[Anniversary] Morpheus strikes at noon

"Oh I've been here on and off for the past ten years or so. I don't actually live on the Island, I'm from a different plane of existence. It gets really technical and I don't want to bore you with the details." It was a bit before Kaya realized something. She'd never been to the beach, one would think going to school on an Island would make them kind of everywhere but she'd never been. "The food sounds lovely actually. I don't think Bar food would agree with me well." She took another sip of her drink when her head twitched to the side as she heard the ever faint scream of a woman in pain on the wind...but there was no wind here, so she chocked it up to be part of the music.

"To be honest though I come here for school..." Kaya paused before clearing it up as High School, normally that was to young for People who came in to dance club/bars so she would let her conversation companion allow himself to 'assume' her age and probably think she was in college. "Studying and classes usually take up most of my time. Oh my name is..." She paused as she tried to reach for a 'persona name' to give to him. Even if he already knew it she was going to act as if he didn't "Iami, and who might I have the pleasure of conversing with?" she gave him a devilish playful smile that didn't reach her blood ruby colored eyes.

==> Strings

While Strings' right arm seemed to feel right in place, the impression Mikhainon was giving her was not quite so. It could have sent alarm signals in her head, but that was assuming she was in her right mind--alas, she was not. Her gaze would settle on the blade as Mikhainon declared what she should have been.

"How can you be so sure about that?" she said dully. A human? Strings scoffed inwardly. She could never have traced her own origin. She was aware that she was nothing but a concentration energy. And even if she tried tracing the origin of her now weighted arm, it all returned to the material that came from the surrounding area within only the span of time it had appeared. It didn't even help that she was trapped in this dream; Mikhainon could only be deceiving her.

But the offer sure was tempting--to be human for a day would have been interesting. Maybe getting a 'full trial' would probably explain why she had the impression she shouldn't be in the rift, too.

Strings turned to Mikhainon, her often empty face revealing a ghastly smile of sharp teeth, "But this is interesting," she said, but what looked like her newly-formed mouth didn't move along with her words, "Is this the part I should make a contract with the devil for my soul? Hm?" The way she had said those words sounded sarcastic.

Mikhainon: Strings

Mikhainon tapped his nose, grinning. "I can smell humans. Trust me, for the millions of years that I've lived, I've never been wrong about this. You're not like the other humans here, but you're still undeniably human."

Sarcastic as her words were (and, Mikhainon noted, they always tend to be sarcastic at first), she was right on the money. He reclined on the chair and flashed her a knowing grin.

"Possibly. I'm the devil, and I happen to like souls."

Mikhainon: Kaya

"Iami..." he repeated, as if tasting the name on his tongue. He smiled like a satisfied man. "That's a beautiful name. It suits you."

He took her hand gently into his own and placed a kiss on its knuckles. "You're the most interesting person I've ever come across, Iami, the sort of girl that I want to treat right. Would you... grant me the pleasure of going on a date with you?"

The Box: Vanora

It happened so fast — the dropping castle, the subsequent ending of its life. But as the Box awaited sweet death, its life seemed to flash before its eyes.

It was only four years old and spent most of its life in a girl's bedroom storing her vials, so it wasn't an overly dramatic montage.

The castle destroyed the shop. Its teddy bears crushed, its gift cards flying without purpose in the air all over. The box, like its cohorts, was inevitably crushed by the castle. The box ceased to be a box and became flattened cardboard. It was a gruesome sight.

Kaya allowed a blush to form on her cheeks as the unnamed demon kissed her hand. However as he asked her for a date she was curious if he even remembered why she didn't trust him, so she decided to remind him quietly. "but how what shall I call my companion this night?" she said with a playful smile. A moment he was distracted she aged her appearance to about 21 giving her a more mature look, and it was then that she came to the conclusion that this was a dream and nothing bad will happen while in the dream so she was going to live a little.

She stood to her full height standing next to her unnamed date. "You know what I will take some of your advise, I'll let you show me what you say is a good time if you tell me your real name. Not a fake that you tell everyone else but the real deal."

==> Strings

The razor smile stayed on Strings' face as she weighted Mikhainon's words. In all off the memories she could recall, no one has ever reconsidered what she was. She was only referred to as a monster, a 'thing', or a demon. But then here was a guy calling himself the devil, calling her human.

"So what's supposed to happen?" She asked, now a little more curious, "Am I supposed to sign papers? Do you have to rip out my soul as soon as the deal is signed or do I get to keep it until death?"

Another question raised a flag in her thoughts. He said he liked souls. While she could easily declare she was a god to others and say she knew everything, she never really understood things. Souls were a vague concept--no one agreed to one philosophy. "Why do you take souls? What makes them so valuable to you? I never understand urban legends. Are you supposed to eat them? Or do they work like fossil fuels?"

It was with a loud, giant heave that he was freed from the blob surrounding him, collapsing onto his hands and knees.

He could feel the burn in his heart and lungs as old stone dug into his hands, but it was also with much trepidation that he lifted his head from the meticulously lain stone beneath him and took in his surroundings. He expected drab and dreary purple marble and high drafted ceilings, and to be confronted with yet another beast he didn't know how to handle that would forcefully assimilate him into his gelatinous mass--

--but he saw a hut, slightly slanted and not wholly there, built out of desperation on a ruined lot between two other buildings. It's face was tilted back from the rest, almost like it was reclining back on its elbows with a face directed towards the sun.

From memory he knew that behind the precariously standing abode was an outside toilet that technically belonged to the house that stood their before, but had never been removed. It was the most advanced thing that the house claimed as its own, and had a creaking outhouse built around it that swayed with the wind.

Why... why was he home?

Slowly Wei stood up, taking in the empty streets and silent houses as he made his way to the door.

The door had a simple chain lock, so to unlock it he just had to sweep back a small cloth curtain. Behind the curtain was a hole that wasn't quite circular and crudely cut into the wall. He pushed his arm in to free the chain and pressed against the door with his shoulder, causing the whole house to creak and sway softly.

It was just like he remembered. The low table with cracked and uneven legs where they ate, the MacGyvered kitchen that ran on a hand crank that one of their neighbors donated, several candles melted to stumps in frankly unsafe places... a neatly folded pile of patchy blankets with a less neat pile of pillows on top... Pots and pans half filled with rainwater where water had started to drip in...

Seeing this place made his heart well up.

Chloe tore her eyes from the graveyard. Something was coming. She could feel it. The ground rumbled underneath their bare, inhuman feet.

The bush exploded in a cloud of dust and shredded plant matter. Chloe fell over almost immediately, landing on her side and crushing part of her unruly tail. A stream of profanity flew from her lips. She hated her body, she hated her legs, she hated this dream, and she hated that she couldn’t even stay standing for more than 10 consecutive minutes without falling over in her own dreams.

The dust cleared, revealing… “Is that a skeleton with a revolver?”

Meanwhile, in the club…

If Mikhainon and Kaya turned their heads, they would find a twelve-year-old child sitting cross-legged on the bar next to them. She had red hair, swept up and to the side and shaped like an askew hershey’s kiss. She also had the aura of a powerful demon. They would begin to feel her the second they both stopped looking at the bar, possibly during a blink.

“Wow,” the girl said with a chuckle. “I hope you didn’t think that would work, Kaya.” The girl was Chloe, in a different form. She wasn’t looking at either of them; she was looking at the strippers. “Because if you thought that would work,” she continued, “It’s the second weakest attempt to learn my dad’s name that I have heard in the last century. Right next to the incubus who tried to bribe me with sex.”

Chloe let her human legs hang over the edge of the bar, and her body aged nine years. She took a sip of a green drink, which anyone looking at her would have sworn wasn’t in her hand a second ago.

Mikhainon: Strings

Mikhainon raised a finger to stop Strings' line of questioning.

"Stop," he commanded with a powerful voice. He circled Strings like a hawk, more predatory than passive compared to earlier. "I am not a curiosity or a test subject. I am not obligated to answer anymore questions unless you decide to make a deal with me. It doesn't have to be now — it just has to happen."

He extended a hand to shake. The entire club ended up tinted wine red, the room growing hotter and hotter by the second.

"I do not have an eternity to waste. I have things to do, places to be. I'm offering you a once in a lifetime chance to fulfill your greatest desires — will you take it?"

Mikhainon: Kaya & Chloe

He felt Chloe, but stronger, more fully realized.

This Chloe was centuries into the future, from a timeline further away from him. He wondered how such a powerful creature came to be — perhaps a subconscious manifestation of her desire to join him interwoven with the great power that pervaded from his consciousness? He couldn't say. He only had a glimpse of her earlier, but up close... it was a marvel to see.

She was perfect.

Mikhainon dropped the normal human act the minute Chloe came into the picture. He laughed. "You should see the mortal that told me — I'm going to guess! Bothered me for a whole year. Came pretty close once, but thank God his cancer killed him."

He downed his whiskey in one go. He gestured at the place. "All right, since my sweetheart's here, let's make the setting more family friendly. I happen to be a great father." He was also pretty hilarious.

He clapped his hands and the setting changed again, into a five-star French restaurant with blindingly white decorations. Suddenly, Mikhainon, Kaya and Chloe were seated around a round table, not a bar counter.

The being that burst from the ground was a menacing skeleton figure, wearing a heavy black cloak, and holding a single revolver. It let out a terrifying cackle as it raised its revolver.

"You see this gun? This is the greatest handgun of all time. Its got 6 bullets and thats more than enough to kill anything that moves."

Its voice which sounded male, appeared to come from everywhere, it was chilling... Morgan reacted very quickly and summoned her spirit Fuhbar and quickly created a massive, thick, shield, that she figured could easily block a bullet, though she had no idea what kind of bullets these were. The skeleton was clearly after her, but Chloe was still in danger, she quickly got in front of her friend and raised the shield up to cover them both.

"Its not safe here, you should try and find someplace to hide."

After giving her worlds to Chloe, she tried to make a plan for fighting this Skeleton, but first shed need to figure out what this thing could do.

"Alright! Get yourself ready!"

The Skeleton prepared his gun and fired a shot at the shield. The shot rattled the entire shield, but Morgan was fine.

"Damn ok... You better get double ready then! Cause now were going into maximum overdrive!"