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

[journalname]

...I have seen death before. [He speaks up after a moment.] Violent death, even. But she was so young. And that was...a cruel illusion to craft.

[heritrix]

[He sounds as old as his profile says he is, like this. Even if he told her he's younger.]

...So you saw what she called it too?

[The strange electricity being. When it transformed, Arietta had called it "mommy".]

[journalname]

I did. I think perhaps I could have guessed it - it did not have to take any form, to kill her.

[She could have just been electrocuted by a ball of energy, and that would have been that.

He wonders if electrocution is a painful way to die, for humans. But he will not ask her that.]

[heritrix]

No. [She agrees.] It didn't.

[So she wonders why.]

[journalname]

It seems it must have just been to be cruel.

[heritrix]

It might not have any consciousness of itself; we don't know yet. But we'll find out.

[journalname]

Well, cruelty on someone's part. If we could interact with it outside of that room, perhaps...

[heritrix]

I wouldn't recommend it. Not without a foolproof barrier between us and it.

That said, I do want to study it more.

[journalname]

Well, no, I do not exactly want to meet with it as things are now. I suspect my body would not conduct electricity quite as well as yours - humans have a great deal of water in them, do they not? But it would certainly still hurt.

[heritrix]

Wait. You don't have water in your body?

[How does that work?? She's not sure it's possible with a non-spirit creature— ohhhh.]

[journalname]

I am made mostly of magic. And a bit of dust. Some monsters are more or less corporeal, but none of us contain very much physical matter.