Three Strikes, You’re Out [Motive Reaction ll OPEN]
As uncomfortable as she was being stuck in this town, with it’s unusually strict rules, lack of ways to tell her family she was okay, and mayor with a slight love for homicides, she wouldn’t say it was a nightmare. At least she had food and a roof over her head. And the students were nice-or well, the few she’d been able to talk to so far-so really, she hadn’t the right to complain. Things would be better once the authorities found them and took them back home.
Of course, such wishful thinking never boded well and the first strike to her way of thinking came in the form of the sprinklers turning on. She’d shrieked and almost fallen out of bed in a panic. As it turned out, one of her roommates, Hokori, had broken a rule and because of it the entire house had woken up in the same fashion. Needless to say, the occupants of Pavlola Pad were a little late in getting out of the house. Her hair never did dry quickly...oh well, the Mayor had wanted to take them somewhere, so she could worry about it later. Which is where the second strike has come into play. She’d thought, rather foolishly, that maybe they were going to watch a nice movie. Instead, she stared at a film featuring her mother and herself. Or, as the Mayor has soon put it, a fake version of herself.
The Mayor had made it quite clear what this meant; if nobody killed, then her mother would live with a fake Hina forever and she would be stuck here forever. Her mother would never know that her real daughter was trapped in...wherever this was. It was frightening, reminiscent of stories her mother used to tell her about kids being kidnapped in broad daylight. Well, this was a bit different than those stories. But wasn’t that scarier?
She clutched the video tape to her chest tightly before solemnly taking the train back. This was scary...really scary. It was like that one game a few years back-she didn’t remember much about it but wasn’t things like this why people died? And now she was living in their shoes, so to speak. Oh dear.
As soon as the train stopped and the doors opened she scampered off back to the house; she just wanted to curl up and pretend this was still a terrible, horrible, really long dream. The stress caused by all this was definitely getting to her, nerves were fraying and she felt really really ill-
Which is how she ended up darting home with her eyes closed and smacking right into someone and falling right onto the ground from the impact. Oh great. This must be the third strike. This meant she was out and down for the count.
“Eep! Oh-Oh I’m so sorry...!”
She felt her vision blur. Was she on the verge of tears, or was the shock setting in this badly? Whatever it was, it was very clear that today was just not a good day for Hina.
