gamehead | graveyard part 4

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[She gives him an amused look.]

Burning flesh smells quite strongly, and a human body is composed of roughly 50% water. It's more difficult and time-consuming to burn a freshly killed corpse than you'd see in books or movies, you know? If your goal is to do it quietly without anyone noticing, I'll maintain my standpoint that hiding the body would be a quicker and cleaner way of going at it. It'll likely vanish on its own after a day anyway, as how it goes with every other corpse this town's seen since our collective arrival.

[gold star, holden.]

I'm biased so I'll always root for Charles, but you could ask your fellow wolves how you did. Besides, it's as you've said: the dead doesn't need to continue being so hard on themselves, hm?

Miss Mayu did raise an interesting theory, about Critter being the spirit of the wolf mother possessing Abigail's body. Critter appeared to chide you all during Joshua's kill last night too, didn't it? I suppose we'll wait and see, at this point; the dead must make sacrifices to give the living clues, but we can witness the politics to that ourselves tonight soon enough.

Oh... I hadn't exactly realized that... [He just has this unsure look like MISS CIEL... HOW THE HELL DO YOU KNOW WHAT BURNING FLESH SMELLS LIKE...] About burning bodies, I mean, not about vanishing bodies. I've noticed they go away this entire game and it really bothers me. Where do the bodies go afterward? Does Critter have some cabin full of them or something?

Anyway, Critter showing up on the video...? Reason it did that is because we were worried about how long it would take him to die on the stake. And we were thinking, what if we just kill him with these nails, like slit his throat or something? And it showed up and said no, no cheating. It wears a wolf mask at our meetings, you know, that's why it didn't look like a rabbit on the video. It's Critter that decides the methods though. Like it gets us a cauldron, or a bottle of milk, or whatever. So if we just nailed Joshua through the throat it wouldn't have counted as crucifixion.

Exactly. You should consider the methods more carefully; burning a body on lighter fluid is nothing like the clean work of cremation. The temperature required is roughly a thousand Celsius, and it'll still take an hour or two at that. [a beat.] It'll translate to around 2000 Fahrenheit, a feat difficult to achieve in open space. This is a small town, the smell and smoke won't be hard to notice.

[just... smiles peacefully back at him as she keeps going. are you sure you want to know, holden........

at least it'll fade at the mention of vanishing bodies, though.]

Doubtful. I suppose it is a silver lining, that it disposes the bodies for us instead of leaving them as found. ["it could be worse."]

I see, that's what I thought too. It seems like I was partially right: it chooses the method, but the wolves carry it out. Did you see the video, though? The twisting of the shapes for Critter's silhouette is most peculiar. Has the pack any idea too, of just exactly what Critter may actually be?

[Holden ~~STARES FAINTLY HORRIFIED AT THAT DESCRIPTION OF BODY BURNING AND WAS GRATEFUL FOR THE TEMPERATURE TRANSLATION~~ thinks for a while about how to answer her.] I don't think we have more information than you do except what I just told you about wearing a wolf mask sometimes. Of course there's the thing that you know from how it greets us every day, that we're not allowed to tell you prey - I don't think that has anything to do with what Critter really is, though. What it really wants, maybe, but no surface physical or historical information if you catch my meaning. ...It's hard to talk around it, I know - my point is I'm pretty sure we don't have any especially good idea.

What you saw on the video was probably part of how it makes all of us shadows. You know, I've been wondering why it played audio more and more in the later tapes when at the start there was barely even any lip-reading. Thinks it's trying to make things even easier for you guys than they already were?

[~~SOME OF US WOULD'VE MADE BETTER WOLVES THAN OTHERS, THIS IS COMMON KNOWLEDGE~~]

I see, so the wolves are equally left in the dark.

...

Wait, but if it wears a bunny mask during day to greet prey, and a wolf mask to greet wolves at night, then that means its true identity could really be something else entirely! [Her frown deepens.] It'd be strange and wouldn't fit to think Critter has any relations to the starving wolf mother, if it made crystal clear that it doesn't want the wolves to win. It did declare clearly it hates humans, but among the people it brought to Prayer's Pass, some weren't human at all until they were forcibly humanized. That means a 'human' in the literal sense wouldn't apply, but if that's the case, just what is it, and what motivates it?

[Rubbing her temple, she follows along.]

Hmm, well... Was anything significant ever said between you and your chosen kills, at the start? Tension did escalate as the kills grew more and more personal.

We... we got Sayaka to cough up that she thought none of us are human. That was part of her role as the rabid. Part of why we were interrogating her. Make her talk. And... Sunderland and Winchester, they were pretty uninvolved in the game, no roles, so I guess that could make sense.

Kanaya and Rikku and the Doctor and Charles are all saying they're not human. Even the nations if you believe them. But the nations are clearly [C R A Z Y] a clue. They say they're not human but they sure act like it. Lithuania and Spain proved that today. Reading Abigail's diary... the humans who hunted the wolf - they said "oh, it's different because wolves don't have souls like us men do". So maybe here a human is... someone who can talk and think and vote and use weapon and that sort of thing.

That was helpful to both sides, Kaname-san herself testified during trial. One thing to thank you for, I suppose, but it really puts into question just how much power Critter has. It could easily kill us all, no doubt.

[She nods firmly.] I know full well Charles isn't human, I've seen others of miss Kanaya's kind elsewhere. They're not lying, and if we're to believe the nations as true embodiment of countries, then their claims do make sense: no human can live for centuries and live with the experiences that they must've gone through. [amen to that though holden, AMEN] Not all humans believe that, however. I've an nonhuman acquaintance who loves animals far more than he loves humans, he would treat bugs kinder than a human child. He could still look perfectly human, of course, but the criteria must be wider than that...

It could. I mean, you were obviously [dead by then....] not there at the time, but at the trial? There's a reason nobody got up and stopped Critter from doing that to Lithuania. It shocked us or something. I think it could set any of us on fire if it wanted. But there'd be no game if that happened.

It thinks this is a good game for humans to play, you know? I can't remember now if it said that at a pack meeting or a trial. But obviously this also applies to aliens and whatever.

What's weird is how Critter's clearly not an alien... is it human by its own rules or not?

I saw, yes. It somehow messed with the natural laws of space and time, right? That's not my first time witnessing something like this, and I'm sure it won't be my last. [said casually like IT RAINED YESTERDAY... The 'NPCs' pulled that stunt all the time back in Mayfield, alright.]

Or so it says, yes. I remember quite clearly. It speaks like a child and has no concerns for morality, as far as I can tell. Sometimes, what you see is also what you get. Does it matter whether it's human or not? It doesn't see itself as human, and that's likely all that matters to it.

graveyard part 4

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