(text-colour: white) + (font: "Times New Roman") + (text-style: "blur")[//There stand 5 boys. Your friends await for you next to the shack. Some pacing back and forth impatiently. They are all a few years older than you. All taller, pale with ruddy cheeks, wearing earrings bespeaking their lineages.
Every summer, you have been meeting up with them here for several hikes and small game hunting in the forest.
But never one after dusk.
//]
(t8n-depart: "dissolve")[[Next->Scene3]](text-colour: white) + (font: "Times New Roman") + (text-style: "blur")[//It is the fourth Saturday of June after vespers. A day before summer solstice.
The air smells of earth, still cold and damp after a day of light rain. Mist thinly veils the meadow as nightfall approaches. You see an abandoned shack ahead of you near the forest.
//]
(t8n-depart: "dissolve")[[Head towards the shack->Scene2]](text-colour: white) + (font: "Times New Roman") + (text-style: "blur")[//"Aharon, what's taking you so long?" says the boy with pale blue eyes and black hair. He holds a blazing torch, lighting up the smirk on his face. "An arduous task indeed. Isn't it? Memorizing the same path you've been taking for hundreds of times."
Light snickers follow Jasper's condescending comment.
You look down at your boots, uncomfortably damp, soaked in drying slush. Jaspar never liked you, but you are unsure why.
//]
(t8n-depart: "dissolve")[[Apologize->Scene4.1]]
(t8n-depart: "dissolve")[[Remain silent->Scene4.2]](text-colour: white) + (font: "Times New Roman") + (text-style: "blur")[//
"I didn't mean to be late...my father is around so it's difficult to avoid him at times..." Your thoughts begin to muddle as you're never assertive or eloquent. Sensing your uneasiness or perhaps fear, Jaspar's presence towers over you, then someone interferes.
"Jaspar, that is uncalled for." Says the blonde boy named Elias.
Elias is 13, the oldest of all. A distant kin of Jaspar, he constantly moderates Jaspar's behavior. You admire his audacity. But perhaps he is precipitous to some extent, considering Jaspar's temper and sheer power in this kingdom.
//]
(t8n-depart: "dissolve")[[Next->Scene5]](text-colour: white) + (font: "Times New Roman") + (text-style: "blur")[//
You remain silent, looking down at the ground. You feel indignant but you are never confrontational. Sensing your uneasiness or perhaps fear, Jaspar's presence towers over you, then someone interferes.
"Jaspar, that is uncalled for." Says the blonde boy named Elias.
Elias is 13, the oldest of all. A distant kin of Jaspar, he constantly moderates Jaspar's behavior. You admire his audacity. But perhaps he is precipitous to some extent, considering Jaspar's temper and sheer power in this kingdom.
//]
(t8n-depart: "dissolve")[[Next->Scene5]](text-colour: white) + (font: "Times New Roman") + (text-style: "blur")[//
Jaspar smiles as he rolls his eyes. His pupils dilate conspicuously, his light eyes darkened.
"God, of course I was fooling around with him. You need to unwind a bit. I swear you look more solemn than my sexless windowed aunt."
//]
(t8n-depart: "dissolve")[[Next->Scene6]](text-colour: white) + (font: "Times New Roman") + (text-style: "blur")[//
Elias is relatively quiet tonight as the group ventures into the pitch black forest. The only source of vision is Jaspar's torch.
You stay behind next to Elias. Something still seems bewildering. Why visit the forest at night when the view is better under daylight?
//]
(t8n-depart: "dissolve")[[Ask Elias where we are going->Scene7]]Bruh moment