-Day 10: Tuesday-
The room was just how they had left it: tidy, but the bed with part of the comforter rolled under a sheet and slightly askew demonstrated the lack of precision throughout. Each of the four desks had different levels of piled schoolbooks and notes; Yatsuhashi's had an outline for a paper pinned to a closed text with a paperweight. This room was to be their refuge and prison for the remainder of the week. Professor Goodwitch had explained that meals would be taken to their room through Sunday night, so that they could have peace from other students if they desired, until they were to return to classes. They would be a week behind, having prepared to only be gone for one.
Coco opened the window and breathed deeply. The fresh air was tainted with smells from the kitchen, iron from the overnight rain, and sounds of life - indistinguishable voices intermixed with the hum of technology. Her bedspread was crumpled, she had laid upon it for the last two hours, but unable to stop her eyes from studying the room she found the air difficult to breathe. Lunch will be here soon, then we will start the report. 'I know it is soon, but I expect to have your report tomorrow. It needs to be written before too much is forgotten, as always.' the headmaster told us when he brought Professor Goodwitch to see us this morning, before she escorted us to this suffocating room.
Velvet typed quickly, as Coco and Fox spoke details out-loud. Even when they paused, her fingers continued to write the draft using her own memories filling in the gaps. She vocalized a few of her own recollections after typing them out, to be certain the others agreed and could add details if they came to mind. This was the draft, just to get the ideas out, not much different than an initial return interview. Next, Coco and Velvet would look over Fox's shouldler as he reorganized the recollections into something with a purpose, a report. Usually it would have been the four of us each taking from the draft and forming different sections, all working together at a group of four computers in the library.
Finally, Coco took the keyboard and polished the report by reading through it for consistency and language errors while the other two tried to check it over her shoulder, although struggled to keep up. I pull it all together. I'm the leader, I make sure what we present is of one mind. I think we can skip having the others' review my work for grammar and wrong-words, this whole thing is rushed just to be done with it anyway. Sure interviews and reports were part of every mission, but this one just seemed so taxing. Consistency. But without using the same words, there needs to be some minor variation. Recollection of Sundays past talking loudly in the library, Yatsuhashi acting out scenes with Velvet not unlike Professor Port, laughing even, rested on her back as she ate dinner with her team in silence. It seems Velvet has figured out that pleasant conversation is a chore? Or maybe she is recalling the same reports we once wrote, all together.
-Day 11: Wednesday-
Coco had given her team the morning to rest, her own night comprised of restless fits and starts, but after the second meal came she sent the report electronically to the headmaster and her two teammates. Not the proper way to do it, but I have no intention of finding a printer and it works. Minutes later she led the other two to Headmaster Ozpin's office, reports were not merely an exercise in writing but had to be presented as well.
Headmaster Ozpin put down his print-out of the report and slid it to the side of his desk. The three students across from him closed their scrolls, the one in the middle stood up to leave first.
"Wait a moment. I have some information from the military." he began. Coco sat down as requested, already more mentally present in the conversation than she'd been while they presented the report.
"Although some details will not be released to us, they have an idea of what had been going on, specifically the aim of the experiment." The headmaster placed his elbows on the table, fingers intertwined, with his upper back rounded to rest his chin upon the construct. "They believe the scientists, likely from Atlas or funded through their military as you have probably surmised, were attempting to study the grimm by discovering how to create them. "
He paused to allow the idea to permeate through the barrier of the unthinkable. It was met with two sharp intakes of air and silence, although the team leader only displayed a pensive expression before asking one simple question: "How?"
Here, Headmaster Ozpin lowered his gaze to the table in a brief show of disgust. "Grimm are known to spawn from and be attracted to negative emotions, tasked with destroying them. These . . . people . . . were attempting to create creatures of grimm by extinguishing the light of human or faunus subjects without killing them." His eyes closed as he took a deep breath, the information unsettling for him, the mere mention of the existence of such an idea paining the headmaster.
Velvet's eyes were wide with horror, her mouth open, but her darting eyes unable to pick out just one of the many thoughts racing through her head resulting in not one being expressed. Fox was able to pick one, but not complete the thought, and spoke it with hushed consternation, "That's horrible. So they really used . . ."
Coco swallowed her initial reaction, her face stoic as her gaze pierced the headmaster's mug. "Did they succeed?" Her voice was barely above a whisper, possibly not intended for anyone but herself, nearly unheard amongst the ticking of decorative gears. Yet the question was spoke out loud, and was heard.
"It does not seem so. You had mentioned the lack of ruts in the road, which suggests that it was not grimm within the walls that chased the residents out. The original group were criminals, whose records have them leaving to repent with difficult jobs but never listed on the census reports the settlement sent to Vale. They suspect others were taken from the village, for getting too close or being easy to have disappear. As a consequence of the . . . things being done, grimm were attracted to the area. The treatment at that time was escalating, and soon the subj- people were dieing. "
"There is some speculation as to why the grimm soon avoided the settlement but continued to remain close. One theory is that the defenses discouraged the grimm, who then chose to wait instead of die at the wall. Another, considered that they may have been afraid, although that goes against modern assumptions and observations of grimm. The third was based on old, out-dated grimm protection superstition, that removing life satiates the grimm's need to see our light extinguished. None of the theories seemed reasonable, however, so they are still searching for a reasonable explanation."
The suspicious safety of the wall, I let it take down my caution and abused its benefit.
The headmaster sipped his coffee, and pulled his composure from the lethargy his voice had stumbled into. "It was confirmed that the last food shipment was two weeks prior to the first message sent for assistance. The residents did not have means for their own subsistence apart from regular hunts that would have been impossible with the grimm that had appeared. The military has yet to find an explanation as to why there was no request for supplies, but if the people there had taken the same steps you three did it would explain the strange pattern of missing stock. I suspect that the situation the settlement experienced was worse than described at every step in the lead-up to the acceptance and assignment of the mission. There was a log found of contingency plans, one of which was acknowledging the existence of the laboratory as a weapon development site and ordering an evacuation on the grounds of a toxic gas being leaked. It is suspected that this was what happened, triggered by hunger, fighting, or even discovery of the lab, perhaps when the communication was cut."
He died because we fell to the same fate. I didn't question the lack of messages. I didn't ask our transport to stay close. I took too long to realize how dire the situation was when the signs were there before we even arrived.
"There are extermination teams looking for where the settlers could be if evacuation did occur, but no one has been located yet, although it is still early."
He died for people that fled to their own deaths, with help on the way. I put my team through that hell for people too scared to think. They perished for a lie, and I followed it too, sending my team with them.
"They asked for help, were sent it, but fled and died before receiving it." Coco was not sure if it was a question or a statement. It summarized the events concisely, but that alone would not justify giving the words voice. The implications of what she had learned were struggling to both sink in and be discarded, her words seeking confirmation that she dearly hoped would be refuted. Her eyes saw only color, the desk became simple browns and greys as her focus retreated from the material world into her thoughts.
"There was nothing that could be done. From what I've heard in the interviews and your report, you and your team did everything that could be expected of you. You did your best. It is unlikely anyone else could have fared better."
I doubt that. There was a mistake, somewhere. There had to be mistakes. I accepted the mission. I packed insufficiently. I was the leader, am the leader. I led my team there. I led them in and yet only two left.
"The communication was controlled by the people involved in the experiment." Fox concluded in the silence that had fallen while the headmaster sought some hint of recognition from Coco.
If I had not suggested cardboard, and just waited we could have been okay. If we'd just saved our energy and stayed inside the walls we could and survived on just water. We might have grown dull but we'd all be here right now.
"Then it could have been intentional that no requests for food or mentions of the evacuation were sent?" asked Velvet, following Fox's train of thought.
"There are implications suggesting that." affirmed Headmaster Ozpin.
"Then, does that mean there were no "what ifs"? That the events were controlled by specific people and unlikely to have been allowed another path?" Velvet's mind was now turning, searching for some explanation not yet pieced together.
"They are presumed dead as well."
"They fated themselves to death? But why?"
"We might never understand it fully, but it is an explanation that would tie up the loose ends."
"What you are suggesting is that the mission was doomed from the start. The goal was for nothing to leave those walls. It was a trap." Coco's morose words cut through Velvet's innocent search for answers and the headmaster's skillful responses attempting to side-step the very case that Coco laid bare. She had trapped the headmaster, forcing him into a position where he had to agree, or admit there was something that could have been done to prevent it all, something she should have foreseen and acted upon to protect her team.
"I'm sorry, too much is still unknown at this point. We should not allow ourselves to settle upon any conclusions until the situation has been fully investigated." Headmaster Ozpin quickly attempted to break out of the snare by moving away completely.
Coco stood, unconvinced. "Thank you for sharing your information." Her head bowed respectfully, disguising that her eyes would not meet his. She left before any note of whether the other two followed could reach her. She was laying in her bed, her mind already fading into partial sleep when the other two returned, having stayed after she had taken leave. Rest was fleeting, interrupted by nightmares of reality, or were they just recollections not settling enough to allow her to fade into sleep?
-Day 12: Thursday-
Memories began to blur once again, not from hunger but now caused by sporadic sleep. Unlike Fox, Coco found herself unable to start making up classwork, or even stare at a book and pretend like Velvet did for two hours. Maybe I've been laying in bed too much to sleep properly now. What's that sound? Fox was taking a nap, but the team's bathroom was occupied by Velvet, yet water was not the only sound emanating from the closed door. Is she crying? Oh, Thursday. It has been one week. One week. He died a week ago, and we just left him. The reality hit her once again. Coco wanted to scream, to break things, to shed her own tears, but she couldn't; to do so would be to admit it was real. To acknowledge to herself that what she had done was real, and to relive it.
