#drmmopen

[anzu1-blog]

oversight - anzu - open

Congratulations! The best possible outcome in a trial had to be that there was no killer - it was an accident. It was no one’s fault. No one was the culprit. It was fine, it was all good. Everyone was innocent, so it’d all worked out as well as possible. No one could have done anything. The best possible outcome.

Souu was dead. 

Clarity was cruel. Anzu longed for the haze of last night, of sleeplessness and confused memories. The fog had been lifted and there was nothing to hide behind anymore. It didn’t matter though. What was done was done. Even if she’d noticed the obvious signs - the signs that Souu wasn’t okay - she couldn’t have done anything. So it didn’t matter that she didn’t notice. She couldn’t have done anything to help. Nothing that Anzu could do to help. Her oversight was meaningless.

She wasn’t the type to mope. She figured the most helpful thing she could do currently was explore and investigate. Thus, she made her way towards the room marked by a trash can. She had no idea what that meant. Maybe the room was a giant dumpster or something.

As she reached the trash room, she found herself stopping. It felt ridiculous, but her mind was remembering that encounter with Souu again. Replaying it. What could she have done differently? How could she have helped?

Well, there was one thing. Anzu knocked on the door, lest there was someone on the other side of it who might accidentally get whacked in the nose.

[anzu1-blog]

behavioral confirmation - anzu - investigation - open

Anzu had been organizing things in her head for the past half an hour, drifting from place to place while trying to visualize the list of things that needed to be done in each to create the best possible atmosphere. It was difficult to think clearly while she was tired, but this was not her first night staying up to care for others. Far from it. She knew she was capable. She just had to keep everyone from harm...

The text message caught her by surprise. She wasn’t used to them, and almost didn’t register the text chime as coming from her own phone. But it was the contents of the message that was the real shocker.

She read it the first time and felt nothing, dully looking down at the screen. It just didn’t click. Sure she’d misread it, somehow, she read it a second time. The words seemed perfectly clear, but for some reason she just couldn’t understand, because they didn’t seem grounded in reality. The third time she reread it, it hit her fast and hard. She dropped her phone without thinking about it, stock still. 

The music seemed louder than her thoughts. It was like she was hearing it for the first time. It wasn’t really to Anzu’s taste, but it was blaring so hard she couldn’t help but pay attention to it. It sounded like it was coming from the inside of her skull. She stood there like that until the song ended, at which point it was like the curse had been lifted. She gingerly moved her arm.

She’d allowed herself three minutes. Now she had to ignore everything swirling around in her stomach and do something. Anything. Maybe she could fix this. Maybe it was all a mistake.

Anzu’s thoughts turned to the text. She had to process exactly what had happened, exactly how Souu died, or she’d just be lost. Time of death. Cause of death. Location of body. Location of body... Anzu was brought back into reality by the taste of blood in her mouth. She’d been biting her lip without realizing it. The distinct (and rather disgusting) coppery taste focused her a little.

The best place to start with would be the fountain... yet glancing over, it seemed most of the crowd was already gathered there. Too many cooks spoiled the broth, as they said back home. 

Instead, her thoughts turned to the last place she’d seen Souu... the Auditorium. Yeah. She’d hit Souu in the face with a door. She’d tried to get them something to clean it up with but the t-shirt was too gross and the paper wasn’t good either, and they had been at the fountain, and... somehow Anzu had lost track of them. 

Another way in which she’d failed.

She remembered something, though - she’d left both Souu’s and her own luggage behind, near the Auditorium doors. She made her way over there and gave the area a once over, looking for the missing luggage and anything else of interest.

[shslhighc-blog]

||Blocking 1|| Poor Unfortunate Souls

This was vile. To hear such menacing words come out in a dull, lackluster, tone. It rendered their plight of a more trivial pretense. Still, it shuddered her at the core. To think, she was being quarantined with her alleged peers-- - whom of which were complete strangers to boot. She did not know what to make of the situation. Was death so vital to the animation that they went through the hassle of cutting off all of their resources? Normally, she didn’t expect herself to be as articulate but the whole scheme was a little fishy to her.

“It.. almost seems counterproductive. If the plush really wants this.. um.. murder then, what’s the point of pushing the death penalty to everyone all at once?”

“Say.. if everyone banded together and boycotted it’s plan by refusing to partake in its scheme for bloodshed.. there’s sure to be an alternative!”

  She sounded a little too naive for her own good. In her gut, she knew the contrary. Lips pursed in tout position, she glanced down. 

“This just.. doesn’t feel right.”

[shslballet-blog1]

The Witching Hour

Mao had made the prudent choice to ignore the time. Time was meaningless now anyway. There were no windows, and no way of seeing the level of light outside. And without sleep, there was no division between days. Everything had begun to blend together into one continuous stream. And Mao figured that counting the minutes would only stress him out. Time was ruled now by bodily needs, not by numbers.

Mao prided himself on being a pretty calm sort of person. He refused to let this get the better of him. He’d had sleepless nights before, so this wouldn’t be anything special. By the second night - maybe it was already upon them - things might start to get difficult but for now he was just trying to take his mind off if it.

He glanced up from his book. He’d been hungry five times so far. So it was probably noon of the second day? Or maybe it was still night. He wasn’t sure. Didn’t feel like confirming it.

He had been keeping exercise light, so as not to tire himself out; just enough to stretch and keep his muscles from locking up. He’d changed from his uniform to a tee shirt and jeans, and had tied his hair back, for he may as well get comfy. He’d put his makeup and good clothes on again after some sleep. And until someone died he had planted himself in the main lobby with a good book. He had dragged a chair in from another room and was quite content there with the fountain gurgling behind him. He figured he was in a central enough area that nobody would try to jump him. They’d be seen, or heard, by someone. The ones in danger were the ones who insisted on straying from the group.

But somebody was approaching. He frowned and closed the book. He’d been trying to stay close to the centre but not socialise with anyone. Someone was going to die in the next day or two, and there was no sense getting attached.

“Can I help you?” he asked coolly, with a bit more of an edge to his voice than he’d intended. Lack of sleep was making him irritable. Which was irritating in its own right. Aloof neutrality was hard to maintain right now.

[shslddseeish-blog]

Wait. Hold On A Second || (Motive)(Open)

Just when he started to feel better over the whole ‘birdbath incident’, Ed and the others were greeted with a motive. Before he had moved along to the hall with everyone else, however,he made sure to grab his luggage and catch up as fast as possible. So in a nutshell, they weren’t allowed to sleep or move from this floor until they murdered? Hm. Peculiar.

Nothing directly came out of his mouth but upon careful observation, one could see the color drain from his face. He didn’t exactly want to die, maybe internally but that was another story. Perhaps now would be a good time to partake in some casual conversation. “Umm. I don’t exactly know about you, but all this sounds like a nice idea for...um...grouping together? We wouldn’t want anyone to get out of our sights...I think...”

His bird quickly flew in and perched on his shoulder. She always managed to come around. Ed did scold her for pulling that stunt though, in which she simply tilted her head.

“Like...we could just stay in one place, after all who would really do something like that over...this?” Sure, being well rested was important for daily routines, but they could stay awake for a period, right? “Maybe if we stay up long enough...that weird dog will get bored and this entire thing will be cancelled.” His tone was full of sarcasm. 

[anzu1-blog]

Motivation (Anzu [Open])

The whole thing was so unceremonious. If you’re going to bait people into killing each other, at least make it an occasion. Put out the good china, light some candles. Makeinu managed to make murder sound like a dull chore, like washing dishes. Not that killing was a good thing, but if you’re trying to encourage it at least you could do is make it sound exciting...

The dreary delivery of the motive was just par for the course at this point, though. Anzu’s heart wasn’t racing. Her breaths weren’t rapid. Her hand wasn’t shaking. She was trapped here until someone died, yet panic refused to settle in her body. It was as though her emotions had turned sepia - she knew what she was supposed to be feeling, but she hadn’t quite gotten there yet. It wasn’t a pleasant sensation. She stood there and stared blankly at the fountain. 

The realization that the sleeping arrangements she’d been making didn’t matter was what tugged her out of her stupor. She’d wasted like, the entire past hour. That wouldn’t do. No, no, no it wouldn’t do. She had to reorganize. She wasn’t going to let anyone die, maybe if they just waited it out someone would come rescue them or something. 

Her thought process was jagged but relatively linear. She needed people not to panic. People would probably panic right now. People didn’t like being trapped. She needed to calm them down. 

“Everyone,” She said, surprising herself a little with how loud the words came out. She normally only spoke like this when she was scolding someone “Listen.” She put a hand in one of the pockets in her jacket, and then pulled out a handful of lollipops. “Everyone can have a lollipop.” She’d already given out a few. But she didn’t mind if people came over and double dipped.  

“They’re free,” She added. People liked free stuff.

[anzu1-blog]

Just Peachy - Anzu - Ch1 - Open

The colour scheme of the building made Anzu’s stomach turn. All washed out blues and greys... it just had no appeal. Anzu didn’t think she was a colour expert or anything, but she knew what she liked and this wasn’t it. Where was the pop? The dullness of everything would be excusable if it was partnered with a more intense colour or something, anything to keep things interesting. But nah. Just a butt-ton of bad blue hues. It was enough to make a clown go so far into misery he came around, became happy again and worked so happily he changed societies impression of clowns. Soon clowns would be stereotyped as happy, jolly pranksters instead of miserable serial killers or whatever.  Clowns were so fucked up. 

Whatever, she was only thinking about the colour palette cause she didn’t really have anything better to think about. She’d been trying to figure out a good place to sleep. No where seemed particularly inviting. She wanted everyone to stick together, sleep together. Everyone splitting up would most definitely just make people more likely to kill each other. Planning to gather everyone together was all well and good, but it kind of required finding a place for them to all gather first. 

She’d considered the fountain room, but, petty as it was, she wasn’t super big on the sound of rushing rather while she slept. Like, it wasn’t something that would be an issue to her, persay, but she’d had enough experience waking up covered in someone else’s pee to know that she didn’t want to encourage a situation where that was likely, in any shape or form. Not to mention the floor was like, wicked hard.

The locked room was locked. The info room was too small. The cafe seemed nice enough but the lethal weapons everywhere didn’t exactly inspire confidence. The auditorium was a maybe, but way the room was laid out left blind spots. The clothes rooms might be decent, but she hadn’t had a chance to check it out yet. And that’s what she was on her way to doing, as she opened the doors outwards of the auditorium - and immediately hit someone with them. Oh shit.

“Oh,” She said, not sure who she’d even hit yet. She took a closer look at her accidental victim...

[shsl-r0gue]

chapter 1: nightmare (drmm open)

Haru felt sick. He felt as if he was dreaming. It’s just a nightmare He had to wake up soon, right? He’d wake up in his dorm, accidentally having slept in too long. His roommate, always the more responsible of the pair, would already be gone. “I tried to wake you up,” he’d say, “but you didn’t want to.” Haru could then promise him that he did want to wake up, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t wake up. This wasn’t a dream. This was real. This was his life. This was likely the end of his life. He couldn’t wake up.

For the first time in years, Haru wanted to cry.

Haru wanted to cry, scream, laugh at how awful of a joke this was to be playing on a bunch of highschoolers. That’s right, it all had to be a joke, right? Please let it be a joke. It wasn’t. It couldn’t be. If it was a joke then it would’ve all been over by now, right? The pranksters would’ve run out with their video cameras, laughing about the looks on all of the students’ faces.

Instead of cruel laughter, there was nothing. Silence. Actually, not silence. There was shuffling, some chatter, some people already looking for a way out, some audibly despairing at their situation. Haru was silent. He couldn’t speak, not with what felt like icy claws wrapping themselves around his throat. He swallowed hard, and tried to take a shaking breath after what felt like hours without air. 

He had to gather himself. Figure something out. Do something. 

Haru looked down at his phone, deciding that reading the map was a good step to take. Maybe there was something he could glean from it, maybe an exit, maybe fresh air, maybe somewhere he could clear his head at least. No exits were to be found, but he did notice the staircases. That could be a good place to go, even if they were blocked off. Maybe they could find a way through anyway.

He had to gather people, though. They could try to figure it out together. And if anyone tried to kill him right off the bat he’d have at least some protection, at least that’s what he hoped.

Turning to the nearest student, he tried to offer a smile, though he was sure it looked forced.

“So, uh. About those staircases? I was gonna go check ‘em out but it’d make me feel better if someone came along, if you’re interested.”