"Loretta, I find it quite odd, y'know?"
"What do you mean, dear?"
Maverick scratched his head, he was meaning to ask this sooner or later. Considering the fact that, out of everyone he met, the closest individual to him is the lover in front of him, Loretta, whom he never learned her last name.
Maverick then looked at a spider scurrying through the floor, that spider reminded him.
"I find it weird that Roland never made us do any experiment that he didn't have time to test out. But this also made me think a little."
Loretta grabbed his hand, and interlocked their fingers. They then walked around, continuing to search for the computer that Yurina mentioned to be 'working.'
Maverick himself was the one who would often try to think on the logical side. He was never the type to simply throw out superficial beliefs as the answer to the problem, although the world we indeed live in does well, of course lean in to any aspect of, y'know what never mind I am getting off topic, that Sanguine Light messed up my writing.
"Dear, do you think Yurina can actually lead us to an escape? I believe she can, especially with a Regulator here!"
Loretta smiled, continuing to wander around, peeking into rooms that were either containment facilities, or simply laboratories.
"I mean, in case this plan fails, we should map out the whole laboratory." Maverick suggested, he then paused for a second.
"Loretta, I hear someone." He gulped in nervousness. The couple was now standing in the middle of the hallway, and another hallway, except the other hallway's lights were all dead, leaving that hallway to be veiled in a thick layer of darkness.
"This must be one of the hallways where the electricity can't reach. Considering that rebellion where the 40 people in the Death Game 3 years ago messed up the electricity system." Maverick reasoned. He still held Loretta's hand tightly, with Loretta even hiding behind him.
Then, the sound of a creaking door echoed, with them vaguely seeing the silhouette of a door being opened, with what seemed to be a man walking out. The man's silhouette concealed in the dark began to get closer, as he was approaching them.
Loretta then moved back beside Maverick. They didn't seem to be afraid, due to them having already accepted their fate long ago. But they did indeed feel their heart beating rapidly with anxiety.
"Why is he here? Did Yurina mess up the plan?" Maverick whispered to Loretta, Maverick also held up his arm as a way to protect her.
"Oh will you lovers calm down? I have nothing in mind for you two." Roland assured as he stepped into the light. He appeared to be rather casual if that was the best way to describe him. He had his lab coat sleeves rolled up, with a rebar impaled through his forearm, his blood dripping into the floor like droplets of rain leaving a trail of blood wherever he walked.
Roland approached them until he was a couple feet in front of them before stopping. Grabbing the rebar with his other hand, then began to recklessly tug the rebar. The rebar wasn't too large anyway, and with one final forceful tug, he tore the rebar out of his arm.
The gaping hole in Roland's arm began to fill up slowly, taking approximately 2 seconds to heal the bleeding space.
He then finally gave the couple his attention again.
"I am in a hurry, so I'll keep it brief. Satoya arrived here 4 days ago. Ever since he arrived, I realized that I'll give you two a break. So do as you please, however you are both not permitted to leave."
Maverick and Loretta let out a small sigh of relief, but this also made Maverick curious. Maverick worked under him for only 5 years, and Loretta arrived a year after.
Assistants, or specifically, the 7 assistants working directly under Roland, are simply people who survived from sheer determination or simply favoritism. By favoritism, Roland simply found that individual interesting. How Assistants are chosen every year, was Roland randomly choosing up to 40 'players' and either drugging them or rendering them unconscious. They then wake up in a specific location in the center of the entire laboratory, although no one really got the comprehension of how large this laboratory of his was. The Assistants then watch through a control panel to watch the Games ensue, although this, "Death Game" From Maverick's memory as well as Loretta's, these aren't really games, but a free for all, or in some of the years, they all are forced to fight one of them, who was stabbed with such lethal doses of Diluted Wrehtched Blood vials to the point where the transformation to turn into an Iya was instantaneous. Maverick won the free for all in his year simply because he was given a knife by a kind stranger, which gave him the upper hand. Loretta's year was actually favoritism, more or less, from Roland's memory, Loretta reminded him of a colleague he had prior to even becoming the Cataclysm of the 8th Disaster, thus he gave her a firearm, that firearm being the only firearm in the entire laboratory according to Maverick's insight, unfortunately Maverick doesn't know where that firearm is located.
With that thought out of the way, Maverick felt the urge to ask Roland a question, given this was probably the only opportunity he had.
"What is the purpose of the Death Games, as you called it?"
Roland then snickered, smiling as he answered his question, "Well, I've been looking for ways to please the Illuminating Red Star, and I did manage to grab ITs attention, but only for a fleeting moment."
After he answered, the sound of a gunshot rang from behind Roland, and as Maverick slowly reacted to the sound, he saw the flowing hair of a blonde waving in the air as Loretta fell back into the floor.
"LORETTA NO!"
Maverick began to wail in despair as he knelt down to Loretta's corpse. A hole was in her forehead, with blood spilling from the front and back of her head. The wall behind him had some parts of biomass, likely her brain matter, but Maverick paid no mind, as his tears dripped down onto her face, he held up her head, and embraced it with the sound of agony and sorrow filling the hallways.
"I should've been the one killed.. Why her? I had so many more things to tell you, so much untold love that I wanted to share with you.."
Roland watched as Maverick mourned for Loretta's death, however that wasn't the least bit interesting to him, as he looked back into the hallway he walked out from, that same hallway cascaded in complete darkness.
He made an amused smile, leaning his head in the darkness.
"So, that was what you were intending?"