Lighthouse

Status
Not open for further replies.
N

Nabi

Guest
Original poster
[[Charrie Thread]]

Sion Delacroix stirred, half-formed dreams slipping from his mind, as the music from the radio grew slowly louder. Shuddering, he rolled over and hit the off button, sitting up groggily. The sheets tangled around his lower body, and he glanced out the window before standing, watching the snowflakes drift slowly down. Just like home. Happy New Year's to me. With a sigh, he dragged himself through the daily routine. Brush his teeth, go for a jog, take a shower. He pulled on a black t-shirt with a white outline of a spaceship and long jeans, and dried his hair with a towel.

The house seemed empty, the soft patter of the snow outside dampening any sounds. With his parents on a business trip to Germany, he was left to make his own breakfast, and came up with toast. A slice in his hand and another in his stomach, he headed out, pulling on a black jacket. Winter Break ended on New Year's in Nexus, one of the stupidest things that he'd ever heard of. Wasn't it supposed to be a national holiday or something? Indeed, few cars were on the streets as he walked to school. He stopped at a light, taking a bite of toast, as several cars went by, then continued.

The soft rev of an electric engine sounded, disturbingly close by, and Sion's eyes widened to see a car maybe ten feet away. Panicking, he lunged towards the sidewalk, seeming to cover the remaining ten feet of road in an instant. The car rumbled past; he looked down, puzzled, then shook his head. I thought I was done dreaming.

Still wondering, he moved towards the school building, a gargantuan maze of concrete and steel. The building designers certainly hadn't had beauty in mind, and a strange man looking almost like a security guard stood outside, lessening the appeal further. Don't think I've seen him before. He nodded a good morning, and headed towards homeroom. The Nexus school had maybe thirty or forty students in each grade, so all members of the senior class had nearly-identical schedules, save for electives which contained students from all grades. He'd made the rare choice to take the higher-level Physics and Chemistry courses, while most people chose Music, Art, or Gym.

Buried in thought, he arrived at homeroom, sitting down and pushing his earbuds in. He was usually the first to arrive, so he wasn't surprised to see that only the teacher was there. Class started in well over 15 minutes, so maybe a few people he could talk to would arrive.
 
Mari had been up for hours. She was working on her latest painting, music blasting in her small apartment. She sung along to the song as she continued the scene. It was a painting of people in time-square, watching the ball fall down as the minutes ticked by to a New Year. She had just finished up when she noticed the clock. She had spent the whole night painting. "Fuck..." She muttered, rushing to put her paints away. The little figures in the painting started to cheer and move around. She blinked, and the painting became still. Shaking her head, she muttered something about her insomniac ways and put her paints away. Grabbing a piece of toast and quickly doing her makeup, she ran her way to school.

Humming, she walked to her locker and put her things away. Ten minutes before school started. "I am titanium..." She sung quietly, grabbing her things for homeroom. A person walking by seemed to wake up as she ran by, though she didn't notice. She walked into the classroom and sat behind Sion. Still humming, she searched through her bag for her sketchbook.
 
RING! RING! RI- before the alarm could ring the third time Aurelia had chucked it at the wall. "Stupid annoying thing." She mumbled into her pillow before pushing herself up. With a yawn Aurelia rubbed the sleep from her eyes and pushed herself off the end of the bed. Grabbing a pair of jeans and a T-shirt Aurelia padded to her bathroom and grabbed a quick shower.

After showering and brushing her teeth Aurelia left her room and went down the hall to her aunts room. Banging on the door she began to tell, "Aunty get up! I'm making breakfast!" Once her aunt began to stir she skipped downstairs and to the kitchen to fry up some eggs.

About forty five minutes later Aurelia was sprinting down the sidewalk, pulling on her jacket to hide her horrible scars. Her backpack was dangling from her shoulder as her feet pounded the pavement. When Aurelia arrived at the school she was slightly out of breath. At her locker she listened in on the nearby conversation, mocking the bitch behind her. "Oh my gosh Aurelia I don't know how you imitate people so well!" Aurelias friend Adaire commented, only to gain a smile from Aurelia. "Hidden gifts I guess." Aurelia commented before making her way to class.

Five minutes before class and there were only two other students. 'Pathetic' was Aurelias only thought. Prancing in she sat down next to Sion and smiled. "Hey did you guys notice the man out front? Weird huh?" Aurelia asked, honestly curious.
 
"I'm guessing they just want to scare kids into not bringing weed to school." Mari said. She had been sketching the man who was out in front of the school. The sketch winked at her, which made her blink a bit. She shook it off as the lack of sleep. "Speaking of weed, do you guys want some? I got some in my bag." She joked. The man in her sketch seemed to stretch out as she got the finer details of him down. He was a well-built man with a small ear-piece in his ear. She drew a woman fawning over the man and started to hum again.

The man noticed the woman and flexed his muscles. The woman swooned, falling to the ground in a dead faint. Mari drew a cup of water and fan for the man to use, not even noticing the movement of the drawing. The background of the school soon started have an opening and closing door, generic students walking in and out.
 
Avacyyn slammed her fist down on her alarm clock as it went off. She had one of those old high-pitched ringing ones with the bells on the side. Smacking it was really the only way to shut it up. She sat up in bed, and swung her feet out. Her family would already be up by now, most likely have already eaten breakfast, Dad would be at work, Mom in her bookshop, and her brother practicing his tackles in the backyard. She trudged down the steps of her two story house, and walked into the kitchen to make herself a bowl of cereal. Looking out the window, the sun was almost up. She sighed heavily and put the cereal back, and began to make toast. It's all she would have time for this morning. She placed the bread in the toaster and ran upstairs to finish getting ready to walk to school.

When she finally got to school, it seemed the bell had rung just minutes ago. She quieted her footsteps, and quickly drifted down the almost empty halls to her first class of the day. She hated English class.
 
A cold, white, overcast sunlight shone through Taryn's curtains as her alarm pulled her from slumber. She gently tapped the alarm off and rubbed her eyes, the vivid images and sounds of her dreams still replaying and echoing in her head. Shaking her head as if to dismiss the dreams, she got up and went through her usual morning routine.

After finishing her shower and putting on some clothes, she walked back into her bedroom and pulled the curtains open to look out at the snow. The suburban scenery of houses and yards was still weird for her. All her life she had opened her curtains and seen bustling city life and traffic-jammed streets, until a few years ago when her family decided to move out to Nexus.

Taryn pulled on a dense, designer winter jacket and wrapped a warm scarf around her neck that matched the colors of the rest of her ensemble - light, powdery blues with gray and black accents. Her mother, sitting at their family dining table with her morning coffee, chuckled upon seeing her daughter descend the stairs. "Even when you're trying to stay warm, you gotta look cool, huh?" she inquired. Flashing her mother a grin, Taryn shrugged sheepishly. "Yeah, something like that." She waved goodbye to her mom and rushed outside to the awaiting car, driven by none other than Mr. Calculus himself - 95% of Nexus called him Mr. Scottsdale, but to Taryn, he was just Dad.

As they arrived at school, her dad dropped her off before parking in the staff lot. Taryn walked through the halls toward her first class, greeting friends and classmates along the way. She was laughing and exchanging high-fives, hugs and fist bumps all the way to homeroom. Once she got to class, she cheerfully greeted their teacher as she pulled off her backpack and sat just a few desks from Sion. Looking over the group that had already assembled in the classroom, she was struck with a vision of them getting to know each other very well, and working very closely... But just as quickly as the vision came, it vanished. Shrugging it off, Taryn smiled as she turned in her seat to face them.

"Happy New Year, guys!"
 
Last edited:
Skidding wheels. A protective arm in front of him screaming his name in a terrified voice...VALOR! A blinding bright light then...nothing.

Valor immediately sat up gasping and wheezing, trying to take the refreshing chilly air into his weak lungs. He was drenched in a cold sweat. After a few more gulps of the freezing air, his breathing returned to normal. Then he felt arctic rawness, the frigid chill of winter seeping into his very core. Val looked down to see himself covered in a thin layer of snow. Confused, he looked up,"...the heck..?" All he saw up above were white clouds and snow gently drifting down. His eyes widened as he realized where he was. "Am I on the roof?" Valor carefully got up and stumbled when he felt a massive migraine, it felt like his head was being torn apart by a giant. The trail of obscenities he was about to say was swallowed when he started yelling instead.

Val was desperately trying to prevent himself from sliding down the slope of his roof but to no avail. Everything seemed to happen in slow motion as he approached the roof's end. Some unknown force took over his body. He stopped flailing his arms and legs, instead he leaned in to go faster. Then he jumped off the edge and somersaulted in the air before tucking and rolling just as he hit the ground.

"Ooph,"Val cried as he landed in a pile of snow. For a moment or two, Valor laid there, waiting for his mind to make sense of what just happened. The temperature finally got to him when he felt his entire body go numb from the cold. He stood up and ran to his house, resolving to think about the roof incident later on, just not when he was late for school.

Ten minutes later, Valor quietly left the small house. He left a modest present, a note saying "Happy New Years!" and a single artificial rose for his aunt. As he sprinted to school, he wondered how she could possibly sleep with the noise he caused from his prior shouting. Val checked his watch and noticed that he was a couple minutes late. "Crap, I gotta go faster!" However even at the extreme pace he was going, he did not fail to see a mysterious man in front of the school. Val raised an eyebrow and gave him a curious look as he passed, but he had enough things to worry about...like being late for school.

He dashed through the entrance and slammed open the classroom door with panted breath and a disheveled appearance. Val apologized for being late and gave a sheepish grimace to the teacher. He was relieved when the teacher only shook her head and let him off with a warning. "She must be in a forgiving mood, after all, it is New Year's," Val thought. He took an open seat towards the back ignoring the stares he received due to his loud entrance. Val sat and tried to catch his breath for the second time today. He closed his eyes and replayed the morning's events on the roof. His first question was "Okay, first off, how the heck did I even get up there?"
 
Last edited by a moderator:
"Haha ya well there are some pretty dense people around here it wouldn't surprise me that we need security!" Aurelia snorted and sat back in her chair. "Nice drawing by the way." Aurelia commented to Mari with a kind smile.

Just as Aurelia was about to doze off for a few minutes shut eye a familiar voice interrupted her. "Happy New Years to you too Taryn. Now shush. School has begun it's nap time." She said with a chuckle. Sometimes Aurelia felt bad for Taryn. Having a teacher for a parent must be hard.

Just as Aurelia really had fallen asleep she was awoken once more. This time Valor had entered class late and Aurelia stamped her foot impatiently. 'I'm never going to sleep!" Aurelia inwardly groaned.
 
Sion shrugged, replying with a quiet "Happy New Year's" to the various cheerful students. A feeling of vague unease had permeated his mind. He'd always had good instincts for trouble, something to do with getting in fights on a regular basis when he first arrived in America. "Hey," he said with a frown, but was cut off, grimacing, as the teacher began to speak.

"Hello, everyone, and I hope that you have all had a wonderful Winter Break!" His break had been strikingly uneventful. Without homework assignments, he'd been free to learn whatever he wanted, and had spent some time on general and special relativity. Gravity bends space, all that jazz. And, of course, the daily time sink that was video games. "Before we get started with the school year, I'd like to introduce a special visitor." She indicated a man standing by the door, and with a shock Sion recognized the security guard. Or, he supposed, the special visitor? He leaned forwards, interested.

"Mr. Pinner is conducting a survey. This is scientific research, so please answer honestly!"

Sion frowned. Why would a researcher come to Nexus? As the class passed papers backwards, he scrutinized the questions. Normal ones first, such as family situation, gender, age-- and then some odder ones. Mostly about that urban legend. The one where kids got magical powers on the New Year. He snorted softly. Who believes in that?
 
Avacyyn stared blankly into the space in front of her, just watching the creations of her imagination whiz through her head. When she came to, everyone was exchanging 'Happy New Year's' and talk about a strange man out front? Thinking back on it, she did see a man who wasn't usually there. In fact, he wasn't usually anywhere. She knew the layout of this city better than she knew herself, and had never seen that guy before. Pondering this silently in the back of the room, she avoided engaging people in conversation. She would wait for someone to address her.

As she sat there, almost nonexistent to the others, Avacyyn stared at her desk top and tried to figure out if she had seen him before, and where.
 
Taryn's eyes narrowed in suspicion, examining this Mr. Pinner fellow. She had only been in Nexus a few years, but it was long enough to know that he clearly didn't belong. Taryn barely even noticed him standing at the front of the school, but now that he was in the classroom, Taryn began having flashbacks of him standing watch, of him walking through the campus, even of him just before he entered the classroom.

My imagination is running wild again.. how could I have memories of something I never saw?

Still cautious, she scrutinized the questions in the research survey. She intentionally misspelled her name Trina Scott. Something in the pit of her stomach gave her the feeling that something wasn't right. Images kept flashing into her head of terrible things happening, but they came and went so quickly that Taryn could never really process the images - she just knew she didn't like what she saw.

Her eyes combed through every detail of the survey, almost as if she was trying to see individual fibers in the sheets of paper. She made it past the questions about mythology, and was getting into questions about her own experiences, when she froze. Her pencil dropped onto her desk as she picked up the sheet with both hands and studied the same question over and over, not believing she could be reading it correctly.

Yes or No: Have you ever experienced memories that aren't yours?

Taryn's normally calm demeanor was now flustered and confused. I need some air, she thought. She dropped the survey back onto her desk and raised her hand. "Can I go to the bathroom?" she inquired. Though their teacher was normally pretty relaxed with Taryn, her voice was firm: "Taryn, Mr. Pinner is on a very tight schedule. If it can wait, please finish the survey first."

With a reluctant sigh, she affixed her eyes back on the question. Leaving the answer blank, she continued on with the rest of the survey.
 
Avacyyn blinked as a paper was handed to her. "A... survey?" she asked quietly. She looked at the paper questioningly and began to fill them out. The first several were the average, run-of-the-mill survey questions. Then they started asking about mythologies and an old urban legend about kids getting mystical abilities on New Year's. She had heard the legend multiple times, each time by someone different, but every time dismissed by her family as just that- a legend. An old tale meant to be entertaining. Hesitantly, she filled out the questions as best she could. Then that one question hit her.

Yes or No: Have you ever concentrated on something such as a flame or a shadow and could control it with a thought?

Thinking back, there were a few instances she could remember staring into the flame of a candle, watching it flicker and dance with the gentle breeze, and as she zoned out, lost in thought, the flame seemed to dance. Actually dance. She could see the bright orange figures waltzing upon the wick, smooth, elegant, graceful. As she faded out of her subconscious and became aware of her surroundings, the flame flickered and went out, leaving behind it trailing smoke.

Avacyyn checked the 'yes' box, unsure of how her results would be read by the scientific community. Would they try to call her and tell her she was psychic or something? She shook her head and dismissed the troubling thought, and finished answering the questions. But a question kept prodding at her mind: 'Why would scientists be asking questions about mysticism? Or were they Alchemists?' As she wondered this, she looked down to see she had finished the survey. Putting her pencil on the desk, she waited for someone to hold their hand out to collect the sheet.
 
'A survey?' Mari thought. 'Fuck that shit.' She turned the paper to the blank side and started doodling. A small figure of Mr. Pinners was being hit on the head with a hammer by her. She chuckled as the drawing seemed to come to life, the action repeating over and over again. "Mari, how many times have I told you? No doodling in class!" The teacher reprimanded her.

Mari sighed and turned the sheet of paper back to the survey side, muttering, "Yes ma'am." She started to fill it out, a few of the questions bugging her. They talked about urban legends and all of that. She tilted her head as she filled in the answers, curious as to why the government wanted this. One particular question popped out at her. Yes or No: Have you ever made your art move or changed someone's mood with a song?

She immediately scowled. What kind of question was that? She wasn't going to tell them about her occasionally weird times where she would do exactly as the page said. Sometimes, she thought she saw her art wink at her. Other times, when she was humming a sad tune, the others around her would become depressed. It was just a coincidence and most of the time, her art moved when she was up late at night, unable to sleep. The people becoming depressed could be that they remembered something bad happened and felt sad about that.

So, being her usual rebellious self, she circled both answers and wrote, 'Wouldn't you like to know?' She then drew a quick picture of her face sticking her tongue out at them. She answered the rest of them honestly and finished with a flare of her pencil, wanting to look cool or just plain stupid. Either one would work.
 
"Oh my gosh this teacher obviously hasn't learned anything from last semester! I ALWAYS sleep in this class! I hate stupid interruptions." Aurelia had figured that she and her teacher had come to a mutual understanding last semester. As long as the teacher let Aurelia sleep she would ace the stupid tests, the teacher obviously wasn't keeping her end of the deal.

With a sigh Aurelia took her survey questionnaire and began to read the questions. 'Stupid, senseless, not interested, ridicu-' Aurelia stopped mid thought. "What the hell is this? Is this guy psycho?" It seemed Mr. Pinner had heard her and shot a dirty look her way. Not able to resist Aurelia stuck her tongue out and turned back to the question that had caught her eye. 'Have you ever found that mimicking other people and/or looking like them is easy?'

Yawning Aurelia crumpled up her paper and turned to Mari. "Hey Mari you should draw me a pillow and make it come to life." Aurelia commented, sarcasm dripping from her tone like poison. "I mean these idiots think magic exists so why not?" Aurelia laughed and began to doodle on her crumpled paper nonchalantly.
 
Val spaced out as he was still thinking about this morning. By the time he heard people writing, he missed out on everything that had transpired in the short interval of time after he arrived to class. His eyes focused on a single sheet of paper in front of him. "A survey, huh, haven't had one of those in a while," Val thought. He leaned forward with one arm beside the paper, pencil poised & ready to write. His other arm was bent at a 90 degree angle with his elbow on the desk & chin on his hand. He mindlessly began filling out the survey, never pausing or fibbing on any. It wasn't until after his seventh question that he stopped and thought. "Wait, did I read that right?" he murmured. Valor glanced at the question again, his eyes widened with shock as he read it aloud, disregarding the fact that anyone else could have heard him. "Yes or No: Have you ever instinctively knew what to do in a dangerous, potentially deadly situation or/and have almost superhuman senses?" Without even fully understanding the queerness of the inquiry, Val had already previously wrote "Yes."

Now the questionnaire held his full attention. Val intently searched for other strange questions as he made his way down the list. At the end, not one other question held any value for him as number seven did. Val sighed dejectedly as he laid down his head to rest on his hands.

Val decided to stare at the mysterious man in black whom he saw earlier today, intrigued by the perplexity and deadly professionalism he emitted. He had a million questions buzzing around in his head, with not a single answer to one of them.

Maybe it was from over thinking and exhausting his brain or an oncoming cold he may have caught from earlier on today, but Val felt a dull throbbing at the back of his head. He furrowed his brow and leaned his head against the cold desk, which helped a little. Then he heard faint voices coming in and out of focus, seemingly far away. Val snapped his head to the right when he heard a loud, restless foot tapping the floor a mile a minute. He swiveled his head to the left when someone began clicking a pen. It was unbelievable that such ordinary, trivial actions seemed so pretentious and deafening to his ears. The rest of the class was torture to Val because he kept hearing everything! Val moaned as he slammed his head onto the desk and put his hands over his ears, a miserable plan that failed to block everything out.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom
Back