[Soundtrack: Distrust - Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc]
We were still arguing about the dead body hanging on the wall, when a speaker crackled to life. None of us had really expected there to be a speaker installed in the room, but knowing Pegasus, that was a foolish assumption to make. The sound of the static startled us all to silence as we stood like statues, scattered around the room, waiting for something to happen next.
"Hello? Is this thing on?" It was Pegasus's voice of course. Remember a couple of chapters ago when I had no idea why everyone hated that guy's guts? Yeah I'm gonna have to redact that statement now. He cleared his throat before speaking again. "Well, well, folks. I knew you would start killing each other eventually, but I didn't think it would happen this soon. I guess when you're already dead, this stuff doesn't faze you anymore. Who knew?"
"Cut the crap, Pegasus!" Mako snapped, and I was quite taken aback to hear him so angry when all he had ever shown me were his calm and playful sides. "None of us could have done something so cruel! What kind of trick are you trying to pull?"
I bit my lip in surprise, finally realizing what Mako was implying. "I bet you killed her yourself!" I added. "Or she's some kind of actress you hired since none of us even know her!" I had no idea if Pegasus could hear us, but the intercom had been silent throughout our outbursts, so I could only assume he was hearing us out.
As soon as my mouth shut, the sound of Pegasus's laughter rang out through the room, echoing against the hard metal walls. "You all think I killed her or hired her? Is that it?"
My eye caught Sun's, and she frowned; it was evident that part of her still struggled with the idea of me being innocent, and I wouldn't blame her if she kept my guilt as an option until a more probable alternative could be found. "Yeah, we think you did," she said. "You did it to get us to start killing each other. We… we may not all be good people. But none of us are killers."
After a moment, he spoke again. "Is that so, Sun? You're no saint, but you're also no liar…"
"What are you saying?" Zephyr jumped to Sun's defense. "Sun didn't kill Lia, that's for sure."
Pegasus scoffed. "Young Zephyr, now what gave you that idea? I know exactly who of you killed Lia, but I'm not about to spoil the fun. The best part of a detective novel is finding out who the killer is before the reveal, so I'm gonna give you twelve hours of fun. How does that sound?" He sounded way too excited about that idea, and it honestly pissed me off.
"Y'know what, asshole! No, we're not gonna do your stupid detective thing. We're gonna find a way out of here and we're gonna call the coast guard on your ass." I hollered at the ceiling.
"The coast guard?" Pegasus chuckled. "My! You're bold, Serafina. Unfortunately, I cannot tell you exactly why you need to do this. Suffice it to say, what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger. You won't have to stay in this room if you don't want to, however. From this point on, you're free to leave. The submarine's facilities are open to you, and I will have Kemo show you all to your rooms. All I ask is that you come back to this meeting room in 12 hours. Capiche?"
"No, you bastard!" Zephyr yelled out again. "We just told you we're not interested in playing out your sick murder mystery fantasies. This ain't Danganronpa. Go get your kicks somewhere else!"
"And you don't care that one of the people in this very room is a murderer?" Pegasus asked, his voice sounding more teasing than threatening. "Well, if you say so."
"We already told you!" I retorted. "This is all a trick! She's probably not even dead!" At that, I turned on my heel and stomped towards the corpse. She hadn't been up there for very long, but she still didn't smell right. I held my breath and grabbed her wrist, lifting it into the air. It was cold was stained with blood. I tried to find her pulse point and gagged at the sensation of my fingers running over her blood vessels and muscles, which were very easy to trace in her slender hands were shaking and it was hard to get a real reading for her pulse.
"Well?" Sun demanded from across the room. She had her arms crossed over her chest and was glaring at me. Her face was slightly paler than it usually was, which led me to think that maybe she was more afraid than she was trying to make us think. "Is she alive?"
I didn't really know what to tell her. The girl was as cold as ice, but I couldn't find her pulse in her wrist. The only other points i was aware of were near her jaw and between her legs, and they weren't exactly places I was keen on touching -one being covered in blood, and the other being -well -between her legs. "I can't find it… I can't find her heartbeat. I… I don't know? Maybe I'm just shit at biology and I can't find it?"
Just then, a small voice spoke up. "Let me." Serenity was moving away from her spot at the table and coming towards me.
Marik's whole body lurched towards her. "Serenity, no -"
"I'm fine, Marik," she told him, with a smile. She was closer to Lia than he was, at any rate. She gently took Lia's hand out of mine, not even bothered by the blood. Gently, she pressed her thumb against the inside of the girl's wrist and paused. After a moment of everyone watching her with bated breath, she spoke again. "She has no pulse. I'm no doctor, but I think she's…"
"Don't overthink it, Serenity," Pegasus interrupted. "She's dead. It's exactly like I told you."
"And how did you do it, then, Pegasus?" I snarled. "Is that why you had the lights turned off? So that we wouldn't be able to find out that you or one of your goons killed her?"
The intercom let out a distorted sound as Pegasus sighed in exasperation. "If you're going to keep insisting that I'm the one behind this, it's no fun, now is it? I didn't want to do this, but here are some clues to help you piece together this mystery. Listen carefully, because I'll only say this once." I looked around the room to see if anyone wanted to yell some more at Pegasus; I was always up for more yelling, but it didn't seem like anyone else shared that sentiment, as they all stood wordlessly, wanting to hear what the man had to say.
"Now, everything I am about to say is completely true. Whether or not you choose to believe me is up to you. I cannot very well use the Red Truth to confirm my words, but it can be implied. First of all, Lia is dead for all intents and purposes. Someone in this room killed her. Whoever killed her is not hiding somewhere; they are in plain sight. There are no secret passageways leading in or out of the room. The only door to this room is the one you all entered from, and it was locked up tightly by Kemo. After Kemo left, nobody entered or left the room by any means. For reference, there are only twelve people in this room: Enzi Nye, Leon von Schroeder, Lia Bennett, Mako Tsunami, Marik Ishtar, Rafael Rutherford, Rex Raptor, Ryou Bakura, Serafina Vasquez, Serenity Wheeler, Sun Kwon, and Zephyr Song.
"One of the people in this room is a murderer. It's not me, and it's not Kemo. It's not even one of your guests. It's one of you. You have twelve hours to find more clues of your own and deduce the identity of the true murderer, after which you will have to come back to this room. Good luck, and remember, it's against the rules to kill anyone when the lights are on."
With that ominous last statement, the speaker shut off and it was dead silent in the room. Maybe "dead" wasn't the most appropriate term for this unique situation, but there really isn't another word for "so quiet that you couldn't even hear others breathing" Something was different, however, and I and everyone else took in Pegasus's words, the very same urgency that had ignited upon first laying eyes on Lia returned. We all had our ideas of who was definitely innocent, and I could personally vouch for Rex and myself, but how well did I know Mako or Enzi? They were nice guys sure… but murderers? It wasn't exactly impossible.
Growing conscious of my proximity to Lia's corpse, I promptly jumped away and scampered over to Rex's side, where he put a protective hand on my shoulder. "We should get out of here," he said in a hushed voice, although it was so still in the room that he might as well have announced it on the intercom.
"I'd be careful with that one," Sun spoke up, clearly addressing Rex. "She's from team Alpha." What she didn't say, is how I was the most likely person in the room to have killed Lia, but it was definitely implied.
"Yeah, I'll take my chances," Rex glared back at her. "Let's go, Sera."
[Soundtrack: Hologramm - Ever17]
True to Pegasus's word, we found the door to the meeting room had been unlocked, and after wandering aimlessly through corridors that seemed more like dark tunnels, we found Kemo. He looked like he had been waiting for us to emerge and promptly gave us each a map of the submarine and told us to take good care of it. The maps looked like they had been newly laminated and the layout of the vessel was clearly outlined with the names of different regions written in block letters.
"What about Weevil?" Rex had asked him. "Will we be able to see him again?"
Kemo's face was a mask of complacency, making it hard to figure out exactly what he meant when he replied, "Everyone will be reunited as soon as Pegasus's challenge is completed."
Rex and I wanted to press him further, but he didn't look like he was about to divulge anything further, so we gave up for the moment and decided to find our own rooms. In spite of there being two teams, Alpha and Beta, it seemed like the room assignment did not really have much to do with our team allegiances. There were six rooms on the left side of the sleeping quarters and six on the right side; each room had a plate with the occupant's name on it and the rooms were assigned in alphabetical order by our first names, with Enzi being the first room on the right and Leon being the first room on the left. A benefit of this layout was the fact that Rex and I ended up with our rooms right next to each other.
We each had our own rooms, if you could call them rooms, that is; they were actually more like broom closets or prison cells than actual rooms. Rex and I entered his room first and noted the fact that it was exactly large enough for one twin-sized bed sitting against the left wall, a minuscule dresser and a small bathroom at the back of the room, separated only by a sliding glass door. The decor, while thankfully not resembling a prison cell, was still minimalistic with a rather bright, pearly, futuristic kind of reminded me of an airplane bathroom, the way it was much brighter inside than it was outside.
We discovered that Rex's belongings were already inside his room. We had been ordered to leave them on the surface of the sub, so it seemed that Kemo and the rest of the submarine crew had managed to take our luggage to our rooms while we were meeting with Pegasus and panicking over Lia's death. It made me shudder to think that there was an actual crew that was paid to oversee whatever mindfuck Pegasus was trying to impose on all of us.
My room was identical to Rex's room, so I didn't bother to look too closely at it. Our room keys were in our dressers when we found them. It was also interesting to note that the doors all had auto-lock functions that were disabled when we found them; we couldn't find a way to enable them, though, so we would have to manually lock our rooms to explore the rest of the area available to us.
Our map led us to a public shower area with five showers available for everyone to make up for the lack of showers in our own rooms. In another area was the mess hall, which was both indicated by the map and the plate next to the door that read "Mess Hall", but we couldn't really get a good look inside as the door was firmly locked and wouldn't budge no matter how hard Rex and I tried.
It soon became evident, that all of the locations on the map were actually the only locations we could go, which struck us as a bit odd considering two facts: one - the submarine was enormous, there was no way the meeting room, shower room, dorms, and mess hall were the only locations on the sub; and two - there were other people on the sub aside from the twelve (or maybe the eleven) of us. Yet, aside from the dead-end hallway that led to the hatch on top of the submarine (and was now blocked off by another door) there were no exits. The only logical conclusion we could come up with, was the fact that there was a way out in the Mess Hall, which was why it was locked.
[Soundtrack: Doc Mitchell Theme - Fallout: New Vegas]
As we were ending our brief exploration and returning to the dorm area, we found Ryou, Marik, and Serenity gathered around one of the doors. I caught the sound of Marik angrily hissing, "I don't understand this! Did he somehow predict that Lorna would die before contacting us?"
"Did who predict who would die?" I asked as Rex and I approached them.
Serenity's eyes widened when she laid eyes on me and she gave me a tired smile. "Oh, Serafina, it's just you."
"Just call me 'Sera'," I said, waving pathetically as the two others gave us their own greetings. It was nice to see that they didn't actively suspect me for Lia's murder. Well, that and Marik and Ryou were on my team, so it wasn't like I was about to murder them or anything.
"We were talking about our friend," she told us with a sad smile. "Well, I… didn't really know her that well, but she was very dear to my friends, so I think… I would have been her friend, too, if… If things had been different."
Rex sighed and said, "You mean Lorna… that girl that um… passed away during the Battle City Finals?" While the Rex I knew was usually brash and unapologetic, he seemed to be tiptoeing around the topic of this dead girl, and I suppose that was understandable; he wasn't a complete asshole, after all. "I'm sorry about your loss," he mumbled.
"Y-yeah, me too," I added really quickly, scratching the back of my neck anxiously. "But, if you don't mind my asking, what does she have to do with this?"
"Everything," Ryou said quietly. "You two are also part of it, aren't you? Peten's plans…"
"Peten… The Dark Clown?" I asked slowly. "Well, I've never met the guy personally, but he shows up in my dreams. But I haven't seen him in a while, and lately, all I'm seeing is the same nightmare."
Rex nodded. "Same here. We, Sera and I, can't really go to the Inbetween like you guys. We've tried… but it just kicks us out."
Marik frowned. "You guys haven't been in there? At all?"
"Nope," I shook my head. "But I had dreams where I saw you guys in there. I saw you guys in the Solitude, fighting the Warden and each other. I didn't recognize you all out of your armor I guess. I still don't know who was who."
"That doesn't explain Lorna, though," Rex gently nudged. "Who was she?"
Serenity bit her lip and then answered. "I was her anchor, but the Warden destroyed her." I saw her shiver and shrivel up, only relaxing when Ryou put an arm around her shoulders. The two of them looked close and I wondered what kind of juicy love triangle shenanigans those three got up to when nobody was watching; though I guess now was hardly the time.
Marik sighed. "You've been having nightmares, too, haven't you?" he asked Serenity.
She nodded. "Yes; not every night, but once in a while, when I least expect it. I think it's because her soul was just so tightly tied to mine, I still feel her pain…"
"So your nightmares are about her?" I asked her. I had one more question, but I knew she wouldn't be able to answer it, and it would only make things weird, but I wondered if Rex would have the same nightmares if I died.
Serenity nodded. "I wish I could tell you what it all means, but the nightmares are so blurry, like I'm seeing them through a fog…"
"So Pegasus was going to invite her here?" Rex said, bringing the topic back on track. "He invited all the rest of us here, didn't he?"
"Yes, I believe he meant to invite her as well," Ryou answered. "He said as much when he told us about it during the Battle City Finals."
"It hadn't even been an hour since she'd been announced dead," Marik mumbled. "And yet that smug bastard was being a smartass about it. It's almost like he didn't consider her a human being."
Serenity took over for him and said, "We just find it a bit weird that even though one of us died, he was still able to have this dorm built to fit exactly all of us. In fact, if Lorna were alive, there would have been thirteen of us -an odd number, which would have meant that his game wouldn't have worked. It's obvious he knows more than he's telling us."
"But that doesn't make sense if each of us has an Anchor," I said. "Each dead person and their Anchor makes a pair, so that means it would have been even no matter what. Isn't it weirder that there's an even number of us when there should be an odd number?"
"Actually, no," Marik said. "But -"
"Marik," Rex spoke up, interrupting him. "Who are you anchored to, then?"
Marik smirked and shot back with, "What makes you think I'm the anchor?"
Rex gave him a fierce look of his own. "Only an anchor would have brothers and sisters from this dimension."
I lowered my head in contemplation, thinking back on the two moorish people who had been sitting next to Marik during the meeting. Come to think of it, Rex had introduced them to me as the three Ishtar siblings. I knew for a fact that my sisters didn't exist here, so Rex had a point.
Marik crossed his arms. "Yeah, that is true, but I'm still not the anchor. My situation is a bit different than yours in that I'm both an anchor and one of the people that were brought back to life in this dimension. My name is Malik, and I'm currently inhabiting the body of a boy named Marik from this world," he explained.
"So you didn't get your own body like the rest of us?" I asked, examining his body, almost like I expected to find some sort of drastic biological difference between us. I didn't know if I should consider him lucky or not that he ended up in the body of his alternate universe self. He didn't show up in the middle of nowhere and probably get arrested like the rest of us.
He shook his head.
"And what's the real Marik doing while you're walking around in his body?" Rex asked with a disdainful look in his eyes. "Seems pretty shifty that you're not letting him do any of the talking.
Malik grunted. "Actually, I have no idea where Marik's soul is. You see, Marik's body didn't just have one tenant when I moved in, but two. One of them is the one that put Mai in a coma and tried to kill all of us. The other is the real Marik. Problem is that the real Marik's soul was kicked out by the evil spirit, and I'm pretty much the only thing keeping it from going on a murderous rampage right now."
Serenity nodded and chimed in, "We've tried looking for him in the Inbetween, but it's been hard to find him."
"That's why this strange gathering comes at a very difficult time for us," Ryou added. "We must find the true Marik before he is lost forever."
Rex scoffed. "I mean you look pretty cozy in that body. Why would you want to find the owner?"
Marik's expression soured. "I suppose it would make sense if I wanted to keep this body for myself. It would certainly be more convenient, but consider what he is: my Anchor. If he's not around, then I can't stay in this realm; there would no longer be anything tying me to it."
"Anchor or no Anchor," Serenity snapped. "He's in trouble, so we have to save him."
Ryou looked at me with wide eyes like he'd just remembered something important. "Sera, you said you've been having dreams about the Inbetween and that you've seen some of us there. Perhaps you've seen Marik there yourself?"
Well, now I felt like a glorified security camera. Nonetheless, I tried to recall my most recent dreams. "Well, like I said, I've been having the same nightmare over and over again since you guys got out of the Solitude, but I do remember seeing a guy that looked like Marik in golden armor… But it could have been -"
Not even waiting for me to finish my sentence, Malik answered, "That was me."
"Right…" I continued slightly miffed at the interruption. "I didn't really see anyone else there that looks like you though."
The three of them were silent for a moment before Ryou said, "Well, thank you anyway." See? This guy knew manners. If the three of them actually did turn out to be in a love triangle, I was Team Ryou now.
"So what are you guys planning on doing until the time limit is up?" I asked, leaning up against the door that led to Enzi's room. It only then occurred to me that the room they were standing in front of was actually Lia's room.
Serenity sighed. "I'm actually a bit tired so I might go get some sleep."
"But it's still morning," I pointed out. "How could you be tired already?"
She shrugged and twiddled her fingers. "I haven't really been the same since Lorna died… I've been feeling sick and exhausted most days. I think it's supposed to pass eventually… Plus, with Lia being… well… It hasn't been a very relaxing morning."
I gave her a sympathetic frown. "Yeah, I guess that makes sense."
"So who was Lia's Anchor?" Rex asked suddenly.
I was taken aback by his question as were the rest of the people in our company. That was a good point actually. I knew who Marik, Serenity, Mako, and Rex were anchored to, so those were eight people who were spoken for.
Ryou shuffled uncomfortably before responding. "I think she might be mine… Then again, I'm not quite certain, but… I felt something when she walked into the room, an enormous dark energy. As the element my soul represents is darkness, I can only assume the connection I felt to her would be due to that."
"Well, there you go," I told him. "But why aren't you sure?"
"Because I had that exact same connection with someone else I saw in the Inbetween, someone that looked nothing like Lia," he replied. "However, I can't possibly be an Anchor to both of them, can I?"
"Well, Lia's here; that other person isn't, right?" I remarked. "So Lia must the one you're actually anchored to." Sure Pegasus's whims weren't exactly the most reliable input for logical deduction, but it was really the only lead we had.
"It still begs the question of who that other person was… but I suppose it's not a very pressing issue at the moment, is it?" he said, smiling tentatively.
"Not really," I agreed, giving him a reassuring smile. "We still have to figure out who killed Lia. I mean, I know Sun and Zephyr are on Team Beta, but I don't trust them. It's not like Pegasus specifically set any kind of penalty for breaking his rules -"
"Actually, Sera, that's wrong," Rex reminded me. "Remember what Kemo said? The penalty for a first offense is a warning, and for the second offense, it's expulsion."
"Okay, so?" I questioned, still not really seeing his point.
"My point is," Rex replied, "that nobody on my team could have done it or we would have received a warning, and I don't think Pegasus is the type to break his own rules just to protect a killer. As suspicious as Sun and Zephyr are, it couldn't be them."
"Then how about Rafael?" Marik asked, "He's their buddy, isn't he? And he's on Team Alpha, so he definitely could have done it."
I shrugged and looked away from the group for a moment. "I don't know," I told them. "I didn't tell the password to that case to anyone. And wasn't there a rule about not being allowed to talk when the lights are off? How could he have gotten that password?"
"You realize you're saying that you're the killer, don't you?" Marik answered. "If neither you nor Lia told anyone the password, then you and Lia were the only ones who could have opened it."
"I- I know," I stammered. "I know I didn't do it, but I can't think of any other way… and it's just mindfucking the hell out of me. What if I did do it, but I didn't realize, or I was hypnotized into to doing it… or something…"
"Malik, did you bring the Millennium Rod here?" Ryou asked in a serious voice.
Malik glared at him. "If you're implying what I think you're implying, then no, I didn't use the Rod to get Sera to murder that girl. I gave that thing to Ishizu the first chance I got."
"Sorry; I had to ask," Ryou said. "This is just so baffling..."
The next words were spoken by Serenity and they tore this entire mystery a metaphorical new one. "Hey guys, remember what Leon said before? What if he's right? What if Lia was the one who opened the crate? What if she was the one trying to kill someone?" It was a theory that made having faith in each other possible again, and it was all thanks to the Anchor of Light -pretty fitting name, if you ask me.
Ah I'm sorry. This chapter has been done for like 3 weeks; I'm just a lazy asshole.
Also you know I'm just gonna keep referencing everything murder mystery related I can get my grubby little writer hands on, so have fun with those.
PS. If you're reading this, I'd love if you could leave a review x3 I don't care if you're reading this 4 days from now and you think its "too late" to post one, or if you're reading this just as I'm uploading but you've never reviewed any of my stuff before. I love each and every single review and tbh they really do keep me writing. So do this writer a solid and write down anything -even if it's two words.
Okay okay, enough begging for reviews x) I hope you did enjoy this chapter.