[SPOILER ALERT][SPOILER ALERT][SPOILER ALERT]
Something that I’ve had on my mind for like a month now.
You know the ending sequence of .flow? The one where Sabitsuki walks past various NPCs across the screen? (starts at 4:00 in this video)
If we assume the order of passing NPCs reflect on a chronology of Sabitsuki’s life, it actually makes A LOT sense, sort of.
dead blue woman (or rather, a decaying pile of…red stuff)
dead children. The doctor and nurse are among them
decapitated monochrome cyborg girl
young Sabitsuki in a scarf
The 3 kaibutsu that chase you throughout the game
the “special kaibutsu” from the corrupted school area who looks a whole lot like Sabitsuki. She’s bloody and holds a pipe.
a cluster of all the NPCs/objects whom she obtained the effects from during the course of the game.
In the center of cluster is a grinning Sabitsuki (the one that gives you the uniform effect before disappearing). She is standing between Smile and Oreko, but closer to Oreko.
Oreko. With bubbles coming from her helmet.
Cleaner/Maskmaid, who bows to Sabitsuki before she walks offscreen and everything fades to black.
I tried to make sense of this list, using context from rest of the game:
The blue woman might be Sabitsuki’s mother. She was terminally ill when Sabitsuki was very young. (a scene from the game shows the woman on a hospital bed, much like scene where we find little Sabitsuki in the alleyway hospital)
Sabitsuki’s mother died. Possibly via failed surgery (a random event shows the woman’s stomach exploding.)
The gardener could represent someone who took care of Sabitsuki after her mom died? She must’ve been pretty important to Sabitsuki, as many sections of Sabitsuki's subconscious are covered in plants. (Some plant-covered areas also have heart monitors and sick children wandering through them, so maybe Sabitsuki got sick around that time.)
Sabitsuki’s illness worsened and then she was admitted to a hospital. This illness does both physical and mental damage to the victim.
Most of the children with the same disease died.
Sabitsuki, the only survivor of the lot, was able to live through the help of mechanical implants of some sort. Machines are a prevalent imagery in Sabitsuki's mind, and personally I think it was because they are linked to her very survival. At this point she made Oreko, an imaginary friend (or a maybe a character) who lived underwater and fixed machines. (this is indicated by how a hospital area is linked to the ocean area)
However, the machine didn’t fix all of Sabitsuki’s problems. It might have helped her recover physically, but it was not able to repair all of the mental damage. That’s why the cyborg girl’s head was falling off. This comes to bite Sabitsuki in the back later, in the form of Rust.
Sabitsuki eventually got out of the hospital and tried to live a normal life. She was still physically weak, as indicated by the scarf.
Later Sabitsuki was declared fit for school. But during that time, her deranged mental state (represented by the schooluniform-clad kaibutsu) started catching up to her. (That’s why there were Kaibutsu still chasing her during the game, as she didn’t want her mind deteriorate)
Despite this, Sabitsuki tried to befriend Smile, someone who was very similar to her, but…
Her Rust persona (born as an accumulation of her mental damage) surfaced, destroying whatever positive relationships she had. This theory might explain some things. Later, Sabitsuki found out that Smile also had an alternate persona, and became aware of the gravity of the situation.
Sabitsuki tried out a special mental exploration software, flow, in an attempt to get to the bottom of this. Through flow, she learned a great deal about herself. The effects she found can reflect her interests (i.e. headphones), her memories (i.e. tattoo), or what defined her as a whole (i.e. cyborg). The effects defined Sabitsuki as a person.
Even though she wasn’t able to fix her problem, she discovered that Oreko, her childhood imaginary friend, existed as a very powerful being in her mind. Through tinkering with Sabitsuki’s mental machinery, Oreko was able to preserve Sabitsuki’s sanity and held back Rust for a long time. (The scene in the orange maze even showed Oreko holding hands with a bleeding Sabitsuki seems to indicate this.) Oreko is the first of Sabitsuki’s innate defense mechanism against the total invasion of Rust. However, this was not a permanent solution.
When Sabitsuki finished the software, she lost all her effects. (you know, the things that defined her as a person). She was essentially losing her identity. Her Rust persona was able to exploit this weak point and took over her mind and then BAM HERE COMES THE ENDGAME. In the endgame, there are no more Kaibutsu because her mind had already deteriorated (see #9 above). Oreko is also missing from the endgame, which means nobody was holding Rust back. Hundreds of red imps were released as a second tier defense mechanism, but they are weak and could only slow down Rust a little bit. Rust’s goal in the endgame was to gain access to three areas that even Sabitsuki couldn’t visit. These three areas allowed Rust to locate the hallway that led to “the core”, or what’s left of Sabitsuki’s original personality. This hallway was definitely supposed to be inaccessible, since it was heavily guarded by red imps. Rust was able to get past them (although not without injury) and destroyed the core. Then Rust was able to completely take over Sabitsuki’s body.
Although Oreko was missing in the endgame, she still had a lot to do with what happened next. (the fact that she was second-last in the ending sequence means that she’s pretty important) She knows Rust had to be stopped, and might be responsible for activating Sabitsuki’s second and third tier defenses.
Cleaner/Maskmaid was Sabitsuki’s third and final defense against Rust. She’s sort of like an “emergency plan” in case the rest of the defenses fail, and only comes out when Rust was able to take over completely. In my theory,Rust could not be killed previously since she was just a part of Sabitsuki’s mind, but IF she took over Sabitsuki, she’s no longer PART of Sabitsuki’s mind. She became a separate entity that CAN be killed! And Cleaner did just that.
But even with Rust gone, Sabitsuki could not just return to normal since Rust destroyed her original persona. She either became braindead or fell into a coma. Cleaner carried her unconsious body and placed it in an area with two blue women, the same ones as (#1) from above. This is the place that contained Sabitsuki’s lost memories. My farfetched theory says Oreko created this place using the testtube Sabitsuki in the endgame, which served like a backup persona (kind of like backup files on a computer, if we’re still using machine analogies). Sabitsuki starts her walk and the game ends.
In short, the ending sequence means Sabitsuki was going through her memories and regaining her identity.
izzy806
gummygunk
discoholicmusic
2087
vaporwave
annaxmalina
