Been getting lazy and am still lazy. Here’s #inktober for today.
I thought of like… A metronome. So like… A conductor?
my Inktober contribution for the day… Didn’t feel like following the prompt this time so here’s a WIP of Dazai Osamu from Bungou Stray Dogs. Trying to get better at digital art~
Your Death Awaits.
It is a dark and misty night. Your feet trudge forward, kicking aside the mud and slush that stands in your way.
The air bites at your cheeks and the cold seeps into your fingers and toes. Perhaps it is just the fact that you are alone, but as the wind rustles nearby bushes, a shiver runs down your spine.
Then, you hear it.
The rustling of the trees above you.
You look up, terror and fear etched across your face, but it’s too late.
Welcome to Assassin.
This was a game played with my high school band in tenth grade.
Each participant both had a target and was someone else’s target. The goal of the game is to isolate your target within school grounds (excluding the bathroom), point a finger gun at them, and yell BANG! , killing them and removing them from the game. The deceased target then tells their assassin who their target was, and that becomes the assassin’s new target.
I was the game controller so when there was a death, the assassin would submit their target’s death location and the time of the target’s death to the-symphonic-assassin.tumblr.com. If you’re interesting in reading the tidbits of writing that I did detailing each person’s “death”, please visit that blog!
The game was successful and fun at first - with many people playing, stakes were high and players were paranoid to be alone. However, those who died first didn’t get to experience the game because they never saw any action. Moreover, as people continued to die, the premise of the game became boring and people would forget that it existed, leading to careless deaths that no one cared about. The excitement of playing the game died out around the first month - and with so many people leftover, there was no way to crowd a winner.
One pitfall of this game was that there was no way to force the students to go somewhere alone, nor was there a way to decrease the bounds of the playing field. Also, when band members had to target someone they didn’t know, they found it awkward to have to catch them alone. Some were too socially awkward to take their opportunities.
In all, it was an alright experience. I think this game could be a lot more fun with some changes - and possibly might be a great premise for a Danganronpa-esque story. Will I be working on that next? Who knows?
Inktober day 4 - spell. I’m pretty happy with this one~
(Also tried persona5 art style and I’m not sure if it’s for me)
I’m doing a rough character concept per inktober day!
Inktober day 3! Bit rushed today because class and homework and illness are taking up the bulk of my time.
inktober day 2 - Tranquil.
I’m doing one rough character design per day during the month of inktober!
Home
A short story by Jessica Zhang.
That fateful day, Satoru had been throwing notes onto my desk when the teacher wasn’t looking.
“Hey. Can’t you just tell me who you like?”
“Never,” I scribbled to him in return, knowing that my answer would only lead to me being teased later.
“You can’t even give me a hint?”
“She’s pretty. She has long, flowing hair, her eyes are beautiful like pools of syrup, and her voice is like the sound of wind rustling through cherry blossom trees in the spring.”
This time, the paper bounced off my head, and I shot him a dirty look as I unfolded it.
“That’s like every third year in school! Gosh, you can’t be more specific than that?”
“If you beat me to the hill today, then we’ll talk.”
In truth, it wasn’t a girl that I’d loved. It was the gentle sound of blue waves lapping at the shore, painting beautiful arcs of brown on white. It was the ripples dancing as flat stones skipped across the surface. It was the cool rushing of water over my toes as my feet burrowed deeper into the wet sand of Ryori Bay. I was in love with the ocean, in all of its sophisticated beauty.
First came the shaking.
As I crouched under my desk, a knot of fear tightened around my heart. My arms, clutching the spindly, metal legs of the table, rattled so furiously that I thought my bones might shatter like glass. I heard the sounds of plaster ripping from the ceiling, crashing down over us, drowning out the sound of my classmates’ frightened screams.
Then came the relief. The shaking stopped as quickly as it had began. My teacher surveyed the class and asked if anyone was injured. We were scared. Some of my classmates were crying. I wasn’t, though tears streamed down my face from my eyes having been squeezed shut so tightly.
Then came the sirens. The panicked orders barked through loudspeakers in our town.
The students clamored over rubble, running for the doors, the windows, anything that would get them out of the building. The hill was five minutes away if you ran fast. Four minutes if you ran faster. But it wasn’t a contest of arriving there - it was a contest of climbing the steep slope, slick with mud from the morning’s spring shower.
I panted, Satoru hot on my tail as we sprinted past the rest of our classmates. Every day after class, he would promise to beat me. Every day, he lost. He would laugh off the defeat, teasing that I could run fast but I couldn’t run for long. The grass was slippery, but I hardly noticed each time I fell. The air was cold and muggy, suffocating me as I gasped for panicked breath.
The sprinting slowed to a run. The run slowed to a jog. The jog slowed to a walk. The walk slowed to a stop.
“Kazuya, you tired already or something?,” spat Satoru through his coughs of exhaustion. “We aren’t even half way up the hill! Come on, we have to go!”
He tugged at my arm, and as my weight shifted, my foot slid underneath me and I crashed to the ground. I couldn’t even muster the energy to answer his panicked apologies, only crawled to my feet to continue onward. But as I continued to stumble, and after several more falls, I resorted to dragging my body through the grassy mud.
“We must be high enough”, I said, as Satoru finally took his first pause. He turned with a retort ready, mud streaked across his forehead despite the cool weather. In the brief moment that he opened his mouth, fear suddenly flashed into his dark eyes.
“Look.”
I painfully climbed to my feet and looked behind me. The tsunami rose to meet my gaze, a giant, lonely, black wall casting a shadow over the shoreline where I’d once stood. Nothing about it reflected the beautiful sea that I’d called home. As it swelled higher and higher, I could feel nothing but betrayal. The wave rushed forward, and as it swallowed up the cherry blossom trees in the park, the house where I lived, the pool where I swam -
“Kazuya-”
my high school building, the path that I raced Satoru every day -
“Kazuya, RUN. IT’S COMING.”
His words pulled me out of my stupor, and we frantically scrambled further up the hill. The rush of the wave was deafening in my ears as it drew closer, my heart beating like a hollow drum. Neither of us dared to look behind us.
The wave slammed into the ground barely missing our heels, and the impact of the resulting splash knocked us flat onto our stomachs. I flipped over to watch as that wave slinked back down the mountain. I convinced myself that my face was wet from the salty ink which had drenched us - not tears.
Both of us left speechless, we could do nothing but wait as the water churned through the city. Bobs of debris swirled around, and I was reminded of the green onion soup that my mother would prepare for me as a child when I was sick, stirring it with a pair of chopsticks before bringing the bowl to my lips. I wasn’t sure why I was remembering it now, of all times.
Minutes or hours later, the water finally began to sweep away the mess it had created, the same way that I swept my collection of sea glass under my bed for fear of Satoru’s bullying. I scanned the barren city desert left behind, dizzyingly confused when I couldn’t seem to locate my house.
The truth hit me harder than any tsunami could have. I knew in that moment that I would never be able to return home again.
Ice Cream Boy - Jessica Zhang