afterliving | 2nd Concert - [ video / action ]

A.) Video

[ Yeah, those videos the owners didn't know were being posted? Have one of those. There's a court yard, apparently belonging to a rich castle or something, In a cage, there is raging zombies. In front of them there is a little boy, playing the violin and an older man accompanying him. The sound of his violin appears to make the zombies sing along. The daughter of the castle's owner demands to have that violin bought for herself. The little boy, appearing to be a much younger Kohaku, refuses. She is enraged and releases the zombies at him. It appears the music of the violin protects the boy with ease, but his suspected father falls victim to their attacks. The flashback and transmission ends there. ]

B.) Action

[ If you're in the school, you might be noticing violin music. Not just any violin music - you can tell that the one playing the violin here is skilled beyond compare. Despite playing solo, his soft and clear sound reaches the heart. It's almost fragile, you can't grasp it and yet it brings a certain sentimentality over you.
If you happen to find the orchestra room, you will see Kohaku being the source of these sounds that are so contradictory to his personality. His usually angry or annoyed face is full of peace and concentration as he plays - this is him, his essence. Only sometimes he frowns. He's used to a much better violin, something special and the one he plays now is ordinary at best. He tuned it as well as he can, but it just isn't the same. Still, it's better than being without music.
Feel free to listen in or interrupt. ]

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Protecting myself with music's never been an issue, so when that man had died, I could hold out easily. Had we been outside, they'd probably have left me with those monsters, but within castle grounds the guards found it too risky to have them run free for long. While the zombies were busy with the corpse, they got them back to the cage and then kicked me out of their precious building.

Why did they keep them in a cage in the first place?

[ Or rather, why did they look like humans? How the hell did something like that happen besides zombies, which as far as she knew weren't exactly violin-repelled. ]

Their own sick twisted entertainment. Deadly plagues are nice playthings to rich assholes like that. They make it a circus show, because they have no fucking idea what they deal with.

I think they've probably got a few more problems than wealth if they're acting like that, but I'm sorry. How did that plague start anyway?

Edited (wrong icon) 2013-07-21 22:57 (UTC)

[ A shrug. ]

Hell if I know. It's a virus infection with no cure and if any of the experiments the higher ups run actually served to figure out where it came from, they've done a shitty-ass job with them.

[ ~~Sorry, Kohaku, you're only a few chapters away from knowing more, but now you're dead.~~ ]

Why did your violin fight them off?

Those monsters react to music. The Galatea syndrome apparently hardens the bodies in a way that makes them re-vibrate with a certain sound and if a musician has the talent for it, they can be influenced.

So you're like a zombie vibrator.

Kinda. It works different ways for different people. The kid's piano attracts them, my violin keeps them away. Lucille's voice pretty much literally blows them up if he wants it. Combined works best though.

...So you combine pulling them in, pushing them away, and blowing their heads up. Does that just keep them still and blow their heads up or what?

If we want to. [ A little grin. ]

But nah, not really. Rather, the music becomes more powerful and depending on tune there's more and more precise effects - we can give them back their human mind for a bit, even.

...So the zombies in your world are like the undead or just suppressed?

Walking dead. They can get their minds back for a bit but there's no way to get them back longer than a few minutes or let alone safe them. Guignols are monstrous shadows of once living people, nothing more.

Their souls aren't trapped though right?

[ That's what Yuri would be worried about most, if they can be recalled like that then it means that they might just be stuck in there, watching as they go and destroy everything that they love and being helpless to do anything about it. ]

Hell if I know, never thought about it that way. Their brains are fucked up, when they come back they hardly seem to remember a thing... Not that I ever had an extended talk with any of them.

[ It's a merciful gesture to let them die as humans, but he would not want to spend much time next to sentient guignols. It reminded him a little too much of what he could have easily become. Although sometimes, in dark corners of his mind, he wonders what the countess would have told him had she been fully herself back then... it probably wouldn't have been any different. ]

I guess it's a little late now, either way.

[ Because he's dead. ] I hope you didn't end up as one of them, though.

[ He rubs his right eye at that, subconsciously more than anything. ]

So do I.

[ And finally he realizes that fuck, that is an option. Rhodonite seemed only interested to turn Lucille and Spinell into monsters, but could he be sure? Infected all over again, what an awful end it would be. ]

I don't think I'd have let those fuckers get me, damn it.

Probably not though.

[ Yuri's going to try to look on the bright side. WHich in Kohaku's place is a very depressing bright side but still. ]

I mean, if it's possible to get them to act like normal humans again then the souls are probably still in the bodies. If your soul's here, you're probably not trapped as one. Right?

[ He shrugs, not entirely convinced. ]

Never looked at it like that... Dead is fucking dead. But thinking that way, it'd make some sense I guess.

I'll admit where I'm from we don't have anything like that outside of fiction, like zombies, so I don't know exactly how it works.

If someone who's been infected ever shows up here we could know more... But right not it's useless speculation.

Well, they wouldn't be infected anymore if they came here.

Oh yeah, I'm perfectly aware.

[ He's not sure if this regenerating body the afterlife gave him is preferable to the virus-danger-zone he'd lived with before though. ]

But they might remember shit. Or not. Though actually, I think I'm fine not knowing.

That's true. If they didn't, they could probably regain it. I know a way or two to force that.

Huh? You can force memory regains?

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