CHERRYRPG PLOT
burning up.
homecoming. every year, the week of homecoming is a celebration of the town of riverside, complete with parties and bonfires, parades and football games, culminating in the high school dance.
while this years feels tainted - coach brock dead, coach garland missing, the first major loss of the football season happening against their arch rivals just two days before - it doesn’t stop the kids from gathering at the school to spend a romantic evening under the fake stars reflected on the gymnasium ceiling. the lights are lowered, the streamers are hung, the punch is ( inevitably, as always ) spiked before being tossed out for a fresh batch.
for a couple hours, everything seems perfectly normal.
while the queen has disappeared with the runner up king, the king himself disappears with his own boyfriend. gigi king manages to distract mr. & mrs. crane long enough for logan norris and bradley crane to disappear, heading for the locker room where the music can still be heard and they can take a few moments for themselves.
but those moments don’t last long - mr. crane himself bursts into the locker room after a tip that his son is up to no good and catches his very own son in the act of embracing another man, the two kissing in a way that leaves little to the imagination of the intricacies of their relationship. while the good pastor grabs his son and takes him home, preaching about sinners in this town, logan has no choice but to let bradley go.
meanwhile, across town, knowing full well that the attention of the town is on the school and the activities inside, someone coats the inside of the abandoned jacobs’ house with gasoline, dousing the stairs and the front door extra to ensure they burn down fast. the match is lit, the fire is started, and they disappear into the darkness before the neighbors even realize something’s happened.
murder is one thing - understandable, unavoidable at some point. disappearances they can ignore. but arson - arson is deliberate, planned, timed.
now the town of riverside has to face facts: what happened in the community college to get it to burn down, and who, exactly, is behind all of this chaos?
this information will come to light over the course of the evening; the outting of bradley crane and logan norris will naturally take place at the school dance, while the arson won’t really take note until students from the neighborhood realize they’re blocked off from their street.
since the jacobs’ family has disappeared, there were no bodies in the house, though investigators will try and recover what they can in the coming days. questions about if the missing people: mr. and mrs. jacobs and their son, nate; dr. and mrs. stevens and their two small children, and coach garland - are involved in the fire in any capacity will circulate, but ultimately, they’ll find no proof of any presence in the house at the time of the fire.
while no one who isn’t going out to check won’t know this, the guards from the community college, who’ve been watching while the campus is closed for the semester, have been discreetly fired and not replaced. the chains have been broken into, and someone has been inside - specifically, the science building where professor brock once taught.
you are free to discuss the plot between characters on the dash starting now. please remember to be respectful and mindful of triggers - while this topic is definitely heavy, please remember that this is to grow our group and see how tragedy can affect individuals and groups of people.
