FANDOMS AND GENRES *** I don’t do fandoms. I have a few darlings like Cyberpunk 2020, Fallout: New Vegas, and Dark Souls, but I’m an esoteric gremlin and I’m at peace with that. So you and I, we’ll be better off doing originals. As far as originals go, I enjoy slice of life shenanigans, modern fantasy, and hard sci-fi. Generally, I’m a sucker for all things hopepunk (examples go like: this, this, and this). As far as ready-to-play ideas go, I have a half-baked Shadowrun-esque take on modern fantasy x cyberpunk. Hit up my PMs, if you want a barely structured unhinged rant about that. For slice of life, ideas come to me a dime a dozen, so I don’t even count these.

FAVORITE CHARACTERS *** Looking back at my roleplaying career, I tend to write three types of characters: a) cinnamon buns; b) bitches; c) middle-aged burnt out men (especially field surgeons, for some reason, I dunno, they’re fun). Most of them are quite old, and none have been translated into English. I can, though, give you Micah. She’s somewhere on the spectrum between a bitch and a cinnamon bun, and also very much unfinished: she was meant for my old co-pilot, but the idea didn’t take off.

English level: *** Somewhere ‘round C, but I lost my capacity to care about formal level about three years ago. I do my due diligence when I write posts, but don’t expect me to stay formal in dialogues or flood, because English’ slang is too rich to not use it at all.

Game preferences: *** Generally I’m comfortable with 550-700 words per post, but my range is anything within 150 to 2500 words. My default is third person limited, with caps, dialogue markers if needed. I don’t enjoy the first person POV, but I can do it. Sometimes I might throw in a cheeky second person POV (tu/thou/you) to spice things up, but it’s not a style preference. Caps aren’t mandated by religion, so I can do whatever you want: caps, lowercase, no words at all. I’m not good with graphics, so don’t expect anything  pretty   if I’m the one formatting our episode header.

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Ah, yes, graduation day.

I think it is fair to say that of all the days this year, this was the one we anticipated the most. Well, maybe the second most, right after the premiere for season two of Sex Education. By "we" I mean the core of our graduation class of Greenville High — me and my friends. We worked hard this year and were eager to finally wave goodbye to the high school.

Well, not necessarily to an equal degree. For example, Bob crawled out of his bed for coffee and scrambled eggs just like any other morning. Jim, though, was so anxious that his mom had to help him with his necktie... Though maybe Jim wasn't clever enough to figure out neckties, I don't really know. There certainly was anticipation in the girls camp: Datoka and Margot almost starved themselves to fit in their dresses. And Jenny wasn't even posting hot takes on Twitter the whole morning, which meant that she's deadly serious.

I, for one, was way too sleepy to feel anything. Damned late-night gaming sessions with Bob. This morning I dragged my body out of the house while ███████'s pickup aggressively honked at me. "Coming, I'm coming", I yawned, dragging my body into the passenger seat.

"Good morning, sleepy", — ███████ smiled.

"Yeah, screw you too..."

The two of us promised to come earlier and help Mrs. Jones with preparations at the high school.

The ceremony itself was kind of boring. The principal kept droning on and on with his speech. Nothing special or even unusual about it. At least this is the last time we had to bear through it.

We were a little bit anxious to come up on stage and receive our diplomas — being stared at by 150-something pairs of eyes is kind of tough. Well, except for the Fraser sisters. Margot was the theater kid; she basked in ovations just like a narcissus under the sunlight. Dakota wasn't as confident as her twin, but she was simply gorgeous in her burgundy-colored dress. Gosh, she's beautiful.

"Dude, when will you ask her out?" — ███████'s elbow poked under my ribs. Ouch!

"Nah, I'm probably not her type", — I shrugged off the suggestion.

"You could just try, though. What's the worst that could happen?"

"I...", — sigh — "I just don't want to ruin our friendship, y'know?"

███████ scoffed and turned away.

The weird thing is, I remember coming up on the stage and receiving my certificate, but I don't remember ███████ doing the same. I remember an awkward handshake with the principal and being eager to come off the stage ASAP. And ███████ was supposed to come up right after me. For the life of me, I cannot remember, but why?

After the ceremony, closer to sundown, we managed to get rid of relatives and parents. Now it's just the seven of us, not-so-kids now. We went to the park, bringing with us a brown bag and cans of soda, a third of their volume now filled with whiskey. Thanks to Bob and his fake ID. (But shuhs! I never told you about that, okay?)

We were giddy with laughter, well, even more than usual. Though — dare I say it! — whiskey tastes like crap, its hot bite is surprisingly good at loosening the mood. Or maybe this was the fun of doing something you weren't supposed to. "Who would stop us?", we thought, giggling and snapping selfies.

We were about to step into the adult world, feeling like it was right under our feet: "It'll be alright", we thought. All of it. College applications, drill sergeants at Marines boot camp, even the old Pap's car repair shop wasn't as bad of an option. At least we told Jim so, trying to cheer him up. "It'll be alright", we said to him. Jim's a hard-working kid, even if not the brightest, he'll figure it out. Even the most cynical of us — looking at you, Jenny — seemed to believe that.
In the falling darkness we drank more soda with whiskey, getting tipsy. Under thick oak crowns we promised each other to always stay in touch. Together we felt united and united, we felt strong. We're besties for life, goddamnit!

There were hugs and I remember a brief sting of envy at ███████ for how easy their relationships with Dakota and Margot were.

Next time I blinked, ███████ was gone; it was always just the six of us.

I wasn't the one to raise the concern, Dakota spoke first:

"Where did ███████ go?"

Laughter turns to a sour silence for a moment.

"Who's ███████?" — Bob asked.

"I think ███████ was with us the whole time...", — I said, though not sure. "███████" sounded familiar, but every time I tried to remember something, I felt like trying to touch the empty space where something punched through my memory. This empty space, it was shrinking.

“But who is ███████?” Jim asked again.

“I think I shared French class with ███████”, Margot said.

“You think?”

“Oh, shut up, Jenny!” Jenny always was sarcastic when nobody wanted her to be.

"I don't know what this game is, but guys, that's not a funny one. There were six of us the whole day", — Bob spoke again, he sipped from his can. "Always just the six of us".

"But I was with ███████ this morning!" — I scratched the back of my head. "We helped Mrs. Jones with the preparations".

"No you weren't", Margot said to me. "I remember you there, carrying all these chairs by yourself, there was no ███████, whoever ███████ was".

“Guys… This might sound crazy, but I think we lost somebody”, Dakota whispered, suddenly so pale and, it seemed to us, sobered through fear.

“Right”, I nod. “But if we lost ███████… Where?”

“I think you guys are full of shit”, Bob took another sip from his can. “There is no ███████”.

I felt shivers running down my spine, Jim and Dakota felt so as well.

“There were six of us the whole day”, Jenny said.

“It was always the six of us”, Margot added. “No ███████”.

“You just said you had French classes with ███████!” Dakota shouted.

“Did I?”

We nod at her, now all of us feeling out of place, shivering, even though it was a warm spring evening.

“Nah, you’re making it up”, Jenny said, taking it out on Dakota. “And you two”, – me and Jim – “Quit foolin’ around”.

“Oh, fuck you!” That was Dakota.

“No, fuck you!”

“Hey, chill”, – I intervened, taking a step to place myself between the two girls. “We all need to take a deep breath…”

We took one, and as we did, we began to think. Jim, Dakota and I tried to remember something about ███████. Margot, Bob and Jenny thought that the three of us tried to pull a prank on them. Honestly, it’d be easier if they’d been right. It was hard to remember ███████, even though we thought we knew ███████. But memories suddenly turned elusive, like roaches greased up in vaseline.

"Jenny, have you had a date with ███████?” I asked, grasping for vanishing memories, trying to hold onto them. I took a moment and proceeded, “It wasn’t a great one, was it?”

Jenny gazed at me, anger swelling in her. Bullseye.

“I wish that I didn’t”, she said. “Funny thing, though – I know it was a terrible date, but it’s like I had it with ███████ and I didn’t. Are you sure it weren't you who invited me to that fucking museum?”

"I'm pretty sure it was ███████".

“Alright, s’pose ███████ was one of us”, Bob crossed his hands. “How is it that we can’t think of ███████? And for fuck’s sake – why?”

We had no idea. Well, at least we had no reasonable idea.

“What if ███████ was like Hitler?” Jim asked. We stared at him. “What? Oh, c’mon, don’t look at me like that. It’s Time Travel 101: killing Hitler as a baby to prevent the Second World War”. Oh, Jim, always a nerd for science fiction. “So what if ███████ did something so horrible in the future, that somebody went to our past and killed ███████ as a child?”

“Like, for what?” Dakota asked.

“Fuck do I know?” Jim shrugged.

“Oh, you!” Margot threw her hands into the air, turned on us and began to walk away. “You people are creeping me out, I’m getting outta here. Ping me when y’all are sane again. Ciao!”

We followed her with our gazes.

“I think Margot’s right", – I said and then finished my can. "We’re too jacked up right now”.

“But what about ███████?” Bob asked.

“I’m not saying that there was no ███████. Just that we probably will be better off by getting some sleep and then asking other folks about ███████. Maybe somebody will remember ███████’s parents or something”.

“I don’t like that plan”, Dakota said. “Margot seemed to forget about ███████ as we talked to her! Won’t we turn out the same way in the next five minutes?”

“Nah, I don’t think so. Margot just freaked out. Besides, do you have any better ideas? Anybody?”

We stood silent for a moment or two. No better plans.

“Alright, fine. We’ll do it your way…” Dakota agreed. “But we'll begin searching for clues first thing in the morning”.

“We will”, Bob said, the rest of us nodded in agreement.

But Dakota is right. Whatever we’re holding of ███████ in our memories, it evaporates at an alarming rate. As I’m writing down events of today in my notebook, I cannot remember ███████’s name. I put the blanks instead, they feel most appropriate.

I texted Jim once I got home. He doesn’t remember talking about “time-travel kill”, ever. I’m pretty sure that at this point, Margot really doesn’t remember anything. Bob and Jenny don't respond to me. It seems that only Dakota and I still remember at least something.

“We'll do everything we can”, I text back, trying to reassure her.

“Promise?” — she asked.

“I promise”. I think we’re lying to ourselves.

It’s only 10:23 PM. I’m not sure our memories will last until morning.