The Trial [Pre-Cycle Game]

Magnolia smiled at the man and decided to reply in the sweetest voice she could. "Nope! Not a clue!" It probably wasn't helpful or comforting for the man, but that wasn't her problem. She was going to talk to the man some more, but she heard the phone ring in the corridor. The answering machine played, and what she heard gave her chills. But the girl's voice on the other line broke her out of it, and she quickly walked over to the phone.

"Hello?" Magnolia said as she picked up the phone. "Who is this? Are you okay?"

Gary was confused. Why was this woman speaking to him like that? It wasn’t the tone most strangers took with him, not even people he saw on a daily basis like his boss or Sharon from HR. Gary decided that the woman who stood before him was probably going to try and sell something to him, especially when he considered how she was dressed.

Whatever the case, he heard the voice the same as the woman and decided she was much more suited to talk to whoever was on the other end than he was.

The young man clutched his head, still dazed and barely aware of what was going on.

"Woman? She's my friend," he murmured. "I was just with her when I--"

He paused and looked around, as if everything was only making sense to him now.

"Where...what is this place? And who are you?" His voice had gone from being barely audible to having a tinge of panic. "Did something happen? Because I need to make sure Misa's alright, then!"


Back in the other hallway, the answering machine would give way to the phone. Magnolia would hear a sigh of relief from the other line.

"Oh, thank god," she said. "I'm...okay. For the most part. It said to call using the phone, but no one was answering."

The girl's voice was shaky, but obviously trying to make an effort to stay calm.

"I'm...stuck somewhere in a room or something. I can't open the doors and the call light's not working, either. A letter said if I called you, you'd be able to help."

If Gary paid close attention, he'd hear the sound of faint muffled noises in the corridor. It wasn't Evie in the other corridor, either. It seemed to be coming from a particular room in the hallway. It was just a matter of tracking which one.

This man was even more confused then Evie herself, and unfortunately for her, she's not the person to provide proper answers to the man as to where everyone was. She looked around the halls before looking back at the man who was slowly panicking before shrugging. "I'm not sure either, we seem to be in a dark and spooky hospital." Evie took a few steps closer to the man for safety as she looked around.

"I'm sure, Misa is ok. She could be still asleep in one of these rooms like everyone else." She looked back up at the man, before slightly smiling. "However, there are also two other people with us down in another hall we can meet up with. Maybe they'll help us find Misa as well as getting out of here." Evie then took a step back away from the man and held out her hand. It was best to be nice to the people you're stuck with, or else tension will rise.

"I'm Evie, Evie Jacobs, and you must be...?" Evie waited for the man to finish her sentence by saying his name.

Magnolia dropped her cheerful persona and began to talk to the girl in her more serious and deeper voice. "A letter? That's odd... Anyways, is there any clues that might tell us where you are? We're in the corridors of the hospital." She said. She knew she wasn't a part of that profession anymore, but she couldn't let this poor girl stay trapped somewhere. Magnolia turned to the man. "Could you try looking around for this girl? She's stuck, and I'm going to stay on the phone with her."

Turning back towards the phone, Magnolia decided to try and keep the mystery girl calm. "So, what's your name? I'm Magnolia, I guess I'm another person in here with you."

Gary shrugs. He thinks he might have heard something a moment ago, so it probably wouldn't be a complete waste of time, even if it turned out that the woman wasn't there. He hopes this won't take much longer, he didn't have a way to contact his employer or even check the time so he was treading on thin ice with this hospital business. "The name's Gary, by the way.
 Nice to meet you". The "nice to see you" was made completely redundant by his utterly monotone and unenthused voice. Without waiting for a response, he strolled out of the room. He'd already heard the woman, "Magnolia"'s name and he didn't want to waste time with pleasantries.

Gary entered the first room on the left as he began his sweep of the hallway, keeping an ear out for any other muffled hints as to where the noise was coming from.

"Li," he said, a little exasperated. Name exchanges at the moment didn't seem to matter in their current situation.  "Let's just get going."

Li would dart past Evie to reach the other corridor only to find Magnolia hovering over the phone and some man pressing his ear against the doors.

"Rena," the girl said. "It's nice to 'meet' you, though I guess we're just on the phone. As for where I am, it's pretty small. I don't see anything around me except for this weird generator thing in the back of the room. I don't think it's a basement or anything,t though. There's barely enough room to sit down in here, really. Aside from that is this phone on the wall."

As Gary started checking out the other doors, he would notice some doors were locked and wouldn't budge. However, towards the end of the hall where the portrait stood, he'd find that the muffled sounds were coming from the door to its left. If he tried to open it, he'd find that the door also wouldn't budge. But the conversation Magnolia was having with the person on the phone seemed to tie in with when the muffled sounds would start.

The portrait, which was an oil painting of a woman in a sitting position, stared blankly at Gary. Worn down with the corner peeling off and showing a parchment backing, it looked out of place with the rest of the ward, which seemed newly painted and clean. The vase, which had two white daisies, were starting to limp and almost looked like two white and yellow eyes also staring.

"Li?" Evie was surprised but shrugged. "Sounds like a weird name, to be honest." She joked, trying to make the situation funny by teasing people, however it didn't seem like the right time and she watched Li head into the other hall where the other's were. Evie looked back at the elevator one more time and not wanting to be alone in this hallway any longer, quickly followed Li from behind.

When she returned to the other hall, she noticed Magnolia talking on the phone from earlier. There also appears to be another guy with her, possibly the figure Magnolia mentioned before Evie went into the hallway. Since she doesn't know the guy looking at the doors and painting very well, she walked towards Magnolia and stood next to her, trying to listen to what's on the phone.

And also Magnolia appears to be the nicest of the three so far.

"Who's on the phone?" She asked the woman. Curious, she tried to lean in towards the phone, even if she was getting too close to Magnolia to listen.

Magnolia turned towards Evie. She noticed that she found another person. She wasn't exactly surprised anymore, seeing how odd this whole day was. "Someone named Rena. That guy down there is named Gary, I think he found something. I'm going to stay on the phone." She replied. She smiled softly at Li before returning to her conversation.

"Well hopefully I can meet you in person soon, Rena. There are three other people with me,
 so don't be surprised if they open the way to the room you're in." She said.

Gary approached the painting and looked at it for a moment. It felt like the woman was staring into his soul. He thought to himself about what a painting like this could possibly be doing in a hospital before dismissing the topic as irrelevant. With a stretch of the arms and a bend of the knees, he held both ends of the painting in order to lift it off the wall and examine both the backing of the painting and the obscured portion of the wall.

While doing this, he noticed two more women passing through the corridor. He ignored them however, as he decided if they didn't approach him, they probably didn't have anything very important to tell him.