#digd

Lux doesn’t understand why Julian is worried and frankly he’s starting to annoy her. Nova is safe. That’s the whole point. She cowarded out of coming to help the DA and right now, everyone knows where she is; in bed, hidden in the Hufflepuff common room, deep under the castle. Safe.

Gabriel however... Gabriel is nowhere to be found. 

He replied positively to the call for help sent via the coin, just like Lux and all of the people that are standing around her at the moment. But since then, nothing. Lux expected him to arrive with Ezra, Anya, Ernie, and Hannah but when the group of Hufflepuff got there and he was nowhere to be found, she began to worry. The DA waited for him, tried to contact him again but Gabriel never replied.

“Maybe Draco attacked him,” Hannah had unhelpfully suggested, earning her a dark glare from Lux and a nudge from Anya.

They’ve been standing guard in front of the door for almost an hour now and nothing has happened. Hermione and Luna left half an hour ago, to check on Snape but they both sent a message to let them know that their teacher hadn’t moved from his office yet.

Lux just stood up in a fit of annoyance when there’s a loud bang and the door of the Room of Requirement bursts open. The DA members all jump on their feet, wands ready, but it’s useless. They briefly catch a glimpse of Draco’s head and then, the corridor is pitch dark.

Lux feels completely lost, all of her senses mixing up. She has her eyes wide open and yet, she can’t see a thing. She feels caught in a delirium as around her she hears rushing footsteps and people yelling out.

“Ron!” she hears Julian yell not too far from her. “What’s going on?”

“How would I bloody know?!” Ron yells back, on their left.

“They’re running away!” Ezra screams from the floor, it seems, probably knocked down by the door when it slammed open. 

“LUMOS!” Anya calls out but her spell is completely useless. “What the fuck!”

“It must be Peruvian Powder,” Ginny informs them, sounding calmer than the rest of the group. “Fred and George should really pay attention to whom they’re selling their shit to,” she mumbles before adding a bit louder, “We have to get out of here!”

All agreeing, the group starts waving their arms around to grab each other and move as one through the fog. Once they are all holding onto each other, Lux and Julian, at the head of the line, start stumbling forward and out of the dark, trying to follow Draco and the people that were with him.

“Draco wasn’t alone,” Lux says, voice shaky. “Those footsteps... Do you think he was with Death Eaters?”

“Of course he was,” Ernie replies, half-annoyed, half-scared. “Who else could they be?”

“But that doesn’t make sense!” Neville replies. “If Harry and Dumbledore are out of the castle, what are they here for?”

Neville’s question is met by a deafening silence. They keep on moving, stepping onto each others feet and bumping into each others back until they finally arrive at the end of the corridor and out of the darkness. The night is pitch dark and the corridors are only lighted by candles and torches but Lux still holds her hand in front of her eyes when they finally find back the light.

“We have to get to the Order,” Ron instructs them, his eyes on the map. They all gather around him to see who’s closer to them when Hannah yells, “Here!”

None of them is talking, lest they miss something, but Anya has to admit, it’s getting a bit boring. She has no idea how much time has passed since the Death Eaters went upstairs but it feels like an eternity. And the worst part is that she has no idea what is going on or why they even went upstairs.

“This is pointless,” she eventually lets out, earning glares from everyone. Rolling her eyes, she goes on. “What? We have no idea what’s happening. For all we know they might have left!”

“So they just came to the school to what?” Gabriel asks a bit annoyed. “Walk through a few corridors and jump from the Astronomy tower?”

“I don’t know!” Anya retorts. “I just-”

There’s a loud bang that covers what Anya was saying and suddenly they hear the stampede of feet running down the staircase getting closer and closer. Then, it’s like an explosion and all the Death Eaters burst through the invisible gate that was preventing the Order and the DA from going upstairs.

“Watch out!” Anya hears Gabriel scream and suddenly, spells are bouncing off every wall.

Thank god for Felix, Anya thinks as she casts all the spells she can think of. Most of the Death Eaters stay behind to fight but Anya catches a glimpse of a few of them running away, some of them laughing. Then she sees Snape and Harry running after them and tries to call out to them. “Professor! Harry! Wait! What is going on?”

Neither of them replies, of course, but Anya doesn’t have time to feel offended, a mask Death Eater coming at her.

“We’re on it!” she vaguely hears Ernie yell out to her and she decides that for now, it’s good enough. 

Anya duels her Death Eater as well as she can but she quickly realizes that the only reason she is still standing is because of the Felix Felicis. Around her, the DA seems to be in the same situation. The Death Eaters clearly have the advantage here, and soon enough, Anya realizes that they are slowly progressing down the corridor. 

“We can’t let them go!” she yells out as she sees someone crouching over someone else. In the dark however, she can’t see who they are. “They might be going for the rest of the school.”

“Oh don’t worry sweetheart,” the Death Eater she’s been fighting tells her. “What needed to be done is done. We’re on our way out now.” And with that he casts a spell that zips between her arm and her side, missing her only by an inch.

Powerless, Anya watches as the group of Death Eaters runs down the corridor.

“Stay here,” Selene orders her as part of the Order, Nyx, and her, set off after the Death Eaters while the rest stand over four bodies.

“Lumos,” Anya calls out, lighting up her wand and walking toward the group.

“Are you okay?” Fleur asks shakily, her French accent even stronger than usual, as she grabs Bill’s shoulder.

Bill only reply is to whine, his hand covering his face, covered in blood.

“What happened?” Anya asks horrified as she notices that Gabriel and Neville are both also down, unconscious.

“We’re not too sure about Neville and Gabriel,” Lupin explains to her. “Bill, however... It appears that he has been attacked by Greyback.”

“Is he going to be okay?” Anya gasps and looks at Ginny and Ron, who both look pale.

No one says anything.

Theo and Blaise try to make him talk but Kai hasn’t been feeling very chatty since that fateful night and today is no different. He only hums whenever it seems appropriate and his friends don’t push him. Pansy is tagging along, of course. She has been that whole year, feeling left out by Draco doing... whatever he did, preparing for... whatever happened. Kai doesn’t want to think about it, feeling a huge headache form every time he has stopped to think more than ten seconds about what went down on top of that damn tower. 

He doesn’t know what happened and he doesn’t want to know what happened, is what he keeps telling Theo, Blaise, and the other students every time they try to bring up the subject in his presence. After the first few days, they eventually let it go, understanding that he didn’t want to talk about it. At least not with them.

Kai hasn’t talked to Gabriel since their fight - and break up, he thinks bitterly - that night. He caught sight of him several times in the days that followed, and of course, he went to visit him in the hospital wings but they haven’t spoken. Gabriel hasn’t even acknowledged him since then. At first, Kai felt sad and resigned but now that the initial pain has passed, he is more determined than ever to fix things. If he has to write to Gabriel every single day for him to talk to him again, then so be it, that’s what he’ll do. There’s no way the last words he said to him are the last words he’ll ever say to him. Not those. He can’t accept it. 

The platform seems fuller than usual when Kai gets off the train but he figures that’s because everyone and their mothers came to pick up their children, Dumbledore’s death having scared the magical world more than anything else could have. He looks for Gabriel but only finds Carlisle at first, dragging Rose toward people who must be her parents, Rose looking like he’d rather be anywhere else but here. He sees Astor, then, saying goodbye to Cohen with a long hug that looks more intimate than friendly. Sage is talking to Caulfield and blushes as she kisses her cheek, while her twin and Norrington grossly make out against the train.

Kai grimaces. Gross.

It takes a few minutes but Kai eventually finds Gabriel. As soon as his eyes land on him, his heart stutters, his throat tightens, his hands start to shake, and he almost feels tears pooling at his eyes. Shaking his head at himself for reacting like that, Kai stares as Gabriel talks to his mother and their butler, Vincent. He looks tense and Kai desperately wants to know what’s going on, wants to be there for him, wants to kiss away his tension, his worry, and his pain.

But he can’t. Because they’re not together anymore.

“Uh, weird,” Theo says next to Kai, looking in the same direction as him. “My aunt is here.”

“You know why?” Kai asks, trying to sound as casual as possible.

Theo shrugs. “No. I guess I’ll eventually find out. Not really my business and I don’t really care so...” he trails off with another shrug. “I’m way past caring about what my cousin does. I guess it has to do with the battle. I doubt our family likes that he fought for Dumbledore of all people.”

“I guess not,” Kai replies absent-mindedly, eyes never leaving Gabriel as he follows his mother outside the station. “You’re not going with them?”

“Nah,” Theo replies. “I’m spending some time at Pansy’s with Blaise, and Milicent.”

“You’re more than welcome to come, Kai,” Pansy chimes in immediately, snaking her arm through his. 

“Oh, er, thanks Pansy, but I’ll pass. I’m going to spend some time with my family this summer. Sorry,” he adds quickly after when he sees the look of hurt and anger in her eyes.

“Alright, well I guess I’ll see you in a few months then,” she says sadly, pouting and batting her eyelashes at him.

Kai nods but doesn’t really know what to say besides, “I guess so.”

Theo, Blaise, and Pansy say goodbye and then Kai is left alone in the crowd. Starting to feel claustrophobic, Kai pushes forward, hoping to find his parents soon so they can go home.

Miranda and William are waiting for him near the exit, talking with a tall, blond guy that Kai thinks he saw at the funerals. When he sees him coming toward them, the guy quickly says goodbye to Kai’s parents and disappears into the crowd. Weird, is all Kai can think.

“Kaius,” William lets out warmly when he sees their son, wrapping him in a tight hug that Kai feels himself sinking into.

“Hey dad, mum,” he says as he is passed from his dad to his mum, the both of them looking as relieved to see him as he feels to see them.

“You okay, Schatz?” Miranda asks him, noticing right away his sad face, despite the efforts he puts into looking okay. “Where’s Gabriel?”

Kai shrugs, not really wanting to talk about it, even less so with his parents. “He left with his mother.”

“Reine Keita was here?” William asks, standing on his tiptoes to try and find her.  “Why?”

“To pick up her son, I imagine,” Kai replies.

“Oh well,” Miranda says, probably understanding more about the situation than she lets on, as always, “we’ll have plenty of time to see him this summer, I’m sure,” she tells Kai as she puts a reassuring hand on his cheek. “Ready?”

Found this game while scrolling through Tumblr and found that one of Undertale’s leading artists, Temmie, has made a game. Curious as I was, I downloaded it and played it. As she said in the after-credits of her game and in her itch.io that it’s her first game and I’m honestly amazed with how it turned out. This game serves as a ‘feel’ for RPGmaker and some kind of a prequel to the game she plans on making in the near future.

This is a particularly small game, probably finished it around 15 or so minutes and there’s not a lot to it and no puzzles for that matter. However, I do think it’s very engaging as a narrative game as you’re walking around the protagonist’s house, wondering where her parents are. It’s very melancholic and the writing and the art successfully gives that impression. There are animated cutscenes that are amazingly done as a shoe in for more story within the short game. As I’ve said, it is quite a small game. You, as the player, interact with the environment and it gives a little bit of insight of your character’s situation. I don’t particularly think Temmie is going for an in-depth game and the goal of which is to have an emotional response to the story itself. I think she successfully did this well.