I continued to search through my head, looking for anything that would explain what was happening, but I came up empty handed.
But soon, a childish and psychotic voice burst into the room, breaking every inch of silence that had been built.
"As much as I love to see the despair on your faces, we have work to do! Meet your headmaster, Monokuma!" It said, the voice boisterous and out of place. It was high and childish, but also eerie in a way. It held a certain weight that made me feel uncomfortable, and it sent shivers down my spine.
I felt a small shiver underneath me, which soon transformed into a large shake. I turned my head to a large podium that was centered at a stage at the very front of the entrance hall.
Then, two seconds later, a black and white bear with an eerie sort or aura to it popped out of the ground and landed on top of the podium?!
Most of the people in the entrance hall shrieked or jumped back, but I was more curious than anything.
"Uh... Why Monokuma?" Was some kid's question. He was Indian with black hair. He had a flexible body with a slim figure and looked to be able to move around quickly.
"Puhuhuhu... Because that's my name!" The self-appointed 'headmaster' replied, a childish smile, malice and pure evil intent hidden behind it.
The rude boy from earlier with the two-toned hair said, "Where the fuck are we?!"
The only thing that Monokuma replied with was "Your new home!"
That left a bitter taste in my mouth. "What...?" I muttered, confused.
"You fourteen students will be living here for the rest of your lives, or, until you follow the rules of my game!" The creepy child's toy responded, as if that was supposed to answer my millions of questions.
"Wait... Rest of our lives?!" Somebody shouted, and I felt my skin prickle against the chill rippling throughout my body.
"Puhuhu... Please do account with the thing I said afterward..."
I thought for a moment, taking a few seconds to let what I had just heard register.
"The rules of your game?" I unconsciously said out loud.
"Puhuhu... Correct!" The bastard said, and I felt the same chilling sensation from earlier re-enter my skin. This time, small parts of my body shivered, and my eyes longes to fall closed and dream this nightmare away.
Sadly though, that was not possible.
"C... Could you explain please?" Hazel asked, her eyes displaying small fragments of fear.
"Gladly!" He said. "You all will be participating in..." Duck started stomping their feet on the floor, resembling a drumroll type of noise.
I waited in anticipation for Duckuma to finally quit the drumroll and for Monokuma to explain what we would be involuntarily participating in.
"A killing game!" He finally said, and the room went silent. You could almost feel the surprise, confusion, and most of all fear laced in everybody's aura. You could hear the hearts beat, gradually getting faster and faster. My ears produced a ringing sound, trying to block out the words to come. Trying to block out the world. It was no use though, for you can't take back a hit that had already bruised.
I heard muffles screaming, and a loud thud. I quickly turned, and saw a girl panicking. I looked down and saw that somebody else had fainted. I wished I could fall down with them, sleeping through this mess.
But Monokuma continued to speak. "Here are the rules!" I wished he would shut up. I felt dizzy, my head blocking out the majority of the noises around me. For some terrible reason though, Monokuma's voice rang loud and clear to me. "You will live your lives here as normal, with minimal restrictions! That is, until somebody kills another one of your peers. It could be you, it could be your best friend, or it could be somebody who's a complete stranger to you! Who knows? Anywho, from then on, once three people at the same time discover the body, I myself will make an announcement that will fill up the screens on all of the monitors and I will announce the discovery of a dead body! From then on, an investigation will be held for about two and a half hours. After that, a very special class trial will be held. This is where you all will participate in a chaotic but very informative discussion with special features to help you find the blackened, a term we use to describe the killer! Find the blackened and successfully vote them out, boom! The blackened will be punished accordingly and you all will continue your lives in this funhouse until the next murder occurs! But if you vote off one of the spotless, a term we use to describe the innocent, well... The blackened will get off scott free and you all will take the blow for the blackened and their crime!" The explanation felt like hours.
I stared at the shorter bear and it took me about five minutes to register what had been said. Most of the others seemed to take the same effect.
"Oh, and since I get these questions quite often from people in past games, I'll just state these two things right now. If there's a tie in voting, then a very special winners wheel shall decide your fate. And, if there's two murders, only the first one counts if there was two different blackened. The second murder has no importance!"
"...Wait. Earlier, you said that 'I get these questions often from people in past games'. Does that mean that there have been games before us?" The girl who calmed Duckuma down earlier spoke.
"Correct! Though I won't tell you how many, the number is very quite high..."
I went pale. How many killing games has this man hosted?!
"Anywho, the people in the last killing game thought that just because they killed off everybody, including the mastermind, there would be no other killing games. Oh how wrong they were!" Monokuma chirped. "Anywho, I must be going now, explore to your hearts content and if you need anything, just say my very merry name!" He then practically disappeared.
It was all a blur after that. Most just stayed sorting through everything that had just happened, trying to make sense of it all.
As for me? Well, I just waited. For what? I have no idea.
***
"Hey, Hey!" I heard a voice call. My eyes darted open and I sat up, right before falling down again.
I felt a numbing sensation throughout my body. First, I decided to asses the situation. I had fallen asleep in the dining hall, and it seems that everybody had once again regathered in here. Except, they were all awake, not in the drowsy, in denial state that they were before I decided to let my exhaustion take over.
I looked up again to see the girl who had also participated in speaking to Duckuma earlier leaning down over me. Her face had a curious but lively look to it, and she had a goofy smile fastened on her face.
"Ah!!" I shrieked, pushing myself off of the ground and bashing my head against hers.
She hissed, grabbing her forehead and retracting away from me.
"Ow..." We both whined, and I saw a boy laughing in the background, trying to hide it.
"Hey! That really hurt!" The girl with whom I clashed head with yelled.
"Not my problem," He rolled his eyes.
I groaned. "What are you all doing here? Shouldn't we be looking for a way out?"
"...Yeah, probably." Somebody said.
We all sat there in silence for a few moments before somebody spoke.
"Um... So should we start searching?" The girl I clashed heads with asked, clearing the silence after a few moments.
"Yeah, sounds about like what we should do right now," Luke, the boy we met on the hallway, said.
I met eyes with Hazel. "We'll search the back hallway," I said, then pulled Hazel away with me as we walked towards where I said we would go. I heard the others taking on pairs and finding out where they would be searching in the distance as we continued walking down the creepy clown hallways and into the back hallway.
I wasn't prepared for what we would find there.
***
A/N: hiya! author here, this chapter took me forever lmao- im almost done with the intro kind of thing, so ill post that in a chapter when im done, but for now, sit tight and read! ly all<3
-chaos<3
(edited a/n: i deleted the introductions for this chapter because i have two new students, plus i didnt realize that i had already written introductions in this chapter, meaning that when i was working on the next chapter, i went off of them not knowing who everybody was. thank you for your understanding!)