Micolash, Host of the Nightmare (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
grantuseyes) wrote2017-10-06 07:05 pm
grantuseyes) wrote2017-10-06 07:05 pm
October 2017 Writing Prompt
It was rare for the College of Mensis to have a proper celebration, but recent events all but demanded it. The entire school was abuzz with the news: the headmaster has Made Contact and held audience with a Great One. The ritual was not without casualties, but the fact remained. There was a Great One now among them, under the care of the headmaster himself and their plans were beginning to move in greater surges.
The affair is modest and obviously rushed and slapped together. It's unofficial, of course; the headmaster did not in any way mandate or appoint this event, but distractedly approved it either way. A study hall with the tables and chairs pushed against the wall, a few of them draped with tablecloths and plates of finger foods. Not that some arrivals care to eat or drink. The gathering is dotted with the tops of Mensis Cages as several cared not to divest theirs even for a celebration. But there is a measuring beaker filled with wax paper drinking straws next to the punch bowl should they care to imbibe regardless.
The room is awash with excited chatter and laughter, the gathered students animated and jubilant in shared amazement. The staff presence on the other hand is pensive; closer to the walls, picking nervously at their triangular sandwiches. The student body is left in the dark, after all. Of the cost of the ritual. The cell down in the gaol, another grim secret, with the double rows of pale bodies lying on the straw-strewn floor. Still breathing but hardly alive. Shells of erudite men and women now rendered braindead. No one is even certain if their minds are gone entirely, or they are simply now locked inside their own skulls, screaming in staring silence for someone to help them, free them, kill them.
Above this silent tragedy, the celebration continues unabated. Even when the first student falls limp to the floor, only one or two others glance and laugh, assuming someone drank too much punch or added too much sedative to it.
When two more fall, the susurrus of the room begins to sound more confused. When one drops and bashes her head on the corner of a table, someone screams. When the fallen begin to spasm and bleed from the eyes, panic erupts.
The teachers try fruitlessly to calm the frightened students, but it is an impossible task as more and more hit the floor like puppets with cut strings. Others trying to revive their fallen classmates end up draped across their prone friend, joining them in their startling unconsciousness. Blood and saliva speck the hardwood floor, pooling from eyes and mouths or flinging in droplets as the afflicted thrash. Some whine, some gurgle, some remain silent, some moan euphorically. The room once full of energy and excitement is now a hotbed of chaos.
There's no telling when the headmaster appeared in the doorway. The mayhem going on masked his arrival entirely. Master Micolash surveys the scene with bright eyes and a vacant smile from behind his towering cage, an intimidating and impressive implement twice as tall as any other worn in the college. In his arms is a swaddled bundle, the size and shape of a human babe. The space where an infant's face should be left uncovered is a void. A blank, invisible space.
Cries for the headmaster to explain or help go unheard. He is deaf to their horror and dismay. All he can see is a room full of results. Only when a frantic student grabs onto his sleeve and screams at him, "Sir! What is HAPPENING!?" does the man look as though he'd been jolted from a daydream.
And rather than respond to the young woman's pleas or assuage her horror, Micolash asks her calmly, "Be a dear and fetch a notebook, would you? I need you to compile the data on these effects." Having briefly turned his attention to the bundle in his arms stirring, adjusting his hold on it to help it get comfortable, he looks back up when he thinks of more to add. "Oh, make sure you interview the ones that come back around when the episode has passed. Ask them what they saw."
Ignoring the tears streaking the student's pale face, he asks casually, "You didn't drink any of the punch, did you?" Shock renders her mute, her mouth working soundlessly but finding no purchase allowing her to speak. Micolash reaches to briskly pat her cheek like someone trying to bring around another drowsing or drunk. "Did you? Or didn't you?" When the student shakes her head weakly, the headmaster sighs. "I'd almost hoped you had and somehow were an anomaly. Ah well."
The caged scholar turns and begins to head towards the open double doors, leaving the scene once more. "Don't forget to take those notes," he reminds the terrified student as he exits. "And write down how many don't wake up." The hapless student left standing, the only one in a room of fallen, twitching bodies drooling and groaning, now falls to her knees as well when the doors close and she hears the outside lock turn and click.
The affair is modest and obviously rushed and slapped together. It's unofficial, of course; the headmaster did not in any way mandate or appoint this event, but distractedly approved it either way. A study hall with the tables and chairs pushed against the wall, a few of them draped with tablecloths and plates of finger foods. Not that some arrivals care to eat or drink. The gathering is dotted with the tops of Mensis Cages as several cared not to divest theirs even for a celebration. But there is a measuring beaker filled with wax paper drinking straws next to the punch bowl should they care to imbibe regardless.
The room is awash with excited chatter and laughter, the gathered students animated and jubilant in shared amazement. The staff presence on the other hand is pensive; closer to the walls, picking nervously at their triangular sandwiches. The student body is left in the dark, after all. Of the cost of the ritual. The cell down in the gaol, another grim secret, with the double rows of pale bodies lying on the straw-strewn floor. Still breathing but hardly alive. Shells of erudite men and women now rendered braindead. No one is even certain if their minds are gone entirely, or they are simply now locked inside their own skulls, screaming in staring silence for someone to help them, free them, kill them.
Above this silent tragedy, the celebration continues unabated. Even when the first student falls limp to the floor, only one or two others glance and laugh, assuming someone drank too much punch or added too much sedative to it.
When two more fall, the susurrus of the room begins to sound more confused. When one drops and bashes her head on the corner of a table, someone screams. When the fallen begin to spasm and bleed from the eyes, panic erupts.
The teachers try fruitlessly to calm the frightened students, but it is an impossible task as more and more hit the floor like puppets with cut strings. Others trying to revive their fallen classmates end up draped across their prone friend, joining them in their startling unconsciousness. Blood and saliva speck the hardwood floor, pooling from eyes and mouths or flinging in droplets as the afflicted thrash. Some whine, some gurgle, some remain silent, some moan euphorically. The room once full of energy and excitement is now a hotbed of chaos.
There's no telling when the headmaster appeared in the doorway. The mayhem going on masked his arrival entirely. Master Micolash surveys the scene with bright eyes and a vacant smile from behind his towering cage, an intimidating and impressive implement twice as tall as any other worn in the college. In his arms is a swaddled bundle, the size and shape of a human babe. The space where an infant's face should be left uncovered is a void. A blank, invisible space.
Cries for the headmaster to explain or help go unheard. He is deaf to their horror and dismay. All he can see is a room full of results. Only when a frantic student grabs onto his sleeve and screams at him, "Sir! What is HAPPENING!?" does the man look as though he'd been jolted from a daydream.
And rather than respond to the young woman's pleas or assuage her horror, Micolash asks her calmly, "Be a dear and fetch a notebook, would you? I need you to compile the data on these effects." Having briefly turned his attention to the bundle in his arms stirring, adjusting his hold on it to help it get comfortable, he looks back up when he thinks of more to add. "Oh, make sure you interview the ones that come back around when the episode has passed. Ask them what they saw."
Ignoring the tears streaking the student's pale face, he asks casually, "You didn't drink any of the punch, did you?" Shock renders her mute, her mouth working soundlessly but finding no purchase allowing her to speak. Micolash reaches to briskly pat her cheek like someone trying to bring around another drowsing or drunk. "Did you? Or didn't you?" When the student shakes her head weakly, the headmaster sighs. "I'd almost hoped you had and somehow were an anomaly. Ah well."
The caged scholar turns and begins to head towards the open double doors, leaving the scene once more. "Don't forget to take those notes," he reminds the terrified student as he exits. "And write down how many don't wake up." The hapless student left standing, the only one in a room of fallen, twitching bodies drooling and groaning, now falls to her knees as well when the doors close and she hears the outside lock turn and click.