DORM: SAYA'S ROOM

I thought through the situation as dispassionately as I could. This was obviously some sort of murder plan, right? This had to be. A mysterious note (from my sworn enemy) to go alone, in the middle of the night, to a weird, dangerous place? It was almost insulting my intelligence.

But. If it wasn't fake? What if Lucina was in some sort of danger? Even beyond my… personal feelings, she was my ally here in this game. And… not beyond my personal feelings, if whoever had the secret weapon wanted to target her…

I glanced at my tablet to check the time: it was a little past 10:00.

I tried to be rational. If this was trying to lure me into a trap to be murdered, it wasn't really an ideal plan. If I had my stun gun and stayed out in the open, it'd be hard to get me. But on the other hand, I wasn't sure what this secret weapon was.

If this was meant to lure me somewhere to frame me for a murder, then it was really dumb to leave a note, which I could just show everybody. And it'd be really stupid to plan any sort of murder with The Cricket right there, right? It'd be impossible to get away with anything if we all can be hooked up to a perfect lie detector. It began to feel very unlikely this was a trap.

I eventually decided: I had to go, but I wouldn't be stupid enough to actually go alone. I needed back-up I could trust. I needed Bepi.

I waited until 12:40, killing time by showering, changing clothes, and simulating chess games. When the time came, I grabbed my stun gun, opened my door, and slipped out into the hall.

DORM: UPSTAIRS HALLWAY

I crept down the hall towards Bepi's room, and I knocked quietly. Realizing that was counter-productive, I knocked again.

Nothing happened. I started to feel awkward.

I knocked again. Nothing.

I'd thought he usually went to bed pretty early, but maybe I was wrong. It wasn't as if I knew every detail about his life… I just for some reason had felt sure he'd be in his room. Maybe he was still deafened from the gunshot today?

It wasn't even that weird, but something felt off. My chest had a weird twisting feeling, like there was tension I'd been breathing in. What a dumb Saya-ish thing to do: I'd gone to get someone to help me be secure and safe and instead I'd picked up a bunch of worry.

"Screw it," I mumbled. Stuffing the anxiety down as tight as I could, I decided to just go on my own. I walked quickly to the nearest elevator.

MAIN QUAD

I hadn't been in the quad for even a single full second, when I heard her voice. "Hey, Saya."

Emitting an undignified peep, I jumped and turned to the sound. Juliet sat, leaning against the dorm, right next to the door I'd just walked through.

I didn't respond, first from shock and then from irritation. She just shook her head at me disapprovingly. "Sneaking around at night during a killing game is generally not a good idea. One might think you were up to something."

"Well, I'm not," I snapped. "I'm just… making… exercise."

She rolled her eyes and held up a piece of paper; I immediately recognized it as Katy's note. "Hey! How'd you…"

"I'm really sneaky." She unfolded the note and read it. "…Are you seriously that stupid, Saya?"

"Who's stupid?" Rocky's voice asked, and I jumped in surprise again. He was walking over from his DJ equipment, scratching his head.

"Saya." Juliet held up the note, and Rocky took it, glancing at it.

"Hey!" I objected. "That's…"

"…Katy," Rocky finished reading aloud. He looked up at me, raising an eyebrow. "Dude, this is super sketchy, you really going to where this note says?"

"I brought my stun gun!" I defended, holding up the weapon. "And I wasn't going to go alone! Bepi just didn't answer his door!"

"Giuseppe might have written that note," Juliet said, rising to her feet. "Trust me, I know you can't trust damaged boys. You want to, but you can't."

"Oh yeah," Rocky agreed. "I mean, I get it. All wounded and sensitive? But it's bad news." He did a slight double-take at Juliet. "Hey, what are you wearing?"

For the first time, I noticed Juliet was dressed like some kind of sexy librarian: glasses, hair in a bun, long skirt, cardigan. "Oh, my apologies," she said breezily. "I thought I was going to run into Jane tonight."

"Aggh." I stomped my foot, trying not to think about that. "Why are you guys even up, anyway?"

"Uh, because it's barely after midnight," Rocky replied. "What am I, fifty?"

"I don't sleep," Juliet said.

I sighed. "Well, I guess this is fine anyway. It's probably for the best I'm not going to this weird note-meeting."

Rocky frowned. "Huh, do you think? Maybe you should go. If someone's planning a murder, we should all know, right?"

Juliet glared up at him. "Really? You're saying that, Mr. Icepick?"

"Well… yeah!" he defended. "It's good that Roddy stopped me. If someone came up with this really obvious plan to kill Saya, who knows what they'll do next? We gotta stop 'em."

"Hey…" I began, but Juliet cut me off.

"You're saying we should just run headlong into what is clearly a very blatant trap to murder Saya?"

"I don't…"

"No!" Rocky argued. "Not run headlong, we'd be careful, but we should still do something."

"I'd rather run headlong," Juliet mused. "Seems like it'd be more interesting."

"Stop!" I snapped. "This might not be a trap! And Rocky, stop listening to her; she's evil."

"Oh yeah." He paused a moment and then literally slapped himself in the head. "Ohhhhh. She wrote it. Right? She was gonna try to kill you."

"Kinda obvious, isn't it?" Juliet asked, raising an eyebrow. "Hey, I bet Rocky wrote the note. That's why he's out here."

"No!" Rocky protested. "I promised I wasn't going to try to murder again."

Juliet rolled her eyes. "Oh, well if you promised, then never mind." She glared at me. "Saya, don't be a dummy."

I looked at her, and then I looked at Rocky, and then I looked back at her. "I'm going inside," I said, turning around.

"No, hey, wait," Rocky's voice called, stopping me. "No joke, this is serious. Right? Someone's up to something, and I know I'd feel way safer if I knew who it was. I'm gonna go check this out if you won't."

"What?" I gaped at him, not believing what I was hearing. "No, come on, that's not safe! That's the whole point, right?"

"Yeah, but like…" He waved his hands around vaguely. "…Like the whole dangerous thing about a trap is that you don't know it's a trap, right? So we can walk into this one, where it's not gonna be dangerous because we know it's a trap, and try to learn something. Or we can just sit around and wait for the next trap, which will be dangerous because we won't see it coming."

"The kid makes a good point," Juliet said. She rolled back and then hopped to her feet like a goddamn ninja. "And relax! There's three of us, and you're armed. What's going to happen?"

I squinted at her skeptically. I tried to imagine a scenario where she and Rocky were in cahoots to plan a murder, but I was not successful… it was just too far-fetched. I squeezed the stun gun in my hand. "It's probably not even a trap," I said.

"Ugh." Juliet rolled her eyes. "Whatever." She just started walked directly towards the south quad. "I'll go first, you babies."

I glanced at Rocky; he looked suddenly unsure about this whole thing. "Uh, for what it's worth," I said, "I don't think you're going to try to kill me."

He grinned. "Oh! That means a lot, dude, thanks!" He cheerfully followed after Juliet, all apprehensiveness apparently forgotten. Sighing, I went, too.

SOUTH QUAD

Everything looked pretty normal. The lamp posts cast bright lights, but I couldn't see far beyond the entrance, the sharp angles of the modules and the dark shadows they cast blocked the view. Everything suddenly felt extremely ominous.

Juliet looked like she'd never been scared of anything in her life, which, I realized, might actually be true. She peered off into the darkness, frowning. "What do you think?" she asked. "I expected it'd be apparent where to go, but I'm not sure."

"Hey, look," Rocky said, pointing. I saw where he was looking: it was the Asshole Cube, the one with the personality test and the Very Important Information. There was a flickering light coming from inside. "Weird!"

He started walking towards the cube. "Why do you think… whaa!" He suddenly stumbled forward.

I darted towards him, but something stopped me from getting too close. "Are you okay? What happened?"

Rocky looked down; there was a broken string right where he'd been walking. "Some kind of stupid tripwire or something. What…" A sudden thunk stopped him short.

I was confused by what I was seeing at first. Rocky was suddenly standing there and then he was not.

It was because he had thrown himself to the ground, covering his head. "Booby trap!" he hollered.

The thunk sounded again, and this time, a round, silver shape shot out into the light, awkwardly wobbling. It landed several meters away from anyone and lay there, as if exhausted.

"Huh." Juliet strolled over to the silver object and knelt down, examining it. "It's… hey, do you know what this is?" She grimaced at Rocky. "Oh, get up. It was a really shitty booby trap."

We cautiously walked over to her. I looked at the disc, rubbing the back of my head in confusion. "Um… is that a pizza tray?"

"Oh, yeah!" Rocky said. "Like from the cafeteria." He poked it with his toe. "Someone… like, cut it in half?"

Juliet nodded. "Looks that way. And I think they filed the edge down too, to make a point. This was not a good plan." She smirked up at Rocky. "Are you sure you didn't write this note after all?"

"Shut up!" Rocky grumbled.

Trying to ignore them, I carefully walked closer to the cube. In the dark next to it, there was an odd-looking contraption apparently built out of various objects from the student stores: a rat trap, some bungee cord, legos. Someone put a lot of work into making a terrible booby trap.

"This is weird," I said. "There's really dangerous weapons, and someone tries to cobble together some medieval catapult with a pizza tray?" I looked back at the others and paused. They were staring into the flickering light of the cube, Juliet smirking as if privately amused, and Rocky pale, mouth hanging open.

He pointed. "Blood," he said.

I jumped to my feet and ran over, looking into the Asshole Cube with them. He was right: there was a smear of blood on the floor, glowing in the flashing light.

SOUTH QUAD: GREY AND WHITE MODULE

We carefully and hesitantly walked inside. I noticed three things immediately: there was a damaged computer monitor lying on its side, providing the flickering white light. The door, with its sign promising very important information, was wide open. And the blood streaked its way on the floor right through it.

"Oh fuck," Rocky whimpered. "This… oh fuck. What…?"

"It happened again," Juliet said. Her tone caught me by surprise, and I looked over at her. She seemed actually angry. "Goddamn it," she mumbled. "At least it wasn't Saya, but… goddamn it."

My attention was captured by the computer screen next to the door. It showed something completely new, a readout I hadn't seen before. It said CORRECT RANKING OF PERSONALITY TRAITS! 1. NEUROTICISM 2. CONSCIENTIOUSNESS 3. OPENNESS TO EXPERIENCE 4. EXTRAVERSION 5. AGREEABLENESS. ENTRY APPROVED!

"…What if we don't go in?" Rocky asked. "What if we just close the door and leave? We won't have to have a trial, we won't have to see it. We can just… pretend it didn't happen."

"No, we can't," I said numbly. "We have to know. We have to face it."

I took a deep breath. I wasn't ready. I walked forward.

SOUTH QUAD: GREY AND WHITE MODULE: SMALL ROOM

I somehow felt it before I knew. The corpse lay almost casually, propped up against the wall, facing directly towards me. The room was cold, and I suddenly noticed there was blood everywhere.

I thought, "It's not fair."

It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair at all. The last thing he'd told me was that he was trying to be better, and now he'd never have the chance.

Barrett Wood, the Ultimate Demolitionist, leered at me from the corner of the room. A long, narrow pole stuck out of his left eye, blood streaking down over half of his face. He looked content.