Today In Misery

Today In Misery

The cougar came back today. This time, it had stayed past sunset, so everyone was forced to spend the night. Luckily, the staff stocks sleeping bags for this very scenario.

I was given a good glimpse at why no one is called to deal with the cougar whenever it shows up. One student, I believe his name is Colem Arth, came to MSAA late, and was immediately attacked by the lion.

I will spare the gory details, but let it be known that my hands shook as I typed this, and I didn't get any sleep that night.

Several dogs tried to attack the cougar, only to meet the same fate as Colem Arth. In fact, the only thing that went out into the courtyard and survived was Principal Lee Anders, who decided to wear a jester hat today. He was too far for me to see what he was doing, but he came straight to the cougar and touched it. When he left, he held 8 bloody cougar paws. Where he got them from, I don't know. The cougar still had all its paws, since it walked away fine come sunrise.

The school gave us the next three days off due to the incident.

The moon was bright and full, visible even as the waning sunlight cast a purple glow on the remaining clouds.

I watched as they drifted lazily around the celestial body, and soon they covered its face, cutting off its light.

This was a mistake.

A single blade of red light fell to the ground , slicing its way through the offenders.

The clouds screamed; not an audible one, mind, but one you heard with your very soul. Scarlet bled into the clouds, creating a beautiful corpse. The moon stared at the town of Misery like a bloodshot eye.

I stared at the spot where the light fell, and I shudder to think of what would happen if it had fallen on someone.

The stars themselves cower from the moon, their light dimming to avoid offending it.

Mists of Misery 2

Dear Readers, I have made a breakthrough in my study of the mists.

A classmate of mine, named Julia, mentioned a friend of hers named Cynthia. She went missing a month before I came into town, and right before her disappearance, she was suddenly overcome with a desire to study the mists.

When Julia heard about what I was doing, she gave me Cynthia's notebook, as a warning and a message, to get word out about her friend's disappearance.

Cynthia's notebook doesn't contain much; however, she attributes much of the strange behaviors of the mists to an entity she had seen within them. Appearing every night at midnight, this "Man in The Mists" appears to generate the mists, and prowls within them, watching, yet unseen. According to the notebook, it is guessed that he cannot see or move outside of the mists, as the Man avoided random holes within the mists, one of which happened to capture Cynthia's house the night she saw the Man. There is little information beyond that [she gives wildly different explanations for what he could be, amongst which a god, a fey, a monster, and an incomprehensible alien are given]. The book ends a night before Cynthia vanished, in which she states that she intends to meet and/or capture the Man in the Mists.

And so, dear readers, two questions arise with this new information: who is the Man In The Mists? And where is Cynthia Jennings?

I saw that girl again

The girl who lives with Micah Prince. He doesn't have a sister, so....a friend? A cousin? A girlfriend?

For some reason, I cannot remember this girl. Beyond this blog, I also keep a journal with me in case I get hacked or something gets corrupted.

I have four seperate journal entries about her. Nothing about a name, or anything weird--just how I've seen her around.

No one seems to know who this girl is, and when I asked Micah he agressively said "Don't worry about it," and left it at that.

I remember intending to approach the girl and ask but....nothing. I can't seem to remember her.

I'm making this post now in hopes to remember. Focusing on her seems to stop....whatever this is, but the instant I get distracted....

I had to write this post, dear readers, five times. That's how quickly I forgot this girl.

"Meet me under the screaming tree when the moon starts to blink."

~A conversation I overheard between two students. Possibly a couple

Today In Misery

As you remember, Colem Arth died from a cougar attack.

Well today, he walked into class, perfectly fine. Now, I know what I saw. There's no way he could be alive, walking, or even in...one piece.

Yet, there he was. Laughing and joking, as usual.

When 5th period came around, a piece of rebar came through the window and stabbed him through the heart, killing him instantly. While my classmates were shocked, they treated the incident mostly as a nuisance, rather than the tragic event I saw it as. They mostly tried to figure out how Colem managed to "pull that off".

I was sent to the guidance counselor after the incident. Despite being a literal anteater in glasses, Mr. Lingua was good at his job.

Lot 47

I've began to notice that most people keep track of when Colem Arth dies somewhere. When I asked why, they turned me to the dark science majors who live in Aspen Ward.

The dark scientists have discovered a weird side effect to Colem's curse. When he dies 4 times in a single place, nothing else can die in that place. They have extra stipulations, such as:

Dying 2 feet away from the location of the first death counts as dying there

The effect covers a maximum of 2 acres

The effect doesn't prevent woundings, unless the wound in and of itself would prove fatal.

Though they aren't prevented, wounds are meaningless. Fingers can be reattached, and cuts close immediately. The wounds are only permanent if they are still there when the victim leaves said area, upon which normal healing resumes.

This has only happened three times. The first place is, obviously, Colem Arth's house. They say he uses it as a safety zone when he gets sick of the whole dying thing, and that sometimes when he's absent he's just hiding at home to avoid getting hit by a truck or something equally terrible.

The second one the dark scientists refuse to tell me about. They gave no reason why.

The third site is the most well known location and the site where the 2 acre rule was discovered.

This is site is called Lot 47.

Lot 47 is a vacant field outside of Marcus Ward that was supposed to be a new shopping centre to attract tourists, but lost it's funding at the last moment. Now it's over grown, reclaimed by the woods and littered with random steel pipes and piles of cinder blocks.

Kids use it for LARPing.

"What? That can't be right." I wasn't sure I heard the dark scientists correctly.

But they confirmed it. The day before the weekend, starting from right when school ends to when the sun sets, ayone from fhe sixth grade and below uses the Lot as the site of war games and intense LARPs. Since the plants there never die and are also subject to the healing rule, they don't have to worry about set up and clean up only involves reattaching severed limbs, which is why its so popular, or so the dark scientists claim.

(A few even admit to having played there when they were at MSAA, and that the only reason the sunset rule exists is because Demon Collectives like to stalk the Lot at night.)

Still sensing my disbelief, the dark scientists told me that there was Capture the Flag scheduled the coming weekend, and told me to be there and I would see. They refused to answer my questions about why Colem was at Lot 47 enough times for it to be a "No-Kill Zone" or what even causes the effect. I was left with more questions than answers.

Instead, I simply went to Lot 47 the day of Capture the Flag.

They brought actual weapons. Sharpened swords, axes, pocket knives, one kid brought a bow and arrows without practice tips. No one was allowed to unsheathe their weapons until they passed a (presumably) stolen street sign with '47' spray painted on it. They quickly broke up into teams and ran into the Lot. A few moments later, an airhorn broke the silence, and the games began.

I simply wandered around the Lot, observing. The kids did hack each other to pieces....sort of. Cuts didn't bleed. Limbs fell off, and the person who lost it would just groan or give their attacker a stink eye and pick up the limb, then run away. One sixth grader got his head cut off. His attacker helped him fix it on, the previously beheaded kid simply said thanks, then ran away.

The bow and arrow kid shot me by mistake. It hit me in the thigh, and I cried out from shock. But....I didn't feel it. There was no pain or anything. I could feel it wiggling around inside of me, but it was more like having a finger pressed really hard on my thigh than being stabbed. The kid ran up, said "You aren't playing right?" And asked for his arrow back. I pulled it out no problem, and there was no blood on it. I checked my thigh, and there was no wound. All the damage it did was saved for my jeans. The kid gave me a quick sorry and ran off to rejoin the fight.

As promised, the end of the game was signaled by another airhorn when the sun began to set. At this point I was hanging closer to the edge to avois getting accidentally maimed again, but as the airhorn went off, I noticed a few figures beginning to approach. Shadowy, indescript figures with a bunch of red dots across their form, slowly approaching the Lot....

I got pulled away by a larger sixth grader who said we had to go "NOW". He pulled me away, back towards where the kids had entered the Lot, and I could still feel the shadows watching us leave....

The coming school day I asked Mr. Lingua the talking aardvark about Lot 47. He kind of shrugged and said "No ones getting hurt." Which I guess is sort of right....

The older adults in town seem to want to forget about Lot 47 in general....

The Town Called Misery 2

Now....let me tell you about where I live.

I live in the Avery Ward, to the South East of Misery. It's...a trailer park. The neighborhood comprises of mobile homes, abandoned metal barns, and ruined or half built gas stations and strip malls, of which only three are functional. The sky in the Avery District was a muted grey [a deviation of the perpetual white sky in Misery, instead of the normal blue]. The neighborhood was dreary...but it was also full of -life-. The people here were happy, there was almost no crime, and the community here was much closer to each other than in the other wards.

My neighbors include Oisin, who lives in the shed next to our trailer. He always wears a skirt, and gives really bad life advice. The Sisters of Clemency live next to him; they're all nuns from the Houses of Ten (there are 8 of them; the other two live in their temples, as their doctrine dictates). All of them are super nice, and only Charity, who follows Astros, tries to convert me.

Behind us lives Anthony and Aiseline. They're a couple in their mid 60s who, despite mirroring each other, aren't related but are married. They claim to be able to speak to vehicles, but say that lawn mowers and pogo sticks can't talk and aren't alive.

Next to them lives Whistle. Whistle is pretty ordinary looking, but is also very open about his profession in the buying and selling of drugs. The police keep catching him, but he always gets out within a few hours. How? He won't tell me; he just winks, then takes a hit of whatever he bought.

The crown jewel of my neighbors, though, is a boy by the name of Micah Prince. He's a junior at MSAA, and his brother Enos is a sixth grader. Micah Prince is infamous; what for, though, no one will tell me. When prompted, they ask me if I know "What the Blood Parade is"; when I told them that I didn't, they immediately clammed up. I would have asked him myself, but every time the thought crossed my mind, I would freeze, or the hair on my arms would rise. -This is a very bad idea-, my body would tell me. And so, even though he was in five of my classes, I never said a word to him.

Of note, though, there is one other person in his trailer other than his mom and his brother. A meek, small girl who was about my age; she seemed familiar, but I didn't know why...

Here goes nothing...

My name is Story Page.

It has been three months since my family relocated to Misery, a town sequestered somewhere in the Northern Rock Coast.

And I will be the first to say it--this town should not exist.

Misery is a hub of supernormal activity. Danger stalks the night, and bloodsuckers watch their prey from the shadows. Spirits and invisible men walk amongst bakers and businessmen. Anything can be anything, and nothing is as it seems.

Out of the ordinary events happen on an hourly basis, and yet the townfolk are not only completely aware of this, they have embraced this.

Unfortunately, no one has ever tried to explain this weirdness; they've made their peace with and grown up with it.

So I've taken it upon myself to look at this town with fresh eyes. Through study and interviews, I will share what I've learned with you. Ask me anything; as long as the information gets out to the rest of the world, nothing is off limits.

"Mommy, why does that boy keep dying?"

"I think it's more of an accident than a statement now."

~After Colem got struck by lightning