Just before curfew tonight...

[peckishmods]

outside central classrooms tonight

what's up?

It’s Spirit Week! As is tradition, Peckenpaugh’s cheerleaders meet after dinner to decorate Central Classrooms in the lead up to the big game this Sunday. It’s not all hanging banners and throwing glitter, though. There’s music and snacks and time flies by fast as the kids get distracted from dressing up the lockers of the school’s quidditch and quodpot players. By the time they’re done, it’s damn near curfew, and they all decide to leave in one big group to ensure everyone makes it where they need to go on time.

Leaving the well lit school halls behind the squads step out into almost total darkness. The streetlights that usually illuminate central campus’s cobblestone paths are dim and flickering, their usual golden glow somehow a sickly yellow-green, as though something is sapping them of power. It’s far too still, too. No wind. No sound. Just darkness and silence, or near silence.

Armani is the first out the door, and they come to a skidding halt at the bottom step. Several of their squadmates plow into the back of them and they almost topple over, pointing straight ahead and shushing their friends.

There’s something by the statue of Yalldive Peckenpaugh. Somethings. Two forms, crouched at her base, fiddling with the bricks while she flails and complains. They don’t seem to notice the gaggle of teenagers spilling out of the building before them, too focused on their work.

Thinking they’ve found two Malstrom students pulling a prank again, Willow approaches with their wand drawn, but it quickly becomes apparent that those are not students at the base of the statue. Each step Willow takes is harder to complete than the last, and whatever spell they were about to sling winds up caught in their throat. Hearing footfalls, one of the two figures looks up, gaze flashing with the eyes of a predator. Under that gaze, not a one of the cheerleaders can move.

The form at the base of the statue stands, slowly, wrongly, and steps out into the sallow light, moving as a spider moves. She is a woman, or a girl ⁠— the age is hard to pinpoint. Human, but wrong. Deeply wrong, as though plucked from the uncanny valley. Her clothes are dated, worn and patched, but clean. In her arms there are clumps of vines and purple flowers and after what feels like an eternity of silence, she makes a sound.

At first it sounds like she’s popping her shoulder, then cracking her neck and knuckles, but she’s not moving. The snapping and popping continues, coalescing into more complex sound. Words, though her lips are still. “Wood from the West... he... has gained. Three keys... yet remain.” Snap, pop, crack. Like tumbling pebbles. “_Tell… her. ^Warn her. Tell... her. Tell the thread that sews shut the maw. Tell the tailor. His garden… is... growing.”

The second figure, still fussing with the statue, stands abruptly and takes a step away, disappearing into the shadows down the path. Two silvery eyes blink from the darkness and then are gone, and suddenly the air seems lighter for it.

“Tell her,” rattles the woman. Is it a warning? A threat? Hard to say, but it’s difficult to feel as though her presence could mean anything good, the way she skitters back toward the dark like a bug, disappearing suddenly as her companion had.

Once they’re gone, each student feels starkly as though they’ve just surfaced from a long dive in cold water. Lungs burning, heads clearer, and each feeling acutely the desire to return home to their beds. Within seconds, all the lights buzz, burning brighter suddenly before returning to their usual golden glow. Adrian, startled, lets out a loud shriek that scares the hell out of everyone around them. With the paths lit again, the coast seems clear, and no sign of those two figures remains.

Now what...?

how this works!

⬥ This event is open to House and school cheerleaders, but is not mandatory. If your cheerleader sat this one out, that's fine, too!

⬥ Feel free to thread or search/investigate under the "LATE: NOW WHAT?" section. For the next couple of days, a mod will get back to you if your comment necessitates a response.

⬥ Students left Central Classrooms at quarter til 10PM.

locations!

⬦ EARLY EVENING: IN CENTRAL CLASSROOMS: The music echoing through the halls of Central Classrooms ensures the academic building is slightly less eerie than a mostly empty school can be after sundown. Club Room 1's doors are thrown open and snacks and drinks have been set out besides the materials you'll need to decorate halls and lockers tonight. You haven't been spooked yet. Why not enjoy it?

⬦ LATE: NOW WHAT?: The two figures are gone and that oppressive feeling with them. Standing outside Central Classrooms, what will you do?

⬦ LATER: BACK HOME: You've made it back to your House, but can you get to sleep?

⬦ OOC - QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, CONCERNS!

Comments

EARLY EVENING: IN CENTRAL CLASSROOMS

[peckishmods]

LATE: NOW WHAT?

[peckishmods]

LATE: NOW WHAT?

[crowhop]

"What the fuck," says Mary Grace, in all her eloquence, as normalcy slowly returns to the night. "I didn't catch, like, any of that."

LATE: NOW WHAT?

[dareyouto]

It takes her a few extra seconds to shake off the daze, but as soon as she does, Maisy stomps her feet like a toddler having a tantrum.

"Ooooh! I hate these creepy ladies. That was just like the one I saw down by Deeplurk."

Re: LATE: NOW WHAT?

[notpoison]

Laszlo stares into the forest blankly. His camera is in his hands, although he failed to get it out in time to catch the, uh, spider women on film. He snaps a picture of the woods where they disappeared for good measure, and then the base of Yalldive where they were poking around. Yalldive has some choice words about how he looks in a cheer uniform (bad).

"Rude," Laszlo mutters back.

Re: LATE: NOW WHAT?

[pageantree]

If Willow thought things couldn't get any scarier than being in a cult (accidentally!), she was wrong. She had been fully prepared to throw down with some Malstrom hoodlums, but she hadn't been prepared for... whatever all that was. She's still clutching her wand, absolutely scarlet red in the face, when she makes a strangled sound that could be a dry sob, creatively interpreted, but is certainly frustrated and angry, no matter what it is.

LATE: NOW WHAT?

[numerologest]

Adrian hardly pays attention to how pissed his sudden scream of terror makes anyone around him because his own fear is abruptly replaced with anger. Fired up, he throws his wand arm out before he's even done screaming punctuates it with an, "Expecto Patronum!"

The stout little corgi that soldiers forth illuminates the clearing with silvery light, a stumpy but noble little warrior. There is nothing. They are gone. The corgi wiggles its butt before it disappears.

"That's right! Run!" he says, as though after-the-fact bravado at all makes up for the earlier shriek.

LATER: GET TO BED

[peckishmods]

LATER: Elijah + Senior Mothgirls

[bigyikes]

Even with the Mothgarden cheer squad back in their house safe and sound, Elijah's feeling a little bit antsy about this whole encounter. He knows he should probably tell a teacher, but that will have to wait for tomorrow. In the meantime, the best thing he can think of is telling their resident... spooky phenomenon researcher.

He knocks on the senior girls' dorm door as lightly as possible, and after receiving no response, tries again a little more forcefully.

"Hi, uhm," he begins, probably not loud enough for them to hear. "Anyone awake?"

LATER: Maisy and Holland

[gold_digger]

On entering Deeplurk, Holland is still sniffling a little bit. Honestly, their encounter wasn't really scary scary since nothing happened to them, but it's enough to rattle the sensitive girl. Especially when it seems like things have just been getting weirder at the school, and not in a fun way.

Turning to Maisy, she dabs under her eyes with a handkerchief. "I don't like any of this at all," she starts, then sighs, trying to think of something more useful to say. "They were so creepy, no wonder you were so startled the other night."

LATER: ATTENTION ALL THORNTRAIL

[gasgiant]

School Mascot Jupiter Quigley (wearing half her mascot uniform, sans hat) waltzes into the Thorntrail common room without shutting the door behind her and makes a bee line for the kitchenette, running her fingers over the tree in the center of the room as she passes.

After rummaging around for a while, she returns to the center of the room with a pot in one hand and a ladle in the other. Unsurprisingly, or surprisingly, depending on which part of House Thorntrail you are in at the moment, she beats the two together. Hope you weren't trying to get some sleep at 10PM on a Monday.

"YO," she shouts. "What's Wood from the West?"

LATER: WILDGULCHIN'

[crowhop]

Mary Grace throws open the door to her room, displaying zero regard for her volume. 10:30 on a Monday night is nowhere near bedtime friends, but even if it was she's still buzzing.

"This school is fuckin' weeeiiiird," she sings, half into the dorm and half to whoever is still lingering in the Wildgulch common area. "And it's getting fucking weeeiiiirdeeerrrr."

OOC - QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, CONCERNS!

[peckishmods]

my brain is a shower poof that should've been thrown away 2 weeks ago

Re: OOC - QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, CONCERNS!

[teratophilia]

my shower poof is your brain

Re: OOC - QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, CONCERNS!

[teratophilia]

but also

AAAAAAAAAAAAA

Re: OOC - QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, CONCERNS!

[notpoison]

s c re am??????

Re: OOC - QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, CONCERNS!

[crowhop]

Mary Grace is going to present each of her cheerleaders with a prewritten obituary because it's starting to seem prudent if not necessary???

Re: OOC - QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, CONCERNS!

[dareyouto]

Leaving work just to participate in this

Re: OOC - QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, CONCERNS!

[pageantree]

Can I steal B pls?????

Re: OOC - QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, CONCERNS!

[necrodanseuse]

Oh Chanel does Not approve

Re: OOC - QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, CONCERNS!

[teratophilia]

ok i gave a fair 40 minutes

can armani have volunteer A pls? it's what he deserves for always running toward danger. i hope the back of his shoe got scuffed.

Re: OOC - QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, CONCERNS!

[pageantree]

Okay now that I'm over the HORROR that Ali brought into my life

who wants to play magic teens with me to cleanse my brain!!!!

Re: OOC - QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, CONCERNS!

[numerologest]

i'm taking c for adrian i basically wrote that slot for myself anyway

Re: OOC - QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, CONCERNS!

[wrencredible]

hi what the fuck

Re: OOC - QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, CONCERNS!

[crowhop]

by the way

the garden looks nice today :)