it's halloween, lo-ween, everybody!

[sos_pilot]

Who: Everyone's Invited!
Where: Various decorated carriages!
When: Horseshoe 31.
What: Della is hosting a Halloween party! Come for treats, tricks, and trouble!
Warnings: N/A, will update it needed.

The room is dark…why aren’t the lights on? But as the doors fully open, a voice begins laughing darkly…

… although if you’ve ever heard the voice of Della Duck, you’ll recognize her immediately.

“Boys and girls of every age, wouldn’t you like to see something strange?”

Suddenly there’s a big THUD as someone drops from the ceiling, the lights flash on, and Della herself, dressed as a zombie – ripped apart clothes, fake blood here and there, drawn on scars - wiggles her fingers before laughing joyfully. “Happy Halloween, everybody! Let’s party!”

Tasty Treats

A big buffet table of candy and punch has been laid out! Mini chocolate bars and multi-colored lollipops, gummy worms and candy corn, all sorts of sweet and sour shenanigans, ghost-shaped cookies and mummy-looking muffins! There’s plenty to eat, with absolutely no healthy alternatives.

There are also small wrapped bags of candy with the letters “T.o.T” written on them. If someone tells you, “Trick or Treat!” you have to share your candy! Or keep it to yourself, you monster.

Haunted House

Thanks to Seto Kaiba’s projections, a neighboring carriage has been converted into a Haunted House! While it’s all a trick on the eyes, it gives the illusion that there are several floors of spookiness. Each floor has a different theme –

#1 Serial Seriousness – Every so often, a masked intruder pops out at you, with long claws or chainsaw, ready to give chase! Be careful, or you’ll be the next victim!

#2 Zombie Zaniness – Moans and groans of the undead can’t be unheard. Rotting arms will try to swipe at you through the floorboards!

#3 Ghostly Games – You can see through them, and they can see you too! Each mirror reflects a different dastardly demon!

#4 Deadly Doctors – In this hospital, it’s not the awful health insurance that’ll kill you! Beware the bloody nurses and their extra big needles!\

#5 Fishy Fears - … Wait, what? … Okay, this last floor was clearly designed by Della. It’s like Under the Sea, but with sharks and octopi and kraken - and Della insists this is the worst floor.

Feel free to have your characters braving the house, or trying to scare people within!

Dance Floor

If being haunted isn’t your thing, nothing wrong with getting your groove on! Ask DJ Della what kind of song you’d like to play, and she’s happy to put on the list, from a classic Monster Mash to something more somber and soulful for you slow-dancing-romantic-vampire-types.

Turnip Carving
… Look, they didn’t have pumpkins. Anyway, you’re encouraged to carve scary and silly faces in these veggies! There is a contest, but everyone will be a winner, from “Most Realistic” to “Most Depressing” !

Movie Mania
Kick back and relax – and be horrified – at the otherworldly horror films! Like the horrific monster mime, “That”, the relentless umpire-mask wearing killer, “Monday the 20th”, and the endless array of the undead, “Midmorning Of The Not Wholly Alive”!

Some of you awful people might be thinking of popping up and scaring the theater-goers and this is /winkwinknudgenudge/ totally not approved. /plausible deniability/

Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark
In one secluded, quiet, and verrry dark carriage, lit only by candles, here you are encouraged to tell the scariest stories you can think of! What eerie legends will you share from your world, or do you dare to make it up as you go along?

Make your own top-level, and happy haunting!

Also, if your character would like to dress up, costumes are available for this night only!

Comments

[irrationally]

HOLD ON, why is the story moving on! Alice is pretty sure she asked a valid question there, but the answer only confuses her more. It's like being in Wonderland all over again.. What do they do with the dead in this girl's world if burying isn't normal, huh? Do they eat them? Throw them out into the sea? What?

Her mind is so busy with that question that it takes her a moment to catch up on the rest of the story.

"The blankets? Why, was he kicking in his sleep?"

[knifewithnoname]

"He did be thinking that at first but then he did be lying really still and the blankets did be keeping moving!"

She shook her head. "He did be kicking them away and jumping out of bed to be lighting a candle and he did be looking around." She paused again, with wide eyes.

"There did be being no one there. But then from downstairs he did be hearing a BANG!"

[irrationally]

"So, did he go to look?"

That's usually what they do in these scary stories, right? Rather than being sensible and either ignoring the sound or trying to flee the premises, they always go to see what it is, despite being unarmed. Like a bunch of idiots. Alice knows the tropes!

(She is so not forgetting that part about burying bodies being weird though. But she can save it for later.)

[knifewithnoname]

"Of course he did be being." She grinned at her, "He did be being a stupid man. So he did be going downstairs, candle in hand..."

She leaned forwards. "Downstairs did be being a mess, the table did be being overturned and the pot of soup did be tipped all over the floor. The door did be being open so without even pausing he did be running out, after whoever had been wrecking the house. But the street did be being quiet, no even a dog barked or a cat fought. Then there did be being another bang! And the door did be slamming shut behind him!"

[irrationally]

It does sound like a house intruder, doesn't it. Or a burglary. Those kinds of things happened in London way too often for Alice to not be very familiar with it. Although this, considering the fact that it's a story, may be a slightly spookier version of that, huh.

"He truly is an idiot. He even forgot about the fact that that could happen. Was he stuck outside without a key?"

[knifewithnoname]

"Yes! There did be a scraping sound and the bar did be being pulled down, so he could no be getting back into his house."

She sighed, "He did be being very stupid. So no he do be being outside in his sleep dress and he can be hearing rattling and banging from inside the house but then... He do be hearing footsteps behind him. Big, stompy, footsteps."

She stomped her own feet a couple of times. "He did be turning around. There did no be being anyone there."

[irrationally]

"That man just sounds like he's hearing a lot of things."

Okay, maybe pointing that out dryly ruins the mood of the story a little, but can you blame Alice? As someone who experiences frequent hallucinations, it's exactly what this story sounds like. Except the guy was too dumb to realise it was all fake and that he should ignore it.

"Was he just slowly going crazy?"

[knifewithnoname]

"He did surely be thinking so." She nodded, "Because he did be hearing a lot of things and now he did be being locked out of his house." She sighed.

"He did be hearing footsteps again and these ones did be sounding like they did be running away. He did be thinking it did be being the thief, so he did be running after them. But he could no even be seeing anyone, until he did be coming to a river." She leaned forward again.

"There did no be being anywhere for the thief to be running but he did no be seeing anyone. But then he did be feeling something behind him, he did be starting to be turning but..."

She pushed her hands forward. "He did be tumbling into the river and he did no be knowing how to be swimming, so that did be being the end of that stupid man."

[irrationally]

"Wow."

...

Okay, maybe that's a slightly underwhelming reaction to this story. Especially since this is Alice we're talking about, so even that 'wow' doesn't hold a whole lot of emotion in it. Or even a sign that she's impressed. Instead it more just sounds like she's thinking.

"He really was a stupid man. Was he so freaked out by what he had done? He should just have gone back to sleep, then none of that would have happened to him."

[knifewithnoname]

Luckily she is pretty used to Alice and her way of speaking so the lack of emotion in her void isn't too disheartening.

Maybe it wasn't cool enough for her, after all Alice had pushed someone in front of a train, so silly scary stories weren't going to be exciting for her.

"He did be being a stupid man, but he did be being right to be being frightened. If he did be staying in bed he might have been finding himself being hung or strangled by his sheets."

[irrationally]

"How can sheets do that?"

Okay, maybe Alice is a little too sceptical to be the perfect type to listen to ghost stories.. And you'd think she would be more willing to believe this, considering the kind of stuff she's seen in her life, but this doesn't exactly sound like it happened in Wonderland. It sounds more like a real life kind of story.

A weird, weird kind of real life where burying dead people is somehow bad or weird.

"Are you saying it was a curse? Or the ghost of the guy he killed? Do those really exist where you're from?"

[knifewithnoname]

"Curses do be existing, but you do be needing to be making a priest really angry to be being cursed."

She's not sure just how true those particular stories are, she's never seen Priestess Elina curse anyone but she doesn't doubt that it's something she's capable of. Maybe not quite as... dramatically as in the stories.

But it seemed Alice hadn't quite understood this story. "It did be being the soul of the assassin man, he did be getting revenge."

[irrationally]

Ah.

See, that explains some. Apparently this girl hasn't quite realised the difference yet between her own world and other people's - assuming that other worlds represented here are like the one she's from. This is the first time she's run into such a big difference, so now she's not entirely sure anymore who has the more 'normal' or common world, really..

"Those kinds of things don't happen where I come from." 'Can't' happen, she almost says, but swiftly remembers how much she hates that word, has hated it since she was young. "We actually bury all our dead in the earth. And their souls can't return to carry out any sort of revenge."

If only. Lizzie could have helped her take care of Bumby all along. (Then again, maybe it's better for her to be able to rest in peace.)

[knifewithnoname]

She had guessed already that trapped soul stories weren't something that existed in Alice's world. She isn't even sure that a trapped soul would be capable of killing someone... She's never seen it happen, but the stories are common.

But the rest of what Alice said... "You do be doing what?"

She has gotten used to other worlds, she has accepted worlds without gods, worlds with one god, worlds where magic was just something anyone could pick up.

But surely this was the most disturbing thing she had ever heard. "You do be burying them? All of them?"

[irrationally]

"Yes." There's almost an edge of uncertainty to her voice. Not because Alice isn't sure of her answer - no, she knows this much despite having been separated from society for ten years, at the very least - but because she's trying to figure out why that would be so weird in this girl's world.

Especially since it's so normal in her own.

"Doing anything else with a dead body where I come from is considered cruel, really."

[knifewithnoname]

"It did be being?"

That was so strange, even more strange than most things she had heard. She shook her head. "We do be needing to be burning bodies, because that do be releasing the soul so it can be being reborn. If you do be burying it... it can no be doing that."

She sighed, "I do no be knowing if trapped spirits killing people do be being a real thing, but to be burying someone in earth or piling rocks on them... That do be being something you do only be doing to someone you do no be wanting to be being reborn. Somebody so terrible that you do be wanting that soul to be being dead forever."

And if she ever did that to someone, well she would make sure they did not know it was her, just in case the stories of vengeful trapped souls had a grain of truth.

[irrationally]

That.. does bring a few questions to mind. Is the whole being reborn thing just something this girl believes in - just like how people do or don't believe in an afterlife in the world Alice comes from - or is it more literal than that?

She can't be sure, especially with all the odd snippits she's gained along the way of what this girl's world or life may have been like..

So she chooses to not ask about it. Instead Alice goes quiet for a moment before asking, "Then what about the people who don't wish to be reborn?"

[knifewithnoname]

"Why would someone no be wanting that?" She wrinkled her nose, "It do no be being a case of wanting or no wanting, it do just be being the will of the gods. It do be happening."

Like it or not. It wasn't like you could stop it. No more than you could stop death itself.

[irrationally]

"It sounds as if many things are preordained where you come from."

She settles on saying that. Because Alice could very well explain why someone wouldn't want that, could tell this young girl absolutely everything about the dark pits she has found herself in before.

But maybe that isn't so appropriate to tell a young person about, especially if they clearly have no concept of it.

(Yes, stabbing is fine, but the line is apparently drawn in the sand at depression deep enough to make you no longer want to live.)

"Do those gods decide absolutely everything?"

[knifewithnoname]

"Yes." She nodded, she noted that Alice hadn't answered the question, but Alice was usually so open about answering questions that if she didn't... There was probably a reason.

And discovering secrets was not something you did by asking directly. "Sort of. They do no be controlling your actions, you do be being responsible for those."

And acting in a way to please them was better than not.

[irrationally]

At least that makes it sound like they don't have total control. Because that might as well be the most terrifying world possible to Alice, honestly. A place where everything you do is controlled. Ugh, the very idea of it is awful. It's a bit too much like the asylum.

But still, even without them controlling your actions.. It still doesn't sound exactly pleasant. Though it may explain some of this girl's oddities.

"And you don't mind that? I mean, I know you most likely can't disobey them to begin with, considering they're gods and must be all-powerful, but that doesn't mean you can't have an opinion on it." She knows it skirts dangerously close to a conversation they had before that also didn't go that well, but Alice can't help it. This topic is so near and dear to her heart that she'd be betraying herself if she didn't bring it up at all.

[knifewithnoname]

"Why would I be minding that?"

She swallowed down her annoyance this time, giving Alice her most innocent look. "If you do be following the gods you will be living a good life, you will be being blessed. If you do no be following the gods then you will be living a terrible life. Why would I even be wanting to be living a terrible life?"

Even if she wasn't a servant of the shadow god it would be so. Those that didn't follow any gods, how could they even live in society?

Obviously here they could because trains had no gods.

[irrationally]

Geez.

This girl really is brainwashed, isn't she. By some sort of religion too, it seems like, with all her talk about gods. It's almost painful to hear her speak that way, as if she's just never been presented an alternative. And when she is presented with one now, she just views it as something dangerous, too out of the ordinary.

"Well, I don't have to serve any god back home."

And thank god (hah!) for that. Alice would hate that. She hates having to listen to anyone but herself.

.. granted, she's also had a terrible life, but that was entirely caused by one human, not a god.

"It makes life a whole lot easier."

[knifewithnoname]

"Maybe in your world, but no in mine. It would no be making life easier, maybe if I did be being something stupid like a farmer then I would no be directly serving the god, I would just be farming and that would be being what the gods did be wanting. But it would be being stupid and boring."

She wrinkled her life, "I do no be being afraid to be serving a greater purpose."

Alice maybe lived in some world that was not controlled by gods, somehow. But even so, without a clear purpose to follow. How lost must Alice be?

[irrationally]

"Oh, I didn't think you were afraid."

She says that easily. Airily. Because it's true. Even though she's young, the girl doesn't seem like the easily scared type at all. Besides, if she was only so convinced of all of this due to fear, it probably would have been so much easier to convince her of anything else.

No, this seems deeper rooted than that.

"You're not the type for that. But I also didn't take you for such an obedient type either."