vivarium | CALHOUN HOUR

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

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Look, Jake, normal human beings didn't grab people when they were tear gassed, at best they kind of cried and maybe rolled around a little on the floor GOD why couldn't you be normal for once instead of a big slab of beef jerky.

Heiji didn't have a noodly Hershel gentleman wrist, but this still a) came as a surprise, and b) hurt, enough that he temporarily forgot that he wasn't allowed to talk. "Ow! Chill out, I'm just tryin' to --"

Well, that was a mistake. The bracelet gave him another painful shock at once, and because Jake was currently (heh heh) holding his wrist, guess who was also getting electrocuted?

What defined someone as "normal"? Under what customary traditions do we look to see what was considered as an average human being? Were we suppose to look towards religious scriptures, or towards history, for our answers? Tell us, Tetra, just where was the line drawn between normality and beef jerky?

Back to actual matters though, Jake was more than ready to back off the moment Heiji talked, but using electrocution to get him off? That seemed to be a bit too much. He pulled back sharply with a loud hiss, shaking his hand.

"What the hell--" Goddammit, he didn't need this, he was already in pain through the tear gas, aaaaaaaaaaaa.

idk idk but I think we can all agree that scripture has little to say on the subject of 50 year old beef jerky in this year of our lord 2015.

"...!" Heiji tried to pull his wrist free the moment the shock started, so it was lucky that Jake just let go on his own that was nice that was fortunate. Unfortunately, it still hurt like a bitch and it felt worse than before? BUT MAYBE THAT WAS JUST BECAUSE HE HAD BEEN ELECTROCUTED MULTIPLE TIMES BY NOW HAHAHA

In any case, don't mind Heiji, he was just taking a few stumbling steps backward. He backed into the wall out of pure dumb luck, hitting it with an audible thump. He slid slowly down the wall to the floor where he sat down heavily, one hand grasping his left wrist.

Heiji didn't make the mistake of talking this time, he just made a sort of inarticulate sound of pain and went still to recover himself a bit. Ow ow ow.

Well, that was enough to tell Jake that heeeee fucked up here. Wow, what a surprise.

With his sense of sound, he generally had an idea as to where Heiji was, but he didn't approach. He wasn't sure if that was a good idea, after what just happened. "What the hell was that?" No, did not know that Heiji could not talk right now. He was a bit too scatterbrained with the whole tear gas.

With Snake, Heiji would simply have taken his hand, touched Snake's throat, and thus indicated that he couldn't speak. He was definitely not trying that with Jake, though, that seemed like an F----- bad idea.

Gosh, how strange, Heiji usually talked a mile a minute but now he wasn't talking at all golly gee. After a moment, he got to his feet, eyeing Jake. Should he just. Leave and try to get someone else.

Well, the only thing he could think of right now was to try and roll the water bottle to Jake, but that seemed like he'd be risking Jake angrily kicking it at him or something so he got to his feet and took a few steps to the direction of the washroom. He tapped the wall beside him once; maybe by some kind of miracle Jake would decide to be cooperative and follow him.

OR MAYBE HE WOULD CONTINUE TO BE A SLAB OF BEEF

Hey man, c'mon. He was randomly nudged, then grabbed, then shocked. After that, Heiji only spoke once during that entire time, so it wasn't like he could figure this out any sooner than now. He got a decent idea now, since he didn't get a proper answer to his question. Instead, all he got was Heiji walking away and tapping the walls like some asshole woodpecker.

But, by some kind of miracle, Jake decided to follow. Not like there was anything better for him to do.

GOD Jake, well maybe he could actually communicate with you if you bothered to learn some form of nonverbal language that didn't involve punching things and angrily eating gruel.

Heiji got to the washroom and turned on the faucet so that hopefully even a top round roast like Jake could hear it. Water + eyes = tear gas relief, how about that?

That was all he needed to know, okay, he could just communicate through angry chomping. Why couldn't Heiji do that??

The running water was super easy to hear, at least in a tiny ass washroom, so Jake stumbled around, slowly and carefully trying to make to the sink. The best way to handle this was to have the water be poured over his eyes and down his face, but it wasn't like he could just stick his head under the faucet. His dumb beefy head wouldn't fit in the sink, so he just cupped the water into his hands and splashed his face multiple times until he thought it felt all right enough. This would probably take a while so hope Heiji didn't mind. At the very least, Jake was going to talk throughout it.

"Tap once for yes, twice for no," he started, then paused to rinse out his mouth. "I guess you're being forced not to talk?"

Heiji sighed because there was no rule against sighing, ZERO!!, then tapped once on the wall. Wow awesome it was like he was on Ghost Adventures, that was his life now. Soon people would be registering cold spots and screaming while bumbling around in night vision goggles.

But what could he do now? He couldn't talk to Jake, and Jake couldn't see him gesturing. Jake probably couldn't read Braille, either. He hesitated for a moment, trying to decide if he should go get someone else to help Jake, or if he should wait to see if Jake needed anything else.

This was really all Jake needed since he was a stubborn mule. He could find his other pair of clothes on his own and get around. He was fiiiiine, so now that he got confirmation that Heiji couldn't talk, he didn't really want to keep him around longer. It'd just be one awkward mess.

"Then I'll take it from here. You better find yourself a middle man if you want to talk."

Heiji hesitated for a second, because hmm hmm was he abandoning Jake to a life of bumping comically into shit and tripping over plants. But things seemed under control for now, and Jake wasn't in too much obvious pain or anything, so he tapped once and then left Jake to his own devices.

YOU'RE WELCOME, BEEF ROCKHAMPTON.

Jake didn't say anything and just let Heiji go. He was too busy dooming himself to breaking his neck going up the stairs.

LATER LOSER

~~Pictured: Literally Jake~~

~~You fucking bet that after he dies, he's going to be a Project Zero/Fatal Frame ghost. He would never move on to the afterlife.~~

CALHOUN HOUR - CHOICE

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject