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dromjournal · 2 years ago

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Jan 22nd

I'm at a farm, the kind that's very Austen-esque mansion like with a pond and open grass areas. The pond is overflowing somewhat due to a period of rain.

We (me and a heavily pregnant woman and a young child) need to get to the train station to go back home, but it's a long way from here and there's no cars or anything, therefore we need to borrow some horses and a carriage. We are allowed to do it as we have paid for it, but the farm owners- workers?? Still seems sort of passive aggressively trying yo dissuade us.

The owner is a middle-aged woman and she has a lot of people around her that acts as if she's a small king with a whole political party behind her. I assume that isn't too far from the truth? Though a lot of her fame is connected to this farm she is some sort of politically important person.

We drive off but very soon we realize we are tailed by another more or less identical carriage. In good faith we don't do anything about it until the wheel on our cart breaks out of nowhere. It's as if it's been tampered with. The other carriage stops too to reveal the owner and a few workers. They get out and tell us they will take the carriage and horses back, but it's okay, because the road is flooded just right up ahead and they have a large boat that they will take us over on. Okay, we don't have much of a choice really. I go ahead to check the boat and road. I'm not gone for long, s few hours at most.

When I get back I find my wife(?) had gone into labor and died shortly after together with the child. The older child had also died in some freak accident that he had caused himself, like being trampled by the horses. This is the story I'm told, although no one seems particularly upset about it. Rather they joke about how it'll be much easier to move now. Something is wrong. I am overcome with grief, and that grief turns to anger.

I just want to crash the whole thing, which I also do. I get out on the deck of the boat while the others mainly stay inside. A few of them comes outside though to smoke or just to be assholes. I kill several of the employees that had been left with my wife after they taunt me about her death. On the ferry there's a huge buffet, but I'm locked out of it on the deck (which, fair enough, I did kill the people that came outside), exposed to the weather and cold. I can't find a way in and I can only sometimes see the owner through a window, looking down at me smirking. She don't even seem to care about the employees, she just enjoys my misery.

We dock after some time and I immediately start following a stamped dirt road, the only road there is so logically the one to the station. The others follow behind me but doesn't make any attempt at catching up or talk to me. They seem in good spirits. I don't have any way to tell time because of the thick fog by the water and woods, but I haven't had anything to eat or drink for days, being "locked out" of everything on the boat and provisions long gone. I just keep thinking we are so close now, we must be there any day now. I'm stubbornly hanging on to get away.

Then suddenly the woods clear up a bit around us and I see the water close to the trail. It's the pond. Across it, just a few kilometres away, is the farm. We've been going in a circle. I fall to my knees, exhaustion taking over my body as hopelessness washes over me. I had never been close to getting out. It was all for nothing. The group behind me laughs loudly and scornfully as they walk past me, leaving me with my spirit broken on that road without a second glance. They had known, of course. I fall forward, cheek against the dry dirt, until I can no longer hear them talking and laughing in the distance. I lie there as the night grows cold and I am sure I will freeze to death. I lie there as the morning comes around and the dew melts on my skin. I am little more than a ghost, a living dead.

Then suddenly a boy on skates crashes into a tree and fall down unconscious just a few hundred metres from me. I get up, paternal worry cracking through the hopelessness and giving me enough strength and motivation to move. I can't tell much about the person because they're all dressed up in ski wear head to toe, I can just tell they're small, unconscious, and about to be dead if they don't get medical help quickly.

With powers I didn't know I still had in me I get walking,carrying the child on my back. I walk towards the only place I know there will be people. I walk despite my body being famished and exhausted, because this kid needs me.

I come up to the farm, where the owner is now busy entertaining dressed up guests. It's not like the last time I was here when it was just my family, this time the place has a lot of strangers around just looking and admiring the place. I probably make quite a sight.

She goes white when she sees me. She thought I was dead and now I'm there, which is dangerous for her both because I have reason to and might attack her directly, and because if what she did to my family got out she would be ruined. She was a politician. Her reputation was everything.

However I ignore her and call for help. Protecting comes before punishing. People are immediately filling in around me to help with the boy.

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dromjournal · 2 years ago

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February 25 2023

I am a girl, I believe the youngest of three siblings in a family with mom&dad, two daughters and one son. We live in a coastal region with a beach just outside our house. The city is pretty average to bigger sized in terms of population but rather spread out which and close knit, sort of like the ones you'd see in a tv show where things just seem kinda simple, and that gives you an illusion of a smaller town. We got this strange transportation system where you step into a lift tram (about the size of a smallish elevator) and clicks on a destination around town and it slides down into an underground subway. The trams are just those small ones and you can't tell where someone else is going in the dark. It's all automated, no drivers. Yeah much like a mix between metro and elevator.

As I said, I'm the youngest daughter. I'm still "adultish" and my siblings are close to me in age. Our house on the beachfront is a large one, fancy and classical. It's a connected but so are all the houses on this street as only a cobble road lies between you and the beach, you can only walk or bike there. It's pretty, pittoresk. Some people areon the beach playing around but not bathing as it's too cold. I am there alone, and start running barefoot just along the waterline. At first just an impulse to "outrun the waves", but once I start I can't stop myself and I keep going faster until I'm going as fast as I can and the waves are lapping at my feet and the wet sand is perfectly resistant as the wind steals any sounds around me and the abrupt end of the beach into a stone wall is approaching closer and closer and I know I need to stop, need to slow down, but I can't make myself. I just keep running until I hit the wall with a bang and fall over. I lie there for minute as no one comes to check on me (although people saw me) before getting up, moving back towards home.

Outside my home a girl (teenager, natural blonde, very pretty but very thin) in a long dress comes up to me with a basket of something that looks like a mix of pears and peaches. She's also eating one and it seems sweet and sticky. She hands the basket to me, telling me she's been out of town at some family members and brought back this fruit that had been local to that region for my family. This wasn't exactly uncommon, neighbours did that around here (bring back stuff for each other when they went out of town that is) so I thank her and takes the small basket. She smiles and just then gets a nose bleed, but I don't comment on it so to not embarrass her and just turn around.

Walking inside the doors you walk through a ballroom-like hallway that leads you into either a stairwell (left), living room (right ahead) or kitchen (right). My parents are in the living room, as they usually are. They look rather stuck up and not very warm. They are most respected in the community as something between superheroes and politicians (my mother). That is not an exaggeration by the way, I mean literal superheroes. They have ye old classical powers of like superstrength and throwing stuff with their mind. They used to be - and still are to some degree - the citys protectors, worshipped for all they had done to make the city flourish. As I said my mother is now very close knit with the local community and something of a mayor. My dad is more a lazy retired rich dude™ but supportive of her and does as she asks. You could say she rules the family with her iron fist, although it's more she manipulates the familys reputation and social standing, and she's good and very eccentric about it so everyone lets her. They give me a short look. I place the basket on a table, giving a brief explanation before leaving for my own room. The house is decorated with figures of horses and horses in different stages of merging with other animals. Like horses with huge antlers, or horses with snake fangs and mouth. They're not disturbing as much as sort of odd. You get the idea that our "brand" is connected to horses somehow, like a state weapon.

I go to the staircase. You can go up, and you can go down. I chose to go up. My sister is there in her room on the next floor, sitting by her computer set up and drawing I think. She looks cool and alternative, short cropped hair and piercings and she's rather sturdy and muscular in her body build. The room doesn't have a door but rather id completely open plan, just like every other room I've seen in the house so far. That means that just by using the stairs I can view her entire bedroom (and it's actually big). When I try to make conversation she hisses at me, changing her entire face into something reptilian/animal and baring her fangs. I continue and move up another set of stairs to get to my own "room".

Just like the others, my room is open plan and you can't hide away there. Though there's something like an automatic garage door you can "call for" to block the doorway, but I also know it's useless since any other family members could just as easily call it off. The wall is there as a safety measure against intruders, which isn't something that comes around a lot of course and the people you want to lock out you can't.

The brother's power is mind altering, sort of like drugging. He can make people see a very different world around them than what is actually there, psychedelic and happy. The problem is that this power also works on himself, and he has to constantly check himself so that he's not slipping into the fantasy where everything is happy and easy. It's not easy to always have to second guess reality as you experience it, but he is supported.

It shows I am at least on some level close to my siblings, though I am something of the black sheep of the family. It's unclear what my power is or if I even got one at all. It's obvious the others look down on me because of it. Outsiders doesn't, since they don't have powers either, but it doesn't really matter when my mom got all the power she does.

He slips away and is almost sacrificed in some weird ritual thing but older sister saves him

I sneak out to a party. It's a small gathering with some friends and music, my childhood friend is hosting. Her family was friends with mine even before we met and we hit it off very well. She got long wavy platinum blonde hair, Crimson Peak-style, long light eyelashes and pale blue eyes - wouldn't actually look very human irl but it's not something I question in the dream. I might have a crush on her. We somewhat drunkenly argue about is which is the most attractive out of a few presumaby famous musicians - only they are actually all the exact same model of realistically humanoid robot, just dressed up in different styles to make different kinds of music. We call it the robot triplets (although it's suggested there's many more). After that someone brings up my family, which always makes my heart sink but I also have to accept as they are a big part in most people's lives around here, and I mention the fruit basket I had gotten and am told the same girl had been giving out fruits around town earlier that day. One guy I don't really know start acting weird, kind of falling over and having a nose bleed. We assume he is way too drunk and need to get to bed. We cut the party short and I go home. I sneak across the streets the very short way back home, but barely gets there before I realize something is wrong.

People were acting weird on the streets too, just standing and staring into the air in front of them, but since I was sneaking anyways they didn't bother me and I was too distracted not alerting my mom to think more closely about it. But once at home something happens to make that change.

People are trying to break in and our safety alarms are going off. We collect in the living room, where mom and dad activate the "garage door" mechanism. Outsiders can't open it but they have soon broken in and are clawing at the metal outside. They are like mind controlled. Then my dad start bleeding nose blood suddenly. I remember the girl and party goer.

Indeed, dad is also turning. He had taken one of the fruits since I had put the basket inside the living room and he didn't know. Nor did I, until I figure out she might see the

I run, just making it to the subway so they won't know where I'm going. I figure I must train myself starting with a small child or animal, like this is a video game. I need a higher HP and CP to survive.

The body falls over but instead of hitting the ground like a flesh bag would, my feet somehow grow into the ground, the body becoming a small tree/bush in the shape of a person as I keep moving and comes stumbling out of the shrubbery like new, like a chicken breaks out of the egg or a butterfly out of it's cocoon. I freeze at first, not understanding, but quickly start moving again.

I think I die, over and over, but it's like a new self just sprouts out of the old body with all the memories as the old one turns to wood and leaf. No doubt still, that person is dead, and this body is a new one with the same memories. I guess this is how I finally find out my power that's been hidden in plain sight.

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dromjournal · 2 years ago

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January 11 2023

I walk into a school building that looks, to be honest, run down to the point of being possibly dangerous. Still there's kids all around me going about their day like normal. I would say it's located somewhere in west asia? But in a poor neighbourhood clearly. The building probably looked good at one point in time but lack of funding and care have left it what it is today.

I am a girl of high school age, the other students are around the same age. They're wearing simple school uniforms of a white button up shirt and marine bottoms/skirt. I am an outsider, not really knowing much about this place. I'm pretty intimidated by the other students and tries to not pull any attention towards myself. One of the first things I hear when walking towards the school is some kids talking very aggressively. I know they could turn on me if I'm not careful. The bullies here are just really terrible people

I walk over to a staircase. It's sorta connected to the wall, which makes it look safer than most others here.

It crashes down, taking most of the students screaming with it. A few though, including me, were just by the wall and managed to cling on. We are scared but stable enough where we're standing not to be in immediate danger.

I notice a girl who doesn't seem upset at all.

The girl counts and knocks her feet against the wall. Another person falls. She turns her eyes towards me.

I am perfectly fine. Everyone else had died from the fall, and I'm just a little bruised at most. I see the girl kinda freeze as she notices. Whatever higher power existed had deemed me innocent. She's shook by this, and somehow she disappears while I am also given this knowledge I didn't have before.

She's dead. Officially she had gone missing and the school had refused any responsibility, but I know now. The body is hidden inside a backpack in an empty locker, still inside the school.

I identify the locker and in front of most of the school that had collected around the disturbing scene, including adults, I open it up to show what's inside. People are shocked and sickened of course. The body is taken to be given a burial and stuff. I think this would be enough to release the ghost, but it's not. I still see her. She feels dangerous and I'm scared, but she's not attacking me. It's like she's watching me and waiting for something.

I start doing some research and find out that on the day of her disappearance she had gone to confess to a popular boy at school. No one knew more, since she had gone alone in this really secluded area (pretty popular for confessions), and was never seen again. People at school at least suspected he had something to do with it but no one dared say anything because of the social power this guy held, he could make your life miserable. He of course says he never went and don't know what they're talking about, which is verified by his friends who claims they were with him the entire time. I have a feeling though. I was pretty sure he killed her and hid the body, and everyone in school is covering for him because they don't want to get on his bad side or they are just terrible themselves.

I slip the guy a note asking to see him after school in a specific part of the school. I hope to confront him and find evidence. He actually shows up, although he brings his buddies and he looks completely bored and "ready to get this over with". It makes me uncomfortable to have so many guys there so I ask if they can leave so I can speak to him alone. They don't listen to me and just turns to the guy. He stares at me, eyes me up and down as if to assess me, before smirking, telling his friends to go keep watch outside. They leave immediately, snickering and closing the door behind them. He immediately gets up in my face.

"Let's get this over with then," he says, grabbing my ass to pull me close. I am shocked and push him away, asking what the hell he's doing. He just laughs, asking why I'm resisting "when you like me?" My mouth drops open because he clearly thought I was confessing to him, and in the moment that felt more offensive than the sexual assault. I yell at him, but he's not actually listening. He grabs me again and pushes me onto a table, holding me down. That's when I realize finally I might actually be in danger here and this wasn't a very wise move. It's like a bucket of cold water over me. He grabs at my body and I don't know what to do. I realize this is likely what had happened to the girl, who really had been confessing and got her heart immediately broken.

Then suddenly there's this screeching and he goes white in the face, looking behind me. I can't tell what it is he's seeing but from the mix of disbelief, shock and pure horror on his face I get the feeling it's the girl. He tries to turn and run, just to get caught and dragged back behind me by something invisible. I don't look, I lay still with my heart pounding as I hear his screams and crushing sounds behind me. It finally goes quiet and not until then does it feel like a weight that I have connected to the ghost's fury has been lifted off my shoulders. It was the revenge she had been seeking. I don't dare look.

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dromjournal · 2 years ago

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January 7 2023

I go with my siblings to my friend's old apartment a few hours away from our home. There's a lot of said siblings - six of us in different ages, I'm the oldest. About half of us have had physically traumatic accidents - "there's something wrong with us" as I think someone said, like a curse almost. My oldest sister had one of her hands chopped off. My youngest brother had a freak accident playing baseball and got hit and broke pretty much every bone on one half of his body, leaving him leaned over slightly crooked now that it's healed. I am considered maybe the biggest ~freak~ although it's not instantly obvious. I am practically emotionless to the point where it's painfully obvious unless I am lying, giving people the impression I'm your standard media psychopath. I don't care about people, but I'm slightly weaker towards animals as I find them to be something of kindred spirits or just morally purer. The three other siblings are people I don't really get along with - the oldest brother, just slightly younger than me, is the picture of Alpha Male ideology. He thinks he's better than others because he is physically strong, and he think he is righteous in putting down those that are less. This includes me, because he sees my irregular behaviour and are just waiting for a reason to kick me down "to protect the world". A guy who took to toxic norms like they were water, who would never question the order of the world which serves him. The next is a girl, physically strong too, looks a bit like a weight lifter. She tends to be outwardly aggressive. Our relationship is strained at best. Mostly she ignores me. The last brother is a bit different, he doesn't fit well into the macho standard and he's very internally focused. However this has caused him to develop a bit of a selfish strain, because he rarely lets anyone else in on his feelings he will just validate himself whether he is actually right or not. Although I'm closer with some than others, my siblings are all pretty close to eachother compared to me.

Anyway, for some reason I've invited them on this "trip" to my friend's old place where we are supposed to pick up a few things she and her boyfriend had left there as they moved and bring them back. We're told we can help ourselves to anything that's left behind and that's probably why they all came too.

Well, the place is in this very standard looking apartment building, but quite cool looking to be honest with a floor to ceiling window in one of the hallways and a large storage space. They had lived here for quite some time before leaving rather suddenly a month ago.

Well, sn old lady died here before they moved in. All I know is she died in "a corner" and it happened very suddenly since I guess my friend didn't know s lot either. But she had been under the impression the place was haunted and I understand why as it would always creak and make noise.

Things had been left as in a rush. There was food half made on the stove

I find the old ladys bedroom and there's strange windows and binoculars to spy on neighbors. There's also a cat that shouldn't be there.

First attempt to flee the car is stolen and sorta crashed by my brother.

I am given a new chance and realise this is a game of sorts.

I drop them off at this strange reptile store that is more than a store, it's like a reptile fight club. and they hold a grudge towards me. Then I drive off. They're angry of course and steal a car to chase after me.

Theres a steep ninety degree drop into water and you need to board this small elevator that a lot of people miss and just go flying. It's mostly luck that I manage to stop the car in time. Next there's a slide- tunnel. We kinda rush past everyone because we're chased and to get out of the park I put my hand on this globe that register my time and announces me as the winner. I don't care, just keep driving, but an angry purple haired woman starts chasing us now too because we stole her prize.

I am feeling very stressed out

The first part is a circus.

The next part is the collection of the price, hidden among hot springs. We got the key from the win are supposed to just drive straight out into it as the key opens up the door for us. The woman is hot on our heels, but the door closes before sje reaches it and she ends up in the water. The price is a golden egg. We're not sure how to wake it, but then the cat we had brought along gives birth and the blood accidentally hits the egg and it also hatches to show a little golden feathered dragon. The cat thinks it's one of hers and curls around it.

We keep exploring the rooms and there's a lot of strange old things, like people have left stuff here randomly over a great span of years.

There's a baby, and he's asleep. There's a note explaining though. We're supposed to bring him along, but he will scream and his dad come running if he's woken up. We need to draw a picture for the dad - he likes pictures of collies and sheep - to distract him long enough to run with the baby. We also need to organise the space in the car to fit the baby. The baby is the key to open up a door to get out.

To get out we need to climb a dew different level spiraling upside down stairs and ropes and shoot an arrow into a specific hole a few times. This opens up rhe way out from the springs.

The last part is getting back home without being "caught" by my siblings. They are ready to crush us and because of our stop they have caught up and are in front of us. We also need to get gas without getting their attention.

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dromjournal · 2 years ago

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november 6th 2021

My family enters a room that contains belongings of my great great grandmother. It's not that different from just a storage at first look. One of the first things that greets you is a large statue of the virgin Mary. There's three boxes on a long table that is less messy, and by every box there's an old book. These books are some kind of religious books (well, I'd assume a bible but there's three different) used by our family I guess to find the answer to things that trouble us. Sort of magical, like, open it up and find the answer tarot-card style. It's also suggested there's some kind of spirital connection that can actually help you achieve the "good" results.

I start going for one of the books but I'm stopped by my grandmother, who opens up the box and says we need to make an offering first. In the box there is precious jewelery of different kinds, and my grandma looks around the room as she's put some knicknacks in there for when it's needed. I join her, leaving the table with books to look through all the other stuff. I find a brooch, but it looks rather cheap and I'm not sure what it is we need the advice/help for but it's something SERIOUS so I don't think it'll be enough.

Suddenly I hear more people come inside the room and look up to see all of my (adult) family come inside with my (male) friend in front, that had come home with me to hang out. He's looking rather comfused, like he was led there but not sure why. I look over to see my grandma is already reading one of the books - she must have found an offering - with a grim look on her face. She looks up towards my family and nods. They respond by taking my friend by the arms and before he could even protest they slit his throat. I cry out, ofcourse, running over and trying to get to my friend but they have already surrounded him like hungry animals and are ripping his clothes off.

By the statue of the virgin they pull off a sheet and mess from what I thought had been a regular table, but is actually more like a stone altar. They put the dead, naked body of my friend on it. I go after him, trying to stop the bleeding although it's already too late. My grandma yells something as I keep dighting everyone but I don't listen. What happens is I'm stabbed too, but not in the cartoid artery so I don't pass out immediately. I do however kinda pretend to fall on top of the other body, and I'm moved over so I lie beside him and cradles him (this might just be my own doing). Apparently it's supposed to resemble Mary cradling her child, and maybe it does. It sure feels like it to hold his body.

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dromjournal · 2 years ago

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26/11 2022

A young adult woman (beautiful, dark skinned, conventionally attractive) is at her boyfriend's house (mansion). He is something of a royal, a powerful bloodline with the genetic power of reading minds and speaking telepathically. She has been treated by his family as a part of them, included in weird family photo walls (as in, they had family pictures up everywhere which were supposed to make them look tight-knit). Still, something feels very off and artificial about it. Firstly her boyfriend (fiance?) barely acknowledges her to play on his phone as she tries to get his affection, in fact he very much even suggests that he does not think they will make it as a couple. Secondly, no other family members even show themselves in this weirdly top modern house. Everything is large and empty and devoid of life with only the pictures there to fool you. They are still close by, evidenced by the fact that they can communicate telepathically and read her mind whenever they want, comnenting on her thoughts when they are not "right", but she never meets them. She's feeling incredibly lonely in such a strange situation but she literally have to watch her thoughts. The fiancés mother and sister are truly "on her side" in that they want her as part of their family though, so they give her tips on how to seduce the guy. It's incredibly weird and off putting even as they are clearly talking about their own experiences, with sex being something done to them rather than with them. Kind of a classical misogynist purity society thing. She's not from that culture (or class rather) but it only serves to make her feel even more like a poser. He finally gets the hint and sleeps with her, though she is almost surprised by how bad and selfish he is in bed. She is congratulated by the family though for succeeding.

Like he's done a sudden U-turn, the boyfriend asks her to marry him. He got this kind of sociopathic-narcissistic charm where he smiles but never with his eyes and she is constantly trying to get his approval. She's clearly being manipulated by the love from the family and how they threaten to take it all away if she "acts wrong". So she says yes, and soon enough she is pregnant, and she tells herself that this is the best she could have hoped for, and tries to ignore the voice that asks this is it? whenever she pretends to be a happy family, and really it's clear that if there had ever been true feelings between them it's long gone and this is all an act for the public eye, she has to be the good wife and mother. The family she had hoped to find belonging in is still as cold and distant but thoroughly manipulative.

Three witches meet on a farm belonging to one of them. The two sneak in by disguising themselves as the owners husband and mother, but are pretty quickly found out by the third witch that just sighs about them still beeing the same. They haven't met in years, but used to be good friends. They also remember the girl from their school years, where she had been the top student, in all kind of extra curricular activities where she had been the greatest. She was also incredibly mentally strong and had a clear focus, but was never needlessly rude or mean to people, which made her popular and the true queen bee. The witches hadn't been her friends or anything, faaar away from that social circle, but they had known of her. Which is why they meet up now (or rather, two of them show up to bug the third) - they have all seen the omens of The Great Disaster, the Armageddon of their world, approaching. They know the woman is the trigger and bomb that may set it off. They have seen visions. They also know she is being crushed under the thumb of the royals, so far from the person she used to be, and they must be quick if they want to save the world. The third finally agrees that they are right and they must cone together again.

They decide to attempt to get to her while she's out shopping for makeup. Her schedule is very rigid and it's not hard for them to make a plan around it. Though from the outside it looks like she is out shopping alone and being a normal person, in reality she is being closely monitored by the royals. If she deviates even a little from what she's said she were doing they will know and shame her.

At first she is courteous as the first witch comes up to her and tells her they used to go to the same school, although nothing more than that. She's quick to brush her off. So the witches simply go straight for the throat - they tell her she is a ticking bomb and will destroy the world if she continues down the same path. Which obviously make her think they are insane and start walking away from them.

What makes her stop is just an accident - they mention in passing their friend being the creator of a specific park in the city (they want her to go there as they would no longer be in the royals "territory" and they wouldn't be able to do anything, including forcing her to leave, to her there. Because of their instinctual rules.)

It's not a special park in any way, rather small in size and very wildgrown. But the woman knew it. She had always felt a strong connection to it. When they had first met, her intense love for this park is what had made her agree to dating her now husband (who had been much more charming at that point). He had claimed to have made it himself, which seemed possible since why would such a rich kid lie about making a fairly unknown park. The sense of belonging she had felt within this park, like an artpiece that spoke directly to her, is what had made her tell herself they must be soulmates, that no one else could understand her on a deeper level. She has not been to the park in years, she realizes. Her husband had never been since that time they met. The truth is getting clearer. Still, she won't just believe some strangers without evidence.

She decides to deviate from her path and take the train to the park. The witches follow her excitedly even as she mostly ignores them. When she just get off on the platform though she realizes she's been outed, and her husband is coming up behind her looking like he's about to bring her home by force if he needs to.

Now we find out these are for sure not humans. They live in sort of a fifth dimension that humans can't see or interact with, but is still technically the same world. They can go to the human plane, but that shows their "true form" (or maybe not true since they don't look like that to each othe..?) which is something lovecraftian, pure black. The royals (purer blood) are much worse though, they are huge with spindly razor legs. If a human turns their eyes on them that will instinctively make them kill them, they are just more mindless monster in that state. They can't take eyes on them.

Well, this is just what she does. She switches dimensions, being still mostly humanoid and nonaggressive, starting to run. She yells "close your eyes!" as she runs but of course a lot of people don't listen. Well she might be a confusing scary sight, but it's the husband that is stopped by all the screaming humans as he can't stop himself from slaughtering them for looking at him. They run for the doors so she can blend in a little but she also needs to be fast enough not to get stuck in the panicking mob or she's screwed. He is catching up even with all the people because he's so much bigger, even though she's so close now, the park just across the road once she gets out from the train station.

But one of the witches show up. She switches with the princess, telling her to stay low and letting the princess blend in while she becomes a black monster and makes a ruckus before running in the other direction. It works - the princess hides and the husband chases after the witch. She hurries towards the park, ignoring the sounds of the witch being chased down and ripped apart.

As soon as she's in the park, she's in a new territory. This is not 'her' kingdom, and she's not sure how she could even have believed it was now that she's more in sync with her instincts. Then suddenly the real owner of the park appears. He's not as huge as her husband, but he is still a royal of his own right with his ownership of this place. He snarls and growls but doesn't attack, demanding instead to know what she is doing there.

She turns back to the fifth dimension and he is there, still just as an intimidating presence though not being as physically large. He looks pretty wild and weary. His hair is pretty long and messy, his eyes are baggy and wary. He is good looking, but in a rather unconventional way. Sort of tortured artist recluse that hates everyone. He's frowning the entire time but doesn't appear like he's going to attack unprovoked.

She asks if it's true he created this park, and he says yes. She asks him to prove it, but that's ridiculous and he can't do that. She believes him anyway. She can feel he is telling the truth the way he interact with the plants around him like they're precious. She don't know how she could have ever believed her vapid husband made this.

Disillusioned, she now starts to question why the royals had picked her. She had just been a normal nobody - yes, an excellent student and surely would have made a name for herself, but nothing worth marrying a prince. She had thought it was because they were soulmates, that the family with their royal mind reading powers knew they made each other so happy. But now she knows that was all a lie. They had never been happy. Their relationship had been built on a lie that her husband was actually this guy, and now that she sees him, it's so obvious that he could never have been.

She tells him she came because the witches told her to, and he seems very surprised but reluctantly accepts it. He shows her to his place and wait for the witches to come explain. They do. The witch that had saved her had been killed by the prince - ripped apart without thinking the moment he caught up to her. He didn't even realize it wasn't her at first.

There's one problem though. Her young son. She refuses to leave him in the care of those people, to be manipulated and grow up to be such a horrible person as his father. She's going back no matter what danger that poses and they can't convince her differently. The Prince (King?) doesn't even try. He even seems to soften a bit. He can't go with her though, because his presence would be noticed immediately in anothers territory and they would be attacked. The witches would likely be killed too as they didn't have enough power to protect themselves in comparison to the royals.

Showing surprisingly little fear, the woman leaves the park and takes the train back home pretending nothing is out of the ordinary. Entering the "castle" a lot of important people are there (some of the royals but a lot of high up advisors). They all go quiet and stare at her as she walks in. She ignores them and greets her mother-in-law, the queen, who had been watching her grandson while she was out. She asks about all the people there (playing dumb) and where her son is.

The MIL plays along, although her eyes are practically hateful. She ignores the question about the people and explains the son has been hidden away from her. They make it clear they no longer trust her with his care, and if she wants to earn back that trust, she will have to do as they say. She is not ready to accept any of that now. She has had her roots pulled up to find out she's been clinging to nutrientless sand the entire time and she is radically changed by the knowledge. She will have her son back and she won't take no for an answer.

No one knows how her powers work or what they are, least of all her. But now she uses the fear of them to her advantage. She finds out somehow where the kid has been taken, or are on his way to rather, and she leaves immediately. But the queen won't accept that. She calls for the people taking the kid using her mind powers. She can't accept not being in control.

Somehow, it ends up going all wrong. The boy dies right in front of the mothers eyes. This trauma makes the woman black out, and that is what kick starts her powers. She basically blow up like a pure energy bomb, mob psycho style. She isn't even really aware of it, just feeling the rage and grief. It's not yet too late, but the first stone has been thrown and now it all is set in motion

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dromjournal · 3 years ago

Text

Aug 27 2022

I am one of three police (?) or detectives or something. I'm not quite sure because we seem to operate outside the law but still we also are trying to act it out? Actually we might be thiefs that just have these vigilante ideals on who to steal from Idk -

We are in a multistorey building, where guards are patroling every corridor which makes it hard for us who can't afford to be discovered. They had not been part of the plan and just arrived. Safe on a balcony (for the moment) one of us notice this guy we know is a professional thief climbing up the building floor by floor. One of us starts following him which makes the rest also follow him, despite protesting the entire way because they wanted to get out and make a new plan and this guy was going - likely - to some place to steal from someone. Suddenly a thing one of us grabs slides out to reveal a beautiful necklace and earrings, clearly expensive. As she gushes over it, a figure appears just above us correcting her on some date or something that she used to identify the jewels. It's a white middle aged man, round around the middle, hair slicked and starting to thin out. He looks like your stereotype of a classical rich guy minus to monocle. We quickly climbs the last bit up the balcony and apologizes, as he points out we had been climbing for the last bit his (freaking HUGE, ridiculous) vintage super expensive drawers/chest. The girl with us freaks out, now from a distance easily identifying it as some super fancy designer shit that makes her almost crazy just to see in real life, and almost crazier to think she could have ruined it by accident. We tell the rich guy about the thief we saw and how he was well known as a very good but cruel thief, and he goes along with something like ''well that's not good" and starts showing us to this other room further inside where he keeps this super expensive exclusive item. Like, a whole room just to show it off, with nothing else inside, like a museum. I wait outside but he leads the girl inside, who again starts foaming at the mouth basically from fangirl-disorder. Well, as he shows us just so we can confirm for ourselves that yes this is safe and the thief didn't get to it. So they come back out and the iron doors close behind us when something starts buzzing. The second too late we notice as something is shot out from where the door is, the girl getting out of the way just in time that it only rips through her pantleg, grazing her, as she ducks behind the servant of the rich guy. The guy though is less lucky and turns and gets hit in the face. It looks like little darts. The girl inspects her leg (it seems fine but she's not sure) and then the guy turns to us and half hours s face is blue/black as this poison spreads through his veins. Simultaneously the darts have seemed to do a u-loop, exploding backwards in double the amount of smaller darts and flying at us again. It happens one time more with even smaller darts after. It's a miracle I wasn't hit, but my teammates start to collapse as suddenly the thief steps out from somewhere, walking up to the rich guy. They had been working together all along. They gloat over us as we can't do shit to stop them and their evil plan whatever it is. The shooter also shows up, a woman who gives off very cold vibes. I notice the servant who was also shot with the poison is fine, and say to my teammates there must be an antidote. The guy hear us and says that yes, there is in fact an antidote, and they kept four vials of it. He brings out a box and opens it to show us, but there's only one vial left. "Too bad we all took one to be safe!" or something like that. They are very mean. Well, at least there is one left, and only two of us are shot, so there's still hope. Maybe I say that out loud, because the woman with the gun walks up to the case, grabs the vial and injects it into herself. Then she walks up to me and shoots me in the leg with this - well it’s not a regular gun, or regular bullets I guess, the darts look more like a nail I guess - not once, but in neat straight lines on both my legs, and then also my upper arms and finally my shoulderblades, which scares me because of how close it is to my heart and how the poison will move so much quicker and shut down my organs. Every shot hurts like hell and they keep going and it’s super fucking painful. The woman just smirks. She couldn't stand I even had the thought of hope.

We are transported somewhere, all windows drawn top secret location, and I assume they are just killing us and getting rid of the evidence. By now in the van my identical twin sister is also there, which will make more sense later (I go back and forth in POV between the two). But as we're shown out of the transport we're in what looks like a perfectly functional living facility (if cut off from the world). The poison seems like it's been cleansed from our systems and we can stand up again. It doesn't make sense. The rich guy is there asking us how we like it, as if he was just being nice. We don't buy it obviously, wondering what the fuck this is. This guy has been nothing but cruel. Still, he claims this is where we'll live. We almost believe him - almost - when finally a person shows up - it's the girl who shot us as well as some guy that looks a mess - and he "greets us" with our new roommates as he calls it. These guys had gotten the great honor of moving into this house by being the very best of his students. Well, these guys obviously does not like us or that we are there doing nothing to deserve it, and that is obviously the point (they want us to get killed). Then comes the third roomie, who had already lived there for a while, and she is called "The Void". She is a bit of a mess, like she hadn't expected people, except it's more like she doesn't care. Her hair is rat colored and greasy and she is just overweight enough not to seem bothered by it moving around. Unrelated to her appearance she gives off very menacing, evil vibes.

It doesn't take many minutes from that before I find out what she does. Her power is that she can send anything she touches into this "void" outside of our existence. She is the bad guys ultimate power tool, getting rid of everything and everyone they don't want. She quickly sends my twin and teammate away, which makes me more careful and won't let her touch me. They all seem to just think it's all a laugh though to see me struggle. Then finally I am told about her power sending people to the void, as I had just seen people disappear and not knowing quite what happened to them. I yell at her to bring my sister (and team) back, and for some reason - likely to mess with me - she does bring my sister back.

My sister falls to the floor, hands still bound behind her back, breathing heavily as there is no air in the void and she had been so close to suffocating. I throw myself at her, having gotten out of my bonds by now, hugging her. That's all we really need to come up with a plan. As The Void attacks us for a final goodbye, I grab onto her instead and with my sister in my arms having just been in the void, I teleport us all there. It had been a guess on our part but it seems true as The Void realizes what happened/where she is from everything around her and freaks out, trying to get herself back, but she can only get things back to her, and she's in the void, so she can't bring herself out of it. Nor can she fight us as she never had to learn how to while relying on her power. I teleport me and my sister back to just outside the house/place whatever, leaving her there to suffocate among everyone she had given the same treatment.

So that's how you find out twin #1 has the power of teleportation. Of course there's limits to it, like she must have been there very recently or in view of the place to teleport there. However because of the mindmelding power of twins (actually it’s because the sisters powers, will make sense later when we know what it is) its fine if the sister is the one that imagine it too.

We start running and find out this weird house thing they were gonna stash us away in was a like spacecraft(?) on top of a small mountain, and the entire way down from there on is built like a maze meets an office building almost. For easier escape we merge together into one person, which we can assume is the other twin's power. Both our minds are active and synchronized at once, so that’s definitely how we could use a mix to teleport earlier.

It doesn't take long before we can tell we are being chased after by the people we had left behind, as they are loudly shouting orders for others to find us. We (the twins) attempt to go over the walls to find the quickest way to the exit, but very quickly we feel the ground shake as a really gigantic girl shows up from the shouting. She's thin and stern looking with modest clothes and thin hair hanging down straight. You get the feeling she is such a rat, she would sell you out for some minor crime and she'd feel morally justified for it. Like she looks down on everyone not just literally. Her face is towering above the walls, which means she can easily spot anyone climbing the walls (which is probably the point). We jump back down, but now that we've seen where she came from we know there must be a way down over there. Over the speaker the rich man starts talking to us, graphically explaining when they are betrayed they'll go after not just you, but anyone related to you, anyone even closely related, like class mates or your third cousin you never met, and they'll torture them to death. They had once blown up an entire village - not a single person left alive. And no one can do anything to stop them, because that’s how powerful they are, and we should just give up and turn ourselves in. Well, we won’t. We teleport over on the wall closest to where the giant appeared and has to quickly teleport down, because she immediately spots us and tries to grab us. She misses and can’t reach down between the walls but she still alert everyone to where we are. What we find on the level below is not quite what we expected.

It looks like we’re walking outside. Looking up at what does look like a sky, what you see in-between the clouds looks like you're underwater. There is a sun and it's reflecting on the surface but there's also animals swimming around in the water - they must be truly giant. You only see them from the underside but it looks like horses. People are walking around with shopping bags like we’re in a mall, that’s kinda the feeling you get. The closest building looks like maybe a racetrack? A lot of the people are going there and at first we consider it too, but there doesn’t seem to be any way “through” it so we’d be stuck. The people around are more or less all women, and they all look rich. Like, rich-rich, both the men and women. The women are all blonde and straight haired with preppy clothes. They are not clones in any way but they all are extremely pretty, like being in a room of models. A lot of them (at least the slightly younger ones) is wearing the same pink fine quality varsity jacket. It feels like I must stand out, however to my luck these girl seems mostly concerned with themselves. It’s strange, but they definitely feel alive and like they are real people (this matters soon) who are going about their day. We find they come and go through an elevator so that’s where we go, but we don’t dare use one since there’s cameras inside them. However there’s a spiral staircase that no one is really using, so we go down that. What we quickly find is something we didn’t expect again - it looks like we’re inside a factory corridor instead of a continuation of the mall. There’s no elevator here, nor any of the rich people. We open up the biggest metal door, just desperate to keep moving.

Inside is a huge room. There’s a long line of people - girls really - snaking around the entire room that all look really poor or sickly to the point of apathetic. There’s also people standing next to the moving lines, observing and looking the girls over like they are looking at wares on a conveyor belt to judge which ones are defective. It’s insane. Because they are focused on their work though we can get pretty close to the end of the line, where it goes through a door into the next room. The kids that I end up by are all strangely disfigured and odd looking, like nonhuman, and I make a face and brings my jacket over my head, kneeling to look more crooked and like I am part of them. One of the people that are overlooking at the last station almost stops me thinking something is not quite right, but another guy kinda distracts him and they let us pass through to the next room. The room is empty, just the conveyor belt with a line of disfigured young bodies on it Suddenly the girls start morphing, and from the swollen faces and crooked bodies they start turning into these gorgeous young women. It’s never explicitly stated, but it’s very much implied that the disfigurements are from the experiments they had endured and not natural, and this was all part of the process as we are moving through this invisible laser-thing that makes them start to morph but doesn’t do shit for me who haven’t gone through all the stuff they had. I guess it’s sort of like with x-rays, and that’s why this room doesn’t have any overseers. I try to act the morph out as much as I can though by just standing up straight and look normal. At the end of the room before letting you out again on the other side there is a blondificatior (lmao idk it just dyes and straightens your hair like anything else but it does it permanently like it’s natural) and I go through with it too, since it’s minimally invasive.

The very last thing they do is give us a jacket - the pink varsity jacket of extremely fine quality - and I can see the door that leads outside. It’s just the last stretch to get done with. But there is a woman overseeing us here before letting anyone out too and I realize I am fucked because my face is not very pretty, and these girls - hollow bodies of women - are all gorgeous. I act as well as I can, freezing a smile on my face, but just as I expects she notices me and stops me. She tells me I should go down the next corridor instead of out the door, but she assumes I will follow her direction because the people she usually interacts with are, well, not people anymore. She turns to report me to a higher up, and I hurry to walk outside instead and no one stops me. There’s no extra security. She just expects that I will follow her order because the non-people always does.

We get outside. We just ends up in a normal town with no other blondes around, strangely, and there’s a normal woman just standing in a parking lot just about to unlock her car. I think we just end up going out a random door somewhere in the world. We try to exchange our pink jacket for her long grey cardigan and she quickly agrees since the pink jacket is well known as a huge status symbol. Kinda another reason we don’t want to be wearing it, trying to hide. So we’ve changed our looks somewhat in an attempt to make ourselves unrecognizable. When we separate again we are both blonde so we’re more or less still identical.

We get to the blasted town, thinking that hey, lighting doesn’t strike the same spot twice right? There’s no one there anymore that can give us up. Except to our surprise, when we get there, we are greeted by a whole gang of kids. Naively they have no trouble telling us they had survived the blasts destroying the town by being locked in hidden underground bunkers, that could only be locked and unlocked from the inside. Now we fear the evil guys might come back here and we can’t take all the kids with us we tell them to show us. It doesn’t take long until the bad guys show up, and we are also hurrying the kids to go back inside and hide again and not come out for anything. We’re also hiding in our own bunkers - that’s the thing, you can only be one person in each and it’s barely big enough to stand up. Minus is the bunkers are also see through, even if they are strangely strong.

From outside there’s a whole damn army arriving from what it sounds like, trying to break inside. The bunkers actually hold from their attempts though. They are yelling and trying to break in, and we’re just sitting ducks, until they suddenly stops. The rich man steps out, asking us to come out of our own free will, and he will grant us mercy. He’s impressed by what we’ve done so far and he wants us to join him and his team. Also, if we don’t, they’ll start torturing the kids that have come out when the soldiers arrived (even though we told them not to). In fact, they start doing so immediately, kicking and punching a little boy so every bone and blood vessel in his body is breaking. We don’t know what to do. I mean sooner or later we’re gonna have to get out of here, and there’s no where for us to go. We decide together, finally, to give up.

We agree to his terms. We step outside and we are handcuffed and separated. We walk past the body of the boy who is barely recognizable anymore, but also see that other kids are safe inside their bunkers which is a relief.

We are taken to a temporary set up room with a “doctor”, the barely recognizable messy guy from before, who brings out two huge syringes with something inside. They put the needle into your finger, and it’s more or less the entire length of your finger. Looks straight up horror movie, I’m not entirely sure if it’s actually necessary or if they are just being sadistic (it would be in line with what I know of their character so). It hurts like shit too with that awkward placement. The twin with the teleportation powers go first, and I think it’s some kind of tracker inside the first needle although they don’t tell. The second one looks more like some liquid and the doctor actually explains they spray it into your blood and it will begin the morphing you into their “type” albeit more slowly/safely than the doll factory did.

The second twin goes for her turn and she is twitchy as heck from the needle. The tracker goes okay, but the liquid splurts everywhere because she keeps pulling away. Finally, because he’s out of the liquid, the doctor takes his own arm and plunges the needle into it to take part of his own blood and then puts that in the second twin instead. It should contain the same thing, so he figures that is the closest he can get. Well, fucking jackpot.

This is when we are actually shown Twin #2′s power. Yes she and her twin are connected somehow mentally and they can even merge, so she already knew what was in the needles and it was all a trick. But her real power isn’t just connected to her twin - she has the power of stealing others powers by somehow merging their DNA inside her. It's tough to do because she needs to get their dna somehow by like, licking them or something, so it's not really useful a lot of the time. But this guy literally gives it to her of his own accord. They don’t know what her actual power is.

The arena is pretty small, but the stands are many and filled.

A lot of the participants have no idea what they are getting themselves into. They're mostly kids that see a fun game. It's horrifying.

So these two girls, one got strong psychic powers and the other can explode people. Yes, literally just goes bang in a mess of guts and blood. She likes to explode people’s heads though.

We are supposedly playing a game of catch, although you can absolutely catch a corpse and it would count. She is way overpowered and this is the worst opponent and game we could have gotten really.

Well, time to bring out our new power (the doctors). Timer goes off and we immediately throw ourselves down on the floor, creating an illusion of still standing up, making her target a fake head of ours. We’re lucky it works, although it likely wouldn’t for much longer if we didn’t come up with something else. So, we mentally connect to her biggest fears and starts creating nightmares that come alive (they’re just illusions, but they feel very real and they are based on your personal fears which makes them harder to ignore). Because we can teleport we can surround her with these illusions. She freaks out, losing us among the smoke as she believes she is attacked by these huge crab-like monsters, attacking the illusions instead.

So, soon the time is up and as the smoke clears out it’s clear she lost - she never caught us, we win. However looking over at the referee board, she has almost as many points as we do - like 334 to 337. I’m not sure how the game is judged because a game of catch would be straight forward you’d think, but it does seem we are the winners either way. Except rich guy apparently can’t have that, so he steps down from somewhere to interrupt the ruling. He suddenly decides that we were late to the game, and therefor he must deduce 10 of out points. Also, he makes up several bullshit reasons to give goth-girl more points, so now she’s the clear winner. People start booing, finding this unjust, and even the girl looks unsure if she likes it despite seeming relieved.

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dromjournal · 3 years ago

Text

August 8th 2022

There’s a cult. The main characters are two young sisters - not actually biological sisters, but close as ones. The older one is maybe late teens, the younger one is maybe six to ten and very bright eyed and innocent. There’s no parents in the cult, and it’s a bit unclear if they take in orphans (I think so) to raise. The world is different, but most of them never go outside of their living grounds so they don't know much about what's beyond. Well they don’t know they’re in a cult, they just think it’s how the world works, but they are told the outside is "evil" probably.

The leader is so far above them, they don’t really know much about them and live mostly without ever seeing them. They’re so many, constantly adding new members. Yet, they never get overcrowded becsuse people here also disappear all the time, and anyone breaking the rules are sent to a “disciplinary room”/building. No one ever comes back from there. The older people understand that it is actually a execution chamber, but the younger kids doesn’t know that because no one speaks about it out loud. People have figured it out from context, but they are not allowed to talk about it, it's one of those unspoken rules. You don't question the way things work in "the world" and what the leaders say without being met with suspicion.

It all change when the younger sister - looks a lot like Maisie in The Sea Beast - gets obsessed with this room the way kids can get. As she tends to have a vivid imagination she imagines what’s inside, coming up with theories. The older sister plays along with her, laughing and joking, knowing it’s all a game the sister is playing. She feeds and play with the stray cats outside as she listens to little sister's rants. The cats like her because she's always nice to them. There’s a small black one that recently showed up that is still pretty shy and doesn’t seem to be very friendly with the other cats, but he does enjoy the pets. He’s very quiet and likes to observe.

One day at breakfast, the leader shows up to greet the young ones. He sees the older sister feed the cats and he gives the cats a long look, like he’s suspicious, before telling the sister that she should be careful with feeding the cats because they are pests. She just bows and thank him for the advice.

The little sister, normally well behaved, causes a ruckus on purpose so that she will be punished and can find out what really happens inside the secret room. The older sister can do nothing as the younger is taken away, smiling and winking at the older sister and telling her once she knows she will come back and tell her all about what’s really inside the room. The sister is trying to hold back her crying but the tears are running down her face as she tries to not let it show.

At dinner there’s someone, maybe the leader himself, that brings her food and as they do so, suggests it’s actually the little sister they’re eating. The older sister realizes how/why all the people are never seen again. Disillusioned, the older sister decides to escape right then. Of course, if she’s found out, she’ll be executed, but she doesn’t care now.

It’s dark and quiet - everyone is already supposed to be asleep. It’s easier than she expects, but there’s a long way to the nearest safe place and she’s walking. On her way she finds the black stray cat, and decides to take it with her.

She gets out, but unbeknownst to her, the cat she had brought along isn’t actually a cat but the “son” of the leader - hidden away, trapped and secret from most of the cult, he is the magical... something that had kept the cult alive and successful. The leader had used this kid all along, but recently he had figured out how to sneak out and sorta-kinda befriended the older sister (as a cat). He can transform himself, among other things, but he’s still just a kid. He’s been broken down by the leader and this is as much of a rebellion he ever dared.

The leader notices the son is gone the next morning, and is enraged. It doesn’t take long to realize the older sister is also gone, and make the connection.

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dromjournal · 3 years ago

Text

July 23 2022

I'm part of a group of young-ish people from what might be a school(??) or something. Either way, everyone has some kind of power, which might be the standard in this world. We are now given a "test" or more like a trial. I'm not sure why or if this is standard for everyone, but people here at least seems accepting of it being their fate. This is something like those 'debuts in society' things, except they are making sure just the very strongest are the ones that actually survives through it. There's no parents or adults at all that I can tell, but there are these monsters of vaguely human size (some smaller some bigger) that seems to be the overseers of this event. Maybe it's televised, idk. I get a hostile vibe from them, but that might be because I'm me.

Now, the group I'm placed in (there's hundreds of kids) are pretty weak. There's some useful abilities for everyday, but not any real offensive ones. The one standout is this girl with fire-powers, who is always partly on fire and super cocky. She has insane control of her power. She doesn't seem too interested in the rest of the groups survival, but goes ahead on her own. I, however, feel all us weak shits have to stay together if we wish to make it.

The trial is basically just a map, with different "stations" and riddles/puzzles to get through to collect the necessary items to go on. There's no time limit but it's good to be done quickly for the next part as you'll see.

The first one is simple enough - we need to put on a clock and lay a puzzle correctly.

The next station is a gas station. Inside there is some crazy animal-like monsters that will attack and kill anyone they see. We need to get a clue from inside on where to go next. We make a plan to lure them out one by one, and maybe we will be able to overpower them.

It doesn't quite work. The first monster is small and fat like a giant toad, and our plan is that I jump it yo hold it still and my team bash it in the head before it knows what happened. I didn't however count on my team all have terrible aim. The monster can't be held completely still since it's too strong, and by swishing it's arms, the monster can throw laser blade-sword-something that cuts several of my team members in half. I got the "blind spot" on top of it though because of its body shape, it's arm movement is limited. By the time someone actually hits it, we're already down by half. We will not survive even another monster, not to mention every monster in the store. However - we find some kind of robotic memory storage instead of a brain on the toad. A guy on the team turns out to have insane computer powers, where he can connect and read anything on a computer just from code inside his brain. Unfortunately it got a bit bashed up in the fight, and he says it's fine, but he needs to repair parts of it and for that he needs tools. He lives close by. There's nothing in the rules saying we can't go there, just that there is something of a time limit for us to be on our way, so we decide it's the best course of action.

He lives in a skyscraper on the eleventh floor, and the tiny elevator only takes three people at a time. We go up like normal. On the way down though we find out someone has messed with it somehow. It drops like its been cut loose, just to come to a sudden halt at the bottom floor. Normal people would have all their bones crushed by something like that but we somehow live due to some trick. We are the last three people that went down, and we have no idea what happened to the others.

Now, even if we're just three people that survived, we go back to the building where we started. There’s a line of people trying to get in. I recognize a girl, who can’t get in due to forgetting to put on the wrist-clock in the first puzzle. I get in without much trouble though, staying quiet.

The last game is the most important one, the ones before were just to weed out the weaker ones that wouldn’t be as entertaining. It’s happening inside a large arena-like room with four platforms displayed like a paper fan.

We have to fight to death in groups of three, with only one person coming out. The game ends when someone manages to stay (alive) on the single platform for five seconds. Usually only by killing the others, but of course being the first to reach it is also a benefit. You have three "starting points" (the other platforms). The middle spot is closest to the winner-platform and you only have to run straight, while the others are to the side. Everyone else is watching and cheering while you go. It might also be televised.

There's a long line in the lobby,or two maybe even, where everyone that has survived so far is checking in and getting a little sticker with their ID on it to put down on a big chart of the upcoming matches. You get to choose your own starting number and starting point, which is why so many people are hurrying to get the middle spot. You could also try to be strategical about who you'll fight, but generally people doesn't look as much at that since the longer they wait the less options they'll have to choose from. If you don't choose you'll be randomly assigned to some leftover spot.

Feeling like it doesn't matter, I choose a random spot and not the middle (despite there being a few left). I kinda just want to get it all over with.

I go into the arena, where the very first match is about to start. The first one to arrive looks just like a little blob, barely a person. They seem really nervous and is almost crying with fear. The second one looks more normal. The third one is clearly the big favourite,- it’s this huge guy, sort of looks like a dragon. He’s massive and cruel. People are pumped up, cheering. You feel bad for the little guy. The game starts as a horn rings, and the dragon guy immediately take the middle fighter - who had reached the platform - and rips them to pieces in his huge clawed hands, roaring for the crowd as blood sprays.Then the unexpected happens. His head just explodes.The little guy turns out to be made of basically pure acid, stretching like he’s made of slime. He just cuts straight through the dragon in like a second flat, easily taking the platform. The crowd goes crazy, and I berate myself for thinking I could guess the outcome from looks alone. How foolish of me.

I go towards the bathroom so I won’t have to see more of the carnage, but that’s when I hear the spindly sound of someone I know.

My mother is the uuh empress or something. She's the head of all this, the entire state as we know it. You might think that means some nepotism, but no, quite the opposite. No one knows I'm her child and she intends it to stay that way. She wants me dead and gone, preferably painfully. She does not think I'm strong enough to carry on her name. She is long and thin, like a snake she can stretch out, and she goes from looking mostly human to extremely monstrous. She can rip you apart and she will, if you give her any semblance of a reason.

She is furious I made it this far somehow, maybe a little afraid my identity will be revealed. She rips apart bathroom stalls, showing no care because she’s rich and powerful and also an asshole. I didn’t grow up with her just to be an idiot though, and I manage to hide and she’s forced to return to the arena.

In front of everyone there she calls me out, claiming I had tried to run away. As a "punishment" she calls out they’re having a special round, because I'm a criminal or something, and I therefore must join the next round. Turns out the other two competitors are the two favourites of this year - the fire girl, and another incredibly strong person made of like, green stone scales.She expects me to be dust under their feet before I even get a chance to open my mouth. I'm clearly at a disadvantage here but I just sigh. The one upper hand I got here is that so far, no one knows what my power is. Not even my mother knows exactly what I can do, just that it’s basically phasing.

Well, I never had such an experience to try it on this scale, but my wounds heal when I go into "no touchy" mode. This is how I survived the crashing elevator. Over the years I have practiced my skill and tried out every limit to it. It is entirely defensive - I can’t choose specific body parts, or appear again inside of someone. Either I’m phased or I’m not. I can do it for much longer though than my mother knows I’m able to.

I can't kill anyone exactly still with my incredibly defensive abilities, but as the horn rings, I can still trick them into killing each other. They try to attack me to use me as the blood splattering warm up, but their attacks doesn’t touch me. I simply walk over, sits down on the platform as the time starts ticking. Both of them attacks me, but grow more and more desperate as nothing phases me. The timer runs down to zero, and because they failed to push me off the platform, they explode as I’m declared the winner. The arena is silent in shock. I walk out.

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dromjournal · 3 years ago

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July 9th 2022

It starts out in a supermarket, just regular day I guess. It's not actually a real supermarket but a set for a commercial, but everyone is pretending to shop as usual.

I start feeling a bit dizzy so I decide to go home. I get on the bus, which everyone is taking. I start remembering something from my childhood, my older sister and me in some kind of experiment. It looks pretty bad and evil, but I get the feeling our parents are there and are even part of it all. My sister is forced to race or swim (not sure) to see how fast she is. She uses some kind of power to enhance her speed and strength, as she is urged by the scientists. I am sitting in another room, twiddling with some sort of coin. I am told to stop my sister's powers. I am doing it, I feel like I am, but nothing is really showing up. Somehow the coin I am tossing has three sides with different outcomes. One is the power works, one is it doesn't. The third is it works a little I guess?

In modern day I wake up and notice the bus is somewhere I don't recognize, on some shitty road on the country side. I go to give the bus driver a piece of my mind for going so far off course, but he just tells me to be patient. We finally approach a farm called something like "the old log houses'". It's quite the fancy place actually, with a lot of horses rather than live stock, and multiple quite fancy houses andnature n shit. I am still not happy about this, something is not right, so as the bus slows down sightly I open the door and jump out of the bus. The driver isn't happy and yells but no one cares enough to jump out after me. I sneak around, avoiding people so I can stay hidden, and find (what used to be) a house burned almost to the ground. I find evidence of or I just realize there had been people inside, that had burned to death. I also understand this wasn't an accidental fire.

I realize that I'm one of the next ones up for the bbq, so I understand I must be proactive. I tell myself I need to even out my breathing, taking deep breaths from my chest. Then I cross my arms over my chest, close my eyes, and fall backwards through a hole in the floor to the grassy ground below - exposing myself. Barely have I even touched the ground before a net is thrown over me, leather stripes fastening my arm and legs to my body. I am then carried, still eyes closed, slow breathing, over to a well. They toss me down before putting the lid on.

Well, sucks to suck, because as I "wake up" again I can easily get out of the bondage. How? Don't worry about it. (Aka I don't know. My complicity might have made them go easier on me, or I am just super strong.) This was part of my plan - make them think they already had me, then get out.

Well, as I push out of the well I see a new bus drive up to the house. There's actually several around, apparently picking up people from everywhere and testing them somehow for magic. I find out as much as soon after, people from the bus is sent over close to the well. I'm not told how they do it, just that they have some way of figuring it out. Basically this magic gives everyone a personal power. Mine is sorta diffuse, I'm not sure. Actually though, connecting with the memory-dream I had, I would say my power is extreme luck. I can do pretty much anything, but I can’t decide how it happens. As shown in the dream too, it’s very flighty and doesn’t always work. Like I need super-strength? Well, nothing might happen, or I might as well become super-weak instead. It’s a gamble every time and though I have learned to control it somewhat - the meditation - it’s not enough to be truly useful. As I ask the others for their powers though to find tactical advantages, I realize mine is actually extraordinarily useful, and most are completely ridiculous. One guy can grow teeth on all parts of his body, and even on other people to some degree (though they all disappear as he loses focus.) Another guy can turn his ears upside down. There's a lot of people that don't tell me, or don't know their powers. The idea that these people could be a "threat against humanity" was laughable. But that's why everyone was sent here if they had a power, indiscriminately.

I convince them to sneak out and try to get away. Most agrees to follow with me. We get to the gates, and need to climb over. That’s when I see the humans now looks like soldiers with matching uniforms and an abundance of weapons, coming our way. They're all excited to hunt us down. Even if they consider us human or not, it's disturbing to see their bloodthirsty faces as they call us monsters.

We run, but it seems we can’t shake them. We are quickly broken up as we scatter. I start thinking they must have powered people on their side too, because they’ll find me in the most bizarre places and I’m forced to keep running.

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dromjournal · 3 years ago

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June 15 2022

I'm in a part of town I'm unfamiliar with, but feels like it's in or close to my hometown. I walk up a street (there's a lot of hills so you're mostly going either up or down) and passes a bunch of shops. One of the shops sell popcorn. At the top, or at least as far as I get, there is some kind of attraction. It looks like a large slide or waterslide more like, but without the water. There's three slides side by side, with only a small rail dividing them. I decide that why not and ask to try it. At this moment it's just maybe one or two other people trying it out. Everyone goes one at a time, despite the three slides.

I go. Inside the slide, there is body parts sort of like the golden rings in video games you can catch. Mostly like, hands and feet. If you touch them they disappear with a little ping and glitter. Since I'm the only one, I reach over to touch the ones in the adjacent lanes too.

When I get out at the bottom I am surprised to feel like I have changed. Just subtly, not completely, but I'm a bit more conventionally attractive than before. With this weird idea in mind, I go back up and tries the slide again to find out that I definitely didn't imagine it.

I'm not the only one noticing this. More people start showing up, flocking even to the slide. The lanes fill up and people come in with very specific mental images.

People start disappearing. They go in but never comes out on the other side. There is some factor that makes certain people disappear, but no one knows what. Still, people keep going in because they want the change that bad. The operators are starting to look less and less human, limbs too long and moving in strange ways. People must notice, but they still don't care since the operators are still helpful and polite if you talk to them.

I start talking to an older man that had chickened out last second, and he tells me about his friends and people he had known of that had gone on the slide and what happened. I start to come to my own conclusion, taking it all in.

Basically, what I figure out, is that if you want to change you can't want it because you think you'll change for the better. This makes more sense in my mind in the dream, but I'm gonna try to explain. There's an old lady he talks about, she used to be very pretty with a lot of male attention and wants to go on the slide to go back to how she used to look because she feels that her current body is worthless in comparison. I on the other hand also want to change, not because I hate the body I already got, but because there's other features I've always wanted. The slide eats her, because if she comes out looking the same she will be disappointed. It lets me pass, because if I come out the same I would just shrug my shoulders. The thing is though that the more times you go, the easier it is to get obsessed with your appearance and changing it.

I've gone through a few times so I'm unsure if I should really risk it with another ride.

I notice a really small barely visible fourth lane leading kinda in under the others. I ask about it. The ride operator kinda creeps me out with how their body twists and turns towards me, getting all close with their dead smile and eyes. It feels like they are trying to discourage me.

I go on the tiny slide anyway, though it's so small I'm not sure how I even fit, sliding through just barely. Instead of a steady descent this one drops out of view almost immediately. In difference to the others there's no body parts to catch here, instead I end up in s room with a large screen wishing me welcome and shows a rough sketch of a body. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do,but theres a timer counting down. I say something and the screen starts drawing on the portrait, changing stuff about it. I realize I can make it look however I want and I try it out to make a character but I don't have much time left, so I go over to the last part of the slide.

I am dropped off at the same place as every other time, and I don't realize immediately something is different. I don't expect anything to be. But it doesn't take long at all to realize this body is different than my usual somehow. I use a window as a mirror to see that I am now a spitting image of the drawing in the room. Parts of me has changed that shouldn't be possible, like my hair is longer and my ears are larger and my body is shaped differently. You could change small parts of yourself with the normal slide already, sure, but it was really just stuff like rejuvenation. You still looked like yourself. This was something different entirely. This was a new person staring back in the reflection.

Now that I've understood how the drawing worked, I go back up to ride again. I hesitate a bit, thinking I might be too excited, but my curiosity wins out. I go on the slide again and this time when I end up in the room I immediately start drawing a picture of how I'd wish to look. It's tall, androgynous, sharp face, kinda asian for some reason.

It works. I end up looking like a character from an anime or drama. Looking back I kinda feel like I should've gotten eaten for that.

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dromjournal · 3 years ago

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7 june 2022

POV character is the prince of a small, poor country. He is blonde, fairly androgynous voice, kinda on the shorter side of average height. Not particularly feminine looking but he got that naturally and unnaturally skinny build.

He's been stuck with his mother and sister for a long time because the country has been invaded by a very war raging country (which has been invading every country in tge area for a long time which is why thinvs are tough) Their father is somrwhere on the frontlines. This guy has never gotten any military training because all military is off fighting, which makes him feel kinda useless at home. Instead he's been cooking food for people and learning a little magic, which is something only traditionally taught to women in this world. Not to suggest he cares about that part, because in a war torn country like theirs gender roles really blend together.

Well, soldiers are attacking the capital city. They are fighting back, but his mother wants to send him away for his protection. Somehow he ends up disguising himself in women's clothes - the fancier kind, that actually makes him look kinda rich, with a shawl covering most of his face (as would be traditionally proper for an unwed woman of their status).

Wearing that he manages to get out of the city but then he basically wanders into an enemy camp.

Not only is there normal soldiers though, turns out there's the prince and only child of the "evil king". He's taken to meet him under the assumption he's a high born young girl, and improvising to save his own life he claims he's there to "join" them by marriage. He uses magic to make illusions of flowers and beautiful stuff that reminds you of a wedding kinda. The "evil prince" looks like he's almost amused, but to everyone's great surprise he confirms the story and in fact claims that he, himself, is the fiance the "princess" is talking about. (Evil Prince is dark haired, curls, pale with a protruding nose, kinda reminds you of a stereotypical vampire. Taller than average.) The blonde prince obviously has no idea why he is playing along, but he does his best to sell the act despite the others doubting them. Just the fact that he does magic though is enough that these other guys dont so much as suspect he's a guy, it would never happen in their mind, so it's just the engagement they don't believe in. Either way, because the prince vouches for him, they bring him with them back to their land. He's given just enough privacy that he manages to keep his identity a secret, though people act kinda gross and lewd towards him - still not totally buying that he's a true fiancee to the prince rather than just some war spoil they brought along. He don't see a lot of the prince, but when he does he is still playing along.

They arrive in the capital shortly, and he is given fresh clothes (fancy dress with tight bodier and poofy hips) and maids to help him freshen up, which he manages to avoid by claiming cultural differences around modesty. He washes and gets dressed. Despite the tighter fit, he looks femme enough. The maids cuts his hair off though - not all of it, but very short. He's shocked by this and he's supposed to be, it turns out, as it's done by the court/king to humiliate "her" and put her in her place (justifying it by something like 'we needed to make sure you didn't spread fleas, since you're from ****, I'm sure you understand'). As it is though, it's a small price to pay for his continued safety and he bears it with head raised high. That gets him some kind of interest from the evil king.

The evil prince is actually really well mannered, if a bit too close and flirty constantly, but that is all part of the act so he can't really say anything about it. He even kinda enjoys his company. The king though is a mean man with gigantic ego and cruel humor. Despite the prince never saying anything bad about his father, it doesn't take long for the main character to notice there's something tense between them. The prince is just very different from his father, and tries to avoid him as much as possible, and whenever they are together anyway the king wastes no time belittling him. You kinda get the feeling that the prince is playing the game, waiting, rather than being a true part of his fathers court.

To get a rise out of "her" once again the king announces one day in front of everyone at dinner that they have taken the capital of her old home country, and tells in gruesome detail how they killed the royal family - most significantly, the crown prince, her supposed brother. All the while he is smirking and watching her every reaction. The main character manages to keep his face straight and show no emotion, despite being grief stricken. He believes the person they mistook for the crown prince likely is his close childhood friend. The king sees through the fascade but only smirks. The prince too stays silent, watching "her" as she continues her dinner. Afterwards he joins her to ask if she's okay. The main character still won't admit to anything that might come back to bite him in the ass, so he just says that he's fine this time too. The prince accepts it, letting him go to his private chambers and be alone to mourn.

In there the main character questions how long he can keep this up, feeling he's gotten in way too over his head. He's in the midst of the enemy, and they all assume him of being a fake ally and are just waiting for him to mess up. Any wrong move will lead to his death. Then there's the prince, that he can't wrap his head around, that seems to be helping him for some reason.

Slightly desperate, possibly a little suicidal after what happened, he leaves his chambers to find the prince. He's probably not sure what he's planning to do until he's there, he just wants to know the truth of why the prince has been humoring him. Well, he finds the prince's own chambers, which is located strangely overlooking the soldiers training fields. The prince is surprised to see him but lets him in with only the slightest hesitation. So far, the main character has come off as a highly prudent woman with high moral standards, barely accepting the touch of another person. So suddenly showing up at her fiance's bedroom at night is very out of character. No doubt the prince is suspicious she's there to kill him.

Well, no such luck. The main character confronts the prince about his helpfulness. The prince, as unsure if he can trust "her" as she is him, hesitates for a long while before admitting that he had seen her and gotten the feeling that they were similar/had similar goals. They wanted revenge on the evil king, who had taken everything they loved from them, and they would do what they could to survive long enough to see that goal to an end. He had believed she might be an assassin, but in that case wanted to help her rather than catch her. Also, he's just generally a decent guy despite his father.

The main character, feeling oddly seen, kisses the prince. The prince accepts it, kissing back and bringing them close. They get kinda hot and heavy, and the prince realizes that the main character is in fact another man. He doesn't care though more than a moment of surprise as he meets MCs challenging eyes, like he had suspected it to be the case but not enough to say anything. He didn't have such a rigid view on gender as others in his kingdom.

Somehow though someone notices them and notices the king that the prince is macking on a dude. The king is furious and loudly storm over to the princes room. Because he's so loud though the main character manages to get away just in time and run into a whole maze of a field, hiding from the king that chases after his shadow. The king is angry at his son but out for blood for the lover. It gets clear that it's not the first time that the prince has taken a male lover, and the king does not take lightly on the mere thought of that getting out. He calls the prince a disgrace and a terrible son, throwing stuff, but he never physically attacks him.

The main character has since found a hiding spot with some prostitutes who assumes he’s one of them, and had gotten taken advantage of. He must get redressed, but he left his clothes.Even if he borrowed clothes he would not be let in the castle wearing a prostitutes garment.

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dromjournal · 3 years ago

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4 June 2022

I’m in the car with younger brother and mom, mom driving with my brother and me (young girl maybe early teens) in the backseat. I get some kind of premonition that we will crash and everyone but maybe me will die so I quickly give (something) to my brother that distracts him enough to change the timeline and while just seconds later we do crash, he’s alive when I “wake up”. Our mom isn’t though. I’m not sure what caused the crash, but I know I knew somehow it was going to happen.

We’re collected by some mysterious official-looking people that we follow just because they seem to know what they are doing. They take us to somwhere we’ve never seen before, in some way I don’t understand. I feel like maybe we a knocked out and suddenly we’re there, and we’re alone in this indoor street where everything is white - walls, floors, ceiling. Everyone we see wears the same white adidas overall, and when a guy in a cap with a bag of some sort makes rude gestures to us he is caught by drones and taken to “court” which is also more robots. We follow after and first I’m horrified because they suggest they will hang him for this crime, but then he’s seated in a tiny room with a bunch of others - including my brother and I - to watch a propaganda movie. I don’t really care about it since it’s so obvious what it is and looks around instead, but most people do stare straight ahead at it. Since we hadn't packed anything, we only got the clothes on our bodies, but at the end of the video we are distributed a pair of those white overalls and a door number, before being sent into the dormitory building. I share my dorm with my brother and as I very quickly find out, this one other girl who’s had the room for herself for the longest time ("waiting" for us) so when we turn up it looks like absolute chaos in there. She is completely unapologetic. Our room is bottom floor and got a patio, or at least it would have had one if opening it didn’t cause something of a riot.

Veru quickly it turns out people around here knows who I am kinda, and they are either scared of me or angry wanting to kinda chase me away, screaming protests of my presence outside the door which I had quickly shut again once I noticed their aggressiveness. The girl is rude but she at least isn’t aggressive, even as my brother start jumping onto the bed he wants. They leave me - who is much taller that either of them - with the smallest bed where my feet don’t fit.

Well, a woman with dark shoulder straight length hair who looks young but is older than she looks, maybe our mothers age, shows up and excitedly takes my hand. Confused, I let her, but she isn’t shaking my hand but rather looks at my wrist for some kind of mark. She finds what she’s looking for - she looks excited about it. She creates some kind of hologram/hallucination of a woman-horse-creature, not human in any way but strikingly beautiful.

She tells me I have the mark of (???) which is a pretty minor god but extremely powerful and so rare, people has been "waiting" for my arrival like I'm some kind of myth. Gods give their blessings to kids all the time, but this goddess doesn’t. Everyone here is one of those blessed people, with powers and strengths outside the normal. Even among these people though “my” goddess is ridiculously overpowered, and maybe most importantly she is a neutral part in the universe and neither good or bad - which of course some people consider to be the same as bad, because the potential is there and it’s all up to the choices I make. To me though, who was used to being this kinda meek and overlooked girl, the attention I’m given is extremely freaky

My brother has some kind of beast-god and can grow claws. It fits him well and he loves fighting. We are sent to a training course with a monster that keeps reviving (it might be a simulation) to test our powers. My brother attacks like a rabid animal. I'm not sure actually what my power even does, but it might be some sort of mind control. I kind of accidentally upstages him every time because I don't want something to happen to him. It makes him rather angry with me, even if its not my fault.

I realize belatedly - due to the uniforms - that we are from the famously super secret Academy everyone knows of but not really what they do. It's called Lion Academy and it's like this super secretive Ivy League school.

We have all been marked by the gods and we are in this protected space, so I assume were stuck there. Until another person tells us we can leave back to our world whenever we want to, it's just not very safe. There's a portal kinda that takes you from one world to the other. Turns out there's a lot of monsters in the world and it's our job to kill/stop them before ordinary people are hurt or killed, we hide that the monsters exist. Similarly through, they (the monsters) will do their best to kill us, both because we threaten them and because they wanna get our powers.

If we go out in the ordinary world they can smell us and come hunting us - something we don't know as we go back for our stuff in our apartment. We find our cat and decide to bring it back with us. Not much else though before suddenly a lizard-like monster attacks - just a small one though, and we manage to defeat it. We hear a larger one coming for us inside the house and escape out a window, making a run for it. Because we're a group of three (and a cat) we are basically a glowing beacon for all monsters.

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dromjournal · 3 years ago

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26 May 2022

There’s a - course? Race? Track? Anyway it’s like different terrains but only one way forward the entire time and it’s circular-ish, a whole lot of people - like hundreds - of different ages, status, genders are suddenly on the start-line. No one is told what is happening, they’re just there. A few people do start to quickly move forward, but most just kinda explores to try to figure out more. There’s weird animals that doesn’t exist in real life, but they’re all separate and caged and focused on their own stuff.

It’s not super long, maybe a few kilometers at most. There is sudden drops and sort-of buildings and so there’s a lot to explore. The last part before the end though is just a wall you need to climb/drop down followed by a straight asphalt yard a few hundred meters. At the end there’s like windows you have to climb through to get out. I find out it’s the end because as the guy I’m following gets there and sees the first person cross through, a sign shows up displaying something like 1/24. Then it continues 2/24 and so on. He realizes only a set amount of people will make it out, and runs back to get someone that he cared for. Since people are not hurrying, he does get back but it’s just at the very last few - 21, 22, 23 - when they gets there, and he makes the other person go through without telling her why. The next person that tries are as he predicted stopped, as an invisible wall is suddenly up and locks them inside.

So I am very thrown off by this, like, after hundreds of chapters (well,) you’re telling me tha main character just dies?? and is replaced by someone else??? But it turns out not to quite be the truth.

He is looped back to the wall, which he had been one of the first to scale. The animals are let loose this time, and he hears people’s screams as they start to run this time around. The people that had made it out is no longer there though, they are officially “out”.

This time he hurries over the asphalt yard as people are going fast this time, but it is different. There’s signs along the way explaining that they are going to die and how only 24 of them are going to get out - which makes people desperate, creepy uncanny valley large children slash dolls that move around like automated, huge pigs, pot holes with boiling water, eggs(??). At the end there is no windows to get through, just a stop. There’s a shack that looks freakishly oversized, like for a giant, with no possible way that he could open up the door. People catch up to him easily now that they’re hurried and desperate.

He doesn’t hurry now, because death comes from all directions anyway, and every time he dies, time turns back and he has to start over. There’s no explanation for it. It doesn’t seem to be happening for anyone else as they do the same mistakes over and over.

Waiting at the wall, a dinosaur (raptor) soon shows up. It’s just a baby, cute almost though still the size of a full grown man. It doesn’t attack him, just seems wary. He gives it food and it starts to follow him like a street dog. It protects him from minor dangers such as the swarming humans that had trampled him the first round, as well as other raptors when they start showing up a little later, following people to eat them. Everytime he feeds the baby it grows, and depending on what he feeds it it becomes docile or blood thirsty. It never kills him as long as he befriends it at the start, but if it’s given too much meat it starts killing everything else and he can’t control it. As it leaves him alone to hunt the other raptors catch up to him and kills him. If it doesn’t get enough meat it won’t protect him in the first place. He realizes it’s a strict balance he needs to follow. But just the raptor isn’t enough to protect him forever - sooner or later a monster catch him off guard and he’s back at the start.

Along the last stretch though there is - riddles, for a lack of better word. They’re not obviously riddles at first, but as he looks at the signs talking about their doom closer he realizes there is ways he can manipulate them and with that manipulate the people around him. That’s the clue he needs to understand what he’s supposed to do. He turns the first sign off, but he doesn’t have the correct code for the second (or third). If he’s not fast, people see them first and freak out and he’ll die (again). It’s hard to find the right people among hundreds, almost impossibly so, but there is a man and a woman that can change them even when he can’t. The only way they stand out is the man is crying, a cloud of sadness following him. The woman got big red hair, shouting and being incredibly loud with some kinda comic-style shout-lightning lines over her head. Both of them influences the people around them to act more irrationally, so he needs to get to them quickly and convince them that they must bring people hope. He is good at talking, at manipulating people. He might convince one but not have enough time left to find the other. It works out with both after many, many tries. They do it,change the signs, people stop pushing and freaking out.

He continues to the next riddle for the first time - all the weird children. Their “mum” appears through a doorway, says it’s time to slaughter the pigs, and for the children to bring them to her. It’s the first time he hears this clue. In the earlier rounds - obviously - this results in the children bringing in humans, as the pigs will run too fast and also kill people in their way. But he’s seen enough by this round that this riddle - that isn’t time limited in the same way the first ones had been - feels easy. He knows that the pigs chase after boiled potatoes.

So he starts quickly collecting potatoes, throwing them in a hole of boiling water to spread the smell. This makes the pigs interested and they begin to flock there. The children leave people alone.

When he gets to the shack, the baby dino shows up again. By now it’s grown up and huge. He sorta asks it to help him get in to the shack, which it does by tearing away a part of the front lol.

He gets a response, somehow. He don’t know from who or how, just that he recognizes the voice. He is told “congratulations, I was right to put my faith in you” or something like that but in a way that sounds more smug and like betting on a winning race horse. Then a screen shows up asking him to create a world basically like creating a document on a computer. He has to name it, which he creatively names like “the world” or similar. By winnning this, he becomes a minor god.

The voice belongs to his “oversee:er”, a god of sorts tasked with his training, He is the one creating this whole scenario. He got a, i don’t know what, aura? and it’s white as a human. To be a “proper” god out of training it needs to be dark. With every death/new experience, it gets a little darker. Despite his many deaths it’s barely gray though, far from enough.

He finds out more than he’s supposed to about his oversee:er.

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dromjournal · 3 years ago

Text

April 22nd 2022

I am a girl going to a nerdy convention. It's not entirely clear what it's for, but it's a big thing with a looot of people attending.

Among the first things I do is get a hotel room, which I am lucky to get at least not super expensive just next to the building where the convention people are collecting. I hadn't gotten one before that because I had thought I would be able to go home, but my friend with the car ditched me and I get stuck there.

So I go to the building where people had collected earlier, and it's almost completely empty. There's like a screen projected with a dance game, they play some kpop music and there WAS a celebrity there which had held a very short meet and greet before leaving. Other than that they had had a "welcome ceremony" in this building but that was it. It was very underwhelming.

Other than that though the convention had more things happening in walking distance - some sorts of carousels and this strange flow of stuff which is like a luck-fishing-pond where people further up were putting things in the stream and people further down went up to the stream and got whatever they happened to "land" on. Some could get nice things like handmade figurines, others would get silly stuff like five rolls of toilet paper or a bad drawing. It was very random what you'd get, but everything was created in this little artists room where you could go, that looked like stairs with different levels and the stream at the bottom. And that's where I went, and there was some amazing artists there - however, because I wasn't really "part of any group" I felt awkward and left out so I went to the side, where the stream was heading, and kinda hid behind some pillars. From there I had a good view of everything that was sent out and could amuse myself by looking at it without feeling like an intruder.

Soonish I am joined by this lil group of friends, and we spend quite a lot of time there together. One of the guys and I hit it off and he tells me he had this huge crush on his best friend. Then I get a signed love letter that says they liked their best friend for a long time but they thought I was pretty cool too so maybe we could go on a date and see how it went. Problem is though I don't know a single one of these guy's names, so I ask guy #1 if he knows who (name) is and shows him the note. Oops, it's his best friend who sits next to us, who now pretty much dies from embarrasment. I apologize over and over, but also, how lucky because they both like each other??!? And it takes some convincing the guy that it's the truth and that guy #1 had even said so to me but then they lives happily ever after or something.

Suddenly a flood of all these super expensive pens (that were also the ones people used to create their "gifts" or w/e) comes in the water, and something was definitely up so I go back around the pillars to the stairs, and now they're filled with people angrily throwing pens over the edge as very low budget security guards tries to stop them.

Since these pens are super expensive I pocket some, well whatever I can reach really. I find out more about this protest which is people are angry about this terrible convention, thst had charged a lot of money for stuff that was really worth nothing.

The "board" are making a goodbye speech, not mentioning what had happened. They're three people, all of which are dressed expensively and looks like they're looking down on everyone else. One is a taller, hook-nosed brown girl which I find incredibly attractive. One is a "pretty" guy; well styled in that way that says he's probably gay and also mean about it because he's too well off and good looking to deal with the trash (you). Third girl looks just like Nicola for some reason.

Suddenly "the protestors" shows up with a megaphone, talking ovee them. Unfortunately the person with the megaphone is really nervous and not very good at making a convincing talk, so it sounds more like childish accusations. After staying out of it for a while, while the pdotestor just makes themselves sound worse and worse, I finally ask if I can speak. I am given the megaphone and I introduce myself. I then bring up the building, which people had paid extra to access, but had nothing in it. The board protests and says that there was also k-pop music playing, which was like. -_-

I go back to my hotel room because I need to pack my things and check out. Back there though I accidentally find out the board members had also stayed at the same hotel, and they had some kind of paid deal with the hotel - which explains why they had "tricked" people there. They recognize me too though, and they are really angry. They try to break into my room. I manage to get out through a window.

And thus begins the chase as I honestly just try to get back home. I can fly, fast, and I do instead of taking a car or something. The council follows me on motorbikes.

It's the house of her rich father.

The thing that had given me power to begin with, this worm-like parasite that were eating my soul in return for a wish. I am dying as my soul is drained. I had willingly been the host. Not so sure about this guy though, had he known what it actually meant.

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