graveyard part 3

[gamehead]

hunter's game the graveyard You wake up in an unfamiliar cabin. At first, it almost seems like you're in an entirely different place and that everything had been just a dream. The interior of the cabin looks nothing like the run-down, old-timey shacks that you had been living in before. Everything in here is sleek and modern, from the enormous flat-screen TV mounted on the wall to the fridge and mini-bars stocked with all your favorite foods. There aren't any individual rooms in here, just a common area large enough to house everyone comfortably, no matter how many more people join you...and there will be plenty more people joining you before the week is over. Because if you look outside the window, it quickly becomes clear that not only are you still in Prayer's Pass, but that you are no longer among the realm of the living. Judging from the tombstones directly outside, you're now in what had been the abandoned broken-down cabin in the graveyard. The cabin's not all that changed; the world outside has gone completely grey and everything you see appears to be faded and blurry. The only things that remain sharp and in color are what's inside the cabin, including your fellow ghosts. Occasionally, people who are still alive may enter, but it's clear that what they're seeing is completely different from what you're seeing. The door's unlocked; however, a mysterious force prevents you from stepping beyond the threshold, no matter how hard you may try. After all, this cabin is a cage for the dead - a gilded one, perhaps, but a cage nonetheless. On the flat-screen TV plays everything that is currently happening in the town. It will shut off once night starts...and something else will appear instead.

Comments

[condescent]

You're not telling me anything I don't already know. I'd actually feel better if he'd managed to turn the tide in the hunter's favor - at least then there would have been a point. I was the one who suggested that the prey winning might be a trap in the first place, though I certainly didn't mean that we should help them lose.

But he isn't playing blind. We gave him a map, and it was a one way street to victory. Taking a detour won't change the destination, just how long it'll take to get there...and who we'll have to lose on the way.

[He watches this happen onscreen, and for a moment the dangerous glitter in his eyes is replaced by something strange and bitter. Joshua does not trust lightly, does not take it lightly when it's given to him in return. Genuine trust, not simply confidence in his abilities to play as his Mayfield allies had, but the sort of blind faith that Beat had shown him based on nothing but gut feelings. Stupid in a game like this and with someone as ruthless as he is, to be sure, but it had turned the tide of the game in their favor and they'd been riding that momentum ever since. And now...with both him and Sanae dead, Rhyme's fate doesn't look good.

The emotion passes though, both the bitterness and the rage, and what's left may be even worse - pure apathy.]

Well, I don't really care anymore. Hunters, prey, Critter - any of them can win. It's all the same to me. Though with how hard Charles has been working, I won't be surprised if the prey takes it tomorrow anyway.

[graffitis]

Josh. [ It's his you are being dramatic tone, which really ought to be his tone one hundred percent of the time-- but this is serious, and so is the faint reproach in his voice. Sanae watches him, not the screen, his attention on the things shifting in Joshua's eyes. ] This was a setback. One guy's betrayal, one more loss in a column we still don't understand. Probably it was pointless. It will screw some folks over. But I judged him wrong, too, and like you said, I've been playing these games a hell of a lot longer.

[ And Sanae's the one who got shot in the head for it. He's quiet a moment to watch their last Shibuya player speak on the screen. ]

You can't quit the team because one player made a lousy call. There are still some left worth rooting for. [ Like Beat. And Rhyme. ]

[condescent]

As far as I'm concerned, I quit the team when I died. It's not like I can do anything for them now other than send some vague clue for a supposed true game that no one even knows actually exists. [long suffering sigh] And I really liked this cellphone too.

Tell me, should I keep rooting for them if they decide to stop looking for the hunters? To waste all the effort we've put into saving them? If they've given up on winning, why shouldn't I give up on them?

[graffitis]

Because you're cheering for the players, for their survival, not just for the side. That's the idea, anyway. We put effort into saving them to save them, and that's what I'm rooting for.