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

[scribbly]

[She's mad at Junpei, at Santa, at Zelda. People who said they would take care of her, but there were only a few people there who really loved her, really cared for her, and in their absence, they so easily turned their backs on her.

Ib didn't have a vote. Ib tried to get one for Mary, but she was left as parts of other people's schemes. And yet—Mary can't resent Ib for that, for her safety, for being an afterthought to the rest of them, not worth manipulating. Because—]

...You were...my first friend, Ib...

[And Mary smiles. Her eyes are all red and puffy and there are tears streaking her face, but she smiles.]

So it felt like a long time!

[rowboats]

[ Ib wipes her eyes with her sleeve, but it's not doing much good. She has a hard time believing that, because why wouldn't Mary have any friends? She was one of the best friends Ib ever had.

But she doesn't say that. She just bowls Mary over in a hug. And she'll stay there, as long as she can. ]

[scribbly]

[The fabricated heart Mary might have had once is gone, and she doesn't know what she is anymore. Somehow, she is less real than she was before she came here. How far can one remove themselves from being a person before they no longer even pass as one? Is the ghost of a painting anything at all like a feeling, breathing girl anymore?

Mary has hardly enough existence left to hold onto Ib when she tackles her, but she does as best she can, and she hugs Ib as tight as she can with everything left of her and she cries and cries and cries.

They'll stay like this as long as they can—and eventually her ghost fades, and Mary feels something pulling her away, and she cries out Ib's name but by the time she realizes what's happening well enough to speak the sound is distant and lost.]







[this is such a serious fucking tag but she's just going into the goddamn zombie mustard vat]