week 5

[stagemanagers]

[That was...an absolute shitshow. More beloved friends are dead in a mess of a trial that's left Angus half the man he was, Riley in a free fall and the Phantom...somehow still standing despite taking two stabs to the torso.

When you wake on Sunday, you'll find that you've recovered another one of those memories - or had another dream, if you still wanna be in denial about it. The door blocking the stairwell on the second floor has been unsealed. You can now venture up to the third floor! You have so much space now, it's just a shame it's all come at the cost of eight lives.

But despite the tragedy you have made progress! The trip into the Phantom's lair yielded some hints to the past of the Opera House, your house manager's apparently grim hobby and the possibility of an ally outside the Opera House. Who knows what this week will bring?]

Sunday | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday


(( Welcome to Week 5! Please remember to submit your AC and your memory regains, as well as your coins! You can also still contact the Phantom. ))

Comments

THURSDAY

[stagemanagers]

cw; sickness, hallucinations

[37773972]

[So. Wednesday happened.

Stephen's in his room for most of the morning - complete with possibly ignoring Santana - trying to sleep off the general sense of ugh. Too cold, too hot- he tosses and turns much like he had for most of the night before finally giving up on sleep and stumbling to the kitchen. At one point, there's the sound of shattering ceramic, and him leaning against the counter with wide eyes as he looks down at the fumbled mug and tries to calm himself down. He's fine, he's fine, he's...

...eventually trying the sauna for a bit, and then, the movie room. Here, he actually manages to doze off for a bit - unless someone wakes him up, of course.

Near the end of the day, he's back in his room, the door open as he searches through his belongings - both new and old. Eventually he'll find what he's looking for, and knock on Mephisto's door, a shirt slung over his shoulder.]

[heathencall]

[Mephisto doesn't leave his room much on Thursday. Call it a hangover. Call it nursing his wounds.

He does come at the knock on his door, though. He opens it warily, squinting into the bright light of the hall compared the single candle he has burning by his bedside.]

Yes?

[37773972]

[Hey, Meph, enjoy a shirt being more-or-less shoved at you]

Here. It's clean.

movie room; cw illness, hallucinations

[garbageface]

[ Lucky for Stephen, Santana didn't try to wake him up this morning! She's not feeling up for a workout herself -- she's coughing too much for cardio.

Unfortunately, Santana does find Stephen in the movie room, and shakes him awake with a clammy grip. She's not really looking at him, though. Her eyes don't seem to be focused properly, and when she speaks, it's a rambling stream of consciousness. ]

Have you seen -- I can't find her anywhere -- she was here last night, we danced, but people die here, and she's gone, and I can't lose her, I can't, I can't --

[37773972]

[dasjhdaf HE'S AWAKE HE'S AWAKE HE'S

looking at her with wide eyes]

-seen who?

kitchen

[holyspit]

[Sure it's not Friday, but the sound of shattering anything is pretty distressing. So Steven's looking more than a little worried as he skids in after that sound.]

Are you okay? That sounded like it could've been a murder attempt!

[why]

his room

[likemypicture]

[haha Stephen did you think you were going to have a nice peaceful time looking for your possibly-exes shirt? Well, probably should have closed the door then, because when Anne sees that opened door, she nyooms in with an intensity she didn't even have the night before, slamming the door shut behind her.]

Lock it!

kitchen; blanket warning for hallucinations and probably suicidal ideation

[madgiganticfeelings]

[When Christine spots Stephen in the kitchen, she initially considers bolting before deciding against it. That's not fair to him, to just ignore all the ways he had suffered trying to take care of her. And besides, she wants tea to soothe her throat, and the cafe is too far away.

So she stumbles in, glances at the knife block and then determinedly away, only to gasp as she hears that shattering noise.]

Stephen? Are you okay? Here, I'll get a broom...

movie room

[musacal]

[ Nana's wandering in search of a place to escape her hallucinations eventually brings her to the movie room, where she sees Stephen dozing off on the couch.

...

After a moment she leaves and then comes back a while later with a blanket that she grabbed from a storage closet that she tries to put over Stephen. ]

cw; sickness, hallucinations, imagined electric shocks, suicide mention

[madgiganticfeelings]

[After what happened at the party, Christine knows she should stay in bed. If not just for her safety, but so that no one around her has to be burdened by her once again.

She really was trying to help save everyone. Funny how one slip of the tongue made everyone more miserable. And she thought no one wanted to listen to her anymore...

She's exhausted when she clambers out of bed, and hot, hot enough to leave her cloak behind. She whispers a quiet apology to Red and hopes the cloak can protect her from a distance.

She can be found in the kitchen trying to make herself a cup of tea with shaking hands. She pointedly ignores the knife block, even when something above it catches her eye. For a moment, she looks unnaturally calm... but then she shakes her head.]

Don't... I'm not thinking like that again. It won't fix anything. It won't!

[After that, she takes back to the hall. She hopes desperately that no one will leave their rooms, because she doesn't think she can make it up the stairs. She's too dizzy for that, and she has to cling to the wall.

But there's an intense fire in her eyes as she continues walking, as if pushing herself through quicksand. Something is holding her back, but she won't let it anymore.]

You're gonna have to do better than fear,
You're gonna have to step out of the shadows and fight.
And when they see your face again,
They will know what it means,
To have fear dragged out into the light...

[She pauses suddenly, unable to walk any further, her legs and hands, everything shaking, but she raises her head up and shouts out at the electric ghost that won't leave her be, one more determined battle cry from a girl that's only been in imagined battles before.]

Drag it out!

[Her words are followed by a pained scream, her back arching, and she collapses onto the ground. That's... fine. She just needs a rest.]

kitchen

[musacal]

[ Nana is coming into the kitchen too for much the same reasons but she pauses in the entrance way when she hears Christine talking. ]

...What won't?

kitchen

[stagemanagers]

[While Christine prepares her tea, she'll hear the soft rustle of plastic on the counter behind her.

Investigate?]

hall; cw illness discussion

[garbageface]

Oh my god please, could we go one week without screaming? This flu is giving me a killer headache and you're not --

[ Santana cuts off her rant when she spots Christine, collapsed in the hallway. ]

Oh my god, are you dead?

[ Santana rushes over and shakes Christine by the shoulders. ]

Hey, wake up, this isn't funny!

cw: sickness, hallucinations

[likemypicture]

[Anne may or may not have passed out on the floor of the Roller Rink overnight on Wednesday. When she does wake up, Thursday morning, she has to do the walk of shame from the roller rink, in last night's whole getup, the jacket of her fur tossed over her shoulders, stupid tear-away shorts clenched in one hand, her portrait tucked safely under the other arm.

She makes it downstairs-- gently rests the portrait against the wall, and then scrambles into the lady's room, where she basically collapses on the floor by the toilet, leaned over against the stall. It's probably gross and full of germs, but she has a 1500s understanding of that. And it's nice and cool against her face-- which she's sure is just because of the hangover, even though she's partied this hard before with lesser consequences. As she slumps there, she sings to herself in a quiet voice--]

It's just Anne in the bathroom,
Anne in the bathroom---
after a party---

[And then she stops, to have a good coughing fit.

Eventually, she makes it up and into her room, where she at least gets herself presentable again-- denim overalls and a ridiculously floral blouse with huge bell sleeves. She doesn't stay there long-- no- not at all. She first grabs the portrait from the hall-- but instead of hanging it up for everyone to see, it's shoved under her mattress. Then, the star from her door is removed, and stashed atop the armoire, out of sight. Her clothes from the night before, and everything she showed up in, are shoved in the back of the armoire, far underneath the pile of things she's swiped from the costume shop. Her letters, that damned picture of Henry, anything else precious she may have in her room-- and Tad and all his various accessories are swept up into his little Tad-basket, and then, once she's erased all evidence of herself, she's bolted out of that room like her very life depends on it.

For the rest of the day, she can be found either pushing herself into hiding spots anywhere possible. Good thing she's so small. Or, she may also be found beating on the other dressing room doors, with the same desperation someone may have if the opera house were on fire.

She is not fine.]

room 17; cw: sickness, hallucinations

[garbageface]

[ One of the doors Anne’s beating on is Santana’s. A tired, annoyed voice calls out: ]

Hey, what the fuck?

[ Then the door opens, revealing a Santana who can barely stand upright, leaning heavily on the door frame. ]

The hell do you want?

Mephisto's Room

[heathencall]

[Mephisto has been shut away most of the day, which... means he's pretty out of touch. The banging on the door has him feeling particularly nervous. He's hoping the fact that he feels like hell still means the worst hasn't happened.]

What. Do you want?

cw: audiovisual hallucinations

[justmeheere]

[That party sure happened. Jeremy is, regrettably, wearing his terrible Ren Faire outfit with Michael's jacket over it. He's in the arcade for most of the morning, lying on the air hockey table and staring at the ceiling and carrying a conversation with no one:]

Bold of you to assume I'm getting up. Go fuck yourself.

[Eventually, however, Jeremy does get up and ends up in the pool. He's not swimming. He's just continually sinking to the bottom of the pool, sitting there until he runs out of air, then surfacing and sinking again. There's probably a reason for that. Who knows what it is.

Eventually, he ends up in the garden, lying on one of the benches.]

It's not that easy. What do you know? You're just a bunch of fucking computer code.

Garden

[madgiganticfeelings]

What's not easy?

[Christine's voice is uncharacteristically quiet and hesitant, as she returns from the cemetery. She could have just... pretended not to see him, but she wouldn't have felt right about that.

Not that she feels right about stopping, one fist curled as she insists on ignoring the figure whispering in her ear.]

pool

[musacal]

[ Nana is here because... she is really tired of hearing "I understand" over and over and is looking for a place to get away from the giraffe and also cool down, and man! Water seems nice right about now!

But then she sees Jeremy sinking and surfacing over and over. ]

J...Jeremy-kun!?

[ wtf you better not be trying anything distressing. ]

hallucinations, auditory and visual; finger injuries in last para

[heathencall]

[Every time Mephisto looks at the ceiling in the opera house, it warps. Occasionally he sees the castle, just like the night before. Once, though, he sees stars, fading further and further out of reach as he feels like he's falling. It happens once in the morning, while he's staring up at the ceiling in the main lobby.

He comes to his senses on the floor, trembling and aching, feeling as if he'd simply fallen back to earth.

It takes only one time for him to realize he doesn't really want to be seen today. And though he spends most of his day in the room, eventually restlessness does take him, and he scrambles outside and into the courtyard. Today he avoids the graveyard, not wanting to deal with spirits any more than he already has. Instead he makes his way to the fountain staring at its surface until --

The reflection warps. Ariel stares back at him, alive and happy, resplendent somehow, despite everything. Despite his damnation. No matter how many times he beats his fists against the surface, Ariel stares back.

When exhaustion gets the best of him, he comes to rest below the wall on the edge of the courtyard. He mostly intends to look up at the stars, perhaps nod off out where the air is thick and warm. If he can do that, maybe --

A voice, chanting his name, startles him out of his daze. He looks up at the wall and -- leaps to his feet. He saw her there, just for a moment, before plummeting down to the other side. He'd failed to climb after her death, but maybe now, even if he can't catch her, he can go to her.

Don't mind him, trying to mount the wall. His fingers rip and tear as he tries to claw his way up. Maybe he'll manage it, wobbling precariously at the top of the wall before peering off the other side.]

wall

[garbageface]

[ In the dark, the red of the McKinley High Cheerios uniform might pass for the orange of the Giles Corey High cheer uniform. Santana, as usual, is wearing the former.

Santana notices Mephisto wobbling at the top of the wall, and her stomach immediately drops. Mephisto is no flyer — odds are he’ll fall, and break his neck.

Santana has seen Riley climb to the top of the wall; she knows how it’s done. She’s slower than usual, but able to make the ascent, joining Mephisto at the top of the wall. ]

There’s nothing on the other side. You need to get down.

fountain

[madgiganticfeelings]

...Mephisto?

[Christine's voice is tired and slightly hoarse, but she still does her best to make sure to be heard over the splashing water. She abandoned her cloak in her room, but now she's finding that she's shivering, perhaps from the mist of water surrounding them.]

C-Come on, Mephisto. There isn't anything there.

[His full name just sounds long and burdensome in her mouth, but... she doesn't want to annoy him, like she knows she will. Everything about her was so terrible, and she needs to work on fixing it.]

cw: hallucinations of both kinds and fevers

[musacal]

[ After everything that happened last night, Nana has tried to mostly stay in her room. She likes her room after all. In her room she can lie down and rest. In her room Junna is there, at her bed side, telling her things will be fine. In her room the other Seisho girls come to see her, talking about the non-existent presents they brought...

It's all fine and nice until Claudine shows up as well.

...Right. This is just another trick her mind is playing on her.

Eventually she leaves the room, the images of her friends making no attempt to stop her as she does. She can't expect any one else to take care of her right now, especially not a bunch of people who aren't really there. But leaving her room comes with its own curse: it's not her friends who follow her from room to room once she leaves her bed, but a certain talking long necked animal. ]

Go away... didn't you bother me enough last night...?

[ She knows her friends aren't real, but it's harder to tell with the giraffe, especially since it was so strange and magical in the first place and she still isn't entirely convinced it's not secretly behind all of this. So she just does her best to ignore it and move to a different room when she sees it staring her down before it can so much as get out another "I understand" in her direction.

There's two main places she can be found though:

One is the kitchen, where she's shakily attempting to make a big pot of okayu. At least if she makes a big batch then everyone should be able to help themselves and not worry about feeding themselves.

The other is the cold storage in the bakery, where she's left the door wide open as she sits in there with a blanket wrapped around her and a bag of frozen dough pressed to her forehead. At least she seems content for the moment, giraffes don't like the cold after all. ]

Kitchen

[heathencall]

[Mephisto's roaming in for much of the same reasons -- despite doing his best to not think about anything but the rampant chaos in his own mind, he can't swallow his own worry for too long.

Pasta is about the only damn thing he knows how to make, so he stumbles past Nana without looking at first, opting to grab a box of gluten-free pasta. He turns and -- furrows his brows as he stares at Nana.]

Are you... actually there?