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

WHITE 1-B

[bitofafiction]

Sherlock snaps awake as though he has just been electrocuted.

He feels better-rested than he can remember being in a long time; the jumbled events of an unusually incoherent nightmare mingle with his memories of the past few days, flashing through his mind all at once; he pulls his left hand out of the blankets and stares at it, searching for the slightest mark that might corroborate that particular narrative.

He remembers dying. Twice. He remembers every sensory detail of every injury he received on that hellish afternoon. He remembers hearing Tony's voice; there is some confusion as to whether he was the one who spoke it. He remembers a slice of coherent light across his visual field and the smell of charred meat.

All of this takes up the space in his head that would otherwise be reserved for panic at this juncture. He gets out of bed sedately enough; no purpose would be served by bolting from the room.

[defender]

For his part, Shoujou has been awake since daybreak. He simply hasn't felt the need to do anything since then; he can't remember anything clearly, nothing truly coherent, but there is one phrase he can't forget.

God is dead.

Staring at the ceiling, that is the one phrase Shoujou can't get out of his mind: God is dead, God is dead, God is dead. Which means -- El is dead. But that's impossible; El cannot be dead. El simply cannot be dead. So then what?

God is dead.

He is pretty damn sure Nietzsche has nothing to do with it.

When Sherlock stirs, Shoujou rises from his own bed to blink blearily at his dorm mate. "Sherlock Holmes."

[bitofafiction]

"Hello," he says evenly. "Did you by any chance dream of a massacre?"

[defender]

Shoujou suddenly finds his throat dry. "I... I might have."

Swallow. "I think so. Maybe... yes," he concludes suddenly, the inquiry triggering a better recollection. The shadow... he remembers firing a gun. "Why do you ask?"

[bitofafiction]

"Because I did the same. And I did not wake up in the same place I went to sleep."

[defender]

"Then that means..."

Shoujou trails off, pressing a hand to his forehead as though it would help him remember. He remembers -- Kuchinawa had been wounded -- he shot El -- El was falling -- he shot El? "That all... happened?"

It's the only logical explanation, but he shakes his head. "That's impossible. I could never have killed..."

[bitofafiction]

"Considering I remember being killed myself,"

(blue fur—pain raking down his chest—crunch of broken bone)

"I doubt it is as simple as that."

[defender]

Looking at Sherlock makes Shoujou recall their first conversation, and the question raised in it -- who is behind this? Sherlock had called them a conspiracy of sadists, but they could not be Iwahijiri...

Shoujou tries to recall if he died, but the "dream" is simply a vague blur now.

"They did something to us," he says darkly, finally working up the nerve to slide out of his bed to get dressed for the day. "For their amusement. Or something more. Either way, we're all alive now."

[bitofafiction]

"Giving a great many people the same nightmare is difficult, but perhaps not impossible," Sherlock muses. "Easier than a few of the alternatives, at any rate."

[defender]

If Shoujou were the type to simply blurt out questions, he would have surely asked but why? Instead, he opts for muttering, "Alternatives?"

"Have you been considering ways to torture other students?"

[bitofafiction]

Dryly: "Yes. Haven't you?"

[defender]

Shoujou almost smirks.

"Well, everyone has secrets to keep, Mr. Holmes," is all he says in response, slipping on his shirt. Which is a reply as good as yes, he knows, but he can't afford being quite so blatant about it. The dream is slowly fading from memory.

He's put his shirt together when he realizes he can't do his buttons, and drops his arms.

[bitofafiction]

Sherlock has been considering it for approximately half a minute, since he woke up and decided it had likely just been done to him.

He refrains from mentioning this.

Instead he asks, "Sartorial troubles?"

[defender]

"Yes," he replies emphatically, putting on the vest despite the uselessness of the endeavor in an almost huffy fashion. "I can't... can't do buttons anymore. I don't know why."

"It's one of the memories they took," he adds, to clarify.

[bitofafiction]

"I could help," he offers, quite neutrally.

[defender]

"..."

It would be lying to say that Shoujou is not immediately reminded of Mitarai.

But it would be better than going about undressed as he had been forced to do for the previous few days, so Shoujou merely replies with, "Please do. I'm tired of being stared at."

[bitofafiction]

"Certainly."

He crosses the distance between them and starts to button Shoujou's shirt.

[defender]

Shoujou waits patiently, and cannot help muttering, "I feel like a kid..."

It certainly does not help that Sherlock is much taller.

[bitofafiction]

"I wouldn't know," he murmurs absently. "There. Duly buttoned."

The shirt, anyway. Sherlock has enough social awareness not to try buttoning anything else uninvited.

[defender]

It isn't as awkward as Shoujou anticipated it to be.

He's pretty sure I wouldn't know isn't the usual response to that sort of situation, but he doesn't mention anything about it. "Thank you," Shoujou says, looking down to do his tie.

[bitofafiction]

"It's no trouble. Any time."

He retreats to his own bed, which looks more slept-in than it has since well before Shoujou arrived, and starts to get dressed himself.

[defender]

"Mm, okay. Thank you, again." He takes off his vest and folds it back into his bedside drawer -- he's fairly certain that it's allowed, and Tougyu had never even worn it anyway.

Sliding it shut, he asks, "You're going to the lobby?"

[bitofafiction]

"I am, yes."

Sherlock also forgoes the vest—in his case, in favour of a leather jacket he picks up off the back of a chair.

[defender]

"As am I," Shoujou says, absentmindedly touching his arm where the student council armband used to be.

[bitofafiction]

He doesn't miss the gesture, but he has no way of knowing its significance.

"Shall we, then?"