once more with feeling [act 3]

[stagemanagers]

You awake in an unfamiliar bed.

It’s comfortable enough, sure, but it’s certainly not yours. The room, too, is unfamiliar, especially in such heavy darkness. There seems to have been a great effort put into making it a livable space, with fuzzy rugs laid over linoleum, beds arranged as best to fit (and one bunk bed per dorm, rip whoever has the bottom bunk), and a single desk. You've also got individually labelled trunks; if you look inside yours, you'll find a yearbook with mostly blank pages, as well as a few with some interesting information. But even with all these changes it’s clear this room started it’s life as a classroom, every window hidden behind heavy dark green curtains.

To add to the strangeness of it all, your clothes have been swapped for some kind of uniform. It, though fitting your body perfectly, might feel a bit odd to some of you, as the body you have isn’t quite the same as it was before you mysteriously fell unconscious. The other important thing to note is the people in the other beds around you, all wearing the same color-coded uniform.

The hallway outside the dorms is narrow but well-lit, with fresh white walls and some scattered posters advertising some kind of midweek club meeting. The hallway goes on until, for the more contemporary of you, the pieces start to fall together as to your location: a school. Once you leave your rooms you’re free to wander as you wish but pinned up on a corkboard just outside the cafeteria there’s framed information that you might find helpful. If you explore further into the other rooms, in fact, you'll see there's an identical copy outside all of them.

In the lobby there are linoleum floors and fluorescent lighting, and a pair of glass doors that appear to lead outside. You can see out of both of them that the sun is shining brightly and there’s definitely more to see in the distance but the glass is unbreakable; you can't get out that way right now. A rolling metal sheet blocks off the hallway to the west. For the moment, both doors leading outside are locked.

It looks like you’re stuck. But hey - at least you aren’t alone.

Comments

[comeandfindme]

[ Still a little annoyed, Peregrine rolls her eyes and scoffs. ]

What, you worried about some stupid prep school... [ But when she sees it, she trails off, mouth hanging open. ]

[themuseabandonsyou]

That's not normal, right? I'm not - misunderstanding it, that's -

[ He cuts himself off, shaking his head. It's phrased in a way that he doesn't really understand - he thinks it's saying if they don't get caught, they get expelled. But that doesn't make any sense? And is murder really a big enough problem in this place to warrant it being in rule five? ]

[comeandfindme]

[ She stalks closer, to read it over, and re-read it. To read it until it starts saying something different, which it won't. ]

...This is sick. This can't be right.

[themuseabandonsyou]

[ Orpheus, too, finds himself reading it over and over again, trying to make sense of it. ]

May end their time in the school. Not will. They're not - saying it like it's a punishment, but that doesn't make any sense.

[comeandfindme]

[ Quietly, seriously: ]

If they're not sayin' it like a punishment, then that means it's what they're trying to encourage.

[themuseabandonsyou]

[ Orpheus just shakes his head, vehemently. ]

No, that's not - it has to be a mistake. Someone must not have read it carefully enough before posting it.

[ But that doesn't explain why they thought a rule about killing the other students needed to be posted in the first place, and Orpheus seems to realize that, looking on with a growing sense of dread. What is this place? ]

[comeandfindme]

A mistake like the year books.

[ But Peregrine doesn't sound so sure. ]

Whatever the intension. We're in trouble. We're in very deep trouble.

[themuseabandonsyou]

This seems really bad. [ Orpheus agrees. ] We should - what should we do? Wake up the others? Try the doors?

[ They're in view of what looks like the exit, but Orpheus doesn't seem comfortable with the notion of wandering off and leaving people behind. He looks back over his shoulder at the hallway leading to the dorms, frowning. ]

[comeandfindme]

Take a closer sweep. Through the dorms, through everywhere.

[ No, she doesn't really feel comfortable leaving people behind either. If she has to wake them up, fine. ]

[themuseabandonsyou]

Right. Okay. [ He takes a deep breath. ] There's still a few rooms we haven't explored yet, it looks like?

[ One of the hallways is blocked, but there's still doors they haven't opened yet. Orpheus isn't going to make a move, though, waiting for Peregrine to take the lead. He's too rattled by all of this to think straight. ]

[comeandfindme]

Yeah. Yeah, we'll— [ After a moment, she turns to him. ] Dorms first. Dorms first, we gotta figure out who else is here.

[themuseabandonsyou]

That's - a good idea. Maybe there's a chance someone knows what's going on here? We can't have all arrived today, right?

[comeandfindme]

Maybe. [ She's already walking, trying to put as much space between her and those rules as possible. She doesn't wait to see if Orpheus is following. ] Maybe, it's a longshot.

[themuseabandonsyou]

[ Orpheus is perfectly fine trailing along after her, fidgeting with his tie. ]

It's worth seeing. We can all try to figure out something together when we're all awake, at least?

[comeandfindme]

Maybe someone's familiar with this place.

[ Maybe. Maybe. A lot of maybe. She hates it. ]

[themuseabandonsyou]

[ It's a LOT of maybes, but what else can they do? Orpheus follows after and presumably lurks in the background as Peregrine goes on to try waking some people up. ]