The Secret Door

Diary I: AUDREY | The Secret Door

"I really missed journaling at my old school. The only teacher who thought it mattered retired, and I feel like I stopped remembering the days as much. I think and write better in loose fits and starts, like this. Hopefully my disjointed thoughts don't make this totally unintelligible though.

I'm new at Blackwood Pointe. My name is Audrey. For safety's sake, Professor Stone says we should get as much about our days down on paper as we can, but we don't have to give too much identifying information. Makes sense. Apparently, memory charms and other weirdness are common here, so they ask us to keep a loose log of our day to day just in case. Not gonna lie, I can't imagine being one of the only humans at a school like this and not writing it all down??

Everyone's been nice… Welcoming, if brief. You get the feeling everyone here has already experienced a lot of heaviness. I don't want to pry but I'm not used to seeing this kind of togetherness between such different kinds of people. You usually only get that when they've all been through something awful together.. Hopefully I am getting here at the start of a new chapter. Sucks we have to go through it to understand each other.

I had a vision about this place the night before I got here, and it's keeping me up at night. Mom told me to always trust my gut, and I hear her voice in the back of my head more these days. It doesn't feel like a good omen that Professor Stone, the woman who petitioned for me to transfer here before my mom died, hasn't been around the whole month I've been here. The teachers act so squirrely when I ask questions.

I know there's got to be someone else here who wants to know what is going on. I wanted to come to BPA because of Professor Stone. My education isn't complete without her present, and I don't think it's crazy to want some answers when I ask a simple question like 'Where can I find the headmaster?'

…every time I miss Mom, I look at her gold hair scrunchie and think about what an outside-the-box kind of person she was. I can do that! I'm going to work hard to do that."

Diary II: CHARLIE | New Kid

"Oh my godddd how long has it been since we had a new kid?! Real excitement around here. Audrey, I like her. The gold jacket, the fluffy black skirt, very Disney Channel prom rebel. It has to be hard showing up human to a school like this. Any powers you can't see, you might as well be a townie.

I'm not sure she realizes how 'off the grid' we actually are. We're like, off, fully you-can't-find-us. It's for the best. There's a reason UberEats doesn't deliver. The fog means 'Turn back, or else.'

I get the yick reaction from her though. the Dean has been quiet for too long and the teachers really are starting to act weird, she's not wrong

Buuuuut I am not here to push back. It's my senior year, I've done my time at BPA. Dad says I just need to get my grades up, I'm not gonna have to put my life on the line like some kind of magical child soldier. Even though the school has to be hidden by magic, it doesn't mean we have to crawl around on our bellies like we're afraid. All that Both-Sides-of-the-Dream-Mirror hostility is supposed to be in the past, right? Isn't that why we're all supporting King What's-His-Elf-Arse in the O.V.? (That's what we call Outer Valoria around here. I don't know if there's an Inner Valoria… will have to pay better attention in class, lol.)

[some time later]
Sorry, I had to go to lunch. Anyway, the one more thing I had to add was: the lighthouse?!

What is going on with the lighthouse

The amethyst lamps all lit up BRIGHT last month and they have been blasting the entire North coast with this crazy purple light ever since. I like it ofc but in that 'Halloween Town' kind of way. but it definitely doesn't look right. I feel like, if the townies can see it (I don't think so?) … let's not even think about it. I know the folks in charge have it all under control but it's weird in a way nobody is comfortable with. Noooobody.

Also, it bugs me I haven't seen Cherry in way too long, feels like since before winter break. And just like with Professor Stone, lord forbid you ask why whole people are missing… no answers. Do we even have enough teachers to run a school right now? I wish they'd just talk to us.

-Charlie"

Diary III: AINE | Unease & Professor Stone's Absence

"In the hush of twilight, I sense a ripple of concern among our teachers. Our newest friend, Audrey, arrives in this peculiar moment. I find it hard to explain to her the absence of Prof. Stone, the mysteries of the lighthouse illuminating the seaside even in the dead of night. Yet Audrey carries herself with grace, and I hold no fear.

Within these enchanted halls, time dances to its own tune, unaffected by the chaos beyond our sanctuary, far from the lands of Outer Valoria and the realms that lie behind the mystical doors that brought us here. I can't shake the feeling that the same illness haunting my kingdom still lingers, threatening even our protected haven. The Desparaxia… can our mystic shield hold it at bay? I take solace in the trust my teachers and family placed in Prof. Stone, her wards encircling us like a shield of bravery. But her sudden absence leaves me with a shadow of doubt, a whisper of uncertainty in my heart.

Bound by the rules, we remain within the confines of the school grounds. Yet, deep inside, I know that if the Professor were out there, her presence would echo through the very air. Audrey, too, senses this connection. While rules may bind us, sometimes, in the face of injustice, they must yield.

Thankfully, our mission will conclude before the grading of these journals. Punishment, if it comes, I shall embrace willingly. For in the end, restful sleep is essential, and weary minds seldom grasp the wisdom they seek.

With dreams of a brighter dawn,
~A"

Diary IV: RAEN | Stupid Plan

"So a bunch of girls from class have convinced me to go along with this ridiculously dangerous plan to go out into the Forest of Nod and bring back Professor Stone ourselves. I'm freaking out a little. I bring nothing to the table for this little 'mission' but they want me to strategize for them.

What? Strategize what? Sneaking out of a mostly un-guarded front door in the night with a picnic basket and peeking into the only safe part of the woods just in case she fell asleep out there? I am so dead. We're all so dead.

Regardless, we're going tomorrow night. That new girl has Aine acting up that she wants to be in on this dumb plan with us… but the moon is going to be full and really bright, which I am hoping will make it easy to get out, step a toe into the woods, see that she's not there and haul our butts back home before anybody notices we're missing (or rats us out).

If they knew what kind of awful stuff could really be out there they wouldn't be talking about this. The fact that all our remaining faculty can't even leave the grounds now or the mystic wards will drop… that they don't even have enough people to send a search party, that's proof enough for me that we are way out of our league trying to go out and find clues by ourselves.

Then again, I don't think she's coming back on her own. I don't know if the other teachers want to admit that to themselves, but we need to find her or get help, fast.

Maybe a scouting mission won't be the worst thing."

Diary V: EMBER | Artificial Sun

[diary is being transcribed]

Diary VI: CHERRY | Rescued

[diary is being transcribed]

Diary VII: BUTTERCUP | Dear Jerkwads: I am Gone.

"As if you care! You're all lucky I realized I'm better off just skipping this whole plane. The O.V. is where the real power is, anyway…

It was never my fault the Mad King used me to infiltrate the school. I would have never helped him on purpose, but the way you people turned on me, maybe I would if I had to do it over again. My actual soul is in danger, does nobody care?

I don't know why I even tried to come here. Nobody wanted anybody from where I'm from, right? What good is keeping the sickness from spreading if it feels like everybody here just already has it? I can't find one place to belong.

So… I'm out. I would have given anything I had to get somebody here to acknowledge me… even like Kasuka did years ago. But I couldn't make one friend. You tell me how that's fair. I'm not giving up for anybody else, now.

I'm going to the Fairgrounds to find some kind of purpose. Maybe a friend. Don't expect my help if we cross paths again… I can't afford to spare anyone."

Diary VIII: NICK | Humans and the Passage of Time

"[Transcribed through Prof. Stone] The utterance of my true name is forbidden; it is not within the scope of human capacity to endure its weight. Hence, we have adopted the appellation of the one whose visage we now assume, Nick.

For the sake of simplicity, I shall refer to myself as 'I.' I do not bear the designation of a student within these venerable halls, yet by the standards of my own kind, I am said to occupy a plane of wisdom akin to that of sophomores, despite eons passing in your mortal realm.

The radiant lighthouse, aglow with its amethyst light, is an inadvertent consequence of my presence. It has a deleterious impact only upon those of your kind who dare to fix their gaze upon it for extended durations. I beseech your fellow humans to resist the impulse to do so.

My purpose here is to safeguard a select group of students integral to the perpetuation of the timeline I hold dear. Among them is Audrey, a pupil intricately entwined with me in a manner that defies easy articulation. Her life pulses in tandem with my own ceaseless vigilance. I would permit no wavering in that vital rhythm, for her existence is a precious gift. She harbors no reason to fear me, though I must acknowledge that her reliance upon an entity from a realm so alien must appear most perplexing.

The capacity for emotion, even among eldritch beings, is a reality. Indeed, I can smile, and love, too, has its place within the realm of the eldritch. It is, however, an anomaly of the rarest order.

Formidable trials lie ahead for all of you, and yet, you possess reservoirs of strength unbeknownst to you. I must exercise the utmost restraint in guiding your choices. Nevertheless, within the confines of my allotted influence, I shall shelter this assemblage of students as though they were my own charges."