Bishie Style SL: Midnight Order: The Dare (Escape from Club Apophis, 11)

(click to enlarge)

STORYLINE: Kyle Baek was not a pleasant person. He could find fault with a rainbow. Puppies? Overrated. Free pizza? Cardboard with marketing. If joy walked into the room, Kyle would be leaning in the doorway, arms crossed, listing the reasons joy should sit back down and shut up. He didn’t just rain on parades, he summoned a Category 5 typhoon, then complained about how wet his shoes were.

No good deed survived his snark. No sweet moment escaped his venom. Even trolls found him exhausting.

It was almost an art form.

And yet…

As much as Kyle specialized in rejecting the very concept of warmth, there was something gnawing at him. A hairline crack in the wall of his spite.

It was the guilt.

Because Kyle was the one who dared Yoon Jihoon to spend a night in the Forbidden Zone. The dare had been a joke, one of those stupid schoolyard challenges meant to make you look tough in front of the guys. Go into that haunted club, Apophis, prove you’re a man.

No one who entered the Forbidden Zone came back. No one.

Except Jihoon.

Only… he wasn’t the same. Different face. Different voice. Different everything.

He didn't tell anyone he was not ok. Overnight, he went from bookworm to celebrity. How could anyone have guessed?

During the season opener, with half the school chanting his new nickname, Lathandro, the sun broke over the stadium roof. Jihoon’s skin ignited in the sick, blistering way meat flares in a microwave. By the time the fire was out, he was in a coma, wrapped in bandages, breathing through a ventilator.

Doctors muttered about “severe photothermal injury.” Rumors bloomed: black-market augments, DNA hacking, doping. No one could explain it.

But Kyle could.

Club Apophis.

And that was on him.

Just like his favorite heroes from Film Noir, he wasn’t the type to admit fault, ... self-reflection was for people with therapy budgets, so he framed it another way. Someone else had done this to Jihoon. Someone in the Zone. And that someone was going to pay.

That’s how Kyle Baek found himself standing at the rusting perimeter fence, staring into the gray murk of the Forbidden Zone.

Kyle had never been this close to the fence before.

Sure, he’d loitered near the bus stop a few blocks away, daring other idiots to go in, but that was different. You could still smell fried chicken from the corner stall out there. You could still hear people laughing.

Here, the air was still.

The chain-link perimeter stretched in both directions like it had no end, and the metal was eaten through in places by rust the color of dried blood. Government warning signs, a chaotic collage of BIOHAZARD, RADIATION, and NO TRESPASSING, were plastered over one another, all screaming the same message: Don't. Someone had spray-painted a crude skull over one of them, its grin melting down the corrugated steel.

No one actually crossed the line. No one sane. Unless something inside was already broken.

Kyle felt the crack widen as he stepped closer.

Long hours as a campus security guard, supplementing his income, had taught him two things: how to stay awake when nothing was happening, and how to keep moving when too much was. Neither skill made stepping toward the Zone a good idea, but they made it easier.

The gap in the fence looked cut from the inside, as if whatever lived here had tried to escape.

He stood there a long moment, hands in his pockets, wind tugging at his jacket. It would have been smart to walk away. To head home, forget this place, pretend Jihoon’s face, what was left of it, didn’t come looking for him every time he shut his eyes.

Smart? Kyle had never been smart when it counted.

Instead, he told himself it was just another dare. Just another stunt to shut people up.

But there was no audience this time. No crowd waiting to see if he’d chicken out. Just the gap, the silence, and the gray beyond.

One step more, and there’d be no coming back.

Kyle smiled like a man about to do something very, very stupid.

Wooo woo. It's a new season for my ongoing story, and more coolness from this round of Midnight Order!

From Graal is a fun, and interactive!, detective outfit. It comes with a hud to trigger drawing the gun and holstering it. I love that! ...From Mana are the Jelly Eyes, dark and light eye whites, and several options to wear/apply the eyes. ...From TRASH is the sinful Lucifer hair. Kyle is wearing the hair without the devil horns, but that is an option for each set. The horns are seamlessly shaped from the hair. ...The setting is the brilliant Corrupted Chapel by LORE. This is such an awesome building. Beautiful outside and inside. And two options, normal and corrupted. Includes pews you can move around also. The corrupted version has red glow below the floor and thick vines growing through it. It reminded me of the Upside Down in Stranger Things. So naturally, I had to add the animesh Demadog to the scene from Vaal. ...Also from LORE are the Confessional stalls. They have several wood texture options with door openings.

On him, Kyle Baek,

Outfit, gun: GRAAL Midnight Detective, legacyM [interactive][mesh](Midnight Order)(549L)

Hair: TRASH Lucifer w/o Horns V1 - Rainbow pack [mesh](Midnight Order)(299L)

Eyes: Mana Jelly Eyes, Clear [BOM] (Midnight Order)(399L)

Skin: MUDSKIN Hajimu, C, Brow, WINTER(gacha)(The Arcade)(75L)

Glasses: SOLE SA, Glasses Penta CP, Black [mesh](339L)

Tentacles: Aii&Ego Forbidden Ritual Body Tentacles, M [Bento]

Bracer: Gabriel ::GB:: Leather Bracer, Legacy [mesh]

Harness: Fake Society Nate Harness, Black, LegacyM [mesh]

Shoes: Mazzaro Cicero Loafers, LegacyM [mesh](200L)

Gloves: Izzie's 03 Short Leather Gloves black [BOM]

Head: LeLUTKA CAMDEN 4.0 [mesh](3990L)

Body: TheShops [BODY] Athletic Meshbody (Legacy)(m) (1.7.1) [mesh](5000L)