[b]Saturday, April 11th, 12:23AM - The Soiree[/b]

"Certainly," the gentleman in the painting replies. The other attendees begin to chuckle.

---

[b]Saturday, April 11th, 12:25AM - Graphite Gardens[/b]

The white noise stops. Starts again. Stutters. Pops. Fades.

It can't get a profile on the two newcomers, but it's trying.

This has never happened before. Newcomers haven't appeared in the middle of a broadcast before. [i]Never.[/i]

It tries, but it struggles. Conflicting signals are sent out and come back. The feedback is overwhelming. It's trying to reach the newcomers, but without a profile it's just bouncing noise back towards itself.

The stress proves too much.

There is an explosion, off in the distance, but it doesn't sound like an explosion. It sounds like violent, mass ripping of paper, and debris (made of pencil, of course) flies through the air.

The drawing girl, the one who had pulled Sho and Suzume into the bushes, comes running towards them. She can see the debris fly, and she can sense the impending doom.

She pushes Sho and Suzume aside.

The sound of a drawing getting impaled sounds nothing like a human getting impaled.

---

Haruka found Sho and Suzume before too long, as they were in each other's arms off in another corner of the garden. She hesitated, just for a bit, but began to run towards them again.

She needed to tell them about-

Then the explosion. Haruka screamed, ducking and covering her ears. She stayed like that for a good few seconds, and when she opened her eyes, there was a giant section of support beam sticking out from the ground in front of her. Some girl, made of pencil, was pinned under it.

It was going through her chest.

Haruka's words caught in her throat. Her explanation, the words she had wanted to stay, had stopped, and the image of the impaled girl brought back image of Toby's plunge into the...

"T-Toby's... Toby is... T-T-T-" she stuttered.