STRANGERS FOR YEARS, THREE NIGHTS AS FRIENDS

˗ˏˋ WORDS WRITTEN BY A DEAD MAN 'ˎ˗

For the past couple of minutes, Seven has been reviewing his clues over and over again. Anything that he thought was out of the ordinary even though this whole cruise was out of the ordinary. Just the assumption of the reality he was in messed up his thoughts about this case, but it did prove some things. There's a chance that he may have to go explore the cruise all over again, which was something he felt too lazy to do.

But he had to do it.

With his hands used as a prop for his chin, his black-filled eyes stared at the photo of the entire cruise in his notebook. He could feel a few veins popping out of his skin in pure irritation–irritated that he hadn't seen this earlier. Perhaps Seven was expecting too much of himself, but still.

The detective let out a heavy sigh as his hands fell back down to the table. This reality can't be real. I'll just have to use that as the assumption and come back to it later.

He flipped the page and stared at the sticky note of the day the glass broke in Prosper's room. He remembered that the glass shards, for some weird reason, formed the letter A right in front of him. Of course, Seven initially felt he was seeing things, but still wrote every detail down.

This fake reality could've been playing games with him at the time. Seven might as well blame that for anything weird occurring on the cruise.

If that formed a letter, and that random slip had the letter H in Morse code... after taping the symbolic slip to the sheet, his fingers gently lifted it and examined it more closely. 

H and A. There's definitely a word that I can collect different slips by.

Seven found the first slip on the main deck after the first suicide. It could've been dropped by someone, but the possibility of that was pretty low. The slip was on the ground out in the open and had the letter H printed on it. That alone was strange enough–especially if it was found after the suicide occurred. The detective considered it the second letter he obtained after the shards.

His finger started tapping again. The first word that came to mind was "hat," which reminded him of the hat worn by the missing blonde girl. But either way, Seven went with the idea that he could locate more letters later. Those are too few words for one to come up with.

"...Where's my other pen?" As he asked himself the question, Seven's fingers searched inside the suitcase, their tips brushing against the familiar photograph of Joker. He expected the pen to rest beside the image. But instead, something else grazed against his fingers. Something thin and papery. And it definitely didn't feel like the photo.

A brief moment of confusion took him, his brow furrowing as he hesitated for only a second before he could turn to look at what he found. At that moment, his pupils went small, his gaze locked onto the unexpected object.

The paper, crinkling slightly as he held it in still fingers, revealed two symbols etched upon its surface. The dash and two dots, followed by a solitary dot. It was never there before and he knew that his memory wasn't just playing mind games on him. Was this stupid reality helping him with the case? Or was it foreshadowing his fate?

Hesitation followed his actions as he brought the slip closer to him. His lips stayed parted in mere confusion.

"D and E?" he muttered, finally unlocking his gaze with it and staring at the other slip instead. "...I only found that one yesterday in the open, but this..."

Seven's fingers released their soft grip on the paper, letting it drop and land near the other paper. His lips danced into a troubled frown in confusion while his eyebrows furrowed with more annoyance. A grunt escaped him as he pressed two of his fingers against the side of his face.

There's no way that someone snuck this in. My suitcase is always locked and I can only unlock it with the passcode. Could it just appear randomly? His eyes followed each clue about the letters. There is a chance. This reality is clearly messed up for all I know. I don't have any other hardcore evidence, but I know I'm right.

He let out a heavy sigh, his fingers falling back onto the table with a sense of urgency gnawing at him. There was no time for prolonged puzzlement.

Looking back at the three clues once more, Seven pondered about the letters he received. The first letter was 'H,' the second one 'A,' and now, he had both 'D' and 'E.'

What a strange timing, he thought. The moment I go through these clues, I receive more letters. Could this just be a coincidence?

Seven's mind raced, trying to form words that included these letters. If the slip he got just now were to be the last letters he'd receive, which he highly doubted, the word that only came to his mind was hade and head.

The detective's finger tapped against his notebook in thought. Head could be traced back to the puppet band, but these letters feel like they're directed towards me. And as for Hade... Could it be a name? There's no one on the cruise named 'Hade', that's for sure.

When Seven considered the possibility of it being a name, he remembered the time when he was on the verge of death. Hade could have been the name of the man who charged at him and attempted to drown himself along with the detective. But the possibility was low.

"If I were to die, all of my work would go down the drain, and nobody would be able to complete this case."

Seven's eyes wandered around the details of the notes he took. Instead of thinking about the time when he almost died, he thought about a scenario if he did die.

Every clue collected on this cruise and every effort to find those clues would all go down the drain. Seven would die in a sea that's not even real, and his colleagues wouldn't know if he'd die either. The mysteries of this cruise wouldn't be solved by anyone else. He was the only one who could do it.

If he were to die, this case would go unsolved, and that ticked him off. Seven would rather know the truth and then die, rather than have to let someone make up an ending for the case.

So then, his fingers flickered through the notebook and ripped off a blank page.

I almost forgot to write all of the details about this cruise, his hands reached for his pen, clicking it. Then, Seven began to scribble down every little detail he'd written in his notebook. The lined paper had only two purposes. One: to reveal Seven's true purpose on the cruise. And two: acting as his own death letter.

For the past few years, Seven would always write a separate letter of whatever clues or details he'd collected on a case he took. He'd copy everything down onto one sheet of paper, which would later be placed in an envelope to store inside his suitcase or hidden somewhere secret. Either way, it always stayed out of someone's sight.

Each time he'd write something like this, he'd always have a choice to give it to someone. But he never did. There was always a chance.

Setting the pen down, his gloomy orbs shift over from left to right quickly as he reads the completed letter. He skimmed through everything but the last sentence.

'...q̴͓̫̿$̸̹̯͛́$̶͇̞̿͗a̸̟͠ṇ̷͐͜d̷̞̾͘͜ ̶͚̐i̴̼͆͆W̷͎͕͠W̵̘͕̓͘!̴͈̗̈́f̴̙̲͒̃ ̴͍̯̒̆3̵̳̈́̓i̷̹̋̌͜4̵͔̘͛͝t̸͎̫͗͑ ̷̹̲̾̕p̷̧̣̉̕r̸͎̎̕ȏ̴͓͌0̵͉̋0̷͇͘0̷̝̼̐̂v̴̘͝ê̴̞ ̶̭͇͆m̷̳͚̅̓y̵̗͒̃3̷̧̺̍ ̷̲̈́A̵̝̰̔Â̴̢͖Ǎ̷̯A̶͐͜a̴̫̺͊̈́s̵̬͝ș̸̌ů̷̳̟̓m̷͉̗̒͝p̵̡̯̊t̸͈͕̚5̴͖͊͂ǫ̴̱̈ṉ̸̢̍n̶̰̮̎̈,̶̞̈́....then I think we'll meet in another lifetime, and not some type of shitty place like this. I know it.'