SURVIVORS - HINATA HAJIME, KUZURYUU FUYUHIKO, OWARI AKANE, SONIA NEVERMIND, SOUDA KAZUICHI

CONSCIOUS - HANAMURA TERUTERU, MIODA IBUKI, NIDAI NEKOMARU, PEKOYAMA PEKO, TSUMIKI MIKAN

COMATOSE - KOIZUMI MAHIRU, TANAKA GUNDAM, THE IMPOSTOR

DECEASED - KOMAEDA NAGITO

UNKNOWN - SAIONJI HIYOKO

DREAMSCAPE ;- identities

"SAIONJI!"

"Saionji-saaaan!"

The voices of your young master and Sonia ring from opposite ends of the island. Far away, on the island hosting the control room, you can dimly register similar cries from the other three members of the search party.

You stare down at your hands. They're rough, calloused, and dry from months of dehydration in your stasis pod. You form fists, then open and relax them.

"Saionji!"

"Kuzuryuu-san! Will you search by the farm?"

"Ah, yeah!"

It's hard to pinpoint where the voices are coming from, until one speaks softly just beside you.

"Isn't it silly?"

You glance up at Tsumiki, who sits in a wheelchair to your left. Her hands are balanced on her lap atop a blanket, her entire body limp and immobile besides her face.

"She's dead, you know," the nurse said in her soft, raspy voice. It's the voice you've come to recognize as belonging to anyone who recently emerged from their slumber.

Tsumiki was the most recent to be revived, joining the other survivors only two days before Komaeda's death. Shortly before her, Mioda had awakened, and Hamamura before that, though you have yet to see either of them. You woke before him—the second to return to consciousness. And before you, first to rise, was Nidai.

The big man isn't so big as he was in your memories, but then, no one is. That being said, he seemed to recover faster than anyone else; even now, he was on the second island with the other portion of the search party. You woke only a day after him, and you're still forbidden from standing on your own. [Useless. Weak.]

"Why do you think that?" you ask Tsumiki after a long moment of silence. You don't want to know what her answer is, but the silence hanging in the air is getting heavy.

"I-I killed her," Tsumiki whispers, giggling under her breath. "I...slit her throat... that evil bitch... and listened to her gurgle..."

"That wasn't real." You look away from her, back down at your hands.

"Neither is this," she says softly. "When... When they sent me...shooting off into the sky... I saw her..."

"Be quiet."

"My love, and—"

"Be quiet."

"—she told me how the world was a lie, and sh-she missed me..."

"Be quiet."

"We'll see her again... Like Komaeda-san, and Saionji... She wants us back, Pekoyama-san... My...love..."

"Be quiet."

Tsumiki's eyes shine with tears as she lets out a breathy laugh. "My Junko-sama..."

"Shut up!"

And suddenly you're standing, gripping one arm of Tsumiki's wheelchair with one hand and hovering over the timid nurse as she stares up at you, soft, unintelligible noises passing through her parted lips. Despite her incoherence, her eyes seem to shimmer with a life you haven't seen on anyone else since you awoke.

"Don't say that name," you hiss.

Her expression twists, contorting between timid, pathetic and weepy, and sullen and defiant. Then she smiles gently, moves a trembling hand atop yours, and whispers, "Enoshima Junko-sama."

Your throat leaps into your mouth and you give her a warning. "Don't."

"Enoshima Junko-sama. Enoshima Junko-sama. Enoshima—"

Smack.

You smack her. All you can do is smack her across the cheek with your free hand. For a moment, she stares up at you, lower lip quivering, her big eyes shiny and shocked. Then the tears come, intermixed with breathy giggles. Aggravated, but also ashamed, you withdraw, standing upright.

"Pekoyama-san!"

You look to your right. Sonia is striding to you with an admonishing expression, and you prepare yourself to be scolded like a child for slapping Tsumiki. Very well. It won't be undeserved.

"Pekoyama-san, sit down at once!" Sonia insists as she moves closer, taking the handlebars of your wheelchair and pushing it toward you.

What? You blink at her, surprised by her request. (She thinks you're weak.)

(You are weak.)

[You obey when you are ordered.]

(Weak.)

[Obey.]

(WEAK.)

"No," you say softly. You can feel Tsumiki's wet gaze on you from where she sits, but you don't meet her stare. Sonia's grey eyes narrow.

"Pekoyama-san," she says carefully, "please sit. Your physical health is-"

"Nidai is out right now, doing his part to find Saionji," you interrupt, your voice low, but stern. It almost sounds like...you.

"It was not my decision to allow that," Sonia says lowly. "Hinata-san decided his recovery was progressing quickly enough for more strenuous physical activity."

"I would like to stand, Sonia."

For a moment you and the princess stare at each other, each ignoring Tsumiki's soft giggling as it floats up into the air around you like so many bubbles.

Then Sonia's radio buzzes.

"SONIA! KUZURYUU!"

The voice on the other end is Owari's, out of breath and exhilarated. Sonia forgets her battle of wills with you and struggles to pull her radio from her belt as the transmission continues.

"Souda found… S-Souda's- He's runnin' your way! He found her!"

"Is she alive?" The young master's voice sounds from the radio as Sonia finally gets hers unhooked.

There is dead air on the radio for awhile. You feel your pulse in your jugular. Sonia seems unable to breathe, one hand over her mouth as she stares at the radio. Tsumiki hums softly.

"I dunno," Owari responds after a moment. "I-I'm tryin'...to help Old Man Nidai… He got himself all worn out."

"HA!" Nidai's booming voice is unmistakable behind Owari's.

"The fuck do you mean you don't know?!" The young master's voice is audible both over the radio and up the boardwalk as he rejoins you. He stops in his tracks when he sees you standing, and you almost feel a proud smile begin to crawl across your face before he looks to Sonia and snaps, "This is what happens when we put the idiots in the same search party. They're all over the damn place."

You shrink a bit. [Selfish. The young master and the others are concerned for your former classmate, and you almost had the gall to smile.]

"Oi! OI! SONIA-SAN! KUZURYUU!"

Three heads turn toward the boardwalk as Souda, out of breath and eyes wide, staggers past the cabins toward you.

The mechanic carries a pale, stiff figure in his arms. She looks so...small... Her time in a coma left her so tiny, she almost looks like she did upon entering Hope's Peak years ago.

You never much liked the snide little dancer, but the sight of her body in the mechanic's arms somehow hits you like a blow to the gut, and you find yourself collapsing back into the chair you'd so defiantly refused mere moments ago.

"Saionji-san..." Sonia whispers from behind you. Your young master stares blankly at the approaching group, his face void of any expression.

"Tsumiki!" Souda shouts, breaking into a run once he spots the nurse among your party of four. "Tsumiki, y-y-you gotta tell us what to do! She's—"

"She's alive?" Bocchan's eyes widen, suddenly alert again as he rushes with Sonia toward Souda. Owari and Nidai approach shortly after, the latter with an arm around the gymnast's skinny shoulders, walking slowly and out of breath.

"'Course she is!" Souda wheezed, clinging to the girl almost protectively. "Y-You think I'd come runnin' here to tell you there's nothin' we can do?! Tsumiki, c-can you look her over? She's—"

"Dead," the nurse whispers, drawing a startled look from Souda.

"N-No! She's breathing real shallow and she's got a fever or something, but—"

"How lucky," Tsumiki muses with a gentle smile, eyes glazing over. "She and Komaeda-san... Junko-sama is drawing them closer..."

"What?!"

"Ignore her," Fuyuhiko mutters to Souda. "Listen; Sonia, go get the medical kit. You three—" He gestures to Souda, Owari, and Nidai. "—set her up on a cot inside."

"Oi, what about you?!" Souda demands as Sonia rushes off to get the first aid kit.

"I'm gonna get Hinata's two cents on what the hell to do about this even if I have to break his goddamn door down!"

He strides off without acknowledging you; in fact, he didn't acknowledge you once during the entire ordeal, a first since your awakening. You observe the set of his back carefully as he goes, then glance toward Tsumiki. A thread of saliva down her chin shines in the late morning sun.

"You know," Tsumiki whispers. "You know that this place is a dream. The next world will be a dream too. We'll never be real again. Such beautiful despair..."

You shiver.