NoriWasHere

Recollections: Where the Folds Meet

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Current day
Interactions: Nerds
Outfit: Workout attire

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It made perfect sense that the queen of the nerds called for this town's hero at its darkest hour.

It made perfect sense that the fucking nerds would try to figure out how to use their little brains to solve the problems that magic had brought.

The monster that killed the weaker nerds, the weirdness that had followed, and the fact that they were not safe were all that it took to open the eyes of the sheep and bring them back to their shepherd. This was the natural order of life, and this was the natural order of High School. The weak would need protecting, and they would need their protector to be strong. This is why Tyler thought this whole meet and plan idea was a smart decision for once. Everyone, Tyler’s included, suffered at the hands of the monster that attacked that warehouse and somehow brought magic with it. Those images would never leave his mind, and the memory of that nerd whose name escapes his mind being killed when he saved Vicky will never leave him. Yet he could not give in to these emotions. He could not rush out into the streets with a baseball bat, gun, or something else to hunt down the beast that marred the beauty of this town. He, like everyone, should have taken that anger, that fear, that doubt, and turned it into fuel and trained with those emotions.

*twack*

The javelin impacted the field some thirty-five yards in front of Tyler and off-center by a yard or two. The throw was a decent one that would likely land Tyler on the JV team. Disgusting. The thought of not walking onto a starting spot in the star-studded field filled Tyler with anger and hate. He was a star athlete who excelled at throwing objects, introducing a spin, and landing them accurately where he wanted. His eyes drifted past the dart and towards the fifty-yard line, and sized up the tackling dummy he had pushed out there. It was clean. No impact could be seen anywhere across its frame, even if the thirty-five-yard line was filled with brand-new divots. His nostrils flared. His hand reached down and grabbed a rock from a pile of rocks he had assembled, though the pile was only half as tall as it was when he started. He tossed the rock into the air, reached out with his Lux, and swapped the rock with the javelin. The javelin froze in the air right above his right shoulder before it gently dipped down towards the front and began to fall. Tyler caught it by the midsection a moment later. With one quick motion, he stabbed the pointy end into the dirt, and reached down with his left hand into a ball bag and grabbed a football. He pushed the ball in front of him, faked the start of a play, and entered his five-step dropback before he brought the ball back, stepped into the throw, and let loose a beauty of a pass. The ball sailed through the air with force and with a perfect spiral. As it reached the halfway point of its arch and started to descend back towards the ground, aiming right towards the chest of the dummy, Tyler grabbed the Javelin and spun it into the air. He reached out with his magic and, with a second to spare before the football impacted the dummy, swapped it with the javelin, which allowed it to strike true and through. While he was still only painfully decent with the javelin on his own, his football skills could still prove lethal to a monster, provided he had something dangerous to swap the ball with.

His alarm began to scream from his phone a second after the *thud* of the impact reached his ears. Tyler did not want to be late for the meeting. Thus, the athletic shorts, workout tank top, and compression shorts that all sported the blue, white, and orange color scheme of their school would remain on.

A hero always arrived on time and with swagger.

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As Tyler was walking the halls towards the cafeteria, still dressed in his workout clothes, he saw a weird sight. A student was ahead of him, and not just any student, a new one. What was a new student doing walking the halls of this school this late at night, walking directly towards a place where the other magically inclined individuals were meeting for the first time? Was this the wolf wearing the clothes of a sheep? Was this the danger that had infiltrated his easy path to the professional football league that he was on? Would he allow a monster to attack those nerds unabated? The answer was unclear, but Tyler figured he could get the answer easily enough. What would a potential threat do if someone nearly hurt them? Tyler reasoned they would either drop the ruse, drop a threat, or have some other tell that would cause them to drop the act. That made sense to Tyler, at least as much as magical monsters made sense to him at this moment, and he had just the tool to test his theory. As long as he always had his football, he would always have the right tool for the job.

Tyler went through the motion and launched a missile of a line drive pass. The kind of throw that a receiver would either catch, or would break their hands the next practice on the ball machine, trying to catch them at their max velocity. It moved through the air fast, and it cut right next to the girl's head, though he watched as it was nearly pulled into it for some bullshit reason. A moment later, he reached his magic out and swapped his place with the balls and quickly braced for the impact. He pumped the brakes for two seconds, his shoes squealing out with pain as he did. He learned early on that when you swap with an object in motion, you retain the motion of the object. Therefore, him at a standstill, swapping with a fast-moving football would mean that he would either crash and fall or brace himself beforehand. As his momentum slowed thanks to leaning back and planting his feet down, he did the same stutter steps one might do if they jumped out of a moving vehicle and tried to maintain their speed. Eventually, within a couple of seconds more, he slowed to a near stop and looked back. The girl looked basic as fuck, and unimpressed with his display of magic. There was no surprise, no hint of fear, and she looked like she was thoroughly unamused with what he had just done. His eyes narrowed as his right hand reached into his pocket and grabbed one of several quarters. Tyler felt she was not a threat, but she was weird for that reaction. He flicked the coin into the air. Fucking nerds. He swapped the coin for the football, caught it, and entered the meeting.

Tyler slammed his free hand on the football and looked across the sea of nerds, and was left thoroughly unimpressed. His eyes slowly shifted until he saw the three leaders of this event, Kari, Lupe, and Zakira. Tyler did not mind Kari; she was a nice and smart girl, and she knew what she wanted out of life. Zakira, he did not know well, and knew that he needed to change that. Was she worth bullying, or would she be boring like Kari? Lastly, but certainly not least, was Lupe. In terms of people who annoyed him, Lupe had grown to a level few could reach. She was opinionated, loud, popular, and all too sure of herself and her place in the food chain here. He knew she was also crazy, crazy, and most of all batshit insane when it came to expressing her opinions. He knew as soon as he breathed the wrong way, she would be up his ass and would not back down from the challenge. He could at least respect that. His eyes shifted down to the next person, and he groaned. His eyes rolled, his nostrils flared, and veins popped out of his skin as none other than Vicky was present. Great. Whose fucking brilliant idea was this? Vicky? She was going to ruin everything, make it about her, and drag everyone down with her unless they were willing to survive the torment of her voice screeching about how life was unfair. He needed to look away and quickly spotted Tommy, and some other nerd nearby dropping off drinks and snacks. Was this it? Tyler quickly scanned the room again with a frantic energy and realized that yes. This was all they could muster at this time.

“Are you fucking serious?” Tyler paused as he found an open spot and fell into it with a heavy thud, “is this all you could get? I worried that you, Kari, would waste time I could be spending training, but I decided to give this a shot. You know, because we all went through the same shit together. I figured that might have ignited a spark under your asses to do better, but” Tyler paused as he used the football to point at everyone, “this does not inspire confidence in your leadership. We might need a proven leader to step in at some point,” Tyler paused as he spun the football in front of him and caught it with an aggressive grab.

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Current day
Interactions: The Group
Outfit: Normal

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So this was the great Cornell High School that her grandma had talked so fondly of? Evelynn suspected it had not changed since that time as it looked old, dilapidated, and depressing. Why the fuck was this meeting in a place that was as suspicious as a school?

Evelynn did not concern herself too much with that. Nor did she concern herself too much with figuring out where to go. She slid along the side of the building along a narrow delivery lane, and she held her nose as she did. The smell was unlike anything she had smelled since she moved to a town that had a distinct odor already. Nobody had been by to clear this out. That was one of the bad signs that the possible futures always seemed to agree on. While she could not see very far into it, the future showed her that chaos brought an end to certain services the modern world takes for granted, and without that little truck that carried away the rubbish we all produce, a smell would descend on the town. Great. Fucking great. This town was turning into a purgatory made specifically to punish her for causing the death of her family. What a fucking life! Lynn pressed her elbow to her nose, using her arm and her sweater to block the smell even more as she moved towards the back door Kari told her about, and that she saw in several possible futures, and went into the building.

As Evelynn walked through the dark building, she could not help but wonder what school would have been like here. She looked down at her high-waisted shorts, the loose t-shirt tucked into them, the larger purple cardigan that she wore over them, and then the loose strap backpack she wore over it all that contained notebooks, pens, and pencils. Back in St. Portwell, she thought she would’ve been cute if she wore an outfit like this. Would she have been cute here? Would she have been popular? These questions were not important to her before the warehouse. The world was so much smaller back then, which made her problems seem so massive in comparison. Now that the world was crumbling around her, Evelynn felt like her own troubles were small and all she really wanted was to be just a normal girl, going to her normal classes, and to be secretly depressed like everyone else. Yet everyone else did not kill their own parents, not everyone was cursed with the gift of foresight, and not everyone would be here at the meeting tonight. As she passed the Gymnasium, she caught sight of the trophy case that held a particular trophy. The one that was front and center above all the rest. As if it were the most important trophy the school had ever had, and that everyone who came before and earned those trophies was not relevant. Great. From her trip to the possible future moments before she left home, she knew there was a greater than three in five chance that she was about to meet…

She paused the thought as her eyes drifted to the left, and a moment passed before a football swooshed past her head and in front of her. Her eyes slowly shifted and followed the ball until it swapped places with the boy who threw it. Fucking Tyler. She had only briefly seen him at the party, but that, and the possible future, was all it took to form solid opinions on the guy. For starters, he was an egomaniac with a fucking want to be loved and respected simply because he can push a ball down the field with impressive accuracy and power. Sure, if the possible future was to be believed, he had talent, but he was no Dan Fouts. If Dan Fouts, conductor of the Air Coryell offense, couldn’t win the trophy that mattered in this sport, she truly doubted Tyler would amount to much beyond several ‘what if’ videos on YouTube in ten years. Her face betrayed the ick that his appearance gave off as well. Tyler had decided that the best way to greet this meeting was in athletic shorts over compression shorts, and a workout tank top that painfully revealed the muscular arms and chest. A fucking peacock would be less obvious. Tyler looked back, grinned at the new girl, and flicked a coin into the air, then swapped it with the football. A second later, he spun it into the air, turned back, and headed towards the meeting room, and went inside.

Evelynn stopped in her tracks. She groaned. She placed her hand on the temples of her forehead and rubbed. She groaned even louder. This fucking school was filled with so many examples of cliché American High School students that it might as well be a horror movie. Did she really want to go through with this? Like, sure, the monster attack on the warehouse and the emergence of magic meant she would rather band together with others like her than face the horrors around the corner alone. But at the same time, they were already proving to be, like, the worst. They were all so dumb, selfish, and just downright weird. Evelynn dropped her hands from her face, and they naturally formed fists as they dropped. She stomped three times as she gripped her fists even tighter. She exhaled. She released her fists. Evelynn then looked at the door that led to the cafeteria. She needed to figure out what her future holds, and that was not going to be done by looking there herself. With a step, she headed towards the door, and with a shove, she pushed through it, and with a deep breath, she decided to embrace the unknown.

Evelynn took stock of the room with a frown, but it quickly dropped when she saw a familiar face. Mars, Daniel Mars. She smiled. She then caught another familiar face in Kari Wilson. She smiled a little wider and offered a wave. She did not know where she should sit, and judging by the judgment she would experience near Kari if the possible future were believed, she opted to sit next to the guy who experienced the worst of the warehouse right next to her, and helped save her after she was struck. Her hands quickly gripped the straps of her bookbag, navigated the room, and found a seat next to Daniel. “Hey, party boy,” she paused as she thought to herself that she was glad he was here. She looked away from him and back to Kari, and the two girls next to her. She drifted her view over to Vicky and then over to Tyler. She knew she was the odd one out here, and that everyone already likely knew each other. Thus, it was time to make introductions. “Ummm, hi. I am Evelynn, new to the school but not new to the grind. I can see the future and shit.”

Recollections: Where the Folds Meet

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Interactions: Lynn & Daniel
Outside Warehouse - Woods

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Lynn knew she needed out. While the monster was busy fighting what Party Boy turned into, Lynn watched as the jock and what she assumed was his girlfriend left together, a few others got out, and the girl squad left as well. But Daniel was still in this warehouse; he had lost every bout with the devil, and he needed to get shaken from that trance he was in. Lynn tossed a panicked eye back at the monster and saw that it, too, had begun to panic. Someone, maybe something else, had arrived, and whatever or whomever it was had scared the beast into admitting defeat before the first blow was traded. Lynn’s breath was caught in her chest as she watched it scamper away like a weak and pathetic little monster. That scared the shit out of her. If that monster, that creature that caused all this death and destruction, was scared, Lynn paused the thought as her eyes shifted to the new arrival, then how powerful was this thing? It did not stick around to display what that power was. Her chest let loose the breath, and she gasped. She could not tell why, but for some reason, the air around the warehouse had lost a lot of weight to it, even as the warehouse itself was a scene of horror with blood, viscera, and damaged concrete strewn about.

Valor had watched the monster prepare itself, understood how it fought and the way it divided punishment into some evolutionary defense. The knight felt no concern of this understanding, it would simply resolve to administer punishment greater than the beast could bear.

But no such resolution came. Valor’s weapons struck at nothing as the creature burst into gore and fled using its base elements. The tear in reality, where the beast had spawned from, showed glimpses of the town in its maw, but Valor paid it no heed. More concerned with finding and estimating whatever had caused the creature to make such a retreat. It found nothing, the new presence leaving as soon as it had arrived and the dimensional wound closing over, leaving behind an empty building full of dead things. The knight weighed these events in its impassive face, far from ideal.

“HM.” Valor grunted, mild annoyance in its normally indifferent reverberation. Like the other paranormal guests of the night, Valor suddenly relinquished control and seemed to disappear - albeit remaining closer than the rest of the evening’s uninvited guests. Daniel Mars returned to the world, collapsing forward and smacking his face on the ground, eyes closed and wheezing for air, like a drowning victim who’d been unexpectedly fired out the sea and back onto land.

Lynn quickly shot her eyes back towards Daniel and saw that whatever had possessed him had let the boy go. He was unconscious, on the ground, but he was breathing, and he was distinctly himself. Lynn smirked. A small blessing. She had only just made him an acquaintance; she could very well not lose him before she learned more about this town and the school. *thud* Lynn’s head lurched downward as a small piece of concrete fell from above and hit her on the crown of her head. It was not very big, nor did it hurt much, but it still pulled her attention upward, revealing the damage the fight between Daniel and the Monster wrought on the building in this part of the warehouse. She was no engineer, nor did she know what exactly to look for to determine if a roof was about to fall, but she did know that seeing the stars through the roof, spiderweb cracks, and pieces and parts falling at a steady rate were not good signs. She looked towards Daniel, and back to the ceiling, and back to Daniel. He was in danger. Lynn’s eyes went wide as she gasped. Daniel was in danger, and so was she.

The next thing Lynn knew, she was moving. Her legs had gained a strength that she had never felt before, and she had found a drive that her spirit had always lacked. She moved with speed, avoiding debris and bodies, as she made her way towards Daniel's unconscious form. Within a few moments, she had slid beside him with both knees on the ground, one hand on his shoulder, and another on his chest. She shook him hard once, twice, and a third time more. “Daniel,” Lynn said as she continued to shake, her head turning and watching as more concrete fell around them, “it’s time to wake up, Party Boy. We don’t have to go home, but we can’t stay here. Wake up, please,” Lynn pleaded as she rose from her feet. She grabbed him by the hand and began to pull. To say Lynn was weak would be a disservice to weak people. She had never lifted a day in her life, and while Daniel was not heavy, it was still difficult. Lynn began to tug and pull, leaning back with all her might, giving it some slack, before returning to pulling again. More and more debris fell around them as she did, and some seemed to almost curve towards Lynn’s head.

Groggy and uncoordinated - a drunkard after last call - Daniel ambled to his feet, able to vaguely move even if it were acutely obvious he’d fall in a heap without Lynn’s support. It felt like the lucid dream of someone concussed, the rational part of him could recognise danger in some vague acknowledgement but the rest of him lagged behind. Not helping was the echo of pain in his torso from when Valor had been knocked aside by the monster, something that didn’t ache as much as it felt akin to the pain of a phantom limb, an acknowledgement of pain but not the sensation. Even in this state, Daniel tried to mumble to Lynn, a thanks or a warning or something completely nonsensical in his addled mind, lost to the noise and chaos of the collapsing building.

Eventually, Lynn was outside, Daniel was halfway there, and the roof was holding on by a prayer. A large chunk wiggled loose and began to fall towards Daniel. With one last heave, Lynn pulled Daniel completely free of the warehouse and away from danger. “YE-,” Lynn was interrupted as a small chunk of concrete exploded outwards from the impact sight. While it initially moved away from the two, something grabbed hold of the chunk and directed it right towards Lynn’s forehead. “Fuc-,” Lynn stammered out right before the concrete impacted right on her cheek and the side of her head, a taste of metal filled her mouth, and the world spun around before she fell backwards and felt the cold ground greet her back. While she was not out, she was down and groaning in pain. Her thoughts felt like a mile away, and her vision felt a touch out of reach down a long tunnel.

“Uff!” Face smacking the dirt, Daniel would never quite know how narrowly he came to a much more mundane death or disfigurement after the nightmare that was this party.

The impact’s effect was twofold, one was caking Daniel’s face in muck and fully bloodying his nose after the impact of his last fall, the other was fully pulling him out of his post-possession stupor, a system reboot after smacking a machine. He scrambled like frozen water had been dumped down his back, everything flooding into his mind yet again, the deaths, the black knight, the end of the world. God, how many were dead? His head turned, a mask of frantic terror carved on his face, just in time to witness Lynn fall to the floor with a squirt of blood erupting from the side of her face.

“Lynn!” Daniel yelled, his manic fear suddenly focusing into a singular direction. As he stumbled back up, a thought emerged that would’ve ordinarily been chilling in its simplicity: he thought Lynn was dead.

It was welcome, if strange, relief when he reached her side to find her groaning and still moving. Even then, the sight was distressing, scraped flesh from where the concrete had struck her face and the slight glimpse of her teeth stained crimson from the blood welling in her mouth. Shots rang from behind the metal and concrete, more aimed debris striking the walls and the doorframe, they were being directed away, not that they needed additional reason.

“It’s alright, it’s ok!” Daniel sputtered, his rushed tone making clear he didn’t believe it himself. He coiled one of Lynn’s arms around his neck and began lifting her off the dirt, her willowy frame and Daniel’s comparative strength giving him an easier time than she did - suddenly his father’s homophobia-laden demands that Daniel get into sports was now mildly appreciated in retrospect.

“LEAVE HER. THERE IS ANOTHER BEING IN THESE WOODS. WE MUST TRACK IT..” A voice echoed somewhere in Daniel’s mind, a thought forced into his head and making his brain feel like it was swelling beyond the contour of his skull as it spoke.

“It’s all going to be ok.” Daniel weakly repeated, the voice was fiction, all of this was fiction, everything would be ok when the sun came up. He felt tears stinging beneath his eyes and blinked them away, gritting his teeth and breathing loudly through his nose while he half-guided half-dragged Lynn down the dirt path to freedom. “We’re just- it’s-” His mind swelled again, something protesting, a defeated grimace rested on Daniel’s face. “Let’s show you around town; starting with the hospital.”

Lynn tried to respond, but her words were caught in her chest. Seeing the town sounded nice. It would be the perfect thing to distract her from just how bad her face and head hurt. They could see so many fun things, and they would start with the place called the hospital. Especially after whatever bad stuff had just happened, she knew she could go for some fun. Lynn grimaced as Daniel dragged her along as pressure built behind her eyes. It felt like her skull was filled with an ever-expanding foam. She felt every heartbeat in her temple, and each pulse arrived with a spike of pain. Daniel’s voice stretched and warped, and for some reason, it sounded like he was both right next to her and a million miles away.

Something warm crept down along her neck from her hairline, sticky against her skin. When she tried to swallow, her jaw hitched, and fresh crimson iron washed against her tongue. She realized, dimly, that she couldn’t quite tell if she was walking forward or being dragged. The spaces between moments kept disappearing on her, blinking out like skipped frames in a damaged film reel. Eventually, the skips turned into brief seizures like trips to the Garden. Daniel would watch as Lynn’s eyes would flash green for a brief moment, her body going stiff with it, before they returned to normal.

“M’fine…” Lynn slurred, though the word came out with an almost wet undertone. The attempt to speak only made her stomach lurch, and her ears ring. Lynn thought back to what Daniel had said earlier. Hospital. Ok. Safe. Maybe. Everyone she loved never made it to the hospital; maybe she truly needed it. She blinked slowly and immediately regretted it. For one terrible second, she couldn’t remember why they were running. Then it all slammed back into place at once. The carnage, a monster, collapsing concrete, and more loss. Her breathing hitched again. She dug shaky fingers into Daniel’s sleeve hard enough to wrinkle the fabric. She took a deep breath in and then exhaled deeply. The world focused around her ever so gently. The tunnel collapsed quickly, though her vision still felt further away than it should be. She was able to think again. And save was able to feel the pain she was in fully. Tears welled, fell, and burned as they crossed her wounded face, and a gentle sob quickly filled the air. Her free arm reached up and touched her lip, and her face winced sharply as daggers shot across her face. That was not good.

“Thank you Mars, Daniel Mars,” Lynn muttered, barely above a whisper.

The preacher’s boy never did quite make out what Lynn said, only hearing her sporadic, gentle weeps that reminded him to keep his own tears at bay. Only seeing the dripping blood and flashes of colour blink in and out of her eyes, reminding him that, however hard he may deny, tonight’s events were real. A reckoning had happened, children that Daniel had grown alongside - knowing their individual eccentricities, hopes and beliefs - were dead and left behind as the two continued down the dirt path.

Selfishly, Daniel felt some measure of gladness that Lynn was injured. Escaping alongside her was a goal, something to override the existential terror that would have rendered him catatonic in any other circumstance. In fact, he realised he didn’t feel much of anything right now. Numbed by so much change in such a short amount of time. Would there even be a hospital to reach? More likely all those worthy had been raptured far away from this town, the sinners left with a dreadful respite before the hells opened up in earnest.

Instead of divine light, it was a duet of cherry red and stark white that greeted them when they reached the treeline. Ambulances, squad cars, even a firetruck was turning the corner and making its way down the street from afar. Adults could only react in confusion and work off conjecture while scores of dirtied, bloodied teenagers babbled in hysteria, wrapped tightly in blankets and tears. A weary exhale, Daniel held Lynn closer against him - perhaps realising that with civilisation evidently not quite over yet, he would need her support more than she needed his.

“H-hey! Help! There’s been an- she’s hurt!” He said as he waved down one of the EMTs for help. A middle-aged woman took one glance at Lynn and widened her eyes before quickly jogging towards the duo. Daniel sardonically wondered how that same doctor would react when she saw inside of the warehouse.

Another attempt to bury it down before the police inevitably asked him for a statement. Tonight was a prank, some mundane explanation for however horrific the situation was. It only took another glimpse at Lynn to dispel that notion, a girl Daniel only just met hours ago now left mumbling imperceptibly after saving his life multiple times, blood beginning to drip down from her chin and into a discoloured pattern on her shirt. But really, what forced Daniel Mars to confront this new, warped reality, was the ever-present pressure on his skull as a voice demanded he return to the woods and deliver retribution, coldly repeating the order again and again.

Recollections: Where the Folds Meet

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Current day
Interactions: Tommy, Vicky, Corey, Dead Guy
Outfit: Normal

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Tyler was disgusted.

It wasn’t the fact that Vicky was still holding his hand like some pathetic kid who needed to be comforted. Why else would that freak still be doing this? It wasn’t like there was a way for Vicky to spin this to make herself look good. She was covered in blood, blood, gallons of the stuff. If anyone got a photo of her, they would have all the fucking ammunition they needed to shut her down in every last circle she dreamed of being the queen bee of. Not just because red was totally not her color or anything like that. Still, they would need to survive the night to bring that ammunition to bear. While she was doing a lot of the work to drag them from the raging death cult fuckery behind them, let’s be honest, it is the least she could do. Tyler may be the actual impressive physical specimen between the two of them, but he could not risk damaging the product to save someone as delicate and needy as Vicky. There was nothing else to be read from him following behind Vicky and letting her take charge. He was just the star athlete, letting the lemming lead the way through the potential danger outside the factory.

Finally.

Tyler sighed in relief as it finally happened. His eyes rested on the treeline that the duo had finally reached. Was it the safety that the treeline offered that caused him to feel at ease? Was it the thought that once he got home, he had access to his family's gun safe, and he wondered how bulletproof that monster was? Or was it because it meant that the other losers who refused to flee would learn their lesson the hard way? No. It was because Vicky finally released her death grip on his hand. That freak would begin to think too far into what it meant when a guy and a girl held hands for more than five seconds, if that carried on too much longer, and Tyler did not want to be the asshole. That was a lie. He really wanted to crush that hope and dream. Of course, that dittzy hair for brains would want to leech off his success, and this was her attempt to do so. What a..

“I. Wan. Na. Go. Home!”

Fuck. Tyler looked down as she turned into a crying teenager, completely detached from the cool, collected, and in control visage she adopted at all times. She truly looked even more pathetic than she did every time her fuck ass boyfriend tried to do anything cute or lovey dovey. Couldn’t she fucking take the hint that Chet loved her? Tyler’s eyebrows shot up just a hair. It finally made sense. All of this, the handholding, her face in his chest, and even the sobbing, was because she knew that her man loved her, and was still dealing with the fact that he had been brutally murdered in front of her. This was not her confessing any sort of actual feelings for him, but rather asking the only man who had the stomach to have been around her since they were kids for help. Did this make them friends? Tyler hopped not. All he wanted to do right in this moment was sneak his phone out, take several photos and maybe a video, toss something, and teleport away so she could wallow in her pity. Yet this was not the time nor the place anymore. If Tyler wanted to be the hero that he knew he was, and that his strange ancestor ghost expected him to be, he needed to step up to the plate and lead by example.

“Okay,” Tyler paused as he gently placed a hand on each of Vicky’s shoulders, and with a gentle push, got her off his chest. He offered the sniffling, sniveling, and straight-up crying girl a warm smile. “Okay,” Tyler leaned down and picked up two rocks with his one hand and showed them to Vicky, expecting her to at least have the bare minimum brain processing power to understand what his intent was. But just in case. “Let’s go home. I will toss these ahead and swap our positions with them,” Tyler paused as he threw the stones and turned off all senses. He quickly found the position of the two stones and locked on with his magic, and then locked on to himself. Before he could do the same for Vicky, he swapped and was suddenly several feet in the air and traveling at a high speed towards a fleeing guy.

“WHAT THE FU-,” Tyler’s voice cut out as he collided with the man, tumbling with him through the forest before coming to a rest. Tyler lay where he fell for just a second before he pushed himself off the ground, straddling the person beneath him as he tried to see who he had fallen on. A scowl crossed his face as his hands balled into fists, and proverbial steam exited his nose.

“You.”

Recollections: Where the Folds Meet

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Current day
Interactions: Tommy, Vicky, Ella
Outfit: Normal

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In a moment, it was over. In a moment, Corey went from a scared and confused kid to nothing. Every hope, dream, and plan that he had was now gone. And it was all Tyler’s fault. He was surprised by how little he felt in regard to it. It was an honest mistake. He did not mean to swap Vicky with a still living person, and he was certain that anyone would have made a mistake given the circumstances. There was a big fucking monster, magic was real, he wasn’t given an instruction manual on how to handle the fucking weird as fuck situation he was now in. Tyler took a deep breath. His face remained chiseled, stoic, perfect, handsome, inspiring, and most importantly of all cut, yet his eyes were just a hair wider than they normally would be, even during the most stressful of games. Tyler pushed down the thoughts of his newfound murderer status and simply stood his ground. Staring at the red that painted the wall. Wondering who was going to tell Corey’s folk what really happened?

Tyler suddenly felt a hand enter his and squeeze. Tyler blinked, and his eyes finally left the bloodied wall and searched for who had made the mistake of trying to comfort him when he clearly did not need it. Vicky’s blood-soaked frame was the culprit. All of a sudden, the complicated world around him made sense. There was no monster, no magic, and none of the kids were dead. This was all one giant fucking prank that Vicki was pulling at his expense. She had obviously bullied everyone to fall in line for this, spiked his drink, and was about to reveal that this was all her doing.

”You owe me a fucking drummer, Tyler!”

“Oh shut your fucking mouth you paid fucki-”

Vicky squeezed his hand tighter, her nails digging into his skin in a not pleasant, but not entirely unpleasant manner. Wait. Were the rumors true? Did she actually like him? And by saving her life, was she revealing that disgusting truth to him? This would be a terrible time for something like a meet-cute, and Tyler knew as much. Thus, was she angling for a meet ugly instead? Neither trope lined up to his expectation of when a trope like that would be used, and he knew that some idiot like Vicky would know that. She seemed like the kind of girl who would pretend to be this evil bitch in real life, only to go home and lie under the covers reading Yuri fanfiction of some terrible show. She would know that right now, of all times, especially if this was not a joke and the monster was indeed real, it was a terrible time to not think this through. Therefore, he knew that this couldn't be a casual admittance of what she felt. Tyler knew this because she lacked the capacity to feel anything at all. So this wasn’t anything romantic, and there must be a perfectly logical explanation for why she looked at him and squeezed his hand tighter. A second later, it dawned on him. She truly was into him. The stress had finally knocked some sense into her thick skull about how awesome he was. Joke's on her, though; she was totally not his type, and he was totally not into his childhood rival.

“Fuck her, let’s go.”

Let’s go? Let’s go? Was she really asking him out at a time like this? Tyler looked back towards Lexi and tried to offer a meek ‘sorry bout your drummer’ before it returned to Vicky. The nerve. It was astonishing how much nerve she carried around daily, but this took the cake. Even as she draped her possibly dead boyfriend's letterman jacket over her arm, Tyler wanted to give her a piece of his mind. How dare she set up this cruel and unusual prank? How dare she make him think that he murdered a kid? How dare she grab his hand to embarrass him in front of the team? Tyler turned back towards Lexi, ready to ask if she was in on the joke too, when suddenly he felt a gentle tug on his arm. He turned back and, once again, it was Vicky pulling him from the danger. She tugged at his arm with a gentle pull. Far too gentle for how she normally treated him. Tyler did not like this. Tyler did not like not knowing what was going through his rival's head.

Thanks to his superior sense of where every object was in the nearby area, he became acutely aware that he was now in the middle of the monster and Vicky. Finally, it made sense. All of this wasn’t a joke; it was a distraction. Vicky used what little feminine energy she had to summon a little charm to distract Tyler from the fact that she was now using him as a meatshield. There it was, his rival returning to form! Sure, she lost her boyfriend in an incredibly awful manner, and she also nearly died at the hands of a monster, and also experienced the incredibly traumatic murder of all the other students, but that did not stop the heartless, wicked witch of Cornell from trying to one-up him. Of course, she would realize that the only way she could be better than him was if he were dead. He could practically see the fucking glee she felt as this played out.

And then the ground shook again, and all that possible bravado disappeared, and suddenly Vicky looked like every other scared teenage girl going through a traumatic moment in life. And all of a sudden, all the rage that Tyler had in his heart for this girl faltered for just a moment, and all he wanted to do was tell her everything was going to be okay.

“IT’S BEHIND YOU, YOU DUMB BITCH! LOOK OUT!”

And if Vicky, Vicky fucking Prescott, the queen bitch of Cornell, could look out for someone so obviously beneath them, then the hero of the school could step up and play the part.

"But what can we do? Kari?"

Tyler, letting Vicky still hold onto his one arm, reached down and grabbed a piece of concrete that had broken free thanks to whatever the monster threw away. He turned, squared his shoulders to the monster, and readied his strongest throw. With one quick, decisive moment, he wound it up and let it rip. And as it flew through the air, Tyler selected the concrete chunk and swapped it with one of the big speakers that was still upright, causing the speaker to slam into the beast's leg.

“We can fucking RUN.” Tyler turned towards the gap in the wall and escaped from the madness. Tyler knew he had to survive this night, because he had just gained so much ammunition to use against Vicky for the rest of their life.

Recollections: Where the Folds Meet

---

Interactions: The nope dog and an ancestor
In the room where it happened

---

“Oh fuck.” Nora felt the color drain from her skin as the pedals she created fell to the ground. A second later, she felt a force of nature swat her away, and she stumbled backwards and nearly fell. While she was not hit by the strike itself, she could still feel the power behind it. It was strong. It was far stronger than anything that she had felt, but it lined up with various enemies that her favorite anime characters would often face. That big, imposing, brute-like monster that the group would face early into their adventures, which they would need to defeat to grow stronger. But could one grow stronger when that was the monster the show threw at the party in the first fucking episode? At least it missed her and missed everyone. Nora turned to ask Ella what she planned to do, but she gasped when she saw her friend on the ground. Her eyes trailed up from the ground and saw the cracks spreading across where Ella had hit. They slowly returned to their friend, and a loud ringing soon filled the air.

Nora was stuck, both physically and mentally. She screamed at her legs to move, but she could not manage even a step. Even as Valor drove a spear straight through the beast and marked its flesh, Nora could not break from what she saw. All she could hear was that damned ringing, her own heartbeat, and nothing more. Please don’t be dead. No matter what else happened tonight, she could not lose her best friend. Please don’t be dead. She didn’t care about starting a training arc, working with her power, and growing as a wizard; all she cared about was lying on the ground. As long as she wasn’t dead, the world hadn’t ended.

"Nora—Nora, talk to me—please, are you okay?!"

Nora took a big breath in. Kari. Kari was okay, and she was here. She would know what to do to help Ella. Nora opened her mouth right before the beast sent Valor flying right past her body, passing far too close for comfort. It dawned on her, in that moment, that this was scary. Really scary. And Nora needed her friend. She ran without thinking until she slid into the wall and nearly fell on Kari. She quickly grabbed Ella’s arm and tried to pull her off the ground but she completely lacked the strength in her tiny, noodle-like arms. “I-I am okay, Kari, is she alive? Is she going to be okay? Kari, what is going on?” The sight of a new person stepping through the door caught her eye, and she gave her a quick glance before returning to Kari with tears welling, “I”m scared.”

---

Current day
Interactions: Mars bar
Outfit: Normal

---

Lynn couldn’t help but softly, yet firmly, mutter a “what the fuck,” as Daniel pulled his hand free, only to pray away the pain of what he had seen. Sure, putting the impossible in the higher power was a compelling action in the moment. Everything that had happened thus far did more to push her back towards that chapel than even the death of her parents. A giant werewolf-looking monster felt more like a demon than a creature, and if demons were real, that would indicate that the big guy upstairs was real. And if the big guy upstairs was real, did that mean that Lynn would be heading the wrong way if this monster killed her here tonight? Lynn knew she did not want to find out. She wanted to go out on her terms and in her own time, and not end up as puppy chow for a monster. She took a quick step towards Daniel. While she had only met the boy, she needed someone to run with her. The world around them was unfamiliar and scary, and if Lynn got lost, she would die. And he was far too nice to leave to his fate outside, where the monster would go next. She took another quick step towards him, and she found herself just outside what a modest person would consider their personal space.

“Thy kingdom come; thy will- will be done on earth. As it is in Heaven.”

“Party boy, Daniel, listen to me, we need to run,” Lynn paused as she looked past Daniel and saw another person die. Her breathing became quick and frantic, and her heart began to skip a beat. She was just a girl, standing in front of a boy, trying to break him from his religious psychosis. “I don’t know what the fuck is happening in there,” she paused, “I pledge myself to Your mercy. I give You honour. I leave room for You to do what Your wisdom knows is… is…”, Lynn offered a weak smile as it sounds like Daniel was snapping out of it, “JUSTICE.”

Lynn took a stuttered step back, nearly tripping over her own foot as she did. That was not Daniel. Her breath was once again stolen as a blue light covered his eyes in a way that screamed it had happened, but her mind raged at the impossibility of it. Did the good lord smile down on the plight of his faithful? Or was this some other thing altogether? Lynn did not know, and when Daniel looked at her with that completely emotionless look, she knew that something else was now present. Call it a sense, or a vibe, but that was not the same boy she had just met. “No, no, Daniel, don’t go back in there,” Lynn muttered, standing still. What she meant to say was “please don’t leave me alone out here,” but she did not want to see him die. A moment later, the once pleasant boy had transformed into something out of fiction, and drove a spear through the creature's body, and for a second, Lynn hoped it was over. Yet she watched as the body adapted, twisted, contorted, and evolved. The next second the holy warrior of god was sent flying across the warehouse. Lynn’s head jerked down as the chaotic crash of concrete and metal filled the air. There were still so many people inside who were going to die soon, and Lynn wished she could see a way that she could help.

A second later, her eyes once again turned into jade. She found herself quickly transitioning from reality as she knew it to that strange garden once again, standing on a large branch of the impossibly large tree. The branch itself wasn’t too large, and Lynn soon found herself off balance. She swayed too and fro before she ultimately went to fall, but caught herself by grabbing a branch. In an instant, she experienced a possible future where she saw everything. She learned more about the monster, even if it was not really more than what she already knew. She learned about her new classmates and what they could do; she learned the names of every last one of them, and she felt terrified as each last one of them died in an incredibly painful way. As she let go of the smaller branch, she fell and wrapped her arms around the bigger one she stood on and screamed. The vision had ended once again with Lynn picked up, body crushed, and dead. It felt real. It felt like the life was completely crushed out of her body, and her current body remembered the feeling. Was that the future? She looked back to the branch she had grabbed and let her eyes linger for a moment before they looked further up the tree and saw a branch she could almost reach. Lynn shimmied forward, reached out a hand, and grabbed the next branch.

Once again, the vision started as soon as she had grabbed it. In this possible future, the same scenario began to play out, yet the actions the others took were slightly different. The attacks were more varied, the lineup a small bit different, and yet it counted for nothing. Everyone died, and Lynn released the branch as tears streamed down her face. The monster did not end her as quickly this time. Instead, it had adopted an almost childlike curiosity as it pulled an arm off here, a foot off there, and examined the pieces as if she was nothing more than a toy. The memory of the pain lingered, and Lynn could not do anything except wallow in the pain. The two visions that the branches brought were of interest to her, and as the memory of the last one began to fade, she began to see the puzzle board laid out before her. These did not seem like certain things, and if her first use of whatever magic this was an indication, they were a possible future that did not, or would not come to pass. The actions that everyone took in it were different, and that changed what happened dramatically. Lynn was also an active participant in these possible futures, able to act and change outcomes as they were happening. Yet she was learning that there were truths to the possible future that no action could change. She shimmied forward again and reached for another branch. She wondered if she kept this up if she could save the party boy and the others? She grabbed the branch and tested her first theory at once.

---

A second later, back in reality, the jade fell from Evelynn’s eyes, and she took a deep breath. In an instant, tears welled and fell within an instance running through her makeup with a fervent intensity, bringing streaks of black onto her cheeks. Her body radiated with pain all over, even if this was false pain her mind thought she should feel. By her count, she died fifteen times building the puzzle up before the garden sent her back to reality, and each time was either as painful or more painful than the last. She doubled over and fell to the ground, bracing her fall by stretching out her arms. She did not find the missing pieces to how to kill this monster. Each death, each pain-filled moment was in vain in that regard. That was not to say she did not gain an idea that might work. In the last three possible futures, she had managed to get a few of the magic users inside to attack in one attack together, and this caused the creature to adapt to each attack at the same time. This gave them a window, but not the window that they wanted. Lynn was going to see what would happen if she could convince them all to work together.

There was also the possibility that this was not her fight. She could run, like many others before her. There was no shame in seeing death and electing to live. Whatever this power which was thrust upon her, truly, she could spend time mastering it and learning to wield it better to help some other group defeat the beast later. Lynn cried even harder at the thought. If she ran, she knew deep in her heart that she would be running from even more deaths that she could have prevented, just like her family. Could she live with herself as the ghosts of those who died by her action, and inaction, circled her soul? Lynn slammed a fist into the ground as her tears mixed with the dirt. Would she live with herself? Lynn knew that answer, and she did not need to visit the garden to know that answer

Evelynn pushed herself onto her feet. She wiped her cheeks with the palms of her hands and took a deep breath. She lingered at the threshold for a couple more seconds before she stumbled through the doors of the warehouse. She quickly scanned the scene and found the woman she was looking for. “Kari,” Lynn spoke as she looked at the monster, watching it stalk towards a woman she thought was named Lexi. It just hit her that she did not know for sure if Kari was the right name, as she only heard it in the garden anytime she died, the name screamed out by two idiots named Nora, or was it Zofia, and Ella. Lynn gritted her teeth as she saw that the Sailor Moon cosplayer was down, and the two others were around her already checking in. She needed to check. “If that’s your name,” Lynn paused as she pointed to the monster. Her voice was much calmer now, far too calm for the scenario in front of her. Yet she found a certain strength in experiencing it all before. “I don’t know what the fuck is going on, but I do have an idea on how we can run away from it. If we get everyone, and I mean everyone, to hit that thing at the same time, and hard, we can slow it down while it adapts to the different attacks. We could run. I don’t know you, any of you, but I know what I saw. I know that we will all die here, together, if we try to fight it or if we don’t work together. Will you help me?”

Recollections: Where the Folds Meet

---

Current day
Interactions: Tommy, Vicky, Corey, Dead Guy
Outfit: Normal

---

”Dunno. Must have been a ghost or something. What about you? Your coach a fan of underage drinking, Fox?”

A ghost. Tyler chuckled. A fucking ghost? This kid was definitely on some form of a drug if that was the first thing that came out of his mind. Of course, someone invited that loser, and Tyler suspected that Tommy was blissfully unaware that the culprit was right in front of him. Still, Tyler did not want to rush the reveal. No, that would be both too easy and too simple. He had a long list of questions that needed answers, and Tommy would be providing them one way or another. There was not a song that could break her from this path, nor a drink strong enough to make him forget, nor would the sound of a body breaking in a way it shouldn’t pull him from the righteous path he was on. Not even the two nerds leaving the party early, that religious freak, and some weird-looking girl, could stop him now. Tommy would answer his questions, and it would start right now. Tyler took a step forward and readied a hand to place on Tommy’s shoulder, but paused as his mind took a step back and remembered the sound of a body breaking. He heard the sound of bones snapping all his life. It wasn’t something that bothered him so much, nor did the sight of a broken arm, but something felt different this time. The heavy footstep thundered deep inside of him, and his eyes darted towards the source.

Tyler caught sight of one of his classmates hanging in the air, body broken, and eyes that betrayed that the lights were off and nobody was home. Tyler’s breath was stuck in his chest. Even as he watched the body fly through the air, he could not tell what threw him. How did a body fly that fast? Tyler took a step back. Heavy footsteps crushed the floor beneath them as the party froze all around Tyler. His eyes tried to see through whatever illusion this was to try and stop whatever was causing this, but no matter how hard he strained, he could not. And then a girl was grabbed. She wasn’t an uggo or anything, but Tyler never found her cute. But even someone like her did not deserve the death that followed. And as the party descended into chaos on beat with the body beating the floor, Tyler could not move. If he were on the football field, he would have seen the free rusher breaking through the line long before the second blocker away from him. And now Tyler was in the backfield, all alone, and with nobody but Tommy to guard him from the raging…

Tyler caught sight of Tommy running away. “Son of a bitch…” Did Tommy not know how important Tyler was to this town?

Tyler took an unblocked hit from his blind side as a stupid theater kid couldn’t pay attention to where they were running, and he stumbled for a moment before he found himself caught in the mass of idiots running for the only fucking way out. While Tyler was strong, the mass of drunk teenagers scared for their life over powered him, and soon he was one with the hulking mass of flesh that would make The Thing from The Thing blush. Tyler pushed, and clawed, and kicked, and did everything he could to break free from the chaotic place, yet he was stuck in place. A familiar emotion washed over him. Anticipation. There was some invisible fucking force about to rush towards a stuck, painfully moveable mass of objects, and that would be it. Tyler would never rise to the occasion and prove himself as an athlete. He would never escape the town that chained his father. This was it. He would die here amongst the losers, the regrets, the assholes, and worst of all, Vicky. This broke a barrier inside his soul, unlike anything he had felt before. The voices of the idiots around him began to blend, and they felt like they suddenly got sharper and louder. An added element of bass was added to their tone. Soon, the words disappeared, and all Tyler could hear were sharp cracks, booming thunder, and cries for help in a language he did not know.

Tyler blinked, and when his eyes opened again, embers were drifting down from above. He looked around, and he was in hell. In the distance, all he could see was a firestorm that raged through the streets of a small village. The hills and surrounding countryside bore the scars of recent impacts and explosions. While he did not see any bodies, he could smell them all around. Tyler looked to his left, and then his right, and then finally towards the front. A singular eyebrow raised as the sight of one of those old-timey soldiers greeted him. He was squatting down, with a flintlock rifle slung over his back and a stick drawing something in the dirt. His eyes rose and met Tylers and Tyler could tell there was a rage building. He scoffed at the sight before him before he dropped the stick, stood up, dusted the dirt off his pants, and straightened his uniform. He spoke quickly in a language Tyler never had a chance to understand.

“English?”

“Oh no,” the man spoke in a heavy German accent, “we speak that foul language now, huh? It’s been a few years since I had this talk with someone like you, someone on the worst day of their life, sometimes the best, but it seems this is the worst day of your life, no?”

“And how would you know? Where are we, and what happened to the party,” Tyler asked as he tried to rise to his feet, but he felt like he was stuck in quicksand.

“I know. I always know,” the man paused as he looked back over the countryside in the distance, “that’s part of this. This recollection. You have found yourself waking up with the blood of a certain skillset that has been passed down for generations. And it seems you have awoken in a time of war, hence why you meet me.”

Tyler followed his gaze over the countryside once again. He could make out a distinct European style of building to the homes, the shops, and even the uniform that the man before him wore. The sight before him had to be a hundred plus years in the past based on the rifle the man carried and the style of the uniform itself. What was this? What was a recollection? “Some shit is going down at that party, I need to get back. Send me back.”

“To help?” The man before him crossed his arms behind his back as his head tilted upward, looking down on Tyler as he did.

Tyler recoiled back at the attempted slander. Of course, he wanted to help. He was the hero of the town, and he was going to be damned if he allowed a spooky ghost to kill his admirers. “Of c-”

“Do not lie to me, to us, to your ancestors. This is a two-way street. I know all about who you pretend to be.”

Tyler’s eyes narrowed at the asinine assertion that he was not telling the truth. Everything he did was for others. He won the big fucking game to bring that trophy home to a school that was struggling, he was pushing himself hard to make his dad proud, and the only person who had any problem with this was this man before him, and his mother.

“You have potential. Your mother sees it, and so do we,” the man pointed at the ground under Tyler. For some reason, the man seemed to be growing taller, or was he himself shrinking down, “and don’t call me old-fashioned, but it is time for you to learn your magic, or die.”

“Magic? Like the card game?”

The man simply stared at Tyler, and after a second, his mouth fell agape. Tyler felt something crawling up his shirt all around him. Instead of humoring that response with a reply, he simply pulled a knife from its holster and held it up. He then pointed at a lantern that was on the ground, broken, with shattered glass scattered around. A moment later, he tossed the knife into the air, and suddenly the lantern was where the knife was, and the knife simply fell into the broken glass behind them. “Easy, right? Now you do it, or die.”

Tyler finally looked down and saw that an invisible force was crushing his body. He remembered, almost too late, that he was right in the middle of a crowd crush before he was pulled into this vision. His body was dying. He could feel his breath was far away, and he tried to breathe using all his strength, yet it did nothing. “How,” he gasped, “how do I use it?” Tyler did not believe in magic, but he would do whatever it took not to die in this crowd.

“You have always known where your teammates were on the field of battle, no? An almost uncanny ability to know where they were going, where your enemy was, and the weak spots you could exploit in the defense. Use that feeling. Reach out into the world with your magic and find an object. Once you do, you simply will the target to swap places with an object of your choice, yourself included. Feel the battlefield before you, truly feel it, and this will work.” Tyler’s eyes darted around, scanning the landscape in front of him. “No! We do not run from the danger that threatens those around us. If you try to run from this fight, you will find that you will die in that crowd and be gone forever. Think, Tyler, feel what’s behind you. Visualize the warehouse, and once you do, finding something to swap positions with is easy. The clock is ticking, Tyler,” the man towered over Tyler completely now, only this time he had a concerned look on his face. This was definitely not the way he intended this meeting to go. Tyler did as he was told, however, and despite every instinct pushing him to look ahead, he instead focused behind. He was keenly aware of everybody pushing into him, where those bodies were, and how they were positioned. As he focused his mind, despite the sharp pain that pounded in his chest, he was able to push his visualization further back until he found just what he was looking for. His championship ring began to glow. “You’re doing it! And now, just-” Tyler flicked his wrist like he was commanding a center to snap the ball, and he watched as the burning countryside that he was faced with disappeared; instead, he could see the backside of the mass of classmates that nearly crushed him a moment ago. In the space his body made up, Tyler had sent a bottle of alcohol, still unopened, to occupy it.

Tyler collapsed to the ground. His chest hurt. His ears were ringing. There was blood pouring down his nose. He was alive, but injured, and he had used his magic. He gasped for a breath, and then he heaved in a second, and within a moment he was breathing in quick but consistent breaths. His vision was fuzzy, and the room seemed to be twisting and turning around him. Yet there was a shrill, nails-on-chalkboard noise that seemed to pierce through the fog, unlike anything else could.

“HELP ME! YOU STUPID MOTHERFUCKER!
HELP ME!”

“You dramatic b–” he started to mutter, but his voice was cut short when he saw what was killing his classmates. It made no sense. It was far to big to move that quickly, and far too impossible to exist in a reality where he existed. He needed to run as fast as he could to get as far away as possible from that thing. Tyler grunted as he forced himself to his feet, and he took one weak step forward before stopping and sighing. Remembering that he was like a hero to these weak students, Tyler knew he could not leave them like this. He needed to help clear the jam at the door, get Vicky away from danger, and then get as far away as he could from there. A sharp pain from his side commanded his attention, and he placed a hand over his right rib, which felt tender. He gritted through the pain as he trusted in his sanity and reached out into the world with his so-called magic. The first object he selected was Vicky. He couldn’t have his rival die in such a pathetic way, as that would reflect poorly on him as a whole if this was the best his rival could do. The second was what he thought was a dead body. His eyes saw them slumped against the wall, with a rather large gash across their head, revealing white bone beneath red skin. And as the monster readied the end of Vicky, Tyler compelled the two objects to swap.

And they did.

It was only when Vicky was against the wall near him, and the so-called body was in front of the monster, that Tyler realized it was not a dead body but instead a very much alive, albeit inured, Corey. Corey was a music nerd who pissed Tyler off, but everyone could see that in that moment of realization, Tyler was a little mortified. He had just condemned a man to death. And he couldn’t look away as it happened.

Recollections: Where the Folds Meet

---

Current day
Interactions: Mars bar
Outfit: Normal

---

”Well, welcome to Cornell, Lynn. My party knowledge might be lacking but I’m happy to give you the lay of the land, so to speak. These are good people here Er, some are a little fractious before you get to know them, b-but they mean well… I think.”

Lynn chuckled. His explanation did little to ease the concerns she had for the upcoming school year. She knew all too well that not everyone would be good, and she would be very naive to take him at his word that all it took was getting to know them to see that. It did not take a seer to see that her future would have challenges here at this new school. Still, it was nice that she had found such a kind guide through these new halls. Even if they were nothing more than a smiling face in the crowded halls in between classes, he would be a start. She closed her eyes, just for a moment. Her mind felt a strange sensation as if it had moved somewhere else. The sensation felt somewhere between a brain freeze and a cluster headache, but it dissipated as quickly as it started. Whoever invited her out tonight was smart. This was what she needed to start the new year. This was everything she could ask for. There was only one thing she needed to do from here, and that was to ensure that she learned everything she could about this man. Her smile widened. Her eyes opened. She watched a kid die less than a dozen feet in front of her.

“....What?”

There he was, standing, drink in hand, and in the next, he was lifted into the air by some unseen force. Lynn watched, in horror, as the poor kid’s spine was twisted in a way that nobody should be twisted. The snap sound that came from his body made Evelynn nearly vomit. And she watched as the boy was tossed to the side like a discarded toy, and watched it impact the ground with force. Her eyes drifted to his face for a brief second. Suddenly, the scene was replaced by the scene of her in the back seat of her family's car. She remembered how her family snapped like that, about how their bodies made noises like that. All she could see was her father’s head spinning around in a way a head should not be able to do, much like how this boy's back was bent in a way a back should never. It was wrong, and there was nothing she could do to help them. Any of them. Her father, her siblings, her mother, this boy.

And then she felt an unnatural footstep that reverberated through the floor. She could almost feel that something unnatural was here. Something that should not exist in their realm yet did so all the same. Her eyes caught the girl as she was grabbed. One minute she was laughing, the next her jaw snapped to the side with an impossible force. Her mother's face flickered on top of her face, a memory she had thus far repressed. A shriek escaped her lips as the girl was dragged back. This was a nightmare. There was no way this could be happening. Lynn collapsed to the ground with her hands pressed against the temples of her head. This was not happening. This was not happening. And as the chaos erupted all around, Lynn could not move. She could not be dealing with this again. She can’t deal with death again. Even as the footsteps drew close, Evelynn shook her head from side to side, denying the reality in front of her. Even as she felt the impossibly strong hands wrap around her neck, she cried out that this was a lie. And even as her body was raised up effortlessly by a hidden threat, she did not try to escape or protest her fate.

As the invisible force squeezed her neck, suddenly the illusion broke, and Evelynn was someplace new, somewhere else. As far as she could see, there was white. It was a bright, vivid white as if she were standing in the middle of a partially finished art piece. And if this were a piece of art, no doubt the subject of it would be the vast and ever-branching tree that she suddenly found herself holding onto. She blinked. There was not much she could do besides blink. This place was alien to her. Yet, for some reason, it felt like she had always belonged here. More so than back home out west, or at the party in the east. Whatever this tree was, whatever this garden was, it was something that called to her in a way she had never experienced. Yet, despite this desire to stay, she felt herself pulled backwards away from the tree. She flew at such speed, and she closed her eyes.

A second later, they opened again. She was back at the party, yet for some reason, this party was still going. If someone had witnessed her in that brief moment, and the few moments prior, they could remark about how her eyes were suddenly as vibrant as a vivid piece of jade. The people were still drinking, dancing, and having fun. There was no blood, no death, and no sign that anything was wrong. Lynn started hyperventilating. Each breath felt like she was sucking concrete through a plastic straw, and each one required more and more effort. She knew what she saw. It was real, or at least it felt real, and there was no way these people were reacting the right way when that had just happened. She closed her eyes and focused on her breathing. She forced herself to take a deep breath in, out, and in again. She repeated this a couple of times before everything felt easy. And as she opened them again, she sighed and chuckled. No doubt that this poor party boy would have just witnessed a panic attack come and pass just like that. It was totally a panic attack. None of it felt real. Nothing of the sort. If Daniel asked, she would just say she was on a new medication, or that she smoked some weed before the party, or that she was just overwhelmed by the noise, or that she…

*thump*

Her eyes slowly shifted to the side and caught sight of the first victim for the last time. Behind them stood a towering monster. Lynn could not even try to describe what she saw. The impossible size, the strange appendages, and the eyes that sent chills down her back. She watched as the scene started again, the same as the first time, and she knew she needed to run. Before the first victim was even grabbed, Lynn had grabbed the hand of Daniel Mars and dragged him through the door, even before the first victim had died. The sounds of the entire warehouse screaming behind her told her everything she needed to know about what was happening.

“We need to run. We need to fucking RUN.”

---

Interactions: The nope dog and an ancestor
In the room where it happened

---

This wasn’t happening.

This couldn’t be happening.

This was impossible.

No matter which way Nora tried to spin what she witnessed, and continued to witness, she could not explain away what was happening. The kids were actually dead, their lifeless and limp bodies told them that much, and more kids were dying. In a panic, the rest of the patrons tried to get out of the party at the same time, leading to a quick demonstration of a crowd crush and why modern buildings have multiple exits. Yet the knowledge of how this tragedy within the tragedy did little to make Nora feel better. If anything, it made them feel more sick to their stomach. Why were they thinking of something so fucking trivial as building codes as people died around them? Why the fuck were they not doing more to help people get out? Sure, they couldn’t see whatever beast Baba Jaga conjured up and sent their way but they could at least help someone get through the door,

Yet, their muscles lost their strength.

Their mind lost their will.

And they did nothing. Why would they need to do something when they had Ella at their side? Kari did wonders helping the small group navigate the chaos, and soon they all found themself on the other side of the bottleneck and outside the warehouse. They were away from the immediate danger and could make a break for safety somewhere far away. They could tell the government what happened here and they would dispatch some fucking monster hunting group they no doubt funded for situations like this, kill the ghost, and life would move on eventually after years of therapy and terrible coping skills. As long as Ella and Nora were together, this night would not be the defining night of their life. Nora looked to where Ella was and gasped when they saw they were no longer by their side. They quickly spun around, back towards the death and destruction behind them, and covered their mouth with their hands. While Ella still held onto Nora, they knew that was about to change.

"Keep going, we- we need more exits! I can help with that. I’ll get out too, don’t worry!"

With that, Ella let go of Nora, and Nora reached out for their friend. They took a half step back towards the warehouse, but quickly stopped as they heard another body breaking inside. They needed to help their friend, they needed to ensure they did not die, and yet something was pulling her away from stepping through the door. Their vision narrowed more and more, and the door that was packed full of panicked teens seemed to grow further and further away, with a dark chasm between them appearing. The fear of losing their best friend and closest confidant broke something deep inside them, and through that wound, something awakened. A snowflake fell into view. A second fell a moment later. Soon, the vast distance between Nora and the door became a blizzard that nearly blocked their view of the warehouse, and time seemed to slow in response. They could see individual hands moving in a slow-motion effect. Nora began to have a panic attack. What the fuck was going on? Why the fuck was this happening? They couldn’t afford to be dealing with this right now; they needed to help their friend help the poor folks still trapped inside, not fight their own mind right now.

Suddenly, they felt a presence behind them that commanded their attention. Despite their best effort not to turn their head, it still slowly craned around. Instead of the rest of the friend group, and other panicked kids they expected to see, their vision showed a cobblestone street, lined with old merchant stalls. Straight ahead of them was a rather large river, and right before the street curved away from its banks stood a rather large and imposing church. There was no one else on the street besides Nora, the growing snowbanks, and a single woman who stood far too close and yet seemed all too far away. Nora could tell they were pale, almost deathly so. They wore a simple white linen dress. It seemed far too little for the weather they were facing, yet Nora did not linger on their outfit for long; instead, their eyes raised to a crown of thorns that was causing a persistent flow of blood down their face. It dripped off every few seconds, burning through the layer of snow below. They stared at Nora with an intensity that words could not describe, but all Nora wanted to do was run

“Do you wish to save your friend,” the woman asked as she began to circle around Nora.

“What the fuck.” Nora paused as they stumbled backwards.

In the blink of an eye, the strange woman closed the gap and was now right in front of them. Nora tried to scream, but their voice was stolen as the woman gave them an audible tisk, tisk, tisk as their cold gaze swept over their body. “Do you eat? Do you train? How are you the first one to awaken after all this time? No choice. Desperate times you face, and you shall gain desperate measures to face them.”

Nora just blinked twice. The woman had a very similar accent to both their parents, and Zofia could hear the woman fight to not speak Polish. Her body went limp as the woman practically grabbed her arms, stretching them out, and expressed dismay at the size of Nora’s arm muscles. What the fuck was going on? While Nora had never met this woman before, there was a certain air of familiarity that they could just not place. And even as blood dripped on their face as the tall, lithe woman danced around them, Nora remained frozen in place. Yet, the weird actions and relentless questions disarmed Nora’s fear and spurred a single question. “Who are you?”

“Who am I? Who am I? You little,” the strange woman started, stopped, took a deep breath, sighed, and placed both her hands on the cheeks of Nora. “Young Zofia, I am an ancestor. You have just woken from your lifelong dream and are now about to see reality for what it is. For that, I am sorry. However, we do not have time to discuss what that means, who I am, and what you can do. Your friend is in danger. I ask again. Do you wish to save your friend? What’s her name, Ella?”

Nora, shaken, simply nodded their head. They did not know what they could believe in this mental break, but something tugged at the inside of their body in a way that only their favorite anime or music could. And it felt all too real.

“Good,” the woman paused as she pulled both hands off Zofia’s face, returning with a gentle slap, and then back off again. The woman’s right hand formed a fist, before the pointer finger extended towards the Saint’s pendant around their neck. “I am sorry for what you must feel, which is your fault for not having a crown like mine, and I wish you good luck in the battles to come. Your body will know what to do,” the woman paused as their extended finger pushed the pendant until it was pressed firmly against Zofia’s skin, causing a surge of pain to flare outward from the location. “I hope we meet again.”

As the pendant forced its way through their skin, the world around them collapsed, and they quickly found themself back in reality. The pain of the pendant was intense, as the skin underneath it felt like it had suddenly gained the courage to resist the damage that it had once welcomed. They collapsed to the ground, with a hand over their chest, as the pain reached its zenith. And then the pendant broke through, becoming flush with the skin around it, and they felt a surge of power spread through their body. It wasn’t like their muscles felt stronger; it felt like their blood itself became a torrent of power that coursed through their veins. They felt a connection, or control, even over it. Blood seeped around the edges of the pendant, and Zofia reached out with this control, and soon the blood flowed into a long tendril that soon formed and pulled together, forming the most anime thing they could think of, a blood red rose petal. The petal broke free from the tether and orbited their body for a few seconds before the blood dissipated. They felt like they could have compelled the petal to fly towards something, but chose not to in the moment.

Zofia rose to their feet, and they looked around to see if anyone else saw what they just did. They shook their head. They did not have time to check if they were still sane. Their best friend was still inside the warehouse and might be in trouble. They needed to either use this possible power to help them, or at least convince them to run off into the night together. They wiggled their way through the door frame, above the crowd that was trying to get out, and looked for their friend. They did not expect to see her midway through a magic girl transformation scene straight out of the various anime they watched together. Well, this was real. And it looked like Ella was a magic girl too. "In the name of the light and all that’s good in this world, I won’t let you kill any more of my friends!"

Feeling a surge of strength at the sight of their friend, they pulled more blood from their body and created three rotating crimson petals and looked for the invisible ghost. The three petals dissolved when they found it visible. Zofia gasped in horror as the visage of a massive, werewolf like monster filled their vision. It was far too big to make sense, far too hairy to be human, and far too naked for them to allow. This was a fucking high school party, and what nerve the monster showed by showing up naked. What nerve this fucker had to ruin a good night. This could not stand, no, it would not stand. Zofia groaned as two long cuts opened on the palm of their hands, long since healed wounds they willed back open, and two long crimson tendrils of blood began to birth crimson petals. They did not know what they could do, but they could not allow Ella to face this threat alone. "Then you will not stand alone. Let your light guide the way, and I shall paint the path in crimson. So long as my heart still beats, none of our friends will fall today!"

A Journey Through Space - A DnD story

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Present day
Interactions: Not a soul
Outfit: Normal

---

There were many things that Benni accounted for this night, and the world ending was not one of them.

As his eyes shifted between Kel and the arrow that brought the promise of a painless death, he realized that things were quickly spiraling out of control. The constant rumbling that filtered in from the streets outside told him everything he needed to know about what might be coming next. Despite this, or maybe because of it, Benni was unwilling to leave a drunk and defenseless person to their fate, even if his own life was on the line. He would need to risk the wrath of a ferocious huntress in order to do so.

“I don’t care who needs to hear this but, fu-,” Benni was interrupted by a rather upset-looking small fella, who was complaining about people wanting him in the worst kind of ways, outside, “but I mean this girl no harm! Bloody hell, check the world around us. I ain’t leaving this person to their fate, your arrow be damned.”

The sound of further destruction beginning thundered in from the outside world. This was the third set of sounds that Benni could hear, each one drawing closer and closer with each subsequent sound. If his ears were correct, this latest sound was about three roads out from the center of town and still halfway between the tavern and the outer wall. He had no idea what was causing it, but he could feel vibrations begin underneath his feet as if the whole town was coming alive. He looked around the inn and could only lament the senseless destruction that came for it tonight. The various fixtures, wooden posts, chairs, and tables were strewn across the floor haphazardly.

“Is it me or is the room spinning?” Kel asked as she looked up at Benni. Despite the alcohol dulling her senses, she was acutely aware of something being wrong. She did not know why the inn was being destroyed, nor did she understand why the nice man was shot at, but she knew something was off all the same.

Benni looked outside the door and saw various buildings spinning and falling apart in the distance. He was right, it was the middlemost ring road that was now spinning. He remembered that the outermost road had begun spinning before the force of the spin destroyed each and every building. The second road had rose into the sky, and while he did not know what happened next, he could assume it too was spinning by the constant rain of bodies and debris he saw through the open door and windows. The third one had begun to spin. There was a pattern in this. Based on his limited sample size he could deduce what would happen next. The next road in line would rise up, and then it would also begin spinning. In his mind, he visualized what that would look like and the only thing that came to it was a gyroscope of some sort. “It’s not just the room, dear, I fear this is the whole town.”

Kel snorted. “How can alcohol make the whole town spin?”

“It,” Benni paused with an exhale. He held his voice for a second, as the corus of exploding bodies, concrete, crushed frames, and filtered into the room. He raised an eyebrow when Kel did not seem to notice, or care, for the sounds. He shifted his eyes towards Rosa, who was behind the bar, gripping tightly to it, who had heard this conversation and simply rolled her eyes in response. Benni returned his gaze to Kel. “If we make it to morning, you are bound to be extremely confused by what the town looks like I tell you what.”

---

The town still felt the burden brought by the chaotic activation of the tower. Buildings far away from the rotating discs began to groan as the relentless rumble of the ground threatened their foundation as if the earth quaked under their feet. People still stumbled, and tumbled, and found injuries all across their bodies from the falling debris. Yet, despite this, there was an order forming within the chaos. A small band of would be adventures had risked their own lives and safety to ensure that those who were struggling found refuge near the Waystone Inn. A dozen injured citizens were huddled together around the outside of the inn in various stages of disrepair, and some in need of urgent medical assistance. A rather rude gnome pushed through the crowd with nary a scratch on his body, yet he complained bitterly about assholes coming for his asshole.

Despite this, the town was far removed from safety. The outer ring roads still rotated both horizontally and vertically, sending the remnants of the buildings that once adorned it out into the world. People still attempted to retreat away from the death and destruction coming their way, finding themselves in the crosshairs of the destruction all around. And if one had a keen eye, they would see that the tower had more in store for them. Underneath the rotating caps of the tower lines began to appear, revealing the presence of three more rotating caps that had yet to spin. One could quickly put the pattern together and know that each one correlated to a ring road, with the bottom one representing the one they now stood on. The Waystone Inn would soon face the same level of death and destruction its patrons worked to save others from.

As if on command, the next capstone began to spin. It spun up quickly, taking the dull drum of the two former capstones and bringing it to a high-speed groan as it quickly matched the speed of the former two. The air was filled with the sound of the three sections spinning in unison, which sounded more like a raging typhoon than stone spinning. The air warped and whipped as this tower began to affect the environment of the area surrounding it. Conversations would find that their words would become buried under the loud sounds created by the tower. As well, as soon as the stone began to turn, the next ring road began to rotate like the first. The buildings buckled, groaned, and collapsed under the sheer speed of the rotation. Dust, debris, and bodies were once again thrown into the air and into the surrounding areas. The group would have little time to react to this development as the next capstone on the tower began to rotate, both increasing the noise the tower created and bringing about the next phase of destruction. The road directly before the middle district buckled, cracked, and gave way as another glorious metal plate began to rise into the sky. This one came from a different angle as the first, and when it reached its zenith, it was almost perpendicular in angle when compared to the first. Once again, building, rubble, and people fell from the sky as the metal plate began to rotate at speed.

---

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Near a dying man.....
Interactions: None
Outfit: Normal

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"UNDERTAKER! THIS FELLA'S LEGS ARE CATAWAMPTIOUSLY CHAWED UP! I NEED YER HOCUS POCUS SHIT!"

The call for help shot Edwina’s eyes open. They looked down, to the side, and ultimately back to the source of the voice, realizing it belonged to a rather rough and rowdy feline friend. Her eyes drifted downwards, and they looked at the woman at her feet. Her head had taken a direct hit from the falling debris, and by all logic, her cycle should have ended right then and there; however, the woman still clung to life with a fervent desire to see another day. Thus, her cycle still turned, and thus, Edwina did what they could with their magic to save her. Edwina checked the wound and nodded. The magic would hold, at least for now, but she was not safe yet. Stabilized was a word that was taught early on in their healing classes. When one deals with a mass casualty event like this, it becomes paramount to maintain one's magic to save as many people as you could. If one were to burn through their reserve too quickly, many could die, whereas if one did just enough to fight off death for a couple of hours and kept up that pace, one could often save almost everyone who could be saved.

The sudden woosh of a large object moving through the air at a rapid pace caught Ed’s attention, pulling their eyes up. A moment later, they watched as their construct used their body to destroy a falling piece of a house above the two, sending smaller debris and dust tumbling down instead of the whole piece. Edwina still used their body to cover the woman’s head to protect her from the falling pieces. It impacted their back at once, pelting them with hundreds of small rocks and other debris, and some stung more than others, yet it did not pose a risk of death for them in this moment. After the impacts stopped, they looked back for their construct, which was doing everything it could to protect the people from the raining death from above. Yet it wasn’t enough. Everyone was working together to rescue each other from their prisons of debris, healing the injuries that needed healing, and coordinating the whole process even as the world imploded around them, and yet it was not enough. Some people were still dying, some people were still falling, and if nothing else changed, the death and destruction around them would soon come for them. Yet in this moment, the cycle continued for Edwina, and those who lived. They would do what they could, in every moment, until they eventually came face to face with their goddess in the end.

Edwina rose to their feet as they shouted to no one in particular, but everyone at once. “Keep it up. Keep protecting each other, the gods haven’t abandoned us, and neither will I,” they paused as they began to make their way to the injured individual that the feline force called out. Their steps were uneven, and they stumbled as the ground seemed to begin to move underneath their feet. Their eyes quickly darted to the final capstone, and it remained still, so there was a small blessing to be found there. Yet they could not help but feel like there was a motion to the ground beneath them, as if something was pressing up against it, which caused it to move under their feet. Edwina knew that everything they did from here was futile, yet they also knew they had a duty to perform, and they pushed through the thoughts of the end. They dropped down and slid next to the wounded person, catching a few stray shards of glass as they did on their leg, and placed their hand over the top of the wounded leg. They looked up to Lucky and smirked. “Do you have any final words you wish to utter before the cycle comes to an end, friend,” they paused as their channeled their magic, “The anointment of The Many Faced Goddess is upon you. Today is not your day to die. Into oblivion you shall not pass, for I am the shield of the tomb, the gatekeeper between realms. Arise,” as they finished a bright, vivid green light exploded into the wounded section of the leg. Sinew began to reattach, the bone shifted and realigned, and the sources of bleeding found themselves closed. A moment later, almost as fast as it started, the light faded. The leg was still wounded and would require further care, but the life-threatening nature was no longer present.

A dreaded sound forced their head to rise upward. It was the sound a large object made as it ripped free from the shackles that bound it to a spot and began to fall downward. As if everything that made it up groaned in protest by the sudden acceleration it faced, but also as if it screamed about being liberated from its anchor. Edwina could see it was a large house, falling fast towards themself, Lucky, and the poor individual they had just healed. Their construct would be of no use in this. The cycle was ending, and it was time to embrace it. “Forgive me, goddess,” they muttered as they closed their eyes and spread their arms out wide, “and welcome me home.”

A moment later, the sound of the building impacting something filled their ears. The explosive sound of the building being sent outward, and the groans of the floors giving way to the impact. Yet despite the sound, Edwina did not feel anything. No pain, no fear, and no unreal sense of calm death was suggested to bring. Instead, Edwina was just confused. The smell of sulfur drifted into their nostril and their eyes opened. Above them, the building was held back by a yellow-looking shield that seemed to protect everything beneath it. It covered a small radius, maybe five meters wide, and resembled half a globe by the way it covered the ground beneath the zenith. They looked at Lucky with a raised eyebrow. The smell of Sulfur came into their nostril again, this time from behind them. Edwina turned around and saw Liliana Scratch, the elusive owner of the Inn, behind her. In her hand, there was a ball of yellow magic that they were pouring her energy into. Electricity crackled from the tips of their fingers into the ball of magic, and Edwina noticed that Liliana grimaced with each arc. After a wordless three seconds passed, they pressed the ball of energy into the ground beneath their feet, and the surge of magical energy flowed into the globe of invulnrability which caused it to grow massive in size. The edges of the globe shot outward, passing harmlessly past the group of people, yet stopped all the falling debris in its tracks. Eventually, the globe covered the entirety of the inner ring, and the road around the Inn was truly safe for now. The debris that fell from above was stopped at the barrier, and the bodies of the dead and those still alive still fell from above, ready to be saved.

“Hey you,” Edwina spoke as they turned their head back to Lucky, “my offer still stands. If there is anything you want to get off your chest before our mutual demise, I am all ears.”

Recollections: Where the Folds Meet

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Current day
Interactions: Daniel
Outfit: Normal

---

”Oh! Of course, of course! I- I really am sorry again! I- I lost my footing, I hope you’re not hurt.”

Lynn felt relieved as her back rose off the not-so-dirty, but still filthy, floor of the party. She also felt relief knowing that the guy in front of her, even with both his hands clasped around her arm, was not a creep. He seemed genuinely remorseful for his action and made no weird comment about her, so whoever he was, he had already earned a spot in her good book. Lynn did not know what she could expect when the school year officially started, and having acquaintances right off the bat would be a welcome start for Lynn. Thus, her eyes slowly rose to match the shy guy and drifted across his form once again before they returned to match his eyes. Introductions were in order, and she wanted to be sure she got off on the right foot. Lynn took a deep breath and steadied her nerves. She wanted to nail this.

”My name’s Mars. Er, Daniel. Put them together it’s Daniel Mars, or party boy, whatever you like. Are you, um, new here? Circumstances aside, it’s nice to meet you if you are! Uh, apologies if you’re not and I didn’t notice!”

Shit. He introduced himself first. At least she thought he did. She leaned in closer and squinted her eyes as if that might help her hear him better. Lynn also realized that, in this moment, he was shaking her hand. Was this a power move? He had the initiative in the tug of war of introductions in a high school setting. From here, he could control the pace of the conversation and determine where it would go. Lynn would always be the one reacting to what he said. An eyebrow raised. Lynn knew she needed to play her panic off as a chill vibe. She couldn’t let the fluffy-haired guy named Mars, Daniel Mars, ask too many probing questions. Lynn knew all too well that since he deduced correctly that the guy had figured she was knew, the next question was ‘why did you move here’ and she has yet to attempt to vocalize that answer. Would she break down and cry? Would she simply cease to exist on the spot? She did not know. Thus, she knew that she needed to regain control over this conversation and direct it from here. She needed to nail this.

“Party boy, don’t sweat it. We cool,” fuck that was terrible. She took in a deep breath, closed her eyes for a second, and she allowed a warm smile to cross her face. “Mars. Daniel Mars. I am indeed new here. I just moved here from Oregon a couple of weeks back and figured I’d see what the vibe was ahead of the start of class. Not sure what I think of my potential classmates. My name is Serenlight, Lynn. Put it together, and you get me, Lynn Serenlight,” Lynn leaned forward, shouting over the music as she did, to ensure that Daniel could hear her. They really had this music up too loud, and she was unsure if Daniel could hear her or if what she deciphered from Daniel was accurate. She paused as her eyes drifted across the room. She hoped that repeating the phrasing that Daniel used would help her cause, and was not in and of itself another symptom of a potential autism diagnosis. “You come to a lot of these?” She paused as she finally, but gently, pulled her hand free from his grasp.

---

Interactions: Party People @Evil Ghost Note
Dancing the night away

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“Smarter than me too,” Nora added as they nudged Ella with their hand. The two of them were not known to have a single brain cell to share between them. Sure, they were able to recite lines from their favorite anime series at whim, recall complex plots from them at will, and engage in incredible discussions about the themes, but they often struggled when it came to the academic world, not the animated one. Neither more so than Nora. Yet even Nora could see that this Lupe was a problem in the best ways. The energy felt different around her, like anything and everything was possible. Nora wanted to become good friends with them at once and experience the joy that one might find with a friend like that by their side. And then she started mixing drinks that looked rather weak. While this was not a surprise to them, they were in highschool after all, they were still slight taken aback by the comment about how dangerous it was.

That didn’t mean that Nora would not drink. They gladly accepted their mixture with a shimmy and a wide smile. And looked towards their best friend Ella and smiled even wider. This night was already better than the anime they had planned to watch. The loud music, the energy of friendship manifested, and the memories to come were more than enough to make Nora forget about anything that came before, or what waited after when she got home. They never actually told their parents that they were going out tonight. Instead, they started an anime they had seen a hundred times on season one, episode one. They turned the volume up and left through their window to avoid their possible questions. Sure, they were likely too drunk at this point of the night to even notice, but the possibility remained that their mother would stop by with a Pączki, or a Krówki, and thrawt the night out. Sometimes you had to roll the dice, and it was not like there would be consequences. The drunken mother would send them a hundred texts until the alcohol stole the night, and their dad would rage until it did the same.

"A magical girl never backs down from a challenge! To the best school year and the bestest friends!"

“The best on the planet! Nora followed their friends' lead and took a massive drink, finishing it in one gulp. It was very tasty, and they wished they had more. They looked at Lupe with a puppy dog expression.

"Whoa, it’s so good? How’d you figure that out, Lupe? Do you just mix stuff together till it turns out well… Like alchemy! Ooo, do you have any other house recipes? Any that are pink? And don’t you two worry… If you drink too much, I’ll carry you both home!
"

“In that case, may I have another? And can it be more dangerous? Nora grinned a wide smile. Having more of those tasty drinks, and being carried in the arms of a gorgeous woman who was far too strong for her own good? Sign Nora up.

Recollections: Where the Folds Meet

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Current day
Interactions: Daniel
Outfit: Normal

---

Suddenly, the room was spinning, which was weird because Lynn had not yet had a drink.

Her vision caught the sight of kids all around her growing towards the ceiling, and she shifted her eyes towards the painful sensation on her side. She spotted a boy, a confused-looking boy, after he had already impacted her side. Everything was happening too fast to see the reason why this boy had decided that today was Lynn’s day to die. Was this a hazing ritual for new kids at this school? Was it more of an accident? Or was it because this boy had a habit of tackling girls, and if so she would need to quickly figure out who the protectors of the school was. One thing was certain, and that was this fall would eventually come to a painful end, and that painful end was coming any second.

Lynn impacted the ground with a soft thud. It was neither overly painful nor was it particularly embarrassing. Thankfully, the floor was only kinda gross at this point of the party, and not the dirty and sticky mess that the spilled drinks would bring before long. She would still need to wash these clothes thoroughly when she got home, but it was not like anything was visible or staining. Still. It sucked to be on the ground right now. Lynn rolled her body until she was sitting more upright, with her feet planted firmly on the ground and her hands pushing her upper body away from the mess. It was here she caught sight of her assailant. The guy before her had a very soft face and fluffy hair. He seemed out of place at a party like this. Lynn could only speculate why someone like this was at a party like this. Yet no matter which train of thought she rode, it never quite made sense. He could have been a nice guy who simply wanted to experience the thrill of a night filled with music and alcohol, but why would a nice guy not watch where he was walking? He could have been a nice guy who simply wanted to create a problem and then offer the solution. Her eyes lowered to his hands and… he wasn’t offering her a hand up. Really. After knocking a girl over he wasn’t offering her a hand. Really. So he wasn’t a nice guy.

"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to knock into you! That's my bad!"

Oh, he was just awkward. Awkward was fine with Lynn. That meant her earlier assumption about him being new to the party scene might have been right, and she instantly wondered if he was overstimulated. That would explain the lack of manners in offering her a hand, which she was clearly miffed about. Her eyes narrowed as she locked in on his hand, yet the intensity quickly gave way to a quick chuckle and open eyes. Of course, she would end up on the floor of her first party within the first month in a new town, which was happening only a few months after her entire family was brutally killed right in front of her eyes. Because why wouldn’t her life keep giving her hardship? The boy was innocent in this, this much she knew, and as such she decided to let him off the hook for not offering a hand up and hopefully get off on the right foot from here. She offered her right hand up with a charming smile as her eyes rose to meet his.

“You’re forgiven, party boy,” Lynn paused as her head crooked to the side and her smile lingered, “help a girl up?” It’s the least he could do.