vivarium | CALHOUN HOUR

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CALHOUN HOUR - CHOICE

It has been two and a half days since the end of the virus takeover. The power, lights, and heating has been turned back on. All the newer areas have been sealed, BP is once again required in certain rooms, and it appears that everything is returning back to normal.

Asides from Calhoun.

Whether characters have chosen to give pieces of Calhoun to Zero, to hold onto them, or to destroy them, it does not matter. There has been no indications as to when he would ever be back, so there has been a robotic mouse void within the warehouse. Zero has refused to leave any information as to the status of rebuilding Calhoun, but they have left this one message for everyone shortly after the power restoration:

"While you may be left alone to your devices, do not trick yourselves into thinking that there is a way out of here, or that you can do as you please. I will always be watching."

It has been two days since Zero has left these parting words before entirely disappearing. When attempting to call for them, everyone will only be responded with silence. It's clear that they're still watching over the facility though, as any kind of rule breaking or suspicious activities would automatically be rewarded with an injection of Soporil β. True to their word, Zero is somehow monitoring the behaviors without saying a single word.

It is not until the morning of Day 72 does everyone hear again from them again, through the speakers throughout the warehouse.

"Good morning, Subjects. Today, you will be partaking in another experiment of mine. It has come to my knowledge that my assistant has been throwing these so-called "Calhoun Hours" every three days to keep everyone stimulated between his rooms. Don't assume that I will do anything similar of the sort. This activity has far more care and thought put into it than this camping nonsense, so let us begin."

"The rules are simple: every test subject will be paired up and placed against each other. The collective will then have to vote for one of the pair. The one with the fewest amount of votes will be subjective to a punishment of my choice. The one with the most amount of votes will continue their dull experimental lives until the next set of events."

"Any petty attempts of rebellion will be met with serious repercussions, so I would suggest that you rethink any sort of plans."

"Now, best of luck, Subjects. We will talk again soon."

BASIC INFO ✖ MINGLE ✖ VOTES ✖ RESULTS

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[When the doors to Clive's elevator open, he just sits there for a moment in complete shock. Everything seems so... quiet? He looks out and sees the others emerging from their elevators and gathering in front of the screen, but he doesn't hear any voices or footsteps or anything. That's when it sets in that shit, he's deaf now. Guess that explains why there was a literally deafening explosion-like sound just before the doors opened. Well, he asked for a punishment and he got one all right, though this is definitely not the kind of punishment he was expecting.

Soon enough he wheels himself out of his elevator to look at the results for himself - god, it's so surreal that he can't even hear the squeaking of his chair anymore. After he studies the results for a few minutes, he pulls out his journal and pen, flipping open to a blank page and writing "I can't hear" in big letters. Then, he carefully rips the page out of the journal, folds it up and puts it in his blazer pocket. It would be nice if he could stick it on the back of his chair, but he doesn't have any tape or glue or any other kind of adhesive, so he'll just have to whip it out of his pocket to show people when necessary.

From then on he can be found either stuffing himself with gruel in the cafeteria or laying in the grass in the garden - basically once again not going out of his way to approach people. He feels so detached now, suddenly having to live in a world of silence. Obviously he's not going to respond at all to people calling his name or making loud noises around him or whatever, so it'll take some effort to get his attention.]

Heiji sat down next to Clive in the grass, making a point of touching his throat and shaking his head. He couldn't speak, Clive couldn't hear, Jake couldn't see. Trifecta~

The symbolism wasn't lost on Heiji, but it just sort of pissed him off and he couldn't really see the humor in it right now so.

Clive was a bit startled by Heiji's sudden appearance since he couldn't even hear him coming, but then he frowned at the gesture that Heiji was making. He sat up and reached into his pocket, pulling out the piece of paper with "I can't hear" written on it and showing it to Heiji so he knew why Clive was being so quiet as well. It was kind of hard to talk when you couldn't even hear your own voice.

Then he took out his journal and wrote something in it before passing it to Heiji along with his pen. It read:

Zero didn't do anything to your throat, did he?

It didn't look like Heiji had been hurt or anything but he wanted to make sure.

Heiji wrote beneath Clive's line quickly and fluidly. No. Get electrocuted whenever I talk.

Which, you know, did hurt. But it wasn't permanent, at least as not as long as he was careful. What happened to your ears?

Well, that was a relief. Clive would have been pretty pissed if Zero did do something to it, considering that he had subjected himself to this deafness in order to lessen Heiji's punishment. Though if this was the lesser punishment, he had to wonder what Zero originally had in store for him.

Zero played a loud explosion-like sound before my elevator doors opened. I haven't been able to hear anything since. He paused for a moment before adding, I told him to punish me so that you would get a lighter punishment.

Clive...

Clive.........

At first, the expression on Heiji's face was simple shock. Then it changed into something a lot more complicated. He was at once ready to scold Clive for putting himself in danger, touched that Clive cared, and worried because dude you could get permanent hearing loss that way. So, you know. Whatever you'd call an expression that reflected that.

At a loss for what else he could do, Heiji hugged Clive.

This time Clive reciprocated the hug right away, putting as much affection into it as he possibly could that was socially acceptable for two guy friends. Once they finished hugging it out, Clive gave him a warm smile as if attempting to dispel the concerns that were reflected in his facial expression earlier. Then he glanced back down at the journal, contemplating what he should say next. He wasn't really sure how to go about addressing Heiji's possible concerns directly, so he opted for shifting the topic a bit instead.

Is Snake OK?

Thanks, Clive, he kind of needed that. Heiji read the message, paused, then wrote a response.

Zero dislocated his shoulder. I put it back, but

He paused, frowned.

I couldn't talk to him.

Communicating with Snake had never really been a problem for Heiji, even with Snake's inability to see. He'd never really considered how difficult it could be if one of them lost an additional means of talking to each other. Now, however, he was forced to. Zero being an asshole wasn't new; that Heiji could deal with. But not being able to say something to reassure Snake, and that moment in which Snake hadn't had any idea who he was... that really bothered him.

Maybe he should have just spoken and dealt with the electrical shock.

Poor Heiji. Clive wished that his sacrifice could have been more useful to him; he was clearly still suffering a great deal despite receiving a lesser punishment. It frustrated Clive so much, and it probably showed on his face, too.

I'm so sorry. It must be hard for you. I'm quite upset that I can't talk to Snake either. I wish I could be of more help to the both of you. I'm sorry.

Yeah, he wrote that he was sorry twice in the same statement, fight him.

Heiji shook his head vigorously, and began scribbling.

It's not your fault at all. He made a point of underlining those last two words.

It's Zero's. Thank you for helping me. I'm sorry I didn't vote the way you asked. Snake was adamant that I shouldn't vote for him.

I figured that was what happened. That's just the kind of person he is, and it makes sense that you would respect your boyfriend's wishes over anyone else's. It must have been a very difficult decision for you to make. Clive couldn't blame anyone for voting the way they did, really. He was injured and Snake wasn't - at the time, at least. Even Jake voted for him. At least Clive could say he was the only one who voted for Snake.

Heiji's face turned a little pink while he read Clive's response. Snake was a really great person. Snake had voted for him, and he hadn't expected that. Of course, Sasuke was more injured, so it hadn't exactly been what Heiji had asked for, but...

The entire game was stupid. I'm glad you're okay, though. When I can finally talk again, I'll be sure to follow your advice.

And then, almost as an afterthought: I hope I don't talk in my sleep.

God Heiji you're such moe fucking trash. That last line actually managed to get a little chuckle out of Clive, though.

Let me know how that goes once you do. Also perhaps you should tape your mouth shut before you go to sleep. You better not tell me you don't have any.

He was, 100% guilty. Absolute moe garbage.

That'd be a waste of tape! Do your knees still hurt? Heiji was hoping that Clive's injuries were improving a bit; the deafness was a definite handicap, but the faster Clive could get back to full health, the better. Especially with the puzzle rooms coming up...

My scraped knee doesn't hurt at all anymore. My bruised knee still does, especially when I move it, but I can move it around a lot easier than I could before, at least. I think I still have a long way to go before I'll be able to walk on it again, though. So basically he was definitely going to be confined to his chair for the next set of puzzle rooms. Hopefully his hearing would return by then, at least; it'd be a real pain if he had to go into a puzzle room crippled and deaf.

Oh, by the way, do you know how to make a flower crown? I tried to make one on my own earlier and it didn't go very well.

Heiji beamed at Clive and motioned him over to the flowers; this actually was something he'd figured out how to do. He picked a few of the flowers and slowly began demonstrating how to weave their stems together without crushing them or breaking their stems.

This was something that was actually fun, so he was more than happy to show Clive how!

[Ever since that excuse for a game, Ema's been feeling kind of out of it, but that's no reason not to check in when she sees Clive tucking in to his gruel. After calls to catch his attention don't work, she sits down beside him with a curious look, tapping his shoulder then shrugging palms open in the universal sign of 'what gives'.]

[And now Ema finally has his attention. Upon noticing her confusion, Clive shows her the sheet of paper with "I can't hear" written on it. Then he opens up to a blank page in his journal and passes that and his pen to Ema so she can write down whatever she may have been trying to tell him earlier.]

Oh.

[Well, that's half of what she was going to ask, so no need to get into the whole pleasantry stuff. She takes the pen to reply, handwriting messy but at least small enough to conserve paper.

"Okay, that's a bummer. Too bad Calhoun's not here so you could avoid that terrible voice. Zero offered you a deal, you tried helping someone too, right?"]

[Clive very much appreciates the small handwriting. He writes his response underneath hers in about the same size font, except his handwriting is actually very neat.]

Yes. I took this punishment for Heiji. I'm assuming you helped someone too? [Hershel or Jake were his guesses.]

[neat handwriting...jealous...]

Yes, I was worried about Hershel, but I'm not sure what it did. Guess it's not that big of a deal. [she shrugs, expression agreeing that she apparently isn't too fussed about it.] Strange how all the "punishments" seem to be different, though. Zero say anything about how long this is supposed to last? Not that you're missing much to listen to.

I'm sure the effects of whatever punishment Zero assigned you will show up at some point. Please be careful. [He's glad to "hear" that she helped Hershel, at least. He was hoping that someone would.] And no, he didn't. I have to say that these are not the kind of punishments I was expecting at all. I thought there would be more gore involved. Although I can't deny that being deaf is rather depressing. And weird.

[Ema cocks her head, reading the response.]

Oh? Things here are so unnatural already. Is listening to all our squawking and random metal clanking really that exciting? --At least you can see, Jake's walking around like Mr. Magoo. How're the injuries, btw? Maybe Zero went wide with the punishments because the rat left enough gore already, the litt

[A pause. Then she placidly passes the notebook back over, apparently heedless of the unfinished thought (though given that it's Ema talking about Calhoun, one can be pretty assured it wasn't very polite)]

[Clive just stares in disbelief at the incomplete sentence for a moment before he gives Ema a look, holding up the journal and pointing at the "litt." Is he the only one who sees something wrong with this?????]

[wow, not all of us are copy editors okay

...Nah but after staring between Clive's face and his finger and blinking a few (dozen) times, she can finally put together the problem, that being that she should never try thinking about Calhoun ever, at least when thinking too negatively means...wait...what were we doing? --Anyway, she takes back the journal and adds "le", pauses to sneak a glance at Clive, then adds some ampersands and stars, like newspaper comic cursing. So whimsical and completely not strange at all! Yep]

SORRY and also NEVER MIND THAT ha ha you didn't answer the question!

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CALHOUN HOUR - CHOICE

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