DAISY DEFOE || XINYI XÚ || DRAKE EVANS
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Her face was like stone. Not just the teacher’s but Daisy’s own face as well. She had been preparing for this day. It was soon time to withstand the upcoming blight.
A darkness swallowed the land. The world went black, leaving Daisy to close her eyes and concentrate in case this effect was danger brought upon them by the blight. She felt torn from the world and for that longest moment, she held her breath. The alien sensation gave way as she felt everything return, the senses picking up new stimuli.
When she opened her eyes she saw she was now in an arena. The walls were stones piled high up and above was the sky. In the arena in a triangular arrangement were three circular stone daises, each with a word. She could see two of them read WITNESS and one read MURDERER
Along with that, there were two others. One was a classmate she recognized but never really spoke to and the other was a student from another class. Both of them were significantly taller than her. Already she was unpleased with the conditions of this blight as she was isolated with these two by all appearances.
Just as she looked to her wrist, considering the possibility of conjuring up a Fear-Born to assist her in this challenge she spotted a tattoo which seemed to run up her arm. ’Yet another tattoo issued to me without consent.’ Her mind rode a depressing train of thought. She was starting to wonder if there was any part of her skin which was going to go unmarked when the year was over.
It was a brief distraction, however. Her mind turned towards the facts currently presented. Three daises, each with a word. Immediately she began to wonder if they were all selected to stand on a dais and the puzzle was to solve the answer of who belonged to which. She thought deeply about this, not yet even speaking a word as she simply stood and turned her attention inward.
Xinyi already felt herself growing tired of the nausea and general sense of dread that came with the beginning of every Blight. Despite having expected more monsters they’d have to fight, she was presented with something entirely different. It was almost a puzzle of some sorts, and considering the fact that this was a Blight, the punishment for not solving the puzzle in a certain time-span or for solving it incorrectly was sure death.
“Maybe we have to stand on them in a certain order?” She thought aloud, fixated on the puzzle and paying no mind to the two other people in the room. It was then that she took note of the other symbol that was etched into the floor, illegible even when Xinyi bent down to look at it from all different angles.
Drake, on the other hand, ditched homeroom as he didn’t expect a teacher to be there waiting for his class. With sudden darkness engulfing his bedroom, Drake was pulled into the pit that the other two girls resided in. This was definitely new. With the information he beat out of his teacher, he wasn’t all that startled when being suddenly transported. He was expecting the possibility of such a thing, though it still threw him off.
He quickly examined the surroundings. To his left was what looked to be a ten-year-old girl with ginger locks, and on his right was a total babe. She had curves in all the right places, though her hair was a bit bright for Drake’s taste. Nonetheless, he felt blessed to be stuck in a pit with such a work of art.
The pillars presenting themselves seemed self-explanatory, but the symbol in the center was a mystery. He carefully examined the bubble gum beauty as she spoke, thinking up a clever response. “I guess it really all depends on whether you two are innocent souls, or just as naughty as me. I can’t confidently say that I am merely a witness... Unless they are talking about witnessing the fine ass before me.” He gestured grandly to the bent over Xinyi with his arms, causing him to catch the tattoos riddling his limbs in the corner of his eye.
They weren’t normal tattoos, however, as it seemed as if the ink was slowly moving if one focused hard enough. “Well now, I don’t remember getting these puppies.” He rubbed his left arm, the ink not letting up.
Already things were off to a bad start. Daisy sighed, placing a palm on her face in response to the boy’s comments about Xinyi. That was not enough to distract her from the very distinct absence of fears over the boy’s head however.
’How very strange. The second person I’ve seen who’s mind holds no fears. Why?’ She questioned the strange coincidence, the very unusual nature of this occurrence briefly distracting her from the puzzle at hand.
She didn’t speak but instead took out her notepad and started writing down the markings on the stone. She figured if she assembled all the features on paper she could start assembling a theory of solving this conundrum.
’Funny how I spent the first Blight fighting for my life to now want to die during the time-span of this one…’ Xinyi thought after overhearing the other guy’s comment. (Though she wasn’t gonna correct him, she did have a fine ass) Besides, there more important things to worry about other than an overly verbal pervert, like this puzzle that would surely kill them if they didn’t figure it out.
Though she couldn’t exactly put a finger on what the symbols WITNESS and MURDERER were supposed to mean, the abstractness of the whole thing beginning to make her head hurt. And there was also the matter of the tattoos on their bodies, and despite not knowing their purpose, she had an inkling that it wasn’t anything good.
Drake sighed as no one seemed to respond to his riddled question about whether the two girls considered themselves witnesses. ‘Obviously no one has a fucking sense of humor.’ His gaze traveled over to the ginger-haired girl who was now scribbling in a notepad. Without a second thought, Drake walked over to the small girl and snatched the notepad, tossing it far behind him. It made a thud as it hit the stone wall on the opposite end of the pit.
“How about instead of writing in your little notebook, you speak to us about your thoughts? Otherwise, I don’t see how we will get fucking anywhere.” Drake walked away with his hands behind his head, thoroughly annoyed that the others weren’t using their heads, or so he thought. With his eyes closed, he began again with his monotone voice, “Now, since there are three pedestals and three of us. I imagine that we are to decide who fits on which pedestal as pinky said. AND, I think that you two really don’t want to wait and find out which category I fit in, so I suggest you two speak up, get out of your own heads, and get on the damn pedestals first.”
Just like that, she was torn from her train of thought just as easily as her notebook was torn from her hands, thrown aside without any care for what she was doing. Daisy would have exclaimed in surprise but her voice caught in her throat as the boy approached her, talking down to her with an annoyed tone. Right about then she was flustered to the point where communicating effectively was quite improbable.
“Ah… Ah…” Was all the sound she was able to make, her voice shaking as she stuttered. Her little hands shook as a cocktail of emotions poisoned her. Emotions like embarrassment, rage, indignity and fright. Not standing a second longer she scrambled off past the rude student and after her notebook. On knees that shook, her balance most precarious, she stumbled over and picked up the notebook, brushing off the dirt and other debris from it. Finally finding the page she was at she looked over the notes, making sure the page wasn’t damaged by the careless treatment it just received.
She turned to face the other two, breath slight bit ragged and her teeth grit. Despite the indignity of it, all this was not the time to get caught up in her own turmoil. As much as she hated it the urgency that the boy spoke of was real. Still, there was a purpose behind her actions, something a thoughtless brute such as that student she didn’t know wouldn’t understand.
“Y-you don’t under-know which p-pedestals we stand on… Which-Rr!-” This was just utterly frustrating for her. Her words were getting tangled just coming out from her mouth. At this point they were just going to go on ahead, talking over her before she could even communicate a single coherent idea of hers. She believed that the titles for the pedestals didn’t necessarily have to be related to their natures, they could've simply been roles assigned for them to play out based on…
“The t-tattoos!” She blurted, the realization cutting into her sentence midway. Giving up on speaking she started writing down the tattoo that was on her arm, rolling up her sleeve to see more of the tattoo that was on her arm. It was then that she noticed a section was missing. A look of concern overrode her flustered expression in a flash, her eyes looking up and darting about to scan the room once more. Something had changed.
‘This dude really is being a little ass huh?’ Xinyi wasn’t able to stop him from throwing the smaller girl’s notebook across the pit, but she was about ready to kick him in his throat. Listening to him only pissed her off even more.
She watched as Daisy had scrambled to get her notebook and truly couldn’t utter a single word without stuttering. There was a small pang of pity for the girl, a pity that had only furthered her ever-growing hatred for the little pervert who had made a comment earlier. Xinyi finally spoke to him, her voice antagonizing and laced with sarcasm. “If you want to stand on the pillars despite the fact we don’t have the slightest clue about the actual solution to the puzzle, go ahead genius. Can’t promise I won’t laugh when you die though.” Xinyi shrugged passive-aggressively. “Though if your stupid mistake ends up killing all three of us, at least it’ll be better than this current situation.”
She walked closer to Daisy. If he tried something again he surely wasn’t gonna get away with it.
Drake’s temper was very close to exploding as he watched the two girls struggle to hold their ground. “You have some nerve picking that notebook back up after I told you to stop. You think we have time to be writing this shit down when it’s useless? These blights are thirty minutes. We don’t have time for your meek little shenanigans.” His focus then went to the pink haired girl as he walked closer.
“And you. You’re five-foot little girl, don’t fuck with me. You two better get on those damn ‘Witness’ pedestals before I lose my patience. I don’t think we really need to decide who the hell is the murderer here.” His expression remained stone cold as he came face to face with the pink-haired girl. “You two don’t have any brighter ideas, so I am making the move. Now get up before I break the arms on both of you.” He balled both of his fists, ready to sock the girl’s face if worse came to worse. There was no need for violence, as he clearly needed them to get out alive, but threats, on the other hand, were free to fly.
Daisy was trying her hardest to shut the awful man out. She wasn’t terrifyingly scared of him but she couldn’t let him continue to pressure her this way. The fact he was so caught up in trying to bully them into going his way in a life or death situation was detestable. Thankfully she wasn’t alone with him.
Xinyi having stood up for her was a definite confidence boost. While she wasn’t all too keen on the prospect she was ready to back her up with her word if things turned violent. All she’d need is a little time.
“We do.” She answered back to him, remaining short-spoken to simplify communication. As usual when she was less flustered her voice was flatter, less emotive. Her face was stony, a mild hint of her irritation with him showing.
“You go. We’ll handle it.” With that she tried to dismiss him, opting to turn her mind back to the real danger at hand, the puzzle. She looked back up to see that the missing portions of the tattoos were filling in on the walls. Using the carvings to fill in the rest of her portion of the image she could see that it started to resemble the tail of a centipede. Well, that’s what it seemed to be. Her artistic skills were disappointingly lacking so it was more a very rough looking sketch of what the tattoo looked like.
Xinyi was preparing herself for what surely was going to be a start of a fight as she had a few more words to spit at the man, though because Daisy seemed to be withdrawing from the confrontation she did the same.
She followed Daisy’s gaze to what seemed to be their tattoos blown-up to full size on the walls, appearing in synchronization with the disappearance of the tattoos that were on their bodies. “Okay, so that’s clearly some sick version of an hourglass and I do not want to find out what happens when all the sand builds up on the other side. So we’re going to figure out the puzzle before that happens.”
She had then returned her attention to the unreadable symbol that was on the floor of the pit. “I just wish we understood what this other symbol is supposed to mean.” Xinyi reached down to touch it as if it would somehow magically give her the answer that she needed.
Drake was oozing frustration. The two girls were definitely lucky that he needed them, otherwise he would wring their necks. Perhaps he still could at a later time. He did have lots of dogs he needed to further manipulate. These two girls could be their next project... All he really knew though was that he was in dire need of a cigarette.
“You two get yourselves killed. I’ll actually do something, and hope to use you two as meat shields when we fail this puzzle.” He walked over to the pedestals, resisting the urge to push over the pink haired teen as she was once again focusing on the useless symbol etched into the floor. He was now facing the ‘murderer’ pedestal, with which he easily hopped up onto. Upon placing his weight on the cylindrical stone, it began to sink slowly to the floor. This occurrence definitely made the theory that they were supposed to stand on these pedestals true.
“Well, you two come join me when you finally come to your senses and realize the only thing we can fucking do is this.” He crossed his arms as he now stood at ground level, the outline of the pedestal below him. The two girls clearly didn’t know their place, so threatening them further would be useless.
She breathed a sigh of relief. Not having that other student around was helpful since they could now solve the puzzle in peace. While they had little time there was never time for mistakes. She approached Xinyi, standing behind her.
“May I… See your tattoo?” She asked her, notepad and pen at the ready so she could write down Xinyi’s part of the centipede. She figured she could deduce what sections their tattoos denoted without the need of seeing the boy’s tattoos via elimination. She was also beginning to concoct a theory on how to figure out where they need to stand without having to worry about the nature of the pedestal’s writings. She saw this as a puzzle, not a trial.
Xinyi stared daggers at the boy as he hopped onto the stone platform. Truly he was putting them all at risk by being so impulsive. Though he did have somewhat of a point, even if it was a poor one. They really didn’t have much time to solve the puzzle, and although she’d prefer to solve to solve the puzzle in a more methodological way, there wasn’t much time to do that.
Despite those thoughts, she kept quiet and held out her arm so that Daisy could clearly see the tattoos, which were disappearing at an alarming pace.
