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Voidkin Asylum, 1998.

The home built specifically for the "Cult of Vinh" worshippers. With their visions that "he" was coming, it has terrified the entire city in which resulted for the government to cast them away into a large manor on the far end of the continent before a revolt out of panic were to occur.

In a forest atop a hill, eyes have been drawn on the trees to symbolize that "he" was always watching, the Void monster.

It had horrified the travellers from even coming here. Years later, the large manor became an orphanage home, but many theorized that it was secretly an asylum, no one knew the truth.

The children and nurses kept in this building received zero visitors until one day, two children, one with long braids the colour of twilight and one whose hair locks were the colour of black fields. They arrived on a bright afternoon of February 20th.
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"Talk to me." prompted a child sitting on the ground. However their companion, another child who used some pink chalk to draw beneath them, refused to answer. They pursed their lips and continued colouring.

"I said talk to me." demanded the one without chalk instantly.

Spontaneously, the soft wind from earlier got stronger, reducing the other children to an perplexed state. This had never happened before.

"Everybody inside." The nurses scurried out of the building as they sensed the wind coming through the opened doors.

The nurses were the children's caretakers. They wore bland grey hospital outfits, were questionably tall, bore long pink pigtails and their skin was so pale that they were practically faceless. One would argue they were monsters in disguise.

The pack of children all nodded a little discouraged as they knew what it meant to go inside hours early: "He" was not satisfied with their behaviour.

The twilight haired girl whose name was Star and the black-haired one who was Rhythm, nodded to each other before standing up and joining the rest of the children. They were children that had the "Sleepwalker" name.

"I wonder who misbehaved again? Was it Allegra?" An infant who seemed to be about 9 years asked their group of friends. Star and Rhythm recognized these children, the one who just spoke was yellow-ponytailed Flower, the sensitive one.

Then there was the red-head freckled boy, that was Pookie, the enthusiast—or rather weirdo, who takes great pleasure into learning more about "His" legend. An absolute pet towards the other nurses, he was always willing to be on their good sides in exchange for more information.

Then, there was the nerd, Dill. "Naw it can't be Allegra," He protested in his country-side accent. Rhythm and Star's ears perked up particularly on that.

"Allegra learned her lesson last time when tampering with the endless maze." The know-it-all acted all mighty and stoic as he knew the full explanation, he felt unstoppable, almost?

Flower and Pookie shrugged at him, "Gosh, I hope 'He's' not too angry with us.." Flower whined. The kids continued walking inside until they halts at the main hall's entrance.

Star nudged Rhythm's shoulder, "Endless maze, wonder what's that?" She whispered as quietly as possible, she didn't want the other kids getting curious after all.

However, Rhythm, who was noticeably walking faster than before, gave no response, she just shrugged and kept her lips shut.

Star sighed and figured she should have used the number #1 strategy that always got her talking. "Fine fine, I'm sorry for stealing your strawberry milk this morning. I won't do it again." The twilight-haired child apologized. Breakfast was an hour ago, the two children ate rather well.

Star had a slice of fruit cake with chocolate milk while the latter just insisted she drank a styrofoam holder of pink milk.

Star stole it and finished the remaining drink, it was all a harmless prank but apparently her close friend here, took it too seriously.

After minutes of waiting, the black-haired girl turned around and moved her lips to start talking again. "It's fine, I was just really upset since I'm not doing too good with my teeth balance." She admitted.

It may seem strange to outsiders but everyone in this orphanage needed teeth no matter
what.

Teeth was the orphanage's currency, it was the nurses' brilliant idea to teach the children about economy despite being sheltered for numerous years. The currency given are actual human children teeth the nurses have collected throughout their years. It was a little creepy, but since it was the money to get almost anything in this place, no one questioned it.

Someone can mainly purchase breakfast with it at the cafeteria, or anything consumable. Though, there's other exceptions like having a nurse tell you a bedtime story on the weekends or get a recess pass if someone didn't feel like going outside.

Punishments were a thing as well. Say, if a child were to stay up late and the nurses found out about it, the child owed the nurses 5 teeth.

The one who has the most teeth between the two was twilight-haired Star, so she knew from experience of saving up that the food served by the nurses made her stomach churn.

She once asked the nurses if she could stay in the cells for the day since she wasn't feeling too well but the caretakers said that it would displease "Him". As much as she begged them and bribed them with her 75 Teeth, they said no.

Rhythm and Star called it massive "BS". The two haven't been exactly pleased with their lifestyle ever since they were practically forced to follow this cult and live here. For the last five years, they still needed to find a way out of here. That's why the endless maze gave Star a few ideas.
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Around the 8th hour, the children were beckoned to stay in their cells, the rooms looked all the same to eachother, four beds with two closets placed in front of the room's door.

It was already dark and Rhythm had her lantern out. Star jabbed her arm as she recognized the light was coming from her friend's lantern. "What did I tell you the other night? The nurses said that you shouldn't use the lantern at night because the monsters can come from the closets." Star warned.

They were both the same age. Rhythm however, being older than Star. They had the same birthday, coincidentally but they eventually figured out who was older when they compared time of births. Again, very close to eachother's.

It was always the latter being shown to be the most responsible one between the two. Again, Star did come here a year before Rhythm came, so experience was way more important than age.

Rhythm nodded and immediately turned her lantern off, she placed it at her bedside and glared at the switch before rolling to face Star. Despite being in the complete dark, she could still make out her friend's glittery brown eyes.

"Yeah I know, I just...you know, I find this whole story creepy for my own liking. What if we really die from the void monsters?" She inquired.

For children of only ten to twelve years of age, it was a pretty good excuse to be scared in the first place. They didn't know if there were really monsters that crawled out of their closest sat night, nor did they want to find out.

"It's creepy yeah, but I sorta like it for some reason." Star replied quietly. Rhythm rolled her eyes, yeah of course Star would be like that.

The ground outside their room had just screeched earning a chill to down their spines. Widened eyes and generally calming down their breathing from the sudden scare, Rhythm groaned and grabbed her pillow to shove her head underneath.

She didn't want to hear whatever the crazies were doing outside her door.

The crazies were basically the cult's hitmen. They're guards who patrol the orphanage with their plastic sticks and jab children who are seen being out of their rooms after lights out. That's another reason why giving away teeth for staying up late was a thing.

Star and Rhythm never tried getting out of their rooms at that time. The doors were always locked. So they never got caught, but God do they wonder how others were able to do so.

"Yeah I see what you mean but still...it's so weird." Rhythm commented, keeping her head buried under her pillow.

Star nodded and stared up at her ceiling. "Well, what do you want to talk about? I'm not really sleepy." She asked. They were usually the last ones to fall asleep compared to the two other kids they were sharing the room with.

One of them was a rather frail and meek platinum-haired blonde named Stormie Daywavern. Rumoured to be from the prestigious 'Daywavern' family, the ones who had many factories in charge of providing water to homes. An only child who had originally immigrated from Russia and knew how to play the piano very well.

She was scared of everyone here therefore led her to believe "His"'s legend with all of her heart, also believing on the power he held over many and what he would do if she didn't listen.

The other kid was an active brown haired girl named Charlemagne Evinette. A glasses-wearing blabber-machine who was originally from France. She got along with the guys here better. She mostly hung around with guys her age and liked coming up with new games for them to enjoy together. She's sorta like a friend-group leader of some sort.

Star and Rhythm has only spoken to them possibly once or twice but not much. They remember that Stormie once gave them an unasked presentation about biology and nature. Star, not really finding the point of plants, found it boring but seeing that her friend was entertained, she just rolled with it.

Rhythm shrugged and sighed. She believes that an hour has passed just by laying here. She had always hated this room, so many scribbles on the walls and so many creepy illustrations. Words written such as: "Don't look at him, don't talk to him."

They were all scribbled around the walls in black wax, in fact, all of the rooms had the same writings and illustrations. It couldn't terrify Star and Rhythm more than anyone else.

"Whatever I'm not in the mood tonight. Can we please try to sleep?"The black-haired requested.

Star frowned a bit, seeming that this was the second time this week that her friend didn't want to talk at night. They always talked at night no matter how bad the day was.

"But hey, do you remember how we met?" The twilight-haired girl brought up, hopefully getting her friend to talk more to her.

The latter frowned a her turn and snuck off her pillow since she couldn't breathe anymore. "Ummm, I was taken in by the nurses and you were the first to greet me despite my weird-looking eyepatch?" She recalled, mumbling a few words here and there, she made sure to raise her tone to be heard.
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Immediately after, running footsteps were heard along the halls with some laughing.

"Shhh! Stormie and Charle might wake up, including the crazies right out of our door." Anna shushed her friend. Even to support her complaint, a few crazies banged on their door and yelled with their raspy voices:

"Oi, It's almost the 11th hour. Go to sleep."

The crazies warned the talking children.

The two girls lightly gasped and held their breaths at the sound of the unfamiliar voices. They hadn't been expecting that, were they caught? They pulled their covers up before they released their breaths when the footsteps were heard walking off.

The two kids exhaled and the twilight-haired child mainly rose a brow at her friend.

"I'm sorry." The black-haired apologized.

But really, it was already the 11th hour? Yet here she thought that they were still stuck on the 9th.

Star backtracked and returned to their previous conversation before the crazies interrupted. "It's not a weird-looking eyepatch, I find it cool. Hey tell me, why do you even wear it in the first place?"

The girl grumbled quietly and widened her eyes a bit when she received no response from her former.

She nodded to herself, "Alright, sleeping already?" She inquired quietly before shutting her own eyes to rest.

And that's how March 8th ended.