GRAVEYARD ✨

[probe]

POPULATION: GHOST TOWN

You die - and then you wake up.

For a second, it feels as though you can't breathe, and then your head breaks the surface. You crawl out of a pool of blood and into a large, crystalline room. Moving images play across the crystal walls, and if you watch close enough, you'll realize that you're seeing the land of the living; a familiar space station with familiar faces. You can watch these images for as long as you'd like - there are several very large benches (as in, you have to climb them to sit on them) around the room for you to rest on while you do.

Regardless of how you died, it seems as though you're not quite gone completely. You're in one piece, at least. That's good news. However, your surroundings are not exactly what you remember.

When you exit the first room, a bleak, empty city sprawls out ahead of you.

The city itself is large. The framework of it seems to tower higher and higher than you can see, up into the black opal sky that shivers and curls every so often. A river entirely made of blood runs through the city, winding around buildings and ending at the crystal room. The most noticeable thing about the buildings themselves is the fact that thorny vines made of pure white steel dig into the walls and floor, cracking the foundations.

The residential building is worn down and old. It's two floors, and has a few small studio apartments built for one or two people to live in. The beds are extremely uncomfortable. It has a communal area downstairs, but the TV is broken, and the couches are torn apart. Sometimes, this building feels obscenely hot in temperature, and smells like rotten eggs.

The grocery store is your typical convenience store. There's a large selection of food in this area, but it all tastes the same - like chalk. On top of this, every so often there will be bloodstains on the walls, the floor, and the displays. They change in size and location, each time you enter the store.

The clothing store is thrifty in nature. All the clothes here are uncomfortable and scratchy, and don't fit quite right. While you're here, time feels... weird. Distorted, almost dreamy. As you're picking out clothes and trying them on (no money needed, just take what you want), you swear you can hear a gunshot in the distance.

Enjoy your time in this city, and remember...your story isn't quite over yet.

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Comments

[holeful]

[Fukuda is wandering out of the crystal room, dripping off the last vestiges of the blood pool, looking dazed, but not especially sad?]

... Is this hell?
[He muses to the open air as he looks around at the ruined cityscape.]

[brightred]

[Grell immediately backhands him across the face.]

[holeful]

[Oh my god. Down he fucking goes, onto the ground.

And then he looks up, and his expression lightens, but also he is confused.]

Miss Grell?

[brightred]

Who told you you could kill yourself? [She is stepping on his stomach with one stiletto-heeled boot.]

[holeful]

[He is not resisting at all.]

Well, I had to die so Omi could leave, so...

cw: suicide

[brightred]

[There's a flash of a memory that isn't Fukuda's, suddenly.

"Why me?" you ask, looking up from the papers in your hand to meet the eyes of the woman standing in front of you (they're the same two-tone bright green that yours are now, behind the same wire-rimmed glasses that perch uncomfortably on your nose).

"Understand, Mr. Sutcliff," she says, stern as she looks you over with a frown. "This is not a second chance. This is the punishment for suicide."

Grell doesn't seem to notice the memory, she just presses the heel of her shoe a little more strongly into his stomach.]

Then you should have made him kill you. He's going to kill someone or die eventually anyway.

cw: suicide also

[holeful]

[Ah. Well. That explains some things.]

... Sorry, miss Grell. It's just...
[He smiles up at her, sad, hapless, apologetic.]

It's easier to do something when you've already tried it before, don't you think?

[brightred]

[She just pulls her foot back to kick him in the side. Not like, a lot. Just enough to be rude.]

Then give him the chance to try killing someone!

[holeful]

[Oof! He just continues to lie there.]

Omi already has.

[brightred]

[Kicks him again for good measure!]

Pathetic.

But all of those idiots are even worse, they're not even trying to solve these murders.

[bachelorbored]

[kaz, laying on one of the giant benches:]

Yes. What a ridiculous question. This place sucks ass.

[holeful]

It does seem unpleasant... But it's good to see you again, Kaz.

[He seems to genuinely mean this for some absurd reason.]

[bachelorbored]

I just wish it wasn't in such dire circumstances, my beholed friend. Alas, for cruel fate.

[holeful]

[Nodding.]

I don't know whether to be glad we're still conscious or not. I was expecting oblivion, honestly.

[bachelorbored]

Oblivion would have been better.

Please don't bother the... well, I suppose he's my robot, now. He's been using loopholes to shoot people. Other than that, try to relax, I suppose. Or whatever you like doing?

[holeful]

[Wow Fukuda has so many questions from just one statement. He doesn't know where to start, so;]

.... What?

[bachelorbored]

What?

[holeful]

Why... why is HK-47 your robot now and why is he shooting people?

[bachelorbored]

He's shooting people because he loves to cause pain and suffering, naturally. In your heart, I think you already knew the answer to that.

And I suppose he's not technically my robot. We've just entered a mutually beneficial agreement!

[executeprogramming]

Observation: Given that droids are not biological organisms and also that the afterlife does not exist, I would surmise that it is not.

[hello hole man]

[holeful]

[Hello robot friend!!!]

Well, it has to be something like that, doesn't it? I'm sure I died, and we all watched you get compressed into a cube.

[executeprogramming]

Conjecture: I cannot speak for you, but the programming that accounts for what could be called my "consciousness" can quite easily be uploaded elsewhere. Given physical damage is disappointingly temporary here, perhaps your meatbag brains were connected to a simulation to extend your entertaining torment. [he theorizes in a tone that seems to say "wouldn't that be fun??"]

[holeful]

[HK's tone aside;]

That's possible. Even if we really are dead, since that's what Chief Hayaseura did...

We also still shouldn't rule out this entire situation being a simulation.

[executeprogramming]

Conjecture: It would certainly better account for the administrators' ability to alter parameters of the environment and even the participants at will. The Jedi and Sith had ways to affect such controls over other meatbags, but not on droids such as myself—believe me, several tried in their desperation.

[holeful]

That's what I've been saying! I'm glad you understand, HK-47. But I hadn't even thought of that part. If we're experiencing a computer simulation, it would be easy to fool you just as well as the rest of us.