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

[georgeous]

Which begs the question... have the Risen once been human?

We know them as bodyless ghosts, but they have so much association with earth human history that it's hard to imagine they've always existed as such.

[ossifragant]

Sounds likely.

Maybe that was the date they died?

[georgeous]

Are they Void?

[journalname]

They said they did not remember specifics about their former lives. Perhaps they needed to take on a new name?

[cthulwho]

Well...couldn't that also be why they've been calling themselves the Risen? Perhaps...this is another they have withheld?

[Hmmm.]

[journalname]

The two mean rather different things. It could be that something else happened in between, and they took on "the Risen" instead.

[ossifragant]

If they were really still ghosts, would they be calling themselves "the Risen"?

It makes it sound more like they came back from the dead.

[journalname]

...is that not what human ghosts are?

[He seriously sounds unsure on this point.]

[ossifragant]

I... guess? Ghosts aren't really something that exist where I'm from; and so far as myths go, they'd still be dead, technically speaking.

[journalname]

[Shrug]

Ghost monsters have nothing to do with death at all. I am not very familiar with this, except from some books.

[ossifragant]

Human ghosts aren't alive, they're the spirits of the departed that don't move on for one reason or another.

[dangerousfool]

I don't think Void is more than one person. There was a jacket over the memorial, and if I remember right, humans leave mementos on the graves, stuff belonging to the person who died.

[journalname]

...oh. We should see if that is in the pictures, too! Was the beanie person wearing a red jacket?

[cthulwho]

Oh... That would be something significant enough.

[Lovecraft seems pretty somber about this. To actually be dealing with spirits...]

[ossifragant]

It would be.

Can't say I blame them. I could tell you the exact date when I...

Depending what happened to them, it would be enough to drive anyone mad.

[journalname]

I imagine it had something to do with water.

[Just, like, considering all of this]

[ossifragant]

Drowning, more than likely.

[journalname]

[well yes that was the implication]

Then were they not also "Submerged"? They are...were there cameras in 1943?

[ossifragant]

There are cameras in 1915, so I would imagine so, though I'm pretty sure this is a different world than mine.

[georgeous]

Yes. The camera had already existed for over a 100 years by then.

[journalname]

Unless it was a world where humans lived alongside another...but no. I think you are likely correct.

Whatever happened to them changed them. They were different before it; they would have understood things like compassion. If they ceased to be human, that was when.