005. 💥 (TXT) ⇁ CHARM

[opheliac]

CW: PTSD, Separation Anxiety, & Hallucinations.

this is jinx

i cant find my friend. ive been calling her all morning because we were going to make a bakery stand together and she wouldnt answer me. i broke into her room and all of her stuff is there but not her.

i think they took her.
she wouldnt just leave.

who else is still here? who else did they take? i cant be alone here in this place right?

if u know me, please tell me who u are and write back so i know im not here by myself. its hard to know who is who with these things.

but dont send a video or call me. just write to me or the monsters will know where i am.

Comments

[entreats]

[ ...

Ange isn't sure whether or not to bring this up. It feels volatile, especially with Jinx being.. well, Jinx. On the other hand, she also doesn't want to actively keep information from the other.

She thinks about it for a moment, and then-- ]

Tell me where you are. I'll come see you in person.

I actually have some information about this, but I think it's better not discussed over these things, if you know what I mean. [ Which is partially true, since Ange doesn't want the people in charge to overhear this.

But it's also so she can maybe keep Jinx from wrecking the entire city after hearing about this. ]

private (oops forgot to have her privated out her location. she paranoid.)

[opheliac]

( information...? she gnaws over her lower lip as she thinks this over. would it be safe for ange to come see her? she is a dead girl and well, maybe the monsters would favor something that's not in the living. )

im in a cave.

privated from here on!

[entreats]

[ Ange is already getting up from where she was, grabbing her coat to go out. ]

A cave.

[ Thankfully she's gotten pretty good at sending messages and walking at the same time by now. ]

Which one? Is it the one with the weird drawings?

[opheliac]

i think so? the one thats closest to town.

[entreats]

Alright. I'm heading in that direction now.

[ Good thing that Jinx isn't too far out, or this would have become a total pain - especially since Ange is still very much convinced that this is something she wants to tell the other in person. ]

Anything else I need to know about that cave?

I mean, I don't want to fall into some embarrassing booby trap. That's what I'm saying. [ Not that Ange thinks Jinx would actively do that to her.. Or, at least, not personally to Ange.

But she wouldn't put it past the other to somehow protect the cave, especially when Jinx is in this sort of mood. ]

[opheliac]

no. just a run down dinky cave.

moving over to action!

[entreats]

I'll be there in a bit.

[ That's the last message the other receives. Then there's a little bit of nothing - because, well, Ange does have to walk over there - but it doesn't take too long before she's already approaching the cave, trying to see if she can spot Jinx. ]

cw: voices

[opheliac]

( if she can't spot jinx, she will definitely hear her voice echoing inside the hallow cave. it may be hard to make out the conversation she's having at first, but the close ange gets -- the more it becomes clear. )

Listen, I know what I'm talkin' about. They'll get tired out and go somewhere else to look for me. That's why we gotta stay quiet. So are you gonna be with me on this or not?

[entreats]

[ .. huh.

There's a split second where she assumes someone else must be there with Jinx, but.. then Ange realises that's actually the less likely scenario here. After all, she learned one very specific thing about Jinx back in the maze, and that in combination with the fact that her message across the charms didn't sound like there was anyone else there with her..

It makes it pretty obvious to Ange that it's way more likely Jinx is having a conversation with those voices she said she always heard. Even outside of the maze. ]

Jinx?

[ So rather than mentioning anything about it, Ange just calls out the other's name to make her presence known, making sure to raise her voice a little in case she wouldn't be very audible over the voices otherwise.

She walks into the cave. ]

It's me. I'm here.

[opheliac]

( jinx nearly jumps out of her skin when a voice calls out to her. if she had any of her weapons, this whole ordeal would have definitely ended in some sort of catastrophe. so fortunately for the two girls, their lives have been spared by her "curse" tonight. apprehensively, the teenager straightens up her spine and draws the illusion of being put together, when it's alarmingly transparent she is anything but. )

Oh, Grets! Y-Yeah, yeah! Just, uh... follow the sound of my voice. It's a lil' dark so watch ya step, eh heh heh.

[entreats]

[ At least the way Jinx talks right now is not too surprising to Ange. If she really was talking to the voices in her head, then she's probably feeling a little embarrassed about being caught in the middle of it..

Maybe that's why Ange - tactfully, for once - remarks nothing about it. Instead she just steps closer in the direction of the voice, her walk relatively calm. ]

Listen. The reason I wanted to tell you this in person is because the news I have is.. [ .. hm.

She wonders how to phrase this diplomatically, but Ange realises fairly quickly it's impossible to do so when Jinx is already in such a worked up mood in the first place.. ]

.. it's not great. And I wanted to make sure you didn't do anything stupid because of it.

omg wtf i have a spellcheck app and i still suck

[opheliac]

( the unease smile dips steadily to a worrisome and fearful frown the more the other speaks. and immediately, her thoughts take a nose dive to the worst scenario she can imagine. )

W-What did they do to her?

( her asks, voice thick with trembles and on the verge of either go into sobs again or boil in anguish rage. )

Did they... ( she pauses, swallowing the lump in her throat before trying again. ) — Do they take people away from here and kill them?

( because what's more terrible than death? sure, the council might have set her friend back home, and that wouldn't be too awful. at least she would be safe. but... if they have grown tired of their prisoners... — )

spellcheck... why won't you help!!!

[entreats]

[ Ange inhales. ]

Do you remember that witch hunt game or whatever they had last month? I ran into someone during it who made a discovery. [ It doesn't really matter who it was, so she's leaving out the slight details, wanting to focus on the main message here.

Especially when she can already see that Jinx looks like she's about to explode, one way or another. ]

There were gravestones with names on them. No names of people actually present in this place, just-- random other ones. And instead having dates on them, they had cycles and numbers. [ There's a slight pause, but only slight, because Ange wants to get all of this out before Jinx has time to make any conclusions of her own. ] It seems that whoever is doing this, they're bringing people here in different cycles. And I guess that means that whenever they don't need people from a cycle anymore, they just get rid of them.

[ They were tombstones, after all.

And while Ange's tone is still relatively emotionless, it doesn't sound casual. There's a bit more of a serious edge to it, like she isn't taking this lightly. ]

[opheliac]

... So she's dead. Is that what you're telling me?

( numbers, cycles, it doesn't matter. what does matter is that there are gravestones as a replacement of those who were once here. she can feel her throat tightening all over again, and her voice is disgustingly uneven while trying to keep her emotions at bay. )

So all this "going home"-bullshit was just some fake-out so we would play nice with whatever they're fucking scheming.

[entreats]

.. it's not 100% for sure.

[ Ange is - if nothing else - accurate about these things, after all. She won't sugarcoat the truth, but she won't push anything without concrete proof either.

But there sure are a whole lot of signs pointing towards the conclusion Jinx is also drawing here, so-- ]

But it seems likely, yeah.

[ Her voice is a touch softer, perhaps not wanting to feed too much into the human equivalent of a near erupting volcano happening in front of her. ]

That's why we have to find the people behind this and stop them. Or else they'll do it to all of us. [ And it's bad enough that it's happened already.

Especially with Usagi, with how sweet the girl seemed. She didn't deserve this. A whole lot of the people who "left" didn't deserve it. ]

[opheliac]

( it's not one-hundred percent she says, but what else could it all mean? gravestones are a universal symbol of someone passing on -- usually coated with death. if they wanted to use something to represent a chosen's transitory that isn't about their decease, literally anything would have sufficed than using a damn gravestone.

her hands ball into boulders the more this sets with her, and here she assumed the council were just some fancy weaklings in high chairs who can only spit out orders. if every disappearance meant they're dead, then that would mean... — her heart then drops to the pit of her stomach and twists in all sorts of ways. jinx shakes her head in belief in her own realization. )

...No.

( she mutters the word at first, then narrowing her gaze up to her friend -- voice in quivers. )

... N-No, Ekko wouldn't die so easily. I know him. I've been trying to murder that bug for YEARS and he always got away. So there's... ( a pause, swallowing down a sob and blinking away tears. ) — There's no way in Hell there's some grave out there dedicated to him. I-I won't believe it 'till I see it.

[entreats]

[ Maybe it would have been easier for someone else to tell Jinx, Ange thinks. Someone who knows better how to comfort someone else - let alone how to comfort Jinx of all people, who's a special case in so many ways. But then again, who could have? The only other person Ange is aware of who knows this is Gogol, and he'd probably be worse at this than even her.

Still.. It's not like Ange doesn't try. Even if it's a little uncertainly, she holds out a hand, moving closer to put it on the other girl's shoulder, if Jinx will let her. ]

I didn't see any with names I recognize. [ She says, her voice still a touch softer than the usual.

This much is true, after all. It's why Ange says it's not 100% for certain yet - even though she feels like they'll end up like that anyway. Maybe they don't put up those gravestones until all the people from a certain cycle are goners. ]

They could be holding them somewhere. Maybe they want to get rid of all of us in one go.