Week 3 Post-Trial

[xxxx_me]

[It's hard to feel much cheer after finding out the culprit. Everyone's welcome to do whatever brings them peace after such a tense time, whether it's jotting down memories before the next loss or finding other things to occupy themselves with.]

Comments

Dining Hall

[xxxx_me]

[Wearily walking in here around when he realizes that like, oh, right, food. Food should probably happen.]

...

Hi, Nagisa.

[strictura]

Hi.

[ He moves his chair over a little; there's room.

Though, uh. ]

...This isn't the table where the plate was, is it?

[xxxx_me]

[Million yard stare before he forces himself to walk over and take a seat.]

As long as there's no apples or berries.

[He's so tired.]

[strictura]

Not in what I had, anyway.

[ So there's definitely some safe food available.

In any case, he's tired too. He can't actually remember how late they stayed up failing at magic tricks last night, but it probably didn't help. ]

That was pretty exhausting, huh?

[xxxx_me]

Yeah. It took a lot longer to figure out this time.

[He stares down some of the other food available, trying to decide what he can stomach.]

[strictura]

I guess that's to be expected. It was spur of the moment last time, but Sajyou was really meticulous in her planning.

[ Even if things didn't actually go quite as planned. ]

[xxxx_me]

[He just sighs softly, picking out a few items to put onto his plate.]

...Do you think it's just going to keep getting worse like that?

[strictura]

Mm... I think they'll continue to be worse than the first one, but I wouldn't expect Sajyou's case to be typical.

[ Hopefully. He'd only expect a few of those remaining in their group to be able to carry out a plan that cleanly, anyway. ]

...Part of it will depend on what the Alices do, though. It seemed like the Cat was really encouraging additional deaths today, didn't it? And after seeing those old notes from the "Storyteller" that were clearly intended to instigate violence... it seems like at some point they might decide one victim and one killer in a week isn't enough.

[xxxx_me]

They do want everyone to die eventually, besides whoever gets out.

[Though he doesn't see why they'd be opposed to simply letting everyone die, period.]

But that Cat won't explain anything.

[strictura]

She's definitely frustrating to deal with.

[ He sighs and takes a sip from his glass of milk. ]

I still wish we had a clearer idea of exactly what this was doing to benefit them. Drawing it out longer and having deaths occur at an even, regular interval seems like it should be better for sustaining anything. If you had a limited supply of food, you'd be better off eating one small meal a day than eating it all at once.

[xxxx_me]

[That brings a distressing thought to mind.]

...Do you think they're eating our souls?

[strictura]

Well... Not literally, probably.

[xxxx_me]

...

I met a girl like that. In the Dream. Her soul was gone, but something else was holding her back from getting reborn.

[strictura]

[ Why does the Dream keep being relevant to everything? ]

Do you know what happened to make her like that?

[xxxx_me]

[Because it was a wildly awful time. Just like this place.]

She said... souls can either get eaten or lose power over time. She only had tiny shards of hers left. But it sounded like the reason she couldn't be reborn was because someone living was still holding onto her. It was weighing her down.

[...]

I'm not sure, but maybe... her soul was eaten by the demons.

[strictura]

[ There's a pause, and he has to resist letting out a bitter scoff. That sounds like what Demons do, all right, even if it's been more metaphorical in his own experience. ]

...I wonder if that's how we'd be brought back when this is all over. Whatever they're getting from us, if it's being consumed to sustain this world or the Queen's existence or something, I don't see how we'd be able to get it back in the end.

[xxxx_me]

Yeah...

She was still able to remember things, at least. A library she loved, her teacher, the orphanage director, and her brother...

[...]

Something else the demons said... Mm, it was something about making people's hearts vulnerable. If they've been killed, do you think...?

[strictura]

[ He doesn't really even understand what the difference is between hearts and souls, so he's not certain of the implication being made. ]

Hm?

[xxxx_me]

Just...

Maybe if we die, it somehow makes us more vulnerable? To whatever they're doing.

[strictura]

So that we're more likely to end up going through something like this again?