Velvet Room

I forgot to mention. At the entrance to Tartarus, there was this door that only I could see. So now even my fellow secret nighttime vigilantes think I'm seeing things. *sigh*

The door... goes to the velvet room. Igor's office. The one I've been dreaming about. And I was awake this time, for sure. (Or as sure as I can be since my life took a turn for the surreal...)

Igor tells me that I'm the Chosen One, or something. Of all the people with super Persona-summoning powers, I'm the best and the specialest of them all. Yay me. Everyone else just gets one Persona, but mine, Hermes, is like the zero Persona and so is the equivalent of wishing for more wishes.

All we need is an ancient evil that's been sealed away for 1000 years and we're set. And we need to recruit like a talking cat and a ninja robot and then we can do an anime!

Oh god, I really have gone crazy.

-Alice

Tartarus...

Well, I got a title for the blog now, at least. Alice's Blog of Bloggery is now Alice in Tartarus!

I really hope I'm not just locked up in a mental ward somewhere and dreaming all this. :/ This stuff's just unbelievable if you haven't seen it for yourself.

So. During the Dark Hour, our school, Gekkoukan, transforms into a towering architectural monstrosity. And it's full of Shadows. Why not, right? Akihiko called it Tartarus, and says it's like a Shadow nest.

He wants to be Batman so, so badly. "We must explore it! It's the perfect training ground! If only I wasn't injured!"

Mitsuru's Persona lets her do a kind of radio/map/scanning/whatever kind of thing, so she and Akihiko stayed at the tower's entrance, while the three of us-

Oh yeah, the Chairman can't use Personas. But... Junpei can, and he joined SEES and is moving in to our dorm. The w, t, and f keys on this keyboard are already getting worn down...

I dunno what I saw in him. He's a total pig. They put me in charge of exploring the tower, 'cause I'm the only one going in there who had actually fought Shadows, like, at all, and Junpei was all "but she's a giiiiiiiiiirl! I am a manly man and should be in charge, wahhhhhhh".

Ugh, enough of this. As if staying up past midnight wasn't tiring enough, apparently there's some kind of energy-draining thing during the Dark Hour where you get tired even faster than normal. We wandered around on the first floor a bit and beat up some weak Shadows, and I feel like I've been up for days.

Sleeeeeeeeeeep.....

-Alice

Dark Hour

Okay. So the Dark Hour is real, or something close to it, anyway. I was awake for it tonight.

'cause that wierd boy who had me sign the contract showed up IN MY BEDROOM.

He seemed worried. Still creepy, but also worried. He talked about how the "end of everything" was coming, and that he wanted to make sure I knew.

Then he vanished.

Like, literally vanished. Poof.

So of course I was going to blog about it, but my computer's power was out, same as everything else. As soon as the hour finished it turned back on. No, that's not quite right... it's not like it had been switched off and had to boot up or anything, it was just suddenly like it had already been on.

Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad

SEES, for short.

I was right, after all. Everyone in the dorm, including the Chairman, are in a secret club. Mitsuru's the president, and Ikutsuki's the staff advisor.

Here's the deal, standard disclaimer about how I'm just sticking to what I've heard first-hand:

There's an extra hour each day, that they call the "Dark Hour", which happens at midnight. The light goes green, all the electricity goes out, and shadow monsters like the one I... fought... come out and attack people.

Most people don't experience it; they're in those freaky coffins I saw the first night I got here, that I thought was some kind of art installation. But some people don't get coffined, and they get attacked by the shadows. The shadows eat your brain (or soul, or something) and leave you an empty husk. This is the "Apathy Syndrome" that's been in the news a lot here.

But Mitsuru and co. (including Akihiko, who I finally met. He totally wants to be Batman.) fight back against the shadows, using fake guns like Yukari's to summon "Personas". Just like Igor said, in my dream.

So I'm the newest member of the club now. And there was something else Igor said... there was this voice in my head, saying that it would grow stronger as I strengthened my relationship with SEES.

This is completely surreal.

I guess I know why Yukari's so crazy about self-defense stuff.

-Alice

PS. Apparently Junpei has a secret that he can't tell me. Neither of us knows anything about the Jomun period that the history teacher was talking about, though...

Yukari

Yukari told me some stuff about her past. Are you reading this, Yukari? Is it okay if I post about it here? We 2nd-year girls gotta stick together, after all. :P

EDIT:

She said it's okay to say a little. Her dad... he died in an explosion at a lab run by the Kirijo group (I knew I'd heard Mitsuru's name before...), back in '99.

Yeah. Same year my parents...

So she's here trying to find out what happened.

I'm okay! Also, wtf.

Sorry for not posting... I've been in the hospital. Don't worry, I'm okay! The doctors say it was just exhaustion.

So, um.

I gotta write this down while it's still fresh in my memory. So, don't call me crazy, okay? I don't even know what's real anymore, so I'm just sticking with what I saw for sure.

There was this huge noise that woke me up in the middle of the night. I was just sticking my head out into the hallway to see what was going on, and Yukari came running up, yelling that we had to get out of the building. She gave me a, like a naginata? I still don't know where that came from.

So, okay, down to the back door, but it was that same green light everywhere, like when I first got here. We get to the back door, and Mitsuru starts talking on Yukari's walkie-talkie (?!?!) about how there's "more than one enemy".

Something started hammering on the door, so we ran back to the stairs, and went to the roof.

There was this...

...um...

shadowy tentacle monster. Holding a bunch of swords NO NOT THAT KIND OF SWORD jeez. Yukari had her gun, and she said something about "summoning hers" and... put it to her head. But she freaked out, and dropped it, and...

You know how in dreams something just makes sense? Dream-logic? Like how oh, it's totally natural that Batman's driving the school bus, you see him doing that every day, but when you wake up and think about it, it's all wtf, Batman?

So I just kinda... picked up Yukari's gun and put it to my head like she had, and... it just all made sense, somehow.

If I hadn't woken up in the hospital today and been told that I'd been asleep for two weeks, I would've just said this was all a crazy dream. But... just bear with me.

It's not a real gun. She told me as much, earlier, but I think it just doesn't shoot bullets. It shoots something else.

Okay, get to the point, Alice.

I shot myself, and something came out. Something magical. And powerful. It carved up that tentacle beastie, and then I smashed the remains with the spear until they stopped moving.

Then... I blacked out. When I came to, I was in the same place as my earlier dream. I didn't post details about that one, I guess? There's this guy called Igor, and he calls it the Velvet Room, and he talked about how I'd "awakened to my power". Said that thing I... summoned... was called a "persona", and it's like a facet of my personality.

...

And then I woke up.

wtf, guys.

wtf.

-Alice

PS. wtf.

So sleepy =_=

Ugh. Didn't sleep well at all. Nearly fell asleep during classical lit, no thanks to Junpei, who apparently sleeps in class all the time and felt the need to recommend the idea to me.

Just gonna go to bed.

-Alice

Ugh

Crazy dreams last night. There was something about that contract I signed....?

Treehouse

Huh. That was...

Do you ever get the feeling that everyone you know is in, like, the CIA or something?

When I got back to the dorm, the chairman of the school board was there. (!!!!) Goes by the name Shuuji Ikutsuki. Said he was just there to welcome me to the school.

w. t. f.

He asked me if I had any questions, so on a whim I mentioned that I'd been seeing some strange stuff. He and Yukari both gave me the wierdest look, like "SHE KNOWS!!"

He wrapped up with almost the exact same schpiel that Yukari gave me last night, "oh you must be tired from all the excitement, you should get an early night."

I'm gonna be locking my door from now on, I think. He did mention something about how I was just in this dorm temporarily, and that he'd find a permanent spot for me somewhere else soon, so there's that at least.

I dunno though. They don't seem dangerous, just... it's like Yukari's secretly Sailor Moon?

-Alice

PS. Junpei's a total slacker in class. Ms. Toriumi asked him a question about what she'd just been talking about, and he had no idea. I totally saved his butt, hehe.

The Start of School

Whew. First day wasn't too bad!

Seems like there's just four of us in the dorm - me, Yukari, Mitsuru and some guy called Akihiko. I tried to introduce myself just now, but he's working on something in his room and wouldn't answer the door.

Yukari seems less crazy during the day. She walked to school with me (ps. MONORAIL!) and showed me around a bit. Turns out we're in the same class, so we'll be seeing a lot of each other this year, I guess.

A boy from class, Junpei, introduced himself after homeroom. He says he's just looking out for the new kid, but according to Yukari he's got a history of hitting on anything in a skirt. I wonder...

We chatted for a while, and somehow he managed to talk me into letting him walk me back to the dorm. o.o Yukari stayed late at school; she's in the archery club. Likes shooting things, that girl. ^^; Seems like she's got plans tonight too, with the way she hinted that I stop talking to her and go to bed, hah.

...

Ms. Toriumi, my homeroom teacher, knows about my parents. Apparently it's all in my file...

.....

-Alice

What the...?

Well, here I am. Train was delayed and didn't get in until midnight. =_=

Strange, strange night. When I was walking to the dorm, the light was really weird, and there were all these... nah, it must be an art installation or something.

There was a creepy boy waiting in the lobby when I got to the dorm. He made me sign some paperwork... something about "choosing this fate of my own free will." When I asked Yukari about it later, she didn't seem to know anything about it...

Oh right, Yukari. She lives in this dorm, and is starting as a junior like me. Came down to the lobby with a gun just after the boy left. Must've thought I was an intruder... freaked the bejeezus out of me before Mitsuru (she's another girl living here) interrupted and sorted things out. She says it's just for self-defense and it's not even a real gun, but it's sure effective at scaring people, I'll give her that.

Mitsuru seems nice, if a little distant. Mitsuru Kirijo... I think I've heard that family name before...

Anyway, I'm here, I've got my own room, and I'm going to bed. There'll be time to ask questions in the morning. =_=

-Alice

Down the Rabbit Hole...

Finally going back to Port Island tonight. Transferring in to Gekkoukan HS.

Feels like it's gonna be an interesting year, so I figured keeping a diary could be a good idea.

-Alice

PS. The only train available was the last train of the night, so I'm getting in late. Sucks, but what can you do?