[center][url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ST3MdFDV-4][img]http://i.imgur.com/KdzywDR.png[/img][/url][/center] [hr] [color=8882be][i]Perfect. Certainly, perfection is something to strive for. It is a goal to which one runs, albeit asymptotically. But much like Icarus, there is a story of one who reached that unreachable goal. There is something to be learned from the story of Sir Galahad - that this world has no place for a 'perfect human', and indeed, that such an individual would not be considered 'human' at all. To reach out for perfection is considered noble, but to reach perfection is considered heresy, and those who achieve such are removed from this world as punishment. I did not understand this paradox until I, myself, lost my humanity. I wonder, if I am now to see what before I glimpsed only once...[/i][/color] [hr] [color=82ca9d][i]Perfect, huh? Heh. No, uh...on a scale of 1 to 'Perfect', I'm a 1 for sure. I didn't even know what a 'perfect me' would even look like, before. I mean, I had a pretty good general idea, yeah, but the details were always really blurry. Some days I'd want to be like one thing, some days I'd want to be like another thing...even basic stuff, like hair color, right? I flip-flopped on that for like forever. But then, I just, kinda...got there, somehow? I mean, I don't know if I'd call like the entire situation perfect, but...it was perfect for me. It was everything I wanted. I had it for a little while. And I hate myself for it. The pain of having lost that is, just...I mean, I'd rather have just dealt with never having it at all. But I know that even if I had never reached it...I'd just spend the rest of my life wanting to be perfect, anyway.[/i][/color] [hr] [center][img]https://i.imgur.com/phUzmFo.jpg?1[/img][/center][table][row] [cell][/cell][cell][right][sub][color=ffffff][b]Monday — Morning — Homeroom[/b][/color] [@Antarctic Termite][/sub][/right][/cell][/row][/table] The day was far from perfect. The atmosphere itself felt choking. It was hard to breathe, like the room was filled with smoke. The sky was filled with dark clouds, and the forecast was heavy rain for the entire week. Drenched umbrellas littered the floor of the classroom, and the sound of stampeding raindrops added an almost welcome background noise to the suffocating silence. Even though the window was right there, the world outside seemed so far away. Looking down at the ground felt something like gazing from the side of an airplane as it took off from the city. [color=222222]you could jump right now. it's just high enough, if you angle your head just right, it will[/color] For a room full of students who had supposedly just gotten back from a restful weekend, they didn't look the part. Exhaustion, apathy, and emptiness seemed to take hold in all of their faces. Dark circles under their eyes, lethargy in their limbs. One student, a boy in the back row, was outright asleep. No one seemed to care. The floors hadn't been washed like they were supposed to, and a spilled drink from last week remained as a sticky floor-trap near the back door. The students seemed to have resigned themselves to simply walking around it. The entire room was beaten down by something. Maybe it was just the accumulated stress of school, or maybe it was just the bad weather. But there wasn't a single student here who seemed to be having a good day. [sub][color=222222][b]guard[/b][/color][/sub] "Today marks the beginning of finals week..." The teacher's voice droned on, with a heavy sigh thrown in almost every sentence. He wasn't looking at any student in particular, or really, on closer inspection, any student at all. "Nothing really to do for homeroom, so just...get some last minute studying in, I guess." He rested his chin in his hand, gazing indifferently to the side, his eyes unfocusing. He wasn't keeping track of the passage of time. It's cloistering. Like the inside of this building is its own world, a sticker slowly losing its adhesion, and slowly, slowly lifting from the surface of reality. [color=222222]From the corner of the eye. Movement in the ceiling. A tile is dislodged, with a black void beyond. A pair of [color=9e0b0f]red eyes[/color] momentarily cast their way about the room, before disappearing into the [b]darkness[/b], just as quickly as they showed themselves.[/color] [color=8882be]A young woman in an impeccably dry-cleaned outfit sits with her back straight, keeping a refined posture. She seems not to share the lethargic mood of her colleagues, but neither is she particularly energetic. Her hands are clasped together on her desk, patiently waiting for the next period.[/color] [color=82ca9d]A scrawny boy in a wrinkled and dirty uniform holds his head low, staring down at his desk. He perks up just a bit, as though hearing a noise, casting a momentary, worried glance at the ceiling. Blinking a few times, he rubs his eye, and loses his gaze in the cloudy outdoors.[/color] [sup][color=bbbbbb]"What are they going to do for the gym final? It's pouring out there." "...There's a gym final? How does that even work?" "I mean...every class has a final, I guess. That's just how it is."[/color][/sup] [sub][color=222222]the [b]prisoners[/b] are released from their [b]cell[/b][/color][/sub] The clock reads three after. There are twelve minutes remaining before the students here are allowed to leave.