GUYS WHY DIDN'T ANYONE TELL ME DANGANRONPA WAS SO GOOD? I've been playing it so much, I'm 7 hours into a playthrough of it too and omggg I love it so much? If any of you guys are fans let me know but don't spoil, I'm halfway through chapter 3 so far.

Lydia-From-Limmet: Omg I haven't had a milkshake in forever and now I want one. I had an ice cream cone today, so that's sort of the same. And your predictions are definitely correct!

MoonTheMagical: When in doubt, turn to Buzzfeed. All those drinks sound amazing, especially the mango one. I had no idea that was a thing, and now I want to try it out.

SomeRandomRobo: Oh, they are all very cRaZy, trust me. And fruit smoothies are the best, healthy and delicious and easy to make! I had a blueberry one yesterday, very tasty.

Qxr: Yeah, I actually had the song idea planned for a while, but it was cool when I noticed you had come up with the same thing in your story!

dragondreamer200: Clash Royale he he he ha, Clash Royale he he he ha sound, Clash Royale he he he ha sound effect, Clash Royale king he he he ha, he he he ha clash Royale, clash Royale king sounds, clash Royale king laugh, clash Royale king crying, Clash royale king crying sound effect, Clash royale king laughing sound effect, Clash royale king laugh sound, Clash royale king whimper, Clash royale king he he he ha sound, clash Royale king laughing, clash Royale ji ji ji ja, clash Royale king ji ji ji ja,

Song: Panic Room by Au/Ra (ok, so basically start the song at the beginning unless I say otherwise. Or, if you can't concentrate on both at once, like me, you can listen to this song whenever.)

Enjoy!

Chapter 86

Panic Room

The sound of barking woke Ruby up with a start, snapping straight up with her eyes darting around the pitch black room. For a second, she had thought the dogs were back, but she'd seen their next-door neighbour walking a pile of fluff disguised as a dog earlier, so the noise was just that, a normal noise.

Ruby let out a shaky exhale that she'd been holding in, which for some inexplicable reason triggered her cough. She slapped a hand over her mouth so as to not wake Myah and fumbled around for the flashlight she'd put by her bed to find her way through the dark. She needed some water, ASAP.

Well, something was weird. When she flicked the flashlight on and turned to the side, Myah's bed wasn't there…and neither was Myah. Ruby scrunched her eyebrows together in confusion. Did Myah move her bed downstairs while I was sleeping? It does have wheels. Maybe I was snoring, or something? Still rather odd. Ruby had been told numerous times that she was a scarily quiet sleeper. Maybe it was just hot up here and she moved into the hallway. Yeah, that's probably it.

She swung her bare legs over the end of the bed, standing up with a creak of the bed and sighing, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. Ruby hated getting up in the middle of the night, but her throat was bone-dry and therefore, prone to more coughing.

Ruby was making her way to the door on the left when a sudden slam of what sounded like something being thrown into the door froze her in her place. Quietly, she crept towards the white-stained wooden door and carefully turned the gold brass handle, opening it up a crack. Ruby shone the flashlight down the hallway, but all that was there was the fancy grandfather clock casting its dark shadow onto the wall.

Still, that didn't quite ease Ruby's worries. What hit the door? Were the others playing a prank on her to try and freak her out? If they were, they were doing a damn fine job of it.

A crunching sound like feet on gravel alerted her attention to the right, and Ruby ran across the fuzzy blue carpet, pushing open the door a crack and listening intently, holding her breath.

A low, raspy breathing sound emitted from behind it, and nope, I'm closing this door right now.

She slammed it shut, pressing her back and leaning all her body weight against it, panting heavily. Her hands were cold and clammy, but she held onto the flashlight with an iron grip, each of her muscles tensed and trembling. And finally, after five seconds that felt like the longest five seconds of her life, the breathing ceased and Ruby exhaled, slumping.

But her tiring relaxation didn't last long, because out of the corner of her eye, her closet door…twitched.

"Shit." Ruby hissed under her breath as she stepped on a particularly creaky floorboard, tip-toeing over to the closet and cupping a hand over her ear. If she listened closely, she could just hear a faint breathing sound coming from someone…or something.

But this time, she would be brave. Taking a deep breath in, Ruby quickly whipped open the closet door and strobed her flashlight at whatever was in her wardrobe.

A grinning set of razor-sharp teeth and matted red fur met her gaze.

Ruby shrieked, stumbling backwards and falling against the back of the bed, her flashlight tumbling out of her grip and shining a beam of light in front of her. This couldn't be a prank, because she knew exactly what that was in the closet. It had all been a blur of her screaming and slamming the closet door shut, but she'd recognize that yellow eye and pointy red ears anywhere.

"Foxy?" She asked tentatively, slowly standing up and picking up her flashlight, shining the beam of white light on her closet. "Is that you?"

There was another crunching sound of footsteps outside to the left, but Ruby ignored it, instead walking over to the closet. She rapped on the door with one fist, muscles tensed.

There was a muffled scratching noise like that of claws on metal, and Ruby perked up. "Foxy? It's me, Ruby. Can you come out?"

"I would, lass, but the doors appear to be…stuck." The familiar Scottish voice rang out, muffled behind the doors, and relief washed over her. Of course, the feeling was mixed with confusion, but she'd deal with that later.

She pulled the doors open, and a thrilled Foxy jumped out of it, tail thrashing as he stretched his cramped limbs. "Ah, that's much better. Thanks a lot, matey."

"No problem." Then Ruby remembered, and she screwed up her face in confusion. "Wait, why are you in my closet?!"

Before Foxy could open his mouth to speak, there was the attention-grabbing sound of footsteps to the left, and Ruby sighed, holding a finger up to Foxy as she strolled over to the door, yanked it open, and shone the light into Bonnie's face.

"Ack! What the hell, Ruby! You know I hate bright lights!" Bonnie shrieked, covering his face with his arms and hissing like a fussy cat thrown in a filled bathtub. When she flicked it off, he glowered at her with tiny glowing green orbs.

Ruby threw her head back and groaned. "Okay, what is going on here? This is like the third time you guys have come back to life." A sudden, horrible thought struck her. "Oh crap, is Springtrap still alive? I could have sworn I checked everything, I saw his arm under the rock! Oh God, is he still-"

"Relax, Ruby, we're not ghosts." Freddy soothed, walking into the room from the right door. Following him were Mangle and a slightly embarrassed-looking Chica. He paused, thinking. "And if he can survive getting chopped to little bits and thrown in an oven, I think we've got something else to worry about."

Ruby shook her head, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Wait, I'm sorry- did you just say you guys aren't ghosts? Are you possessing something?"

Freddy and Chica exchanged looks. "Right."

"You want to explain it, or should I?" Freddy asked her, to which she simply shrugged.

"Oh, for God's sake." Bonnie broke in with an overly exaggerated roll of his eyes. "During the fire, we all teleported to the Shadow dimension, that place where Cass and Mari and Mal ended up for a few years. For some reason, we all ended up together, and now we're, like, haunting you? I guess?"

From Ruby's exasperated expression, Bonnie could tell this hadn't helped her.

Freddy sighed wearily, taking a few steps forward till he was standing right in front of Ruby. "Fine. Let me explain, right from the beginning…"

~lll~

It was black.

That was about the only way Freddy could describe what he was seeing. Just a completely black noiseless abyss, void of anything but inky shadows. The complete opposite of the reality of the smoke, the licking flames and shouts of panic and agony he'd just been in. Fear spiked through his heart like a tiny spear, his pulse jumping. But then, he heard a voice.

"Freddy? Izzat you?"

Freddy spun around, relief flooding his veins as he spotted four familiar faces running towards him: Bonnie, Chica, Foxy, and Mangle. He dashed forward, catching up until they were in a confused but gleeful cluster.

A look of puzzlement crossed Freddy's face. "Where is this place?"

"I'll tell you where it is." An ominous voice echoed from behind him, like inky tendrils wrapping around his spine. He whirled around, meeting a gravely serious Cassidy in her stone-cold amber eyes, standing right next to a worried Mari and the kids. "We're in Shadow."

Foxy scrunched his dark russet eyebrows together in confusion. "Shadow? That dimension the scurvy ghosts go to fer overpopulation control?"

"Wow Fox, I'm impressed. You've learned such a big word." Bonnie quipped.

Everyone ignored him, turning back to a drily laughing Cassidy. "Yep. We manage to escape one flaming hellhole just to end up in another one. Fan-freaking-tastic."

~lll~

"That's not what she said!" Bonnie interjected. "She said 'Fan-fu-"

"I'm the one telling the story, and I'm not going to use such…profanities." Freddy sniffed, crossing his arms.

"Fine, then I'll tell the story." Bonnie snapped, to which Freddy raised his hands and stepped aside.

~lll~

Chica frowned, furrowing her brow. "But…aren't we all supposed to be separated? Left to our own thoughts and all that."

Mari nodded, a troubled look crossing her face. "That's exactly what I was wondering. But perhaps it's just a matter of circumstances, since we were all close to each other when we were teleported?"

"Still seems odd." Mangle countered, twitching one of her silver-white ears. "Why all of us? Why not only some of us? Why did you three-" she gestured to Cassidy, Mari, and Malcolm- "get teleported twice? Sure, it could be a matter of circumstances, like you said, but it's still weird.

"Though, I don't know as much about ghosties and their 'lore'-" Mangle added, making finger quotes. "as you, dear. So if any of you have any theories, feel free to correct me."

Dead silence met her statement.

"I really don't know that much about Shadow," Mari admitted, embarrassed. "I didn't even know it was a whole dimension till I spoke to an elderly ghost back on Earth. I thought I'd just…finally snapped."

"My Shadow experience was sort of messed up, at least compared to you guys's. I'd slip into it at random periods of time, and I could visit people's dreams and make my own dreamscape- it was a total trip." Cassidy said, shrugging. "Probably 'cause of all that druggy shit William injected me with. I'm honestly shocked Jojo didn't enter Shadow with all that hair-dye liquid he pumped into us."

~lll~

"Is that seriously what you guys are calling Remnant now." Ruby deadpanned, eyes lidded and circled with bags. "I think I've aged twenty years just from hearing that. The essence of children's souls which was created because the agony they felt in death was so strong…you're calling it hair dye."

"Well…it did dye your hair." Mangle pointed out truthfully.

Ruby stared at her emotionlessly. "I'm going to jump off a cliff."

"Aww, don't do that, Rubes! We haven't even figured out why we're here yet!" Bonnie pouted, grabbing her hand and twirling her around like a ballroom dancer.

Ruby jumped back, clutching her hand in surprise. "You can touch me?"

"Huh." Bonnie didn't seem fazed. "Uh, cool, I guess."

Ruby nodded, hand under her chin as she paced around her bedroom like a detective in an old black-and-white movie. Suddenly, her hazel eyes lit up and she held her finger up. "I've got it!"

When she didn't continue, Bonnie raised an eyebrow and waved his hand as if to say, go on…?

Ruby giggled, a somewhat giddy feeling washing over her. "Sorry. I just love solving mysteries." She clapped her hands together, grinning. "Okay. So, when I first woke up, I noticed that Myah's bed was gone from this room, right?"

"You and Myah are sleeping in the same room?" Chica asked, unable to hide the suspicion from her voice.

Ruby cast a brief glance at her friend. "...Yeah? Why?"

"Make sure you're staying protected, Rubes." Bonnie snickered, earning a pillow to the face. It was so, so nice to be able to do that again.

"So I thought she just moved downstairs or something. But, after all that stuff you guys said, about how Cass was able to visit dreams in Shadow, I've got the answer!"

She paused for dramatic effect, then spread her palms up on either side of her face with an almost manic smile. "I'm dreaming!"

"Uh, matey, I'm pretty sure I'm real." Foxy quipped, swishing his fluffy red tail. He stopped, thinking. "Pretty sure."

Ruby rolled her eyes right into her skull, not even bothering to hide her exasperation. "No, you absolute dummy. I'm dreaming, and you guys have entered my dream from Shadow!"

"It does make sense," Freddy mused. "But I thought Cassidy was trying to get into Bonnie's dreams when she sent him those messages. We didn't even try. And how come it's just us, and not the others? If anything, the ones who have more experience with the dimension should be the ones in your dreams."

The cogs in Ruby's brain were firing at all levels, heating her body and filling her with a bolt of energy. There were so many questions, so many puzzles to figure out. But it was okay! They could keep discussing it for ages, working over every possibility, every reality. They could-

~lll~

And then Ruby woke up.

A/N

Oh em gee! The gang is back! How will this all play out? What are the secrets? Can the author reveal them in a way that makes sense and isn't terribly confusing? We shall see!

Question/Challenge: What's a really good song you'd like to see in this book, or that you just like in general? I know I've already asked something like this, but it's been a year and I'm sure your music tastes have somewhat changed.

Right now I love these two songs: Puppet Boy by Devo and After Dark by . I'm definitely adding them to this story haha, they are BOPS.

Have an amazing day/night!

~SmallPhantomFeline