She was in desperate need of some tissues. Her muffler lay long discard to the side for fear she might get too much mucus on it. She peered through watery eyes, trying to take deep breaths and feeling so foolish for breaking down as she had, but every time she felt calm enough, another round of tears cascaded down her face. She'd heard of crying, but this was utterly ridiculous. When there was a light knock on the door, she hardly registered it, almost thought it was a hallucination, and then a voice accompanied it. "Hey um," Quin froze, mucus catching in her throat and choking her up. She coughed out, eyes becoming even more watery. "you don't have to open the door, but I thought maybe you might like some company. If you want me to leave I will, but I just thought I'd say that we'll figure this out. I'm not sure what you've been through, because it looks like a lot of people are having a hard time dealing with whatever this is, but you don't have to do it alone. So, um, yeah... I'm Renée by the way. I don't know if you caught that in the classroom, but I just thought I'd tell you. According to my key I'm in apartment 108 which looks like it's just down the hall. If you start to feel better, feel free to come find me. Um... sorry, if I bothered you." Quin held steady through the prattling and sniffed multiple times, legs folded on either side of herself like a fallen doll. She waited for more, but there was nothing. The girl named Renée must have left, maybe for her own room. She waited a few more moments, but there was still nothing and then her tense shoulders fell. Pressing her fists into her thighs, she scolded herself for letting go like that in a place like this, but there was just so much piled up. No matter or not if this game was supposed to be a fresh start, she genuinely didn't know if she could handle all the pain again. Breathe . . . she told herself. Get a hold of yourself. Quin pushed herself to her feet, swaying with lightheadedness before she could walk again. She picked her muffler up from the ground and looked around the apartment; it was a lot more spacious than she thought it would be, far more open too. It was still small as far as living spaces went, but she was glad to not feel suffocated. Sniffling, she turned back to the door behind her and opened it. The walls were painted a pretty dark color, something maybe akin to teal, and it felt as if she might be back home, her home near the edge of the woods. She walked in and hung her muffler on a coat hanger next to the door and slipped off her wrap coat. She really needed some tissues. Looking around some more, there was a bed, a dresser, a desk, an archer's bow on the wall, a music stand— Wait a moment. She doubled back to the music stand; it was mid-height, elegant in design and looked . . . just like hers, back in the other game. And then the bow on the wall, the traditional bow with a small white ribbon tied to the lower limb . . . Also just like hers. Her eyes widened as she scanned the room once more and saw— "My violin . . ." she gasped, hurrying over to it. She pulled the dark case up and unzipped it. Lo and behold, there it was. Her dark-wood violin and bow, her rosin and cleaning cloth. "Why are these here . . ." she asked herself, and then wondered if it was the game master's sick idea of some kind of treat. She looked around the room one more time, seeing object from her old room dotted everywhere. Don't fall for it. she told herself, tried to urge herself, but she couldn't help it. This was the first semblance of normal—of home she'd seen since waking up. She wondered if that girl—Renée—also had objects from her previous home in her room too.
Harley guided Heidi through the crowd of people, keeping her close as ever as they wove through everyone and made their way toward the apartment building. He wondered if this town was even real. Had Bellhurst been real? Brookridge? Had any of it been real? It was throwing him off so bad that he wanted to yell out just to unwind, but he couldn't do that. He had Heidi to worry about, and if he couldn't be stable enough for her, what would she do? Who would? He looked down at her as they entered the building with a smile. "Are you alright? We'll be there soon." From his pocket, he slipped the key into his hand and looked at the number on it. Room 208. "It looks like we're on the second floor." he grinned as they walked into the elevator. He made sure the door closed before anyone could come in, and when they were finally alone, away from other people, he let Heidi go, smiling reassuringly. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been so caring—everyone else was just a fun little toy to him (at least before Crestatia's game) but that was no good. No direction, too quick-paced, too risky. Lame as it sounded, he had things—a person to protect now. The elevator dinged when they arrived on the second floor and he grabbed Heidi's hand, leading her out. "Our room is 208," he told her, "I'unno if we're sharing with anyone else, but if I gotta, I'll kick them out for you." he half-joked. He knew she couldn't deal well with strangers and was willing to get used to killing already. They walked down the hallway carpeted with ornate designs one might see at a tacky but fancy hotel, and the walls were cream-colored while the doors were dark brown, a gold plate numbering them off as they walked. He wondered if people actually lived in them or if they were just illusions. 206 . . . 207 . . . 208 . . . He pulled to a stop. "Here we are," he said when they were at the end of the hallway, letting go of Heidi's hand and slipping the key in. The door was still lucked, so hopefully that meant they didn't have to deal with anyone else right yet. He led her in. "Hello?" he called out, just to check, but there was no reply and he grinned at Heidi. "Look's like we're the first ones here, quick, we gotta claim the biggest bedroom!" Harley laughed, burrowing through the living room and feeling much lighter than when he woke up. He looked at Heidi with bright eyes and for a moment, he thought Maybe this'll be alright.
It was a relief when she made it to the apartment building without being intercepted by anyone. As she was, she couldn't handle talking to anyone or she just might break down with the reality of everything. As she walked through the foyer and to the splitting halls, she pulled the key from her pocket. Key imprints, angry and bright, stained her palms from how tightly she'd gripped the key. It was a surprise she didn't make herself bleed. Room 100 . . . She sincerely hoped she didn't have a roommate, but she hardly ever got the things she wanted in life. If it were a true, that she did turn out to have a roommate, a small secret part of her hoped it would be— Oh, don't be a fool, she berated herself with a lip bite. We promised, no more weakness . . . Yet, how long would she be able to uphold that promise? As she turned down another hallway by following the signs, she watched people walk in and out of rooms, some looking lost and others just bored, as if this were a part of their every day routine. Her eyes dance from sign to sign until she finally settled on one. Room 100. With a deep breath to calm herself, Quin slot the key in and unlocked the door, desperately hoping no one was inside. "H-Hello?" she called, cursing herself for the crack of her voice. She waited a few moments, but nothing. There was no one else here, and she let out a breath of relief that soon turned to a sob. Quin crumpled to the floor, shaking and beginning to sob loudly—she hoped no one heard but she couldn't stop. All she could see were visions, visions, visions—Crestatia threatening her, switching bodies with Christina, the canoe in the swamp with Devyn, shooting that girl, Abigail when they were stuck in the auditorium . . . Her entire body quaked with her wails as she buried her puffing face into her muffler. "M-Madeline . . ." she cried out, lifting her head, "Madeline, Madeline, Madeline," she sobbed louder with each time, coughing and sniffing and choking on her own mucus. It hurt. She hurt. She just hoped she could calm down before anyone heard her or joined her as a roommate—she left the door unlocked but couldn't think straight enough to even get off the wooden floor of the entrance.
The big dude grinned at him and Harley raised an eyebrow, loosening his hold on Heidi a little. "Hmmm, ah the names Julius, nice ta meetcha kid." Harley nodded at him and looked to the others. "My name's Acele. Self-proclaimed 'Thief of Thieves. If you don't make a living stealing off others, nice to meet you. If you do, well, I hope you keep very good security on your valuables." She waved at them and Harley narrowed his eyes at her. What kind of people were these guys? They looked a lot different from the last game's players, like they came from all walks of life. It was confusing as hell. "Name's Xane," said the last guy with purple hair. Who honestly had purple hair? Harley almost snorted, but decided not to bring on any kind of trouble too early. His prime concern was Heidi at the moment. "Harley." he finally replied, short and sweet. "Don't suppose you guys know where those apartments are, do you?" Xane asked, and Harley looked to the building across from the school. "Isn't it that?" he asked, motioning to the building and trying to be neutral as possible. "We all got keys, didn't we?" He looked over to the building to see people filing out. Were they all students or something? Was this even a real world, or did they all wake up here too? He shook his head. "People are coming," Heidi told him and he nodded, watching them all walk out and disperse. "Those other people are coming too." He nodded again. He didn't want to admit it, but he was lost as she was. At least last time they had some kind of guide or instructions—or a demon serial killer hanging over there heads and urging them to survive, but now . . . He sighed. "Can we go?" Heidi asked, and he looked back down at her with her big eyes. He smiled, snorting good-naturedly and shifting some of her hair behind her ear. "Yeah, let's go." he said, and then looked to the others one more time. He shifted his arms to be linking with Heidi's and began guiding her away from the school and towards the apartments. He vaguely wondered if it was a deathtrap, but they had to do something.
Quin buried her face deeper into her muffler as she passed blurred faces around her. Were all these people new to this board too? A lot of them looked used to everything, but some—the people she'd seen in the classroom—looked just as lost and confused as she was. She curled tight fists into the pockets of her wrap coat and took a deep breath. She wished she understood why her. Why someone as pathetic and weak as her? Did they know she was a player on another board? Had she been a player on a board even before that? Before the game, she was a normal person, she thought. A normal life in a normal house, at a normal school with normal peers . . . And then it all changed. She died. Shaking her head, she filed out of the school with everyone else, trying to make herself small as possible. Whatever this game was . . . She would play it. She would win. "I WISH TO JOIN THIS STRUGGLE!" Quin flinched as someone burrowed through the crowd. She almost toppled into someone else but grabbed her footing and muttered an apology to whoever it was before hurrying forward. The sooner she escaped the building, the sooner she could lock herself away in the new apartment for rehabilitation and privacy. "Please watch where you're going next time . . ." she muttered to herself, steadying out. A distant shout drew her attention to the sky and someone was flying away. The boy fell to the ground as she passed him. "Y-You bastard . . ." She almost considered stopping to see if he was alright, but she didn't want to. No friends this time. No idiocy this time. No being weak. Quin quietly passed a group of people talking to each other, a tall boy holding a girl who flickered a light bulb in her head. Her heart palpated once, and then she shook her head, hurrying forward for the apartment building.
ES MUERTOS.
"Harley?" Harley's heart jumped into his throat throat when those familiar eyes peered up at him, watery and frightened, just like they'd always been when she was scared. He swayed when a barrage of images knocked into him—the mall, the school, the hospital, the tower—every single event from Crestatia's game was imprinted into his mind, and he suddenly knew it'd be forever. Fuck, he sighed. When she scrambled to her feet, he just knew what was next and opened his arms. She collided with his chest, clinging like a panicked animal. For the first time since he pulled his head off that desk, there was a sense of normal, like they were normal people in a normal world, leading normal lives. "Is it really you?" He chuckled. "It's me," he reaffirmed, both for her and himself. "It's me, Heidi." She began crying again, and he wove his arms around her small shaking frame tightly. She just suddenly disappeared one day, back in the other game, and he never saw her again—but when he was trying to survive, it didn't seem to matter that much that she was gone. But she was here. She was here, and he was here, and who else was here? Who else would he see that he knew? "I don't wanna play this game again." she sobbed. In a moment of weakness, his knees bent, but he pulled up straight again in no time. He had to be strong. Before, when he woke up, his resolve was surviving, but now . . . Now, she was here, and he knew her. She couldn't do this on her own, couldn't handle it. "I don't want to play either. I'm sorry you're here, I wish I could send you away for safety . . ." And he meant that. Still holding her, he looked around the yard. The big ol' dude was still there, and there was another blonde girl against the brick wall of the building. Another boy with purple hair seemed to be floating around, hovering near, and Harley narrowed his eyes at him. He looked at all of them. "Hey," he said, "Who're all you?" he asked as he stroked Heidi's hair. He bent down. "When we get to those apartments, you can stay with me if you want," he murmured.
Harley stood at the windows of the classroom, staring out into the sky for what could have been hours. He wasn't thrown for a loop, he wasn't upset, he wasn't confused. He was tired and he wanted a nice, long nap. As it were, though, it looked like he was dragged into another game—real fun stuff, in his opinion. He hadn't scoped out the other players yet, for now, there was no reason to. He didn't know the time frame of the game, he didn't know what this new deity had in store for them, but he felt more ready this time, more ready to do whatever it took to survive. He was scared before, he admitted it, but what did he have to lose? Wasn't he just going to wake up on another gameboard after this? What was the point in fearing death? He snorted to himself. "No!" he heard someone shout, and his shoulders tensed—why did that voice sound so . . . familiar? But that was impossible, he was sure players from any board would never be put together again. He didn't know how it all worked, but something like this had to be a pain for the game master. Harley turned around just in time to see a short girl with dark hair escaping from the room, and he swore that bun and over-sized scarf were so familiar—but no. He didn't have time to mull over what-ifs and bygones. He needed to figure out this game and its players as soon as he could. He looked one more time out the window, this time at the ground in front of the school building, and saw another girl with long brown hair huddled on the ground, a few people surrounding or near her. He frowned. It was time to go to the apartment. He wondered if he had a roommate. Key in pocket, he walked from the room, past other players he didn't care about at the moment, and made his way out of the building. It was strange, this new setting. Everything was completely normal—then again, everything from the last game was normal too. Until people started dying . . . Until Quin started dying. The setup of everything brought on a pile of questions he wanted to ignore, including those about his existence, but that was too much a bother right now. The doors of the building opened in his stead and suddenly he was outside. Fresh air, bright sunlight, it felt like a new beginning—a new door to hell, more like. He looked over and saw the girl huddled up on the ground again, and next to her was a big dude with long brown hair and an eyepatch. He furrowed his brow and looked down at the girl again—Wait a fucking sec . . . "Heidi . . . ?" He inched closer; her hands were covering a lot of her face, but he was so damn sure that was her. "Heidi," he tried again, more volume to his tone.
Quin frowned down at the key in her hands, still bewildered by everything and sluggish. If it wasn't one thing, it was another . . . Was this another game for another demon to torture her in? The voice in her sleep was playful, it laughed a lot, it was bored, it was— What did she remember? The very last thing, what was the very last thing she remembered? "Well I can't hang around your home all day . . ." she said that, she said it to Devyn. Devyn, the weird, terrifying girl out to get them all—Quin looked around, eyes bouncing from desk to desk (a desk; something she felt like she hadn't seen in years) but there was no Devyn. She looked back down to the key in her trembling hand. One deep breath and she closed her eyes; blurry collages of events that happened during the game flashed one after the other behind her eyelids, weighed down on her shoulders, and she slumped over. All the things she could have done—should have done . . . She deserved to be killed back then. Who won the game, she wondered? It didn't matter, she was obviously on a new board. This one most likely had its own rules and own demon ruling over it, and this time . . . God, I don't want to do this. I want to die. She had already died though, twice, if she recalled correctly. This is too much . . . Shaky on her feet, she slowly stood from the desk, hand clenching around the key in her hand. She needed a very long sleep—this apartment of hers, was she sharing it with anyone? Madeline crossed her mind and she heaved out a breath, bracing herself on the desk and snapping her eyes closed again. No, she didn't want Madeline here. Madeline deserved to be free. Madeline deserved everything. Pulling herself back up, Quin looked around the classroom to see unfamiliar people talking, as if some of them already knew each other. A lump began forming in her throat. She glanced out the windows lining the far walls and saw the sky and the building the new demon must have been talking about . . . That was where she needed to go. Swaying, she turned away from the desk, key clenched in hand, and began maneuvering around desks and people with her head down. She hoped no one would bother her before she could escape.
ok yall guys gotta forgive me, i've been out of this for a hella long time n idk what i'm doing BUT I'M DO IT Username: Saxima Name:Kallisti Q. Lein Age: Originally 16, turned 17 Appearance: ☁ Species: Human Special Powers: None Personality: Quin (she doesn't like her first name) is very quite and closed off, she doesn't like being around too many people at once and isn't afraid to tell someone they're annoying her. She avoids needless confrontation if she can. Original Roleplay: 100DAYS Link to Original Form: ☁ Username: Saxima Name: Harley J. Jackson Age: Originally 17, turned 18 Appearance: ♚ Species: Human Special Powers: None Personality: Laid back and charming, Harley's favorite thing is to play with people. He's self-preserving and on the surface, friendly, but don't let his handsome face fool you; odds are, he wants something a little more from you. Sometimes he's nice though—and even sometimes, he cares about things. Original Roleplay: 100DAYS Link to Original Form: ♚
*dances*
I JOINED POST-TRASH-MEME AND MY TIMING IS MORE RELEVANT
THIS ISNT 2007
cloud's arms were truly a sight to behold . . . oh, the beauty
KHV LOOKS SO UNSIGHTLY . . .
i am completely blinded by khv's new layout oh my god what happened
♔☆☆OKAY YES HELLO I AM FINALLY HERE. oh my god ok first COLLEEN THANK YOU even though i already said it in the skype chat thing BUT THESE PICS ARE THE CUTEST OF PICS. and also hyuge thank u i will always cherish this gif even tho u use it for everyone's bday thread ♥ kerru my love thank u <44444 and also to (tail is that u) and burrito-kun and LARIA HELLO MY CHILD thank you also uwu but also @drew i will always love u more than kpop too our love is undying and STRONGER THAN EVER we can conquer anything together thank you bb ilu so much ♥♥♥♥ @Jayn gosh you're just SO GAY and i'm cry i love you so much thank u if i could do the gay thing in this thread without being gross i would @SynK B R U H never4get weebslang thank u to everyone who wished me happy birthday //gunhands i love all of u and i will make an effort to be less dead perhaps ♥♥ T H U G B E R R I E S WACK WACK WACK WACK DIRTY PLAYER
♔☆☆looks like it's time for me to take up residency in either baton rouge or mobile alabammy [thick southern accent] T H U G B E R R I E S WACK WACK WACK WACK DIRTY PLAYER
♔☆☆amaury why T H U G B E R R I E S WACK WACK WACK WACK DIRTY PLAYER
♔☆☆damn son that was smooth as fuck get away from me T H U G B E R R I E S WACK WACK WACK WACK DIRTY PLAYER
