Persona- Drifting Into Darkness

[SilvanHaven]

Justin Harken
Strange Street
Night

Justin had been about to answer when the back of his neck exploded in pain. With a cry he slapped a hand to the afflicted spot, his eyes closing on reflex. When Justin opened them again he was in an entirely different spot. Gone were the red bricks and white siding of his apartment building. In its place was the black asphalt of a street with rather generic looking building on either side. The colors and shades were off slightly, the darkness seemed more pressing than normal.

A nagging sense of familiarity had him searching his brain for several seconds before the memory came to him. This was the same place he had ended up in his last few dreams. The only difference was that his memories were filled with a lot more running and far less...talking?

Off to one side was a collection of young people, all from his school it seemed. While he looked around, a familiar voice came from nearby.

"Joseph? Do you know what's going on?" a pause and then, "Do you know of any mark on the back of your neck?"

The comment reminded Justin of the now warm mark on the back of his neck. Touching the spot with his hand, Justin looked at it, relieved to find that there was no blood. Looking back at Claud, he replied.

"No, I don't know of any mark on the back of my neck. And the only thing I know about what is going on is that everything looks like something from one of my recent dreams. By the way, Claud. My name is Justin, not Joseph. You should get our head out of the clouds"

It did not look like the other teenager was paying much attention judging from the way he was looking around standing there with a thoughtful look on his face. All of a sudden Claud started moving away and towards the light in the distance. Moving after him, Justin spoke up in a slightly louder voice.

"Alright, alright. I'll try to keep the weather jokes to a minimum. Don't you think it would be best to stay with the rest of the group though? Safety in numbers and all that?"

 

[InnerFlame]

Jamie Austin Moore
In a Town???
Night…?
Affected RPer(s): TheCharredDragon and indirectly everyone else

“……Oh great, an overly sensitive woman… ” Jamie quietly said that to herself with an annoyed sighed. There she was all squaring up with the tall chick after she started to suddenly walk up to her. The blonde always expected that people who come up close to her like that were about to start fighting with her. She was even in an offensive posture before she began to talk in a calm manner. And then screamed at her by the end of it.

Getting a nice close look at her, it was obvious she was female. Longish light-colored hair, a girlish face and she was way better built in a feminine way when compared to herself. Only real oddity was that the girl was about a foot taller than her. Honestly, Jamie didn’t understand why she was getting so touchy about being mistaken for a guy; she was mistaken for a guy all the time and didn’t bother her. But when she really thought about it, the manly girl supposed that everyone had their things that upset them and it was a lot more when it came to women.

“Firstly, back off of me girly. I thought you wanted fight walking up on me like that…” Her blue eyes sternly looked up into the tall teen’s eyes. “Your height and this darkness, it’s easy to mistake and I apologize. Now, if your fragile feelings are better let’s go.” Jamie just got right to the point and began walking along with the rest of the group, not waiting for her response.

“Huh…?” Jamie suddenly paused… was the left side of her face was glowing? It certainly was… and it was vibrating… that was very strange… Everyone seemed to be glowing somewhere on them. Then there was like a lot of high-pitched squealing… As she looked for the source her eyes found a mass of black creeping towards them. There were many yellow lights gleaming from the bulk. It was their eyes… the eyes of the creatures she couldn’t do anything against before. They were ones that attacked her last time. But the difference this time was the sheer number of them seem to had increased. If they let them get too close the horde would quickly overwhelm them…

“It’s time to run now!” Jamie shouted out and ushered everyone to hurry forward.

 

[Titan500]

Naomi Cephas
???
Friday Evening
Affected Characters: Everyone

It was incredibly surreal, watching a bright light pulse from underneath her clothes. The phenomenon had occurred without any warning, leaving Naomi confused and shocked even as the vibrations continued to drum through her chest. She wanted to ask why all this strangeness was happening to her (and, following a quick observation, her fellow students). However, the appearance of the jet-black hordes of her nightmares put an end to any of her plans. They were horrifying, crawling along the ground in a manner that brought the girl intense fear. It was the beady little eyes that shifted as the mass continued to move, their sickly yellow colour bringing to fore something ... primal inside her. What lay before them was not something beyond mortal ken. It was something that they could not face.

"Move!" she roared, her voice echoing Jamie's initial orders to get away from the creatures. "Everyone just keep going and do not stop!"

She didn't know how fast or deadly these things were, and she was not going to stick around and witness their capabilities. Her dreams had told her enough - they were incredibly dangerous, and frightening on a level she had never experienced before. These ... shadows were predators. Naomi was worried that if she got too close, she would be swallowed whole. They needed to run. Every nerve in her body was screaming for her to do so.

Why did the strike such fear in her heart?

What were they?

And how can they even exist?!

 

[*Jean Grey*]

Jannike Mortensen
Belle Estate --> ???
Friday Night
Affected RPers: Martin (Avenger Angel), Everyone (indirectly)

"Hey, look what we've got here! Winning team gets THIS in addition to to that rum!" Ben announced as he held up something that looked extremely familiar to Janna, despite her half-intoxicated state. Keys, attached to a dripping wet, furry black keychain in the shape of a wolf. Of course, she thought. It was her keys! She did not like the thought of them falling into someone else's hands.

"Damn you, how the hell did you get your hands on it?!" She shouted, waving her fist in the air. So far, the merpeople had overturned one of the boats, mostly thanks to Martin being sober. Two boats still remained, however, and they were still moving. ****, we're going to lose this damn thing, she mumbled. Martin swam over to the blonde and shook her shoulder.

"Yo, if we win this, you get your keys back, alright? C'mon, less talk, more push," her friend encouraged as he flicked his tail, motioning for her to follow as he swam towards the closest boat. Janna then dove back in and swam behind the other merpeople the best she could with the Ariel-esque mermaid tail that restricted her legs. Sure, she was a strong swimmer, but she learned to swim with two legs, and not a tail. She, however, did not want her keys falling into the wrong hands, and she was going to do anything to make sure of that. Spying one of the rowboats floating over her, she waited for a moment, before propelling herself upwards with as much treading against the water as she could, raising her hands up. It became easier as she neared the surface, and she bent her arms, before extending them and pushing as hard as she could as they touched left side of the rowboat's bottom. It was a lot easier to do it underwater, she was advised by her teammates, and lo and behold, she managed to tip the boat to its side, spilling quite a number of screaming sophomores and juniors. Two of them hit Janna's head by accident, causing her to sink a bit as she rubbed her head. Despite the pain, she pushed herself upwards to break the surface and yell out her victory.

"Oh yeah! Two down, one to go! Who's the damn boss now?!" She howled out, pounding her chest with her fist and pumping her other fist up in the air as the others nearby pushed down the heads of some rogue pirates who tried to surface and get back to the boat, perhaps to cheat. She was met with a reply consisting of several jeers, and as she turned to see where it came from, she noticed that the other rowboat was close to the opposite end of the pool. "Shit," she cursed, as she swam towards it as quickly as she could. No way in hell was she going to lose this game and her keys! However, she was stopped when several people poured out into the water right in front of her. Surfacing, she saw Martin laughing out loud amidst cheers from the other mermaids.

"See? Aren't you guys glad that I'm sober?" Martin joked as two freshmen slapped his shoulders and tried to carry him on theirs. Unfortunately however, the mermaid tails were not good for balancing, and the two slipped underwater, Martin tumbling after them. He surfaced shortly after, laughing out loud.

"Whaddya think?! MVP!" He crowed as he slid out of his mermaid tail and stepped out of the pool. Janna smirked as she faced Ben, who was still on the far side, holding her keys.

"Oi, give Martin a triple! Keys are still mine though, you damn thief!" She called before pushing herself out, still wearing her tail, and allowing some of the spectators to take her picture. Sophia was going to freak out if ever she saw them, but it was not as if her Italian caretaker, who was older than her father, knew how to use social media. She then slid out of her tail and walked around the pool, reaching Ben and taking her keys from him. She proceeded to dry her body with a towel and put on her discarded clothes. As she was zipping up her vest however, sharp pain erupted from the back of her neck. Janna closed her eyes and bit her lip, trying to get through the pain without screaming as she let go of the zipper, which she had managed to pull halfway up. When she opened her eyes, however, she found herself not by the poolside, but somewhere different.

-----------

Janna found herself standing on a foggy street corner that reminded her of the very same street she saw in the dreams she had for two nights before disallowing herself to sleep. Perhaps her body had finally given in to sleep? This time however, it felt so real. She walked a few steps and saw other people, familiar faces. In fact, Janna definitely recognized the faces of some of her classmates, including Martin, Finn, Sura, Naomi and Cadence, among others. A light shone in the distance, and the silhouette of a young girl stood not so far away.

“Head toward the light…” A soft, feminine voice echoed. Light? Janna thought, remembering what people said about seeing a light when one was dying. She never believed it to be true, but was she…dying or dead? She noticed, however, that many signs pointed otherwise. There were just too many people, and her body didn't feel any lighter. Her hair was still pretty wet, she smelled of chlorine, and her clothes were slightly damp. It was unlikely a mass killing took place in a teen party. Which meant…the only way to find out was to move. The others had already started moving, and she was determined to find out if she was really inside her dream or not.

"C'mon, Martin. Worst thing it can do is kill us." She said, looking towards her friend and waiting for him, before running alongside him towards the light, catching up with the group. As they drew closer, she saw a tall spire, bathed in light.

"Man, that thing's so damn.." The tall girl commented as they reached the tower. Shortly after, however, Janna suddenly noticed glowing coming from Martin's upper right arm, cutting off her speech. In fact, different-colored glows were emanating from everyone. As she looked at it, she became aware of a warm sensation coming from the back of her left hand. She raised her hand and saw that the skin exposed by the window of her black leather fingerless glove was glowing, or rather, smoking a shadowy black. Janna heard squealing and shrieking, first distant, then coming closer. Looking back, she saw that a wave of black shadows with yellow eyes creeping towards them. What the hell are they? Janna thought as she looked at them, before familiarity struck her. The creatures from her nightmares! Were they real? She stepped towards them foolishly intending to perhaps, see if she could harm them, before somebody yanked her arm and pulled her back.

"Sei sciocco, Janna?! Run, and don't you ever think of doing something that stolto again!" A voice scolded her, though there was barely any time for Janna to register the voice, as the horde started moving faster and the others were sprinting away. Instead of replying, she ran as quickly as she could, grabbing Martin as she saw him and shoving him in front of her.

 

[Schade]

=-------------------~*~-------------------=
Enzio Daemon Augustine
The Shadowlands. Or ??? as y'all call it.
Friday evening
Affected RP'ers: Mon, Jeanie-Lou and Everyone indirectly​

Not long after the short briefing of their current situations, Enzio started to be aware of a burning sensation in his chest. Or rather on his chest. Looking down, he saw that his chest was glowing. This freaked him out, and he started to breathe heavily. To hell with manners and being proper. This nightmare was way too real! He was still wearing the outfit he had worn at the party, except that his shirt was un-tucked and open the three top buttons, probably due to Alexander earlier. His tie was loosened as well, and he looked overll like a mess. Though the light shone through his white shirt, he could clearly see it through the opened buttons. His mild panic wasn't really getting any better when he started hearing the familiar screeches from behind. Now visibly scared, he turned around to face the sound, and saw a wall of darkness closing in. As they came closer, he saw that the shadows had glowing yellow eyes, just like in the nightmares. Though this time, they seemed more real than ever.

"Sei sciocco, Janna?! Run, and don't you ever think of doing something that stolto again!" a familiar voice shouted to another classmate, Janna. Enzio identified the voice as Cadence, and decided he would take her on her advice. Janna seemed to have other plans, as she pushed another student in front of her. Enzio grabbed Cadences arm. "Great idea!" He said as he yanked her in the oposite direction as the shadows, and started running.

 

[Niihyl]

Finlay Belle
A Mysterious Location
Affected RPer(s): Everyone

Finn frowned, bending toward the mirror in Cadence’s hand. “Huh, that’s odd,” he murmured. The boy brushed an auburn coil to the side, better revealing three golden… eyes, seemingly tattooed onto his brow. “I suppose it could be worse. There are tackier tattoos to have.”

Of course, even the tackiest of tattoos rarely had occasion to glow. His brow shone with light even as it seemed to buzz, a feeling akin to having a limb fall asleep. Finn frowned, as spotted something else moving in Cadence’s mirror. The boy whirled about to see a swell of animate darkness rushing toward the students, a thousand gleaming eyes fixed hungrily upon them. It was they: the nightmare beasts that had stalked his dreams for days. Finn froze for a moment, almost transfixed by the sight of the creatures, unlike anything else alive and in approaching in overwhelming number.

“How can you possibly exist?” Finn breathed, panic mixed with awe. “Incredible!”

“It’s time to run now!” someone shouted, ushering everyone to hurry forward. Finn glanced at her and nodded, the spell broken. This wasn’t something he could take down… yet. He would simply have to survive then and there, and surely he’d get a chance to more closely examine the creatures later. After all, all things were fallible, including nightmare monsters. Probably.

“Stay together! Stragglers are easy prey,” Finn commanded, breaking out into a run.

 

[Onarax]

Claud Albert Hamilton
???
Night?
Affected RPers: Justin Harken (Silvan Haven) and Everyone else indirectly.

Claud only vaguely paid attention when Joseph revealed that his name was in fact Justin, there was also something about clouds but the exact words escaped Claud at the moment. Instead his attention was consistently on his surroundings. As they gradually made their way towards the tower, Claud made sure to keep a look out. The odds of something going wrong at any moment were high, and Claud did not want to be unprepared for such a situation.

"Don't you think it would be best to stay with the rest of the group though? Safety in numbers and all that?"

However a question like that was one Claud figured it would be best to answer. "Perhaps," he began with a quick glance at the gathering of people. This time he was able to notice that a few of them seemed familiar. "But," he continued, "I have little knowledge on how much we can trust or rely on them. I can't recognize most of them, I'm not sure how many are even safe to be around, and their intent could be deadly. Who's the say they aren't a part of this odd place? There's also the matter that I lack knowledge on their personality or physical and mental abilities. Such an oversight could make it all too easy for one of them to drag us down, and I don't wish to carry another's burden right now. If we travel faster than the rest, we can find them help faster. Hence the sooner we find an exit, the sooner everyone can leave."

"That said, I don't even know you all that well, so my logic can be applied to use as well. And perhaps I'm merely paranoid, however if you do not wish to follow, I will not force you. Feel free to go join the others." Without waiting to see whether Justin followed him, Claud quickly increased his pace to a rather brisk walk. He truly did believe it would be better for all if he rapidly found the exit. Hence, it wasn't long before the distance between him and the others had widened. Still keeping up his pace, Claud rapidly approached the tower.

That was when he encountered the first. The original alarm came in the form of sound, an odd skittering noise that could be heard to Claud's left. Turning his head, Claud saw it, an odd creature more akin to a swirling of shadows than anything. However this creature was more disturbing than its simple sight. Claud was certain he had seen it in his nightmares, and right now he knew that could quickly lead to trouble. After all, each of his nightmares would involve him running away from the odd creatures, and Claud did not look forward to seeing whether his nightmares had been truthful. Thus, for now, he was content to trust and follow his nightmares.

"Justin," Claud said in a low whisper, taking note of the boy still being by his side, "I suggest we run on my mark. 3, 2, 1 Go!" And the the young boy broke into a rapid sprint, confident that Justin would follow suit. With Claud's trained body, he had faith that his speed would be enough to reach the tower before any unfortunate run in with the monsters. He just hoped Justin was also fast enough. At this current moment in time the rest of the group was still far behind the two boys.

Perhaps I should have stayed with them, they may need my help. But there was no purpose in such thoughts right now, all that mattered right now was running.

 

[SilvanHaven]

Justin Harken
Strange Street
Night
Effected RPers: Claud Albert Hamilton (Onarax) and everyone else indirectly

It seemed that Claud was of a highly suspicious nature, distrusting everybody like that. Justin had to admit that the point of view was not entirely wrong though. While Justin did know a fair number of the other people currently in the larger group he could not necessarily say that he knew them well. One of them might have had something to do with why they had all been suddenly transported, or at least knew more than they let on. Even so, Justin was not going to start looking at everybody else like they were about to stab him in the back.

Neither was he going to let Claud go off by himself, something he followed through on as the other teenager continued to walk on. A few quick steps brought Harken back up near Claud and the pair continued towards the bright tower in the distance. It was then that Justin's unfortunately well tuned combat senses detected a small skittering noise coming from the shadows off to one side. A pair of shining eyes followed by a body almost impossible to distinguish from the darkness it was crawling out of met his eyes. A sudden tensing and almost inaudible change to Claud's breathing rhythm told him that the other boy had noticed it too.

"Justin," Claud said in a low whisper, taking note of the boy still being by his side, "I suggest we run on my mark. 3, 2, 1 Go!"

Seeing as how his dreams had been filled with running and not fighting, Justin figured that there was probably a reason for that and followed after Claud. Justin was not the captain of the track team for nothing and was certainly able to keep up as the two took off towards the closest thing to a beacon of hope in their current predicament. Taking care not to throw off his natural rhythm, Justin carefully took his silver crucifix from his neck and wound the chain around his hand.

 

[TheCharredDragon]

Suranuras "Solarines" Agypri
Starting to Doubt it's Somewhere in Sunlive Town
Time Unknown, But Assuming It's Very Late (or Early)
Affected RPer(s): Jamie (InnerFlame); Everyone else indirectly

After she shouted her thoughts, her expression changed into a neutral one, having calmed down. She then opened her mouth to say, "Now that that's settled," but closed it again when the person she shouted at replied, much faster than Sura thought they would.

“Firstly, back off of me girly. I thought you wanted fight walking up on me like that…” The student's blue eyes sternly looked up into the Sura's when the person spoke.


What the average height person said made her pout a little, and I really mean little, about the girly part. She didn't really like that word, but she doesn't hate it unlike when she's confused as a guy. So she wouldn't have mind the guy (neutrally said, of course) if they hadn't continued speaking.

“Your height and this darkness, it’s easy to mistake and I apologize. Now, if your fragile feelings are better let’s go.”

Okay, she admits, she found her reasons reasonable, and she actually accepted her fellow classmate's apology (in her head since she didn't say it). But what she didn't like was the phrase, "Now, if your fragile feelings are better let’s go.” That was what she didn't like. You can insult her heritage, insult her friends, insult her father, (all at the risk of being close to death) but you will not say she's weak. Yes, that's not how exactly the person meant it (or even said it), unfortunately that's how Solarines interpreted it. (Even if it's a bit true) So her face clearly showed her anger in the form of flared nostrils and angled eyebrows, plus a frown.

"Why you little..." she began to say until she thought she heard scuttling.

She dismissed it before she saw glowing, but not from usual sources. The light was coming from various areas on the bodies of her classmates. She couldn't help but look at her right hand and found that, under her glove, the back of her hand was glowing too. She was enamoured by the goow and would've kept looking at it if she didn't hear scuffling a second time. That made her look at her surroundings and, to her horror, sickly yellow eyes staring straight at her and the group. She stood there, frozen stiff from shock, until someone shouted.

“It’s time to run now!”

That cue made her turned tail and run, not caring on where's her destination (except maybe going in the general direction of the tower), only caring she'd get away. Behind her she could hear shouting, with her recognizing the voices of Cadence and Naomi especially, as well as the furious footsteps of her other classmates. A part of her wanted to fight then instead of run since she was usually caught in the end, but she reasoned that since they don't even have any weapons, let alone supernatural ones like holy water (yes, she knows it's not a weapon but it's used as one), she started to doubt that they'd be able to fight off the shadow monstrosities.

 

[Pyroli]

Robin Amarante
???
Night (Or early morning)
Affected RPGers; everyone indirectly

All Robin could remember was allowing herself to succumb to the sweet essence of sleep, she allowed her eyes to flutter closed as she lay back on her bed, hearing her music faintly. She felt nothing at first, just the slow falling motion of nearly drifting to sleep before being violently jerked back awake. Robin glanced around, this certainly wasn't her bedroom, actually, she had no idea what or where this was. She looked around, noticing the faces of other people; the faces of her classmates. She recognized some people from her homeroom, along with some others whom she had never actually met. But, why were they here? It seemed odd that they were all in this dark space together, this dark space from her dreams, no, rather her nightmares.

Robin suddenly grimaced, feeling a shocking wave of pain and tingling in her face, she was confused; nothing like this pain had ever hit her own being. She scratched gently at her face, thinking that whatever had happened would slowly clear itself. Suddenly, the pain ceased, oddly enough, she wasn't sure what had exactly occurred. She was suddenly akin to someone shouting for them all to get moving, wait, what?

She spun around, seeing a ton of the dark beasts from her nightmares suddenly beginning to rush upon them, high in numbers and seemingly fast. Robin turned tail and ran as fast as she could, praying that nothing would grab her and drag her away from the group of students, she knew that running was the best course of action and she really hoped no one was actually dumb enough to think that they could face all of these monsters by themselves, they we're teenagers for gods sake.

 

[CuriousHeartless]

Kendall Tagg
Party
Friday Night

Kendall had wanted to go home hours ago. But Alan had stolen his care keys at some point in the night and Kendall still couldn't find his friend. After barely avoiding getting pushed into the pool, Kendall found himself on the second floor of the house.

"When I find him, I'm going to kill him," Kendall muttered to himself. He sidestepped an obviously drunk couple and went down a hallway. Suddenly, he heard a loud slap and an angry woman stormed out of a nearby room. After she passed, he went and checked the room. It was a bathroom and Alan was sitting on the seat, rubbing a red cheek.

"Oh, hey, bro," Alan said with a nervous laugh. "Sorry about taking your keys. But did you see how close I was to getting lucky there?"

"I don't care, just hand them over." Kendall held out his hand when a sudden stinging pain came over his heart. It lasted less than a second but left a burning sensation.

"Dude, what's wrong?" Alan asked. "You look like someone stabbed you with a fork."

"Nothing, just-" Kendall stopped suddenly. The whole room seemed to flicker before disappearing.

The Street

Suddenly, Kendall found himself out in the streets. It was incredibly dark, even for nighttime.

Did someone slip something into my drink? Kendall thought to himself before looking around. To his surprise, there were others. He could even recognize some of them as his classmates. Wait, I recognize this. This is my dream. What is going on? Did I pass out at the party or something?

He could hear the others talking, but didn't pay enough attention to make it out.

His attention was drawn to a light coming from a big tower. He wasn't sure why, but Kendall felt a desire to go towards the light.

“We should move," one of the others said, drawing Kendall's attention away from the light. He recognized the boy as Finlay, the one whose house the party was at. Kendall was never close to him, but everyone at school knew him and most liked him. "I don’t like just sitting around here in the open much; the darkness isn’t safe; that much we’ve known for tens of thousands of years. If anyone has any ideas, we can talk on the way. Maybe we’ll spot a better sort of shelter.” He began to stride forward purposefully, toward the tower in the distance. “The tower’s our only landmark. Maybe we’ll be able to get a vantage point, if not shelter.”

Another boy walked over to Finn. It took Kendall a minute, but he recognized the boy as Enzio Augustine. "I support that idea, if this is anything like the regular nightmares I have, the shadows will arrive fairly soon. There is safety in numbers, and seeing as the tower is our only lead, I vote for going there."

"Sounds good to me," Kendall added.

The group came to a consensus to go to the tower together and started moving.

As they neared the tower, everyone started glowing on different spots on their bodies. Kendall's glow was over his heart and strong enough to be seen through his shirt.

"It's time to run now!" Jamie yelled.

"Huh?" Kendall looked up in time to see...it. The giant black mass. "Damn it. Those things." He pushed a few other people in front of him before taking off running himself.