Shining New Hope (Pre-Despair!SDR2xReader)

All Tests Are Completely Pointless

"I'm so glad you called me..." The voice down of the end of the phone muses, sending an involuntary shiver up your spine. "Your talent will be most beneficial to our project!" He continues, excitement clearly showing in his voice.

It sickens you.

"Yeah, yeah, I get it." You sigh, rubbing your forehead lightly as you start to pace backwards and forwards in front of a window that overlooks the school's front gate. "You said that you could help me with my 'home situation'." You grumble, just wanting to get it all over and done with.

"Ah, of course." The supposed scientist replies, "We will be offering him a job as a night guard with a salary that no one would refuse." He explains, you can almost feel him smirking down the end of the phone. You have to admit, a night guard is a pretty clever idea since he will be out of the house by the time you and your brother get back. It would cut the amount of time you're forced to spend with him to an absolute minimum.

"Alright, so what do you want me to do?" You ask, steeling yourself as you stare up at the grey dappled sky as small drops of rain land on the window, slightly obscuring your view.

"Meet me outside the statue of Kamukura Izuru in ten minutes." He tells you before hanging up and leaving you to make your way there. You spend a couple of minutes dawdling, trying to find something to do to keep your thoughts off of recent events but nothing comes up. You don't have Nagito doing something he shouldn't, you don't have Hajime waiting for you outside of school, even your classmates are giving you space; attempting to let you mourn.

It feels isolating.

"(L/N)-san!" A voice calls, drawing your attention to a figure which makes its way over to you. Any optimism you had disappears when you realise that it's the scientist you were previously on the phone to. "It's a pleasure to see you again." You notice that he is holding a pair of blackened goggles in his hand which he hands to you, obviously expecting you to put them on.

"Why do I need this?" You ask, slightly confused. The scientist scoffs as you slip them on and have your vision robbed from you.

"We don't need a pesky student like you trying to sneak back in." He half explains, not giving any reasons as to why you would possibly want to do such a thing. It definitely raises your suspicions, but you cant refuse the offer. You can feel him start to push you in a random direction and carefully making sure that you don't trip over or bump into anything.

You try to concentrate on the sense currently open to you, but you can't figure out anything about your location as the low hum of everyday school life is replaced by an artificial silence. Although it isn't really a silence as the air is filled with the ambient sound of electric humming. "You can take the goggles off." The scientist suddenly informs you as you are brought to a stop.

"Thanks..." You mumble, slowly pulling them off and having to squint as bright light fills your eyes. You go to hand the goggles back, but the scientist has overtaken you leaving you to job in an attempt to catch up.

"Hurry up, (L/N)-chan." He calls placing his hand on an electric scanner and then bending over so that his eye is level with a small beam of red light. You move further down the hall as you notice a strange door at the end which has a sliding hatch sat in its centre. It's almost as if they are keeping something hidden and locked away behind it. Something powerful and dangerous. Something that shouldn't exist.

Absentmindedly, you raise a hand and place it on the latch; just feeling the cool metal against your skin. At first, you had no intention of opening the hatch to peek at what's inside, but plans change. Carefully you pull the metal down, revealing an inky darkness which seems to hold nothing inside it. You lean in a little closer in an futile attempt to see more.