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

you know what this is about

[tsunneverset]

[at the sound of a gunshot, England snaps upright in his seat, sightless eyes staring hard at the television]

What just happened? Who got shot? [please tell him that the hunters were idiots and shot Lithuania please....]

[notyetlost]

[Poland is just looking at the television and then back at England, repeatedly. There's got to be an eloquent way to phrase America just got shot and is going to die while in a way that England won't flip out!]

Um!

[Yeah, Poland that's not it.]

[tsunneverset]

[His hands are gripping the teacup that he'd been drinking from so hard that they're starting to shake.]

Ha...hahaha...it has to be Lithuania, right? I'm sorry, Poland, but you know they think he's the watcher. Or - or maybe they missed, Ada doesn't strike me as a girl who knows her way around guns.

[His voice is weak and fraught with false hope; the conversation on the television is making it very clear what happened even to a blind man, but he shuts it out.]

[notyetlost]

[W-where is the mute button on this remote-- no Poland you can do this.]

Okay um, like don't flip out! But like.

You know how you were all huffy because I was disgracing literature or something that one time at the Hunter's meeting with a totally valid comparison to Romeo and Juliet?

Um. The play is over and "Juliet" is coming.

[tsunneverset]

We are nothing like--

[His voice chokes off as the full implications of Poland's words finally sink in. The worst part was...it was actually a good move. If they didn't have a sure guarantee of eliminating the caretaker at night, then they needed to kill him during the day when he wasn't protecting himself; England would have suggested it himself if it had been anyone but America. He can't be angry at Ada for following his last order and doing whatever it takes for the hunters to win.

...well no, that's a lie. He's furious.]

He can shake it off. It's just a minor flesh wound, he's had worse.

[notyetlost]

[It was pretty obvious America was going to die. Poland's sure that a person didn't even need their senses to know that unless protected, every attack is fatal in this game. America would be joining everyone else in the graveyard relatively shortly and England would have to face the reality of that.

But. Until then.]

...Yeah you're right. I'm stupid, he'll be totally fine I'm sure!

[tsunneverset]

[And it's Poland's false reassurances that snaps him out of it more than anything else. England would have been perfectly happy arguing with him if he'd told the truth, to stay in his land of denial against all possible evidence.

But he's being pitied. It's a tactic he's used against America often enough to immediately recognize when it's being turned against him, and he hates it. He is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the former British Empire, one of the oldest countries still in existence, and he has made it a point of pride to face every disaster head on - he doesn't need to be coddled. Not even from this.]

...he's going to die soon, isn't he?

[notyetlost]

[Poland recognizes the shift and answers point blankly.] Yeah.

America's going to die.

[Somehow even after his own death and even England's, it was weird to say that out loud. The death of a nation from something as minor as a bullet wound, especially America dying from a bullet wound seemed pretty surreal.]

1/2

[tsunneverset]

[He nods jerkily, just once.

Then he hurls the entire teaset at the television as hard as he can.]

[one-off]

[speakveryclearly]

[Kanaya quietly (trying not to disturb the man relying primarily on his hearing) gets up and goes to clean up the mess a hurled teaset creates. Because if not her then who.

She's sideglancing pretty hard tbh - what are the hunters fighting for if England can at least pretend to be glad about America's death to further this goal?? She becomes less sure about being prey every day.]

[tsunneverset]

[He sits there for a moment, chest heaving, his head bowed to hide his expression.

When he looks up again, he's smiling...though it's just a little too wide to be genuine, his voice just a little too brittle to be cheerful.]

So the hunters are going to win then. Brilliant! There's a load off my mind.

Pass me the vodka, won't you, Poland? Oh, and get some rum too if they have it. We're going to need all the alcohol we can get if we have to put up with that git being trapped in here with the rest of us for the remainder of the game.

[notyetlost]

Uh huh. The weight has been like, lifted completely from our shoulders. [Poland rolls his eyes, who was patronizing who now?]

But if you get plastered and turn into a weepy mess like you always do, he's totally going to hold it over your head for eternity.

[Poland would too.]

[terryplz]

...So, this is what it has come to.

[Guns. He abhorred guns. And now the Hunters were using them to shoot.]

Ms. Kirigiri must have given it to her. It's the only thing that makes sense.

[tsunneverset]

It was always going to come down to this. [England's voice is toneless and empty.] I was a fool to ever believe otherwise.

[terryplz]

You aren't a fool for hoping for the best England. It's all we have in a time like this.

[tsunneverset]

[He laughs bitterly.]

Except I wasn't really hoping for the best, was I? Not if I want the hunters to win, at any rate. I was just being selfish. I can't blame Ada for killing him, but...[But he's obviously furious and upset anyway.]

[terryplz]

I don't know much about you countries yet, but I can tell you're linked closely to him. There's nothing wrong with being selfish over the ones you care for.

[This is Bruce trying to cheer someone up and yeah he isn't great at it as one can see.]

[tsunneverset]

[It's cool Bruce, England isn't great at being cheered up in the first place] Not by choice, that's for sure. And I don't care about him at all.

[He shudders a little as he listens to what is undoubtedly the sound of America bleeding out. He can't tell if his blindness is a blessing or a curse; at least he doesn't have to watch America die slowly onscreen, but surely the sight was still far better than the things he's imagining now.]

...they could have at least had the decency to make it quick.

[terryplz]

I don't believe Ada shot to draw it out. You can't see the screen, but he was shot point black in the chest. The chances of a non-instantaneous death are incredibly low, nearly impossible unless she was aware of vital areas and intentionally missed them. It may very well be a design flaw of Critter's own making. He could be shot in the head and would probably not die right away.

Re: you know what this is about

[hintcoinplz]

[Luke knew about the gun thing before his death, and watching them being used in the trial - by the person who helped in his murder - is making him pretty uncomfortable. He'll get up and start looking for something to drink to ease his nerves.]

This trial is stupid.

[tsunneverset]

[England already has quite a few drinks in front of him, though they're not doing much for his nerves.]

Everything about this game is stupid.

[hintcoinplz]

So stupid I'm surprised our brains haven't fallen out from watching this rubbish.

[Well someone's grumpy.]

[motheringnation]

[Ukraine is just watching quietly up till now.]

Yes.

[hintcoinplz]

I wonder what's going to happen to us if we can't solve the mystery in time.

[motheringnation]

I don't know....maybe we'll just go to whatever happens after death normally.