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[LP CYOA] Spiral
- Thread starter treave
- Start date
- Joined
- Jul 6, 2008
- Messages
- 11,370
track: zetsumei
“Shinoseki-san, what are you doing?”
“O-onii-san?”
You ignore Amanozaki and Mitsuki’s calls, tucking your glasses safely away before sprinting towards the pool. Every fiber of your mind is screaming at your recklessness, but you swallow your doubts – taking a deep breath, you allow your body’s instincts to take over and dive into the water gracefully. Though you had expected it and tried to prepare for the feeling mentally, the physical shock of the icy cold water freezes your thoughts for a second. Can it be that cold? The temperature is far lower than you had expected. Your body continues moving, however, cutting through the water swiftly to close in on the struggling Shiba. Her head has not been able to clear the waterline, and you can only make out her hands breaking the surface in a panic. Thanks to her wild movements, the cloudy water, the dim lighting and your short-sightedness, you can barely make out her submerged form.
For an instant you think you see a shadow clinging to her… but it is gone again in the next. A mere trick of the light?
Regardless, you have no choice.
You dive down, plunging further into the murky depths. You’ll need to push her up from below if she can’t surface by herself. Reaching out half-blindly, your fingers search for Shiba’s warmth in the cold dark. Your first indicator of her proximity is when her wildly lashing limbs strike you in the abdomen. You almost lose your breath, a half dozen bubbles squeezing their way from your mouth and nose. Gathering your composure again, you reach out and hold on tightly. Once you have a grip on her waist, you kick your legs down, lifting her towards the surface.
Something far, far colder than the surrounding water wraps itself around your ankle. A sharp, stinging pain shoots up your leg. It feels almost like fingers: icy and slimy and frighteningly strong. You glance down, but in the muddy gloom you are unable to make out anything but misshapen shadows.
With a tug, you are pulled downwards without so much as a chance to free yourself. You are parted from Shiba – she continues rising up to the surface as you plummet down to the floor of the pool.
You panic. You struggle. But it is no use.
You continue to sink, deeper and deeper, as the air reserves in your lungs dwindle rapidly with every wild, useless movement you make.
Wasn’t this pool supposed to be five metres deep? At the back of your mind, for some strange reason, you are still keeping count. Where is the floor of the pool?
You stare down, into the inky blackness. No light reaches you here. There is no sound too; even the movement of the water is still no matter how much you wave your limbs around.
And then, in the darkness… you get the feeling that something has become aware, and is staring back.
Eyes in the depths, darker than the black, brackish water.
A sharp pain, bearing grudge and malice… and also a glimmer of recognition, slices through your skull – you scream, involuntarily, losing the last of your oxygen in a burst of bubbles.
There is the sensation of movement, and panicked shouts. Suddenly, your head breaks the surface of the water. You gasp for air reflexively, blinking.
“I got you, Shinoseki!” Sakimura. A pair of strong arms haul you up and away, towards safety. Soon, you find yourself crawling onto the side of the pool, coughing and sputtering. The boy is squatting down besides you, patting your back. “You pushed Shiba up but then stopped moving at all, floating in the middle of the pool. We didn’t know what you were doing, man! Don’t scare us like that!”
I… stopped moving? You could have sworn that you were struggling all the way down. With trembling fingers, you reached into your soaked pocket to retrieve your glasses. You find it there – along with something else. Something cold and hard, made of metal. You withdraw the key from your pocket, slightly astonished. When did it get in there?
As you put on your spectacles again, Kozaka waves from the right side of the pool, supporting a faint-looking Shiba – he does not seem to mind that she is dripping pool water all over him. “This is not good,” calls out the short boy, shaking his head. “Maybe we should leave quickly.”
Sakimura looks up and to your left. “Uehara! Mitsuki-chan! Amanozaki-san!” he calls out. “We got him! You can stop fighting now!” It looks like Amanozaki, Uehara and Mitsuki are on the other side. It seems that they’ve been arguing – you can almost see a dark cloud hanging over the three girls.
track: unease
Something is wrong.
You whirl around to look at the pool.
Run.
There is a distortion in the pool, near where the key had been. It is as if space itself is warped, bending and wrapping around itself. A powerful, overwhelming dread sinks into your heart; you almost let out an audible gasp at the bizarre sight. Then, a strong burst of static obscures your vision temporarily – when it clears, the colour is being drained out of the scenery before your eyes, seemingly sucked into the distortion. Everything in the large hall has been reduced to monochromatic black and white - the blue tiles, the faint silvery light, and the painted walls now exist only in various shades of grey.
Leave.
At the center of the distortion, you can make out a dark shadow… hair… a head… rising gradually from the water, sending black ripples across the entire pool.
It is something similar to the fat man that you encountered in the toilet, but at the same time, fundamentally, frighteningly different.
Something is wrong.
Run.
“W-w-what the hell is that?” you hear Sakimura whisper fearfully, his cheery optimism vanished by the sight. It looks like you are not the only one seeing it.
“I’m not staying to find out!” shouts out Kozaka – he breaks and runs, half-dragging Shiba along with him.
“Hey, Kozaka! Wait up! Uehara! Let’s get out of here!”
“Shinoseki-san!” shouts Amanozaki with a wavering voice. Her normally pale face is even more so than usual, and she is holding up a veritable arsenal of multi-cultural religious objects out in front of her for protection.
Kozaka is leaving through the doors on the right with Shiba, but Sakimura seems torn between going after them and running towards Uehara.
***
01:30
A. You run to the right exit to catch up with Kozaka and Shiba. Shiba is not looking well and Kozaka will probably find it hard to look after her by himself. They are more likely to need your help too.
B. You run towards the left exit to rejoin Amanozaki, Mitsuki and Uehara. You did promise Mitsuki that you would look after her, and there is something strange about Uehara that you can’t put your finger on at the moment.
C. You decide to stay and confront the thing rising from the water… perhaps you can buy some time for the others. Your leg is still hurting from the swim anyway – you would only slow them down if you went with them.
***
1. You try to get Sakimura to run to the right.
2. You try to get Sakimura to run to the left.
3. You let him make up his own mind.
“Shinoseki-san, what are you doing?”
“O-onii-san?”
You ignore Amanozaki and Mitsuki’s calls, tucking your glasses safely away before sprinting towards the pool. Every fiber of your mind is screaming at your recklessness, but you swallow your doubts – taking a deep breath, you allow your body’s instincts to take over and dive into the water gracefully. Though you had expected it and tried to prepare for the feeling mentally, the physical shock of the icy cold water freezes your thoughts for a second. Can it be that cold? The temperature is far lower than you had expected. Your body continues moving, however, cutting through the water swiftly to close in on the struggling Shiba. Her head has not been able to clear the waterline, and you can only make out her hands breaking the surface in a panic. Thanks to her wild movements, the cloudy water, the dim lighting and your short-sightedness, you can barely make out her submerged form.
For an instant you think you see a shadow clinging to her… but it is gone again in the next. A mere trick of the light?
Regardless, you have no choice.
You dive down, plunging further into the murky depths. You’ll need to push her up from below if she can’t surface by herself. Reaching out half-blindly, your fingers search for Shiba’s warmth in the cold dark. Your first indicator of her proximity is when her wildly lashing limbs strike you in the abdomen. You almost lose your breath, a half dozen bubbles squeezing their way from your mouth and nose. Gathering your composure again, you reach out and hold on tightly. Once you have a grip on her waist, you kick your legs down, lifting her towards the surface.
Something far, far colder than the surrounding water wraps itself around your ankle. A sharp, stinging pain shoots up your leg. It feels almost like fingers: icy and slimy and frighteningly strong. You glance down, but in the muddy gloom you are unable to make out anything but misshapen shadows.
With a tug, you are pulled downwards without so much as a chance to free yourself. You are parted from Shiba – she continues rising up to the surface as you plummet down to the floor of the pool.
You panic. You struggle. But it is no use.
You continue to sink, deeper and deeper, as the air reserves in your lungs dwindle rapidly with every wild, useless movement you make.
Wasn’t this pool supposed to be five metres deep? At the back of your mind, for some strange reason, you are still keeping count. Where is the floor of the pool?
You stare down, into the inky blackness. No light reaches you here. There is no sound too; even the movement of the water is still no matter how much you wave your limbs around.
And then, in the darkness… you get the feeling that something has become aware, and is staring back.
Eyes in the depths, darker than the black, brackish water.
A sharp pain, bearing grudge and malice… and also a glimmer of recognition, slices through your skull – you scream, involuntarily, losing the last of your oxygen in a burst of bubbles.
There is the sensation of movement, and panicked shouts. Suddenly, your head breaks the surface of the water. You gasp for air reflexively, blinking.
“I got you, Shinoseki!” Sakimura. A pair of strong arms haul you up and away, towards safety. Soon, you find yourself crawling onto the side of the pool, coughing and sputtering. The boy is squatting down besides you, patting your back. “You pushed Shiba up but then stopped moving at all, floating in the middle of the pool. We didn’t know what you were doing, man! Don’t scare us like that!”
I… stopped moving? You could have sworn that you were struggling all the way down. With trembling fingers, you reached into your soaked pocket to retrieve your glasses. You find it there – along with something else. Something cold and hard, made of metal. You withdraw the key from your pocket, slightly astonished. When did it get in there?
As you put on your spectacles again, Kozaka waves from the right side of the pool, supporting a faint-looking Shiba – he does not seem to mind that she is dripping pool water all over him. “This is not good,” calls out the short boy, shaking his head. “Maybe we should leave quickly.”
Sakimura looks up and to your left. “Uehara! Mitsuki-chan! Amanozaki-san!” he calls out. “We got him! You can stop fighting now!” It looks like Amanozaki, Uehara and Mitsuki are on the other side. It seems that they’ve been arguing – you can almost see a dark cloud hanging over the three girls.
track: unease
Something is wrong.
You whirl around to look at the pool.
Run.
There is a distortion in the pool, near where the key had been. It is as if space itself is warped, bending and wrapping around itself. A powerful, overwhelming dread sinks into your heart; you almost let out an audible gasp at the bizarre sight. Then, a strong burst of static obscures your vision temporarily – when it clears, the colour is being drained out of the scenery before your eyes, seemingly sucked into the distortion. Everything in the large hall has been reduced to monochromatic black and white - the blue tiles, the faint silvery light, and the painted walls now exist only in various shades of grey.
Leave.
At the center of the distortion, you can make out a dark shadow… hair… a head… rising gradually from the water, sending black ripples across the entire pool.
It is something similar to the fat man that you encountered in the toilet, but at the same time, fundamentally, frighteningly different.
Something is wrong.
Run.
“W-w-what the hell is that?” you hear Sakimura whisper fearfully, his cheery optimism vanished by the sight. It looks like you are not the only one seeing it.
“I’m not staying to find out!” shouts out Kozaka – he breaks and runs, half-dragging Shiba along with him.
“Hey, Kozaka! Wait up! Uehara! Let’s get out of here!”
“Shinoseki-san!” shouts Amanozaki with a wavering voice. Her normally pale face is even more so than usual, and she is holding up a veritable arsenal of multi-cultural religious objects out in front of her for protection.
Kozaka is leaving through the doors on the right with Shiba, but Sakimura seems torn between going after them and running towards Uehara.
***
01:30
A. You run to the right exit to catch up with Kozaka and Shiba. Shiba is not looking well and Kozaka will probably find it hard to look after her by himself. They are more likely to need your help too.
B. You run towards the left exit to rejoin Amanozaki, Mitsuki and Uehara. You did promise Mitsuki that you would look after her, and there is something strange about Uehara that you can’t put your finger on at the moment.
C. You decide to stay and confront the thing rising from the water… perhaps you can buy some time for the others. Your leg is still hurting from the swim anyway – you would only slow them down if you went with them.
***
1. You try to get Sakimura to run to the right.
2. You try to get Sakimura to run to the left.
3. You let him make up his own mind.
Nevill
Arcane
- Joined
- Jun 6, 2009
- Messages
- 11,211
Dammit, we got touched again, didn't we? That might be not a very long night.
Still, I do not regret this choice. Someone had to bite the bullet, and we might be more resilient than others, seeing how we have lived through most of our encounters with the unnatural where others have died... or would have died.
We should stay with Mitsuki and Uehara, as we made a promise, and, well, we are older and quite possibly stronger and braver than the girls.
On the other hand, Kozaka and barely conscious Shiba won't make it out of here alone. As no one seems to be willing to become the leader of our little expedition (to be expected from a bunch of scared teenagers, really), I think we should step up and order Sakimura to follow those two. It does not hurt that he is, too, a brave fellow and knows karate to boot. He is likely to want to see those two to safety even if it puts his life at risk, and that is worth a lot in this place. I don't know if I can say the same about Kozaka, though.
Right now I am afraid that the hospital might turn us on each other eventually, like it did with Taketatsu, so I want at least one strong personality with every team. It is my suspicion that those are harder to corrupt.
So, B1 I guess.
Still, I do not regret this choice. Someone had to bite the bullet, and we might be more resilient than others, seeing how we have lived through most of our encounters with the unnatural where others have died... or would have died.
We should stay with Mitsuki and Uehara, as we made a promise, and, well, we are older and quite possibly stronger and braver than the girls.
On the other hand, Kozaka and barely conscious Shiba won't make it out of here alone. As no one seems to be willing to become the leader of our little expedition (to be expected from a bunch of scared teenagers, really), I think we should step up and order Sakimura to follow those two. It does not hurt that he is, too, a brave fellow and knows karate to boot. He is likely to want to see those two to safety even if it puts his life at risk, and that is worth a lot in this place. I don't know if I can say the same about Kozaka, though.
Right now I am afraid that the hospital might turn us on each other eventually, like it did with Taketatsu, so I want at least one strong personality with every team. It is my suspicion that those are harder to corrupt.
So, B1 I guess.
Last edited:
Elfberserker
Liturgist
- Joined
- Oct 25, 2013
- Messages
- 1,540
B1
We go with the girls on left and Sakimura to right with shiba and Kozaka.
We go with the girls on left and Sakimura to right with shiba and Kozaka.
Kz3r0
Arcane
- Joined
- May 28, 2008
- Messages
- 27,026
Or maybe our intervention made things worse, the 'darkness' seems to have a personal grudge against us.
Nevill
Arcane
- Joined
- Jun 6, 2009
- Messages
- 11,211
Oops. Yeah, I meant B1.
I wonder if it was a hyperbole, or if it was a literal dark cloud. Something else may be going on. The hospital may not only after our bodies, but after our minds as well.
That's the question, though. Worse for whom?
We are not going anywhere from this hospital anytime soon, so it might be good to become aware of that grudge that I am almost certain didn't appear just now. Before, it knew that we were here, but we were oblivious to it.
I also wonder if it begrudges us what we did at one point or another, or just our family name.
Last edited:
B3
Nevill
Arcane
- Joined
- Jun 6, 2009
- Messages
- 11,211
Hm. We know we are in the Kaimei Hospital now. We know there was a fire that have burned the hospital to the ground. And we've seen a shadow dive in the pool.
It might be one of the victims of the arson. Might even be the nurse Amanozaki was talking about, if she was still alive when she was set on fire.
Still, it does not explain why the presence we felt was on a whole new level compared to those that we've met before. It would be interesting to find out if the others have seen the same thing we did.
It might be one of the victims of the arson. Might even be the nurse Amanozaki was talking about, if she was still alive when she was set on fire.
Still, it does not explain why the presence we felt was on a whole new level compared to those that we've met before. It would be interesting to find out if the others have seen the same thing we did.
Nyarmith
Educated
Very cool update! Action packed. We've also been touched, of course, but let's try to not make our sacrifice in vain.
B1
B1
Kashmir Slippers
Magister
B1
Nevill
Arcane
- Joined
- Jun 6, 2009
- Messages
- 11,211
Clearly, people do not understand the ramifications of this choice.
On one hand, we have an all-female team of Amanozaki, Mitsuki and Uehara.
On the other, we have Kozaka and Shiba, and only the former is fully conscious.
Why would we even think twice where to put Sakimura or leave it up to him? Why would we spoil our precious alone time with 3 girls in a haunted building? That's, like, the dream scenario!
DRIVE THE FILTHY MALE AWAY! PROTECT THE PURITY OF THE HAREM!
On one hand, we have an all-female team of Amanozaki, Mitsuki and Uehara.
On the other, we have Kozaka and Shiba, and only the former is fully conscious.
Why would we even think twice where to put Sakimura or leave it up to him? Why would we spoil our precious alone time with 3 girls in a haunted building? That's, like, the dream scenario!
DRIVE THE FILTHY MALE AWAY! PROTECT THE PURITY OF THE HAREM!
Last edited:
Nevill
Arcane
- Joined
- Jun 6, 2009
- Messages
- 11,211
I would agree to it only after we snip his balls personally.
Don't leave anything up to chance!
a cut of domestic sheep prime
Guest
B1
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