Hans nodded in agreement with Daniel, simply going about their business regardless was a sure way to have things end up badly.
"I will say this is all entirely too strange and outlandish for this to be anything normal. There is entirely the possibility someone is planning something bad."
Still, indeed this was way too intricate for his own old "friends". Whoever was doing this was building toward something bigger.
Hall
Blush fading, Terry gave Zia a small grin and grabbed the offered hand, hauling himself to his feet.
"Maybe we could try the emergency exits?" Terry suggested to Dan. "Failing that, maybe we could ask one of the staff..."
edited 4th Jun '17 1:39:37 AM by svenorzokarkoff
AKA Nixer
—Rodger's High, Halway—
Dan looked pensive.
"I mean, maybe... Why wouldn't they be locked like the others? Even the windows are locked, so..."
He shrugs.
"We can try them, if you want. But I'm sure they'll be locked too."
bork
Transcender of Gender
Class 42A
The sudden presence of another person made Ciro instinctively back off a step. A little out of surprise, but mostly a subconscious reaction to someone getting close to him. Just one of those things that you picked up when you knew you weren't as clean as you should be. He quickly followed it with a grin at Adam's comment, trying to let the other boy know that his misstep wasn't due to any uneasiness between them.
His attention was drawn back to Ivy as she entered, continuing the riff against Claremont as she went. When she told him not to pass on the teacher's gossip, he waved his hand in a silent don't worry about it gesture. What Mr. Claremont didn't know wouldn't hurt him, and it's not like Ciro could really disagree with Ms. Havilland's assessment.
"Now there's a question." He pulled a mobile from his pocket that, much like himself, was a little grimy around the edges. Normally he only used it for emergencies, or to check up on his siblings, but he figured this was odd enough to warrant its use. His thumb flew across the keypad, putting together a short text to send off to his dad.
Powers out at school. Is it the same over there? He hit Send and then tucked the device back into his jeans. "Guess we just have to wait 'til the backup kicks in. Orrr ignore the PA and head off like some of the others seem to be doing."
they/them || "Forgive me, regent of queer amphibians" - Lt.BGob
Adam breathed a little sigh of relief. It was fine, but Ciro turned back pretty quickly. No big worry about the interruption then. He felt like he needed something to do though. Without the lights he sure wasn't gonna teach anyone else. When Ciro was finished speaking...
"We might as well step out anyway. See what is going on, assuming we'll be able to see anything. By the way, who were you texting?"
Blood Mage Apologist
Roger's High, Hallway
Sebastian looked at the chair in his hands as if he'd only just realized that it was there. "Okay, maybe I did jump to the worst case solution..." He admitted to Zia, setting it down. He glanced at Hans, and his eyes widened as he realized just what he'd said. Shit.
Terry suggested trying the emergency exits to Dan, who pointed out that they'd probably be locked.
"I feel like somewhat drastic measures need to be taken," he announced, glancing at the surrounding students. "Like Dan pointed out, this is not normal. What the hell are the chances that all the windows, the door- and probably the other doors, honestly- would get locked, just as the power went out?"
He motioned to Hans. "You're probably right. I don't want to be stuck in here if someone comes barging in with a gun."
"If someone could give me a lift to an air vent entrance, I could try to get out that way," Sebastian pointed out. "I wouldn't normally try it, but this sure as hell isn't normal. It wouldn't work for any of you guys- you're much too big, no offense- but I'm small and skinny. I could get outside and see if the doors are barred or just jammed. Maybe let you guys out, too,"
Wooze looks at Glass with a 'please take her away' look
Hans nodded in agreement with what Sebastian was saying here - this was sure as hell not a normal thing, and even if it wasn't his old "friends", then it was probably someone a lot better organized and just as capable of horrifying violence. It fell to them, then, to get out of here before that happened.
"...Alright, but we need to be careful. Whoever this is has been thorough and careful. They've probably seen enough movies to know about an air vent escape..."
There were a number of nasty things that could be done with people in an air vent. This needed some care.
"We also need to keep an eye out on our surroundings when we're looking for a way out..."
The Fantabulous
Rogers High School, Hallway
Zia stared at Sebastian and Dan, then at Hans and back at the duo with the only recently reliquished chair, "Are you guys off your bloody meds!?" She laughed, wondering if she should use the bass to apply some percussive readjustments to the guys - well, the bass was probably a little far at this stage. "What the hell are you talking about - the powers out and there are some locked doors and windows. It's not the end of the bloody world." She reasoned, admittedly feeling more than a little nervous herself but refusing to run around like a headless chicken as some apparently were, "I mean, for all you know there's an asshole outside with a gun." She paused, realizing that was unlikely to calm things down.
The younger Ms. Brayne cleared her throat and continued on a less panicky note, "You know that air vent aren't actually meant to be crawled through, yeah?" She gave Seb a light smack on the arm, "Look, I'm gonna go find a teacher or a janitor or an emergency exit - you guys can keep doing the Mission-Impossible DIY kit if you like." Zia sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose and closing her eyes. She tried to suppress the morbid thoughts of 'what-if-they're-right' situations and started walking towards the nearest teacher office.
“Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?”
My face tenses to near-snapping point and my gut twists into a hackamore knot. What else could have prompted this reaction but the sound of Finn Goddamn Flannagan's voice? He chose now, of all times, to just start flat out insulting this little pigtailed girl. It wasn't a matter of timing, he just couldn't keep it in. I'd bet anything he was just holding back the bile, waiting for the opportune moment to be the biggest, stupidest snob in the building. There he was, lording it over everyone how he left the club, and yet there he was, still here, still flapping around in my corner of the world that had long bid him 'good riddance to bad rubbish'. It's not like I even liked the girl, she was pretty annoying. But that didn't mean she deserved to be the impact zone of his desperate bid to feel better than somebody, him and his scumbag father...
I could say all this to him, of course. I could unload both barrels of vitriol into that smug prigs' face and leave him a trembling wreck. But no. I will not. I will keep my tongue, keep the peace, and extend him the decency that he wouldn't extend to any soul else. I...will be the bigger man of this equation. Doesn't even have anything to do with by social ineptitude, or paranoid fear of him trampling my vigour under his sanctimonious jackboot. Nope, I'm a big boy, not an emotional coward in the slightest. The more I say that, the more true it'll be, I'm sure.
So, constraining my disapproval to an involuntary grimace, I glance back from the door and calmly speak, "Do you think maybe we should save the criticism until after the blackout crisis has passed?" Hrm, my accent still needs work. Stretching the 'a's too much. You'd think after four and three quarter years in the states I'd have nailed a mockery-free American voice. Apparently, you'd be wrong. I'd have better luck with a Jamaican accent...
edited 4th Jun '17 3:55:11 PM by LizardOfAus
Valerie wasn't expecting a response to her question, but of course the one response she did get would be from the resident heckler. She was tempted not to dignify him with a response, but since his priorities were clearly straight maybe he deserved one.
"Well, what do you expect from a work in progress? Shakespeare?" she replied simply with an exaggerated shrug, "But on the off chance you did, I apologize for not meeting your oh so exuberantly high standards."
Right as she finished, someone else spoke up about the whole deal. Good, that saved her the trouble of arguing with a brick wall. With that out of the way, her attention turned back to the blackout. Maybe it was construction, but she certainly didn't remember hearing about any construction work near the school. Maybe it was some random outage that affected the entire town? Well, hopefully it wouldn't take too long for the backup generators to pick back up.
In the meantime, a few other students were poking their heads out the door. Maybe ignoring the order to stay where she was wasn't such a good idea, but standing around in the dark wasn't very fun. So without further ado, she hopped off the stage and made her way over to the auditorium doors. Then she pushed one open and leaned against it to let some more light in, before idly looking around, maybe for a teacher or some other staff to explain where the blackout came from.
Icon by Civvi the Civilian!
AKA Nixer
—Rodger's High, Hallway—
Dan started guiltily.
"She's right. We did kinda jump to conclusions. Guess today got to me a bit."
He chuckled nervously, his hands in a placating gesture.
"But of course, go crawl through the vents like Sam Fisher if you want to. Just don't get stuck, OK?" he joked, before frowning to himself.
"But seriously, I doubt the teachers would know what's going on. It happened just like that. Something... I don't know. But we'd better find out."
bork
Something felt...off about all of this. Yes, Ivy managed to feel off about many things. She wondered if people driving down the street were going to swerve and hit her, every time she heard a police car she briefly considered it might be someone she knew, but perhaps this one time her fears were founded.
And, for once, that made her feel like being alone was a bad idea.
"...Uhh, you two. Ms. Havilland was already at the office, she might know what happened," she said, turning back to look at them as she stood in the doorway. "I'm gonna leave with her, and...you can leave...I don't think anyone's gonna care if you go. You can...follow...erm..."
And, that notice eloquently given, she left for the hallway.
huzzaaaaaaaah
"Love has come to town..."
The whistling voice of a janitor prompted all the students to stop and look at the end of the corridor. Coming down their way was Jerry, a slightly old black man who had been working at Rogers High for about twenty years. A student and teacher favorite, Jerry was always a sight for sore eyes, which explained why pretty much everyone either let out a sigh of relief or asked Jerry variations on 'what's going on?'
But nothing explained why Jerry just ignored all of the students. "Here come a riddle, here come a clue..." He continued to sing, walking down the student-filled corridor as if there was nobody but himself there. He pulled out a small bunch of keys from his pocket, looking for the ones belonging to his car, as 16-year old Jessica Hawkins stepped in front of his way.
"Jerry, are you deaf?" She asked out loud, crossing her arms. "The power's out, the door's locked, and everyone's freak—"
Jessica's inquiry was suddenly stopped when Jerry walked right through her. No by her, not past her, through her. It was as if Jessica was nothing more than a hologram, the janitor having just broken the illusion of solidity. "What the—" She spun around on her feet and tried to reach for Jerry, but her hand just waved through him as if it was made out of smoke. Every other student that tried to touch him or grab him would get the same result, and they all watched dumbfounded as Jerry calmly opened the door leading outside.
"Out of my way!" 15-year old Barbra Dixon yelled, showing her bully colors as she shoved two students out of her way, trying to squeeze in between Jerry and the door to slip outside... only to hit an invisible wall- or better yet, an invisible door- blocking her way out. And so, Barbra watched from the floor, astounded, as Jerry closed the door behind him and calmly made his way to the car. "OH MY GOD!" She roared. "WE'RE GHOSTS!"
Panic and pandemonium spread through the corridor and through Rogers High as a whole, as every student realized that the adults could no longer see, hear, or even touch them, and that every way out of the school had been blocked by forces they couldn't even see. Some reacted with shock (like a young girl who sat besides the locker, rocking back and forth), whilst others reacted with force (like Barbra, who grabbed a chair, hurled it at the door and watched as it bounced back, leaving no visible dent on their way out).
The instant Ciro pressed the send phone in his button, his phone gave him the standard 'No connection, message not sent' message, along with that traditionally depressing 'X' near the message. And if Ciro were to look closer, he'd see that somehow, his phone was getting negative 3 bars of connection.
"No, Ms. Havilland, I'm afraid your daughter hasn't found me!" The huffing and stocky form of Mr. Claremont came stomping down the corridor, stack of folders under his arms. He stopped in front of Class 42A, peering inside and ignoring all of the students waiting patiently in the room. "And it seems as if my students have disappeared as well. Clearly for some sort of young people meeting." A beat. "Well, I guess we both know now that children have a tendency to act like children, hm?"
As Mr. Claremont responded with the most smug smile any of the kids had ever seen, he went back to stomping down the hall, walking right through Ivy as if she herself was an incorporeal being unworthy of his attention. Once he disappeared on the other end of the corridor, all of the students' heads turned towards Ivy, before a young boy yelled out "SHE'S A GHOST!"
Suddenly, a loud whining noise came out of the theaters' speakers, drowning out the PA announcements, until it marched into the most predictable of conclusions: with a loud BANG, the two speakers short-circuited, fizzing out of existence and causing two small sparks to fly into the air, bursting holes on their covers. Almost instantly, one of the students in the back, Benjy, pulled out his phone and started recording the ordeal- an act that was soon rewarded when an at first faint, but then very distinct green smoke started wafting off the speakers.
The smoke billowed up, and then, doing something smoke usually didn't do, moved out of its own free will so it could gather on the center of the stage, assuming the shape of a twisting line that somewhat resembled a snake- if snakes had no defining characteristics and also broke all the laws of smoke physics. More and more green smoke joined the twisting snake, creating quite a mass, enough for it to be quite visible to anyone in the auditorium, similar to a cloud.
Another two sparks caused the speakers to short-circuit even more, and smoke stopped coming out of them. Instead, again against all the laws of, well, reality, music started coming out of the destroyed and clearly no longer usable speakers.
Ethereal piano notes and a repeating guitar prompted the smoke to 'dance' in mid-air, as every speaker in the school started playing the same music, especially as the guttural voice of David Byrne began bellowing nonsensical orders- all of them clearly audible over the yells of children freaking out.
Up until now Valerie had been under the assumption all this was something mundane. That assumption went flying out the window, as just from her position she could see her fellow students' futile attempts to try and talk to the departing teachers and leave the premises. Her eyebrows shot up and she frowned in confusion.
She glanced at the closest outside door as some adult went through it as normal. Then she headed over herself and tried opening it, to find that it simply would not budge for her. She frowned again, this time in clear worry. This probably had something to do with the blackout, didn't it? Did the staff even notice the blackout? Why were they able to leave and not the students? Her heart raced as she tried to come up with some kind of rational answer for all this.
No, she wasn't going to panic. Valerie was above panicking! She needed to keep her head on straight, or else she'd lose herself in her own fear and then she'd never get to the bottom of this.
Her train of thought was interrupted when suddenly the speaker's announcements were suddenly replaced by some old eighties-sounding song. She glanced up at the nearest one with an utterly baffled expression. No, she still wasn't going to panic.
"What the fuck?"
Valerie was also usually above swearing, but sometimes there just weren't any better words to use.
Icon by Civvi the Civilian!
Her foreboding feeling left as she headed in her direction, because freedom was within reach. Mr. Claremont was in a hurry, and walking right towards her, obviously in a great hurry if he didn't even say hi. She kept walking forward, not looking him in the eye, up until it became obvious he wasn't looking where he was walking...even if he was looking right ahead.
She tried to dodge him in time, and...she must've did it. Ivy got so close to him that she could almost see the sweat on the top of his head, he just never seemed to notice that he almost bowled her over. That's what made sense, because it's the only thing that could've made sense. Their heads almost rubbed against each other, but they never touched, so that's what must've happened.
The other kid who shouted at her was...very, very badly mistaken. She was here, she could see the glasses resting on her nose, feel the skin on her hand as her fists clenched tighter and tighter. Ivy looked at him, suddenly emoting more than before as she shot him a smile. Yes, I'm fine. I'm smiling, so nothing's happened, is what she tried to silently say to him.
Her attention was drawn away from the scream of the student at the sight of her mother down the hall. She immediately raised her and and shouted "Hey, Mom!" with more enthusiasm than she ever had before...but, it seemed to fall on deaf ears. Mrs. Havilland scanned the hallway with narrowed eyes, first looking down past her and at Mr. Claremont, but then looking it over as if she was looking for her.
Ivy could see her mom look right at her for just a moment as she passed over her. She softly swore, and turned around to look for her elsewhere.
Ivy tried to yell at her, but she only managed to get out a pathetic whine of "M-M-Mom..."
She looked down at her hand, which even if all the color drained out was still her hand. It was alive, she could feel herself hurt as she pinched it. Her eyes darted through the kids regarding her with fear, and they all seemed to see her! She was alive! The pace of her breath got quicker and quicker until she was hyperventilating, and her normally blank face lost all composure.
She had to prove to them that she was still here, that she was still physical. Slowly, she started to stumble towards the closest person, Ciro. Ivy stretched her hand out to him, even if it looked like her fingers were wracked with pain, and tried to touch him on the chest. Her face was entirely pale, and she looked absolutely terrified.
One Brunch Man
There was a smack! like a swatted fly as the flier collided with the corkboard, followed by the subtle rip! of tearing tape. The rolling, quivering sound of Led Zeppelin’s “Black Dog” pitched up as the loose earbud bounced against the breast of a crushed-red dress shirt, before getting caught in the zipper track of the lapel of the long jacket covering it. Up above, a tongue peeked out to wet a set of lips in anticipation, before the pop! of an uncorking highlighter was followed by a pale, pink line being drawn across the band three rows down.
Hyeon recorked the highlighter, adjusted the fliers under one arm, and continued onward, expression vacant and distant as he focused on the trembling tunes filtering in through his one in-place ear bud, relaying his session before last. I knew he was dragging, the Korean youth thought as he turned the corner and repeated the process, sticking the flier against a cold brick section before circling the main event. But it couldn’t be helped; since he’d started paying his drummer to do his homework for him, he was pretty much stuck with him. It was all part of the circle of life, like how if he ran into Mr. Bendis, he would say he had permission from Principal Shooter, and vice versa.
The lights went out, and Hyeon didn’t miss a beat as he briefly paused to expose the phone-band armband that had his iPod lodged into it like a piece of seaborne debris, turning up the light before slapping down his latest flier. However, he reflected, setting another flier in place even as he began to mouth his own vocal sections, it might actually take me until graduation to put all these up myself…
Turning the corner, it was evident that something had changed in the air, but Hyeon wasn’t entirely sure what. He also didn’t particularly care, making a show of inconspicuously lowering his head to scratch at his ear as Mr. Clarmont bowled past, and nodding absently at Mrs. Havilland before he processed the strange accusation being lobbied at the upperclassman nearby.
Pausing mid-stride, Hyeon looked first to Ivy, then to Ciro, then to the finger moving inexorably from one to the other like God approaching Man on the Sistine Chapel.
He would then, unless stopped or intercepted, shove at Ivy’s shoulder.
“Nope, not a ghost.” He would say blithely if successful, followed by raising the fliers in one hand and levying a ten spot between two fingers in the other. “Who wants to make ten bucks to help me pass these out?”
If I had that kind of power, I'd have dropped a meteor on your house ages ago~
Adam reacted with palpable shock, even briefly stepping back and only slightly managing to save himself from a stumble. An unusual reaction to be sure, but when he saw that Mr. Claremont wouldn't even respond to Ivy, well what else could he do? Maybe they wouldn't respond to him, good or bad he didn't stand out, but Ivy? Adam kept moving, hoping to observe this, figuring something was going to let him know what the hell was going on.
He heard that one student screech out that Ivy was a ghost. Now there was a possibility! A terrifying one to be sure! Had to make sure, as he Ciro and Ivy continued along he felt a tinge of pity for Ivy seeing her mom not react to her at all. Nobody deserved that, but locked in his shell and his own sense of shock he could do nothing but watch, his heart racing all the while. He did manage to make eye contact with Ivy as she was looking for anyone, anyone to make sure they could see her.
As the young lady's trembling hand reached for Ciro's chest he tried to speak softly at first. But somehow some guy tried to grab Ivy's shoulder from nowhere. Whether or not he succeeded he saw everyone's reactions and it was dark enough he was probably gonna give that lady a heart attack!
"JESUS CHRIST DUDE! Don't sneak up on someone like that!" It wasn't the first time Adam felt empathy for another student, but the first time in a while Adam decided to stand up for someone else.
edited 5th Jun '17 8:25:22 PM by Wildcard
Hans by now was starting to realize he may well have been thinking too small - Jerry simply walked right by and out the door, right through people who should've been there, who just did not seem to...exist...
He backed up against a wall as he watched Barbra basically go batshit - including throwing a chair repeatedly against the door only for it to bounce off of an invisible forcefield. He tried his best to keep an ironclad disposition no matter what, but under his breath he was muttering “Mein Gott im Himmel…” over and over again, this was entirely much more than what he thought he was going to be dealing with in these circumstances.
He finally calmed himself enough to look around and say, “We’ve gotta get outta here, whatever is going on here...it is aliens or...or monsters or something! We’ve got to find a way out!!”
He watched Barbra trying to smash down the doors, and having no luck.
This was making his heart beat nonstop, and he felt like it was going to make his heart explode out his chest. What the fuck? What in the everloving fuck? His mind was spinning, this was all so far beyond anything even he had dealt with in his eventful life that he felt a bit dizzy. Overheated. Like this was provoking some sort of fever within him.
AKA Nixer
—Rodger's High, Hallway—
Dan was quite a simple guy.
He didn't have many complicated issues, and had previously had an easy, almost boring life.
Seeing something like this would break a person like him.
He just stood there, quietly, like a dead man, as the whole school erupted into pandemonium at the revelation.
They couldn't leave, and no one would even know.
He slowly sat down, rocking slightly, his brown eyes with a glossy sheen.
bork
The Fantabulous
Rogers High School, Corridor. 4:50PM
Zia, much like the other students in the noisy corridor, was immensely relieved to see Jerry appear - if anyone was going to calm down the horde of screaming teenagers, he had the best shot. Seeing as everyone else was blurting out questions of the same line, she stayed quiet and leaned against a wall. But he kept walking and singing and then Jessica stepped in front of him... "... What..." She blinked, standing up straight and watched as Jerry passed through the student, and any others that attempted to touch him, "What in the name of..." She was practically hugging the bass like a teddy bear, eyes wide in horror as the others went nuts.
Ms. Brayne's mouth opened and closed a few times, attempting to tell everyone to calm down and then thinking better of - even if they did miraculously hear her and do so, this was precisely the sort of craziness that warranted panicking, "Okaaaaaay, maybe the air vent thing wasn't so nuts in retrospect~" She laughed nervously, clearly trying to calm herself and wondering if someone had slipped LSD into the tap water. And then the speakers started blaring a Talking Heads song, "Well, if it's aliens at least they have good taste in music!" She grimaced, looking between the respective breakdowns of Hans and Dan. Zia was tempted to join them but eventually decided it wasn't her style - there was no escape and that music was coming from somewhere, so she started running towards the auditorium. She had dealt with enough school concerts to know that's where they kept most of the controls for the internal speakers.
“Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?”
Before any of us can actually start to address the situation, everything proceeds to go from bad to worse. There's a piercing screech from the speakers, which abruptly explode from the walls, and already I'm shaking all over. What in god's name was going on? A terrorist attack? Here, at this school, in my corner of the world?! Terrorist attacks always happened elsewhere, they were consigned to the news, outside of my dull and tedious life. I wasn't about to be thrust into the war on terror, was I? Because this is not what I signed on for when I went to ordinary average school today. It couldn't be that, it just couldn't be. It had to be some weird film project, or else the world's most poor-tasted practical joke, or ev...or...
...the smoke...it was moving, rising...it was like it was alive. That shouldn't be possible, smoke wasn't alive, it couldn't move like that, no matter what complex fans you used, but it was moving that way. It didn't look like puppetry, or animatronics, or CGI or- no, no it wouldn't be CGI, this was in real life...wasn't it? Was this real? Was I hallucinating all of a sudden? But no, the pigtailed girl, she was seeing it too, at least I think she was. Was she looking at something else? Or was this all a dream? But no, I remembered everything from the rest of the day, that was all ordinary, it didn't feel like a dream, but then if I was in a dream, I might not know it was, so is it or was it or, or, or...
I've just realised I've been standing there, frozen, just flapping my lips for about thirty seconds, trying to find my way around the words to properly analyse this whole situation. But finally, now, I think I've found the perfect moment, and that word is "...No....No," I say with a smile to the writhing smoke creature. "No," I say as I push the door wide open, and "No," I repeat as I back straight out the door, with a further "No," as I close the door tightly in front of me. "No, nono..." I say as I ease myself a few steps back, before looking over the door as I properly process the situation. "...nnnno," is the pleasant remark to conclude my thoughts. "Mn-nh," I add as I sharply turn to look up the hall. "No," I say as I start marching forward. "No," I reiterate with every stomping step I take. "Nooo," I cry as I swing my arms dismissively in the air. "No no no," I stress as I go storming straight for the exit of this crazy hellhole. "No, no no, nononono, no, nu uh, no, nuh-oh...NO!"
JEEZE- Something unexpected appears right as I round the corner, and I have to stagger backwards as I steady my nerves. Turns out, I'd almost run into that beanpole punk girl from the same grade as me. The one who's mum was the music teacher here. At the same time I'm registering her, I'm actually having to register my surroundings, too. I'd been so caught up in my fervour, I hadn't even noticed how far I'd run off to.
Transcender of Gender
Class 42A -> Rogers High Hallway
As his phone registered negative connection, which he hadn't known it could do, and Mr. Claremont apparently missed the room full of students (which wasn't that weird), and then walked through one of said students (which was that weird), and then Ivy came at him terrified while the others screamed that she was a ghost, only for an Asian kid in sunglasses to suddenly appear and shove her, causing Adam to scream too... Ciro wondered, not for the first time that month, why he had decided to get out of bed that morning.
He felt a little like the teachers himself; like he was standing here, on solid ground, and yet not connected to the world any longer. Why am I here, dealing with this? Why aren't I home right now? A dull, heavy panic settled in his chest. His breath hitched. Why aren't I with my family, like I should be? Where are they? Why is this happening?
Hyeon- of course it was Hyeon, who else could stroll into the middle of pandemonium like that- had pushed Ivy. Without thought Ciro reached and grabbed her outstretched arm, meaning to balance her, and like a switch being flicked he was back in reality again. Her panic was a lifeline, anchoring him to the here and now, pushing him to take responsibility like he always tried to do. He didn't know the first thing about whatever was happening with their teachers, but this sort of fear was one he might just be able to handle.
Weirdly enough, Hyeon might have actually helped with that. Maybe not with shoving a terrified girl, but with maintaining a nonchalant attitude while all this was happening. Ciro tried to synch up with that, tried to laugh off Hyeon's action. It came out as a wheeze, a puff of air that'd gotten strangled in his throat. Let's try that again. "Mind reading the mood, Hyeon?" he managed, his tone playful, but laced with a slight high-pitched hysteria that he hoped was only obvious to himself.
He turned back to the main concern, Ivy, his hand still gently grasping her forearm. He ducked until they were level, tried to catch her eye with his own. Remembering to smile, not too much to seem overwrought, but not too little to seem like it was feigned- he doubted he actually had that much control over his expression, but it helped to think that he did. "Before anything else, Ivy, you should take some proper breaths. Deeply in, deeply out. We'll figure out what this weird stuff is after you do that, alright?"
Edited by whizzerd on Nov 8th 2018 at 7:52:36 PM
they/them || "Forgive me, regent of queer amphibians" - Lt.BGob
Blood Mage Apologist
Rogers High School, Corridor
"Oh thank god," Sebastian had muttered. It was Jerry. It could have been anyone else, but it was Jerry- thank god it was Jerry. Jerry was great. He could explain what was going on, right?
Surely he could tell them what the hell was happening."Hey, Jerry, what the hel- heck is going on hee?" He'd called.
Naturally, Jerry had proceeded to basically just ignore them. Sebastian looked confused for a moment, and then Jessica had stepped in front of him and everything had gone to hell in a hand-basket very, very damn quickly.
The janitor walked through her, and Sebastian nearly fainted. "What the actual fuck?"
And then Barbra pushed past everyone and ran at the door- only to be blocked from exiting, and oh god she couldn't get out. Sebastian stood frozen for a moment, watching as Barbra hurled a chair at the door and oh god it didn't do a damn thing.
Hans- the guy who had been on his side, dammit- was having some kind of minor breakdown, swearing in German or something. But that was better than what Daniel was going through- the guy ad sunk to the ground, rocking back and forth. And lord the PA was streaming music and shit.
"Stay calm," he muttered. "Stay calm, stay calm. Find an inner strength within, stay calm, stay calm..."
Pulling a chair over to the nearest air vent opening, he clambered on top of it. He knew that he most likely wouldn't be able to get out that way but the only thing keeping him sane right now was the thought that he might be able to escape
"Stay calm, stay calm. Find an inner strength within," he chanted softly, prying at the grate cover with his bare hands. "Stay calm. Stay calm.
Wooze looks at Glass with a 'please take her away' look
...But, she realized, this means she was physical still...at least, partially.
That line of thought managed to get her from "about to die of a heart attack" to "merely freaked-the-fuck-out" in record time, and the world came back into focus. She could hear them berating the Korean kid, the screams of the children elsewhere in the school, and the...really out-of-place music playing over the speakers.
Finally recovering, she listened to Ciro's advice and started to take long and drawn out breaths, slowly going down to a manageable rate. In the middle of that, she offered a question to Hyeon when she realized just what exactly he had said.
"What the FUCK is wrong with you?"
—Rodger's High, Hallway—
Dan couldn't help but stifle a chuckle as Zia tackled Terry before he smashed the window.
I mean, man it look like it hurt, but it was too damn funny.
Sebastian had suggested using a chair, but the thought of getting in trouble overwhelmed the thought of escaping.
So he listened to Zia.
He would later regret that decision.
"So, what do we do then? Not exactly gonna sit around like a bunch of plebs. There is something really weird going on. We need to find out what."
bork