Today In Misery

The Beach

Micah Prince invited Julia to a party at Rock Coast, the beach characterized by broken stones and ship sinker boulders that was a popular swimming spot for the MSAA students. Feeling that I needed to expand my social circle, Julia...strongly suggested that I should come with. 

She also said that I had to bring grilled chicken. That was non-negotiable. 

When we arrived, the Coast was buzzing. A virtue of being popular Micah Prince, I suppose. Old faces and new mingled, some of them friendly. A few of them were posturing while slightly cutting into their ego. Some were playing games, throwing around a ball or skipping stones into the water. There was a circle around a pentagram made of rope that held a snake eye trapped in amber in the center; and the circle was chanting around it. Julia pulled me away from them before I could question it.

Micah was talking to Sara and Kurt when we arrived, and waved at us to acknowledge our arrival. Sara smiled at Julia, but then glossed over me and went back to the Prince. Kurt, however, purposely caught my eye, and gave me the glares to end all glares. The boy who was already soaking wet had complete hatred and malice in his eyes. Readers, I definitely shrunk into myself. The look was only broken when Lucas threw a chunk of chicken at him, and Kurt broke away from his conversation to give his brother a verbal lashing.

Lucas carrying chicken brought my attention to the only constant among the gathering: everyone had grilled chicken. In a bag or a bucket, or a plastic case or a plate, the scent of chicken filled the air. 

Micah clapped his hands to get everyone’s attentions. “Is everyone ready to dive in?” He was met by a raucous response. Micah did that smirk that meant something was about to go down, and opened his container. “Let’s give the mermaids what they want!” 

I paused for a bit, but everyone else grabbed their chicken by the handful and threw them into the black water. Julia elbowed me. “Come on. They won’t let you swim unless you give them an offering.”

My curiosity got the better of me. I lifted my own plastic bag and removed the chicken, chucking it with everyone else. 

A few seconds of silence was all there was. Then bubbles rose to the surface, growing into frothing. Then....the creatures. 

Grey scaled beasts with shark like tails emerged from the depths, their razor teeth tearing into the feast we gave them. Some arced like dolphins to grab at the chunks while others clawed at the scraps. When Julia saw my awed...slack jawed face, she leaned in. “They’re the Rock Coast Mermaids. They’re cool if you feed them...unlike the other Mermaids.” 

I gave her an incredulous look. 

When the creatures vanished, and the frothing died down, Micah whooped and ran into the sea. The rest of the party cheered and followed after him. I kept glancing at the water, and with a heavy sigh followed at their heels. I had no reason to not trust them....though those teeth would stick with me for a while...

I had the unfortunate expirience of being behind a car that was constantly falling apart.

Well, its tires were. As the person drove, their tires broke and fell apart into sand and dust, leaving trails behind. Despite the constant disintegration, they kept reforming, seemingly from nothing.

Still, the slant in the car and its uneasy handling lead me to believe that the car should be scrapped, or the person's liscence revoked. Probably the latter--I doubt the former would hold.

The Town Called Misery, 1

Let me tell you about where I live.

According to town history, Misery used to be a collection of four hamlet sized colonies, each founded by one of the four sons of Finely Misery. Because of the loss of Finely's will, the four hamlets essentially ostracized each other for a few decades until the arrival of something records call "Winter".

There is no description of what Winter actually is; all that is said is that Winter was a devastating blow to resources, and forced the four colonies to band together for survival. When Winter ended, the four colonies remained banded, and thus Misery was born.

Despite the town's supposed unity, remnants of its time as hamlets is still prevalent to this day. Four wards, or neighborhoods, each named after the four brothers, make up Misery. These wards are scattered and an organized mess, even within themselves. Even with the roads and community centers placed in between each ward, entering another neighborhood was basically like entering another city.

The only truly neutral place between each ward was the Misery School for All Ages. Equidistant from every ward, it was the center of town, and every child in Misery was enrolled there, from pre-K to Senior year. Almost like a reflection of the town, the school was actually made up of several buildings of various sizes, thrown almost haphazardly on it's hill without any rhyme or reason. The only consistent building was administration, a building the size of a trailer at the bottom of the hill. Everything else is thrown to the wind--you can have science in building J class 7 one day, and the next J7 is reserved for advanced algebra, or theoretical transmuatiom, or lenormand.

And that's just the mundane oddities. One rule of the school is that you can't look in the space in the doorframe; Principal Lee Anders even employs hall monitor like figures to prevent students from doing specifically that, who are recognizeable by the red armbands that they wear. Of note: I -did- witness a custodian slip some raw meat into the space though.

A daily event at MSAA is "Puma Time". Every building goes on lock down while a mountain lion, from Gods know where, prowls around the campus. This can last anywhere between half an hour to an entire day; in the event of the latter, guardians are called and the situation is explained. Either way, classes can't continue until the puma leaves of its own volition.

Beyond the events, such as the sudden screaming from the next room over that was suddenly cut short, and the third grader who levitated four feet off the ground for an hour [she's okay; she was unconscious the whole time], the faculty and students only add to the strangeness. One boy who shares two classes with me and refuses to give his name is always drenched--always. Hours will pass, and yet he will always appear to have just crawled out from the ocean. A custodian has to follow him around for all the puddles he leaves. Another boy, who appears to be the drenched boy's brother, always wears welding gloves. He wore them even when he helped the pre-K kids with finger painting.

A girl who had slit pupils and a tail [a real tail--she says she has Irre's Disorder] had showed me around campus. She waved to a girl who had deer eyes [the girl constantly smiles and spoke in riddles] and even introduced me to her brother, a boy who had turquoise hair and a slab of lapis lazuli in place of a tongue. Their names are Meiriam and Constant Lee Anders; they were the principal's kids.

Principal Lee Anders was a magician--through sleight of hand, he pulled a coin out of my ear. Then he turned the coin into glass, shattered it, and melted the shards into a flower shape using only his mind. Principal Lee Anders kept half mentioning events that hadn't happened [amongst which involved the time that Puma Time would happen that day, his daughter tripping over a loose floorboard, and a teacher by the name of Mr. Slins having his desk spontaneously combust. The last of these had no obvious causation, but it happened anyways] and claimed that the moon was his child. I was speechless when I left his office. More so when those events actually happened.

I accidentally said "Illumination" today

It was for a class on symbolism, and when I said the word everyone in class immediately hissed. One boy even dropped his human guise and revealed his true bat-thing form, and broke a window trying to escape (the panic I felt at that moment was worse than when I saw Colem die for the first time; I may have had a panic attack)

Apparently, Illumination is the name of the rival town that everyone in Misery utterly despises, even the town itself.

In every conversation I had, they would talk about Misery and Illumination as if they were two living entities. But I couldn't dig deep into that, since everyone had some kind of spiel about how much Illumination sucked, or how Illumination was the worst, and different variations that gave the same sentiment.

Today In Misery

Time stopped.

For a few hours actually. 

I only know this because a few of the townsfolk and I were able to move around in this frozen world. Apparently this is a regular occurence, and a few were excited (mostly retail workers and a few of my fellow students) while others saw it as a nuisance. 

I noticed that it was only humans that moved around in the frozen world--I could approach angels and demons with no repercussions, or I could see a mermaid in mid arc; I could even catch up to the elusive peacock that runs around my neighborhood.

According to Lucas, the boy who wears welding gloves everywhere, the time stop is for those born under certain constellations. Which one is on a cycle, and apparently its the Dancer’s turn. 

Most people use the opportunity to cut class or steal from the convenience store; the more responsible ones use the time to catch up on their work.

I....used it to read. I had a lot of books to catch up on, and hours of time that didn’t pass? Of course I abused it.  

"This isn't magic. This is the dark science--it's perfectly quantifiable.

....It's mostly quantifiable."

~Said by a cheerleader to a goth girl on how to summon a star god for their sociology project

A raven was struck by a car last week

Instead of exploding, or being ripped in half, it became several other species of birds, including a couple of really beautiful pigeons, an albino macaw, a crow with four eyes, and a peacock.

The peacock now wanders around town, showing up in the most random places. Currently, he's nesting on top of my home.

Despite the fact that Kevin hates the peacock with a passion, and tries to attack him, the peacock will still go to the Marcus Ward.

Ymc det vwmt kbs twyda umc? I've tried every single cipher I can think of for it, everything from Rot and base, ceaser, and like 30 others but can't figure it out, double layered? Or just a more complex one? -Codebreaker

story, have you ever been harmed or changed (even temporarily) because of the things happening in misery? also, are you close friends with anyone or do you prefer to keep your distance out of fear?

Sadly, Reader, I have been harmed on more than one occasion in my time living in Misery. It’s not a targeted thing–The weirdness in Misery will often harm or affect someone in some way.

While they don’t individually cause bad luck, swarms of the mote like demons can. I had a particularly bad and almost lethal day when a demon swarm decided to stalk me. Because of this I was almost in a car accident, several angels went feral on me, and a pixie, a Phooka, and a rock golem all tried to kidnap me [which was how I learned that there is a Faerie Court in Misery, despite being told on numerous occasion that the Gentry were extinct or fictional] Because of the trip to the hospital resulting from that day, Principal Lee Anders has conducted an investigation on what caused the swarm to follow me. It’s still going on to this day, and I’m required to wear a silver ring on my middle and ring finger everywhere except for my home.

I was also harmed by Kevin, a black cat the size of a grizzly bear, though it was more of an accident than anything. Kevin just happens to be overly affectionate [he only sticks to the Marcus Ward, thankfully]. Similarly, I was attacked by a spooked colony of bats, and a curious murder of crows, according to the girl with cow eyes and Margo the Crow Girl.

As for changes…nothing permanent. But everyone seems to think that one is imminent. They keep calling it “the Misting”, despite the fact that I’ve avoided the Mist since that first night.

However, I’ve been temporarily changed a total of three times. In a joint advanced chem/alchemical transmutations class, the girl with pink hair who fixed the internet had tripped and dropped her concotion on my head. For the rest of the day, I had a third eye that was red, my hands had turned into black stone with three massive fingers, and my hair had turned orange. I was regarded with pity and artistic awe [there are still drawings of my…form in the art buildings. And one in the greenhouse for some reason].

The second incident was a completely different expirience. I was going to go to the Rock Beach to try and interview this clique of girls that always seem to hang out in the water. On my way there I stepped through an arch of red roots and yellow flowers. When I was on the other side, I had visions.

Not visions in the sense of seeing the future, Dear Reader. However, I saw spirits, or muses, or some kind of minor god that tried to guide me down certain paths for a week. I also saw what I assume was the aforementioned Gentry without their glamours. During that week, my eyes had been blue, even my pupils, for some reason. I don’t know how I saw anything. The science doesn’t make sense.

My third and final change was by my own folly and accident. Julia texted me an incantation in High Méliès for translation (I took the language for all of middle school, and was surprisingly good at it. And MSAA doesn’t offer the course).

I say incantation, Reader, because when I translated it, the next day Kurt, the boy who sweats a lake, bumped into me. And for the next day and a half, we were entangled.

Not entangled by ropes or anything physical, mind you. But by magic. The incantation [I refuse to repeat it, to prevent an expirience similar to mine], turned out to be a binding charm–anything that happened to me would happen to him, and vice versa. Kurt….heavily abused the situation. My retaliation got him suspended, though, and the guilt still eats at me.

Temporary changes aren’t that uncommon though. People often wake up with them, or gain them after walking away from some phenomena. Permanent changes are less common, but still happen regularly. An example of both is detailed in an earlier post of mine, with the Forest of Crystal Fruit.

As for your other question, Reader….Friends. I used to keep my distance out of fear, only approaching people for a story or sources for events that happened before my arrival.

That changed upon learning about Cynthia Jennings. Originally, Julia Ingram only gave me the missing Cynthia’s journal as a warning. But when I suggested that I could probably use it to find her, Julia became more forthcoming with what she knows, which, to be fair, wasn’t a lot. But due to being a native, she was much more effective at finding/referencing material than I was.

At first, our relationship was strictly professional. However, the more time we spent together let her open up and relax. Our interactions still focus mainly on trying to find Cynthia, but we do stuff outside of that together. We often eat lunch with each other.

Julia is my only friend, I think. She has one other friend besides me–Sara Powers.

Outside of Julia, I have a few other acquaintances that I’m on good terms with. Margo and I will occasionally talk or text, and the girl with the cow eyes will give me a smile and wave when she sees me. And my neighbors will hold conversations with me and give sagely wisdom if I ask for it.

Micah Prince will sometimes give me a nod or raise a glass of brown soda to me when he’s on his porch, but he otherwise treats me with gentle ambivalence. He’s reluctant to share knowledge, and gets defensive when I bring up the girl who lives with him (when I can remember her–I needed a sticky note to remember to mention her)

I hope that answers your question Dear Reader.

((Sorry this took so long! I think this is my longest post–I had to go through a bunch of notes to keep this accurate. Thank you for such a great ask anon))

How do vampires pee

Th-that's....I-I don't...