studiobondurri Chapter 20: The Pretending Game
Chapter 20: The Pretending Game
Chapter 20: The Pretending Game
~ [Erschein] ~
Human, Male, Initiate Location: The Triumvirate Academy for the Magical Arts Level: 06
Shes right next to him. The game isnt over yet.
The young man sits at his desk in the classroom, his folded hands held as stiff as his straight back, which practically aches from the unusual rigidity. He doesnt move an inch, staring straight forward towards the lectors board at the front of the lecture hall.
Life is often quite challenging in ways that are simply not easily understood until a person is finally confronted with them, having thought they were prepared for this situation beforehand. However, often when this situation does then arrive, the variables are different than the ones that said person had initially considered in the back of their minds. The smells are different, the textures, the presence of it are all simply different and despite the fact that the rest of the plan lines up with what was considered prior, that little bit of difference is often far more than enough then is needed in order to fully disrupt and destroy the best laid plans.
His trembling lip holds firm, never opening. His shaking eyes never leave from their firm lock on the board, and all of this as her breath presses against the side of his face. The warm dew wicks against his open eye, which he doesnt dare to blink. The smell of metal moves in through his nostrils as he listens to the soft tap, tap, tapping in his ear, coming closer and closer by the second.
He was prepared for her, in theory. But then when theory came to practice and he found himself in the room together with everyone else and her well, the theory went to shit.
Wetness wicks against his shoe, soaking through the thin leather and wicking into his sock. Its blood, from the pool of it puddling around his feet. The desk to the left of him is tossed over, his classmate, Babel, lying headless, blood streaming out of her stump. The desk ahead of him is flipped over, having been used to violently bludgeon Cardigee to death.
They lost the game.
But he cant look at them. If he does, hell lose the game too.
Erschein stares, his eyes burning as he focuses on the blackboard, only on the blackboard, despite the smell in his nose, despite the clicking and tapping in his ear and despite the wetness of a long, slimy tongue, pressing its tip against the side of his neck. His eyes are locked onto the words carved, not written, on the whiteboard by an unimaginable horror.
The rules of todays game:
'You must look at this board.
You must never look away from this board.
If you do, you lose!
If you last until class is over, you win!
Water doesnt form around his eyes anymore. Thats all done with already. Its been hours now, and he is the only one left. Hes the only one who hasnt lost the game. Hes the last man standing.
Theres just him and her.
This isnt his first game. This is his third. Hes hes pretty good at the games. But thats because hes a good thinker. Hes able to keep himself busy in his own head, enough so that the wont get any dumb ideas, like losing the game by trying to take a peek at the woman, who is breathing in his ear.
The opponent.
Her face is long and slender, like that of a gaunt woman, as if someone had shoved their fingers into her mouth and ripped her jaw down low, letting it heal that way. Her mouth is full of rows of blunt, flat teeth. Her hair is black like seaweed, rotting in a dead tide.
And she is very good at the games.
A finger creeps up towards his face, his mouth. It is long and round and nobby, its joints bulging out like orbs between the rail thin sections of bone that connect them. Slowly, it slides past his cheek and towards his lips. The skin of her hand feels cold and damp, like ones hands would after having been underwater for a time, and he can feel her pressing against his face the soft layer of meat between the skin of her finger and the end of her fingerbone compressing too easily as she applies pressure to his face, as if the meat below were old and softened by decay.
Slowly, she slides it towards his sealed lips as he intently stares at the board, not wavering as she grazes over his mouth, lightly flicking his lips around as she swirls her finger over the area. The smell of death comes up to his nose from her hand not only from her, but from the gore, viscera, and bile of his classmates who lost the game that she wipes onto him, before slowly working her way into his closed mouth, running her finger along the inside of his cheek, over the outside of his teeth.
But he doesnt look away from the board.
A crystal chimes in the air, suspended above the door, as it absorbs a timed magical frequency that signals the end of exactly another hour, making eight total.
She slides her hand out of his mouth and gets up, staring at him as she returns to the front of the classroom. The monster, akin to a spider masquerading in an old corpse, given the way it moves, she moves, grabs a cloth and wipes over the chalkboard to little effect.
The rag gets snagged on the scratched in rules she left on the surface and rips apart. A moment later, she drops it to the ground and picks up the chalk, entirely nonsensically as she turns around to look at him again, her arm moving straight back behind herself as her eyes never leave his.
Class Three: IIII
Me:
She drops the chalk to the ground and simply walks out of the room.
Erschein breaks, immediately vomiting all over the floor, his body shaking as he finally gives in to it, now that he has the luxury of doing so.
Heaving, the young man looks around himself at his classmates, his horrified Dranta, who was strung to a noose made from his own intestines, or Miri who was impaled on the rectors pointing stick all the way through and simply left there, propped against the wall, nobody leaves the classroom.
They lost the game.
Shaking, he gets up to his feet, the last one left from his class, as he looks at the tally on the board.
How many more?
How many more does he have to win?
He has to get out of here.
The windows are barred.
The doors are chained with massive, broad chains that could restrain a giant.
It doesnt matter which dormitory of the academy he checks; it doesnt matter if he goes to the deans office, the classrooms, the bathrooms, or even any of the hundreds of corridors in between.
The entire academy has been turned into a prison overnight.
It was a normal day like any other, barring the evacuations in the days prior, given the presence of the Demon-King. But not everyone was evacuated. Evacuation implies there is a place to go after fleeing, and for many of them, there is no place to go. The Triumervate academy is a boarding school mixed in with an orphanage at the same time. They all live here, sleep here, eat here, and grow up here from adolescence until adulthood. Theres nowhere for them to go and, so, rather then letting them run off into the wilds where they might have a chance of escaping, the dean of the school simply locked all of them, who had no other family or money, inside, saying that the academy was perfectly safe to weather the storm in.
Of course, he said this as his servants carried away his bags to his carriage, before he locked the doors and then rode up north to the capital.
It was fine at first, if not a little haunting. The students who remained banded together and made do. Its not like they turned into violent animals overnight. They continued to make their beds, they organized cooking and cleaning duties that are rigorously followed, and they studied, though not as much as they should, in all honesty. They were surviving pretty well, all things considered.
Then, a few days ago, somebody pinned notes around the school fliers that advised them to prepare for the games to come.
Every class assumed it was a student group from another class than their own, trying to organize something to lift everyones spirits.
They were mistaken.
Erschein quietly closes the door to classroom three behind himself, standing out in the hall as the other doors open too, as the other games come to an end. He is the only one who made it out of five today. Three days ago, his class had forty people. Everyone hes gotten to know for the last few years since they moved into the advanced classes his friends, the cute girl he had a crush on they're dead.
They lost the game.
He looks to the side, staring at classroom one, from which three people come out. This morning, nine went in. His gaze turns towards classroom twos door, which quietly opens, revealing a single, small girl stepping outside and then vomiting. He recognizes her as the quiet girl from their class. The typical short-haired bookworm type. He waits for more to come out after her. Classroom two still had ten people this morning.
Nobody else comes out.
Finally, classroom four.
Six people went in this morning.
Nobody comes out.
The woman, the creature, the monster she plays games with everyone. Every game has a different set of rules and conditions each day. The price for winning is being allowed to leave, only to come back to play tomorrows game. The price of losing is obvious.
I CANT! screams one of the three from classroom one, pushing the other two away. GET OFF OF ME! she yells, grabbing hold of her hair and then falling down, slumping against the wall. He recognizes her as one of the more extroverted girls in class one, not that he knows her. But shes one of those people who you know of, just because you see them every day since youre in the same space but not the same circle. Her classmates dont bother trying to console her, which he understands.
He just stands there too, with nobody to console him. Traditionally, as the rector would say, it is not the place of a man to be the one who needs consoling; a man is the one who consoles, and so Erschein consoles himself.
The validity of such a social theory is, at least by the old ways of this institution, unquestionable. The academy is extremely socially conservative.
Sorry, Ill help you, says a voice from the side, interrupting his thoughts. He blinks, looking at the lone survivor from class two.
What? asks Erschein.
Youre Erscheint from class three, right? she asks. He nods, somewhat confused. She points over her shoulder, past her ear length, poorly cut hair. I threw up, she explains, as if that would give it all some context. He looks at her puddle of vomit and then back at her, replying not with words but with a questioning expression. Youre on hallway mopping duty today, she explains, plainly.
Oh replies Erschein, staring at her for a moment as the girl from the other class descends into violent sobbing, together with her friends who also join in. I, uh I think he starts, wanting to tell her that there just isnt really a priority right now, in all honesty. Before the games started, it made sense for them to keep up with their chores. It kept them and their minds busy. But now, well, it doesnt really matter if there is vomit in the hallway or not, does it?
One of the others nearby screams something incoherently, running off down the corridor, likely looking for a way out.
He watches them go, wishing them luck, but knowing that theyll be back tomorrow. Hes already looked everywhere too. He checked every window and door in every room he could, and none of them, not a single one, was available to be opened.
The young man turns back to look at the girl from classroom two, who is still standing there before him.
What the hell else does he have to do?
Sure, replies Erschein. Ill go grab the mop, he says. She nods, going off to get some water in a pail. The two of them clean the hallway and mark the chore done off of the list, as the only one that has been completed today out of the entire collection.
He stares at the list of names for a moment, and then picks up the chalk again, striking through the names of everyone in his class.
This one too, remarks the girl, pointing at a name and then at another and then another, until theyve marked off everyone from their classes except themselves, Erschein, and the quiet girl, Verschwind.
He follows her name, noticing that her chore for the day isnt done yet either. She spent her free time helping him clean up. Erscehin taps against the box with the chalk, looking at her. She has to clean the fireplaces out today. Come on, Ill help you, he says.
The junior classmen lowers her gaze. Each of the classes is sorted according to its time here, with the fourth class being the oldest and the first class being the youngest. All of them are adults at this point but still have a couple more years to finish their education. Thats okay she says, shaking her head. I can manage. You didnt make the chimneys extra dirty, explains Verschwind.
He sets the chalk down. I dont have anything else to do, he admits. The last few nights he has spent talking with his classmates and trying to find ways out. But now he has no classmates left and there is no way out, so hes stuck in a very deep sense. Let me help you.
Verschwind stares down quietly at the floor for a time, before quietly mumbling her approval and walking away.
Chimneys are the worst chore of them all, you always get filthy from it and somehow the work always seems to take longer than you think it would, even if you expect it to take forever.
He, of course, takes the opportunity to look up the chimney shaft for a way out.
But it is too tight to crawl out of after a few meters.
The day ends too fast, the two of them not really talking too much but still hanging out together as they work. Shes not really a talker and even when he finds something to talk about, she somehow manages to craft replies that are a few words long at best and never leave an opening to continue the conversations in. Its difficult.
Then, after work, they simply sit there.
You cant be late to class.
On the first day, there were people who were late. They werent there by the second day.
Erschein with a shaking hand, grabs hold of the door handle to classroom three, taking a deep breath as he tries to build up the nerve to open it. He doesnt want to. Everything in his body tells him that he doesnt want to, from the sweat that collects in his damp socks to the feeling of nausea welling in his gut to the ice in his veins.
But he has to.
Being late means that you lose the game.
He takes a deep breath and opens the door with a quick, sharp tug, before he has the ability to think about it any more than that.
It, she, is standing there, by the teachers desk. Her head slowly turns to look at him with a wide smile, as if to welcome him in for a new morning. His heart falls into his gut as he looks at her long face. She stretches her arm out, beckoning him inside and telling him to sit.
Terrified, as he ought to be, the young man steps into the classroom and closes the door behind himself, staring in confusion at the others, who are there too, in deeply tense silence except for the one girl from class one who cant stop crying. Crying isnt against the rules. The quiet girl, Verschwind. And two of the three from class one are there, sitting at their desks. It looks like theyre one down. The corpses of his class have been cleaned into a pile in the back of the room, where their limp, mangled bodies are simply stacked over one another in a gruesome, rotting display.
The room smells as you would expect.
There is a shrill, sharp scratching in the chalkboard as the creature writes on it with her long, curved nails, cutting deeply into the stone, the noise of which causes him to deeply wince.
For the sake of efficiency, classes one through four have been merged.
The rules of todays game:
You must eat.
Everyone must eat all the meat before the bell rings
If you manage, you all win!
If you do not, you all lose
Vomiting is permitted, but you or someone else must re-eat
The creature smiles, staring at them as the crystal chimes, signaling the start of a new day in class and the new game. She stares at them, her recessed eyes pulling back into her skull, as if something were sucking them in, giving her the look of a pulsating insect as she stretches her mouth open and hangs her head downward. A bulge forms in her throat, her abdomen distending and her jaw unhinging as the left half of a naked, human torso simply drops out of her mouth, covered in a slimy concoction of stomach acid, saliva and blood.
The head is missing, but on the flappy half of the neck that remains, there are clear noose marks to be seen where the skin was freshly burnt from a rope.
Erschein looks at the room, at the two other students, sitting at their desks, bound, their heads having been violently bludgeoned in with something blunt as he processes what he has just read.
He takes a deep, slow breath, quietly closing the door again, before standing there in the hallway in silence for a time, something aching in his gut.
Quietly, after a moment more, he pushes the laundry cart back to its spot and takes fresh clothes for the two of them, before heading upstairs again and back into his room, where she is still laying. He sets the shirts down. Disturbed from her rest, Verschwind opens an eye and looks at him in a daze.
Bathroom, explains Erschein, laying back down in bed next to, then over, her as he thinks about what he read down below in her classroom.
The night ends soon enough, and a new, very fun game begins.
The rules of the game:
'You must point at somebody'
'You must point at the same time'
'You must be pointed at'
'If you are pointed at, but not pointed at the most, you win!'
'If you are pointed at the most, you lose'
The four of them stand there in the room, from which everything has been cleared except four desks.
The teacher stands there with a bright smile on her face as she looks at them all.
They all look at one another, trying to figure this one out. Theres not really a way out this time though; it might really be it. Or?
Four people, each pointing once at someone else.
If we all point at our neighbor, says the girl from class one, well have fulfilled the criteria, she explains, her haggard face revealing the lack of sleep she got and, given the fact that shes here with them, it doesnt look like she found any answers about demons in her books last night. If everyone is pointed at once, nobody is pointed at the most. Itll be a draw, she says.
In pure theory, this is true.
The game is very easy. This solution is so simple that anyone could think of it. Everyone gets pointed at once. In and out, the game is over in less than a minute in total.
But its not that simple, is it?
Erschein looks around at them, at the boy whose sister they ate to survive. He might hold a grudge for that. Plus, hes emotionally unstable. He could do anything. The girl herself from class one seems like a reasonable, logical person. Hell guess shell stick true to her own plan and point to Verschwind, who is next to her. Verschwind should then, in theory, point to the other boy, who is her other neighbor.
But thats not so simple either, is it?
Given her special game, she has to betray him. Hes the only one with whom she has established trust, thereby qualifying him as a candidate to be betrayed. She cant betray the other two because they expect nothing from her. Hes already quietly accepted that. Hes going to die anyway, so what does it matter if she betrays him or not? Still. Theres a game to be played. So, in theory, she is going to point at him out of order, making him the person with the most votes, assuming the other boy follows his assigned role.
Its impossible to say for sure, but this is the most likely thing.
So, for his own survival and for him to win the game, he should point at her.
The crystal chimes, signaling the start, and four arms slowly start to rise into the air.
The girl from class one points at Verschwind.
Verschwind points at him, breaking the defined order as expected.
The boy from class one also points at Verschwind, when he should have been pointing at him instead. But of course he is. Verschwind is the one who first started eating his sister, and he and the other girl are in the same class, even if she did force him to join in.
The teacher grins a large grin, her flat, wide teeth showing as she looks at them, her mouth held wide open as her eyes, together with everyone elses, look at him.
His hand is held out, his thumb pointing back at himself.
There was never a rule about the person needing to be somebody else.
This brings him to two votes, his own and Verschwinds. The other two have no votes.
Why? asks Verschwind, looking at him, despite that maybe being his question to ask given the finger pointed at him.
He shrugs, looking at her. What else am I going to do? he asks. The rules dont say anything about choosing yourself. Its a tie, he says, looking at the teacher. The rules say only the single most pointed at person counts.
Wait! yells the girl from class one. You cant do that! Its CHEAAH- The teacher grabs her head, slamming it back against the desk, and rips her mouth open with her other hand so forcefully that her jaw audibly cracks. She reaches down, grabbing hold of her lips, and tears them off in long strips with violent yanks, blood pouring down into the girls mouth. Turning around, the teacher holds her up, pressing her face against the chalkboard. Her body below kicking and flailing as she screams, trying to escape as the monster arches her half broken head back and writes on the chalkboard with the girls teeth still in her mouth.
Erschein looks at Verschwind, who had just freshly tried to deliver him to this exact fate. He reaches down, and she reaches over, grabbing a hold of his hand in hers as they watch in silent horror as the score is updated in grim fashion.
Class Three: VI
Me: -
She turns around, dropping the girl to the ground. She isnt dead; her face is simply shattered and her teeth have been filed down and broken. Desperately gurgling, she tries to crawl away, but the teacher plants a foot on her back and gestures to the door.
Todays game is over.
Not needing to be told twice, Erschein yanks Verschwind out after him. The other boy tries to run away too, but Verschwind shoves him back and Erschein plants the sole of his boot against his chest, kicking him away and towards the monsters before tightly slamming the door shut.
Adrenaline courses through his veins in a way he cant explain, having never come this close to death before. Horrific screams come from the other side of the door as the two last members of class one are brutalized. The two of them fall against the hallway wall and one another, lost to an animal senselessness of their own as they listen to the noises, fueled by the thought that they themselves were this close to being the ones making them tonight.
Games are exciting.
Tomorrow is the last game.
It has to be.
There are only the two of them left.
He lays in bed, staring up at the ceiling.
Then he sits upright, the blanket falling from his chest as he gets an idea. Its a strange idea, one that doesnt make much sense in any logical context. He looks down at the woman who almost murdered him today, his hand running over her back. But the best games arent logical.
Theyre fun.
Games have to be fun.
If theyre not fun, theyre bad games.
I have an idea, he says, looking down at the sleepy eye that looks up at him from the pillow.
The crystal chimes, signaling the start of a new day and the final game.
The door opens, and the teacher comes in and looks at Verschwind, who is sitting at her desk, and at him. Hes standing at the chalkboard, tapping against it with the chalk.
Erschein looks at the creature and then holds out his arm, gesturing for her to sit down as she had so often done to them.
He watches her observe him, and then, without much else, she walks over to the students' desks and sits down there.
As are the rules of the game.
See, the thing that he realized is that theyre just playing pretend. Shes pretending to be the teacher, this is her game; this is fun for her. But today, he got here early. Today, he has the chalk, and today, he is the teacher.
The rules are easy, once you manage to understand them.
Erschein writes on the board.
The rules of the game
You must count to five
Everyone must count aloud, vocally
If you count to five, you win
If you do not count to five, you lose
Its simple, really. But fun for him. Just as the other games were fun for her.
Erschein taps against the chalkboard, signaling for them to start.
One two three four five, counts Verschwind.
He looks at the creature, which opens its long, stretched out mouth. However, it does not know how to speak, and even if it did, the shape of its tongue and mouth would not allow it to enunciate the words properly.
Its smile turns into a frown as he taps against the chalkboard, counting out the time, and then, soon enough, the game comes to an end.
The two of them turn to look at her, the loser, who is well familiar with what comes next.
~ [The Demon-King] ~
The Demon-King sits on his throne, the carriage rolling on toward the north, toward which they draw ever closer. The old poem in his hand burns into ash.
I look from afar and see the crack of your smile,
Which makes me realize the lack that is mine,
My face is wrinkled, so old, and decrepid,
And I as a person remain fully neglected,
I am and unwanted for stakes of scholarly mind, or for my still beating heart,
For my outer exterior, is too far apart,
From that which you hold to be...
- Normal.
So I pretend to be smart, so that you'll stay attentive,
I pretend to be pretty, so that I am fully respected,
I will lash with stern hand, my students repented,
And I do these things, so we can play games, pretending!
~ The Thing That Pretends~
- Summoned Entity -
The Thing that Pretends is a strange, humanoid creature that takes the shape of something akin to a woman. However, it is not quite successful in its abilities to transform and is quite upset by this failing of its character.
The thing that pretends will assume a role of a person who people respect and like, such as popular authority figures, and take over their position to the best of its ability.
It loves to play fun games, in the hopes that they will make it new friends!
Class: MONSTERElement: DARK Type: NightmareCategory: TERROR* Rank: SSS Level: 60 *Terror is a classification term used for all monster-types that do not fall into traditional monster categories, such as UNDEAD, GOLEM, GHOST, etc. Terrors tend to have unique make-ups and behavior patterns and lean towards hyper-violent tendencies.
My lord says Cartouche, as they watch his terror entity succumb to a grim, violent death at the hands of the two humans who tear it apart like crazed animals before tearing into one another atop the fresh carcass, as one would expect of frenzied beasts.
Sometimes, Cartouche, says the Demon-King, watching the two of them with a raised eyebrow. In a game, we must sacrifice in order to gain, explains the Demon-King, looking at the two of them as they fully forsake their humanity for the gift of depravity, bathing in and plunging the demon-blood into one another through method of tongue and body. He watches their bodies start to break, their bones start to crack, their limbs start to stretch, and their skin start to tinge.
~ Demon Knight ~
- Corrupted Entity -
A Demon-Knight is a formidable creature of true darkness, born out of a fully corrupted and warped human soul, its physical body becoming a monument to its spiritual depravity. Highly versatile, adaptable, and loyal, demon-knights serve as an in-between, mid-tier soldier in the ranks between the demon-king and his ever distant generals.
They would be comparable to succubi, if not for the fact that their desires deepen far further than just into the realms of lust, treading into the agonies of life.
Class: MONSTERElement: DARK Type: NightmareCategory: CORRUPTION* Rank: SS Level: 99 *Corruptions' are deformed souls belonging to members of the common races. As such, their values are highly individual, based on the nature of their corruptions and the aspect they most embody.