Season 3 / Sylas Grey - "Til Death Do We Part" [Third Trial Projection]

Sylas Grey

The flyer in her hands morphs into a long receipt. A really, really long receipt. From K-mart. For furniture. Cabinets, shelving, carpets, lam-

“Hey. Don’t play with trash. Come back and hang out with me.”

Andrew Edgeworth

Unfortunately for Jestlas, just the moat is proof enough that there might be crucial details that are easy to miss. “Just…give us a moment.”

Tree.

Sylas Grey

Andrew Edgeworth

This cartoon-ass tree morphs into a very real eucalyptus. The leaves rustle in a nonexistent breeze. They whisper to you.

Well, did you turn the lights on, babe? Babe?! What was that?!

And then

“Hello friends. Please come back and join me. I’m almost done.”

Sylas Grey

Chula - Suzune

You’ve fallen for my trap! It’s a Labubu! This damn Labubu is sitting on the stump!

It stares at you with its little beady eyes. Is it saying something? What is that? You lean in closer -

I don’t know, I’ll check it out. Probably a fuckin’ possum? I don’t see anything.

Jestlas….

“hey. come back and hang out with me. it’s lonely.”

Does he look a little off? No… surely not.

Emily Lewenhock

“…Sounds great.” An invigorating little sidequest! Awesome. Okay. Good thing he’s almost done.

Andrew Edgeworth

“…” Okay, he’s done exploring for now-

Chula - Suzune

“What? Labubu? Oh…” Labubu?? Why was there a Labubu here? She certainly knew what they were but like. Why? But, well. Sylas was calling her back. Very uncannily so. She frowned a bit. “Alright, I’ll come back. One moment.” She sets the Labubu down and trots up to rejoin with Sylas. “Alright, Sylas-kun, what’s next?”

Sylas Grey

Click, click, click. Jestlas finishes LEGITIMATELY UNLOCKING the door with the KEY and tucks the IT’S A KEY back into some unknown pocket.

“okay”

“let’s get back on track”

…

You follow Jestlas into the castle. It’s…

God, his psyche is a weird place. It’s still a cartoon castle, but it’s also simultaneously the domain of one of those ‘beige moms’ you’d see on TikTok. The whole damn place is beige. Beige ceiling, beige walls, beige floors- and since it’s a stone castle, one has to wonder where all this beautifully uniformly beige stone was getting cut from. The millennial mine?

Jestlas stops and thinks to himself.

“Hmmm. Jeez Louise, this place could use a little gussyin’ up, eh? Tell ya what. Come take a stickybeak with me.”

He jingles over to an innocent enough looking closet and opens it up. Dozens of paint cans fall out, a bucket for each color of the rainbow and then some; reds, blues, purples, oranges, you name it. All vibrant, all a bit gaudy, all perhaps the color of Play-Doh you’ve seen him eating.

Your host beams at you, handing you each a perfectly generic looking paintbrush.

“Could y’do us all a favor and give this paint a quick coat of paint? Any color y’want! Just bung it on there! As long as it’s not too - morbid, you know?”

Which color will you choose to use?

Emily Lewenhock

Welllll! Cool! Normal!

Emily tentatively picks a good yellow-green and swirls her paintbrush in it noncommittally. Probably not an incorrect color? She’s… gonna let the others try first.

Chula - Suzune

Ooooh, an art project, yay! “Can we all pick something? There might be some nice ways to combine the colors we pick, like with feature walls or detailing. I think that’d be fun! You should also pick something, Sylas-kun.”

Taking notes from Emily’s lighter yellow green, she picks a shade of her favorite color, red! Specifically, she chooses a deep red, that gives a more moody and romantic vibe. Makes for a good feature wall, but darkens a room too much if you use it on every wall. “This red would be good for detailing or a feature wall, I think.”

Sylas Grey

Chula - Suzune

“Oh no! Not -

In sickness and in health,

To love and to cherish,

red. that -

Sylas? What the hell is this?

Yeah! What’s up, buddy?

Excited for, uh, the big day?

looks a little

We’re tired of hiding our love. We’re escaping to Bali to start our new lives. Sorry if you’re upset or offended, but true love is true love, and we can’t apologize for that. Looking forward to

Looking forward to

- - - - - -

- - -

MORBID, silly!”

…

“Let’s pick another friendlier color!!!”

there’s nothing here.

Andrew Edgeworth

Man, the fucking Play-Doh………

“Sounds fine to me.”

Andrew doesn’t particularly care that much about decorating, but it seems he doesn’t have much of a choice in the matter. Despite his usual reservedness, he seems oddly drawn to a brilliant yellow - almost gold. Green, red, yellow…stop sign trio…

Emily Lewenhock

Chartreuse was super friendly you guys!! Emily slapped some of that the frikc on the wall before anything could blow up.

Chula - Suzune

Suzune frowns. “But color theory says that most people associate red with romance and friendliness and— Well… it’s just my favorite. But… If I have to pick something else.” Suzune picks up a mid-toned teal, frowning. But she settles for this and uses the teal for detailing.

Andrew Edgeworth

Great…yellow time.

Sylas Grey

forward to seeing all our friends and family when we return! XOXO!

when we return! XOXO!

when we return!

return

…you shake your head.

With the castle gaudily repainted, Jestlas nods to himself in approval.

“Great work! A real bang-up job. But hey, hey. Now we gotta be secret squirrels, okay? Everyone be real quiet! The crowns are a surprise, y’see? So! Sneaky!”

He produces, true to his word, two crowns out of nowhere. One’s a king crown and one’s a queen; one has six points and the other has three. Where have you seen or heard those numbers before? Hmm… well, who knows! Anyway.

Jestlas gestures for you to follow him, q u i e t l y.

Q u i e t l y .

Q u i e t l y y y y y y .

and

You feel a chill on the back of your neck.

you are twenty and crying doesn’t work any more but it’s okay. you’ve grown up and you’ve learned different tactics. you’re not even conscious that you’re doing it. there is a [ ] where your [ ] should be and you’re not conscious of that either. lucas is dead but in his place is a stack of money, and you use that money to pursue woodworking, because the type of thought needed to execute physical work is not the type of thought that tries to occupy the [ ]. and you are good at it. you are so good at it. talent bleeds from the saw-cuts on your fingers and drips on the thing you’ve gotta turn in for your exam and it’s a handmirror, so beautifully assembled. you turn it around when it’s done and the glue has dried on the actual mirror and in that reflection you see what you are. which is -

Something is wrong.

You know this. That rotten truth nestles in the pit of your stomach. All of this shouldn’t be how it goes. It’s a paper-thin cover on top of something that wasn’t meant for your eyes to see. You aren’t meant to look. You aren’t meant to pry.

He’s trying so hard.

You know this is almost over. You have two choices.

Walking quietly is easy. You can do it. And if you do, everything will be okay.

But if you make a noise, all hell will break loose.

Can you be quiet?

Chula - Suzune

Suzune squinted. She’d been hearing things for awhile now, and part of her didn’t know if these were just odd out of place thoughts or if this was a universal thing. She stands where she is, but whispers softly to the others. “So… have you been like… hearing things? I just… waned to check before I do anything else.” Still in her hand, she holds the torch, keeping the way forward lit.

Emily Lewenhock

“Something like that.” Emily wasn’t terrible at keeping quiet. Maybe should have hung onto the cat slippers for this, but surely the current setup would be good enough.

She sighed, rubbing her forehead. “…It’s going to be unpleasant if we don’t sneak along, isn’t it?” Or at least unsettling. But probably unpleasant.

Andrew Edgeworth

Andrew doesn’t want to make a hasty decision either, whispering as well until the three come to a consensus.

“…I have. It took me a moment to parse, but I’m sure these are Sylas’s thoughts. A while back, he had told me things about his family, and it matches up to the names and…themes that keep reoccurring.”

There is some merit to seeking out the “bad” ending; namely in that a murder being committed would highly suggest that the “bad ending” will show the truth, which was like, the point of projections. He’s not exactly stoked to try, though. “…I suppose it depends on which is more likely to be the truth, but I can’t say I’m partial towards causing a scene.”

Chula - Suzune

“Most likely, I think…” She continues her whisper volume. “This is just… I don’t know. I think… based on some of the thoughts, at least, Sylas-kun must have made noise, right? I heard something about… seeing if there was a possum making noise, and…. But….” Hm. That’s tough. On one hand, the truth is often worth seeking. On the other…. Well. She looked at the wardens.

In truth, she wanted the wardens to rate everyone as forgiven the most. Seeking out the truth here could prevent Sylas from receiving that forgiven verdict. And that was something Suzune wanted to strive for. “… I know it’s putting you on the spot right now, but… how do you usually come to your verdicts? Like… are you required to vote some people unforgiven?”

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