A/N: Brief story about what was running through the minds of everyone leaving Hope's Peak. Bonus chapter will be up tomorrow!
When Naegi opened the doors of Hope's Peak Academy, when the mechanical whirring and screaming of thousands of tiny gears began, the six students standing before it felt only one thing. A horrid emotion that took over every student that lay broken and bloodied within the dark recesses of the make-shift hell hole. Something that nestled its way into your stomach and multiplied, something that was a pure shade of black that would never be anything but black, something that would rip hopes and dreams and happiness to shreds and absorb them until you felt nothing but black.
Despair.
The one thing a certain Junko Enoshima was desperate for them to feel for weeks, for them to embrace and welcome, suddenly felt like it was all that would ever be there. Despair, not for her life – a life properly wasted and horrendously ended – but for theirs. For everyone else's. Despair for all who craved only to escape and were foiled by either execution, or another's equally desperate hand.
Strands of light could be seen through the doors, and all six held their breath, though each for their own reason.
Despite the irony in the statement, Super High-School Level Hope, Naegi, refused to hope for a clean, mono-free world. The only thing that came to mind for him were empty streets, littered with rotting corpses, screams and sobs resonating off of buildings within the large city. He could already feel the smog in his throat, hardening like Plexiglas and blocking any way for air to escape. All he could smell were burnt bodies, melting bodies, bodies of those whom he loved and cared about. All he could do was relive every murder, every death, and know that no matter what he did, they would haunt him forever, no matter what was on the other side of that door.
Close by, Kirigiri Kyouko, Super High-School Level Detective, felt overcome with emotion- something she hadn't felt since her father abandoned her as a child. Except, he never really did, she mused, her normally hard eyes downcast and staring anywhere but ahead. He loved me and if I could remember the last two years, if I could remember my life before the games, I would know for sure. But that was enough for her, not now. Not when she was about to go out into a new world, alone and confused, two things that she never allowed herself to feel. Of course, there's a first for everything.
Fukawa Touko, Super High-School Literary Girl and Super High-School Level Murderer, someone who was usually strongly overcome with emotion, felt empty. Knowing that every move they had made, every murder, every tear, every confession was being watched by people around the world reinforced her biggest fear – her life was over. She had confessed to not only being a mass murderer, but to enjoying every murder, to cherishing the death of every man she had ever lusted after. If hope won out, if everything she feared was true, she would be ruined. She would never see anything but bed spreads and perhaps the inside of her cell, if she wasn't given the death penalty. And she deserved as much. She was a disgusting, dirty human being that ought to only be spat on, kicked around like the filth she is. Her only hope now, in her pitiful existence, was that she could say goodbye to the one man she loved, not as Genocider Syo, but as Fukawa Touko. To tell him she loved him, even if she would only be insulted. Because that empty emotion was honestly all she had left.
Asahina Aoi, Super High-School Level Swimmer, and the only one showing emotion, was crying. She knew she cried a lot, but at this moment, she believed it was merited. She had lost everything, everyone she cared about. She watched friend after friend die, watched as they were burnt alive, melted into butter, broken and bent until they were held together by nothing more than severed cartilage and weak ligaments. She watched as the person she loved the most, the one person she valued over them all died, left her alone, all because she saw no other way to bring peace than to take the very reason they all fought away. And that left her weaker than ever before. Because why would she walk through that door without her only reason to continue walking? How would she ever go to Kenichiro's grave, to tell his soul where Sakura was, and why she wouldn't be coming to meet him?
Togami Byakuya, despite being the most confident of them all, the one who was most likely to move on virtually-unscathed, knew he was the one who was least likely to live life properly after those doors finished opening. He knew there were only two ways that his life would play out after those doors opened. The first path was that Junko was telling the truth. His family was dead. His life was over. He would have nowhere to turn to. The second was what scared him most – his family would want nothing to do with him. Scandal was common, but the world's most powerful corporation's only heir being involved in eight murders and two suicides, as well as being acquaintances with a serial killer? He would have nowhere to go. He would be alone. Of course, no matter what happened, he would still be alone. But isn't that how he claimed he liked it?
The last in the line was Yasuhiro Hagakure, Super High-School Level Fortune Teller, and the only who retained hope. Not because they were escaping, not because they survived. Because he wasn't alone. Because, despite watching friends die, knowing they themselves would die, fearing everyone that crossed paths with them, they stood strong. They were alive and kicking, ready to move on with a new sense of hope. Yasuhiro Hagakure believed that it could only get better. Despite how hard it will be, despite how heartbroken they may feel and how empty they may be, it would never be as bad as it was, watching those they cared about die. He knew this.
He just wished everyone around him knew it too.