Season 1 / Resolution - "The Taste of Ash"

MILGRAM

After witnessing a few of those projections, you can only wonder exactly what all happened in your own… Or do you trust the others to tell you, by now? Can you really trust a crowd full of murderers?

Can they trust you?

Regardless, your judgment comes. The wardens don’t tell you themselves—in fact they’re conspicuously absent (good riddance) as the jackalope leads you to the courtroom. When you've all assembled there, a glow on the wall in harsh black and red shows each verdict in numerical order.

001 - UNFORGIVEN
002 - FORGIVEN
003 - FORGIVEN
004 - UNFORGIVEN
005 - FORGIVEN
006 - UNFORGIVEN
007 - FORGIVEN
008 - UNFORGIVEN
009 - UNFORGIVEN
010 - FORGIVEN
011 - FORGIVEN
012 - UNFORGIVEN
013 - UNFORGIVEN

You only feel the vaguest thrum of relief or foreboding before you lose consciousness.

---

You’re back in your own cell when you wake up. The “forgiven” don’t feel much different, aside from the occasional whisper that you were justified, that you only did what you had to do.

The “unforgiven,” on the other hand, wake with whispers of their guilt and incorrigibility, and their straitjackets a bit more restrictive. You can handle your daily tasks with minimal annoyance, but attempting to attack or defend yourself will be difficult with all the voices telling you how wrong it is to do so. You also seem to be missing an accessory or two—some more important to their owners than others.

There’s still no sign of the wardens, only the jackalope silently doing the cooking ever so often. He certainly won’t be explaining anything, seeing as all of you have yet to hear him speak.

You’ve been left to yourselves, then. Fourteen killers, some made vulnerable, all locked inside a space with no entrance nor exit. No one left to stop fights or enforce safety restrictions without risking injury themselves.

Surely there’s nothing to be worried about.

Chula - Suzune

Suzune's face… fell, as her eyes met the results board, looking around the room, trying to find the wardens. Were they hiding to prevent potential backlash from those who disagreed with the results? … That would make sense, but… she certainly had questions, so… Ah. Some of those results were… strange. She swallowed and opened her mouth to speak, only to end up hitting the floor, out cold.

---

… Out of her control.

The sound of a voice by her ear, brushing her senses, roused her from the darkness. She reached out one arm to push herself up, only for her palm to slip, resulting in her tumbling to the ground, instead, with a loud oof. That was… wrong. Who was that?

She's aligned with the sheep.

"Sure, but I also betr--"

No. You only FEEL that way. You were justified.

The whispers drowned out the silence, so she bit her tongue. What WAS this? Bringing her knees to her chest, she leaned her back against the way of her cell, and for the first time, she found herself crying not for someone else, but for her own situation. No amount of innocent rulings or voices would be able to erase the guilt that she felt. With the bases of her palm, she wiped her face vigorously, trying the keep as silent as she possibly could about the whole affair. With the various sentences floating around her ears, she could tell… that they didn't know anything, did they?

The wardens would change their minds, eventually.

Ellie Carter

The calm after the storm can't last long. A loud crash against the wall and a shattering of ceramic can be heard from Ellie's cell. The bloody lamp she had received from the machine and had been keeping within her cell lies shattered on the floor. A shout that could carry across a warehouse follows quickly after.

"WHAT THE FUCK IS YOUR PROBLEM?!"

Her head hurts and it's not just from the voices. Ellie stomps up to the cell doors, kicking them open. What was previously covered by her eyepatch is plainly revealed to see— old scars surround an eye stuck in a permanent squint. The lights suddenly searing into it after so many years is going to give her a migraine. She looks about a decade older without her eyepatch and the tightened straps have brought in her jacket to something a little less revealing, perhaps more appropriate for her age.

"I don't care if you don't forgiiiiive me," she draws the word out with disdain, "but fuck you!! Where the hell are you shitheads?! Ei!!! BITCH!"

He's the biggest target of her ire due to being the one warden that seems to care about rules, which has made him a bit more of the actual authority in her eyes. She looks around the cell hall erratically, struggling to shut her bad eye fully.

Andrew Edgeworth

The only thing Andrew can do is grimace when he reads the verdict results. Of course they would think that based on such an incomplete projection. He can't even leave the room of his own accord as everyone in the room falls to the ground, unconscious.

-
-
-

It was simply an accident.

If anyone were to see the accountant in his cell, it'd look more like he got the results of an unforgiven verdict than the more pleasant alternative. His hands are clasped tightly over his ears, not even registering Ellie's feral yelling as he tries desperately to block out the little whispers. Sleep was a lost cause, but Andrew lies down on his prison cot to try and force it, anyway.

No matter how you look at it, he's the one to blame-

Kaoru Naito

When Kaoru walks in, he sees his verdict and looks away quickly: it’s expected. He’d be more confused if it said the opposite. What he finds himself more annoyed with is seeing some of the other’s verdicts— shit feels unfair!— before being distracted by the nauseating feeling of disorientation.

When he wakes up in his cell, he’s surprised to be in the bed. He fully expected some kind of punishment on recording the verdict, maybe something as theatrical like the projections, something that proved a point. That would have been something he understood, at least.

Affronted by the uncharacteristic thoughts, they only barely put him on edge— it’s when he tries to sit up and feels the tightened coat he starts to grumble. He notices immediately a lack some of his favorite things to fiddle with, like a charm off his belt and the insides of his lip rings. Some of his piercings are gone? They took them out? He starts trying to pull against the coat, a spike of panic in the action. As soon as he’s thinking about what he’ll do to whoever touched him and took his shit— and the thoughts are very detailed, he knows exactly what he’ll do when he figures it out, even is he can’t find a knife around here he’ll make it work— the intrusive “voices” rise to put him down, saying he never changes, saying this is what he deserves. What, now he can’t even think in peace?

This all sparks a different aggravated response that usual: where one might expect him to get up and do something loud, there’s something about this combination of feelings that seems like was perfectly designed to bring him down, which only worsens that feeling of being examined and known. Instead of getting up, he puts his sleeves over his face first, then slides them up over his head to hold it, bringing his knees up in front of him as he opts to quietly and defensively… curl up.

For once, he’s completely quiet despite being angrier than he has been since arriving. He thought he was ready for whatever the verdict could entail, but he’s no good at mind games and he knows it.

Bow-wow

Forgiven…?

Just what had made the wardens think that he hadn't meant to do it, that he was even worthy of being forgiven?

Staring at his prisoner number on the results board, alongside the bright green text… most people would be relieved, but as he slipped into unconsciousness, all he could feel was shame.

Coming to in his cell was as typical as it always was. He turned over, staring at the gun that for some reason he had decided was totally normal to have in his bed as he slept. To be quite honest, he was still trying to figure out what to do with it.

A voice in the back of his mind whispered, startling him--

'He wouldn't have changed… You were saving yourself the trouble.'

But was that really true? Would they feel the same if he'd killed him with a gun instead? Deliberately shot him and painted the walls red? No, certainly not… it was an accident. He hadn't meant to push him, unsteady him so much that--

Bow-Wow rolls himself over, allowing himself to roll cleanly off the side of the bed. The 'thump' he makes combined with the grumble of pain afterwards was likely audible a couple cells over, but it was the grounding force he needed to pull himself from his own mind.

He truly didn't deserve to be forgiven, not in his own opinion… but it seemed that something in his head had portrayed enough to make others believe he did… the thought he could be so unintentionally manipulative and influential left him feeling ill. All along, was he really just like him?

Emmy | Akemi

Akemi read over the verdicts with a frown. Most of them did not surprise her, except…

Before she could say a word, the floor was rushing up to meet her.

She sat up in her bed, fighting off a growing headache. Had those verdicts been a vivid dream? The sound of Ellie's protests, and the frightening and affirming whispers told her they hadn't.

You had no choice. You did what you had to.

Forgiven. Forgiven by people who did not know him. By people who had no stakes in what happened to him. By people who had no reason to like her. Forgiven when she wasn't even sorry. It felt far too kind. Kinder than she deserved.

She supposed she knew what had separated her verdict from Kaoru and Ellie, but somehow it didn't feel right. Akemi stared at her hands, the frown not leaving her face. She wasn't sorry for what she did. She would never be sorry that he was dead.

So just what the hell was she feeling right now? It wasn't pride. It wasn't relief. That much was certain. She would sit in silence for a time, eyes closed, as she fruitlessly tried to identify whatever sense was lingering in her gut.

Robert McCay

"009 - UNFORGIVEN" said the bright red letters on the screen, as Robert sighed and clicked his tongue. Guess that wasn't much of a surprise, given what had apparently happened just after his projection. If only he'd gotten the chance to explain to the wardens what he had to the prisoners who had taken that fateful peek into his mind… But would they have believed him, or even listened to him? Who knows.

Just as he started to ponder what could have gone differently, he felt his knees hit the floor uncomfortably and sleep overtake him. He hoped this sensation wasn't going to become familiar.

---

Robert woke up with his head a blurry mess. He was pretty sure it was Robert this time, anyway, but…

Robert? Robert! Are you awake? Something weird's going on… Louder than usual, but that was the Muse, for sure.

Can y'hear me? Check yer surroundin's. Are ya hurt? Need me t'swap in? That was… someone else, though his voice sounded like his own. Could that be the "sheriff" the others had told him about?

Then there were… the others. Intruders. Voices not his own, saying snippets of things-- forgiven, unforgiven. Cool motive, still murder. Shoulda shot him a long time ago. Who the hell were these guys? He didn't recognize their sound at all, and they didn't respond when he asked them anything-- still they chattered, most casting judgment but some offering consolation. If this was part of his punishment as "unforgiven," it was a strange and inconsistent one.

Maybe everyone would pipe down if he stood up. He wasn't entirely bound by the straps of his jacket this time, thankfully, though they were uncomfortably tight in places. Robert crawled out of bed and found his footing, stretching and testing the limits of his range of motion. Not too bad-- he could probably still play guitar, if he found one.

The voices didn't stop, though.

It's getting crowded in here…

Lemme know if you need me.

Unforgiven. Forgiven.

Looking for something to ground himself, he reached up for the thin gold chain he always wore around his neck…

"…What the hell? Wh-where did it go?!"

Maybe it fell off when he'd collapsed in the courtroom. Yeah. Maybe. If the wardens had taken it, though…

Courtroom first, before the panic and anger set in. He bounded out of his cell and down the hallway to check.

Hikaru Suzuki

Forgiven? Really? Him?

…

It's not like he's a stranger to blacking out and waking up places he's pretty sure he didn't fall asleep, but it's happening a bit too regularly here for his liking, especially given that he's sober. And when he hears a voice he jumps, the bleariness gone immediately as he looks around his cell.

Crooked politician, he got what was coming to him.

Hikaru laughs softly, nervously, as he realises he's alone. He doesn't know if that's much of a relief - hearing voices probably isn't a good thing, either. Maybe he really does need a drink.

There's none to be had here, though, so instead he's stuck having to think about what he's just learnt. Forgiven. Of the murder, at least. The wardens decided this, right…? Maybe they were easier to win around than he'd thought. Maybe that projection really hadn't shown the worst of it.

For the first time since he's arrived here (or earlier, even. Much earlier) he feels like he might have some kind of control over the situation. It's a nice idea.

…He still doesn't like those voices, though.

Emily Lewenhock

It's hard not to get hung up on the "UNFORGIVEN" beside her own number, but Emily still shook herself to scan the rest of the list. She didn't have everyone's numbers memorized, necessarily, but—the whole thing looked about 50/50. Practically random. Hard to take too personally, honestly.

She still had a sour taste in her mouth before she went down.

---

There were speakers in the walls, apparently. Or people with megaphones, or any number of more and more ridiculous possibilities. Experimenting with diseases. Security protocols. Guilty. Grant money. Monotony. Accidental. Negligent. Carelessness. Your own doing.

She definitely didn't want to stay in her cell with this going on. But why were her arms harder to move? It wasn't like she'd been straitjacketed up fully, but… And where were her hairclips? Fallen out somewhere while she was getting dragged back here? Ugh. It'd be that much harder to keep hair out of her eyes with her arms like this, too.

A series of inconveniences, of—

—of which she wasn't the only victim, it sure sounded like. Even one person screaming was enough to make her reconsider leaving straight away, given the proximity of the cells. Ugh.

Might as well check on that trash bag first, she guessed. Hopefully that was going well, because it was sure starting to look like she'd need it.