Continue

"Guess I'll continue, what's the worst that could happen?" Just as the words left her mouth she looked over to Alice and felt really stupid when she realized how insensitive that was.

All eyes were on Himari as her card vanished in a puff of fire and smoke from the table where Rebecca had carefully put it moments earlier. It didn't take long for the group to understand the cryptic message as her hair grew and turned a bright pink.

Hopefully she could get it back to normal before her parents saw it. They weren't exactly very understanding and tolerating. One time they'd given her a good scolding simply for wearing a hairpin with too bright a color. Having hot pink hair was borderline enough for them to disown her..

"Neat, I've always wanted to do something with my hair, but thanks to the moral police that are my parents I never could. I'll probably have to change it back before they see it though.

There was also a second part to the card that wasn't as ..obvious. Himari was feeling the consequences subconsciously already. A seed had been planted deep within her. A seed that would grow little by little as the game progressed. The game's potential and it's ability to change people was suddenly not as scary anymore. Those feelings of fear were slowly turning into arousal.

"Right, that's the first round done? Should we maybe take a break and collect ourselves?" Gretchen was being uncharacteristically authoritative, perhaps it was the vacuum created by Alice's social absence that triggered it, or maybe she just got like this when games were involved. Either way the group needed someone to keep their cool, and a break was very much needed.

Rebecca and Himari both got up to go get some refreshments.

"Do you have any soda or something?" Rebecca asked Alice, trying to include her the best she could. Instead of an answer though, Alice simply pointed to the kitchen and looked back down at her phone, which had quickly turned into her sanctuary. Himari followed her friend to the kitchen to assist. Meanwhile Gretchen remained seated. She'd picked up the instructions for the game, because of course she had..

Upon reading the rules she came to learn that all the cards had secret bonus perk. The criteria for enabling said perks was that a player landed on a square occupied by another player. The amount of perks depended on how many players were on the tile. Gretchen briefly raised her eyes towards the board, confirming that Himari had indeed rolled the same as her. A twinge of excitement shot through Gretchen when she realized that Himari had an unknown "perk" and she got to play detective to figure out what it was. The redhead was perhaps enjoying this a bit more than she should. While Gretchen had been reading the manual, grinning like a moron. Alice had kept an eye on her, taking note of how her friend was coping with this whole situation.

"Who's ready for some refreshments??" Rebecca exclaimed in a singsong voice, trying to keep the atmosphere relatively light as she entered the room with Himari following closely. The girls each had their arms full of coke and fanta boxes, perhaps a bit excessive considering there were only four of them.

Whilst Rebecca walked straight past Alice, Himari offered her one of the cold beverages. Instead of saying which she preferred Alice simply pointed to one she wanted, keeping her streak of not talking.

There was a sense of normality to the break, as if nothing had changed. None of the girls wanted to draw any attention to it as they'd all lucked out by getting fairly mundane if not beneficial cards except for Alice. As much as they avoided talking about the game, there was still this underlying tension because they knew it was far from over. At some point Alice would have to roll again, they all secretly hoped she'd do it on her own initiative but given how poorly she'd fared the first time around that was rather unlikely.

Thankfully Gretchen had found some much needed confidence over the past hour and asked Alice politely, yet firmly if she could initiate the next round by rolling. She didn't get an answer, but seeing that she got up to reach for the die it was clear that she'd comply with the request.