Market Square - Diner

---

Pancake heaven. That was where he was, resting on a fluffy cloud of fried batter and being smothered with sweet, sticky syrup. Billy had must’ve eaten over a dozen pancakes at this point, and the only thing that would slow him down was the increasingly irritated state the waitress appeared to be in when he demanded another round. Between inhalations, the boy scrolled through his phone, skimming over various local new stories that were interlaced with overused memes. Earlier that morning he had gotten a text from his buddy Chris, who worked security at Grand Ridge and had turned a blind eye to Billy’s dealings in favor of a hefty discount, about how his sister had been a mighty bitch. Billy had ultimately ignored the text. He had known that about Penny since she was a toddler; it wasn’t his fault that it took Chris that long to realize the simple truth.

The follow-up text was hard to ignore. The rent-a-cop wanted something to take off the edge of dealing with his kid sister, which added yet another person that he was going to have to kindly pretend to forget about. See, Billy’s supply had run a bit dry, and he wasn’t about to give up his own personal cache. His prescription only allowed him to get so much a month, but there were other means of obtaining more. They just were, well, a bit of a hassle, and pretty much a headache that Billy didn’t want to put up with. Alternatively, he could just ghost everyone, which ultimately seemed like the best plan because it was the simplest one. It wouldn’t be the first time he had let them all down, anyway.

So, he pretty much had an entire day free to do nothing which...was pretty much all of his days, really, excluding the ones where he had to go into his dad’s shop. He figured he would hit up the arcade, maybe work on the car a bit, go catch a flick, and then spend the rest of the day playing video games at home. All in all, a pretty good day. After killing another stack of flapjacks Billy bopped out of the diner, deciding to stretch his legs and walk the two blocks to the arcade instead of jumping in his car. Plus, he knew a shortcut. Billy turned a corner and cut through an alleyway.

Generally, Billy was pretty stoked when he saw a topless chick, especially one that he wasn’t viewing through the screen of his computer. Yet when he stumbled upon the burnt, battered, and slashed corpse of Karma Song, the only thing he felt were the pancakes in his stomach fighting to get out. Emptying the contents of his stomach, Billy managed to stumble out of the alley and grab his phone. The call was a blur, and the next thing he knew he was riding in a police cruiser on his way to the station to be questioned.

So much for having a free day.

---

Grand Ridge Academy

---

Five-thirty in the morning, and Paige was up. Self-discipline was one thing she'd always been able to manage. Swinging herself round, she stood up, leaning on the bed as she walked to the end of it, and picked up the crutch leaning there. She got dressed in the clothes she wore specifically for what she was about to do, what she did every morning, some of the only ones she owned that weren't white. There was a reason for that.

Paige walked down the hallway, her leg, prosthetic, and crutch making a regular clack-thump, thump beat on the floor. She got to the stairs, and took a long a look at them.

"Some day," she whispered, then pressed the button for the elevator.

Ten minutes later, she had finished her walk and arrived at her destination. It was one of the few green spaces in the area that hadn't been used for farmland; it was too weed-ridden and too small to be worth the effort. Best of all, not many people knew about it, and less visited it in the first hours of daylight. In other words, it was perfect for Paige's intentions.

Paige stumbled slightly on the tall grass, the uneven ground making her walking even more awkward than usual. Then, standing in place, she lifted her crutch and threw it on the grass, about ten meters away. She unsteadily started walking towards it. She fell after three steps. This was why she wasn't wearing white.

Paige spent nearly fourty-five minutes on this, walking back and forth as well as she could on the grass. She didn't get any better, but neither did she give up. After this time, she returned to her dorm, showered, and changed into an outfit more typical for her. She passed some time with the first half of an Evanescence album, then had her breakfast. She had almost finished eating when the alarm went off, so she stuffed the last piece of toast into her mouth as she got up to leave.

Once again, she walked down the hallway, this time with significantly more company. It was when she got to the end that she realised she had a problem. They weren't supposed to take the elevator when there was a fire, even if in most cases there was no danger, but even with her crutch, Paige wouldn't be able to descend those stairs alone without breaking her neck. She turned to the girl behind her, no one she knew. Apparently that 'some day' would be sooner than she had previously realised.

"I'm so, so sorry," she said, "but please can you help me? I can't get down here on my own."

A few unpleasant minutes later, she was out, thanking the girl for her help and joining the rest outside. Despite leaving almost immediately, Paige was one of the last out - yet another reason for her to learn to walk properly. Regardless, Paige entered the group of people, stopping next to a tall, blonde girl with a European accent, who soon followed after her friend. She had heard part of their conversation, entirely unintentionally, but that had interested her enough for her to listen to the remainder of it. Certainly, recent events had been stranger than usual in this town, but she'd only heard stories. Perhaps she was lucky not to experience any of that firsthand, but she couldn't help wishing that she'd seen it, if only to make better sense of it all.

---

Grand Ridge - Outside.

^{@Prosaic@Atrophy@Surtr Inc@Zombiedude101}

---

Lynette dropped the marker out of sheer shock.

Aliana had started to become a bit overwhelmed, the amount of things that were happening were pressing down on her a bit. Of course, she had completely understood why Penny would be a bit wary of this, she'd been wary of it from the start. It was just odd, a bunch of college students suddenly developing super powers was something out of a bad movie. It didn't happen in real life. 

She was about to respond when a bit of a commotion shook her into turning around. She recognized the boy immediately, it was the very same boy who had greeted her and Lynette at the docks. The only issue was that his arm had been completely swallowed in the earth. This was irrational, it was crazy, it was weird.

She couldn't help it though, his comment was funny. "At least take it out to dinner first."

"Do you think the kind of ground that wants to be wined and dined would take a fisting?" Nate retorted, slowly tugging at his arm. It still had him halfway past the wrist but he at least had elbow room for now. Somehow, part of him felt a certain disdain for the near-death experience that Lynn's graffiti had caused him, "Just let me pull this out before you take another shot at me again."

Penny was still too riled up to find the boy amusing, but his appearance did save Lynette from a verbal onslaught. With a huff she lit another cigarette and glared at the boy, recognizing him as none other than ol' bumblebutt. Maybe Aliana and Lynette were happy to see him, but Penny was more suspicious than anything. "While you're down there, why don't you tell us why you're creeping on a buncha girls? Then maybe we can decide when we take another shot at you."

There was so much guilt coursing through her body as she stood there, and realized what she done. "I'm-I'm sorry!" She stammered out with both hands on the side of her head. She recognized him as Nathan, the guy she met at the docks the night of the... incident. Though, like Penny, she found it weird that he was creeping up on them like that - but that was sematics for a later date - his arm was stuck in the ground and Lynnettecould see his... aura. "Let me help you!" She said as she ran over to Nathan and grabbed him by his other arm. ."Okay, one, two..." Lynette counted down mostly to pump herself up, "... three!" She said as she triumphantly yanked Nathan as hard as she could.

To the surprise of perhaps no-one, it didn't work, outside of pulling his jacket upwards. "Yeah, that's not working."

Aliana was more than a little confused on how a guy could end up arm-deep in the earth, but then again, nothing was making perfect sense anymore. "I can't help but agree with Penny, that's pretty damn weird but it's no reason to let you keep getting fresh with the ground."

She sighed, heading over to Lynette and Nathan to observe the scene from up close. "We might have to be careful about trying to yank him up like a weed, you could accidentally break his wrist if it's buried well enough. How well do you think you're in there, kid?"

"So much for letting any conflict play its course," said Penny under her breath. As much as she was put off by Nathan spying on them, she didn't feel right about leaving him stuck in the ground. However, she didn't rush over to his side either, feeling as if crowding the boy would only make things more difficult. She racked her brain. He had only ended up in the ground in the first place because he was avoiding Lynette's accidental catapult; maybe they could get him out if they tried something along the same vein. 

"I gotta idea. Y'all might wanna move unless you wanna end up like that wall over there," she said, and then reached into her pocket and pretended to grab something. Pulling the imaginary item out, she reeled back and then motioned to pitch the nothingness at Nate, hoping he'd think she was actually blasting something at him, as she shouted, "Think fast!" Lynette immediately took a step back, as she even had anticipated her launching something.

"What-" Nate recoiled instinctively, assuming she was about to toss another chunk of brickwork at him - but the hand he pulled out ultimately found nothing. Once he realised it was just a ploy, he flexed his released fingers, then gave her a bird of his own, "Eat a dick." It was meant in good humour, though - anamused snort from himgave that way - then he stood up and gestured at Penny, "And you can eat a bag of dicks too, for trying to pin the blame on me." That line was still good humoured, but not entiely without malice - if only just a little. "I followed you because I figured it was worth finding out what you blamed 'bumblebutt' for."

Penny had been shocked that her little trick worked—it hardly worked on her family's dog anymore, and here it was working on a grown-ass human. She had spat out her cigarette with a bark of laughter, and was still doubled over as Nate gave the girls a one-finger salute. She felt her anger subside, if only for a moment. She straightened herself up and gave an exaggerated shrug, as if to feign ignorance and brush off the accusation.

Lynette had raised a finger as she sighed.

"... It was my fault to begin with," Lynette said. "For all of this." She put a hand on her chest as she said, "I was the one who caused the big stir in the first place... all because I wanted to get to the bottom of these damn symbols...."

"Well, we certainly figured them out." Aliana responded, "I think it's good that you wanted to look into it because I was trying to ignore it, and it seems that Penny has been practicing it. Nathan was bound to accidentally experience it and maybe it's best that we were there for that because Penny kind of did him a solid by scaring him out of the ground."

Lynette's intrigue in the markings was understandable, it was some kind of phenomenon that had occurred. A weird blip in the universe that had left them with powers. Lynette had some kind of elemental control, Penny had some kind of telekinesis, Nathan was phasing through things like a ghost and she was going invisible. It was weird but it did have its interesting factor. "I mean, I'm gonna be honest here, this shit kind of scares me but I think it's good that you blew up the mirror, in a way."

"Oh yeah, that's, like, totally awesome," said Penny, flipping her hair.  Already the smile on her face was slipping once again. "I'm definitely not going to get hunted down by Norris and nailed to a fucking cross for it or anything, so, yay, way to go, Lynette."

"At least you can uh, y'know - shoot your pens and used tampons at him if he chases you." Nate offered, with a shrug.

"Reassuring as always, Penny," Lynette said sarcastically, finding it hard to fight back that smile of hers. "... I think we're more than capable of handling him."

Though, that was when she got a text message on her phone (from the ). Lynette reached into her purse and looked inside at her phone.

From: Britney

Hey... I've just got the go-ahead from the school counsellors and we're going to form a support group for the survivors of that massacre. We're meeting tomorrow at four. Spread the word.

Lynette looked up from her phone at her group - she wondered if it was more than just a concidence that this happened to them... the survivors of the massacare. Maybe she was being a bit overimaginative, but she knew it had to be more than just a concidence. She needed to find more people that were like them - just out of curiousity. Her grandmother's notes mentioned something about this town, and, well, this seemed to be it. She ought to keep this group close, though. Penny had a point - there were a lot of people out there that would kill to have this kind of power, and would gleefully abuse it. If they stick together, maybe they can weather it.

"... Hey, guys," Lynette said, "One of the counsellors, Ms. Faust-" Lynette knew that Penny had a bad opinion of Ms. Williams. While she was fine with her, she had enough tact to know that now would be a great time not to mention her, "-just sent me a text saying that there's going to be a meeting for survivors of the incident... a support group. I'm not sure, but something feels a bit concidental about what happened that night?"

"I can't help but agree," Aliana responded grimly, "We were all there, and some of the craziness of that night was just. . . too odd. I don't like to believe in paranormal stuff too readily but it was kind of too abstract to be simplified into something normal."

She almost wished that she could simplify it somehow, that she could take it and crush it down into scientific terms or maybe psychological terms. It wasn't that easy.

"I'll go if you and Penny go. Maybe we can keep an eye out for markings or try to talk to some of the other survivors."

"Riiight. Or, maybe, this is just a convenient way to round up the Farmer Hill freaks, stamp a bar code on them, and ship them off to an internment camp for their own safety," said Penny with a grumble, pinching the bridge of her nose. Perhaps she was in need of a support group. "But, if it helps us figure out what the hell is going on here, I guess I'm in. I'll just make sure I bring plenty of used tampons as ammo because us women totally just carry those around, like, are you serious man?" She snapped at Nate. "Do you really want to bring up the subject of periods, because I will tell you shit that you will never be able to forget. I swear, you will fucking lose sleep."

"... Let's not go into that," Lynette shrugged her shoulders as she awkwardly looked off to the side. Even though Penny was skeptical (Lynette knew that well, it was just in Penny's nature), she knew that they wouldn't get anywhere by being paranoid. There was something off about all of this, but Lynette knew she could trust Britney... even if Penny didn't. 

"I'll let them know we're coming."

---

---

---

Grand Ridge Academy - Smoker's Corner.

---

It was practically apart of Justin's daily ritual to take some time to smoke a good old newport behind the building of the academy. He was a bit better dressed, wearing camo jeans, a white t-shirt, and a jean jacket and with a stick in between his fingers as he spit out a long drag. Now... where was he? Well, for starters, he was still trying to figure out what the fuck was even going on. He has magic fire, and apparently Tuyen has an evil shadow? Those last words stuck with Justin...

"My shadow is moving again so it might be best if I go..."

Even if it was short... Justin paid it a bit more thought. Perhaps too much thought. Was it just an excuse? Or was Tuyen being tormented by something? Justin didn't disregard the thought because he summoned a fucking flaming tiger. That'd be pretty badass in any other situation. There's definitely a bit more to it that Tuyen's not telling him. That was something that Justin needed to get out of her... but he knew to give a woman space.

"Hey Jus," Justin's deep thought was interrupted by the arrival of Claire. She was wearing a similar outfit to him except... jean shorts cut really short. Like almost too short. Though, she was wearing an oversized leather jacket that gave him the idea that she got it from somebody much bigger than her . "Funny seein' you here."

"C'mon, Claire," Justin teased as he playfully punched her. "We practically see each other here every day!"

"Yeah, what was your little name for this hole in the wall?" Claire reached into her pocket for a pack of Marlboros, and slid one in between her lips.

"The complaint department!" Justin said with a laugh. "Though, I think it has been closed down as of late."

"Yeah, about that..." Claire said as she pulled out her lighter and quickly pulled it up to her cigarette to quickly light it...

"Wait, Claire!' Justin lunged in trying to stop her, but the second that she lit her lighter, a massive flame appeared and sparked up. It damn near burned her eyebrows off. She was slightly burned by the flame, it was almost like a little sunkiss. Her cigarette was lit alright... the tip was on fire like it was a match. It burned away too quickly for her to smoke.

"...Fuck." Claire said, annoyed as she flicked it away.

"Yeah, I should have warned you from the start..." Justin scratched the back of his neck, and realized that he could have prevented this if he had told her about it.

"About what?"

"About..." Justin looked to the side as he wondered if this was one thing he should keep to himself.

"Would it be by chance your newfound pyromancery?" Claire incredulously asked with a cocky smirk. "I wanted to ask ya' about that little tiger that saved me."

"Oh, that...?" Justin trailed off as he crossed his arms. "I still don't have a clue what that was."

He took a really long puff of his newport... and damn near burned it to it's end in an instant. He blew out the smoke as he tossed the cigarette aside. With a snap of his fingers, he created a flame. His thumb was burning like a match.

"... But, I definitely know what this is?" He raised his burning finger up to eye-level. He grinned as he said. "Let's just say I don't need a lighter anymore."

Claire grinned a little bit. "Might as well show ya' what I'm packin' too." She manifested her aura which glowed blue for a few moments before it faded away. "Dunno what it does - it makes me stronger, and can stop shit."

"Doesn't get any better than that, I guess." Justin shrugged as he snapped his fingers again and the fire had disappeared. "So..."

"Sooooooooooooo, I'm trying to get to the bottom of this bullshit," Claire said as she crossed her arms. "You know that stupid girl who almost got herself killed back at the camp?"

"Yeah."

"She can heal... that's why the little ghost is still walking among us," Claire couldn't help but roll her eyes at the ghost nickname Maddie has given herself. "You know what this means?"

"... I need to take my ass back to Los Angeles." Justin sighed.

"That too. But you know what it also means?" Claire said.

"There's more people like us?" Justin said.

"It also means that this shit's far from over," Claire near-snarled, "'Specially with Scott still waving his pecker 'round these parts and killing people with the same powers we got."

"We have to stop him." Justin said.

"Well said," Claire answered, "... but, has Brit told you about her support group thing?"

"Where we'll sing Kumbaya and try to talk our little problems away?" Justin smirked and Claire rolled her eyes up into her head.

"This is one problem we can't talk away."

"I wish it was."

"... Just come to the damn meeting with me," Claire facepalmed. "If it isn't what I'm hoping it is, we'll bounce, okay?"

"Sounds good to me!"

---

Grand Ridge Academy - Conference Room.

---

Four o'clock hit awfully fast for Britney.

Due to pulling a lot of strings, she not only was able to get a conference room - but she was also able to gather everyone together. On such short notice. It was almost like something else was pulling them together, but she didn't give it too much thought. She was sitting on one end of the massive table with a clipboard with everyone's names in one hand, and a pen with the other. There were two problems with the meeting that she could think of; the main one being the fact that gathering a bunch of people who hate each other in one room could get ugly. The other one was that they wouldn't accomplish much.

As the people gathered together, Britney merely made an announcement,

"Let's give everyone a bit of time to get here," Britney said, "Then... I guess we'll start?"

---

Grand Ridge Academy - Conference Room.

---

The questioning had been long but relatively painless. Between his parents and the waitress at the diner, Billy’s time frame did not match up with the estimated time of death, no DNA evidence pointed his way, and it really seemed like the detective questioning him did not want to be there super long. He was commended for calling the cops, given a firm handshake, told not to mention anything about this as it might hinder the investigation, given a small snack and a cup of joe, and then sent merrily on his way. Overall, not a bad experience outside of the mental image of Karma’s twisted body burned on to the inside of his eyelids. Still, he had managed to keep the details under wraps for an entire twenty four hours before he had ran into Penny outside of Grand Ridge Academy.

Penny had taken to staying in the dorms, even though they only lived a few minutes away. Physically, she looked healthier than yesterday, but the scowl on her face offset the warmness of her orange dress and Billy knew that she was glaring at him from beneath her sunglasses. Possibly she was judging him for still wearing cargo shorts—not just because it was fall, but because he even owned them at all—or, also very likely, she was just upset that he was approaching her in public. Although, she would’ve been just as upset if he had approached her in private.

“Penny, am I glad to see you,” said Billy.

“Really?” she said, the word dragging its way out of her mouth as if even acknowledging him was a great struggle.

“Well, maybe not glad. You’re going to the meeting right?”

Penny sighed. She was, thanks to Lynette and Aliana, although she had been mulling over the idea of ditching the thing entirely. Yes, she needed to know more about these bizarre, terrifying abilities, but the idea that they would all be gathered together in one place filled her with trepidation. She just knew things would turn rotten. Or, even worse, maybe it would turn into an actual support group, and they would sit around and talk about their feelings for an hour and cry together and then go get ice cream afterwards and—Penny shook her head. No way was she going to have a bonding session with a bunch of assholes.

“I think I’m gonna…” She didn’t get a chance to finish before Billy cut her off.

“That one chick, Carmen? Camilla? Karma? Karma. She was at the camp, right? Somebody totally Jack the Rippered her yesterday. It was nuts, dude. Maybe it’s just coincidence, but—”

It was Penny’s turn to interrupt. “It’s not.” She bit her lip. As far as she knew, there had been no reports or even rumors about Karma’s death at all. Looks like she was going to the meeting after all. “Do you know who did it?”

“My first guess would be Scott Reese.”

“Yeah.” Penny’s eyes narrowed. Maybe. Maybe not. “Don’t say anything about this, okay? At least not right away. We don’t want to...start a panic,” she said, changing what she was going to say halfway through the sentence.

“Sure, I get that, man, but maybe we should warn people that that asshole is out picking off survivors.”

“We will, we will,” said Penny, frowning. “Just let’s be thoughtful about it, okay? I know it’s tough for you to use your brain, but trust me, this is the best way to go about it.”

They continued to bicker back and forth as they walked together to the meeting room, their voices hushed and hurried. Their conversation faded away when they made it to the door, Penny feeling as if she had won the argument, and the siblings split apart. Billy seized the moment to take the chair at the end opposite of the table from Britney, giving her a wink before he kicked up his feet and leaned back, balancing the chair on two legs. There was something powerful about sitting at the head of a big table. Maybe he should grab a clipboard, make himself look official as well.

Penny had planned to grab three seats for Lynette, Aliana, and herself, but the sight of Britney boiled her blood so much that she refused to even sit at the same table as that woman. She stood away from the table, her arms folded across her chest as she leaned on the ledge of a window sill. Her sunglasses were pushed up, and anyone who looked her way would see the daggers she was shooting at Britney.

Seated near the middle of the table was Rita, her head hung and her phone out as she pretended to text someone that wasn’t there. She wore a crisp, collared shirt with the sleeves completely buttoned down, and her left hand was sandwiched between her overlapped knees. It was clear that she was uncomfortable being in that room, and she sunk even further into her chair as their host began to speak. She didn’t even notice that the girl who had rescued her from Scott Reese or the guy she had stolen skunk weed from had entered the room. Billy, however, had noticed her; an amused smirk appeared on his face.

"Let's give everyone a bit of time to get here," Britney said, "Then... I guess we'll start?"

“Oh, really?” said Penny with a snip. “Shit! That’s a brilliant plan. I’m really glad you’re running this. Seriously, like, I thought for sure we were all just gonna hang around looking at each other like a bunch of assholes for an hour and then go home. Gosh, clearly you put a lot of thought into this. I cannot wait to see how it goes.”

---

Grand Ridge Academy – Tuyen’s Dorm

---

Tuyen had spent most of the day in her room getting ready for the fact she was going to have to actually talk to people later.

Technically she had classes but she’d skipped them that morning. At the moment she had to keep her interaction to a minimum and it was either go to this strange gathering she’d been invited to, or classes. She’d chose the later. Maybe, just maybe, it would help a little bit.

She’d actually taken the effort to shower and clean herself up after being caught unaware the day before. She put on makeup to cover the dark bags under her eyes and make her look just a little less exhausted. She even put some effort and thought into what she was wearing. The t-shirt was a plain white, but it went well with the purple and blue patterned skirt. A denim jacket over the top in case it was cold and she was sorted. With the top covered the strange mark on her chest she basically looked like she was dealing with things fine! Some people wouldn’t be fooled (Justin and Min) but it would work on most people.

Really the last thing she wanted was concerned questions from people she didn’t know. Then again, she was sure there’d be a fair amount of people there also in worse states.

Finally having got herself ready, mentally prepared to ignore her shadow with all her will (and equipped with headphones to ignore everyone if that didn’t work), Tuyen headed out.

---

Grand Ridge Academy – Conference Room

Thankfully Tuyen wasn’t the first to arrive, though she wasn’t late by any means. There were already a few people there forming groups and all. It just made her stomach fill with dread. She could already tell how shit this was going to go and how much she was going to have to deal with seeing things. She was so not prepared for this.

Still, she took a deep breath and stepped into the room. Gave a slight smile towards Martin (the only person she knew so far) and looked around to try decided where to sit. One part of her wanted to just sit alone, another knew it would be more normal for her to sit with people she was somewhat friendly with.

In the end she decided on a seat close enough to people, such as Martin, but far enough away that she didn’t need to start a conversation upon sitting down.

---

_{@Prosaic@Atrophy}
Sucre Café --> Grand Ridge Academy – Conference Room

---

With a takeaway cup off coffee in their hand, Rien walked out of Sucre Café with a larger smile than they’d had going in. An afternoon coffee was a necessity when they had early morning classes. Thankfully they didn’t have a hangover today – as much as they’d been tempted to drink after discovering they had some kind of super power.

Since pulling an actual, living butterfly out of paper Rien hadn’t tried doing it again. There was a reason they didn’t like traditional drawing. It brought back bad memories even if they could pull something cool out of it. Not that they’d ever let anyone know that they cared. If anyone asked they draw something quite happily.

It was a bit of a conflict for them, honestly. They wanted to try using this cool new power and make all sorts of things. But why did it have to be drawing?

They pushed away their thoughts as they approached the conference room that some kind of gathering was happening in. Honestly they didn’t really know much about it apart from that Kimberley had told them that they should be there. Something about some kind of support group. Well, whatever. It wasn’t like they had anything else to do.

It took them a little while to reach their destination, but they’d left plenty of time to get there. They ended up fashionably late as was their style. A quick scan around the room they found the one person they had actually talked to before.

“Heya, Martin!” They cheerfully took a seat beside him and the girl he was with, taking a long drink of your coffee. “It’s been a while. How you doing?”

Then they leaned around to give Rita a wave. “Hi, I’m Rien, don’t think we’ve met before.”

---

Grand Ridge Academy

---

To: Tuyen
You going to the support group meeting today?

Min sent the text to his cousin as he left his class, its ending time at four meaning he was running late. It didn’t help that the lecture was at the other side of the building and that he’d stayed behind to talk to the lecturer. Though he wasn’t too bothered about running late to something he didn’t have much interest in. The camp incident had affected him, sure, but not enough that he needed a support group/

From: Tuyen
Yeah, I am

The response was quick and short. Most of her texts recently had been short and infrequent, which was why he’d tried to check up on her the day for before. The fact that Justin had been there too still irritated him. Even more so that Tuyen had chosen to speak to him instead.

He planned to speak to her after this support group, however, since he knew she was there. Not only were his parents questioning him on how she was doing academically he wanted to know for himself if she was fine. She certainly hadn’t seemed to be the day before.

Hopefully he got to the conference room before a certain other person did.

---

Grand Ridge Academy – Conference Room

---

Caelea couldn’t say that this was how she wanted to be spending her evening. She’d much rather be out for a jog or just at home doing nothing. Yet she’d turned up to a meeting organised by one of the people she disliked the most.

Maybe if she knew what the hell was going on she wouldn’t have. But she still didn’t know why there was a bird marking on her back. It was just kind of there. And from seeing some others in the room, and around campus the past month, it seemed she wasn’t the only one.

Really she just wanted answer. And if she had to put up with Britney talking for an hour or so she’d deal with it. Though sitting right near the back, with one headphone in, she made sure to make herself as unfriendly as possible. She wasn’t exactly here to socialise.

Though she did have to applaud the girl giving Britney shit, cause she could really get behind that. 

---

@Surtr Inc
Grand Ridge Academy

---

"I wonder if they ever caught the guy who pulled the fire alarm yesterday..."

The day seemed normal enough, more than yesterday had been at least. Jasmine and Grant were walking through the courtyard, having met up due to their classes having just ended, when the older of the duo was reminded of the event that had gone down not even twenty-four hours ago. Perhaps it was because they were walking through the area they'd been told to evacuate to during the alarm, but all the same it was still fresh in her mind. Several people had been missing during it: her friend Aliana didn't show up, and neither had her brother Grant. However, she assumed Aliana had simply just left the campus grounds, seeing as it wasn't really that big of a deal anyway, and texting her later that day proved that she was fine. She'd worriedly texted Grant during it however, wanting to be sure that he was safe, but he'd assured her that he was fine as well, though he wouldn't be showing up outside since he'd apparently already left before the alarm had gone off yesterday. Jasmine hadn't pushed it, but now she was thinking about it once again.

Grant on the other hand gave her a side look when she began to talk about it. He thought for a moment before making motions with his hands.

"Was it a prank?"

"I thought it was, maybe...I'm not sure, actually," Jasmine admitted. The moment she'd seen him begin to move his hands, she paid attention so she could understand what he was saying. She was understanding ASL more and more with each passing day, yet she still felt the need to pay close attention to what he would sign as she didn't want to accidentally miss anything.

"Well, there wasn't a fire, right?"

"Nope, not as far as I know. Literally why I assumed somebody just pulled the alarm in the first place. But we didn't get any lectures about it, so I don't know."

A questioning expression came over Grant's face.

"You think something happened?"

"A lot of stuff's been happening, Grant," Jasmine answered as she folded her arms, "Bad stuff. What happened at that camp a month ago sounded like it came straight out of a horror movie, and they're still finding bodies around town. And if it really was that Scott kid that killed everyone, he still hasn't been caught." She sighed as she shook her head. "Damn it, we never should've come here. I know the town's weird, but I don't remember it being this bad last time I was here."

Grant shook his head as well.

"So that's what you're worried about. Not the fire alarm."

"Well, yeah. This is exactly what I was trying to avoid with you but now you're living in a town with a serial killer in it." She paused before looking at him, continuing, "I know you don't want to leave-"

"If I left I know you'd leave with me. You can't drop college for me again, it isn't fair and you might not get another chance at another school."

"I know," Jasmine sighed once more. They'd already had this conversation before, and it had gone about the same as this one. She knew she wasn't going to be changing his mind anytime soon, and she didn't want him to feel like it was his fault if she dropped out again anyway. She'd even offered to stay and keep working her way through school if he left, so that she wouldn't sacrifice her education again, but he'd countered that idea with the fact that he wasn't going to let her stay behind in a town with a serial killer either. So for now, it seemed they were both stuck there.

Though of course, Grant had multiple reasons for wanting to stay in Farmer Hill.

"Anyway..." Jasmine decided to change the subject, "That was my last class. Are we still up to go to the cafe downtown? You told me a friend recommended it the other day."

Grant paused for a moment, wracking his brain as he tried to remember what she was talking about. Jasmine stopped walking as well to give him time to think and respond, though she didn't think what she was asking was all that complex.

"Oh, right," Grant signed once realization struck him, "Yeah, sounds good. I just have a couple things I need to do first. School stuff. I'll meet you there in maybe an hour."

"Works for me," Jasmine shrugged, "Guess I'll see you then." She waved goodbye to her brother before then splitting away from him, deciding to head to her dorm for now to relax for a minute. Grant waved back, then looked around the courtyard. His gaze settled on a nearby bench, so he made his way over and sat down as he pulled out his phone.

Right, school stuff...

---

Grant's breathing was shallow, but he couldn't hear it, and the only reason he could tell was because he could feel it. The world around him looked darker, almost tinted, but only within a short range of where he stood. Where he stood exactly was in front of a sink and mirror in one of the public bathrooms, the men's one on the first floor to be precise. He was splashing water on his face in some sort of blind hope that it could stop whatever was happening to him, but of course it did nothing.

Ever since the fire alarm had gone off, this had begun to happen to him. He had heard it only for a few seconds, the abrupt shrill noise scaring him as it caught him off guard. But then, there was silence. Complete and total silence. Not only could he not hear the alarm anymore, he couldn't hear anything anymore. And for whatever reason, everything near him looked...weird, for lack of a better term. He didn't understand it and he had no idea what to do. So, he panicked and threw himself into the bathrooms while everyone else made their way out of the building. People he passed by looked confused, and some would flinch once there a bit of distance between him and them, as if they were suddenly caught off guard by something.

Nearly half an hour had passed now, and this situation he found himself in didn't seem to be ending. If anything, he was beginning to actually feel fatigued. Was this..."affliction" making him feel this way? Or was it perhaps the stress of it, something more natural? He didn't know which train of thought was true, and it only made him panic further. What if he was stuck like this? But why was it even happening? Was it connected to his muteness? He just wanted this to stop!

But as his thoughts began to spiral further, it suddenly ended. His vision returned to normal, and he could hear everything clearly once again. He stood there for a minute or so, unsure of what the hell just happened, but eventually realized he needed to get out of there and recollect himself.

---

What he'd gone through yesterday baffled him. Strangely enough, he remembered having a rather vivid dream the night before as well, or maybe it had been a nightmare. All he knew was that it was like the other dreams he had, the ones of Farmer Hill, though again, this one had been extremely vivid and felt important.

Either way, something was happening to him and he had no idea on how to deal with it. But, he knew someone who possibly could help. And if not, she'd likely be interested in his situation regardless. So, he began to text his contact.

To: Lynette
Hey, something's come up. I went deaf yesterday for maybe half an hour, but my hearing came back perfectly fine afterward. And this might sound crazy, but I think it happened to a few other students too. My vision went weird too, but it went back to normal at the exact same time my hearing came back.

He hit send, and after thinking it over for a few moments he decided to add to it.

To: Lynette
I realize that I could just be going crazy, or that my health could be deteriating. But I get the feeling that this is Farmer Hill related, in the freaky kind of way. A lot of weird things like this have been happening more often recently, I've noticed.

---

Grand Ridge Academy - Conference Room.

---

It has been barely two seconds, and already Claire was getting annoyed. And the reason was a certain blonde haired idiot that always had to run her mouth. Once Penny had finished talking, Claire had loudly groaned as she leaned back in her chair, and looked at Penny with a bored look on her face. The first words out of her mouth were as hostile as Penny was being.

"Y'know, Penny," Claire started off, as she rolled her eyes, "Can you halt this 'Look at me, I'm cool' act for about ten seconds? Or at least do it quietly? You're going to make something bad unbearable."

While Claire wasn't super close to Britney anymore... she hated Penny more than anything, and wasn't going to just sit here while the bitch continued to think that she could shit-talk anyone. She still remembered what Lawson said about them during the camp night. And Claire remembered that she was going to make Penny eat those words.

Justin, who was sitting next to Claire (but kept his eyes on Min the whole time) merely silently agreed with the others when he just shrugged. If she had such a problem with Britney, then why is she even here? Makes no sense. Though, Justin wasn't as vocal. He choose, for once, to stay out of it and let this play it's course. For now. He felt a bit more inclined to side with his friend, Britney, than whoever the fuck this Penny was.

"Settle down everyone," Britney said, merely choosing to ignore the comment by Penny. The grudge that Penny held onto was certainly irrational, but that was a discussion for another time. "This room is... "neutral territory," which means any grudges and feuds are to be left at the door. Because we're not here to talk about that. Got it?"

"Hmph." Claire made the noise as she crossed her arms. "Got it."

"Good, because let's begin since we got mostly everyone here," Britney said with a sigh, "Now, I've gathered everyone here for one reason - to give the survivors of that... incident, help and support amongst each other." She started off her speech.

"Because we probably really need it. No counsellor can help us, I noticed that some of my closet friends have disappeared from their classes," Britney started off, before she turned her attention to Andrea, "This right here is Andrea Pasternack - the woman who gave me the idea to form this group, and our facilitator."

She nodded her head at Andrea, before she said,

"That said, I'd like everyone to introduce themselves," Britney started off, "Then I want people to speak up about their experiences in camp - if they choose to, of course, I'm not forcing anyone to talk - and everyone else to share advice, and other comments."

Britney smiled - this is going to go horribly - but gave it her best.

"Who'd like to go first?"

---

Grand Ridge Academy - Conference Room.

---

Lynnette, like Justin, choose to stay quiet. She knew that this was something that had nothing to do with her - even if she liked both Penny and Britney. All that she'd be doing by speaking up would be driving an unnecessary wedge between her two friends. One that she didn't want to deal with. Not now, not ever. So she went with the easy route and stayed silent. She just listened to Britney's speech, and introduction, before her phone buzzed with two text messages from Grant. She wondered what he wanted that he'd blow up her phone - and write up giant paragraphs - over, but her curiosity was sparked up.

From: Grant
Hey, something's come up. I went deaf yesterday for maybe half an hour, but my hearing came back perfectly fine afterward. And this might sound crazy, but I think it happened to a few other students too. My vision went weird too, but it went back to normal at the exact same time my hearing came back.

From: Grant
I realize that I could just be going crazy, or that my health could be deteriating. But I get the feeling that this is Farmer Hill related, in the freaky kind of way. A lot of weird things like this have been happening more often recently, I've noticed.

He went deaf, and then it came back... could Grant be another person like Lynette and the others? One thing that Lynette was figuring out (thanks to Aliana) was that she could see the auras of people with magical abilities - long as they were using them. Which means that Lynette could figure out anybody that was one of them, more or less. Still, she formed a response that said.

To: Grant
I've noticed that too... but, where are you right now? I have something to show you.

---

Grand Ridge Academy - Courtyard

---

Grant was pleasantly surprised to see Lynette text him back so quickly. There was no doubt he'd piqued her interest then; once he read her reply it only confirmed that line of thought. He was glad he'd managed to partner up with her, so to speak, as she was turning out to be rather reliable. Finding out that there was someone with the same goals as him in this town was exciting in a way, as it helped to reaffirm that no, he wasn't crazy, this town really was strange. He hadn't been sure what to expect though when they agreed to pool their knowledge together a few weeks back. Things were slow for awhile, and despite all the weird happenings that had been going on neither of them had seemed to find much of anything that was concrete or important. But now something was happening to him, and apparently Lynette had something to show him that couldn't be said over text. This was something big, he could feel it, so he wasted no time in texting back.

To: Lynette
Still at school, but classes are done today. I've got time so I can come around now.

He hit send...but he knew that wasn't entirely true. He did have plans with Jasmine, but he could get out of it if he needed to, or at least postpone it. Coffee could wait, this was important and he couldn't miss out on the opportunity being given to him. She wouldn't make a big deal out of it anyway, or that's what he would figure.

---

Grand Ridge Academy - Female Dorms

---

Jasmine stood in front of the closet in her room, her eyes scanning the contents within. She didn't particularly feel like changing her clothes, but if she stayed out too late she knew it could get cold. But she didn't want to wear a jacket either...

"Hmm...Oh, there," Jasmine hummed before picking out a black scarf. At least if she started feeling a little too warm she could just remove it or let it hang more loosely. Besides, it looked good on her anyway. Besides that, there wasn't much for her to do: no new messages on her phone, no homework to do, and nothing she cared to watch on TV right now. If she just walked to the cafe now then she'd likely make it there within the hour, well, probably sooner. She mentally shrugged, figuring she had nothing better to do, and soon enough she was heading on her way.

'What was it called again...? Sucre Cafe, right?'

She wasn't sure if she was mentally pronouncing it right, but she was sure that was the name of the place and knew she'd recognize it if she saw a sign for it. It wasn't like Grant could pronounce it when he mentioned it to her, after all. It was just one of the many, many shortcomings that came with his disability. Jasmine fell solemn for a moment due to the thought, but forced herself to shrug it off. There wasn't anything she could do about that, all she could do now was be there for him when he needed it.

---

Grand Ridge Academy Dorm -> Sucre Cafe

---

Paige got up at 5:30 in the morning, once again, and performed her morning ritual, going out to the field and pacing back and forth without her crutch, trying to keep her balance, as usual.

She returned to her dorm and had breakfast, half-expecting another fire alarm to go off. After what happened at the stairs yesterday, she hoped not. Paige hated asking for help, more so when the cause of the problem was her prosthesis. Perhaps there was nothing wrong with it holding her back - she could hardly be expected to function as well as everybody else while handicapped like this - but there was no reason not to try, and Paige disliked admitting her weakness. Perhaps "embarassment" was the wrong word for it, but that the most fitting one she could think of.

The fire alarm didn't go off.

Paige had no classes today; this was the sort of day in which she'd normally practice playing her violin, spend extra time at the field walking, or catch up on her studies. However, with classes cancelled yesterday after the fire alarm, Paige had spent a lot of her time doing those same things, and dedicating a whole other day to them did not appeal to her. Besides, something was bothering her, and she wanted time to think without something else taking up her attention. This in mind, she scooped up her white leather coat off the back of a chair, and headed out to the Sucre Cafe.

She had seen it this morning, getting out of the shower. A mark on her back, like a tattoo, just below her neck. A cresent moon, with a design of a sun held within the curve. And it was a design, to be certain - it was impossible that something so intricate and stylised could have been caused by anything but a human. The first assumption would be that Paige had just drunk too much one night, made a bad decision, then forgotten about it by morning. However, this was impossible. Paige rarely drank, and never enough for something like that to happen, barely being able to walk anyway. Since she had no knowledge of its formation until so recently, it could easily have been days or weeks since that had occured, its position on her back meaning it was easy to miss. Paige was certain, though, that there was a logical solution to this conundrum. Tattoos don't just appear on people, and she should know. The one she'd gotten herself had hurt, badly.

This was the train of thought Paige followed on the way to the Sucre. She found a seat, ordered a latte. Paige sat by the window for over an hour, thinking closely, coming up with nothing.

---

Grand Ridge Academy - Conference Room.

---

Rita watched and stewed in vicarious embarrassment as Penny, the one and only girl who had pulled her out of the cabin where Rita would otherwise had been turned into firewood by Scott Reese, drew contention from her peers for her little outburst. The blonde seemed to only be pleased by the feathers that she had ruffled and, with a sneer, turned to look out the window, as if anything was more interesting than this little gathering. When the blue-haired person (Rita could not tell if they were a boy or girl, nor could she tell if that was necessarily what they were going for) sat down next to her and Martin she gave a small smile of acknowledgment, trying to hide the fact that Martin introducing her mildly peeved her. She could talk for herself. It wasn’t like she was going to start ripping Rien’s secrets right out of them—way too many people around to play that game.

Penny was pretending to ignore what Claire had said. She was also pretending that it hadn’t struck a nerve. It didn’t last long. When she looked away from the group her face had immediately soured, and insults were flooding into her mouth and trying to break through her lips. Making fun of Britney was the only possible thing that would make this little get together bearable. They didn’t have to talk about their little high school drama bullshit, but she refused to act like it didn’t exist. Neutral territory? More like coward territory. She fumed silently as Edward Scissorhands broke down his experience at the camp. She would’ve said something herself, but, well, most of it was now lost in a haze.

She caught Aliana’s glance as Martin wrapped up his story. If this punk had the mark, she could imagine what he meant by weird things. Still, right now it was better to have deniability than to put themselves right out. She mouthed a “no” to Aliana, but she did not turn to look back out the window. Instead, she was observing everyone, looking for marks or reactions to Martin’s spiel.

“I got one of those,” said Billy, rolling up his sleeve to show the spiral at the top of his skinny arm. “Buddy of mine said he couldn’t see it. Like, I thought he was just trying to pull a goof on me or something.”

“Oh, right, um, hello people. I’m Billy, I was at the camp, I saw Scott Reese be a total dick, and I’m pretty sure your girlfriend there stole my pipe.” Rita’s eyes went wide and she gripped Martin’s knee, avoiding Billy’s gaze. “Um, that was all you needed right Britney? Cool, man, cool. Anyway, I don’t know where I got that tat from, but things haven’t really been that weird since the camp. I mean, besides—”

Penny coughed loudly, worried that he was about to spill the beans about Karma. Billy caught on and shut his mouth. Rita did not.

“Um, besides what?” Rita asked, catching Billy’s eyes.

“I have had some really weird dreams lately. Super bizarre. Like, let’s see, the other night I dreamed that I was watching these kids in the woods and…” Billy, as if in a trance, proceeded to describe a dream that would sound familiar to all of those in the room. Rita looked away as he talked; Penny stared at him in shock. “And then the Illuminati dude was like ‘He’s an Awakened’ and then I woke up, which is pretty crazy timing, if you think about it, right?”

“I had the same nightmare,” muttered Rita, staring at the table.

Penny frowned. She had too; what the fuck was going on?

---

_{@Surtr Inc@Prosaic@Atrophy}
Grand Ridge Academy – Conference Room

---

Tuyen didn’t really understand what was going on between Penny and Britney (she hardly knew either), but she could definitely agree with the leaving grudges at the door. There were so many people here and the last thing that was needed was more arguments. If it went that way she was out the door. There was no way she could deal with that stress.

“Try be nice, for once,” she whispered to Min, who was sitting beside her and glaring across at Justin without trying to hide it. He just gave a nod of acknowledgment that she hoped meant he wouldn’t say anything rude. But she never knew with Min. He didn’t really get on with people.

Caelea listened with rapt attention as the goth kid began to speak. The first bit wasn’t anything she really cared about – after all they’d all been at the camp during that time. As horrible as it was she didn’t need to know everyone’s personal experiences.

Then he mentioned the tattoo. She’d noticed the thing on his neck while waiting around, along with something similar on a bunch of other people. This just confirmed that it was actually like the mark she had on her back. The fuck? And the dream that some other guy had. She’d had that too.

“I also had that nightmare,” Tuyen spoke up with a slight smile. “I thought it was just because of what happened, but maybe not.”

She wasn’t really willing to go into anything else, not the mark nor the shadow she could see in the corner of her vision. Especially not with the confused and disbelieving look that Min was giving off. The less people that knew about her problems the better, anyway. It’s not like anyone would care.

“I’m the same,” Rien gave a shrug. “Had that strange dream and have a tattoo I don’t remember getting on my shoulder.” They pulled down their shirt slightly to show it, just in case someone thought they were making it up or something.

They thought a bit before continuing, wondering if they should really say what they were about to. Well it wasn’t like they had anything to lose. And at the end of the day they didn’t really care if people found out about it all. “Speaking of other strange things happening, just to add to all of that, I pulled a butterfly out of a drawing the other day. Like some sort of super power or something.”

Tuyen’s eyes widened slightly at that. She’d hardly believed it when Justin had set his hand on fire and this just seemed unreal. But it gave her a bit more hope that she wasn’t actually going crazy. Min, on the other hand, just looked like he wanted to take Rien apart to find out how this power worked. He didn’t even seem shocked (something which surprised Tuyen).

“Bullshit,” Caelea was the first person to respond, crossing her arms. There was no way this person was telling the truth. You couldn’t just magically pull something out of paper. “That’s magic or some shit, and that kind of this isn’t real.”

Rien gave a slightly smug smile, tilting their head in Caelea’s direction. “I can prove it if everyone wants me to.” 

---

Grand Ridge Academy - Conference Room.

---

As other people started talking, Claire had stuck a stray pen that had been lying on the table into her mouth. She started lightly chewing on it and it wasn't long before there were bite marks on it. It seems that Lil' ol Penny took the hint and shut her annoying mouth up. For once, maybe she remembered she ain't even worth a penny. Claire thought to herself with a roll of her eyes. She wasn't thrilled to be here either, but she was mostly here on behalf of Maddie - so they can help get to the bottom of this shit. Though, she was getting just what she wanted faster than she expected when Edward Cullen over there first mentioned the tattoos. Yeah... she noticed them too.

Quickly, and without a care what the others were thinking, Claire leaned back in her chair a bit, before she rolled up her shirt a bit. She revealed her belly button and that little weird tattoo of a sun. Despite her demeanor, she never really wanted a tattoo. Her grandmother always told her that those tattoos would bite her in the ass in the long run... before showing her a tattoo she got when she was twenty. Everytime Claire blinks, she sees it...

... Moving on.

After staring at the weird sun for a second, Claire decided to test something. She activated her field (she was slowly learning how to activate it on command) and noticed that it had begun glowing. Hmph. She shouldn't have anything to worry about if nobody can see it but people like them - or should she? A lot of people in here are strangers. Powers or not, there were a lot of baaaaaad people in this town. Scott Reese was just the tip of the iceburg.

As somebody else brought up the weird dreams that she had vicariously experienced there was another thing that nobody was bringing up. Something's that had been on her mind since the longest. Zoey. There was a quiet fury building up inside of her as people ignored the orange light. She closed her eyes and tried to let it go - maybe it was just so horrific that they didn't want to even acknowledge it, but...

... It was something that Claire couldn't ignore.

"... Are we gonna just gloss over what happened when we were rowin' away?" Claire just incredulously said with a raised eyebrow, awestruck at how dense her classmates were being. "That big orange ball of light that just popped up and put my best friend in a fuckin' coma?"

She shrugged her shoulders as she hunched her eyebrows, "Anyone remember that part?"

---

^{@Spoopy Scary}
Grand Ridge Academy - Conference Room.

---

Britney applauded Martin's bravery what he did, she merely smiled at him, as she said, "Martin, I have to thank you personally for doing that. You saved so many lives that night." Some of which are probably my friends. Britney thought to herself as he continued, and Martin described the tattoos - sigils - she briefly glanced over to the palms of her hands and saw the ornate trees... then she remembered a factor. Something that she totally should have kept in mind but forgot like an idiot. Her eyes nervously peered towards Andrea.

... She shouldn't be an Awakened.

She didn't know enough about Andrea to know if she could be trusted to keep quiet about this, and this lack of foresight could prove disastrous if she does. First, Britney had to ensure that she was not in fact, an Awakened - there was always a chance she could had slipped through the cracks. So, Britney merely focused on the tip of Andrea's nose, and manifested a bit of her life giving energy on it. Just one tinsy-little dot that disappeared after a second. If Andrea wasn't an Awakened, then she wouldn't even have noticed.

Good. Wait, no - bad. Very bad. She was praying that nobody would be overt about their abstractions just yet. She quickly leaned over to Andrea and tapped her on the shoulder with her pen and whispered into her ear, "Okay, I didn't think we'd be getting into this so quickly," Britney started off, "But, there's a little bit more to this town than you think... than anyone thought when they first came here..." She trailed off, as she looked at the group as they got into the dreams. She had to quickly come up with a way to explain this to Andrea so she wouldn't be confused.

"Let me ask you something, Andrea..." Britney asked her, "... Do you believe in magic?"

---

The day went past in more or less a blur, after what had occured only the day prior it was no surprise really. A month had passed since the Camp incident, since then he'd barely left the confines of his dorm room, it seemed as though he could escape the hellstorm of that incident - as though what occurred was a nightmare, a phenomenon in a story... that was until David was thrown without rope or 'shute back into the pit he had escaped from.

Magic, it seemed, was real.

Whatever happened back at the camp made it so, what else could have caused a kid to gain freaking powers?! A supernatural side-effect from a supernatural incident. That was what made sense in whatever crumbles of reason remained within David's mind.
At least there weren't any Prophesied Heroes nor any neon circles flying around. If it came to pass that this world was merely a story it was not, at least, a lacklusterly one - and hopefully not a young adult fiction, David had no desire to gain a six pack and fight off other guys for some girl.

It was nearing half three when he'd first heard about the conference, this was from one of his professors after an hours lecture - this seemed to be one for the survivors of the camp incident and probably intended as coping therapy... Why would he need to hold hands and talk about feelings? He felt sick after seeing the bodies, the nurse in particular what with her stinking skin being burnt away and her demonic personality. See, he realised how he felt without having to sit in a chair and cry his heart out for several hundred quid an hour.

Still... There was the drunk to consider, they were bound to go to that meeting. After witnessing their ability they probably thought that others could be found who could do the same... where else would be a better place to start than a therapy group dedicated to potential candidates?

---

---

Of course as in the typical David-like fashion it appeared that he'd missed the start of every relevant incident... With the incident he was oblivious of the actual attack until after he and the others had escaped the nursery, he'd been looking away when the drunk apparently pulled a drawing from the pages of their pad and granted it life... and now again as he was nearing the doorway to the conference room - overhearing the muttering of a conversations in full swing.

This was the third freaking time! This was absolute proof in a higher being - one that seemed adamant on David missing the beginning of key events!

David paused by the door, he wasn't so blind as to walk in at this moment - it was against his gained knowledge of plots to do so. An interruption now would definitely create an awkward as hell attitude within the room... probably. And so like the days of old that he was so used to, David waited outside the room that the others were within. He could enter once things had died down.

---

As he was prone to do from time to time, Nate had almost slipped up on attending this little group meeting on account of being distracted with his thoughts on recent events. It was only a prompt from his phone (thank god he'd set an alarm) that he'd kicked into gear, stepping up the pace to arrive.

When he finally hit the door however, he felt a pause overcome him. What did he hope to achieve by showing up here? Understanding? Direction? Friends? Perhaps at least - if there were others like 'them', that would be something. As far as talking about his powers stood, the trio of girls had been the only others to discover the truth about his power and even that was because they'd seen it in action. Nobody else would or even could understand, there was no talking about it either - not even to Quent or Viv. Last night, he'd tried to picture how that conversation would go.

'Hey, guess what? I can walk through walls now!'

At best they'd think he was bullshitting them for the fun of it. At worst? That the pressure from what happened with Mom was finally catching up - and treat him like some kind of mental case.

Nope to that, Nate decided - besides, Quent and Viv already had enough shit on their plate without him throwing more onto it. Biting the bullet, Nate stepped inside just as the conversation was already ongoing, allowing him to catch the tail end of one discussion.

"-luminati dude was like ‘He’s an Awakened’ and then I woke up, which is pretty crazy timing, if you think about it, right?” The speaker in question was a tall, almost lanky guy with thick black glasses. Then an asian girl spoke up affirm what he'd heard last, "I also had that nightmare,"

So that dream did mean something?

Eyes flickering across the room was quick to recognise Lynn, Aliana and Penny, all sat close by one another. As for the rest, most of the faces here he could vaguely recognise and perhaps even put a couple of names to at a stretch, but it was only the trio who'd been showboating their powers to one another that he felt any real sense of familiarity. He quietly slipped past the others, aiming to take a seat beside them.

---

Grand Ridge Academy - Conference Room.

---

The look of befuddlement on Billy’s face grew as part of their collective admitted to having his dream as well. This was his first time hearing about any of the weird threads connecting all of the survivors from the camp together, and it was kind of blowing his mind. He hadn’t forgotten about the bizarre being that had come after them when they escaped the park, but he had assumed that he had just hallucinated the whole thing. And then Blue said that they could pull a goddamn butterfly out of a piece of paper, and Billy forgot about anything else except for that. He leaned forward and gestured towards Rien, the confusion on his face shifting into mild amusement.

“Bro, are you sure you didn’t just get stoned watching the Reading Rainbow?” asked Billy, chuckling to himself. “Did you turn into an astronaut and blast off into space afterwards? Pull a ship in from the ocean?”

“Billy, shut up,” growled Penny. So Rien was one of...whatever they were, and judging by the way Martin had said weird things she could assume that he also had something up his sleeve. Penny’s eyes began to roll when Claire partially pulled up her shirt—Seriously? Nobody wants to see your gross body—but they stopped and stared when she was momentarily glowed like a neon light. Great, so even pond scum had been given freak abilities. Penny frowned; she hated always being right, but she knew that someone like Claire O’Sullivan having powers would only be a catastrophe.

“Does it only have to be something lame like a butterfly?” continued Billy, still joking. “Could you do a bat, man? Oh, oh, could you do a really tiny Batman?”

“Billy. Shut. Up.”

Rita felt herself ease when Martin put his hand on her own, and there was a slight comfort in knowing that he also had the same dream—a comfort that went away when Claire reminded them all of the final moments of Camp Nightmare. The girl that had been put into a coma had prevented Claire from kicking Rita’s teeth in. Rita didn’t know her, but she felt bad for her regardless. However, she doubted Claire would want to hear her express sympathies towards her friend. Hell, she doubted Claire would want to hear her speak at all, considering what had happened yesterday.

“Why should I shut up? I was invited along to talk about my feelings, and right now I feel like I’m on a hidden camera show. Is Kimberly secretly filming this? Was I supposed to get a script? I didn’t get my script, man,” said Billy, smiling at the ridiculousness of this entire thing.

“C’mon asshole, you know this isn’t a joke,” hissed Penny. It was impossible for her not to be drawn into a fight with her brother.

“Oh, right, right, right. Yeah, sorry, sorry. I was just playing. I got powers too. I can totally shoot laser beams out of my dick.” He laughed. “Seriously, y’all must be high. Gotta hook me up with your supplier, man. Listen, I get that some of you kids got PTSD, and I’m no psychiatrist, but I think playing make believe is a little unhealthy.”

“Billy, I’m fucking serious, you need to stop,” said Penny, her voice raising. It was taking every ounce of her will to not completely go off on her brother like an atomic bomb. She shot a look over at Britney, whispering away to her new friend, and she could feel the rage in herself continue to boil up. Wasn’t that bitch supposed to be leading this? Things were spiraling out of control. If things kept up like this, Penny would blow.

Rita leaned over Martin so that she could speak to Rien as the siblings continued to bicker, “Please tell me you’re drawing something to shut them up. I think this is actually killing me.”

---

_{@Surtr Inc@Prosaic}
Grand Ridge Academy – Conference Room

---

“I remember the ball of light,” Tuyen visibly shuddered. She didn’t want to. She didn’t really want to remember anything from that night. If she was honest she’d just tried not to think about that part at all. She didn’t understand what I was.

She hadn’t really had time to worry about someone else the past month. Maybe she should’ve – she did care more about other people than herself. Just people she actually knew.

“I don’t think any of us are going to forget that,” Caelea spoke up, ignoring the strange blue haired person claiming they could bring drawings to life in favour of rolling her eyes at Martin’s response. Yeah none of them wanted to remember it, of course. That went without saying. “But we can’t forget it, so what I want to know is what the fuck that ball of light was and why it didn’t knock anyone else out. Really, what the fuck is going on with everything.”

---

_@Atrophy
Grand Ridge Academy – Conference Room

---

When Caelea challenged them Rien had pulled out the sketchbook they’d stashed away in their backpack, along with a pencil. The guy who seemed a bit up his own ass, Billy or something, started getting into some shit about them being stoned they realised they’d have to actually draw something. Honestly they hadn’t been planning to show it off like this, but whatever.

They knew they hadn’t been stoned or drunk – if anything it was one of the few times they weren’t. And anyway there had been witnesses.

On the other hand they had to figure out something to draw that this Billy guy wouldn’t claim they could have had with them in the first place. Something live would probably be better. Something more dramatic than a butterfly.

A slight smile crossed Rien’s lips as they started to sketch, concentrating on putting some detail into it and completely ignoring the argument going on beside them. Cause honestly they didn’t give a fuck about what those two were talking about. It was getting a bit on their nerves but they could deal with it.

“Oh yeah, don’t worry, I am,” Rien gave a grin in response to Rita, holding up the almost finished drawing before going back to it. “I think it’ll get them to shut up.”

It didn’t take them that much longer to finish the drawing. They narrowed their eyes in concentration as they reached into it, pulling out the small bat that they’d drawn in a decent amount of detail. When they’d fully brought it out of the drawing they let it go – making sure it was going right in the direction of Billy’s face.

“You did ask if I could do a bat.”