[Action]

[misterious]

[ She watched Makoto Naegi die, the squelch of flesh and viscera, the crunch of bone, the dull thump...thump...thump of the machine that mashed him to a pulp. All the evidence pointed to the fact that he was dead, yet she found herself wishing it wasn't true. In spite of all her efforts to keep emotions from clouding her judgement, the guilt of letting her ambitions come before the life of another gnawed at her mind enough for false hope to creep in.

Maybe he lived.

After all, his body fell into the trash room below. It was unlikely that it would have been cleaned up and whisked away elsewhere. If she could see it, she could confirm that he was dead, once and for all. She might also uncover some clues behind the mastermind who had set the trap with her in mind.

She concealed herself in a garbage bag and had her classmates drop her down the trash chute. The fall was longer than expected.

The death was instantaneous. Or it should have been, were it not for the fact she had woken up in yet another school. After giving herself a minute to adjust, her best course of action was to get a lay of the land and gather as much information as she could. ]

[ You might have felt a pair of eyes watching you in the public areas today, the slightest glimpse of a girl, pale and willowy, wandering in the shadows, or in some corner just within earshot. She observes but never approaches, maintaining a neutral expression regardless of what's going on around her and walking away as soon as anyone makes a step in her general direction.

Maybe she wasn't watching you after all. Maybe she's a ghost. Can something more ghostly exist in a town of dead souls? It is a mystery.

After a few hours of reconnaissance/creeping, she's slipped into the library to peruse the science stacks. With a wall at one end, there's only one way in and out. She's mindful of that opening, keeping an eye on it, just in case someone feels inclined to corner her and confront her. ]

Comments

[crayoned]

Okay!

[Mary hurries over to the desk, opens one of the drawers and takes out a box of crayons and some paper. She hums thoughtfully to herself for a moment before she takes a seat at the desk, takes a purple crayon from the box and starts drawing.]

Let's see, there's... Yurippe! She's really nice, she taught me lots about the laptops. And nicknames, my nickname is Marippe! And, uhm... Sonia, she's nice too, and Madoka! They're some of my best friends. At the festival I met Reisuke, he's close to my age and we won lots of prizes together. Who else...?

[misterious]

[ She sits still, statuesque and expressionless while Mary draws. ]

Are there people you dislike?

[crayoned]

Dislike? Nooo... Oh! I don't like the shadows, they ruined the festival and stopped all the fun. I could draw a shadow, but it would just be a big black scribble with white dots for eyes.

[And that just sounds boring to draw to Mary. No colour, just a black mark on a page... But are the shadows really people? They come from NPCs, and those looks like people, but even still. Hmm.]

Everyone here is really friendly, even the guy who shouted at me and said my nickname was bad. He was really funny in the end!

[misterious]

Where do the shadows come from?

[crayoned]

NPCs, they're the ones that turn into shadows. I don't know how they change though. The person on the, uh... The loudspeaker during the festival said something about being here for a really long time. That's when they changed last time!

[misterious]

....Do you remember the exact words?

[crayoned]

No... Oh, but I have my phone!

[Leaving the desk and her drawing for now, Mary climbs up onto the top bunk and digs around the covers for her phone. She sits crossed legged on her bed as she slowly pokes around different menus and options until she finds the conversation she had with Madoka. They were talking minutes after the shadows transformed, so she's hoping seeing the texts she made will help jog her memory.

Meanwhile, her picture she was drawing is coming along nicely. She's finished drawing most of Kirigiri, having drawn her with the same happy expression most of the people in her drawings have, even if she hasn't actually seen her roommate smile at all so far.]

Uhm, let's see, when he was talking he didn't sound scary? [Does that help at all?] And he said something about going mad and that we're all staying here forever.

[Sadly that's the best she can manage. Mary seems to give her phone an odd look as she reads through her texts, but she doesn't say why at all. Being told she would be 'staying here forever', even if she likes it here so far, just didn't sit well with her.]

[misterious]

[ She notices Mary's expression as she looks at her phone. ]

Is something wrong?

[crayoned]

I don't like what he was saying during the festival. [... Oh.] I don't like that person, there's someone who I don't like here after all.

[A lot of the speech that she heard during the festival sounded as though the person on the PA was describing her time at the gallery... Ahah!]

I remember, he said something about all you want never coming and that it hurts.

[misterious]

Why didn't you like what he said?

[crayoned]

[She can't say it was because his words were hitting too close to home for her, that might lead to questions about where she came from. So...]

I just didn't, you know, he sounded pretty weird. And he ruined the festival, I don't think anyone could've liked him or what he was saying after that.

[misterious]

[ Her eyes narrow, as if the answer doesn't satisfy her, but she's not going to push. ]

Tell me about the festival.

[crayoned]

Okay, it was really fun!!

[Her mood seems to do a complete turnaround at being asked about the festival. Of course she's going to focus on the more fun stuff than the whole 'running away and being taken underground' part.]

There were lots and lots of games, I got to play most of them. And look, I won aaall these toys 'cause of how good I was at them! And there was lots of sweet things to eat, I almost made myself sick. But it was worth it!