Mia ended up bending over and vomiting on the floor. For a few moments, it seemed like she was barely holding on, but she proceeded to collapse like a doll into her vomit. With that, the mist slowly clambered on top of her before she ended up disappearing too.
Within a matter of a few minutes, their group shrunk down to Lily, Kenji, and Jack.
Kenji was handling it as he handled everything else, with a straight face that didn't change. Jack was smiling rather brightly, seemingly oblivious to the situation. And Lily was a bit spooked but was otherwise fine.
But while Mia might've already failed, another vision of her still appeared. This time, it was her child self walking out into a room, to see two adult figures lying on the ground. One was a man and the other was a woman. And one thing they shared was both of them had been bludgeoned many times over, heavily bruised and bleeding.
She proceeded to go up to them and nudged both a few times one after another.
A few tears formed in her eyes before she wiped them away.
Jack tilted his head to the side in thought for a moment, but soon began smiling right after. On the other hand, Lily seemed somewhat disturbed, though she was still hanging on more or less.
"So this whole thing is just exposing sensitive information and seeing if we can handle that fact?... The only time I've seen a test so abstract was..."
She stopped speaking there. With nobody asking her to continue, an awkward silence went on between them. In the meantime, there was a conversation going on somewhere else.
...
"So, I'm curious boss. I remember you told me that you were teaching morality to your kid. But no matter what, I don't believe we have the capacity to properly teach these so-called 'good morals' you were talking about. Frankly, I'm sure it would be better if you just didn't teach anything."
"Yes, yes. In truth, that was what I originally believed as well. But... perhaps that saying, 'the apple doesn't fall far from the tree' holds more weight than I believed. When I tried to test him, his thoughts always went where mine did. The only thing I can hope for is that he will at least listen to the thing I feel like I need to repeat to him each time I come."
"So basically, you can hope for nothing?"
"Yeah, pretty much."
...
In that time, the vision gradually shifted to instead show Jack, in a dim room lit up only by a candle.
He was there with his father, who had a mask on and was wearing a checkered red and black suit. They were paired with white gloves, covering him up. Except for the neck, no skin was exposed. He set down a toy wooden train onto some makeshift rails consisting of lines dug in the gravel.
Those rails split off in two different directions, with one leading to a track with five poorly made wooden dolls and another leading to a single wooden doll.
"If a train is heading down the tracks and will kill five people, but you can hit a switch to change the tracks to instead hit one person, would you hit that switch?"
Jack, considerably younger, let out a laugh, picking up the wooden train before smashing it down on the five wooden dolls, making sure each one would get destroyed before doing the same on the last wooden doll. He then looked at his father with a proud smile.
"I hit the switch and kill everyone!"
His father was rendered speechless for a moment.
"...No, killing is bad, remember?"
"Mm... but that's no fun!"
"Fun can be bad!"
Seeing that vision, Lily couldn't help but furrow her brows.
"What? Where is this? It looks an awful lot like..."
However, the vision soon shifted to show something else entirely. It was the same room, this time lit up by a lantern. However, it was just Jack.
Somehow or another, all four of his limbs were injured, with both hands and feet lying next to him, disconnected, battered, and bleeding. Most of his hair was missing, seemingly pulled out from the bloodied scalp. And from a crack in his forehead, blood was seeping down his face, and into his eye sockets which happened to be empty, save for some scratch marks and pooled blood.
The eyes were on the other side of the room, barely reminiscent of their original shape.
Though the most peculiar part of it all, was that the various bloody parts weren't truly disconnected. Thin red threads were scattered about, connected together from any of his injuries to separated parts, including the eyes.
If it wasn't for the profuse bleeding, it would seem like Jack was actually a doll stitched together by thread gradually breaking apart.
Though even if he wasn't actually a decaying doll, he wasn't exactly doing much better. He continuously slammed what remained of his still somewhat good arm into his forehead again and again. Presumably how the crack formed in the first place.
"Ha... haha... HAAAAAAAAAAAAA... haah..."
Watching this, the smile disappeared from Jack's face. He remained silent and still, not saying anything else.
Strangely enough, Lily appeared to have a particularly bad reaction. Her breathing became unsteady, while she stared with painfully widened eyes. She kept feeling her own skin, rubbing against her arms and legs in particular. Her eyes glazed over as she panicked, and soon she rushed over to the vision.
"I-I'll save you!"
Though after taking only a few steps, she stopped in place, shivering and hugging herself tightly.
"No... no... no! NO!"
Although nothing was happening to her, she acted like she was on the verge of death. In the end, she didn't dare move, which led the mist to gather around her which led to the mist taking her as well.
At this point, a set of footsteps rang out before Jack's father showed up once more. He let out a long sigh after seeing the condition he was in.
"Jack, I told you not to do this anymore, didn't I?... I suppose I first need to get you into a condition where you can listen."
He took out a small needle, which slowly attracted all of the threads to it. From there, he took each piece and began sewing it back onto Jack's body.
Although it was a rather gruesome scene, the two present were one in the same in that they had no reactions.
Shortly after, the vision shifted once more.
This time, it showed Lily. She was with a few others, standing on a path that continued onto the horizon. The sky was a dull gray, and their surroundings weren't exactly plentiful as well. What appeared to be a tombstone had some strange words on it.
'The crows will not cease should they stay.
Water runs deep, but blood holds such beauty.'
The party was walking forward, but Lily called for them to stop.
"...Dylan, could you go on your own for a second? I want to see something."
"Hah, are you trying to look at my butt? I knew you were horny."
"Whatever, just go up."
"Alright, alright."
After the person named Dylan walked up, everything seemed fine other than the way he put one hand on his hip and needlessly accentuated his walk as though he were at a beauty pageant.
Shortly after, he turned around with a smile.
"So? Aren't you guys com-"
He was cut off as his mouth was torn off by a passing crow, prompting him to scream. Yet, before that could even be completed a wave of crows appeared, ripping their beaks into his skin and eating him alive. It was as though they were a swarm of greedy mosquitos.
And after not even a minute had gone by, the crows all left, leaving only bones covered in dents and marks.
"You just killed Dylan! What's wrong with you?"
As one of their party members protested, Lily flared up immediately afterwards.
"Don't act like you don't know what was going on! I've heard you say that you wanted him dead how many times now? Besides, the crows should be dealt with now. I can feel that they're no longer hungry."
"...Fine. Let's go then. But pull that one more time, and we're going to have problems."
As they walked on forth on the path, albeit with a bit of hesitation, the vision began to shift once more.
Other than the person that met their demise, all of them were on their knees, with an empty tombstone just a meter or so behind them. Though perhaps more significant, was that each of them were impaled through the torso with a sword, each of which had the blade penetrate straight through the ground.
It no doubt left them in an awkward position that if they attempted to correct, would be quite painful.
"Fuck!... What the hell were those riddles... if they could be called that anyway?... They made no... fucking sense!"