“.... Now it’s my turn”

Natalya looked again at the slit that showed the number 5 and closed her eyes in annoyance.

“If this was an actual quest... This is so stupid”

She crumpled the paper and threw it at the garbage bin a few meters away, walking towards Ai like a soldier marching to the frontlines, met with the face of death.

The android’s eyes shone cyan and Natalya was soon enveloped by the hologram’s light.

-Data retrieved: Natalya Wolskev, 4th Research Station: DOOM’s Ultimate Survivor. Interpolation with the subject’s most meaningful memory: The Trial of Lights. Explanation Required.

-DOOM is a Research Station whose specialty is nurturing “hardcore players”. This world has an “endgame” scenario, and it is our duty, my duty to reach it and as quickly as possible... If I say any more...

Natalya turned around swiftly, her eyes filled with unconcealed bloodlust.

-I’ll have to kill you afterward.

…

…

…

-A special exception was made. The subject may skip the explanation to the Trial of Lights.

-What? That’s not fair! Like, not fair at all!

Nathan punched Kyel's head in and concealed his mouth.

-If you want to kill yourself, go ahead, but I value my own life – he whispered.

“...”

Natalya frowned. Unlike with the 4th Research Station’s secret, causing a mass killing out of leaking the Trial’s information would be nothing more than a fit of murderous rage. She could issue another threat and avoid speaking further, but Ai was not to be underestimated. When she made the exception, it was because it was to Natalya’s benefit to silence everyone. Their lives weren’t useless to her, it was simply that, measured on a higher scale, it was best to keep the secret unveiled.

Likewise, on that same scale, their lives were valued higher than her bitter memories. Ai wouldn’t back down because she knew that Natalya would be stabbing herself a knife if she chose to sentence all to death.

Breathing out a sigh, she narrated the events of that day with a voice detached of emotion.

-Although all Control Rooms are locked by passwords, the one at DOOM automatically opens to the Ultimate Survivor of that station. Unlike Kyel’s case, however, I wasn’t the best seed. There were countless others as capable as I am, some much more. We killed monsters that cannot be even remotely compared to that of a Queen Ant, and explored places full of traps and gimmicks that reaped lives as easily as cutting a stalk of grass. To do that, we pushed past the limits of what this human hide could handle... And in return, we completely turned into something inhuman, things hidden behind the guise of biological classifications, while being entirely alien. Those of us that lost sight of the main objective now roam this place wreaking mindless havoc. Those who didn’t... They qualified for the last test.

Natalya’s eyes flashed with a vertical slit of light, like a reptile’s. At that moment, Seven knew that what he saw back in the Queen Ant’s chamber hadn’t been an illusion.

-There were way too many, and there could be only one person of worth... Not the strongest, not the smartest, not the most cunning... Just the last one standing, the Ultimate Survivor... And that is me.

Natalya hid her face so no one could see her expression and sat at the farthest table. No one spoke a word, opening the way whenever she approached.

Kyel was very upset. What he did was still considered playing by the rules, while Natalya just flipped the board as if saying “I’m not playing”. For him, it was inconceivable.

Seven, on the other hand, was delighted. It has been some time since he saw that ferocious beauty of Natalya, her death threat made him very amused.

"How nostalgic... Even though it's been two days I think"

-Next subject, come forward.

After a few embarrassing memories of other minor characters and tidbits of information he already knew, it finally came a time for a character Seven considered important to go up.

“9... It’s fine I guess”

-Data retrieved: Arthur Bell. Made contact with Research Stations number 3, 4 and 6. Explanation required.

-I... Don’t know what I’m meant to talk about?

Arthur fiddled with his hair, pondering on how to start his explanation, inadvertently catching the sight of two fierce pairs of eyes: Kyel’s and Natalya’s.

-… Did you perhaps issue a Party invitation?

-Yeah, I did. I got signals from North and East.

Arthur had no knowledge about the Research Station locations, but North from there was WHISPER and straight East was HEART. He couldn’t get a reply from DOOM.

Natalya retracted her gaze and asked no more.

Seven stroked his chin in thought.

“From what I gather, everyone should be dead in DOOM. But that question was strange... Are the subjects who lost their sanity still recognized by the Human System and can use their functions effectively?”

If that was the case, it could be that Natalya was worried Arthur had attracted unwanted attention.

“The Party signal once received will give a Party prompt, but the sender gets a signal back only when the receiver accepts the Party. That means Ai’s statement confirms there is someone or something with the Human System crystal inside DOOM, since they were contacted, but Arthur wouldn’t know about it. Or maybe a monster that detects the waves without the crystal...”

-Hmm, I'll tell you everything I can remember... Those wooden stairways outside, they lead to a few outposts and from there we can access a sort of communication line. I happened upon them when I explored the area outside Terminal A-1 during the invasion, my Human System was set up to look for party members constantly, and when I went to one of those outposts, I noticed light being transmitted very far away when I approached with the crystal. Some people accepted my invite but quickly left the Party. There were more important things to worry about at the time, so I only gave it some thought recently, but the outposts are without a doubt relay stations.

After finishing the explanation, Kyel pinched in and added some more.

-Those outposts were set by my predecessors at WHISPER. They did an ok device but forgot to leave behind instructions. Such amateurs, pft...

-Proceeding to the memory. Unwritten records of bullying and violence in middle school and high school.

Breaking the flow of the conversation, Ai dropped the bomb without warning. Kate was the one who appeared most shocked by the news, and considering how little she cared about everything happening around her as of late, it went to show that Arthur held some degree of importance in her thoughts.

Seven, too, was quite surprised.

“This... I would never picture him like that..."

There was little to talk about, there were countless kids Arthur put down on his school days. He didn’t need to mention the one who ended up committing suicide, but he also didn’t know how most of the others fared after he stopped messing with them.

“Nothing good, either way...”

Recovering from this social scar wasn’t impossible, but for many it took time. Sometimes, a lifetime wouldn’t be enough.

Mimicking Natalya, Arthur made his voice appear as distant as possible while summing the events.

-It’s just like that... I won’t butter it up to save face or say shit like I was young and naïve, which I wasn’t... I knew what I was doing... Have you ever seen those cartoons or school-themed comedy series? Probably... There is always the big bulky guy that acts like a major jerk and picks on you, and those watching are all scared of getting involved with him, because he’s always hanging around the Director’s office and detention rooms, if not a delinquent he’s in the Basketball or Baseball or whatever team and does crazy and stupid stuff with the other members, you catch the drift... It’s the cliché “no-brain” jock who pushes his weight on the nerds and outcasts... Though, I wasn’t avoided and wasn’t stupid, at least in terms of grades...

He sighed and closed his eyes slowly. Arthur felt like he was given a scalpel on a biology class and instead of dissecting an animal, he was told to dissect himself in front of everyone.

He was carving out a piece of his heart and serving it raw.

It hurt.

-They do exist. I’m... Was a fucking... Tsk. I don’t even know... Fucking piece of human trash.

…

…

…

-Please elaborate – Ai prompted.

-Huh? Are you fucking kidding me?

Those were memories he didn’t want to remember. He didn’t care about disclosing them as much as saying the words himself. It was enough that he carried the weight of a dead person, he didn’t want to add to it a list of hateful things that came in equal doses of shame and horror.

-A warning was issued to subject QERT-6947: Arthur Bell.

Arthur breathed in profusely and clenched his hands into fists. He deeply regretted not knowing the consequences of failing this game.

- Spreading false rumors, breaking objects in club rooms, drawing on books and tearing apart pages, setting up booby traps on chairs and the door to the classrooms, hiding clothes during P. E...

The words came out as soon as they popped into his head, and he hastily outed them as if driving them out of his mind. His heart accelerated, beating faster and faster as blood rushed to his head and his mood turned as abnormal as the activities he described.

-Beating, hazing, extorting money...I didn’t do it myself, but I was behind everything... One kid even... Fuck this, I’m done... That enough for you?

Arthur took off the sunglasses, not knowing why he even put them on, and rashly tore the flowers adorning his body into shreds of pink and blue.

He left.

…

“... Gruesome”

Seven was in a low mood. He didn’t care about any of the people Arthur made unhappy, even though he also suffered bullying for a while in high school, although tame enough that he didn’t think it was a matter worth his consideration.

What he felt was an extension of Arthur’s display of self-loathing and the sadness concealed by rage. Seven assimilated with him, and for a moment could bring himself to sympathize and produce feelings he normally didn’t possess.

Arthur’s story sent shivers down his spine. Like watching a play, he could truly feel how much effort the actor put into the scene, simulating a real person’s feelings.

For Seven, it was a truly beautiful thing that Arthur could display such an array of emotions and move him.

“A poem... No, I’m not good at writing lyrical texts...What do I do with this? I don’t actually want to do anything, though...”

He was never a person to get sad. Even in the worst periods of his life, all he felt was emptiness and a growing sense of urgency to fill the void left behind. The emotion people would generally describe as sadness, to Seven it was nothing but a fleeting sensation absorbed from the suffering of a nearby person. Sadness, to him, was equal to disappointment.

By the time he finished savoring the darkness in his heart with cutlery of logic, it was already the 16th number.

-Next subject, come forward.

-Me.

Kate walked towards Ai without any sense of urgency, as if she was going for a casual check-up on the hospital. The scan enveloped her and the results came fast as ever.

-Data retrieved: Catherine Wyz. List of victims, no explanation required. Interpolation with the subject’s most meaningful memory: True culprit of the St. Claire’s Massacre. Explanation required.

Kate smiled sweetly before turning back and looking everyone in the eye, a chill coursing through those that witnessed her previous actions, and an amused smiled coursing through Kyel’s lips.

-St Claire is a hospital in U.S.A., I don’t remember the name of where I used to live, but it was a small community of hunters. I’m a sole daughter, and my father usually took me to hunt so I learned how to handle weapons and kill things quite early. One time I was grazed by something and got a sort of infection or disease, father usually carried around a bag of medical supplies for first-aid, but we didn't notice it until after the symptoms showed up...

Kate gazed down. Unlike Arthur and Natalya who tried to hide their feelings, she truly did not feel anything while narrating the events, granted, they weren’t earth-shattering secrets up to that point.

She stifled a yawn and proceeded.

-There was a town near our community, we went there to sell meat and trinkets, buy medicine, weapons, and ammo, among other supplies. The doctor who attended to us checked that the disease wasn’t contagious, and that hospital had a children’s ward, although it wasn’t that children couldn’t be allocated elsewhere. Either way, we went there... But I don’t know if it was a very strange coincidence... Or if it was fate... Everyone I met during my stay there, they had eyes as if they wished to die... I knew the look, it was the look of an animal after being shot with an arrow or a bullet, cursed with a slow death... I didn’t use to keep things to myself, so I asked them “what are you feeling?” and “does it hurt?”...

Kate’s lips trembled and the edges of her mouth curved into a silly grin.

- “Does it hurt so much that you want to die?”

Seven felt a bit nauseous hearing such words, but he didn’t know why. Just by the mention of a hospital he was already not feeling too good, but as the story progressed the unease did not leave him.

-Agh...

“Goddamnit... It’s the second time today”

Kate’s testimony ended there, the rest was self-explanatory. She didn’t tell anything about the weapon of the crime, how many died at her hands, or how she managed to avoid a trial, all she needed to do to satisfy Ai’s musings was admit her crimes, which she did as easily as reading a grocery store shopping list.

Before a single breath could be exhaled in that stifling environment, Ai once again broke the flow.

-Summarizing the information: List of victims. Amongst one of the 6 victims killed in the St. Claire’s Massacre, there was an eight years old child named Seven Whitefield, a boy with congenital insensitivity to pain.