"Now now students!"
Monospeaker flailed a set of robotic arms that suddenly came out of him, grabbing everyone's attention. "Well, to make this easier for you guys, I'll be giving you all a little present to help you through the trial!" Using his weird robotic hands, he passed around what seemed to be a phone of some sorts. On the screen there was a silhouette of what looked like Eraser. "Take a look at the Monospeaker file!!"
Victim: Eraser Rubb
Time of death: 1:07 am
Cause of death: unknown
The victim was killed in the weight room. The cause of death and any injuries are unknown
"What the hell are we gonna do with this?!" Snowball angrily shoved the Monospeaker file into his pocket and began pouting like a child.
"At least we learned where the murder took place and what time it took place," Spongy slightly mumbled, rubbing the back of his head in nervousness
"We, like, already knew it took place in here! And I like, think we also already knew it like, happened at nighttime! This is like totes useless!"
Mummers of agreement filled the room as everyone angrily discussed.
"A-at least w-we now know for sure what happened. W-we should be grateful we got any information a-at all.." Woody said to himself, looking at the Monospeaker file once more. I slightly hummed in acknowledgement, but I'm not sure if anyone heard.
"W-well then......I say we start....investigating..." Pin mumbled. The excitement and confidence in Pin's voice was nowhere to be heard. I guess even a leader like her can't handle something like this.
"Agreed. Doing nothing but sulking isn't going to help us. We need to investigate, not only to save our lives...but to avenge Eraser!! We will find the culprit!" I exclaimed, slight determination in my voice. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Icy give me a small smile.
Investigation START
"Where to look first where to look first..." My eyes landed on the body sprawled out on the floor, endless amounts of blood surrounding it. I covered my mouth and looked around the room, avoiding the body at all costs.
My eyes soon landed on a small dumbbell on the floor, just a few feet away from Eraser's corpse. I headed over to the dumbbell to investigate it.
As I reached the dumbbell on the floor, the first thing I noticed was the blood on one of the weights. I tried to pick the dumbbell up, but I struggled to do so. "How is a dumbbell this small so heavy?" Even though in the end I managed to pick it up, I did struggle quite a bit.
Judging based on the blood, I assumed this would be the murder weapon, but how did the killer use it? Did they throw the dumbbell at Eraser, or did they just bash him in the head with the dumbbell still in hand? I put the heavy object back on the floor, noticing its hexagonal shape. Because of its shape, there were some sharp corners on the dumbbell. I slightly touched it with my finger, and it was surprisingly sharp.
I took a closer look at the blood, but something seemed a bit...off. The blood wasn't splattered on the weight of the dumbbell, but it looked as if it the dumbbell was dipped in blood. Did the dumbbell fall in Erasers blood after he died? I wonder if this means something...
-"Dumbbell" Has been added to your truth bullets section-
I scanned the room for anything that seemed strange, but the only other thing in the room was Eraser's corpse..
I felt a chill go down my spine as I stared at Eraser's lifeless body. I gulped, taking a step forward towards his body, my shaky legs making this simple task a lot more difficult.
"Leafy? Are you going to check the body out?"
I turned my head back, the sudden voice catching me off guard. I let a small sigh of relief when I just saw Icy, a bit of concern mixed into her usually nonchalant features.
"Um, yes...would you like to come investigate it with me?"
".....Sure...whatever." She looked away, her face turning paler. We headed to the body and found three other people there already 'investigating.'
"C'mon Firey! You should go touch the body a bit..." Coiny nudged Firey towards the body, trying his best to look away from the corpse.
"What?! No! For the last time, I'm not going to touch it!!"
"But you're a chef! You've butchered animals before haven't you? You should be able to handle a dead body!!"
"Yeah I've butchered animals, but this isn't the same thing! Are you stupid?!" Firey took a quick glance at the body in front of him, taking a few steps back.
"Coward." Coiny scoffed.
"Why don't you touch the dead body then?!"
Firey and Coiny continued to argue. Snowball, someone else who was looking at the body, grunted in annoyance, pushing both Firey and Coiny out of the way.
"I'll look at it! Stop whining and go investigate something else," Snowball grunted, turning the body over a bit. There seemed to be a lot of blood on Erasers abdomen and a slight rip in his jersey.
"Hi Snowball!" I greeted. "A-are you...touching Eraser's body..?"
"Does it look like I'm doing anything else?" Snowball opened up the rip in his jersey a bit, revealing more blood. I covered my mouth again and closed my eyes. Seeing someone mess with the body of our friend...I couldn't put into words how disgusted I was.
"Did you find anything SB?" Icy asked, kneeling down next to Snowball.
"I guess. It looks like he got stabbed. I wouldn't know how that'd look like, but you see how there's like a pretty deep tear in his flesh over here? And you see the rip in his jersey? I don't know what else it'd be..."
-"Tear in flesh" Has been added to your truth bullets section-
-"Ripped jersey" Has been added to your truth bullets section-
"Stabbing someone is a pretty cliche way to murder dontcha think?" Icy blurted out, observing the body a bit more.
"Do you mean something by that Icy?" I asked.
"...I guess. Do you really think someone would have stabbed him? Wouldn't that be a little too obvious? And the Monospeaker file says the weapon is unknown too, right?"
"Huh, I never thought of that Icy. That's pretty smart!!" I exclaimed, slightly patting her head.
"I-i didn't do anything special.." Icy mumbled, her pale face turning a light shade of red.
Snowball observed the corpse a bit more, touching the wound a few more times. I heard a nervous gulp next to me and turned around to see Firey. He was still here? His whole body seemed to be shaking. "H-how about we go check the kitchen?"
"Ugh, for what?" Icy asked with an unusual amount of attitude.
"I heard you talking about how you don't think Eraser was stabbed. Hey SB, likeeee how big is the tear in his flesh?"
"How would I know? Why don't you go check?!"
"I don't know how to measure stuff from the top of my head!" Firey exclaimed. I giggled a bit, causing Firey's face to redden, most likely out of embarrassment.
"It's like..an inch? A bit longer than an inch maybe. Like an inch and a half or something," Icy said, trying to determine the size of the wound.
"Then, if he was stabbed, he was stabbed with something that had a width of 1.5 inches?" I spoke to myself, not expecting anyone to respond to me.
"Uh....I think?? I'm not that smart," Firey admitted, rubbing the back of his head. "I know a regular chef's knife width is likeeee 1.5 inches? so it could be that. I don't think I saw anything with a width of 1.5 inches in the warehouse either, so if he did get stabbed, I'm betting it was a knife from the kitchen."
"You say you're not smart Firey, but that sounded super smart! How do you know a chef's knife is 1.5 inches in width though? Did you read it somewhere?" I exclaimed, leaning in a bit closer to Firey.
Firey blushed, rubbing the back of his head a lot more intensely. "No, I uh, can't read..."
"...Oh well um, we're all different! Anyway, we should go look in the kitchen now, right?" I tried to make my voice sound comforting, but Firey still looked a bit embarrassed.
"R-right!"
"Icy are you going to come with us?" I asked, turning around to look at her. She glared at Firey, groaning at bit. "No, I'll stay. You're just checking out the kitchen. You don't need more than three people to check if a stupid knife is missing," she groaned, crossing her arms.
I blinked a few times, a bit confused by her sudden change in behavior. "Alright then. We'll be back soon!" I followed Firey, who was already making his way towards the kitchen.
The walk to the kitchen was a bit quiet. I rubbed my arm a bit as I walked besides Firey, who didn't look the most interested in talking.
"....Wait, so you can't read?"
"Did you have to bring that up?! And I can kinda read!"
I giggled a bit, causing Firey to speed up a bit. "Sorry sorry! I just think it's a bit weird how you got accepted to Hope's Peak and you can't even rea-"
"Shaddup!" He continued to speed up a lot more, eventually getting incredibly ahead of me.
"Hey! How are you so fast?! And you're really strong too!!" I ran to catch up to him. Luckily, he momentarily stopped.
"Strong?
"Yeah! Remember when you threw that chair and it broke? That was really impressive! I didn't think someone as small as you could do something like that!"
"Small?! And that chair was super light, so it wasn't that hard to throw and break it."
"You probably thought that because you're super strong! Strong people are so strong chairs barely weigh anything to them!" I exclaimed, stretching my arms out in exaggeration.
Firey rolled his eyes, starting to walk to the kitchen after we momentarily stopped walking. "No, I'm serious, it was super light. I'm not strong.
"Then why did you throw the chair to the metal plate? Didn't you want to test how strong the metal plate was? Why would you throw a weak chair at it if it was most likely not going to do anything?"
Firey took a bit of time to think before he let out a small sigh. "I was lying, obviously. I didn't think it would do anything. I was just angry at the time. Breaking something helped me calm down a bit."
"How do I know that what you're saying is true? Maybe you're just lying because you don't want me to figure out how strong you really are."
"What? No, why would I lie?! If I was strong I would be showing off, not lying about it! I wish I was strong.." He let out a louder sigh than last time.
"Didn't you say you've butchered animals before? Doesn't that mean you're super strong?!"
"No I just used a super duper sharp knife!" Firey crossed his arms and sped up a bit. It seemed as if he was irritated by all the questions I was asking.
"I'm sorry!" I sped up to catch up to Firey, but he was incredibly fast, even when speed-walking. I started to run, and before I knew it, we were at the kitchen.
"That's weird." Firey said to himself, looking at a specific spot in the room. He ran over to the said spot. I followed after him, watching him observe.
"The knives were hung up here. On this wooden block thingy on the wall," Firey said as he pointed to the wall-mounted knife holder. The knives were all sprawled out on the counter, right underneath the knife holder. Weird.
"How does this hold the knives? It just looks like a normal wooden block," I questioned, bringing a finger towards my chin.
"Watch this!" Firey took one of the knives and placed it on the knife holder. Instantly, the knife stuck to the holder.
"Woah! It's magnetic? I didn't even know this was a thing."
-"Magnetic knife holder" has been added to your truth bullets section-
"It's pretty cool huh?" Firey asked as he placed a finger on each knife. "4,5,6.....6?"
"6? Are you counting the knives?"
"Yeah. There was 7 knives last time I was in here, but I only counted 6. Someone probably took the knife."
I let out a nervous laugh as I felt myself begin to shake a bit. "When were you last here..?"
"Uhhh, before nighttime. I'm not sure when I entered, but I only stayed here for like 15 minutes. I just came in here to make myself a sandwich before nighttime, but I remember all 7 knives being here. I also remember about like 10 minutes after I left I heard the nighttime announcement," Firey told me, although it seemed more as if he was talking to himself.
"So you left the kitchen at around 9:50 pm then? So that means you entered at around 9:35, since you said you stayed here for 15 minutes."
"Uh, I dunno, but yeah, I think it went something like that," he said, fumbling with his hands. "Oh, also, I don't know if this is important, but I saw some people in the cafeteria right after I left."
"Really? Who did you see?"
"Well, I saw Pencil, Match, Bubble, Ice Cube, Teardrop...uh.." Firey was counting everyone on his fingers, but stopped for a bit as he looked up at the ceiling, probably trying to recount who else he saw. "Oh! I remember! I also saw GB, Flower, Pen....and Eraser. The girls were all sitting at the table and talking about some stuff, but Pen and Eraser were farther away from the table and talking to each other."
I froze for a bit, clenching my fist. That was a few hours before Eraser's death. He probably didn't think he was going to be dying soon at the time. I sighed, rubbing my arm to try and comfort myself. "That's...really sad."
Firey didn't say anything, he just slowly nodded.
-"Firey's account" has been added to your truth bullets section-
"Well, there's no point in sulking over that. Let's just head back to the weight room for now," I said in my best soothing voice, although it didn't seem to work on Firey. He let out a small hum and made his way to the kitchen doors. I followed behind him, taking one last glance at the knives.
———————————
Firey and I opened the doors to the weight room, looking around at everyone. I scanned the room until I saw a certain trio that I wanted to talk to.
"Match, Pencil, Bubble, Hi! Can I talk to you girls about something?"
"Hoi Loify!"(I decided I wanted to make her accent clearer instead of leaving it up to the reader to figure out how she was talking lol) Bubble greeted me, slightly waving.
"Hey Leafy! Did you need to talk to us about something?" Pencil smiled a bit, although it was incredibly obvious her smile was forced. I decided to not comment on it.
"Yeah! Firey said he saw you three, Icy, TD, GB, Flower, Pen, and...Eraser, in the cafeteria right before nighttime. I just wanted to see if you girls noticed anything that ties in with Eraser's death.
The trio exchanged quick glances before Match suddenly exclaimed, "Yeah! Something totes did happen, and It might like, be related to...Eraser's death." Match mumbled the last part.
"Oh! That's fantastic! What happened?"
"So like, I totally didn't mean to eavesdrop, but Pen and Eraser were like talking to each other about like exercising or something like that. It's kinda like sad, since like, Eraser died here...in the weight room."
"Doidn't thoi say that thoi were meeting in the woight room?" Bubble suddenly spoke, slightly tapping her foot onto the floor.
"I think I remember them saying something about meeting here after nighttime. I forgot the specific time, but it was around 11pm or 12 am," Pencil commented, running a hand through her hair.
"Thank you girls! What you all said was very useful! Should I talk to the rest of the people that were in the cafeteria at the time?"
"I think that like, the rest of the girls would probably say like the same thing that we said. How about you like, talk to Pen?"
"Oh yeah of course! Thank you girls!" They all waved goodbye to me as I headed over to a familiar white hoodie covered in doodles.
Pen sat in the corner of the weight room, silently observing the corpse. Based on his red nose and puffy eyes, he was still crying after all this time.
"Heya Pen," I greeted, trying to sound less optimistic and a bit more calming and comforting. "Are you okay?" I asked as I sat down next to him.
"Heh, I wish I was okay..." He dragged his finger across the floor, seemingly drawing out random shapes. "I just...I just kinda feel like it's my fault my friend's dead."
"Why do you think that?"
"Because...Last night I asked Eraser if he'd like to work out with me in the weight room. I asked if he wanted to go at 11:00 pm. Stupid me, why would I even schedule a time like that? A time where someone could easily kill you..." Pen covered his face with his baseball cap once again.
"It's not your fault Pen, it's the killer and Monospeaker's fault. There was no way you would've known someone would kill last night." I put my hand on his back, doing my best to move my hand in a way that would be comforting.
"Thanks Leafy. Did you come here to ask me about something related to the case?"
"Oh! I actually did! Match, Pencil and Bubble told me about how you and Eraser were planning on working out here after nighttime. What time did you guys stop working out?"
Pen looked up for a few seconds. He tapped his finger on the ground as he spoke, still looking up. "I don't remember the specific time, but I remember Eraser making a comment about how we've been working out for an hour and a half. He said that like 10-20 minutes before we stopped working out, so maybe we stopped at around 12:40 or 12:50. Er, I mean, I stopped working out at around that time."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that Eraser continued to work out after I stopped. He stayed in the weight room and I went to my dorm. If only I stayed there a little longer...! He wouldn't be dead!" I heard a small sob come from the blue-haired boy. "Eraser wanted to become stronger..! He didn't see himself as a worthy basketball player, so he wanted to make himself stronger! That's the only reason he stayed after I left. He was so dedicated! But all of his hard work went to waste because somebody decided to kill him!" Multiple sobs escaped Pen's mouth as he lowered his Baseball cap again.
I put a hand on his arm and gave him a small smile. "It's not your fault Pen. None of this was your fault. You didn't know any of this would happen. But because of all the useful information you told me I'm sure we'll be able to find the killer and avenge Eraser! We have to!"
Pen looked up at me, tears still spilling out of his eyes at a rapid pace. He let out a small laugh as he tried to wipe all his tears. "Yeah, we do have to avenge Eraser. We will avenge his death!!"
-"Pen's account has been added to your truth bullets section"-
*Ding Dong bing bong*
"Hello students! It's the time you've all been waiting for, the class trial! Everyone, please gather at a red door I added near the warehouse! Neat, huh?
"Since when was there a red door?" I asked myself.
"I guess it's starting right now." Pen got up and adjusted his blue baseball cap. I got up alongside Pen and felt myself start to shake. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath to calm me down. When I opened my eyes, I saw someone in front of me.
"Hey Leafy, wanna walk to the red door with me?"
"Ah, sure!" I started to walk out the weight room and felt a sudden arm wrapped around my own. I looked down to see Icy, her armed wrapped around mine. I let out a small chuckle, which, fortunately, helped me calm down a bit.
—————————-
Everyone gathered in front of the red door. There was absolutely no doubt that everyone was scared, even in the slightest bit. I let out a loud sigh as we all entered the red door.
We where all greeted by an elevator that immediately began to move down as soon as everyone stepped in.
"This elevator looks so old, and there's a lot of us in here. What if it breaks while we're going down?" Needle asked, bringing her shaky hands together.
"I-i'm sure we'll be fine!" I said, trying to sound as optimistic as possible.
"Maybe in the elevator we'll be fine, but I don't know if we'll be fine in the class trial," TB responded, his voice shaky and scared.
"Stop with the depressing shit!! It's getting me even more nervous!" Flower yelled, wrapping her arms around herself.
Eventually, the elevator came to a stop. When it opened, we were exposed to a strange room. The walls had red curtains, and in the middle of the room there were podiums all placed in a circle.
"Everyone, please head to the podium with your name on it!" Monospeaker directed. He was sitting on a large seat behind the podiums.
I could feel my legs shake as I got to my podium. I held onto the podium for support and looked around the room.
This was it...
The class trial...!
————————————
Author's note: I did not proofread this because it's like 7 am where I live and I haven't slept yet, so I'm sorry if there's any mistakes. I'll proofread when I wake up, but if you find a mistake let me know and I'll fix it asap!
Also, here's a golfball sprite edit requested by @/ inothomen !
I was kinda rushing this so I'm sorry if it looks a bit weird.
Thank you for reading this chapter! Byeee!