Taking Responsibility.

[transmittable]

Despite the lack of a body this week, you've had more than enough to explore and investigate; some of it may have answered some questions, while the rest...well, the rest may have just raised more. However you feel about it, the fact remains that as soon as you all step out of that new section above the third and make your way back toward one of the primary hallways, the lights quite suddenly go out, casting the hospital into complete darkness. Several seconds pass before something seems to happen and what sound like backup generators kick back on; the lights struggle their way back to life, only to immediately flicker and die again. It happens twice more before the power seems to stay on for good - they're feeble, but they're on, and at least it's enough to see by. It seems the power is stronger in one place in particular, however, and it shouldn't be a surprise which it is; the courtroom remains just as illuminated as ever, the seats ringing the old operating theater remaining as starkly unoccupied as they always do, and the podium circle that awaits you seems to have been set up in its final configuration. Sakura Kashima's portrait has joined the ranks of the deceased, her podium draped in black cloth. A final reminder of all you've lost here. Perhaps it's upsetting. Perhaps it'll only serve to make you more determined. The public-address system remains eerily silent, even after you've found your places in the circle; once in a while the quiet is broken by soft bursts of static, by a heavy, electric-sounding humming noise. Occasionally, whispers can be heard; whatever they're saying, it's probably not for you. Regardless, however, one thing is obvious: this is the end of the line, wherever it may have taken you. Eight Patients remain. Good luck.

Comments

[arebetter]

Wonder if Submerged was one of the kids in these. It'd explain why they wiped the faces.

[ossifragant]

Maybe.

I wonder what the point of them wiping the faces off would be?

[arebetter]

We know one of them was here - his beanie was in the room, along with some vending machine junk.

[ossifragant]

[......]

Maybe he was Submerged, then?

[arebetter]

Maybe, yeah. Unless it was important to someone else in the photos and they got it from the machine.

... Did anyone else in the files have a brown beanie on? We should probably get that straight too.

[ossifragant]

No.

There was a lady with a really big hat, but nothing like that.

[journalname]

...there was quite a bit of jewelry in the trunk. And some of that...unusual-smelling perfume. Now, I do not mean to say that humans need conduct themselves in any particular way...

[But it seems more feminine than that beanie did?]

[arebetter]

... A girlfriend then, maybe?

[journalname]

Possibly? Has anyone received someone else's belongings from the machine - someone else from home, that is? Everything I have was my own.

[positivespin]

QQ got someone else's military outfit, and Auntie Kashima got QQ's swimsuit before. It happens.

[arebetter]

I mean... it might have belonged to her by the time she got here, too. Human couples share clothes sometimes.

But no, I haven't.

[journalname]

...oh. What a nice custom.

[journalname]

...one of the faces was not wiped away. It was torn up. That person must have been especially significant to whoever owned the pictures, one way or another.

[dangerousfool]

Or...maybe the person who was torn up did it themselves?

[journalname]

Also possible. I can understand the urge.