shiftingwinds | [7rings] catchall for grace

[she looks down at that. envy's house...]

...they're quite unpleasant. Reading about them is one thing; living them is quite another.

I never even liked reading them. I wish our twists were as obvious as the ones in books. [ but after a sigh: ] Can you tell me a little about what happened on Thursday? I'm working on a theory about them still.

Of course...

Have you heard much about it from any of the others...?

[

aoi :C ]

No. I try not to ask on Thursdays so you guys can rest after... all that.

[ and she knows she sure didn't want to be bombarbed with questions right after, so ]

Ahaha... that's fair enough. I told Sasazuka about it in detail yesterday while it was fresh, so if it seems like I've forgotten anything, feel free to check with him.

[...]

We ended up on a... space station, actually. It reminded me of this place, but - different. A little simpler.

Another space station...?

[ are they running out of locations to pull from ]

Childe said he thought... maybe we were still here, or just on a replica, when he heard about it.

[she shrugs]

I'm not sure. We woke up in a bedroom, but the door was jammed shut, so after we looked around, we had to go through the vents to get out.

It was probably a different one. I'm sure we can't be the only people in the universe who have ever been to space.

Were you guys all together?

[she nods]

Yes - all four of us were there. We didn't get separated during this... but while we were in the vents, we did encounter a... creature. [...] It was furry and demonic-looking, with a beak. It attacked us, but Endorsi and Medb fought it off.

... Furry with a beak? [ well. that's. interesting. ] At least all four of you were together, though. I'd ask if you got injured by it but.

[ gestures ]

Yes - it was horrifying.

[she makes a face

and then glances at her leg.]

Endorsi and Medb did, but... they kept Aoi and me safe that time. When we came out of the vents, we were in a conference room... there were eight bodies slumped over at the table.

Oh. [ bad. ] Did you recognize any of them?

[she nods]

Four of them were people from here - four of them were people from our homes. We couldn't make out the ones from our homes, at first, and the people we recognized from this place... they looked very dead.

[...]

But there were - wires, coming out of them. And wounds appeared on the backs of our necks that matched up with them. We had to connect those wires to ourselves, and when we did, we were drained of our energy, their bodies vanished, and... the other bodies started to move.

[ hm. this is all very bad, actually, so she moves a little closer to sqx for comfort? ]

The ones from your homes?

[she nods and puts a hand over her throat, where there are some mostly-healed bruises that are shaped like fingers.]

...yes. They tried very hard to kill us.

[ she puts a hand on sqx's shoulder ]

I know what that's like. It wasn't real, but... it still messes with your head, right?

[she nods]

...mmhm. I know Ming-xiong wouldn't, but... [...] It felt real while it was happening.

... Yeah. It really does.

[ she squeezes sqx's shoulder ]

This place is trying to test our will for our wish. That's what these are about, I think.

That would make sense.

[...]

There were buttons on the backs of their necks... they stopped moving when we pressed them. We had to go through the vents again to get out of that room, though, and luckily this time we didn't run into the creature inside of them.

We came out in a hallway with a door at the end. This one actually opened... it led into a room with a podium in it. We started hearing noises coming from the vents, though, so... we tried to hurry. We tried to shut the door, and it - shut on the creature, but it was still wriggling around.

...we were supposed to recalibrate... something... at the podium.

[ hmmmmmmm bad ]

It was wriggling...? Gross. What happened once you recalibrated it?

...it took us a little time - once our hands were on it, it just... it made us feel... tired. Really, really tired. And like it was an important decision that needed to be made, but maybe someone could handle it... maybe we could just go home...? ...but we chose to do it. We'd found notes with tasks that we needed to do at the start, and recalibrating it was one of them.

[she takes a breath]

But once we did it, we - started changing. It was very similar to what I experienced in the simulation room the other week, actually... and it all stopped, and we went back to normal.

By then, the creature had wriggled free of the door and came up to us, and it opened its beak, and - last time it did that, it attacked. So I kicked it in the face before it could.

[(looks at her missing leg)]

It bit your leg off?

[ THE LEG CAME WITH LATER SO LIKE

but that aside-- ]

The choice! You had it too.

It stabbed it with its tail - which was... sort of scorpion-like. It was still mostly attached when I lost consciousness [from the blood loss] so I'm not really sure what happened to it after that...

[...]

But - yes. We were made to make a choice.

It felt like we were being... punished, near the end, but I'm not sure if that was because of the choice we made, or because I kicked the creature.

[ hm. bad. bad!!!! ]

I've heard of people feeling punished for the choice they made, but... Why would not doing the tasks be better, in this case?

...I don't know. I really don't.

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