Avatars of Starfall: Tales of Project Occulto Revealed

I'm not sure where to begin. How much can I write? How long will it take?

The best place to start is, of course, the beginning-- but the first day's events are a bit fuzzy. I'm certain of some things that happened, such as how we were all thrown together and dragged into this mess, but I can't recall details like who said what or did what first.

It began with a party. A terrible, horrible party in the middle of the night, hosted by some girl I didn't even know. She lived down the hall from me, and she had invited everyone on our floor to her apartment for an impromptu celebration. Some kind of artsy-fartsy theme about "the death of culture", I don't really remember. Honestly, if I'd known where it was going to lead us all, I would've stayed home and watched Netflix. But instead, I got dressed up and went along with everyone else; we all piled into taxis and drove across town to her place so that we could all get drunk and listen to some shitty live music while eating random snacks she bought at Whole Foods. We were just college kids having a good time; none of us expected anything out of the ordinary to happen that night.

But when we arrived at her place (a nice loft in downtown Seattle), there was already someone waiting outside the front door: a man that looked like a bodybuilder on steroids and who wore nothing but black pants, shoes, and a long-sleeved white shirt with no collar or buttons or anything-- just an empty yoke across his chest as if he'd stolen someone else's shirt without paying for it. He was standing there in the hallway with his hands clasped behind his back, staring straight ahead at nothing in particular as if he were waiting for something. None of us knew what to make of him-- was he just another guest? Was he some kind of bouncer? Was he the girl's boyfriend? He certainly didn't look like any friend or acquaintance any of us might've recognized from campus-- he looked more like someone you'd expect to see guarding a bank vault than hanging out at a college dormitory.

But anyway, nobody wanted to be rude or disrespectful by asking him who he was or why he was there; so instead, we all just filed inside one by one until finally everyone was inside except for me and my friend Sarah-- who are both pretty shy. So instead of going inside right away, we stayed by ourselves off to one side while everyone else mingled and chatted in groups around us. Sarah took out her phone and started texting somebody as we stood in silence for a few minutes before finally looking up and noticing that guy still standing guard over by the door with his arms folded behind his back. "What does that guy think he's doing?" she asked me quietly, gesturing toward him with a tilt of her head so that only I could hear her talking. "He looks like one of those bouncers they have at fancy nightclubs."

"Well... maybe he is?" I said hesitantly, unsure myself what his purpose was here or why he was standing there silently watching everybody else move around as though it were perfectly normal behavior for him to do so while ignoring us completely when we tried raising our voices so that we could get his attention by calling out to him. "I mean... maybe he's just bored?"

"Normally people aren't paid for being bored," Sarah replied flatly after thinking about it for a moment before continuing: "But whatever... let me go ask him." With that she walked off toward him before I could stop her from doing so; but when she reached him and tried waving her hand in front of his face so that she could get his attention, he didn't even flinch or react whatsoever; instead he continued standing there with his eyes open staring straight ahead into nothingness like some kind of statue or mannequin placed there intentionally just to watch over everything from this spot without ever saying anything or making any sort of noise-- which made it seem even stranger than if he had just ignored her entirely or treated her rudely because either way it would've made more sense than standing there pretending as though nothing strange were happening at all between them. After trying repeatedly waving her hand in front of his face only to receive no reaction whatsoever from him whatsoever, Sarah finally gave up and returned back to where I was standing off on one side by myself while muttering under her breath: "Some asshole..."

Just then somebody tapped me on the shoulder from behind before turning around to face me after hearing my voice say: "What?" It was Joey Henderson-- which wasn't surprising because Joey always has his nose buried in some book about philosophy or history basically 24/7 since freshman year; but what was surprising (to me) was that Joey hadn't been wearing any shoes at all when I turned around