Tonight will be fun! There's no need for worries when I've got my sister!

I tell myself time after time, successfully cheering up the gloomy atmosphere. An extreme excitement comes over me, boosting my joy ten times further, as I watch Sis strip her bed of its blankets and pillow.

"Sis, this will not be a normal sleepover. Though it would be lovely to find some enjoyment, I must do this to ensure your safety," Sis's words hold the wisdom she's always carried when calming me down for a show. I can tell she sees it. The lies I am telling myself just to keep my joy up and about. Though she's always seen it, so I don't expect anything less from her truthful words.

As painful as they can be, Sis's words have always assured me with their complete honesty. It gives me a feeling that she has, and never will, told me a single lie.

The pile of blankets and a single pillow laid on the blue-ish carpet is topped by a single flat sheet. Slowly, my sister bends down to pick up to pile. I run over to the door to open it for her as she steps out of her dorm, placed in the hall closest to the cafeteria, on the left, if you are facing the cafeteria, that is. She turns and begins to walk towards my room as I step out and gently close the door behind me. It takes a short minute walk to my dorm, which just so happens to be the dorm placed in the corner that connects the hallway of the last few dorm rooms and the hallway containing a restroom for both boys and girls, and a lovely trashroom.

When we arrive to my dorm, I takes moment to stare at the name plate placed on my door. "Hanaba," it reads, the only way of telling my room apart from Sis's is the 8-bit character, whose vest is colored in with black pixels on my plate, and blank for Sis's. I scan my ID against the scanner and the door clicks, signaling for someone to open it. I do so, letting Sis in as she drops her pile of bedding on the ground.

"Are you sure you don't want to take the bed?" I stare at her, hoping she'll say yes, and being the slightest bit selfish around me for once.

"This is your room. I am intruding enough by taking up this much of your space."

"It's not intruding! It's endurance of each other's safety!" I shout childishly. With no words left to say, Sis gets onto all fours to spread the flat sheet across the floor, then carefully lines the blankets on top perfectly. She places her pillow, nice and centered, then stands back up.

"The least we can do is switch every night," I say. Sis rolls her eyes and replies.

"Fine."

I walk over to the desk, and grab a piece of paper from the memo pad. Carefully, I write down a schedule, and when I've finished, I find a needle in a drawer and post it on the door. I turn back to Furi, who has picked up a key from the desk. It's probably the first key I've seen all day, and the only key I've seen for this building. At a normal school, you'd see teachers swinging their keys around as they rushed to the staff lounge for one last cup of coffee before the bell rang. Though seeing as I've only seen one room that requires a key, I can quickly guess where it goes to.

"It seems you've been put on for trash duty, Sis," Furi states.

It doesn't take long for the clock to reach eight-thirty pm, and that's when I realize we're fifteen minutes late for the evening meeting.

"Furi! We're late!" I shout it out to her as if we were back home, about to miss the bus. And Sis continues the act as if we were at home by giving me her usual reply:

"I know," she sighs as the tracks behind me, unenthusiastically. I rush down the halls, sprinting to make it to the cafeteria. The moment I step in, I understand why no one has come to grab me.

The room is quite empty. Only a few people are present, all sitting at the table. I count Shimizu, Nagai, Nagase, Rimushita, Manuel, Aika, Fusao, and Nakahara. I step in, and walk to the table.

"Presto! I'm here!" I raise my voice, breaking the awkward silence the room took when I stepped into the door.

"You're late. Any excuses?" Manuel teases me as I search for a seat near the pan of sweet-smelling bread centered between the group.

Just as I prepare to open my mouth to speak, Sis walks in.

"We had some business to attend to. Nothing worth worrying over," Sis walks over to the table, pulling a seat out and sitting down without taking the sweet bread into consideration. Seeing as I'm still standing, I take the empty seat between Sis and Fusao as Rimushita speaks up.

"I don't think it matters. Obviously no one else is showing up. Perhaps they're just too scared out of their wits," great annoyance and boredom spills out as he says those words. "We may as well start now," Rimushita pauses to take a moment to compose himself. "Have any of you taken a moment to investigate the rest of your tabs?"

"Hnn? You mean the thingies like 'evidence,' 'map,' and 'schedule?'" I poke my voice out, trying to participate in the discussion to make up for my tardiness.

"No, Sweetpants," Nagase heavily accentuates on "Sweetpants," which actually bothers me quite a bit. "He meant the tabs as in the tabloids. Didn't you know we received those here?" Sarcasm flows from his words, striking me like a whack to the head.

"It seems you can't go five minutes without giving someone a hard time just to ruin our matters," Manuel counters him, coming to my rescue, but it's quickly ruined.

"I'm sure you would know it's fun. I get the feeling you may enjoy it as well."

"You're reflective feelings of fun would make for an excellent love story, where you two are bound together by the joys of hash and interrupting comments, but we've got a meeting here, in case you didn't know," Rimushita spits his words out, clearly annoyed.

"Fuck, who put you in charge? All you've had all day is bad ideas," I don't even have to look or listen to the voice to tell that it's Nagase. Ignoring him, Rimushita continued, changing his subject from tabs to Night Time.

"As I was in my room, I noticed there was a small... Tiny detail I over looked for my Night Time proposition," surprisingly enough, everyone is silent, letting him continue. "If we are locked away in our rooms, how are we to tell if someone is to sneak out?"

"I'm sure nobody would do that," Nagai whispers.

"Just like how a personal interview with Makoto Naegi himself stated he was sure they wouldn't kill each other."

"So what are you proposing, Rimushita?" Shimizu asks.

"Every night, we have three guards. If someone is to step out of their room, we are to stop them."

Just as Rimushita finishes his words, Shizuri steps out of the kitchen, scarfing down instant noodles out of a cup. So much for someone cooking dinner... Sweet bread and a choice to step into the kitchen to make some noodles isn't much of a meal...

"How's that supposed ta work?" Shizuri's words are slightly slurred as she slurps on the chicken broth of her microwaved ramen. It looks awfully good, I even find myself taking a moment to contemplate whether I should get some myself. But I don't want to miss out on the meeting, so I stretch my arm out to grab a piece of the remaining half of the sweet bread.

"The three people are stationed at each corner of the hall of the dormitory."

"I mean, why would we want to do that? Waste our precious night time, wide awake. Isn't that precisely why we're having this Night Time unofficial rule?" Shizuri takes a seat next to Nagai, who has no protests. I assume that they must have made up after that "Lolita-Bitch" mini episode.

"We all have a single motive... We all want to stay alive, correct? Well, if nobody leaves their rooms at night, the only other time we may kill is at day, out in the open. And for now, we're stuck on the first floor."

"So tell me one thin', worm: why do you try so hard with these suggestions? You're just as suspicious of everyone as us all."

"Haven't I already said? We all want to stay alive. That includes me."

"Mmmm..." Shizuri hums in agreement as noodles slither like snakes into her mouth.

"So Fusao, any chance you can give us some fortunes? I gotta know if I live! You can do that, right?" Nakahara's energy adds a boost to the room, especially because of his question.

"Wait, that's right! Your fortunes, they're 75% accurate!... Correct?" I find myself shouting in excitement.

"Fusao, if you can do that, that'd be amazing! We could change the future itself!" Aika is just excited as me, her words are overlapping mine as she bends over the table to get closer to him.

"If that is true, you may very well be our MVP," Manuel stays as composed as always as Fusao is bombarded with more and mor questions. It's obviously nervewracking to him as he begins to sweat. I can see he's trying to speak, but his words are too quiet to be heard over Nakahara, Shizuri, Aika and even Shimizu's silent interrogations.

It takes a few moments for them to notice it too, and when they do, they shut up for him to speak.

"I can try, but they may not be true... There's nothing that I'd hate than telling one of you you're going to die and sending you into paranoia."

"Fusao, you don't understand how important this is," even Rimushita's words are on the verge of desperation. "We can learn who's put us in here, what they plan to do to us. Just try."

"Very well," Fusao states. The room goes to silent as he closes his eyes, trying to focus. A silent excitement comes over us all as he begins to open his mouth to speak. Grins appear on all of our faces, but then something goes wrong. Instead of speaking, Fusao falls out of his chair and begins to scream. His screams pierce my ears as I stand up to rush to the boy, curled up on the floor. He has the appearance of a hurt child with his stature and wails. I make my way over to him as I am not sure of what to do.

"Uhhh... Uhhhh... Furiiiii," I whine. "What do I do?" I can feel the tears welling up in my eyes as fear takes over. Will Fusao become our first corpse? Laying here, crippled on the ground on the first night. Will he be doomed to have not even survived one day? Is it our fault for forcing him to this. More and more worries come into my mind as I sit there shaking, as I watch Fusao simply clutch his head and roar never-ending screams. I want to join in. I'm so scared, I could join him. In my fear, I don't even notice when Aika has appeared behind me. She taps me on the shoulder, signaling for me to move. When I do, she takes my place, though she walked over here in confidence, she sits and begins to shake like me and Fusao both.

With just a few stokes of his bare skin and checking his pulse, Aika speaks.

"He's in shock!" she shouts. I look at her, surprised. I'll admit I never would've expected a violinist to know better medical methods than me, in both identification and treatment. Immediately, she takes his scarf off and loosens the cape around his neck.

"Somebody get him a blanket from your room," she says. Aika is careful with her words, not to stumble. Though her eyes are streaming tears down her cheeks, she's strong.

"That'll take to long to get it out of its position off the bed. It'll take several minutes," I yell. Suddenly, I find Furi by my side. Her hand reaching for me when I realize what she wants. I pull my ElectoiD out of my pocket and drop it in her hand, at which point she bolts out of the cafeteria.

"We're going going to need to move him, aren't we?" Manuel asks rhetorically. To this we all comprehend what he means. I quickly and carefully search Fusao's pockets from his ID and I successfully find it. I throw it to Manuel, who takes Nagai, and Shimizu to Fusao's room to prepare his bed to lay him in for comfort.

"C'mon," Nakahara says as he pulls Rimushita and Nagase into the kitchen, to both of their dismay. Shizuri follows close behind, I assume to investigate.

"Is he going to be okay?" I ask Aika as she keeps a close eye on Fusao, who has stopped screaming only seconds ago.

"I don't know... I can only guess this is shock, I've never heard of a psychic doing something like this... Actually, I've never heard of what psychics do at all... I'm wondering if this happens everytime... And how he treats it."

"How do you know so much about how to treat shock?" I'm suddenly wishing that I can take back my question, I feel that it may be a little personal.

"It's just… Didn't you ever have a health class in school?"

"Oh..." I in fact did, I guess I never expected myself to be caught up in a situation in which I actually needed it and ended up simply dismissing it.

"Hnnnn... I don't know if I should do CPR or not..." Aika sighs, obviously her confusion takes over her confidence. I take a moment to observe Fusao's breathing.

"It's steady!" I say perkily.

"What?"

"His breathing."

"Okay."

We find ourselves sitting in the silence that becomes Fusao's heavy breathing. Luckily, this awkward silence lasts for only seconds as Sis comes back in, carrying in her blanket.

She unfolds the blanket as she walks over, then places it on the trembling Fusao. She flashes small smile to reassure me everything is going to be okay.

"We'll move him when he stops trembling," Furi states, face straight again.

It takes awhile, but he finally does. He's unconscious, thank god not dead, and his breathing has finally returned to normal. Because he's so small, I can lift him on my own with Sis spotting his head as we make our way to his room. I mainly ended up carrying him because Aika is so thin a fragile, with the exception of her strong fingers, so Aika end up following us to knock on the door, just in case I needed Sis's help in carrying Fusao after all.

We make it to Fusao's room, located next to mine, Aika does her knocking and it's Manuel who opens the door. I rush to the bed and lay him down, and when I do, Nagai and Shimizu each take a corner of the bed's blanket and carefully lay it on him. I hang his scarf and cape gracefully on the back of the chair by his desk.

"I'm betting this goes without saying, but who's going to keep watch on him tonight?" Manuel seems as calm as always, even for this dire situation.

"I will," Aika's words come with a strange sincerety.

"Very well," just then, there's a ringing at the door. This time, Nagai goes to the door and answers it with a short "Yes?"

Immediately Nakahara runs in and throws a thermos on the desk.

"Freakin' chicken soup!" He shouts. He bobs up and down in excitement, his feet occasionally hopping off the ground.

Rimushita comes in, and takes a minute to quietly obsererve Fusao.

"Nagase and Shizuri retreated for the evening," his voice carries a calmness as he continues to now observe the room.

"I'm assuming we should decide who does the night shift tonight now," Sis says, breaking the momentary silence.

"I'll do it," Rimushita says.

"I-I can go also," Shimizu chimes in.

"And I shall be the third person for this night," Manuel begins to walk out the door as he says his final words. "Well, we should get out there, you two."

Rimushita and Shimizu follow close behind out the door.

"You sure you'll be alright?" I ask Aika as soon as tonight's guards leave the room.

"Yeah, we've got the night guards and everything. It'll be fine... I guess all this means we can trust each other," Aika's smile grows and I turn away to walk out the room. On our way out, Furi picks up her blanket, laid messily on the floor.

On the hike back to our room, we pass Rimushita and Manuel, who are surveilling the dormitory entrance and first corner, respectively. It's Shizumi who's guarding the corner next to my room, and bares a smile as we approach her.

"Have a wonderful night! Please rest well to be safe!" Her words are gentle and kind as the lock clicks, and I open my door. I hold it for Sis and speak my final words of the night to Shimizu.
"You too! I hope you don't get too tired!"

I immediately crash on the bed. The stress from today doesn't hit me until now, and it's as painful as being crushed by a rock... I think. I have this harsh feeling in my gut telling me to cry, and yet I don't. I want to keep smiling. The night fades away to the almost-silent sounds of Sis quietly rearranging her blanket onto her flat sheet.


Hello! Lookie Here! I've got an early chapter!... That's probably good, considering how my deadline is friday and I'm participating in my school's Hunger Games simulation tomorrow... (I'm gonna die first. Just watch. T_T) I wouldn't get much time anyways...

Many thanks to Jin-Rimu for the night guard idea.

The poll is up, so go vote! This time it'll close after the first ten votes! So go get voting!

Any requests for Free Time? Because I am going to try one or two next chapter.

Please tell me what you think of the story so far in the reviews! I'll be back in a week or so with another chapter!