#cerberirp

word count: 946

( one. ) This is not the human world. She doesn’t need to be told twice. There’s a spear lodged in her abdomen and she didn’t see it coming – Oakley’s been warned, yes, of course, but she’s never—she’s never expected this to happen anyway. She closes her eyes, grits her teeth and thinks: Come at me. She’s seen worse than spears coming from the faceless darkness.

( two. ) There is a groaning sound right outside of her room on the third night here. Oakley ignores it, and lays sleepless in her bed and wonders how she’ll get used to the new cycle of sleep and having to work throughout the day. She’s sensitive to the light still. On the fifth night, the groaning stops, and there are steps. On seventh, something’s banging on her door. She bangs back and the sound stops. She doesn’t go out anyway.

( three. ) She hears it talking throughout the night, the keen senses catching the sound immediately. She knows where it comes from ( a different place each night ) and she waits for the dawn, but by the time she gets there, the Voice is gone – the only indication that it’s ever been there is the smeared blood on the walls and slowly dripping on the floor from the chandeliers. When Oakley smells it, it doesn’t smell like it belongs to any creature in particular. She doesn’t try to find out where it comes from.

( four. ) She’s balancing herself on the spear lodged deep into the war, all narrow bones and lean physique; fooled me once, she thinks, and she expects another attack but it never comes. She hasn’t figured where the hell they keep coming from, or if maybe the overdue residents of the Academy manage to produce them or grab them off a brazen warrior or—it doesn’t matter, honestly. She cannot see in the darkness with her vampire eyes, so she doesn’t go there.

( five. ) Sometimes she talks to Darius through the walls, and sometimes to Zahra. Sometimes all three of them do because the walls are thick here, but not thick enough for their senses and they can hear each other just fine. Not good enough, though, because most of the nights they spend convincing each other that it cannot be their students that are screaming out there. In the morning, the kids are fine.

( six. ) It’s irregular, but at certain nights the bell sounds when the clock strikes midnight. It truly is the witching hour – Oakley hears chants in language she does not understand and feels the hair stand out at the back of her next, fangs ready and fingers flexing – she is ready for the fight without knowing what she is going to fight at all. Sometimes she remembers how Radelle Bauman said the belfries are not actually part of the school – they’re part of the building right next to and the Academy residents are fine. It doesn’t help.

( seven. ) She’s not gonna get much done with her head severed off, so when the guillotine swings from the ceiling in the middle of the fucking day, Oakley sacrifices a her cheek, the one that’s been ruined before. She’s fine. She’ll be fine. She’s always been fine. If she doesn’t expose it to direct sunlight, it might even heal by night. If not – she’s been mutilated on that side of the face as it is. They’re alive. Sometimes she thinks that the damn building is, too, and then she remembers the residents.

( eight. ) Students are brave, but not brave enough to be branded the perpetrator of the nightly hazards; staff, on the other hand—She’s not saying anything, but Radelle Bauman is a puzzle and the Vice Headmaster doesn’t even have a name and let’s not forget the three nearly white-haired figures looming around whenever they catch a fucking chance. She doesn’t like the sisters, she never will, and she could’ve done without one of them staring at her through the window for the entire night. Oakley’s sleeping quarters are on the third floor.

( nine. ) Watchers have no curfew. That’s the most eerie thing about this – when they’re out and about, it’s dead silent out there. She can hear her own lungs rasping when she tries to breathe even though she doesn’t need, and her shuffling against the wall breaks the silence in half. When she gets in her room, all hell breaks loose but as soon as she’s out – it gets too quiet again. She realises, from the talks, that it’s not only her.

( ten. ) Go with the flow, they tell her, and that’s what she’s been doing. Not once in her life had she gone with the flow but she’s been doing it since she’s gotten here. The pounding on her door during the night did not get any lesser, and several times she’s had to open them and slam them shut. Red eyes awaited on the other side, wide and alert, but she did not fight them back. She went with the flow.

vampire selfies featuring zahra and oakley

puppy clique selfies featuring the puppy clique (duh)

and maybe group selfies BUT I GOTTA FINISH THE ABOVE FIRST

word count: 600

( emerson. ) Ashes to ashes, dust to dust – he’s heard it times and times again. He’s the flower boy with skeletons on his hands, both stems and bones will both return to the earth once buried. He just wants inner peace; he did not ask for the world to be so, so heavy, and he did not ask for the war to happen. He just wants the war to stop. ( He doesn’t want to remember the sleepless nights in the tents and on the city walls. There were no flowers there. )

( morgan. ) They cannot abandon who they used to, and even though there are multiples of genders clashing within them, they keep carrying the little girl like an infant, like a helpless child. Is that not what they used to be – the helpless little girl, not able to string her sentences correctly and stuttering always, without a fail, on letter h? The war made them strong, the war chiselled them to be more resilient. They wonder if it was worth all the near-death experiences, cold apartments and hiding places too small for them.

( lena. ) War in her palms and war in head, behind her eyes. She howls at the moon and runs away from the contact like a lone wolf but longs for pack. Help her, help her—it is not her fault she cannot trust them. It is not her fault she cannot trust anybody, not even herself, and she’s become all war, war, war in her desire to quench it down, push the thoughts away. It is not her fault she has died – it is not war, but death in her palms and death behind her eyes.

( radelle. ) Something ancient stirs within her, something akin to a feeling, an emotion, but she doesn’t recognize it. She’s died times and times and she’s gotten up again and again. Bauman; she has it printed on her soul like a tramp stamp, but oh, what a lovely, lovely, what a strong, what an important tramp stamp it is! How is to be feared, so feared before you are loved? The fear conquers hate and if they fear you, they will listen—by God, they will. ( The war doesn’t care for ancient surnames. The war doesn’t listen. )

( vice headmaster. ) The heart and the mind are divided in him like oil and water run away from each other – he is his own polarity. It works that way best for him, and he’s survived centuries after centuries with this mindset. He knows, however, in all of proud self-appreciation, that he will not survive this. Death is the maiden, many had said, but they should’ve entrained the idea that perhaps the God is as well. He has never believed it, but he might begin to.

( daphne. ) Her hands shake – Project Cerberi has been issued by the Kegan, the headline says, and her breath hitches in her throat. Grishina, Grishina, a voice in her head echoes and she cannot silence it. I am Grishina, I am Grishina, but what’s a last name? She’s not a Bauman after all. She locks herself tight in her run-down shop and thinks: they are coming. They are coming.

main header? 

I THINK WE ARE HAUNTED, [ listen ]

When you die surely you go to Heaven,  because you've served your time in Hell.  This is it: all of the devils are here, but, luckily,  so are you.

RP Meme: Day Seventeen