(Sayori's view)

We stepped downstairs, and we grabbed our shotguns. I so badly want to turn it on myself right now. A part of me also wants to turn it on Rivers. How could he do that to me?

How could you do that to him?, my conscience told me.

I kept walking. I'm super confused right now. Like, I want to forgive him, but I want to kick his ass. Maybe I can do both. I still love him. Maybe we're even?

I have no time to think as we duck and hide from a man walking down the corridor. He doesn't see us.

Rivers was telling Monika about a dream he had about an Argentine guy joining the club with a wood block and a shank and falling in love with Yuri, and a guy from Yugoslavia joining the club.

"And that's when I'm moving to Antarctica," Rivers blurts out. He can be so stupid sometimes.

I keep walking and I hear footsteps.

It comes closer.

And closer.

I see a figure of a man as I round the corner.

Unfortunately, my trigger finger reacts too fast.

BAM!

I set off an alarm as we run back, going back up the stairs.

Yuri was chatting with Natsuki about the fact she has a thing for Argentine guys, and I just sat there thinking, "These kids aren't alright."

"Hurry up and act like your sleeping!" Monika tells everybody.

Someone pops their head through the door and doesn't take the hint. He goes away and Natsuki puts on the Anime Channel again.

I sneak away from everybody by 3 AM. I go outside, and walk outside the town. To the pines.

I sit there for a while, thinking.

Why am I in this when I know I'm not gonna fucking win?

The town is empty, and I can hear the cars going past the highway.

There's a lot of rope on a branch on the tree.

I grab it and tie it into a noose, which I then put around my neck. I'm about to jump, when I hear "Wait!"

I turn around and see Rivers runnings towards me, arms flailing.

"Don't jump!" he yells.

"What the hell for? We're all gonna die in the end!" I snapped.

Rivers pondered that for a second, and then grabbed some more rope out of his sweater pocket, and really fast, tied a noose for himself.

"Rivers...don't..."

"If you die, I have no one else."

He puts the noose around his neck.

He grabs my hand and looks at me.

I want to tell him not to. But I don't.

I feel so comforted.

At least if we die, we die together.

"Alright..." Rivers whispered. "3, 2, 1..."

And we jumped.

The rope really hurt my neck.

I think the only reason we didn't die was that we were still holding hands. He's heavier than me, so he pulled me down, out of my noose.

When I fell, he fell too and landed on his back.

"Stupid thing!" Rivers screamed and tried to get back.

I kind of laughed.

"Wait!" I yelled.

"What?"

"Think about it: if we tried so hard to die and we didn't, then maybe we're not supposed to..." I told him, "Rivers... you gotta promise me if we make it out alive, we can't kill ourselves."

He objects.

"But I wanna die!" Rivers cried.

I put a hand on his shoulder.

"You've literally tried 200 times." I told him.

"Yes?"

"And you haven't died once."

He sits there for a bit and processes it. "So Dios doesn't want me to die?" Rivers asked. He still can't speak excellent English, just enough.

"I don't know what that means."

"Like, Dios Jesucristo?" he asked.

And then I got it.

He thinks God keeps him from dying.

"In Mexico, suicide is a sin..." he told me, "...my dad would beat me when I tried to kill myself."

"But... please, Rivers... if we both make it out alive, let's promise each other well both stay alive no matter what... for... for each other..." I pleaded.

"Wait... you still love me?" Rivers whispered.

I kissed him on the cheek, and it seemed to give him the idea.

We threw the rope away into bushes and just laid there on the hill, holding hands, just staring into the dark town.

"I forgive you..." Rivers whispered.

I guess I forgive him too.

So, we just laid there on the hill face and talked. About old time, funny memories from Seal Beach.

"If we make it back, I want to go to college for animation!" Rivers said.

"Which one?" I responded

He told me about the University of Alaska at Anchorage, and how it was his dream to became an Alaskero, someone who lives in Alaska.

"You're so weird." I joked.

He knows I'm going to this college in Japan, where my mom went to college. My mom practically insisted. In secret, I wanted to be with Rivers, but she insisted to go to Japan.

We kept talking, and, for practically the millionth time in this book, yeah, we made out... a lot.

None of your business, okay?

We woke up at dawn and snuck back into the room.

Everyone was awake. Yuri was on Tinder talking to some Argentine guy named 'Conrado', and I even think I saw a dickpic or two, which was something I really wanted to unsee.

I thought, Well, I have seen a Mexican guy's dick before, and got it put in me, so it's not all that weird.

Monika was going through a toolbox when she called me over to check something out.

"Sayori, come check this out!" she told me.

"What?"

So she found a map of the catacombs under the commune.

"I think I know where Libitina is."

She said that Libitina was in one of seven wings in the catacombs.

A114.

After I hear Yuri moaning in the bathroom to what I think was that guy, I realize it's time to wrap it up quick.

"Okay, everyone! Let's go..." I announced quietly.

The old couple heard me.

"Go where?" the husband asked me.

"Umm...no where?"

The man took me outside and talked to me.

"I know what the fuck you are doing, and I know where you were last night." he snapped at me quietly.

I wonder if he saw me making out with Rivers.

Then I realize he knows I shot the man.

"I don't know what you're doing, but it's not good." he said as he walked me over behind the house where no one could see us.

There he... uh... tried to rip off my shirt.

Realizing I still had a smoke bomb. I grabbed it and set it off. I snatched my shirt and backed off. He got my shirt off, but I quickly put it back on before anyone could see me in my bra.

I ran to Rivers.

"We gotta fucking go. Now." I told him firmly.

"Why? I'm watching Cio-Cio San: The Anime." he responded.

"That fucktard tried to rape me!" I said a bit too loud.

"That bitch tried to kill me!" the man yelled.

I guess here rape of young girls is perfectly legal, because the wife pulled a shotgun at me. Rivers backed into a corner.

That wuss.

I was about to die.

But then a loud sound went off.

I waited for the shooting pain. But it never came.

Instead, the grandma died.

Monika and Rivers shot her at the same time.