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Having completed the morning, Keira made her way to the cafeteria.
She heard Max's name on the intercom.
That name sounds familiar...oh, I know, he was one of the guys from yesterday. That's the third person from yesterday that's cropped up again today. Funny.

She stood in line to get some lunch, hopefully a chicken salad, if they had it, and then looked over at the tables to see if she could spot anyone she knew.

As the bell rang for lunch, Maria made her way to the cafeteria along with the rest of the students. Seeing a group of people she recognized from class, she went to sit near them. She paused taking out her boxed lunch at the sound of the intercom. That's one of the kids from yesterday, isn't it? I wonder if he was the one who messed with our paperwork...

She pondered over possible reasons for being called to the office as she began to eat.

Max had elected to stand behind the chair, a decision he now sorely regretted. His breath caught in his throat as the vice-principal's words echoed in his ears.

"W...what?"

He backed up, not getting far, as he backed into the closed door. Max then slowly slid down until he was sitting on the floor, legs stretched out in front of him. Tears were streaming down his face.

"What the hell happened?!" Max asked frantically. "She was having headaches, and she went to the...but she..."

The grieving teenager clutched the sides of his head as he struggled to process everything.

Max

"All I was told is that they're still trying to figure out the details. Apparently the circumstances are... Odd." said Dr. Farrow. "There's an officer here to take you to the station... They can tell you everything there."

Keira

Nick was walking about looking for a place to sit. He seemed to a spot a table with a few of their mutual friends, but hadn't seen Keira.

Maria

Maria's lunchtime acquaintances noticed her distraction. One of them spoke up. "Something wrong, Maria?"

Oscar Nigel Tarinson - Classroom

Oscar Nigel Tarinson spend most of the morning in class, though, that was his purpose at this refined academy and took great joy in listening to the tutor. He loved learning and it allowed him to further his agenda of being a walking embarrassment of his family whenever he took the time care to remember instead of being reliant on a fortune that would take little to no work to maintain.

The day was rather quick and despite his body begging to allow itself to sleep, he forced himself to walk to the canteen to grab a bite to eat along with getting more coffee. The intercom went off and he did not pay much attention to it. He had little reason to and he was hungry. He hoped that they would have fish and chips available day but had long given up on the thought of mushy peas.

Spotting Nick and some friends, Keira walked over to the table and put her lunch tray down at an empty spot.
"Hey, guys!" She said to them all with a smile, as she sat down. "Surviving syllabus day?"

Kieran yawned loudly throughout the morning, and even more so on his way to the cafeteria. Sitting down he pulled his rather unhealthy lunch out, sitting just anywhere really. When Max's name was called out he frowned. The guy from yesterday.. Hope it's nothing bad

Max said nothing in reply; he simply awaited whatever would happen next. God, they're going to make me identify her, aren't they?

Keira

The arrival of the bubbly Keira brought smiles to those gathered. "I mean, more or less..." mumbled one of her female friends. She probably hadn't gotten enough sleep the night prior.

Max

A police officer stepped into the front office, and spoke in an almost forcefully gentle voice. "Mr. Delaney? I'm here to take you to the station."

Maria stopped eating for a moment to answer. "Well, you know how I told you about that weird stuff going on yesterday? That guy they just called to the office was one of the other people in the room. I can't help but think that they found some sort of incriminating evidence."

Makoto finished her food, wondering what the hell they were calling that guy back to the office for. Maybe he really had committed the crime... But to be honest, she didn't care very much. She was trying to think of a good place to spend her lunchtime for the year. Somewhere quiet. The toilets were probably a horrible option.

Max stood up and nodded. He didn't meet the officer's eyes--he would simply shuffle along behind him.

Keira grinned at Helen, the friend that had mumbled a response.
"You sound like I did yesterday. Rough night?"
She enquired, as she twisted open the cap on a bottle of juice.

Brendan
The name called on the intercom meant nothing to Brendan as he made his way to lunch. He met up with a selection of his teammates from varsity who were also in their second year, as well as a few other boys and girls with whom they'd made friends outside of hockey. As they ate and chatted, Brendan gradually began to forget about his headache. Indeed, he was quite focused on making himself look good in front of Alyssa St. Pierre, one of the girls in the group who had attracted his interest.

"Yeah, I think that's the guy. What have you heard about him?" Maria heard the buzzing of her phone and picked it up, ready to give her friends a talking to about skipping the first day of school.

Oh, wait a minute. "Unknown Sender". It must be some sort of spam... She read the message quickly, finger hovering over the delete button. "master of the room"... "world of your dreams"... could it? No, how could anyone know about my dreams? This must be some sort of prank. That must be it. It's just a coincidence.

Maria, slightly unsettled, pressed delete and put her phone back down, ready to listen to what Tiana had to say.

Keira screwed up her face in sympathy of Helen.
"Urr, yeah. Those late nights really come back to bite you in the ass, don't they? And when you know you have to get up early, you just can't get to sleep! It's so annoying!"
She stabbed some chicken and lettuce onto her fork, then put it in her mouth.

Her phone whistled suddenly to say she had a message.
"Get coffee," she said to Helen as she swallowed the food, "There's a place just outside campus that has good stuff."

Reaching into her bag, Keira ate another bite of chicken as she read the message, her face looking quizzical, but intrigued by the unknown sender.
Her expression soon changed to one of confusion.
Huh?
When she reached the end of the message, the 'world of dreams' section made her think of the weird dream from the last two nights.
Master of the room? Whoah, this is kinda freaky.

She looked up at her friends and Nick, seated around.
"Hey, guys? Listen to this text I just got."
Keira read out the message and then looked at their reactions.
"Weird, right? And I've totally had a dream twice with a freaky little guy in a room."

Oscar Nigel Tarinson

Oscar Nigel Tarinson heard the basic chime of his phone as he made his way to the canteen and retrieved the small device from his pocket. It was in poor condition and had several cracks all over the place. It belonged to the Nokia brand and as basic as it was, it served his needs. Though, if it was up to Oscar Nigel Tarinson, he would have never got the thing. He had no concept of material goods on account of his family poisoning it for him and was content with his goods free life. Though, he was rather fond of reading books at the library.

"Odd. No-one else has my number." He uttered before yawning again but was rather intrigued by the contents. If he had a beard, he would stroked it but alas, he did not.

Kieran took his phone out, looking at the text. A slow chew on the food in his mouth as he digested the words. "In articulo mortis?" He mumbled out loud. Running a search for that phrase he frowned. "At moment of death? Morbid."

Makoto

Location Discovered: Horizon Clocktower

When she texted the mysterious number, Makoto's phone immediately failed to send the message and cited an error in recipient.

Maria

Maria successfully delete the message.

Keira

Keira's friends were a little dumbfounded. "That's weird." Helen stated. "You don't think someone is stalking you, huh? Have you told anyone else what your dreams were like?"

____________________________________________

Regardless of the conversations that followed, the school day proceeded as normal for the others; save for Brendan's headaches and Max's unfortunate circumstances.

Indeed they brought Max to the local police station. They described the incident in greater detail there, not having him identify the body since identification was found and the manner of death did not obscure the victim's identity.

It appeared that his mother had succumbed to some sort of slow-acting illness that suddenly flared up; at least, that was the best explanation that they could give. The truth was that the nature of her death was utterly confounding; she had collapsed in the street a short ways away from the doctor's office and was found dead by a bystander, nothing physically wrong with her except for one odd circumstance; her eyes were completely black. No iris, no whites, no pupil, nothing. Just a dark, black abyss that made the case further unsettling.

Being that Max was 18, the matter of his mother's death meant that he would likely inherit the deed to the place where he and his mother lived, and would be living on his own from then on. Whether he slept there or at the police station that night, he would eventually succumb to sleep in the face of his grief.

___________________

As you fall asleep that night, again the blue hues of the Velvet Room enters your sight as the soft piano and operatic tones begins to fill your ears.

Igor stares from his seat, his omnipresent grin making you quite unsettled. "Welcome to the Velvet Room." he speaks, accompanying his greeting with a chuckle. "I believe you have something to tell me." he continues.

The secretary from the other day was there once more, again in her strange velvet garb and possessing her glowing yellow eyes. She stood there next to Igor's desk, utterly silent.

__________________

Unlike the other seven students, when Brendan Rathburn fell asleep that night, he was greeted not with the dulcet charms of the Velvet Room (a room which he had never experienced, unlike the others); instead he found himself feeling cold; alarmingly so.

As he opened his eyes, he found himself in the center of a large hockey ring, dimly lit by an unknown light source. It appeared that he was alone.

Makoto had a pretty regular day. Well, aside from the clocktower. That was pretty fun. It was a nice, quiet place. Following that tranquil half hour she had there, she found that she fell asleep rather soundly. it was always nice when stuff like that happened!

Naturally, she woke up in the Velvet Room, and it was that pointy nosed man again. Something to tell him? What could he be going on about? Nothing made sense these days. Schedules getting screwed up, weird rooms in here dream- And then it clicked.

The master of the room. She took a bit, but eventually she managed to squeeze out the phrase from her mind... "Uhhh... In.. Articulo Mortis?" Didn't sound like any English words that she knew. These dreams were weird. Hopefully it wasn't about to turn in to a nightmare.

Keira - Lunch

"No. This is the first I've mentioned the dream to anyone." She replied to Helen. Still perplexed, but without answers, Keira carried on with lunch, but left the message on her phone.

Night

As she fell asleep, or at least, that's what she thought she was doing, Keira once again found herself in the same blue room.
Ok. This is really weird now. Is this actually a dream? It feels way too real. Maybe I've started sleep walking every night?

When the odd man mentioned having something to tell, Keira looked at him with wide eyes.
"I do? Erm...oh!"
She suddenly remembered the creepy text message.
"The text thing? Errr..."
She'd never been great at foreign languages,
"...In arti-something manifesto?"

Keira bit her bottom lip and stared at Igor, hoping she had the right answer, but with no idea what a right or wrong answer would result in.

After a great deal of tossing and turning, Max had finally fallen asleep in what was his mother's bed. His tears had soaked the pillow, which was eventually tossed from the bed.

He found himself back in the strange room, being gawked at by the strange little man. Not like I put much stock into dreams and meanings, but I'm pretty sure this is me going nuts. Whatever. Let's go down the rabbit hole.

"...In articulo mortis."

Brendan
It took a few moments for Brendan to become aware of his surroundings. When he did, he stood for a few moments more in bewilderment. The last thing he remembered was going to bed, but he felt too alert for this to be a dream. Maybe this is one of those lucid dreams, then? he thought. If not... I have no damn idea. That caused him to feel a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature of the rink. But speaking of the latter, he looked down to see what he was wearing to protect him from the cold. He would also cast a glance around the ice if he could, in case he could spot any clues as to what he was ostensibly doing here.