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Fragmented
Sep. 21st, 2020 09:07 amThe human mind isn't equipped to hold this sheer amount of memory. Even a healthy brain can't comprehend over one hundred instances of the same six or seven weeks, repeated ad nauseam with tweaks and touches. Different set pieces, different roles, the same actors. Again, and again, and again.
Yuri's killed before, so it doesn't surprise him that more blood coats his hands here. Cold and heartless murder, accidents, mercy killings, acting in self defense, luring others to their end with his charms - he's done it all. He's even been killed a few times, once or twice without the opportunity to put up a fight. There's one instance, very crisp and clear in his mind, where there's still the full group of twenty and they're given a hostage motive. They claimed to have his mother.
He lunged for HuBERT, and was punished for it.
Bits and pieces of trials filter in. Alibis, strip searches (Niles always prompted those, that was a constant), confessions, the horror of execution. Gathering together in the aftermath, trying to cope. Growing wearier and wearier with each passing day, still putting up that front, they're all putting up a front. They have to, if they want to stay sane.
He remembers stalking the halls one night only to be pushed into a trap, hung by the neck as someone tried to bleed him out, they were so sorry, but his blood can bring back the dead right? Nevermind that they had forgotten most of the details Yuri had told them in a moment of weakness-
He remembers playing the long game with someone with kisses and honeyed words, making a move with the knife hidden in his sleeve and being flipped over in response, hands on his neck in an instant, the world going black-
And-
He remembers filling out the character sheet for Wulf for the first time, grinning with pride that he could finally play a game that made sense.
He remembers joining the others in a Nap Room for a sleepover, showing Koutarou and Colette how to do their makeup and laughing as he let them do his own, even if it made him look like a clown.
He remembers...a lot.
A lot of good, a lot of bad, a lot of in between, but it's all in the most delicate of fragments. Like sugar water heated and poured into a thin, brittle sheet, and then shattered to bits that melt into nothing in your mouth. But they aren't nothing, they're something. Every instance, he knows, is part of a bigger whole, one that may very well be lost forever even if everyone pooled together their memories. Still, it happened. It existed. It was real.
Yuri couldn't find it within him to judge anyone. He never could. And now, it's harder still. They are all awash in blood and weighed down by their sins.
But no one deserves this.
There's no use preparing for another loop - he refuses to continue the cycle. Now that he knows it's been in place, Yuri knows what he wants. He can see the shackles around himself, around the others, and he's angry enough to refuse a key in place of something that can shatter them.
There's a saying his mother liked to repeat to him, when they were cold and hungry and suffering - the Goddess helps those who help themselves. Well, she better get ready to reach her hands out - they'll be doing a lot of helping soon. He can feel it.
Yuri's killed before, so it doesn't surprise him that more blood coats his hands here. Cold and heartless murder, accidents, mercy killings, acting in self defense, luring others to their end with his charms - he's done it all. He's even been killed a few times, once or twice without the opportunity to put up a fight. There's one instance, very crisp and clear in his mind, where there's still the full group of twenty and they're given a hostage motive. They claimed to have his mother.
He lunged for HuBERT, and was punished for it.
Bits and pieces of trials filter in. Alibis, strip searches (Niles always prompted those, that was a constant), confessions, the horror of execution. Gathering together in the aftermath, trying to cope. Growing wearier and wearier with each passing day, still putting up that front, they're all putting up a front. They have to, if they want to stay sane.
He remembers stalking the halls one night only to be pushed into a trap, hung by the neck as someone tried to bleed him out, they were so sorry, but his blood can bring back the dead right? Nevermind that they had forgotten most of the details Yuri had told them in a moment of weakness-
He remembers playing the long game with someone with kisses and honeyed words, making a move with the knife hidden in his sleeve and being flipped over in response, hands on his neck in an instant, the world going black-
And-
He remembers filling out the character sheet for Wulf for the first time, grinning with pride that he could finally play a game that made sense.
He remembers joining the others in a Nap Room for a sleepover, showing Koutarou and Colette how to do their makeup and laughing as he let them do his own, even if it made him look like a clown.
He remembers...a lot.
A lot of good, a lot of bad, a lot of in between, but it's all in the most delicate of fragments. Like sugar water heated and poured into a thin, brittle sheet, and then shattered to bits that melt into nothing in your mouth. But they aren't nothing, they're something. Every instance, he knows, is part of a bigger whole, one that may very well be lost forever even if everyone pooled together their memories. Still, it happened. It existed. It was real.
Yuri couldn't find it within him to judge anyone. He never could. And now, it's harder still. They are all awash in blood and weighed down by their sins.
But no one deserves this.
There's no use preparing for another loop - he refuses to continue the cycle. Now that he knows it's been in place, Yuri knows what he wants. He can see the shackles around himself, around the others, and he's angry enough to refuse a key in place of something that can shatter them.
There's a saying his mother liked to repeat to him, when they were cold and hungry and suffering - the Goddess helps those who help themselves. Well, she better get ready to reach her hands out - they'll be doing a lot of helping soon. He can feel it.