unknownseas | is this darkness of the dawn and your friends are gone

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week 7

is this darkness of the dawn and your friends are gone

[Everything keeps happening so much and the only real constants are death and parties.

Zerinda takes the initiative to plan things this time, with Della helping her deliver the invitations either being slipped under doors again.]

[It gives everyone an hour or two to settle down from the investigation and trial. By 6 on the dot the tables in the lounge are packed with miscellaneous vending machine snacks, a large pot of a thick and warm white stew, a plate stacked with biscuits and cupcakes. So many cupcakes. Mira has been coping well with her stress.

There's also several bottles of wine, hot coffee and hot chocolate waiting for anyone thirsty.

Welcome to the party, ya'll.]

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I'd say that might be a little too targeted, but... [ You know. Alice. ] Do you think he'd have any way to package it in with some other incentive, or what?

Something about time, maybe? But I think it'd be something to do as a last resort.

Besides, we don't know how long he'll be giving those out every week. There's only eight of us left, and this one was already off.

That, or maybe, oh, everyone's going to be sick until somebody dies! [ She's definitely doing a bad accent, for the record. ] You're a Gem, so you can't get ill otherwise, right?

You might be right about that, though. It depends on what his motivations really are, since he claims he doesn't just want to watch us kill each other.

Has to have something to do with the day we lose each week. That's still the thing we know least about. ...Kirei had a guess about that, actually. Maybe you'd know something about it, too, Rin.

Have the rest of you heard of something called hypnosis?

No.

[ HELPFUL. ]

[ oh my god, Jasper ]

Hypnosis involves putting someone into an altered state of mind through various means. You can make someone sleep, follow orders you give them, forget or supposedly recover or even invent memories...

Why? I assume Kotomine thought that's what was to blame for our missing day, but did his idea tie into anything else about this place?

The screens. The sounds. I think that's how he controlled Angel--through sound. That's why she had her ears covered the other day.

[ hm... ]

So far as I know, hypnosis is usually administered through sight. But... That could mean she was hypnotized into responding to certain aural cues.

Huh. So if it is this hypnosis thing, we could be affected by both sight and sound?

...It might have been part of processing us, like we talked about before. We were put under hypnosis and trained to react in a certain way to a certain noise. So now, when we hear it, we have an automatic response even though we're not actively under hypnosis right now.

The only thing I don't agree with is the idea that those whispers are part of it. Our powers being sealed is part of the same process that "normalized" all our bodies, and you can't do that with hypnosis alone.

Edited (phrasing...) 2020-05-24 03:43 (UTC)

Then what was it? Had to have been something.

Of course it was something. But Angel's rules say she can't lie, which means that unless the Professor was lying to her about how our abilities are suppressed, what she told me about that was the truth.

[ ... ]

Unless it's some sort of combo machine, I guess.

Well, I'll see what I can find out tonight. If plugging my ears doesn't solve anything, it's one more idea we can rule out.

Neither did I before he brought it up. But when the Professor gave us back part of our powers, you all heard that whispering, right? And when he tried to kill Angel, she was covering her ears.

Covering up all the air passages in my room didn't keep me from losing last Saturday. But I didn't even try shielding my eyes or ears. I didn't know messing with people's heads like that was a possibility.

...She had an earpiece in her office. That's how he'd butt into our conversations.

[ a record scratch-- ]

Wait, you covered all the air passages? How'd you breathe...?

[He smirks.]

Don't know what you think's so bad about that licorice stuff.

It tastes terrible, especially when it's the only thing you've got to...

[ Ohhh, ohhhhhhhhhhhh! ]

...Well, damn, Therion. Smart.

I know.

[Pat him on the head and call him a good boy.]

Didn't work, but I had to try something after staying late in Angel's office failed, too.

When did you try staying late in her office?

Hmm... after Zelos's trial. I was there with her, and then next thing I knew, I woke up in my room missing the whole damn day. Again.

...Really. What's the last thing you remember? Did... Was she alert?

Yeah. No more or less than usual. We were... [He huffs at himself.] Well, she was showing me how to play the games on that... miniature arcade thing.

Oh. [ Ducks cannot wrinkle their noses but her face like. Scrunches up. ] That thing's awful, don't even worry about it.

[ Oh, she wonders if she could cannibalize one of those for her leg-- ]

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bolderfell - 2020-05-24 08:39 (UTC) - Expand

[ Well, that's ominous. ]

So how does it work? How did he put us into the state? Sounds like you think it's noise.

I don't know how it's done--I only heard of this thing yesterday--but sound could reach all of us, wherever we are in the facility. Whether we're awake, asleep, hiding out somewhere without windows, whatever--we can always hear him when he calls.

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