revivarium | 02. the nonary game

02. the nonary game

the nonary game

【 awakening. 】
It's difficult to say what you might notice first. It might be the discomfort of the cold and hard concrete floor that you find yourself on. It might be the old musky and damp air, riddled with something similar to the smell of mold. Or, if you woke up later, it might be the reactions from your fellow prisoners.

Pushing yourself up from the dirty floor, you'll quickly find that you're no longer in your warm bed back in your cottage or wherever you were prior to this moment. Once again, you find yourself in a new area, but it's immediately clear that this is not as nice as your last awakening. Rather than the warm and bright sun shining down on you, half-functioning lights flicker on and off sporadically and instead of the vast openness of the island, you're in a cramped tiny cell with some of your fellow islanders.

The cell just barely fits three people in it. Although a lack of a bed gives everyone more room for people to stand in, the sink and toilet will uncomfortably get in someone's way. It's highly likely that you might have been asleep on top of someone else or at least had a foot or hand in your face. It's difficult enough to stand in here without hitting someone when raising your arm halfway. There's no way you would have all been asleep on the floor without some limbs crossing over each other.

You can try to shake the bars or the door but you'll find them much tougher than they look. Despite their aged appearance, no amount of kicking, punching, or shaking will get them to budge. With the bars wide open though, you can directly see the cell in front of you and diagonally from you. Perhaps it is at this moment that you realize that everyone is wearing a strange bangle around their left wrist. When you look down at your own wrist, you notice that you have one too.

It's a thick black bracelet with a digital screen. Just like the cell bars, no amount of force will get it off and hitting it against a surface does nothing but activate a high-pitching beeping sound that does not stop until you do. It might be a good idea to heed to the beeping sound as it sounds... alarming and hopefully, someone will be able to stop you before it beeps faster and louder. Once you take the time to examine it, you will find the following details:

single number in red

details

Well, that's that. Asides from fiddling with the buttons, there's nothing you can do about the bracelet itself. Maybe it's best to start getting used to your new cell. After all, who knows how long you'll be trapped here for.

【 greeting. 】
Once the timer counts down to 18 minutes, the monitors in each cell will flicker on. Immediately, a hooded figure with a gas mask appears on the low-quality screen. With the monitor tilted downwards, it almost appears as if they're watching you.

"Life is simply unfair, don't you think?"

The voice comes out cold, mechanical, and distorted. They're clearly using a voice changer. You can try to yell at the screen, question it, or do anything to interact with the figure, but you'll find out that this is just simply a recording. Nothing you do can get them to respond or stop.

"I am 【 Zero 】. I am the one who summoned you here."

You may notice that they used the word "summoned" rather than "kidnapped".

"Consider this a privilege. You have been chosen. You are going to participate in an experiment. The 【 Nonary Game 】. This is a game where you will put your life on the line. Now, it is time. Let our game begin. I wish you all the best of luck."

And with that, the screen goes blank...

【 arrival. 】
It's not until the timer hits nine minutes that something finally happens again. The door at the end of the hall slides open but, rather than a regular sized human, a white robotic mouse walks through. Like Zero, he also sports a gas mask.

"Helloooooo, test subjects!"

His voice is high-pitched and shrill. It's definitely not modified by a voice changer.

"You can call me 【 Calhoun 】. Since my master is a busy person, I'll be taking over from here on out. Now, I see we have some old returning faces." He stops to wink at those particular characters. "But mostly new faces! Well, it doesn't matter if you're new or not because we're putting a twist on this Nonary Game, so make sure you listen carefully!"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

important notes!

Please read the following carefully:

✖ Please see the map for the area.
✖ Please see the teams for this event.
✖ This event will last for one OOC day.
✖ This event will last for 27 IC minutes.
✖ The next event will go up on May 18.
✖ The number on a character's braclet can be found in the character's profile.
✖ The details on a character will be the same information found on the profile sheet.
✖ Calhoun has a separate top-level that can be tagged here. Threadjacking, group threads, and characters listening in one the conversations are premitted.
✖ For any questions, concerns, or clarifications, please contact a mod.
✖ Have a nice tragedy!

Edited 2019-05-17 15:42 (UTC)

【 bracelets. 】
"See those nice and expensive bracelets you got on? Those will act as the game's judge and executioner, which is just a really edgy way of saying that they'll make sure that you troublesome test subjects stay in line! Break any rules, refuse to participate, somehow get your gross hands on me, and you'll be in a sea of trouble!"

He lets out a small snicker, holding the end of his mouth (or where his mouth would be, considering his gas mask) with both of his tiny paws.

"I don't think I need to remind some of you what happened the last time someone broke a rule, do I?"

【 evidence. cw: mentions of blood and gore 】
"Oh? You need proof? Sheesh, you guys are really distrusting test subjects, but it's a good thing that I came prepared!"

He raises one of his paws into the air and snaps it, causing the monitors to flicker back to life. Rather than Zero reappearing on the screen, a surveillance recording begins to play.

It's difficult to tell where this takes place with the angle. The camera points downwards, only allowing the viewers to see the close-up of a white tiled floor and a thick electronic door (similar to the one that Calhoun came from). For the first few seconds, there is no activity, but then the door slides open and a girl comes falling in. The door slides shut again and the girl picks herself up quickly. With the camera as zoomed in as it is, it is easy to see a similar but ultimately different bracelet on her left wrist. On its screen is a pink skull that slightly fades in and out. Although there's no audio, the panic could be seen across her face and she begins to start pounding on the door. She's screaming and the blinking skull flickers faster and faster until, at the very last second, it stays full on screen and then--

--there's an explosion.

Blood. A flying hand. Charred skin. A gaping hole in the left side of her fac--

--the video cuts to static.

【 deaths. 】
"Now, after seeing that, I'm sure that you're all just dying to know how to get out. Well, that's simple! Just play the game, do what's required of you, and you'll be out of here in a jiffy! There aren't any nonsense like "complex motives" here. It's really just as easy as that."

But then he gets a glint in his eye and his paws go back up to the end of his mouth. He snickers again for a few seconds before he lowers his paws and speaks again.

"... well, I guess it isn't that easy since at least nine of you will have to die in order for you to get out! You see, we have a giant exit out of this warehouse, but you'll need nine passwords to get out. Where do you get those passwords? Don't worry, you'll get a password every time someone dies. Like Dead Test Subject in that video, if she died in your Nonary Game, your bracelets will go off and reveal her password. Then you take all those nice little passwords, walk over to the exit, punch them in, and you're done! And you can do that while having a nice 30% chance of surviving!"

Calhoun then throws his hands up to the air, as if he's celebrating.

"See? Life's really not as unfair as you think it is!"

【 endgame. 】
"Plus, don't you think we're being really generous giving you all an opportunity to start over. To have a second chance in life? These kinds of things don't come that often! So, to sweeten the deal and to motivate you rotten little test subjects, I'll tell you what happens if you escape."

Calhoun then raises a paw and sticks up a single finger.

"Your first choice is to take that really nice boat off the coast and use that to go anywhere you want in the world. There's enough expensive junk on board that you could pawn off to earn a pretty penny and start your life completely anew. You can change your name to something weird like "Delta" or whatever and no one would know better!"

Then he sticks up a second finger.

"Or, if you don't like that, your second choice is to go back to your home. Now, here's the fun part. You can choose to go back to the time that you've come from orrrrr you can choose to go back to an earlier time. Remember all those mistakes you've made and wish you could redo? Or all of your regrets? Well, this is your chance to go back and fix those! Or if you're a goodie-two-shoes who's just perfect with your current time, then that works too. Sure is boring, though!"

He then lowers his paw.

"Anyway, if you wanna get out and grab that second chance, you're gonna have to survive. Like, did you really think we'd just hand you a second chance without having you work for it? C'mon, we're generous but not that generous! You gotta earn your happy ending!"

【 wistar. 】
In the midst of absolutely everything going on, from the awakening to Zero's recording to Calhoun's appearance, Wistar has been laying on the prison floor, unresponsive and without a pulse. Since the beginning, nothing could be gained from attempting to interact with him and his skin would be cold to touch. From all the signs, it would appear that he's dead, but...

"By the way! Do you guys know about Wistar rats? They were developed in the Wistar Institute at University City. They were created to serve as a model organism for laboratories. If you haven't connected the dots by now, I'm modelled after those great heroes of science. Though I'd prefer to be called a mouse rather than a rat, thank you very much!"

He then walks on over to the furthest cell down, containing the seemingly dead "Wistar".

"So, tell me before you guys all scatter away to stab each other in the back and whatever. Which look do you like better? This one?"

He places the paw against his chest.

"... or this one?"

This voice comes, not from Calhoun, but from "Wistar". Supposedly brought back to life, "Wistar" begins to push himself up and lean against the cell door. He stands directly next to Calhoun, only separated by the bars between them.

"To be honest, I'd much rather prefer to be a mouse all the time, but it's really hard to pretend to be one of your friends when I'm in this form." Both "Wistar" and Calhoun speak together at once. Their voices are in perfect sync with one another. "But c'mon, let me hear your thoughts! Whatcha think about my new spare?"

【 questions. 】
"Okay okay, let's wrap this up! I'm a busy mouse. I got places to go, things to do, test subjects that will most definitely betray each other to watch, but I got a few moments. So! Since I'm such a nice mouse, I maaaaaay answer any questions you might have. I don't have the ability to Mind Hack any of you so you better speak up or lose your chance to ask, potentially forever. So, speak up! But not too loudly. I'm a mouse so I can you hear without you having to scream it into my sensitive little ears."

[As Red listens to Calhoun's long speech and sees the video of the girl being blown up, he feels a cold pit in his stomach. They... really are doing this, aren't they? They're being forced to play a killing game, just like Kokichi predicted when they met on the first day. Was he being serious back then, or was it just an unfortunate joke? As Calhoun is talking about all the death stuff, Red glances over at Kokichi in the Team A cell for a moment, but soon goes back to fixing the talking mouse with an icy stare.

Once he's finally ready to take questions, Red moves to the front of his cell and holds onto the bars. Naturally, he wants to ask the one burning question that's been on his mind ever since he first woke up on the island.]

What'd you do with my Pokémon?

What's that, Silent Test Subject? You're going to have to speak up and use words that we all understand.

[ Calhoun walks back down the hall to stand in front of Red's cell. ]

important notes.

speak with calhoun.

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