To understand the layout of the area we were in, imagine looking at it from a bird’s eye view, the dining room was to the right, the study room to the left, on the bottom left was the door leading to the clerical boxes and boilers, and to the right of that door were nine doors with the empty plaques on them, and opposite of those nine doors were nine doors with empty plaques as well! Facing each other, so imagine a wall in the middle of a giant open space, that’s where the opposing doors are facing the nine doors next to the basement one, make sense? Hope it does, because on the other side of the wall leads, or more so if we’re still using the bird’s eye view, then to the top is another door leading somewhere, which is where the group was heading.

  Penelope continued leading Makoto to the final door that was unlocked… which led us to quite the sight! Bright, very bright, just about the length of a hockey rink, let’s divide this outside space into three sections, the left end zone, the center zone, and the right end zone. On the left end zone were swings, a merry go round, a swing chair, seesaw, and a trampoline. The center zone divided the end zones with flower beds, right in the actual center of the center zone was a structure with a circular structure you could walk under, with a table and a few chairs you could sit and chat in. Finally the right end zone… it was just completely filled with grass, but it had a killer canopy!

  ???: “Hey who’s there! Avrom get behind me!”

  Avrom: “Jeez Shichiro, chill out, it's just some randoms…”

  Shichiro: “You don’t know that! They could be the ones who kidnapped us!”

  Makoto would finally take Penelope’s hand off his arm.

  Makoto: “Peace everyone, please let’s all just calm down and introduce ourselves, pleasure meeting you two as I am Makoto Izanagi.”

  Penelope: “Oh please monsieur, we shouldn’t concern ourselves with these rags…”

  Avrom: “I- … I’m not a rag, I’m Avrom Priddy, my ultimate talent is being the ultimate whistler.”

  Avrom would create a pretty seducing tune, not that I’m into it or anything.

  Shichiro: “Avrom! Save your talent for those that deserve it, as for me… You will address me as Shichiro Usui! The ultimate flutist!”

  Jac: “Whistler? Flutist? Wait, what's the difference?”

  Avrom: “I can’t play the flute.”

  Shichiro: “I can’t twist my lips in conjunction with heightening my breath to a low or high pitch.”

  Jac: “…Alright…”

  I wasn’t expecting them to give me such blunt answers so fast.

  Jeremy: “Alright can we get moving please? I want to see what’s in the other building.”

  Jeremy was right, there was another building in front of us, similar in color to the one behind us, but it would definitely be different…

  Valentinia: “Aww but I wanted to sky watch!”

  Jeremy: “You do realize that the sky isn’t actually the sky right?”

  Valentinia: “… Y-yeah of course… it’s just- you know! Something interesting to do like admiring these flowers…”

  Jeremy: “Those flowers are also fake.”

  Valentinia: “Oh great, the next thing you’re gonna tell me is that the dirt here is actually sand!”

  Jeremy: “Well actually-“

  Shichiro would nudge Jeremy’s shoulder.

  Shichiro: “Look, can we all just move on?”

  Avrom: “Wait… who are the rest of you?”

  Everyone would take their time introducing themselves, even Penelope… then it was my turn.

  Jac: “Let’s see… How do I make this interesting? I’m Jac Miyata, J-A-C, not J-A-C-K! Keep that noted.”

  Avrom: “Noted…”

  Shichiro: “Alright now we can move on, there were three more that woke up out here, but they ventured inside the building you lot wanted to investigate…”

  I lost track of how many people were around me, first it was a group of four, then six, then eight, now ten, and we all approached the door leading to the next building… and that’s when we discovered the other eight students.

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  Hikari: “Woah! Hey there, be careful with that!”

  ???: “Oh hush you! I’m just having a bit of fun!”

  ???: “You do realize that if you fall then the machine will fall on top of you too… killing you…”

  ???: “Oh fuck off! I can afford to lose my other leg!”

  ???: “‘Oh will you three just step away from there? I’m sick and tired of all of this noise…”

  To the right was a girl with long white hair, for some reason it had brown streaks with no clear pattern… the most mind boggling thing about her hair though was that it doesn’t seem like she dyed it, she also had a prosthetic leg, that was the first thing I noticed alongside her unbuttoned hawaiian shirt over her sports bra, cut off shorts, one sandal for her non amputated foot, shaking a vending machine. Next to her was a guy who also had white hair that covered his face, a darker shade of white than her’s, with three red loops. He also had safety goggles, a lab coat, black sweatpants, and yet he didn’t wear any footwear, just black socks. The one yelling at the two, and including Hikari, was quite the tall queen with bleached baby pink hair that looked quite rough, seemingly cut by someone without much barbering experience, but it at least curled at the front forming a peak, looked like mash potatoes to me. She had quite a heavy apron smeared in black puffs and stains of smoke, and under that apron was a blue boiler suit plus brown boots.

  Cain: “Hey Abel look! It’s my camera man!”

  I felt someone wrap their arms around my neck.

  Cain: “How you doin?”

  Cain… it was Cain, and he was talking in a naive voice.

  Abel: “Hey I don’t think it’s nice to be touching people in this situation…”

  Cain: “Oh it’s fine! I’m sure caramel blonde here doesn’t care that much right?”

  Honestly I didn’t have much of a problem with this, I’ve been used as a pillow over the years for many different “friends”.

  ???: “Hey… who the hell are these folk?”

  Quite the strong Irish accent.

  Cain: “Oh Oscar! Wanna meet my friend?”

  Oscar: “Friend? Oh jeez are you another victim of these idiots squabbling? I suppose any friend of his is of no danger to me, so I’m Oscar Murphy, world renowned illusionist at your service…”

  Cain: “Yep! Oscar here is the ultimate illusionist! We should def set up a magic show for him soon!”

  Oscar: “For the last time I’m no magician, I have no magic or any of that shit… I’m simply someone who abuses the way our brain perceives things.”

  Cain would pout, his grip tightening round my collar.

  Cain: “Aw you’re no fun…”

  Abel: “Cain you’re choking your boyfriend…”

  Cain would let go of me, more so because he was offended at the sound of Abel calling me his boyfriend.

  Cain: “Woah! Woah! Hey! No one here is my boyfriend!”

  Soon enough the tall Cambodian woman had the amputee and lab coat individuals in a carry hold as she walked towards us.

  Juno: “Hey there I’m Juno Fischer, ultimate boilermaker who’s been able to install boilers across all of Cambodia, I like to praise myself every now and then.”

  Lapti?a: “…Hey there… My name is Lapti?a Virgo, and this is a less than ideal way to meet you all… I’m the ultimate forensic scientist by the way.”

  Haru: “Heheheh! I’m Haru! Hi-RU! Hi! Haru Kurokawa here! I’m the ultimate perjurer! Fear me peasants!”

  Haru wiggled and tried getting out of Juno’s grip, soon enough Hikari joined us.

  Hikari: “Wazup folks! I’m Hikari Teruya as you all know, the greatest pachinko player in the world! You better believe it and remember it!”

  Avrom: “Aw god my head hurts already…”

  Penelope: “You think you’re in pain? I feel myself getting dumber and dumber by the hour…”

  ???: “Quite the mouth you’ve got there huh Princess?”

  A southern accent shot through the room.

  Penelope: “Oh, and who might you be?”

  It was clear Penelope was already looking down on this person for her rural accent, sure the southerner may have long wavy brown hair with glitter stuck to it, her blouse definitely didn’t hide her rack… wait why am I looking there? Anyways she had cargo shorts, ariat boots, and a few sport wristbands.

  Yoshiharu: “Yoshiharu Hirotaru, the ultimate Ping Pong player, but you may prefer addressing me as a queen of the sport.”

  So this was it, all eighteen students… Where were we? Right now the room we were in was quite… well it was a half circlet for the most part, the door we entered from was a rectangular wall, and there were four garage doors closed to us, in the middle were these fluffy cottons guards that served no purpose other than to be decor, grape vines were also growing along the walls.

  Atropos: “ATTENTION!”

  That voice… It was cthulhu mask talking to us through the loudspeaker.

  Atropos: “Hello students of Sunlight Institute! Apologizes for the fright, but it seems you’ve all gotten to make your first impressions, now then if you would please allow me to explain your situation I will lift all small anxieties you may have, the big anxieties however may be proven correct! Whether you listen or not is none of my concern, just know that if you don’t understand anything then we are not liable for your stupidity! Now the room you are in is what we call the gate to Olympus, much will be explained about the gate later, but for now if you exit the gate to Olympus then you’ll enter the Asphodel Meadows! There’s a playground to exert energy, an area to have breakfast, lunch, or dinner outside, and a meadow for you to lay down and rest under the canopy, finally the building opposite to the one you’re all in is the safe haven, filled with all your necessities! Food, living space, comfort, and eventually your quarters! Now may you all please head back to the safe haven! There's another special announcement to be made.”

  Kanji: “…We aren’t seriously actually going to follow their orders right?”

  Penelope: “What other option do we have?”

  Haru: “Yeah what the rich girl said!”

  Kanji: “Hey aren’t you supposed to be on my side? We can’t trust the three who seemingly kidnapped us!”

  Abel: “The clown has a point… should we just willingly follow the orders of our captors?”

  Cain: “What happens if we don’t?”

  Oscar: “Ugh my head hurts, we obviously can’t stay here if they can monitor us, either way we should probably follow their orders with caution.”

  Lapti?a: “You talk like this is our fault for making your head hurt… I- I just hate it here for how crowded things are…”

  Suddenly… a loud whistle could be heard.

  Hikari: “YO! Everyone shut up for a minute!”

  Avrom seemed to have blown the whistle hanging on his necklace, standing next to Hikari.

  Hikari: “Let’s look at the options we have, we either starve to death doing nothing! Or have a fighting chance by going forward together! Now come on if we all go as one class there’s no way anything can go wrong!”

  This guy had the goofiest smile on his face, how could he be so optimistic in this scenario?

  Jeremy: “The gambler’s right, we can’t simply just afford to sit here, if we go as a group then hey! At least we tried.”

  Wow, was that supposed to make us feel better? … screw it.

  Jac: “Let’s put it into perspective, we’re all buddies here, so we should watch each other's backs against the actual enemy here, that being our kidnappers.”

  I’d hold out my hand for anyone to take.

  Jac: “Let’s form a line of security… together, all of us.”

  …

  Someone would take my hand.

  Cain: “Aw fuck it we all die someday right? At least I die near friends.”

  Soon Abel took his brother’s hand, then Jeremy, Valentinia, Noir, Makoto, Penelope, and so on. Soon we all exited the building and into the meadow, and made our way into the building across… I turned the knob… and opened the door bracing for the worse…

  …

  I took three steps forward

  …

  Then

  …

  Noir: “AHHHHHHHHHH!”

  Oscar: “WHAT THE FUCK!”

  Abel: “W-WHAT IS THAT!”

  Cain: “…” ~scared murmuring~

  Avrom: ~scared stiff~

  What everyone was freaking out about, was the hanging corpse with bleeding coming from there head.

  Makoto: “…Relax everyone… it’s just a mannequin… a really convincing one.”

  Makoto had tread ahead to examine the corpse, he was followed by Penelope who also examined the corpse, then Noir, Nina, Jeremy, and Valentinia who all confirmed his claim.

  Atropos: “Well! Well! Well! It looks like you’ve discovered your first husk! Perhaps now you’ll finally start taking this seriously if you weren’t already, as it’s time for the investigation…”

  Jac: “Wait what? An investigation!? We aren’t detectives!”

  Atropos: “Oh I know you aren’t, but let’s just say this is the only way you’ll be able to leave… my sisters and I are your captors and we’d like to play a game with you all first! So just follow this tutorial and we’ll tell you the prerequisite to leave! Now then… chop, chop, I’ve left a very special gift for all of you in the husk’s coat pocket…”

  Makoto would rummage through the pockets and take out a tablet, as it turned on we saw the corpse’s name.

  Makoto: “Lucifer Saikon… death by suffocation.”