W͜͏̶Ę͏E͝͠K͝͞ ̧1̵͟

[strangerpeople]

W͜͏̶Ę͏E͝͠K͝͞ ̧1̵͟

[The national council just announced the blight to the country.

There was no sugarcoating it anymore. This was a critical time. Saving all of the vines is paramount, but what does one do when the blight hits? It keeps encroaching on the grapes, day by day. Entire clusters, entire bunches, dead and rotting, while allowing the blight to spread, and the leading botanists and viticulturists cannot identify the origin or the cause. They can't even successfully isolate the culprit in their labs; it seems to disappear like air no matter the precautions taken.

It is a catastrophe that seems to be beyond science, and it will result in the complete collapse of the entire country's wine industry. Already, embargoes on this year's crop have forced other grape-growers to close shop for the year after they'd sold their previous stock; it is all too possible that no grapes might ever be grown here again if a cure cannot be found. The tourists have stopped coming. The towns have grown silent.

You, meanwhile, are devastated. With the way your business is going, it will be on the brink of bankruptcy within the year. You will soon have no choice but to close shop and let every grapevine die, let the land go fallow. There must be a cure for this, there must be. Yet everything that can go wrong is.

Then, as you watch the news, it happens. Breaking news. The blight has been found in another country.

It is a pandemic-and it is only getting worse.


-

Well. This is...what else can can anyone say? You all know the deal. You all know what situation you're in. All that is left is to figure out what you can do about it. If there's anything that can be done.

You still feel that compulsion to distrust. To know you cannot win. To know that only the hosts have your best interests in mind. It would be easy to just do all that. But would it be the right thing to do? You can't be completely sure. Indeed, nothing is certain here, except for that damned ticking sound. If only you could stop it.

But you can't stop it. It is inevitable.


There are 15 strangers in this place.]

Comments

[narcoolepsysensei]

Right. For me... having Miss Bright around is a lot like being back in the classroom again. They look different, of course, but her energy is a dead ringer for my student's.

I can only hope her energy pulls her through this, like Miss Tosaka's has.

[unwittingking]

[There’s the smallest reaction to that description. The tiniest wince. He thinks about someone for a second, before he let’s that thought go somewhere else.]

I’m...not sure who Tosaka is, but I can only hope the same. I’d prefer we get out of this alright, for the most part.

[narcoolepsysensei]

Miss Tosaka is one of my students, back home. The only human at the academy. She's vivacious, to be sure.

But you're right. We should hold out hope for all of us to make it through this.

[He tries to smile, but this time it doesn't even quite make it as far as his lips.

Hope is a foreign concept, now.]

[unwittingking]

Ah, okay.

[Just not going to question the one human student thing.

At the second part, he smiles as well...but like Nanaki, it doesn't quite reach his eyes.]

When it's all you've got, that's all you can do really.

[He's not even sure if he can do that much now, though...]