near the end of july, audio

[bonobos]

[ he’s been sitting on it for awhile. eventually, much to his chagrin, the guilt comes to a head; it’s a voice message sent to all of the chosen. ]

…The Gnosia were from my home.

They almost killed me twice. I guess three times now if we count what just happened.

When you’re Gnosia, it doesn’t matter what your heart screams or what your mind tells you. There’s somethin’ in you that needs to kill people no matter what. Back on the DQO, I saw… some of my crewmates… people who weren’t bad guys turn totally different after they got infected. It’s like night and day. You can’t do jack about it. Nobody knows where it came from either.

[ there’s a beat. ]

All I’m sayin’ is… if you need someone to blame, or be mad at or whatever, you can take it out on me. None of this would’ve happened if I wasn’t here. Even I ain’t dumb enough to deny that. So yeah.

Comments

voice; un: misscoordinator

[coordinatroll]

Oh, I wouldn't be so quick to lay all the blame on you.

[ Her voice comes off a little stiff, not quite as upbeat and perky as usual... but recent events made it hard to maintain her normal aura of cheerfulness, so this will have to do. ]

If it wasn't that, something else from another world could be brought over here and result in roughly the same. In fact, I'd say it's a net positive that we now know this can happen!

[bonobos]

You really think so? I thought everyone would be eager as hell to pin it on someone, but...

I guess people here aren't your average scumbags. Shit, now I look bad.

I'm just glad we all went back to normal after killing each other. But how the hell do we deal with stuff like this in the future?

[coordinatroll]

Mmm, that's not necessarily an awful assumption to make... we're all supposed to be criminals here.

[ She doesn't necessarily believe they all can be considered such, but the fact remains that is the claim. ]

Perhaps we don't need to? After all, no matter how many times we die, we seem to always come back. It really cheapens the severity of the act of killing, don't you think?

[ Her tone might come across as flippant considering how serious the subject is, but she's long past caring about this sort of thing. ]

[bonobos]

[ that is... bizarrely grim. it puts even him at a loss. ]

You really think we can just...get used to dyin'?

[ somehow, it makes him feel like shit every time. he hasn't unlearned it yet. ]

There's no telling if it'll be the last time for real or not. Have they never actually killed anyone here?

[coordinatroll]

If there's one thing I know about humans, it's that their adaptability knows no limits. So who knows? Perhaps repeated exposure to dying can change the perception of that, too.

[ Mitama has been accustomed to the idea of dying for quite a while now, but the idea that it's not necessarily the end, as well as the fact that someone else gets to decide if it is or not, throws a wrench into that. Nevertheless, she imagines if someone were to die and come back continuously, it could get rather... boring. ]

Who's to say? It's not like we know for sure what happens to those who were here and disappeared. It could very well be that they were killed, albeit in a more permanent manner.