June 17th, 1999 - After School

[independent_dollmaker]

[Alice is first again. She has a copy of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, but she's read the same page five times without taking any of it in.]

[Souji is still missing. Today, Hiroshi and Minako are absent, too. No word on why. This group is getting smaller and smaller. Alice can feel the weight of this strange town bearing down on her. Even if just for a little while, she has to get out of here...]

Comments

[itwasfeyt]

[She doesn't look up at Alice.] It's a scroll about being possessed by evil spirits. It was from my mom, Misty Fey.

[Slowly, she looked up at Alice.]

What did you tell Hiroshi?

[independent_dollmaker]

What do you mean? I didn't tell him anything.

...I suppose I asked if he had gotten his acceptance letter yet, and that was when he started acting strange.

[itwasfeyt]

He said you told him something. [she paused, frowning nervously.] He said a lot of things.

Acceptance letter? To what?

[independent_dollmaker]

He applied to some sort of prestigious school. It wouldn't have been odd if he had heard back from them by now, so I was curious.

[itwasfeyt]

[Maya thinks hard about this new information, but the more she did, the more it confused her.]

....Ugh! [She slams her hands on the desk and stands up.] It can't sit here like this! I'm way too worried about Minako!

[independent_dollmaker]

...You talked to Hiroshi, right? After I called you.

[itwasfeyt]

Yeah, and we didn't learn anything. Except that he was freaking out about something and he thought I knew something about how "The ninth is dead". Then he slammed the door in our faces and wouldn't talk to us anymore.

[She looks down, not looking at the scroll, not looking at anything really.]

We went back home and then Minako volunteered to go and talk to him next.

[...]

I haven't heard from her since then.

[independent_dollmaker]

'The ninth is dead'... do you think he was talking about Souji?

[itwasfeyt]

I don't know. I think so.

[independent_dollmaker]

I'm scared, Maya. I don't know what's going on in this town any more.

[itwasfeyt]

I talked to Mia about it. We're thinking of leaving town for a while, to be safe.

[....]

I hope I don't have to.

[independent_dollmaker]

I hope it doesn't come to that. So many of my friends are gone already...

[itwasfeyt]

I know...