Chapter Text
PERCEPTION (SIGHT): The first thing you notice is nothing. Specifically, absolute blackness without a shred of light.
PAIN THRESHOLD: The second thing you notice is the ache in your back that occurs when you wake up sprawled on the floor of your bathroom or in a back alley instead of your own soft(ish) mattress. It hasn’t happened lately, but your body remembers better than your brain does. Speaking of your brain, you also notice a pounding ache in your head that only accompanies a concussion.
LOGIC (trivial: success) None of this is a good sign.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: Groaning to yourself, you attempt to sit up. You can only get your elbows under you before your forehead hits a solid surface.
HAND/EYE COORDINATION: In the blackness, you fumble around to feel your surroundings. You’re lying in a box of some kind. Only a few inches of wiggle room on all sides.
HALF LIGHT (Impossible: failure) Overtaken by the wild urge to escape, you shove against the unforgiving surface above you, pummel it with your fists, but you have no room to get any leverage and the box doesn’t shift in the slightest.
PERCEPTION (HEARING): A burst of static. You can barely hear the voice come across. “...this time. I’ll try again. Lieutenant, can you hear me? Come in, Harry. Answer me if you can hear this.”
DRAMA: It’s Kim’s voice! Quick, ask him what he’s wearing!
LOGIC: Or ask him where you are and what happened to you, idiot.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT (easy: success) You find the source of the voice, a radiophone that’s resting on your chest. You feel around on the tiny box until you find the “talk” button.
YOU: “Kim? Is that you?”
KIM KITSURAGI: “Harry! Thank goodness, I was worried you wouldn’t be- never mind. Do you know where you are?”
YOU: “Uh… in a box.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “I know that, Detective. Do you have any idea where? What do you remember before you were buried?”
DRAMA: Buried?
LOGIC (easy: success) Of course you’ve been buried alive. What else did you think was happening here?
SUGGESTION: Panic!!!
KIM KITSURAGI: “Lieutenant? Did you hear me? Shit, we might be on the wrong track if we’re losing the signal…”
COMPOSURE (challenging: failure) Hearing Kim swear is the last thing that pushes you over the edge into panic. You thrash in the confined space, pounding against the lid of the box and roaring like the trapped animal you are.
KIM KITSURAGI: “-me! Harry, answer me! Can you still hear me?”
COMPOSURE (Godly: success) Kim’s panic is enough to push yours back at bay for the time being. If there’s one thing you will never tolerate, it’s anything that upsets Kim. With a deep breath, you manage to calm yourself enough to respond on the radiophone.
YOU: “Kim, I’m here. What the fuck is happening?”
KIM KITSURAGI: “Oh thank Dei, don’t do that to me!”
YOU: “Kim… I don’t know where I am. I don’t remember anything. I think I was knocked out.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “You were taken from your apartment. The people who abducted you left a trail of clues for the rest of us to follow. They’re watching us from somewhere, laughing as time runs out…”
PERCEPTION (HEARING): His voice is trembling. He’s terrified.
JEAN VICQUEMARE: “For all we know, these clues don’t actually lead anywhere and this whole game is just to waste our time until Shitkid drops dead,” you hear him say in the background.
JUDIT MINOT: “He’s dead either way if you don’t get your ass in gear!” she shouts.
YOU: “Kim, tell Jean to shut his fucking mouth before I dig myself up and shut it for him.”
ESPRIT DE CORPS: Both of them are far more stressed than they let on. A fellow officer in peril, even you, is always cause for alarm. Jean thought he’d gone numb long ago to the thought of your death. But now, the fear strikes him far more deeply than he expected. It clenches at his heart and suffuses his limbs, pushing his exhausted body past its limits in the desperate search to find you.
LOGIC (medium: success) The box you’re buried in is a fair bit larger than a standard coffin. It must be so the game isn’t over too soon.
SHIVERS: Kim taps his fingers impatiently, staring at your empty desk and glancing at the door with every tiny noise. He’s debating the merits of trying to call you again, when you didn’t answer the first two times.
Jean was unsympathetic when Kim brought up his concerns. “He’s only half an hour late,” he snorted. “That’s still early by Shitkid standards. When he’s two weeks late, hit me up again.”
Kim doesn’t agree. He’s starting to wonder whether he should just get up and go to your apartment to check on you when he hears the front door open.
It’s not you. It’s an unfamiliar person, dropping a smallish box on the receptionist’s desk and leaving without a word. In a police precinct, anonymous packages are considered a security risk and need to go through screening, but Kim is restless and bored and stands up to check it out for himself.
Thirty seconds later, he’s sprinting back to Jean’s office with a sheet of paper clutched in one hand and a radiophone in the other.
KIM KITSURAGI: “Keep talking to me, Detective. But stay calm so you’re not wasting air.”
YOU: “Right back atcha, Kim.”
EMPATHY (Medium:success) Your words don’t make sense to Kim, but it’s not any more nonsensical than your usual drivel, so it doesn’t raise any alarm bells in his head. If you were starting to become incoherent, then he’d be really worried.
ENCYCLOPEDIA (trivial: success) Hypoxia is a state of oxygen deprivation, characterized by rapid heartbeat, altered levels of consciousness, and mental confusion. Prolonged hypoxia can lead to heart attacks, permanent brain damage and death.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: Speaking of which, it’s becoming a bit more difficult to breathe.
ENDURANCE: Every breath feels like you’re trying to suck air through a tiny straw. You’re starting to feel shooting pains inside your chest. It reminds you of your panic attacks, when your lungs refuse to cooperate and go on strike like the dock workers, until Kim sails up in his schooner and negotiates a peace agreement between your brain and your body.
CONCEPTUALIZATION: As far as you’re concerned, you might as well be buried ten miles underground. You’re so far removed from the outside world that you’re not certain it ever really existed. Maybe you’ve always been alone in this tiny, dark space, and everything else was a figment of your imagination.
DRAMA: Kim has always seemed like a figment of your imagination. Nobody is that perfect. He’s too good to be true.
PERCEPTION (HEARING): Speaking of Kim, you’re hearing his voice again.
KIM KITSURAGI: “Detective? You still with me?”
YOU: “Hey there, buddy. I was just talking with my brain about how you’re too perfect. You should try to be less perfect, you know? You’re making the rest of us look bad.”
KIM KITSURAGI: He is silent for a moment. He doesn’t know what to make of that.
DRAMA: I hate to say it, my liege, but you might want to take this chance to tell him all those things you’ve always wanted to say.
COMPOSURE (challenging: success) Without crying, preferably.
YOU: “Kim, have I ever told you what a great partner you are? Because you’re the best. Way better than Jean.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “What? Harry, don’t say that. Jean can hear you.”
EMPATHY: He’s calling you Harry. He’s truly worried about you.
YOU: “It’s not Jean’s fault, it’s mine. I ruined him. I…” it takes you a moment to get enough breath to keep talking. “I took a perfectly good man and I fucked him up. Look at him now. He’s got depression. Do you… know what he used to be like? I don’t, but I bet he was almost as amazing as you.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “Harry, just stay calm, okay? We’re almost there. We’re going to find you soon, I promise.”
YOU: “It’s better this way. I ruin people, Kim. You’re the best person… I’ve ever known. I’m lucky… I met you. I’m glad… we were partners. But I’m more glad… that I didn’t get the chance… to ruin you.”
ENDURANCE: I hope you said all you wanted to say, because there isn’t enough air left in your lungs to do any more talking.
INLAND EMPIRE: Yep. That was enough.
KIM KITSURAGI: “Harry? Harry, answer me! Harrier! Talk to me right now! HARRY!”
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: Tears are leaking from your eyes now and sliding down the sides of your face. You’re not sad for yourself, though. Kim is going to beat himself up over this way more than he should. Jean will be there for him, though. No one was there for him after he lost Eyes. Jean won’t let him feel too sorry for himself.
EMPATHY: Will Jean be relieved that you’re finally out of his hair? Probably not. If he were willing to lose you, he would have given up on you long ago.
ESPRIT DE CORPS: The entire precinct is in uproar. All available resources are being pulled towards finding you and arresting the perpetrators. Most of them don’t have a personal stake in saving your life; in fact, many of them would be glad to see you gone. But this is a personal insult to the RCM, and none of them will let that slide. At least you will be avenged. You’ve always wanted to be avenged.
PAIN THRESHOLD: There’s a stabbing pain in your head and chest. Dying really shouldn’t hurt this much.
ENDURANCE: You can’t hold on much longer. Your thoughts are jumbled and nonsensical, even by your standards.
YOU: You think of Kim.