WEEK 5 MINGLE

[foundationmods]

WEEK 5

They said it was a break week, but two of your number were lost anyway last week. While you're all tired and still recovering, the speakers crackle to life with the voice of The Lady.

"Attention, Guests. The game is back on. Break week is now over. Happy Holidays."

The Staff are still like they were last week - only this time, the orders almost always go wrong, if they even manage to go through - the Staff are vanishing constantly. Meals are also getting affected - they're still perfectly edible, but they're not as delicious as they once were, with seasoning and other things occasionally being off. The Sign warning people to not take knives is still on the kitchen door, but The Chef seems incredibly tired, often resting on a chair in the corner.

The Resort is still furnished with Holiday items - but after Medic's christmas protest, there are more items related to other holidays up, and it's much more balanced - objects and colors of multiple holidays side by side in harmony, with the mistletoe still up for any needed smooching. There are, however, more wriggling...things, and there's even an entire 'tree' made of eldritch tentacles with glowing balls of light on them that wink in an oddly hypnotic fashion.

The weather is still nothing, but the courtyard seems to have switched to a much warmer clime, which while still a little cool is pleasant enough to sit outside in. Finally, the music this week seems... almost ominous...?

On Monday morning, another memory is returned to everyone, one more traumatic this time instead of gentle like the others have been. Yet, you feel as if you know a little more about your time in this world, now. Not everything, but...enough.

Enough to see this game through to the end, at least.


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Comments

[latebluemer]

From this place? I think we almost have all the pieces now. We just need to know how to put them together, and keep as many people alive as possible.

[She said, once, that she wanted to do this without resorting to unnecessary deaths. She stands by that, even at this late hour, even if she knows that death is inevitable as long as the game is running.]

... From the Foundation? That I don't know. We still don't have all of our memories, and I don't think we really belong in this world. We're still just here to be used. But I think that for a little while here in the Resort, we're making our own choices.

[dolleyed]

[ ... yeah, thought so. ]

Makes it seem a little less appealing to get out, actually.

[ There's a pause. Kohaku hates how he sounds, he hates how he would have punched someone else in the face for sounding it only days ago. The way he is now isn't him, not the him of yesterday, the him of the past. It's his self from the present, loathsome and only partially known.

Angrily, he runs his hand to his hair and it quickly turns to just clawing at it a bit. ]

Fucking hell, I just don't know what to think. I wanted to get out of here and I knew this would mean more goddamn missions, there's no reason for this to feel different now! So what, I'll die? Tough luck, but it's not like it matters.

[ And yet it feels like it does. Yet the tangible sensation of your body coming apart at the seams, your breath being taken, your heartbeat stopping... over and over... it does matter. Surviving danger is one thing. Surviving danger is your own achievement. Dying and being brought back involuntarily? That's being puppeteered. ]

[latebluemer]

... Kohaku-kun.

[A moment later, Aoi's hand is on his arm and while her grip isn't exactly warm this terrible morning, it's firm and careful and strong enough to stop the clawing right now. They've fought side by side and together long enough now that it's easy.

It's not as easy to parse the memories, of course -- the parts of themselves that are being slowly dug up from what must be a shallow grave, unsightly and bared to the air now. It's like feeling your way through a field of mines, all of them planted in your own self.

She moves in to try and catch his eye, expression intent.]

It matters. Of course it matters. That's why we're still here right now, no matter how the Foundation created us or what it thinks of us. Even if there's something after death, even if we can save the ghosts -- dying still matters.

[dolleyed]

[ He doesn't resist her touch one bit. It might seem uncharacteristic for him, but if he's totally honest, he's grateful. This is what he wants, above everything; for someone to grab him and create structure and meaning in a world that's lost direction.

What she's saying isn't terribly convincing. There is no goal, no hope, nothing but a vague conviction in inherent value. And yet, it's something; it's an extended hand in an endless void of repetition. ]

Sounds an awful lot like platitudes. Think you can find proof of it?

[ But the memories are recent and grasping for the hand in the dark is difficult. ]

[latebluemer]

We are the proof.

[That's the difference between her memory and his.

As long as she has something to hold on to, the bone-deep belief that somewhere out there in all the universes she's still loved and important to even one person -- no matter how much these new memories are encroaching on everything about who she is and has been -- Zaizen Aoi is someone who won't let go of that.

Here, it's not the same, but she holds on to the people around her anyway. She doesn't grow easily, but she's a flower that will take to any soil.

She's not someone who trades in merely the concept of hope or meaning given to her. She's far too stubborn for that.]

I still don't know exactly why the Foundation messed with our memories, but I'm guessing they didn't have the success of our mission in mind. We're going to prove them wrong. If we've been making our own choices, independent of their plans and our own memories, then this success will be all ours. Our survival will be all ours.

I think that's a good place to start.

[She doesn't know enough to say that they can change the Foundation, nor is she arrogant enough to think that just because their group might be able to get through this together, they'd be able to lead some sort of rebellion. But maybe something has already changed, here in the Resort.

They're their own people, some of them for the first time.]

[dolleyed]

[ It's the opposite of what they all expected, waking up in the snow. The Resort had seemed like a prison and an obstacle to overcome. Now, it's a chance, a semblance of hope. Their lives had been controlled for months and months before, their very brains are still rewired by someone else... but here, their superiors can't get to them. Aoi is right about that. This is theirs, the most anything has been in forever.

And that's why fighting for it to end suddenly seems so... wrong. Once they're out of here, he'll go back to dying. Is that really worth it? Those are the thoughts Kohaku had been fighting through the morning.

Looking at Aoi, they get a bit of an answer.

It's worth it, to her. She's not living his life and she can't understand his memories, but she sees meaning in seeing this through. Aoi won't stop halfway - and Kohaku would be a fool and a coward to abandon her before they reach the end of this path. He laughs weakly. ]

What an optimist. Can't say I feel like a single of my deaths so far was proof of anything other than our bosses' bad sense of humor. I didn't achieve anything by kicking it nor did I reach any enlightenment.

But I guess seeing where your attitude leads you is beats being bored of my own misery by a long shot.