ROUND 1

[idolpro]

[ The room is BRIGHT YELLOW, as all the rooms you will enter are. Black tiles make up the floor, changing to your unit's color when pressure is placed on them. There is a button in the very center of the room standing on a podium; it's slightly smaller than palm-sized.]

[♫]

Comments

Hallucinations - Cobalt, cw body horror, plant horror, mouth trauma

[idolpro]

They're in danger, they said to you, and you understood that you needed to help them. But it's the middle of the night—oh, but even so, if you are the only one who can do it, then you'll have to do it. You were the one asked, after all—you can't but put your own fears aside for the sake of helping someone. You were asked to, after all—begged to, really.

So in the middle of the night, in the dark, you traverse the city. You don't know where they need help, where they're suffering, so you have them lead you. At first, there are the streetlamps to guide you, but when you arrive at an unknown-yet-familiar park, you can see only darkness ahead. So instead they hold your hand, and you trust them to pull you to the hurt, the injured, the ones who need help.

You trusted them, even through the darkness. You trusted them, even through the sounds of beasts, hidden in the dark, snarling with malintent—you trusted them, you did.

And they lead you. They lead you all the way to a sole streetlamp, which shines over the bodies of your unitmates, your friends, Thorn—and they lead you to where you're caught on the root of a tree. Then there is the threefold horror: that there are so many maimed and dead (how could this happen, who would do this?) —and that, in your panic, you fail to notice the root come to life before it's too late, before it twists around your ankle and drags you down —and in that panic, you suddenly realize that the person who had been holding your hand isn't there any longer. Instead, they're basking in the streetlamp's light too, the only one standing at ease, their smile pleasant as other roots reach to wrap around your loved ones and twine through their ribs.

Thank you, they say, for your kindness. These children were in danger of starving, but with you and your friends—they'll grow beautifully.

You struggle, of course—not this, not again—but they laugh as you try to move; you can feel the tendrils of plants snaking up and around, twisting to keep you in place, immobilize you even as the roots draw tighten painfully. And the person you trusted walks to you, holding a seed in their hand.

Hush now, they say, a smile gracing their lips as they place a seed onto your tongue. It's instantly numbing, paralyzing, the taste earthy and floral; before you can try to spit it out it grows, the roots hooking around your tongue and shooting into your throat to gag you while the vines spurt out of your mouth, nesting on the lower half of your face to create a beautiful, horrible bouquet of full-blooming flowers, the roots having long pierced into your throat and mouth to drain the blood inside and oh, new life is so hungry, isn't it?

Beyond the blooming petals you can see your loved ones cursed to the same fate, their bodies becoming garden plots for the flora, and the sole person responsible laughs again; Thank you for trusting me. Now, do one last thing for us.

They give your shoulder a reassuring squeeze.

Why did you trust them? Through the dark, through the sound of beasts, into this—

Why do you always trust people?

Effects

[idolpro]

Take 3 or more punishment, at least 1 from each:

Physical:
> Paralyzed tongue, trouble swallowing
> Vines keep growing out of your skin, even if you pull them they keep coming back
> Light hurts your eyes

Non-Physical:
> Increased distrust
> Uncontrollable desire to hold hands
> Fear of death