“Do you think even think it’s me here?!”
“No.”
“Then why are you voting for me?”
“... I don’t know.”
“That’s what I thought. But if you are indeed town, I hope you find it in yourself to finish the last steps of the journey for me, Hectic and all the others who are not here anymore.”
Morning stared blankly at the jail cell’s ceiling. She counted the cracks between the boards while idly flipping a coin about in one hand.
“Giving up already?”
She sat up quickly, recognizing the familiar feline’s voice, “Catboi? What are you doing here?”
“Hi, Morning! Just thought I’d stop on by ( ˘ω˘ )ノ ⁎⁺˳✧༚” he gave a huge grin before continuing, “I can’t help but notice you seem down. Cheer up! It’s not over yet.”
“Oh. Well. I’m glad you came, Catboi,” Morning sat back down, “But it is over. The trial is scheduled for tomorrow. There’s no way anyone but me will be convicted.”
Morning paused for a moment, before clenching her eyes and exclaiming, “We killed Taylor, Hectic, Chara, Nacho, and Pooky! We were-- no, I was wrong every time. I deserve this. It’s what they’d want.”
Catboi shook his head, “You don’t know that, Morning! Why don’t you ask them yourself?”
Morning looked back up. Catboi was gone. In his place, two new faces appeared on the other side of the cell bars.
“Hectic! Taylor!”
Morning ran and pressed herself up against the bars.
“I couldn’t figure it out who the killer is! It’s not me. I’m sorry!”
Hectic stifled a laugh.
“We know it isn’t you, Morning. We’re omnipresent, you know?”
Morning dropped to her knees, “So, you already know what’s going on. I failed you all.”
A reassuring hand placed itself on Morning’s head, causing her to look up. It was Taylor’s.
“You didn’t fail anyone. You did what you thought was right. It’s okay.”
After a brief pause, Taylor pulled Morning up to her feet.
Morning thought for a moment, before saying, “Is it nice, being dead? I’ve been--”
“Nope!” Hectic interrupted Morning, wagging his finger, “No time to be thinking about that!”
Morning looked at him, confused. “No time? I’ve got a whole night left until.. well, you know.”
Taylor took Morning’s hands into her own, “You’re not giving up already, are you?”
“Well, I mean.. I..” Morning scratched the back of her head.
Taylor gave her a stern look, “Oh my god, you can’t give up yet, Morning! After everything?”
“B-but, the evidence. It isn’t there, Taylor..” Morning responded, irked, “Lavender, Tanner, Noraa.. they are all are certain it’s me by now. The killer-- they left nothing behind! It’s hopeless!”
“--that’s not true.”
Morning spun around. There was Chara, sitting on the bed. Nacho stood not far from it. Morning did a double-take behind her to see Hectic and Taylor were now gone.
“They left nothing behind? Do you really believe that?”
Chara’s deathly serious tone sent a chill down Morning’s spine.
“W-well.. I…”
Nacho let out a long sigh, “As long as you let yourself think that, you really are hopeless.”
Chara tossed a tattered notebook at Morning. She caught it narrowly, before inspecting it briefly. “KRAZY” was scribbled on the front in marker.
“Chara.. I can’t.. I already thought it was Pooky.. and then the incident happened, and..”
“Forget about that! Do not forget that he was the next one slated for the execution,”
Chara stood up and pointed at the book,
“Look at the rest of his play.”
Morning hesitantly looked first to Chara, then to Nacho, and then to the notebook. She flipped to the first page and began reading.
“This is Krazy’s early game. What about it?”
“He’s kept nearly the entire game in his scumpool. He could justify a vote on you with the early scumread, but he drops it later in favour of pushing Tanner and Lavender. He had Hectic as hard locktown early but continuously moves it down, so much so that he can justify voting Hectic later on in the day. Does it strike you as genuine?”
“Okay.. that is not such a big deal, though. Anyone can have wide, shifting reads.”
“Morning! You understand who the killer is, don’t you?”
Morning took a breath. “Yes, I do. But it doesn’t help me one bit.”
“Look at his reads here. You and Puppy are in the same, ambiguous tier marked ‘Review’. Krazy has consistently thought you to be scum, whereas he only interacts with Puppy on small occasion. How did Hectic end up so low? You need to start asking yourself these things, Morning.”
Morning sat down and covered her face with her hands, “Simply not being super towny isn’t enough to build a case. Multiple players became paranoid of Hectic, it was not just Krazy.”
“And besides.. Krazy loathes playing scum, does he not? How does someone who hates playing scum put up a performance like that?”
Chara rolled its eyes. Nacho pushed past it and approached Morning.
“First off, Krazy does not loathe playing scum. He
‘generally prefers playing town’. He only claims to hate scum later while arguing with Alisae. And second off, what makes you think his play does not align with someone who dislikes scum?”
Morning opened her mouth, before being interrupted by Nacho.
“Save it. Turn to page seven.”
Morning complied with his request, flipping through pages until she landed on a section of the game that she recognized well.
“This is the end of day two-- Taylor’s death,” she said, a solemn look appearing on her face, “What’s special about it?”
Nacho sighed again, “Morning, we can’t do everything for you. Don’t you remember something about scum choosing whether or not to take a coin flip?”
“Krazy took it!” Morning blurted out.
“He did. He was aware the day was ending because he knew the implications of you not quick hammering. And yet.. he placed a vote on Hectic by himself, made a lengthy argument justifying why, and ghosted from the thread during the last critical moment. Why?”
Morning allowed herself to get excited for a moment, before suddenly relaxing and sitting back.
“That’s not terrible evidence, I will give you that. But.. the Tanner interactions. How can he lash out at Tanner like that if he does not feel justified? It was so hard for me to believe that I locked him as town on the spot.
“Morning..”
Chara hopped off the bed and sat down criss-cross in front of her.
“I know that emotion is a weakness of yours. Let’s look at it again together, shall we?”
Chara took the notebook from Morning and flipped through.
“Look at
here and
here,” Chara pointed to various places on the page, “Unfortunate as it happened, Krazy took Tanner to be insulting him as a player.”
“Take a look at
this one. This makes it clear to me that Krazy’s view of Tanner was as follows: ‘Tanner didn’t actually review the game. He isn’t actually trying to read me. He’s said I’m scum, thought it good enough for him, and is now devoting his time to messing with me. My play is unimportant. Tanner just wants to make me angry.”
Morning thought about this for a moment.
“I suppose that if Krazy believed that, it would be frustrating regardless of alignment.”
Chara nodded. “
Keep looking. He thought Tanner’s reasoning was terrible. Again, this would be a frustrating situation for any player. Not just town ones.”
Morning let out a long exhale, “I understand. Thank you.”
Chara smiled and got up. Morning scanned through the rest of the pages to learn as much as she possibly could.
“Redtea actually did follow their scum meta to an extent by not placing any suspicion on other players. The post count is higher.. but that’s it!”
“Krazy was being cleared based off of the no-kills-- he is a very good mechanical player and dislikes playing scum, so why would he make the game harder for himself? But that’s not true-- scum made the correct mechanical decision, it turns out. He really knew what he was doing all along.”
“Damn it! All Krazy had to do was point out that him clearing Tanner was suicide, show why the game state was perfectly set up for Pooky, and then I was in his pocket. I was practically his minion. The reason Krazy cleared Tanner was so he could have access to night killing Tanner! If he didn’t, he’d have to deal with Tanner voting him for both days! I’ve realized it too late.”
“Alisae made Krazy angry. Alisae was pushing him for hidden, possibly nonexistent reasoning. Taunting him too! Of course, Krazy reacted the way he did-- he was taking it as
Alisae attacking him, not his play.”
“Puppy’s vote on Krazy during day two did nothing to change the state of the wagon. He didn’t even really have a reason to make that vote.”
Morning took a break from her rambling to look up.
“Chara! Nacho! Thank you! I--”
They were both gone. Morning sat in silence for a while, before getting up to return to bed. She clutched the notebook tightly to her chest, lost in thought for a long time..
“What, not even a ‘Hello’?”
Morning snapped out of her trance. A certain bear she had come to know all too well over the past couple of months stood beside her.
“Pooky!”
She jumped out of bed and hugged onto Pooky tightly.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” tears welled up in her eyes.
“You know I love you, Tweetie,” Pooky reassured her, “there’s nothing to be sorry for.”
He placed a paw on her head to pat her.
“I really thought it was you.. and then it was too late. And.. and...”
“I know, Tweetie. I know,” Pooky flopped one of Morning’s ears, before letting go of her.
“You’ve got to finish this, now. For all of us. I love you no matter what happens.”