rakuen | Round 1 [new characters and round announcement]

You're falling, and you can't remember why. It's a sickening feeling that makes your insides lurch; the darkness and the vertigo combine, and all you can think of is a story you heard once, somewhere.

- I remember now. It's a simple story that everyone knows. A legend of a Princess, the Demon Lord who kidnapped her, and the Knight who fought to save her.

The Demon Lord had kidnapped the Princess countless times, but every time the Knight bested his challenges and rescued the Princess.

No matter what tricks and ploys the Demon Lord used, the Knight would always triumph in the end. This was because--

The world tilts on its axis one last time, and the dream slips from your mind as easily as it arrived. A new voice intrudes on your sleep.

"Next stop: Academy Main Entrance. This tramline terminates here; all change. Next stop: Academy Main Entrance. All change."

Sunlight streams through the windows of the long carriage, making the seats almost uncomfortably warm beneath its waking passengers. The air is muggy and thick, the atmosphere deeply tired. Your nausea settles, slowly. The last of the dream fades.

"We have arrived at Utopia. Repeat, we have arrived at Utopia Academy. Could all passengers please leave the tram, as it is terminating here."

The tram pulls to a stop outside the academy station, and the students onboard are ushered off and directed to the front lobby of the school. They can't miss it; there are signs up pointing toward the main entrance, reading "New student orientation" in big, bright letters. If anyone should care to move off the path, try exploring somewhere else, a teacher will conveniently appear to shoo them back toward the lobby, assuring them that "all your questions will be answered inside".

The lobby is big and spacious, looking more like a university or perhaps a fancy international hotel than a high school. Stood around are any number of students in the uniform of the school. Some of them even look awake. There are several receptionists at the desk towards the back of the lobby, but for now they seem busy with paperwork.

[ Note: the round announcement will go up in a thread once you've all mingled. ♥ ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Don't mind that the view of her back may remind you as her shadow walked away after killing Euphie.

Oh. Yes. That.

He starts after her. "Excuse me, miss..."

The events aren't clear in his mind; all he has to go on is the memory of pain in his left hand and a sword in his right. But something about her is ringing a bell and Sherlock would dearly love to find out what.

Kallen stopped and turned around, hiding her hands behind her back. "Yes?"

His eyes flick down to her arms in an effort to read the position of her hands by observing what he can see of them.

"Have we met?" he tries.

Her hands linked with each other as she looked up at him. "No, I don't believe so."

"You seem familiar. Perhaps I merely saw you somewhere."

It's likely, in fact. But that doesn't explain why his hands remember trying and failing to hold a gun.

"It's a big school," Kallen started, "But I happen to wonder around a lot, so perhaps you've seen me along the way?" She was trying to ignore the fact that there was a dripping noise coming from behind her that only she could hear.

"I, too, have a propensity to wander. And yet."

He frowns in thought.

"What did you dream last night?"

"I--" She confirmed it with her roommates... everyone remembered bits and pieces of the death and shadows around them. Although Kallen was the only one who remembered the tiger. She wasn't sure if that part was even real, but when she woke up screaming that morning...

"Is... that how you believe you know me?" Yes, she is avoiding the question because she doesn't want to think of the events that day.

"It is, shall we say, a leading theory."

"I don't remember seeing you." Because it wasn't her. "I was... kind of preoccupied."

Edited 2011-02-07 01:47 (UTC)

"Well then. Perhaps, as I said, I've seen you around in a context that did not involve folie à plusieurs."

"What are you getting at?"

"Something bizarre and unpleasant is going on. More bizarre and unpleasant than the entire premise of this institution, I mean to say. I feel as though I tried to shoot you once," he realizes it is true only as he says it, "but I cannot imagine why and it's reasonably likely I hallucinated the entire episode."

"It wasn't me," she said quietly. Now it was all coming together. "It wasn't me... you were shooting at."

"Then who, or what, was it?"

"A doppelganger. That's the only way I can explain it." Her hands fidgeted behind her slightly.

"Well," he says philosophically, "it is not as though that is a new concept."

"The details are fuzzy, but I can remember. That thing... I remember who it killed. I--"

Drip.

Drip.

Don't mind that noise you can't hear. But it's definitely distracting her.

"But it wasn't me. I didn't kill Euphemia."

He shuts his eyes tightly.

"I think," he says in a very soft voice, "I am glad I do not remember that part."

Kallen shrugged. "I can't remember what it said, but I remembered everyone it murdered."

"I do not clearly recall anyone's death but my own."

"It's probably karma that I d--"

Edited (choose the right icons, cel) 2011-02-07 02:29 (UTC)

Sherlock opens his eyes to give her an inquiring look.

That noise. Why won't it stop? Kallen refused to look behind her because well, she feels there's a good chance there's a blood she can't block behind her. She looked down.

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