In Memorial of the Fallen: a RWBY RP [IC Thread]

[Sonitusia]

Purnama wasn't even give a moment to reply, when their mouths joined once more, bringing her into a heavenly feeling she couldn't describe. It was odd how she became insanely attracted to Chess upon sight, but it didn't matter. All that needed to be known was that she was making out with her.

About damn time, Mint.

It hit her. Chess' feelings were for Mentari, not her. To Mentari's body or soul, maybe both. But not her. She was just using Mentari to get to Chess. This wasn't genuine. Soon it began to feel one-sided.

Even so, she pushed all that aside. All that mattered was this would happen. She pulled them over to Mentari's bed, both of them toppeling down onto the springy bed as Purnama panted through her nose, the kiss so deep it was too much to bear. She pulled Chess' face up for a moment, catching he breath before asking, "Would you love me no matter how I am?"

Mentari herself was on the edge of her seat, wondering what sort of answer Chess would give. Why was it Purnama had the guts to reveal her interest in her? How could she communicate so damn well?

"Well played you wh*re."

[North Arkana]

Reina left the building after Shiroi gave her statement of being the only one allowed to kill Charlotte. Her feelings were in a bit of an uproar. A mix of worry, jealousy, anger, and confusion.
She was the only allowed to even consider that kind of thing to do to Charlotte. Right? That interloper has no right!

Outside, believing she was sufficiently far away enough from other people, she grab her head and shook her hair in frustration, her ears standing on end along with her tail.

"Arghhhh! What the hell is going on with me!"

This clearly isn't working... Perhaps it'd be best if you let me take back over.
...
Hello?
...
Huh... Looks like I'm alone in here...

[Aidannadia]

Ning Kohkahycumest

"You're really are oblivious." Ning mumbled to himself as he stood up, "I'll come with you. I have nothing to here."

Not to mention that Sirina won't be returning any time soon if I know her right. he thought.

Togami gave a half-genuine smile towards Ning. I swear, half of what comes out of his mouth spills from the edges like glub glub glub. I'll have to break that mumbling habit of his some time... not an issue now though. Right now, I need to head into Vale. "Alright. Come on then. It's a date." He said, ironically.

The pair continued through the hallways of Beacon. "I need to meet a couple... friends, but I was thinking we could stop for coffee or a drink on the way. I'm buying." He gave a grin.

[Shyluz]

Purnama wasn't even give a moment to reply, when their mouths joined once more, bringing her into a heavenly feeling she couldn't describe. It was odd how she became insanely attracted to Chess upon sight, but it didn't matter. All that needed to be known was that she was making out with her.

About damn time, Mint.

It hit her. Chess' feelings were for Mentari, not her. To Mentari's body or soul, maybe both. But not her. She was just using Mentari to get to Chess. This wasn't genuine. Soon it began to feel one-sided.

Even so, she pushed all that aside. All that mattered was this would happen. She pulled them over to Mentari's bed, both of them toppeling down onto the springy bed as Purnama panted through her nose, the kiss so deep it was too much to bear. She pulled Chess' face up for a moment, catching he breath before asking, "Would you love me no matter how I am?"

Mentari herself was on the edge of her seat, wondering what sort of answer Chess would give. Why was it Purnama had the guts to reveal her interest in her? How could she communicate so damn well?

"Well played you wh*re."

Chess was... a bit awestruck. This was happening a bit fast, even for the Pervert with Nine Lives. First it was kissing, then more, then a bed, and then... love? Wait... did she just ask me if I loved her? Let's think this through... raw physical attraction: check, personal affection: check, can be lewd: check, sometimes adorably naive and innocent: check, heart flutters when in physical contact: check, adorable panties: check.

... I suppose that settles it. Chess gave a thin, oddly genuine smile to the girl she now hovered over. "Ten out of ten, my dear. You've won the prize." She said, playfully nibbling at Mentari's neck. "Madly, with all nine of my supposed lives." She finished, whispering the last line into Mint's ear softly before she went back to nibbling her neck, Chess' hands went to work quickly, undoing buttons on Mint's uniform.

---

Olive was a bit shocked at how easily the boy supported. Needless to say, when he spoke, she bolted up, unsuspecting him to be in any state to speak. Then again, she was not a good one to react to being shocked. Generally it ended with one of her sucker punches landing a hit and tearing through the victim's ribcage. Not good. But then again this boy was... very something. And the unknown scared her. Especially since he had to be so damn... warm. "I'm... fine. You are... very warm." She said meekly, her bemused eyes staring into the boys. "W-would you like an apple?" She continued, producing one of the shiny red orbs and hiding her face behind it in a rare display of shyness.

[The Grey Wolf]

Shiroi stood outside the academy's grounds, stretching both her arms and legs in preparation for her training. She supposed she could have done this within the grounds of the academy, but she preferred to be away from other students and their prying eyes, and much less be perceived as trying to show off. "No..." she muttered to herself. My power is for me and me alone to comprehend, and for everyone else to crave. She spun around and landed a kick on the tree, deciding she was going to practice every day for as long as it took for her to equal Reina, Charlotte, and all the others.

[Kuhlfros]

Purnama wasn't even give a moment to reply, when their mouths joined once more, bringing her into a heavenly feeling she couldn't describe. It was odd how she became insanely attracted to Chess upon sight, but it didn't matter. All that needed to be known was that she was making out with her.

About damn time, Mint.

It hit her. Chess' feelings were for Mentari, not her. To Mentari's body or soul, maybe both. But not her. She was just using Mentari to get to Chess. This wasn't genuine. Soon it began to feel one-sided.

Even so, she pushed all that aside. All that mattered was this would happen. She pulled them over to Mentari's bed, both of them toppeling down onto the springy bed as Purnama panted through her nose, the kiss so deep it was too much to bear. She pulled Chess' face up for a moment, catching he breath before asking, "Would you love me no matter how I am?"

Mentari herself was on the edge of her seat, wondering what sort of answer Chess would give. Why was it Purnama had the guts to reveal her interest in her? How could she communicate so damn well?

"Well played you wh*re."

Chess was... a bit awestruck. This was happening a bit fast, even for the Pervert with Nine Lives. First it was kissing, then more, then a bed, and then... love? Wait... did she just ask me if I loved her? Let's think this through... raw physical attraction: check, personal affection: check, can be lewd: check, sometimes adorably naive and innocent: check, heart flutters when in physical contact: check, adorable panties: check.

... I suppose that settles it. Chess gave a thin, oddly genuine smile to the girl she now hovered over. "Ten out of ten, my dear. You've won the prize." She said, playfully nibbling at Mentari's neck. "Madly, with all nine of my supposed lives." She finished, whispering the last line into Mint's ear softly before she went back to nibbling her neck, Chess' hands went to work quickly, undoing buttons on Mint's uniform.

---

Olive was a bit shocked at how easily the boy supported. Needless to say, when he spoke, she bolted up, unsuspecting him to be in any state to speak. Then again, she was not a good one to react to being shocked. Generally it ended with one of her sucker punches landing a hit and tearing through the victim's ribcage. Not good. But then again this boy was... very something. And the unknown scared her. Especially since he had to be so damn... warm. "I'm... fine. You are... very warm." She said meekly, her bemused eyes staring into the boys. "W-would you like an apple?" She continued, producing one of the shiny red orbs and hiding her face behind it in a rare display of shyness.

Lucas sat up and looked up to the girl he just met and smiled, "Okay good, I would have felt really bad if you hurt something because of me."
Suddenly there was an apple in his face and he realized the compliment she gave him and a shade of faint red appeared in his cheeks.

"Uh, Yeah I'd love an apple actually, Thanks a lot!" He grabbed the apple, brushing her hand as he looked to her eyes and remembered something he long forgot. He saw the forests north of Atlas in Autumn, before he got separated from his dad, in her eyes he remembered peace.

Pulling himself up and outstretched his hand in greeting, "My name is Lucas, it's nice to meet you." while with his other hand whenever he was feeling a awkward or shy he scratched the back of his head and grinned like an idiot, which fortunately hid the light shade of red he had gotten.

[Sonitusia]

Chess was... a bit awestruck. This was happening a bit fast, even for the Pervert with Nine Lives. First it was kissing, then more, then a bed, and then... love? Wait... did she just ask me if I loved her? Let's think this through... raw physical attraction: check, personal affection: check, can be lewd: check, sometimes adorably naive and innocent: check, heart flutters when in physical contact: check, adorable panties: check.

... I suppose that settles it. Chess gave a thin, oddly genuine smile to the girl she now hovered over. "Ten out of ten, my dear. You've won the prize." She said, playfully nibbling at Mentari's neck. "Madly, with all nine of my supposed lives." She finished, whispering the last line into Mint's ear softly before she went back to nibbling her neck, Chess' hands went to work quickly, undoing buttons on Mint's uniform.

Purnama sighed in both relief and lust, letting Chess open her clothing without any restraint. Her hands were warm, they gave off a feeling of excitement each time a piece of her apparel came off. Her vision was beginning to blur, and she began to wonder why the glasses she wore weren't doing anything about it. O-Oh yeah, they're just p-p-p-plast-t-tic...~

A soft moan came out of her mouth, and she began to hug Chess closer, wanting to feel her breathing, which was equally fast. She swore she could hear a heartbeat, and couldn't decide if it was hers or her partner's. Maybe it was both. She smiled gleefully at the thought, while Mentari was trying to decide whether or not to worry or savor the moment that was going to happen next.

"Should physical contact between two people even be allowed at this age? I swear to Monty, I'm losing control over everything. Might as well sell my body to this girl."

[Serah]

After feeling that he had been ignored for several minutes, Artol simply left and continued eating his ice cream bowl.

"I need to find a friend.
Since Vehlto isn't here, I can't really do anything, or appreciate my time here.' He thought, looking at his mechanical watch he had also made himself, he found a photo of a brown haired person, and him, both smiling happily at the photographer and possibly at each other.

'Been a while since I haven't seen her.
I wonder how they're doing.
Then again, she has her shield, so I'm sure they're doing fine.
I'd love to see them again.
One... Two... Five years.
Five years since we haven't met again.' The man sighed, showing a rare display of negative emotions then scratched the back of his head.

"I shouldn't think too hard about that.
Oh! Maybe I could go and find Ice cream girl!
I think Heamet said her team was CMCL.
I should find their dorm." With this, he started to run towards the dorm, lightly smiling although he was cleaving the very air, leaving some potent cuts to be unleashed just in case, however he didn't even notice it himself.

After a few minutes of running, he got to the dorm's entrance and walked in, carrying several ice cream types in his hands, head and blade.
In total, he was holding at least thirteen and none of them were even trembling.

'Looks like the lessons I took with Vehlto are paying off.' He smiled as he suddenly met Lucas with a girl atop of him, giving him an apple.

"Friend! Do you want ice cream?" He spoke, squatting down to the two of them's level.
"Do you want ice cream too?"

It was a true mystery as to how he managed to hold so many ice creams in his hands, but also on himself without it hindering him by the fact that not only are they many, but that they aren't even melting.
In fact, his civilian cover was that of an ice cream vendor, and truth be told, he sometime made even more with ice cream than some of his missions paid.

[Sindrya]

The peeper now passed out on the floor. His life essence pooled around him. He knew the one who interrogated him was the very leader and founder of the infamous BUDP, the ring of pervs and delinquents around Beacon Academy. Ever since he had heard of them, he waned to join them. But seeing the very leader herself in front of him, let alone acting in a scene that made his perv sensor broke due to overheat, is another experience altogether.

The last things he thought before Aka lost his consciousness are that he no longer has any regrets on his life.

[Sonitusia]

Nachtmann Tech

Meanwhile, some kilometers away from the academy...

A large side-street store was receiving its customers. Hailing from the low-class up to royalty with bodyguards, every person of Vale came inside to browse the wares. What kind of wares? Only the finest in technological craftsmanship in all of the Remnant. Products included household objects, security, entertainment. All of which only one company could possibly create;

Nachtmann Technologies.

Putera and Kyla Nachtmann, the current owners of the establishment, were busy serving their potential buyers, taking orders for new gadgets, even handing back designs they had spent the night working on. Their family motto was, "Create, Produce, Serve." No matter how hard the task, they would take the challenge to the best of their abilities. It was only necessary for them, and they were popular all over the realm for their hardworking personalities and ability to accommodate pricing for all classes of society. Of course, they had a strong sense of morals, and would never take a task that could possibly endanger the lives of many others, or only be used for greed.

Putera Nachtmann was born to the previous owners of the company, with Kyla Nachtmann being his former assistant before becoming the love of his life. Both were bespectacled, the only difference being Putera's brown skin contrasting Kyla's white. But they cared for one another, just as they loved their child, Mentari Nachtmann, who as of the current moment, has her body taken over by her over-sexualized alter-ego. Pray to Monty they don't find out.

Further into the shop was Mentari's room, where laid out on the table ever since the last time she came in was an unfinished design for a certain piece of hardware that could quite probably change her life forever. All that was missing was a single piece...

[Charlia]

It was rather inconsiderate of them to start all of that while Charlotte was still in the room, and in no condition to move. On the other hand, at least she couldn't see any of it. All she could see was the wall, and thanks to the sounds they were making, even that was going fuzzy, black spots obscuring her vision and black memories obscuring her thoughts. Darkness, creeping over her, consuming her every molecule until not even the wall could support her rapidly weakening body, which was now pretty much dead weight, as she was now too weak to keep herself upright.

The last thought she had before the darkness forced its way into her mind was Oh, nooo...

Then she slid to the ground, her eyes closing as she blacked out.

[Faal Lot Himdah]

Ning Kohkahycumest

Ning followed beside Togami, he listened with a smirk as he spoke.

"You know... I've never had coffee. I never needed it. Tea, now that's different. My grandmother made the best tea from scratch. I remember that tea.... Ah... Good times." Ning said as he walked, "Who are these friends? I'm just wondering."

[Aidannadia]

Ning Kohkahycumest

Ning followed beside Togami, he listened with a smirk as he spoke.

"You know... I've never had coffee. I never needed it. Tea, now that's different. My grandmother made the best tea from scratch. I remember that tea.... Ah... Good times." Ning said as he walked, "Who are these friends? I'm just wondering."

"Friends in... low places. I'm not sure if you noticed, but my aura started to overload during class today, so having an aura stabilizer around wouldn't hurt just in case things got out of hand." Togami explained; it wasn't a lie, but not a whole truth either. "You can get rare and/or dangerous items that most people are afraid to sell. My father... uh..." Togami choked. "He taught me that."

Ning and Togami were soon waling through the bright streets of veil with high-end clothing and cafe's strewn about from here to there. Suddenly, Togami turned sharply into an alley and the shiny light that unusually accompanied Vale's boardwalk disappeared in the cracked and crumbled alleyway. "Put your hood on." The heir turned to Ning, having pulled his collar up to try to cover his face himself as he did so.

A window in the back of a Dust shop had been left open, and Togami slid a manilla folder out from his jacket and placed it on the sill before immediately turning the other way and heading down the alleys a few blocks before the dark was banish by the twinkle that Vale always brought to one's life, Beacon overhead in the distance.

"Now that business is done... I'm parched." He said, heading into the least crowded cafe on the street.

[Charlia]

She was in a library, drawn ever on towards one book lying on a table, just waiting for her to read it. It was green. It had no title, and the pages were edged with gold. She opened it slowly, wondering what was inside, and it fused with her flesh, causing her to scream. Oh, the agony! It was searing into her hands, she literally could not put it down. And then she looked down at the pages and realized what was inside it.

Her life.

But it wasn't just words, it was pictures. There were words, and images, frighteningly detailed, all in blazing color, the masterful rendering making them appear almost three-dimensional.

"No," she cried, "I don't want to read this! I don't want to look at this! I can't bear it!" But the pages turned all on their own, and she could not tear her eyes away from the text and the art. At first, it wasn't so bad. Her early years were happier. But as the pages continued to turn, it grew darker, until she found herself in the chapters she had been dreading.

The words were graphic and descriptive, recalling the shocking emotions and feelings that had overwhelmed her mind. But it was the images that were truly painful--her dark past painted clearly, horrible, disturbing, frightening images that chilled her soul and crushed her heart. She felt sick, just glancing at them. She couldn't bear the pain.

Eventually, though, the book ended. It ended with her, dreaming that she was in a library reading the book of her life. Clearly, it wrote itself as she lived. Either that, or she died while she was unconscious, which she supposed wouldn't be so great a loss. There would only be a few people to mourn her anyway. She imagined her funeral would be small. Short, but sweet. Maybe someone would say a few words. Maybe they'd just drop her in the ground and be done with it. It was hard to be sure. Although if she was honest with herself, she wouldn't really say she even had the right to a funeral. She'd seen cruelty, and in return, she'd been cruel. She'd been cruel to a lot of people. She could make the excuse that she just didn't want to be hurt again, but nobody cared about her excuses. If she did die here, they might not even bury her, she realized. They might just leave her body out in the woods or something, to rot.

Well. It's not as if she deserved anything better.

The book she was holding vanished, and she stared down at her hands. Where it had burned itself into her flesh, she saw nothing. But it had hurt so much... Was it all in her mind? Was the pain that had seemed so real and physical... Had she caused that?

Books began to topple off shelves, opening and spilling out words that echoed in the air around her. Painful words. Words that made her huddle into a corner of the room, trying to escape them. But they just continued to echo.

I just want to sleep. A coma would be nice. Or amnesia. Anything, just to get rid of this, these thoughts, whispers in my mind.

She knew I could tell with one glance, one look, one simple instant. It was her eyes. Despite the thick makeup, they were still dark-rimmed, haunted, and sad. Most of all though, they were familiar. The fact that we were in front of hundreds of strangers changed nothing at all. I'd spent a summer with those same eyes-scared, lost, confused-staring back at me. I would have known them anywhere.

I'd still thought that everything I thought about that night-the shame, the fear-would fade in time. But that hadn't happened. Instead, the things that I remembered, these little details, seemed to grow stronger, to the point where I could feel their weight in my chest. Nothing, however stuck with me more than the memory of stepping into that dark room and what I found there, and how the light then took that nightmare and made it real.

She couldn't get away.

The blade sings to me. Faintly, so soft against my ears, its voice calms my worries and tells me that one touch will take it all away. It tells me that I just need to slide a long horizontal cut, and make a clean slice. It tells me the words that I have been begging to hear: this will make it okay.

And it is in the past, you say? Then why is it still happening, every day, every time I close my eyes? Every time I hear someone behind me, and I don't know who it is? How is it that I get an almost irresistible urge to kill anyone who happens to touch me unexpectedly? Tell me, Hemarchidas, how do I forgive, let alone forget, something that is still happening, that keeps happening over and over? How? How do I do that?

Here, from her ashes you lay. A broken girl so lost in despondency that you know that even if she does find her way out of this labyrinth in hell, that she will never see, feel, taste, or touch life the same again.

"No! No, stop it!" she screamed. "I don't want to hear this! I don't want to listen anymore!" Her voice cracked, and then broke, trailing into indistinct sobbing and keening wails, and a whisper.

"...I don't want to listen..."

Alone with thoughts of what should have long been forgotten, I let myself be carried away into the silent screams of delirium.

He did not care upon what terms he satisfied his passion. He had even a mad, melodramatic idea to drug her.

I know the grim probability of my own future. The odds are high that the best of me has already been ripped away and that if I don't keep hold of myself I will lose what's left.

The terror takes you. The cage is locked and the curtain drawn. Fingers dance along as blades, carving memories into your flesh that will leave scars long past being healed.

This is no place for miracles.

I just want to sleep. The whole point of not talking about it, of silencing the memory, is to make it go away. It won't. I'll need brain surgery to cut it out of my head.

And I don't want to hurt anymore. I want to be someone who makes it through.

The silence was killing me.

And that's all there ever was. Silence. It was all I knew. Keep quiet. Pretend nothing had happened, that nothing was wrong. And look how well that was turning out.

It's so hard to talk when you want to kill yourself. That's above and beyond everything else, and it's not a mental complaint-it's a physical thing, like it's physically hard to open your mouth and make the words come out. They don't come out smooth and in conjunction with your brain the way normal people's words do; they come out in chunks as if from a crushed-ice dispenser; you stumble on them as they gather behind your lower lip. So you just keep quiet.

I don't want to see anyone. I lie in the bedroom with the curtains drawn and nothingness washing over me like a sluggish wave. Whatever is happening to me is my own fault. I have done something wrong, something so huge I can't even see it, something that's drowning me. I am inadequate and stupid, without worth. I might as well be dead.

I'm the girl who is lost in space, the girl who is disappearing always, forever fading away and receding farther and farther into the background. Just like the Cheshire cat, someday I will suddenly leave, but the artificial warmth of my smile, that phony, clownish curve, the kind you see on miserably sad people and villains in Disney movies, will remain behind as an ironic remnant. I am the girl you see in the photograph from some party someplace or some picnic in the park, the one who is in fact soon to be gone. When you look at the picture again, I want to assure you, I will no longer be there. I will be erased from history, like a traitor in the Soviet Union. Because with every day that goes by, I feel myself becoming more and more invisible...

When you're lost in those woods, it sometimes takes you a while to realize that you are lost. For the longest time, you can convince yourself that you've just wandered off the path, that you'll find your way back to the trailhead any moment now. Then night falls again and again, and you still have no idea where you are, and it's time to admit that you have bewildered yourself so far off the path that you don't even know from which direction the sun rises anymore.

That is all I want in life: for this pain to seem purposeful.

The worst type of crying wasn't the kind everyone could see--the wailing on street corners, the tearing at clothes. No, the worst kind happened when your soul wept and no matter what you did, there was no way to comfort it. A section withered and became a scar on the part of your soul that survived. For people like me and Echo, our souls contained more scar tissue than life.

When you're surrounded by all these people, it can be lonelier than when you're by yourself. You can be in a huge crowd, but if you don't feel like you can trust anyone or talk to anybody, you feel like you're really alone.

There is no point treating a depressed person as though she were just feeling sad, saying, 'There now, hang on, you'll get over it.' Sadness is more or less like a head cold- with patience, it passes. Depression is like cancer.

Some friends don't understand this. They don't understand how desperate I am to have someone say, I love you and I support you just the way you are because you're wonderful just the way you are. They don't understand that I can't remember anyone ever saying that to me.

The so-called 'psychotically depressed' person who tries to kill herself doesn't do so out of quote 'hopelessness' or any abstract conviction that life's assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise... Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire's flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It's not desiring the fall; it's terror of the flames.

That's the thing about depression: A human being can survive almost anything, as long as she sees the end in sight. But depression is so insidious, and it compounds daily, that it's impossible to ever see the end.

There are wounds that never show on the body that are deeper and more hurtful than anything that bleeds.

I want to weep, she thought. I want to be comforted. I'm so tired of being strong. I want to be foolish and frightened for once. Just for a small while, that's all....a day.....an hour.

And she began to scream. Falling forward, pounding the floor, tears streaming down her face as her entire body heaved with sobs, wracked by the pain of a thousand tortured memories brought back by words and images she did not want to know. She would have gouged out her eyes rather than see the pictures in that book. She would have burst her eardrums had it meant she would be spared from the painful words echoing through the air around her. And if she had known, if she had had any inkling of what was coming to her that first endless night, she would have just killed herself then and there instead of facing the pain.

But now she couldn't. She couldn't kill herself, because that was such an important decision. And if there was one thing Michael had taught her, it was that she wasn't allowed to make important decisions. She wasn't allowed to choose what was going to happen to her. It was against the rules.

"Enough!" she screamed. "This isn't right!"

She decided. She decided that she had had enough.

But the words assaulted her mind. They forced her back into the pain. And in the end, she found herself curled up on the floor of the library, sobbing brokenly, and remembering just how much it all hurt.

She hated this. Hated this life. Hated this living death. Hated herself.

She hated herself. That was an old concept and yet somehow brand-new and familiar. How wrong was that? It was very wrong. Almost as wrong as she was.

There it was--another one, another of those little nagging thoughts that wasn't so bad on its own. But when it joined with all the other little nagging thoughts, suddenly it was a ten-ton weight that was tied to her and dragging her into darkness.

She had to cut the weight free.

Cut it free...

And then, at last, in that moment of pain and suffering, surrounded by books and knowledge and what had once been comfort, surrounded by the answers to billions of questions...

She found the answer to her own.

[Imperial--japan]

Sirina Zezili

Sirina turned her face towards Anastasia. It was best described as comically unimpressed.

"So royalty, eh. Does it look like I care for royalty. Hell, if you were the queen of my rectum, I still wouldn't give a shit." Sirina said with a slight smile, "Would you mind toning down the ego a little.... Ok, more like a lot. Sirina Zezili." She finished and put her hand out.

Anastasia Valenhart

Anastasia huffed at the gall of this peasant in front of her. Ego? They dare accuse her of having an ego? Nobody ever lectured the little Schnee girl on her haughty behavior, but the first time that Anastasia would use her name to benefit another she's lectured for it? In addition, the potty jokes were horrid and bland. Anastasia unfortunately couldn't keep the calm facade and a look of disgust appeared on her face. Holding a tissue in one hand, she safely shook the other girls hand hesitantly. After all, she didn't want to catch whatever germs the commoners were littered with nowadays.

"A pleasure. For you, I'm sure. Now, my dear, would you be willing to share what troubles you? Surely, I can offer excellent advice." The 'princess' assured.

[Serah]

She was in a library, drawn ever on towards one book lying on a table, just waiting for her to read it. It was green. It had no title, and the pages were edged with gold. She opened it slowly, wondering what was inside, and it fused with her flesh, causing her to scream. Oh, the agony! It was searing into her hands, she literally could not put it down. And then she looked down at the pages and realized what was inside it.

Her life.

But it wasn't just words, it was pictures. There were words, and images, frighteningly detailed, all in blazing color, the masterful rendering making them appear almost three-dimensional.

"No," she cried, "I don't want to read this! I don't want to look at this! I can't bear it!" But the pages turned all on their own, and she could not tear her eyes away from the text and the art. At first, it wasn't so bad. Her early years were happier. But as the pages continued to turn, it grew darker, until she found herself in the chapters she had been dreading.

The words were graphic and descriptive, recalling the shocking emotions and feelings that had overwhelmed her mind. But it was the images that were truly painful--her dark past painted clearly, horrible, disturbing, frightening images that chilled her soul and crushed her heart. She felt sick, just glancing at them. She couldn't bear the pain.

Eventually, though, the book ended. It ended with her, dreaming that she was in a library reading the book of her life. Clearly, it wrote itself as she lived. Either that, or she died while she was unconscious, which she supposed wouldn't be so great a loss. There would only be a few people to mourn her anyway. She imagined her funeral would be small. Short, but sweet. Maybe someone would say a few words. Maybe they'd just drop her in the ground and be done with it. It was hard to be sure. Although if she was honest with herself, she wouldn't really say she even had the right to a funeral. She'd seen cruelty, and in return, she'd been cruel. She'd been cruel to a lot of people. She could make the excuse that she just didn't want to be hurt again, but nobody cared about her excuses. If she did die here, they might not even bury her, she realized. They might just leave her body out in the woods or something, to rot.

Well. It's not as if she deserved anything better.

The book she was holding vanished, and she stared down at her hands. Where it had burned itself into her flesh, she saw nothing. But it had hurt so much... Was it all in her mind? Was the pain that had seemed so real and physical... Had she caused that?

Books began to topple off shelves, opening and spilling out words that echoed in the air around her. Painful words. Words that made her huddle into a corner of the room, trying to escape them. But they just continued to echo.

I just want to sleep. A coma would be nice. Or amnesia. Anything, just to get rid of this, these thoughts, whispers in my mind.

She knew I could tell with one glance, one look, one simple instant. It was her eyes. Despite the thick makeup, they were still dark-rimmed, haunted, and sad. Most of all though, they were familiar. The fact that we were in front of hundreds of strangers changed nothing at all. I'd spent a summer with those same eyes-scared, lost, confused-staring back at me. I would have known them anywhere.

I'd still thought that everything I thought about that night-the shame, the fear-would fade in time. But that hadn't happened. Instead, the things that I remembered, these little details, seemed to grow stronger, to the point where I could feel their weight in my chest. Nothing, however stuck with me more than the memory of stepping into that dark room and what I found there, and how the light then took that nightmare and made it real.

She couldn't get away.

The blade sings to me. Faintly, so soft against my ears, its voice calms my worries and tells me that one touch will take it all away. It tells me that I just need to slide a long horizontal cut, and make a clean slice. It tells me the words that I have been begging to hear: this will make it okay.

And it is in the past, you say? Then why is it still happening, every day, every time I close my eyes? Every time I hear someone behind me, and I don't know who it is? How is it that I get an almost irresistible urge to kill anyone who happens to touch me unexpectedly? Tell me, Hemarchidas, how do I forgive, let alone forget, something that is still happening, that keeps happening over and over? How? How do I do that?

Here, from her ashes you lay. A broken girl so lost in despondency that you know that even if she does find her way out of this labyrinth in hell, that she will never see, feel, taste, or touch life the same again.

"No! No, stop it!" she screamed. "I don't want to hear this! I don't want to listen anymore!" Her voice cracked, and then broke, trailing into indistinct sobbing and keening wails, and a whisper.

"...I don't want to listen..."

Alone with thoughts of what should have long been forgotten, I let myself be carried away into the silent screams of delirium.

He did not care upon what terms he satisfied his passion. He had even a mad, melodramatic idea to drug her.

I know the grim probability of my own future. The odds are high that the best of me has already been ripped away and that if I don't keep hold of myself I will lose what's left.

The terror takes you. The cage is locked and the curtain drawn. Fingers dance along as blades, carving memories into your flesh that will leave scars long past being healed.

This is no place for miracles.

I just want to sleep. The whole point of not talking about it, of silencing the memory, is to make it go away. It won't. I'll need brain surgery to cut it out of my head.

And I don't want to hurt anymore. I want to be someone who makes it through.

The silence was killing me.

And that's all there ever was. Silence. It was all I knew. Keep quiet. Pretend nothing had happened, that nothing was wrong. And look how well that was turning out.

It's so hard to talk when you want to kill yourself. That's above and beyond everything else, and it's not a mental complaint-it's a physical thing, like it's physically hard to open your mouth and make the words come out. They don't come out smooth and in conjunction with your brain the way normal people's words do; they come out in chunks as if from a crushed-ice dispenser; you stumble on them as they gather behind your lower lip. So you just keep quiet.

I don't want to see anyone. I lie in the bedroom with the curtains drawn and nothingness washing over me like a sluggish wave. Whatever is happening to me is my own fault. I have done something wrong, something so huge I can't even see it, something that's drowning me. I am inadequate and stupid, without worth. I might as well be dead.

I'm the girl who is lost in space, the girl who is disappearing always, forever fading away and receding farther and farther into the background. Just like the Cheshire cat, someday I will suddenly leave, but the artificial warmth of my smile, that phony, clownish curve, the kind you see on miserably sad people and villains in Disney movies, will remain behind as an ironic remnant. I am the girl you see in the photograph from some party someplace or some picnic in the park, the one who is in fact soon to be gone. When you look at the picture again, I want to assure you, I will no longer be there. I will be erased from history, like a traitor in the Soviet Union. Because with every day that goes by, I feel myself becoming more and more invisible...

When you're lost in those woods, it sometimes takes you a while to realize that you are lost. For the longest time, you can convince yourself that you've just wandered off the path, that you'll find your way back to the trailhead any moment now. Then night falls again and again, and you still have no idea where you are, and it's time to admit that you have bewildered yourself so far off the path that you don't even know from which direction the sun rises anymore.

That is all I want in life: for this pain to seem purposeful.

The worst type of crying wasn't the kind everyone could see--the wailing on street corners, the tearing at clothes. No, the worst kind happened when your soul wept and no matter what you did, there was no way to comfort it. A section withered and became a scar on the part of your soul that survived. For people like me and Echo, our souls contained more scar tissue than life.

When you're surrounded by all these people, it can be lonelier than when you're by yourself. You can be in a huge crowd, but if you don't feel like you can trust anyone or talk to anybody, you feel like you're really alone.

There is no point treating a depressed person as though she were just feeling sad, saying, 'There now, hang on, you'll get over it.' Sadness is more or less like a head cold- with patience, it passes. Depression is like cancer.

Some friends don't understand this. They don't understand how desperate I am to have someone say, I love you and I support you just the way you are because you're wonderful just the way you are. They don't understand that I can't remember anyone ever saying that to me.

The so-called 'psychotically depressed' person who tries to kill herself doesn't do so out of quote 'hopelessness' or any abstract conviction that life's assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise... Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire's flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It's not desiring the fall; it's terror of the flames.

That's the thing about depression: A human being can survive almost anything, as long as she sees the end in sight. But depression is so insidious, and it compounds daily, that it's impossible to ever see the end.

There are wounds that never show on the body that are deeper and more hurtful than anything that bleeds.

I want to weep, she thought. I want to be comforted. I'm so tired of being strong. I want to be foolish and frightened for once. Just for a small while, that's all....a day.....an hour.

And she began to scream. Falling forward, pounding the floor, tears streaming down her face as her entire body heaved with sobs, wracked by the pain of a thousand tortured memories brought back by words and images she did not want to know. She would have gouged out her eyes rather than see the pictures in that book. She would have burst her eardrums had it meant she would be spared from the painful words echoing through the air around her. And if she had known, if she had had any inkling of what was coming to her that first endless night, she would have just killed herself then and there instead of facing the pain.

But now she couldn't. She couldn't kill herself, because that was such an important decision. And if there was one thing Michael had taught her, it was that she wasn't allowed to make important decisions. She wasn't allowed to choose what was going to happen to her. It was against the rules.

"Enough!" she screamed. "This isn't right!"

She decided. She decided that she had had enough.

But the words assaulted her mind. They forced her back into the pain. And in the end, she found herself curled up on the floor of the library, sobbing brokenly, and remembering just how much it all hurt.

She hated this. Hated this life. Hated this living death. Hated herself.

She hated herself. That was an old concept and yet somehow brand-new and familiar. How wrong was that? It was very wrong. Almost as wrong as she was.

There it was--another one, another of those little nagging thoughts that wasn't so bad on its own. But when it joined with all the other little nagging thoughts, suddenly it was a ten-ton weight that was tied to her and dragging her into darkness.

She had to cut the weight free.

Cut it free...

And then, at last, in that moment of pain and suffering, surrounded by books and knowledge and what had once been comfort, surrounded by the answers to billions of questions...

She found the answer to her own.

Theriam had left long ago, after yet another salt rant, he had enough.
At least by going to see Charlotte, his ears would be spared.

'She's gotta be in her room, I'm not finding her anywhere else.' He had checked several other places before the dorm room, and for some reason, it had never occurred to him until now that she may have been there.

So he started to make his move and ran, getting boosted by his Aura along the way, he jumped over the first dorm building in several jumps and ended right behind team CMCL's dorm room window.

'Alright, now that I'm here...' He then saw what was happening on the bed of one of the team members.

'Ooooooooooooooooooooh~'

It's gonna be one of those days isn't it?

'Allez, mange tes morts putain.' He entered the dorm room swiftly, assuming the security system wasn't so retarded as to go and shoot him, he grabbed Charlotte and left the room.

Laying her down against a tree, he nudged her several times.

"Heeeeey. Wake up." His way of waking up people was very much akin to Artol's way, poking them in random places and telling the person to wake up.

"Wake up Charlotte." It wasn't that he didn't know what was happening inside her dream, it was just because he didn't know how else he should wake people up.
For someone like him, it seemed oddly childish.
Then again, people often called him childishly cruel.

[Sonitusia]

Clover Niccolio, Combat Maid

It was a mess.

It was an absolute mess.

Clover's dorm, which was basically a bed and a footlocker in the temporary room for those without teams, looked as if a storm had hit it. Beside it was a relatively neater bed, owned by a fellow faunus with antlers, though she had already left earlier due to something about a pervert stealing her panties. Good thing Clover kept his locked inside the footlocker.

Clover Niccolio was a 7th generation servant of the Niccolio family, which had always been tasked with the caretaking of the royal Marseilles in Mistral. They were humble at their work, and always had the tendency to do whatever task their masters required of them, no matter the odds, no matter the sacrifice. This doesn't mean that they did dangerous tasks on a daily basis, but it wasn't odd for a Niccolio to die a tragic death because of their number one priority, given to the family ever since they swore their oath to the Marseilles:

"Protect them, for they have saved us."

---

It was a dark night, the fog had already settled in. A lone man, Joshua Niccolio, was tending to his plants one last time for the evening. He was a father of three children, all of whom were excelling in school. He had no fears for their future as he made sure his crops were settled in for the night. There had been warning about dangerous things happening for several days before, but he was just going to be out for a little bit more. Nothing had ever hurt his family before, so why would they start now?

A rustle was heard to his left. Peering into the dark, he couldn't make out what it was. Maybe a nocturnal animal? A fox perhaps? He turned back to his tomatoes when another sound of movement was heard. Slowly turned his head once more, his eyes widened in shock at what he saw. His pupils tightened, arms trembling as he pointed with a single finger at the beast. Before he could even open his mouth to scream for help, his body had vanished.

Terror began to strike the small house where he had lived for his entire life. The Grimm destroyed the garden, the livestock went loose. His wife and children screamed for help, as Joshua's brothers fought in vain to try and repel the dark forces with whatever they had. Soon, the family was cornered, seconds away from never seeing the light of morning ever again. Sweat and blood were mixed on the Niccolio's faces, clinging onto their loved ones as they said their final prayers.

A slash was heard, followed by the thump of the Beowulf's head hitting the ground. More and more strikes joined the first, and seconds after, the dissolving bodies of the Grimm had disappeared from the room, replaced with five men, armed with swords and wearing armored clothing. One offered his hand, and helped the family get back on its feet. They all wore the same blue crest on their plates of armor. The crest of the Marseilles.

Days after, the Niccolios swore their oath to care for the saviors, and have since then become part of the royal household. They were to both do as the Marseilles needed, and to protect them when danger arrived. Since then the two families were closely entwined to this day.

---

For Clover, combat was possibly the only thing he could ever do. His ironing left wrinkles, the kitchen was left a mess, and his tea pouring dripped over the rim. But this came with persistence, which could be seen obviously by his hardworking and optimistic personality, which saw him smiling after the harshest of punishments. Through all this, the current head of the Marseilles, Stuart Marseille of Mistral, saw it better to send Clover away to Vale, where he would study the art of hunting in Beacon Academy.

Unlike his father, he wore a maid's outfit, and also female undergarments. He wasn't forced to; he did so himself. He felt better with it on, and his feminine figure fit well with it. Pulling his black maid gloves to make sure they were on correctly, he decided to leave the room as it was and continue later.

It'll be clean, I swear!

[Neo ORB]

Greenery spread before her as a gentle wind brushed itself against her body. Around her were students, dozens of them hopeful but prepared for the examination that was awaiting them. The sound of various voices drifted in through her senses as she kept a silent vigil on the greenery pressed far below her. Some was of what she could maybe call a friend's, maybe even more so in the future if that's how it worked out.
And so the girl cast her glance around once at her surroundings, she could see her fellow students, for her who was an outcast, a defect, many of their names would likely continue to be unknown to her.
But some she did recognized, while others still continued to be a mystery to her. She examined the two teachers, the ones who had walked towards them, who would grade them on this initiation and the few years to come and then she listened, as they gathered attention and then spoke.

Ozpins voice carried its unseen weight as he calmly held his coffee mug and in tandem with Professor Goodwitch, The message delivered was simple... Falter Hesitate for even a moment, and you would parish. The first person made with eye contact would be the partner for the rest of the time spent at beacon. And to bring back an article from the northern end of the forest.

As everyone quickly took their positions, she watched them fly off into the distance one at a time, the spring boards launching and varying strengths to separate them from each other. Once more she found herself watching in silence towards the forest as others screamed in delight as they were launched. The girl looked to herself, towards her inner self as her single hand silently moved towards her batons hilt.
She felt her cold finger slowly wrap themselves against the cold steel metal. An array of various nerve impulses rippling through her body which made a small change almost unnoticeable to a face that had been frozen the entire time...

She was smiling, the one being akin to a frigid winter night, known as Yuki Marin has a small smile touch the corners of her mouth.
And then she felt herself be launched into the air. Her mutilated body weightless as the embrace of empty wind roared to meet her sending her towards the one thing she aimed for since the day her life changed.
Into a place full of serenity on the first glance. But within its hidden foliage, within every shadow; held a world were only terror waited with an open jaw and baited breath.

Finally she would have her "Revenge" on the source that altered her life; and her battles to come would only be described as akin the cold of a winter's night...
To the mercilessness of an avalanche which swallows everything in its path with a cold and bitter white death.

She was Yuki Marin... A woman (weapon) of Ice and Snow.

---

Crimson filled her vision mixed and filled in with the hazy effects of dimming vision and of carefully stained wood flooring being painted a mix of bright and dark red. Pain disabled her brain and body as her arm which she watched in a daze or what was formally her right arm now nothing more then a messy shredded stump, pool what seemed like an endless amount of blood around her. In her haze vision two Black creatures moved on towards her. Their eyes glowing crimson filled with what could only be described as loathing. Their mouths and jagged rows of sharp dangerous teeth smiling towards her.
This was it, this was how she was going to die. A little girl that would be ripped to shreds where not even a bone would remain.
She was no longer capable of screaming. No longer capable of resisting her fate even if she could do so. These black beast known as Grim would plunge there fangs into her ending her existence.
She had already seen her mother parish in front of her as claws raked into her flank and crushed her spine leaving her in a pool of blood as she screamed in her death throws while her pleading eyes screamed telling her to run for safety.
but the girl froze, penetrated by the fear which gripped her mind and held her in place. Deaf to the urgent screams of a desperate father. She raise her arms hoping to defend herself as a merciless claw slammed into her flesh. Broke her fragile bones and then tore away what was now only a hunk of meat.

The force had knocked her to the ground as the beast turned onto their attacker. Her fathers screams roared into the air as he was torn apart piece by messy piece. And then as she was about to black out something grabbed her a warmth filled her as an embrace as gentile as it was strong gripped her and moved. she felt something impact her entire body as she was thrown harshly onto the ground as something heavy pinned her suddenly. It was over she knew it to be true as the darkness finally took her consciousness over or it should have until something ripped into her entire being.

Yuki awoke to the sound of beeping, it's tones loud as if blaring into her ears. Its beeping kept at one constant tone for a half second with one second pause and then repeat. Its loud noise roused her from the replayed trauma that held her mind. The vivid memory that continued to haunt her seven years later, the day her life spiraled downwards like the water in a toilet.
Slowly she moved her left hand, her only hand; once more away from its resting place on her stomach and pushed it through the soft covers of her beg towards herself before lightly grabbing the edging of the blankets and lightly pushing them aside. and then slowly she reached for the clock, the same one that continued to blare which stood on her bedside stand and hit the plastic buttons turning the machine off.

She rested her hand there for a few moments. Her vacant eyes starring at the green led display in contempt of the new day. How many times had she repeated this cycle of living once more as a "doll". Theriam had succeed in cracking the Icy casing that had frozen over her heart. But her soul the moment her test had begun when she encountered the Grim on that first day had turned her once more into a emotionless woman.
Slowly she took her hand away from the warm plastic and slowly rolled herself over once more onto her back as she then worked with her hand to bring her body to bare as she sleepily rose and pushed away the remainder of her covers away. She stared silently at the room before her, three unoccupied beds, and a note left by her partner.

Somehow a small hidden smile cracked the emotionless face she held as she read the note full of warmth but irritation at her ability to sleep so deeply.Yuki silently apologized as she placed the note down and then quickly started getting dressed into the academy's uniform. On a good day the simple act of dressing herself only took a few minutes, however today didn't seem to be one of those days as she found her coordination off so far of that if she was throwing a ball at a barn. It would reach terminal velocity and hit the house instead.

After what seemed like an eternity Yuki managed to get her red checkered skirt on after having to lay on her bed and zipped it up and then proceeded onto her undershirt and the overtop blazer. As she slipped her shoes on she silently sighed and then carefully made her way towards the bathroom to freshen her face. When she exited after was one would call pointlessly long her shoulder length purple hair had once more flowed down naturally and any bed-head was taken care of.
It seemed the day was going to be at least decent save for its rocky start as she walked out of her room and headed towards the library.
Yuki kept quiet as if she was gliding over ice. Her steps were mostly steady while she silently moved about with the other students with her doll like expression and vacant purple eyes.
She could hear small whispers as she passed others most were friendly as some greeting her, others pitied her as they stared at the empty clothing where her right arm should have been. In the past such things might have bothered when she was still reeling from the loss of her family. But the Yuki of today was once more but a "doll", as she reached the Library and opened its doors she moved silently towards a book shelf pulled a single encyclopedia with her hand and then headed towards one of the partly occupied tables with a free seat and sat down with the intention of reading were she had left off yesterday.

[Charlia]

She was in a library, drawn ever on towards one book lying on a table, just waiting for her to read it. It was green. It had no title, and the pages were edged with gold. She opened it slowly, wondering what was inside, and it fused with her flesh, causing her to scream. Oh, the agony! It was searing into her hands, she literally could not put it down. And then she looked down at the pages and realized what was inside it.

Her life.

But it wasn't just words, it was pictures. There were words, and images, frighteningly detailed, all in blazing color, the masterful rendering making them appear almost three-dimensional.

"No," she cried, "I don't want to read this! I don't want to look at this! I can't bear it!" But the pages turned all on their own, and she could not tear her eyes away from the text and the art. At first, it wasn't so bad. Her early years were happier. But as the pages continued to turn, it grew darker, until she found herself in the chapters she had been dreading.

The words were graphic and descriptive, recalling the shocking emotions and feelings that had overwhelmed her mind. But it was the images that were truly painful--her dark past painted clearly, horrible, disturbing, frightening images that chilled her soul and crushed her heart. She felt sick, just glancing at them. She couldn't bear the pain.

Eventually, though, the book ended. It ended with her, dreaming that she was in a library reading the book of her life. Clearly, it wrote itself as she lived. Either that, or she died while she was unconscious, which she supposed wouldn't be so great a loss. There would only be a few people to mourn her anyway. She imagined her funeral would be small. Short, but sweet. Maybe someone would say a few words. Maybe they'd just drop her in the ground and be done with it. It was hard to be sure. Although if she was honest with herself, she wouldn't really say she even had the right to a funeral. She'd seen cruelty, and in return, she'd been cruel. She'd been cruel to a lot of people. She could make the excuse that she just didn't want to be hurt again, but nobody cared about her excuses. If she did die here, they might not even bury her, she realized. They might just leave her body out in the woods or something, to rot.

Well. It's not as if she deserved anything better.

The book she was holding vanished, and she stared down at her hands. Where it had burned itself into her flesh, she saw nothing. But it had hurt so much... Was it all in her mind? Was the pain that had seemed so real and physical... Had she caused that?

Books began to topple off shelves, opening and spilling out words that echoed in the air around her. Painful words. Words that made her huddle into a corner of the room, trying to escape them. But they just continued to echo.

I just want to sleep. A coma would be nice. Or amnesia. Anything, just to get rid of this, these thoughts, whispers in my mind.

She knew I could tell with one glance, one look, one simple instant. It was her eyes. Despite the thick makeup, they were still dark-rimmed, haunted, and sad. Most of all though, they were familiar. The fact that we were in front of hundreds of strangers changed nothing at all. I'd spent a summer with those same eyes-scared, lost, confused-staring back at me. I would have known them anywhere.

I'd still thought that everything I thought about that night-the shame, the fear-would fade in time. But that hadn't happened. Instead, the things that I remembered, these little details, seemed to grow stronger, to the point where I could feel their weight in my chest. Nothing, however stuck with me more than the memory of stepping into that dark room and what I found there, and how the light then took that nightmare and made it real.

She couldn't get away.

The blade sings to me. Faintly, so soft against my ears, its voice calms my worries and tells me that one touch will take it all away. It tells me that I just need to slide a long horizontal cut, and make a clean slice. It tells me the words that I have been begging to hear: this will make it okay.

And it is in the past, you say? Then why is it still happening, every day, every time I close my eyes? Every time I hear someone behind me, and I don't know who it is? How is it that I get an almost irresistible urge to kill anyone who happens to touch me unexpectedly? Tell me, Hemarchidas, how do I forgive, let alone forget, something that is still happening, that keeps happening over and over? How? How do I do that?

Here, from her ashes you lay. A broken girl so lost in despondency that you know that even if she does find her way out of this labyrinth in hell, that she will never see, feel, taste, or touch life the same again.

"No! No, stop it!" she screamed. "I don't want to hear this! I don't want to listen anymore!" Her voice cracked, and then broke, trailing into indistinct sobbing and keening wails, and a whisper.

"...I don't want to listen..."

Alone with thoughts of what should have long been forgotten, I let myself be carried away into the silent screams of delirium.

He did not care upon what terms he satisfied his passion. He had even a mad, melodramatic idea to drug her.

I know the grim probability of my own future. The odds are high that the best of me has already been ripped away and that if I don't keep hold of myself I will lose what's left.

The terror takes you. The cage is locked and the curtain drawn. Fingers dance along as blades, carving memories into your flesh that will leave scars long past being healed.

This is no place for miracles.

I just want to sleep. The whole point of not talking about it, of silencing the memory, is to make it go away. It won't. I'll need brain surgery to cut it out of my head.

And I don't want to hurt anymore. I want to be someone who makes it through.

The silence was killing me.

And that's all there ever was. Silence. It was all I knew. Keep quiet. Pretend nothing had happened, that nothing was wrong. And look how well that was turning out.

It's so hard to talk when you want to kill yourself. That's above and beyond everything else, and it's not a mental complaint-it's a physical thing, like it's physically hard to open your mouth and make the words come out. They don't come out smooth and in conjunction with your brain the way normal people's words do; they come out in chunks as if from a crushed-ice dispenser; you stumble on them as they gather behind your lower lip. So you just keep quiet.

I don't want to see anyone. I lie in the bedroom with the curtains drawn and nothingness washing over me like a sluggish wave. Whatever is happening to me is my own fault. I have done something wrong, something so huge I can't even see it, something that's drowning me. I am inadequate and stupid, without worth. I might as well be dead.

I'm the girl who is lost in space, the girl who is disappearing always, forever fading away and receding farther and farther into the background. Just like the Cheshire cat, someday I will suddenly leave, but the artificial warmth of my smile, that phony, clownish curve, the kind you see on miserably sad people and villains in Disney movies, will remain behind as an ironic remnant. I am the girl you see in the photograph from some party someplace or some picnic in the park, the one who is in fact soon to be gone. When you look at the picture again, I want to assure you, I will no longer be there. I will be erased from history, like a traitor in the Soviet Union. Because with every day that goes by, I feel myself becoming more and more invisible...

When you're lost in those woods, it sometimes takes you a while to realize that you are lost. For the longest time, you can convince yourself that you've just wandered off the path, that you'll find your way back to the trailhead any moment now. Then night falls again and again, and you still have no idea where you are, and it's time to admit that you have bewildered yourself so far off the path that you don't even know from which direction the sun rises anymore.

That is all I want in life: for this pain to seem purposeful.

The worst type of crying wasn't the kind everyone could see--the wailing on street corners, the tearing at clothes. No, the worst kind happened when your soul wept and no matter what you did, there was no way to comfort it. A section withered and became a scar on the part of your soul that survived. For people like me and Echo, our souls contained more scar tissue than life.

When you're surrounded by all these people, it can be lonelier than when you're by yourself. You can be in a huge crowd, but if you don't feel like you can trust anyone or talk to anybody, you feel like you're really alone.

There is no point treating a depressed person as though she were just feeling sad, saying, 'There now, hang on, you'll get over it.' Sadness is more or less like a head cold- with patience, it passes. Depression is like cancer.

Some friends don't understand this. They don't understand how desperate I am to have someone say, I love you and I support you just the way you are because you're wonderful just the way you are. They don't understand that I can't remember anyone ever saying that to me.

The so-called 'psychotically depressed' person who tries to kill herself doesn't do so out of quote 'hopelessness' or any abstract conviction that life's assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise... Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire's flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It's not desiring the fall; it's terror of the flames.

That's the thing about depression: A human being can survive almost anything, as long as she sees the end in sight. But depression is so insidious, and it compounds daily, that it's impossible to ever see the end.

There are wounds that never show on the body that are deeper and more hurtful than anything that bleeds.

I want to weep, she thought. I want to be comforted. I'm so tired of being strong. I want to be foolish and frightened for once. Just for a small while, that's all....a day.....an hour.

And she began to scream. Falling forward, pounding the floor, tears streaming down her face as her entire body heaved with sobs, wracked by the pain of a thousand tortured memories brought back by words and images she did not want to know. She would have gouged out her eyes rather than see the pictures in that book. She would have burst her eardrums had it meant she would be spared from the painful words echoing through the air around her. And if she had known, if she had had any inkling of what was coming to her that first endless night, she would have just killed herself then and there instead of facing the pain.

But now she couldn't. She couldn't kill herself, because that was such an important decision. And if there was one thing Michael had taught her, it was that she wasn't allowed to make important decisions. She wasn't allowed to choose what was going to happen to her. It was against the rules.

"Enough!" she screamed. "This isn't right!"

She decided. She decided that she had had enough.

But the words assaulted her mind. They forced her back into the pain. And in the end, she found herself curled up on the floor of the library, sobbing brokenly, and remembering just how much it all hurt.

She hated this. Hated this life. Hated this living death. Hated herself.

She hated herself. That was an old concept and yet somehow brand-new and familiar. How wrong was that? It was very wrong. Almost as wrong as she was.

There it was--another one, another of those little nagging thoughts that wasn't so bad on its own. But when it joined with all the other little nagging thoughts, suddenly it was a ten-ton weight that was tied to her and dragging her into darkness.

She had to cut the weight free.

Cut it free...

And then, at last, in that moment of pain and suffering, surrounded by books and knowledge and what had once been comfort, surrounded by the answers to billions of questions...

She found the answer to her own.

Theriam had left long ago, after yet another salt rant, he had enough.
At least by going to see Charlotte, his ears would be spared.

'She's gotta be in her room, I'm not finding her anywhere else.' He had checked several other places before the dorm room, and for some reason, it had never occurred to him until now that she may have been there.

So he started to make his move and ran, getting boosted by his Aura along the way, he jumped over the first dorm building in several jumps and ended right behind team CMCL's dorm room window.

'Alright, now that I'm here...' He then saw what was happening on the bed of one of the team members.

'Ooooooooooooooooooooh~'

It's gonna be one of those days isn't it?

'Allez, mange tes morts putain.' He entered the dorm room swiftly, assuming the security system wasn't so retarded as to go and shoot him, he grabbed Charlotte and left the room.

Laying her down against a tree, he nudged her several times.

"Heeeeey. Wake up." His way of waking up people was very much akin to Artol's way, poking them in random places and telling the person to wake up.

"Wake up Charlotte." It wasn't that he didn't know what was happening inside her dream, it was just because he didn't know how else he should wake people up.
For someone like him, it seemed oddly childish.
Then again, people often called him childishly cruel.

The library had faded into blackness. Nothingness. Except for a maddening dripping sound, that accelerated and came from all around her, redness dripping from four invisible walls and an invisible ceiling to an invisible floor, filling the darkness with blood. She was drowning in blood. Was it her own?

Heeeeey. Wake up.

What? What was that? Was someone talking? Oh... How strange. She was usually alone in her dreams.

Wake up Charlotte.

Oh, no, that's Theriam. Trying to wake me up.

Might as well do it now...

She opened her eyes slowly, frowning.

"Th...Theriam? Hi..."

[Kuhlfros]

After feeling that he had been ignored for several minutes, Artol simply left and continued eating his ice cream bowl.

"I need to find a friend.
Since Vehlto isn't here, I can't really do anything, or appreciate my time here.' He thought, looking at his mechanical watch he had also made himself, he found a photo of a brown haired person, and him, both smiling happily at the photographer and possibly at each other.

'Been a while since I haven't seen her.
I wonder how they're doing.
Then again, she has her shield, so I'm sure they're doing fine.
I'd love to see them again.
One... Two... Five years.
Five years since we haven't met again.' The man sighed, showing a rare display of negative emotions then scratched the back of his head.

"I shouldn't think too hard about that.
Oh! Maybe I could go and find Ice cream girl!
I think Heamet said her team was CMCL.
I should find their dorm." With this, he started to run towards the dorm, lightly smiling although he was cleaving the very air, leaving some potent cuts to be unleashed just in case, however he didn't even notice it himself.

After a few minutes of running, he got to the dorm's entrance and walked in, carrying several ice cream types in his hands, head and blade.
In total, he was holding at least thirteen and none of them were even trembling.

'Looks like the lessons I took with Vehlto are paying off.' He smiled as he suddenly met Lucas with a girl atop of him, giving him an apple.

"Friend! Do you want ice cream?" He spoke, squatting down to the two of them's level.
"Do you want ice cream too?"

It was a true mystery as to how he managed to hold so many ice creams in his hands, but also on himself without it hindering him by the fact that not only are they many, but that they aren't even melting.
In fact, his civilian cover was that of an ice cream vendor, and truth be told, he sometime made even more with ice cream than some of his missions paid.

Even Lucas was at a loss now, In hand he held an apple, in his other hand he reached for Artol's ice cream without thought.

"I-I Uhhhm how do you do that?!" Lucas exclaimed at the guy holding 13 cones at once. "I don't know if I really want an ice cream cone right now Artol...but with you carrying so many maybe it's better I take one off your hands."

Regaining his composure he returned to smiling at Olive and said, "So Yeah I'm Lucas, that's Artol, he's like an ice cream ninja, and yeah it's great to meet you."
"I already said that me you idiot."
"Yeah well maybe reintroducing myself will help, she looks a little...amused? scared? I dunno."

[Shyluz]

Beacon Union of Delinquents & Perverts
Case File #69

Subjects: Caitlyn ‘Chess’ Cheshire, Mentari Nachtmann, Purnama Nachtmann, Charlotte Noble, Theriam Lareylis

Report:

Caitlyn ‘Chess’ Cheshire, the outcome of a merging of two auras (Isaac Cheshire & Caitlyn Cheshire) has begun an interesting relationship, despite the odd circumstances surrounding the two. At 2400 hours, the two were confirmed to have shared a first kiss. Further investigation was difficult, as the acts described below took place in the Team CMCL dorm. We have confirmed that subjects Charlotte Noble and Theriam Lareylis were at one point in the room. Agents Fir and Fitz have been selected to interrogate the witnesses as they both have previous experience with Noble and Lareylis. Interrogation is pending as of writing this report, however, any new information will be added upon it’s completion.

Speculation includes the use of Those who do, however, tell of horrors that were once men-- creatures that eat the flesh of those who once embraced them like brothers, wolves that cannot be seen until they are upon you, tearing your very being apart. They tell of spirits who are lost, wandering the snowy plains outside of the gates, of the ruined cities that thrived the day before. They tell of warriors who wander the snow, of great mages in towers that pierce the heavens themselves. They tell of those who would dare to do what others do not. They tell of those who wander by Cheshire.

Subjects were heard Wyverns circle, preying upon meager flocks and us ourselves make life on a mountaintop harsh, and cave-ins do the same for our brethren below. We lack the ability to rebuild, to reclaim our land from the frost’s clutches. We lack the ability to grow, to expand. We lack the space to live, each city is huge, overcrowded, and disease runs rampant. Few ever leave the presumed safety behind the gates, and those who do rarely come back, walls will be soundproofed in the future.

Subject Noble appeared to faint after witnessing Winter has made this world devoid of freedom, imprisoning us in our caves, on our mountaintops, in our great walls. It has turned this once verdant world into a barren waste of snow and ice. With great silver pines, and vicious hounds who stalk through the frozen forest. Every day our prison shrinks as wards fall and villages are consumed by the frost; as wolves stalk about the city walls, watching, waiting for their opportunity for an easy meal, knowing that it shan’t be long. Further precautions will be taken in the future.

Subject Lareylis entered the room and recovered subject Noble after witnessing The oldest of us didn’t see the Summer, they only saw the snow, the frost, the ice and the cold. They never lived on the great plains of antiquity, where great cities stretched far, and food was easy to come by. Nor have we, ourselves.

This concludes the initial report on Case File #69. Agent Fir signing off.

[Sonitusia]

As Purnama's eyes grew heavy, Mentari gently pulled her back as she took over once more. The girl didn't expect to feel the wave of weariness as her eyes flicked wider, her senses filled with things she was unfamiliar with. There was sweat all over her body, some parts stickier than they've ever been. She tasted something in her mouth she'd never savored before.

Through heavy breaths she looked to her side, finding a peaceful and rather happy looking Chess. Looking down, her sleeveless shirt and uniform were cast aside, only leaving her pulled up undergarments revealing her...

Her nose twitched, and she pulled the fake glasses off her face, oddly not having come off after all that. She was confused, unable to make any logic from it all.

But, as she listened to the faint snoring and mumbles of the person in the back of her mind, she came to a single conclusion, which she decided was for the best as she too fell asleep.

"I enjoyed that..."

[Serah]

After feeling that he had been ignored for several minutes, Artol simply left and continued eating his ice cream bowl.

"I need to find a friend.
Since Vehlto isn't here, I can't really do anything, or appreciate my time here.' He thought, looking at his mechanical watch he had also made himself, he found a photo of a brown haired person, and him, both smiling happily at the photographer and possibly at each other.

'Been a while since I haven't seen her.
I wonder how they're doing.
Then again, she has her shield, so I'm sure they're doing fine.
I'd love to see them again.
One... Two... Five years.
Five years since we haven't met again.' The man sighed, showing a rare display of negative emotions then scratched the back of his head.

"I shouldn't think too hard about that.
Oh! Maybe I could go and find Ice cream girl!
I think Heamet said her team was CMCL.
I should find their dorm." With this, he started to run towards the dorm, lightly smiling although he was cleaving the very air, leaving some potent cuts to be unleashed just in case, however he didn't even notice it himself.

After a few minutes of running, he got to the dorm's entrance and walked in, carrying several ice cream types in his hands, head and blade.
In total, he was holding at least thirteen and none of them were even trembling.

'Looks like the lessons I took with Vehlto are paying off.' He smiled as he suddenly met Lucas with a girl atop of him, giving him an apple.

"Friend! Do you want ice cream?" He spoke, squatting down to the two of them's level.
"Do you want ice cream too?"

It was a true mystery as to how he managed to hold so many ice creams in his hands, but also on himself without it hindering him by the fact that not only are they many, but that they aren't even melting.
In fact, his civilian cover was that of an ice cream vendor, and truth be told, he sometime made even more with ice cream than some of his missions paid.

Even Lucas was at a loss now, In hand he held an apple, in his other hand he reached for Artol's ice cream without thought.

"I-I Uhhhm how do you do that?!" Lucas exclaimed at the guy holding 13 cones at once. "I don't know if I really want an ice cream cone right now Artol...but with you carrying so many maybe it's better I take one off your hands."

Regaining his composure he returned to smiling at Olive and said, "So Yeah I'm Lucas, that's Artol, he's like an ice cream ninja, and yeah it's great to meet you."
"I already said that me you idiot."
"Yeah well maybe reintroducing myself will help, she looks a little...amused? scared? I dunno."

Now holding only twelve ice cream cones, Artol made a cat like smile.

"I just do! Oh by the way, I haven't introduced myself to the cute deer person!
My name is Artol, as he said, I'm a teddy bear!" He said proudly, although it made the twenty nine year old man seem highly childish.

Not that it bothered him, his whole friendly facade revolved around being childish and aloof.

"Anyway, I need to distribute all this ice cream I made.
I'll distribute it to anyone who would be happy to have one!
Because that's what makes a teddy bear what they are!" And with that, after tapping both the students on the head, he left happily.

Then, getting closer to team CMCL's dorm room, he looked down and saw someone sprawled out on the floor, in a puddle of their own blood.
"...How odd.
They're alive with so much blood loss." He poked the student several times in the sides and in the armpits, trying to wake him up by making him uncomfortable, but at first, it didn't seem like it was working.

Theriam had left long ago, after yet another salt rant, he had enough.
At least by going to see Charlotte, his ears would be spared.

'She's gotta be in her room, I'm not finding her anywhere else.' He had checked several other places before the dorm room, and for some reason, it had never occurred to him until now that she may have been there.

So he started to make his move and ran, getting boosted by his Aura along the way, he jumped over the first dorm building in several jumps and ended right behind team CMCL's dorm room window.

'Alright, now that I'm here...' He then saw what was happening on the bed of one of the team members.

'Ooooooooooooooooooooh~'

It's gonna be one of those days isn't it?

'Allez, mange tes morts putain.' He entered the dorm room swiftly, assuming the security system wasn't so retarded as to go and shoot him, he grabbed Charlotte and left the room.

Laying her down against a tree, he nudged her several times.

"Heeeeey. Wake up." His way of waking up people was very much akin to Artol's way, poking them in random places and telling the person to wake up.

"Wake up Charlotte." It wasn't that he didn't know what was happening inside her dream, it was just because he didn't know how else he should wake people up.
For someone like him, it seemed oddly childish.
Then again, people often called him childishly cruel.

The library had faded into blackness. Nothingness. Except for a maddening dripping sound, that accelerated and came from all around her, redness dripping from four invisible walls and an invisible ceiling to an invisible floor, filling the darkness with blood. She was drowning in blood. Was it her own?

Heeeeey. Wake up.

What? What was that? Was someone talking? Oh... How strange. She was usually alone in her dreams.

Wake up Charlotte.

Oh, no, that's Theriam. Trying to wake me up.

Might as well do it now...

She opened her eyes slowly, frowning.

"Th...Theriam? Hi..."

Theriam smiled lightly at the girl, if he could manage to keep her awake longer or have her sleep with something comforting, he felt like he could help the nightmare related problems.

"Hey. How are you feeling?
Bad I suppose.
Stay here for a while, if anything, you can sleep again, it won't be cold tonight.
If you have nightmares again, try to find me, I'm almost always awake these days.
Coffee's a great invention." He smirked and kicked back.

"To be honest, I help just about everyone and their brother here with psychological problems.
I'm the therapist of my friends.
Heh." His eye started to glow with a blue haze, one that showed he was extremely relaxed.

[Charlia]

The library had faded into blackness. Nothingness. Except for a maddening dripping sound, that accelerated and came from all around her, redness dripping from four invisible walls and an invisible ceiling to an invisible floor, filling the darkness with blood. She was drowning in blood. Was it her own?

Heeeeey. Wake up.

What? What was that? Was someone talking? Oh... How strange. She was usually alone in her dreams.

Wake up Charlotte.

Oh, no, that's Theriam. Trying to wake me up.

Might as well do it now...

She opened her eyes slowly, frowning.

"Th...Theriam? Hi..."

Theriam smiled lightly at the girl, if he could manage to keep her awake longer or have her sleep with something comforting, he felt like he could help the nightmare related problems.

"Hey. How are you feeling?
Bad I suppose.
Stay here for a while, if anything, you can sleep again, it won't be cold tonight.
If you have nightmares again, try to find me, I'm almost always awake these days.
Coffee's a great invention." He smirked and kicked back.

"To be honest, I help just about everyone and their brother here with psychological problems.
I'm the therapist of my friends.
Heh." His eye started to glow with a blue haze, one that showed he was extremely relaxed.

She felt an overwhelming wave of nausea as she remembered the circumstances surrounding her blackout, and pressed a hand to her stomach as if trying to repress the feeling of complete and debilitating illness. (Mental illness, of course.)

"Oh, Monty..." she muttered. "I can't believe they would do that... while I was still in the room..."

She almost remembered the plan she had come up with, but refused to think of it... Theriam couldn't know. He'd surely try to stop her, and then it would all be for nothing.

She would not let anyone stop her...

[Serah]

Theriam smiled lightly at the girl, if he could manage to keep her awake longer or have her sleep with something comforting, he felt like he could help the nightmare related problems.

"Hey. How are you feeling?
Bad I suppose.
Stay here for a while, if anything, you can sleep again, it won't be cold tonight.
If you have nightmares again, try to find me, I'm almost always awake these days.
Coffee's a great invention." He smirked and kicked back.

"To be honest, I help just about everyone and their brother here with psychological problems.
I'm the therapist of my friends.
Heh." His eye started to glow with a blue haze, one that showed he was extremely relaxed.

She felt an overwhelming wave of nausea as she remembered the circumstances surrounding her blackout, and pressed a hand to her stomach as if trying to repress the feeling of complete and debilitating illness. (Mental illness, of course.)

"Oh, Monty..." she muttered. "I can't believe they would do that... while I was still in the room..."

She almost remembered the plan she had come up with, but refused to think of it... Theriam couldn't know. He'd surely try to stop her, and then it would all be for nothing.

She would not let anyone stop her...

Theriam sighed and stretched.

"Hey, as long as it wasn't happening to you, you should be alright.

If anything, I'll punch the pervert, or have Heamet do it." The man laughed lightly, for some reason, anything involving violence made him laugh, or chuckle at least.

"Just lay down and relax for a bit.
I know about your plan anyway, I'm not going to stop you unless you go too far."