"How?! Why?!"
Yumi was in complete shock, tears streamed down her face, and she was screaming uncontrollably. So was almost everyone.
Then we heard the door creak open.
"La la! I have the answers to all your questions!"
The sight before us was horrifying. But we were so intrigued. Some of us were curious, others wanted it off their conscience, most of us just wanted to know why our day went like this.
In front of us was a robot. A robot chicken. A robot chicken that was deformed. One side of him was white, with a regular eye and a regular mouth, the other side was black, with a smirking shark-toothed mouth and a red scar-shaped eye.
"A chicken? How can you have the answers?!"
Hikari exclaimed with a threatening look on her face. Even though she had tears welling up in her eyes, anyone could tell she meant business.
"I-I-I-I excuse me. Technology is good but no robot is perfect! I am Daburuchikin! The robot that one of you amazing people made!"
"Give. Me. Answers."
"OK, you psycho! Well, you want to k-k-k-know how your teacher died? He choked conveniently on delayed poison! But you can forgive me! How else could I become your substitute?"
This robot was the cause of his death. This robot that one of us created.
We looked around, now looking at each other in a whole different light.
"Sorry I took so long! I spent my time bolting up the place like I did in here!"
We looked at the classroom, we were all concentrating on other things when we got here, and we didn't notice all the windows were bolted up.
"Oh yeah! You're all trapped here!"
Everyone shot everyone else shocked looks, Sumiko hugged her brother, and Hikari started screaming her head off.
"But you can get out."
"HOW?! HOW!? TELL US!
"Calm down! You may leave on one condition. You must kill one of your classmates and not get c-c-c-c-c-c caught!"
Murder. Pure cold blooded murder. And we were forced to do this by one of our own. There was a moment of silence that was broken by Hiroshi running up to the door and banging on it mercilessly. It was no use, the stupid robot locked it on his way in.
"You can stay here if you want... There is food in the k-k-k-kitchens! But if you do, you will have no access to the outside world! La la! Also, take one of these little hand-made h-h-h-h-handbooks!"
We all did so, as none of us really had the strength not to.
The rules were strange, to say the least, but this whole situation was strange at the leasy...
Rule 1 Students may reside only within the school. Attempting to leave is an unacceptable use of time.
Rule 2 "Nighttime" is from 10 pm to 7 am. Some areas are off-limits at night, so please exercise caution.
Rule 3 Sleeping anywhere other than the dormitory will be seen as sleeping in class and punished accordingly.
Rule 4 With minimal restrictions, you are free to explore Hope's Peak Academy at your discretion.
Rule 5 Violence against your substitute is strictly prohibited.
Rule 6 Anyone who kills a fellow student and becomes "blackened" will graduate, unless they are discovered.
Rule 7: Everyone must participate in a class trial.
"M-May I ask w-what a class trial is?"
Arata had the most scared face of us all, but he somehow had the courage to ask what we all thought.
"G-G-G-Good question! Once you find a body, you will investigate, then a class trial will commence! In a class trial, you will attempt to deduce who is the murderer, if you come to the right conclusion the murderer will be executed. But if you are wrong... Then the murderer will leave and the rest of you will b-b-b-be executed! LAH LAH!"
I could die. I could actually die. This was the worst situation I could ever be in. And I could tell everyone else was thinking this too. Except for the dreadful human being that was forcing this upon us.
"I s-s-s-s-should go now! Let you talk with yourselves!"
They opened the door to the classroom and walked out to reveal a completely bolted up prison in the shape of a school. Only at this moment did it dawn on me that I was trapped. I would never be able to see my family outside of this school or anything outside of this school. And no matter the circumstance, I could never murder.
I felt a hand on my shoulder.
"Takara."
It was Hikari. She had this certain look in her eyes, it was a look of fear, anxiety, hope and sternness all in one.
"Takara, I want to trust you. Tell me I can trust you."
"Hikari! Of course, you can! Do you really think I would murder someone? I know that we can trust each other."
I held her hands gently and strictly stared into her eyes. If there was someone she could trust, I wanted to be them. And I knew I could trust her as well.
Abruptly, she hugged me.
"Thank you."
She was crying heavily into my shoulders.
"I don't want to die. I don't want anyone to die."
"Hikari. I feel the same way. We need to find out who is behind this and stop them."
"I will help you. I will promise that."
She pulled away.
"We should find our dorms. Get our minds off things"
Hikari definitely wasn't as perky as she was when I met her, but I could tell she was feeling a teensy bit better.
"Sure, that sounds good. The directions were in our pamphlets right?"
We walked towards our dorms, only to find Naoko searching for her room.
"*munch* nom* HI! Sorry, terriblely manners."
She swallowed the chocolate muffin she had in her mouth and walked towards us.
"Wait. You're not goings to murder me right?"
Naoko took a step back, a little unsure of us.
"Of course not! We're just looking for our dorms!"
"Thank you goodness! Sorry about me not speaking right... I don't normally talking to people"
Naoko was wearing a pink backpack, which she unzipped, and brought out a clear lunchbox. Inside, were eight brownies.
"I normal would eat these myself, cus' I don't really have many friends outside of heres... But I don't really feeling like eating..."
She handed us the box, which we gratefully opened. She'd iced them at a professional level and neatly had placed strawberries on the top. Hikari took one out, and so did I, and as we took a bite out of them Naoko smiled at us. Frankly, it was one of the best brownies I had ever tasted in my life! A perfect blend of sweetness, it was just, just, beautiful.
"Wow."
"I'm glad you like them! I would never be at this schoolness without them! Actually, it would probablys be better not to be here..."
"Yeah... Anyway, we better find our rooms!"
Hikari and I walked to our respective rooms, which we found were next to each other. All of the rooms seemed to look exactly the same, though.
One thing that I found interesting, was that one of the nameplates was etched out, the one that would belong to the mystery person. I found Naoko in her room, attempting to use a phone.
"Takara! Helli!"
"Naoko, I was wondering if you saw that mystery guy here earlier..."
"I did actual! They went to their door and scratch out their name... I didn't see it, though... "
"I wonder why they didn't want us to know what their name is..."
There was the sound of a speaker, then there was the all too familiar voice.
"Lah Lah! I just realized something! None of you would kill... At least without motive! That's why y-y-y-y-y-y-you need to go to the A-V Room!"
Hikari came running in.
"Are you guys ok? Thank goodness! I don't want to walk there alone..."
"Hikari, it's fine. Naoko, we need to go!"
The three of us walked to the A-V room, where several tapes were laid out. We soon realized that they had our names scribbled on them. Then 'Daburuchikin' spoke again.
"Ok, if you're stupid, what you have-ve-ve-ve-ve-ve to do watch the tape! LA la!"
Naoko and Hikari glanced at me, and I glanced at them. Then we played the tapes.
A video of the two dear little children I used to babysit played, they were happy and were giving me words of inspiration. They hugged the camera and smiled, then came the screams. They ran off camera and what appeared to be my house, blew up. Then it faded out and left me with a haunting message.
"Are they ok? Will you never be able to see them again? Find out when you leave!"
I clenched my hands into fists, and silent tears rolled down my face.
"It has to be fake. They are ok."
I repeated this to myself, trying to make myself believe this.
I looked around the room, Yumi had fainted, Nene was screaming, Arata was still whimpering, and the mystery kid showed no emotion.
But the scariest thing is that someone would kill because of this.