October Aftermath: Crystal Clear

[lifeaftr_mods]

Who: All!
What: You're back, for better or worse. Time to recover.
When: Backdated to the 24th and beyond.
Where: The Monkey Compound, Islets, etc.
Warnings: Mark as you go.


No matter where you are on the morning of the 24th, things will very abruptly go dark.

Unless you're dead. In which case, things are already dark. And you do not see this.

For the rest of you, however, the Storyteller appears only briefly. Gone is their seemingly indifferent nature; as the rabbit hops too and throe, the pages of their tome flick back and forth in an erratic pattern, stopping on a blank page for only a moment, before continuing on. Despite the pages always turning in the one direction, there seems to be no end to them, not at all.

"I'll keep this brief, for the moment. All of you have now been removed from the caverns below," A haggard sigh- and a reluctant addition. "Those of you still alive.

"Your efforts have allowed me access to what lies below. I have sealed off the entrances- from now, the responsibility of cleaning up the mess is upon me."

And that appears to be it. Darkness returns, along with the sensation of lying upon the sand. Birds call out from the jungle, joining the rhythmic shift of the waves. No matter where you were on the island; underground, or above, you awaken upon the shoreline near the Storyteller's temple, along with the rest of the survivors.



"For what it is worth, I am truly sorry."

---

[[If you have yet to do so, make sure you confirm your character's death here!]]

Comments

[achievementhunter]

[So he too has at least some vague understanding of what it is to be killed, and to refuse. Despite everything.

There really should be something in them capable of surprise, but currently, they can't find the feeling.]

Let me rephrase, then.

Is it worth it, when you know it has not been the first, and clearly won't be the last?

[Breaking the fourth wall in white text is rude, AB.]

[unpurify]

[They should have realized it, back when they gave their warning and the Batter's response was to state his own death was inconsequential. That had to come from somewhere.

And now they know. It wasn't as frequent or with much variety as their own experiences but the Batter knew what it was like to die. The one before he came here should have been the last, but apparently not.

It was a different experience when you were not the one refusing to die.]

It does not matter what I think. I was going to die.

[If Chara didn't kill him, Ed would. If Ed didn't, the Batter would take matters into his own hands and continue using his Competences to kill himself. Those three options only avoided the worse outcome of being taken by that infection.

There was no point in debating if it was worth it or not. It happened and it was time to move on.]

[achievementhunter]

Thinking it does not matter is an opinion in of itself, you realize.

[One that says more than he may have meant. To Chara, at least, it's worth considering that perhaps he is not used to making clear his own values or opinions- or valuing his own opinions, at all.

That isn't their problem. They aren't here to bolster his self confidence or ram some sense of self-perception into his brain like, haha, a knife. He may be moderately less... tension inducing than prior, but that was simply a fact of having acted against him in his most vulnerable moment.

It was impossible to be terrified of someone, once you had witnessed such a thing.]

[unpurify]

I know.

[It's a strange thing to think of, when he actually stops to think about it. Chara is right on the money - while a few tidbits on his preferences or values leaked in, the Batter kept it to a minimum on purpose. His thoughts weren't worth getting into and his mind was his alone. The only thing that mattered at the time was the purification of the world and he would cease to exist once the switch was flipped OFF along with everyone else. So his thoughts and values were so very pointless.

But Chara is also correct. They aren't here to babysit him and it would be a notion the Batter would reject on the spot if the sheer irony didn't kill him first. They didn't have to care about each other. The Batter wasn't "here", so it didn't matter.]

[achievementhunter]

I highly doubt you do.

[I, your humble servant

When one is trapped in a constant loop of those thoughts, there is never any need to know anything. If he ever had the chance to remove himself from such a mindset, they don't doubt that the world would be more surprisingly a place than he ever considered.

But again, it is not their problem. And they are done, here.]

Good day, sir.