the yōkai plex (being rewritten) ⚠️READ DESC⚠️

month 4 - the ruins (prologue)

Casanova looked around the lifeless ruin before jumping down onto the boxes just below the opening in the window.

“Gregory? Gregory, you there? I got your message,” she called out to her friend. When she got no response, she decided to go down into the large empty space.

“Gregory, are you there?” he called out again. She went further down when she didn’t hear anything again

“I don’t get it. Why would Gregory tell me to come to this old place, and then not be here?” she asked herself as she looked around the barren lobby. As she poked around more, she suddenly heard a crackly noise that sounded like feedback from a walkie talkie in the distance.

“What was that? Maybe if I get over there I can see better,” she thought aloud as she looked in the direction of the noise. As she poked around, she saw an area enveloped in shadows.

“No way i’m going in there without a flashlight,” she thought aloud again, shaking her head as if to shake the thought of something jumping out of the inky blackness and attacking her. But conveniently enough, she noticed a robot holding a flashlight just a few feet away. She walked up to it and took the flashlight out of the twitching bot’s hand. She couldn’t help but notice the two girls on either side of the robot: a gray wolf and a white leghorn chicken. She recognised the wolf, it was roxy! She smiled to herself at the fond memories Roxy gave her. She didn’t recognize the chicken though, but she’s heard about Roxy's girlfriend, a white leghorn chicken. She wondered if they were the same chicken.

“Thank you, this will help with those dark scary places,” she smiled and shook the lifeless bot’s hand. She went back over to the shadowy area and turned on her flashlight, most of her fear melting away, but she was still on edge. She went into a gift shop looking area and went up the stairs near the door she came in through. As she ascended the staircase, she felt nothing but unease. This unease was only heightened by a stock and store trolley with an ATM on top of it suddenly careening down the stairs, giving cassie a good scare. She eventually recovered from the spook and pushed forward, finding another gift shop looking area with another robot that looked the same as the one that she took the flashlight from, that one was holding a light of its own. As she walked past, it suddenly sprang to life, making an obnoxious blaring alarm sound before returning to its lifeless state, dropping its flashlight. She took another second to recover from her second adrenaline rush before walking out of the door in front of her. She was met with a husk of something grand.

“Over here!” She heard Gregory call out. It sounded like it was coming from a radio. She walked over to where she heard the sound.

“SOS!” he called again. She went further, expecting to see her friend trapped under some debris or something. She hoped for the best and prepared for the worst, but all she saw was a walkie-talkie of Roxy. A Roxy talkie, as Cassie elected to call it.

“Is someone there? Help! Can you hear me?” Gregory called on the other end of the walkie. Cassie picked it up.

“Are you there? Are you there? I’m trapped!” Gregory pleaded.

“Gregory, I got your message! Where are you?” Cassie asked back.

“Help, something grabbed me… it… won’t let me go! You have to find me… I'm trapped in the… sinkhole under roxy racers!” Gregory explained frantically.

“Where is that?” Cassie asked back.

“Just go to the atrium, go left, straight, and down.”

“Ok, i’ll get there as soon as i can,” cassie nodded and hooked the walkie onto her belt. She immediately had a bad feeling about this. Whoever she was talking to didn’t sound like gregory. Sure, Gregory had a whiny tone about him, but this whininess was pretty over the top. But still, she went through the open elevator shaft and approached the ladder on her left. She turned off her flashlight. As she began to climb, the elevator suddenly broke and fell towards her. She let out a small yelp as the metal box scraped against the wall and other inner workings of the machine.