Hogwarts: The Shadow Side I am at Hogwarts taking a magic class. We have broken up into pairs to do the class exercise, and my partner is Hermione Granger. I am relieved that I didn't get paired with some idiot who is more likely to blow something up than to get the spells to work right. I wait for the instructor to tell us the spell, the teacher looks like one of the teachers from ITT Tech. He says to wave the wand in a certain way and then recites a spell incantation that sounds like a caveman grunting. I'm not sure if I forgot my wand. Great… I am expected to wave a stick I don't have and grunt like a caveman. I find I have my wand after all. Hermione finds instant success with the spell, which I had expected no less. We are transported, and now we are flying high over the countryside around Hogwarts. It is so much fun! Even Hermione finds it thrilling though I thought she was afraid of heights. We fly around for a bit and then head back to Hogwarts. We land outside the castle and go in through a back entrance. The place has changed. It now looks like it hasn't been inhabited for years. Cobwebs everywhere, mold and fungus growing in the dark corners, walls in varying states of decay. Hermione says we must be in the wrong place… The mold is growing like tendrils, the entire scene reminds me of Silent Hill. We enter a larger area where some walls have collapsed. Creatures worthy of Silent Hill are wandering about. They have eight legs with skin stretched tightly over the oddly misshapen bones, ugly heads that look like what a kobold might look like if it stuck its face in a meat grinder and then let it heal without any assistance… they are hissing loudly and coming at us. Hermione screams and seems a bit paralyzed by panic, I am not so bad off… I use my wand and a fire spell on them, they don't like fire. Hermione also uses fire now, we hold the things off with fire and retreat from the castle. MoSh is outside with some of the other students. Draco is there, looking like he pissed his pants, while Crabb and Goyle are trying to hide their considerable mass behind Draco's smaller form. Harry is blabbering something about Voldermort. Neville doesn't seem worried, he says those things are nothing compared to his gran when she is angry. Ron, having a fear of spiders to begin with, has passed out from fear while a couple students I don't recognize are trying to rouse him. MoSh and I hold the creatures off using fire, Hermione finally gets Harry to shut up about Voldemort and they summon some brooms. We finally get on the brooms and head into the sky, Ron is still unconscious, draped over Harry's broom. Hospital: The Shadow Side I am back working at a data center at a hospital, and I am anything but happy about it. I really want to be working somewhere that has to do with my major. This hospital crap really sucks. I tell my coworker I have to use the bathroom and then I take a break. I stroll past the break room where there are cupcakes left over from an office party earlier. The day shift got treats, we get the leftovers. But cupcakes are good leftovers. I take a couple and stroll around the halls while I eat, I didn’t really need to use the bathroom. I finally get back to the office. My coworker says she thought maybe I'd fallen in and flushed myself. I tell her I tried, but I wasn't able to get down. There is a customer service call, which is my absolutely least favorite part, but this one turns out to not be too bad. I have to deliver a replacement cord to one of the emergency room offices. I take the cord and head over there. I deliver the cord and then I dawdle again on my way back. Kill as much time as I reasonably can. I am going down the last hall towards the data center when all the lights go off. Great, a power outage will mean a whole bunch of customer service calls when the power comes back up. Emergency lights come on. At first I think I am seeing things, but now the hall looks like a hall out of some ancient abandoned building. Broken tiles, cobwebs, dust, mold… Wtf?! I hear things moving in the shadows. Spiders come from the darkness around me, they are huge spiders, the size of cats. I don't like that… I must have been thinking of DDO, because I shoot fire from my hands and start burning the spiders. They squeal and screech. I head out of the hospital, not sure where to go now. The entire town looks like some dark version of itself. Huge spider creatures are all over the place out there. I wonder what the hell is going on. I use more fire to clear an area inside the hospital of the cat-sized spiders. I look out the window as the huge spiders jump from place to place out there and they seem to be covering the city in a layer of thick sticky webs. ITT Tech: The Shadow Side I am in one of my game design classes at ITT Tech, it is the last day of class for the quarter. I know this is the last day of class, and I am thinking the instructor should just let everyone leave now since all the presentations are done. Instead we are all stuck in the classroom watching videos until the end of class. I am feeling quite tired, and I actually am having problems staying awake. I'm not the only one. I see that several other students have already drifted off to sleep, or at least they look like they're sleeping. Tigress is sitting beside me, and it looks like she is also asleep. I finally let myself drift off to sleep as well, completely ignoring the video that is playing. I wake up a bit later, I still feel sleepy, but at least the videos are over. The instructor says it is time to go home, so everyone should wake up. He doesn't seem to care that everyone has been sleeping. We go outside, and the school doesn't look like ITT Tech. There are several buildings forming around a small courtyard, doors line each of the buildings entering into different classrooms. I look for the hallway to leave the courtyard and I see it. We are all heading in that direction, but there is something wrong. There is a strange vine growing in the center of the courtyard, it is spreading outward at an amazing rate. I look closer and see it is actually more of a fungus or a mold. Where it is spreading, the ground itself is cracking open as if in decay. Ugly spider things start crawling out of the holes, spiders the size of cats… yuck. The other students scream and scatter in all directions, it seems they aren’t sure where to go even though there is just the one exit from the courtyard. The cracks get larger and now the bigger spider creatures from the earlier dreams climb out of them. Crap… I am heading for the courtyard exit, as is everyone else, Tigress is right there with me. She says the things can jump, but they need to get a running start, so they won't be able to get out of the courtyard. The smaller ones are following us out. Dennis kicks a fat ugly spider to push it back and it explodes in a blast of yuck. Dennis is now covered in spider guts, if possible he is more disgusting than ever. Tigress climbs up to the top of one of the buildings like she was an Assassin from the Assassin's Creed games. I follow her in the same manner. From on top of the building we can see the larger spider creatures down below. They are indeed trapped, and there are now so many of them that they can hardly move. Tigress and I both use fire spells from DDO and set the entire group of the spiders on fire. The things burn quickly, letting out horrible screeching noises as they burn and die. Down below, the other students have all been kicking fat spiders, and they are all covered in yuck. They also stink. They all desperately need to bathe. My Old House: The Shadow Side I wake up in bed, and I roll over thinking about the series of three dreams I just had about weird spider monsters and places that reminded me of Silent Hill. I get out of bed and head into the other room. I feel I am at home even though it isn't the house I currently live in. I grab some food in the form of oatmeal. The oatmeal is unsatisfying, it doesn't seem to want to cook properly. I decide to take a walk around the neighborhood. I go outside and walk down the sidewalk for a while, taking a couple of random turns. It is a nice day outside, perfect for a walk. After a few more turns I am having problems placing exactly where I am. Have I gotten lost? How could I get lost in my own neighborhood? No matter, I will just go to one of the main streets and get my bearings there. I reach the corner of the two main streets near the house, Broadway and Camino Seco. There is a shopping area there which I recognize. I look around the shops for a bit, a video game shop, a toy shop, a clothing shop, and a grocery store. Those are the ones I browse through, though I also see a bank and a jewelry shop. The only thing I end up buying is a soda and a Hostess Twinkie from the grocery store so I can have a snack on the way back home. I go to leave the shopping area, now I have my bearings and I can find my way home. Things aren't normal now. There is a gym there, but I hear screams of agony from within. I know I don't like exercise, but that seems to be taking things a bit too far. I go into the gym to see what is going on, and I see there aren't any exercise machines. Instead there are people bound to the walls by what looks like spider web. Spiders about the size of cats are feeding on them, the people are screaming as they are being eaten alive. Spiders come towards me as they spot me entering the room. I use fire spells from DDO and burn the spiders. The entire place catches on fire, killing the spiders and their victims in a blaze of heat. I leave the burning building quickly and I head towards my house. There are even bigger spider creatures outside. I head into the neighborhood, looking for home. I can't remember where I live. Is it on Gollub? No… but I have to follow the street called Gollub to get to the house. The house is on another street called Holmes. There is now a fog forming throughout the neighborhood, it looks more like Silent Hill than ever, I am sticking to the alleyways where the fog is thicker and I can stay hidden from the creatures more effectively. A couple times I question my tactic when I find myself on top of one of the things before I realize it's there. I am better hidden, but so are they. I reach the alley behind my house and climb over the wall to get into the back yard. I go around the pool and to the back door… which is broken and mostly missing. I go inside and I am looking for my mother and my pets… but I am not finding any of them. I wonder if they are gone… I end up in the carport where I find that the car is gone, so I figure they must have gotten away already. There are several dead cat-sized spiders in the driveway that were clearly driven over by the car.
Recent Comments
