week 4 | post-trial | alex

[byjove]

[Sometime after the trial, Hermann seeks out Science Assistant Friend because he was uhhhh very distracted during the trial and didn't get a chance to talk to her.]

Alex. I, ah, wanted to make sure you were... [She's not going to be alright, so....]

How are you? [Better???]

Comments

[allsetfree]

[ Alex... shifts her weight. she feels like she doesn't know how to handle this much being-checked-up-on. she was never good at this part. ]

Bad?

[ she sounds like she's trying to make a joke? ] I'm bad.

[byjove]

[What a coincidence he's bad at the other side of it, so.]

I'm... sorry. But I'm sure you've heard a lot of that already.

[allsetfree]

Mm.

[ she deflects awayyyy for as long as she can, here. ]

Sorry that you got suspected. I know that's. Stressful.

[byjove]

It was, yes.

[W h a t an understatement.]

But I knew I didn't kill him, so I... I guess I put my faith in the rest of you.

[Which is way cheesier than he is normally but listen he almost died.]

[allsetfree]

It was a bad trial to do that. We were a total mess.

[ Hermann you got cleared, like, three minutes before time ran out! ]

[byjove]

[Yeah but!]

I suppose so. [He laughs a little but there's not a lot of humor in it.] But I did survive, in the end.

[allsetfree]

What do you think about the - all of the win conditions? The goal of saving all the Erased?

Your partner is still here with you. [ she doesn't mean that in an accusatory way. it's just been on her mind, and his situation is one of the few like hers where he was with someone he knew before hand. ]

[byjove]

Are you asking if I think the Erased should be saved? The answer is yes.

[Yeah even the assholes.]

I'll take the bad for the sake of the good. And I don't think everyone who kills is even necessarily bad. Only desperate. They've put us in here with our backs already against a wall, as it were.

[allsetfree]

[ in retrospect, that was a kind of alarming question for her to have asked. she's glad he said it. because the thing is - Alex hasn't been so dead-set on it. it's the ideal, sure. but sometimes you can't save everyone. and until now, Jonas was safe. that had been all that mattered. ]

Yeah, I... [ she isn't thinking of Miki when she says this. not yet. ] I get that. I guess. Only allowed so much deviation from the script.

[byjove]

[Hmm. He's no good at this whole feelings thing, but he's... gonna try...]

Are you asking because of your partner, or the one who killed him?

[allsetfree]

[ honestly, to Alex it's refreshing. she'd rather have people speak their mind in times like this. (well. until they say something she doesn't like.) ]

Both, I guess. I don't know. Just... Is it worth all this to try and undo something that's already been done twice? We're all dead, so that's one. Then people are being Erased, so that's two.

People die. They just - die, and you can't do anything about it. Bending that rule feels weird. Even when I want to.

[byjove]

[He thinks on that for a moment, giving it some honest consideration.]

I suppose that's subjective. Some may be ready to face their end, and some may not be. They may have unfinished business, other lives depending on their survival. It could be we're dooming a lot more than ourselves if we lose this game.

[Not that he's speaking from experience or anything haha... ha...]

Besides, if religion is to be believed, a soul cannot truly be destroyed. And the Erased are still with us, in some capacity. So is it really all that different?

[allsetfree]

Whether people are ready or not doesn't change that sometimes bad stuff just - happens. And you're supposed to just deal with it and move forward, even when it sucks.

[ but that last part is interesting to her. she's not religious, so she's never really thought about this sort of thing in depth. ]

If, like... The soul can't be destroyed, then... Isn't that another reason that it's not worth it? Like, instead of a second chance at their old life, reincarnation or... Something? If that's the case, why mess with that system?

[ not that it's confirmed, but just hypothetically! ]

[byjove]

[Hmm.]

Let me synthesize these ideas a bit. Sometimes, people are injured or sick enough that they effectively die for a time, and then they are revived. Knowing what we now know, that these games exist, is it not possible that this has always, in some capacity, been how it works? Second chances exist, whether by design or by accident.

[Let's make that a little less convoluted, perhaps.]

What I'm saying is, this might be part of the system. We might not be messing with anything. And whether an individual person wants to return to life or move on to the... vague Great Beyond, I suppose that would be up to them.

[allsetfree]

Huh. That... That makes sense.

[ that actually makes her feel a lot better about it. ]

Sort of. I mean, it makes more sense for things like illnesses, but... A lot of the deaths, here, are things you can't really recover from. [ this part is mostly just her joking around. ]

[byjove]

[He's very glad that made sense because he wasn't entirely sure how it would go over.]

Yes, I suppose you do have a point there.

[He died from alien-hivemind-induced brain frying, so, uh. He knows. At least he seems to recognize that she's not being entirely serious.]

I guess we'll have to trust that there's some kind of time-travel involved or something.

[allsetfree]

[ hm. time travel, huh. ]

I guess that wouldn't be surprising. I wonder how far back I'd get to go this time, though.

[byjove]

[Wait what]

You mean you've... actually done it before?

[Tell him all about that??]

[allsetfree]

Yeah. In the, uhhhh - eternal void? That I was trapped in before here?

I looped the night that I died over and over. And - sometimes, for moments, I'd get thrown farther back. I'd see my... [ she hesitates, but ultimately just trails off, there. ]

[byjove]

Like a loop, in time?

[It's a theoretical Thing. But he, uh, didn't think it was actually possible. And also: awful.]

... I'm sorry. It sounds terrible. But if this really is for another chance at life, I would assume that means, well. Outside of that.

[allsetfree]

Yeah. The void wasn't much of anything, but I made the loops. Looking for a way out, holding onto myself. [ it feels weird to say that it was horrible, so she shrugs. ] It was... worth it.

But I don't think I get to go far enough back. Because the void was... Not death. Not quite.

[byjove]

[Curiosity and sympathy war in his head for a moment. The former wins. Oops.]

What was it, exactly?

[allsetfree]

[ she shrugs again, somewhat helplessly. she doesn't mind speaking of it, but it's hard to find the words. ]

Eternity? Just an eternal void.