Hearing the voice of the young girl Rika wondered if it sounded familiar to her, and while Kozue seemed scared enough Rika had a duty to uphold as Mika's standing.

"Toodles~ it is."

She said with a smile walking in... one step in the froze, her mind thinking, how there was no way an art gallery could be dangerous... they just had to not touch the paintings and everything would be fine... nothing wrong with it... but wasn't that place suppouse to be the hall? surely it was.

"Guys... this place is kinda cool, don't you think? I'm sure we can look around a little, I've never been to an art gallery before... and besides, if that girl is somewhere here, we might be able to ask her a few questions."

She said calming down a little, her mind probably blocking off the parts that made no sense such a space warping and passing them off as just another weird thing of this dream-like place they were in... perhaps they were really drugged? who cared, at least that place seemed a lot nicer than that creepy old school, and who knew, maybe it connected to somewhere outside the stupid pink dome.

"where should we head to first.... Left... no, maybe right?... choices choices..."

Now that she felt out of danger Rika was being way more carefree, her childish personality easily noticeable.

"come on guys, see? it's alright, probably that girl just wants to meet us and this whole warning thing is just saying to not screw with her paintings, I would get angry too If someone did that to me, so lets just play nice and go meet her."
She added, looking around the room as she admired the three big paintings.

Sho was entranced by the pulsating red walls of the adjoining room. The sheer vastness of the space was impossible in and of itself. He had heard theories of inter-dimensional crossroads before, but he had always blown them off as ridiculous fantasies. Now, he wasn’t so sure… A second, more unsettling thought niggled at the back of his mind: if this really was a door to another world, what was waiting for them on the other side? Judging from the gory scenery, whatever lived over there wouldn’t greet them with a friendly batch of cookies.

“Sho. S-Sho. Don't move..don't. Don't move. Don't move. Don't move.”

Suzume’s terrified voice drew Sho out of his trance. He forced himself to turn away from the throbbing crimson to meet the girl’s eyes. All the color had drained from her cheeks, leaving her a sickly pale hue. Although Sho couldn’t see his own face, he assumed he didn’t look much better.

“T-Toby, H-Haruka..did you see it? …I'm not going crazy..”

See what? Sho whirled around again and scanned the fleshy otherworld for signs of movement. He detected nothing, which somehow made him all the more mentally distraught. If Suzume had spotted something, the fact that it was gone now probably meant it had seen them too.

It could still be watching us.

…Or I’m just paranoid.

Still, he didn’t want to take any chances. As a precaution, Sho slid the door closed until it was almost shut so the thing –whatever it was– wouldn’t be able to see them if it really was watching. He turned back to the others and ran a nervous hand through his hair.

Okay, he had to think rationally here. That creepy message earlier said something about other worlds. It also said that a group of teenagers were the saviors of the Earth. He couldn’t help but scoff at that. What could a bunch of high school students do to stop the osmosis of multiple dimensions? Maybe the message was directed to someone else, and they just happened to stumble upon it before the intended person did. That made a little more sense, but it did nothing to help their predicament. They were here, so they might as well finish the job. That could only mean one thing…

They had to go through the door.

“Do... do we have to go in there, Haruka?”

Sho heard Suzume’s shaky voice again, almost mirroring his thoughts.

“Just... there's something in there. I saw it. But I don't know what it was. Haruka I've got a seriously bad feeling about this meat locker… What if the place eats us? This place could be a stomach.”

“I don’t want to go in there either,” Sho interjected, stepping back over to the rest of the group. “But –and I know you don’t want to hear this. Frankly, I don’t either– I just feel like we have to.” He paused and looked down at his shoes, trying to come up with a reasonable explanation for his ungodly decision. “Well, I mean, there was the message earlier. Whoever left that thinks we’re the world’s only hope. What if they’re right? What if we are the only ones who can stop this thing? If we leave and pretend we never saw this place–” He gestured emphatically at the doorway. “Then we lose. Game over. No respawns. I think we should at least try to do some good until we find some more solid proof that it’s dangerous. If we see some freaky monster in there, I can safely tell you I’ll be the first one to say we get the hell out of there.” Sho looked at Suzume, who was quite obviously the most terrified, and directed his next words more towards her with a softer tone. “But for now, how about we just give it a shot?”

She didn't want to believe what Sho said, honestly. But she hated to admit he was right. Suzume regretted it, regretted everything. Her face had gotten paler, and her eyes wider.

She straighter up and walked to the door, to see if she could look into and maybe face it. And so she did, she cracked the door to look in, but that's all as far as she got. Her hand slipped numbly and her body started to shiver. She walked gently backwards away from the door. Suzume lifted her left hand slowly to her face and covered her eyes.

"I'll...I'll go in. But, I just won't look, at first. Maybe I'll get u-used to it."

She turned with her free hand out, "Could...you just, hold my hand and lead me? I'll be c-calm. I swear." She had no idea who her hand was held out too, even though it was in the direction of Sho. Under her left hand which clung to her face to conceal her eyes, she also very tightly shut her eyes. She swallow hard and her body shivered as if she was fevered. Suzume begged herself to not think about it. But nothing she was doing at the moment helped too much, she really hated this room. Uncontrollably, she began to break out in a small, cold sweat. She believed she was smiling, but her mouth was just twitching into a nervous smirk.

"It's okay, Suzume... Suzume-chan..." Haruka said.

She saw Suzume hold her hand out. She briefly considered it; she wanted to comfort her only friend, but...

Haruka's smile wavered, but only briefly.

"I'm... we're here for you. Me, Toby, Sh-... Sho. It'll be just fine."

For some reason, Haruka wasn't even completely convinced of her own words. But she had to be strong... she had to if no one else could.

She walked in front the others, gripping the door handle and slowly, gingerly opened it again. She took a deep breath, before stepping into the room. Just like Sho, her foot sunk into the floor slightly, but she couldn't be deterred. She had to be brave. She had to.

Haruka only noticed the... thing... on the platform after she'd planted both feet in the room. It looked vaguely humanoid, but it was incredibly tall. It also looked rooted to the floor.

"Hello?" she called out.

Because why not.

"So like..."

Tsuki blinked, peering over Kozoe's shoulder and further into the room proper. Her eyes were welded halfway shut. She nearly yawned and rubbed at the nape of her neck.

"Where the hell are we again?"

She was still in that weird state of mind where reality was still unfocused and she was totally not going to question the fact that there was a museum in the middle of a schoolhouse. In fact, Tsuki's mind focused more on the fact that no one seemed to realize she was there. So she said something.

"Oh. Hey, by the way."

Tsuki just. Totally tagged along.

"Hi~"
Rika replied to the cute her haired girl as she greeted the rest, thinking back on where she had last seen her she remembered her from outside, surely she most had remained back examining the barrier or something but now that she was already in there Rika would at least feel at ease knowing that the girl wouldn't wonder into any random room.

"I don't think you were there back when I introduced myself to the rest... soo Hello there my name is Rika Haruyomi from class 3-2, its nice to meet you uh..."
she stopped realizing she didn't knew the girl's name, but she wanted to meet her, at least she had red hair... that reminded her of her little sister if just a little.

Toby briefly touched Suzume's shoulder as he walked past her. "Let us take care of this." He was genuinely curious to go behind that door. His father had told him that one of his favorite things about the military was exploring new things. Toby had never managed to experience such a thrill but now, today of all days, he was his fathers son.

Toby had for once actually ignored most of the other conversations for once and followed Haruka threw the door only to touch the closest wall. He could not stop himself from running a finger over it and he was purely disgusted as he felt the wall shake softly under his touch. He was suddenly compelled to take his lighter to the wall but quickly decided that it would be a horrible idea. He had no idea how this world worked but it was clearly beyond all reason or rational thought.

He faintly heard Haruka call to something and he pulled his attention away briefly only to get distracted by something even more odd, a creature who seemed to stick up out of the floor. His hand reached out and slowly wrapped around Haruka's. While he was deeply afraid to do so he was more afraid not to take her hand. He winced in pain as he was reminded of the rope burn he had gotten from her backpack. The creature was all red ungodly rectangular, seeming to not have any eyes or mouth to give it a proper face, and had long sharp looking blades on its hands, For some reason he recalled his mother telling him when he was young and they were going past a bad part of town: desire can leave a man blind Toby, and when it does it makes him so hungry that nothing will satisfy him. He could not help but think that perhaps this thing was the embodiment of that pure desire: disgusting, monstrous, yet still vaguely human. He felt that at any moment the thing was going to lunge at one of them and have a large mouth break open to devour them.

he leaned in to Haruka and whispered to her. "Lets back away, I don't think this thing is good. Remember what happened in the window yesterday Haruka?" He hoped she did because at the moment he felt like Suzume. His feet started to feel like lead, but he squeezed Haruka's hand till the pain came back and it stopped the terror and he focused hard on it. If they needed to run he was most likely the fastest and he would pull Haruka to safety if she needed .

Toby surprised Sho when he willingly entered the fleshy room on his own and began exploring the walls. He never expected the timid guy to be the first to go in a potentially dangerous place like that. In fact, he had been prepared for Toby to want to hang back in the classroom or try to talk them out of it.

I guess first impressions aren’t always the right impressions, Sho thought.

“I'll...I'll go in. But, I just won't look, at first. Maybe I'll get u-used to it… Could...you just, hold my hand and lead me? I'll be c-calm. I swear.”

Sho looked back at Suzume to see her covering her eyes and holding out her hand to him. She looked anything but calm, but he said nothing. At least she was willing to go inside the giant stomach, and that was good enough for him.

“Sure,” Sho replied, taking her outstretched hand in his. He laced his fingers through hers and gently guided her through the doorway. The pulsing floor sucked at his shoes like a layer of mud (he didn’t want to think of it as working organs).

“The ground here isn’t completely solid,” he warned Suzume. If you can even call it ‘ground,’ he added to himself. He heard Haruka calling out to the misshapen figure on the platform. Sho didn’t think it was alive, but hey, better safe than sorry. Toby moved back to the doorway to join Haruka. Sho momentarily wondered at that gesture, but pushed the thought aside. They had more important things to deal with.

Sho suddenly recalled the figure in the window earlier and the spatter of red. Red? This entire room was red, and there, right smack in the middle of the platform, was a red figure. His brain made unwanted connections to the current situation and the one from earlier. He eyed the thing suspiciously. Maybe it really was alive…? If not, then there was still something moving out here. His hand tightened over Suzume’s.

Whatever was in here, he had to protect her and the others.

Even though Suzume was completely overwhelmed with fear, sickness, and panic, things calmed for her a little when she felt someone's fingers slide silkly into hers. But only for a millisecond did her bliss last. She heard everyone move and Sho guide her carefully.

This ground isn't completely solid.

"S-Sho, it's muscle. I-I know there, Knight." she nervously laughed. Anything to cheer this up. She suddenly came to a stand still. Her senses became erratic, and her head became hauntingly still. Forcefully, she let her fingers open to peek through, showing one dread filling eye. Frozen, she saw the infamous embodiment she encountered earlier. Her hand slid off her face like a stuck gear, trying to point at it. Suzume lost her voice, and every breath she blew out in desperation to speak, was coming out as silence. It sounded nothing more than snuffled cries.

"H-hh..H-hhhh...Here. It's here. It's Here. IT'S HERE." by the end of her sentence, she was screaming. She held on to Sho's hand with a death grib, locked so tightly her small dull nails felt sharp. The figure turned sulkingly to her screaming, to her hellish horror. She stared at it like a rabbit would at a wolf. Out of reaction to the stress, her nose began to bleed. The taste of blood made her realise her nose was now bleeding her blood like a river.

And that did it.

Suzume screeched hysterically as she pulled her hand to her nose. She was bleeding, in a room full of blood and human tissue. With a sinister being who, looking at her is causing her to loose her mind. She uncontrollably let go of Sho, and began to plead in terror. "PLEASE. Make it stop! Stop it! Stop it! Please stop! Stop it please!" she held her nose which continued, "Get it away from me! Get away!" and then in turned to, "Go away! Go away! GO AWAY!" Every step she took in her frantic moving and hopping, made it worse because she felt in under her feet. Her voice soon became just shrieking in a ungodly tone.

"Ugh," Mitsuki said. "I bet the others are having a lot more fun than we are."

The biker guy told her not to move. She moved. She crossed her arms and huffed.

She was a bit irritated. This guy was throwing his weight around because he was older or because his hair was having a hissy fit or something. Rika certainly had not listened and she was older if perhaps not wiser. Mitsuki certainly had no reason to listen.

Not as if she was going to touch anything. At least the artist girl had asked politely.

"Look. It's just a gallery world-thing. We don't know how to seal these places off, so let's just find this girl," she said as she gestured over her shoulder at the stairs leading up, "and get her to help us. Besides, we could use an artist!"

"What's your plan, class rep?"

"Suzume-chan, it's okay! It's..." Haruka said, but she was drowned out by Suzume's screaming.

They wouldn't get very far like this. She looked back toward the... thing... on the platform. It had, sometime during the commotion, turned towards them, but it remained unmoving.

"Sho, Toby, it's... it's no good. We shouldn't keep going, otherwise... I don't know what's going to happen to Suzume. We should... we should get out of here and... and maybe... try another room."

God, that incessant screaming. Haruka couldn't stand to see Suzume like this.

"Suzume-chan, it's okay. We'll... we'll leave now. We don't have to stay..." she said, trying to snap her friend out of it.

She grabbed Suzume's arms and attempted to guide her back through the door.

---

Saturday, April 11th, 12:13AM - Gallery Lobby

Creeeeeeeeak...

Did you hear that? Something creaked. Something in the lobby. But... what could have done something like that? There was nothing in the room like that, right?

Surely... it couldn't have come from one of the paintings... right?

Shiori's eyes slowly flickered open as he lay groggily on the grass. What...? His head was still throbbing at an alarming rate, his head feeling like it was about to crack in two. How long at he been out for? After a few seconds later of catching his breath, he took a deep breath and managed to shakily propped himself up. He wasn't sure what happened, but all he knew was that he alone. A wave of curiosity washed over him. Where had they gone? Maybe the school got to them, he mused to himself, almost snickering at the idea. That was just silly, wasn't it? But then, of course, he would never know unless he checked it out for himself.

Clambering to his feet, the boy brushed himself off as he scanned his surroundings. Nothing seemed all that different... They're all gone now, he thought to himself, an idea forming in his mind, I could probably go and... go exploring alone. Without them. The idea appealed quite a lot to him, so Shiori approached the school, eyes darting back and forth as he took in his surroundings. Nothing too unusual - until he opened the front doors. The boy skeptically skimmed over the message on the wall. This's a joke, isn't it? he immediately thought to himself, That's the corniest thing I've seen all week. It did make sense to him that way. No one else was around, the message on the wall (written in what he assumed to be red paint).

He continued down the hallway, looking straight ahead. A few times, he thought he heard some commotion, but didn't stop to check it out. Even if it actually was something, it was most likely just the building settling, he reassured himself. (He knew it could've been one of the other students, but Shiori obviously didn't want anything to do with them.) As he continued making his way down the hallway, he realized he ought to explore more. After all, that was the reason why he came here in the first place, wasn't it? Eventually, the boy settled for 1-5, making his way inside.

Saturday, April 11th, 12:13AM - Classroom 1-5

There was a purpose, really, in how the desks and chairs were strewn about in this room. All of the dust seems to be collected on the walls, with a suspicious absence of dust on the floor. It all seems to lead away from the center, as if some explosion rocked everything to the walls of the classroom.

Indeed, in this room, the message is not painted on the walls like the other two rooms. Instead, it seems to be burned directly into the floor...

A city without its inhabitants is just a gigantic web of lies.

Masato rolled into the classroom. Despite the whole passing out thing, pink sky and messages there weren’t that many bad things actually happening. That was good he guessed. The weird announcement telling them not to touch anything was sorta creepy he had to admit. But as things currently were they could have been in a much much worse situation. So all in all one hundred percent successful trip.

He moved around the classroom before giving up and stopping his search. There was nothing different or interesting about the classroom. It was just a regular old classroom. He returned back to the others at the doorway and leaned on a desk. "So this is exciting isn't it? Cryptic messages, bubble gum skies, all the makings of one hell of a story." It was at that point that the desk skidded backwards with an ear-piercing screech and Masato fell backwards onto his ass, the desk also falling to the floor.

Before getting an answer from Tsuki Rika heard two audible creaks, one came from the class room, probably one of the guys messing with the chairs, the other coming from behind her? did someone closed a door?
She looked around a little intrigued by the noise, was the girl spying on them from behind a hidden door?... but trying to find one would imply touching stuff right?... surely it would be fine so long as they didn't harm any of the art pieces... those were the rules right?

"Aww... did you guys heard that?... I think it came from here...."

Rika mentioned wondering to the left, being careful not to step into any of the small smushes of paint that spotted the room as she didn't wanted to dirty her shoes.
There she was one of the two hallways in the lobby, looking back to the rest but didn't said anything, maybe the girl in the room would be more friendly than those people...
She just hoped she was normal and not some sort of crazy person, without saying much she walked into the Hallway, trying to find out the source of the creak.

Kozue took a deep breath. He didn't like this, didn't like it at all, but there was nowhere to go but forward. He took Yori's arm and stepped into the gallery, jumping slightly when Masato toppled over.

"Look... I say we just walk through and try to find a way out of here. I don't know who or what is talking to us, and I don't really want to, but there's nothing for us back the way we came."

He glanced back at the girl... boy? The girl who had apparently followed them in. "I don't know where we are. I don't think anybody does, but we're trying to find a way out."

Tsuki cocked her head, looking straight over Kozue's shoulder. She smirked at Rika, flashing a thumbs up. A bit... odd though. This girl seemed much younger that Tsuki yet she was technically her elder. Really odd. Well, whatever, not like she was going to greet her

"Heey!" Tsuki grinned. "Name's Tsuki. You - "

There was a loud noise. Tsuki nearly jumped back.

"....The hell was that?"

She turned to look at the boy whose shoulder she seemed oh-so intent on peeking over. Tsuki made a bit of a face.

"Well," Tsuki scratched at her head, trying her best to look calm. "We're doing a pretty bad job of it, sitting out here."

... Naw. Couldn't be from the paintings. No fucking way. Tsuki patted Kozue on the shoulder before quickly squeezing past him. Gotta save face. "Like, where the hell do we even start?" She looked around. "Split up?"

... Oh. The girl from before's already moving down the hallway.

Shit.

"Hey, hey, wait." Tsuki started walking after Rika. Jeez. She had a bad feeling about this.

When Suzume had her episode of mania, Sho knew they weren’t going to be able to go any further. He tried to keep hold of her hand when she pulled away again, but it slipped loose since he wasn’t expecting the sudden outburst. He cast a fleeting glance back at the unmoving figure to find –well, what do you know?– it had moved.

“Suzume,” Sho moved towards her, trying to ignore the shiver running down his spine as the soft floor gave way beneath his feet. “It’s okay. We’ll just try another room.” He reached to put an arm around Suzume’s shoulders, and helped Haruka guide her back to the doorway. When they reached the classroom, Sho let Haruka take over in attempting to calm Suzume down.

“You guys stay here,” Sho said, his protective nature coming through in his mannerism. “I’ll scout out the room next door and see if it’s any better.” Without waiting for a reply, he pivoted on his heel and headed out the door leading into the hallway. A little farther down on his left was the door to classroom 1-5, and at the end of the corridor on his right was classroom 1-7. Sho marched up to 1-7, not bothering sneak around anymore.

To be quite frank, Sho was getting tired of the spooky school building. He just wanted to come here with a couple friends to have some fun exploring the abandoned rooms and maybe get a laugh if someone freaked out when a rat scurried by. He didn’t want to spend the night trapped in some inter-dimensional bubblegum world where classes were apparently held in the belly of an oversized monster. He also didn’t want to see Suzume –or any of his friends, for that matter– have such a severe panic attack.

Another thought crossed his mind: where did the others go? There had been a good dozen students outside the old building, but he hadn’t seen any of them since then. Maybe they had the common sense to stay away. Somehow he doubted that.

Sho twisted the handle and it gave way with a soft click. He slid the door open and poked his head around the corner to see what was on the other side. At a glance, it looked normal enough. He took a tentative step inside.

Shiori glanced curiously at the words burnt into the floor of 1-5, half closing the door behind him as he made his way inside. 'A city without it's inhabitants is a web of lies'? It was rather vague, he admitted to himself, so he had no idea what it meant. Inspecting the classroom closer, he noticed the lack of dust on the floor. Why are all the dust on the walls? he thought, curious. He couldn't come up with any explanation for this, so he decided to ignore the thought for now.

The rest of the classroom looked mostly normal, he supposed, other than being rather run down. (Shiori wondered why someone would go out of their way to burn the words in the floor - what difference did that make, anyway?)

The sudden sound of Sho's footsteps in the hallway startled him, breaking his train of thought. Freezing for a split moment, Shiori wasn't sure what to do. Peering through the half open door, his eyes followed Sho's movements warily as the other boy marched down the hallway. He didn't bother to chase after him, however. Rather than be relieved by the fact there were others there, Shiori started to feel a tinge of discomfort. How many people from the group earlier were here, anyway? I should probably stay away from them, he advised himself, They'd probably just get in my way.

Shiori couldn't see any benefits to teaming up with the others. Hell, he barely even knew any of them, after all.

Saturday, April 11th, 12:13AM - Classroom 1-7

The handwriting is a bit messier than the ones in the other room, almost as if it were written by a child. A child that somehow managed to write from the very base of the wall to the top. The words sharply contrast the white...ish wall by being a stark black, with a chalky texture not unlike that of pencil. And that wall is covered in various instances of:

Where am I?
Where's Mommy?
I'm scared...
I don't like this place...

And most importantly, in the middle of the scrawl, written out in huge block letters:

You never think about what happens to those things you erase from the paper every day, do you?

I do.