I came to in a cabin that looked like something you'd find on a cruise ship. Granted I don't remember booking a cruise for myself; my family can't exactly afford one that's why we moved to South Park, Colorado in the first place. As I got my bearings I was able to confirm that I was indeed in a cabin on a cruise ship that was in the middle of the ocean. The balcony was nice enough except for the bulletproof glass that was covering the top and front of it. "A balcony jail cell, not the weirdest thing I've seen but definitely in the top ten" I said to myself. Oh, right I haven't introduced myself, I'm the protagonist of this story nice to meet you. As I walked back in to my cabin I took a more detailed look around, in it was a closet filled with the exact same outfit as the one I was wearing, a TV with what looked like the kind of speakers you'd find at a nightclub and a bathroom that's smaller than the ones you find on airplanes, it definitely can't fit more than one person at a time.
Still dumbfounded as to how I ended up here in the first place, I heard a knock at my door, suspicious of who or what was waiting on the other side I looked through the peephole to see a boy my age who had blonde hair and a teal shirt on with blueish green jeans.
He knocked again, "is anyone in there" the voice said. There was a hint of fear in his tone of voice so with great reluctance I opened the door. "Uh hello" he said even more nervous now than when he was talking to my door. "I'm Leo, Leo Stotch but everyone just calls me Butters."
"Nice to meet you" I replied "I'm Mike, Mike Mendoza."
"So, Mike let me ask you something" he said, still nervous but I could tell his guard had dropped a little. "Do you have an ultimate talent too?"
In the world we live in today, high school level students that excel in a certain area, or have a talent that they're better at than anyone else are given the title of Ultimate. "Yeah, I almost forgot about it until you mentioned it actually, I'm the Ultimate Politician." I said.
"That's so cool, way cooler than mine" Butters said looking down at the floor a look of depression in his eye.
"Ah don't be like that I'm sure your talent is just as good" I said reassuring him of his skill.
"You think so? Aw geez no one has ever said that before" he replied excitedly. Damn you'd think I has just reassured him of his own self-worth and reason for living. "By the way do you know how we got here?"
"Nope I'm just as in the dark as you are" I answered.
"Well in that case, do you mind looking around with me I don't want to go alone in case there's a killer on board or something."
"Sounds good" I said smiling, "let's go." Closing my door behind me the two of us walked down a hallway passing by more cabin doors with last names on each of them. I read each of them to myself: Tucker, Tweak, Marsh, Testaburger, Donavan, the list went on for a while, sixteen names in total roughly the size of a high school history class. We got to the end of the hallway then turned the corner, there was a kid leaning against the railing looking down at the ground floor. We approached him reluctantly hoping that he wasn't the killer Butters feared was on board. He turned around after sensing us behind him and removed his hood, revealing a darker shade of blonde compared to Butters but blonde nonetheless.
"Hiya, I'm Butters and this is Mike" Butters began.
"I'm Kenny, Kenny McCormick" the boy evidently named Kenny replied.
"Do you have an ultimate talent as well?" I asked.
"Yeah, the problem is I can't remember what it is, guess I got knocked out harder than the rest of us."
Us? I know there were names on the doors so there were definitely others but we didn't see anyone on the way here, could he have met the other passengers already?
"I'm guessing you saw other students already" I said.
"Nothing gets by you, yeah two kids a guy and a girl, I tried to talk to them but they seemed to suspicious of me to answer, rude as hell those two. By the way what're your talents?"
"Right I almost forgot, I'm the Ultimate Politician, he's um well." I realized I never asked Butters what his talent was.
"I'm the Ultimate Child Psychologist" Butters answered. At the very least I was right, his talent is just as good as mine, definitely need to get the story behind that one later. "We're going to keep looking around, you wanna join us?"
Kenny hesitated then nodded in agreement, then the three of headed in the direction that Kenny said those other two went. We turned the corner to see an elevator on one side and stairs leading down on the other, the ones leading up were blocked by bars.
"Guess we got to go down" Butters said smiling awkwardly. We went down the stairs to see two girls standing at the bottom of the staircase. One with long black hair and another with blonde hair of the same length.
"Hello ladies" Kenny said in a perverted voice. "My name is Kenny, what's yours?" He took the black-haired girl's hand, she smiled, and then proceeded to knee him in the balls. Continuing the smile, she squatted down, pat Kenny's head and said,
"I'm Wendy Testaburger, the Ultimate Hacker it's nice to meet you."
"I apologize for my friend's failed courting attempt" I said to Wendy. "My name is Mike Mendoza, Ultimate Politician; and this is" I stopped my sentence short when I turned my head to see Butters staring at the blonde girl. "Uh Butters you ok my dude?"
Snapping out of his trance he said in an excited voice, "Don't you know who that is?" I looked at him with a deadpan expression as I did not know who this girl was. "That's Bebe Stevens, the Ultimate Fashionista!" Butters got all flustered and blushed so much his face turned red.
Bebe smiled and giggled a little "it's always nice to meet a fan what's your name?"
"I'm Butters and I'm the Ultimate Child Psychologist it's so nice to meet you as well." Butters shook Bebe's hand with the biggest smile on his face. I've never seen anyone smile as hard as he did.
"By the way ladies do either of you know where we are or what the hell is going on?" They looked at each other with the same look I got from Kenny. No point in them even answering they didn't know anything either.
"Nope all I know is that last night I went to bed in my room in South Park, Colorado and woke up here" Wendy answered. She didn't realize she just gave us a massive clue.
"Did you say South Park? My family just moved there." "Wait you live in South Park Mike" Kenny asked and from the look on his face Butters was about to ask the same thing. "Don't tell me, are we all from the same town?"
"Looks like it" Bebe answered. Just then we heard two voices approach from behind us.
"Ah geez Craig I'm scared what if we never get off this ship, it's way too much pressure for me" the panicked voice said.
"Relax Tweek we'll be fine I'm here and I'll keep you safe" the second voice said, he sounded much more indifferent to our situation. The two turned the corner to see the five of us staring at them. The shorter blonde boy hid behind the taller boy, he was wearing a blue hat and blue jacket and had a look on his face that just screamed, ugh more people, great.
"Craig who are these guys" the panicked voice asked.
"How should I know" the blue hat boy answered. Based on their back and forth exchange I deduced that the tall one was Craig and the smaller one was Tweek.
I approached them slowly I needed to show them we were friendly. "Hey, my name is Mike how are you two doing?"
"How are we doing" Tweek asked. "We're trapped on a cruise ship in the middle of the ocean with people we've never met before, how do you think we're doing!"
"Tweek relax I got this" Craig said. He approached me and shook my hand,
"I'm Craig and he's my boyfriend Tweek nice to meet you."
"Likewise," I said. Of the two of them it's clear that Craig would be the easiest to deal with. "I'm guessing you guys have ultimate talents as well?"
"Yeah" Craig said. "I'm the Ultimate Astronaut and he's the Ultimate Barista, what about you guys."
"Well I'm the Ultimate Politician, the boy in the teal shirt is the Ultimate Child Psychologist, the girl with the pink hat is the Ultimate Hacker, and the blonde is the Ultimate Fashionista." I turned around and began pointing at each of them from left to right. "Kenny, Butters, Wendy, and Bebe."
"Sounds easy enough" Craig said. "Let me ask you, do you have any memories besides going to bed last night and your families?"
Now that he mentioned it, I don't and if I didn't it must be the same; the only thing I do remember is the fact that I'm just as gay as these two are. "Nope, nothing except for the fact that I am gay as well."
"You too huh" Craig said. "It's the same for me and Tweek we remember our families, and falling asleep, and the fact that we're a couple."
"So, everyone probably has one fact they remember about themselves then." I turned back to the others and asked them if they remembered anything. Each of them also had one fact they remembered. Wendy was the student council President, Bebe played the flute, and it turns out Butters and Kenny were also gay. Well Kenny was Bi but you get the idea.
"Great it's one giant sausage fest here" Craig said joking at the fact that there are four gays on board. "Ten bucks every guy we find likes dick."
"Heh I doubt we'll be that lucky" I replied. So far, we've found four other students bringing our headcount to seven. Based on the number of doors I counted, there are nine more students out there. Just then a voice appeared over a loudspeaker.
"Attention all students please report to the auditorium on the first floor for orientation." We all looked at each other and agreed that we should keep our guard up as we go to the auditorium. When we arrived, we saw ten others waiting there, the nine we couldn't find. One of them approached wearing a green hat and an orange jacket like Kenny's.
"So here are the other seven" he said. "We were looking for you guys but we couldn't find you until now."
"Likewise," I replied.
"Save the introductions for after orientation my students and look alive," the voice from the loudspeaker said, his voice appeared to be coming from the podium on the stage. Suddenly a bear appeared, half black half white with a red eye on the black side. "Hello my students and welcome to Hope's Peak Collegiate Cruise Line" the voice said. "I am Monokuma and I will be your principal."
We all had the same look in our eyes, that this was some kind of prank, little did we know that it was no joke and we were about to enter a true hell. "Now then this school is unlike anything you've ever seen before and there are two reasons for this." "One because it's on a boat, and two and most importantly you won't be learning anything while your here."
"Then what exactly will we be doing" Craig asked his arms crossed. Monokuma laughed sinisterly, "you'll be playing a killing game." All of us were shocked at the sentence the bear just spoke.
"A killing game" Tweek asked his voice filled with terror.
"That's right and here's how it works." "In order to escape this ship alive, you must graduate and in order to do that you need to kill one of your classmates and survive a class trial."
"What the hell is a class trial" the kid in the green hat asked. "Basically, it's a murder mystery deal, after each murder you'll collect evidence then you'll debate each other with goal of finding the killer." "Get it right and the killer will be punished, get it wrong and everyone else will be punished and the killer will graduate."
Bebe asked in a shaken voice, "and what exactly are these punishments?"
"Ah well it's just a euphemism for executions no big deal." We all gasped in shock, "hold on am I hearing you right, if someone kills another person we either have to figure out who it is or die trying and even if we do they get killed" I asked.
"Exactly right" the bear replied. "Now then I know you all haven't met yet so I'll give you guys time to introduce yourselves to each other and start picking out potential targets." "But at the stroke of midnight the game will begin, good luck I'll see you all later, hopefully."
After saying that the bear disappeared. We were all shaken to the core but we decided it would be best to go to the cafeteria and discuss our situation, we all knew one thing though we've entered a hell that no one deserves.