15strangers | (no subject)

W̡͜E̶EK ̵̕2̕͠

[The blight would not stop.

The world's leading experts have been trying to find a cure, to no avail. Th blight keeps changing, keeps foiling all attempts at being fully understood. It's almost sentient, or at least more sentient than any disease that's been encountered before. People fear the disease jumping from what's left of the grapes into other plants, into animals, or even humans.

You can only watch as entire economies and ecosystems collapse. You can only bury your head in your hands as your own business comes to its end. The destruction of the clusters of grapes has not simply destroyed the wine industry, either-other businesses are being destroyed by the plague. Food, transport, retail, nothing is untouched.

You look on your own vineyard, its yield almost entirely blackened and dead.

This can't keep going on.

-

A week has passed since everyone's arrival. No one has died, yet. But surely no one is holding their breath to see if they would survive this unscathed. They are veterans of the game, and they must know that whoever it is that is in charge demands their pound of flesh. The question is when it will happen.

It is the second week, after all-and when the second week of the game comes, death is not far behind. Not even when you wake up, feeling something different in your mind as you remember the truths you originally woke up with, deep in your mind. You feel...lighter, somehow, when you realize there is a change.

Even so, there are 15 strangers left in this place.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ He clicks his tongue. ]

It'd be more convincing if you gave us some good examples of what joining you even entails.

Safety and security. A regular schedule. A life free from worry or pain. And you have been through a lot of pain, we know. We don’t want you to have to suffer anymore.

[ Ah... Good job getting him to flinch a tiny bit! ]

... I haven't been through that much. Definitely not more than most people I know. I'm fine.

... You had nine months of fighting and pain even before you showed up in the Mall. And you had that whole mess even before becoming a Phantom Thief.

... I had my friends.

[ Because that clearly means he was Fine. ]

But were you happy, seeing so many people who were wicked that you needed correcting?

I was happy after saving each person we did.

[ That's said with full conviction, at least. A stubborn kind - almost like it's been repeated a few times. ]

If everyone were happy in the first place, there would be no need to save people anymore.

[ Hm.

Hm. ]

Don't you think, though... If everyone just felt happy all the time, it would eventually lose meaning? If someone couldn't feel things other than happiness, happiness wouldn't have as much meaning anymore.

You need sadness and anger and frustration to be able to appreciate all the better emotions.

... Why would you want to feel anything other than happiness? Those other feelings are painful.

I want to live a full life. One that doesn't involve hiding from the bad stuff like some coward.

It's not hiding the bad, it's making a place where the bad just doesn't exist.