INBOX for purgastory

[aerodynamic]

HELLO

"Yo. Is this thing on?"

GOODBYE

TEXT | VIDEO | VOICE | ACTION

Comments

[aerodynamic]

Me, Elysium, Tokinaga-san and Dahut. [ why does only tokinaga get the respectful honorific. ] We were looking around PECS to grab some supplies, but when I looked out at the fog I saw something following us. When we left... the thing had the face of someone I knew, the hair and tattoo of Dahut's boss, the stomach... face... thing of Tokinaga-san's neighbor, and the tail of Elysium's captain somehow.

[oversea]

Like some sort of chimera?

[ why is that description kind of horrifying. okay. ]

It didn't attack you, did it?

[aerodynamic]

[ there's a nod. and he looks unimpressed by this. ]

Elysium and I killed it. [ so yes it attacked and yes he hates that. ] Right before it attacked us though, it said "finally." Like it had been waiting for a while, and maybe it was since it followed us and waited outside.

[oversea]

... I think the worst part, is that I can't tell if that's genuine or if it's just another way to get into our heads.

[ they hear so many weird things that it gets difficult to differentiate what might be real or just trying to get under their skins. ]

[aerodynamic]

It's possible it's both, isn't it? Something that's real, but it manifests as what would bother us the most. We kinda thought about that, too. Like it was always there but then it only turned into a physical form when I made eye contact and it noticed we were there.

[oversea]

And I guess if it didn't look the way that it did, you all may not have been as incentivized to fight it.

[ there's an offense at seeing something steal the features of people you care for, otherwise you could just easily have run away. ]

[aerodynamic]

Probably not. I mean it was sorta in our way so we couldn't leave anyway, but... I was definitely getting tired of this place using Saki-senpai's face to try and freak me out. She would've hated seeing herself like that, too.

[oversea]

I see...

She's a friend of yours, then?

[aerodynamic]

Something like that. She mattered to me. [ knowing what he knows now, it's hard to call saki a friend mutually even if he would say yes. ] She was murdered last spring, we spent the last year trying to solve the case and catch the serial killer.

[oversea]

Ah.

[ yosuke is so young. ]

Did you?

[aerodynamic]

[ somehow that's always the response that seems to get. but he nods slowly. ]

It took us months, but we stopped him from getting other people killed and beat him. He's been arrested and he's waiting for his hearing still.

[oversea]

... The system shouldn't have failed you for it to come down to you to figure it out.

[ thorns doesn't think the youth is incapable, considering his own upbringing, but having to solve your friend's murder at any age is rough. ]

[aerodynamic]

[ this is probably the first time someone has actually phrased it that way, so there's a blink of surprise before his expression grows quieter. ]

At the time, with the nature of the crimes? We were the only ones who could. But it didn't help that the cops had someone among themselves working against them. [ ... that aside: ] This part of the maze seems to keep wanting to remind me of her. I don't know about the other three and how it might've changed things for them, but for all we know it went back to respawn in the fog for later.