Danganronpa: Towering Despair

by Nevermaker

Hitori Wakamatsu is a new student at Hope's Peak Academy, but on her first day, she passes out at the school gates. When she awakens, she finds that she and fifteen other students have been trapped in a dizzyingly tall tower; the only way out is to kill each other. Can Hitori and her new companions find a way out of the tower before they're killed?

1. Prologue: Ghost of Yet-To-Come

Silence.

It crept along the dark, empty halls, settled like dust in every corner of the facility. No light, no movement, and not a single sound could break the heavy drape of the silence.

Except for one room: a room filled with light. It was a small room, with barely enough room to move around, with only a chair and a long terminal covered in buttons, switches, screens, and a cavalcade of information. Other screens were crowded around the chair, filling with numbers and images, scrolling further and further with updates as the system refreshed itself and installed new settings.

The pair of eyes watching the screens narrowed, and the lips beneath them curled up into a sour, crooked smile. From their seat in the chair, they could see each screen, and the sight of the new updates was one they'd waited a long time for. True, it had taken a huge amount of effort to set up the terminal here, hauling the many, many wires and apparatuses into this area and programming them into the system, merging them with the pre-existing network.

But, if all went according to plan, it would be worth it. No, more than worth it: it would be a pleasure.

Finally, the screens pinged with a message: all systems were up and running at 100% capacity. Reaching up, the individual hit the switch, and flicked on the secondary screen. It lit up with a flash, and they could see it: the central area, crowded with chairs and a podium, just like a proper opening ceremony. In one chair lay a girl, slumped over, her head in her arms, cradling a small electronic device.

Their smile widening, the individual hit the switch again, and again, and again. With each flick of the switch, a new room clicked into view, with each new room providing a sound feed into the control room. It worked like a dream: interworking the viewing system with the security camera feed had been an excellent idea.

They almost wished they'd thought of it.

As they switched back to the central area, they saw the girl in the chair begin to stir, faint groans coming through the speakers. As they put their hands on the complicated controls, the sinister smile on their face widened, and widened, until it almost reached the tips of their ears: a manic, evil grin that spoke volumes about what was in store.

As they watched the individual pieces come together on the screen, they whispered four words.

"Let the games...begin..."