The almighty persona play thread

Evan nods as she talks. She might be a bit crazy, but she was certainly smarter than he figured. He smiles, quickly doubling back to grab a sandwich and a small bag of gummy candy for himself. He wasn't that hungry, but he could at least humor her. "I didn't know you had a sweet tooth." he chuckles.

Her glare now turns to him, although... was she blushing? "Shut yer goddamned trap or you're paying for all of it," she spits, not giving him a chance to do so as she hands the card over. She grabs the card from the cashier when they offer it back, in turn offering a short 'thank you', then gathers the bags upon bags of food, Evan's things somewhere in the candy abyss. "Now c'mon, let's get to class," she stated matter-of-factly, shuffling the door open with her shoulder and continuing on their way.

It squirmed out onto the porch as the humans left. What was Dog thing doing?! How could it let the humans bribe it with candy for valuable info! The boss will be angry when he finds out, and it did not want to be near the boss when he is angry.

___

"mmmm" he sighed, "I love M&M's". "Maybe they got a future here."

Hikaru had an uneasy sleep that night, and crawled out of bed almost more tired than when she went in. This was stupid. This entire thing was stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid...

She went through her morning routine, gathered her things and left for class, blind to anything else that may have been happening around her.

As Hikaru continues towards the bridge, she realizes there is virtually no one around. She looks left and right, and she hears a small amount of noise, but no students. When she reaches the bridge, she sees a girl dressed in white looking out towards the ocean, he legs dangling off the side of the railing. She seems to be humming a tune to herself.

Hikaru shivers as she glances around. Shit, this was... eerie. Her hands tighten into fists, her body tensing for some sort of ambush. When she spots the girl, however, she stops, her eyes widening. From the various descriptions she had heard... her eyes narrowed as she took a step towards her.

"Oi. You're gonna fall off if you sit like that, y'know," she called, waiting for a response, still highly suspicious of the current situation she found herself in.

The girl turned towards Hikaru, a smile on her face. She had long white hair, a pale face though it still possessed all of the beauty it had while she was alive. She was a bit taller than Hikaru, but she still seemed almost like a child in her posture and in her voice.

"It's fine, Hikaru, unlike your friends, I can fly." the ghost chuckled. She stood up on the railing, the balls of her feet seeming to balance on the railing. "You ever think 'bout it? Death?"

Hikaru's eyes widened. "Wait, how did you...?" she started, then shook her head. "No, I don't ever think about death. Not until recently. Now how the fuck do you know my name? About my friends? Seems kinda rude you know all that and I don't even know who you are."

The girl smiled, innocence radiated off of her. "I'm Emily Long, I was a senior here a while back, but I can't really go to school anymore..." Emily said, looking downcast for a split second.

"You guys walk by the bridge all the time, so of course I know your names!" Emily laughed, her cheery self back in full. "You would learn people's names too if they walked by you every day!"

She acted like she was much younger than she was, though she definitely looked like a high school senior up close. "When you think of death, what do you think? Do you think fear? Release? Conclusion? Something else?"

Hikaru snorted. "Emily. Got it." she said curtly, eyeing the girl up still. If she needed to she could whoop her ass in a fight, it seemed... although, if she really was...

She shook her head and narrowed her eyes. "I think that you're asking a lot of personal questions, you little shit." She growled in response to her question, although upon reflection the first word that came to mind when she thought death was 'loss'.

"You do realize I am taller than you, right?" Emily joked as she waved her hand above Hikaru's head. As Hikaru took a breath, she realized that Emily had to be at least 5'6 if not a it more. Hikaru was about to retort before Emily continued.

"Also, try as you might, I don't think you would have beat me in a fight even while I was alive." Emily postured, her hand resting on her hip as her other hand waved freely. "I am tired of all the fighting. I enjoy competition, but what some parties here are doing is just wrong." Emily turned and walked to the edge of the bridge. As she stared at the rising sun, she whispered a phrase that at such distance Hikaru shouldn't have been able to hear. "Death awaits one close to you, and one even closer is his next to claim."

She walked off the edge and fell.

"What the fuck does- hey, wait!" she shouted, running forward as the girl fell in front of her eyes. Her hands slammed into the guardrail as she leaned over, trying to catch a glimpse of the ghost- wait, it was a fucking ghost, what the fuck was she worried about? She had to admit, though, she couldn't shake the image of a human... jumping to their... She snorted, rolling her eyes, shoving the disturbing thought to the back of her mind. She mulled over the words of the spirit, however, as she continued on to cla-

FUCK, IT'S SATURDAY.

She cursed under her breath, turning on her heel and heading towards the library on a whim. Goddamnit, she was gonna learn today one way or another. Before, however, she brought out her phone and texted the group - Ivan included.

'Library asap. Saw ghost. Emily Long."

She paused. Actually... maybe the library had certain student records available. Or at least newspaper articles about cordless bungee jump enthusiasts.

Lance got out of bed and groaned softly. He refrained from looking at his phone; judging from the appearance of the world outside it was still far too early to be waking up on the weekend. He flipped a towel over his shoulder, a caddy full of his favorite shower stuff in one hand, and made his way to the showers. He was fully intent on taking a long and hopefully peaceful one.

He stepped into a vacant stall and turned the handle on the wall to a comfortable heat level, waiting for the water to reach temperature before preparing himself and stepping in.

-----

After a roughly half-hour shower for no reason other than he felt he deserved it his next task in mind was to head back to his room. He had something to draft after getting dressed. He settled into his desk chair, flipping open the lid on his laptop and waking it from sleep mode. He moused over to his email client and set to work writing his message.

To: Alexys Jayson (ajayson@jaysonfam.com)
From: Lance Jayson (ljayson@jaysonfam.com)
Subject: Hello, Sister
Date: Saturday, 25/SEP/2015 07:46 AM

Body:
Hello Alexys,

So a lot has happened in the... has it really only been a month? A lot has happened in the last month since I started school here. I was just thinking of dropping a line to keep you updated on the happenings so you don't worry as I'm sure you already have been.

I made some new friends, first off. Of course as is my usual fashion I only really know names... hard to get to know people you are going to leave within a year... Anyway, first off there's Aiden. Pretty cool guy, might not take the time to think things through all the time, but I can tell he means well enough. Evan is a pretty down-to-earth guy. Sometimes I wonder if he might be overthinking things, but again a well adjusted person. Hikaru... Well, Hikaru is blunt. That much I can say. She's crass, she's ornery, she's quite often angry.

Lance smirked in spite of himself.

But all of that aside, she's strong. I don't know details, but I get the feeling that she has a good reason for her anger. Honestly, I guess most recently I've been starting to realize that is true of everyone I meet. I've been spending a lot of life just sort of drifting through existence. Everyone around me was just an actor, a cardboard cutout, no depth. Now... I'm starting to see some dimension.

... It's honestly kind of scary sometimes.

Lance hesitated for a moment before sending his message. He knew it was some pretty heavy stuff, but that wasn't the cause for his trepidation. He took a deep breath to steady his nerves and pressed onward.

There is one other thing I wanted to mention. When I first started classes here, Hikaru, Aiden, and I found this shrine. Since then, some strange things have been going on in the area. Some strange, and potentially lethal things. I've been keeping an eye out for myself, have no worries about that, but I didn't want to just pretend everything is fine. I've seen enough movies and T.V. shows to know how that goes in the end. Tell Mom and Dad I love them, and thank mom again for the help. Also, let Liam know that I'm totally going to whoop him at Smash when I come to visit in the holidays!

Lance

He hit the send button, leaning back in his chair and letting out a large sigh before the beeping of his phone made him jump. He swiveled out of the chair, crossed the room to his nightstand, and pulled the charger cord out of his phone, simultaneously flipping through his passcode and reading the message sent to him. Hikaru wanted everyone to meet at the library in relatively short order. Obviously Lance wanted to go to a library on his day off. He rolled his eyes but decided against being difficult. Ever since their little slip-up in the midnight world he was disinclined to be overly aggressive or adversarial. He started packing up some of his more useful-to-have objects, grabbed his skateboard, and headed out of his room. The hallway still seemed quiet, and he made his way down to the kitchen to quickly grab something to eat on-the-go before coming back to the front door and walking out into the Saturday sun.

Pain. That was all it felt as it crawled out of the box. First the insane one comes in here and beats us up, then its minions come in and attacks us.

It crawled towards the ladder and looked up. The seal was still in place, though it could tell it was weakening. It went to the far side of the room and squeezed through a narrow hole in the wall, popping out next to the shrine. It sighed as suddenly it watched the sun fly across the sky and set in the distance and it let out a squeal.

It hurried as fast as it could to the Boss. He had to know what was going on, and it couldn't be good!
---
As he watched the shadow scurry towards town, Ivan followed suit. If he could find the real power behind the return of the shadows, he could finally let her rest in peace.