EVENT ♪ ADSTRING DREAMSCAPE

[mellowyellow]

Masaomi's dream world is an amateurish mash up vaguely reminiscent of an M.C. Escher masterpiece. As a visitor, you find yourself in the center of a perfect square of floor space. The room itself rises four stories above the ground floor before reaching a ceiling. Each floor (ground, one, two, three, and four) is instead separated by four winding balconies which become narrower as one rises from floor to floor. The stairways that connect each floor are nonsensical and often impossible, creating harsh breaks in geometric reality. The entire tower seems to warp around these stairs in a desperate attempt to make sense of things that simply don't make sense. This allows the stairs to always lead you somewhere, though it's never the location you're aiming for. However, it also makes it seem as if the tower is bending in ways it shouldn't; perspective is warped beyond repair here.

The tower room is bright but not blinding. The floor, ceiling, and balconies are a slick black while the walls are yellow. The molding is also black, done up in a simple block pattern. On a different wall on each floor but the ground floor is a line of thick, almost artistic graffiti. From the center of the ground floor, you can read all four walls by turning in a circle.









On the opposite wall of each spray painted sign is a nondescript, black door. These four doors appear to be the only ones in the entire building. There are no windows, at least that one can see.

For now, it looks like there's nowhere to go but up.


FIRST FLOOR
RIGHTEOUS VASSAL

If the twisting, turning stairway leads you to this floor, one of four identical and uninteresting doors waits to be opened. Behind it lies a dream version of a Gogendo Park walkway, though things are there that shouldn't be. Certain areas of flora don't match the hundreds of cherry trees, various festive and childish decorations - all yellow - hang from telephone wires, and a residential building that would be impossible within the park area lies at the end of the path. Rather than finding any sightseers perusing through the cherry blossoms, you note that the entire place is eerily quiet despite its beauty.

Following the path leads you to the house at the end. The front door is open but not particularly inviting. The interior of the home is neat and tidy, overwhelmingly normal. At first. With each step through the entryway, it feels narrower and narrower until you could swear the walls are actually closing in. Just as soon as the feeling hits, it's gone, leaving you at the entrance to the living room, where two mannequins are sitting on old chairs and watching television. There is not a single defining detail about either of them to specify gender, role, or individual personality. Any words that come out of their mouths sound rusty and harsh, and their movements are stiff. If you try to interact with them, they simply regurgitate the same phrases over and over.

"I'm busy."

"Not right now."

"We won't be home tonight."

"Ask your mother."

"I don't care. Whatever you want."

"Quit bothering me, I said!"

While you take in the view, a child giggles, suddenly rushing past you and out the door. If you choose to follow, you are met with the clear sight of a young Masaomi coercing a young Mikado into following him. They hop the fence separating path from greenery and wind their way through the trees.

Rushing after the two boys allows you to view a memory being played out before finding yourself right back in the tower room staring at a closed door.

SECOND FLOOR
HIGH SCHOOL HERO

You might notice as you step onto the second floor that the balcony seems curved instead of angled, even though the ground floor is a perfect square. It doesn't make any sense! But then, maybe you won't notice for precisely that reason.

This door opens to a high school classroom, but once again, there are certain things that don't match reality. The windows on the far wall are framed by yellow curtains, and Kadota Kyohei is apparently teaching the class. Recognizable faces from Adstringendum (Sokka, Jade, Ryoji, Azula, and others of the right age) have replaced some people from back home as students. Only one seat is free, the farthest back seat next to one of the cinematic curtains. You can assume this is where you should be, or at least where Masaomi would be, seeing as Mikado is sitting at the desk right in front of it. Sonohara Anri is also in this class, though she's sitting closer to front and center.

On the chalkboard, various names are written beside different titles. The male class representative is Ryuugamine Mikado, and the female class representative is Sonohara Anri. Someone has drawn a pink heart around both names and a strike through the middle of it.

All eyes are on you as you enter the room, but after a moment, everyone loses interest. If you wish to talk to other members of the class before sitting down, they will be more than willing to chat about inane, superficial things but will never delve into topics any deeper than the weather or the lunch menu. The only one who seems to have more to say is Kadota. Ask, and he will easily dispense advice for any situation.

The moment you take your seat, the lights go out, and scenes suddenly begin playing across the windows like they would on a movie screen. They're scenes from Masaomi's last six months in Ikebukuro, and several from Adstringendum mixed in. Most, if not all, are happy, simple, and involve friends joking around with each other.

The catch, however, is that each scene is cut off every time you blink.

Slower blinks are rewarded with longer, friendlier scenes while the more times and the faster you blink, the more frantic, hurried, and concerning the scenes become. When you're finally forced to keep your eyes closed for longer than a second, you will find yourself back in the tower room staring at a closed door.

THIRD FLOOR
SHOGUN

By this floor, the balcony is only just wide enough for one person to walk comfortably. With no hand rails to keep yourself steady, it might be a good idea not to look down. Especially when doing so makes the balcony warp and tilt.

Through this door are the innards of a large, abandoned warehouse which has obviously been hijacked for other purposes. The exit doors are huge, metal, and shut. A beat up, old car sits conspicuously on the other side of the expanse of space, and to the right, atop a stage-like rise, are two tables and a yellow couch. Less likely to be found in reality are the sweeping, yellow draperies hanging from the ceiling; they're much too elegant for the dreary location. There's no time to contemplate the purpose of these draperies before a blue shark with a smiling red mouth leaps out of the concrete floor and tries to eat your leg.

Only once you narrowly avoid the first do you realize how many more there are; they're jumping up all over the warehouse floor, doing battle with various young men and women who all wear some amount of yellow. You may wish to fight with them, destroy the sharks before they can dive back beneath the cement, but for some reason, when you try to help them, they turn on you as well. If you feel like fighting your way through anyway, you can push your way to the rise.

Climbing the flowing yellow fabric takes you out of the battle royale, but it reveals things you couldn't see from below. Hanging amongst the draperies are many rope nooses. Every noose has Masaomi's name scrawled upon the loop. Most are empty, but some aren't. Those who hang from them also wear yellow and, despite hanging from their necks, seem to be awake if resigned. When you get near them, they all ask the same thing.

"Where's the shogun? He alright?"

If you drop down from the ceiling onto the rise and sit on the couch, you are subjected to a memory before winding up back in the tower room. If you drop down and ask the shogun to show himself, he will.

FOURTH FLOOR
LADIES MAN

You do not want to let go of the wall if you wind up traversing the fourth floor balcony. That fall looks a lot longer than just a few stories. Open that door ASAP before the whole damn balcony tips sideways!

And feast your eyes on a pristine hospital room, whitewashed with so many chemicals that the smell is nauseating. In front of you stand three beds, their contents hidden behind plastic yellow curtain dividers. Everything else in the room is bright and white enough that it's hard to tell where floor ends and walls begin. The longer you stare, the further away from you the beds seem to be.

Static from an intercom erupts before female voices begin filling the room. There are at least three voices, the same as the number of beds, but with them all speaking at once, it's difficult to decipher what they're saying. Two of the three voices, however, may be recognizable from Adstring: a bossy Jinx and a quiet Anri.

Opening the curtains hiding one of the beds will cause further static before a single, distinguishable voice speaks and a flood of memories are triggered, a story leading to an inevitable conclusion. The girl now laying in the hospital bed. The girls are open to conversation, but asking about Masaomi will prompt responses based not on how the girl truly sees him but rather how he fears she sees him. It is impossible to speak to more than one girl at a time, and you are forced to close the curtains on the first girl before you can see the second.

Looking away from the beds for any amount of time prompts the appearance of a window. It affords a view of Ikebukuro's city streets and a hospital parking lot. Standing on the curb next to a planter is an almost ghostly image of Kida Masaomi staring back at you. The moment you make eye contact with him, you find yourself back in the tower room.

ROOF TOP
VICTIM

Though there is no graffiti announcement for the roof top, it is also accessible if you find yourself on the right stairway. You swear you were walking upside down for a while there, but somehow you still got somewhere. You got here.

The night sky above you is heavy and gray. In fact, everything is dulled, from the surrounding city to your own clothes and skin. Dull and cold and lacking.

The only color with any amount of saturation comes from a man standing on the very edge of the building, hands out like he's pretending to fly through the breeze. Dark eyes, a white smile, and a brown coat with fur trim.

Orihara Izaya.

He easily spins around and hops off of the edge to greet you.

"Welcome back."

He says as he spreads his arms.

Asking Izaya anything triggers memories rather than further responses. He watches every move you make, commenting when he feels like it. Unlike the other floors, however, nothing you do seems to bring you back to the tower room. There is only one way off of this roof, and Izaya will readily encourage it.

Summer's over. Have a nice fall.