foxhounds | graveyard.

You remember dying. In fact, you remember the exact feeling and fear of how you died, and yet in the next moment, you're suddenly standing in a cold room. You're not sure how you got here at all, but it's as if you were suddenly put here the moment after you died. As you look around, the first thing you'll notice is that you're standing in front of an open casket.

And you're inside.

The corpse inside the casket is definitely you, and it's also definitely dead, which certainly makes this confusing. Luckily, here's someone here to explain. When you wake up, there's footsteps walking closer, and then a familiar face appears. Iván is here, or someone that looks very much like her is. All she starts off with is two simple words—

"You're dead."

Which would seem obvious, but she explains that you have been before you ever arrived to the island. The shipwreck and the island are't real, after all. This is purgatory, and the Hunt is a way to judge the souls of the living. People show their true nature when they're put in a stressful situation, so it was deemed that this was the way that these judgements would be passed. She explains that you'll know your fate when the game ends, but if you really can't wait that long, you could always ask, but hope isn't lost. After all, the "killers" are on your side. If they can win the game, then everyone can come back to life. They know this, and it's why they're fighting so hard to win. It's a shame that the odds don't seem to be in their favor, but that's also part of the Hunt.

—
Exploring your new surroundings, you'll realize that you're likely at the bottom of that giant sinkhole, at least if that light far above you is any indication. You no longer feel the need to eat or sleep anymore (technically, you never did, but the habits of being alive are hard to break), so it's a good thing there's enough to do while the game continues.

You can watch the proceedings of the Hunt in one room where there's plenty of comfortable couches to sit in and lounge, as well as a fully stocked bar, if you feel like indulging. Another room offers a game room with cards, billiards, and any other games you'd like to play in a group. If you ask your host nicely, she might provide more, but for now, there's not much to do other than to watch and wait for the Hunt to end.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ Annnnd here we are. The crowd is going wild at the accusation...although not as much compared to earlier on. ]

Since events are going this way, do you believe that we'll be leaving her alive sooner than we think?

[Greed shrugs.]

Who can say? It won't look good for the group, though, if they kill another innocent.

[ His lip curls up into a wry smile of sorts. ]

But it'll look good for us, wouldn't it? So much irony in that, hm?

[He can't help but smirk.]

The only thing they've gotten right on their own was Gi-ne, and that was only because she was injured.

No one's very good at this game, it seems.

The way I see it, this game was meant to be confusing and misleading from the start. The evidence everyone's been given has been far from conclusive, day after day -- Gi-ne excluded, of course. Is there really a way for anyone to be "good" at this game?

[ Fuuma is doing his darndest, that's for sure. But as Gi-ne said, he's much, much too clever for his own good. Not everyone is as crazy and manipulative as he is, it turns out?? ]

No, I don't think there's a way for anyone to be good at this-- it's simply not possible. The Hunt is meant to bring out our true nature, isn't it?

People tend not to work well under stress.

Our true nature...

[ In a way, Kashima was the luckiest of them. She could still be brave and foolish and just while refusing to kill Mary. She still had hope then, that they could all defy Ivan and find a way out together. But when that monster ripped the two of them apart, so did it kill something a little less tangible in the hearts of everyone there to witness it... ]

What a horrible game.

[ Don't mind if he puts in his two cents again?? ]

Quite. In the end if things are like this, it makes you wonder what brought this on as a good idea in the first place.

It makes you wonder, doesn't it? Why was this chosen to judge us?

Considering the way this game is, I'd be surprised if anyone was.

[ He can only almost laugh at the thought. ]

Have any ideas on what to do on your end if we leave, revived?

[ SORRY NOT SORRY to those still alive, but he really has been entertaining the thought. ]

I don't know.

[He's not even sure he remembers how he died. Maybe that's part of this judgement. He only remembers Gi-ne killing him.]

I guess that depends on what happened to me.

[ He knows what he's doing, if it's either two of the options achieved. Fairly easy for him, after all. ]

If you were murdered before we even hit the island, you mean?

[He shrugs.]

I'm dead, that much I know. There are.... only so many ways to kill a homunculus and make it stick.

A... homunculus? Is that another name for a human in your world?

[ Doesn't that just mean teensy human...... he doesn't get it though (yet). ]

No.

I'm not human, not exactly. I was created with alchemy as an attempt to bring a dead man back to life.

[It sounds like he doesn't want to talk about it.]

Hmm... science, then, with a bit of magic. Interesting.

[ Well that's all he was curious about, so he can't say he's interested in prying into such things even more. ]

And yet, for most of us, we were able to be turned so easily to human. But, I suppose considering the forces involved the revelation isn't too surprising.

[ And with that, he has nothing more to say, perhaps because he doesn't want to pry into Greed's personal history, out of the respect he did have for the other, as his eyes catch Rei's name as the execution target. ]

[He shrugs.]

This is purgatory. Maybe saying we were turned human is the wrong way to look at this.

[Piping up from her spot on the couch]

I'm not human!

[Okay, continue and ignore her.]

...

[ That outburst was hard to ignore and he could try to explain it better. But Sephiroth is not in the mood ~~sucks at explaining~~ to do that, so there is just this look, and then he will ignore her. ]

[Gi-ne please....]

... Well, for the 'game', really. We may as well have been considered as much.

[ Although, to be honest, that is where this stuff starts to get kind of murky. But as for this graveyard, this purgatory-- ]

As for where we are now, not so much.

Since this... this game isn't technically real, perhaps we were given these 'human' bodies to even the playing field, so to speak.

In normal circumstances, a slit throat wouldn't be nearly enough to finish me off.

Perhaps. Although undoubtedly it does not seem it was given to everyone equally... as expected in a game as unfair as this.

[ Small, dismissive hand-wave. ]

And as for, I, in normal circumstances, it would have been much easier to kill Royce, even with myself holding back in order to prevent from killing him but making it look like there was the effort to.

[ He imagined his strength would have enabled him to lop off both of Royce's legs. Not that... he was entertaining the thought at all. ]

Although... I find it interesting that we're allowed weapons and even if we're not assigned a killing role or a gun, we are allowed to still kill each other at night.

graveyard.

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