i was gon' clean my room, but then i got.. what was i saying [open]

Roderick couldn't remember how he'd ended up in the janitor's closet, but by now, he couldn't even count how many fingers he had without constantly forgetting after the third one and having to restart. Everything was mellow, and fuzzy, and nice. His face felt puffed up and warm, as if someone were pressing muscle relaxant packs to his cheeks, and all his worries had melted away and dissipated in the form of thin grey clouds of smoke.

April 20th. The Winter wasn't sure how he'd managed to evade the ever-watchful staff - extra watchful, on such a day -  who had been rounding all of the stragglers up for curfew not thirty minutes ago, but by some miracle, he had. At first, every footstep outside, however distant, had struck him with a bolt of panic. As the number of drags he took evolved from single to double digits, however, watching the embers crawling around the end of his joint became a far more pressing matter than anything else.

By the time midnight had come and went, Roderick had reached the point that if the Headmaster walked in with the promise of suspension, he would have offered him some of what he had. It was all good. Weed made it all good.

What a word. Weed. W-e-e-d. Weeds, like.. Dandelion weeds, that grew in the front lawn.. But not the same weeds. Weed weed. Weeds. The more he thought about the word, the more funny and unrealistic it became.

Roderick snorted noisily and grinned, rolling his head back into a mop bucket. He inhaled another gratuitous lung-full of smoke, wondering what other silly words he could craft into comedic gold. When the door handle clicked, he was too absorbed in his own thoughts to sit up and look.

Weeee, I'm a little butterfly...

Evelyn couldn't remember how she had managed to sneak out past curfew, but that was a thing of the past. It was foolish, sneaking out of her room while staff was patrolling every corridor. If someone caught her, she was dead. Her parents would kill her. But again, nothing mattered when you were high as fuck at 1 AM.

She pittied all of the wimpy Intiates that stood put only to get wild as time passed. According to common knowledge, enjoyment is the key to life, and postponing pleasure was dumb. More enjoyment ment more life. Wait, what? Evelyn was no longer thinking straight as she stumbled on the empty halls, ears keen on every sound, or at elast that was what she had intended. She couldn't hear a thing over the mad tune playing her brains.

Even with her eyes swollen and red, the girl managed to catch sight of the flashlight that approached around the corner. She spun on her heel and slithered away in a janitor's closet. Something smelled funny here. It smelled of even more weed. She began chuckling absently and held her mouth as the steps of a staff member stomped outside. She hadn't been seen. Evelyn leaned on the shelves.

'Those shelves are very meaty.' she observed with a foggy smile, brushing sweat from her forehead and snatching heaven back from her pockets, taking in long hard breaths. Itw as one day of the year that she allowed herself to do this, and she was not missing out on the fun. She lost track of the numeber of intakes of the intoxicating gas she had taken, but there couldn't be that many. 'Let's see, one, one, three, ten, six, five, one.' she counted on her fingers, breaking out into a giberish mumble and sliding to the ground, laughing euphorically.

Before Roderick even had time to have another puff, someone else had slipped in and toppled over across from him, kicking one of his outstretched legs on their way down to the floor. It took all of his willpower to pull his head up out of the bucket he was leaning on to have a look at the intruder. When he did finally haul himself into a proper sitting position, he was, of course, just met with inky blackness. Inarticulate giggles drifted out of the girl's mouth, but he couldn't make out her face.. Not that it really mattered. All the faces and names he'd seen and heard at Beata were a blurry mess to him.

"I'm pretty sure that's not how you count to ten," Roderick muttered, giving her no indication that he'd read her mind. He sucked in a deep breath, lightly biting the end of his joint, and his exhale came out in the form of spluttering coughs. It felt as though someone had dribbled hot candle wax down the length of his throat. "You have to go one, two, three, four, f.. five.. Six, seven, nine, eight, ten." Roderick paused, mouth still ajar. "Wait, that's.. That's not.." He erupted into a fit of hoarse, wheezy laughter before he could finish his sentence, head falling back into the mop bucket.

Evelyn clicked her tongue, rolling her head on her shoulders to look at the sound of the fuzzy voice. Was she imagining voices? It didn't seem unlikely, but she managed to make out a body toppled under her, head in a bucket. She laughed and took another puff, exhaling the powerfully stinking smell. By now she was surprised no one had smelled out the closet, which itself was going to stink like weed for a while. 

She looked at the talking bucket with a dumb grin, quite too high to acknowledge that her mind had been read. For all she knew, he could have screamed her thoughts and not register them more than a mere whisper. Perks of being high, again. Still, Evelyn was pretty surprised to see a bucket with it's own will, and body."Call me weird but this bucket is hot as fuck." she giggled.

Hanna had been on one of her usual wanders around the school.  Normally it was just her asking to go to the restroom and not returning but that started to make her feel kind of nauseous every time she spent more than ten minutes outside of class.  She hadn't begun to make the connection her power was starting to even punish her for minor infractions since the "big incident."  She just chalked it up as bad luck and returned to class twenty minutes later suddenly feeling much better as soon as she stepped through the door.  This walk though she just felt like taking to get around as there wasn't much to do when she couldn't do her job without hurting herself or her clients.  It took another sucker punch for her to realize she was really beating her business to a pulp.  Her newest scar, freshly cauterized, stood under a large black bruise above her right eye from the rich boy she ended up (now rather fortunately to her) sucker punching and scarring across his cheek with that mysterious purple energy.  She guessed his gift had to be bitching cause that's all he did while she convinced him not to tell his parents or, God forbid, the administrators.

She shook her head as she pulled her beanie off of her head and moved it to the back pocket of her jeans, releasing her snow white hair which seemed surprisingly kempt for sitting under a beanie for most of it's existence, even if it was a bit of a mess and she frequently had to move a good few stray strands from her face.  She let out a deep breath when a sickly sweet smell attacked her nostrils.  She knew it well, and knew it was cheap.  Someone skimped out on whoever was smoking this or they just didn't care.  She looked around the hallway as a slight pounding began to ring out in her left ear, she'd look to door after door till she found a worthy candidate for a place to smoke.  One door she had right next to her there arose giggles and as she took a step closer the smell got increasingly strong.  She blinked her eyes a couple of times before bringing her fingers to the handle and turning it rather curtly, pushing the door open with a purpose and stepping in briskly.

She quickly shut the door behind her and crossed her arms at the scene before her, raising an eyebrow as the smell gave her a headache she never normally got around weed.  Her right eye twitched slightly as her piercing blue eyes darted from one person to the other and the smoke curling to the ceiling and towards her scarred face she would offer a small smirk and shake of the head as she spoke in her distinctly European accent 

"I could have got you better smoke without what I normally have.  I hope you paid bottom dollar for all that."

Curfew. It was curfew? No lights, no people, no adult supervision. She wasn't sure how she'd ended up way the heck out here this late, just that she'd been idling the day away in one of the oaks in the courtyard (she'd gotten kinda stuck there—long story), and once she'd gotten down, the place might as well have been a ghost town. Poppy was still picking twigs and caterpillars out of her hair when she'd heard it. The click of a door. Muffled giggling.

She froze.

Ghosts.

Poppy smelled it next. A heady musk that drifted through the hallway.

High ghosts.

The scent only got stronger the further she moved until she was in front of that closet door. She wasn't no square. She was cool. She was hip. She was in the know, y'know? Poppy knew what day it was. But even that being said, when Poppy popped open that door, blinking back the wall of smoke that stung at her eyes, she hadn't been expecting three people crowded in the same janitor's closet.

She sidled in around the scary European, letting the door close behind her. It was suffocating in here.

"Yo," she whispered. "I'm just here to hide from the ghosts."

Meandering through the dark, desolate hallways, Jake kept a hand on the wall for support. In his other hand was a small rolled up joint, one which he'd put together himself, and he had to admit, he'd done a pretty good job. Bringing the joint up to his mouth, he stuck it between his teeth so that his hand was free to run through his black hair. Sucking in the intoxicating yet oh so wonderful smoke, he let it fill up his lungs before letting out a breath. Damn, that was some good weed.

Although he was known for smoking, he usually didn't smoke weed to often, but lately, with all the Maria crap, it'd been his go to source of relaxation. Well, it was 4/20, so he should at least enjoy the day a bit. In his pocket was some coke, but having already been high and feeling great, he figured that he'd save that for later. Besides, finding the white powder and buying it in this town wasn't easy, nor was it cheap, so he was in no rush to use it right away and needed to save his money for more of his favorite green grass now that he was getting close to not having any left.

Continuing to wander aimlessly through the halls, Jake stuck the rolled up weed between his fingers. Everything felt so calm and chill, and his whole body felt warm like he was wrapped in a fuzzy blanket, and he the thought of being caught hadn't even crossed his mind. He would've much rather to have been in his dorm sitting on the soft sofa, but seeing that his head wasn't in the right place, he'd ended up wandering the halls, and for all he cared, that was okay with him.

At this point, Jake didn't know how long he'd walking around, and still keeping one hand on the wall in case he tripped, his hand fell on a door nob. Huh, there hadn't been a door nob for a while now, what a weird place to put it. Standing still and almost toppling over, the tall student listened closely, and sure enough, muffled voices could be heard inside. Well, might as well check it out.

Opening the door, a smile rested on his infatuated face. Inside the closet was a guy and a couple girls. Smoke filled the air, and he didn't have to ask questions to figure out what it came from. Softly closing the door behind him, he entered the small space and plopped himself down across from guy. "Glad I'm not the only one taking advantage of this wonderful date," Jake spoke in a husky voice, and placed the joint in his mouth once more. Nothing like spending the night with fellow druggies.

The apparent 'bucket with its own will', once he'd recovered from his raspy cackles, raised his head again. He wasn't sure if he was even looking at this girl across from him. He could have been staring at a broom. Everything was shapeless darkness, save for the tiny red tips of the two lit joints. "You know, I am feeling a little hot.." Roderick pressed the back of his free hand to his cheek, the nature of Evelyn's comment flying right over his head. His face really did feel warm. He patted the the side of his neck and forehead next, testing their temperatures. Now that he thought about it, his throat was kind of dry, too.. "Mm, somebody 'ought to feel my head. I think I've come down with something."

And then the door opened again. And a third time. And a fourth time.

There were now five people crammed into the janitor's closet. It's been far from a spacious area to begin with, but it had abruptly evolved into any claustrophobic's nightmare. The air only seemed to thicken with every new body.

Ghosts. Roderick caught a glimpse of some of the smoke as the door opened and closed with Jake's entry, spiraling faintly in the weak light. Suddenly, the swirling clouds had faces. Dancing ghosts, disguised as smoke. Clever ghosts. They didn't look like nasty ghosts. He'd seen nasty spirits in the night - many times. He knew. "No use in hiding from ghosts in this spot," he assured Poppy. "They're already here."

The Winter rolled the tip of his joint between his index finger and thumb, thinking. He'd do well to share it, since there were so many people present. He held it up in the direction of the three newest guests, free for the taking. "Have a go. I think I've gone and had too much."

Evelyn blinked and looked at the three people that had suddenly swarmed inside. The janitor's closet, besides smelling strongly of weed and being the source of giberish and giggles now and then, was now crammed with a total of five students, one which was high, one which was hiding unsuccessfully from high people, two which were high as fuck and one which was complaining about the cheap weed. It was trully a sight, and the Initiate lolled her head backwards, her head pounding from too many faces she did not want to bother registering. Her mouth was desert dry and her cheeks were hot and red.

'Wooooo, did someone say ghooooooosts? Spooooooooky.' she moaned, and every 'o' that came out of her mouth was longer than intended, her spinning mind. She tried to focus and look around at the newcomers, but she ended up taking another lungful from her joint and remaining there, eyes red from the drugs. She heard Roderick offer his weed to the others and laughed, slapping her palm gently over his face. His cheeks were hot as well. Maybe they'd both come down with something. ''Ghosts don't do drugs, silly. All that weed is getting to your head..." she mumbled, every words feeling like sandpaper scrapped against her tongue.

Evelyn struggled to support herself upwards, coughing wheezely and blinking fast. Maybe bucket-boy was right, sharing his weed. She looked up and foggily caught sight of a paleish, hazel-haired girl. The Initiate took a few shaky steps towards her,shaking her joint between her index and middle finger. A wrong step sent her stumbling and she caught on her target to stay upright. clinging to her shoulder and grinning, nauseatic and dizzy. "YOu should have sum, 'tis gooooood." she explained, repeatedly pushing the joint against the other girl's cheek, hoping that she'd score the mouth without having to focus her mind and see.

'Sharing is caring, and I am the greatest person alive, sharing my hard-earned weed wit strangers.' she told herself feeling proud of her generous behaviour. There shoudl be a 4/20 every month, people would be way nicer if they could do this every month. Or everyday. Evelyn stopped and took another suck from her joint before returning to poking Poppy's cheek with it.

Hanna raised any eyebrow at this entire mess, stepping as close to the corner as she could to sidestep the stumbling girl.  Either she was wrong that this weed was cheap or it had been laced.  She hadn't seen people act like this to kush...except for one.  She could tell it would be his thing there had always been something off about him.  Not to mention he read her mind, but the kid just seemed like someone too far gone from everything.

Her head pounded as she saw one joint being offered from a mysterious hand to the new group of three, two of which seemed to not be far behind her.  God, the different strains started to mix into an abomination of a smell.  She shook her head as her fist clenched in a sort of instinct that she didn't notice.  Something was hurting her head...it couldn't be the weed though, she didn't smoke it but she'd been around it so much.  Generally people wanted to sample what they just bought.  This was weird, she herself hadn't done anything wrong but she saw it all and her bright blue eyes started to dull slightly as the left side of her head rang out stabs of pain.  She kept her cool though, only being noticeably in pain from leaning heavily on a shelf holding cleaning supplies and her features quickly shifting.  She questioned why she was still here but she didn't want to these people to see her weak so she just cursed under her breath, definitely not noticeable to the high teens.  An observant figure would see her with her arms crossed, white knuckling her left upper arm and gripping her tank top tightly with the hand hidden under her right tricep.  This was going to be a long night.

Bro, what? She knew these people were hitting the devil's lettuce, but she'd hardly clung on to one word that passed her way, just shrinking more into the shelves of bleach and graffiti remover at the mention of ghosts. Yo, were they here or not? They couldn't play with her head like that. Poppy wrinkled her nose as the other girl took a fresh toke, shrinking more with the new arrival of a guy four heads taller (it was like a gosh dang clown car in here).

Poppy shot the other girl a sidelong look as she passed the joint over to her. "I've never smoked," she said, taking the doob with a dainty pinch of her fingers. She'd never even seen a joint before, really. "My nana raised me as a good Christian girl. That's a girl scout promise."

Without hesitating, she brought it to her lips, inhaling a lungful of smoke. It came back out through her nose and mouth in sputtering coughs, but she held herself together as best she could, taking another puff. That went smoother. Poppy held it out to the scary European, or whoever would take it, narrowing her eyes through the clouds of smoke.

"Wizard," she managed. So she guessed she smoked now.

A hot hand clapped suddenly against his face, but he scarcely reacted, far too lethargic to be surprised. The palm of the girl's hand was a warm as his cheeks were, so how was she to tell if he had caught a fever?

Roderick continued to hold the joint up for a few more heartbeats, but when it became clear he had no takers, he shrugged and brought it to his lips again. The embers had eaten through most of it by now, but he had no shortage of extras on his back pocket. He could be at this for hours, if he so wished. "Mmh, suit yourselves.." Someone in the room seemed tense. He could feel their anxiety radiating off of them, though he wasn't sure exactly who. A toke would do them good. Pity they were too shy to partake.

"Can't really avoid it, though, love," he mumbled to said person. "It's chocka block in here, and we're all dragons. Gonna get to your head eventually." Thick smoke crept out of the sides of his mouth as he spoke, only making his analogy more fitting. Something seemed vaguely familiar about whoever it was he was referring to, but the clouding in his mind was mucking his memories up.

Evekyn smirked with pleasure as Poppy took the joint from her hand and took a few sucks. It was nice to see someone new initiate in such practice. She didn't often smoke, but when she did, she did it a lot. The girl didn't bother to retrieve her weed and leaned on the side of the closet with a dreamy grin. The distant bangs of the small church in Roslare signalled a new hour had come, and the night was passing faster than she'd intended.

"Don't you think they would've found us...?" she moaned to Roderick, as if she were complaining. It was trully a performance worthy of pity that the staff were doing at picking out the smoking students that had snuck out on this important night. Evelyn wondered whether the closet smelled as bad as she felt it did, her senses as mushed up by the effects of the weed. Tomorrow they school, and she didn't even think she could wake up in the morning.

The ragdoll girl passed her hand through her hair, pushing away a large chunk that had dropped and obstructed her vision. Her forehead was dripping wet and she wiped her hand to the shelves of the janitor closet before groaning again and proceeding into gazing up at the ceiling, dazed. "I don't think I can even walk straight." she murmured to herself, mouth dry and throat sore.