Tuesday <> 4/17 <> Morning

Now Playing - HOME

You wake up the next morning feeling refreshed. You hear Rarity and Sweetie Belle having breakfast down the hall, and you decide to get up and join them. “Good morning, darling,” Rarity says as you walk into the kitchen. “Did you sleep well?”

“I had some trouble adjusting to the new bed,” you tell her as you pour yourself a bowl of cereal, “but other than that, it was fine.” You head back to the table with your cereal and sit down next to Sweetie Belle, who’s eating buttered toast. “So,” you ask her, “do you usually drive to school, or do you walk?”

“We walk,” Sweetie replies before taking another bite of her toast. “Ish not that far.”

“Sweetie,” Rarity calls, “what did I tell you about talking with your mouth full?”

The younger sister swallows her food before speaking again. “To not do it?”

“And why, Sweetie?” Rarity continues as she walks into the dining room.

“Because it’s not ladylike?”

“Exactly.” Rarity picks up two backpacks and heads down the hall. “Liberty, school starts in about an hour,” you hear her shout. “I suggest you get to your morning duties as soon as you need to.”

“Got it!” You quickly finish your breakfast and head back to your room, grabbing your clothes and toiletries before heading into the bathroom and closing the door behind you. You turn on the shower to what you hope is the perfect temperature, undress, and climb in with your washcloth, body wash, and shampoo. The water seems a little hot, but it’s something you can deal with. As you start to wash yourself, you think about what happened last night between the sisters. Could it have been chalked up to the older sister trying to prevent Liberty from hearing crazy ramblings from an eighth grader, or was Rarity trying to hide something? You think about it as you finish washing up.

When you’re finished, you step out of the shower and dry yourself off before taking a look at your clothes. You remember what you thought yesterday about feeling like the odd one out and decide that you’ll ask Rarity to make you a dress later today.

After you dress and finish brushing both your teeth and hair, you meet with Rarity and Sweetie Belle downstairs and tell them, “Alright, I’m all ready to go.”

“Great!” Rarity picks up her backpack and slings it across her shoulders before putting the second strap on. “Just follow us, and we’ll tell you a bit more about the school on the way there.”

Now Playing - PARADISE

“...well,” Rarity finishes as the two of you stand in front of the school, Sweetie Belle already inside, “that’s what school life is like. As for the clubs we have, CHS is opening its sports clubs this Friday. We’ve got a co-ed soccer team, a girls’ and a boys’ basketball team, and a football team.” She slightly chuckles as she adds, “I doubt you’d join the football team, though.” You nod your head in agreement as Rarity smacks her head and shouts, “Oh, for heaven’s sake, I shouldn’t be telling you all of this! Your tour guide needs something to tell you about!”

“Tour guide?” you ask as you enter the school with Rarity.

“Yes, dearie, a tour guide,” she repeats. “One of the students in our class will be giving you a tour of the school for your first day.” She looks around and says, “Well, I really must get going to class. The front desk is over to your right. Miss Cadence will be able to help you.”

“Alright, see you later,” you say, waving to her before making your way through the crowd of students to the front desk. A pink woman with candy-like hair in hues of pink, purple, and yellow has her back facing you.

She fixes the collar on her gray sweater as she says, “Oh no, where did I put those files? I swear I had them somewhere around here…” You clear your throat and knock on the desk in front of you. She turns around, showing a pair of crooked glasses on her face. Fixing them, she says, “Oh, I’m so sorry! You must be Liberty! I’m Cadence, nice to meet you!” She sticks out her hand in front of you.

“Nice to meet you too,” you say as you shake her hand. “I’m supposed to be getting a tour guide or something?”

“Yes, you’ll be getting a tour guide,” Cadence says. “Let me call her up.” She takes a microphone off her desk and says over the intercom, “Can Vinyl Scratch please come to the front desk?” She puts back the microphone and says, “She’ll be here soon. Why don’t you take a seat?” Cadence points to a row of seats next to the front desk.

“Thank you,” you say as you sit down on a seat at the end. You watch the crowd, taking note of every girl in the room wearing a dress of some sort. “Is it a law that girls have to wear skirts around here?” you think to yourself. “I haven’t seen a single girl wearing pants since I got here.”

An exasperated sigh snaps you from your thoughts, and you hear Cadence’s voice coming from the intercom once more. “Can someone please take Vinyl Scratch’s headphones off her head and tell her to come to the front desk?” she says in a slightly annoyed tone. You lean forward in your seat and look at her. She flashes a smile back, saying, “Don’t worry about that. She’s known to be listening to her music and not paying attention much.” It doesn’t take long before a girl walking through the crowd comes up to the front desk.

She has spiky blue hair that looks pretty stylish with her white skin and jacket. On her jacket is an embroidered music note, a pair of purple shades that covers her eyes, and loud music playing through the headphones that hangs around her neck. However, the part about the new girl that you like the best is that she doesn’t wear a skirt; she wears jeans!

“Vinyl,” Cadence said, “this is our new student, Liberty Belle.”

“Sup?” she asks you, sticking her hand out. You stand up and shake her hand, but halfway through the shake, she turns her hand upside down and shakes it once before letting go.

“Did I just join a gang?” you think to yourself. “It’s nice to meet you,” you say to her.

“Same,” she replies, looking almost uninterested. The bell signaling the start of the school day rings, and she says, “Well, time for the first stop on our tour: homeroom.”

As the two of you walk towards Vinyl’s classroom, you ask her, “So, is this a tour, or is this me shadowing you for the day?”

“Nah, don’t worry,” the girl answers. “it’s a tour. For me, it’s a reason to get out of class.”

“Sounds great!” you say, trying to be as energetic as possible. Vinyl shrugs it off and takes out her phone.

“Yeah, real great,” she says as the two of you enter her classroom. “Classes are a bore.”

“Vinyl Scratch, put your phone away,” yells the room’s teacher, a purple lady with pink hair, “or I’ll have to take it from you for the rest of the year!”

“Not actually in class, Miss Cheerilee,” Vinyl replies without bothering to look up from her phone. “I’m giving a tour.” She sits down in the back of the class, and you sit down right next to her. You notice that the loud music is still playing, but you decide to let it go.

“If you’re not in class,” you ask, “then why are we here?”

“Supposed to be the ‘tour’ of the homeroom,” Vinyl explains. She looks over to you and says, “I’m sure it can explain itself.”

“I… yeah, I guess it can,” you say. “Gee, for a girl who doesn’t want to be in class,” you think to yourself, “she doesn’t seem all that into being out.” The bell rings at that moment, and everyone gets up and heads to their classes. Vinyl pockets her phone and gets up as well, motioning wordlessly for you to follow her.

“Our first stop is the lunch room,” she tells you as you come to a big room with lots of tables. You can see the cooks working in the kitchen on the other side of the room. “Again, self-explanatory.”

“Are you gonna even try to explain any of this stuff to me?” you ask.

“Nah,” Vinyl says. “They all explain themselves. I don’t even know why they bother giving tours to students.” She puts her headphones on and walks out of the cafeteria, heading down the hall to the right of the lunch room as you try to keep up with her.

Tuesday <> 4/17 <> Afternoon

“...and that concludes the tour,” Vinyl says as she stares at her phone. “You can go home and have lunch or whatever.” She starts to walk away when you grab her by the shoulder.

“I’m still new here,” you tell her, “so I don’t know my way around town. Maybe you and I could have lunch together?”

Vinyl stood still for a moment before saying, “Yeah, sure. I know an alright place in town.”

Now Playing - A STROLL THROUGH TOWN

Vinyl led you across town to a casual restaurant known as the Sportsball Bar & Grill. It seemed like a rowdy place, but that was just your kind of place. You loved sports – especially baseball. You even tried getting on the boy’s baseball team one year back home by cutting your hair short and wearing a sports bra to hide your bust. It didn’t work, though, as you were caught undressing in the locker room.

Vinyl’s voice snaps you out of your thoughts. “You gonna take a seat or what?” she asks, patting the stool next to her at the bar. She takes her purple sunglasses off to reveal her pink eyes.

“Aren’t we too young to sit at the bar?” you say.

“Nah,” Vinyl replies, “you only gotta be seventeen to sit at the bar. You are seventeen, yeah?”

“Y-yeah,” you tell her as the culture shock hits you. You slowly take your seat, as if sitting on it incorrectly will cause it to explode. The bartender walks up to the two of you as he slides a martini glass on the rack above him.

“How are you ladies doing today?” he asks. Before you or Vinyl could answer, he says, “My name’s Mixtape, and I’ll be your server today. What can I get you to drink?”

“I’ll get a Blood Moon,” Vinyl says. She sees your questioning look and explains herself. “A Blood Moon is like a hard Cherry Jubilee. Cherry vodka with grenadine and a couple of cherries to top it all off.”

You chuckle a little bit as you say, “Alright, now I know for a fact that you’re not 21. You can’t order that!”

“Actually,” Vinyl says, “you only have to be eighteen to drink liquor in this country.”

Another wave of culture shock hits you. “This place is so weird!” you think to yourself as Mixtape asks you what you want to drink. You ponder for a moment before you say, “I think I’ll just have a root beer, please.” When the bartender walks away, you ask Vinyl, “So why didn’t they card you? Do they not do that here too?”

“I’m a regular here, they don’t need to card me.” Vinyl takes a sip of her drink and pulls her phone out, tapping away on the screen with her thumb.

“Do you ever put that phone away?” you ask as Mixtape puts your drink down in front of you.

“No,” Vinyl deadpans as she takes her headphones off her neck and puts them on. The two of you sit in silence until it’s time for the bartender to take your orders.

“I’ll have the BLT with sweet potato fries, please.” you tell him. Turning to Vinyl, you see that she still hasn’t taken her headphones off. You tap her on the shoulder, then, when she doesn’t respond, you take the headphones off for her. “Hey, it’s time to order,” you say, scolding her.

Vinyl gives you a deadly glare as she takes her headphones back. “He knows my order,” she growls as she dons her glasses and puts her headphones back on.

“Wow, that girl’s got some issues,” you think to yourself. The rest of lunch goes by without a word between the two of you, and when you and Vinyl finish, she pays for herself and leaves you alone in the bar. “Well, so much for trying to make friends,” you think. You pay your own bill and walk back home

Tuesday <> 4/17 <> Evening

Now Playing - HOME

“How was your first day, honey?” Rarity asks you as she cooks a pot of pasta on the stove.

“It was alright,” you tell her. “I had Vinyl Scratch as a tour guide. She seems… apathetic, Always on her phone, always listening to music, anti-social, that kind of stuff.”

“Yes, Vinyl can be like that,” your older cousin says. “You have to give her time to warm up to you. For me and my friends, though, it was a rather... special occasion.”

“Oh? What kind of occasion?” you ask.

As if on cue, Sweetie Belle burst into the room. “Oh, it was the coolest thing ever! So my sister and her friends were stuck under the stage they had the finale for the Battle of the Bands and then—”

“Sweetie, not now!” Rarity shouts. “Go to your room!”

“But—”

“Uh-uh-uh! No buts, missy! Room! Now!” Sweetie Belle shambles back to her room before Rarity says, “Sorry about that, Liberty. Like I said, she’s got an overactive imagination.”

“Seems like a tad bit of an overreaction on your part, Rares,” you tell her.

Your cousin sighs. “I guess you’re right, dear. I’ll go apologize to her.” With that, Rarity walks down the hall, into Sweetie Belle’s room, and quietly closes the door. To you, it’s the signal for you to go to bed. You walk to your bedroom and get your night clothes on and, after brushing your teeth, fall onto the bed and think about your day. You realize that you forgot to ask Rarity to make you a dress, but it’s too late now. You also think about how protective Rarity seems of her information, as if she’s hiding a deep, dark secret. All these thoughts fade away as you fall asleep, ready for the next day.

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When you wake up, however, you aren’t in your room anymore. Instead, you find yourself in a large and empty red room with a black iron door in the corner. You look down and see your hands chained together, the chain holding the two connected to the ground. When you look back up, a black folding chair is in front of you. You jump a little, not expecting it to be there.

“Well hello there,” a mysterious voice calls from seemingly everywhere. You look around to find the source of the voice, but there doesn’t seem to be anybody in the room with you.

When you look in front of you again, the chair is occupied by a small red horse with flaming orange hair. It’s positioned itself so that it’s hanging upside-down on the chair, staring at you with mean-looking eyes. On either side of the horse’s rear end is a scar. You’re so focused on inspecting the horse that you let loose a little scream when it speaks with the same voice as before.

"This is the Crimson Room,” it says, “a place between nightmares and reality; mind and matter. You are not important. You are not welcome. Only a select few are ever called into this room.”

The horse flips upright as it finishes its speech. “Consider yourself one of the unfortunate."

Author's Note

Damn, it's been a while since I've updated this, huh?
Well, since you're here, I'm gonna explain some changes you'll immediately notice. Said changes are the addition of the Sex and Gore tags.
The Sex tag is being added because, throughout the story, there's gonna be some sexual references, as well as pretty risque stuff. No hardcore, bed-breaking sex, just normal Persona sexy stuffs.
The Gore tag is being added because I felt that the enemies in the story (which you will experience sometime within the next couple of chapters) required it. While it's not gore per se, it heavily invokes body horror.
So yeah, have fun guys! I can't wait to continue with this ~~in a couple of months!~~ over however long it takes me!