Event #2: “Life’s Not Fair, Is It?”

[Peyton Cross]

 “For the record, I wouldn’t just let you rot in a hole, even if you wanted me to. Not as long as I owe you a slap, at least,” Misha scolded.

Peyton couldn’t help but snicker a little bit. It was slightly comforting knowing someone wouldn’t leave her behind, not that she’d really expect it to be Misha of all people. It’s not exactly like they were on the best terms.

“Thanks I guess,” Peyton replied.

There was a long pause after she revealed what the message said. The wind and rain from outside was the only sound that could be heard. It was unsettling. The atmosphere was cold and dark and hopeless. It was right out of a horror movie...but this was real. And the raven haired knew for sure she wasn’t dreaming. She knows her dreams, her nightmares, the way her subconscious works. Not even her shattered mind could come up with something this horrible. No, there was something else afoot in this place. It all felt wrong to her.

“Naya and I received one to,” the redhead said, “Nothing important just stupid dares.”

Peyton’s focus intensified on the outside world even more, not once glancing at Misha. She wondered how long this has gone on for. How long ago did it start? When they first woke up? Before that? What were the dares? Did everyone get them? She remembered Chris’s reaction to seeing her own text and figured he must’ve got one. How deep did this rabbit hole of questions go?

The raven haired snapped back to reality when she saw a phone in front of her face, Misha holding it up to her.

“Look,” she started to say, “This is probably stupid and nothing....but....what do you think this is?”

Misha pressed play on the device and the video launched before Peyton’s eyes. The camera’s direction faced the floor and part of a shoe showed up at the bottom. She could hear a “FUCK” as it continued...and then it ended. Peyton thought the video glitched at first, refusing to believe it was that short, but she was disproven when the video timeline popped up at the bottom. Her gaze shifted to Misha, then the phone, then to Misha again. The raven haired shrugged.

“Looks like he accidentally pressed the video button. Happens to me sometimes.” She furrowed her eyebrows. Maybe there was more to this, if Misha seemed concerned.

“You don’t think this is what made Andrei freak out, do you?” Peyton asked.

[Misha Charisse Quinn]

Much to her surprise, Peyton actually didn’t add much layer to her worries for once. If anything, she seemed almost… disinterested. Like wondering what she was even looking at.
And, in retrospect… she kind of understood her. She’d had the same reaction just a few minutes earlier.
Well now I feel stupid.
Almost embarrassed, Misha retrieved her hand, hiding the phone back in her pocket. She wasn’t usually one to feel so down and defeated, and even less insecure; if anything, she usually replaced those with attitude, and, if required, anger. But all of this… being separated from her best friend, seeing another fall to his potential death, plus the deaths, the earthquake, the defenselessness of it all, and now this mystery… It was really getting to her.

She stalled her answer for a moment by taking a deep, silent breath. She was showing herself as too vulnerable, and she didn’t like it. To boob-girl of all people. That couldn’t do.

 – I don’t know… I supposed it wouldn’t be much, I mean nothing happens, but…with everything going on, I’m not so sure anymore… the phone is acting strangely. – she paused for a second – Everything is acting strangely… and I just don’t know why Andrei would freak out the way he did… I don’t think he received any texts, but… I can’t open anything except this video, anyway. It’s the only thing I have to go on. All of the other files are just… unusable. Like someone tried to delete them… except this one. It’s…

Creepy.
There had to be a logical, feasible explanation to all of this. The only problem with that reasoning was that, if that was the case…then that meant Andrei had to have something to do with all of this, and she wasn’t sure she was ready to accept that. Andrei was too… pure. Hentai and all.

Letting out a determined puff, she got back to her feet at once, probably faster than she should have. Enough of feeling bad for herself.

 – I don’t know, maybe all of this shit is just getting to me. – she patted the dirt off her uniform energetically, despite knowing how useless it truly was. It wasn’t like her entire body was covered in dust… – It’s probably just nothing… forget I said anything.

[Peyton Cross]

Peyton noticed Misha’s sudden uneasiness around her as she pocketed Andrei’s phone again. She wondered what the redhead was thinking about, maybe something more with the phone? Sure enough, Misha began talking about how nothing else on the phone seemed to be working, and how all the files had be corrupted. How she didn’t believe Andrei receive any texts. Then why did he freak out in a similar manner as Peyton’s reaction when he looked at his phone?

The raven haired could tell that Misha didn’t like the fact that she didn’t have any of the answers. Peyton didn’t necessarily like it herself. It’s not like she was used to having the answers or anything, but this time there were too many holes. Too many unexplained things. Things that you can’t just is logical reasoning anymore. No this was different. This was beyond such reasoning. And it didn’t take a genius to realize that.

Peyton had always been indifferent to things like the supernatural. Her way around it that there wasn’t anything to disprove some occurrences. Maybe this was one of them. A supernatural occurrence. It’s the closest thing she has to an explanation for the moment.

The raven haired shook her head and finally faced Misha.

“All the files are corrupted?” She asked, “Well you know what that means right? It means whatever Andrei saw and was screaming about...whoever sent him the message doesn’t want us to know. But why? What didn’t he do?”

She was mostly thinking out load until she directed her attention towards the redhead again.

“You knew Andrei, was he known to freak out easily or....” Peyton paused and took a deep breath. “Or has skeletons in his closet?”

[Misha Charisse Quinn]

It didn’t seem like Peyton was ready to forget.
“All the files are corrupted? Well you know what that means right? It means whatever Andrei saw and was screaming about...whoever sent him the message doesn’t want us to know. But why? What didn’t he do?”

Misha sighed heavily.

 – Believe me, I’ve thought about it before. And honestly… I have no clue. No one had the phone after he dropped it except you and me; I know I didn’t do it, and I’m not sure you had the time to do anything even if you’d wanted to. So the only solution is that either someone sent him some kind of virus that fucked up his phone memory – not very successfully, by the way, considering that you can still see previews of photos, you just can’t open them, even though the rest is unreachable – or… he deleted it himself. But to be honest… I don’t know why he would. I don’t even know WHEN he would. Either he did it before falling, and I don’t think he had the time, or he did it prior to all of this, but then I’m not sure why he’d keep a useless device to begin with.

All in all, everything was but a big mess of a mystery, and it was really starting to piss her off.

 – The thing is, he MUST have received SOMETHING… because he wouldn’t just freak out over a video he already had. But I can’t read his messages. I can’t open any apps or anything except this video…

“You knew Andrei, was he known to freak out easily or....Or has skeletons in his closet?”
Those words gave Misha some pause.
That was the one thing she didn’t want to think about. Mostly because she’d already pondered it, and she didn’t want to see it a possible reality.

She observed Peyton for a second. It was obvious she couldn’t quite ignore her question or ask her to piss off when she’d been the one to involve her in all this, despite how much she would have wanted to pretend this conversation wasn’t happening. But things were as they were, and she slowly thought of how to respond.

 – Rei had… his own problems. Like we all do. – she confessed. She didn’t think it was really relevant to mention the weed or… even the perverted pictures. He was definitely not the only boy to be into this kind of stuff. – And he wasn’t exactly against bending the rules a little to help a friend… – she recalled the day she’d met him, when he’d hid her in his room to avoid getting caught by a professor after a prank that hadn’t gone as well as she’d hoped. – But he doesn’t get into REAL problems. He’s really nice, and friendly, and pretty chill too. The only things I know could have him freak out are his dog’s well-being, and possibly, losing his job. But apart from that… I can’t think of any bad secrets he’d have. And I can't think of anyone that would want to mess with him, either.

But after all… that was why they called them secrets.

[Peyton Cross]

Peyton listened to Misha ramble on, pondering all the questions herself, knowing the three of them would have had an opportunity to corrupt the phone themselves and that a virus was the best answer. But why? Why why why why? That one word circled Peyton’s head like vultures. Missing variables, unexplained circumstances. Nothing made sense!

A long pause came after the raven haired asked about Andrei. Almost as if Misha knew something but wasn’t quite ready to admit it. Whether it to be to Peyton or herself, she couldn’t tell. Finally the redhead spoke.

“Rei had…his own problems. Like we all do,” Misha confessed, “And he wasn’t exactly against being the rules a little to help a friend. But he doesn’t get into REAL problems. He’s really nice, and friendly, and pretty chill too. The only things I know could have freak him out are his dog’s well-being, and possibly losing his job. But apart from that…I can’t think go any bad secrets he’d have. And I can’t think of anyone that would want to mess with him either.”

“Well we can only say that so much now, can we? Because that same person has been messing with the rest of us,” Peyton said.

There was that sentence again.

I didn’t do it.

That wasn’t something you said when your dog gets hurt or if you’re about to get fired. That’s something you say when you’re accused of a crime. And you only react like that if you did do it…but don’t want you to admit it yourself.

“I-I don’t mean to ruin the view of your friend, but we all have our secrets. And some are darker than others. You don’t panic like that unless something really spooked you. My theory is…,” she sighed, “He kept apologizing and claiming he didn’t do something…and he pulled me in. Maybe I’m delusional and it’s just because I was the closest person to him, but it’s weird to question that he would be shouting this at me and not you…a person he’s closer to. Maybe the messenger knew something Andrei tried to bury. Could have been an incident that happened years ago or…or maybe recently. I don’t know. It’s the closest thing I got to an explanation.”

Peyton eyed the room for a bit. She thought that maybe something in here could help them figure out this mystery.

[Peyton made a perception check]

[Misha Charisse Quinn]

“Well we can only say that so much now, can we? Because that same person has been messing with the rest of us.”
 – Which would technically mean he hasn’t been targeting Andrei in particular, now doesn’t it? Yet here we are. With him down there, and us up here.
As Peyton kept talking… Misha frowned. There she was, finally. Accusing Andrei of something. She didn’t even have enough evidence to come up with what the janitor could have possibly done to warrant all this, but she still claimed it might have been his fault, and she hated it.
She hated the fact she’d come to that same conclusion before her even more.
 – Or maybe he just… went to you instead of me, because he didn’t notice me there. He was so focused on… whatever happened with his phone at the time, maybe he didn’t hear me come in.
She wanted to believe it to be true. She wanted to believe it was all just due to a chain of events, and not that he was hiding something to her, his friend, personally. But at this rate, with the little information they had… she could only hope.

 – Look… – Misha took a deep breath, before sighing longly. It was time to really come clean with her feelings, and hope for the best. – I don’t want to be delusional. I’m aware that I can’t know everything about people, even people I like. Heck, I wasn’t even the closest to him, that would be Alex. But… I want to believe he didn’t do anything wrong. I have to believe it. If there is a way for me to find out more about what happened… if anything happened, then I will. But until then… I know you want me to face reality and all that, and I will. I am. But I can’t just lose all hope in my friend’s safety, or their good nature, just like that, so easily. If I do… I have nothing left to trust. I can’t live like that. I mean… you can’t just turn your back to the people you care about at the smallest hint of a mistake, when you don’t even know what happened. – she breathed a second time. – Either way… even if he did anything, I have to still give him the benefit of the doubt, until I can be sure. He’s helped me too much for me not to. It wouldn’t be fair. Until then… – she slid one of her hands inside her pocket, holding Andrei’s phone close. – What we really need to find out is who this mystery phone person is. Because whoever they are, they’re clearly involved, and they COULD help us… but they won’t. And I think you’ll agree we’re in a bigger hurry to get out than to dig up the school janitor’s past. It’s not like he caused the earthquake, or is keeping us here.

[Administrator]

Dice result: 1D10 => 4
Failure; you didn't find anything useful.

[Peyton Cross]

The more Misha talked, the more questions Peyton seemed to have. She told herself at the beginning that she couldn’t afford to ask questions, and the only thing that mattered was getting out of there. But now…asking questions seemed to be the only thing they could do. Just theorizing about what was going on. And sure, finding a way out was more important than coming up with the theory of the week, but someone, no, something had the answers here. They just needed to find them. Misha finished and the raven haired took a deep breath.

“I don’t think…I’m not saying whatever he did or whatever happened should outweigh the good things he’s done. We’ve all made…our mistakes. And I agree with you. We do need to find a way out, and who this phone person is. The thing is, finding out what they sent to Andrei could be our first clue. Because someone would have to have that extensive knowledge wouldn’t they?” Peyton questioned. She wasn’t exactly a detective or anything, but the raven haired wasn’t unknown for being a problem solver. She was never fond of not having the answers to anything. The raven haired looked around for a bit, but her eyes couldn’t seem to find anything. The darkness seemed to engulf the room. She scoffed.

“I think we should head back. If the others got messages, maybe whatever the phone person sent them could help us figure all this shit out,” Peyton suggested.

[Misha Charisse Quinn]

 – Yeah… I know. If we actually manage to find out who this person is. – She agreed. Peyton had a point, of course, despite how much she didn’t like it. At least she wasn’t trying to demonize Andrei without knowing for sure what he had or hadn’t done, or she wouldn’t have stood for it. She was already pissed enough that everyone wanted to leave him for dead.

And talking about that… she had been away for far too long. She’d only meant for this to be a quick break to let out some steam and possibly find something before she could go back to help Andrei; but with Peyton coming in to talk, more time had past than she’d intended. And she wasn’t going to abandon him again. At least, she was more relaxed now.

 – You’re right. As long as no one else decided to die on us while we were gone... – Maybe Rei woke up down there. She hoped. She didn’t need to tell Peyton that, though. She knew she’d only think she was being unfairly optimistic again; not that she cared. She had a friend to take care of.

With that, Misha exited the room, determined, with Peyton following closely behind her.