Week 7 - Trial(?)

[petoskeymods]

TRIAL(?)

On Saturday, everyone gathers around the campfire as usual. However, there are a few more people missing this time, as only seven of you appear for the trial.

Red and Archer are there, though, and after giving each other a look Red is the one who steps forward to speak.

"Some things happened last night, and as a result Cielo and Richie have died. Given the timing of their deaths, they satisfy the death requirement for the trial, and as such we will have no trial today.

Go back to your cabins and rest up. We will have a lot to do next week."

Red and Archer will be around to answer questions, but the remaining campers are otherwise free to go about their business and spend this weekend resting.

Comments

pre-Red

[soylentprotag]

[Chuuta's been off since yesterday; all of them have been off in some fashion for weeks now, and it's getting worse and worse; but after a Friday, after a Saturday and anytime during the weekend it's always extra cause for concern. Lenka hasn't had the chance to check in with him before now, but at least he seems to be talking to Drew.

Even if their conversation is even more incomprehensible than usual, it at least means Chuuta is present in some way. That's important, going to be important all around -- this is the most people they've lost in a weekend since... actually since last weekend. And what does that say about their lives, really.]

Chuuta, Drew. [at this point, he might as well address both, if they're that wrapped up in their one-sided talk; Lenka's going to be coming over to sit beside them once Red is done with her announcement] Can you talk to me? Did you think of something?

[homeecspacecop]

[Static, something that's maybe his name, something buzzing. It's... Lenka, maybe, or Nine, or maybe Ichigo or Kon or... it's one of the older boys.]

[He wants to talk to you. He wants to know if you thought of something.]

[At least Drew's words are coming through clearly. There's just some lag time before Chuuta responds to Lenka, tone as flat as it was all day yesterday, expression distant. He needs to focus but with all the distortions things are very dreamlike.]

Someone here killed them. Unless Cielo killed both of them.

[soylentprotag]

[He's been there -- not with the hallucinations, so much, but the difficulty (near-impossibility) of responding coherently or promptly. Because the world seems to have been kicked on its side, some fog of war covering it in a way that renders everything indistinct but also lets him pull back just enough to find which parts of himself are still left.

(At this point in the proceedings, everything is patchwork: what there is of him pulling itself forward with the force of sheer inertia -- moving in a line because there's nothing behind or or beside him -- gathering the scattered dreams and hopes of others as he goes. There's somewhere they all need to be.)

So Lenka takes it in stride for now, because Chuuta is still responding, and maybe that means he can coax him a little further out of the fog. Whatever it's doing.]

... It's possible. [he doesn't specify which of the two is more possible; because this week's motive and Cielo is an easy equation, but that's not the equation he's interested in solving right now] But -- listen to me, Chuuta. We're here for eight weeks. Next week is the eighth week.

That means next week may be our last chance to end this.

[homeecspacecop]

[The more Lenka talks, the more easily Chuuta can see and hear him, which is good. It means he can do what he has to do.]

[Chuuta?]

[Eight weeks. Tomorrow, the eighth week starts. They have to figure out how to get out of here. Or not.]

I don't have a plan.