trustfelled | Take Responsibility.

The door at the northwestern corner of the foyer is open.

It's hard to say when it opened, but the fact of the matter is that it seems to have; it leads to a separate hallway that seems to run alongside the dormitories. The hall is long and dimly-lit, but it's illuminated well enough to make it plain that the walls and floor in here are different; they're far less designed to give off an impression of grandeur - if anything, it's claustrophobic back here: the walls are close and darkly-colored, and the entire area is barren until it opens up into the room serving as your destination.

The room is circular and high-ceilinged, covered in more of the exposed wood that lines the rest of the building; there aren't any visible lights, however, which is...odd, given how bright the place is. It lends the entire area a sense of unreality; it's easy to distract yourself from it, however, once you notice this place's centerpiece.

In the center of the room is a circle of podiums, thirty in total, arranged so that everyone standing at them can see each other. So everyone can look each other in the eyes, if they so choose. The podiums are interlocked - there's no cutting across the center of the circle, and for good reason, it looks like there's a lot of nothing down there where the floor should be - and each is bearing the title of the person who's assigned to stand at it. No names, just adjectives, emblazoned across two brass panels on the very top and the front of each podium.

Affixed to the podium itself is a panel with buttons on it, and again, there are thirty in total; next to the buttons are smaller strips of engraved metal to serve as labels, bearing the titles of everyone that's been present in the facility, living or dead.

All of the podiums are identical, except for the one intended for Sayaka. The podium that should bear Attentive's title has had a black cloth draped over it, and a copy of Sayaka's profile photo is sitting on top of it, framed and colorless, an image in greyscale.

Juri is nowhere to be found in here, but that doesn't mean you're alone down here; the feeling that you're being watched is strong, and he'll wait until you've had time to take in what you're looking at before he addresses you - over the public-address system again, from the sound of it.

"Attentive's dead, and somebody's to blame for it - but you guys get to decide whether Rule Seven's carried out or not. It's your job to hold them responsible for what they've done. Good luck in doing it."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[...]

They're also three of the people closest to me, living quarters wise.

[Wow. Huh. It just struck him, that's fucking coincidence.]

Well, not that that matters much, I suppose, but it certainly does rub me a little oddly.

It... well, it could be, but Sayaka was in the room across from mine. Aren't your rooms way over in the other corner?

They are. We're practically diagonal of one another, if I remember right.

[Aligula lives over there, after all.]

Yeah. You're in the way back, while our rooms are near the main door, very close to the bathrooms. ... I couldn't even leave my room yesterday because of how strong the smell was...

I could barely handle it myself -- I'm really no good with blood.

[WHICH IS, UH, WHY HE'S REALLY HAPPY THAT ALIGULA IS OVER THERE WITH HER BLOODY EVERYTHING, THANKS.]

The tissues are fine, but there's a reason I'm not holding onto them myself. Aligula's display is a little... much for me.