cancry | [Open] Dr. Medic's Sleepaway Funtimes Camp

I. So girl keep telling me [network post]

[About three hours after the whole post-Esmeeting kerfuffle, every phone included in the Executor group chat suddenly blares loudly with an incoming post that appears to have every possible alert and priority notice the person writing it could find attached to it.]

ANYONE WHO ATE ANYTHING AT ESME'S HOUSE REPORT TO MEDIC IMMEDIATELY YOU ARE POISONED

[Well, you can't accuse her of burying the lede.]

i'm in my lab in invidia [The exact address and coordinates of the lab are attached along with the message, including a helpful photo of a scribbled map just in case anyone is really bad with directions.] if you ate ANY of the food esme served or if you're feeling sick, come here so i can treat you
if you find someone unconscious or unable to move on their own, BRING THEM HERE
if you don't have anyone around and think you need help getting here, reply to this message immediately

i threw up, so i tested some of the leftovers i took home
and that food is very, very poisoned
(also, if you brought leftovers home, don't eat them)

II. pick me up whenever i'm feeling down [in-person log]

[True to her word, Medic is ready and waiting in her lab the second anyone arrives.]

[The living room of the apartment she commandeered has been turned into a makeshift hospital. She's dragged cushions and mattresses in, laying them out on the floor and covering them with clean sheets and blankets to make sickbeds. Next to every bed is a glass of water and a bowl for, uh. Any stomach issues you might have to deal with.]

[Anyone healthy who walks in the door will be cheerfully pressganged into nursing duty.]

[The beds are set up facing the living room's lone TV, but well... this is Invidia. Guess who's probably on every channel.]

[You might have better luck with putting on a movie, but no one actually saw this coming, which means your available selection consists exclusively of stuff Medic brought with her from the Limbo library when she came down to Invidia. By which we mean exactly one film.]

[Whether having to see Esme's face is better or worse than watching Brutal Instinct again is a choice you're going to have to make amongst yourselves.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

What a polite young lad.

"Yeah, you're right." It's the second Specter speaking now, and they sound thoughtful. "I don't actually remember what either of them were like, but there were definitely two of them. Wonder what happened."

“Let me think...there was that quieter girl, ‘Alice’, I think? Then I do believe I recall Esme ranking ahead of her, and that other girl Kotori out in front. Until that utterly terrible incident, of course.”

Awful. Scandalous. Absolutely bullshitted like he’s not completely sure he remembers the details. And this is Phoenix very convinced he was absolutely a politician on top of whatever required one to know combat acrobatics.

Another beat of confused silence.

"Incident?" says the first Specter.

"Utterly terrible?" says the second one.

They sound at once puzzled and curious. And it goes without saying... just a little envious. Give them the goss, polite young man!

...Interesting. Maybe the recording had still been there because it never made it to air, though several questions about the abandoned studio remained.

“Oh, goodness, don’t you know?”

Barely missing a beat, he answered in a scandalized tone the likes of which he may or may not have heard from Chiron a time or two.

“That poor girl—just as they were to announce the outcome of the contest she fell abruptly and suddenly ill for some strange reason.”

It is a mystery.

“Unspeakably ghastly, what became of her. I have little doubt Esme took first place by default after that.”

"You can't just stop there!" the second Specter insists, suddenly getting a little too into Phoenix's personal space. Rude! But it sounds like the implication of gossip has whipped them up into a little frenzy. "You have to tell us everything!"

“Oh, I don’t know every detail down to the second.”

That was, strictly speaking, not a lie. Just casually evading the worst of it.

“But I do know that Kotori unfortunately passed away very suddenly just as the contest was about to draw to a close.” For whatever death meant around here. “The illness she came down with must have been extremely acute, I certainly can’t claim it to be like anything I know of.”

More like he had no idea what Esme was actually using.

“It’s rather...odd, don’t you think?”

The two Specters immediately descend into a flurry of furious whispering with each other, talking over and under each other so excitedly that it's hard to make out what they're saying. Esme's name comes up a lot, of course, as does Kotori's but other than that, their fevered excitement is pretty incomprehensible.

Eventually, though, the second Specter directs their attention back to Phoenix.

"Where did you hear this? I can't believe people aren't talking about it already!"

"Very reputable sources, you know the sort."

When a man in dark clothes and sunglasses tell you he has Connections, obviously you want to believe him.

"I would imagine no one wants to speak of it, given the suspicious timing."

"Ohhhh my god. You think something suspicious happened to her?" the second Specter gushes, and then their companion cuts across them with audible delight.

"It's foul play! This is totally crazy."

There's a momentary pause, followed by the distinctive noise of someone furiously tapping away at their phone keyboard.

"What else do you know?!"

"I can't possibly know for certain, but Esme is terribly popular now. One could surely extrapolate that she only had everything to gain from her more well-liked rival being out of the way--but oh, dear, how terrible of me to speculate so."

You can tell a jury to disregard something, but will they though.

"I don't know that I've much else of interest that isn't mere rumor or suspicion, but I do hope that poor other girl stayed well away from things afterwards. I don't know that I'd want to be anywhere on Esme's radar after that, just in case."

"Oh, hell no. Like– maybe Esme didn't do anything but it's still really, really weird. I'd totally stay out of her way after that."

Or, as the kids are saying nowadays: green sus.

There's another round of delighted whispering between the two Specters before the first one speaks up again.

"Do you think she'll say anything about it if people ask her?"

"...You have reason to suspect she killed someone who threatened her popularity and you want to ask her about it?"

Bruh.

"If it were me, I would consider instead asking everyone I knew--see if they knew anything or remembered more about Kotori or Alice. Surely someone must, don't you think?"

In short: let's gossip, kids.

You didn't think these two were dead because they had a sense of self-preservation, did you?

"You've got a point..." one of the Spectres concedes, sounding thoughtful and just a touch disappointed all at once. "I guess we might as well ask around."

"I'll ask everyone at the fanclub meeting!" says the other Spectre. Because of course there's a fanclub. "Are you coming along, too?"

What's that? A whole club full of Esme's devoted fans to turn against her? ...Maybe Chiron was a bad influence on him.

"Perhaps I shouldn't, really--you've a lot to think about and discuss with the others, after all. Maybe some of them can remember poor Kotori and would like to know what happened to her."

Pause, almost definitely for dramatic effect.

"...And of course, they'd surely like to hear that there's a very real chance Esme's popularity was gained through terribly cutthroat means."

It really took him this long to work that out, huh.

Both Spectres sound absolutely delighted at the prospect of spreading gossip though, if their excited chattering among themselves is anything to go by. They've practically forgotten Phoenix, so it seems – at least until the first Spectre addresses him again.

"Oh, yeah! Is it okay if I hand you something to say thanks for this?"

“I suppose it would be rude to refuse. What is it?”

...He’s bracing for ‘a knife to the ribs’, just in case.

THEY PULL OUT A KNIFE AND STAB HIM!! Nah, just kidding. The Spectre steps forwards and, with a surprising amount of care, takes his hands and turns it palm-up so they can press what feels like a slick piece of paper into it.

"Here you go! It's a coupon for that BBQ place that's been all over TV. I won a prize draw so I have a bunch going spare. Free ribs!"

...Huh.

"Is it, now? Well, thank you--I'll be sure to put this to good use."

By criticizing and stealing their recipes? You got it.

[Open] Dr. Medic's Sleepaway Funtimes Camp

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