Hopes Peak Academy. A school for the gifted, the talented, the next generation of people who will be there for the world. At least that's what Mike thought. He almost couldn't believe it when he came home from another boring day of high school and got his letter. He took the folded letter out of his pocket as he looked up at the large gates leading into the giant institution, reading it one last time with a light chuckle and warm smile.

'Dear Mike, we are delighted to inform you that you have been accepted into the 50th class for the Canadian branch of Hopes Peak Academy as the Super High School Level-'

Mike suddenly stopped reading as he grabbed his head,

'that's weird', he thought to himself as he suddenly felt a strong throbbing pain. Suddenly, it started to go dark, and what Mike thought would be the beginning of a new life, a life of hope and good future, soon turned into the gravest despair he would ever know.

xxx

Prologue - Welcome to Despair Academy

xxx

When Mike opened his eyes, his vision slowly returning to him, he found himself in a bedroom. "What the..." He muttered to himself. He noticed this wasn't any normal bedroom. Sure, there was a bed, a desk, and a door to presumably what was the bathroom. There was even a television monitor mounted on the ceiling. But what immediately stood out where the metal plates covering where one would expect the windows to be, and a camera that was creepily aimed right at him.

Mike slowly got off the bed, and noticed a note on the nightstand, he picked it up, immediately acknowledging the date. "August 27th...", the day Mike was told to arrive for orientation in his congratulations letter. "So it's still the same day as when I passed out..." He said to himself, as he began to read further on. The letter informed that all freshmen students were to meet in the school gymnasium for orientation.

Mike decided it would be best to follow the letter, logically there would be other students there right? Maybe he could get to the bottom of whatever is going on.

He opened the bedroom door, to find himself in a long hallway. A whole lot of similar shaped doors to his in the hallway, that contained a strange sprite image next to them. He looked at his own door and noticed a similar sprite image on the side.

"I guess that's meant to be?" He said with a raised eyebrow. "I don't think my hair is really that spikey though..." He mumbled, as he began to make his way down the hallway. He followed the signs leading towards the gymnasium, noticing a few more metal plates, and a few more cameras hung up on the ceiling. Eventually Mike made his way to a set of double doors, and took a deep breath. Regardless of how he ended up here, this would be where he meets his classmates, the next generation of hope right? If anyone could band together to get out of this situation, they certainly could.

He felt a bright light, before it came back to, and he saw the other students all immediately turn to him.

"Oh great, another one." A ginger boy in a white tank top sneered.

"You think he's the last one?" A tall black man with a yarmulke on his head nervously said.

"No, I can guarantee you he is." A Latino man from the back said.

"Oh, and what make's you so sure?" The guy with the green mohawk scoffed.

"Because if you counted the bedrooms we all came out of, there was only twenty five of them." A short black man in glasses said, as he corrected them.

"Seriously, it's like you didn't even bother to analyse anything." A mixed race girl with brown hair said to the guy in the mohawk.

"Woah, take it easy guys, it's a very scary situation for us all." A Caucasian guy with black hair and a green shirt said, attempting to diffuse the situation.

"Indeed, before we do anything we should at least introduce ourselves to our new acquaintance here." A Caucasian girl with ginger hair said.

"Again? We've done this like ten times already." A brown boy in a vest groaned.

"It's the last time it's fine." A short boy in a striped shirt said, waving it off.

Mike looked around and raised an eyebrow, this bunch who can't even seem to like each other already are the next hope of humanity? Oh boy...well, he figured he might as well get everybody's names. He started with the person nearest to him, going to greet himself.

"Hey," Mike said.

The boy on the bleachers held up a finger, with a book in his hand.

"Um...well I'm Mike." Mike added again, despite his second of confusion.

"Oh, don't mind him, he's been reading since he got here. He won't say anything until he finishes the page." The short boy in the striped shirt from earlier said with a light chuckle.

"Well guess that explains the level of anti socialness." Mike sighed, before the boy chuckled once more.

"Anyway I'm Cody, nice to meet ya!"

Cody - Super High School Level Hacker

"And I'm done," The Indian boy said as he put down his book. "I knew it was the butler who did it." He said with an almost sadistic grin.

"About time, Noah." Cody said.

"Well, ignoring him." Noah said, eyeing Cody before turning to Mike. "I'm Noah, but you already know that now I guess."

Noah - Super High School Level Author

"Hey, what do you mean ignoring me?" Cody said, with an attempt at an intimidating glare that you couldn't really take seriously due to his small stature.

"I'd recommend leaving them to it, they can really go at it." A girl with light and dark blue hair commented, approaching Mike.

Gwen - Super High School Level Artist

"As well as those guys..." Gwen added, motioning over to the group by the other side of the bleachers.

"ninety eight...ninety nine...one hundred!" A boy with a crew cut and shorts said as he stood up.

Brick - Super High School Level Cadet

"Yes, I got there first!" He cheered to the girl in a hoodie and jogging bottoms, who slowly got up after him.

"No fair, you started early!" She said, pointing a finger at him.

Jo - Super High School Level Sprinter

"Can confirm, you both started at the same time." The ginger girl with glasses from earlier added.

Scarlett - Super High School Level Biologist

"If anything, Jo started 0.02 seconds earlier than Brick did."

"Oh, well look at that." Brick gloated.

"I told you, they don't exist!" Brick and Jo were suddenly halted by a voice coming from the centre.

"Zombies aren't real!" The brown boy in the sweater vest from earlier said

Dave - Super High School Level Lucky Student

"That's just what your delusion want's you to believe!" A Caucasian boy in a beanie retorted.

Shawn - Super High School Level Survivalist

"Actually, whilst knowledge of the universe is technically infinite. We can't say for sure that zombies do not exist." The short black boy with glasses from earlier stated, inserting himself in the conversation.

"Ugh, such Neanderthals." The mixed race girl from earlier commented with a look of disgusted.

Courtney - Super High School Level Class President

"Wait, so zombies aren't real?" A slightly tall blonde girl aimlessly asked. "Or they are real?"

"They're not real, Lindsiot." A tall girl with black hair in a ponytail facepalmed.

Lindsay - Super High School Level Fashion Designer

Heather - Super High School Level Prosecutor

"Oh, lighten up, princess." The boy with the mohawk said with a smug grin, as he placed his arm around Courtney, who pushed him off immediately.

"You're the biggest Neanderthal here." She hissed back at him.

Duncan - Super High School Level Delinquent

"Ease up guys, it doesn't look good if we're just arguing so early on." The boy in the green shirt from earlier said, attempting to diffuse once again.

Trent - Super High School Level Guitarist

"Samey, I told you to not stand so close to me!" Trent looked over to see two similar looking girls arguing.

"Here we go again." Trent sighed, as did Courtney and Duncan.

"Sorry Amy..." The one of the girls said, as she stepped to the side.

Amy - Super High School Level Cheerleader

Sammy - Super High School Level Reporter

"Are you sure you don't remember?" A blonde girl in a blue hoodie said, in a crowd of others, looking at another blonde girl on the bleachers on the other side, Mike turned his attention over to them and walked over.

Bridgette - Super High School Level Surfer

"What's going on here?" Mike asked, interrupting.

"She doesn't remember her talent! The poor thing." A girl in a pink blouse informed Mike.

Ella - Super High School Level Performer

"I...I don't know..." The small blonde girl softly said.

Dawn - Super High School Level ?

"It's more suspicious then anything if you ask me." The ginger boy in the tank top from earlier stated.

Scott - Super High School Level Farmer

"What makes you say that?" A shorter brown girl queried.

Priya - Super High School Level Competitor

"I mean, something strange is clearly going on here, and now there's someone who we're not even sure is meant to be here? Come on, this isn't difficult." Scott replied.

"Hey, come on man we all woke up here after blacking out right? It's not surprising she might be more affected then us." A woman of European descent with short black hair chimed in.

Sky - Super High School Level Gymnast.

"I mean, truth be told, I don't really remember my talent either..." Mike said with a chuckle.

"Well, adding to the suspicion." Scott scoffed.

"Shouldn't we be sure what's going on first before we jump to any conclusions?" The tall black man from earlier commented.

Devon-Joseph - Super High School Level Veterinarian

"Yes..." The Latino man added, almost appearing out of nowhere. "That would be the wisest choice." He said with a small smile, that Mike only seemed to notice.

Alejandro - Super High School Level Politician

"How much longer are they going to make us wait anyway?" Jo growled.

As if on cue, a few of the students began to cringe from the feedback that appeared from the stage.

"Testing, testing..." An adorable voice spoke from nowhere to be seen. "Oh great, it's on! Well now that everybody is here, we can get this show on the road! Welcome to orientation students!" The voice said.

Suddenly, a figure appeared from below the stand, onto it. When placed properly, the figure was a half white half black bear, almost appearing comical.

"Welcome freshmen of the fiftieth class of Hopes Peak Academy, I'm your headmaster, Monokuma!"

Silence. Nobody spoke, nobody even seemed to move. if a pin dropped outside the gymnasium, you could probably hear it, Mike thought to himself.

"Wow, a whole bunch of mousey kids we got this year huh?" Monokuma joked.

"Are...you serious right now?" Duncan said, finally breaking the silence.

"Whatever do you mean?" The bear innocently replied.

"Cut the shit, is this a joke!?" Jo yelled.

"Wait, I'm confused, what's happening?" Lindsay asked.

"Can we meet the real headmaster now?" Heather added.

"You kiddies seem to think this is a joke, huh? Ah the innocence of youth!" Monokuma blissfully said, pretending to wipe a tear. "This is no joke, I'm the headmaster during your permanent stay here at Hopes Peak!"

Wait...what did he just say?

"Per-permanent?" Sky said, almost in shock.

"My bad, I should've been more clear, well I'm your headmaster, and you guys are stuck here indefinitely! Does that make it easier for you to understand or?"

"What the hell is going on right now..." Dave muttered.

"So I suppose that's what all those metal plates on the windows are for..." Gwen suddenly realised.

"Finally you're catching on!" Monokuma laughed. "There are no exits, no escapes, and you students shall spend the rest of your lives here! Finally we're getting somewhere."

"Why the hell would we do that!" Courtney snapped.

"I...I wanna see momma..." DJ whimpered.

"Well, if you insist i suppose there is one way you guys could leave if you realllyyy wanted to." Monokuma said, the fake sympathy in his voice clear.

"And what's that...?" Shawn slowly asked.

"It's simply really, any student who wants to leave, must kill another student and get away with it, see, nothing to it!"

Once again, there was silence. Except this time the silence felt like it lasted forever, even though it was only a few seconds before all the students began in an uproar.

"K-kill!?" Sammy gasped.

"Okay, this isn't very funny anymore..." Cameron nervously added.

"I told you, this isn't a joke. It's either you accept the fact you'll be spending the rest of your lives here, or you kill one of your fellow students, that's all from me!" Monokuma said, before going back below the stage.

Brick and Trent as two of the closest to the stage immediately ran up towards it, and began looking around for the bear.

"He's gone." Trent said, absolutely flabbergasted.

The students began to look around each other, as Mike lost himself in his thoughts. This was ridiculous right? There's no way anyone here would kill each other? Well, that's what he wanted to believe. But as he looked around at everyone's confused and scared faces, he began to dwindle in that belief, and wondered just how long it would be before he lost it entirely. His new beginning. His new life that would lead him to great things was just a lie. And if anything, was the beginning of the most despair inducing few weeks he would ever live.