vivarium | THE HEART OF THE MATTER

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THE HEART OF THE MATTER - CONCLUSION

This morning starts off with Calhoun blowing an air horn at precisely 6AM. He will not tolerate anyone sleeping in, and if they attempt to he’ll just keep blowing his horn until everyone gathers in front of the table that he stands on. Upon closer inspection, characters will realize that beside him is a large cage, being held shut with a heavy duty lock, and contains numerous brown envelopes, some more bulky than others. Beside that is a container of lighter fluid and a stack of matches.

He puts down his air horn and raises his arms, shaking his head.

“Even as tiny as your little brains might be, you should all know that your time is now up! No more shows, because you know what, this is pathetic. Is this really the best that you test subjects can do? We got two more shows yesterday, yeah, but nothing that tingled my spine. How disappointing.”

He shakes his head, and then nudges the cage with his paw just a bit.

“Well, you all know what that means! You can say goodbye to all your precious memories and further details about your secrets. Everything that you’ve so carelessly gave up on and didn’t care about is right beside me. I will burn everything away, so all twelve of you will never have the chance to get them bac--”

And then he suddenly stops.

“--Hmmm?”

Calhoun stands on his tips of his bottom paws and looks at the room, from one side to the other, pointing at each one silently.

“Wait a minute, there’s only eleven of you here! Who are we missing?” He takes a second to go through everyone before answering himself. “We’re missing the Hat-Wearing Test Subject!”

During the entire commodation of suddenly being woken up and seeing all your secrets/memories in that cage, minutes before they’re burned away, no one might have noticed that they might have been one person short. Now, looking around, it’s true. Akiko is nowhere to be seen in the group, nor does she seem to be in the warehouse’s lobby.

Calhoun lets out a long (clearly dragged out and exaggerated) groan.

“Ugh, of all times that she’s out. Just when I was getting all dramatic and in the mood too…”

He slumps over, but then he stands right back up again, as if hit with lightning. He points at everyone.

“Okay, time out!! Instead, you’re going to find this Annoying Test Subject and bring her out here! I don’t care if you have to drag her from the toilets, just go find her, so I can get to burning your precious things and reveal your secrets!”

He will end it with that, and should anyone try to argue against him or attempt to negotiate with him, they will find it worthless. He will refuse to speak and just tell them to hurry up, find their dumb Hooky-Playing Test Subject! He’ll be here waiting, should you find her, so the search begins.

However, characters will soon discover that Akiko is nowhere to be seen. She’s not in the warehouse lobby, that’s for sure, but she left her hoodie and hat behind, so she must have stepped out quickly to the washroom. Once going in and calling for her, though, characters will only be greeted by silence in the washroom. Then how about the lounge? Perhaps she couldn’t sleep and wanted to go through a few video games, but yet again, she is not there. How about the second floor of the warehouse? The stairway? The elevator? Everywhere they look, she cannot be found. It’s almost as if she has complete disappeared. Eventually, it will come to the fact that while they have thought they’ve checked everywhere, there was still one room they haven’t searched:

The cafeteria.

That’s not possible, though, since it’s not like she could be in there. She doesn’t have enough BP, but there’s no where else she can be. A feeling of dread and fear might begin to pool up, as someone pulls on the lever. A metallic groan fills the air, and the doors slide open...

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Once Heiji found Hershel, he sat down right next to him. He was quiet for a while before he spoke up.

"You okay?"

Hershel's, unsurprisingly, not going to say anything for a long moment. It looked like he tried a few times, for Heiji's sake if nothing else, but anything he thought to say just didn't seem right.

Eventually he let out a long breath. "Who did this?"

Heiji sighed. "I dunno. As far as I can tell, none of us has access to anything that could be used to improvise explosives. But we don't know what's in all the rooms. There could've even been something in the traps..."

He shook his head. "Anyway, I'd like to say it was Zero or Calhoun."

"Why? Why go through all this trouble, why-" Hershel's brow furrowed and it took him a second to continue. "Why destroy one of their subjects, why kill someone over a secret or a memory that may not even be real? It doesn't make any sense, I can't understand it."

Have another long, long, awkward silence before he forced himself to glance to the side. "Are you okay?"

Heiji shook his head. "People get cornered, they..."

They what? They did all kinds of things, Heiji was sure of that, but instead of finishing his sentence, he looked down and away.

"...I'll be fine. What about you? Are you okay? If you need to let it out or anything, I ain't gonna judge ya."

Hershel said nothing for a long moment. He doubted Heiji was really okay, how could anyone be after seeing their friend like that, but it wasn't his place to push, especially if he partially wanted to just to avoid thinking about everything.

"We don't even know her full name." He finally said, quietly. "We can only hope she really lived in Tokyo, her family- she died with her only memory being that... whatever horrible thing Calhoun showed her."

Jesus this was rough. He drew his knees in, staring ahead. "I want to... I want to find out the truth, about what happened to her." About who did this, even if part of him knew it was a bad idea.

"Yeah, and once we get outta here, we'll track down her family," said Heiji. "I don't care what it takes. They deserve to know if their little girl is..."

Well.

He looked at Hershel. "You might not like what you find," he said finally. "I guess the best scenario is, it's no one we know. But there's a real possibility that one of us here did it. Anyway, I got some things I want to ask Calhoun."

Hershel nodded, vehemently at that, staying quiet again as he thought of how you could even tell a family that. She had been blown to pieces, Hershel hadn't even seen her other hand, wherever it landed, there was blood and viscera-

No. He closed his eyes and tried to push all that down because there was this to focus on. "We owe it to her to find out the truth, no matter how unpleasant." He glanced to Heiji, feeling kind of raw. "I know you didn't do it, I don't think Ema or Jake did either. There's so little evidence..."

he trailed off. "Do you think he'll answer honestly?" Wait. "Heiji, wait, do you remember what the reward was before escape on the BP table Calhoun gave us?"

Heiji nodded. "Sure. '"Get Out of Death" card - single use'. Why?"

He'd been thinking about that card, too, though in a completely different light, before Akiko had met her end. But what did that have to do with the current situation?

"Just- what does that mean?" Hershel tried not to sound a little desperate, guess who was firmly planted in the denial stage of grief? This guy. "I know it- with the stat she's in..."

Have a moment before he continued heavily. "What if there was some way..." Yeah, he feels ridiculous even mentioning it but he had to try.

"Hey, Hershel." Heiji's expression had darkened. Dude... no.

"Akiko was my friend, too, but you know that's impossible. You saw the state she was in. That was..." He trailed off, struggling to find the right words. "There's no way someone could come back from that."

He said nothing, staring at his feet because yeah, Heiji was right, even if he desperately didn't want to admit it. "I'm sorry..." Is all he could finally say after a long moment, tone quiet.

After another long pause Hershel swallowed and lifted his head again. "What happens if it was one of the group who did it? What could we possibly do? We can't-" Kill them, obviously, that was unacceptable to the extreme. "We can't hurt them, we can't just lock them away."

Heiji looked grim. "If it is, then we gotta be extra careful how we handle it. Me and you, we know they've gotta be hauled into the cops and serve their time. But if anyone here decides that they don't wanna wait for that..."

He shook his head, then put a hand on Hershel's shoulder. "You're a good guy, Hershel. Let's... I don't know, let's try and think of something to do for Akiko, too."

Hershel nodded- Heiji was absolutely right, whoever did this needed to be taken to the police, not brought to justice by the group. "If we figure it out... I don't know. maybe we shouldn't say." Incase someone did try to take matters into their own hands. Of course then that meant a murderer would be walking around freely with no one being the wiser but them. He sighed, slumping. "No matter what we did in that situation, someone would get hurt."

He said nothing at firs but reached up and placed his hand on Heiji's wrist as a silent thanks. "She needs... She needs to be cleaned up. I don't think she'd want-" Everyone seeing her like that all the time. God, he hoped Calhoun would treat her with respect if he did clean her body up. "Other than that I don't- I'm not sure. Find her family, give her a real burial one day, even if... even if we don't have anything to bury."

Heiji shook his head; he had no clear-cut answers for Hershel. "We just have to try and make sure that don't happen. I'm sure there would be people who wanna punish them right then and there, but we ain't the law."

"I'm gonna save her hat. Maybe we can give it back to her folks." Of course, he'd have to clean it of blood and skull fragments and what-have-you, but he thought he could manage that. And besides, without at least some form of proof, who the hell was going to believe them? And speaking of remains...

"Whattaya think Calhoun will do with her body?"

Hershel nodded, at least that was something to focus on. If they did figure it out they'd have to keep an eye on the person too without letting them realize they knew. What risky business.

He glanced over as if he completely forgot her hat, looking down after a moment. "I- yes, that's a great idea, Heiji. They'd- I'm sure they'd want it back."

And that question. His expression darkened and he looked to the wall. "The incinerator, probably. There's no reason for them to keep the remains. It's only be evidence against them." This is probably the angriest he's ever sounded, it's a quietly angry tone but wow, he was not happy about this shockingly.

"In that case, maybe we can save some of her ashes." Heiji put a hand to his chin, running through the possibility. "Dunno where we'd keep 'em, though." Certainly not in a water bottle! No drinking Akiko anytime soon.

"And speakin' of evidence -- maybe we could squirrel away a part of her, for when we get out. Right now, we don't have much physical evidence of what's goin' on, right? Say we got something a lab could use, maybe to find her parents in the first place. Like a hair follicle, or..."

Wow, grim.

"I doubt... I don't think Calhoun would give them to us. He'd probably just- just throw them out." Screw you Calhoun, not a fan right now. "If he did- I don't know. Water bottles are all we really have."

God, Heiji, you were right but wow, grim. The idea makes Hershel a little sick and he can't say anything for a moment before answering shakily. "If you- when you find her hat, maybe there will be hair on it."

Heiji nodded, then put a hand on Hershel's shoulder. "Listen, you gonna be okay for a while? I wanna go and find her hat before that rat tosses it out in the trash. Let's meet up a little later, when... anyway, we can talk about how to figure out who did it."

He stood. "Oh yeah, and let me know if anyone else wants to help. We gotta be able to figure this out!"

"Yes, of course." Hershel nodded firmly, glancing over at him. "Just- Heiji, please be careful. You-" Get into trouble a lot and he's worried you're his friend, okay. He swallowed all that. "Alright, I'll um-" Probably be here, but no, he stood up. He should probably go actually do something instead of being useless. "I'll be around, come find me if you find anything out."

At the last comment he paused. "Ema, she probably will. I trust her, she couldn't- she wouldn't do this."

Heiji smiled. "Sure, I'm always careful! Uh... sorta."

Okay yeah no even he had to admit that he was ridiculous sometimes, but the important part was that he was going to be careful this time!

Have a vaguely disbelieving look. At least he's trying to joke around, that's a step, right. "Good luck, Heiji." He paused. "... and thank you."

And off he goes to do whatever the heck it was he was going to do. At least he was up and about? A+, Heiji.

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THE HEART OF THE MATTER - CONCLUSION

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I lost this notif LIKE A BOSS

that is the story of my rp life man

sobs quietly

pats

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