Ei approaches the first occupied cell in sight while suppressing a sigh. Since apparently they weren’t doing this in numerical order anyway…
It’s a bit of a farce, but he does knock on the door.
Ei: Prisoner 010, Akemi Kuro?
Akemi looks up from where she laid on her horrible cot, feeling a cold sense in her stomach on realizing it was a warden who addressed her. Was it her turn already?
Akemi: What do you need?
Despite being on-edge, she does her best to sound as even-keeled as possible.
Ei: We’ll be continuing with your projection next. Is there anything you’d like me to know about you or your crime before we begin?
Akemi thinks for a few moments, in one part trying to seem as calm as can be and on the other trying to gauge exactly what she wanted to say.
Akemi: I am not sorry for what I did. That is all.
Ei: I’ll keep that in mind, then.
Ei “invites” her out for the long walk down the hallway.
Akemi unceremoniously stands up and follows the Warden. She keeps her eyes fixed straight ahead, her chin raised, and she walks with the same confidence she always has. With each step, she shoves down the growing unease in her gut. She wouldn't be able to control what they saw. She wouldn't be able to control who saw it. She had no fear of being seen as guilty, no fear of being scorned, only the fear of being known, against her will. Unlike any other time in her life, Akemi could not simply shut them out. She had no choice.
Akemi sits in the chair, a slight tremble in her hands betraying the otherwise stony strength she has been showing. It isn’t until the moment before it is all set to begin, when she truly cannot turn back, that a flicker of genuine fear flashes across her hardened face. But by then it is too late. Now she is at the mercy of her subconscious and the whims of those who are now bound to explore it.
---
Despite the promise (implication?) that the rest of you would be free to watch, Ei shoos you away so the chosen prisoner can be guided down the long hallway alone. Once they reach the courtroom, though, the wardens are too occupied having the prisoner sit in the lone chair properly to keep you away.
So a few of you make the trek yourselves, finding the hallway only marginally less lonely with your company. The walls still seem stifling, their silence somehow out of place.
But the courtroom is wide open, if barren, and there’s not much 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.
It only lasts a moment, though. Once the shadow subsides, you find yourself seemingly somewhere else…
