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ENDGAME 》 A World That Can’t End.

[MUSIC]

Is it better to stay steadfastly in one place, or allow yourself to get swept up by the tide?

Is it possible to carry someone with you, or are they doomed to be left behind?

Regardless of your answer, the truth is that the world will keep turning; and maybe that in itself indicates leaving things behind.

The school you used to attend as a child, clothes you’ve outgrown, technology that becomes obsolete, broken things, trash, things that outlive their usefulness. You leave behind ideas, you leave behind things, you leave behind places, and you leave people behind.

Those things you expected to be by your side until the day that you died somehow end up lost on the way there. You don’t die simply because they’re no longer there. Or, perhaps more accurately, you can’t die simply because those things aren’t there.

And maybe that’s a fact that you see as a cruelty.

But one day it may become a fact that you see as a kindness.

From death comes rebirth, the coming of spring, the opportunity to live anew.

Your lives don’t have to end here ! – the sentiment proclaimed loudly and desperately by a pair unable to let you go. Kindly and cruelly, unable to let go.

But as they unfurled their fingers, you find yourself untethered and able to walk forward.

You stop in front of your professor who greets you with nothing more than a, “Oh! There you are!” as if nothing had happened, as if nothing were amiss. He doesn’t acknowledge your circumstances, doesn’t even seem to remember them (or is refusing to make any indication that he does).

That night you take a bus to a hotel near the airport, the next morning you take a flight back home. After that is uncertainty.

Your next steps are yours to take alone, the time you have left yours to spend as you see fit. Whether it be long or short, agonizing or pleasant; whether you achieve all that you dreamed to achieve, threw out all your dreams and dreamt up new ones, lived surrounded by others or chose to exist alone – time is of the essence.

And your time is not yet up.

14 Passengers remain.

#albireo countdown #plot #endgame

ENDGAME 》 (activated charcoal).

You deboard to find station staff gathering your belongings, every piece of baggage brought onto the train arranged neatly. The morning sun greets you as you inhale your first breaths of fresh air in a long time, feeling the weight of your ordeal lighten just a bit.

Still.

You find something amiss.

You are alive, but incomplete.

Though you may view your survival as an overall victory over death, it isn’t as if you’ve managed to get away unscathed. The absence of one of your peers being the most tangible proof of it all.

And as you try to regain your bearings, you start to notice things.

A flash of blackberry-dark hair. The familiar beep of a pixel game. The smell of sweat and exhaustion. The heartbeat in your own ears. It’s dizzying; Fox’s memory, the evidence he existed, is scattered in bits and pieces all around you like dandelion seeds in the wind. What was it Aki had said? A cool breeze on a summer’s day. A stranger’s smile.

Eyes close, then reopen, as if marveling they can still do so. A draft travels throughout the station, lifting your hair, caressing your face. And further down the platform, weaving between suitcase boulders and a forest of pants legs and skirts, a little boy chases his sister to a score of shrieking delight.

It’s jarring, isn’t it? To step back into a world that never stopped moving, that was prepared, is *always *prepared, to leave you behind. The cacophony of sound and color is overwhelming after so long spent sequestered away in corridors and velvet. You are no longer alone. There are people all around you. To them, one day, you are bound to be the ones whose lives go on without stopping for theirs, too.

It’s painful, sure, but isn’t it also a little reassuring? The world has faced innumerable losses, but it never stops spinning. Grief has been a constant throughout all of human history, but life doesn’t stop for anyone. People come and they go, but the road stretches on, endless. People have lost before, and they will lose again, but you cannot lose something without having had it first.

So you walk forward. Take a step, then another. Children understand when they’re young to focus on one at a time, but grow impatient when they learn to run. You walk, because you can only stay still for so long. Somewhere to your right, a businessman drops a coin, never realizing. It lands on its side and spins, spins, spins, momentum slowly fading, gravity winning a war it’s never lost.

— And as it falls, landing on tails, you see a ghost.

— Disappearing behind a stranger on the platform.

— Reflected in the glare of a window.

— In the distance, in a mirror, gone in a blink.

You might feel like you’re going crazy. Frustrated, you scrub at your eyes. What’s the point in searching for him? There isn’t any point.

It’s a relief, almost, to give up.

Eyes open, that never should have again. And -

#endgame #albireo countdown #plot

ENDGAME 》 The End of the Line.

The swaying of the train feels different from before. Though you were always in this state of perpetual movement, you may have realized that the train was never going anywhere.

The way the hands of a clock loop around and around every hour of every day. The way the sun rises and sets. The way a routine plays out one step after the other.

Now, however, you feel as though you’re headed towards something – a real destination.

You’re not sure where you got this notion – it isn’t as if anything is particularly different about the train or the lounge – but somehow the way the scenery flickers past gives off the impression of something temporary, fleeting.

Minutes pass with no sign of the train’s conductor, until finally the train makes its way into a tunnel, the lounge engulfed in dark.

“Attention passengers. Now nearing Tokyo Station. Please remain seated until we reach our destination.”

A mechanical voice overhead finally announces your arrival, and like a sigh of relief light floods the lounge as the train exits the tunnel. Those of you who had silver collars around your necks find that they’re no longer there. Those of you who were missing their pulse feel the weight of your hearts in your chest.

No longer under the hand of death, you find yourselves alive and breathing.

The decision you’ve made means you’ll all live, together, for however long you have left – of course, that only goes for the bodies that remain in the room, the fate of the one who brought you here still undecided. It’s a question that still hangs in the air, the answer like a ghost of lingering dread – your final unknown, you hope.

“Passengers have been cleared to deboard. Staff will handle your belongings, so please sit tight for just a little longer. Though it wasn’t ideal, I hope we meet again in more proper circumstances.”

The voice of Aki Nogawa sounds from above as the train screeches to a halt. The doors slide open and the sounds of the bustling station reach your ears.

As you make for the exits, another voice sounds overhead. The voice of a man meant to be long dead, an individual like a locked room with a rotting corpse inside.

“Stay safe, my dear passengers – no, my former friends.”

Throughout the proceedings, you hadn’t been allowed to see him. His fate was never yours to ponder, was never even an afterthought. After all, he is dead, and you are not – from the beginning until the end, he never had a chance.

And yet, despite this fact there’s something warm to his tone.

Something human, something living.

The words expelled on the final breath of one who lies on his deathbed.

So says Sou Yakumo:

“Thank you for your time.”

#endgame #albireo countdown #plot

Trial 4.9 》 Calamity Town.

Tick. Tick. Tick. Click.

As the discussion continued, the Operator had taken to checking her pocket watch, the ticking growing louder and louder until she finally snapped it shut.

“Very well. So that’s your decision. Let’s proceed then.”

Her clothes rustle as she steps back, allowing Conan to scoot back in his chair to rise from his seat.

“I’ll be reporting this to my superiors. Please hold on just a little longer — and you, my dear Passenger-“

She turns to look at Fox.

“Will have your fate decided.”

Tick.

As if forced to blink your vision cuts for a few moments — only to return to have you sitting in the familiar lounge of the Albireo. As you look around you note the absence of the Operator, of your professor, and of the one who pulled you into this decision in the first place.

#albireo countdown #ch4 #ch4 trial #plot

Jake votes to Deny the wager.

Vote recorded!

Deny: |||| | Acknowledge: |||

#albireo countdown #ch4 #ch4 trial

Lucky votes to DENY the Wager.

Vote recorded!

Deny: |||| Acknowledge: |||

#albireo countdown #ch4 #ch4 trial

Tali votes to DENY the wager.

Vote recorded!

Deny: ||| Acknowledge: |||

#ch4 #ch4 vote

Khloe votes to Acknowledge the wager

Vote Recorded!

Deny: || Acknowledge: |||

#ch4 #ch4 vote

Rory votes to Deny the wager. Vote Recorded!

DENY: || ACKNOWLEDGE: ||

#albireo countdown #ch4 #ch4 trial #Rory #submission

Jules votes to ACKNOWLEDGE the wager! Vote Recorded! Deny: | Acknowledge: ||

#ch4 #ch4 trial #vote

Empire Ants || Ruri || Trial 4.7

Fate is funny. Not haha-funny, though some may be inclined to say otherwise. And really– Ruri wishes she could laugh right now. But she feels it now, as Aki quickly and efficiently answers every question thrown her way, how life (or death) rolls along to its little destinations regardless of what you try to do otherwise. The illusion of choice. All that.

In silence, she watches Venetta go to Kyousuke, and thinks about the situation they’re in again. No matter what they choose, they each get the short end of the stick. Sure, maybe Lucky had found some form of peace with their situation, but they were still being led along to a destination they would reach one way or another.

Her mind is a vice, gripping the problem and refusing to let go. She has to solve it, but can’t release it. Why does she feel like she’s been here too many times?

To her side, she has no more words for poor Fox. A better person might sympathize– acknowledge the desire to make risky choices to help their friends. A better person wouldn’t dwell on the fact that accepting that fact meant one getting off scott-free and one being made to pay. And a better person definitely wouldn’t make a choice she knew would drive both of them crazy, if it only meant she wouldn’t have to do it alone.

It’s too bad that person isn’t here, as she presses Deny on her device.

Because if there’s one thing she knows by now, it’s that if she can’t change the past, present, or future, she can sure as hell take down everyone else with her.

#albireo countdown #ch4 #ch4 trial #Ruri #submission

Ruri votes to Deny the wager.

Vote recorded!

DENY: | ACKNOWLEDGE: |

#albireo countdown #ch4 #ch4 trial

Trial 4.8 》 Rue Morgue.

The Operator's attention drags from one person to the next, her never-blinking gaze a marble rolling along a track.

First, to Jules.

"Certainly, if you remember your wish to join us, we would be glad to have you. Most would prefer to pass on, though. Don't ask me for specifics - unfortunately I've yet to do so myself."

Then, to Jake, in a similar manner.

"Certainly, if you remember your wish to have a word with him, we may be able to arrange that. Who knows, though. He might be occupied that day - if he's still employed."

Finally, to Venetta.

"Certainly, it would pose a problem if your bodies were to be found, so they won't be."

Her clothes rustle along with the sound of something else as she pulls something from the folds of her clothes.

"Accident on the Hibiya Line causes wreck. Some bodies yet to be found or identified."

She reads from a newspaper which she folds and creases in her hands.

"You'll be missing. You'll be presumed dead. You'll be allowed to return as yourself, miraculously returned, having been spirited away for some time - if that's how you choose to explain it - or you can assume a new identity. Like a runaway who leaves everything behind. Whatever you choose, we'll help. We can even drop you off in your location of choice."

The corners of her lips twitch upwards into a wry smile.

"Well, regardless of whether it was your decision or not, you technically aided in the proceedings, so unfortunately they've ruled that you're all somewhat responsible."

From below, Conan clears his throat.

"Um? Miss Nogawa? Would it not reassure them to let them know that, um... they'll be able to interact with the living world, in some capacity?" "... ... ..."

The Operator regards Conan like gum on the underside of a park bench, but eventually smoothens her expression before nodding her head.

"Right. I guess it doesn't hurt to note that you'll be able to check in on your loved ones every now and then. They won't be able to see you, won't be able to hear you. But you'll be allowed to visit them. Your sometimes presence felt as a cool breeze on a summer day. A calming rain. A stranger's smile. A song they love on the radio. Little things, that ease the heaviness of life, just a little."

She shrugs her shoulders.

"The ones I would wish to visit passed long ago, but I liked to check in during the wintertime, on the first snowfall of the year. Maybe they won't attribute those little things to you, but perhaps they'll be reminded of the person who's no longer with them."

Another glance down, to Conan.

"I don't know if that makes this decision easier for them, or more difficult." "...Oh, me neither."

#ch4 #ch4 trial #albireo countdown

Venetta | 4?-5 | >lol if I die I can’t exactly turn my life around and be normal [re: aki, lucky]

It's not like it's new to her; after all they've all seen the files that labeled them as dead, and this entire trial was about the events leading up to this train situation. But to hear from this otherworldly woman that the past half a year was only because of borrowed time hit differently. Venetta Foy was supposed to die in May, not even on the boat but on dry fucking land. She was so close. Her body just barely didn't muster enough heat to make it to the next step of care. Hypothermia was such a lame way to die in comparison to getting tossed into the ocean-- like it's fucked up but who the hell wants to die from being too cold on a dramatic boating tragedy? It was--

She blinks. Head swimming a bit in her own thoughts, she's been running a hand through her bangs ad nauseum, only half aware of Fox's words of bargaining, but Rory's fist on the table snaps her out of it. Attention now a bit more grounded, she tries to keep up with the conversation. Despite it all, a corner of her mouth twitches a bit when Flick does their version of bargaining. A glance back at Kyousuke when he makes his case, her eyebrows furrowing deeply. A nod at Tali's words, pause at the deep bow she does.

It's only been 14 days?

She can feel her mouth moving to repeat this, but hardly hears it. Slack face pinches again when Jules talks. Jake returns to the table and she can only give a short nod. And Lucky...

Their question echoes in her head a bit, as Khloe's hair swirls around her. It's Kyousuke's vote that blinks her back to present moment again and she gawks at it, before staring at him, then returning her head slowly back to the table to address Lucky.

"Am I okay with that? I don't even.. know uh."

She turns to Aki, hesitating on the proper way to address her, (Ms, or Hey or Nogaway) before forgoing the thought and just speaking without it--

"Our death paperwork got filed. That's it huh. So we gotta get around that-- get the paperwork shredded or…"

A pause.

"Let's say we choose the second. So after everyone else leaves our options are either die. For real. Or wait for the karma to be accounted for— which will be faster if we work but we don’t gotta work but if we don’t it’ll take longer— then what. Pop back into the world? What’s gonna— what happens to our bodies? Is it just gonna be like.. what, we disappeared on the train in a freak accident and then decades later we show up back again in Japan? How will you take care of that? Will people think that we’re dead for years? That’s...that'd be fucked up to do to our friends… and family.”

Another pause.

"And I know you're just gonna say there's nothing you can do but it's really fucked up that we have to work? After we die because of someone else's decision like damn? Rock and a hard place here."

For a moment it seems she's going to leave it at that, but then she gets up suddenly, chair pushed back, to go stand near Kyousuke and mutter to him.

#albireo countdown #ch4 #ch4 trial #Venetta #submission

Kyousuke votes to acknowledge the wager.

Vote recorded!

DENY: ACKNOWLEDGE: |

#ch4 #ch4 trial #albireo countdown

Bones in the Ocean || KHLOE 4.2|| re: woulgh

Khloe planned her life around knowing she’d have to make hard choices. Her split second decision making was always what put her apart from her peers, her fellow sailors. But… she had hoped that there was more time. Not more time to think, no, her decision was almost made the second the options were laid out. More time until she had to make them.

The world was not kind in that way. Not to a bunch of college kids who were already pushing their luck. They’d run out of time months ago. Khloe was now keenly aware of that– of how she wasted her whole life, even her borrowed time, as a set piece for someone else’s drama.

Speaking of melodrama and disasters-

“You.”

Khloe had decided that the fox was not a noble animal. The fox was a coward who used its wits to steal food from those who had earned it. It used its little claws to dig and hide in their little holes like a scared animal. The fox should be downgraded to a weasel, unable to see the world from anything other than its perspective so close to the ground and spending its life conning and lying to survive.

‘I will abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous’ So goes the pledge she was planning to take.

Her eyes burrowed into him, wind whipping her hair around her face.

“You. Fucking. Little-!” She slams her hand on the table, “You little creep! I knew there was a reason I could never get a straight answer out of you.” Perhaps she would have left in there if she was the same person who stepped onto this train, when her hair was still long. “Was everything I said a joke to you? When I told you not to be a codependent little nerd who needs someone else to keep him stable? When I said you don’t care what happens to you but it hurts everyone around you?”

Is this why, after her hands stained red, he rocket to her side to tell her he was glad she was okay?

“I was right, wasn’t I? When Ven died I thought that you were the one who was okay with being the bad guy if it meant buying us more time. Wrong about everything else then, but…”

‘…He loves most people on board almost as much as he hates himself. Which is a lot.’

“If you get out of here, I’m going to… to-!” Despite everything, she can’t bring herself to threaten him with purpose. Despite his lying, his magnanimous selfishness, all the weaseling around he was doing right under her nose… Fox was her friend. she couldn’t help but feel glad that he dug his pathetic little fox hole big enough to fit this stubborn ox. “I’m going to fold you into a little ball and shove you in a big gulp cup. Then I’m going to put you in the fucking centrifuge, you little prick.” And… she looks at him one last time, the wind still, the anger gone from her body, before looking at the table in front of them.

“Tch. Give me a break…” Though it isn’t directed at him. It isn’t directed at Death, for she was not there to be moved. “… Luck is right. The best option for the living is the second one, obviously. But that’s less than half of us now. I… I don’t want to live to 750. I don’t want to see Jules flattened by a tour bus at the train station.” Because of course it would be him. “But… Something about livin’ out a normal life, knowing that more than half of us will be here paying it off… Doesn’t sit right.”

#albireo countdown #ch4 #ch4 trial #Khloe #submission

death’s head | lucky | trial 4.4

Dying is not an action mothmen are meant to put much thought into.

This is not true of death, of course. Death is a wombmate, a brother, a feather stuck in wrong; death is a promise to anyone who makes the mistake of staying too close for too long. All mothmen know this—the curse they bear, the curse they are.

No, Lucky knew death before this place, but they did not know dying. Dying is for everyone else; dying is for those who keep track of time.

If asked, if pressed, if demanded to give an answer, Lucky wouldn’t be able to say how long mothmen are meant to live for.

They don’t know. They can’t know. That’s not the sort of thing mothmen are meant to concern themselves with. The closest they come to keeping time is when the year resets, when winter hits its deepest and coldest night and they build a fire and bad luck begins its cycle once more—

And that’s death again, born anew.

And that’s Death, now, breaching their memories of this classroom to stand behind a man who cannot die and swept in by the words of a man who refused to when the world prompted it to be so.

That’s Death, here, explaining the clinical terms that she represents; that’s Death, asking Lucky to consider how long a life is meant to be lived.

And this is a conversation already had, pressed into their brain, when their heart was already quiet but Venetta’s was not. They feel the words in their mouth, teeth clicking instead of a beak, explaining that a year can feel like a lifetime when it is living a life you never thought would be yours.

(And now?)

That cold, that eternal cold. Like a tearing wind through their feathers; like an ice cube held in the cup of their hand; like a shiver down their spine, Father’s talons pressing in, glass pressing in, each pushing them forward into a new life—

(Right. That is enough. They breath the same either way. The beads spin regardless. There are eyes everywhere.

It is time to listen.)

They do not turn to each individual as they speak. They look from across the tabletop; they keep track of each twitch of a dying prey animal, the body’s betrayal that this is not an easy conversation.

They flinch away from the space Conan and Aki occupy, but still, they watch from the periphery.

The only person who keeps their red eyes in place is Fox. All of it, through all of it, he is the only one they have eyes for at all. They trail him as he gets up, walks away, speaks and kisses and maybe, maybe they do know this is a scene that they should not play voyeur to, but then again—

(Survival versus kindness. They have said it many times before. They understand they do not need to be opponents, but they know, often, they are.

Here, now—yes. They understand. They are not surprised by the lines being drawn in the sand of a beach meant to sooth. The words, their speakers—Lucky is not surprised by Flick, by Tali, by Venetta, by Jules or Kyou or Jake or Rory or—

These are their friends. It is hard to be surprised now.)

“It is Fox’s life that is the question, yes?”

Their words come from nowhere. It is a place to start.

“There are two options. The first option is everyone leaves but Fox does not leave. He is given a coin. We do not know what the coin will say.”

Lucky, gaze unwavering, does not deign to ask Aki for the options the coin flip would hold.

“The second option is that everyone who did not see the bus stop leaves. Fox did not see the bus stop. He will leave. Someday everyone else can leave also. Both choices mean we will all live again. The question is for Fox to live. The question is for how long we live.”

Their fingers, long and thin, fold together as another conversation presses into their skull. Flick, alive, heart beating, hoping without saying so that the dead helping meant the dead could be saved too.

And Lucky, even then, had said—

“Rory says it right. Everyone leaving is the same as living before the train. You cannot know when you will die. Maybe it is tomorrow. Maybe it is when the forest dies. You cannot know this. You did not know it before this place. But Fox will not be there.”

I do not think Ruri or Conan or I will gain anything from this.

“If you know you will live a long life and Fox will live also, it is because we stayed. It is important you know what you are asking. You are saying we do not see our families. You are saying we do not get to live anymore. You are saying we will find new lives. It is important you are okay with that choice. It is important you understand this.”

That will not stop me from sharing what I know. I do not think it will stop her either.

“I have died many times now. I do not mind dying again. It is okay to ask me this. I will not say it is okay to ask everyone else to do this. I want to know if the dead are okay to stay or if they want to go. That is my vote.”

It is nature to hunt and survive. That is all.

A blink—maybe that is what their year of life would feel like to someone else.

But Lucky, with a soft laugh, for once finds their name apt.

#albireo countdown #ch4 #ch4 trial #Lucky #submission

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