Monsterhearts, Session 3

The Setting: Drawing, a large forested country town in New South Wales around an hour from the coast, at Saint Valentine’s Academy, a Catholic high-school.

Our Cast (this session):

• Kafka – a striking Ghoul with hollow eyes who was killed in a car-accident a month ago, bare days into the school year, but woke up afterwards confused and hungry. (He pronouns) [Played by Kaj]
• Sabrina – a brooding Witch with calculating eyes whose sanctuary from the stupidity of her classmates (an old and abandoned bathroom) is full of occult paraphernalia. (She pronouns) [Played by Jacqui]
• Mika – a distant Infernal with calculating eyes chosen to receive power and influence by an unknown patron who asks only the smallest things in return. (They pronouns) [Played by Liv]
• Cera (Cerulean) – a bedraggled Selkie with far-away eyes who makes mixed-media art from beach junk and must investigate the nature of Mika’s patron if she wants her pelt back. (She pronouns) [Played by Andrei]
• Floris – a dainty Fae with mesmerizing eyes who dreams of the King in the Greenwood from whom she stole her glamour and power. (They pronouns) [Played by Liska]

What Happened:

Confused after the unexpected sexual encounter with Lauren and Mika and still ravenously hungry, Kafka let the other two fall asleep and began ransacking the house for food. Mika’s vegetarianism left the pickings slim although Kafka did locate the pile of bills and begin wondering how on earth Mika could afford such a lavish lifestyle. Revealing that they’d woken up, Mika – conflicted about this sexual encounter and its complication of their unresolved friendship with Kafka – tried to get Kafka to leave and instead received the unexpected news that their old friend was now one of the undead.

Finishing up an afternoon of tinkering with their art projects and cameras Cera headed out of Old Ernest’s hut and onto the beach, stripping off and donning a snorkel – made necessary by the theft of her gift of water-breathing along with her pelt – and swimming out to sea to commune with the ocean.

Noticing how hungry Kafka looked Mika invited them to go out for a bite to eat after asking the Dark Power to protect their house and the still-sleeping Lauren, for which it asked only that they make sure Kafka enjoyed a proper meal of raw and living flesh. Heading off to the forested side of town the two struggled through a tense conversation until Mika, noticing Kafka’s quickly-growing hunger, begged the Dark Power to provide a sleeping and helpless meal for their companion and was told the price would be that the meal would be still-living.

Floris, having taken the day off to sleep and recharge after a rough week, dreamed of walking through the thicker fringe of forest outside town and being followed by the sound of heartbeat-like drumming of hooves. Stepping off the path to hide from whatever creature was chasing them, they travelled from day to moonlit night and witnessed a monstrous and stag-like predator roaming the woods the silver-white eyes of which reflected a fey and inhuman version of their own face.

Heading out into the backwoods behind her house to get high on some psychedelics brought from Gail, Sabrina found herself lying on the forest floor trapped in a dream-like fugue for hours and eventually passed out after noticing a growing sense of watchful menace from the ancient and twisted trees surrounding her.

Arriving on the forested side of town Kafka and Mika spotted a juvenile deer grazing on an apple tree in a frontyard garden and Kafka gave into his hunger, leaping on the animal and ruthlessly beginning to rip chunks of flesh from the still-living creature. Caught up in the moment he unleashed his Darkest Self and decided to make Mika his next meal, tearing into his companion’s shoulder and throat before the struggling pair knocked into a parked car and set off the alarm and woke the whole street.

Floating face-down past the drop-off and staring down into the deep to commune with the ocean, Cera noticed an enormous sinuous form in the blackness the movements of which began to sway the tide into a growing violence. Fearful and seeking to escape, she made it back to shore and fled to the lap-pool at school, diving in and attempting to let physical exercise drive out the memory of the crushing weight of the awareness that had fixed upon her.  

Now struggling for their life Mika attempted to break free from Kafka but only ended up bearing the two of them to the ground, Kafka ready to tear and rip at their flesh. The Dark Power offered them protection at the price of an innocent abandoned in the woods and extended that offer to restraining Kafka until he recovered as long as the innocent was Lauren, and Mika agreed. The Dark Power, previously in the form of a raven, vanished and Adam appeared out of nowhere and tackled Kafka off of Mika, tying his hands behind his back and hustling him out of their in an iron grip before the waking residents of the street could intervene.

The session closed with a montage set to The Forest by the Cure:

• An unknown figure stepping towards the unconscious Sabrina, fungi and vines growing wherever its cloven feet touch, and stooping to take her necklace as a sympathetic token before departing.
• Mika heading back to their house, Lauren waking and bandaging their wounds before the two of them share an erotically-charged shower to wash off the blood.
• Adam in Kafka’s bedroom checking him for injuries, tenderness arising between them as Kafka admits the secret of his undeath and hunger.
• Cera swimming endless laps in the school pool as the moon slowly sets, fixing her eyes warily on the large drain at the bottom of the pool and the darkness beyond it.
• Adam and Kafka sleeping, spooning fully-clothed on Kafka’s bed until Adam soundlessly stands and departs through the open window.
• Sabrina waking out in the woods, realizing her necklace is missing and getting back in her car with fearful haste to drive away.
• Mika and a dull-eyed Lauren walking up the trail bare moments later, a raven watching with a satisfied gleam in its eye as Mika walks away.
• Floris in their bed, tossing and turning, their face increasingly distressed as they thrash at some unseen enemy or entrapment, dreaming of a tangle of leaves and vines from which gazes out a pair of great inhuman golden eyes.