vivarium | THE HEART OF THE MATTER

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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Heiji pulled the brim of his cap down to shade his eyes. "Ms. Chapman... in here, everyone knows everyone."

Though maybe not as well as they should. He wasn't going to bring up the very real possibility that the bracelet would have displayed some kind of warning message before it went off, or that Akiko had already known that being trapped in the cafeteria might mean death of a different sort.

"I'm going to try and find out what happened. But either way, we're gonna have to let her parents know once we get outta here."

"We don't even know her last name. We don't even know what country she is- she was from."

Piper begins to cry in earnest, wiping her tears and snot on the sleeve of her prison uniform.

Edited 2014-09-09 00:53 (UTC)

"We'll find out her last name, and we already know the area she was from. Believe me -- someone like that, you can bet her folks are looking for her." Unfortunately, Heiji didn't have any tissues for Piper, but what else could they do right now?

"...Hey, you need to go to the washroom? I'll come with ya if you do."

She nods. For a moment, she finds herself beyond words. She feels so pathetic, so helpless in the face of horrors that she knows someone like her shouldn't have to face. "Yes," she whines.

Luckily for Piper, Heiji agreed with her on that front -- no one should have to see one of their friends exploded all over the cafeteria. He walked over with her to the washroom, pulled out a couple of paper towels, and gave them to her.

"Here, use these." Unfortunately, he didn't know much about comforting women twice his age, but he tried patting her on the shoulder anyway, figuring that she was also afraid of what might happen to her. "It'll be okay. We'll get outta here."

Piper feels guilty - just a little bit - about making Heiji stand with her while she cries for nigh on five minutes. Her face gets red and blotchy, contorted into the tragedy mask of Grecian despair.

"She won't get out of here." Her voice is mewling, sad and almost child-like in the simplicity of her statement. "You're right. When we get out...we need to make sure her parents know."

Meanwhile, Heiji had mostly just sort of checked out mentally after the first two minutes or so -- sorry, Piper, detective thought train just keeps on rolling.

"But how'd they get her to come along with them so easily? I don't think she'd just get up in the middle of the night and follow someone like that, unless she really trusted them. If they said it was urgent, or if she got woken up by a noise, wouldn't she wake up someone else? Unless they said it was about her memory..."

That was right -- Akiko never had told him what her memory had been, meaning that like with the others, it was probably something she wanted to keep to herself. If someone claimed to have information on that, or wanted to talk about what Calhoun had told them...

Either way, it was completely unforgivable, taking advantage of Akiko's kind nature like that.

But why aren't you paying attention to her waterworks, Heiji? Such cruelty. She smears the paper towels over her face until the crying's mostly cleaned up as she sorts out her thoughts.

"Even if it was urgent, wouldn't that make her want to wake up someone more? In case someone was hurt?" She shakes her head. "It doesn't make sense."

She crumples up her paper and throws it into the garbage. "We should do something to remember her."

Because teenage attention span >8|.

That last bit got Heiji's attention. "Something to remember her? Like a memorial service or something?"

It just seemed kind of soon for all that; they'd just found Akiko's body, after all. Then again, it might help people sort things out for themselves. And Akiko did deserve something.

Piper nods.

"A way to let everyone grieve and share stories about her. She was a nice girl, I'd think she'd like to be remembered. Everyone deserves that, at least."

Heiji gave that a moment. "It's a nice thought, and I'd come to it... not sure if everyone else would, though. I mean, it just happened. Figure people are gonna be in shock for a little while."

At least wait like a couple more hours, Piper, she might not even be cleaned up yet!

"I don't mean this minute. But people aren't going to process grief if there isn't some closure. That's pretty classic psychology."

And obviously Piper has to be the one to organize it. Because of course she does.

He gave her a bit of a funny look. Five minutes of intense waterworks and then a mini-lecture on the psychology of grief, what? Foreigners were bizarre, man. Like one minute there they were talking to you in bad Japanese and the next MEDICINE CABINET MIRROR PLASTERED ON THE INSIDE WITH PICTURES OF YOU AND YOUR FRIENDS.

"Sure, I guess so. Don't think there's gonna be much of that till we find out who did it and get outta here, though. You feelin' better?"

It feels distasteful to say yes, so Piper doesn't. After all, just because she feels like she's processed the shock a little doesn't mean Akiko's alive. Doesn't mean tragedy hasn't hit.

She nods. "I'll be okay. Thank you, Heiji."

Heiji nodded. "C'mon, let's go to the lounge. The couch there is like sittin' on a rock, but it's better than here."

THE HEART OF THE MATTER - CONCLUSION

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feels like a good place to end this