In the shadowy, green halls of Hope's Peak, I turned to my left, away from both the AV Room I woke up in and the entrance hall. I scurried across the checkerboard floor and past a dark pink double door. There were two light pink hearts on the door, and a small sign right next to the doors stated the word 'NURSE'. A crisscross of yellow tape, with the words 'KEEP OUT' repeated, clearly indicated it was closed.
At the end of the hallway, the lighting shifted from eerie green to yellow before turning into perfectly normal at the stairwell, which was blocked by steel bars.
Crap! I can't run up the stairs or hide in the nurse's office! Why did they block the-
I gasped, "Wait, d-did a murder happen in there?!"
Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap! They're going to find me at this rate!
I squirmed, as I stopped in fear momentarily.
No! T-the murderer is going to find me! That's what's going on! Someone is murdering us one by one in this school! That's why there's only fifteen of us!
I desperately searched for a place to hide.
Safety in numbers, yet I don't want to deal with them. Fuck! Why do I have to be this weak?! To need to hide among a crowd to survive! Why?!
Suddenly, what was once the sort of place I feared most became my sanctuary.
The bathrooms!
Two blue doors were just ahead of me, one under a whitish light and the other under the yellow lights. The closer one was the boy's bathroom, having a broad-shouldered figure. The one farther away had the figure with the triangle inverted to a dress, looking far more like me than the figure representing the boy's bathroom.
God fucking damn it! Did it really have to come to this? That I have to go to a public bathroom? This is a living nightmare. It couldn't be any worse than this! Still, which bathroom? Which poison should I pick?
I'm used to the boy's bathroom, but if anyone finds me in there, I'm fucked. The secret will be out! If I go to the girl's bathroom, then any breaking of my voice will spill the secret. Anything that would reveal that I'm a boy. And, that would make everyone think I'm a disgusting pervert.
Damn it, it's the lesser evil. At least, the girl's bathroom offers a decent chance of getting through this shitshow unscathed.
I sprinted for the girl's bathroom door, not even looking at my surroundings. As I grabbed the metal handle, my head shifted side to side.
Nothing to my right, and-
What the hell is that?!
What should have been a window was instead some thick metal plate with bolts all over it. Despite its crude appearance, it seemed to have an airtight seal, as if the object was built into the school.
Does...Does the school actually disguise these as windows on the other side? Wait, is the school in on this? They're working with a murderer? What the fuck is going on?! Well, no time for that! Hide in the bathroom, now!
I opened the door to reveal a bathroom unlike any other I've ever seen in my life. The entire room was ridiculously colorful to an eyesoring degree. Ceramic tiles of green, yellow, and even cyan hues decorated the walls, while the floor had similar tiles that were of various shades of red.
The fuck? We're now having Tetris in the bathroom?!
To my right, there was a whole line of sinks with corresponding mirrors. The plumbing and handles were...
Gold?! The hell?! It...It can't be really gold!
I walked towards the sinks, looking at the row of bathroom stalls to my left. The walls had a lime-green tiger stripe texture to them, while the stall doors had a rosy version of the pattern.
They seem to be fake. I can't really tell. Not an expert on gold...
"S-Still, where...where am I?" I whimpered, "T-this can't be my school. T-this Twilight-Zone hell can't be it."
I shifted my way towards one of the rose-hued stalls.
I'll pick the third one down. I hope no one is hiding in the stalls.
I entered the bathroom stall, slowly closing the door behind me to make as little noise as possible. One of my hands locked it behind me, just in case someone was to enter. I then proceeded to slump down against the wall of my stall, staring aimlessly at the wall in front of me. "I feel safe here," I said over the low hum of the air conditioner above the stalls. The lighting was perfectly normal in the bathroom. If anything, the room was brightly lit.
There's no one here. Finally, I feel slightly more relaxed. This more like what I'm used to. A small comfy room where no one will judge or bother me.
Yet still, I hugged myself with my scrawny arms, shivering with anxiety. Unlike my room, there was no bed to lie on. No blanket or stuffed animals to snuggle against. No swivel chair and desktop. Just the cold, surreal walls of the very sort of place I dreaded and feared the most.
"Why? Why did it have to be now? Why is it the very moment I got out of the hole I dug myself into, everything goes to complete and utter shit?" I asked myself as tears began to well up in my eyes.
I looked down at the brown fabric of the disguise I wore. "This is the one thing that stopped them from mocking me, from seeing me as lesser."
I clinched my hands into a fist, while my girly voice gave way to my 'normal' voice, "Yet, look at Sakura, who gets everything I didn't! She gets public acclaim and praise, while I have to hide my true self in the shadows. Everything I did was under a pseudonym or was taken by some greedy corporation. They took my dad and I's work, slapped their trademark and copyright on it, and claimed it as their own."
Tears rolled down my cheeks as I kicked aimlessly with one of my feet out of frustration. "It's not fair!" I yelled, my girly voice breaking, "Why do I have to be born like this?! Short, scrawny, and weak!" I spat the word 'weak' with disgust.
"That is the main issue. I'm considered worthless for not being strong and manly, yet Sakura already is making friends despite being open about who she is. She still has worth as a woman despite having gorilla shoulders. Why is being manly a requirement for me and being feminine just an option for her?" I asked myself, knowing full well the answer.
I then reared up my head, looking at the toilet paper roll next to the toilet. I sniffled and sobbed as my eyes grew redder and redder with my crying. "And, I know they call her 'Ogre'! I know that! But, at least, she is allowed to exist and live her life out however she wants! Me? My feminine body ruined my worthless life!"
"She gets to have to not only have a boyfriend but one with a fucking six-pack and muscle arms. Me? The closest thing I'm ever going to get to a relationship is either a lesbian who runs away screaming when she sees my package or the kind my dad was in," I ranted.
"Why can't I have what she has?!" I shouted, kicking my leg out again.
I then let out a long sigh to calm myself down, while my voice raised a couple octaves to return to my 'girl' voice, "I-I can't ramble like this. Not...Not when they're probably going to come looking for me. Not when there could be a m-murderer s-somewhere nearby."
My face was a mess, with streams of tears rolling down my soft cheeks. "I...was meant to die. Wasn't I? Is this the world's way of removing a worthless piece of a trash like me? Is this a form of natural selection? Why do I even fight it?"
"I'm, I'm just a freak. A mistake. Only civilization could create a freak like me. Only unnatural circumstances would allow someone like me to exist. In nature, a weakling like me...would have just died off or never reproduced. That's why no one likes me when they knew who I am," I said as I stared up at the ceiling. "I have to lie just to be accepted. At any moment, if my voice cracks, I'm going to be completely screwed. I will become even more of pariah than I was. That is my destiny, no matter how hard I try to fight it. Either I submit to the role society crafted for me, hide myself away from it, or face persecution..."
"I can see it. I can see it in Makoto's face if I told him my secret. A look of complete shock and disgust. He'd probably think I'm joking at first though. They all would. Yasuhiro probably would run off, freaked out about the truth," I continued to ramble, my tears already starting to dry up.
"And if Leon or Mondo find out about my secret, I p-probably would end up in a body bag," I noted with a shiver, hugging myself. "I-I'm e-especially scared of that. A-and, the less is said about what Hifumi would do to me, t-the better."
"I g-guess Kiyotaka probably would put me on detention for wearing the wrong sort of school uniform," I joked, laughing awkwardly. "I don't think I'm going to c-calm down with jokes this time. I'm fundamentally fucked. Either I wander through the halls and get murdered or I stick with the group and deal with my anxiety."
"T-Though, maybe that crime scene was just for a robbery or something," I desperately tried to rationalize before shaking my head, "I'm just trying to make the situation better. N-not like we have an Ultimate Thief running around the place."
"I g-guess this is it. I b-bet the s-school staff is in the nurse's office, a-all butchered up. I'm g-going to die, miserable and crying," I said, wallowing in my despair.
"That or maybe the murderer is going to kill them. T-then, t-then, I'll die slowly of thirst and starvation, rotting in the girl's bathroom," I thought aloud.
"I'm, I'm scared. W-what do I do? I have n-no where to go. I c-can't go anywhere. N-no one is going to help me-"
Aoi...
"She wouldn't. N-Not when she finds out. She'll be disgusted by me like all the rest. Even Sakura would probably look down upon me. It's the double standard I'm going to have deal with the rest of my life."
I shook my head and sighed, "I'm just being dumb. Repeating myself like this. I'm truly a broken record."
My eyes were still red, welling with tears. Meanwhile, my chest ached with sorrow, yet I felt a strange sort of serenity to the whole situation.
I'm accepting it.
"I hate my life. Why? Why couldn't I at least live a fulfilling life before I die here? Did I really exist just to feel seventeen years of pain before being finished off slowly in some Twilight-Zone version of an elite high school?" I asked myself. "And, all I did before dying is going to be crying about everything and insulting someone who did nothing wrong to m-"
Ding dong! Bing bong!
"Huh?I...I d-don't think we have a-any doorbells nearby. T-This just keeps on getting weirder," I said.
An oddly familiar voice I thought would only come from a toy spoke through what seemed to be Hope's Peak's intercom system, breaking the silence of the bathroom. "Ahem! Ahem! Testing, testing! Mike check, one two! This is a test of the school broadcast system!" the high-pitched voice said.
"T-The fuck?" I muttered.
Why...Why is that voice familiar? And, who is speaking on the intercom? Seriously, that's not the voice of the headmaster, and it's definitely not the voice of a kid.
"Am I on? Can everyone hear me? Okay, well then!" the playful voice asked.
"Why even ask when you-" I asked before covering my mouth with my hands.
The school is recording the bathrooms?!
I screamed a muffled curse into my hands, while my reddened eyes nearly popped in shock.
Calm down, calm down. The school knows anyways. They're not going to do anything to you as long as you show off your talent. Think positive. The good news is that at least there is someone- Wait, what if-
"Ahh, to all incoming students! I would like to begin the entrance ceremony at," the unknown voice announced, interrupting my train of thought.
Students! Entrance ceremony! Good! That means this is NOT some horror movie doll that's going to off us Saw-style. I-I can't handle horror movies, so experiencing one in real-life would be my worst nightmare. Unless-
"Right now!" the voice exclaimed excitedly.
God damn it! Way to gave me no time to think this over! Okay, maybe entrance ceremony could be a euphemism for-
"Please make your way to the gymnasium at your earliest convenience," the intercom instructed.
Probably the wrong time to be thinking this, but gyms smell terrible. They also give me bad memories. PE was the worst...
After a pause, it said ominously, "That's all. I'll be waiting!"
Then, silence returned with the only sound remaining being the running of the AC on the ceiling above me.
