“Prisoner 001… Emily?”
Bea can’t help but wince a little bit, seeing the state this prisoner is in when she opens the cell door. The warden thinks again about Suzune’s request, that everyone be forgiven this round… Watching Emily squint back at her over the gas mask, it grows harder to contest the idea. What would happen if she got voted unforgiven again?
“Er,” Bea mumbles, putting her poker face back on. “Is there anything else you’d like to tell us before your final projection?”
Emily had already given her defense. She hadn’t killed anyone. Saying that yet again wasn’t going to sway anything. Least of all for Bea, who mostly seemed in it for the love of the game. What else was there, girl talk?
“…….”
“…….”
Emily nudged some hair away from her eyes with a sigh. “…It would have happened eventually, with or without me. There were plenty of other ways. All I did was save someone. If that’s not good enough… then I guess that’s not good enough.”
Hard not to be resigned after so many months of these voices. At least she’d managed this much.
—
Again, Bea shoos you away so the chosen prisoner can be guided down the long hallway alone. By now it’s clear this walk is the only thing the wardens are so particular about keeping the prisoner alone for. Once they reach the courtroom, they don’t bother to keep you away as they set the prisoner up in the burnt chair as properly as they can. Perhaps it’s not worth the effort. Perhaps how you behave in the projections is a test in itself.
Regardless of their motives, a few of you make the trek yourselves today, finding the hallway only marginally less lonely with your company. The walls still seem stifling, the unnatural murmurs pressing in on you tighter. Sometimes you swear you glimpse a face or beckoning arm in the wall. Just tricks of the light.
But the courtroom is wide open, if barren, and there’s not much else to be uncomfortable about until the prisoner of the day is secured in place. A strange…—machine? Somehow enough of it remains in shadow to obscure any useful details—emerges from the wall to hover around the prisoner’s head, then everything but you and the wardens is swallowed by utter darkness. There’s a low murmur somewhere behind you.
It only lasts a moment, though. Once the shadow subsides, you find yourself seemingly somewhere else…
