There is no Salem....(open to as many want to come)

[Salem Hirch]

The morning started off like any other. Birds chirping in the warm summer day break, the other students already out and about, doing one thing or another. Even Salem was outside, guitar in hand and entertaining anyone that would listen. His happy cords and humming showed that the boy was in an oddly good mood, despite certain events that had occurred recently. Finishing up one song, he flopped back on his elbows, just enjoying the day. Some of his friends were around, smiling...laughing. It was a very good day. Then, his phone rang. Jiggling in his pocket with a sense of urgency that gave the young man pause. 

Slowly, he pulled the phone from his pocket and saw it was his mom and dad calling. With a sigh of relief he hit the button to accept the call and said hello. Something was said after that, but Salem didn't really hear anything. It was like the world had gone dark and was spinning so fast that it was making him sick. He hadn't even realized he was still talking, or that he was standing. The blonde boy barely registered the tears streaming down his face or the fact he had screamed. Somehow the phone managed to find it's way back into his pocket and he was heading back inside, his guitar forgotten on the ground. 

Salem didn't respond as people passed him in the hall, to him they didn't really exist. The zombie like pace that he was using didn't speed up and it was ages before he made it back to his room. There was a sound of a video game playing somewhere in the room, but it didn't even spark the slightest hint of humanity in him. In fact, even his bright eyes felt dark, even with a dull fire growing behind them. He pushed open his bedroom door and stepped inside. Beside his bed there was a picture frame, in said picture from was Salem and another boy. "Aiden..." He whispered. Then, something in the boy just snapped. 

Spinning, he slammed the door shut with as much force as he could and proceeded to trash his room. Books, clothes, letters, posters, action figures; everything in the room sent flying to other parts. Crashing against walls and each other. All in all, making an ungodly noise. Then it all just stopped. Salem was sitting on his bed, the picture of himself and his brother in his hand and was sobbing. His voice cracking over and over again. "No, you can't be dead...please...Aiden...don't be dead....please.." Salem's voice trailed off as he turned and flung himself face down on the bed, sobbing into his pillow. 

It was hours before he finally covered himself up in the blankets. The day was still bright and warm, but Salem felt cold. Not just outside, but inside as well. As he set there, with his back against the headboard, a hand reached out and touched the blanket. It was the projection of Aiden, that Salem made every night to read him to sleep. "Hello Aiden..." Salem spoke with a weak and flat voice as his eyes glimmered in the half dark room. 

[Axelle Flint]

Axelle had been out trying to haggle a machine part on the other side of town when she had gotten a call from Salem's parents about not being able to reach him and if she'd seen or heard from him. Puzzled and well aware of the "Carter" incident, Axelle told them that she'd try to reach him and see why he wasn't answering his phone. She assumed it was Carter related but didn't relate this to his parents, that was one secret she was going to keep even if it killed her. She put her foot down about a price, paid the garage and walked out with the promise that the new engine would be delivered later and that her grandfather would be overseeing. Since no one ever bothered to mess with Fenton Flint, Axelle was assured that her part would be delivered as promised.

That done she jumped onto her bike and peddled as fast as she could to Hammel, crashing into several hedges when she couldn't slow in time. Fighting her way out of the hedge resulted in her losing her hat at some point but she was resolutely fighting her way out of the evil shrubbery and marching into the dorm room where her friend was despite the murmurs and pointing. "YEAH! I GET IT! I'm super durable, go away," she snapped as she eyed a pair of (assumingly) twelve-year-olds gaping at her as she marched into the building and over to George and Salem's dorm. The door was closed and Axelle took a deep breath to orient herself before she knocked.

"Salem? Are you okay?" she gave a little giggle, "Do you wanna build a snowman?" she sang loud enough for her friend to hear behind the door before finally, carefully, opening it. "Salem? Dude?" she inched the door open and met resistance. It didn't take an overly strong push to clear the obstacle’s and she was met with pure and utter chaos. "Salem?!" her worried voice fell flat in the once not-trashed living space. Her eyes were so busy taking in the random destruction that it took a moment to locate the boy she was trying to find. She found him looking at the projection of another boy sitting on his bed. That boy was not Carter, in fact Axelle had never seen him before and she didn't know how to react to this sudden, new development.

"Salem? Can you hear me?" she asked, eyes locked on the apparition on the sheets as she inched as close as she dared to her friend.

[Kailin Bishop]

She was in the process of cleaning her room when she had gotten the call.

It was Salem's parents, and they seemed quite worried about the well-being of their son, and requested she go and check on him. Why would they be worried, though? Salem was shy, yes, but she hadn't thought of anything that could have happened that would warrant such a call from his parents. Either way, Kailin was out the door in two minutes, and driving to Hammel.

Arriving over at the dorms, Kailin could hear crashing and yelling, which caused her in her floral patterned sundress and sandals, to run as fast as she could to the commotion. Coming in, Ax was already at the door, trying to open the door. And then, she saw it. Salem's room was a complete wreck, and Salem sat watching a younger boy in a projection.

"Salem!" The Blonde cried out, quickly moving towards Axelle's side. "Salem, what is going on? Prince Charming?"

Kailin didn't know if she was supposed to move to his side or not, because he was clearly not in a decent mental state.

Salem, Salem, who is that? She projected to him, an illusion of herself that only he could see was inching even closer to him, carefully.

[Georgina Speer]

George was... oblivious to the world. She was sat in the common room of her dorm, on her 3DS, which was plugged into the wall, with her headphones in, boosted extra loud. Anyone nearby could probably hear the game's music because if she actually cared, she would probably realize that she was murdering her ears and damaging her hearing for life. However, she was really really really intent on fiiinaaalllyyy finishing this damn level, because no matter how many times she did it, those bloody spikes would always be the end of her. A. L. W. A. Y. S.

Seriously, she was getting desperate. She had been there since 8 am this morning.

She was sat in the same spot on the floor with her back to the end of the sofa, curled up, staring at the screen, practically hidden from anyone on the other side of the room except for the slight glow the screen made. She felt the vibrations of noise and footsteps and things moving and falling but she did nothing - her room-mates could do what they wanted, it would be hypocritical of her to think otherwise.

It was only when she just about her the word, 'Salem', that she finally came to her senses and looked up a little. Axe and... Kailin, she thought, were in Salem's room. And it did not look good in there at all. With her brow furrowed, the British girl paused and muted her game, putting it to one side and getting up.

Her phone buzzed. She pulled it out and answered it, looking over at Salem (well, Salem's room) in confused concern, seeing as it was his parents. Her face dropped as they explained what was wrong and she nodded, her throat feeling dry, as she ended the call and joined the others.

She didn't really know if having so many people around would help or not, but she couldn't exactly force anyone to leave. And Salem needed all the love and care he could get right now. She couldn't even imagine how she would react if her own brother died...

After hovering for a moment, taking in the scene and noticing the projection, most likely of his brother, she left and grabbed the first mug she saw, filling it with water before returning and hovering behind the other two again. She inched past them slowly and placed it by his bed carefully, not wanting to scare him or worry him or whatever in the fragile state of mind he seemed to be in. Instead, she sat cross legged on the floor in one of the further corners of the room, out of the way, and waited for whatever he would do.

[Salem Hirch]

For the longest time, Salem and Aiden didn't seem to register the three girls in his room. Salem least of all. His power was working overtime and full blast to keep the image of Aiden from fading. Slowly, the blonde's head turned toward the door and Aiden stood to follow his eyes. The image looked to be a boy, maybe the same age or a bit younger than Salem, but definitely related. The boy image opened his mouth to speak, but the voice came from Salem. However, the voice wasn't fully his, it was just slightly off. 

"Hello, you must be Salem's friends." He spoke kindly and openly to the girls before him. "I am Aiden, Salem's big brother...sure you ladies know all about me." The image smiled, it was the same sort of goofy smile that the blonde boy in the bed would have. "Salem is feeling very under the weather, and I'm sure glad you ladies came to see him. I'm not sure what's wrong." As Aiden spoke these words, he walked back slowly to Salem and set next to him. 

For a brief second, the boys glowing eyes blinked and his head half tilted as if listening to someone. In fact he was, the image of Kailin. Salem wanted to speak, to tell them that he would be okay; but it felt as though he couldn't. Like all the energy in him was gone and the only thing he could manage to do was hug the blanket a little tighter. Once again, Aiden turned his attention to the three others. "Now don't tell me your names yet." His think country accent broke the silence. "Cause I'm guessing that you're Axelle, George and..." He didn't say Kailin, and he didn't say Kales. The name that came out was only something that Salem would call her. "Goldielocks." He beamed at them and placed a hand on Salem's shoulder. 

He didn't even respond to the touch, granted no one could have felt it, but even seeing someone put their hand on your shoulder would usually cause you to look up at them. Salem just set there, not moving, not really making a sound. He didn't even try to get his phone when it started ringing.

[Axelle Flint]

Axelle was not expecting the sudden influx of people to follow in her wake and was momentarily startled. Not that she could have done anything anyway, her powers were purely physical. What she was ALSO not expecting was Salem to start talking as if he were the projection he was making. "Aidan?" she mouthed in utter confusion. Salem had never mentioned a brother to her, which hurt her feelings because she thought they shared everything. Mostly because Axelle's inability to keep anything a secret usually got projected onto other people and she tended to assume that everyone told her everything because she did....(not always on purpose). It made it a bit worse because "Aidan" seemed to know who she was and Axelle wasn't sure why. She didn't have a great grasp on mental powers.

She watched as George set a cup of water near Salem and wondered if it was a good idea to get close to Salem like Kailin was doing when she heard the phone ring. Axelle quickly decided that if nothing else she could at least fetch the damn phone. Axelle leveled a certainly heated glare at "Aidan" and moved to take Salem's phone from the bed. She managed to grab it while George retreated to a corner and checked the caller id. Not trusting herself with a phone that wasn’t hers she turned and tossed it to George with an easy arc. “Could you answer that?” she asked softly as she returned to glare at what was going on around her. “If it’s his parents, maybe tell them that Salem is…sleeping? He’s upset about something obviously,” she said as she stood with her arms crossed, debating on if going to fetch Dr. Neville was a good idea yet or not. She decided to wait and see what happened in the next few minutes before making a decision.


**I left the caller ID open in case it wasn't supposed to be his parents. Axelle can go fetch Sean potentially in her next post.

[Deleted]

Anthony had gotten a tip off from Salem’s parents. Something about hearing some news about his brother and taking it….well, about as hard as one could take in learning that their missing brother was found…dead…and now Salem was unreachable and had been since he heard the news.

Dammit, Anthony couldn’t imagine what Salem must be going through right now, but his parents sounded pretty panicked on the phone, so of course he was going to leap over to the boy’s room as fast as he could. He didn’t realize that the situation was bad enough to have attracted at least three other people to Salem’s room, including…Kailin…

Talk about awkward.

Salem seemed…detached. Out of it, clearly. And the other boy….who was that? He arrived just in time to hear the unknown boy claim to be Aiden. He stood in the doorway, hesitant to go in simply because Kailin was there…but dammit, this was Salem we were talking about! They just had to put aside their own conflict and….this was about Salem, not their stupid break-up(it wasn’t stupid).

“Salem!” he called as he entered the room. His phone was ringing, probably his parents. The girl, Axe he thought her name was, appeared to have a handle on that. Anthony’s eye flicked towards Kailin and then away quickly to the blonde boy sitting and holding his blanket. “Salem,” he said again. Anthony felt like ignoring the image of Aiden. But it was hard to, with him just ‘standing’ right there. He dared to move closer to Salem. “Salem? Come on, man, you gotta give me something here, you’re freaking me out.” There was a nervous kind of laughter in his voice. He didn’t know what to do except ride it out. Or try and get the blonde to respond.

[Kailin Bishop]

While Kailin wasn't surprised to see Anthony there, she still wasn't happy to see his face. With him his presence, a myriad of emotions started to bubble up, mostly painful, but this wasn't about her, as much as she wanted to make it to be. This was about Salem, and both Anthony and Kailin were good friends with the broken boy that lay on the bed.

However, her attention left Anthony the minute she heard the nickname that only Salem used, slip past the lips of this unknown person. It was obvious she wasn't going to grab Salem's attention. Something happened - something really bad - and Kailin didn't know what to do about it.

So she did the next best thing; she spoke to the person who was being projected. "So you're Salem's brother?" Kailin stopped her projections then, knowing they wouldn't do any good. "I never knew he had a brother." Whatever was wrong had to do with this projection. Something happened, she knew it, and she had a feeling it was about him.

[Georgina Speer]

George suspiciously eyed Aidan as "he" introduced himself and worked out all of their names. She really didn't like how this situation was running, it seemed pretty damn severe. The cause was... terrible as it was, but seeing her friend like this... it was difficult for George to be seeing. Especially as all of their efforts seemed to be doing nothing, even if they weren't doing any more that just being there... she just didn't like it.

Even with the athletic ability of a walrus on drugs, George managed to catch the ringing phone and nodded at Axelle's instructions - even if she wasn't fully intent on going through with them. True to the redhead's guesses, it was Salem's parents. But this was their kid, she wasn't about to lie to them.

She pressed "answer" and got up, walking out of the room and hovering in the common room instead, a little further away from the madness. "Hello? Sorry, this is George, I don't think... Salem seems to be in a pretty bad way at the moment, I'm sorry to say."

[Salem Hirch]

((ooc: just clarifying that his parents are talking to George in the first part of this reply))

The woman on the other end of the line was a bit hysterical and called out Salem's name when George answered. "Oh George hunny thank you, this is Salem's mom and dad. Is he alright?" There were definitely noises of rushed packing in the background and a man shouted. "Tell 'em we're on our way Annie." Then more noise. "Yes, George sweety, would you let the school know we're on our way and if you or any of his friends could just keep an eye on him, we'd appreciate it." Annie was obviously distraught, and really wasn't thinking when she just suddenly hung up. 


Back in the room, Salem still had not moved. The muscles and skin around his eyes were red though, and the pale glow from them was getting dimmer. Something seemed to be forcing him to keep his power working, but the look on his face said that he was in pain. Fact of the matter was, he was in pain. His head was hurting, his heart felt like it was going to leap from his chest, and somehow he was able to breathe even though his lungs felt like they wanted to give out. 

Aiden turned again when Anthony came in the room and a frown appeared on the slightly fading face. He didn't speak yet, instead just watched him. Watched as he moved closer to Salem, and tilted his false head in confusion. "So you're Anthony." Aiden didn't move, but he seemed to be looking intently at the boy on Salem's bed. "You're my replacement huh?" The image was fading, and it was clear Salem was loosing his grip on the image. "Fine, that's just great, I die and he replaces me with you." Aiden obviously did not like Tony and the more angry Aiden seemed to get, the less he appeared to be there. 

Suddenly, the light from Salem's eyes went out completely and Aiden was gone. Only then did Salem fully realize anyone was in the room, he could hear them, but he couldn't hear his brother. "No!" He cried. "No, Aiden...please...come back..." The blonde boy was obviously trying to use his powers, but they just weren't working. "Guys," He turned his head towards all of them in the room. "Guys, please...I..I know you're there...but...I can't see you." His normally sparkling blue eyes were dull and bloodshot, almost lifeless. Even his voice seemed flat. "Please...someone...help...my brother...please..." Salem probably wasn't making much sense to anyone in the room, but in his mind, he was just lost in the dark. 

[Axelle Flint]

Axelle didn't want to stay for another minute of what she perceived to be Salem descending into madness or something similar. So without much in way of staying to try and figure out a problem she announced her plans with finality. "I'm going to get Dr. Neville," she said before turning on her heel and immediately leaving the room in order to accomplish this task. Her short legs carried her across the rest of the shared dorm and out the door.

She tried running but tripped herself and bounced off the wall before she hit her knees with a grunt, years of pulling herself up and moving on aiding her as she did just that. She started running as the worry for Salem increased with every step she took, as did the anger and confusion as to who the hell had been standing in his room. She had to stop for a moment to wipe her eyes because she was close to crying and heard someone coming up behind her. She turned quickly but relaxed when she saw who it was. “You coming too?” she asked.

((ooc: the last question is directed at George ~ Apple please check your chatango PMs when you’ve a moment))

[Deleted]

Anthony was honestly surprised to hear Kailin admit to not knowing about Salem’s brother. With how close the two blondes were, Anthony would have thought he’d tell her, or at least give a vague clue.

Oh, Salem…you’ve really been holding all this stuff in for a long time, haven’t you? And then this had to happen.

Anthony turned his head briefly as Axe took off to go find Dr. Neville and then again as shortly after George took the phone call with Salem’s parents outside, but his attention was soon enough back on Salem.

He was…this was way out of Anthony’s league. He hadn’t the first clue of how to talk Salem through this, and anything that came to mind sounded like a cheap, patronizing trick. The best thing he could think of to do was just…be there for him, and keep reminding Salem that he was there, at least until Dr. Neville showed up. He was far more qualified than Anthony for this sort of thing.

Anthony looked up to the image of Salem’s brother when it spoke his name. Then he returned his gaze to Salem. He didn’t know what was going on with Salem’s power, but Anthony thought it best to not acknowledge it. That wasn’t real. Salem was. And Anthony needed Salem to respond, not a memory of someone who wasn’t…

Still, it’s words were disturbing, upsetting even, and Anthony tensed his jaw to keep himself from snapping. “Salem,” he said with a firm voice. “C’mon man. I know you can hear me, just…I need you here, not…” Not wherever he was right now. Then, the image vanished and Salem responded. Thank god, it didn’t matter what he was responding to, it was a hell of a lot better than just being a vacant fixture of a person. Anthony knelt closer to Salem and put a hand to his shoulder. “Salem,” he started, trying to breath calmly through his nose. “I’m right here, but….I can’t help your brother.” He swallowed. “I’m sorry.” What else was he supposed to say? This was all too much.

[Georgina Speer]

George listened to everything happening on the phone with both relief and worry. She didn't like the fact that Salem's parents had to cope with all of this, especially since it couldn't be helped. First, confirming that they had actually lost one of their children, and now, their remaining son was struggling like this. It was... it felt like it must have been so emotionally straining for them. She sympathised with them greatly. She nodded at the requests, "Of course, of course," And then they hung up. Axelle went past - she thought she had heard something about the redhead going to get Sean. She would catch up in a moment.

She went back into the room and frowned as she heard Salem speak. It took rather a lot to move George to tears, but she was very mixed up about all of this. She put the phone back and sighed, "I'm so sorry, Salem." Was all she said, looking at him and feeling almost utterly hopeless, before turning on her heels and jogging off on her unathletic legs.

She saw Axelle stood in the hall and frowned when she turned around, pretty certain her eyes were wet but not wanting to accept that. She nodded, "Yeah, I have to go tell someone that Salem's parents are coming." She rubbed Axe's back for a moment, "He will be fine, I swear." She assured, before going into a jog again, heading towards the offices.