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.

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They all came here together. Not like us. What an emotional game that must have been.

Even if we didn't choose to come here together, it looks like we chose the same end.

What else could we do?

... What were our choices?

Not playing, not voting, was never a choice. I... I still believe that. I believe that it would have been worse to let people die at random.

And if you don't play at all, Critter kills you. ( A heavy sigh, ) It wasn't a very fair game.

They chose not to play with their lives at stake. And not only their own but those of others.

I don't understand.

You aren't human. ( So maybe this would be a good person to ask. ) What do you think humans are good at?

...

Lying.

Because of your experiences with humans, no?

Don't think this is a conclusion I drew in Prayer's Pass, sir. Your people [presumably that sort of hedge will satisfy the nation??? TO HER EVEN IF THIS COUNTRY STUFF IS TRUE HE'S HUMAN BECAUSE HE'S FROM EARTH] has an absolutely astounding capacity for insincerity. It's a key part of your conversational repertoire. I've never really understood how you communicate at all.

That makes it even better. ( He'll explain, ) You've had an experience with humans before.

And then you came to a game with more humans and did you think the same?

( WORK WITH HIM HERE, KANAYA. Spain's only ever worked with humans so he needs your not-human experiences. )

I have. For the first... [it looks like she's doing math in her head for a second] thir-teen years of my life I had no experience, and grew up on a planet exclusively populated by other members of my own race. Then after a series of incidents [tiny beat] the vast majority of other trolls died. As in only half a dozen were left alive. As part of the same incident, we came into contact with the human world. [For some reason she seems unsure she's answering this question correctly.] There were three particular humans with whom we were able to interact via instant messenger, and then one of them came to join us on our asteroid, while the other two were on a separate journey in a ship. Our plan was to meet in the same location three years from that time - that was the shortest time in which the ship could traverse that distance, while the meteor... the meteor had to arrive at the same time.

And if there is one thing that I have learned from these experiences it is that Earth is not a straightforward civilization. You describe the world around yourselves in arbitrary terms rather than expository. You cloak your communications in sarcasm and irony not because you must to express admiration or contempt but simply because you can. You think... think it's better to vote someone dead or put them in jail than physically kill them...

The troll version of this game probably would have been very different indeed. The human version we see before us - when you consider that even in death the wolves are obligated to conceal from the prey their true nature - yes, I would say the quintessential human trait is not the ability to kill or vote or come up with a cruel method, but the ability to lie. It's something all of us can do that wolves and rabbits cannot.

( Spain will nod his head. He certainly doesn't agree based on his own experiences but he can see why Kanaya would come to such a conclusion. It's rather sad how he doesn't even really have to try to understand. )

Thank you for explaining, Miss Kanaya. ( He means it, really! ) Just as you've had experiences with humans which led you determine what humans are good at... Critter has done the same, though, it's come to different conclusions.

( He's trying to roll with something here. )

Critter says this is a game humans are good at. What does Critter think humans are good at? Why? And when did Critter come to that conclusion?

( . . . And then a long, drawn out, thoughtful silence. . .

Followed but a frustrated yell as he shakes his head in his hands and pulls at his hair some. )

Ay! I don't know!

Humans are good at not being sensitive to members of other species! Remember Sam Winchester? I think I can bring that up on the DVR now, actually--

Abigail's diary clearly shows the perils of mindless hunting. And I almost wonder if the hunters knew that about him somehow, burnt him at the stake for it.

I still think lying is a key of the equation, though. Critter makes the hunters lie and if they can't they're found and lynched.

It isn't just other species. ( And there's a bitter smile and a distant look in his eye. Physically, he is only twenty-five but actually, he'd been alive for centuries and had seen people at their best and worst. ) They can be cruel to each other too...

So if we go off this game it looks like, ( And he holds up a closed hand and will begin to count off points, ) Humans lie. Humans kill. Humans make mistakes.

( Considering how many clues have suggested that previous players of the game realized their mistakes and all. )

The Haas party made a mistake and they killed innocent creatures in their rage. But who lied in their party?

Humans are irrationally loyal, regardless of reality. [She touches the spot where she's missing her horn, self-consciously.] To their friends and family.

Do you think that's why Critter tried to split us up?

Yes. To teach STUPID, INSIPID JUVENILE VERMIN that there's no such thing as a troll or human being who won't kill!!

[WOW HE STRUCK A NERVE THERE ALRIGHT...]

If you were going to like, ask for her thoughts on humans expecting an accurate answer you should have asked her last night before she gave up what she gave up.

[It's really taking every ounce of self control to not laud what little Poland knows about 'Rose Lalonde' over Kanaya's head after how she betrayed Lithuania.

He can't figure out how to make an amnesiac cry over something they've forgotten.]

This is a waste of time.

graveyard part 4

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