The rest of the day I had tried my best to act as usual but I couldn't focus on anything else but the plan we made. I wondered if we would actually manage to get out of here and what would wait for us on the other side of the fence. Would we be able to get back to usual everyday life? What if we couldn't just go to Hope's Peak Academy as planned? I didn't want to return to my old life, I just wanted to stay with the others.

But it probably would be terribly boring to never leave this place again. On the other hand I felt slightly uncomfortable about Monokuma being so careless. This bear certainly had known someone would see the car and get the idea to leave this way – why would he make such a mistake and let us escape like this?

Anyway, I wouldn't know more until I've seen everything with my own eyes.

This evening I waited some time after night time had begun and everything had calmed down before I slipped out of my room and went over to Vivienne's. Apparently she had already been waiting for me, I didn't even have to knock she already tore the door open and stared at me. "Are you ready?" I asked friendly and she just nodded although she looked pretty nervous. It was no surprise, we could get into danger when we faced Monokuma but we could also finally find an escape way from here.

I offered her my arm and as she took it we made our way down the stairs without meeting anyone else. Outside it was colder than I had expected but not as bad as days before. With the dark sky above us and the millions of stars the world looked just beautiful and again I wasn't sure if this despite all the sick cruelty we had been forced to see wasn't the place I had always dreamt of. For a moment I toyed with the thought of putting my arm around Vivienne. Then she whispered "I am so happy Tokaku loves me back. She is a wonderful girl… If I wish for anyone to get out of here it would be her."

"And you don't care about the rest of us?" I asked jokingly and she looked away. "Of course I want everyone to get out but she is special. I… I never felt like this before so don't you dare making fun of me, got it?"

"I would never," I simply replied and we continued our way to the fences. As we came nearer the swimming pool I spotted two dark figures there and curiously approached them. Both Tani and Sandrine were sitting silently on the edge, looking down into the empty pool.

"What are you doing here?" I asked and Sandrine flinched with a nervous squeak. Tani just glared at me. "What are you doing here?" Monokuma could have his ears everywhere, it was probably safer not to tell the truth. "Just wandering around in the moonlight," I said with a smile. "We both couldn't sleep so we decided to walk around a bit."

I had the feeling Tani didn't believe me but she didn't lose a word about it and explained "We both wanted to swim as early as possible so we decided to wait for the water to come back." Sandrine nodded nervously and just now I noticed she was holding a swimsuit in her hands. How could someone actually want to go swimming in the night?!

I already wanted to bid farewell to them as Vivienne made a sound and pointed in some direction. Her story had been true, there was a giant car driving through the silent night and it looked a lot like a waste collection. It was too dark to see if someone was actually driving it but something else was more important – would it actually pass the fence?

The two other girls had seen it as well and without any other word all four of us followed the car which was thankfully not very fast. In fact it was actually very slow without any particular reason unless… Could this be a trap?!

I already wanted to say something but Tani was faster, she ran off and jumped just in the right moment, getting a hold of the car and hanging on to it as it continued to drive. We others stopped and watched with bated breath as they came near the fence. Tani turned her head to look back to us and we could see her determined expression as she nodded towards us.

And then the fence actually opened, revealing a gap for the car. We started running again but the fence closed to quickly for us again. But Tani was on the other side, she actually got past the fence! There was a moment of triumph until the car stopped, the driver's door opened and a giant Monokuma wearing the clothes of a dustman got out of it. Humming some melody he approached Tani who immediately jumped off the car and tried to run away.

The Monokuma grabbed a piece of waste and threw it at her, hitting Tani in the back and making her fall to the ground. As she tried to get to her feet again the bear came nearer, pulling a bin bag over her and carrying her body back to the car where he threw her onto the pile of waste. We had no chance of getting to her and try to help as the fence was an impassable barrier between us and so we could only watch in shock as a weight came crushing down, merciless smashing the bags several times. I could feel Vivienne's fingers digging into my arm as she watched, too shocked to even get her fan out. Sandrine on my other side has fainted once again.

Finally it was over and the car drove back to our side of the fence to dump all the waste right in front of us before vanishing behind the bars again. Immediately we tried to free Tani from the bag, being as careful as possible.

She looked horrible. Blood covered her face and body while her limbs were horribly disarranged as probably most of her bones had been broken. But somehow she was still alive, one of her eyes fluttered open and her lips moved as if she wanted to say something. Then her eye closed again.

But we were three people here and there was no Monokuma announcement so she couldn't be dead! I knew we had to get her back to the hostel but I was afraid we would hurt her even more if we tried to carry her.

With a glance to Sandrine who was still out cold and Vivienne with her high heels I jumped up and said "You stay here, I go and get help!"

The blonde girl looked at me in pure shock as if she wanted to say "Don't leave me alone with them' but I had no time for this. As fast as I could I tried to run back to the hostel and quickly noticed that it was impossible for me to keep this pace for the entire way. Damn it, I should have worked out more with Hachiku!

Finally I arrived at the hostel, stumbling upstairs and knocking wildly against one of the dorm room doors. Daichi opened and regarded me expressionless. "What happened?" he simply asked and as I tried to catch my breath I replied "Tani...terribly wounded...need help...quick!"

He didn't ask anything else, just started to quickly alarm the others. As soon as Reece was awake he made a provisional stretcher out of sheets and broom sticks and Jason and Artyom went away to get Tani. I wanted to follow them but Daichi hold me back. "Would you mind explaining me what exactly happened?"

And so I told him everything, how Vivienne told me about the waste collection, how we went after it and met Tani and Sandrine and how Tani finally tried if she could get past the fence. Daichi listened to me with a straight face, just taking some notes.

Then the boys returned, carrying Tani on their stretcher with them. The others had gathered and watched in shock. "Will she be okay?" Panini asked worriedly but no one knew an answer to that. All we could do is bringing Tani to bed and try to take care of the fractured bones though everyone looked too afraid to damage her even more.

While some tried to help Tani Daichi approached me once again and asked me to come with him to the living room. "Lie down for a bit," he offered and as soon as my head touched the soft cushion of the sofa I felt how tired I actually was, for not having a minute of sleep this night.

"Are you all right?" Daichi asked and I struggled to keep my eyes open. I hated it when he turned the tables, I wanted to be the one asking the questions. "I'm just worried about Tani," I answered. "And I am a bit concerned about Vivienne. It was her idea to go after the car and she is not the most stable person so maybe she feels guilty about it."

"You care a lot about her?" Daichi asked and I blinked. "I care a lot about everyone."

"Oh really?" Daichi's expression didn't change in the slightest. "Do you actually like everyone here for who they are? Or is it that you just care about people in general?"

Why was he asking me this now of all times? "I like everyone here," I replied and he wrote it down. "On an equal base? I noticed for example that you're often spending time with Panini while you seem to try avoiding Ari."

"He always carries these lighters around with him," I murmured and Daichi softly said "I already noticed you're afraid of fire." As I didn't reply he added carefully "Do you have a specific reason for that?"

"Let me ask you this," I said. "Apparently you have noticed a lot about me, are you watching just me or are you doing this with everyone?"

"I am trying to gather all information that could be helpful for us in this situation," he simply replied.

Rubbing my tired eyes I offered "Maybe we should try gathering information together? Surely it would be more effective this way." And with my typical smile I added "Sometimes it is actually helpful to get close to people as they will tell you everything you need to know without you having to ask questions."

Daichi thought about it for a moment before he asked "Is it just you getting close to them or are they close to you as well?"

"Of course they mean a lot to me, too," I answered. "I guess that's the point in getting close, isn't it?" He wrote that down. "Though this might be an advantage it also has to be a torture to see them dying then."

"It is very sad, yes," I replied, too tired to think of a better answer. "You're having problems getting close to people?" "Unlike you I think it is easier to study them with a more neutral perspective," he explained. "But tell me, with this attitude you always must have been very popular in school."

„Not really," I replied, already half asleep and could hear Daichi say "That's surprising. Would you say it was other people having problems with you or was it you having problems with the others?"

Now this was too much. "Could we stop this?" I asked and he replied "It is totally all right if you're feeling uncomfortable to talk about it." "No, I am just very tired," I said and he nodded contently. "Then we will continue this later."

He was probably even worse than Tani and Hachiku. It was not only difficult to get information about him, but also was he the one getting information all the time. I was still wondering how to deal with him when I fell asleep.

I had no idea how much time had passed when I woke up again. The room was bright from sunlight so it must have been around late afternoon. I was all alone and just when I wanted to get up and go looking for Tani, Monokuma appeared in front of me.

"How is Tani?" I asked him and he chuckled. "She's bearly conscious and when it probably hurts beary much. Didn't you mothers tell you that's what's gonna happen when you play with the rubbish?" I couldn't help but laugh about the thought that parents would be afraid of giant toy bears hurting their children with bin bags.

"Is this something we all can laugh about?" I could hear Artyom say as he entered the room and I got serious again. "How is Tani?" I asked again, making him shrug in response. "Well, she's still alive."

Apparently Monokuma didn't like to be ignored and he started to jump up and down to get out attention. The next moment we could hear an announcement "Everyone gather in the living room! Your bearloved headmaster has some news for you!"

Slowly everyone except Tani gathered. I could see Panini and Tokaku coming in together, apparently they managed to get back to their friendship. As Vivienne went over to them the girls smiled and hugged each other.

Monokuma sighed and wiped an invisible tear from his black eye. "It is so nice to see that you have become such good friends. That makes it even more sad that poor little Tani had an accident." "That wasn't an accident!" Marilyn said angrily. "It was your fault!"

"No, it was her fault for not knowing how to behave. Terrible things can happen when you decide to leave your room at night. But anyway! I have news that will cheer you up! You know, you have to kill someone to escape and all your other friends are going to die then, isn't that just horribly sad? No one wants that, right?!"

"What's going on now?" Reece asked as confused as everyone here. Monokuma shows him a thumbs-up. "So I thought of this! If you kill someone and successfully get through the Trial you can choose one classmate to get out of here as well! Hooray!" And with an extremely ugly laugh he left us again.

I really struggled with words this chapter, sorry for that. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the chapter and reviews would be very much appreciated.