006 ☾ voice

[playerkills]

[ Obon had already passed by the looks of the seasons, but that doesn't stop some people from celebrating it and doing something remotely related to the summer season. Normals always told their friends ghost stories around this time of the year, so some practice will do her good. It isn't often that this particular deep, spooky voice crops up on the network, but the time she chose was a particularly quiet one in the evening. Those who know her will be able to discern its owner - Yozora. This gloomy tone is the one she usually speaks with, but it sets the mood perfectly. ]

The end of summer, the start of fall. It is during these two seasons that the world pays its respects to the spirits of the afterlife. I wouldn't say that those of this ethereal plane are above us, figuratively speaking. Yet for many generations, haven't humans always been most afraid of what they don't know? Strange occurrences that cannot be explained, - it's almost laughable how these mysteries hold so much power over us.

[ She cackles, and she didn't even need to practice two hours to perfect it. There is nothing but silence that follows. ]

What if I told you they were true? Just because we cannot comprehend these happenings doesn't allow us to simply dismiss them. Although belief is waning, tradition remains strong. There must be a reason behind it all, don't you agree?

Well then, shall we revive that tradition tonight?

I heard this from a local in the Baldr district. It happened long before the disease spread, when the city still had its color...

The protagonist of this story is... let's call her K. She had a friend - we'll call her M. K and M were the best of friends ever since they met by the lake at Gefion Park. Since then, they would do everything together, and they easily got along because they liked the same things. However, there came a time when they also liked the same boy. Fron that point onward, it was clear that their friendship wasn't going to last forever. Now, K was an outgoing girl who had many friends. M, on the other hand, was very timid. K took advantage of this and bullied M without hesitation or remorse. Libel, slander, the looks of disgust on everyone's faces and jeering from the crowd as she walked by... it was enough to drive M to commit suicide. One summer night, she drowned herself in the lake. Her pallid, lifeless face on the surface of the lake would haunt the city for weeks.

K felt guilty for what she did, but as the seasons passed, she slowly forgot about M. But, ever since M's death, a string of unfortunate events began to occur. At first, they were nothing but lost items and gusts of wind, but soon, they progressed into looping labyrinths and cryptic messages that only K would understand.

Exactly a year had passed after M's death. It was a cold summer night just like that day she drowned. That day passed by with no strange occurrences, but when K got in bed just to find her own name on the ceiling written in blood, that did it for her. In the middle of the night, she ran to the lake to sob and beg for forgiveness. But the wind only grew stronger and stronger...

It forced the girl to get on her knees and break her fall with her hands. She happened to look at the lake, and there she saw the face of a friend she thought she'd never see again.

No one saw the girl after that, but they say that if you look into the lake at this hour, she might get you...

[ Another cackle and a strong gust of wind from the window closes Yozora's story. ]

Who wants to go next?

(ooc: People are welcome to post their own stories as well, be it in video, text or voice. Others are free to reply to the stories with their character's reactions and comments. In other words, treat this post like a mingle log!)

Comments

[deputychief]

Objection--these are two different M's. Rapunzel's M clearly refers to an actual person, whereas mine is fictional.

[corona]

Uh, no. Now you're putting words in my mouth to make your argument sound better! You're the one who brought two Ms into this, thank you.

[playerkills]

Take that! There is no way there can be two Ms in this case when the real M and fictional M share the same characteristics!

[deputychief]

Not so fast--you both underestimate the power of M and M's. Even if a real M and fictional M share the same characteristics, they don't share the characteristic of, respectively, reality or fictionality, which is implied. Furthermore, the fictional M had sleepovers with the fictional K, which the real M has stated she would never do. The second M is "m"-plicit in Rapunzel's argument.

[bow!]

1/2

[corona]

Oh! Itsuki I love M&Ms. [ hint hint ] Thank you for the idea.

[corona]

Anyway you're wrong. I was referring to one person only: M. Because there is only one M and that is the person in your story. I was...

...making an assumption! Ha. Yes. I predicted that as soon as M came back and discovered K acting strange? That she would be scared into rambling because that's some people do. And since I'm interested more in the whole story than what M has to say - I decided to let you know! That way we could make M mute early on and skip past any unnecessary mumbling later.

Whatever objections you two made after that have nothing to do with me so leave my arguments out of it.

[ nod!! ]

[playerkills]

You two are both "m"-possible...

Wait, are you saying M's lines are unnecessary? For the record, Itsuki's M pegs her as "strong-willed". If that was the case until this point of the story, rambling due to fright is an unexplained, if not contradictory, trait of the character, so the motion to mute her at this point is a rather nonsensical one. Furthermore, you're not the only one listening to this story. Be more considerate.

Mm, I want to know what happens to the fictional M next.

[deputychief]

Ah, but Rapunzel, you now know what happens when you make an assumption... Have you admitted then to making an ass out of you and "m"? There is at least one other M, the M in Mikazuki-san's story. However, I'm glad we've cleared up the "m"ajor topic of contention.

In any case, it so happens that you were correct, Rapunzel. When M walked into the room with K, she instinctively tried to scream. But she found she couldn't. Something was blocking her throat. Curiously, it didn't seem like she was choking, but she suddenly realized she couldn't breathe through her mouth, either. So she pointed to the cockroach in K's hair and backed away. But K looked at the insect and did nothing.

M, who was, after all, strong-willed, did not panic. She took out a tube of lipstick and started writing on the mirror. But everything she wrote seemed to turn into one word. "Punishment." But K came closer to her, and the cockroach seemed only to be growing in size... Its mandibles were buried in K's scalp, and it was engorging itself in that way.

[corona]

[ Annnnd she forgets all about that extremely low blow in the face of condemnation by giant, "m"-eating cockroaches from hell. ]

That's... it?

[ aka. PLEASE LET HIM BE DISTRACTED BY THE DIRT UNDER HIS NAILS AND NOT FINISH THE STORY. ]

[playerkills]

[ Shush, let him finish. Yozora isn't sure if she wants to know the rest, though. Even if she did enjoy hearing about K being eaten by a cockroach, it's bound to end horribly. ]

What happened to M after that? Did she run away?

[ SHE'S REALLY ATTACHED TO THIS "M" CHARACTER. ]

[deputychief]

Yes -- she tried one more time to get K to notice the cockroach, and she ran away, back up the staircase, and kicked at the door until it started to break. But all the while, K was following her, slowly, strangely slowly. She heard K's voice, as if far away and distorted, yell, "Stop!"

But M squeezed through the cracks in the door and shoved a chair in front of the door so that K couldn't get out... And she kept adding to the barricade the door to the basement. She wasn't happy to be sealing her friend K into the basement with those nightmarish insects forever, but it was too late for K, she thought, and finally she turned around and sat down in a chair and drank a glass of water...

When something inside her throat stirred and wiggled in response to the water instead. She coughed -- her chest heaved -- her stomach turned -- and out of her mouth came spewing a whole load of cockroaches...

They had been in her all along, and nothing had happened to K -- except being buried in the basement, where she might eventually go into the pantry herself.

[glistens]

..............

1/2

[playerkills]

[ ...WHAT!? ]

[playerkills]

[ itsuki she can't even handle you ]

I-Itsuki is banned from all storytelling activities henceforth!

[deputychief]

Ah, dear me, I'm sorry.

...If it's any consolation, afterwards M went to the hospital and recovered.

[corona]

Hey. [ yes she is legit going to flick the screen ]

Hey. Aren't... we supposed to worry about K the most? Everything was M's fault, really.

[playerkills]

No, K is largely irrelevant to the story. We can consider the trauma inflicted on her negligible.

[deputychief]

[RAPUNZEL THAT ICON...]

Ah... Well, K... K eventually escaped after a long while stuck in the basement. She was physically unharmed, but she lost her memory of having a friend like M, so that they never held sleepovers together again.

[SEE IT ALL ... TIES TOGETHER.]

[glistens]

So... they went from being close enough to sleep together to - completely forgetting they were even friends to begin with?!

[ THAT IS THE OPPOSITE OF NEGLIGIBLE!! ]

[playerkills]

She forgot? ... But M didn't mean to...

[ YOZORA IS REALLY EMOTIONALLY ATTACHED TO THIS STORY ]

[deputychief]

Well, ah... [shit, is the consequence of telling a good old cockroach-mind horror story having to assuage the consciences of two weirdo girls afterwards?]

Yes, she forgot, but one day ten years later they met again... but that's a different story.

[corona]

....





[ Her silence roughly translates to "LMAO GO ON???" ]

[playerkills]

...





[ Seriously, Itsuki, you can't just leave them hanging!! ]

1/2

[deputychief]

....







[ oh COME ON! ]

[deputychief]

Ah...

It was a blustery fall day and M was in a suburb of Tokyo, shopping for clothes alone. She had changed her appearance since the cockroach incident -- grown out her hair, primarily, and adopted different clothing. She was shopping for back-to-school clothes, when all of a sudden, outside the window, she caught sight of a familiar figure, her chin jutting in the air, and her mouth berating someone, of course.

It was K, and... M's heart leapt and her stomach turned. She had hoped never to see K again, aided by the fact that K didn't remember what happened in the basement that day, but it was not to be, as K came into the store, followed by a set of her followers. M felt a bitterness rise up in her. After the incident in the basement, neither she nor K had made other friends, as they were set in their ways. K's beauty, wealth, and talents had brought her much attention from men, while M was feared around the school for her ruthless disposal of her enemies.

Just then, a cockroach crawled across the floor, halfway between K and M, and K could not restrain a scream of horror and a flash of memory...