Round 1 [beta characters here]

[utopiamods]

And then you woke up and it was all a dream.

Or... was it?

You don't know. The details are fading. Some of it seems as clear as if if had happened minutes ago, whilst the rest is as hazy and vague as a long-lost memory. You remember blood and screams; a girl with a bright smile. Need to get rid of you, someone said. For a little while. Sometimes you were running, fighting, facing dark shadows with red eyes and mocking smiles. Sometimes you were hunting yourself, hurting people, feeling the power of your weapon coursing through you as you headed towards your prey. Sometimes you were watching your friends die, or your family, or your enemies.

Your shadow is you, and you are your shadow, and its voice is all around you.

Free us. Free them.

Static. More images, some you will remember and some you will not.

...but, your shadow whispers, the Demon King always returned. Didn't he?

You are outside, and the sky is blood. The towers glow, humming atonally as a star lights up the sky. The campus blazes with its light; the lines of the symbol span the horizon, and a tiger smiles.

Once, the knight despaired and sought a sage...

The tiger smiles, and the world is consumed in fire. You're falling, falling, and the shadow's voice falls with you.

There is a story everybody knows.

Light streams through the windows of your room. In eight different rooms, in four different buildings, thirty-nine students wake up with a start, and find their campus as picturesque and empty as it was the day before.

The day before? What...

A cheery voice breaks through the fog of confusion, loud over the speaker system.

"Good morning, students! Please be at the lobby by midday for the week's announcements."

Comments

Black 1-A

[tenwholeryou]

The moment he wakes from the nightmare, Kotarou scrambles out of bed. It's unfamiliar, and too big, and there are other people in the room. He wants to find somewhere smaller, somewhere darker, to hide for however long it takes to get rid of the screams and the smell of blood; he's looking for a way out, he finds Oichi instead. Suzaku's there too, still sleeping, but Kotarou remembers him dying, somehow, which is strange and upsetting, and he's going to go over to Ichi. He doesn't see death when he sees her, his half-asleep mind associates her only with safety. Dazed, panicking, he climbs onto the end of her bed, and curls up at her feet.

He sleeps there until the announcement.

[womenwouldgrieve]

Had that little boy always been in this dorm? Edgar can't recall ever having seen him before.

Right now Edgar is sitting on the edge of his bed, looking around at the others in the room... that little boy, a woman whose name he absolutely had to find out, and two other boys he didn't know, but who he'd noticed in this room before. (If only he'd arrived earlier in the previous round.) They are sleeping peacefully, it seemed; clearly, they hadn't had the same disturbing dream Edgar had just had. It was so vivid and strange; he doesn't know what to make of it.

Either way, he's stood up and is about ready to leave the room when the announcement comes through.

[scott_pilgrim]

It's not often that Scott is disturbed by a dream. But last night (?) was different. And with a slight start, Scott sits up, frowning. "Man... that was weird, " he mumbled, before flopping back into bed. "Anybody else feel like--"
And then he hears the announcement, and sits back up. "Do... do I have to?"

Yes, Scott. You have to. With a look around, he notices the person about to leave. Hm. Maybe he should follow him, or look at the other people in the room. Oddly enough, he'd never really looked around his own dorm at this time.

[themouthofhell]

The Demon King always returned. Didn't he?

Oichi awakes with a start, sitting bolt upright in her bed. She shakes and distantly feels as though she may be sick. The room is as it always is, so she lays back down. Closes her eyes. The stench of death is still there, heavy and thick. A dream, she tells herself, but the quivering in her fingers does not go away. The darkness of her closed eyes is a comfort, but for the first time, sleep seems scary.

So she opens them. Kotarou is there, she notes, and she shifts up in her bed, sits and strokes his hair. He'd been dead. She'd been all alone, fire everywhere, and it had been just like that time. That time... she starts to remember, just a little bit, something feeling familiar but not solid.

But he's here now, alive and sleeping. Kotarou is alive and that girl is likely alive as well. The memories of her dream already feel distant, faint, and she hates that. Too many of her memories are as a wisp of smoke. The announcement sounds, but she doesn't hear it.

The Demon King always returned. Didn't he?

She thinks of her brother, and can't remember his face or name. Tears build up in her eyes but do not fall just yet.

[womenwouldgrieve]

Hearing one of the others speak, Edgar turns around. He's about to shrug off Scott's question when he sees the woman, tears welling up in her eyes, looking oh so distraught.

"I don't know," he replies -- ignoring the question would be rude -- and then strides over to the side of the woman's bed and looks down to her. "...are you all right?"

[tenwholeryou]

"Ichi." Kotarou doesn't move much, too tired and too frightened to do anything but curl around her knees. It's comforting, having his hair stroked, and he remembers telling Nanashi, "to banish bad dreams, think of better times, and hold onto something dear to you." Is that what they are? Dear to each other? He wouldn't mind that.

When the man approaches, he eyes him distrustfully, like a wary guard-dog, and hunches closer to Oichi.

[themouthofhell]

She shuffles a bit closer to Kotarou-- he's comfortable, warm, and there-- when the man approaches. He's a foreigner, which she isn't unused to, and his voice is soft and kind. So she looks up at him with her blank, black eyes.

"Ichi... can't remember her brother," she answers, still gently, absently brushing back Kotarou's hair.