered pieces to that puzzle. But she would need a moment unoccupied by danger to snap them all together in a way that made sense. Craaack. The noise immediately snapped her attention back towards the door and she frowned upon noticing what... what had happened. That's not how-- she let out a soft gasp. Thea was bleeding. How did that even happen!? No way could she have cut herself that way by accident. Not when her aim was so clearly fixed on the lock. And yet it-- it looked as though she'd been struck by an axe.

The lock didn't like it, huh. It sounded ridiculous and yet somehow it tracked perfectly with the way their night was going.

Find. So... the voice had a plan and it wanted them to follow it. Exactly. No shortcuts. Or there would be consequences. Grave, potentially life threatening consequences.

Concern wrung her throat. Clara could only nod as she opened her satchel and pawed through it with shaky hands. Would have been real convenient if she had chosen to carry her first-aid kit... but she didn't have it with her tonight. What she did have, however, were scraps of fabric Beth had given her over the last couple of months. Having them as reference typically made it easier to replicate the colors, patterns and textures in her drawings. Chiffon, satin, tulle, and more tulle-- no, no, no-- tulle would make for a real shitty bandage. Her search was delayed when she heard the chaotic, primal scream of their assailant. The screech of metal. She didn't even have to look to know he was coming closer, closing the distance. Tulle slipped from her fingers when her hands trembled more violently than before. All of this-- it was too much. Shuffling, scraping, groaning. Closer and closer. Freezing for the third time that night, she teetered on the edge of full-blown panic attack.

Pull it together, Clara. Thea was bleeding! Thea was-- wait. What the hell was Thea doing!?

It happened in a flash. Thea moved faster than Clara could speak. Stepping in front of her and flinging herself towards the approaching zombie man. And then, with another fate-breaking swing of the axe, she took his head clean off. Holy shit. That was... wow. Once the initial shock wore off, Clara realized that her heart might have been fluttering with something other than fear. There was just something about women and weapons and--

"...Well." Clara whispers, awed, relieved and a trifle overwhelmed in her role as the observer. Distractedly tucking a lock of hair behind her ear, she shook her head as if it was one of those old etch a sketch toys-- hoping the motion might erase the pictures that sprung into her mind. This was not a good time to catch feelings, damn it! "That... that takes care of that, I guess. Nice going." Smooth. Real smooth. At last, her hand brushed against a strip of cotton in her satchel. Pulling it out, she examined its length to make sure it would work before passing it to Thea. "Here. For your arm."

Now, did she want to pry the key from his mouth? "...Not really." Clara said plainly. Even so, she wore a relenting expression as she kneeled down and grabbed a long stick from the ground. She would get over herself and do it anyway because she wasn't a spoiled princess. (People liked to assume though, didn't they? Laughable how far from the truth they were, guessing where she came from based solely on where she was now.) Anyways. They obviously couldn't brute force the door open, so what other option did they have? Thea risked her life two times in the last thirty seconds. And while the very thought of prodding a decapitated head with a stick repulsed her, she would suck it up and take one for the team. Because... she was on a team, of sorts. For the first time ever.

Yeah. Warm and fuzzy as that thought was, it didn't change the fact that this was freaking gross. Clara's first thought upon finding the man's head in the grass was that his red, gaping mouth resembled one of those carnivorous venus fly traps. Only way less cute, coated with strands of saliva and blood and-- ugh. Gag. The silver indicating the key was barely sticking out on the side of his face that laid flat against the ground. "Let's get this over with." She mumbled to herself, levering his dirty cheek with the stick to turn him over. The shift of gravity caused the key to slip to a more accessible position, as well as slightly outward. So far so good. She dipped the stick through the keyring and lifted it out of his mouth. It shimmered with moonlight and dribble. Success. Disgusting, disgusting success.

--Except that wasn't the end of it. Because removing the key seemed to reactivate him, like one of those jump-scaring Halloween decorations that cackled and wiggled to life when you triggered the motion sensors. His eyes rolled in his head as if he were an undead slot machine and his cracked lips moved, mouthing a soundless mantra. Clara cried out with a girlish timbre she was less than proud of and her first impulse was to punt his head like a soccer ball. She never played the sport, but a jolt of electric terror certainly provided incentive to perform. It sailed into the air and several feet away from them before hitting the ground with a squishy thump.

Again-- gross.

Facing Thea once more, she hoped that the night was dark enough to hide the blush on her face. Clara shimmied her free hand inside her satchel to find a scrap of fabric to hold the key with. Then she marched up to the door and sorely tried to reconcile with herself. "We--" Resolutely, she adjusted her coat collar and positioned the fabric-clad key over the lock, "--are never discussing that again. Got it?"

Wanting nothing more than to leave that scene behind them, Clara turned the key and the door swung open. All that greeted them then was a gust of cool air. She held her breath, not knowing what to expect. If the sunless sky wasn't dark enough, the room beyond the blood circle door certainly was. Pitch black to the point where even seeing your own hand in front of your face would be an impossible feat. And yet, as if possessed, she stepped on through it. Apparently there was no turning back after that, as the door slammed shut behind them the instant they were both inside. Locked in darkness, until...

On and on. One by one, candles whooshed to life around them to reveal the interior was-- a setup that most definitely wasn't a classroom. Or at least not in the traditional sense. There was a large, red clock with roman numerals graffitied on the floor. Desks were set up deliberately in a circle around it. All of their surfaces were bare, save for the white roses woven around their legs and sides. Find. White roses. On and on.

"What the..." Clara staggered. The sight was unfamiliar, of course it was... and yet it hit her like a sucker-punch to the gut. This wasn't right. The musty smell, the red paint (to maintain what remained of her sanity, she refused to consider the alternative) and the desks were set up like they were... awaiting offerings, or something? It looked like the setup for some kind of ritual. Bell rings... On and on... The voices are louder than before, drowning out her thoughts. "Thea, I..." She faltered, "You wouldn't happen to be hearing anything now, would you?"

 

[Syntra]

"Thank you, thank you, ladies and gentlemen," Thea bowed theatrically, not caring in the slightest that the motion only made her hand bleed more. This was a certified Cool MomentTM, dammit, and she was going to milk it for all it was worth! ...maybe, maybe it was because pretty girls didn't admire her prowess with the axe that often, but pssht. No need to reveal the most maladjusted parts of her personality to Clara this soon into their partnership! (Besides, Thea kinda felt this was justice, or at least as close to justice as it could possibly get in this shit world. Like, if fate placed her in a situation where she had to deal with zombie stalkers and find her refuge in the creepiest abandoned school that had been built on this motherfucking continent, she could, at the very least, chew the scenery for a bit!) "I'll be here all week." When Clara handed her the improvised bandage, though? It wasn't Thea's fault that her mind became filled with all kinds of, uh, interesting imagery-- such as a noble lady tending to a knight's wounds, except that knight was also a lady because everything was just that much better with ladies. No, not at all! That was just the Cultural Hivemind slipping her ideas, kind of like when commercials drew upon your pre-existing knowledge of... all kinds of shit. Look, Thea wasn't an expert here! She just knew this was totally normal, expected, even, and not at all weird. Nuh uh. (Plus, weren't cemeteries, like, romantic spots? For edgy kids, anyway.)

Fishing the key out of the zombie's mouth was possibly the least romantic thing Thea could imagine, though-- next to gems like dumpster diving, or perhaps signing your organ donor agreement. (Experimentally, Thea decided to try whether she could make that fantasy hot. 'Oh yes, baby! Hmmm, sign it right there.' ...yeah, no. Even her imagination, it seemed, was fucking powerless here.) So, with some degree of sympathy, she watched the girl struggle with the disgusting, disgusting task-- that sympathy wasn't powerful enough to actually make her help, though. Oh no, no, no. Thea quite liked her role in this plan, which revolved around... standing around and being vaguely supportive? And around slaying the zombie in the first place, which must have counted for something. Clara could pull her weight, too! (Well, that, and she also had to bandage her arm-- which wasn't as simple as she'd like it to be, mostly because she couldn't use both of her hands. Fucking duh, but yeah, this was a complication. ...arm injuries should be illegal, really, because like, when had been the last time when you didn't need arms? Back in your mother's womb? Now that was a place Thea wasn't itching to visit again! In the end, she had to resort to using her teeth, but the strip of cotton ended up wrapped around the wound securely. Yay for overcoming adversities!)

Key. Bones, teeth, BONES--

Shut the fuck up, bitch!

Which, yeah, it did shut up, except that the voices were immediately replaced by Clara's scream-- which, by the way, sounded totally cute. (Why the fuck couldn't her head be haunted be that, instead of all those annoying fuckers that kept spouting nonsense? That way, Thea could have her portable generator of serotonin! ...although, now that she thought of it, the constant presence would probably make her resent it-- kind of like you couldn't eat cotton candy 24/7 and still like it. Blah blah blah, something about appreciating the ~ephemeral quality~? Yup, profound shit like that.) "Why?" Thea asked, seemingly innocent. "You're telling me you don't wanna pursue a singing career? It was a pretty pleasing sound, all things considered." ...had the circumstances been different, she might have joked about the other sounds she could possibly tease out of her, but like, not even Thea was a flirt this chronic. No, she'd save that comment for later-- if the girl still wanted stick around after this creepy zombie bullshit was over with. (...wow. Thea, making adult decisions? More likely than you'd think, apparently! Mommy and daddy would be so, so proud.)

Anyway, the two retreated into the school, which was either the best route they could have taken or the dumbest one. Which one was it? Somehow, it seemed like there could be no other option but one of the two extremes, and soon enough, they'd learn discover the truth! Ummm... yeah, the dumbest one. The dumbest one, I'm pretty sure. Because, the scenery that unfolded in front of their eyes? It would give the average horror movie director a run for their money!

...along, the voices in her head whispered. Play along.

"You're still on that bullshit?" Thea raised her eyebrow. "If you really need to know, though, they are telling me to play along. Not sure with what exactly," she shrugged, "but I never claimed those voices were helpful. And like, wow. Do you really want to bet everything on my fucked up subconsciousness, or manifestation of my trauma, or whatever it is? That sure as hell is a first. Do you like being disappointed?" 'Cause if that was true, Thea could comfortably reconsider her stance on inappropriate flirting! She almost did it, too, but then...

"Wait a second. Are those our names?" With disbelief written all over her face, Thea leaned closer, and sure enough, there they were-- 'Thea' written on one of the desks, and 'Clara' on the other. Wow, okay. The creepiness levels were rising by the second! "At this point? We may as well do whatever the voices say. I mean, it's not like any of this makes any fucking sense, so maybe the solution is not making sense harder and... out-absurding them. Yes, to absurd is a verb now. Don't judge. Anyway... I'm gonna sit in my desk," Thea concluded, officially having run out of all the fucks to give.

...maybe she should have thought this through more diligently, though-- which was the leitmotif for pretty much the entirety of her life, if she stopped to think about it. (If, if, if! Such a little word, so much potential. Too bad that, in Thea's case, all of it would remain unused.) Anyway, you know what happened the second they assumed their positions? The lights flickered, and suddenly, the room was full of students-- students who wore pretty little uniforms, but no faces. Naturally, a faceless teacher was a must as well! A faceless teacher who was watching them, specifically, even if Thea had no fucking idea how she knew given the absence of eyes. (What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck!!! Never before had she thought she'd think this, but damn, this almost made her miss the asylum. At least the people there had the decency to, uhhh... have faces and such. And not be zombies. Yeah, yeah, the standards were becoming lower and lower by the second, but what was a girl to do in this economy?)

"Silence, children," the teacher said, in a voice that resembled the sound of nails scratching against the chalkboard, "we have new classmates to welcome among us today. Clara and Thea! We've been waiting for you-- for such a long, long time, too. Now, will you introduce yourselves?" Somehow, Thea could sense it smiling, and fuck, wasn't that the creepiest shit!

 

[ellarose]

Clara doesn't speak. There were a myriad of simple ways she could phrase it-- like, say, 'You know those voices you've been hearing? Well, it just so happens that I can hear them, too!' And yeah, the words themselves are easy enough to think about. Spitting them out, on the other hand, is another dilemma entirely. The muscles in her throat worked laboriously around the idea and instead of forming sentences, all she got was the distinct taste of bile. "I..." Anxiety slithered around like shadowy tendrils in her chest, wrapped themselves around her in a nightmarish embrace that made breathing very difficult. It's not fair to Thea. And yeah, yeah-- she knew that. But just try saying that to the eldritch monstrosity living in her chest! It hoarded her words and secrets for itself for years and years and years. As if to say she belongs to it and it doesn't intend on sharing her with anyone else. "It's just that..."

Once again, Thea made a decision faster than she could compose herself. Their names...? That was sketchy as hell! "Maybe we shouldn't--"

Thea did, however, and the classroom quickly populated itself with people. (Which was already bad enough on its own, really. What made it even worse was that these were people of the faceless variety. What. The. Hell.) Clara stared like a deer in headlights as the teacher spoke to them, still standing beside the desks rather than assuming a seat in the one assigned to her. Discreetly, she glimpsed the door on the other side of the room. The moment she entertained the mere idea of checking to see if it was open, though, she felt a sensation like sharp nails scraping the back of her neck. As if warning that they would claw in if she dared to move. And considering what had happened to Thea's arm earlier? Yeah, it was better that they didn't take any risks until they knew exactly what they were dealing with.

"Would you like to go first, Clara?" The teacher's head tilted. "Since you're still standing? And then, when you're finished, you can take your seat."

"Is an introduction really necessary? You already... already said our names." Clara's heart pounded. What was she doing, answering to this... thing? While she wasn't the type to mouth off back in school (or at all) perhaps if she got into trouble and this charade continued on-- they'd at least get to leave the classroom? Then again, maybe she doesn't want to know what sort of creature this teacher answers to. "Doesn't that defeat the purpose?"

"Are you trying to be smart with me, Miss Loveless?" The teacher's head tilted even further, to an uncomfortable angle. The faint noise of cracking bones accompanied it and Clara got that nails on skin sensation again alongside a chill that raced down her spine.

"No, ma'am. Sorry." Clara swallowed hard and assumed her seat next to Thea. She stared at her desk, mind running wild trying to make sense of this. To find a way out. What had Thea's voice said? Play along... play along... until the bell rings? "I'm just, uh... shy. Don't like introductions."

The teacher began to preach, then, something empty, saccharine and comfortless about overcoming shyness. Clara wasn't listening as she discreetly reached into her satchel for her notebook. There were two she carried with her. One designated for work and harmless sketching-- the one intended for public use, in case someone chose to be nosy and stare over her shoulder. The other... was used exclusively in private. A mess of dark, dusty charcoal and ink. The place where she illustrated her nightmares and demons and created logs for the voices she heard when she failed to get them out of her head. Her off limits journal, in other words. The one that no one-- no one-- was allowed to touch. Thankfully, she grabbed the tamer one by chance. Under her desk, she quietly tore a page out and scribbled a note for Thea.

'We have to listen to them. The voices.' Clara wrote, 'Look at what happened to your arm. There will be consequences if we don't.'

...And already knowing Thea's impulsive nature, Clara underlined the word 'consequences' with three bold strokes.

When Clara passed it over to Thea, she could feel the teacher's non-existent eyes snapping to her. The movement may not have escaped her notice, but the note certainly did-- landing safely on Thea's lap. "Clara? Are you paying attention?" Shit. She needed to come up with a good excuse. Something that would distract from the note, in other words.

Immediately, Clara brought her hands to the makeshift bandage around Thea's arm. It was a bit lopsided, anyway-- must've been tricky to tie on her own. So she gently untied and then retied it, to make it a touch more secure. (In normal circumstances, she would have asked first. But these circumstances are way, way beyond normal. As far as Clara was concerned, they were in outer space.)

"Thea got hurt." Clara tried. This technically counted as playing along, right? If they could get out of this classroom, maybe they could make a break for it? Or at least compare notes without the risk of this freaky teacher tearing them to shreds. "May I walk with her to the nurse's office?"

 

[Syntra]

Any moment now, Thea would wake up. Just, this couldn't fucking be real, now could it? In a world ruled by mathematical equations, stock shares values and... uh, weather forecasts, faceless teachers just weren't a thing! (Or they were, but like, symbolically. You know how they bitched and moaned about having to follow the curriculum instead of teaching the students how to divine the future from the tea leaves, or whatever random bullshit they thought could be useful? Yeah, that kind of facelessness was valid! Suffering under the iron boot of the education system and its evil, evil regulations. Literally not having a face, though? Mommy had always said that you shouldn't judge a person by their appearance, but like, Thea could tell she was full of shit-- mostly because she, the angel that she was, also avoided guys who looked like they might beg for money in the subway. So, pattern recognition prevailed once again, dumbasses! ...and what did that pattern recognition tell her now? That people without faces were bad fucking news, duh.)

Thankfully, Ms. Creepy seemed to be focused on Clara now-- which meant that Thea had more time to invent her Tragic BackstoryTM. Hmmm, hmmm! What would that thing enjoy hearing? (Yeah, yeah, the truth was nice and everything, yadda yadda yadda, but uh, maybe they could not feed potentially sensitive info to some supernatural-ass fucker? Like, she had seen enough horror movies to know where this was going! Probably sooner rather than later, this bastard was going to throw them into a Battle Royale-style arena where they'd be expected to duke it out with their childhood nightmares, which was an experience Thea would prefer to miss. Nope, nope, nope! Not giving this tenure-less hack literally any ammo seemed crucial. So, uh, what would she like to hear? 'Hi, I'm Thea and I love people without faces, actually! My parents had this tragic car accident in which they were... like, stripped off their facial skin, and then they raised me in isolation in the woods. Their faceless skulls were the only thing I knew, so I associated them with the feeling of warmth and safety. Imagine my fucking surprise when I looked into the mirror for the first time and realized that I'm, in fact, one of those be-faced freaks! This is how the Lovecraftian protagonists must feel when they discover they're not even human. Anyway, I finally feel at peace again here!' ...yup, seemed believable enough. Definitely not fake at all! Besides, wishful thinking was a powerful, powerful drug. Like, presumably, they'd want to believe that nonsense, right? Right? Everyone wanted to be loved, and for faceless demons, love had to be in short supply!)

Except that, instead of getting to tell her carefully crafted narrative, Clara just had to steal the spotlight by playing the problem child. Ugh! (Rebels were fucking hot, Thea couldn't deny that, but couldn't this girl learn how to pick her battles? You just didn't bully the king of bullies, and while she hadn't checked their hierarchy in any official source just yet, she didn't really think they were above literal demons from hell. That would be like-- like thinking you could tickle a sleeping dragon, or something! And then she had the nerve to tell her to cooperate? After that display? Oh, how fucking rich!)

'You mean like, consequences for not listening that creepazoid's instructions?' she wrote under Clara's instructions, with her big, uneven letters. ("Don't write like that, Thea," her mother had used to say. "It is ugly, and graphology suggests it might lead to an ugly personality, too." Which, pffft! Might. Since then, Thea had proved it-- over and over, with great dose of pride.) 'Follow your own advice, Miss Responsible.'

Play along. Play along. Play along. ALONG, ALONG, ALONG!

Damn. Couldn't the voices chillax for, like, five seconds? At this point, Thea almost didn't remember what hearing blessed, blessed silence only felt like! ...to be fair, though, there was a reason for them to be acting like this-- mainly because Clara, uh, wasn't playing along. Still, they were fucking barking (shouting?) up the wrong tree here! How was this supposed to be her fault, again? Collective punishment was so last century, and definitely against the Geneva convention as well.

"Hmm! Is that so, Miss Loveless?" the teacher leaned forward, and put her hands on Clara's desk. (The gesture would have looked friendly, caring, even, had the place where her lips should have been not parted, with this disgusting, wet sound, only to reveal a row of sharp teeth.) "Of course that you can. The health of our students is paramount. Still, you should finish your introduction first! So, Miss Loveless, be so kind and share your greatest fear with the classroom. Everyone is waiting. Isn't that true, children?"

And the applause that followed, booming and thunderous? Yup, it sure as hell seemed like the teacher was right!

"You too, Miss Holloway. Don't be so shy," the teacher smiled, oh so sweetly. "There's nothing like a little bit of terror to make the hearts grow fonder!"

 

[ellarose]

As far as Clara was concerned, people only willing shared their greatest fears with someone after they'd become fond of them. Except it seems that the concept of earning trust is beyond the grasp of this demon infested classroom. They all insisted on moving much too quickly for her liking. Evidently sharing her honest opinions was a recipe for disaster, though, so she opted to keep quiet. Holding her tongue wasn't really an issue when the teacher's otherwise blank face stretched open with jagged teeth. Hell, she stopped breathing altogether. Just stared blankly at them, wondering if her head would fit inside its mouth if it opened wide enough. Blood roared in her ears alongside the class's applause and her thoughts began to scramble and spiral. This is it. I'm dying tonight. There's no getting out of it. Just got to accept--

Bell rings. Bell rings. Bell rings. The voice was louder than the blood, the applause, and even her own thoughts.

"...Sorry. I froze up. I guess you could say I have a pretty severe case of glossophobia." Clara said at last, cautious and as steady as she could manage. "Fear of public speaking. It's the most common phobia, you know. More than spiders. Heights." She narrowed her eyes, then, as if to challenge the creature in front of her. "Even death." Technically it was the truth. Public speaking was her tamest fear by far. The concept that this teacher could potentially smell a lie on her dissuaded her from giving a harmless answer as a cheap, obvious cop-out of whatever this was. Play along? Sure, she would play along. But she wasn't about to strike a match when she was practically up to her neck in gasoline. No way in hell.

Technically, they were already forcing her to face one of her fears! Wasn't that enough?

"Even death?" Evidently it wasn't. The teacher tapped its sharp nails against the desk. Tap. Tap. Tap. One by one, like a clock ticking the seconds away. And then, faster than humanly possible, it wrapped its long, spindly fingers around Clara's neck. "Shall we test that?"

Tick, tick, tick. The voice said, as if imitating a clock-- or the teacher's nails. Bell rings. The teacher crushed her windpipe.

Clara really wasn't afraid of death. And again, she's not an edgy, stone-cold badass. She feared ways to die, particularly slow, torturous and painful ways that would frighten anybody, but-- death itself? No, not necessarily. Not when she viewed it as a fast-approaching inevitability. What the teacher did then was more than strangle her-- its touch tore a series of images from her mind. An old, beat up trailer. Bloody fists. Bruises on her brother's face. A dark ocean rising, rising, and swallowing her whole. Ropes. The pages of her very off-limits journal on display for everyone to see. Then those boys at the orphanage who had gathered around her with their infuriating smirks all those years ago, finding it so very hilarious and convenient that she couldn't talk. (That they could do whatever they wanted to her without the risk of her tattling on them, that is.) There were more, all horrible and began to race faster than she could keep up with. Then the trailer made a reappearance, filling her with dread as the vision forcibly dragged her closer to it. And when the door swung open--

"Now, now. Settle down." The teacher released her and wore a cheshire grin. "I am only joking, you see?"

The images might have stopped, but the nightmare wasn't over. Not even close. Cue the laughter of the faceless students. Embarrassment might've stung her face if she weren't so horrified. That was--

Clara wheezed, struggling to catch her breath as she stared at her desk. Terror glazed her eyes, but she refused, utterly refused to let herself cry. They wouldn't get the satisfaction, damn it! Besides, Thea was still sitting right there. If she broke down here and now, she'd seem-- expendable, maybe? Like Thea may regret that she ever took her hand when that man with the axe showed up...

"Now that, children, is what I call fear." The teacher makes a noise like its enjoying this a little too much. Like it was feeding on whatever darkness it just absorbed from Clara's mind. Eager for more, it cranked its head in Thea's direction. Leaned in close to her with a taste for blood. "Your turn, Miss Holloway. What is your greatest fear? Be honest, now." And tap, tap, tap went its nails on Thea's desk. "Because we will find out. One way or another."

 

[Syntra]

Glosso-- what?! Oh. Oh, so Clara was one of those people! Those people who had some fancy word for every fucking situation, as if regular-ass words weren't good enough for their enlightened ways. ('Ooo', Thea thought with dull resentment,'look at me! I'm Clara Loveless and I have a Greek and/or Latin synonym for literally everything, since wasting my brain space is fun. My hobbies include being a pretentious twat and making conversations that much harder for everyone involved. Now, would you like some dihydrogen monoxide?') And, yeah, maybe it wasn't the most adult thing, to focus on this tiny aspect of the whole supernatural fiasco, but you know what? It allowed Thea to sorta relax, even in the context of facing this goddamn eldritch monstrosity. Sorry, Clara! Nothing personal, but like, she had to choose a convenient target. It was tragic, truly, but necessary-- kinda like having to buy new shoes after your favorite pair fell apart, or burning the corpse of your favorite grandfather even if you'd really like to keep it. ...what? Mummification was a valid approach, dammit. If it had been good for the ancient Egyptians, it certainly was good for Thea as well!)

Except that then, then the smile froze on her face-- mostly because that fucking thing began choking Clara. Clara, her only ally in this mess! Oh, shit. Oh, fuck. Immediately, the blood in her veins changed into goddamn lava, because, really?! Without her, what the hell was she supposed to do? Not that Thea knew what to do even with her, mind you, but at least they could be clueless together. (Two heads were better than one, or something. If nothing else, she could point and laugh at her hapless companion! That stopped being true if she turned into a fucking corpse, though. Corpses weren't funny. No, they were cold and rotting and lifeless, and Thea had seen so many of them by now, too, and-- and--) Okay. Oookay, just take a deep breath. Be the hero you want someone else to be, right? All those stupid motivational quotes her mother loved so much claimed that, or something like that, which... fuck, Thea couldn't believe she was unironically resorting to them now, but such was life, she guessed. Regressing into the mindset of a fucking idiot while dealing with a faceless monstrosity!

As if sensing her resolve, the axe from before materialized in her lap-- out of fucking nowhere, just like the issues she totally hadn't been creating with her 'haha, this is a problem of my future self' approach, or a dog that sensed bacon being fried. Now, normally? This would have kinda worried Thea. Like, she wasn't one of those tech geeks that built their entire identity around looking up weird new gadgets, but even with her level of ignorance, she would have noticed had axes started coming with... uhh, what was it, anyway? A GPS and a teleport? Yeah, she was pretty fucking sure teleportation technologies didn't exist yet-- unless they'd frozen her via cryogenics without her ever realizing and it was actually year 3099, of course. (In that case, however? Thea would have more pressing issues than that. She had more pressing issues now, even, and that was the reason she didn't care why the axe had appeared so much! Like, for all she cared, it could have been the god sending her a little 'I love you' message.)

Anyway, Thea was done-- officially fucking done, both with this shitty school and its shitty teacher. (No way she had any credentials! No reputable institution would connect its name with... with this freak, that she was sure of.) That the teacher had released Clara? Yeah, that didn't really earn her any bonus points in Thea's book. Just, would you want to cuddle a tiger after it had almost mauled you, but decided it wasn't worth the effort in the end? Would you let the fucking tiger babysit your children? No, of course not! And while she didn't have any children to be worried for, she certainly had herself, and like, Thea deserved the same amount of care as potential offspring. So, no, she didn't trust the teacher with her person, either!)

"Hmm, hmm," the woman gripped the axe tighter beneath her desk, "let me think. Wouldn't want to give an inaccurate answer, you see? So... I think I may be afraid of letting others down. Of failure. For example, you know, failing to do this!" At which point Thea leapt out of her desk, like an angel of revenge, and just... buried the axe in its ugly, faceless mug. Again, it sounded disgusting as fuck, but honestly? That was a price she was willing to pay if the fucker left them alone, and-- oh. Oh, shit. Shit, shit, shit! Instead of falling apart, which was what any corpse with a shred of decency would have done, the bastard smiled. So, so casually, too! As if there wasn't a goddamn axe lodged in her skull.

"Ah, children never learn, do they? Because that, Miss Holloway, was a lie. Your entire life has been a failure, I'm afraid, and you're not afraid of living. No, what you resent is..." she grabbed her by her neck, too, and fuck, all strength left her body at once, as if she was one of those creepy fucking rag dolls, "...water. Drowning. Those memories aren't fun, are they? Being held under the surface and trying, so, so hard, to breathe." And, possibly for the first time since this clusterfuck had begun? There was a cold feeling of dread in her stomach-- ice or steel, or maybe something heavier than that, even. How the hell did she know?!

...which was a very good question, by the way, except that Thea didn't have the time to ponder over it. Not when parts of the floor just fucking disappeared, and underneath... underneath was a sea, wild and howling. (A snapshot of a sea, anyway, because yeah, it was a small patch. Barely larger than a kiddie pool, actually! Which still didn't stop the teacher from submerging her face under the water, though. Uh oh.) "And now you're going to die with that memory, dear. That will teach you that lies are a bad, bad thing!"

 

[ellarose]

Breathe, breathe, breathe. Clara brought a shaky hand to her throat. Whenever her mind became insufferable, she resorted to thinking about cute animals. Because what was more comforting than cute animals? Like the way Spooks nuzzled her awake first thing in the morning, or those wide-eyed stray kittens she and Raoul fostered last summer. Not that she was some kind of animated princess who could sing a chipper tune and summon an army of adorable critters to her defenses. (Although that would be pretty cool. Why did the scary fictional stuff have to be real? Cleary, she was born in the wrong genre. Because she doesn’t know how to handle this shit!) Not that happy thoughts were doing much good for her now. They did do some to lessen the sting of fear and paralysis, though, and she began to thaw just enough to gasp as she watched Thea raise the axe over her head a second time. (And, yes, it was just as attractive as the first time— damn it!) But where did that even—

Relief and awe might have hit her again if not for the fact that the teacher grinned and proceeded to choke Thea the same way she had to her only moments ago. If Clara knows anything at all about that touch, it wormed into your brain and dredged up your very worst fears. Spun them into an all encompassing vision with no escape. The other woman might have taken an, er, mocking tone in her note— but she doesn’t wish that experience on her.

“H-Hey.” Involuntary stuttering, great. Clara thought she broke that habit years ago— but evidently not. Yeah, she sounded real threatening like that! If an axe wouldn’t stop the faceless teacher, then surely her stutter would do the trick! Honestly, she doesn’t know what to do. But she has to do something. Because the teacher seems on taking this a step further with Thea than she did with her. It said it wanted to kill her, for shit’s sake! In vain, she smacks the teacher’s arms repeatedly with her sketchbook. “Hey! What happened to ‘the health of our students is paramount’, huh? Or was that a lie? If your job is to teach us the virtues of honesty then you ought to be fired. How’s she going to learn anything if you’re a boldfaced liar yourself?” Or, uh, a no-faced liar?

Logic, that’ll stop it. Yeah freaking right. Clara might as well be as insignificant as a fly at this point. Vaguely winded from her useless efforts, she winced and glanced around the classroom for help. But faceless students stared at her in the only way faceless students could stare. Apathetic and uncaring. Left behind.

Was... there something Clara was meant to remember? We’ve been waiting for such a long time.

No, no, no. Solving this colossal mystery could wait. You know, until after she did something to help her ally— her only ally, who would die if she failed here! Clara’s lower lip trembled. How, though? God, she hadn’t felt this helpless since... ugh, her head was throbbing. The scraping sensation at the back of her neck returned with a vengeance, but she ignored it as she lunged forward and took matters into her own hands. Actually, though. She grabbed onto the teacher’s arms and tried with all her might to pry its hands off of Thea. “Let go of—“

The world flickered and Clara found herself alone in a dark ocean. Water. She and Thea may be extremely different, but this was one subject she could agree with her on. Water was terrifying. Waves thrashed at her and swept over her head, dragging her under. Flailing, she pressed down on the rising terror and squinted to see. She could just make out Thea’s blurry form, thrashing under the water. Held down by hands that must be the teacher’s. There was no way she could swim fast enough to make it to her side. She could barely swim as it was! The ocean was only getting darker and darker, obscuring Thea from view. The cry she gave at the gut-wrenching prospect of dooming them both erupted in bubbles from her mouth. The air left her lungs and the surface was gone, gone, gone. Inevitable. She sunk deeper and deeper. Into the sea, into acceptance. It was inevitable from the start.

...And then a shadowy hand breaks through the water. Reaching out for her. Take my hand. Take it now. With no other option in sight, she reached back.

The instant their fingers intwined, shadow pressed to skin, Clara found herself standing in the classroom again. She and that nightmare fiend that lived in her chest... only now it was as though it had found a way to escape, leaking outside of her like the dark water she probably should have been coughing up right about now. (What she couldn’t see or know was that her eyes had gone alarmingly dark, dark as her blackest ink pen.) Her hand moved of its own volition, then, as if possessed— and before she could question it, she realized she could will the shadows sprawled around her to take any shape of her choosing. So when she wound two tendrils around the teacher’s arms, she was able to sharpen their edges just enough to wield them like swords and cut its arms from their sockets. They dissolved into dust, then, all the way up to the fingertips, freeing Thea from its death grip. Good, good.

That should have been enough. This power, though, was the equivalent of a sugar rush when you’re five years old. It was endorphins and adrenaline galore. Embracing her nightmares, her creations, and allowing them to take over. Letting this thing out, that’s been locked inside of her for do long, it was cathartic. Clara doesn’t stop. Or, to be more accurate, she can’t stop.

Wrapping the teacher’s waist in more of those shadowy tendrils, she carried herself with an indifferent air and slammed it into the wall repeatedly, to the point where it began to dent and crack.

“Your turn, bitch. What’s your greatest fear?” This was Clara’s voice and, at the same time, it wasn’t. The same could be said for her actions. Whatever she latched onto in that dark sea had latched back onto her. And that really should have concerned her. Except the part of her that worried? For all extents and purposes, it had gone to bed. So she smiled sweetly, if not sweeter than the teacher had before. “And don’t lie.”

 

[Syntra]

Water. Water as far as the eye could see, really-- endless, endless depths, threatening to swallow her whole. That, and the fingers that were about to crush her windpipe. This just wasn't Thea's fucking day, huh? Like, pretty much none of them were, especially since her parents had gotten the bright idea of locking her up in that Totally Not Shady asylum, but still. Being drowned by an eldritch monstrosity beat several of her records at once! (Bubbles were rising around her face, and if she could, she'd stop them from escaping-- all that precious, precious oxygen, now thoroughly wasted. ...it was funny, wasn't it? How breathing had seemed like such an automatic thing mere seconds ago, and now it was the centre of her fucking universe. Yeah, your lungs being on fire tended to have that effect!)

With all her might, Thea thrashed, tried to free herself of the grasp, but the thing about being choked? It robbed you of your strength, too, so more than anything else, she resembled a fly flailing in a spider's web. Pointless, pointless, pointless! Especially since her vision was beginning to darken, too. (Slowly, the world around her blurred-- instead of the usual sharp edges, there was a kaleidoscope of dull colors, dull colors and pain as well, and, fuck. Thea really was going to die here, wasn't she? And all due to the whims of a fucking control freak who didn't understand the concept of GDPR! Wow, just wow. Like, she had known her death wouldn't mirror those of the fantasy protagonists whose fictional lives she had worshiped, but wasn't this a bit excessive? ...no, apparently. In fact, Thea could imagine was Fate thought about it, and it went roughly like this: 'Oh, so you dared to have dreams, huh? Hurrr durrr, that means you get to be the first gruesome death in a horror movie in a horror movie instead. Despair not, though! As a bonus, you shall receive a free red shirt after you enter AfterlifeTM. Disclaimed: this is only true if you pay your admission fee first.')

Anyway, yeah. At this point? Thea had kinda given up on fighting-- mostly because it was hard to continue flexing your muscles when you were, you know, busy trying not to lose your consciousness.

...so this was her end for realsies, huh. No superhero would swoop down from the skies to save her, nor would the teacher slip on a banana peel, nor would someone shout 'cut' to reveal that this had been a particularly well-crafted episode of one of those fucking hidden camera shows. Nah, not at all. This really, truly was her demise! The unceremonious period behind a pitiful sentence fragment, now forever unfinished. Damn, damn, damn! (Not that Thea really intended to do anything meaningful with her life, but like, it was vaguely nice, you know? Shit like staring into the sun till you saw were these goofy spots, and eating so much ice-cream your stomach hurt.)

'Play along. Play along. Watch the face. The face!'

What? What face? And, besides, couldn't they fucking leave her alone so that she'd at least get to die in peace?! Like, no need to waste your breath, idiots. Thea wouldn't follow your dumbass advice even if she wanted to, mostly because dying took precedence!

...except that then, then those hands dissolved into nothingness. Fucking what? Had that thing been bluffing? Gasping for air, Thea pulled backwards-- away from the water, from the suffering, from everything, really. Instinctively, her hands flew to her neck, which, ouch. This would fucking bruise, alright! No ~revealing~ clothes for her for a while, it seemed. Needless to say, however, that Thea's concerns regarding her fashion choices faded into obscurity faster than the politicians' promises shortly after the elections. And as for why? Let's just say that one look at Clara, who had somehow turned into the practitioner of dark arts within the span of three seconds, kinda had that effect on her! (Speaking of effects... oh, shit. Shit, shit, shit! Never before had Thea been forced to confront this fact, but dark witches were hot. Hot in that 'step on me' way, which not everybody could appreciate, but you know what? Those people were fucking cowards. Cowards who deserved zero good things, and definitely not sexy witches!)

Somewhere in the back of her mind, Thea did realize this development should have been, uh, concerning. Like, people didn't generally master magical powers out if nowhere, you know? Still, this was a magic user who wasn't trying to kill her, and that meant she passed pretty much all of Thea's tests. So, yeah. Go, Clara! Kick the stupid thing's ass! Show the bitch why, exactly, it was a bad idea to fuck with her, and---

The face. Face, face, face, face, face!

Jesus fucking Christ, calm down, Thea rolled her eyes. Face? What about it? In case you haven't noticed, it doesn't have one!

...or so she had thought. As Clara worked on the ass-kicking she hadn't been able to deliver, cracks appeared on the smooth, featureless surface of the thing's head-- on the spot where her face should have been, really. (It kinda resembled those cracks on your iphone screen after you'd dropped it, now that Thea thought about it. Except that, you know, you didn't usually see a child's face staring at you from those cracks! A child's face that stared at them in utter fucking terror, too.)

"Whoa. Whoa, whoa, whoa! Clara, do you--" 'see that,' Thea wanted to say, but no, that would have been a waste of breath. Once you entered the psycho mode, it seemed, words weren't enough.

...instinctively, she pulled herself to her feet. (This was a bad fucking idea. A tragically bad idea, actually-- the kind of plan that would force you to write your fucking last will before even thinking of implementing the first step. And Thea? Despite knowing all of that, Thea ran to her companion and... hugged her from behind. Just like that, as if Devil himself hadn't possessed her! ...yeah, she was dead. Deader than fucking disco. Goodbye, cruel but beautiful world! Knowing you had been nice, aside from all the times it had distinctly sucked.)

"Clara. Clara, just fucking stop! You don't need to turn into the Terminator. You were fine the way you were, dammit!"

 

[ellarose]

"Nothing to say? Don't tell me you never finished your lesson plans." Clara flung it against the wall again. Through her eyes, all she could see were the rows of sharp teeth, the smile they curled into while it choked them and conjured up their fears. The predator -- and them, the prey. Sitting next to Thea, unable to do anything for her, she sank into a dark abyss, a watery tomb of powerlessness. (In her lifetime, she had stared into that abyss more times than she could possibly say. Taking fate into her own hands? Hah, no, it was never that simple. She had tried and each time it slipped through fingers, like water. Tried so many times that, at a certain point, she stopped trying. Sometimes life was the equivalent of waiting out a tornado on the floor of an old trailer kitchen, crossing your fingers and hoping it wouldn't overturn your entire life and kill you in one fell swoop.) Now, however? The tables have finally turned in her favor. Now she wasn't helpless at all. And like hell was she going to give it the chance to get the upper hand again. "Didn't count on us living through our first day, did you?"

At a certain point, the classroom shattered away again. In this space, only Clara and the monstrous teacher (as well as the shadowy monstrosity between them) existed. This probably should have concerned her, seeing as this realm seemed completely separate from reality, just like the other two... but all she could see was her target. Especially since, as if for the express purpose of pissing her off, the teacher grinned again. As if none of the damage she inflicted even mattered.

"What's your game, here?" In vain, Clara threw it against the wall again. A low, dark chuckle echoes in her mind. If you want something, my dove, unlike the other voices, this one spoke in complete sentences and sounded like a charismatic spectator of the whole affair. Detached from the stakes and yet egging her on as if it wanted to watch the world burn. You need to say it with your whole chest. Or, better yet, take it for yourself. The part of her that was put into a deep sleep began to rouse, just a little. Pet names? Was this guy high? (Was she? She'd never been high before, but maybe this is what it--) But unlike the weird voice in her head, she had more important things to focus on. "--You tried to kill Thea!"

Oh. Wow. Clara hadn't heard her own voice hit that volume in years. It wasn't even a scream. Just a shout-- a mere shout that would hardly even be qualified to compete with a child yelling for her mother after getting into a fight with their sibling over a favorite toy. She might've gone into her reasoning, then, like 'yeah, she's impulsive and a bit rude, but she doesn't deserve to die!' but-- uh, she shocked herself into stillness. Oddly enough, it wasn't the shadows leaking out of her, but her own voice that made her question everything. (Somehow, nightmare creatures are just more familiar to her, huh?) Either way, it stuns her just long enough for the teacher to grow itself a new arm. And that new arm snaked past all the shadows and reached for her.

It stretched its long, pointed fingers out towards her face. Rather than grab her throat, though, they caressed her cheek lovingly... and then gripped her chin. Hard. In a way that was eerily and entirely too familiar for her liking.

"You can change your address and your name. You can buy new clothes and perfume to hide that trailer trash stench." The teacher had her holding her breath, at this point. Preparing for the blow she knew was coming. Don't listen. Keep going. Destroy-- "But I see the resemblance. The intensity in your eyes just now? Oh, it's undeniable."

"You are your father's daughter." The teacher said, each word slow and intentional. The corners of its mouth crept wider and wider as it watched those five words plunge into Clara's heart like daggers. They dig deep under the surface, past all her defenses, and hit her greatest fear point-blank. The part of her that was still herself recoiled and her eyes flickered in hue, like a broken computer monitor. Wait--

"I-- no. I'm not like him. I'll never be..."

"You were fine the way you were, dammit!" Oh. Was that Thea's voice? Where was she, anyway--? Where was... Clara blinked slowly, as if waking up. Her eyes faded at last to their usual brown and stayed that way. One by one, the shadows snapped back inside of her with the speed of elastic bands released after being stretched to their limits. The voice in her head tries to compete, fiercely angry now, a jarring contrast from before. No. She's mine, you can't have--

Clara watched the empty scenery around her melt as the last shadow released the teacher. The voice in her head faded away into obscurity. Ah. That made some degree of sense, didn't it? That it transferred those visions by touch. Even if she was the one to initiate, it had... still managed to dig around in her head. "What happened? What was..." Speaking of touch, she registered then that there were arms wrapped around her. Soft warmth. Comfort. It was kind of nice, okay? Except, uh, while her touch-starved self reacted rather pleasantly to being held, she was trembling like a leaf and didn't want whoever this was to feel that. Thea. Of course it was Thea, because who else could it be? And she was alive, thank goodness, but... Geez. A blush burned across her cheeks-- the heat quickly thawing the parts of her that froze with fear.

"Okay, that's enough." Flustered, Clara batted lightly at Thea's arms to free herself. Though unintentional on her part, the gesture made her come across like a grumpy cat who simply had too much pride to be cuddled. "That's enough, don't touch me."

Except she didn't account for being incapable of support her own weight when she escaped. Clara saw stars and grabbed a desk to keep herself from falling to the floor. Pressing her eyes shut, she shoved the heel of her hand against her forehead. Fighting through it, she cracks her eyes open again and peered up at the mess. The mess... she made? No. Those cracks all over the wall. The cracks where the teacher's faceless face was... the child's terrified expression that took its place? What the--

"I... I didn't do that." She swallowed. Those words rung very, very hollow. It was sinking in slowly, dawning on her with horror. "Did I? You were... you were going to die if I didn't do something and I just-- I--" Memories flashed and her head throbbed painfully. Nausea rose up and she struggled to breathe around it. Another panic attack? Ugh, great timing. Without the strength to even find a seat, Clara curled down onto the classroom floor to give her legs a much-needed rest. Tried to focus on breathing in and out. She did that-- christ, she knew she did, but-- how?

 

[Syntra]

Hugging her was... uh, interesting. Interesting in so, so many ways Thea's head fucking spun, actually, though of course she'd never admit to that. Like, it was just touch, okay? Nothing weird to see here. Mammals touched each other all the time, supposedly to 'strengthen group cohesion' and 'keep each other warm'. So, simple biological needs! (Wow, would mommy be proud of her for remembering all the bullshit teachers had drilled into her head. A golden star for Thea, the bestest pupil ever! ...too bad, then, that this nifty little theory didn't explain why she felt like this. Yeah, yeah, part of it was about enjoying the closeness of someone who probably wasn't going to jab more needles under her skin, but like, that wasn't everything, you know? 'Cause that sensation of deja vu tugging at her sleeves, practically begging her to face all that she had buried, sure as fuck wasn't written in her DNA. 'Look back,' a voice from within asked. 'Look back, otherwise you're lost. Walking in a circle. Do you want to be lost, Thea? Instead of embracing what you are.' ...which, what? Had those voices taken grammar classes when she'd been too busy being drowned, or something? Either way, Thea decided she wasn't going to do that. Nope, nope, nope! Buried shit should stay buried, thank you very much-- not respecting that simple rule only validated the existence of zombies, and those fuckers didn't deserve to feel valid. No, doubts should eat them from the inside! Doubts and maggots, which was what should have happened to all corpses period, but, nooo, of course not. Not even death itself meant anything anymore, it seemed. ...what did that mean for inheritance laws? Like, would your zombified relative get to keep the house if they proved you'd killed them? Asking for a friend.)

Just like a cat, the voice pawed at her brain, except that, haha, suckers! Thea happened to be an expert on ignoring commands, as pretty much anyone who had had the misfortune of having to deal with her could attest. This entry-level shit? Oh, it had nothing on her mother's guilt trips. ('Dorothea!' she wailed in her memories, her voice so grating you could fucking use it for peeling potatoes. 'Don't you have any shame? Wearing this to your graduation... you have disgraced both me and your father. Is this how you repay our kindness?') So, instead of listening, she stuck metaphorical fingers in her ears and began to sing, as loud as her inner voice could manage: 'la la la la la la lah!' (Which always worked one hundred percent of the time, aside from the occasions when it didn't. Right now, though? Clara herself provided a better distraction than Thea ever could have.)

"Ooops, my bad!" she raised her hands in the air, obviously not hurt by Clara's prickliness or anything silly like that. Just, no, no, no. Thea's emotional stability didn't fucking depend on randos not wanting to be touched-- in fact, this was a totally reasonable reaction. "Sorry for stopping your rampage. Obviously, you had it under control this whole time. Next time you pull off shit like this, I'll fill out an official request form before I dare to touch you. Is there any format you prefer, Clara?" See? Not salty at all! This was a textbook example of how well-adjusted, stable adults acted in such situations. Ten out of ten, truly. If this trend continued, Thea might want to pursue a career in counseling, or something-- since pretty much anyone could learn from her wise, wise ways. De-escalating conflicts? That happened to be her fucking specialty. And speaking of that particular skill of hers...

"You didn't?" Thea arched her eyebrow. "Well, could have fooled me. Like, I am a certified cuckoo, but it sure as hell looked to me like you were doing something, at least. I can't prove this isn't an elaborate daydream, though, so you can take this with a grain of salt." She had more to say, because duh, Thea always had more to say, but at that moment? Pity emerged somewhere from the depths of her soul, and as with all her whims, she leaned into it. "Look, it was badass. That's all I'm going to say about it! We're not in Salem here-- I'm not gonna judge you for bashing the fucker's face in, no matter how you did it. Dark powers are cool, I think. No, really, the general attitudes towards it are just the result of the Christian smear campaign," she waved her hand, as if evil magic apologia was something she did on a daily basis. "Man, I wish I had something this cool at my disposal. I mean, yeah, I stopped you because you seemed to take a bit too far, but with greater control? You'll basically have your own nuke! Every little girl's dream," Thea nodded sagely. "Except that, wait, no-- I don't think there's any radiation. Not that I know what radiation is like, of course, but I guess I'd at this distance melt, and I remain unmelted. Even so, it's still cool. How did you do it?"

Meanwhile, the teacher continued to lie on the floor-- her body seemed broken and lifeless, with the only exception being the child's face. And, oh, how bewildered it looked! "This... this can't be," she stammered. "You're not supposed to be here. This isn't how the lesson usually goes! I should have... should have killed them all, and yet... What are you doing here?"

 

[ellarose]

Clara breathed in to the count of ten, held for a beat, and breathed out. Hyperventilating wouldn't help anyone in this situation, least of all her. She read once before that a focus object often helped in these situations-- and with Thea running her mouth the way she was? Well, it was practically impossible to focus on anything else in the room. And anything else in the room would be a surefire way to remind her of their, uh, less than calming circumstances. So fixating on Thea it was. (She had no other option! It had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that she looked quite charming with an axe or gave nice hugs--) For now, she tasked herself with compiling a list of details she could see from where she was sitting. Imprinting each one on her mind, as if she intended to sketch her from memory later, she observed the brand of her shoes, her torn sleeve, the curvature of her facial features, the color of her eyes, and the spunky way she gesticulated when she talked. And oh boy did she talk a lot. Seriously, she could give Beth a run for her money. Either way, her ramblings alongside reassurances that she looked 'cool' instead of 'scary' did, admittedly, help her pull herself back together. Well. Until she asked how she did it, that is.

"Oh, yeah. I descend from a long line of witches who train to fight poltergeists and the undead. This is all a test. My initiation into their ranks." Clara said gravely, citing the usual spiel emblazoned on the inside cover of practically every other book in the supernatural section of the library. "I just call upon the spirit of Morgan le Fey and--" The story sounded so fake that she was tempted to break character and roll her eyes at it, really. But with the night they’ve been having so far—? Yeah. Maybe she shouldn’t push the sarcasm too far, in case Thea actually decided this story was plausible. (At this point, after a night of hearing voices and confronting zombies and faceless, fear-snatching monsters? Topped off with the cherry of whatever the hell she just did-- Clara wouldn't blame her if she took her words at face value.) The fact that she was able to summon up any sarcasm at all proved Thea had managed to calm her down, if only a little. Except the gravity of everything that just happened bludgeoned her over the head once again when she caught another glimpse of the wall. Blood rushed in her ears like twin waterfalls and, at a loss, she gazed down at her hands. I did that. I can't believe I--

"--and don’t you think I would’ve done something sooner if I actually knew what I was doing?" Clara curled her fingers inward before pressing them over her face. A humorless and faintly hysteric laugh fluttered out of her. Like, for instance, when that guy came after them with the axe? Powers would have been real nifty, then! She struggled to cope with the reemerging panic as she lowered her head like a turtle desperate to hide away in her shell. To hide in her shell and never come out again. "I wouldn’t be freaking out right now if I knew what I was doing. I don't know how I did it."

Then, of course, the child joined in with more questions and Clara peeked through her fingers to stare at it incredulously. Really!? Does it look like she has all the answers? Small, terrified out of her wits and curled up on the classroom floor?

"Yeah, well. You tried to kill us. But you didn't." Clara took into account the fact that she was speaking to whatever supernatural entity had been controlling that teacher. An entity with a voice that was strangely familiar, now that she thought about it. "Wait a second. Are you..." But if this girl's voice and the voice in her head were one and the same, then why-- she blinked hard, pressing a hand to her temple. "Weren't you the one who led us here in the first place?"

The child recoiled. "Huh?"

Huh indeed. Steeling herself now that there was a legitimate mystery to solve, Clara reached for her sketchbook, which she had brandished as a weapon earlier, and opened it on her lap. Grabbing the pen tucked behind her ear, she pulled the lid off with a loud snap and made a sketch of the door outside. "We've... been hearing fragments. Both of us." There it was. She was too distracted with her sketching to realize what she was confessing to. (...But, really. What were some voices in her head compared to the dark arts she just performed? As far as she was concerned, their circumstances took quite enough twists and turns to warrant it.) Then she went on to label her drawing with the words 'blood circle' and 'find key'. "A voice in our heads. I don't know about Thea, but mine sounds a whole lot like you. You led us here. So why are you saying that we're not supposed to--"

"No. No... I didn't." The child spoke very carefully, fear flashing in her eyes. Like a hostage who could only communicate through subtleties, lest she tip off her captor. "Next time, don't lie. Lies are very, very bad." Next time--? What? Bell rings. On and on.

The child's face vanished. The classroom began to warp. And then, for the first time since this whole thing started, the bell actually rang.

Can't say. Not now! The voice pleaded in her head. Clara's brow furrowed and before she could even blink, she and Thea found themselves sitting in a cafeteria. Surrounded by tables populated by faceless students who, for the most part, kept to themselves. Lunchtime, huh. (Sure brought back memories. Particularly that time she was so fed up with Nicole Simmons's brand of 'fake nice' that she used her first words at school to kindly inform her that her 'imaginary friend', a.k.a the voice, thought she was a bitch. A bold move, especially for her-- and honestly? It was worth the trip to the principal's office and the halfhearted lecture from Raoul, because she scored herself a private table.) Okay. Okay, okay, okay. Without any imminent danger on the horizon, she was left far too curious by this turn of events to succumb to panic again. With her sketchbook opened on the table in front of her, she titled the page with the words 'play along' in her rounded, cursive handwriting.

"This is a game, right? Games have rules. And, ideally, games can be won." Clara began. She sketched the axe and drew an arrow from it, pointing to the door. Then she marked a big 'x' over the arrow. "When we don't listen to the voice, we suffer consequences. Potentially life threatening consequences." Lost in thought, she tilted her pen in a seesaw motion between her fingers and bit her lower lip. "Games also have an... an objective. We need to figure out what that is if we want to get out of here. The voice seems to know the rules, so... maybe it knows the objective too."

The pen slipped from Clara's hand. Flinching at the sound, she dipped down to pick it up and noticed the yellow, red and gray checker-print floor. Kind of an odd choice for a school cafeteria... but okay.

"I... I get not wanting to dredge up trauma, okay? That's kind of why I didn't say anything. About the voices." Clara finally acknowledged, gluing her eyes to the page to avoid looking at Thea. Getting back to work, she mapped out a chart with both of their names at the top and wrote what the voice had given her to work with under her own. On and on, left behind, bell rings, white roses-- all of it. Once finished, she offered a meek glance and shrug. "If it's any consolation, you can consider yourself special. You're the only one who knows. Well, other than my dog. And that... ghost child?" Who could very well be the voice itself? Either way, it was still a pretty exclusive club, wasn't it?

Geez. Clara shook her head with an expression of mild bewilderment before sliding her sketchbook and pen across the table to Thea. She bit her lip again, trying to ignore the way her heart threatened to pound out of her chest. Why was she getting so worked up over this? Thea had been able to mention the voices so casually, too! "We've been getting different pieces. I don't know why, but if we put them together... maybe we can find a way out of here."

 

[Syntra]

"Mmm, mmm," Thea nodded, deathly serious. "I guess that makes sense, with the zombie mafia and everything. Not sure why I am here, though. Like, if I am supposed to be your fucking fairy godmother or something, I'm afraid that I received zero training for the job." ...was she maybe descended from the line of plucky superhero sidekicks? 'Cause if so, fate sure had a strange sense of humor. (Her parents, who had always been so scandalized at the mere hint of anything not being normal? Of anything tarnishing their precious mental image of suburbia and the white picket fence? That their daughter's bloodline carried a secret this outrageous filled Thea with a strange kind of satisfaction-- like, haha, fuckers, you really thought you could outline your entire lives, didn't you? Well, too bad! ...not that they weren't used to disappointment by now, though. Her existence had been just one long string of disappointments, starting with her preferring blue to pink back in kindergarten and ending with her, uh, appetite for various substances. Even so! Variety was the spice of life, you see, and Thea was happy that after all these years, she could still come up with new, innovative ways of showing them the metaphorical middle finger.)

She was about to interrogate Clara about the whole Morgan le Fey thing, when-- ah. Ah, okay. It had been a joke. A joke that probably would have been funny, even, had they not fallen down this rabbit hole where this seemed not only plausible, but also like the best fucking explanation out there! Unamused, Thea rolled her eyes. "A pro tip: try inventing something that isn't actually one hundred percent in line with what's happening if you're going for sarcasm. Like, I dunno. Maybe this being one of those hidden camera shows? No, wait, that could be true. Hmmm... Perhaps it could be a secret governmental project geared towards finding out just how easily people can be manipulated? Fuck, no! That could also be true. Okay, okay, I admit that thinking of a scenario that seems totally implausible is an, uh, challenge," she ran her fingers through her hair. "But if you wanna hear justifications as for why I'd trust that-- well, maybe it was some bullshitty trial on your part as well. 'Hurr durr, let's see whether she can only wait to be saved,' or something."

The child's musings, of course, made no fucking sense. And like, why would they? Thea had abandoned the world of reason the second she had stepped into that fucking cemetery, so not making sense actually made sense, in a way. Just another continuation of the trend, really. At this point, it wouldn't even surprise her if she grew wings and then Archangel Gabriel informed she needed to go catch clouds in her fucking butterfly net. Yes, that was how nuts everything was! ...except that then, then Clara mentioned something interesting. "Both of us? What do you mean by that?" Because, if Thea wasn't wildly misinterpreting shit, then this translated into... oooo, bingo! Now, she would have loved to say something in reaction to that, but the world around her began spinning, spinning, spinning, faster than a carousel, and then--

--then she was suddenly sitting in a goddamn cafeteria. Ah, all these sweet, sweet memories! (Have you ever tried to be an obviously CrazyTM kid at school? Man oh man, if not, then you sure were missing out. You'd know, at least, that the cafeteria was such a prime bully central! Blessedly free from the watchful eye of the teachers, and full of ammunition, too. ...still, there was no point to dwelling on that. Like, was there even a better coping mechanism than shoving everything under the carpet and pretending it had never existed in the first place? Thea sorely doubted that.)

"Well, I mean," she shrugged, "we've known each other for approximately five seconds, so I don't really blame you for not wanting to share your tragic backstory. Especially the cuckoo part! Welcome to the fucking club, by the way." ...could this be, like, a collective hallucination? Or a couple hallucination? Not that they were a couple, mind you, but the prospect didn't feel entirely unpleasant, and-- whoa, whoa, whoa. Someone here had been single for too long, it seemed, and should probably sign up for one of those dating apps instead of, you know, trying to get a hot witch gf while trapped in an abandoned school. Just a tip, though!

"Unless we're stuck there for that brat's amusement. Children are cruel, aren't they? Maybe she grew bored of setting ants on fire, and decided to play with something bigger. That is totally what would happen if you gave kids magical powers, you see. All those YA novels after thirteen year olds saving the world? Fucking bullshit!" ...again, though, there was no point to not playing along. Like, what would she gain by that? Preservation of the pride that had already been shredded to pieces? That ship had sailed years ago, man. Years ago!

"But fine, let's say you're right and we can figure this shit out. What have you been hearing? Aside from what I mentioned, I didn't..."

'Look inside the pie, and cry and cry and cry!' Wow, okay. Was she supposed to repeat that with a straight fucking face? The Lord was testing her, truly.

"Fine," Thea groaned, "I did hear a new thing. It's ridiculous, though. Here goes nothing: 'Look inside the pie, and cry and cry and cry." Ooo, ominous! Ominous and hilarious, which, weirdly enough, were two concepts that often went hand in hand for her. Clowns, for example? Funny, but also blood-curdling!

"I have no idea what the fuck is that supposed to mean, but what is new? Might as well state that the sky is blue."

And, as if the school itself wished to answer her question, the door of the kitchen opened-- four faceless cooks were pushing a large food cart. Its contents were a mystery, mostly because of the giant lid, but the way the students all looked up in unison? Oh, it must have been something grand!

"Well hello, children," one of them said. "Yes, yes, it's the Day of the Pie, just like every day. Who wants to taste it first? Worry not-- everyone will get a piece!"

 

[ellarose]

But your arm, Clara nearly interjected as Thea shrugged the whole thing off her shoulders. What if they figured out the situation with the door before things got out of hand? Before she got hurt? Then again... there was no way either of them could have known what would happen back there. So she pushed down on her regrets and responded with a feeble nod instead. Letting this secret out, this part of herself she kept locked inside for years and years and years felt... very strange, to say the least. Nerves fluttered restlessly beneath her skin, rising and bursting like soda bubbles. As if she just detonated a bomb, she waited with bated breath for an explosion. Which is kind of silly, because the consequences for this choice wouldn't crop up until much later. And there more than likely wouldn't even be a later if she kept this to herself all night, so-- perhaps she should take a page from Thea's book and just roll with it. The other woman's words were like balm for her soul. Eventually, her nerves slowed their hustle and left her alone.

In the aftermath, Clara felt light as a feather. Like a gust of wind could carry her off. Now that Thea knew, she wouldn't have to carry it all by herself.

"Those novels are total bullshit." Clara nodded firmly in agreement. Realistically, she imagined kids with powers would likely take more of a horrific Carrie-esque turn. Schools and entire towns would go up in flames left and right. The world would be, excuse her french, thoroughly fucked. Slowly, her gaze trailed back to her sketchbook. Sometimes escapism was the only way for a helpless kid to get by in a world where they were at the mercy of poor decisions made by the adults in their lives. "But kids deserve their fantasies too, you know?"

Unfortunately they weren't here for book club. Furrowing her brow, she tried to refocus on their objective.

"She looked... scared." Her expression softened when she recalled the girl's face. The only face in this sea of facelessness. The face she saw after she-- she-- god, the girl stared at her with terror like she might have at her-- Clara brushed her fingertips over her chin, where the teacher had grabbed her earlier. Before terror can claw into her again, though, a certain realization hit. Oh. Or what if they both were right, in some capacity? "Too scared to be doing all of this for a laugh, anyway. It probably goes deeper than that. You're probably right that she's bored, though."

Clara blushed and tapped her pen lightly against her sketchbook. "I, uh, made a chart. See?" Seeing their names written next to each other is doing things to her-- when it really shouldn't be doing anything at all. "You can write everything you've heard here."

"...Did you catch what she said before? 'This isn't how the lesson usually goes?'" Clara tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. "All night I've been hearing the words 'on and on'. And then there was that circle on the door. If we take that as symbolism, maybe this entire day is stuck on a l--" Destroy. The other voice , the frightening and deep one, crackled to life in her mind as if through radio static. The itch at the back of her neck returned with a vengeance. She took in a sharp breath. Before she could make any sense of that, Thea explained what she just heard. And, um, it definitely came out of left field, enough to make every other thought in her head disappear like smoke. She arched an eyebrow. "...Pie?"

"Great." Clara muttered as the doors swung open wide to reveal, surprise surprise, more faceless assholes rolling in a cart stacked high with those prophesied pies. Seriously? She was not wearing the right kind of make-up for tears, either. Time to cry, cry, cry, huh? Yeah, well she'd like to see them try, try, try to make her. (Okay, no. No more of that. The rhymes were already getting old.) Now, she wasn't heartless or anything. Tears slipped from her eyes occasionally-- like when dogs died in movies. Especially when dogs died in movies. But she hasn't had a legitimate cry-- like a gut-wrenching, tear-streaming cry-- in years. But the teacher almost got her, after it shuffled so invasively through her memories. Whatever this pie was, whatever it represented, she already hated it.

Be wary of cherry, so so scary. The voice, the usual one, annoyingly decided to keep the whole rhyming trend alive. Grapple with apple and you will snapple! Seriously-- what was that? Snapple? That wasn't even a real word! (With the exception of the drink brand, but she was pretty sure that wasn't what it was going for there. Really reaching for something, wasn't it?) The rhymes needed to stop. In fact, everything about this night needed to stop.

"We have your three favorite flavors today! Cherry, apple, and peach." The faceless humanoid things began organizing the pies on three different tables at the front of the cafeteria, as if setting up booths for a bake sale. "Please line up in an orderly fashion for your preferred flavor. And remember, children," It smiled, then, revealing rows of the same sharp, unsettling teeth the teacher had before. "the pie is mandatory."

Faceless students eagerly stood from their tables and began fashioning the lines the faceless adults asked for.

"The voice just warned me about cherry and apple. Cherry is 'scary' and, apparently, apple will make you snap." Clara whispered to Thea, not wanting to attract any attention to their table. "Although I feel like I snapped a long time ago, if I'm being honest. It... didn't say anything about peach." If the side effects followed the whole rhyming trend, weird as it seems, then hm. What rhymed with peach? Leech? Ew, gross. Should they pick a pie with a warning label attached or try their luck with the mystery pie? It was hard to say. If she had a choice, she would claim she preferred cake to pie and opt out of the whole affair. But if pie is mandatory and school is about mindless obedience, then technically there is no choice. Other than the flavor, that is. Taking into account what Thea heard, should they pick the one most likely to make them cry? Ugh. It was still too early to know for sure.

Clara observed the first round of students carrying their trays of pie off to their respective tables. The lines were gradually thinning out and she could feel those faceless things beginning to notice them at their empty table in the corner. She winced. They were no doubt feeling eager to stomp over and assert their authority over them. "I really don't want to watch these things eat, but let's try and wait this out to see how they react."