Dangan Ronpa: Unser Sommerende/Chapter 1 - Daily Life (2)

Continued from Chapter 1 - Motive.

[1]

The two of us went to the First Aid Room. Or, rather, Sadie went there, since I was just following her without thinking. Entering the room, it was, big surprise, very white. Well, I guess it was actually normal for the hospital area to be white. There were a couple of beds, and a shelf for medical supplies.

“So, Sadie, why... Exactly did you feel we should hang out here, of all places?”

“Well... With what happened in the gym earlier, like... I don’t really feel as comfortable.” Well, I think that went for all of us. “This entire thing has been uncomfortable from the start, but I’m super worried now. So, I just wanted to check what supplies we have in case something happens...” She went over and checked the shelf.

[2]

There probably should have been supplies on the shelf; disinfectant, bandages, medicine... Instead, there were needles. Rows upon rows of needles, lines up on each shelf.

“What?...” Sadie stared at them, looking over each shelf, and then looking again, just to make sure. “This... This is insane... It’s... It was the goat, right? Did he do this?”

“I... I think I see what he did.” The bastard. “He’s left some supplies; needles for stitches, and only that. Needles that can also function as stabbing weapons...”

(SOUNDTRACK PAUSES)

“... Okay, that plan’s failed, we’re moving on. Let’s... Relax now.”

[3]

Well, now we were sitting together on the edge of one of the beds, chatting.

“So, what do you think of my nails?” She showed off her fingertips, each nail painted a bright red.

“It’s... Great.” I was never that good at talking about... Y’know, that sort of stuff. Malls, smoothies, all that stereotypical teenage girl stuff that I think maybe 15% of teenage girls actually go on about. I guess 85% of us are weird. Honestly, that’s the weirdest thing of all. If everyone’s ‘weird’, then nobody is.

“Mm? What about them?”

“U-um... It’s a nice colour... S-sorry, I’ve never painted my nails before...”

“...” She looked away for a bit. “I’d offer to show you how, but I have a feeling you wouldn’t like it. Really, I find a lot of people here aren’t like I am. I’m... Way too... Normal, I guess?” ... “I mean, like, no offense, not saying you’re a weirdo. It’s just that I don’t really get to hang out with, like, the usual sort of girl I hang out with.”

“I see... But, isn’t that how all of us feel? With a small class like this, made up of students with such remarkable talents, and personalities to go along with it, it’s kind of inevitable, really. The only thing any of us can do is try and get along, which is easy enough. I mean, look at you and... Him.” I can’t help but chuckle.

“Yeah! James is suuuuuuuch a heartthrob! He’s pretty much perfect!” Well, looks like that’s what we’re going to talk about for the next hour and a half. Oh well, I guess I asked for it.

After chatting some more, I headed back to my room again, and slept. It was a bit more difficult than usual, since I woke up from a nightmare at one point. I know you’d just love to hear what happened in it, but I honestly didn’t remember it when I woke. I mean, it’s probably kind of obvious that it must have had something to do with the Killing Game, but, I’m probably better off not knowing the specifics.

[4]

MONOYAKI HOROSCOPE

Gemini!

Your love life is going to either crash spectacularly today, or stay relatively the same. The choice is yours! Stay away from flammable objects.

[5]

It’s a new day. I got up, brushed my teeth, the usual. And, again, as had become usual, headed to the cafeteria for the usual meeting. As I arrived, the usual people were there first; Sadie, Archie, Molly, and Amber, excluding James, who must have been late, for some reason. There was a bit of whispering between people, especially as more of them arrived, and James didn’t show up. Eventually, everyone was here, except for Mary, Robin, and James.

A bit more time passed.

“... We should check on him.” Sadie stood from her chair, uttering the first words that weren’t murmurs. Usually, everyone waited for James to speak.

“The boy’s probably just sleeping in...” Rocky stretched back in his chair. “Give him a few.”

“... I really think we should check on him, everyone.” Repeating herself once was really all it took for Sadie to have a general grasp of control over the group, enough to make anyone who wasn’t as worried just go along with it. Thus, the group dispersed, and we scattered throughout the school. Or rather, we would have. Sadie sort of split us into groups of three without anyone asking, and once again, we went along with it.

[6]

I ended up being grouped in with Charlotte and Rocky (not the most stable group, but I was better off not complaining). We weren’t assigned an exact area to head to, so we had to decide ourselves.

“... Anywhere y’all thinking we should head?”

I paused for a bit, thinking. “... Honestly, Rocky, I don’t have any specific place in mind.” Looking over at Charlotte, all she did was shrug.

“Well, that means only one thing...” Rocky adjusted his hat, grinning. “We just gotta go where the wind takes us.”

“Yeah, real cool, cowboy, but we should probably try and figure out where James would be.”

“Ahh... In that case, it’s the laundry.”

“Eh? Is it?”

“Boy’s got laundry duty today, I heard. He might’ve headed there before the meetin’.”

“Yeah,” Charlotte began, “As if he’d ever miss a meeting because of some dumb clothes...” She crossed her arms.

I looked over in the general direction of the laundry room. “Well, we don’t have anywhere better to look...” So we entered and...

[7]

We see James. He’s lying on the floor, with a bruise to the back of his head!...

(SOUNDTRACK PAUSES)

Then again, if it’s just a bruise, he’s probably not dead. One of the machines is running, and there’s an empty washing basket and a bass guitar lying next to him.

“... So, is he dead or something?” Charlotte commented, not sounding super concerned. He didn’t look dead, after all.

[8]

“No, you dummies!” A squeaky voice from behind, who then is standing on the table in front of us. It’s Monoyaki. Again. “Does he look dead to you? No! He isn’t dead?”

“Then how in the dang world are we supposed to know whether or not he’s kicked it?” Rocky seemed to be stopping himself from grabbing his firearm again. Really, he did that anytime the goat was there.

“Check his heartbeat, stupid. Also...” The monopad in my pocket suddenly vibrated. Getting it out and turning it on, I noticed a new rule had been added:

Rule #7: A dead body needs to be seen by three people other than the entrepreneur before the school system plays an announcement of the body discovery.

Rule #8: Additional school regulations may be added if necessary.

“...” I sighed. “There’s a ‘body discovery announcement’?”

“Duh. How can anyone know that a body’s been found without one? Anyway, try and speed up with the murder, thanks. I don’t like being faked out like this...” The goat went off, once again, so quickly that we didn’t really see him.

[9]

The three of us brought James, still out cold, back to the cafeteria, where everybody had gathered again. We were all staring at him, kind of unsure what to make of this. There he was, lying at the table he was usually standing at the head of.

“So...” Molly was looking down at James’s bruise. “He’s bumped his head on something?”

“I-it’s something worse.” Dan fiddled with his fingers as he stuttered. “S-someone must have done this to him. It’s finally happening. We’re d-doomed.”

“Dan. Calm.” Terry said, with a sigh. “He isn’t dead yet anyway. We don’t know how it happened yet.”

“Well...” I scratched my chin. “There’s... Not really anything he could conceivably bump his head on in there...”

“The boy was on washing duty...” Rocky explained. “He had an empty clothing basket layin’ near him.”

“So...” Mia yawned mid-sentence. “He bumped his head on the machine while putting stuff in, probably...”

“... No.” I shook my head. “The machine was already running. He had done his job for the moment, so he would’ve been heading out to the meeting when it happened.”

“So...” Sadie stared at James, as she had been the whole time, and gulped. “Someone hit him.” The rest of us started staring back and forth at each other. It... It hadn’t happened yet, but it was close. Again, an air of distrust. “Guys, stop looking at each other like that. It was probably Robin or Mary, not one of us.”

“Th-that doesn’t make a difference!” Dan stammered to Sadie, once again. “Point is, we’re all gonna die or some shit!”

“Ugh... Look, we’ll handle this. Let’s just wait for James to wake up again.” Everyone looked over at James, as if it was his cue to suddenly awaken. This went on for a couple minutes, until eventually, he yawned loudly, and started to get up. Looking around at all of us, he rubbed his eyes, yawned a second time, and sat there for a bit.

“... Hey.”

[10]

“James!” Sadie was immediately engaging with him, seeing that he was of sound awareness. “Do you remember any-”

“Yeah. I was standing there, then I heard footsteps and was hit in the back of the head.” His face looked serious, but not really scared, like he was yesterday. “For safety, we should probably all stay in pairs of two...” He looked around at us. “With a group of three for the remaining person.”

“James, how are you so quick to handle the situation?~” We were all thinking that, but Sadie was just saying it in a flirty tone...

“It’s just how it is, y’know?~”

Everyone did as they were told, again. The groups were decided based on who apparently went together the best, for example, James and Sadie. Well, I mean, of course he paired himself with her. It’s just that was the excuse he used. The rest of the pairings felt really arbitrary, in my opinion. I mean, I was paired with Dan, and I hadn’t even talked with him at all yet...

As the two of us were leaving the cafeteria, James started singing and playing his bass guitar, probably to boost morale or something.

So there we were, out in the halls, stuck together.

“S-so, you’re not gonna kill me, right?”

“... Just making sure, Danny boy?” I rolled my eyes.

“I mean... It’s just to help me stay calm...”

“Yeah, I bet that’d help... Say, doesn’t all that meditation stuff someone like you would do help with that?”

As we walked along, down this hallway, he was looking about, though not in his usual, stressed manner. “Well... That’s actually why I started doing it all in the first place.”

“Hm?”

“Yeah. My... Stress issues were really affecting me, even as a kid... My parents took me to this counsellor person, and they recommended that I tried meditation. Long story short, I started really focusing on it, and other sorts of it, and some reasoning and philosophy behind it, and so on and so forth, and... Yeah. Here I am today.”

“Oh... Is that what a... New Age Spiritualist does?...”

“Mm. Pretty much. I’m just really knowledgeable about... The energy that goes... All throughout us... Within us... And... Without us...” He sweated a bit. “Yeah.”

“... Okay, yeah, I get the picture.” I’ll admit, while I love finding out about other people, this stuff... Wasn’t my sort of thing.

“So, you can tell me about your talent, right?”

“I’m... Well, it’s... Not very important, haha, we don’t need to talk about that... U-um, by the way, what are you... Looking for?” He was still looking all around, again, in a more calm manner than usual.

“I’m just looking for... Oh, wait, I remember now...” He stopped. We were in front of one of the classrooms, and without saying much, he entered it, and I just sort of followed him in.

The classroom was the same as any other classroom, but on the far side from the entrance, I could see Robin sitting at one of the desks. He waved at Dan, with a smile.

“Welcome.” He stood from his desk. What?... Was this all about?

“Dan, um, what’s going on here?”

“Jane, chill.” It was really weird being told to ‘chill’ by someone who was constantly panicking. “Me and him just wanted to meet up. Isn’t that what everyone’s supposed to be doing?”

“He... Hasn’t shown up to any meetings though...”

“Look,” Robin started, having walked over to us, “Just because I don’t respect sudden authority that has no right to be there, doesn’t mean I’m untrustworthy.”

“But everyone’s always worried about you.”

“Well, they can worry if they want to. If I’m not going to kill them, then it’s fine. After all, I swore an oath never to harm anyone that isn’t posing a threat to me, isn’t posing a threat to the society as a whole, isn’t taking advantage of the society as a whole, everyone who isn’t above a certain level of wealth...”

“Yeah, alright, Robin,” Dan began, “It’s fine, we don’t think you’re a killer. Anyways, should we get on with what we were planning?”

“Of course!”

[11]

Then, from under his baggy shirt, Dan pulled out a bag of... Plant matter, or something. I was a bit disorientated for a second.

“Is that...” Marijuana?...

“Yeah.” Dan was really casual about it. “There’s no police in here, so it’s not like there’s any sort of risk... And... I mean, if we all die here, then I might as well use what I have on me...”

“B-but... That’s... I-I dunno...” M-mother told me that drugs are bad...

“Well,” Robin said, procuring a pocket knife and cutting open the bag, “If you don’t want to stay, then it’s fine. Personally, I’m just doing it because the government doesn’t like it.”

“B-but what about the-“

“Staying in groups?” Dan chuckled. “Look, it’s fine, man. There’s nothing to worry about...” He’s so relaxed now... It’s like the anxious version of Dan never existed or something.
“O-okay...” I just sort of meagerly shuffled out of the room...

[12]

Well, that was awkward. Walking out of the room, I found myself groupless again. It was probably safest if I just headed back to my room, and promptly. Hence, I did so, not stopping along the way. Being by myself actually did feel kind of dangerous... But, I made it to my room, safe and sound, and, after a while, night arrived, meaning sleep. Honestly, since there were no windows outside of the barred windows in the classrooms, I just had to trust the announcement saying that it was night. Speaking of... I got out my monopod, and glanced over the rules.

Rule #2: "Nighttime" is from 10 pm to 7 am. Some areas are off-limits at night, so please exercise caution.

What were those closed off areas? It didn’t say which ones... Maybe... Maybe the goat just put that in there to make us worry over nothing. No idea... It wouldn’t hurt to check?...

[13]

I left my room. This was the first time I had been out of my room at night. The halls weren’t their usual blinding white; the lights had unanimously turned off, and I was hence blinded by darkness instead. Of course, my eyes adjusted eventually, but, slowly walking around felt... Really dangerous... After some looking around, I noticed that the cafeteria door was blocked off. None of the other doors were, at least, on the dormitory floor. I decided not to check the upper floor... I wanted to get out of here...

So, I dashed back to my room, and just slammed onto the bed. This was all really starting to get to me... But... I reminded myself that none of us were dead. We had all made it, so far.

[14]

MONOYAKI HOROSCOPE

Cancer!

Prepare for a nasty shock today when your best friend starts nibbling your toenails! For good luck, wear enclosed footwear.

[15]

Waking up, another day had come. Another day, another meeting. We had gathered together in the cafeteria once more, missing Mary, Robin, and Sadie.

“... Sadie hasn’t arrived yet...” Amber was twiddling her fingers awkwardly. “Why does this keep happening all of a sudden...”

“Sadie...” James looked a bit tense. After a bit of introspection, he spoke again. “We need to find her. You guys found me last time, we’ll find her this time.”

And once again, we were scattering out, in the same groups we were in last time. So, Dan and I were just wandering around again.

“Jane... Honestly, I just wanna check on Robin again.”

“Why’s that, exactly? Shouldn’t we find Sadie first?”

“There’s a lot of us looking. Thing is, I just wanna make sure he’s feeling alright after yesterday.” Yesterday... Yeah...

“Did something happen when you were?...”

“Nah. But, I still wanna make sure he’s fine...”

[16]

We made our way up to the upper floor, supposedly expecting him to be in the same place, though instead, this time, we found him sitting in front of the entrance to the gym, on the floor.

“Hey, Robin... R-Robin?...” Dan waved a hand over the other boy’s face. The uniformed boy was shaking, his eyes... Deep, like empty holes. “Y-you’re okay, right man? Everything’s f-fine, right?... O-oh no... I... Sc-screwed him up or something, d-didn’t I?...”

“N-no, Dan, I’m sure it’s fine...” Really, I had no clue. I had never heard of someone getting like this just from marijuana or something... “I’ll... Check to see if anything happened around here, to make him like this. I’ll be back in a jiffy.” Thus, I did so, and entered the gym.

[17]

Lying there. Sadie. Her whole back is burnt and charred. Her face is completely lifeless.

She’s dead.

I heard the door open from behind, followed by a wheeze of sorts, as opposed to a scream. Just a wheeze, followed by him falling to the floor. Really, I didn’t register Dan at all.

Sadie’s dead.

[18]

A voice echoes around the empty hall.

“Attention! A body has been discovered! After a short time allotted for investigation, a class trial will be held to determine the culprit!”

Continued in Chapter 1 - Deadly Life.