A grueling climb ft. Raphael
Raphael desperately jumped towards the bench's base, not wanting to be on the floor any longer. He took a moment to catch his breath.
'And that was the easy part...' He sighed, looking up at the gigantic bench, it was as tall as a mountain to him, and he had to special gear, but that didn't matter.

Before his muscles had a chance to cool down, he began climbing, tightly gripping the material, realizing it was some sort of porous stone or concrete. The constant quaking from the girls' footsteps remained as a grim reminder of what he narrowly evaded, but it also made him feel relieved not to be on the floor anymore. This effort was much more slow and grueling that running while evading building-sized feet had been, though undeniably less dangerous.

A few hundred meters up, and Raphael's arms already felt like they wanted to quit, but he kept on forcing them to continue their climbing motions, fearing a little his own fatigue, if he stopped, he wasn't sure if he'd be able to continue after, and he wasn't about to quit after what he just went through. It was an odd feeling, his limbs became sort of numb, but he could still command them, and as a little plus, the roughness of the surface he climbed stopped bothering him as much.

'Just focus on going up' He told himself, knowing that if he let other things distract him, he may not be able to finish what he had set out to do. Time seemed to go excruciatingly slowly for him, and he was a little baffled the girls took this long to change clothes, he figured it'd take him several minutes to reach the top and by that time they should be gone, but that didn't appear to be the case.

Eventually, and with some serious difficulties, Raphael reached the top. When he finally climbed over the bench's edge, he couldn't help but collapse, his heart and lungs felt like they were way past their limit, but he fought hard to stay conscious and to just catch his breath. You were laying down, still unconscious, a couple of meters (in your scale) away from him. He took a very deep breath, and silently thanked the Virgin for having heard his prayer. His muscles ached badly, but they didn't suffer from cramps, they only felt sore from the "workout" he just gave them.

This high above, he had a clearer view of what was going around. Back when he was only on the floor, all he could see from the girls was their gigantic tennis-clad shoes, and vaguely the ankles they were attached to, but here, he could see them as full bodied beings, not disembodied limbs that haphazardly threatened his life. He quietly laughed at the sheer silliness of it all. If he told what he had just gone through to anybody, they would think he was mad, or on drugs. Only his son would relate...

Raphael's eyes then widened. He had been unconscious for so long, and still hadn't woken up.
'Crap! Is he still breathing?!' he thought as he forced his still aching body to move again, but this time, he could only manage to crawl towards him. Once he got closer, he could see he was breathing fine, much to his relief.

"Heh, if this weren't such a dangerous place, sleeping would be the wisest option" He said, remembering an old proverb his father told him, supposedly, a Chinese one, that more or less said
'If you're standing up, but you can sit down, that's better.
If you're sitting down, but you can lie down, that's even better.
If you're lying down, but you can sleep, that's much better.
and if you're sleeping, but you can dream, that's best'


"I wish I could just go back to sleep and wake up from this nightmare... but for now, we have to stay alive..." He muttered and guessed he needed to try and wake his son up so they could leave, at least get to a safe spot that wasn't as exposed as the top of the bench they were on.

"Blaise... Blaise, come on. Wake up..." He lightly tapped your shoulder, then patted your face. He knew it sucked to be harshly woken up, so he refrained from doing that to others, but at this time, the situation probably called for it.

Your consciousness, sunken deep into the dark emptiness of the dreamless sleeping void, was stirred back to the world of the conscious as you felt someone tapping your shoulder and patting your face. You heard a vaguely male voice calling your name, and it became increasingly clearer as your senses sort of rebooted. You groggily yawned and opened your eyes. Your blurry vision didn't let you see who was with you, but the voice let you know regardless, it was your dad!

"Dad? What happened?" You asked

"I wish it were so simple to explain. But right now, we're in a dangerous place, we need to move! Come on, get up..." He said, and you heard him grunt as it took him quite an effort to do that himself. You found that odd, your dad sometimes joked about his age, but he was probably even stronger and more athletic than you were, despite his claims of having gotten lazy over time and taking it easy.

You stretched your arms and then got up. Your dad looked insanely tired, and the look in his eyes looked drained of vitality, something you had never seen in anyone, let alone him. You had several questions, but you knew it was probably better to ask them at a later time. Then...

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[Choice Notes: I know, I know, these look pretty similar, but I'm making the distinction between students and possibly teachers, or other school staff. For choices 1 and 2, it can be any of the student girls, including Jen or Lillian. For choices 3 and 4, it's supposed to be a teacher, like I said, such as Coach Amber or Ms. McAllen, but it could also be school staff like Arianna.

Remember that these chapters can have 5 choices each, so that makes it 4 and an option for even more or simply a different choice, for whomever decides to write that chapter, so, even if you can't add the 4 choices due to writing.com's limitations, just state which girls are the options, and I'll add them myself. If you can add some bit of story to go with it, as you've seen most of the time when i write the separate paths, even better.

Blaise and Raphael don't necessarily have to stay together, you can choose whether they get captured together, or if one escapes, or if they're both captured and split between two girls, or more. You could even have an option where they narrowly escape, but I'd like that in that case, leave an option where one or both get captured.]
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May 12, 2023