come out of hiding, i'm right here beside you

[barehands]

[A while after the execution has ended, everyone will find a simple note slipped under their door.]

If you don't want to be alone after everything that's happening, some of us will be in the dining room. Even if you decide not to come, please remember that you aren't alone here.

[The note isn't signed, but the handwriting is feminine and neat.

For anyone who decides to come, there's a good array of food laid out on the table. There are some small and simple cakes, cookies, and pastries, a healthy amount of okonomiyaki, okayu, and other Japanese dishes (with a focus on rice and eggs), along with curry. In addition, there are pancakes, and a large pot of soup. It looks like a few people collaborated to make enough food for everyone here.

Just like the meal they shared together earlier in the week, the candles from the storage room lend a more peaceful light than the fluorescent lights above.]

Comments

[protectandselfserve]

Well, I don't know. It certainly makes a bit more sense than failing to ask for clarification on what ending the course entails before it actually becomes relevant.

[enhancements]

Doesn't it just. I'm not sure why everyone was so surprised by the answer, given the terms of everything else.

[protectandselfserve]

Well, a lot of them are basically children, Whiskers. It usually takes a longer time and more life experience to consider that things will go that far south.

[enhancements]

You can't particularly argue that given the professions on some of them.

[Arguably children, yes, but a lot of them crawled out of some sort of hellscape where they're also soldiers or something, from the look of it.

...Also why the hell do you keep calling him that.]

[protectandselfserve]

I suppose that is true, yes... it's a bit easy to forget, given how rarely that happens where I'm from.

Well, either way, I'll admit that whole thing went a little further than even I was expecting, in all honestly.

[enhancements]

Dare I ask exactly what you were expecting?

[protectandselfserve]

A more straightforward execution, I think. Something like hanging or... the electric chair, maybe, instead of some warped vision of a creature she saw as a mother.