Rosetta drifts in and out of uneasy sleep, the endless darkness of the polar night washing over her dreams again and again.
Night follows night, darkness follows darkness. Her dream becomes a chamber of thick mercury, trapping whatever clarity or reason she has left.
Between dreams, she is somehow awake. Her consciousness doesn't move in a straight line—it drifts like scattered fragments on that ocean of mercury. Sometimes the world forms blurry shapes, sometimes it warps into things she can't even recognize.
She watches herself from impossible angles, until even the concept of language decays and collapses. There is no describing, no reasoning—words simply can't hold something that slips beyond them.
Rosetta!
Her name—her anchor. The moment it echoes through her mind, all her scattered senses rebuild themselves around it. The dark, muddled dream collapses in on itself, and her consciousness tears through the thick membrane, pulling her back to you.
New Murmansk
Dawn, or perhaps a sunset that overstayed its welcome.
The old man closes the scroll in his hand and pushes open the window toward the bay. Outside, the receding tide lifts the last traces of night away. The morning breeze stirs the papers on his desk, rustling them softly.
Once the moon's silver glow sinks into the horizon and the sun begins weighing out a new day, the land and the city rouse with it. A distant sea wind carries the first sounds of morning, breathing life back into this ancient place.
Ah—! Huff... huff...
She fights her way out of the dream, staring up at a ceiling that feels both familiar and strange.
What's wrong? Didn't sleep well? No surprise... you haven't rested at home for so long. It feels different now, doesn't it?
No, that's not it... I just...
She watches her fingers curl and uncurl—reacting to neural signals like they should—yet she still can't tell whether she's fully escaped the dream.
A quiet and solemn procession passes outside the window. The elders among them chant a mournful verse in an old language.
Feeling better? We should get going.
Go? Where to?
The end of the procession passes beneath her window. Several residents move together beneath the weight of a coffin, their steps slow and deliberate. Soft sobs drift up as well—muted, restrained, as if they fear disturbing the peaceful sleep of the one inside.
We're going to a funeral.
Do the departed... need funerals too? The question rises quietly in her mind.
But instead of voicing that thought, she asks something more grounded.
Whose funeral?
Amberia...
In stories, funerals always come bundled with rain, black umbrellas, and tears. But today is bright and warm—rain and umbrellas are off the menu.
The cemetery receives more visitors than it has in a long while. Even the snow seems to recede from their approach.
Yet the place remains cold. A cemetery never quite allows warmth in, no matter how many people gather.
Good morning. Thank you all for braving the cold to be here, as we pay our respects to our departed friend...
Outside, the wind's howl fades for a moment. Inside the cave, the only sound is the soft crackle of the campfire.
The faint warmth and light are the only comfort this frozen wilderness offers.
You lean against the cave wall, working on your terminal. A storage core, ripped from the mechanoid you destroyed, is plugged into its interface.
Across from you, Rosetta lies wrapped in a blanket, caught in another restless dream.
Friends and relatives gather before the unsealed grave. Once their grief is buried with the departed, they will return to their own lives again. Only when memory begins to sprout will these mourners bloom once more before this lonely grave.
As Amberia's loved ones, we all know the misfortune and hardship this young girl suffered...
As someone who has long walked beside both life and death, I thought I'd prepared myself for this day. Yet I never expected it to arrive so abruptly...
Surrounded by soft sobs, the priest finishes the eulogy with heavy sincerity. From his words, Rosetta begins piecing together an "Amberia" she never knew.
She was a victim of the Niflheim Institute. Her parents sent her away before they died, saving her at the cost of their own lives.
The Amalgamator experiments left her permanently injured, confining her to a wheelchair for the rest of her life.
Yet she harbored no hatred, no resentment, no self-pity. She treated every remaining day as a gift, living with a sincerity and effort few could match.
She was the children's favorite teacher...
Since the townsfolk needed to work, children who would've otherwise been left unsupervised were brought to Amberia's home instead. Her gentleness and patience warmed what might have been the harsh Arctic spring of their early lives.
She was a messenger we trusted...
This remote town still relies on old but dependable written letters—the only thread connecting its elders to children who have long since left home.
Those with fading eyesight or who could no longer read would bring their children's letters to her. She would read every word aloud, giving voice to the wanderers far away.
Amberia was our favorite playmate...
She patched my clothes for free...
She taught me how to read...
...
She was a truly selfless soul.
With so many praises and memories spoken, her life—like her body—was sealed with one verdict: She was a good person.
And Rosetta knew none of this.
When someone dies, people begin to forget them, and the first things to fade are always their flaws.
Lost inside her dream, Rosetta draws your attention away from the terminal and back to her.
You glance at her, lying across the fire.
Her brow is tightly knit, her body tense even in sleep, as if she's wrestling with whatever the dream is doing to her.
But trapped in her dreams, she can only answer through the strain on her face.
Rosetta doesn't feel their grief. The funeral is so complete, so meticulous, it leaves her strangely displaced instead.
She stands among the mourning crowd, calm to the point of seeming distant. Before her, people place fresh flowers into the coffin as if exchanging them for more sorrow, more tears.
Then it's her turn.
The girl lies quietly in the coffin, yellow and white flowers draped over her like a simple dress. Rosetta studies the face—familiar, yet not—and tries to reconstruct the life the mourners spoke of moments earlier.
She has countless questions, and no one here can answer even one.
You haven't said everything you wanted to say, have you?
In a haze, the girl surrounded by flowers opens her eyes. They hold no anger, no fear—just clarity and kindness.
Time, the mourners, and all the grief around them freeze in place.
Amberia...
Except for "I'm sorry."
I...
Ah... I know. You want to ask, "Was this the life you wanted?" And my answer is "Yes."
This was the life I dreamed of... and the death I wished for.
People cry for me. They cherish me, miss me. My passing brings them together... lets them remember what came before.
Amberia rises from her eternal rest in a world frozen still. She leans close to a mourner whose tears hang suspended mid-fall and wipes them away.
She walks through the halted moment, pausing by each familiar face, offering a soft look of comfort, a quiet farewell. After completing that silent ritual, she returns to stand before her coffin.
Do you know what brought me the most joy in my life?
Rosetta tries to guess. Was it escaping the institute? Being welcomed by the townsfolk? The children's laughter? Or maybe...
It's another question Rosetta has no answer for.
None of those, actually.
She seems to see right through Rosetta's every thought.
It was the moment they closed the coffin. Inside wasn't a "monster"... but a life people remembered as a good person.
!
Rosetta watches as Amberia slips back into the coffin draped with flowers and memories. Her body lies there peacefully, with the faintest smile.
When you're prepared for burial, someone will tidy your features... dress you in your finest. Everyone who visits you afterward forgets your flaws. In death, you finally become who you always wished you'd been.
That's the gift of passing—something all the departed receive.
Wait... Amberia, I need to tell you something!
Besides "I'm sorry"?
Amberia... you weren't a monster. You deserved the life you had.
Thank you...
The girl once called a "monster" closes her clear eyes.
The brief pause cannot quiet the crowd's grief. The frozen silence fractures, and sobs return. The amber-colored moment that belonged only to Rosetta and Amberia comes to an end.
Rosetta's breathing grows rapid; faint whimpers slip out before she notices.
You react instantly, closing your terminal and moving toward her.
You call her softly, but the net of dreams is still too heavy to break.
Grief shouldn't last forever. Save some tears for tomorrow.
The funeral ends, and people return home—lighter somehow, as if a piece of themselves was buried with the departed.
Rosetta glances back. Amberia's fresh grave has already melted into the uneven sea of tombstones. Yet Rosetta briefly sees the girl perched atop her own headstone, humming a tune and waving goodbye.
Huh? Rosetta, there you are!
Someone taps her shoulder, pulling her vision back to reality. But she still turns for one last look.
The polished stones mark the newly departed. Evening settles in, and the dead resume their quiet labor of eternal rest. No one waves to her now. No one ever will again.
Lisa! Is that you?
What were you staring at? Amberia? You knew her?
In a way, yes.
She was a good person... right?
Rosetta hesitates. Which Amberia should she judge—the living one, the dead one, or the one in her dream? There is no answer she can give.
Maybe.
Oh right, where are you staying these days, Rosetta?
On Babylonia...
Whoa! The Babylonia? The one where everyone lives together, up in the sky?
It's a colony ship...
Oh whatever... How are you doing? What's your job like? Is it hard?
The barrage of questions from an old friend leaves Rosetta completely unprepared. Worse, she realizes she hasn't thought about these questions herself.
It's not bad. Babylonia's a good place, and I have comrades who look out for me.
As for work... I fight the Punishing Virus and the Corrupted.
Huh!? Isn't that dangerous? You're not going to—?
Oh! You're still alive, thank goodness! Don't come join me too soon, okay?
Lisa... why did you...
Rosetta already knows this girl is among the dead, but the question escapes her mouth before she can even form the words.
Why? Because we were best friends! Who'd ever want their friend to die young?!
The lively girl quickly realizes she didn't answer the question Rosetta meant. She turns and makes a goofy face at Rosetta, tongue sticking out.
Oh, you mean why I went "belly up" and died?
It was not long after you were taken and modified, Rosetta. The forest near your old home had been rebuilt into a food processing plant.
Lisa glances around and points toward a spot tucked behind the mountains. Rosetta can't tell if it's the place she once lived with her grandpa.
Once the factory opened, the whole area smelled like cooked food in summer.
Sniff... Just thinking about it makes my mouth water.
Back then, all us kids dreamed of sneaking in for a feast. One day, we overheard adults saying the factory might be shut down. To us, that was the perfect chance.
The two girls retrace the road from that morning, talking about whatever comes to mind. The tired old sun still shines steadily, not rushing either girl home.
And then...?
The factory was abandoned because the Arctic Route issued an early Corrupted-invasion alert. We kids didn't know that. So when we finally snuck in and were stuffing our faces... the Corrupted rushed in.
At least before we died, we finally got to taste all the things we never had. I really wish you could've tried them too, Rosetta.
But... maybe it's better you weren't with us. You're the one who has to keep living for our sake now.
She tells the story of her own death with the calm of someone sharing a book she just finished on a quiet afternoon.
Lisa...
Oh come on... don't make that face! It happened ages ago.
Anyway, enough of that. Oh right, that narwhal you brought back, it's really smart!
Yeah. Derek can actually understand what we say.
Ohh. So its name is Derek. Did you name it, Rosetta?
What felt like an endless walk home ends at a fork in the road before they even realize it. The weary sun has already dipped below the horizon. Under a dim yellow streetlight, the two girls finally reach the moment of parting.
Rosetta... I want to ask you one more thing.
Ask me anything. We're best friends, aren't we?
You...
Why didn't you come to my funeral?
The aging streetlight flickers at the worst possible moment. Between bursts of light and darkness, Rosetta realizes she's standing alone beneath it.
Is there anything I can do to make it right?
Why didn't you come to my funeral?
Haha! A perfect pull! You're totally losing this round, Rosetta!
Rosetta... I regret never telling you...
The faulty streetlight goes dark for good, and the night sky's deep black washes over the ground. The world drains of color, unfolding like a funeral from start to finish.
The crossroads twist into a single knot as the colorless world turns liquid. The ground betrays you—you slip, you sink. The fading colors declare their verdict without mercy: You are expelled from the realm of the departed.
You grab the only solid thing left—a streetlight—trying to resist. But you don't belong here. You're alive, and the living never win in a world built by the dead. Now they're sending you back to where you came from: the world of dreams.
Rosetta, sweet dreams!
Before you can form a response, the mercury cage closes over you again. You tumble into suffocating disorientation. The broken, chaotic dreamscape born from your unreliable M.I.N.D. becomes your place of exile.
Dreams are interrogation rooms made for the living.
They force you to face everything remembered and forgotten, then press you with every blurred memory and half-shaped impression.
They push guilt into your throat, demand repentance, and seize control of limbs that were never truly yours, turning them against yourself.
Lisa... I'm sorry...
It's
Asimov suggested
I'm sorry... [player name].
"M.I.N.D. deviation alert! M.I.N.D. deviation alert!"
The dream ignores the deviation, turbulence, the shockwaves in your M.I.N.D... It covers your mouth and nose, blinds your eyes, and smothers your mind.
The interrogation room doors swing open. Before you can sign your confession, your guarantor arrives.
Rosetta!
A strange sensation unfolds. "Your" memories, judgment, and awareness remain locked inside the frame called Rosetta. Only "your" sense of self, the thing that makes "you" you, has transferred to the one human inside the cave.
In the dim cave, damp firewood strains to burn. The cold air and blurred shadows push against her fragile sense of reality.
Then a pair of hands lifts her up—hands that could never belong to the realm of the departed.
[player name]... I... I need to tell you something...
You... you already know...
Maybe... I can't believe you heard all of that. It's embarrassing.
You hand her a pot of water warmed over the fire, steam drifting up to soften her face.
I'm fine... it was only... a dream...
Then what did you hear me say...?
Thank you...
Yeah...
Silence falls between you for a moment, the fire crackling softly. Rosetta looks toward you again.
You didn't rest at all?
You show your terminal. Plugged into it is the storage core from the mechanoid you two ambushed earlier.
Did you find anything?
Hmm... bad news first.
I see...
Rosetta leans on the cave wall as she stands, checking the time. She knows exactly how long she's been out.
When do we head out?
We'll be adjusting our route anyway, right? You'll tell me eventually.
The two of you pack up, ready to set out again. The road ahead will be tougher and more dangerous than before.
Snowfields
Unknown coordinates
Day three of your trek
You push back into the wind and snow.
