ENDGAME

[kentucky_mcgiygas]

[A wall panel in the green room slides out of view, revealing an elevator. Get in it and it will take you down to the hotel (description here), where your fellow contestants - alive and ghostly - await.

You may spend as long as you want here, ordering up as much room service as you like, but when you're read to go home, you'll find that one floor (new to the current hotel occupants) has nothing but doors with your names on them. Exit, and you'll show up exactly where you were when you left.]

((THANK YOU FOR PLAYING EVERYONE. Ghosts, feel free to materialize and talk to people. You may now speak about your prizes.))

Comments

[exequte]

It is true. I didn't trust you, and I didn't like you, and then....

[bluescreenofdeath]

Oh please, don't act like you care. I meant nothing to you. Why do you need to bother trying now?

[exequte]

Because I was wrong.

I thought you were trying to frame Santa, and then before you died you defended him instead. That's why. I know it probably doesn't mean very much, it's too late for it to mean very much, but I wanted to say I'm sorry. I misjudged you.

[bluescreenofdeath]

Did you ever think, maybe, you should try talking to me about what I was trying to do? Jeez, if you thought I was trying to frame your brother, you should have at least wanted to punch me.

[exequte]

What were you trying to do?

I thought that you were a threat, but what I was trying to do for a little while was have you sent to the hotel. That would have done more than punching you would have.

[bluescreenofdeath]

I made the plan to die back in the second round. Before the hotel pass was a thing. I thought, if we keep going like this, saving as many people as possible and spreading the votes as thin as they'll go, everyone's going to die. Everyone but the final five. I thought if anyone else was going to get out of this, someone would have to die to send another person to the hotel. I figured nobody would accept a plan like that from someone who wasn't willing to die for it first. And I thought since you guys had six people, you'd want to save one of your friends. It's funny. When the hotel pass was announced, I thought Santa might try and talk me out of it, since now there was a mechanism that countered that whole thing. And instead I find out he's been talking behind my back with all his friends about how I'm terrible and monstrous and trying to frame him for my death like that benefits me at all? Seriously, what's the logic there?

[exequte]

No. He didn't do any of that. All he did was said that you wanted our help dying. Only then you asked Snake to vote for you, and everyone assumed the worst. The only thing we could think was that you were trying to get Santa to publicly ask people to not vote for you so that people would think he was trying to murder you. It wasn't a good plan, there was a lot of risk involved in it for you, but you have to admit it looks suspicious when you came to Santa instead of Zelda and then started asking for a vote instead.

[bluescreenofdeath]

Do you think Zelda would have listened in round 2? Anyway, Santa told me to wait until he'd talked to you guys. I asked him if I should get a vote for this round while you guys sort your shit out, and he said yes. And he told me he'd keep me updated. So here I was, waiting for that update, doing exactly what we'd agreed, and you're all gossiping about what a liar I am. I actually asked to talk to you all with him, and he told me no, because he knows how to handle your idiosyncrasies. Turns out your brother has really shitty communication skills.

[exequte]

I think she would have, in the sense that there weren't enough votes for people and all you had to do was ask for you to be given a vote last. I don't think you could have convinced her to use that vote to send someone else to the hotel instead, but then I didn't know that was your plan.

I wouldn't call you a liar. Even then. I thought you were a threat, but maybe I started off expecting everyone to lie, if something so important to them was being offered.

Maybe it was that, maybe it was him deciding not to tell us on purpose, to try to create a target. If that was the plan I guess it was a success, even if nothing happened to you as a result of that.

[bluescreenofdeath]

No, I think he's just an idiot.

[exequte]

I don't know. I'm not sure about anything with him any more.

[bluescreenofdeath]

What, did he betray you and break all his promises too? From what I can tell, everything he's done has been to save your life.

[exequte]

[She looks her squarely in the eye.]

Yes. That's exactly what he did. Most of it was to save my life, I think, yes, but that doesn't change anything.

[bluescreenofdeath]

Hmmm... Yeah, I think I get that.

[exequte]

I trusted him completely. As it turns out, I guess that was a mistake. But I wanted to find you and tell you that. You can choose not to believe me if you want, I wouldn't blame you, but even if you don't... I'm sorry.

[bluescreenofdeath]

I'm not going to deny he's untrustworthy. The one thing I asked him to do was protect the kids, and he refused. I won't forgive him for that. But I do think he cares about you. He's doing that annoying 'it's for your own good' gimmick that parents love to do. Be mad at him. Don't let him off the hook for it. You don't have to forget to forgive. But you should try and hear him out. As mad as I am at him right now, I'll admit he's not entirely terrible. Maybe one day he might do something to earn that trust back.

[exequte]

No. That's not going to happen. He doesn't trust me any more either, but there's not going to be any time to change that.

He's leaving. I don't know where, but he's not coming home.

[bluescreenofdeath]

Well, you're both adults. Find a way to visit each other.

[exequte]

It was his grand prize. If it took a miracle to accomplish, I don't think it will be that easy. Even if it is, he hasn't told me where he's going. He hasn't told me any of this. I don't think he wants me to know.

[bluescreenofdeath]

Hmph. So he's going to keep being an idiot.

[exequte]

[She's really not sure how to respond to that, so she doesn't. It hurts.]

[bluescreenofdeath]

Do you want to know where he's going? Do you want to see him again?

[exequte]

I don't know. I... I don't want to not see him, but....

It's like I said. He doesn't seem to want to see me. I'm not trying to keep him with me i he doesn't want to. I've done enough terrible things that I understand if he wants nothing more to do with me, and it seems like that is what this is.

[bluescreenofdeath]

June. June listen. Have we not just established that your brother is absolute shit at communicating?

[exequte]

If he doesn't then why did he betray me? Why doesn't he want to talk to me? Why is he avoiding me?

I've known him longer than you have, Ene. He's... for almost as long as I can remember, he's been the only family I've had. Besides, he's never treated me like this.