Shizune gritted her teeth as the cuts began to add up. The dolls just kept coming, no matter how much of a fight or effort the group put up. Through the pain, Shizune saw Reiko being flung across the room, Aito get knocked back on the floor, and Shiori save Shinobu from a gruesome fate. Good. Everyone was still alive then.

[i]"Yoshida-san...."[/i]

Shizune gave the P.O.I.R president a shake of the head before kicking the dolls out of the way and dashing after Akane. That girl...why was her mentality so skewered? Vaguely ignoring the pain, Shizune barreled out the doorway and tackled the beserker girl to the ground.

Panting, she rolled off her and gave a glare, her red eyes burning with anger. "Stop....stop trying to be hero! I told you we have..... to stick....together...." Shizune blinked as the violin music became silent once again. Realization hit her in the face and she looked to the left, directly back into the classroom.

How stupid she was.

The dolls had ceased their assault and were being hoarded back into the Friagne's chest, chanting some childish babble while doing so. The masked creature looked over a single form. The one defense the still unconscious girl had was now on the other side of the doorway.

"No....no!" Scrambling to get up, Shizune tried to close the distance between them, only to falter from the wounds inflicted on her now bleeding legs. The Friagne lashed out its veins to string up Audrey like an ornament. By the time the girl was awake and screaming, it was too late.

Shizune turned away. She knew what was to come next. 

Holding up the struggling girl for all to bear witness, a pair of scissors, needles, and threads held by the veins hovered over Audrey. The girl gave one more shriek before the masked musician began its work. It tore her skin, opened her up, spilling blood and a few entrails on the floor. The stench of a slaughter house hung in the air as the Friagne continued with its messy procedure.

A little twist here, a tiny cut there, some polishing everywhere....all matched up with that damned violin music. After several long moments of screaming and pleading, Audrey became still at last. Its work done, Friagne held up the dripping thing for all to see.

It looked like a hollow shell, its body drained of all innards and liquids, the face of Audrey caught in an everlasting scream. The skin was paled and flaking as Friagne gently began storing it away in its chest. It wasn't quite done, and Shizune knew it would take the corpse away to finish its "art" later. When it would have more supplies to work with....

With a sudden jerk, the masked musician landed on all fours and spidered away at rapid pace out the classroom. It pushed Shizune off to the side, it's shuffling feet still echoing down the hallways.

Silence.

Getting up, Shizune walked over to where Shiori stood. Despite her stoic nature, Shizune had no doubt that her friend was as equally shaken and disturbed as the rest of them. "The Friagne," Shizune said quietly. "It's a special creature that doesn't feed. Instead, all it does is make art. Music and...that. It turns victims into a...a human puppet."

The girl's eyes were blank as she looked down at the bloody pile on the floor. "All it wants is your body. The physical shell. Everything else...just gets in the way. This pile is all that is left of Audrey Ordonez."

The only object that could be remotely recognized as human was a severed foot.

Shiori stood quiet.

Her mouth remained closed and at first you would think she wasn't affected by the scene just now. But that was not true. This was easy to tell if you looked in her eyes. Those eyes that were usually harsh, cold and had a piercing feel to them were now open wide, the irises quivering. She tried to say something, but no words escaped her open mouth at first. She closed it again, swallowed something, be it air or saliva. This... was a nightmare. No, something else... something much, much worse. The sight of Audrey being snipped open, having her innards pujlled out and then being treated like a roll of cloth, with needle and thread going in and out, in and out... The screams of that poor girl... This wasn't something you could forget. Something that would haunt you until the end of your days.

Shiori's head sank, a shadow cast over her eyes as she looked at the floor. Her shoulders and arms shook slightly, through be it from anger, fear or both was hard to say. But finally her voice came back and words slipped from her mouth.

"Yoshi... da-san..." She spoke in a choppy manner at first, as if trying to avoid vomiting right there and now "What... is this place? Was that... this... all of it.... is it really real?" Shiori looked up at the transfer student who she had met just one day before. The shadow was still cast over her face, but her eyes had regained their piercing glare, and it was now directed at Shizune, along with a grim frown.

Shizune tensed and looked away from Shiori's stare. Shame crossed her mind. Shame of getting these people involved and condemning them for life. The dark haired girl allowed herself a few steady breathes before meeting Shiori's icy gaze with her blank one.

"Yes, Mizuhana-san. This is all real. Despite the title, the World of Wasted Dreams is very much grounded in our reality." She glanced across the room, taking in the faces of the remaining survivors, staring more so at Akane and Shinobu than the rest. "Let this be a lesson to us all. This world is cruel. People will die. There are no second chances, only consequences. Our only hope is to work together."

Shizune turned back to Shiori now. "No one can escape so our best chance is to simply survive. Maybe try to find a way out, though I doubt it. There are never survivors..." Her calm voice trailed off and she refused to say more.

"You said before..." Shiori seemed to have partially ignored what Shizune just said, or perhaps she felt what she wanted to ask was more pressing. "... that you've been to this... World... before. You also said there's no escape. Tell me, Yoshida-san, how can you have been to this... place... if we cannot leave it?" She paused, frowning and glaring. "How do you know so much about this place, and about that... thing."

At Shiori's constant questioning, Shizune shrugged and laughed bitterly. "You think I came out of this place unscathed?" Her expression turned serious though as the other girl brought up a point. Walking up to the classroom door, Shizune motioned for everyone to follow her carefully. It wasn't safe to stay in one location.

"You shouldn't be so serious Mizuhana-san. I told you I've been to this realm once before. I never said I survived from that experience." Shizune's own frown began to form on her lips. "You shouldn't be concerned with my past anyway. It doesn't matter. Your lives do. Would you prefer we continue to dwell into things best left unsaid? Or do you want to get out of here alive?"

A pause."Out of all of us, I am the only one who one who has the slightest clue of what's going on. All you need to know is that I will help all of you in anyway I can." She certainly was persistent. Not even the wounds on her limbs slowed down her brisk pace leading the group.

Shiori closed her eyes briefly. Shizune was right. There was no point trying to pry into her background, not right now at least. Her classmate, that spanish transfer student who she had never really interacted much with, had just been torn apart right infront of her eyes. That was a fact. It was also a fact that Shizune had run to stop Kabetake from running headfirst into that corpse-musician and suffering the same fate as the red-headed girl... [i]The red-headed girl[/i]... She couldn't even bring herself to calling her by name, not even in her mind. Not right now at least, she needed time and distance if she was to keep her sanity.

"Wait," Shiori said, her voice and expression having returned to, somewhat, normal now. "We need to treat these wounds, everyone's wounds." She pointed with her gloved hand at the floor. "In a dirty place like this, untreated injuries will easily get infected." She looked over to where she had woken up. Her purse was still there. "I've got some things in my purse. It won't be enough though." With that said, Shiori walked over and picked up her purse, then moved to the desk which Reiko had crashed into.

"Nagatani-san, are you alright?" She knelt down, putting a hand on her classmate's shoulder and looked at her throat. "... That's going to leave a nasty mark."

At the offer of checking wounds, Shizune mentally cursed herself. Why didn't she think of that earlier? It was a rhetorical question of course. She knew the reason why. It was because she was too focused on keeping them safe, no, keeping them alive. She shuddered as she thought of Audrey's final moments in this life and again the question remained. Why was Friagne here in the first place? Usually....

"Yes. We must make sure everyone is well enough to move. We have a long journey ahead if we wish to escape." That was assuming there was an exit to begin with. Standing at the head of the group, Shizune turned where no one could see and glanced at her own wounds. Bending down, she wiped the blood away from her skin....only to reveal exactly just that.

Unbroken skin.