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Chapter Text

An ache swelled through my head, not like the one I’d get at the end of a shitty shift at Joja Mart, or the pang of sadness in my chest I’d get at a broadway musical knowing that I may never get the chance to live out the dream, but a dull, unfamiliar ache as if I had been asleep and lying on my brain for a very long time…

Who was I again? Claire Harper, I am 28 years old, I work at a Joja Mart out of town and need to catch a bus daily to get there… I think I do some other stuff in that town too, I think.

Thinking…

I can remember vague activities, group exercise with women about twice my age, but I can’t remember any of the women’s names or faces. I can remember serving customers, but not who they were.

I can remember that I worked in a town outside of the one I lived in, but not the name of that town…

And then I woke up.

“Ah!” I yelped as I shot up in the king sized bed I had been laying in, my real bed was far smaller than this… my real room was nothing like the room I had woken up in: none of the decoration of the room in my small apartment, just a nice looking bedside table at my side, a closet nearby and a bookshelf with nothing on it. My orange hair was still tied into the same bun it was in when I had fallen asleep after a long day at work, I was still wearing the black turtleneck and beige jacket I had fallen asleep in too. Those were the only two points of familiarity-

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK

“Hey, I heard you scream, you alright?” A concerned sounding voice said from the other side of the door, I let out a sigh of relief, I wasn’t alone here. I steeled myself and gently opened the door. On the other side was a girl with long purple hair, and a very round face. She wore purple top, a blue jacket over it and torn up black jeans.

“Hey,” I said. “I’m uh- I’m fine, just shocked is all,” I looked around into the hallway behind the woman in front of me, wooded and empty.

“That’s… reasonable, heh,” The woman chuckled uncomfortably. “Not every day you wake up in a place like this with a bunch of strangers,”

“Strangers? Are there other people here?”

“Well, yeah,” The woman shrugged. “Oh, uh… what’s your name by the way?”

“Claire,” I nodded. “And yours?”

“Abigail Mercer, Ultimate Adventurer at your service!” The girl smirked a bit, then scratched the back of her neck nervously. “Well… Ultimate Adventurer in Training, I haven’t actually been sent to do anything yet,”

“You’re an Ultimate, that’s still pretty impressive,” I reassured, then quirked an eyebrow. “Why did you tell me that?”

“Oh uh, everyone here’s an Ultimate,” Abigail shrugged. “Including you I assume?”

“No-”

I then remembered something, a letter in my hand saying that I had won a lottery. The national lottery to be allowed into Hope’s Peak University, where the Ultimates went to hone and perfect their own skills.

“…Hey, you there?” Abigail waved a hand in front of my face, she snorted a little. “You zoned out a little there,”

“Sorry!” I yelped. “Just remembered my talent, Ultimate Lucky Student,”

“Oh, you won that lottery thing The Republic does?” Abigail asked, I nodded in response. “Well, I guess that makes all of us with some kind of in into Hope’s Peak,”

“That is… yes, that is quite strange,” I put my hand to my chin, trying to think why everyone here would have some kind of ultimate talent… even if I didn’t know anyone here besides Abigail, who I only barely knew anyway.

“Well, something we can think about way later. You got a whole town to explore,” Abigail declared as she led me out of the room, through the hallway past another door and into a larger room, one with shelves freshly stocked with fruit, seeds and other things you’d find in a general store, and an empty front desk.

“You finally deal with the screaming girl?” A man with dark purple, emo looking hair said as he leaned against a wall edgily, hand in his pockets. Abigail giggled in response.

“Don’t be mean!” The other girl standing next to him chastised with a sigh, her skin was dark in contrast to the man’s near pale skin. She had a bob of reddish brown hair and was wearing dorky, red framed glasses. She walked up to me with a beaming smile on her face and extended her hand, I grasped it and shook it. “I’m Maru Woods, The Ultimate Roboticist. That edgelord over there is my big brother, Sebastian, The Ultimate Programmer!”

Sebastian sighed and shook his head, Maru rolls her eyes and smirks.

“It’s nice to meet you two,” I nod my head. “I’m Claire,”

“Nice to meet you too, Claire!” Maru smiles and nods. “I know everyone here’s super scared, but I’m not gonna worry too much!”

“Do you remember being driven here, Maru?” Sebastian quirked an eyebrow. “Because no one I’ve talked to so far does,”

Maru sighed as she turned around. “You just gotta stay positive, Sebby, if whoever brought us here wanted to do anything bad, they woulda done it by now,”

“That’s uhh… not exactly positive,” Abigail chuckled.

“Yeah,” I looked around the general store once again. “This is a store, right?”

“Yuppers! And the food here’s completely edible!” Maru smiled.

“We might be here for awhile then, if they’re supplying food,” I said.

Abigail shivered. “Eugh, I hate that you might be right,”

“Oh uh… I didn’t mean to freak anyone out!”

“Oh, it’s fine,” Abigail chuckled.

I nod. “I should probably get going, I want to explore the rest of… wherever we are,”

“Fair enough,” Abigail said. “Seeya around Claire,”

“Bye bye!” Maru waved more enthusiastically, Sebastian didn’t say anything at all as I left the General Store, and walked into the town centre.

There were a lot of buildings connected to the stony, bench ridden town plaza: A Mansion, a Saloon and a Hospital connected directly to the General Store, I elected to enter the hospital. Maybe there’d be something to help with the headache I’d had since I first got here…

“Oh, hello there,” A man with brown hair combed to the side wearing a green jacket, a red tie and glasses greeted as I walked into the white, sterile hospital. He was sitting awkwardly on one of the waiting chairs, fidgeting in place. “I’ll be honest, I didn’t expect anyone to come in. Didn’t think there’d be any injuries so soon,”

“Oh, I’m not injured,” I reassured with a smile. “I’m just exploring this place. I just woke up,”

“Ah, makes sense. I’d want to get my bearings too,” The man nodded. “I’m Harvey Cohen, the Ultimate Doctor,”

“Claire, it’s nice to meet you,”

Harvey nodded. “I do hope we can get along, as long as I’m here I’m fully willing to treat anyone to the best of my ability,”

I smile at the Doctor. “That’s nice of you,” He smiles back as I leave the hospital to continue exploring. “Goodbye Harvey,”

“Bye Claire,”

I move to the Manor to the right of the General Store, like the rest of the buildings here the door is unlocked, so I let myself inside…

The living room I find myself in is lovely looking, with a fancy carpet adorning the floor, a velvety couch sat it front of a large flat screen television connected to a couple of gaming consoles. This mansion truly was something else, I found myself lost as I stared at it…

I suddenly look to my side, seeing two people walk down the stairs: a woman with pink hair dressed like a farmer, wearing a choker with a heart on it, and a man with spiky, purple hair wearing a very clean white button up shirt.

“Um, hello there,” The pink haired woman greeted with a nervous frump on her face as she and the man walked to the bottom of the stairs.

“Sorry for the awkwardness, heh,” The man scratched the back of his head. “We weren’t expecting someone to come in while we were exploring,”

“It’s really alright,” I said. “What’s upstairs?”

“Two bedrooms, we’ll probably be using them though,” The man said.

“I-If we end up needing to stay here long enough to need them,” Sophia reassured. “…I imagine we will,”

“Hopefully not,” The man shook his head. “I should probably introduce myself: Victor Jenkins, Ultimate Engineer, though… I don’t really know if I like that title all that much,”

“What do you mean?” I ask, tilting my head curiously.

Victor sighed. “Well, Engineer makes a lot of money, but I don’t really know if its what makes me happy, y’know?”

“I understand that feeling,” I nod. “Sometimes you have to trade your happiness for a more stable life, it’s sad,”

“I feel like you’re situation is worse than mine,” Victor chuckled. “Alright, now your turn, Sophia,”

The pink haired woman, who seemed to be gloomily zoning out suddenly shot up. “Ah, I’m sorry! My name is Sophia Moon, Ultimate Vintner,”

“You’re a what?”

“I own a Vineyard, family owned actually,” Sophia explained. “We make some of the best wine in the Fergnill Republic. It’s a real passion of mine!”

“That makes sense. You’d have to be passionate to be an Ultimate,” I said… and yet somehow I was an Ultimate too. It’s impossible to be passionate about luck.

“I’m not super sure about that,” Victor chuckled. “But… I guess that’s the case for most of the people here, though,”

“Yeah, I’ll be going now. I need to explore the rest of this town,” I said as I waved the two goodbye.

“See ya!” Victor said.

“Bye…”

The mansion was bordered by two points of interest, first was a river with a broken stone bridge. It seemed for now we were trapped in this part of… whatever this town was, the second was a far more modest, one storied house bordering the mansion. I decided to go in there.

The house looked as if it was owned by the elderly, an old CRT TV sat in the living room alongside an ancient looking rug and sofa, the kitchen felt equally as if I had gone back in time to a point where electricity didn’t exist… ignore the fact that this house has a TV.

There was one other person in the house, also looking around. He had spiky, brown hair, a top heavy, muscular build and was wearing a green varsity jacket, I walked up to him.

“Hello-”

“Oh hey, surprised to see a chick around here,” The man chuckled as he looked down at me. A chick? Who does this guy think he is?

“Don’t call me that,” I glare at the man, he raises his hands defensively and scoffs.

“Don’t get offended, just trying to lighten the mood,” The man said. “What are you even doing here anyway?”

“Exploring, and meeting whoever else is here,” I say, a hint of frustration with the man in my tone. “Speaking of, who are you?”

“Glad you asked. Ultimate Gridball Player Alex Mullner, once I get outta here, I’m gonna be kicking ass on the field!” Alex said boisterously, as if his career wouldn’t probably end in a grievous head injury… just looking at him I could tell it wouldn’t change much.

Okay, maybe that’s a little too mean, I should go.

“Well, I wish you luck with your career, Alex, bye,” I say as I leave the house.

“You’ll be seeing me on TV soon, heh,” Alex scoffed. “See ya around!”

Hopefully not

The next point of interest is a dinky little trailer situated near the front of Alex’s house, and parallel to the saloon. It was a surprising sight to see, but I elected to enter the trailer nonetheless.

It was cramped, as expected from a space so small. It had a singular table with what looked like seats for a fast food restaurant serving as the only form of furniture.

“Oh, I didn’t expect anyone to come in while I was cleaning,” A woman wearing a yellow button up shirt and a skirt. Her ginger hair tied into a neat bun said, quiet as a mouse, but with embarrassment clear in her voice. She stood up from cleaning the floor and smiled at me. “How are you?”

“Been better, not every day you just wake up in a whole new location,” I shrugged.

“Right, we’re all pretty shaken up right now,” Penny mumbled. “Are you exploring?”

“Yeah,” I nod. “Also trying to meet everyone here,”

“Ah, I suppose I should introduce myself then: Penny O’Connor, Ultimate Teacher,” Penny gave a wide, yet meek smile as she introduced herself.

“You teach children?”

“Well, obviously yes,” Penny nodded. “I enjoy making a positive difference in the lives of children,” Her voice, though still quiet was still noticeably louder, more emotional as she spoke of her talent.

“That’s a good thing, and you seem passionate about it,” I nod, Penny nods back.

“I am!”

She seems a lot more confident talking about teaching too, score one for me for bringing it up I guess.

I give Penny a wave as I leave the trailer, she waves me goodbye.

I next walk into the Saloon, the final area attached to the main plaza of the for now unnamed town. Comforting, old timey music played as I entered the rustic, wooded building. Two men were sitting at one of the tables near the bar: A man with a chiseled jawline and flowing brown hair, dressed in a red suit, and a notably more modest looking appearance: grey shirt underneath brown apron, short brown hair and a bushy, unkempt goatee. The two men looked at me.

“Ah, hello ma’am,” The clean shaven man smiled widely at me, pouting his lips slightly. “We haven’t seen you around, are you perhaps getting your bearings?”

“I… am actually,” I say as I stand near the two. “I’m also trying to introduce myself to everyone here,”

“I guess that makes sense, given the fact that we have food and stuff we’ll probably be here awhile,” The bearded man spoke. “Ah, crap I just made this sound depressing,”

“Oh, there’s nothing wrong with being realistic,” The long haired man chuckled.

The other man shrugged. “I guess…”

“Ah, how rude of me. I haven’t even introduced myself: Elliot Von Stiltenberg, Ultimate Poet,”

“I should do that too…” The other man mumbled. “Clint Smith, Ultimate… you guessed it, Blacksmith,”

“Interesting talents,” I nodded with a smile. “I don’t read poetry, so I wouldn’t know much about it,”

Elliott scoffed. “I must have you read some of the finer pieces I know of once you’re done exploring!”

“I- nevermind…” Clint mumbled.

“I’ll think about it,” I nodded with a smile. “This place is very cozy,”

“It is, is it not?” Elliott chuckled. “There’s even a bedroom back there, and a storage room packed to the brim with food and drinks,”

“Yeah… maybe this won’t be so bad…” Clint mumbled. “Maybe…”

“Hopefully,” I said. “I should continue exploring, goo day you two,”

“I wish you luck on your travels,” Elliott smiled, Clint mumbled something, but I didn’t end up hearing it.

I walked south from the bar encountering a path leading from the town plaza that connected to two houses, and lead further into the forest to the east of me. There was also another, white coloured manor to the west, though this one was smaller than the one I had found Victor in… I elected to go to the Manor, but when I tried to open the door.

CLICK CLICK CLICK

“Locked?” I said aloud even though no one could hear me. Why would only this door be locked? It was odd, but nothing I should be worrying about for now, I could feel the sky growing more and more orange as the time passed by. I headed to the first house on the path leading from the plaza, opening the door and walking inside.

“Oh hello, I didn’t expect someone with such a unique aura around them to come in!” A woman with short blue hair wearing a flowing, red dress beamed widely at me as I entered the house. Another woman, this one with longer blonde hair, dressed in a blue, beach ready top and pink skirt scoffed in response.

“Give them like five minutes to look around before you spout your crystals n’ aura shit,”

“What do you mean by aura?” I ask, pretty much ignoring the blonde.

“Well, everyone has an aura around them. Yours is a reliable biege,” The woman’s smile manages to get even brighter. “I can feel we’ll be good friends, you and I,”

“Can’t do that if she doesn’t even know your name,” The blonde called out.

“Oh, right! I’m Emily Yobansen, The Ultimate Seamstress!”

“You’re a-”

“The sewing kind, dipshit, not the whore kind,” The blonde scoffed.

Emily put her hands on her hips and turned around, scolding the blonde. “Haley! I’m sure she wasn’t going to say that,”

“Y’know for so much aura talk, you’re kinda bad at reading faces,” Haley snorted. “She looked flustered,”

“I did…” I look downwards a bit dejected, before turning back up to look at the blonde.

“What?” She shrugs. “Oh yeah, right, introduction: Haley Yobansen, Ultimate Photographer,”

“You’re sisters?”

“I know, right? People are always surprised when we tell them!” Emily says. “We’re so different, but I think that’s what makes us special,”

“Or it’s cause you believe in weird crystal stuff and I don’t,” Haley scoffed. “Could be that too,”

Emily let out a sigh at the antics of her sister, something told me this was pretty normal for her.

Emily waved goodbye at me with another beaming smile as I left the house.

I enter the next house, this time I actually managed to get a decent look at it. It was homey feeling, like the house of the most average middle class family. It had three bedrooms too, which was nice.

“Hey, dude!” My head turned to the man calling out, he wore a blue, messy jacket and had his blonde hair stuck up and spiky with what was probably a toxic amount of hair gel, I could smell it from the front door. “How’s it going man, haven’t seen you around yet,”

“That’s because I only woke up recently,” I explain. “I was just exploring the town, and trying to meet everyone here,”

“Well hey, I’m part of everyone!” The blonde man chuckled. “Sam Nelson, Ultimate Guitarist,”

“You’re a musician? Sounds fun,”

“You bet it is!” The man said, cheerfully. “Though I uh… tend to get caught up in projects I never end up finishing,”

“Well, if you’re good enough to be an Ultimate I’m sure you can find the motivation somewhere,”

“Heh, I like your attitude!” Sam smiled at me, giving me a huge thumbs up. “I should totally play for you sometime,”

“Maybe when I have the time,” I shook my head. “But I still have the forest left to explore,”

“Ah, right,” Sam chuckled awkwardly. “Well, see ya around dude. Have a safe trip!”

“I will,”

With nowhere else to go, I followed the path into the forest, the trees soon becoming maple coloured as I walked further, I soon made my way to a clearing surrounded by a dense wall of trees, too dense to think about walking through. The river was to the south, but with no way to cross it didn’t seem important for now.

I spotted two buildings throughout the dirt covered clearing: a small, dinky cabin with someone standing outside of it, and a ranch, though completely devoid of any wildlife.

I elected to visit the person first, she had ginger hair tied into a braid, and wore a green crop top, brown pants with suspenders. The crop top showed off a sliver of her toned stomach…

“Uh hey, what’s up?” The woman asks. “You’re just kinda looking at me without talking,”

“Oh, sorry!” I yelp. “I was just looking around the town, I wanted to get everyone’s name,”

“Makes sense, I think it’s good to know the nature and the people you’re stuck with in a situation like this,” The ginger nodded. “I’m Leah Campbell, Ultimate Sculptor,”

“There’s quite a few artists here,” I noted.

“Yeah: Me, Haley, Emily, Elliott,” Leah counted them off. “Another freaky coincidence, along with us all having talents,”

“Yeah, it’s making me worry a little. Who would have the resources to gather this many Ultimates in one place?”

“Well, the University we’re meant to be going to, for one,” Leah said. “Private Universities can be weird, I’m gonna chalk up what’s happening to Uni weirdness,”

“Really?” I turn my head.

“For now,” Leah nods. “Unless we get some big news,”

“Well, you do you,” I say as I leave for the ranch, waving Leah goodbye as I enter the large, red structure.

“Gahh, the hell are you doing here?” A man groaned as I walked in, he was old and scraggly looking: with an unkempt stubble, equally unkemp black hair, and a dirty looking JojaCorp jacket over a sports jersey. He was also noticeably quite short.

“Uhh, just exploring the town, meeting people,” I shrug. “You work at Joja too?”

“Used to,” The man sighed. “Got outta that shithole while I could, sucks that you haven’t left yet either,”

“Not all of us have the chance…” I say with a wistful sigh. “What’s your name?”

“Shane Calvert, Ultimate Chicken Farmer,” The man sighed. “I don’t eat chicken though, free range eggs kinda guy,”

“That’s noble,” I nod. “Your talent would make it easier to sympathise with chickens, I see,”

“Yup,” Shane finger gunned. “Alright, introduced myself. You can get out now-”

DING DONG BING BONG

Before Shane could rudely kick me out of the ranch, an announcement played over speakers I had only just now noticed, as static played on every TV.

“Attention townsfolk, now that all 16 of you have woken up, please head to the town square for a very special announcement!”

“Awake?” I say as I look around the room. “Are they watching us?”

“You didn’t notice the camera?” Shane asks me as he points to a security camera in the corner of the room. “Well, clearly you did something, and now I gotta move somewhere. Thanks a lot,”

Shane pushed past me rudely as he left the ranch, acting as if this whole thing was magically my fault!

What an asshole…

Soon enough, I had left the ranch too. I quickly made my way to the stony town square, where everyone else had already gathered…

---

“So, whaddaya think this whole announcement stuff is about?” Sam asked to pretty much everyone. “I’m honestly pretty pumped to get to it!”

“We’ve been kidnapped dumbass, it can’t be anything good,” Haley scoffed, Sam grumbled to himself.

“Now, don’t be too hasty. We’re all meant to be attending Hope’s Peak University, right?” Penny asked, everyone in the crowd nodded and affirmed, me included.

“We are, who’s to say this isn’t some weird entrance ceremony?” Victor shrugged. “You never know?”

“In the middle of some empty, hick town?” Sebastian glowered. “Really?”

“I’m sure there’s been weirder,” Maru attempted to reassure her brother.

“It does seem weird for an entrance ceremony,” Abigail said. “They’d probably be better off doing that in the school itself,”

“Private schools can be… strange…” Elliott said with a ‘hmmph’. “Though even this pushes the limits of eccentricity,”

“Wow really? I thought kidnapping 16 people was a completely normal thing for Universities to do,” Shane grumbled.

“Well, I’m going to stay positive!” Emily smiled. “Even if this is something bad, we can get through it together!”

“I uh… agree with Emily I guess,” Clint shrugged.

“That’s the spirit!”

The conversation around me slowly died down, talking to whispers, whispers to silence… we all felt the ground rumble beneath us. Stuttering and shaking until-

FWOOP

CRASH

Something flew up from the ground, crashing into the space in front of us. A creature shaped like an apple, though painted white on one side and black on the other.

“Hello, hello everybody!” The creature said, practically yelling as he announced his presence. “Welcome to your first day in Pelican Town, I am your mayor: MonoMo!”

Everyone stared at the apple creature in an equal mix of shock and confusion, some even let out small snorts or laughs at the cartoonish creature.

“Where the hell’s my applause!?” The creature yelled. “Clap now! Clap for your Mayor!”

“This is… dumber than I thought,” Haley sideeyed the creature with a cruel smirk on her face.

“I- it’s just a big toy… heh…” Sophia let out a small giggle.

“Guess we had nothing to be worried about, huh Sebby?” Maru said as she jabbed her brother in the arm, the man let out a small smile.

Alex laughed. “Could probably punt this thing across the street!”

“Don’t you threaten me young man!” MonoMo shouted, pointing at the Gridball player, he babbled and threatened, but no one took him seriously at all, no one except-

“Don’t let it fool you!” The voice of an old man shouted from behind the crowd.

“The hell- who the hell are you?” Shane asked, sounding more confused than upset.

“I’m the Mayor of this town,” The scraggly looking old man babbled, he then pointed straight at the Apple Creature with fear and hatred clear in his shaking body. “Until that thing came and killed all of us!”

“…What kinda weird prank is this?” Leah asked.

“It’s a big waste of my time,” Alex scoffed. “I could be out practising,”

“Huh, one of you talentless shitstains survived,” MonoMo slowly walked towards the old man, who slowly backed away in utter terror. “Y’know Lewis, you coulda given me a few days to build up their confidence. I would’ve been able to watch the hope fade from their eyes even harde!”

“Get away from me! I’m not gonna let you hurt these poor people!” Lewis yelled.

Elliott began to walk towards the panicking man, holding out his hand gently. “Now, sir. Please calm down. I do believe you might be having some kind of panic attack-”

“I am not crazy!” The mayor shouted, our ears ringing from the real terror present in his voice. Tears leaked from his yellowed eyes as he yelled. “This thing is evil, evil!”

“Dude, can it!” Shane yelled. “Just tell us how we get outta this shithole, so we can go to the University we all got invited to!”

“Shane, my friend. Try not to scare him,” Elliott warned gently as he turned around to face us. “Something far worse than just a raving old man could-”

SHLICK

The world froze, everyone stood back in sheer terror and despair as something far, far worse than we could have imagine happened to the raving old man. Even Elliott turned around to see…

The man with a spear going directly through his neck, blood gushed from the wound as Lewis made nothing but horrific choking and gurgling noises from his mouth… the spear retracted into MonoMo’s hand, and the dying man dropped to the floor. His eyes wide and staring at us.

“There we go, now that I’ve gotten your attention. I shall announce why you’re really here,” MonoMo’s face grew into a sick, twisted smile. “You’re going to participate in a state of the art Killing Game!”

A what? We all looked confused and terrified, all of us still too stunned to speak from the sudden death. Some of us like Penny and Sophia even had tears begin to form in their eyes.

“In order to leave this town. One of you will have to kill someone else and get away with it in a Town Trial. Where you will be asked to vote for who you think the killer is,” MonoMo continued the far too cheerful explanation of his sick game to us. “Vote correctly, and only the blackened will be punished, but vote for the wrong person and everyone besides the blackened will be punished, and the guilty will leave this town scott free!”

“Are there any strings attached?” Elliott broke the silence to ask his question, he sounded both curious and furious at the creature before us. “Any rules we must follow?”

“I’m glad you asked!” MonoMo cheered. “Those precious rules can be viewed on the handy dandy Monopad’s I put in your pockets!”

Everyone felt their pockets, and all pulled out the phonelike device. We scrolled through it until we reached the rules section

RULE #1: Townsfolk may only reside within Pelican Town for the remainder of the Killing Game.

RULE #2: Nighttime is from 10:00 PM to 8:00 AM, some areas will be clearly prohibited during this time.

RULE #3: Anyone who kills a fellow townsperson will become the “blackened”, if they are not voted out during the ensuing Town Trial. They will be allowed to leave, and every other person will be punished.

RULE #4: Violence against Mayor MonoMo is strictly prohibited.

RULE #5: MonoMo will never kill a student who has not either been rightfully found guilty of murder, or has broken a rule.

RULE #6: With minimal restrictions, you may explore Pelican Town at your discretion.

RULE #7: Participation in Town Trials is mandatory for all Surviving Students, no slacking!

RULE #8: Additional rules can be added at the discretion of the mayor

MonoMo continued to babble on about the Killing Game, our new life trapped in this town until one of us broke, snapped and killed a fellow person… it was all too much…

Too much…

Far, far too much…

I fell to the floor with a loud thunk, and an ache once again swelled through my unconscious mind…

END OF PROLOGUE

YOU RECEIVED: LUCKY PURPLE SHORTS

Chapter Text

“Hello, hello are you awake?”

“Ughh…” I groan as I awoke from my sudden bout of fainting, I was lying on one of the beds in the hospital. Harvey was looking down at me, concern written all over his face, he must have treated me after my fall… from the massive headache I had, I could tell I fell on the back of my head.

“Oh, thank the Lord,” Harvey sighed. “Are you alright? You fainted yesterday. Though, I can’t really blame you for doing so…”

Yesterday, the announcement from yesterday about the situation we’d all be living in for the foreseeable future. Spending my life with 15 strangers who could all decide to up and kill me, or someone else. No wonder I fainted.

“I… think I’m fine,” I mumbled as I grasped my aching forehead, probably not convincing the doctor whatsoever considering how groggy I sounded. I guess everyone sounds groggy when they wake up though.

I slowly leaned up from the bed and pushed myself onto my feet.

“Well, I’m glad you’re okay,” Harvey smiled kindly, his voice calm as ever. “Everyone’s in the Saloon right now for breakfast,”

My stomach grumbled loudly, I sigh. “Breakfast sounds great,”

“It would be,” Harvey nodded. “You haven’t eaten since you got here,”

“Yeah…” I said sounding just a tad embarrassed as I walked out of the Clinic with Harvey.

The atmosphere of the Saloon is surprisingly welcoming given the circumstance, the sound of idle conversation, eating or people playing games on the arcade reverberates throughout the building. Harvey and I both go to grab a bite to eat.

There’s a large amount of food on display on the bar. I put a glazed butterfish (I’m surprised they even have that here), and decide to make some energizing green tea, Harvey makes a quick salad, makes an equally quick coffee and waves me goodbye as he goes to sit in a corner. I stare down the kettle as it heats up the water. I think about all that’s happened yesterday. No one would be willing to take someone’s life, no one would be that desperate to escape this place, right? I don’t think I’ll be able to find a comforting answer-

SCREEEEE

The water is done boiling, I realise. I quickly pour it into the cup and delicately placed the green tea leaves into the boiling water, I didn’t want to burn my hands after all…

I scanned the saloon for a place to sit, eventually deciding on sitting at a table with Abigail, Sam, Sebastian and Maru.

“Hey Claire, you doing good?” Abigail asked with a concerned smile.

“Yeah, you seem pretty shaken up, dude,” Sam asked, concern clear in his tone too.

I nod my head lightly. “I think I am still a little shaken up from yesterday,”

“You fainted,” Maru deadpanned. “Though, I guess it’s fair. We did get the absolute worst news we could’ve gotten,”

“Pfft, no one’s gonna actually do it,” Sam shrugged. “We’re all good people here,”

“And how do you know that?” Sebastian squinted at the blonde man. “We’re all strangers here, if you’re going to blindly trust everyone then you might as well have already died,”

“You know me!” Maru yelped in reassurance. “And don’t be so hasty to dismiss everyone here, we have no reason to kill!”

Sebastian shook his head. “Maybe we don’t, but someone here could,”

“We have food here,” Sam said. “That weird apple thing told us that all the food gets restocked daily before we went to bed, remember?”

“I guess that’s how food just magically got here,” I said as I took a sip of my tea, feeling the last layers of grogginess shake off of me as I drank it.

“We have very basic necessities,” Sebastian sighed. “But not much else,”

“If you ask me, that’s all we need,” Abigail giggled through a mouthful of the pumpkin pie she was eating at nine in the morning.

“Yeah, and we have eachother!” Maru wrapped an arm around Sebastian, who grumbled in response. “I think together, we can find a way out of here quickly!”

“If we’re lucky,” Sebastian rolled his eyes.

“We’re hella lucky, man!” Sam cheered. “We’re Ultimates, together, nothing’s gonna stop us from getting outta this dumb Killing Game!”

“Hopefully…” I sigh, smiling a little at Sam’s enthusiasm, eventually all of us finished eating and slowly poured our way out of the saloon. As I reached the outside, though, I felt somewhat wide fingers grasp my wrists.

“Oh, Abigail,” I say as I turn around to face the woman. “What do you want?”

“Ah, well. As far as I’m aware we got told to go the town square way before we were able to explore everything, right?” Abigail asked. “At least I did, heh,”

“I did too, is there anything else to explore?” I turn my head curiously.

Abigail nodded. “There’s a path north of the plaza,”

I looked to my side and Abigail was right, there was a path that ended in a small staircase going through an elevated part of the ground. “There is, I guess we should get going then,”

“Yeah!” Abigail nodded energetically as she led me by the wrist up the stairs…

---

Abigail huffed and puffed once we reached the top of the incredibly short staircase, putting her hands on her knees. “I probably shouldn’t have ran, huh?”

“Probably not,” I nod with a smile as I look around the area we found ourselves in: There’s a fountain near a small playground on the western side, where we are, and a large, rickety building in the middle.

“The path more north is blocked by mountains,” I say, Abigail looks where I’m looking.

“Huh, weird,” Abigail said as she looked at the mountains practically locking us into town. “Guess they chose a decent place to trap us, huh?”

“I suppose they did,” I nod as I continue to look around, the only path out of this part of the town that didn’t lead back to the plaza was a dirt path that led to the mountains on the western side, or became nearly completely blocked off by overgrown, sharp shrubbery on the eastern side.

“Abandoned building looks cool though,” Abigail chuckled as she walked towards it, tried to open the large door and then groaned in frustration realising that it was locked. “Can’t have any fun here, can I?”

“Maybe it’ll open up later?” I reassured as I walked up to the same building. “It’s strange that they’d seemingly prep this place for us, but also just leave this building abandoned,”

“Everything about this is strange, there’s a freakin’ apple holding us hostage,”

We both chuckled a little. “Right,” Both of us were honestly beat, Abigail far more than me even though she should honestly be a bit more athletic as an adventurer oh well.

We decide to sit on the ground, out backs leaning against the wall of the rickety building as we talked…

“So uh, what did you do before all this happened?” Abigal asked, motion around to pretty much the entire town. “Ultimate Lucky Student isn’t really much to go off of,”

“I worked at a Joja Mart,”

“Sounds depressing,” Abigail gave a small chuckle.

I nodded. “It was, I was pretty much always tired… what about you?”

“Huh?”

“You’re an adventurer in training, right? How did that start?” I clarified.

“Oh!” Abigail shot up with a smile. “Well, my Dad owned a general store, so I worked there for awhile, but it was pretty boring just day in and day out… you understand right?”

“I’ve worked retail, yes,” I chuckle.

Abigail chuckles back. “Yeah, so basically I go to this Adventurer's guild place, and this old guy named Marlon, super cool by the way- trains me to fight stuff,” Abigail took a deep breath, and then continued to ramble. “But I pass super easy, and like, manage to get through the training course with a really shitty sword, so I end up getting scouted out by Hope’s Peak and then uh… I ended up here,”

I looked at her, wide-eyed but out of interest. “That’s… very interesting Abigail!”

Abigail huffed. “Thanks, it was honestly a huge step up from restocking shelves all day. Hope my Dad’s store is doing well though, parent’s must be worried sick about me,”

“I’m sure everyone’s are,” I reassured Abigail. “I know my parents would be looking up whatever they could to find me,”

“That’s a nice thought,” Abigail says as she smiles at me. “Maybe if we’re lucky, they’ll find us!”

“Maybe,” I nod.

We make idle conversation for a little longer, before we eventually both decide to go our separate way.

---

I feel my stomach rumbling, I probably should have eaten more at breakfast considering the day long gap since I’d actually eaten anything at all. It’s the only place in town that serves food as far as I’m aware, so I headed to the saloon.

“Yo, what are you doing here?” I sigh as I’m greeted by the distinctly annoying, stereotypical jock sounding voice of Alex Mullner. “This is a guy’s night,”

“Guy’s night? It’s barely even the afternoon,” I said. “And besides, this place is still open,”

“Oh, I say you let her join in,” The silky voice of Elliot calls out from his spot next to Clint, twiddling his thumbs on his stool, all of the men in this town sans Shane were gathered in the dining room of the Saloon, stood or sat in front of a relatively decent looking Flatscreen TV placed on a table at the front. “The more the merrier, after all!”

“Could be fun,” Victor shrugged, his face looking as neutral as ever.

“I’m not opposed,” Harvey played with his tie a little, seemingly trying to be unnoticeable, Clint was also doing that second part, but was doing it by not giving any kind of input.

“Claire’s cool, having her here’s gonna be sick!” Sam cheered, his arm wrapped around a particularly unenthused and grumpy looking Sebastian, crossing his arms and everything like the edgelord he probably was… I wouldn’t know, I knew basically no one here.

Alex let out a long, drawn out groan. “Fine, if you guys are gonna whine about it, I guess I have to let her in,”

“Thank you?” I mumbled as the Gridball Player led me inside, I decided to move a stool next to Sam and sit on it, he seemed the friendliest out of everyone here anyway.

“Trust me, you’re gonna love this!” Sam wooed, sounding very drunk as he directed my focus towards the TV everyone was practically hypnotised by. “Seb’s been having fun too, he just doesn’t wanna admit it, huh?”

“This is a place full of drunken strangers and grown men screaming over other grown men throwing a ball, not really,” Sebastian shook his head dejectedly and sighed.

“Pfft, I’m the only drunk one here!” Sam proudly declared, his words slurred. “And you know me n’ Claire, riiiiight?”

“I suppose?” I reassured, only really convincing the already drunk Guitarist.

Sebastian sighed and rolled his eyes. He simply pulled out his Monopad thing and began to scroll through it like a teenage girl going through the usual teenage girl angst.

Victor suddenly walked up to the three of us, small, somewhat smug smile on his face. “I… should probably take him back to his place once we’re done here,” Victor let out a small chuckle as he let Sam lean on his shoulder. “I know I don’t look it, but I’m actually pretty strong,”

“I’m sure you’re like… the strongest dude here!” Sam cheered. “I mean like engineers and stuff do… engineering stuff which is like manual labour and…” Sam slowly trailed off.

“My my, it appears someone can’t handle their alcohol~” Elliott mused.

“Maybe it is for the best someone takes him back to his house once all is said and done,” Harvey nodded after he had taken the smallest sip of a glass of wine. “Would you mind if I helped you, Victor?”

“Not at all,” The boy shrugged.

“Ugh, why are you guys even drinking at all?” Alex let out another dramatic groan as he ate his plate of five eggs, probably a protein thing. “You’re a doctor, you of all people should know that’s bad for bulking up!”

“Who can say no to relaxing with a glass of wine every now and again?” Harvey asked. “As long as you do it in moderation, you should be fine,”

“You said it, doctor!” Elliott let out a hearty chuckle. “What do you think, Clint my man?”

The Blacksmith let out a tiny gasp as he was seemingly awoken from his bout of daydreaming. “Uh… I guess it’s fine, I dunno…” The large man shrugged. “I’ve been to a couple of bars, but I don’t usually drink that much,”

“Never expected you to be one for bar atmosphere,” Elliott chuckled.

“We barely know eachother, but thanks I guess…?”

“Ugh, you guys do whatever, I guess,” Alex crossed his arms. “I’m gonna get ripped as hell for once I get outta here. Had a huge playoff match before all this happened,”

“You’re gonna freakin’ ACE it man!” Sam waved his arms around, nearly hitting Sebastian in the back of the head before having them slowly moved downwards by Victor. “I just know it!”

“Pfft, well duh! I’m the Ultimate Gridball Player, ‘course I’m gonna win!”

Victor cleared his throat. “It wouldn’t hurt to be a bit more humble,”

“Agreed,” I nod, rolling my eyes a little at the overconfident athlete, probably a common theme among people in his profession. You’d be at the top of the world until you hit your head just a little too hard on a goalpost… or whatever gridball used for a goal, I never actually watched any gridball.

“Humility’s for people who think they aren’t gonna make it!” Alex declared snidely. “I ain’t one of those people!”

I let out a deep sigh and roll my eyes, I feel the rest of the people in the room besides Sam do the same with varying degrees of volume. “Sure,”

We all continued to chit chat, some more quietly than others until eventually we began to pour out of the Saloon one by one.

“See you two later,” I waved goodbye to Victor and Harvey, the former of which gave a thumbs up as they both awkwardly shuffled a basically unconscious, babbling Sam to his house to the south of the crossroads…

It was dark outside, I let out a deep yawn as tiredness began to creep up on me. I decided to walk to the General Store, cause that’s where the room I woke up in was, so I might as well sleep there…

DING DONG BING BONG

MonoMo appeared on a tv in the General Store, his cruel smile mocking me with its presence.

“Attention townsfolk, it is now 10:00 PM, meaning that it is time for bed!” The apple creature thing said as he twirled a glass of blueish wine in his hand. “The saloon is locked during this time, wouldn’t want you snacking to hard, puhuhu~”

“...Weirdo,” I scoffed as I walked back to the room I had woken up in, I heard loud snoring as I walked past the other room, probably Abigail.

The room was as much of a blank slate as ever, I should probably decorate it at some point, but with what? I wasn’t gonna ask MonoMo for anything, and he’d probably be the only person who’d know how to get stuff for this room.

With a heavy sigh I practically slammed my body onto the relatively soft, silken bed. I soon managed to drift off into a dreamless sleep.

Chapter Text

DING DONG BING BONG

“Good morning townsfolk! Hope you’re ready for another peaceful here in Pelican Town,”

He’s being sarcastic, but a peaceful day would do well to calm my nerves in this place. I get out of bed, tie my hair into a bun, and decide to walk down to the saloon as I hear my stomach grumbling.

The saloon is still welcoming, I set next to the crowd I sat next to yesterday as people soon begin to pour into the literal only place with food in town.

“Hey Claire, good to see ya!” Sam gave a smile as I sat down. “You recover from your fainting thing?”

I nod. “Yes, are you hungover at all?”

“Ugh, yeah, sucks,” Sam groaned a little. “Seb was supposed to stop me from drinking too much!”

“We never agreed on that,” Sebastian rolled his eyes.

“Should’ve done it anyway, you guys are friends!” Maru pouted, Sebastian let out a sigh and grumbled under his breath.

“Did you have a party without me, Sam?” Abigail sighed dramatically. “I’ve known you for two days, and I’ve already been betrayed!”

Sam raised his hands defensively. “It wasn’t under my control, Alex was hosting a guy’s night! No girls allowed and all that stuff,”

“I was allowed in though,” I perked up, a small smirk on my face.

“Ughhh, special treatment,” Abigail pouted and crossed her arms as Sam’s face began to look more and more anxious, Sebastian let out a small snicker.

CLINK CLINK CLINK

The whole saloon went silent at the loud sound of clinking glasses together, they all turned towards the source of the noise: Emily, who after she had clinked two glasses together hard enough to probably break them, stood up from her seat while Haley looked at her as if she wanted to be literally anywhere else, Alex was sitting next to her looking empty headed and protein obsessed as per usual.

“Yes! I’ve gotten everyone’s attention!” Emily gave a beaming smile as she looked at all of us, her face and posture confident and straight in contrast to the scenario that would have anyone else dying from embarrassment…

“Em, for fuck’s sake- ugh…” Haley grumbled under her breath.

Emily cleared her throat, ignoring her sister’s protests. “I am incredibly glad to see all of you here at breakfast today! It shows that even despite our differences, we’re all able to do something together!”

“It’s mainly cause we all need to eat to not die, but whatever,” Sebastian crossed her arms, Maru flicked the back of his ear. “Ow!”

“Don’t be mean!” Maru whispered to her brother.

“I think if we continue to meet up like this, we’ll be able to get out of here in no time!” Emily smiled. “Which is whyyyyyy… I think we should make it a point to meet up here every morning, consciously!”

“I suppose I could manage that, it’d help this dreary town feel just a touch more lively,” Elliott gave his usual confident smile from his seat next to Leah and a thumb twiddling Clint… though Clint seemed to be a lot more invested now that Emily was speaking.

“Yeah uhh… guess I could manage that,” Clint mumbled, still quiet and under confident.

Victor looked up from his spot at one of the three arcade machines. “You guys all seem pretty chill, plus I go here anyway for food, and games,”

“Any amount of togetherness is welcome in a situation like this,” Penny gave a small smile and a nod.

“I guess that settles it, we should all meet here daily to discuss whatever’s on our minds!” Emily’s smile grew wider by the second. “It’d help us all work together!”

Everyone nodded or grumbled in vague agreement excluding Haley, who looked more and more embarrassed by the second, Sebastian, who just looked moody, and Shane who looked like he was drinking whatever sorrows the greasy looking man had to drown in alcohol.

Conversations and eating continued for a bit longer before everyone elected to go their separate ways, me included.

I had some free time on my hands, as I probably would for the foreseeable future, it’s not like I had a job here anyway… maybe that was the only good thing about living here.

Wandering aimlessly around town square, passing by a couple of people doing their own thing before eventually finding a couple of benches near a small graveyard… sitting on the bench was Penny, reading a book that I recognised.

A PROFESSIONAL’S GUIDE TO ACTING

“I didn’t know you were into acting,” I said as I sat down on the bench, Penny let out a small gasp of shock before realising it was just me.

“Ah, well, it’s a good skill to know when teaching,” Penny gave a smile before her face changed to look a bit more frantic. “D-Don’t get me wrong, I love the kids I teach, but sometimes I have to pretend to be more impressed than I actually am… oh that still sounds bad,” She looked a little dejected.

“I can understand it,” I nod reassuringly. “How’d you end up getting into teaching anyway? It’s not something I could handle,” Maybe I could, actually, I’ve dealt with far worse in retail… probably.

“Well, I’ve lived with only my mother for my whole life, and… admittedly she isn’t very great. No job, poor education, not great to say the least…” Penny let out a sad sigh. “So, I decided that I wouldn’t let any child end up like her,”

“So you started teaching? That’s… very noble of you, Penny,”

“I-It’s really nothing,” The ginger gave a warm smile as she waved away the compliment. “It makes me happy knowing that I’m making a positive difference in the life of a child,”

I smile at her, then look at the book. “Where did you find that book anyway?”

“Ah, well. Victor’s house has a bookshelf, and this was just sitting on it,” Penny nodded. “There’s a lot of books there, which I’m thankful for. I think I’d go insane without them,”

“Well, at least we have something to do here besides drink and talk,” I said.

Penny let out a frustrated sigh. “Tell me about it, those two things are pretty much all my Mom would do all day, and she never had anything nice to say, either,”

“Sounds tiring,” I shook my head in understanding, some people could be plain frustrating to be around sometimes.

“It was,”

DING

Suddenly, a notification rang out from my Monopad, confused I pulled it out, scrolled to a chatting feature I didn’t know it and saw that I had gotten a message from-

“Who is it?” Penny asked, looking over my shoulder curiously.

“Abigail, she…”

Come to that place near the fountain with all the bushes and stuff I had Leah cut some of it

P.S. Leah has an axe spooky!!!

Attached was a picture of Leah posing, slightly uncomfortable and sweaty looking with the axe… the Monopads apparently have a picture taking feature too.

“Interesting. Well, if you’re going there may I come?” Penny asked as she put a bookmark between what she was reading. “I’m practically almost finished with this, anyhow,”

I shrug as I stand up from the bench. “I don’t see why not, follow me,”

Penny nodded with a smile.

---

Me and Penny soon made our way to Abigail and Leah, standing next to the now cut, but still pretty long shrubbery around the path.

“Hey, my two favourite gingers!” Abigail greeted us with a lopsided smile, Leah jokingly cleared her throat in mock offense. “Er… three favourite gingers, heh,”

Speaking of Abigail’s third or second favourite ginger, Leah looked as if she had been working for days on end. Sweat glistened all over her body as she let out the occasional huff. “Sorry I couldn’t get rid of more of it. These weeds are tough as all hell,” She looked at the greenery in frustration as she leaned against her axe. “Got some good exercise out of it though. I haven’t been foraging as much as I usually do, so stuff like this is the next best thing,”

“It’s really fine, Leah,” I nod with a smile. “We have access to a new area of town, that’s always good!”

“If we’re lucky, it’ll be one step closer to an exit,” Penny said hopefully, before once again looking dejectedly at the floor. “Though, whoever’s keeping us here wouldn’t make it that easy,”

“Probably not,” Abigail shrugged. “Still, spooky stuff to explore! Let’s go explore it!”

Well she’s enthusiastic. We pretty soon all walked through the greenery infested path, moving slowly to avoid getting out clothes scratched and torn by the thorny vines and hid inbetween the thicker strands of greenery. I felt like I was crawling through someone’s scalp, eugh…

We all came out the other side relatively clean, Abigail excluded she had elected to run through it like a maniac and was utterly covered in leaves and moss.

Nontheless, the purple haired woman let out a hearty chuckle. “That was fun… I probably smell now, though,”

“You should be more careful,” Penny chastised. “You could’ve gotten cut back there, Yoba knows how dirty those plants are,”

“What are you, my Mom?” Abigail chuckled.

I looked around the new area as the nonexistent argument came to a swift end, we were stood in front of a large, abandoned looking house. Nothing huge, but nothing small, either, there was also a somewhat thin forest to the south of me, thinner than the one keeping us trapped in this town at the very least.

“That’d lead back to my place slash the Ranch,” Leah said, hand to her chin as she looked down the forest. “Judging by where I think we are in relation to it, anyway,”

“That’s cool and all, but abandoned house!” Abigail practically cooed as she stood starstruck at the somewhat dilapidated, but still probably functional house ahead of us. “I used to explore places like these all the time!”

“That… sounds quite dangerous…” Penny mumbled.

“Don’t be scared of a little excitement, Pen!” Abigail gave the teacher a big smile. “C’mon let’s go inside, last one in’s… like dumb or something I dunno, I didn’t think of anything bye!!” The adventurous one amongst us blurted out as she practically bolted into the house.

Penny let out a sigh, Leah did too, but hers was a bit more affectionate sounding than Penny’s.

“I guess we should follow her,” I shrug as I walk into the house, the other two gingers nod and follow me inside…

“This place is so cool!” Abigail cheered as she inspected the small kitchen of the farmhouse, which was pretty dark due to the only light being a single, small window at the back. We were in some kind of living room/kitchen combo thing, there was a CRT TV on a drawer and a turned off fireplace alongside a table and chair as the only real decoration for the dark, dusty room.

Penny coughed. “And quite dusty, this place feels like a museum exhibit almost,”

“That’s probably half the appeal of an abandoned place, the history of it all,” Leah nodded. “Whoever lived here wasn’t very well off, huh?”

“Not in the slightest,” I shake my head. “I’ve seen small houses like this out in the country, usually owned by farmers and the like,”

“A farmhouse?” Abigail smiled. “I’ve never been in one of those before!”

“It’s… not that different from a regular house, if I’m being honest,” I let out a small snort through my nose at Abigail’s excitement, I began to walk around the room to investigate further. “It’s more about the person who lives-”

I suddenly felt a piercing pain coursing throughout my head, an annoyingly common occurance since I had got here.

Penny yelped as I tripped and fell on my face, she walked over to my quickly. “C-Claire, are you alright?”

“Ughh…” I groaned. “I think I’m fine, what on Earth did I trip on?”

Penny helped me to my feet, as everyone else in the Farmhouse soon crowded around the thing I had tripped over, a barely perceivable wooden crate just standing in the middle of the room.

“Loot, apparently,” Abigail joked. “Welp, I’m curious about it now. Might as well do the honours,”

We all stared down at the box as Abigail crouched down to lift the lid off of it. It was hard to see, but inside was exactly 16 small tablets, each with the name of someone in the town on it-

“BOO!”

Everyone let out a loud scream, I fell to the floor again, Abigail fell to the floor for the first time as…

“Did I scare ya? Admit it, I scared ya!” MonoMo, the horrid little apple thing keeping us here appeared from seemingly nowhere.

“Of course you did, you’re some weird ass apple thing!” Leah grumbled at the so called Mayor of this town.

It slumped downwards. “Well that’s not very nice at all, I am a spirit of the forest, missy!” It said angrily. “And you four are currently spoiling yourselves on something very, very special!”

I looked at the thing in confusion as I slowly helped Abigail to her feet. It grabbed the crate with its cartoony arms, the crate being about half its height.

“No more spoilers, you’ll all get to see these properly tomorrow!” The creature then let out a long, cruel laugh as it waddled its way out of the farmhouse.

“I… think we did something wrong…” Penny mumbled.

“Well,” Abigail. “MonoMo’s pissed at us, I think that means we’ve done something right. Sticking it to the man and all that,”

“Or, whatever that ‘Forest Spirit’ is,” Leah mocked, then let out a yawn. “It’s getting late, I’m gonna head home,”

“I should also go to bed before I call over again,” I let out an annoyed sigh. “Let’s go, Abby,”

“Sounds good, see you guys tomorrow!” Abigail cheered and waved as she followed me through the path, Penny trailed behind us too…

We waved Penny goodbye once we had made it to town centre, Abigail and I then headed into the general store.

“Heh, we’re kinda like roommates, huh?” Abigail chuckled, stopping us outside the door to her room.

“We are roommates,” I corrected with a smile, Abby nodded.

“Well, goodnight roomie,” The Adventurer let out a long yawn. “I’m tired,”

“Goodnight Abigail,” I said as I walked to my own room, I too was tired.

Tired enough that I fell asleep the instant my head hit the pillow…

Chapter Text

DING DONG BING BONG

“Good morning students! Waking up on this fine day you may notice the tablets I put on everyone’s bedside table, or whatever you were using as one,”

I looked to my left, and lo and behold the tablet from yesterday with my name stuck to it was on the bedside table next to me.

“In order to leave your room, you’re gonna need to watch the video contained within. So don’t be shy. Look at your very own motive video right now!”

Motive video? That can’t be anything good… I look down at the device in my hands deep in thought deliberating between turning it on and staying here until starvation forced me to…

I decided to turn it on, whatever is in it can’t be that bad, right?

CLAIRE HARPER: MOTIVE VIDEO!!

“Claire Harper, an average woman from an average part of the countryside, who has spent most of her life living in an average apartment and working an average job,” MonoMo said mockingly, his voice as high pitched and screechy as usual. “That was until she had received the opportunity of a lifetime, acceptance into Hope’s Peak University via a nationwide lottery!”

Is he trying to get me to kill by… insulting me? It’s not going to work, he knows that, right? Being average isn’t even insulting.

A kid with messy hair and glasses soon appeared on screen, a teenager that I knew too well…

Martin? How the hell-

“Hey Claire uhh… Hope’s Peak got me to record this for you, because you’re gonna be gone for awhile,” Martin let out an awkward chuckle. “Uh… I’m really excited for you, but… I also wanna see you again soon. I-I dunno what I’d do if something bad happened to you…”

“Heh, goes to show even the most average of people have someone who cares for them,” MonoMo chuckled. “Sadly, now that you’re trapped here in Pelican Town, you won’t be able to see him again until well… I’ll let you figure that out,”

And with one final, cruel laugh, the video ended.

I stared at my own terrified face in the dark screen… Martin wouldn’t miss me that much, right? I had been missing the young boy recently, I was his only real life friend after all…

…

This is the point of the motive video, to have us think about killing one another by using our loved ones against us. That goddamned MonoMo is trying to manipulated is…

Well, it’s not going to work on me. I know what you want me to do, you can’t make me.

You can’t.

I throw the motive video to the floor and stomp my out out of my room and to the saloon…

---

The air was far tenser than usual, everyone seemed to be eyeing eachother with suspicion as I took my usual spot at Abigail’s table… even the normally cheerful, purple haired woman and Sam looked a bit shaken up. Makes sense, it’s the first time any of us must have seen our families in the last couple days, and in such a terrible context too…

It’d make sense to be a bit glum-

“Everybody!” Emily called out to the entire saloon, cutting through the tension with her cheerful demeanour. “Why’s everyone so sad for? We were all bonding spiritually all day yesterday, but now everyone’s aura is a deep, deep blue…”

“Because of my super duper effective motive videos of course!” Emily let out a small yelp as the thing keeping us here popped out from behind the bar, striking a pose as he stood upon it. “And I have one more motive to give!”

Everyone stared at the apple with mixed expressions of fear and anger, the thing cleared its throat as it opened its mouth once again. “MonoMo’s Special Family Motive is very simple, anyone who gets away with a murder will be allowed to take any family members with them!”

“H-Huh!?” Maru let out a yelp, everyone soon looked at either her and Sebastian, or Haley and Emily as they were the only two people affected by this new development.

“This won’t make us trust eachother any less!” Emily shouted at the creature, the surprising level of anger making even it stand back in shock. “It doesn’t matter what you try, we’re gonna work together and do everything we can to get out of here!”

“Really?” MonoMo quickly regained his composure. “You think some half assed words about togetherness are gonna-”

“Y-Yeah!” Clint cheered from the sidelines, his voice surprisingly authoritative for the large man’s usually meek nature. “I-I mean… I agree with Emily,”

“Me too, dude!” Sam said with a confident cheer and a fistbump. “Nothing you say’s gonna make us do anything against eachother!”

“We’re going to work together,” I declared confidently. “Nothing you can do is going to stop us from doing that,”

“Yeah!” Maru cheered.

“What lovely cooperation that has appeared between us,” Elliott mused. “I am excited to see where this goes,”

Everyone spoke or murmured in agreement with Emily, to the point where MonoMo let out a deep sigh.

“Kids these days, never up for some good ol’ fashioned killing,” The thing shook its head. “I’ll see how long this lasts, upupupu~” Then the apple jumped back behind the bar and seemingly disappeared.

“Phew, glad that’s over,” Emily chuckled as she looked back at us. “Thanks for standing with me there, everyone. I can feel our auras mixing even more harmonious than before! Like our souls are all singing the same sweet tune,”

“She’s crazy,” Sebastian whispered, Maru simply pouted at him in response.

“Anyways, now that he’s gone, I can finally talk about what I wanted to talk about,” Emily gave an even wider smile. “Abigail has discovered a new section of the town connected to the north, I believe this means that there’s a lot more for us to discover here including a possible exit!”

“It’s a pretty cool place, too!” Abigail said with a smile. “Leah helped me find it!”

“Ah, it was really nothing,” Leah reassured.

“A-An exit?” Sophia chimed in, her normally gloomy expression face curving into a smile. “That’s sounds really good, I-I think we all wanna get out of here!”

“It’s just a possible exit, but any hope’s good to have, I suppose,” Victor nodded.

Harvey nodded too. “What do you suggest we do with this information, Emily?”

Emily beamed. “I’m glad you asked, doctor. I say tomorrow, we split into four groups to investigate every nook and cranny of what we have so far, to see if we can find anything interesting!”

“Well, I’m not doing that,” Shane grumbled. “I don’t trust you, you’re one of the only people who benefits from what that apple thing’s saying,”

“Shane…” Emily said sadly at the Chicken Farmer. “Please try to look past your own doubts, we need to work together if-”

“Far as I’m aware, you’re trying to isolate us so you and your sister can get outta here faster,”

“Excuse me!?” Haley glared at the probably drunk man.

“Back off dude,” Alex said as he stood up from his seat.

“You guys can believe her all you want, but before I see any actual results I’m gonna be spending the day in my ranch,” Shane let out a frustrated sigh as he left the saloon.

“What an asshole,” Alex grumbled as he sat back down.

“Don’t worry about him too much, Alex,” Emily reassured, then returned to her usual cheeriness as we began to plan. “He’ll come around! Now, let’s decide groups! We’ll need four for the farm, two for the forest, four for the north, and… considering Shane’s not participating we have about five left for the town!”

Emily soon gathered us into four groups: Leah and Elliott for the forest near Leah’s home. Victor, Sofia, Harvey, Penny and Maru for the main part of the town. Herself, Haley, Alex and at the man’s incredibly shaky, under confident request Clint for the north. And last but not least Abigail, Sam, Sebastian and Myself for exploring the farm… once our groups were decided, breakfast was officially declared over and we all headed our separate ways. We agreed to meet up at the saloon at about 2:00 PM tomorrow to begin our investigation…

---

But for now, I had some free time on my hands. I went into what had become the usual routine of wandering pretty aimlessly around Pelican Town looking for something to do, or someone to talk to which had become practically my daily routine by this point. I went to the south of the town, where Emily/Haley and Sam’s houses stood next to the path to the forest…

“Hey dude!” I heard the cheerful voice of Sam call out to me from the outside of his house, he had his face stuck into a portable gaming system of some kind, though he was looking up from it to greet me.

“Hi Sam,” I waved to the guitarist. “Did you wanna talk to me about something?”

“Yeah!” The man gave a smile as I walked up to him. “I’m thinking of holding a huge concert once that whole investigation thing tomorrow is over, to celebrate us all being friends and stuff!”

“That certainly sounds interesting… do you need my help with anything?” I turned my head curiously.

“Uh, not really, but it’d be really cool if you’d watch me practice!” Sam said as he shoved the gaming device into his jacket pocket. “I haven’t done it in awhile, so I’m probably a little rusty,”

“Well, I guess we’ll see about that,” I said as the blonde man led me into his house.

“Heh, yeah!”

I sat on the couch in his living room, he connected his guitar to an amp and began to play a pretty simple rock song. Though it wasn’t my usual taste in music I found myself bobbing along to the catchy, yet intense tune… guess that’s the power of an ultimate guitarist, huh?

“You like that one, I usually use that one to practice before a gig,” Sam said with a smile.

I nod. “It was very good, I don’t usually listen to rock music. How long have you been playing guitar?”

“Oh dude, I can barely even remember, maybe since I was like 10?” Sam chuckled. “My Mom used to get pretty mad when I’d play outside my room though, heh,” The man scratched the back of his head awkwardly.

“It is… quite loud,” I nodded with a chuckle.

“That’s half the fun, man!” Sam chuckled back. “I wonder if Seb would wanna hear this,”

“Sebastian? Well, It does seem like the kind of music he’d be into,” I shrug. “He’s pretty moody though,”

“Well yeah, but he can’t be that moody, right?” Sam said with a smile.

“I suppose so,”

Sam continued to strum away at the guitar for awhile, his movements as energetic as the music he was playing until eventually…

---

DING DONG BING BONG

“Attention everyone, it is now 10:00 PM meaning that it’s nighttime. Sweet dreams to all you despairful little townsfolk!”

Sam let out a yawn. “Nighttime already? I should probably hit the hay now, huh?”

“I should too,” I said as I got up from the couch. “We have a busy day tomorrow,”

“Yeah, exploring’s gonna be so fun!” Sam cheered. “Catch you later, Claire!”

“You too, Sam,” I said as I exited the lit house into the dark outside of the town, my eyes taking a minute to adjust to the darkness. Pretty much instantly I headed back to the general store, back to my room and slumped down onto the bed…

We had a lot to do tomorrow, looking for a potential exit and all, but I think with everyone working together it’ll be achievable.

And even if we don’t find anything, it’ll be a good experience for all of us. It’ll help in getting us to all work together, all cooperate and end this Killing Game…

…

At least that’s what I hope…

Chapter Text

DING DONG BING BONG

“Another beautiful day here in Pelican town, another chance to finally get your murder on! It’s now 8:00 AM!”

I was never going to get used to MonoMo’s grating voice, was I? I stepped over the shattered remains of my motive video and headed to the saloon.

---

The air was lively and bubbly, a stark contrast to the early morning dread of yesterday. I take my seat next to Abigail and look around the room, noticing that Shane hadn’t showed up today…

Nothing to worry about, hopefully.

Emily clapped, we all looked at her beaming face. “It’s great to see you all here today, remember to meet up at 2 PM to begin our exploration!”

“We heard you the first time,” Sebastian mumbled, and was then jabbed in the side by Maru.

“I know it’s pretty unlikely… but I’m hopeful that we’ll at least find something to get us one step closer to being out of here,” Penny said.

“Such wonderful hope, if more people like you were in this world… I’m sure much could be achieved,” Elliott chuckled.

“That’s certainly an odd way to put it, but I mostly agree,” Victor shrugged.

Sam suddenly pumped his fist in the air. “This is gonna be so much fun!”

“Eh, it’ll be a bunch of walking around aimlessly,” Alex scoffed. “But anything to get back to my playoff game, y’know?”

“I swear to Yoba that’s all you ever think about,” Haley scoffed back.

It probably is.

The vibe of the saloon remains casual, warm and calm. All of us soon go about our separate ways as breakfast comes to a close.

“Hey, hey guys! Seb, Claire and Abby, hey!” Sam calls out to the three of us as we prepare to leave the saloon, we all turn around to face the man.

“What do you want?” Sebastian asks with an annoyed look in his sleepless eyes.

“What’s up, Sam?” Abigail’s response is more friendly, as expected.

Sam gave his usual bright, ear to ear smile as he began to spoke. “Well, we’re gonna be exploring together in a couple hours, right? I think we should hang out a bit, just the four of us to really get used to eachother!”

“It’s going to be six hours of exploring maximum,” Sebastian sighed. “Whatever it is, don't count me-”

“C’mon Seb, don’t be all grouchy!” Abigail pouted at the programmer as she grabbed onto his arm. “I’m gonna annoy you until you decide to hang out with us,”

I let out a snort at the adventurer’s behaviour, Sam also let out a laugh as Sebastian let out an even more frustrated sigh.

“Let go of-”

“Nope!”

Sebastian weighed his options for a moment, then let out one final deep, irritated sigh. “Fine,”

“Yayy!” Abigal cheered as she let go of the man and bolted towards the guitarist. “What do you wanna do, Sam?”

“Yeah, it’d be pretty stupid to invite us somewhere and not plan something,” I said.

Sam let out another small laugh. “Well lucky for you guys, I did plan something!”

---

“Is your plan literally just sitting around a playground?” Sebastian rolled his eyes, he said sitting atop a metal bench stuck in the same of the aforementioned, small playground. “This place is for literal infants,”

“Claire’s older than all of us and she’s having fun!” Abigail pouted as she swung on the swings. I elected to act as a sort of chaperone to these people who were at most only about 3 or 4 years younger than me.

“Yeah, you’re never too old to goof around,” Sam chuckled. “I mean you program video games and stuff, that’s kinda goofing around, right?”

Sebastian let out the smallest of chuckles, so quiet it could barely be heard. “That’s usually what it feels like my code is doing, piece of shit,”

“From what I’ve heard, it’s mostly bugfixing. That sounds fun,” I said sarcastically.

Another laugh, though still a sarcastic, biting one. It was progress I suppose. “Right on the money, I guess,” The man shrugged. “It’s one fourty by the way, we should head to the saloon,”

“Oh shit!” Abigail yelped.

“We totally got caught up on this playground!” Sam gulped.

“That we did, good call, Sebastian,” I said as we began to walk over to the saloon… Sebastian seemed stunned for a moment, but quickly shook it off as he walked with us.

---

Emily was stood in the middle of the room with her group: Haley, Alex and Clint. Her sister looked as bored out of her mind as she usually did as the blue haired woman took a good, long look around the room.

She clapped her hands together. “Everyone’s here, and on time too!”

“Of course, I wouldn’t miss this for the world,” Elliott chuckled.

“Well, everyone’s here except for Shane,” Maru added puffing out her cheeks a little as she said it. “Which kinda sucks, but 15 outta 16 is better than no one at all,”

“That’s right,” Penny smiled and nodded.

“I-I hope we manage to find something,” Sophia said with a squeaky gulp. “It’s kind of petty, but I don’t wanna miss the latest episodes of my favourite anime,”

“That is petty,” Victor let out a chuckle with Sophia letting out the tiniest of giggles. “Though, we all have our own reasons for wanting to leave,”

“Least of all how small this place is,” Leah let out a small sigh. “Except the forest around us, that place goes on forever. Tried exploring it all last night and got nowhere,”

“It’s that big? Guess we gotta find some other way out then,” Alex groaned.

“Hey, no matter how little progress we make, it’ll all be worth it!” Emily smiled. “Especially for the bonding experience we’ll all get!”

“The more we work together, the better we’ll get at working together,” I said with a nod.

Emily practically beamed at me. “That’s exactly what I’m saying! Alright, enough standing around everyone; get in your groups and get exploring!”

---

Myself, Sam, Abigal and Sebastian soon began our trek around the abandoned farmlands, the overgrown grass swaying around us as a maze of trees stood in front of us.

“Alright guys, I’ll go first cause I’m the one with the most experience doing this… aaaand you guys can do whatever you want!” Abigail stared at the trees with a starstruck sense of wonder and excitement. Before any of us could even react she bolted into the dark forest.

Sebastian let out a deep, irritated sigh. “We’re gonna have to make sure she doesn’t get lost, aren’t we?”

I nod. “If we’re lucky, our clothes won’t smell like shit and grass by the end of this,”

Sam laughed. “These clothes are easy enough to wash anyway, c’mon, let’s go!” Then Sam bolted in there too, Sebastian and I sighed and elected to walk back to them at a more reasonable speed as to not get completely covered in the general muck of the farmyard’s vast overgrowth…

“So, why’d you come along?” I shake a pebble out of my shoe as I ask the question to Sebastian, who had been looking off to the side until I spoke. “Shane was allowed to sit this out, and you don’t look particularly happy to be here,”

“I… want to go home as much as anyone,” Sebastian said as he trudged through the grass that went up to his knees. “Even if this is not going to lead us anywhere in the slightest, I guess I still want to hold out hope for all this to work,”

My eyes went wide for a moment. “Huh, didn’t expect that answer. I honestly thought you’d only come so that Sam wouldn’t annoy you about it,”

Sebastian snickered. “That too, that guy can be persistent,”

“I see that it’s working,” I smile at the programmer. “You two are at least already acquainted.

“I guess-” We suddenly heard the sound of two sets of laughter: one snorty and one incredibly high pitched. “They’re nearby,”

“I think we can both tell that,” I said with a snicker of my own as we both moved what I was pretty sure was North-West to the sound of laughter.

“There you are,” Sebastian let out an exhausted sounding sigh as we spotted the adventurer and the guitarist sitting, leaning against a rock.

“Oh hey!” Abigail waved, then let out an uncomfortable little laugh. “Sorry for running off, I just got so excited about exploring a new place!”

“I just thought it’d be fun, and it was!” Sam cheered and raised his arms in the air, even as he was covered in grass and dirt everywhere except for his hair, maybe all the gel reflected it or something.

“Did you find anything?” I ask them.

Abigail motions towards the impressive boulder behind her. “Just this, it’s pretty cool,”

“We should probably actually get to investigating now,” Sebastian said as he stood between all three of us. “2 of us go to the abandoned farmhouse, 2 of us search around the forest,”

“Ehhh, Farmhouse is kinda small. I can probably do that on my own,” Sam said as he stood up with a puff. “Plus I’m kinda tuckered out, farmhouse should be easy,”

Sebastian shrugged. “Works for me, I’ll explore the west on my own then, you two wanna go East together?”

“Sounds like a plan!” Abigail gave a thumbs up as she practically jumped to her feet. “Let’s meet back up at the front of the farmhouse in like a few hours, okay?”

“Sounds good!” Sam gave a mock salute as he turned his body west-

“Farmhouse is the other way,” Abigail corrected, Sam chuckled and turned his body around to walk towards the house, Sebastian then headed southeast, Abigail and I headed full west.

---

“This place gets kinda samey after awhile,” Abigaid said, sounding bored in contrast to how huffy and puffy I had gotten with all the walking.

“I feel like we’ve passed by the same couple of trees a hundred times,” I agreed through heavy breaths. “Should we head back now?”

“I don’t see why not,” Abigail shrugged as she pulled out her Monopad to text Sebastian.

“Oh thank Yoba,” I wasn’t religious, but I felt the need to thank any diety for only having to walk a hundred miles back to the farmhouse instead of two hundred…

…

The walk was actually surprisingly short, we saw Sebastian standing on the outside of the small farmhouse, but…

“Where’s Sam?” I ask, the tiredness I had once felt being replaced with this odd sense of… dread?

Why would I feel dread? There’s nothing to be worried about, but even as I tried to reassure myself, I became increasingly aware of the sound of rushing water coming from within the house.

“I dunno,” Sebastian shrugged. “You texted him too, right?”

“Yeah,” Abigail nodded as she pulled out her Monopad. “Weird, he hasn’t responded,”

“Huh…” The dread again, and it was suffocating, choking, wrapping it’s thin, spindly arms around my neck and threatening to wring every last drop of oxygen out. “That’s… not like him,”

“Maybe he’s just really caught up exploring the house?” The purple haired woman laughed uncomfortably, she could feel the thick dread hanging in the air too, I could tell from her sweating brow and face.

Sebastian walked towards the front door, we followed and all stood around it. “I guess we should go in then,”

I nod at the programmer, and then I gently open the door to…

Screaming, I hear a loud scream, Abigail’s voice higher pitched than I had ever heard before…

The rushing water had come from the overflowing sink, water from it had now begun to spill out onto the floor, covering it in a thin layer of water… and in that thin layer of water sat…

Sam.

Sam’s eyes looked terrified and bloodshot, yet lifeless and cold. His jacket was torn and still covered in the greenery of the forest. He was bent over slightly as if his ribs had just given out…

The ray of sunshine that was Sam had been long snuffed out, and we hadn’t been able to do a thing about it…

DING DONG BING BONG

“Attention townsfolk, a body has been discovered! Please head to the farmhouse ASAP to begin the investigation!”

CHAPTER 1: CHAMPION OF PELICAN TOWN

DEADLY LIFE

DING DONG BING BONG

“Another beautiful day here in Pelican town, another chance to finally get your murder on! It’s now 8:00 AM!”

I was never going to get used to MonoMo’s grating voice, was I? I stepped over the shattered remains of my motive video and headed to the saloon.

---

The air was lively and bubbly, a stark contrast to the early morning dread of yesterday. I take my seat next to Abigail and look around the room, noticing that Shane hadn’t showed up today…

Nothing to worry about, hopefully.

Emily clapped, we all looked at her beaming face. “It’s great to see you all here today, remember to meet up at 2 PM to begin our exploration!”

“We heard you the first time,” Sebastian mumbled, and was then jabbed in the side by Maru.

“I know it’s pretty unlikely… but I’m hopeful that we’ll at least find something to get us one step closer to being out of here,” Penny said.

“Such wonderful hope, if more people like you were in this world… I’m sure much could be achieved,” Elliott chuckled.

“That’s certainly an odd way to put it, but I mostly agree,” Victor shrugged.

Sam suddenly pumped his fist in the air. “This is gonna be so much fun!”

“Eh, it’ll be a bunch of walking around aimlessly,” Alex scoffed. “But anything to get back to my playoff game, y’know?”

“I swear to Yoba that’s all you ever think about,” Haley scoffed back.

It probably is.

The vibe of the saloon remains casual, kind and calm. All of us soon go about our separate ways as breakfast comes to a close.

“Hey, hey guys! Seb, Claire and Abby, hey!” Sam calls out to the three of us as we prepare to leave the saloon, we all turn around to face the man.

“What do you want?” Sebastian asks with an annoyed look in his sleepless eyes.

“What’s up, Sam?” Abigail’s response is more friendly, as expected.

Sam gave his usual bright, ear to ear smile as he began to spoke. “Well, we’re gonna be exploring together in a couple hours, right? I think we should hang out a bit, just the four of us to really get used to eachother!”

“It’s going to be six hours of exploring maximum,” Sebastian sighed. “Whatever it is, you can count me-”

“C’mon Seb, don’t be all grouchy!” Abigail pouted at the programmer as she grabbed onto his arm. “I’m gonna annoy you until you decide to hang out with us,”

I let out a snort at the adventurer’s behaviour, Sam also let out a laugh as Sebastian let out an even more frustrated sigh.

“Let go of-”

“Nope!”

Sebastian weighed his options for a moment, then let out one final deep, irritated sigh. “Fine,”

“Yayy!” Abigal cheered as she let go of the man and bolted towards the guitarist. “What do you wanna do, Sam?”

“Yeah, it’d be pretty stupid to invite us somewhere and not plan something,” I said.

Sam let out another small laugh. “Well lucky for you guys, I did plan something!”

---

“Is your plan literally just sitting around a playground?” Sebastian rolled his eyes, he said sitting atop a metal bench stuck in the same of the aforementioned, small playground. “This place is for literal infants,”

“Claire’s older than all of us and she’s having fun!” Abigail pouted as she swung on the swings. I elected to act as a sort of chaperone to these people who were at most only about 3 or 4 years younger than me.

“Yeah, you’re never too old to goof around,” Sam chuckled. “I mean you program video games and stuff, that’s kinda goofing around, right?”

Sebastian let out the smallest of chuckles, so quiet it could barely be heard. “That’s usually what it feels like my code is doing, piece of shit,”

“From what I’ve heard, it’s mostly bugfixing. That sounds fun,” I said sarcastically.

Another laugh, though still a sarcastic, biting one. It was progress I suppose. “Right on the money, I guess,” The man shrugged. “It’s one fourty by the way, we should head to the saloon,”

“Oh shit!” Abigail yelped.

“We totally got caught up on this playground!” Sam gulped.

“That we did, good call, Sebastian,” I said as we began to walk over to the saloon… Sebastian seemed stunned for a moment, but quickly shook it off as he walked with us.

---

Emily was stood in the middle of the room with her group: Haley, Alex and Clint. Her sister looked as bored out of her mind as she usually did as the blue haired woman took a good, long look around the room.

She clapped her hands together. “Everyone’s here, and on time too!”

“Of course, I wouldn’t miss this for the world,” Elliott chuckled.

“Well, everyone’s here except for Shane,” Maru added puffing out her cheeks a little as she said it. “Which kinda sucks, but 15 outta 16 is better than no one at all,”

“That’s right,” Penny smiled and nodded.

“I-I hope we manage to find something,” Sophia said with a squeaky gulp. “It’s kind of petty, but I don’t wanna miss the latest episodes of my favourite anime,”

“That is petty,” Victor let out a chuckle with Sophia letting out the tiniest of giggles. “Though, we all have our own reasons for wanting to leave,”

“Least of all how small this place is,” Leah let out a small sigh. “Except the forest around us, that place goes on forever. Tried exploring it all last night and got nowhere,”

“It’s that big? Guess we gotta find some other way out then,” Alex groaned.

“Hey, no matter how little progress we make, it’ll all be worth it!” Emily smiled. “Especially for the bonding experience we’ll all get!”

“The more we work together, the better we’ll get at working together,” I said with a nod.

Emily practically beamed at me. “That’s exactly what I’m saying! Alright, enough standing around everyone; get in your groups and get exploring!”

---

Myself, Sam, Abigal and Sebastian soon began our trek around the abandoned farmlands, the overgrown grass swaying around us as a maze of trees stood in front of us.

“Alright guys, I’ll go first cause I’m the one with the most experience doing this… aaaand you guys can do whatever you want!” Abigail stared at the trees with a starstruck sense of wonder and excitement. Before any of us could even react she bolted into the dark forest.

Sebastian let out a deep, irritated sigh. “We’re gonna have to make sure she doesn’t get lost, aren’t we?”

I nod. “If we’re lucky, our clothes won’t smell like shit and grass by the end of this,”

Sam laughed. “These clothes are easy enough to wash anyway, let’s go!” Then as quick as Abigail Sam bolted in there too, and just like Abigail he hadn't really warned us. Sebastian and I sighed and elected to walk back to them at a more reasonable speed as to not get completely covered in the general muck of the farmyard’s vast overgrowth…

“So, why’d you come along?” I shake a pebble out of my shoe as I ask the question to Sebastian, who had been looking off to the side until I spoke. “Shane was allowed to sit this out, and you don’t look particularly happy to be here,”

“I… want to go home as much as anyone,” Sebastian said as he trudged through the grass that went up to his knees. “Even if this is not going to lead us anywhere in the slightest, I guess I still want to hold out hope for all this to work,”

My eyes went wide for a moment. “Huh, didn’t expect that answer. I honestly thought you’d only come so that Sam wouldn’t annoy you about it,”

Sebastian snickered. “That too, that guy can be persistent,”

“I see that it’s working,” I smile at the programmer. “You two are at least already acquainted.

“I guess-” We suddenly heard the sound of two sets of laughter: one snorty and one incredibly high pitched. “They’re nearby,”

“I think we can both tell that,” I said with a snicker of my own as we both moved what I was pretty sure was North-West to the sound of laughter.

“There you are,” Sebastian let out an exhausted sounding sigh as we spotted the adventurer and the guitarist sitting, leaning against a rock.

“Oh hey!” Abigail waved, then let out an uncomfortable little laugh. “Sorry for running off, I just got so excited about exploring a new place!”

“I just thought it’d be fun, and it was!” Sam cheered and raised his arms in the air, even as he was covered in grass and dirt everywhere except for his hair, maybe all the gel reflected it or something.

“Did you find anything?” I ask them.

Abigail motions towards the impressive boulder behind her. “Just this, it’s pretty cool,”

“We should probably actually get to investigating now,” Sebastian said as he stood between all three of us. “2 of us go to the abandoned farmhouse, 2 of us search around the forest,”

“Ehhh, Farmhouse is kinda small. I can probably do that on my own,” Sam said as he stood up with a puff. “Plus I’m kinda tuckered out, farmhouse should be easy,”

Sebastian shrugged. “Works for me, I’ll explore the west on my own then, you two wanna go East together?”

“Sounds like a plan!” Abigail gave a thumbs up as she practically jumped to her feet. “Let’s meet back up at the front of the farmhouse in like a few hours, okay?”

“Sounds good!” Sam gave a mock salute as he turned his body west-

“Farmhouse is the other way,” Abigail corrected, Sam chuckled and turned his body around to walk towards the house, Sebastian then headed southeast, Abigail and I headed full west.

---

“This place gets kinda samey after awhile,” Abigaid said, sounding bored in contrast to how huffy and puffy I had gotten with all the walking.

“I feel like we’ve passed by the same couple of trees a hundred times,” I agreed through heavy breaths. “Should we head back now?”

“I don’t see why not,” Abigail shrugged as she pulled out her Monopad to text Sebastian.

“Oh thank Yoba,” I wasn’t religious, but I felt the need to thank any diety for only having to walk a hundred miles back to the farmhouse instead of two hundred…

…

The walk was actually surprisingly short, we saw Sebastian standing on the outside of the small farmhouse, but…

“Where’s Sam?” I ask, the tiredness I had once felt being replaced with this odd sense of… dread?

Why would I feel dread? There’s nothing to be worried about, but even as I tried to reassure myself, I became increasingly aware of the sound of rushing water coming from within the house.

“I dunno,” Sebastian shrugged. “You texted him too, right?”

“Yeah,” Abigail nodded as she pulled out her Monopad. “Weird, he hasn’t responded,”

“Huh…” The dread again, and it was suffocating, choking, wrapping it’s thin, spindly arms around my neck and threatening to wring every last drop of oxygen out. “That’s… not like him,”

“Maybe he’s just really caught up exploring the house?” The purple haired woman laughed uncomfortably, she could feel the thick dread hanging in the air too, I could tell from her sweating brow and face.

Sebastian walked towards the front door, we followed and all stood around it. “I guess we should go in then,”

I nod at the programmer, and then I gently open the door to…

Screaming, I hear a loud scream, Abigail’s voice higher pitched than I had ever heard before…

The rushing water had come from the overflowing sink, water from it had now begun to spill out onto the floor, covering it in a thin layer of water… and in that thin layer of water sat…

Sam.

Sam’s eyes looked terrified and bloodshot, yet lifeless and cold. His jacket was torn and still covered in the greenery of the forest. He was bent over slightly as if his ribs had just given out…

The ray of sunshine that was Sam had been long snuffed out, and we hadn’t been able to do a thing about it…

DING DONG BING BONG

“Attention townsfolk, a body has been discovered! Please head to the farmhouse ASAP to begin the investigation!”

CHAPTER 1: CHAMPION OF PELICAN TOWN

DEADLY LIFE

Chapter Text

“KYAHHH!” The first thing Sophia did as she and the rest of the townspeople entered the farmhouse was scream as she set her eyes upon the body of Sam.

“O-Oh Yoba, n-no!” Penny practically begged as she laid eyes on the corpse.

The normally collected Maru fumbled her words too, everyone did at the sight of the corpse.

“H-How, how did this happen?” Emily mumbled, all of the colour draining from her face as she looked down at the body of Sam.

“Someone killed, ain’t that obvious?” Shane said, scorn clear in his voice, the asshole.

“Unfortunately, the man is right. Someone gave into their greed, their desire to go home and…” Elliott let out a deep sigh as he continued. “Murdered our poor friend, Sam,”

“He always seemed so cheerful, why would someone target him?” Leah asked, sounding queasy as she spoke.

Victor shook his head. “Reason doesn’t matter here, we’re gonna have to investigate this thing whether we like it or not,”

“I-I can’t believe it, though,” I finally spoke, still looking shocked at the body of my friend. “Who would- why would?”

Everyone looked just as shocked, even as they all spoke… but no one looked more terrified in that moment than Abigail, the normally energetic girl couldn’t even muster up the confidence to say a word.

“Some asshole went and killed Sam,” Alex grumbled.

“And now you assholes are gonna investigate it!” We all jumped as we turned around to see MonoMo cheering from behind us. “And then after that, you’ll all be going to trial… oh, I’m so relieved, I thought I was gonna have to pull out the big guns to get someone to do it,”

“You little shit!” Abigail shouted at the apple creature, earning a gasp from a couple fellow townsfolk. “I bet you killed him, you seem desperate enough to-”

“Nuh uh, that’d break the rules!” MonoMo pouted. “Speaking of rules, I have one extra to add. From this point forward, anyone who kills will get to take their family with them to escape!”

Everyone suddenly turned to either Emily or Sebastian, briefly, but everyone still did it.

“That’s right, it’s upgraded from motive to rule! So if you manage to catch this killer. Next time, you can get your beloved brother or sister in on your very own murder!”

“You… disgusting little-”

“Aaaanyways, have fun investigating!” MonoMo interrupted Abigail. “Bye bye!”

And with that he scampered his way out of the farmhouse, leaving us all alone in the dark house. The corpse of Sam was still at my feet…

Harvey was the first to break the silence. “…I suppose we should begin investigating,” He said grimly, his voice sounding tired and timid.

“We have a trial after this,” Victor gave a kurt nod as he turned off the sink. “We’ll… be able to avenge him by getting the killer right,”

“And we won’t all die,” Sebastian quirked an eyebrow. “I feel like we should consider that too,”

Haley shrugged. “Well, do your best I guess. I’ll go investigate outside,”

Some people seemed to agree with her sentiment and decided to leave the farmhouse. It was crowded anyway.

Only myself, Abigail, Harvey, Sebastian, and the body of Sam remained in the room…

I didn’t have time to waste, I needed to discover who did this. Not just so that I and the rest of the innocent people here could survive, but so that Sam could be avenged.

I need to reveal the truth!

INVESTIGATION: START!

My Monopad buzzed in my pocket, so I quickly pulled it out and checked whoever could be messaging me at this ungodly time… it wasn’t a message though. It was seemingly a case file of some kind…

IN ORDER TO ASSIST WITH YOUR INVESTIGATION, EVERYONE HAS BEEN GIVEN A MONOMO FILE! IT DISPLAYS ALL INFORMATION THAT DOESN’T SPOIL THE SURPRISE!

MONOMO FILE #1

VICTIM: SAMSON NELSON

TIME OF DEATH: 5:40 PM

CAUSE OF DEATH: DROWNING

Victim is Sam Nelson, he was drowned at 5:30 PM.

Cause of death and time of death, but no information about location, that’s probably something important. I keep note of that and put the Monopad back in my pocket.

+MONOMO FILE #1

Deciding to get the hard part out of the way first, I walk towards the body of Sam, take a deep breath and bend down to begin investigating.

“Ah, I don’t think you’ll be able to do that on your own,”

I let out a gasp of shock as Harvey speaks, the man shrinks a little. “I’m sorry,” I said. “You just startled me is all,”

Harvey nods. “Makes sense, once you’re done looking at the body yourself. I will attempt to do an autopsy on him, identify what his wounds could mean,”

I nod with a smile, though somewhat forced considering the situation. “That would be very helpful,”

“I think helpful is the best thing I can be right now,” Harvey nodded. He was right, I’d need all the help I could get to find this killer.

“Is there anything you can tell me right now?” I ask, Harvey bent down to feel the Sam’s chest.

“His ribs are broken,” Harvey said matter of factly as he stood up. “Near completely shattered, in fact,”

“Must’ve been hit with a lot of force,” I said.

Harvey gave a small nod. “Yes, though he could have also fallen. I’ll have a concrete theory once my autopsy is done,” I nodded as I continued to investigate Sam’s body with Harvey’s help.

+SAM’S BROKEN RIBS

The most notable thing about Sam’s body was his jacket, it was covered in greenery, soaked and practically torn to pieces, some kind of fight must have broken out between Sam and his killer, that’s all I think could have done it…

I looked around the farmhouse, and the place was barely even scratched minus the flooding from the sink, maybe the killer had time to clean up their mess? I didn’t know yet.

+SAM’S JACKET

+CLEAN FARMHOUSE

I elected to take one more thorough look at Sam’s body before leaving it to Harvey…

“What’s this?” I ask to myself, the Doctor looks down to see what I’m motioning to.

“Scratch marks,” Harvey confirms as he sees. “On the back of his neck,”

“I don’t want to imagine what caused those,” I shuddered as I stood up from Sam’s body. “I think I’ll leave the autopsy to you,”

Harvey nodded dutifully and crouched down to investigate the body himself…

Scratch marks, I guess that confirms some kind of struggle if the killer needed to do that, but why?

+SCRATCH MARKS ON SAM’S NECK

I next decided to walk over to the sink, this seems to be the only place where the killer could have drowned Sam. The MonoMo File hasn’t given a place of death, after all.

+OVERFLOWING SINK

Though, there was also something besides water bobbing in the sink…

“Hey, what’cha looking at-”

I let out another yelp as I was spooked for the second time today.

Abigail scratched the back of her head. “So sorry, I just uhh… wanted to help you investigate,”

I let out a breath. “That’s nice of you… I was looking at this scrap of paper in the sink is all,”

“Weird… I don’t think that was there before,” Abigail said, then shrugged. “Guess that means it’s important,”

I nod. “We’ll need to keep track of it,”

+PAPER IN SINK

“So, anything else in here?” Abigail asked.

“I suppose we should get our alibi straight. We were together when Sam had died,” I nodded.

Abigail nodded in return. “And Sam had decided to go into the farmhouse alone,”

“And Sebastian was exploring the south on his own,” I replied.

Abigail looked hesitant for a moment, before giving a nod… Sebastian’s alibi is shaky but…

I looked over to the man looking tired as ever in the corner… Sam is our friend, his friend. I know in my heart that Sebastian couldn’t have done It.

+SAM IN THE FARMHOUSE

+FARM GROUP ALIBIS

“That’s it here, I say we go interview everybody outside,” I said.

Abigail nods. “We’ll be able to get everyone’s alibis and stuff,”

As we walked towards the door, we were stopped by Harvey. I turned to greet the man.

“Ah, is your autopsy done?” I asked.

Harvey nodded. “Pretty much, the kind of broken rib he has is extremely common in cases where the victim is pushed against something,”

“So Sam had to be slammed against whatever he was drowned in?” Abigail shuddered. “Gives me the heebie jeeebies, but… I guess it’s good to know,”

“So there was likely some kind of fight, but why is the farmhouse so clean?” I ask as I look around. No one has an answer for me.

“They wouldn’t have had much time to clean it,” Harvey added. “We found the body at 6, Sam died at 5:40, that’s barely 10 minutes to clean up and leave in time to leave no trace,”

I nodded. “That’s right,”

+HARVEY’S AUTOPSY

With the last thing we needed to do in the farmhouse done, we waved the doctor goodbye and walked outside into the orange afternoon light. Pretty much everyone had gathered in the clearing around the farmhouse and was looking around. We had a lot of people to go through and not much time…

We stared with Emily and the rest of the group who were exploring the North, all of whom had gathered together near the edge of the forest. We greeted them, as I approached I noticed that Alex wasn’t wearing his jacket, his upper body was dressed in a white tank top… probably some weird, flexy thing, he’d do that.

“You here to ask about where we were?” Alex asked. “Cause I’ve answered that exact question like a hundred times,”

“There’s nothing wrong with being thorough…” Clint mumbled.

“Ugh, can’t we just wait for the trial to ask all this? We’re gonna all be together anyway,” Haley pouted.

Emily shook her head, then smiled. “Ignore them, Clint and I will answer any questions you have!”

“Hey!” Haley complained.

“Thank you,” I said. “Where were all of you when you were exploring the north?”

“Well, I looked around that path leading to the mountain. Clint, Haley and Alex elected to split up and search the rest individually,”

“I actually did see Emily at some point, she’s not lying…” Clint reassured with an awkward smile.

“Were you stalking my sister?” Haley asked with a teasing smirk, Clint practically jumped at the accusation.

“N-No!”

“I think he was, heh,” Alex let out a chuckle.

Emily stood defensively between Clint and her two other groupies. “Don’t be rude you two,”

“Yeah, Clint only seems kinda weird and unkempt. At least he’s not like Shane!” Abigail’s defense only seemed to make Clint look more bummed out by the second.

“Ugh, you take the fun out of everything,” Haley pouted. “I chilled out behind the abandoned building, no clue where Alex was, though,”

“The playground,” Alex said with a shrug. “I feel like that’d be a good place to hide something,”

“A bunch of sand and children’s rides?” Abigail snickered a bit. “Okay, sure,”

I didn’t really expect much less of Alex, he certainly wasn’t the brightest bulb in the bunch… I thanked Emily and co, even if Emily and Clint had been the only two helpful people there and moved on to the next group…

+EMILY’S ACCOUNT

+CLINT’S ACCOUNT

The group that had explored the town, consisting of: Penny, Maru, Victor and Sophia.

“H-Hi,” Penny greeted, still clearly shaken up from the situation at hand. “Did you want to ask us anything?”

“That’s why we’re here,” I confirmed. “Did you see anything unusual in the town,”

“We explored in groups of 2 slash 3: Penny, Harvey and Maru, Me and Sophia,” Victor explained. “We didn’t really see anything of note,”

“W-We didn’t even see anyone from the other groups,” Sophia added in her usual, stuttery and awkward manner. “I’m sorry if that doesn’t help,”

“It’s really fine,” Abigail said. “If anything, you’re helping by telling us that,”

“Every bit of information helps us solve this stupid murder,” Maru added. “We’ll all get through this if we work together,”

I agreed, I nodded to indicate this, but I also knew that the killer would also be at the trial. They wouldn’t be one to let us solve this.

We waved goodbye as we walked to the next person to interview, and the one I had honestly been dreading since I first saw him in the farmhouse after the body discovery announcement…

+TOWN GROUP ACCOUNT

“Hello Shane,” I greeted with a sigh, the man greeted me in return with an irritated sounding grunt. “We just wanted to ask where you were,”

“The ranch,” He answered simply. “I was alone though, so you probably don’t believe me,”

“Well now I don’t!” Abigail grumbled.

“Ah, but you should!” Elliott practically materialised from thin air as he sauntered on over to us, Leah following closely behind him. “Leah and I spent most of our time in the forest, and we didn’t see Shane leave his ranch once!”

“Yeah,” Leah nodded. “We didn’t move super far from the clearing, there wasn’t much worth exploring anyway, so we would’ve seen if Shane just up and left,”

“It’s not my ranch, it’s just where I sleep,” Shane made the distinction in an annoyed tone even though he didn’t have to. “But thank you, my innocence is confirmed,”

Abigail shrugged. “Probably, let’s go,”

I nodded as Abigail and I walked to the middle of the clearing… we had interviewed everyone we could, but it still felt like we were missing something.

+FOREST GROUP ACCOUNT

“Hey,” Abigail tapped me on the shoulder, snapping me out of my thoughts. “You see that on the overgrowth over there,”

I looked over to where Abigail had now begun pointing, the cut, but still long overgrowth between the Farmhouse and the North… there was…

“Fabric, blue fabric,” I said as Abigail and I walked towards the fabric stuck to one a particularly sharp piece of overgrowth.

“Weird, maybe… maybe someone went through here,” Abigail suggested. “We should explore the other side a little,”

I nodded as I made a mental note of the blue fabric. “Yeah, better to be thorough,”

+BLUE FABRIC

+SHARP OVERGROWTH

When we got there, we found something more surprising than anything.

“Is that blood?” Abigail asked as we laid eyes upon the blood stain on the rim of the fountain. “And scratchy looking marks…”

“Something happened here,” I said. “We should get-”

+BLOOD STAIN

+MARKED FOUNTAIN

DING DONG BING BONG

“Attention everyone, investigation time is over. Head to the Mayoral Manor ASAP. Attendance of the town trial is mandatory and tardiness is punishable by execution!”

“Oh… guess we ran out of time,” Abigail let out a forlorn sigh. “I-I’m sure we have enough,”

“We do… we should,” I tried to reassure her, but I couldn’t deny that these weren’t good circumstances in the slightest… I made a mental note of any final details that could help in this trial, and headed for the Mayoral Manor in the middle of the town. The locked building in front of Penny’s Trailer

+KILLING GAME FAMILY RULE

---

Everyone else was already standing outside of the doors, part of me wanted Sam to show up, to reveal that this was all some kind of joke. That wouldn’t happen though, our friend was really dead, and one of us was the killer.

“I guess this is it,” Maru said, a deep sadness present in her voice.

“Ugh… this is making me queasy,” Sophia mumbled.

“I think we’re all afraid right now,” Penny sighed. “This is the first time this has happened to any of us,”

“I’m sure at least one of us have been to court before. We have an alcoholic among us,” Sebastian turned his shifty gaze to Shane, who glared at the programmer in response.

“You were in the same group as him, what’s that about?”

“That is pretty suspicious,” Haley said innocently as she stared down the programmer.

“Hey, let’s not go accusing anyone yet,” Emily stepped between the two.

Leah nodded. “Yeah, we haven’t even discussed any evidence yet,”

“Mere hours have passed, and we’re already at each other’s throats,” Elliott gave a sigh of disappointment through his smirking face. “I suppose it is natural though, that we tear one another apart?”

“Whatever man, I just wanna get this over with,” Alex rolled his eyes.

“If we cooperate we’ll be able to,” Victor said. “Though… the killer’s gonna try to stop that wherever they can,”

“That makes sense…” Clint mumbled. “I’m not suspicious of anyone right now though, too early for that,”

“Yes, we’ll need to be careful. Our lives ride on this,” Harvey added.

Emily let out a sigh of relief. “Thank you two, we all need to be reasonable here,”

“Ughh… this is gonna suck,” Abigail mumbled to me.

“It will, but… it’s something we need to do,” I whispered back, that seemed to calm her frayed nerves a little, just a little though.

The door to the manor soon opened slowly, revealing the inside to be a giant platform elevator.

“Guess this is actually it,” I said as I let out a deep breath… we all soon stepped inside…

WHIRRRRR

The inside of the elevator was dead silent… a suffocating, hellish silence that threatened to swallow of us whole until the elevator stopped rumbling.

We all stumbled into the trial room, uneasy and tense at the decadent room, decorated with 16 witness stands in a circle. The one reserved for Sam had a picture of him with an X over his face.

MonoMo sat from utop a throne at one end of the trial room. “Finally, you’re all ready for your first trial! Stand at your stands and we’ll begin!”

We all did as told, and I got the chance to really think about this…

This Trial, this situation. One of us was a killer hiding amongst 14 innocent people.

It’s up to me, and the rest of those innocent people to find out that killer.

Not just for our sakes, but for the sake of Sam, who had always been a friend to everyone here.

Someone took advantage of that to kill him, and that’s why I need to get to the bottom of this, to find the killer and make it out of this trial alive.

I need to reveal the truth.

TOWN TRIAL: BEGIN!

TRUTH BULLETS

MONOMO FILE #1

SAM’S BROKEN RIBS

SAM’S JACKET

CLEAN FARMHOUSE

SCRATCH MARKS ON SAM’S NECK

OVERFLOWING SINK

PAPER IN SINK

SAM IN THE FARMHOUSE

FARM GROUP ALIBIS

HARVEY’S AUTOPSY

EMILY’S ACCOUNT

CLINT’S ACCOUNT

TOWN GROUP ACCOUNT

FOREST GROUP ACCOUNT

BLUE FABRIC

SHARP OVERGROWTH

BLOOD STAIN ON FOUNTAIN

MARKED FOUNTAIN

KILLING GAME FAMILY RULE

Chapter Text

TRUTH BULLETS

MONOMO FILE #1

SAM’S BROKEN RIBS

SAM’S JACKET

CLEAN FARMHOUSE

SCRATCH MARKS ON SAM’S NECK

OVERFLOWING SINK

PAPER IN SINK

SAM IN THE FARMHOUSE

FARM GROUP ALIBIS

HARVEY’S AUTOPSY

EMILY’S ACCOUNT

CLINT’S ACCOUNT

TOWN GROUP ACCOUNT

FOREST GROUP ACCOUNT

BLUE FABRIC

SHARP OVERGROWTH

BLOOD STAIN ON FOUNTAIN

MARKED FOUNTAIN

KILLING GAME FAMILY RULE

CLASS TRIAL: BEGIN!

“Now then, let’s begin with a basic explanation of the Town Trial!” MonoMo begin. “During the trial you will discuss evidence, and then vote for who you think the murderer is. If you vote for the right person, I will only punish the murderer, but vote for the wrong person and everyone besides the murderer will be punished, and they will be allowed to leave this town!”

“Well, we’re here, and we know what we’re supposed to do,” Leah started. “But I’ve got not idea where we’re supposed to start,”

“Sam’s death came as a shock to us all,” Penny mumbled and nodded. “It’s q-quite hard to talk about,”

“Well then, may I suggest our first topic?” Elliott gave a sly smile.

Abigail shrugged. “Shit, man, go ahead. It’s not like we have anything else,”

Elliot nodded. “Why don’t we start with the state of Sam’s body? He had plenty of wounds on his body,”

“Yes, a broken rib and bleeding marks on the back of his neck to be specific,” Harvey added.

“So that’s what killed him!” Maru yelped. “One of those two,”

There’s something that disproves that, Maru’s moving a bit too quickly

NONSTOP DEBATE

“Sam got stabbed in the neck!?” Abigail let out a yelp of her own. “That’s brutal,”

“We didn’t find any kind of knife, though,” Sebastian added. “That, or they cleaned it after killing him,”

Harvey shook his head. “The marks on Sam’s neck appear more like scratch marks, not something caused by a weapon,”

“A broken rib wouldn’t have killed him either…” Emily looked deep in thought.

Maru groaned. “There’s gotta be something, those wounds are the only things that make sense to have killed him,”

MONOMO FILE #1

“NO, THAT’S WRONG!”

“Maru, we were all given the same MonoMo file, right?” I asked.

Maru shook her head confused. “The wha?”

“That notification you um… ignored,” Sophia let out an awkward, apologetic laugh. “It gave us a bunch of basic information about the murder,”

“Including that the cause of death was drowning,” Haley let out a mildly annoyed sigh. “I thought you were meant to be smart or whatever, you can’t even read?”

“I-I can read!” Maru yelped. “I guess I just got caught up investigating and forgot to check,”

“Well that’s fine,” Victor said. “We’ve gotten how he died cleared up, that’s a good start!”

“That also explains why the farmhouse was flooded, Sam was drowned in the sink,” Shane said.

Emily let out a high pitched, sick sounding noise. “That’s such a horrible way to go,”

“Yeah, guy who did this has gotta be some kinda asshole,” Alex grumbled. “Like Shane!”

“The fuck are you talking about, dumbass meathead!?” Shane grumbled back at the athlete.

“Are you… are you accusing Shane entirely based on him being kind of a dick?” Clint quirked an eyebrow, Shane glared at the blacksmith for a moment then went back to glaring at Alex.

“That’s… not evidence at all,” Penny sighed, shaking her head dejectedly.

“Even for you, that’s pretty stupid,” I shake my head too, more in disappointment than Penny however.

“Hey! I have actual proof!” Alex yelled.

Sebastian rolled his eyes. “Sure you do,”

“So stupid, that’s the dumbest shit I’ve ever heard!” Haley mocked and pointed at the athlete. “Surprised you have thoughts up there that aren’t just about catching a ball!”

“He was the only guy who didn’t come to the investigation thingy, that’s suspicious as hell!” Alex yelled out, waving his hands around like a five year old thrown into the deep end of a swimming pool.

“That’s… huh,” Leah put a hand to her chin and nodded slowly. “That’s actually a pretty fair point,”

“That doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s the killer!” Emily yelped out in defense of the man who now looked just a bit nervous. Emily’s face scrunched up in frustration. “Accusing him like that is gonna make it really hard for him to adjust to the group!”

“He’s not gonna have to adjust if he’s the killer,” Haley said.

“Haley!”

Shane rolled his eyes. “You guys are dumber than I thought if you’re gonna accuse me on something that minute,”

“We’re not accusing you,” Penny corrected quietly. “But we do need to consider it,”

Victor nodded. “We need to consider everything here,”

That we do, Shane not coming looks odd, but it can’t be the only thing we use to decide the culprit.

NONSTOP DEBATE

“I-I suppose it’s a little strange that Shane was the only one not present,” Sophia mumbled. “But is that really that suspicious?”

“Of course it is! Shane’s the only guy no one can account for!” Alex argued.

Sebastian looked deep in thought for a moment. “Shane, where were you today?”

“The ranch, where else would I be?” The man shrugged.

“In order to get to the farmhouse, he’d need to walk through the forest,” Abigail added with a small nod.

“That’s correct,” Elliott nodded with a small chuckle. “Leah and I were in the forest, we never saw anyone go through there,”

FOREST GROUP ACCOUNT

“I AGREE WITH THAT!”

“Yeah, that’s what you and Leah told me when I asked,” I said as I nodded my head.

Elliott nodded back in his usual, polite manner. “Indeed, no one could have entered the farmhouse through the forest,”

“Plus that forest is pretty big,” Abigail added. “Someone like me could go through it, but Shane’s pretty outta shape, so I doubt he’d be willing,”

“Well fuck you too,” Shane shook his head with a small chuckle.

“You did interview everyone, right Claire?” Sophia asked.

I nodded again. “Yeah, I tried to be as thorough as possible,”

“Sooooooo, where do you think the killer had to have come from?” Haley turned her head curiously.

“We do need to establish that ASAP,” Leah said. “It’ll help us narrow down a whole lot,”

“I’m not too sure about that, but… as far as Leah and Elliott’s account says; no one was able to enter the farm from another area-”

“YOUR LOGIC’S STIFF!”

“Huh?” I let out a shocked sound as Leah interjected.

“I never said that no one could have entered the farm,” Leah shook her head. “We need to consider every option here,”

“You and Elliott didn’t see anyone come in, though,”

“We didn’t see anyone come through the forest, there’s another place that isn’t accounted for,”

The north? That’s the only place I can think of, there has to be something that disproves what Leah is saying…

REBUTTAL SHOWDOWN

CLAIRE VS LEAH

GO!!!

“I’m fully aware that no one could have gone through the forest…”

“Least of all Shane,”

“But it’s still fully possible that anyone could have gone to the farm…”

“Find Sam in there, overflow the sink and then drown him,”

“The only other entrance to the farmhouse is the north…”

“Wouldn’t the group exploring there have seen them?”

“The north has a lot more to it than the forest, a lot more to explore,”

“The only reason Elliott and I even could’ve anyone walk through is because we… well weren’t exploring all that much,”

“It’s fully possible that someone could’ve walked through a part of the north not being explored,”

“And while town square isn’t that big, someone could’ve fully just hidden in town, waited for the path to the north to be unoccupied and walked from there to the north…”

TOWN GROUP ACCOUNT

“I’LL CUT THROUGH THAT ARGUMENT!”

“Actually, I asked the town group about their account of everything, and they never said if they saw anyone,” I said.

“Yeah, Sophia and I spent basically all of our time at the northern part of town square,” Victor added.

Sophia nodded. “We never saw anyone even walk by, it was kind of boring,”

“But it was worth the experience of bonding as friends!” Emily added with a beaming smile.

Victor shrugged. “Sure, something like that,”

“Oh uh… I guess that makes sense,” Leah let out a small, uncomfortable chuckle. “Sorry for wasting your time, guys,”

“It’s really fine,” Penny nodded with a smile.

“Yes, it’s better that we disprove instead of just assuming that something is wrong,” Harvey added with a nod.

“It appears that attempting to directly find out who killed Sam is only leading to more questions,” Elliott put a hand to his chin as he thought. “Perhaps we should move onto a different topic?”

“Like what, man?” Alex asked.

“Hmmm…” Maru did the hand to her chin thing too, before soon shooting up with a glint in her eye. “Ooo, how about the actual events of Sam’s death! I sounded way to excited about that…”

“Don’t worry too much, that sound like a pretty good direction to take this trial,” Abigail let out a small chuckle. “Though… we already know that Sam was drowned, isn’t that good enough?”

“Not really…” Penny shook her head wistfully. “We need to be able to figure out the full events leading up to Sam’s death to figure out anything concrete,”

“Let’s ask farm group then,” Emily asked. “When did you all last see Sam?”

“Fourish, we were splitting up to explore the forest separately after he and Abigail had ran off,” Sebastian explained, sounding frustrated at the Adventurer’s antics.

“Ah c’mon, when I see a big spooky forest I just gotta explore it!” Abigail pouted and chuckled. “Don’t hold it against me!”

“So you all split up around four?” Emily turned her head curiously. “Why? You all could have covered the entire forest if you had stuck together,”

I shrug. “Abby was going to run away either way, and Sam was gonna follow her,”

“Still, it’s a bit irresponsible,” Emily puffed out her cheeks and crossed her arms.

It was… I should have insisted on going with Sam. It was wrong of me to leave him alone. That’s why he ended up dying… that’s why we’re all here right now…

No, there’s no point dwelling on it now. Sam would want me to solve his murder. We wouldn’t want me to get caught up in what I should and shouldn’t have done…

“M-Maybe a little,” Abigail chuckled uncomfortably, I could tell she was having the same thoughts as I was… poor girl.

“So, Abigail and Sam are dumb and run off, so you guys split up,” Haley said insultingly.

“Hey!”

Haley ignored the protests of the purple haired girl. “Where did hair gel boy end up splitting off to?”

He told us before hand…

SAM IN THE FARMHOUSE

“I GOT IT!”

“He… ended up going to the farmhouse by himself,” I said with a regretful shudder, even though I knew that regretting letting him leave wasn’t going to do anything good now.

“So he went to the farmhouse, someone went there for whatever reason and then killed him,” Shane shrugged. “Seems simple enough,”

“Did none of you offer to go with him?” Sophia asked gently. “Everyone in my group explored in groups of at least two…”

“He insisted on going alone,” Sebastian added quickly. “We all thought he’d be fine to do it, the farmhouse isn’t that big anyway…”

“He insisted on going alone? That’s so freakin’ weird,” Alex shook his head.

“It is rather strange,” Elliott nodded his head inquisitively. “Perhaps then someone used the assumption that someone would be exploring the farmhouse, walked on in and killed Sam there,”

“That makes the most sense,” I agreed with the poet.

“Ah, so his death was up to chance,” Elliott let out a wistful sigh. “Mere bad luck caused his death, is that not the fate we are all going to experience in the end?”

“Well thanks for reminding me, asshole,” Shane let out in a grunt of annoyance and frustration.

“So, Sam died in the farmhouse… but how specifically?” Maru said. “I doubt he would’ve just watched someone overflow the hell out of a sink and not even ask about it,”

“Maybe Sam was knocked out beforehand?” Leah asked with a shrug.

That’s not possible, because…

NO WOUNDS ON THE HEAD

“THIS IS IT!”

“No, Sam couldn’t have been knocked out. There were no wounds on his head,” I explained. “None that we could identify anyway,”

Harvey nodded. “Yes, and he hadn’t lost enough blood to go into shock or pass out either,”

“That… makes no sense,” Leah looked at the ground in confusion.

“D-Did Sam just let himself die!?” Sophia yelped. “Oh… that’s a horrible thought!”

“Sam wouldn’t have done that!” Abigail yelped. “He was everyone’s friend,”

“He wouldn’t shut up about it,” Sebastian said with a sigh, that while sounding frustrated also sounded wistful in a way. “Especially not to me, Sam doesn’t seem like the suicidal type,”

“Well, don’t be so hasty… we do have motives after all,” Haley let out a small chuckle. “Maybe someone came up with a sob story, backed it up with their video and Sam decided then and there that he had to save this person~”

“Haley you sound insane,” Emily glared at her sister, concerned, not angry.

“Tch,” Haley grumbled. “Just giving theories, and you’re the one that believes in all that spiritual crap!”

“Everyone needs a hobby…” Clint mumbled defensively, so quiet that no one could hear it particularly well.

We’re getting sidetracked, we need to get back to the specifics of how Sam died as soon as possible.

NONSTOP DEBATE

“I don’t think Sam would do that either!” Abigail yelped again.

“Haley’s just being annoying,” Emily reassured with a small chuckle. “We’re getting sidetracked anyway, we still don’t have a clear theory of the events leading up to Sam’s death,”

“All we have so far is that someone walked in the farmhouse while Sam was in there…” Sophia mumbled.

Victor shook his head. “That’s not even confirmed, as far as we’re aware they could have been hiding in there,”

“No way to confirm that unfortunately,” Elliott shook his head with a sigh.

“I still think he died willingly, by the way,” Haley added.

Penny, alongside most of the people in the trial room glared at her… though Penny’s glare was far more gentle. “And why is that?”

“Well duh, if was being drowned unwillingly he would’ve fought back!” Haley forced her hands forward in a rough motion. “There’s nothing indicating any kind of struggle, so he had to have been in on his own murder!”

SAM’S BROKEN RIBS

“NO, THAT’S WRONG!”

“Sam’s ribs were broken,” I argued with conviction in my voice. “That in of itself is evidence of a struggle,”

“Is it?” Haley quirked an eyebrow. “He could’ve just hit his chest on the sink, those broken ribs are the only wounds he had anyway,”

That’s wrong too, Sam had another set of wounds…

SCRATCH MARKS ON SAM’S NECK

“I GOT IT!”

“He did have other wounds, scratch marks on the back of his neck,” I added. “That couldn’t be an accident, I imagine they were caused by the culprit grabbing Sam’s neck to force his head underwater,”

“Eugh… that’s brutal,” Abigail shuddered. “I had wondered how those wounds got there,”

“Sam’s chest was slammed against the sink?” Emily turned her head curiously.

Yes, and I know why because…

HARVEY’S AUTOPSY

“THAT’S IT!”

“Harvey did an autopsy on Sam’s body,” I explained.

“Huh, guess he would be able to do that,” Alex crossed his arms. “Being a doctor and all,”

“They aren’t perfect,” Harvey warned calmly. “But I can use what I know about certain wounds to guess that Sam’s broken ribs were caused by someone slamming his chest against something hard,”

“Hard enough to crack them,” Haley gave a slow nod, then shrugged. “Huh, guess I was wrong,”

“You’re giving up that easily?” Emily turned her head. “That’s not like you at all,”

Haley put her hands to her hips. “Our lives are at stake here, dumbass, I’m not gonna be that beat up about being wrong!”

“Ah, putting your own pride away to assist us in finding this murderer,” Elliott nodded with a smirk. “Such a noble thing to do for us~”

“Ew, I’m honestly hoping its you now cause of how weird you are,”

“Haley!” Emily chastised.

“Well, we know how Sam died now,” Sebastian said. “Beaten against the sink and then drowned in it,”

“It’s terrible to think about…” Leah shuddered as she looked at her boots.

“So t-terrible…” Sophia mumbled, sounding scared and depressed.

“So, the killer had to have died in the farmhouse,” Penny looked deep in thought, going completely silent as her eyes widened.

“Therefore… the only possible murderers are people who had been in the farm group,” Victor said. “Is that what you’re trying to say?”

“I-It’s what I’m thinking,” Penny shakily confirmed. “It’s a terrible thought, but the only people who would be able to know that Sam would be in the farmhouse would be the people he told before he left for it,”

“Sebastian, Abigail and Claire,” Elliott confirmed with a stern hum and a nod. “Those are the only possible killers,”

“Wh-Wha!?” Abigail let out a loud shriek. “S-Sam was my friend! I would never- none of us would ever!”

“Sebby wouldn’t do that!” Maru yelled as she game to her brother’s defence, Sebastian letting out a dejected sigh. “I know him better than anyone, he’s not a murderer!”

“Well then it’s Claire,” Shane glared at me as he grumbled out his words.

“Helping during the trial would be an interesting way to get suspicion off of your back,” Haley chuckled behind her hand. “Sucks that it’s not gonna work if you’re one of the only people able to kill Sam,”

“I’m not the killer either, none of us are,” I said, confidence and conviction in my tone even as I felt sweat pour down my forehead… it can’t be me or Abigail, we were together, but… we never saw Sebastian at any point…

It- It can’t be Sebastian. Sam was his friend, our friend! It’s not possible, not at all…

“You have to believe me!” Maru shouted in defence. “There has to be some way that Sebastian is innocent,”

“You’re only defending him cause if he gets away with it you get to leave too,” Shane grumbled at the Roboticist, who suddenly froze up at the accusation.

“Shane! That’s a horrible thing to say!” Penny raised her voice every so slightly at the older man.

Shane shrugged. “It’s what makes sense, we can’t trust anyone in this damn killing game!”

“Now, don’t say that. We can trust eachother!” Emily tried to calm the situation down, but it wasn’t working.

“I- uhh… yeah…” Clint mumbled. “We gotta try to not collapse this… easily…”

“Wait!” Victor shouted. “We don’t know what happened after Sam left for the farmhouse, where were you all,”

Here’s my chance. It’s gonna be painful and hard, but if I lie here and say that we were all together then…

Sebastian has to be innocent…

“W-Well, we were-”

Sebastian suddenly interrupted me. “Abigail and Claire were together, I was alone,”

“Wh-Wha!?” Tears suddenly formed in the corner of the panicking Maru’s eyes.

“So you-”

“I’m not the killer, though,” He also stated as he interrupted a now fuming Haley. “I just don’t feel like lying to defend myself,” He said as he gave me a small glare. He could tell what I was going to do,”

“Can you confirm this, Claire?” Victor asked me calmly.

I let out a sigh. Goddammit, Seb. “Yes, me and Abigail had explored the west of the forest together, while Sebastian had gone south,”

Abigail nodded. “So, none of us can be the killer. We were together!”

“Well then that makes our number one suspect Sebastian,” Elliott looked at the programmer inquisitively.

“Believe what you want,” He raised his hands casually, though I could tell from the shaking of his legs that he was terrified. “I’m not the killer,”

“H-He just can’t be!” Maru shouted. “Th-There has to be something that confirms that he’s innocent!”

“I thought you were smart. You should know you need more than that to make us trust him,” Haley crossed her arms, looking proud of herself.

It’s gonna take a minute to think of it, but there has to be some other way that someone could have known where Sam would be…

NONSTOP DEBATE

“Sebastian’s our top suspect!” Haley declared proudly.

Victor nodded. “He’s the only culprit that makes logical sense,”

“N-No he’s not!” Maru yelped.

“Logical maybe, but…” Penny trailed off. “I just can’t see Sebastian killing his own friend,”

“What you can see has nothing to do with it!” Alex shouted. “That skinny weirdo’s the killer for sure!”

Sebastian stood in silence, he gave Maru a brief look of sympathy before sighing and returning to his usual neutral face.

“C-C’mon… there has to be some other way for someone to know where Sam was!” Maru let out another, more desperate yelp. “L-Like a note or something!”

PAPER IN SINK

“I AGREE WITH THAT!”

“There was another way for someone to have known!” I said suddenly, and louder than I had intended.

“Yes!” Maru cheered. “What is it?”

I cleared my throat as everyone looked at me. “When Abigail and I were exploring the farmhouse we had found a scrap of paper in the sink,”

“I can confirm as a neutral party that it was there,” Harvey said before anyone could interject.

“What does that piece of trash prove!?” Alex yelled. “You’re making this case a lot more confusing than it actually is!”

No I’m not, you’re just stupid.

“What does some wet paper even mean?” Haley put a hand on her hip.

It didn’t seem obvious at first. Especially not to people with the mental capacity of Alex, but that piece of paper is clearly…

AN INVITATION

“THIS IS IT!”

“It was an invitation, likely inviting Sam to the farmhouse,” I said with a firm nod.

“That… hm,” Leah nodded with a smile.

“That just about makes sense,” Abigail gave a beaming smile. “Anyone could’ve wrote that old thing,”

“Yeah, anyone!” Maru let out a huge sigh of relief. “And it explains why the culprit had stuffed it in the sink and ripped it up, they wanted to make sure we wouldn’t find it!”

“That’s all well and good, but this hasn’t actually helped,” Haley shook her head, clearly annoyed. “We’re just back to square one!”

“Yeah, now it’s 15 suspects instead of 1,” Shane complained.

“N-Not exactly…” Sophia squeaked like a mouse. “Remember, no one could have gone through the Forest or the Town to the farm…”

Elliott nodded. “We did confirm that, I suppose that only leaves two groups who could have committed this murder,”

And those groups are…

NORTH AND FARM

“I GOT IT!”

“The north group and the farm group, only someone from those two groups could have committed this murder,” I confirmed. “We’ve expanded our list of culprits,”

Maru sighed. “Okay, okay that’s fine. It’s not just Sebastian,” Maru then looked at her brother. “Speaking of which, why didn’t you defend yourself?”

“I did,” The man shrugged.

“Not very well!” Maru pouted. “C’mon, you gotta put more effort in, please?”

Sebastian didn’t respond, Maru let out a sigh.

“Well, we’re down to two groups, but…” Penny shook her head. “No way to confirm which,”

“I was in the north group, and it’s not me!” Alex declared firmly.

“But there was a direct link to the farmhouse from the north group,” Leah added. “If anything it makes more sense for it to be someone part of the north group,”

“And Emily was in the north group… perhaps she set up this whole event to commit a murder…” Elliott mused.

“That doesn’t seem right…” Clint mumbled.

“What!?” Emily yelped, louder than I expected from the woman. “I didn’t do that, I-I was really trying to get us to bond our souls together!”

“I want to believe Emily…” Penny mumbled. “But… we need to consider every option possible,”

“I still think it’s gotta be someone who was on the farm, only thing that makes sense,” Shane shook his head.

“Y-Yeah,” Sofia mumbled in agreement.

“Someone from the farm group trying to shift the blame, suspicious as hell!” Haley glared at me poutily. “I bet Claire and Abigail did it together!”

“Throwing out shit like that makes you look suspicious!” Abigail shouted back.

“It appears we can’t agree on this…” Harvey let out a disappointed sigh.

“Yeah,” Victor shrugged. “I didn’t think we’d be split down the middle this hard-”

“HOLD ON, HOLD ON!”

“Did you all say split!?” MonoMo shouted like a mental patient. “You said it, split! Split! Split!”

“We said split, why are you yelling about it!?” Shane grumbled in frustration at the apple creature’s screaming.

“What are you getting at?” Victor raised an eyebrow.

MonoMo proudly cleared his throat. “Because you guys can’t come to an agreement: Pelican Town is proud to present its very own morphenomenal trial grounds!”

“Morph- this place is gonna morph!?” Maru asked excitedly, before clearing her throat and calming back down as to not give the host a win.

“Of course you’d know what that means,” Alex crossed his arms.

MonoMo shoved a key into a lock at the front of his throne, soon all of our witness stands moved around the room into 2 groups, each representing a different theory…

DEBATE SCRUM

WHAT GROUP WAS THE KILLER APART OF?

NORTH GROUP

Claire, Abigail, Sebastian, Maru, Penny, Victor, Harvey, Leah

FARM GROUP

Haley, Alex, Emily, Clint, Shane, Elliott, Sophia, Sam

DEBATE SCRUM: START!

HALEY:

“Farm group’s the only people who would know where Sam was!”

ABIGAIL!

“Don’t you remember what Claire said? That note in the sink means that anyone could’ve known where he was!”

ELLIOTT:

“But how do we know that piece of paper is even a note?”

MARU!

“It’s not like there’s anything else that piece of paper could’ve been,”

ALEX:

“Wouldn’t forest chick have caught anyone going into the farm?”

LEAH!

“Elliott and I only would’ve been able to see someone coming from the forest,”

SOPHIA:

“M-My group would’ve caught anyone coming from anywhere else…”

VICTOR!

“We only would have caught someone entering from town square into the North,”

CLINT:

“Sebastian was the only person completely alone, right?”

I’LL GET IT!

“As far as I’m aware, everyone in the north group was also exploring alone,”

EMILY:

“Is there any evidence that makes my group more suspicious?”

SEBASTIAN!

“No, but there’s no evidence that makes my group more suspicious either…”

CROUCH BIND!

…

“THIS IS OUR ANSWER!”

Our stands moved back to their spot in the circle.

“The culprit has to be someone from the north group,” I declared.

“At the very least we should consider the possibility before we assume it’s Sebby again,” Maru said with a firm nod.

“That’s all well and good, but… do we have anything more to investigate?” Elliott asked. “We’ve discussed everything in the farmhouse, have we not?”

“Everything we could find,” Sebastian confirmed.

“Do we have any evidence from the north then?” Penny asked. “I doubt anyone would have explored there, but…”

We do have evidence from there! That’s what that stuff Abigail and I found could mean!

NONSTOP DEBATE

“Well, we’re all out of options all over again!” Haley groaned as she aggressively shrugged.

“We’ve narrowed down the list of culprits to one group,” Penny nodded. “But with no way to find out who specifically did it, that isn’t particularly helpful!”

“Well then, any theories?” Shane shrugged as he looked around the circle.

“Wait!” Aibgail yelped. “What if Sam wasn’t even killed in the farmhouse?”

“That’s gotta be the dumbest shit I’ve ever heard,” Shane glared at the adventurer.

“That’d be a major shift in the case, but… without proper evidence-”

Abigail interrupted Clint’s mumbling. “But I do have evidence, me and Claire investigated the north, we found something that didn’t make sense at the time there,”

BLOODSTAIN ON FOUNTAIN

“I AGREE WITH THAT!”

“Do you mean the bloodstain on the fountain?” I asked.

Abigail nodded energetically. “Yeah, yeah! We found a bloodstain on the fountain in the north of the town,”

“A bloodstain?” Penny turned her head. “Hey Harvey, wasn’t Sam slammed against something when he was being d-drowned?”

Harvey nodded. “Yes, and if we are to believe that that blood is Sam’s blood, then it’s likely he was slammed against the fountain,”

“He still totally could have died in the farmhouse,” Shane grumbled. “I’m not convinced from one bloodstain,” He crossed his arms and gave me an agitated look.

There is something I found suspicious about the farmhouse, after all…

CLEAN FARMHOUSE

“I GOT IT!”

“Sam dying in the fountain makes a lot of stuff make way more sense,” I began. “Like how the farmhouse was completely clean even though there had to be some kind of struggle-”

“ARE YOU DRUNK OR SOMETHING!?”

“What!?” I grasped as I raised an eyebrow at Shane’s sudden interjection.

“What you’re makes no damn sense!” The man declared loudly.

“If you’d give me a minute to explain-”

“You’ve talked enough,” Shane rolled his eyes in annoyance.

REBUTTAL SHOWDOWN

CLAIRE VS SHANE

FIGHT!!!

“I know damn well that Sam had to die in the farmhouse!”

“So what if he could’ve been drowned in the fountain?”

“It’s just as likely that he was drowned in the sink!”

“But what about the bloodstain on the fountain?”

“Doesn’t that prove that Sam was at least attacked there?”

“There could’ve been a bloodstain in the farmhouse…”

“The sink would’ve washed it away!”

“And you say that there’s no evidence of a fight at the farmhouse…”

“But I doubt there was evidence of that at the fountain either!”

MARKED FOUNTAIN

“I’LL CUT THROUGH YOUR ARGUMENT!”

“But there was evidence of a struggle at the fountain!” I interjected myself.

“Really?” Shane raised an eyebrow above his tired eye. “Why didn’t you tell us earlier!?”

“I tried to,” I said with a deep, irritated sigh. “There were scratch marks on the rim of the fountain, a result of Sam attempting to fight back as he was being drowned,”

“A-And water wouldn’t have been able to wash away any scratch marks in the farmhouse,” Sophia said with a smile and a nod. “So the fact that it was clean minus the water means that Sam couldn’t have died there,”

“Oh… I guess that makes sense,” Shane let out a groan. “Thanks…”

“You’re welcome,” I nodded.

“I suppose that confirms it, only someone in the north group could have killed Sam,” Emily shook her head dejectedly as she let out a deep sigh. “That’s… so horrible to think about,”

“Someone took advantage of your plan to bring us together,” Victor said with a sigh of his own. “That’s what makes the most sense,”

“What an asshole…” Haley grumbled, so low that only I was able to hear it.

“Well, at last we have narrowed down our list of suspects to a mere four people: Haley, Emily, Clint and Alex,” Elliott nodded his head with a smirk. “Among those four is the killer in our midst,”

“Well it’s not me, not Emily either!” Haley said.

“It’s not me!” Alex shouted.

“I don’t think any of are just gonna suddenly admit to a murder…” Clint mumbled. “We need more evidence…”

“Does anyone in the north have an alibi?” Penny asked.

Do they?

EMILY’S ACCOUNT

“I GOT IT!”

“As far as I’m aware, all four of you were split up at the time of the murder, right Emily?” I asked the blue haired woman.

“That is what I said,” The woman shook her head. “We shouldn’t have split up,”

“Maybe you wanted your group to,” Shane glared all accusatory at the seamstress, everyone gave him a look, the most hateful of all being Haley. “You planned out this whole investigation thing, and I imagine you suggested splitting up to your group?”

“Yeah, she did!” Alex said, pointing at Emily, who had begun to shake and sweat a little.

“I-I would never, I promise it’s just a coincidence!” Emily yelped and raised her hands in surrender. “I didn’t kill Sam, I didn’t plan this out to cause a murder!” Emily said desperately.

“I-It doesn’t look great, but… I don’t think she did it…” Sophia mumbled.

“Emily’s not that kind of person,” Clint defended.

And I believe there’s something that proves Emily’s innocence at the very least.

NONSTOP DEBATE

“You have to believe me, please!” Emily yelped.

“You were all separated,” Victor said. “That’s gonna look bad no matter what,”

“That’s why you all thought I was the killer,” Sebastian said quietly.

“Emily wasn’t even near the fountain,” Haley suddenly blurted out. “She decided to explore that part of the path that leads into a mountain, dumbass!”

“You don’t know that for real, though,” Alex shook his head. “She coulda just left for the fountain after she thought Sam was there,”

Emily began to mumble. “M-Maybe someone saw me? I promise you all I’m not the killer!”

CLINT’S ACCOUNT

“I AGREE WITH THAT!”

“Hey, Clint. You said you saw Emily while you were exploring, right?” I said.

“Ah!” Clint gasped, before soon nodding quietly. “Yeah… I was wandering around the north and saw Emily exploring the mountains as she said…”

“Did you see the guy who killed Sam?” Shane glared at the blacksmith.

Clint shook his head. “Body discovery announcement rang out when I was halfway across the north, didn’t see anything…”

“Well, Emily’s innocent,” Haley sighed. “Mainly because Mr. scraggly neckbeard over here is kinda sorta stalking her. I guess that was good for something,”

“I like my beard…” Clint mumbled as he touched the hair on his chin. “A-And I wasn’t-”

“Haley he wasn’t-” Emily let out a guttural sigh. “I probably should have told him to do that all thing considered. Someone watching over all of us would’ve prevented this,”

“Uh… thanks…” Clint mumbled.

“Well, if Clint didn’t see anyone else that means there’s only two culprits,” Maru said.

“Haley or Alex,” I said with a nod. “You’re the only two people who could have done it,”

“Well it’s not me,” Haley rolled her eyes, confident that we believed her.

“Can’t be me either!” Alex yelled. “It’s definitely Haley, she’s way more suspicious than me!”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Haley quirked an eyebrow at the athlete’s sudden yelling. “You’ve been throwing around a lot of bullshit in this trial, if anything it’s you!” She pointed.

“Baseless accusations aren’t gonna get us anywhere,” Penny said. “Please calm down you two,”

“Our lives depend on this, nerdy chick!” Alex said, Penny let out an offended gasp. “It can only be Haley!”

“Well he’s not doing himself any favours…” Abigail mumbled under her breath.

“What even makes Haley more suspicious besides her being the only other option?” Victor shrugged with a frustrated look on his face.

He probably didn’t even think about this, but I should give him the benefit of the doubt…

KILLING GAME FAMILY RULE

“IS THIS IT?”

“Alex, are you talking about that rule that MonoMo established?” I asked.

Alex gave a panicked, rough nod. “Haley’s got no reason to not kill someone, her sister’s gonna be completely fine-”

“You don’t have a reason to not kill someone either, dumbass,” Haley sneered as she spoke. She then stared down Alex with a hateful look in her blue eyes. “That’d only be good evidence if I was already suspicious, besides, I’m not the one babbling and throwing out whatever bullshit my lack of a brain can think of to make someone else look bad…”

“Yeah, Alex. That rule doesn’t make Haley more or less suspicious,” I add, the man lets out a frustrated gasp at what I said. “Besides, we have other topics to discuss,”

“The hell!? Like what!?” Alex shouted.

What aspect of the case have we yet to discuss?

T R A V E L

“IT MAKES SENSE!”

“We haven’t discussed how the culprit got from the north to the farm,” I began. “If we figure that out, we’ll be able to get a new perspective on this whole case,”

“They went through the overgrowth, that’s pretty obvious,” Leah shrugged. “How’s that meant to be relevant?”

“The overgrowth is the only way to get to the farm from the north, yeah,” Abigail nodded, then smiled at me. “Maybe it’s something related to that?”

It is, but… I’m struggling to put my finger on what specifically it is…

“I GOT’CHA CLAIRE!”

Abigail interjected, her eyes glowing brightly as she spoke. “I think I can help you out, Claire!”

“Huh?” I turned my head in confusion at the sudden interjected.

“If we discuss this together, we’ll figure out the culprit soon enough!”

COLLABORATIVE CRAFTING:

CLAIRE & ABIGAIL

GO!!!

“First off, the only way to get to the farm from the northern part of the town is through…”

“The overgrowth between the two areas,”

“THAT’S IT!”

“The only problem with that, is that going through there made it pretty obvious that you’d been there…”

“You’d get scratched up by, or covered in the overgrowth,”

“ALMOST THERE!”

“So, in order to go through there undetected…”

“The murderer would need to use something as cover against the elements,”

“WE’VE GOT AN ANSWER!”

“Claire and I have figured out the last piece of evidence we need to discover the culprit!” Abigail proudly declared as she pointed at me. “Take it away!”

“What!?” Alex shouted.

“Finally…” Haley rolled her eyes.

“It’s nothing that grand, but it should eventually lead us to an answer,” I said as everyone looked at me with bated breath. “The only way between the farm and the north was that patch of overgrowth between the two,”

“We have established that, have we not?” Elliott turned his head curiously.

“Quit telling us stuff we already know!” Alex yelled again, more aggressive this time.

“I’m getting to the new information,” I reminded. “The overgrowth, while traversable would cause you to be covered in overgrowth and thorns,” I explained.

“So the killer went through there…” Penny nodded. “Wait, we never saw anyone with any kind of shrubbery or dirt on them, did we?”

No, we didn’t, but I know that there’s a way to explain that…

NONSTOP DEBATE

“We never saw anyone with shrubbery on them,” Penny affirmed. “At least, as far as I’m aware,”

“Everyone was pretty clean,” Abigail shrugged.

“Maybe their soul rejected the shrubbery?” Emily suggested, only sounding mildly insane.

Haley rolled her eyes. “Don’t go all spiritual on us, Em,”

“Soul bullshit or not, there’s no way they just magically got the grass and shit off of them!” Alex’s voice sounded more and more shouty by the minute. “They wouldn’t have been able to cover themselves with anything, we would have found that!”

SAM’S TORN JACKET

“NO, THAT’S WRONG!”

“The culprit did use something to shield themselves from the shrubbery, and I know exactly what it was too,” I said as I stared down Alex, the man sweating. “They used Sam’s body as a shield against the elements,”

“They d-did that!?” Penny yelped.

“That’s so… eugh,” Maru gagged.

“It makes sense though, his jacket was torn to hell and still covered in leaves,” Sebastian nodded.

Abigail let out a groan. “I thought it was just mess left over from running through the forest, jeez, brutal stuff,”

“It is… depressing to think about, but with it in mind. I think I’ve found a way to discover the

culprit-”

“ME: ONE! YOU: ZERO!”

I am getting really sick of being interrupted. “Alex, what do you want?”

“I wanna show you how damn wrong you are!” Alex shouted accusatorily at me. “The culprit didn’t use Sam’s body as a shield, that’s dumb!”

“It’s the only thing that makes sense,” I rolled my eyes. He’s being dense, guess I gotta prove it to him before I can move on.

REBUTTAL SHOWDOWN

CLAIRE VS ALEX

FIGHT!!!

“Culprit didn’t use Sam’s body as a shield!”

“Such a gross thing to do, anyway!”

“What would even be the point of that!?”

“To… hide the fact that they were walking through the shrubbery?”

“Are you even listening at all?”

“Of course I’m listening!”

“That’s why I know you’re wrong, cause I’ve been paying attention!”

“The reason that Sam’s body couldn’t have been used as a shield…”

“Is cause if it was, there’d be evidence of that at the overgrowth!”

BLUE FABRIC

“I’LL CUT THROUGH YOUR ARGUMENT!”

“There was evidence left behind at the overgrowth!” I argued, getting more frustrated by the minute. “Abigail and I discovered blue fabric stuck to a sharp part of the overgrowth… the same fabric on Sam’s jacket,”

“W-Well, then how did they cover themselves when they were getting back from the farm!?” Alex crossed his arms as he blurted out his statement. “Sam’s body was in the farmhouse, if anything that makes Sebastian look suspicious again!”

“Why would I… go through the overgrowth to drown him… and then go back through it to bring him to the farmhouse?” Sebastian let out a deep sigh. “That’s dumb, even for something you thought up,”

“SH-SHUT UP! ANSWER MY QUESTION!”

…

I know exactly what they’d need to cross the overgrowth without getting covered in green while going back to the north.

COVER

“I GOT IT!”

“Well, they’d need to use something as a cloak, then. Something they could easily throw away without much suspicion,” I said.

Alex suddenly completely froze up, his eyes widened like a deer in headlights.

Everyone paused, we all paused and looked directly at the athlete before I broke the silence with a sigh. “I think I know who the culprit is…”

WHO IS THE CULPRIT?

ALEX

“YOU’RE THE ONLY ONE!”

“Alex, I believe that you’re the only one who could’ve killed Sam,” I declared.

“WH-WHAT!? THE FUCK ARE YOU TRYING TO SAY!?” Alex’s yelling reached an ear piercing volume, and a tone of pure fear as I accused him.

“That does feel right,” Penny looked deep in thought. “But how can we say for sure?”

“Do we really gotta? It’s soo obvious,” Haley rolled her eyes and waved her hand around. “Let’s just vote already,”

“I’m down for that,” Shane said. “Get this over with quick,”

“W-Well, give him a chance to defend himself,” Sophia mumbled half heartedly.

“That’s right,” Victor nodded. “We can’t rush into this, we need to consider every possibility,”

“It does make this a tad more interesting,” Elliott shrugged.

“Not the word I’d use, but alright,” Leah shrugged back.

I gave the panicking Gridball Player a look. “If you have any objections, let us know-”

“OF COURSE I OBJECT!” Alex yelled, completely breaking his stunned, fearful silence. “YOUR WHOLE THEORY IS A BUNCH OF BULLSHIT!”

“You say that, but… you’re not really defending yourself,” Emily said. “If you have any evidence, we’d love to hear it,”

“I DON’T NEED EVIDENCE, ALL YOUR ARGUMENTS ARE JUST A BUNCH OF STUPID THEORIES!”

He’s not listening to reason. I need to wait until he calms down and present him with the last bit of evidence that’ll get him to admit to his crime…

PANIC TALK ACTION

ALEX MULLNER

GO!!!

“IT’S ALL A BUNCH OF BULLSHIT!”

“YOU’RE JUST SHOUTING THEORIES!”

“THERE’S NO SOLID PROOF THAT I WAS EVEN THERE!”

“WHAT ABOUT HALEY? SHE’S STILL SUSPICIOUS!”

“WHY AREN’T WE QUESTIONING HALEY!?

“ANYONE COULD’VE GONE THROUGH THERE!”

“SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP!”

“YOU’RE NEVER GONNA PROVE IT!”

“I WANT EVIDENCE, GIVE ME EVIDENCE!”

The man seemed to finally calm down, breathing heavily in and out as he finally thought of a real rebuttal…

“What did the culprit even use to shield themselves!?”

MISSING JACKET

“THIS IS THE END!”

“DAMMIT!” Alex let out a loud, pained shout as I showed off the smoking gun.

“You weren’t wearing your jacket when we discovered Sam’s body, were you Alex?” I said firmly to the man, making him once again freeze in place.

“That’s why it was missing, cause he used it to get away with killing Sam!” Haley nodded slowly as she glared at Alex with an obviously fake smile.

“Is this true, Alex?” Victor asked.

“His silence speaks volumes…” Elliott said with a glare.

“I-I still won’t believe it,” Alex grunted. “I want you to tell the entire story of this murder, one contradiction, and I’m not saying shit!”

“Really?” Shane groaned. “Can we just vote for this clown already?”

“No, I’ll do it,” I said. “If it’s what I need to do to make this easier, then I’ll do it…”

“HERE’S EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENED IN THIS CASE!”

ACT 1:

“This whole case starts with Emily’s announcement of us investigating parts of the town for an exit, while most of us intended to follow her instructions…”

“One of us, the culprit planned to use it as an opportunity to commit a murder, I presume long after the event had been planned they sent a letter to their victim of choice, Sam…”

“We don’t know what was in the letter, but it was presumably an invitation to talk at the fountain…”

ACT 2:

“The next day, we all split up into groups and explored different parts of the town, while my group was exploring the farm, Sam decided to split off from us to go to the farmhouse…”

“Looking back on it, this was our last chance to save him, but… there’s no point in dwelling on that…”

“Once Sam reached the farmhouse, he wandered off into the overgrowth to meet up with the culprit at the fountain, not knowing that he had been tricked into participating in his own murder…”

ACT 3:

“At this point, everyone in the north group was split up, meaning that the culprit could do what they wanted to do with no witnesses…”

“They grabbed Sam by the neck, and slammed his chest first into the fountain to drown him…”

“He tried to fight back, creating scratch marks around the fountain, but eventually he succumbed…”

ACT 4:

“They soon carried Sam’s body through the overgrowth between the north and the farm, using it as a shield to avoid drawing suspicion to them, and to ensure that people thought that Sam had died in the farmhouse…”

“The culprit put Sam’s body on the ground, and began to overflow the sink in order to make it look like Sam had drowned there… they also used it to dispose of the torn up remains of the note…”

“But as they were leaving the farm, they realised that they had made a fatal mistake, the culprit had forgotten to have anything to cover them on their way back to the north. Out of options, they ended up having to use and then discard their jacket in order to not end up covered in shrubbery…”

“This mistake was vital in finding the culprit, Alex Mullner. You’re the one who killed our friend, right?”

“That’s everything, are you ready to admit it, Alex?” I glared at the man, who was staring at the floor in fear.

“I-I… yeah, yeah I am…” He mumbled.

“Why!?” Before any of us could question him, Abigail blurted out the question. “Why Sam!? Why do this at all!?”

“I-I had a gridball tournament, my team n-needed me-”

“That’s such a fucking lie, Alex,” Haley’s face bore a sadistic smirk as she spoke, her voice hushed and spiteful.

“Huh?”

“I hate liars,” Haley declared as she pulled a device from behind her back, one of the motive videos, the one labelled “ALEX MULLNER,”

“H-Haley-”

“Shhhhhh!” Haley shushes the entire, shocked courtroom as she started the video.

“Alex Mullner, the greatest gridball prodigy ever seen in the last hundred years!” MonoMo began. “Or at least, that’s what his team thinks!”

“And no one has supported him more than his poor, poor Grandparents,” The creature said sadistically, as two grey haired elderly people appeared on the screen, a sweet old lady with her grey hair in a pretty bun and an old, balding man in a wheelchair.

“Alex, I’m so happy to see you make something of yourself,” The man let out a cough as he spoke.

“We just hope you’ll make it back in time to see us again,” The little old lady said. “We want to see you soon, Alex,”

“Don’t forget about us, Alex,” The old man said with a stern look.

“Alex’s poor grandparents, so old that you probably need to hire a caretaker for them… that’ll be easy as pie once you get out of here though, right?”

We all stared in shock at the smirking photographer, but no one looked more terrified than Alex, tears in the eyes of his frozen, pale face.

“Wh-What the fuck!?” Emily shouted. “How did you even get that!?”

“Stole it,” Haley shrugged at her pissed looking sister. “I had a feeling he’d try something like this, so I took it so he couldn’t lie his face off,”

“Wh-”

“Alright, I’m bored now!” MonoMo shouted. “It is now v-v-voting time!”

A screen lit up at the front of all of our stands, giving us a simple prompt:

VOTE FOR THE KILLER:

ALEX MULLNER

…

DONE!

A large screen slowly lowered from the centre of the circle as we quickly finished voting, showing us a simple graphic:

WHO WAS THE CULPRIT?

ALEX MULLNER: 15/16

“Now then, did you make the right choice, or the dreadfully wrong one!?” MonoMo let out a sick laugh. “Let’s see!”

***WHO IS THE KILLER?***

…

…

|ALEX|ALEX|ALEX|

CORRECT!

“Ding ding ding! You all voted 100% correctamundo!” MonoMo cheered in his sadistic tone. “Even Alex voted for himself, whatever you did must have really convinced him,”

I couldn’t even say anything. I at a loss for words and was too busy between glaring at MonoMo and then at Haley for her little stunt…

“Now for the punishment phase!” MonoMo said with a sick smile… I hadn’t even thought about that in full. There would be an execution for Alex, I had voted to send the man to his death,”

“No, wait!” Alex begged and screamed with tears in his eyes. “I-I PANICKED, PLEASE. I JUST WANTED TO SEE MY GRANDPARENTS BEFORE THEY K-KICKED IT, PLEASE!”

It was a terrifying scene. A once confident, hell, overconfident man begging on his knees for mercy from something we know wouldn’t listen.

“That’s now how it works, kiddo!” The creature warned, then giggled. “Now then, I’ve prepared a very special punishment for the Ultimate Gridball Player, Alex Mullner,”

“NO, NO PLEASE!”

“Let’s give it everything we’ve got, it’s punishment time!”

“NOOOOOOOOO!”

MonoMo ignored the despairful please, and slammed a gavel into a button that appeared before him.

G A M E O V E R

ALEX HAS BEEN FOUND GUILTY

TIME FOR THE PUNISHMENT!

Alex stood back up and stared around the trial room in despair, we all looked back, too busy worrying about what would happen next to focus on even breathing…

A collar soon clamped around his neck, attached to a chain leading to a door on the far side of the trial room… Alex reached his hand out to Haley as it began to move backwards, but Haley ignored him.

Alex was dragged through the door, and down a hallway by his neck, choking him as his lower half slammed against the metal floor.

He eventually found himself dragged into what looked like a grand gridball stadium. Complete with pews filled with clones of MonoMo wearing shirts with Alex’s face proudly emblazoned on them. As Alex landed on the fake grass the collar detached himself, the sun hit him directly in the eyes.

MonoMo, dressed in the uniform of a referee appeared in front of Alex, and soon blew a whistle with one hand…

ACL DISASTER!

Ultimate Gridball Player

Alex Mullner’s Execution: Executed

MonoMo threw a gridball made out of metal at Alex, he caught it easily and dropped it onto the floor. The creature then threw another, Alex caught another.

Another

Another

Another until an audience member tossed one of the metal gridballs at the back of Alex’s knee.

The man let out a scream of pain, we all heard the loud snapping of his ACL tearing. Alex clutched his knee in pain as-

WHAM

Another metal gridball hit him right in the ankle, shattering it to pieces too. Alex looked up in horror at MonoMo, the crowd began to boo at him, all of them throwing the metal at him.

Each one hit him, tore of chunk after chunk of his flesh and eventually bludgeoned him into a bloody pulp…

We all stared on in horror at the execution… nothing we had ever seen before could even compare… and hopefully, we’d never need to see anything like it again…

“Wh-What the fuck just happened!?” Abigail broke the terrified silence between all of us with a scream.

“KYAHHHHHHH!” Sophia also screamed.

“I-I didn’t think, oh Yoba,” Emily prayed to herself.

“Extreme! Extreme!” MonoMo cheered. “Oh, I haven’t done that in too long!”

“Too long?” Elliott looked deep in thought, though no less terrified than the rest of us.

“I-I didn’t think I was voting for that!” Leah shouted.

“The hell is wrong with you!?” Shane shouted at the creature.

MonoMo simply smirked in response. “Oh, don’t give me that. You’re the one who voted for him!”

“W-We would’ve died if we didn’t!” Penny yelped. “You forced us to do that!”

“Maybe he should’ve thought about what he was doing, then,” MonoMo shrugged.

“M-May he rest in peace,” Maru let out a shaky breath as she spoke.

“How’s he gonna rest in peace after that!” Sebastian said.

“I- none of us know that,” Harvey shook his head. “We can only hope…”

“Hard to have that now…” Clint mumbled, his eyes wide and still staring at the now black screen.

Haley was also staring, smug smirk wiped from her face. She looked… almost scared to an extent?

“I-I…” The words kept disappearing in my throat, what was there even to say at this point?

Alex was dead, executed. We had to see his final despairful moments while only being able to watch powerlessly…

I felt my ears ring as MonoMo gave us the instruction to go back to our rooms… with nothing else to say, we all did as told…

I didn’t talk to anyone on my way back to the general store, Abigail and I went to our separate rooms, I collapsed in my bed trying desperately to get the look of fear and despair on Alex’s face out of my head…

YOU FOUND A GIFT:

PRIZED GRIDBALL

END OF CHAPTER 1: CHAMPION OF PELICAN TOWN

Chapter Text

DING DONG BING BONG

“Good morning everyone! I have a special announcement to make… but I’m not gonna tell you until later. Upupupu!”

I didn’t have the energy to be frustrated with MonoMo, hell, I barely had the energy to get myself out of bed after all that happened yesterday…

The death of Sam…

The first trial…

And me leading Alex to his death, I understand that he knew what would happen if he failed to get away with his murder, but… I don’t think even he knew that that would happen…

In a poor attempt to get my mind off of it, I walked towards the saloon… I was hungry anyway.

---

The whole saloon, once a warm and comforting place was practically dead silent. Tension hung in the air, thick enough to suffocate the entire room… I took a seat next to Abigail, the usually energetic girl looked like she hadn’t slept. No one had slept well, I don’t think anyone could.

Even Emily was quiet, I looked over to see her staring into her lap, what I could see of her face was dark and tired, but not as much as the rest of the crowd in the saloon. Haley sat next to her and looked as if she was trying to look at literally anything but her sister.

For some reason, I expected him to be sitting here, greeting me with his usual smile… but then reality hit as I stared intensely at the empty seat where he would’ve been… Sebastian was staring at it too…

“Hey,” Abigail called out quietly to me, I let out a small gasp as I looked at her. “Sorry for startling you, you okay?”

“I’m… fine…” I mumbled. “I think… we’re all pretty shaken up,”

“No one’s talking,” Abigail mumbled. “At least, not loud enough to make up the usual amount of noise in here,”

“I’m also here, I can tell…” I mumbled back, we both sat in silence.

“Hey everyone!” Emily suddenly called out from the middle of the room, her smile, though faded was still bright as the sun and had managed to loosen the tension by just a touch. We were still suffocating, but we were suffocating just a tad less. “How are we all doing today?”

Elliott spoke after her. “I suppose… to be honest, we are all quite shaken up from yesterday,”

“Who wouldn’t be?” Victor let out a small sigh.

“I… didn’t sleep very well last night…” Sophia admitted with a yawn and a sigh.

“Same here…” Clint mumbled.

“None of us have,” Shane grumbled. “Not after yesterday,”

“Yeah, yeah that makes sense,” Emily nodded. “MonoMo, and whoever’s running this killing game wants us to either forget about Alex and Sam, or completely shut down in reaction to their deaths,”

The saloon went even more silent at the direct mention of their names, something the rest of us weren’t able to do.

“But I think together, we can honour their memories. We can use empathy to push the darkness out of our hearts that MonoMo is trying to force onto us!” The blue haired woman gave a confident smile, the rest of us smiled back, or at the very least didn’t say anything negative.

“Why should we honour Alex?” We all turned towards the sound of the grumbled complaint, Haley, looking scornfully at her blue haired sister.

“He was still a person, Haley,” Emily scolded. “He had his reasons for-”

“Trying to kill us all?” Haley stood up from her seat. “Cause that’s what he did, he beat and drowned a guy we all liked and then tried to kill the rest of us… all cause he wanted to see his gwandpawents again!” Haley said that last part in a mocking, babyish tone. Her scorn as clear as day through the intense look on her face. “Sam was cool, sure, but Alex was a creepy fucking meatheaded murderer!”

“Haley, calm-”

But before Emily could get another word in, Haley had already slammed the door to the saloon behind her. We all stared at the door… just as MonoMo burst through the door.

“Upupupu… why are you guys so shocked looking?” MonoMo looked confusedly around the room. “Is it cause of the blondie throwing a hissy fit? Cause she does that sometimes!”

“What do you want?” I peeled my eyes at the apple shaped creature.

“Jeez, so aggressive,” MonoMo sighed. “I just wanted to let you all know that I finally got around to repairing the south bridge, the one that leads to the beach!”

“There… was not a bridge there before last I checked,” Harvey said.

“Welp, there is now!” MonoMo cheered. “So get exploring, exploring, exploring!”

With that, the host of the killing game left us dumbfounded in the saloon.

“You guys go on ahead,” Emily said with a small smile. “I need to talk to Haley,”

“Like hell you do…” Shane grumbled under his breath as the blue haired woman walked out of the room.

“You were acting like her just yesterday,” Sebastian muttered under his breath, I could only hear it because we were at the same table.

“A new place to explore would be nice,” Victor said.

“Plus it’s a beach, I always get inspiration there pretty easily!” Leah smiled.

“It’d be nice to get out in the sun…” Penny mumbled.

Elliott let out a dreamy sigh. “Ah, to sleep next to the waves would be a delight~”

“You’re acting like MonoMo’s gonna let you build a house there,” Clint mumbled.

“Who’s to say there isn’t already one?” Elliott chuckled as he stood up to leave the saloon.

“Weirdo…” Sebastian grumbled.

“Don’t be mean!” Maru chastised.

The programmer sighed and rolled his eyes.

Soon we all followed suit with Elliott and poured out of the saloon. Abigail elected to follow me.

---

As MonoMo had promised, there was a bridge allowing us to cross the river in the south, leading to a forking path behind a set of two signs.

BLUE MOON VINEYARD

BEACH

“A Vineyard?” Abigail puffed out her lips a tad as she investigated the sign.

“That’s quite odd… though, there are already buildings that seem like they were built for the other people here,” I explained.

“Like the ranch!” Abigail nodded.

“Yes, like the ranch, and also the clinic,”

“Maybe this place was made for us then?” Abigail shrugged.

“That’s…” I put a hand to my chin. “Why would they build a place just for us to kill eacother?”

“I guess that’s a fair point,” Abigail sighed, upset that her theory was probably wrong. “I’ll come up with a new theory later, then. Let’s go to the beach!”

The adventurer suddenly dashed ahead of me, I let out a sigh and walked after her. I don’t know how she has that much energy.

---

The beach was roughly what I expected from a beach. A large field of golden sand with gentle waves from the ocean crashing against it. Wooden docks jutted out of the sand and into the ocean, there was what seemed like a fishing supplies store on the docks, there was a wooden bridge on the east side of the beach leading to a group of tide pools, and most curious of all was a cabin.

“Hmmm a cabin…” Elliott mused from behind me, scaring the ever loving shit out of me as I let out a small yelp.

“I really need to start seeing that coming,” I let out a sigh as Elliott lets out his usual, curious sounding chuckle.

“Perhaps you do,” Elliott gave a wry smile as he sauntered his way over to the cabin. “A romantic cabin on the beach, exactly what I need here,”

It’s strange that he was right about that… I shrugged and elected to explore it later as I went to go find Abby again as Elliott entered what was probably going to end up being his new home for the time being…

“Heya Claire!” Abigail gave me a wide, lopsided smile and a wave as I found her sitting on the edge of the docks, huffing a little. “There’s not much on the beach itself, it’s just a beach,”

“I can also see that,” I smiled as I looked around the docks, Penny and Maru were also sitting around looking out into the ocean, occasionally turning to talk to eachother. Maru eventually turned to me, a bright smile already on her face. “Hey Claire, Abby!”

Penny turned around too. “Oh, hello there you two,”

“Hiya!” Abigail cheered as she stood up and walked over to the two. “What are you two doing?”

Penny suddenly blushed. “Ah, well um…”

“We were exploring and got uhh… caught up looking out into the ocean,” Maru nodded feverishly. “Yeah, it’s uhh… pretty this time of year,”

“Whatever time of year it is right now,” Penny added with a small giggle.

“It is a pretty nice beach, sucks that we’re seeing it while we’re in this whole situation,” I said with a nod. “I’m going to explore the fishing shop, see if there’s anything in there,”

“I assume it’s just fishing gear, I’ll stay out here!” Abigail smiled at me, I nod and walked into the salty smelling building.

---

It was cluttered with shelves lined with fishing rods, lures and all kinds of whatevers someone would need for fishing. The gross fishy smell that made me pull my shirt over my nose was coming from a freezer at one end of the store labelled “BAIT”.

No one was here though, so I decided to go back outside.

Abigail, Penny and Maru were all talking. Abby and Maru looking more excited than they did before. The purple haired woman glanced up at me.

“Hey Claire, could you do me a huge favour?” Abigail asked, I nodded to affirm. “Alright neat, Me and Maru are holding a sorta young people hangout thing at the arcade and I want you to go invite people!” The purple haired woman cheered.

“And you’re allowed to come too, obviously, even though you’re like 28,” Maru giggled, then was lightly jabbed in the side by an also giggling Penny.

“Ah, I was about to ask that,” I chuckled. “I’ll keep exploring, but if I come across Sophia or Victor, I’ll let them know,”

“Thank you!” Abigail cheered as I walked away from the peer. “Catch you later, alright?”

“See you soon!” I shouted back as I stepped back onto the soft, golden sand of the beach.

It made sense, at this point to enter the small cabin that Elliott had claimed for himself, so I did.

“Ah, hello Claire. I suppose you saw it fit to investigate my new home?” Elliott gave a smoulder as I walked into the cramped, yet homey wooded cabin. The entire cabin was one room, the most relevant features were a wooden single bed, grand piano and a table and chair with some writing implements scattered on it.

“Yes,” I nodded. “I’m planning on investigating the entirety of the new area allotted to us,”

“That’s a good thing, a great thing, even,” Elliott chuckled dramatically. “The more acquainted we are with our home, the better,”

I nodded. “You have a pretty nice place here, Elliott,”

“It is a cozy little abode… strange that I managed to guess that it’d be here,” Elliott put his hand to his chin. “It makes me think this place was perhaps… made for us?”

“I have thought about that before,” I said. “But… it’s improbable enough that whoever’s running this kidnapped all of us, building an entire town on top of that feels even weirder…”

Elliott nodded with a smirk. “I suppose, I suppose,”

With that I left the cabin for the final part of the beach, across a rickety wooden bridge that I swear to Yoba would collapse under me and end up with me getting absolutely soaked was a group of tide pools on a separate section of the beach. More importantly was Leah standing there, staring intensely at the pools in front of her, sitting on the sand and sketching in a small notebook.

“Hm?” Leah hummed as she faced me. “Oh, hey Claire, what are you doing here?”

“Exploring,” I said. “Are you drawing? I thought you were just a sculptor,”

“Well… sorta,” Leah shrugged. “I need to sketch what I’m gonna sculpt beforehand, so I… y’know have any idea what I’m doing,”

“That… makes sense, my question was a little dumb, huh?” I chuckled, Leah chuckled back.

“A little… this place is really pretty looking,” Leah said as she looked around the tide pools, mainly focusing on the coral and urchins that had already washed up here. “I’m one hundred percent going to sculpt some of the stuff here,”

“That sounds like fun,” I smile as I wave goodbye to Leah, she waves back and leave the tide pools, and eventually leave the beach to the forked path of the south of the town.

I headed down the path to Blue Moon Vineyard, still a touch confused as to why there was a Vineyard here of all things… maybe this place was made for us?

No, that still feels like a stretch.

I find myself on the outside of the blue moon vineyard, it was a large plot of land with… well vines with grapes growing on them. A path had been cut in the middle of the large plot of farmland that lead to a somewhat more modest house, with nothing else to do here I decided to enter the house…

“Eep! Uh- I mean hello!” Sophia yelped from the fluffy looking couch she and Victor were sitting on, an anime turned on the tv they were both watching.

“Didn’t expect to see anyone else here,” Victor chuckled. “We thought you already explored this place,”

“Well, I haven’t yet,” I shrugged as I looked around the pretty standard looking house. “It seems like any other house here, minus the vineyard outside,”

“And the cellar!” Sophia added. “There’s already wine in there too, ready to drink,”

“Oh that’ll be good for the party thing that Abigail wants to hold,” I blurted out.

Victor blinked, then let out a chuckle. “Is… that how she asked you to invite us?”

“A-A party, a-and they want my wine!?” Sophia beamed. “Well… not mine, but still…”

“I’m sure you’d be better at appreciating it,” I shrugged with a smile.

“Yeah,” Victor nodded. “When’s this party starting, anyway?”

I put a hand to my chin, and then shrugged. “Abby never told me, we should probably head off now though,”

“I-I’ll probably be a little late, gotta carry the wine there and-”

“I’ll help,” I reassured with a smile, Sophia smiled back at me.

Victor soon left Sophia’s house for the saloon, waving us goodbye as he did.

“Th-Thanks for helping me out Claire. We probably won’t need much, but it’d be hard to carry a lot of wine on my own,” Sophia said earnestly as she led me to the dark cellar, the wooded room being bare minus the lines upon lines of casks and kegs used to make the wine, and shelves stacked with bottles of the alcohol.

“It’s really nothing,” I said as the pink haired girl pulled a crate off of one of the shelves, she begin gently placing a few bottles of wine in there.

“It’s still helpful!” Sophia pouted a little, then smiled. “Alright, now’s the k-kinda annoying part,”

She went to one side of the full crate, and grabbed on the bottom of her side, I took the other side and together we heaved the crate of wine into the air, grunting as we did so…

---

“I-I feel like we should have packed less wine…” Sophia grunted, nearly out of breath as we heaved the crate through town square, inching closer to the saloon.

“The more you slow down the worse it’ll be,” I said, having less difficulty than Sophia was. “I had to carry stuff a lot back at JojaMart, I’m probably more used to this than you,”

Sophia froze for a moment at the mention of Joja, but she shook herself out of the brief haze. “That… sounds annoying,”

“It was,” I nodded as we finally reached the front door of the saloon.

Everyone in the saloon, which was Abigail, Sebastian, Victor, Maru and Penny were already gathered around the arcade section of the building, watching Abigail play something on an arcade labelled “Journey of the Prairie King”

“Aughh, lost again!” Abigail groaned as an incredibly annoying jingle played from the arcade machine.

“I told ya, I’m way better at this than you,” Victor chuckled as Abigail grumbled and moved out of the way so he could play the machine.

The purple haired girl then turned her head towards us, jumped up a bit and practically bolted towards us to greet us.

“Hey, you’re a little late,” Abigail chuckled.

“A-Ah we’re very sorry!” Sophia yelped. “W-We were just bringing some wine over from my vineyard is all…”

“I don’t think she’s upset at you, Sophia,” I reassured.

“Woah, alcohol? Thanks a ton guys!” Abigail let out a chuckle as she opened the box. “I’ll get the glasses, you’ve improved this party a whole bunch!” And with that the Adventurer left for the backroom.

“I wouldn’t say so,” Penny mumbled under her breath as we walked towards the Arcade Area where everyone was hanging out. Sebastian was edgily stanced up against a wall, Victor was playing the arcade machine in front of him. Maru and Penny were playing pool at a pool table near the door to the backroom.

Sophia elected to go watch Victor play the arcade machine. I decided to walk up to Sebastian.

The programmer sighed. “What do you want?”

“Well that sure is a way to greet a friend,” I rolled my eyes at the man. “I’m surprised you’re even here,”

“Maru annoyed me into coming,” Sebastian explained, Maru gave us a brief smile before turning back to the game of pool she was very obviously losing.

“Sounds like it,” I chuckled, he chuckled back. “Have you drank before?”

“Well yeah, everyone has,” Sebastian said as Abigail brought out a bunch of wine glasses and set them down on a nearby table. “Shane’s the only one who’s drank since we got here, though,”

“How do you know that?” I quirked an eyebrow at the man.

“I hang outside here to be alone, he comes here about 8:00 PM to get hammered,” Sebastian shrugged. “I don’t really talk to him. He’s in and out pretty quickly,”

“I feel like this wouldn’t be the best place to be alone,” I said.

“It’s closed at night, so no one else visits around that time,” Sebastian rolled his eyes.

“Interesting… I’m gonna go drink now,” I said. “See you around Sebastian,”

Sebastian chuckled before returning to his usual neutral face. “Bye…”

“Heyyyy Claire-Claire-ey…” Abigail hiccuped as she wrapped a chubby arm around my shoulders. “How’re… what you doin?” She said drunkenly in a weird accent, probably a reference to something that I hadn’t seen.

I chuckled as I poured myself a glass of wine. “Not doing much right now… you’re very drunk, by the way,”

“Ugh, I told you it was noticable!” Abigail pouted at Maru, who only chuckled in response alongside Penny.

“We also told you that,” The ginger woman giggled.

“Oh yeah… well, stop being right!” Abigail crossed her arms.

“I’ll think about it,” Maru chuckled as she took a small sip of wine. “Oo, I’m normally pretty neutral on wine, but this is actually…” She took another sip. “Damn, this is really good,”

I took a sip of my own. “Yeah, this is some of the best I ever had,”

“It came from that vineyard, right?” Penny asked, I nodded in response. “And Sophia is the ultimate Vintner, maybe when they were kidnapping her they stole some of her wine too?”

“That’s prolly what happened…” Abigail giggled as she took another sip of wine. “Has… has anyone ever noticed how hot everyone who lives here is~?”

Penny blushed, Maru and I snorted. “What?”

“Oh… shit I said that out loud, huh?” Abigail hiccuped. “Oopsie~

“I… should take her back to her room,” I chuckled as Abigail continues to lean on me.

Maru yawns. “It is getting pretty late, this was pretty fun though!” The roboticist let out a sweet laugh. “Even if Sebby still ended up standing in a corner-”

“Oh my god, I forgot to talk to Sebastian!” The drunk Abigail suddenly launched herself out of my arms and towards the programmer, so fast that I was unable to catch her. She then proceeded to rapidly talk the poor man’s ear off.

“Ooo… I feel kinda bad for him,” Maru chuckled.

“She can be a handful…” Penny mumbled under her breath. “But… she’s a nice person, I’m sure!”

“She does snore kinda loudly,” I admitted. “I sleep in the general store with her, but other than that she’s a good roommate.

“Sounds like her,” Penny giggled, Maru smiled at her because they were somehow already dating by now… that was fast.

The party came to a close eventually, everyone waving eachother goodbye. I elected to carry the now passed out Abigail back to the general store, the crickets and the darkness signifying that it had become nighttime by the time we left the saloon…

On our way out, I felt someone tap me on the shoulder; turning around I could see that it was Sophia.

“Hey-”

“That was my wine…” The girl mumbled.

“What?” I quirked an eyebrow.

“The-The wine we drank just now, it was the exact same as the wine I’d make at my old vineyard,” Sophia clarified, looking somewhat fearful from the revelation.

“It wouldn’t be too farfetched to think whoever kidnapped us also stole your wine,” I said with an annoyed sigh, they would stoop that low, too.

“Oh, I at least hope they aren’t selling it,” Sophia mumbled. “Th-That wine was apart of my family for years, I wouldn’t want to lose it,”

“That’s fair,” I nodded, wondering if Sophia would be willing to- no, no don’t think like that. As far as I’m aware none of us are truly capable of murder…

Not after what we’ve seen…

“W-Well, that was all I had to say-” Sophia mumbled, even quieter than before. “Bye!” She blurted out, than ran off back to her vineyard before I could say goodbye back…

---

I eventually got the incredibly heavy Abigail to her bed, then returned to my own room, being sure to be as quiet as humanly possible to not wake the adventurer up…

I flopped onto my own bed and fell into my usual dreamless sleep as Abigail snored away in the room next to me…

Chapter Text

DING DONG BING BONG

“Good morning everyone, I hope you’re ready for a brand new day of killing, killing, killing!” MonoMo spoke with his annoying, cheerful tone. “And if you’ve noticed, everyone’s been given a very special item!”

I looked to my left and say the aforementioned “special item” of mine, it was a can of Joja Cola. I picked it up and noticed that it was way, way heavier than a can of Joja Cola would be… did MonoMo put rocks in this thing?

What’s even the point of this? I thought as I sorta just dropped the heavy can on the floor with a loud thud and left the room still confused about what the point of giving me an overly heavy can of mediocre cola was…

---

I entered the saloon, the mood of which was a lot better than yesterday. Loud and conversational as usual. I took my usual seat with Abigail’s group.

“Heya Claire!” The purple haired girl greeted me with her usual, wide smile, though with the smallest hint of guilt on her face. “Thanks for getting me home last night,”

“It was really nothing,” I said. “We’re friends, you were kinda heavy though,”

“Hey!” Abigail pouted, then chuckled. “I mean… you aren’t wrong,”

Maru suddenly turned from the conversation she was having with Penny and turned to me. “Good morning Claire, almost didn’t notice you there,”

“She’s too busy being bad at flirting with Penny,” Sebastian chuckled.

Penny blushed, Maru blushed harder and yelped. “Seb!”

The dark haired man shrugged with a smirk. “It’s true,” He said with a shrug.

Penny continued to turn redder and redder as the equally beet red Maru went silent and grumbled to herself.

CLINK CLINK CLINK

We all suddenly turned our heads to the sound of cups being loudly clinked together, the noise coming directly from Emily who was now standing up from her seat with Haley, looking more disinterested than upset today.

“Hello everyone, it’s great to see all of you in better spirits!” The blue haired woman gave us a wide smile. “We’ve all done so well since yesterday, however, I do have a question to ask,”

“And what’s that?” Elliott asked with a smile. “Does it perhaps have something to do with the objects we were given this morning?”

“It’s pretty obvious,” Sebastian muttered under his breath.

“You’re exactly right, I swear, it feels like you’re psychic sometimes!” Emily pointed at the Poet. “I know it’s probably nothing, but anything given by MonoMo should be discussed. I got a sewing needle, what did the rest of you get?”

“I got an axe,” Leah said. “Pretty murder-ey, ignoring what I do with wood this makes me think this is another motive,”

“I can an oddly heavy can of Joja Cola,” I added. “No idea why,”

“I-I got a wine bottle,” Sophia mumbled.

“Hammer,” Clint added quietly.

“I got a whole ass sword!” Abigail said, just a little screechy from excitement. “I mean… I already had one, but this one is different,”

“Maybe it’s meant to be a bunch of stuff we already have?” Haley shrugged. “Seems redundant,”

“This whole thing is redundant,” Shane grumbled. “I got a hard ass fake egg, by the way,”

“We all have something related to our talent,” Emily closed her eyes and nodded. “Perhaps this is-”

“A BRAND SPANKIN’ NEW MOTIVE!” Emily let out a yelp as MonoMo crashed onto the floor from the ceiling…

“Aughhh…” the creature groaned as it laid on its face. “Uhhhhhhh… I’m better now!” It said as it popped back up and flashed everyone its usual, sickening grin.

“What do you want?” I squinted my eyes at the creature.

“We’re all pretty sick of your shit by now,” Haley added. “Make this quick,”

“Ditto…” Shane grumbled.

MonoMo let out a sigh. “You’re all so mean… I was here to announce your next motive!”

“We’re not-”

MonoMo interrupted Leah as he continued to talk. “You have all been sent something, a reward for killing someone… with a twist!” The apple creature continued. “If you use the special item you’ve been given, you will be given the reward as promised!”

Out of curiosity I checked my Monopad, as did everyone else as far as I could tell:

MONOMO’S SUPER COOL REWARD MOTIVE!!!

CLAIRE HARPER’S REWARD FOR KILLING VIA THE ROCK FILLED JOJA COLA CAN IS…

AN INSTANT SCHOLARSHIP TO FERNGILL ACTING COLLEGE!!

That… is desirable, but not worth the life of a friend, or anyone’s life for that matter.

“Now-”

“It doesn’t matter,” Emily interrupted the host, staring disdainfully into the back of its apple shaped head.

“Doesn’t matter?” MonoMo turned around. “I spent a whole lotta money getting these prepared, missy!”

“We’re not gonna fall for your tricks MonoMo, we’re not stupid!” Emily shouted authoritatively at the apple creature. “And together, we’re going to end this stupid killing game,”

“I mean logically there’s fourteen of us, we could cover a lot of ground…” Victor added with a nod.

“A bunch a random junk isn’t gonna make us kill eachother more than we already would,” Shane mumbled in his attempt at adding to the generally good attitude across the room.

“Not… exactly what I’d say, but… I mostly agree,” Penny added nervously. “If we can work together, we can all escape together!”

“Yeah!” Maru cheered. “We’re totally screwing you up MonoMo!”

“UGHH!” The apple creature loudly complained. “You’re all so damn boring, and so generic!”

“It’s kinda cringe, yeah,” Haley shrugged. “But like, you’re gonna have to offer a lot more to get me to kill someone,”

“Haley!” Emily scolded.

“What? Everyone’s got a breaking point,”

“Not entirely wrong,” Sebastian added as he looked down at his Monopad. “Mine’s a lot more than this, it’s like you know nothing about us,”

“Dude!” Abigail whispered.

“Kind of a dark thought…” Sophia mumbled. “Eugh…”

“Ugh, you two are hopeless,” Emily sighed, then let out a small chuckle.

“Such a wonderful harmony you’ve instilled in us, dear Emily!” Elliott gave a deep chuckle. “My, you’ve got our captor practically fuming,”

“You kids make me sick with your power of friendship bullshit!” MonoMo pouted as he stomped out of the saloon. “I’m going to my room. Do NOT follow me!”

SLAM

…

“We weren’t gonna, dickwad,” Haley grumbled.

“Ugh, finally,” Leah sighed and rolled her eyes as she got up from her chair. “Thought he’d never leave,”

“Yes, yes. With his exit I can finally continue with my writing,” Elliott let out a dramatic sigh as he stood up.

Mostly everyone got up from their seats and left for… whatever they did after breakfast. We all left in a good mood, we were all united against this Killing Game, I thought as I stepped into the town square, sun hitting my skin…

With free time on my hands, I decide to go somewhere I’ve been neglecting for quite a bit, the forest near Leah’s cottage. It seemed like a nice place to relax anyhow, so I started the journey there as soon as I could…

---

“Hello Claire!” I jumped back a little, but not as much as I usually would’ve as I heart the bright voice of Emily calling out from behind me. I turn around to face the tall woman, and her shorter, more frustrated looking sister. “I didn’t expect to see you here!”

“Me neither,” I said with a nod. “What are you doing here in the forest… and how did you get Haley to come with you?”

“She wouldn’t stop annoying me!” The blonde girl pouted.

Emily tutted in dissaproval. “Elliott and I started an art club recently, and our first proper meeting is at Leah’s house!”

“Ah,” I nodded with a smile. “That sounds fun,”

“It is, you should totally come too!” Emily cheered.

“I… don’t really do art,” I want to, but acting is going to have to wait for awhile…

“I just know you have a creative spirit waiting to be unleashed!” Emily cheered as she grabbed me by the wrist. “It’ll be so much fun!”

“I uh…” Yoba, she’s intense. I suppose it would be nice to hang out with her though… she seems fun. “Sure, I’ll come,”

“Yay!” Emily cheered as Haley let out a small groan.

“Another person who I barely know, great…” Haley grumbled under her breath, quiet enough to the point that only I could hear.

We soon walked to Leah’s cozy cottage and opened the front door…

---

The cottage was just as cozy on the inside, wooden walls and practically only one room that held Leah’s bed which had what I assume was the axe she had given for her motive leaned against it, a small kitchenette and a dining area that consisted of a singular table with a small group of chairs.

Sitting on the chairs already was Leah at one end, Clint at the other end seemingly trying to not stare up at Emily, and Elliott sitting between them, who turned around to give us his usual smoulder.

“Hello you two, I didn’t know you would also be bringing along company!” Elliott chuckled.

“I still don’t get why I’m here…” Clint mumbled. “Blacksmithing is more work than art,”

“Nonsense, Clint,” The poet said dramatically. “Shaping metal into something unique, even creating something purely functional is an art form not often appreciated,”

“I mean it’s pretty similar to what I do,” Leah shrugged. “Just with metal instead of wood,”

“Yeah!” Emily cheered in agreement as we all took our seats around the table. The blue haired woman then went to face Clint. “You need to be more confident in what you do, Clint. I haven’t seen it, but it sounds very impressive!”

“I guess…” Clint mumbled. “I used to make swords for an Adventurer’s guild before I ended up here… that was kinda cool,”

“Oooooooooo, tell me all about it!” Emily beamed as Clint blushed and mumbled, the two spoke in their own little bubble for awhile.

“Ugh, I don’t even know why Emily dragged me here if she was just gonna chat up some weirdo,” Haley grumbled to herself as she laid her chin on the table.

“I mean, you’re the Ultimate Photographer,” I said. “You are quite literally an artist by definition,”

“The field of photography has always been fascinating to me, to take the world around us and document it in such a wondrous fashion~” Elliott said.

Haley rolled her eyes. “Thanks, but you said it weird. What I do is pretty impressive though, so I get it,”

“Well you’re confident at least,” Leah chuckled and rolled her eyes. “I uh… haven’t been doing the best with selling my art, was barely scraping by before I got here,” She admitted awkwardly, looking towards the table shamefully.

“Your stuff looks good,” Haley reassured. “Saw that statue outside, you probably just have no clue how to sell it. How about if we get out I tell you how to work a computer?”

“That would be… very nice, actually!” Leah let out a small chuckle alongside Haley.

“That’s shockingly nice of you to do, Haley,” I smiled at the blonde.

“Well that was backhanded,” Haley scoffed as she crossed her arms. “But I guess I can be kind of a bitch,” I saw a small smile form on the normally frumpy face of Haley.

“Ah, I knew this club would be just fantastic,” Elliott proudly declared as he relaxed on his chair. “We are truly all coming together as a group! Not just us but everyone else in this town,”

“Yeah!” Emily suddenly cheered from the other side of the room, Clint also nodded in agreement. “If we’re able to keep working together like this, we’ll beat this killing game in no time!” The blue haired woman continued.

“Yeah…” Clint mumbled in agreement.

There was an aura of hope throughout the room, even Haley seemed to be having a good time, shocking considering yesterday.

Art club continued, a casual and fun affair for everyone involved until day turned to night, and eventually I had elected to leave Leah’s cottage, everyone waving me goodbye on my way out.

I walked back to the general store, passed the door of my snoring roommate and threw myself onto my bed. I slept smiling that night knowing that we were better off than ever…

Chapter Text

DING DONG BING BONG

“Hmmph, I don’t want to do the announcement today, all of you lame kids can go back to sleep forever for all I care!” MonoMo complained in lieu of an actual morning announcement, clearly still angry about yesterday morning. Petty bastard…

I smirked in satisfaction at our Captor’s anger as I hopped out of bed, nearly tripping over the discarded can of Joja Cola as I left my room, this time I had actually met Abigail in the main room of the general store before seeing her at the saloon.

“Oh hey Claire!” The purple haired women flashed me a bright smile.

“Hello Abigail, you’re normally at the saloon by now,” I say with a nod.

Abigail shrugged. “I guess, maybe I got caught up looking around the store… it feels kinda…”

“Kinda what?” I turn my head curiously as I walk towards the woman.

“Familliar? I mean my dad owned a store, so maybe it’s just that,” Abigail shrugged. “Still gives me the heebie jeebies though,”

“A lot of other people have been saying that,” I nodded. “That this whole place is familiar,”

“Weird…” Abigail puffed out her cheeks, then her stomach made a loud grumbling sound and caused her to turn a bit red. “Ugh, maybe we should eat before getting into conspiracies,”

I chuckled. “Maybe…” And then we walked to the saloon together…

---

The saloon was full of life as per usual, Abigail and I sat at our usual table with Sebastian, Penny and Maru, all which had dark circles around their eyes.

“Hey you two… you’re later than usual,” Maru chuckled.

“Maybe they had a long night like us?” Penny shrugged. “Sebastian, Maru and I were attempting to modify the Monopads any way we could yesterday… we didn’t sleep too well…”

“There was nothing we could do to them without breaking them anyway…” Sebastian grumbled.

“At least you tried,” I said encouragingly.

“Yeah!” Abigail cheered with her usual toothy grin. “That’s better than nothing, you know?”

“Yeah, Sebastian here’s gonna disagree with you though,” She let out an annoyed sigh at her brother.

Sebastian grumbled and rolled his eyes in response… I swear all siblings in this town are like that, it’s strange.

Eventually our attention was turned to Emily and Haley’s table by the blue haired woman clinking her glass loudly. Elliott was also standing at the table.

“It is rather easy to get everyone’s attention here, lovely,” The man gave a smile. “We of the art club have something we’d wish to announce to the rest of you, but I believe Emily would like to do the honours,”

“Gladly!” The blue haired woman cheered, making Haley cringe and then chuckle as she stood up from her seat with a beaming smile on her face. “As a celebration of our united auras, I am going to be holding a costume party on the beach!” She then turned to Elliott, still smiling. “Unless you don’t want a costume, I want you all to write down what you want on the pieces of paper Elliott will hand to you in just a moment!”

“A party!?” Abigail cheered. “I’ve been needing to get out more!”

“We had a party a day ago-”

“That was just young people!” Abigail interrupted the teacher, shaking with excitement as Elliott handed the first few pieces of paper. “This is gonna be everyone!”

“I… suppose so…” Penny mumbled.

Maru suddenly turned to Penny. “PenPen!! I have an idea! We should have matching costumes!”

“Matching… how?” The ginger turned her head with a curious smile.

Maru moved to whisper in Penny’s ear, the two women giggling.

Well they clearly know what they want to do… I have no idea what I’ll even want to dress up as.

“I’m gonna go as a witch!” Abigail squealed in excitement. “It fits me, don’t you think?”

“You’re as creepy as one,” Sebastian chuckled and rolled his eyes.

Abigail gasped in mock offence. “You’re so mean, dude!”

Sebastian chuckled again as Elliott walked up to our table.

“We seem to be having fun here, hmmmmm?” Elliott handed pieces of paper to all of us and placed a pen on the table. “Have fun deciding, friends!” He then left us as he moved to hand out more paper and pens…

Penny, Maru and Abigail wrote excitedly, Sebastian casually doodled his onto the paper, but… I still had no idea what I want to dress up ass, so I wrote the only answer that made sense.

I DON’T KNOW

I don’t know how it’d help, but I’m sure Emily could suggest something for me to go as…

“When’s this party being held, anyhow?” Victor asked as he finished writing down his costume idea.

“Great question!” Emily cheered. “I work super fast, so we’ll easily be able to hold this party tomorrow! Just come to the beach when you’re ready!”

“Th-That sounds like a lot of work…” Sophia suddenly piped up, still sounding as underconfident as she usual did. “I-I cosplay sometimes, I-I could help if you want,”

“That sounds fantastic Sophia!” Emily beamed as the pink haired girl’s face slowly and awkwardly grew into a small smile.

“I-It’s really nothing…”

“Didn’t expect her to be able to sew,” I said absentmindedly as Elliott walked up to collect everyone’s papers.

“Everyone here is full of surprises, are they not?” Elliott chuckled as he grabbed my table’s papers. “I am excited to see everyone’s costumes, their ideas will be the truest form of their essence,”

“It’d also be really cool!” Maru cheered and giggled as she wrapped her arm around an also giggling Penny.

Penny nodded. “Agreed, Emily is the Ultimate Seamstress, I just know these costumes are going to be wonderful,”

Elliott let out a laugh in response. “I suppose that is also true,”

The writing of the costumes soon wrapped up and Elliott handed everyone’s paper back to Emily. She shot Clint a small smile, then shot me a somewhat worried look and then looked down at then… not a good thing, I haven’t ever seen her that worried before…

Soon, we all began to leave the saloon, but by the time I was halfway out of the saloon I felt a slender finger tapping me on the shoulder. I turned around to see Emily’s soft features staring down at me… god, she was tall wasn’t she? Haley was also standing by her side. I assume Sophia was already at Emily’s house by now.

“Hey, saw you didn’t know what you were going to wear to the party tomorrow,” Emily said concerned, then her face lit up like a Winter Star tree. “You should come help me deliver the costumes to everyone! I could help you come up with a costume at my house!”

“Don’t we already have Leah doing deliveries?” Haley sighed. “And me too, I guess?”

“The more people the better, Haley!” Emily cheered, Haley rolled her eyes.

“I guess I could come over,” I said with a smile. “I imagine you’d be good at coming up with a costume,”

“Perhaps, though with your unique aura perhaps all you need is a little… inspiration!” Emily cheered.

“Maybe…” I mumbled as Haley, Emily and I all quickly made our way to the sisters’ house…

---

“Th-There you are, I almost thought you wouldn’t show up…” Sophia mumbled from the sewing area of Emily and Haley’s home, a part of the larger dining room surrounded by a bunch of cloth and props to be used for the costumes. She then let out a nervous, somewhat depressed sounding chuckle that told me she wasn’t joking… poor thing…

“Hey Em, Haley, Claire,” Leah greeted with a smile. “I see you around a lot, huh Claire?”

“I guess I get around, I dunno,” I shrugged as I took a seat on a beanbag next to Leah, Haley also sat next to Leah on a beanbag.

“Hey Claire!” Emily called out as she began to sew her first outfit together, what looked like more or less just a black cloak. “I thought of something that fits you just right!”

“That was fast… wait did Claire not have a c-costume idea?” Sophia asked in mumbled concern.

Haley groaned. “That’s literally the only reason she’s here, she somehow doesn’t already have something in mind,”

“To be fair to her, mine’s kinda lame anyway cause I had like five seconds,” Leah chuckled.

Emily gasped in mock offence. “It’s not lame at all! It’s one of the most unique ideas I’ve ever seen. A clear indication of your very own special aura, Leah!”

Leah shrugged. “If you say so, it’s literally just two unrelated things mashed together. Whatever you come up with for Claire is gonna be a thousand times better,”

“I appreciate the compliment!” Emily cheered, then clapped her hands together before getting right back to sewing. “For you Claire, I’m thinking a… stereotypical 1800’s detective costume, Yoba it perfectly matches your intelligence and diligence!”

“Hm…” I put a hand to my chin, deep in thought… A detective outfit did so nice. I think I’d look good in one, and it’d give me the chance to try out a costume for the first time in a long time.

“Th-That’s… hm…” Sophia also looked deep in thought as she sewed red fabric into her costume. “It actually fits really well,”

“She’s good with detail,” Leah shrugged.

“She basically carried us through… that whole thing…” Haley waved her hand around, we all knew she meant the trial, and yeah, I guess I was very active in that.

“…Detective it is, I suppose,” I gave Emily a wide smile. “Thank you Emily, you really did know exactly what would fit me,”

“I merely read your aura, nothing impressive!” Emily let out a giggle.

Haley cleared her throat. “Or you did a basic analysis of how she acts,”

“Oh, hush Haley,” Emily said as Haley rolled her eyes and pouted. “Claire, I shall let you know if I need help with anything. Please, make yourself at home!”

“Don’t go in my room, though,” Haley added. “It’s private, and I’ll beat the shit outta you!”

“Haley!” Emily scolded with a tut.

Leah rolled her eyes. “You’re like five foot four, you’re not beating the shit out of anything. Not that I’d break into your room or anything,” She added just a little too frantically.

“Well that’s not suspicious at all,” Haley rolled her eyes and snickered. She then looked at her sister. “Hey Em, how’s our costume coming along anyway?”

“I’m getting to ours soon, patience, Haley,” Emily reassured.

“Our?” Sophia turned around curiously. “Are you two sharing a costume?”

“Wha? No, we’ve got a matching theme like Penny and Maru, those girls that wanna pretend we don’t all know they’re dating,” Haley said with an eyeroll and a sneer. I knew exactly who she was talking about, it would be hard not to… a little rude of her to point out, though.

“Huh, didn’t expect that much cooperation between you t-two,” Sophia mumbled.

“The hell does that mean!?”

Sophia yelped. “I’m sorry!”

“Haley…” Emily grumbled.

Haley let out a sigh in response. “No, it’s fine Sophia. Me and Em don’t always get along, but we still like eachother. We’re literally related,”

“I-I see,” Sophia mumbled as she went back to stitching her costume, she then let out a frustrated grunt. “Ah, um Claire. Could you come here, please? I need some help is all,”

“Of course,” I nodded, then walked towards the pink haired woman hunched over what looked like a 2 piece demon costume. Consisting of red shorts and a half stitched red tube top with black heart designs half sewn into it.

“What do you need help with?” I asked, bending down a little.

Sophia gently held the tube top up. “I need you to hold this s-so I can be a bit more precise with the heart stitching, o-only if you’re willing too, thou-”

“I am,” I reassured with a small chuckle. Sophia gave me a small smile and handed me the piece of clothing so I could properly hold it up with two hands… with precision only matched by Emily, the literal Ultimate Seamstress Sophia stitched the black outline of a heart into the front of the tube top, a, the top of the heart being directly on where her bust would be. I didn’t expect Sophia to make something so… daring, guess everyone has their secrets, as Elliott said. That’s not what he said, but that’s how I’m remembering it

…

“Done!” Sophia declared, beaming as she stitched the last of the heart into the tube top. “Thank you so much for helping me, C-Claire!”

“No problem, Sophia,” I smiled back at the vintner, then walked back to my seat on the beanbag. She smiled at me again and then turned around to stitch a different costume. The base of which was a more simple, fluffy blue hoodie.

“Well, as long as no one else needs help, we’re probably gonna be sitting around here awhile waiting for everyone to be done,” Leah shrugged. “You guys ever had a boyfriend, girlfriend, whatever before?”

“No,” I shook my head. “Never found the right person, I guess,”

“I’ve gone through that too, except like… I tried out a bunch of people and they all sucked ass,” Haley declared.

Leah sighed. “I’ve only tried out one person and they sucked ass too,” The sculptor said. “Also tried out is a weird word to use,”

“Yeah Haley, they were all people, not hairdriers or jar openers,” Emily said.

Emily grumbled. “I mean opening jars was all Todd was good for…”

Sophia suddenly mumbled her way into the conversation. “I’m surprised you don’t have any exes… ah- u-um I-I mean I’m surprised you haven’t dated anyone before!” She suddenly yelped, assuming what she had said would be offensive.

I chuckle. “I get what you mean, Sophia,”

“I mean Claire is pretty quiet,” Haley shrugged. “I’m not surprised you haven’t just asked someone out,”

“Well that’s… a little rude, but it’s true,” I sigh. “What about you, Leah, how was your singular ex?”

“Oh, she always knew new and exciting ways to make me feel less confident in myself. I know that for sure,” Leah grumbled and crossed her arms. “Kel’s bullshit is half the reason I moved out of Zuzu city when I was like… 20!”

“She was that bad? Zuzu’s city’s like the best place on earth!” Haley said incredulously.

“Well, for someone like you, maybe-”

“Hey!” Haley interrupted Leah, then let her continue talking.

“-But… I dunno, I guess I preferred a more rural life. Helps me with my art, anyway,” Leah smiled and looked out the window, there was a stray tree in view. “Something about how… real everything is out there is helps get me through the day a ton!”

“I understand what you mean, there’s nothing I’ve wanted more at the end of a shift than some fresh air,” I sighed.

“Every time I go outside I’m either soaking wet or covered in grass and shit,” Haley grumbled.

Sophia let out a small giggle. “Y-You must have some really bad luck then, m-most of this town is paths and buildings,”

“Shu-” Haley interrupted herself with a grumble. “You know what I mean!” Haley made a hmmph sound and once again, crossed her arms like a pouting child.

“Hey, you didn’t insult anyone that time. Good job!” Emily gave a thumbs up to her sister.

Haley let out a snort. “Okay, jeez, I’m not five. You don’t have to hype me up,”

“It helps though, I’m sure,” Emily smiled, Haley didn’t answer, but she smiled too.

We continued to speak for awhile, until eventually both Sophia and Emily were done with everyone’s outfits. Emily sorted each piece of clothing into a set of 14 bags and then promptly collapsed into a heap onto the wooden floors of her house…

“Eep!” Sophia yelped in shock, the rest of us excluding Haley also gasped as the blue haired woman fell without so much as a word. “I-Is she going to be okay?”

Haley sighed and picked up the woman from under her shoulders with a heaving breath. “She does this when she overworks herself. She’ll be all good,” Haley said in her usual blunt tone. “Now to deliver all this shit while I carry her back to her room… remember to grab your own costumes too,”

“O-On it!” Sophia mumbled as she grabbed a good chunk of the costumes, Leah also grabbed some, but as I went to grab the rest Haley suddenly cleared her throat to get my attention.

“Actually wait, Claire, Emily forgot to tell you something,” She said with a grunt of exertion from dragging the sister that was about a third taller than her. “She made a bunch of spare outfits, take them to Elliott’s cabin for safekeeping and all that jazz,”

“Ah, I’ll do that then,” I said with a nod as I picked up the large, overstuffed bag labelled “SPARES” “Thank you for telling me, Haley,”

“Yeah, whatever,” The blonde grumbled as she finally managed to open Emily’s door. She doesn’t want us to tell her, but we know she’s being a lot nicer than she usually is.

“Oh jeez,” Leah said as she looked outside of the open door of the house. “It’s basically nighttime, we should get moving,”

Sophia let out a yawn. “Y-Yeah, I promised myself I’d go to sleep earlier than 12 PM today…”

Leah nodded with a smile. “Let’s get going Sophia!”

And with that the two woman left to deliver everyone’s outfits.

---

I, on the other hand headed straight for the beach, the heavy bag of everyone’s outfits in my strained hands, I grunted from exertion as I knocked on Elliott’s flimsy, wooden door.

“Mmmm? Another?” Elliott asked questioningly from within the cabin as he stepped towards the front door, he opened it with the smoulder he had practically patented on his face.

“Ah, Claire. I suppose Emily got you to deliver the spare outfits, did she?”

“Y-Yeah,” I groaned as I lowered the bag on the floor as gently as I could… okay I dropped it, but I didn’t hear anything break so it should be fine.

“That’s very kind of you,” Elliott let out a chuckle as he carried the bag into his cabin and laid it in front of his piano. “Goodnight now, I hope you are as excited as I am for our party, dear,”

“It sounds fun,” I huffed from exhaustion. “Goodnight Elliott,”

Elliott hummed in acknowledgement, and I closed the door and began what in my winded state felt like the thousand year long journey back to the general store…

---

There was a bag just outside of my room, my costume for sure. I would’ve checked it, but decided that I was a bit too tired to even do that. I yawn as the nighttime announcement played, having become background noise by now…

I entered my room, and-

“WOAH!” I let out a shout as I tripped over the can of JojaCola, thankfully only landing facefirst on my bed… I need to get rid of that thing ASAP.

Chapter Text

DING DONG BING BONG…

There was no audio to this morning’s announcement, just MonoMo pouting like he was twelve as he sat in his expensive looking plush chair… the video had clearly been going for a bit.

Oh well, it’s not like we have to worry about him for now. The more pressing issue on my mind was Emily’s party… before I even thought about heading to the saloon I elected to get dressed in the costume the blue haired woman had made for me. I put it on piece by piece and looked at myself in a nearby mirror nailed to the wall.

It was a fashionable, yet period accurate brown chessboard pattern detective outfit, complete with a cardigan, hat and long, sweeping dress. The outfit even came with a monocle to complete the look…

It was perfect, Emily had came up with the idea, yet I felt as if I would have too if given more time… maybe she actually is psychic? I laugh to myself at the thought as I leave for the saloon for the day…

…

“Oh, sweet, you’re finally here,” Leah said as she saw me walking by the saloon door. She was dressed in what was for all intensive purposes an extremely detailed wolf onesie, and over that was an athleisure tracksuit complete with a duffel bag. “I volunteered to wait for you to come here, the party was already set up by the morning, so… we decided to start it a little bit ago,”

“Ah, I understand,” I said with a nod. “Thank you, interesting costume, by the way,”

“Thanks I’m a werewolf jogger,” Leah chuckled. “I thought ‘what if spooky creatures just did normal stuff’ and ended up thinking of this,” I let out a chuckle of my own as the ginger eyed my costume, her eyes widened and the smile didn’t leave her face. “Emily was right, by the way, that costume fits you scarily well,”

“That’s what I thought when I looked at myself in the mirror too,” I said. “I assume the party is at the beach?”

“Bet your ass it is, and now that you’re here, I can finally get back to it!”

Leah and I soon headed to the party, though beforehand I had checked my Monopad to see that it was already 1:00 PM, I had woken up… later than I thought. Oh well, still plenty of time to enjoy the party.

---

1:00 PM:

“Ah, Claire, it’s wonderful that you could make it,” Elliott said with a satisfied smile. He was wearing the clothes of an aristocrat including a flowing black cape. His outfit also came with incredibly convincing looking vampire teeth. “And my my, your outfit is marvellous!”

“Thanks,” Claire said with a nod. “Your vampire costume is-”

Elliott interrupted the ginger with a sudden dramatic sigh. “Nobody gets it the first time, I suppose. I am no mere vampire, I am the great Lord Ruthven!” Elliott said even more dramatically, raising his hand as he spoke.

“Ah,” Claire said with a nod even though she still had no idea what he was talking about.

“Don’t worry about him,” Haley said with an annoyed sigh. She was wearing a frilly, pink princess outfit with a dress that went all the way to her ankles. Emily followed her close behind with a wide smile. She was wearing a medieval era red and purple jester outfit, complete with a jester hat decorated by jingling bells.

“It’s a vampire costume, by the way,” Haley added, making Elliott gasp again. “No one on Yoba’s green earth knows what a ‘Lord Ruthven’ is,” She made airquotes as she spoke in a mocking tone. “You’re wearing a vampire costume,”

“Haley…” Emily scolded.

“Bah, sometimes I feel as if I am the smartest person here!” Elliott said with a humorous chuckle. “At least you understood who I was, Emily,”

Emily smiled and nodded. “That I did, oh Lord Ruthven,”

“Of course you understand his bullshit,” Haley grumbled under her breath with a roll of the eyes.

“Ughhh… why did I make something so…” Sophia’s complains devolved into a long pout as she tried to cover the midriff showing from her two piece Demon costume, consisting of: a red, low riding tube top with a black heart sewn into it, red short shots and a headband with two red demon horns on her head.

“So what?” Victor asked as he took a slice of melon that had been taken from the saloon, being careful to not spill any of the juice on his outfit of the Prairie King, which for all intensive purposes was just a standard cowboy costume. “I think it fits you well,”

“I-I… don’t think I thought everything through when I made it,” Sophia pouted with a blush on her face. “I feel like everyone’s staring…”

“Ah, now I see it,” Victor nodded. “Sophia, I promise you everyone here is far too distracted with the party to be looking at you,”

“I-I’m pretty sure that… sounded a little meaner than you th-thought it would,” Sophia giggled. “But uh… thanks!”

Victor smile. “No problem,”

2:00 PM:

“So uhh… do you like it?” Clint asked as he stood in front of Emily and Haley, a smile on his face. “I went as a blacksmith,”

“You- Ohhhhhhhhh!” Emily snapped her fingers as she realised, Clint hadn’t changed his clothing in the slightest. “You’re already a blacksmith, that’s-” The blue haired woman let out a giggle. “That’s actually really funny, Clint,”

“Really?” Clint asked.

“Yeah, sure. Whatever makes you feel better,” Haley shrugged.

Emily flicked Haley at the back of the ear, the blonde woman went to pout as her blue haired sister spoke up again. “It was funny, and… it gave me and Sophia less of a workload too, thank you,”

“Ah, uh… you’re welcome, Emily,” Clint mumbled as he scratched the back of his head awkwardly.

“I feel like there’s nothing to do here but eat and drink…” Sebastian sighed, leaning against Elliott’s cabin as he took a drag of a cigarette. His wraith costume, which was more or less a white mask and a long black cloak lightly flowing in the wind.

“Same here, kid, same here,” Shane added, the man was also leaning against the cabin. He was wearing a blue hoodie that had been styled to look like chicken feathers, the hood itself also had a blush peak attached to the top. Shane took a sip of the wine that had been freely offered at the party. “Not complaining though, this is better than the stuff I usually drink ‘till my liver begs me to stop,” The man let out a dry chuckle.

“Well, that’s nice, give your compliments to Sophia, then,” Sebastian said with a sigh, of course there was someone in his personal space… at the very least that someone was quiet. “I don’t drink,”

Shane shrugged. “You’re better off than me, kid,” He took another sip from the glass.

Sebastian looked down and grumbled out. “Sure…”

3:00 PM

“Oh my god, you two are soooooooo cute together!” Abigail let out a fangirly squeal as she looked at the costumes of Maru and Penny. Dressed as a Mad Scientist and Frankenstein’s Monster respectively. Abigail herself was wearing a black witch outfit complete with an adorable little witch’s hat.

“Th-Thanks Abigail!” Penny mumbled out, her face red from the energetic nature of the adventurer’s compliments.

“You’re costume’s not half bad either!” Maru said with a cheer. “A witch fits you so well, I dunno why,”

“I dunno either, but I look sick in this!” Abigail cheered. “Dunno how Emily got my measurements right, but I’m glad she did!”

“Maybe part of her talent is being able to eyeball measurements?” Penny shrugged.

“That sounds sick!” Maru cheered. “I wanna bug Sebastian now… I assume his costume is something edgy,” The woman let out a snort.

“From what we know that makes sense…” Penny said with a nod. “Oh, but I’m sure it’ll still be a fantastic costume,”

“All of the costumes here are sick, I gotta thank Emily once this party is over,” Abigail chuckled.

“Damn!” Leah exclaimed, eyes wide as she took a sip of her wine, provided by Sophia of course. “This wine’s really good, Sophia,”

“Yes, I can see how you earned your talent,” Harvey said with a nod, he was dressed like an old war-time pilot, over-sized goggles and everything. He took a sip from his own glass.

“Th-Thank you,” Sophia mumbled out. “I-I’d hope that it’s good, bad wine isn’t exactly a good sign…” Sophia let out an awkward chuckle.

“Like… a career ending bad sign, yeah,” Leah chuckled, then took another sip of her wine.

Sophia chuckled back. “I uh… also like your costumes!”

“Really?” Leah raised an eyebrow. “I dunno how this idea is doing so well, heh,”

“Thank you Sophia,” Harvey’s response was more receptive. “I like the look of a pilot, I do hope I’m wearing it well,”

“You’re wearing it really well!” Leah chuckled. “Maybe in another life you were the Ultimate Pilot, or something,”

Harvey went quiet, then smiled to himself. “That would be nice,”

4:00 PM:

“Ohhh dude, did I ever tell you guys about Marlon?” Abigail mumbled towards the crowd she was sitting on the beach with, consisting of: Claire, Penny, Maru and Sebastian.

“Briefly?” Claire shrugged.

“Never heard of him,” Sebastian in his usual quiet, grumbly tone, though he appeared to be less on edge at the party than he was before.

“Is he another adventurer?” Maru asked.

“Yeah!” Abigail yelled suddenly, then covered her mouth as an apology. “He’s like… really cool, he trained me and stuff. It was sick!”

“Oh, I think I’ve heard of him before!” Penny suddenly shot up, before sitting back down in minor embarrassment. “One of my students is a fan of his, talks about the books he wrote quite often,”

“That makes sense, he’s so freakin’ cool!” Abigail blurted out. “He’s like, the coolest guy I know, and I know myself!”

Claire let out a small laugh. “Well, good to know you look up to someone that much. It’s great to have an inspiration,”

Maru nodded. “Agreed! My dad inspired me to get into STEM really early!”

Sebastian rolled his eyes and grumbled, seemingly at the mere mention of his dad.

“I wasn’t really inspired by one specific person…” Penny looked down at the ground as she spoke, the headband holding the fake nails into her head drooping a bit.

“Makes sense,” Sebastian added. “Sometimes you just do something, no one makes you…”

“It’s not someone making me, it’s someone inspiring me,” Maru argued as she glared at her brother.

“Sure…” Sebastian rolled his eyes.

5:00 PM:

“Bye Clint, bye Harvey, hope you two have a good night!” Emily gave a beaming smile as the two men walked back into town.

“Bye Emily…” Clint mumbled.

“See you soon!” Harvey smiled back as he left the party.

Elliott walked up to the blue haired woman, causing her to jolt a little.

“Well, I’d say this party went fantastically,” Elliott said with a confident smile.

Emily nodded energetically. “Yeah, I can feel everyone’s auras merging into one harmonious blend. It’s amazing!”

“And it’s… mostly thanks to you,” Elliott chuckled, turning his head in a confident motion. “You’ve been a fantastic leader for our group, you know?”

“Well, that’s nice to hear. With more events like these we’ll end this Killing Game in no time!” Emily beamed.

“That would be the best case scenario, yes,” Elliott nodded. “Let’s hope it gets there!”

“Let’s!”

Shane had also elected to leave the party, he hadn’t waved anyone goodbye as he left, though. He had a fine time, but his liver was begging him to stop and take a middle of the day nap, so that’s what he decided to do.

On his way out he saw Clint just sorta sitting on a bench, seemingly resting after something that probably drained the big guy’s social battery. Shane wanted to talk to him, but… elected not to, he was tired and Shane thought he wouldn’t be good company anyway…

Sebastian headed off too, the party wasn’t anything special to him anyway…

6:00 PM:

Haley let out a yawn as she and Sophia began to walk out of the party.

“Ugh… that was fun and all, but I’m tired, and cold,” Haley gave a small shiver. “How are you not freezing to death in that thing?”

“I uh… d-dunno,” Sophia mumbled and shrugged. “Maybe I’m just more cold tolerant,”

“Maybe, you’re honestly kinda brave wearing something like that,” Haley said with a smile. She then shrugged her shoulders. “Or dumb, I don’t really know which,”

Sophia let out a small giggle. “Y-You have an interesting way of complimenting people, Haley,”

“Well, that’s one way to put it,” The blonde woman chuckled.

“Ah, Emily, a moment of your time, please?” Elliott asked as he tapped the blue haired woman on the shoulder.

Emily turned around with smile. “I’m not busy, Elliott, what do you need?”

“My cloak has a tear in it, could you fix it, perhaps?” The man asked as he showed off the torn part of his cloak.

“Of course!” Emily nodded. “My supplies are at your cabin,”

Elliott nodded in return, and the two soon headed to the poet’s cabin…

“Thankfully it was just a small rip,” Emily said with an earnest smile as she patched up the small tear on Elliott’s cloak.

The man shook his head. “The smallest tear could ruin the whole costume, I’m sure you understand,”

“You’re so dramatic,” Emily chuckled. “Then again, I’ve had more dramatic clients over less,” The blue haired woman suddenly let out a yawn.

“Are you tired, dear?”

“A little,” Emily said. “Once I’m done with this, I’m gonna head home. I didn’t sleep super well last night,”

“Up all night making our costumes, I suppose?”

“Yeah,” Emily smiled. “It was worth it, though, everyone looks so good!”

“Agreed!” The poet said with a nod. “You have talent worthy of being called the Ultimate Seamstress,”

7:00 PM:

The party had been great, even as the numbers began to dwindle down to about six people that were all within eyeshot of me: Myself, Abigail, Victor, Maru, Penny and Elliott.

“Man, I gotta not drink so much at these kinds of things…” Abigail mumbled, then let out a small giggle. “I look kinda shitty all drunk,”

“You look…” I looked at her somewhat ragged appearance with a small look of concern, she stall had a goofy smile on her face. “Um… fine, I suppose,”

“Well, you’re the boss, Claire!” Abigail beamed as she wrapped an arm around my shoulder. “Your costume is super soft, goddamn!”

“It has been rather comfortable, yes,” I nodded with a smile.

“Everybody!” Our conversation was interrupted by the sudden shouting of Elliott, his cape flowing in the wind. “Fantastic, I have your attention. I do declare that this party has been… practically perfect,”

“It was a nice change of pace to hang out with everyone,” Victor nodded.

“We all look so cool!” Maru cheered as she wrapped an arm around Penny, who giggled in response.

“I’m glad we all agree!” Elliott said with a wide smile. “However, it is getting late, I think we should all-”

“HELP!”

Elliott was interrupted by the screaming of Emily, now dressed in her normal clothes and clutching her bloody, injured arm as she ran down the beach.

“Emily!?” I let out a yelp as I saw her running down the beach, everyone else let out similar gasps of fear or shock.

“You look hurt!” Penny yelped as she walked carefully towards the blue haired woman, panic clear on her face. “Are you okay?”

“What’s happening?” Abigail said, near instantly sobering up.

“S-Someone broke in, Haley and Leah…” Emily huffed and puffed as she blurted out.

“Broke in?” Elliott said, sounding both frustrated and concerned.

“Someone broke into my house, and…” She looked down at her bleeding, beaten, but not broken arm. “Just follow me, we don’t have much time!”

Emily then began to bolt back towards her home.

“You heard her!” Victor called out as the rest of us began to chase behind her, whatever was happening was bad, really bad.

A pit in my stomach formed as I tried to push the worst possible thought away, it couldn’t be that, right?

…

We practically broke down the door to Emily’s house, she proceeded to rush directly into Haley’s room, the door opened a crack…

No one was in there except for a dazed, groaning Haley, laying on the ground with a slightly bloodied head. The room itself was in a state of disarray, furniture broken and scattered throughout the room, the vanity laying in a heap on the ground. There were even large slash marks on the wall holding the door to.

“My darkroom!” Haley suddenly yelled out. “Leah ran in there, fuck!”

“Wait, Haley-” But the blonde woman wasn’t listening, she practically burst into the room, we then heard a loud scream emanate from the other side…

I felt a sense of dread overcome me as everyone began to walk into the room, maybe it was the scream that sounded so similar to the one Abigail had let out when we saw Sam’s body, maybe it was the dread of having a good idea on what was on the other side of that door…

I pushed it aside and entered the room with everyone else, a panicking Emily included…

The darkroom was cramped and tinted red, Haley was sitting on the floor with a look of terror on her face she had clearly fallen backwards from the shock of what she had seen…

And she had seen had been the last thing anyone had wanted to see, a sight more terrifying that we could know.

Leah’s body sitting limp, still in her costume. Her eyes were wide from fear, blood was pouring from a wound in the back of her head and dripping onto the floor where a camera and a white mask laid nearby.

But strangest of all were the various pictures of a knocked out, bloodied Haley, a running Emily and of her own dead body that had been nailed to the wall behind the corpse. Like a ritual that had lead to the death of the Sculptor. The death of our friend, Leah…

DING DONG BING BONG

“Attention, attention. A body has been discovered!” MonoMo announced, a horrible grin on his face. “Please head to the Yobansen residence ASAP!”

CHAPTER 2: WAVES OF THE SINLESS SEA: DEADLY LIFE

13/16

Chapter Text

Everyone else had suddenly poured into the abandoned darkroom like a tidal wave of desperate, scrambling animals all wanting to know what had happened in the room. Soon, everyone laid their eyes upon the lifeless body of Leah…

“AHHHHHHHHHH!” Sophia let out a scream of terror.

“Leah? Who- why?” Penny was at a loss for words.

“What the hell is going on!?” Shane shouted.

Sebastian grumbled. “Someone killed her, that’s obvious,”

“Now is not the fucking time, Sebastian!” Maru shouted, making her brother visibly shrink.

“Let’s all…” Elliott trailed off before he could even finish his sentence.

“I-I thought, I…” Emily mumbled as she stared down at the body in wide eyed shock, her sister was dead silent, still stunned on the floor.

“Oh fuck, oh fuck, fuck, motherfucker!” Abigail yelped.

Everyone had their own way of processing what they saw, I processed by staring silently at it as my ears rang. Leah was dead, and now.

“EXTREME!” We all jumped, gasped and/or screamed, then turned around to glare at MonoMo as he entered the darkroom. “Ah, I was getting worried I’d have to pull out the big motives, but you guys never fail to amaze me with how quick you get on killing!”

No one responded to it, and the apple looked down dejectedly.

“No one? Really? Ugh…” It groaned. “Well if you’re not gonna be fun, I’ll just give you instructions. You have limited time to investigate the murder of Leah, and then once again a trial will commence!”

MonoMo then walked out of the darkroom, leaving us all in stunned silence.

…

“Well… I suppose we don’t have any time to waste,” Elliott declared confident, yet there was a darkness in his voice. “We have a limited amount of time, let’s get to it, everyone,”

“Yeah,” Emily replied, sounding weak and terrified in contrast to her usual confidence. “I-I’ll try to help where I can,”

Everyone nodded in agreement, most people headed out of the darkroom to investigate other parts of town. Probably the beach or Haley and Emily’s house… the only people left in the small room were: Myself, Abigail, Harvey, Maru and Penny…

This investigation was going to be tough. The whole situation was confusing as all hell, and the only way to get through it was to kill another one of our own…

INVESTIGATION START:

“Hey, the last time we worked together to investigate it went well,” Abigail said as she pulled out her Monopad. “You wanna work together again?”

“That would be nice,” I said, letting out a breath I didn’t know I was holding.

“Great!” Abby cheered. “Let’s check the MonoMo file first, then,”

“Don’t want to make the same mistake Maru did,” I nodded as Abigail scrolled to the MonoMo file.

MONOMO FILE #2

VICTIM: LEAH CAMPBELL

TIME OF DEATH: 7:10 PM

CAUSE OF DEATH: BLUDGEONING

Victim is Leah Campbell, she was killed by being hit in the back of the head.

---

+MONOMO FILE #2

“Location isn’t included again…” Maru said, causing the both of us to yelp loudly. “Oh crap, sorry!”

“No, no it’s fine,” I say as I let out another breath. “That is odd, though,”

“Maybe it’s just how the MonoMo files are formatted?” Abigail shrugged.

“It’s still good to keep it in mind,” Maru said.

“Yeah… uhhhh…” Abigail trailed off. “Do you have anything else to add?”

“Umm… there were only six people who were at the party the entire time,” Maru said. “Me, Penny, You, Claire, Victor and Elliott,”

“So all of those people are innocent!” Abigail said with a smile. “Thanks a lot, Maru!”

“No problem!” Maru said with a nod and a smile. “I’m gonna go help Harvey investigate the body now,” We waved the woman goodbye even though she was only like a metre away from us now…

+BEACH-COSTUME PARTY ATTENDANTS

“Uhh… do we wanna investigate the body too?” Abigail asked, sounding uncomfortable at the mere thought.

“You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to,” I said as I put a hand on her shoulder as reassurance.

Abigail let out a sigh of relief. “Oh, thank Yoba you’re the best. I’m gonna ask Penny about stuff so I feel useful,”

I chuckled. “You do that, Abigail,” I then looked towards the body of Leah, sitting lifeless. With more ease than Sam’s I managed to hold in my gagging and walk towards the body.

“Ah, hello Claire,” Harvey greeted. “As usual, I will attempt to perform and autopsy on the body. I’ll let you know what I’ve figured out once I’m done,”

“Thank you,” I said with a nod as I bent down to inspect the body more closely as Harvey did his thing. Maru was also crouched down around the body…

First, the obvious. The head injury is what killed Leah. It’s the only wound I can see on her body at least.

+LEAH’S HEAD INJURY

The body itself isn’t all that helpful, the things near it are interesting in the most disturbing way possible. A bloody camera and a Mask.

“That’s the same mask as Sebastian’s costume,” I pointed out, Maru looked down to see.

“Really? Huh, n-never noticed. The mask he was wearing was pretty generic anyway, so it’s probably nothing!” The woman stuttered and yelped like a dog who had been caught tearing up a couch. The mask was odd, but as far as I’m aware there are spares, so it can’t be him… “A-Anyway, the camera’s got a lot of blood on it,”

“Yeah,” I nod in agreement, I get why Maru it doing what she’s doing. I don’t want to think about that possibility either. “Maybe it’s the murder weapon, then?”

+BLOODY CAMERA

+SEBASTIAN’S MASK

“Can’t see anything else that could be it,” Maru said, now sounding remarkably more calm, even energetic. “And you could hold it by the strap to be used like a flail!”

“Interesting…” I turned my head up to get a better look at the photos. “So, they kill Leah and then take these photos with the same camera?”

“Seems like it,” Maru nodded. “Say uh… you notice anything off about those photos?”

I took a longer look at them, they showed various images. Mainly of the unconscious or dead bodies of Leah and Haley. There was also a single photo of Emily, her entire face screaming shock as she entered the darkroom.

“Besides the contents, and how… cultish it looks, no…” I roll my o, trailing off as I took another look. “Wait, some of these are blurrier than others,”

“Oh yeah!” Maru snapped her fingers. “The one taken of Emily is really blurry, and the ones taken of Leah seem more stable than the ones taken of Haley!”

“Perhaps they got afraid while taking the photos?” I suggested, confused in contrast to Maru’s excitement. “Maybe the full context of this murder will make this seem less… random,”

“Maybe,” Maru nodded.

+PHOTOS AROUND LEAH

It seems there’s not much else to-

ZIP

“Maru, are you?-”

“Oh uh, sorry!” Maru yelped and raised her hands in surrender. “It’s kinda rude to look through Leah’s stuff, but it’s probably important to the case!”

“I thought you were doing something else,” I said. “It is a good idea to search through Leah’s bag, even if it may be just cosmetic,”

“Yeah!” Maru nodded, then proceeded to rummage through the bag, eventually pulling out.

“An axe?” I raised an eyebrow as the brown skinned woman placed the weapon between us and the body. “Why would she bring that?”

“I dunno,” Maru shrugged. “Maybe in case someone attacked her or something?”

“Perhaps she tried to use it in self defence? But why would it be in her bag?” I put my hand to my chin.

“This is confusing stuff…” Maru shivered.

+AXE

“The bag is also really weird,” Maru said as she took a longer look at it. “There’s two separate bloodstains on it,”

I took a look for myself, and she was right. One larger blood stain near the zipper of the bag, and a smaller one on the front where her head had been resting.

“That is odd,”

“Everything about this case feels… off…” Maru declared with a shifty look around the darkroom. “More than usual, somehow,”

+BLOODSTAINS ON BAG

“Well, I guess that’s it here,” I said as I got up, stretched, then turned towards the Doctor. “Hey Harvey, is your autopsy finished yet?”

Harvey perked up. “It’s been done for a bit, all I can say is that the injury to Leah’s head would have killed her instantly,”

“That’s great!” Maru said. “Sounded way too excited… again…”

“It’s not unusual to be excited about important information,” Harvey nodded reassuringly. “Especially considering our lives are at stake here,”

“Yes, thank you, Harvey,” I said with a nod as I walked towards the final thing I felt I had to do in the darkroom before moving onto everything else. Whatever Abigail had learned from Penny, who she was still talking to.

+HARVEY’S AUTOPSY

“Heya Claire!” Abigail exclaimed, practically bouncing up and down as I walked up to her and Penny, the latter of which elected to give a quiet, nervous wave.

“Hello Abigail, Penny,” I nodded. “Do you have anything to say?”

“I mean, not much…” Penny mumbled. “I was at the party the whole time, but… I did assist in setting up the party,”

“Oh, well if it’s okay for me to ask. Do you suspect any kind of sabotage?” I asked as I looked the ginger woman in the eyes.

“Like the food was drugged or something?” Abigail turned her head.

“Oh, Yoba no!” Penny yelped. “I was in charge of overseeing the food and drink during setup, I was very thorough. No one could have snuck anything in,”

“That’s great!” I said with a nod and a smile.

“Thank you,” Penny nodded back. “I’m glad I could help, this whole situation is… disturbing to say the least,”

“Tell me about it,” Abigail replied with a small shiver. “I didn’t think someone would kill again,”

No one did, but as long as Leah’s body sits there we need to figure out who that person is.

+PENNY’S ACCOUNT

With nothing else to do, Abigail and I left the darkroom with a sigh of relief. Though, that relief barely lasted a second as we looked around the tattered remains of Haley’s room, no one was in there but us.

“Might as well start looking for clues now,” Abigail shrugged as she bent down to search around the fallen vanity, being careful to not cut herself on the mirror’s shattered glass.

I take a careful look and a wander around the bedroom… the first thing I saw minus the generally tattered state of the room was the long slash mark on the back wall, the one with the door leading to the Darkroom…

+STATE OF HALEY’S ROOM

+WALL SLASH MARKS

My eyes turned over to Haley’s bed, the pink sheets stained with a horrid puddle of blood.

“There’s blood on the bed,” I said simply.

“There’s a bloodstain here, too!” Abigail added, pointing to a decently sized stain in the middle of the room. “Whatever happened here must have been brutal,”

“Yes, I feel terrible for Haley and Emily,” I shuddered. “Whatever happened here must have been terrifying to go through,”

Abigail nodded as she stood up. “That’s why we’ve gotta find out whoever did this, and to get justice for Leah!”

I smiled at Abigail’s determination as we walked out of Haley’s destroyed room and into the near

pristine living room of Haley and Emily…

+SEPARATE BLOODSTAINS

Everyone else was standing in and around the living room in two groups: Sophia, Elliott, and a shaking Emily and Haley in one group. The second group consisted of Sebastian, Victor, Shane and Clint. We elected to talk to the former group first who were standing around a broken window.

“Oh, hello you two…” Emily mumbled, her chipper almost entirely gone. “Sorry for not being as happy as I usually am, I’m still a bit shaken up,”

“Understatement of the fucking century,” Haley grumbled under her breath, then let out a groan as she clutched the wound on her head, which had long since stopped bleeding.

“I won’t hold it against you,” Abigail reassured with a nod.

“Are you two here to interview everyone?” Elliott asked. “Perhaps gauge when everyone had left the party?”

“That would be helpful, yes,” I said. “I also want to know what happened here,”

“Ah, well… maybe Haley should start us off, then,” Emily said.

“Right,” The blonde nodded. “I was just sitting in my room with Leah at about… 7ish? And then some fucking asshole came into our house. L-Leah ran into my darkroom, and…”

“The killer knocked you out?” Abigail asked, her eyes widening as Haley continued.

“No shit they did, yeah,” Haley said with a sneer, before letting out a breath to calm herself down. “Then they knocked me out, and it’s all blank from there for me,”

“I heard the commotion, saw Haley’s body and ran into her darkroom, but… that person they… hit me to the floor, dropped their mask and ran!” Emily yelped, sounding terrified and small from even remembering the events. “Then I assume they broke that window and left,”

I looked down at Emily’s injured arm, the cloth around the wound torn. “Did you get a good look at them?”

“Th-They were wearing the costume I had made for Sebastian,” Emily declared as she looked darkly at the floor.

“S-So Sebastian-”

“There are spare costumes in my cabin,” Elliott added. “Sorry for interrupting you, Sophia,”

“N-No it’s fine, I just forgot is all,” Sophia sighed.

“So that’s why the mask is back there,” Abigail realised with a smile and a nod. “Also uhhh, minus the costume, how did the killer look?”

“It all happened so fast, I can barely remember,” Emily said as she let out another shiver. “They were uh…”

“Skinny, real skinny,” Haley added with a sneer at the mere thought of the killer. “Tall too, not giant tall, but still taller than the average person,”

“Good to know,” I nodded and smiled at the sisters. “Thank you for helping with this,”

“It’s really no problem, thank you for helping us investigate this murder,” Emily finally let a small smile show. “Whoever committed this horrible murder will be found out during the trial, I’m sure of it,”

“W-We can only hope…” Sophia mumbled. “S-Sorry you had to go through all this,”

“Don’t apologise, you didn’t do anything,” Haley rolled her eyes.

+SISTERS’ ACCOUNTS

+INJURED HALEY

+EMILY’S INJURED ARM

“Does anyone else have anything to add?” I asked. “Just, before we move onto the other group,”

“Perhaps we should establish when everyone had left the party?” Elliott asked. “I can say with full confidence that I saw Emily leave at 6, just after she had repaired a tear in my costume,”

Emily nodded in agreement.

“A-And Haley and I left the party together,” Sophia added.

“Also at six, I got a stomach ache from eating too much,” Haley groaned.

Abigail shrugged. “It happens,”

“Thank you, all four of you,” I said as I looked past the crowd at the broken window behind them, I soon walked up to it and looked through it.

“What’cha lookin at?” Abigail asked.

Haley shook her head. “Can you not tell that it’s broken by looking at it or something?”

“Just checking something,” I said. “The glass is on the outside of the window, that means it was broken from the inside,”

+BROKEN WINDOW

“Which of course, means the killer it to escape,” Elliott nodded.

“Of course, I was just confirming,” I explained. “Thank you again for your time, I’ll be going to interview the other group now,”

“Ah, wait. After you’re done with that you should check on the spare costumes in my Cabin,” Elliott said. “Just in case,”

“Of course!” I said as Abby and I began to walk towards the other group. “Thank you for reminding me!”

“Not an issue at all,”

“Ah, hello you two. Here to ask for alibis?” Victor greeted us as we walked towards the group of guys.

“It’s not like there’s much else to do,” Sebastian grumbled. “You already got one anyway,”

“That I do, I was at the party the entire day,” Victor nodded. “You two already know that, though,”

I nodded.

“Anyway, we’re here to ask you guys where you were at like… seven,” Abigail started. “Also when you left the party, that’s important too,”

“Five, I left with Harvey,” Clint mumbled. “Then I went home,”

“Fiveish too, saw Clint sitting on a bench while I was walking home,” Shane reported.

Clint scratched the back of his head. “Oh yeah, that. I was just gathering my thoughts for a little…”

“I usually need something like that after a big gathering,” Sebastian said. “I also left around five, then Shane and I met eachother at the saloon and stayed there until the body discovery announcement,”

“Why the saloon? I feel like there’s better places to be near nighttime,” I turned my head curiously.

Shane shrugged. “It’s quiet, and there’s beer,”

+SHANE’S ACCOUNT

+BEACH-COSTUME PARTY LEAVERS

“Well, thank you. We have everyone’s perspective now,” I said with a nod. “I’ll finish investigating here, and then I’ll head to Elliott’s cabin,”

“Sounds good, sounds good!” Abigail said as she stood around the men. “Sorry I wasn’t super helpful-”

“You did well, you helped explore Haley’s bedroom, and you did well with interviews” I reassured with a nod, Abigail gave me her usual wide smile as I walked towards the last thing that interested me… a large box, twice the size of me sat next to Emily’s sewing machine, the box was labelled “Supplies”

As expected, everything someone would need to make any kind of clothing was there. From cloth to plastic to even the top halves of white, near featureless mannequins, though, I was pretty sure Emily wasn’t using them. She had managed to eyeball our measurements.

+COSTUME SUPPLIES

With that squared away, I left the house of Haley and Emily. The chill of night hit me like a truck filled with ice as I soon made my way towards the beach…

The site of the abandoned party was as serene as it was unnerving, to think mere moments ago everyone had been laughing and enjoying their time was…

was…

I had a cabin to check up on, so that’s what I did. Elliott’s Cabin was unlocked as always, and as expected the box of spare costumes laid leaning against the man’s piano, virtually untouched. To be sure I checked the inside of the box, every costume was still there, but that meant-

DING DONG BING BONG

+ELLIOTT’S CABIN

+SPARE COSTUMES

“Hello hello! Investigation time is officially over!” MonoMo announced, the mere sound of its voice causing my whole body to become shaky from dread. “Head to the Mayoral Manor to begin the trial!”

It was time, the most terrifying moment of my life could no longer be postponed. With what little evidence I had I would need to discover the truth behind this murder…

…

---

“Well, we’re all here,” Emily declared, her voice less shaky now, but still nowhere near her usual joy. She then sighed. “Let’s just get this over with,” She said, near silent.

“It truly is a tragedy that we must gather here once again,” Elliott sighed. “And for the death of Leah, such a lovely, and interesting woman she was,”

“She was cool,” Abigail said simply. “Can’t believe some asshole would kill her,”

“And attack me and Em!” Haley added, her face red with anger. “We’re gonna find out whoever did it no matter what!”

“That’s the spirit!” Maru cheered.

“Yes, and we’ll all need to work together to see this through,” Penny declared with a nod.

Victor also nodded, more formally than the teacher. “Cooperation, excluding cooperation with the killer, obviously will ensure this trial is finished as soon as possibles,”

“I-I’ll try to help where I can,” Sophia promised, her voice small and fearful.

Harvey sighed as he looked at the sisters. “Ah, I should have asked about your wounds before the trial, though, I imagine I couldn’t discover anything you wouldn’t already know,”

“You did what you could,” Shane shrugged.

“That’s odd to hear coming from you,” Sebastian quirked an eyebrow.

Shane shrugged. “Sometimes I feel like not being a dick,”

“Try to keep that going during the trial…” Clint mumbled.

SCREECH

The elevator had come up, and the door to the Mayor’s Manor had opened wide, we all poured into the elevator one by one…

There were less people here, but it somehow felt more tense. Maybe it was the trust we had placed onto eachother being broken, and during a time of relaxation and joy…

…

The elevator stopped, and as we did last time we all moved to our respective podiums in the circle of 16. As we waited for MonoMo to begin talking, I had a chance to mull over my thoughts.

Leah, a woman who had been nothing but kind to every other person in this town had been killed. It’s up to me, and the rest of the people here to find out who did it. Not just to survive, but to honour the memory of Leah, and those who have died before her. For them…

I need to reveal the truth.

TOWN TRIAL: BEGIN!

TRUTH BULLETS:

MONOMO FILE #2

BEACH-COSTUME PARTY ATTENDANTS

LEAH’S HEAD INJURY

BLOODY CAMERA

SEBASTIAN’S MASK

PHOTOS AROUND LEAH

AXE

BLOODSTAINS ON BAG

HARVEY’S AUTOPSY

PENNY’S ACCOUNT

STATE OF HALEY’S ROOM

WALL SLASH MARKS

SEPARATE BLOODSTAINS

SISTER’S ACCOUNTS

INJURED HALEY

EMILY’S INJURED ARM

BROKEN WINDOW

SHANE’S ACCOUNT

BEACH-COSTUME PARTY LEAVERS

COSTUME SUPPLIES

ELLIOTT’S CABIN

SPARE COSTUMES

Chapter Text

TRUTH BULLETS:

MONOMO FILE #2

BEACH-COSTUME PARTY ATTENDANTS

LEAH’S HEAD INJURY

BLOODY CAMERA

SEBASTIAN’S MASK

PHOTOS AROUND LEAH

AXE

BLOODSTAINS ON BAG

HARVEY’S AUTOPSY

PENNY’S ACCOUNT

STATE OF HALEY’S ROOM

WALL SLASH MARKS

SEPARATE BLOODSTAINS

SISTER’S ACCOUNTS

INJURED HALEY

EMILY’S INJURED ARM

BROKEN WINDOW

SHANE’S ACCOUNT

BEACH-COSTUME PARTY LEAVERS

COSTUME SUPPLIES

ELLIOTT’S CABIN

SPARE COSTUMES

TOWN TRIAL: START!

“Now then, let’s begin with a basic explanation of the class trial! During the trial you will discuss evidence, and then vote for who committed the latest murder!” MonoMo began with a sickly cheery tone. “If you vote for the right person, only the killer will be punished, but vote for the wrong person and I’ll punish everyone besides the killer, and they will be allowed to leave this town!”

The apple cleared its throat. “But you already knew that, so let’s get this crazy, awesome, crazy-awesome started!”

“Alas, poor Leah,” Elliott let out a depressed sigh. “She was a lovely woman, truly, not deserving of her ultimate fate,”

“No one here deserves to die,” Emily affirmed with a sharp nod. “But as long as Leah’s killer is still in this room, we need to figure out who did it,”

“But wh-where to start?” Sophia mumbled. “A lot happened in such a short amount of time…”

“Let’s start with what we know happened,” I said with a nod. “Emily and Haley’s house was broken into at about seven, am I right?”

“Yeah,” Haley nodded. “Leah was also there though, she came at about seven too to hang out,”

“So the minute Leah comes in you guys get attacked?” Shane asked. “Someone must’ve had a vendetta,”

“Leah never seemed like the kind of person to… upset someone that much,” Victor said as he looked to his side.

“I cannot think of anyone either,” Elliott said with a shake of his head. “Perhaps we should truly confirm what happened within the Yobansen residence,”

“Haley just did that,” Sebastian grumbled.

She did, but she left out some specifics…

SISTER’S ACCOUNTS

“I GOT IT!”

“Haley gave more of an overview of everything,” I explained with a nod.

“She spent a good chunk of the attack knocked out,” Emily said.

“Yeah…” Haley shook her head and sighed. “The attacker came in like 10 or so minutes after Leah, they came into my room, she ran into my darkroom and then I got knocked out,”

“Did they have a weapon?” Harvey asked.

Haley shook her head. “They used their hands, probably why I only got knocked out,”

“Okay, now we’ve gotten your account,” Maru said with a smile. “What did you see, Emily?”

“I came into Haley’s room after I heard her get hit in the head,” Emily began. “I… ran past her body and straight into the darkroom, the killer hit me to the floor before I could get a proper look at their face and ran out,”

“Were you in your room when the killer came in or something?” Abigail turned her head curiously.

Emily nodded. “I was meditating, the killer came in quietly… they must’ve picked the lock on the door,”

“W-Wait, did you see the killer?” Sophia asked.

“What kinda fucking question is that, we both saw them!” Haley shouted, before letting out a breath to calm herself down. “They were wearing a costume, that’s the main reason we have no idea who the hell they are,”

“A-A costume?” Sophia mumbled to herself.

One costume in particular…

SEBASTIAN’S MASK

“HERE IT IS!”

“We found Sebastian’s mask near Leah’s body,” I said with a shiver. “Were they wearing Sebastian’s costume?”

“They were wearing a black cloak,” Haley said with a shrug. “I never got a good look at-”

“Perhaps Sebastian did it then?” Victor said with a shrug. “We only had access to our own costumes after all,”

“It wouldn’t be that hard to just find a blanket or… whatever else could be used as a cloak!” Maru yelped.

“I-It makes sense, but…” Sophia trailed off. “It feels off,”

“It’s only one piece of evidence…” Clint mumbled.

“That’s right,” I said. “We need to discuss this further before we jump to any conclusions,”

NONSTOP DEBATE

“I know it looks bad, but… I’m sure it’s just a fluke of some kind!” Maru yelped and raised her hands defensively.

“You’re accusing me on a very minor detail,” Sebastian grumbled out.

Harvey nodded. “It would be unwise to vote for him now,”

“Yeah, really dumb!” Maru yelped again. “Especially over something really minor!”

“It’s still important to keep in mind,” Elliott said.

“And it’s not exactly minor,” Victor said. “As far as I’m aware, everyone only had access to their own costumes,”

SPARE COSTUMES

“NO, THAT'S WRONG!”

“No, Emily made spare costumes,” I explained.

“Ah, yeah right!” Emily nodded. “I made spare costumes and then had Claire move them to Elliott’s cabin,”

“Elliott’s cabin?” Victor raised his eyebrow.

“O-Oh yeah!” Sophia said. “Now I remember, Haley asked you to do it after Emily passed out,”

“Yeah, Em, you didn’t get her to do it at all,” The blonde snickered.

Emily let out a sigh, and then a chuckle. “I suppose you told her,”

“Wait, how’d the killer even get into Elliott’s cabin?” Shane asked.

The killer could’ve entered Elliott’s cabin, because…

ELLIOTT DOESN’T LOCK HIS CABIN

THAT’S IT!

“Elliott doesn’t lock his cabin though,” I said as I turned my head towards the Poet. “Right?”

“I can lock it, but I choose not to,” Elliott said with a small chuckle. “I believe it makes me more trustworthy,”

“It makes you kinda stupid more like it,” Haley scoffed.

“Haley!” Emily scolded. “Although, it perhaps isn’t the best idea,”

“The killer knew how to lockpick anyway though, right?” Abigail turned her head. “Locked or unlocked they’d still be able to get in,”

“Right, right,” Victor nodded. “So if anyone could grab Sebastian’s costume then…”

“Pretty much anyone could be the killer,” Sebastian said with a shrug.

“Ugh!” Haley let out a loud noise of frustration. “Of course it could be literally anyone, every time!”

Not exactly, there’s a small group of people who can’t be it no matter what…

NONSTOP DEBATE

“So, we’re at square one again?” Clint mumbled. “That sucks…”

“Massive fucking understatement!” Haley whined, her face scrunching up.

“How could we possibly all be suspicious?” Penny put a hand to her chin.

Elliott shook his head. “I don’t believe that’s possible anyhow,”

“Oh really? Can you say it then?” Haley grumbled. “You grown ass theatre student!”

Elliott shook his head and chuckled once again. “Only people who left the party could have broken into your home,”

“Oh!” Maru yelped. “Oh yeah, there were like six people who stayed at the party ‘till Emily ran back!”

BEACH-COSTUME PARTY ATTENDANTS

“I AGREE WITH THAT!”

“That’s right!” I said, Maru and Elliott both smiled at me in return. Maru’s smile being wide and lopsided.” Some of us were at the party the entire time,”

“Yeah!” Abigail nodded energetically. “They were Me, Claire, Maru, Penny, Victor and Elliott,”

“So, we’re innocent no matter what,” Victor declared. “And of course with how many people were there, it’d be difficult to leave the party without at least someone seeing you, so I doubt anyone left and came back,”

“So, six out of thirteen are innocent,” Haley let out a sigh. “That’s cool and all, but that still leaves a shit ton of people who it could be,”

“Hm, well, why don’t we move on to a different topic in that case?” Elliott said with a small shake of his head. “Perhaps when everyone had left the party itself? That could give us a good jumping off point for figuring out more of this case,”

“I left at around 6:50ish,” Emily said with a nod. “Elliott saw me,”

“Yes,” The man nodded back. “She was repairing a tear in my costume, then got tired and left for home,”

“I left with Clint,” Harvey said as he adjusted his glasses ever so slightly.

“We left at about five I’d say?” Clint shrugged. “I dunno,”

“Did you leave at five or not?” Haley crossed her arms and smirked. “Seems like a hard thing to forget,”

“I mean, uhh…” Clint mumbled and trailed off.

“We did leave at five,” Harvey let out a frustrated sigh.

“I also left at about five, got tired of doing pretty much nothing,” Shane said with a groan.

“Ditto,” Sebastian added.

Emily shook her head. “You should have stayed longer, I liked hanging out with all of you!”

“Eh,” Shane shrugged. “I didn’t, no offence,”

“Okay, rude,” Maru shook her head.

“Same here,” Sebastian smirked. “It’s the truth, Maru,”

Maru rolled her eyes.

“Haley, you also obviously left the party,” I said. “Did you forget then too?”

Clint let out a quiet chuckle, Haley rolled her eyes, then answered. “I left at like six, Sophia saw me, too,”

“Y-Yeah, we left together,” Sophia mumbled out. “I got a stomach ache from eating too much, a-and it was cold, so I went home,”

“Weird, I got a stomach ache too,” Haley added.

“Huh…” Sebastian muttered, holding a hand to his chin.

“What are you thinking about, Seb?” Maru asked with a turn of her head.

Sebastian shrugged. “You think there’s a chance someone put something in the food? Drugged it so that someone would go home early, so they could kill them easier?”

“What!?” Emily yelped.

“People went home in groups, though,” Elliott said.

“I never said their plan worked,” Sebastian squinted his eyes. “If the killer poisoned the food, or the wine or something like that it could force someone to leave, and give them an excuse to leave the party early without looking odd…”

“A-Are you accusing me!?” Sophia yelped and pointed

“Hmm, I don’t have a weak stomach,” Haley added as she gave the pink haired girl and the emo boy a look. “And Sophia was the only person giving out the wine,”

“Wh-Wha!?”

This is moving far too fast, there has to be something that makes it impossible for the wine to have been poisoned.

NONSTOP DEBATE

“Poison, really?” Emily quirked an eyebrow. “That seems like a pretty big stretch,”

“Y-Yeah!” Sophia yelped. “I-I would never do something like that,”

“Emily, Penny and I were the only people handling the food,” Elliott said with a nod. “I… suppose we should have established that earlier,”

“Probably,” Haley said with a shrug. “Though again, Sophia was the only person handling the wine,”

“I-I only brought one box of wine t-to the party!” Sophia let out a squeak as she tried to defend herself with flailing arms. “I-I had no time to poison a-anything,”

“She… doesn’t seem like the kind of person to do that,” Victor said as he flashed a sympathetic look to the woman.

“And her outfit had no pockets,” Abigail shrugged. “She couldn’t have done it during the party,”

“And the food couldn’t be poisoned during the party anyway,” Emily added. “Someone would have caught that,”

Sebastian shrugged. “Then she did it before the party, she would have been the only person who’d be looking over the wine,”

PENNY’S ACCOUNT

“NO, THAT'S WRONG!”

“Penny, you were overseeing the food, right?” I said, the teacher perking up as I spoke. “Were you also watching over the drinks too,”

“Of course I was!” Penny said with an offended gasp. “It’d be irresponsible not to!”

“Sh-She pretty much forced me to have her go with me to deliver the wine,” Sophia let out a giggle.

“Why the hell didn’t you say that earlier!?” Sebastian grumbled.

“You were kinda talking over everyone, Seb,” Maru quirked an eyebrow, speaking like a disappointed mother, or sister in this case.

“You’re quiet as hell, I don’t even know how you’d manage to do that,” Haley let out a snicker as Sebastian scoffed.

“Well, we’ve truly ruled out any foul play thanks to Penny’s very thorough examinations,” Elliott chuckled. “Thank you for that,”

“It’s really no problem, I-I wanted this party to go as well as possible,” Penny nodded. “It… was right for me to be a bit paranoid,”

“Not paranoid enough, apparently,” Haley grumbled under her breath, then she got flicked on the back of the ear by Emily. “Ow!”

“So, we know pretty much when everyone left,” I said with a firm nod.

“We can’t confirm Sebastian and Shane, though,” Haley said as she gave the taller of the two, Sebastian a glare. “And it’s still really weird how your costume was the one the guy I saw punching me straight in the fucking temple was,”

“The killer could be literally anyone who left,” Maru said as she glared at the blonde.

“I-It doesn’t really matter all that much if you saw someone leave, yeah,” Sophia mumbled out.

Victor nodded in agreement. “No one left the party after the murder, everyone except the six who stayed the whole day are still suspicious,”

“Well, did anyone act suspicious when they left?” Harvey asked. “As far as I’m aware, everyone went straight home,”

“Actually, someone didn’t…” Shane grumbled under his breath, I heard Clint gulp.

Is he referring to…

CLINT SITTING ON THE BENCH

“IS THIS IT?”

“You said you saw Clint sitting on a bench just outside the beach, is that really all that weird?” I quirk my eyebrow as I speak. It doesn’t seem all that suspicious to me.

“I was cooling off, y’know?” Clint mumbled. “I like to have some time outside after social events…”

“The bench is pretty close to Emily’s house, within eyeshot,” Shane added.

Haley let out a gasp of realisation, her eyes growing wide, and then squinting into a sneer at the blacksmith. “Aaaand Clint’s really weird towards my sister, and probably doesn’t like me because I call him out on it all the time!”

“People don’t like you because you’re an asshole for no reason,” Abigail glared at the photographer.

“Rude,” Haley rolled her eyes. “What I’m saying is he has a lot more motive to go after me than the rest of us,”

“Haley…” Emily said, voice full of frustration.

“I mean, it’s a little odd to not go straight home, but… is that really enough to accuse him of murder?” Penny asked.

“It’s the only evidence we have!” Haley complained.

“We don’t need to grasp at straws this hard, do we?” Elliott quirked his eyebrow, hands on his hips.

We shouldn’t have to, and I swear there’s something that makes it hard to believe Clint to be the killer…

NONSTOP DEBATE

“Clint’s the only person with any kind of motive!” Haley declared as she glared at the large man.

“I-I swear, I just needed some fresh air…” Clint mumbled. “I didn’t mean to look weird,”

“I’m sure you didn’t,” Sebastian added with a roll of his eyes.

“Seb, don’t,” Maru glared at her brother, then let out a sigh. “We’re not accusing Clint based on this, right, there’s gotta be something else, right?”

“Everyone else headed straight to their home after leaving as far as I’m aware,” Harvey said.

“Clint could’ve been waiting for Haley to leave the party,” Shane said with squinted, conspiratorial eyes.

“He… wouldn’t do that,” Emily said with a nod, though there was something… odd in her voice.

Clint let out a sigh. “Thank you,”

“Em, you’ve never had the self preservation instincts in the family,” Haley said with a roll of her eyes. “He could totally be stalking you and you wouldn't even know,”

“Haley…” Emily grumbled. “I’m not saying he didn’t do it because we’re friends, I’m saying it because we both caught a glimpse of the person who broke into our house,”

SISTER’S ACCOUNTS

“I AGREE WITH THAT!”

“Yes, you did tell me that the person who broke into your house was quite thin,” I said with a nod.

Emily nodded back. “And tall, according to Haley they were also relatively tall,”

“Clint’s neither of those things,” Maru said with a nod. “Oh wait, that’s really mean, shit,”

“No offence taken, don’t worry…” Clint sighed, there was probably a bit of offence taken.

“Ah,” Shane said with a nod, he glared at Haley for a moment but returned to his usual look of grumpiness and disinterest. “Well in that case it can’t be me either,”

“Elliott’s the only really tall one here,” Sebastian said with a glare at the Poet, who let out a dramatic sigh in response.

“I didn’t say titan height, I said like, slightly taller than the average person,” Haley added. “Kinda like you, Sebby,” She nicknamed the man with sneering venom, like she knew he was the killer already.

Sebastian rolled his eyes, Maru then came to his defence as per usual. “Making out their proper bodytype would’ve been hard under that cloak, wouldn’t it?”

“Maybe, but their height wouldn’t be all too hard to make out,” Victor said with a small shrug.

“So, by that logic the culprit is… quite literally anyone who is around or above average height,” Elliott pinched the bridge of his nose.

“So, Harvey and I pretty much?” Sebastian asked with a halfhearted quirk of his brow.

“T-Two culprits,” Sophia mumbled.

“Well it’s not me, I returned to my clinic the moment I left the party,” Harvey said.

“Well, it’s not Sebby either!” Maru squeaked out. “There has to something else that we can look at,”

“Well, I did-”

“What about the scene of Haley and Emily’s house?” I asked, cringing internally as I interrupted Elliott. I knew what he was going to ask about next, I had to prevent confirming what I saw at his cabin for as long as possible… besides, if we look into this hard enough maybe there’ll be something that… nevermind, focus on this.

Elliott hummed. “I suppose that could be a good thing to discuss,”

“You and Abigail explored around Haley’s room and the darkroom heavily, right?” Penny asked.

“Y-You explored Haley’s room?” Sophia mumbled, then flashed me a smile. “Th-That’s good! I-I think in the commotion the rest of us forgot to,”

“Kind of a breach of privacy, but I guess you had to…” Haley rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. “Go on, what’d you see in my room?”

“It was completely fucked, like, they knocked over your vanity and everything!” Abigail yelped.

“I assume you and the killer got into a fight then?” Maru asked.

Haley nodded. “No shit, he tried to punch me in the fucking head,”

“Wait, d-did the killer beat Leah to death with their bare hands?” Sophia mumbled, I could almost feel the tears threatening to form in her eyes from her tone. “That’s horrible!”

No, we saw a murder weapon in the darkroom, it was…

BLOODY CAMERA

“THIS IS IT!”

“There was a bloody camera sat next to Leah’s body, that must’ve been what the killer used to kill her,” I said.

“Yeah! Yeah!” Maru nodded energetically. “It’d be pretty easy to swing around if you grabbed it by the harness,”

“Guess that’s why my camera was there and not on the desk where I left it,” Haley grumbled.

“That was… your camera?” Sebastian quirked an eyebrow at the blonde woman. “Weird…”

“You know anyone can pick up my camera, right?” Haley raised her eyebrow back as her face scrunched into a sneer.

“I’m not accusing you, Haley,” Sebastian reminded with a sigh. “I’m just saying we should keep it in mind,”

“Sure,” The blonde woman rolled her eyes. “Why the fuck would it being my camera matter anyway?”

“No reason, no reason,” Sebastian raised his hands, but most of the trial room still felt the need to glare at him anyway.

“Well, let’s get back to Haley’s room, pretty much everything had been trashed,” I began. “There was blood scattered around the room too,”

“Well yeah, I got hit pretty fucking hard in the head,” Haley added. “No shit there would be blood on my bed,”

But there was also blood in another spot of the room…

SEPARATE BLOODSTAINS

“HERE IT IS!”

“There are also a bloodstain in the middle of your bedroom,” I reminded the blonde woman, who jumped a little in response.

“Oh yeah, I just assumed it was part of the commotion, y’know?” Abigail suggested.

“I got hit in the head in the middle of the room!” Haley clarified with a shout. “Then I fell on my bed when I got knocked out!”

“You keep adding shit to your story,” Shane said as he raised an eyebrow at the photographer.

“Oh, sorry I didn’t feel the need to recount every little fucking detail about what happened!” Haley let out a groan of frustration as she spoke, or more accurately yelled. “Do you wanna know the exact angle I fell down? Cause I can barely remember shit, I got punched in the fucking head!”

“We’re not accusing Haley of faking a break in, are we?” Emily glared at Shane. “I also saw the burglar, remember?”

“It’d be hard to get Emily of all people to corroborate a fake break in,” Penny said with a nod.

Maru nodded. “She wouldn’t do anything like that, we know her well enough to know that!”

“Some people are willing to do a lot for their siblings,” Sebastian frowned. “You never know what could’ve happened,”

“Yeah…” Maru grumbled as she rolled her eyes.

“Th-That’s right, b-but a whole break in?” Sophia mumbled out. “I-I can’t believe that!”

Haley maybe could’ve tried to fake a break in, but… there’s no way Emily would agree to help with something like that… I know there’s no way for Haley to have killed Leah…

NONSTOP DEBATE

“This whole break in thing seems… almost too convenient,” Sebastian said with squinted eyes.

“Faking it would be pretty hard, though,” Penny added with a nod. “It all seems a bit too real,”

“No shit, cause it happened!” Haley shouted.

“Haley could have invited Leah to her house, then beat her with the camera, and then drag her into her darkroom,” Shane said.

“I saw the killer,” Emily added with a sigh.

“You sure? Cause it wouldn’t be that hard for Haley to her murder thing, scream, and then put on a costume and punch you to the floor once you go in the darkroom,” Shane said.

“Y-You never did get a look at their face…” Sophia mumbled.

“I-I was hit from behind,” Emily mumbled, before shaking her head, the doubt in her voice going with it. “But the killer could have just as easily been hiding in the darkroom!”

“What part of I was knocked the fuck out do you not understand!?” Haley shouted.

“The part where you could have faked being knocked out,” Sebastian grumbled. “Emily’s the only person who can say she saw you then,”

INJURED HALEY

“NO, THAT'S WRONG!”

“It wasn’t just Emily that saw Haley knocked out,” I rebutted, Sebastian then gave me a look as I continued to speak. “Before the body discovery announcement rang out, all six of the people who had been at the party the whole night were all lead to Emily’s house,”

“That’s right, our Seamstress friend had come running for us to come to her house in a panic,” Elliott added with a slow nod.

“We saw Haley wake up from being knocked out,” Abigail added with a confident nod.

“It looked far too real to fake,” Penny added.

“Well duh, cause it wasn’t!” Haley’s shouting had become grumbling by now.

“I think they understand that you haven’t faked anything,” Emily said reassuringly.

“Plus, who would even do that?” Maru said as she gave Sebastian a look of confusion. “Sounds like way too much effort to make someone look suspicious,”

“At this point, it’s pretty obvious that the break in couldn’t have been faked,” I said. “Unless something else comes up that-”

“YOUR ARGUMENT’S FULL OF BUGS!”

“So what? Photography girl is a really good actor,” Sebastian sneered. “Doesn’t mean the break in isn’t fake,”

“Sebastian,” I said, scolding the man. “You don’t have any hard evidence for your theory,”

“And? There’s no hard evidence that it was real either,” Sebastian squinted his tired eyes as he began his rebuttal…

REBUTTAL SHOWDOWN

CLAIRE VS SEBASTIAN
FIGHT!!!

“Even if we believe Emily wasn’t in on whatever scheme Haley had in mind…”

“It’s still fully possible that she faked the entire break in,”

“Emily barely saw the person who apparently did it,”

“So, it’s entirely possible that Haley hits her, pretends to be knocked out and “wakes up” once her sister came back with everyone…

“But we saw Haley knocked out,”

“And we saw her wake up, it’d be difficult to fake both of those enough to convince everyone there,”

“Difficult, but not impossible,”

“No matter what Haley says she did…”

“It’s fully possible for her to have faked the break in, rub blood on her head to fake her injuries and everything,”

“All she’d need to do is lay down on her bed and pretend to be knocked out once Emily gets back up,”

BROKEN WINDOW

“I’LL CUT THROUGH THAT ARGUMENT!”

“Actually there is something she’d have to do after she hit Emily,” I said confidently. “She’d need to break the window before Emily ever left their house,”

“Yes! I heard the window breaking!” Emily nodded energetically, smile on her face. “Thank you Claire!”

“And? That wouldn’t take very long,” Sebastian added.

He just doesn’t give up, does he? There’s another thing that makes it impossible for Haley to have touched that window…

NO INJURIES BESIDES HEAD INJURY

“THIS IS IT!”

“Haley had no kind of injury, or even any marks on any part of her body besides her head,” I said.

“Windows are actually pretty hard to break,” Abigail added. “Haley would need to hit it hard enough to leave some kinda scratch on her,”

“Are you done yet, Seb?” Maru said, frustration in her voice as she spoke to her brother. “We need to move on from this if we want to get anywhere,”

Sebastian sighed, long and drawn out. “Fine, I’ll stop arguing,” He raised his hands in surrender.

“O-Okay, now that’s it’s one hundred percent clear that H-Haley probably didn’t fake the break in… let’s keep talking about what Abby and Claire saw in her room…” Sophia mumbled out.

Abigail nodded, then looked down a bit dejected. “We uh… actually don’t have much else to say, we saw some weird slash marks in the wall, but that could’ve been caused by any old thing,” The purple haired woman shrugged.

“Slash marks?” Shane raised an eyebrow. “I thought the killer only had Haley’s camera as a weapon,”

“I wouldn’t know how they got there, knocked out,” Haley said, then shot a look as Sebastian. “No one’s denying that now, are they?”

I actually did see something that could’ve caused those marks, but…

AXE

“I HAVE SOMETHING!”

“Actually, I think I know what caused those marks, there was an axe in Leah’s duffel bag,” I said simply. “That… would have made those marks in Haley’s room,”

“Yeah, Claire and I saw that!” Maru said with a firm nod. “But… I was always kinda confused about it,”

“Wait, but, if it’s in the duffel bag, then… she wouldn’t have been able to pull it out easily…” Penny added.

Abigail shook her head. “But they were wide slash marks, like, really wide slash marks,”

“Perhaps the type an axe could make easily…” Elliott put a hand to his chin.

“Well that doesn’t help, fuck,” Haley grumbled, pinching the bridge of her nose in frustration. “The killer did some shit with whatever’s sharp in my room and it looks like an axe mark, that’s not groundbreaking,”

“Maybe, but it’s important to keep in mind,” I added.

“Another mystery to add to the ever increasing list,” Victor sighed. “At this rate every path we explore just leads to more questions,”

Sebastian looked like he was going to say something, but elected to just look dejected at the ground for now.

“Tell me about it, shit’s annoying,” Shane grumbled.

“Well, does anyone have anything else?” Emily asked, looking around at all of us.

“I do,” Elliott said, as he looked at me. “During the investigation, I asked Claire to search through my cabin and tell us if any costumes had been taken, did you end up doing that?”

It was going to happen eventually, everyone was looking at me, silent and sweating as I worked up the courage to say. “Yes I did, no costumes had been taken from the bag,” I declared.

“What!?” Maru squeaked out.

“S-So that means, oh god…” Penny mumbled, looking like she was seconds away from vomiting.

“I fucking knew it, I knew it was you!” Haley shouted as she pointed at the programmer, who looked like he had shrunk several sizes just from what I had said alone.

“Wait, hold on-”

“At this point, it can only be Sebastian, hm…” Victor put a hand to his chin, calm as ever, but looking somewhat spitefully at the black haired man.

“Really? I-I just- all it really means is that no one went to Elliott’s Cabin,” Abigail said in a panic. “Sebastian’s costume wasn’t that hard to mimic, it was a sheet and a-”

“Th-The mask perfectly matched his though…” Sophia mumbled out. “Th-That’d be near impossible to replicate,”

“It was also a pretty generic white mask!” Maru shouted in a panic. “A-Anyone could grab anything like it and-”

“No, shut the fuck up,” Haley said firmly. “We know who did it now, all there’s left to do is to vote Sebastian out, so we can all move on from this. I don’t care that he’s your brother, we’re done here!”

“Now, now, we shant be so hasty, lest we wish death upon ourselves,” Elliott said as he gave Haley a look. “We need to discuss this before we come to any conclusions.

That’s right! Sebastian looks more suspicious than ever right now… even some part of me thinks it could be him, but… another part knows that there’s a logical reason he can’t…

NONSTOP DEBATE

“Is there anything else to discuss?” Haley said, her voice more calm now, but no less stuffed with malice. “No one entered Elliott’s cabin, so no one would be able to take the costume,”

“P-Perhaps someone took it without us looking and came back after they killed Leah?” Maru desperately shouted out her defence, Sebastian stared silently at his sister and sighed.

“Unless everyone’s as blind as you, we would’ve seen that!” Haley shouted out.

“Hey, I have something to-”

“We never did see Leah leave, so there’s a chance someone could…” Victor hummed, interrupting Shane. “But to make two trips and have no one see you? That’s near impossible…”

“W-We never noticed Leah!” Maru mumbled out in a panic. “I-I…”

“Face it, Maru, your brother-”

“SHUT THE HELL UP!” Shane suddenly shouted, interrupting Haley and causing everyone to look at him. “Fucking hell, Sebastian couldn’t have done it cause after he left he was hanging out with me in the saloon,”

SHANE’S ACCOUNT

“I AGREE WITH THAT!”

“That’s what you told me, yeah,” I said with a nod. “You and Sebastian apparently go there relatively often,”

“Yeah…” Sebastian nodded as he let out a sigh of relief.

Shane nodded in agreement. “We were there until the body discovery announcement rang out, he had no time to break into Haley and Emily’s house,”

“Why the fuck didn’t you say this earlier!?” Haley shouted.

“You kept talking over me!” Shane yelled back, before returning to his grumbly tone. “Dick,”

“I know the feeling…” Clint mumbled.

“Oh thank Yoba, oh… so it can’t be Sebastian,” Maru let out a heavy breath of relief, she looked like she was on the verge of passing out from stress.

“Th-That raises a whole lot of q-questions though, how did the culprit manage to mimic Sebastian’s c-costume so well?” Sophia mumbled.

“It wasn’t that hard to make, just a mask and a cloak,” Emily reminded us. “The mask wouldn’t be that hard either, it was pretty much just the face of a mannequin with some string run through it,”

Haley suddenly piped up. “Shane could totally just be lying,”

“Why would he lie to protect me?” Sebastian sneered at the photographer. “He gains nothing out of it, he’d die if I turned out to be the killer,”

“Right, as morbid as it is, that’s the only reason accomplices don’t make much sense,” Penny added.

“In a kill or be killed scenario such at this, no one’s willing to let themselves die for another,” Elliott sighed. “Such a depressing thought,”

“So, if no one grabbed the spare costume from the cabin…” Victor put a hand to his chin, looking deep in thought.

Haley shook her head and grumbled. “Did you not hear Emily? The mask-”

“I-I’m aware, b-but… where would you find a mannequin just… lying around?” Sophia added.

I… think I know where, it would recontexualise a lot of the case, however…

COSTUME SUPPLIES

“I HAVE AN IDEA!”

“There was a box of costume supplies in Haley and Emily’s sewing area, it included a couple mannequins,” I explained, Emily suddenly froze up as Haley’s face scrunched up further.

“Wh-Wha!?” Sophia yelped. “Wait, s-so does that mean-”

“It means fucking nothing is what it means!” Haley yelled even louder, flecks of spit shooting out of her mouth as she argued.

“If the killer could have only made the mask at Emily’s house then… what does that…” Penny slowly trailed off.

Victor shook his head. “It feels as if this case only gets more confusing,”

“Or, the conclusion that can be drawn from this is, most undesirable,” Harvey shuddered.

“Every avenue just leads to more questions… I’m sure Haley is innocent in all this, but…” Emily unfroze as she spoke. “Th-The break in has to be real, I was there, I saw it!”

“We are aware,” Elliott said. “We’re not denying that, but… with every new piece of evidence-”

“It seems faker and faker by the minute, huh?” Sebastian added. “Maybe I called it out a bit early, but…”

“But what? Asshole!” Haley sneered. “We’ve already proved you’re wrong-”

“We didn’t have everything yet, though,” Haley let out a gasp as I spoke. “Now that we’ve more thoroughly discussed some other evidence, it’s starting to look less unreasonable,”

“I mean, we know that someone attacked Haley,” Abigail added. “With the axe marks and everything, it’d be kinda hard to fake all of it,”

“Those can’t be a coincidence, but…” I let out a sigh, all the evidence is vague enough individually that no solid conclusions could be drawn from it.

“I know what to do,”

“Huh?” I let out a small gasp as Sebastian interjected.

“You’re having trouble making up a theory, thankfully I already have one in mind,” The man said with a smirk. “I’d go it alone any other day, but you’re better at convincing people than me, so…”

“You want to work together?” I asked, taking Sebastian’s words as a compliment

“Yes,” Sebastian nodded, then sighed. “Let’s get this over with,”

COLLABORATIVE CRAFTING

CLAIRE & SEBASTIAN
GO!!!

“With all the evidence we have, it’s pretty clear that…”

“Haley’s house wasn’t broken into,”

“You’ve got it!”

“However, Haley is telling the truth about one thing…”

“Haley was attacked by someone,”

“We’re getting there!

“And considering what you found on the body, the only person that could be is…”

“The victim of this case, Leah,”

“WE’VE HAVE AN ANSWER!”

“We’ve come up with a theory, Haley was attacked by someone-”

“Thank you!” Haley’s annoyed voice seem to lighten up a bit as she interrupted me. “At least you and that asshole Seb aren’t denying that-”

“And the person who did it, was the victim of this case, Leah,” Sebastian accused calmly.

“What!?” Elliott shouted, before clearing his throat. “How is that possible?”

“Yeah, what are you talking about!?” Haley shouted. “Me and Leah were hanging out, she didn’t break in at all!”

“They’re not saying that she broke in, just that she’s the one who attacked you,” Penny said, Sebastian nodded in agreement.

Victor put a hand to his chin. “That itself does imply that no break in occurred,”

“Do you have anything to back that up?” Emily asked. “Leah doesn’t seem like the kind of person to do something like that,”

“Y-Yeah, she was always so nice to everyone,” Sophia added.

Nice, maybe, but the promise MonoMo made with us would be enough to make anyone kill, because the axe was her…

M O T I V E I T E M

“IT MAKES SENSE!”

“Remember the motive we got? Where everyone got given something that if they used to kill they’d be given some kind of reward alongside their escape?” I asked.

“Right, what does that have to do with this murder?” Elliott asked, then his face suddenly lit up. “Oh, wait a moment…”

“Wait, waitwaitwait!” Maru gasped. “Are you saying the axe in Leah’s bag her murder weapon?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” I confirmed.

“Huh?” Emily mumbled out. “How do you know that?”

“I want a good answer, dumbass!” Haley shouted.

“She told us when we got the objects, in the saloon, remember?” Sebastian added, his tired eyes looking darker than they already did normally, maybe that was an effect of him being annoyed.

“She…” Elliott trailed off, before his eyes widened in shock and remembrance. “Oh good lord, she said exactly that!”

“She was one of the few who told us what their special item was,” Harvey nodded. “Though, perhaps the killer could have used this in order to confuse us?”

“But the person who apparently broke into Emily and Haley’s house didn’t bring anything in,” Shane added as he eyed the blonde woman, who had begun to look around increasingly frantically. “And they can’t be psychic enough to know that Leah’s just gonna have an axe on her,”

“Ah, of course!” Harvey nodded.

“This all seems pretty weird…” Clint mumbled out.

“Because it is weird, I don’t believe it for a minute,” Emily said with a boatload of conviction in her voice. “None of what Claire and Sebastian are saying makes sense to me or Haley,”

“Yeah!” Haley shouted in agreement.

I looked at the blue haired woman who was staring me down. “Emily, if you have a rebuttal, I would like to hear it, but all the evidence we have points to-”

“YOUR AURA’S ALL OFF!”

“Well, if you’ll give me a chance then I’ll gladly give a rebuttal,” Emily nodded. “Leah would never in a million years try to attack my sister!”

“All the evidence points to the idea that she at least tried,” I explained

“Well, I have something that makes it clear she couldn’t have!” Emily said confidently, hands on her hips and everything.

REBUTTAL SHOWDOWN

CLAIRE VS EMILY

FIGHT!!!

“Leah would never try to break into our house!”

“Much less even think about hurting any of us!”

“Her aura never suggested any kind of murderous intent…”

“Her and Haley were friends, she was just visiting!”

“And besides, you’re accusing her on evidence that hardly makes sense!”

“The evidence makes sense to me, though,”

“Why else would Leah pack an axe to visit Haley’s house?”

“That is an odd thing for her to do…”

“But even so, there’s a very good reason she wouldn’t try to break into our house specifically…”

“Because I was there!”

“Why would she try to kill someone she knew wasn’t alone?”

BEACH-COSTUME PARTY LEAVERS

“I’LL CUT THROUGH THAT ARGUMENT!”

“What if never thought you were in the house?” I said as I looked Emily in the eyes. “After all, Elliott was the only person who knew that you left the party,”

Emily stiffened, and her eyes widened like a deer in headlights. “I- Wh-Wha?”

“I am the one who told you she left, but… did anyone else seriously not see her leave?” Elliott looked around the room.

“I guess by the time she did, I was… distracted by something else,” Penny said, shame in her small voice.

Victor nodded confidently. “Then it only makes sense that Leah could have missed Emily leaving the party too,”

“And according to your own account you were in your room when the quote unquote break in happened,” I said before Emily had a chance to say anything else. “Thus, unless Leah searched your room or called out for you, there’d be no way for her to know you were in the house,”

“I-I… oh Yoba…” Emily mumbled out, faint tears forming in her eyes before seemingly being swallowed as she tried to put on a brave face.

“S-So Leah broke into Haley’s house to kill her!?” Sophia squeaked out, covering her hands with her mouth.

“She didn’t break in at all,” I confirmed. “She had simple let herself into their home and attacked Haley in her room,”

“O-Oh, I guess that m-makes a little sense,” Sophia mumbled. “S-Still, I find a fake break in a-a little farfetched,”

Elliott nodded. “It is a hard sell indeed,”

“Cause it wasn’t faked, weirdo, Claire’s just confused!” Haley shouted. “Leah didn’t do shit, Sebastian put on his shitty ass costume and bashed her head in!”

“Plus, faking the break in would probably need Emily’s help…” Clint mumbled. “She doesn’t seem like the kind of person to do that…”

“Looks can be deceiving, I guess,” Shane grumbled as he shrugged.

“I would never help with a murder, and Haley- Haley would never try to trick me like this!” Emily defended, more angry than anyone had seen her before. “We need to reconsider everything Claire’s said,”

“What’s there to reconsider?” Abigail shrugged. “What she’s saying sounds crazy, but at this point a fake break in kinda makes more sense than a real one,”

“Well damn,” Maru groaned. “We’re not gonna get anywhere if we’re split on whether or no Haley’s house was-”

“SPLIT!? You said it again!” MonoMo screeched from its throne. “You know what that means?”

Haley groaned. “Oh great, more debate shit…”

MonoMo cleared its throat, and in its usual irritating tone began to speak. “Pelican Town is proud to present its very own morphenomenal trial grounds!”

…

“What? No cheering this time, not even from the nerdy one!?”

“It loses impact the second time?” Maru shrugged, confused. “Also, rude,”

MonoMo sighed, then proceeded to put the key into the slot at the front of its seat, sending our stands into two separate rows facing one another…

DEBATE SCRUM

WAS HALEY AND EMILY’S HOUSE BROKEN INTO?

NO, THE BREAK IN NEVER HAPPENED

Claire, Sebastian, Penny, Maru, Victor, Shane, Abigail, Alex

YES, THEIR HOUSE WAS BROKEN INTO

Haley, Emily, Clint, Harvey, Sophia, Elliott, Leah, Sam

DEBATE SCRUM: START!

EMILY:

“I can tell you, the break in wasn’t fake!”

SEBASTIAN!

“Everything we’ve figured out involving Leah suggests that Haley faked it,”

SOPHIA:

“L-Leah would never try to attack any of us, w-we were her friends!”

MARU!

“Leah’s the same person who brought an axe to her friend’s house,”

EMILY:

“There’s no actual evidence to suggest that thing was even used, right!?”

ABIGAIL:

“It’s kinda obvious that she used it to make those scratch marks on the wall,”

CLINT:

“How does Leah attacking Haley make the break in any less real?”

VICTOR!

“Haley said that Leah was attacked by the killer while they were hanging out,”

HALEY:

“Didn’t you already say that the broken window disproves that the break in was faked?”

I GOT THIS!

“You could have broken the window before Leah came to your house,”

HALEY:

“Dumbass, Emily would’ve heard that!”

SHANE!

“You got home before Emily, you’d have plenty of time to break the window before she got there,”

EMILY:

“Even if the break in never happened, where does that get us?”

SEBASTIAN!

“It opens up a whole new path for us involving this case…”

CROUCH BIND!

…

“THIS IS OUR ANSWER!”

“I think at this point, the only way for the evidence to make sense is for the break in to have never happened,” I declared to the rest of the trial room.

“Yes, I think we can all agree at this point that…” Penny trailed off. “The entire break in conflicts with a lot of things Haley has said,”

Elliott nodded. “I suppose we’ve all come to an agreement-”

“So?” Haley quirked an eyebrow.

“What do you mean, ‘so?’” Shane asked. “You faking an entire break in makes you really damn suspicious,”

Sebastian nodded. “Unless you have something that magically disproves it-”

“OF COURSE I DO, DUMBASS!”

“I don’t really care what you have to say, though, so I’m gonna convince Claire,” Haley declared as she looked at me.

“What?” I mumbled in confusion.

Haley nodded. “Once you hear what I’ve got to say, you’ll turn all this bullshit around in no time!”

REBUTTAL SHOWDOWN

CLAIRE VS HALEY

FIGHT!!!

“You gotta be stupid to believe that I just up and killed Leah,”

“I was knocked out, remember?”

“It’d be pretty hard to fake that…”

“I got a C in drama, I am not cut out to act!”

“You may have been knocked out, but…”

“You still had plenty of time before you called for Emily to fully fake the break in,”

“Okay, so remember how Emily saw me with my head all bloody?”

“That means I kinda had to be knocked out before Leah ever died,”

“And it’s pretty obvious that she died in the darkroom,”

“Which I couldn’t have entered without making a mess because my head was bloody,”

“I mean, there’s literally nothing to even imply she died anywhere else!”

SEPARATE BLOODSTAINS

“I’LL CUT THROUGH YOUR ARGUMENT!”

“There were two separate bloodstains in your room,” I clarified. “While I thought at first they both belonged to you, it seems obvious now that one bloodstain came from Leah when she was killed…”

“Uh huh?” Haley said obnoxiously, which I couldn’t blame her for doing she was for all intensive purposes being accused of murder.

“Which bloodstain came from Leah, then?” Abigail asked.

It should be fairly obvious which bloodstain was caused by Leah, it was…

THE MIDDLE BLOODSTAIN

“THERE!”

“The bloodstain in the middle of Haley’s room,” I answered.

“If Leah died in Haley’s room she could have left that bloodstain once her head landed on the floor,” Harvey nodded.

“W-Wait, I have a question!” Sophia squeaked.

“Don’t be so scared, Soph,” Maru giggled reassuringly. “I’m sure Claire is fine with questions,”

“Ah, well u-um… wouldn’t the MonoMo file say where Leah died?” Sophia asked, a little less meek than before. “I feel like we can just check that a-and clear this topic,”

“It would say that, those files are meant to give us all necessary information,” Victor nodded.

“That doesn’t expose the killer!” MonoMo shouted out. “It’s like you damn kids don’t listen sometimes!”

Elliott quirked his head like an owl. “Interesting, what did the file say, Claire?”

What information did the file have about the location of death?

NONE

“THIS IS IT!”

“It didn’t have any,” I confirmed.

“I just assumed that was normal for the MonoMo files,” Penny said. “It didn’t tell us where Sam died last time,”

“In that case where he died was the most important thing,” Sebastian shrugged. “Here it’s not, but if Leah died in Haley’s room while she was attacking her and not the darkroom after she ran for it. It does make her seem more suspicious,”

“So, Haley moved the body to the darkroom?” Emily turned her head curiously. “Why would she do that?”

“And how the hell are you gonna prove that I did anything?” Haley grumbled. “C’mon, I’m all ears at this point, can’t wait to hear what bullshit you can cook up!”

Haley’s still belligerent, I’m going to have to work hard to make her accept the truth of this case. Starting with confirming that she did move the body…

NONSTOP DEBATE

“So, Leah was killed in Haley’s room, correct?” Elliott asked with a quirked eyebrow.

Sebastian shrugged. “That’s what we’re saying,”

“So, what we have so far is… Leah attacks Haley, Haley fights back and kills her with her camera…” Maru trails off. “And then she fakes the whole break in to look innocent?”

“That’s what I think,” Shane shrugged.

“Well you’re wrong, dumbass!” Haley screeched, waving her hands around violently.

“You keep saying that, but all of the evidence you provide gets rebutted,” Victor said with a sigh. “Just admit it already, and make this easier,”

“Are you dense? I’m not admitting to something I didn’t do!” Haley said, getting redder and shoutier by the minute. “Besides, if I did drag Leah’s heavy ass body to the darkroom, a trail of blood would’ve obviously been left behind, duh doy!”

BLOODSTAINS ON BAG

“NO, THAT’S WRONG!”

“What if you used something to cover up the wound?” I said. “Like Leah’s duffel bag, it would explain the two separate bloodstains on it,”

“One from being used to purposefully cover up Leah’s wound while it was being moved, and another from generally being near Leah’s head,” Penny nodded as she confirmed. “Is that what you mean?”

“Pretty much, yes,” I nod back, also in confirmation.

“Th-This is all…” Haley grunted as she desperately tried to think of a rebuttal. “This is… fuck, fuck fuck motherfucker!”

“Do you have anything else to say, Haley?” Penny asked concernedly.

“W-We don’t want it to be y-you,” Sophia twiddled her thumbs as she spoke, sounding as if she was on the verge of tears. “I-If you have anything, please say it!”

“I-I still have something!” Haley shouted. “Leah still totally could’ve died in my darkroom!”

“There is no confirmed place of death, yes,” Elliott nodded. “But it still is more likely that she-”

“Sh-She got hit on the head, and then stumbled into the darkroom afterwards!” Haley yelped. “That’s what happened, I-I saw it before I fell asleep, I-”

I’m not sure how that proves Haley’s innocence, but even so, it’s still wrong…

HARVEY’S AUTOPSY

HERE IT IS!

“Leah died instantly, Haley,” I said.

Harvey jumped up, and then nodded. “Right, I performed an autopsy, and determined that the wound had to have killed her instantly,”

Haley clenched her teeth together. “Gh-”

“Well, even changing up your story can’t make you look less guilty,” Shane grumbled.

Sebastian sighed too. “Are you done yet? If you just admit that you did it, we could’ve this whole thing over with awhile ago,”

“Please, Haley…” Emily sniffled, tears forming in her purple eyes. “Please say it isn’t you, please say…” The blue haired woman trailed into sobs.

The whole trial room was silent, dead silent and more tense than two people waiting for the first one to shoot… until.

Laughter…

Haley’s laughter, quiet giggling at first before it devolved into mad cackling.

“That’d be a lie though, wouldn’t it?” Haley let out a particularly loud, grating laugh as she clutched her sides. “Cause I killed the shit out of Leah!”

“Y-You’re admitting it now!?” Sophia yelped.

“And you don’t sound particularly upset about being found out…” Victor’s eyes peeled as he glared at Haley.

“Well, there’s nothing else to say!” Haley shrugged. “That ginger bitch tried to kill me, serves her right!”

“I… did not expect this of you,” Elliott scoffed, putting a hand to his chest.

“Haley…” Emily mumbled, but the blonde woman ignored her sister’s dejected cries.

“With how creepy you are, Elliott, I honestly expected you to kill next,” Haley grimaced at the Poet. “You’re somehow creepier than Clint, how do you do that!?”

“Hey!” Clint grumbled.

E lliott sighed. “Well, there’s no getting to you now , is there?”

“No, no,” Emily shook her head. “There’s still something-”

“Just give it up already, Emily!” Haley shouted at her sister. “I nearly broke your arm and you’re still trying to fix me? It’s embarrassing,”

“Haley, I am not letting everyone here die,” Emily grimaced at the blonde.

“We’re already on our way to doing that, Em,” Shane grumbled. “I’m pretty sure we’re prepared to vote-”

“Haley’s not the killer!” Emily shouted over the man, everyone looked at her. “Because i-it’s me, I-I killed Leah, and then Haley and I faked the whole break in thing together!” The blue haired woman admitted loudly.

“What the?” Abigail mumbled, before her voice suddenly shot up in volume. “What the hell is going on?”

“We have two confessions…” Penny confirmed with a sigh. “From the only two people it could… possibly be,”

“What are you-?” Haley stopped herself. “You don’t need to defend me anymore, Em, they should all know I-”

“Haley, stop!” Emily shouted, her sister’s eyes widening in shock. “Just… stop, please,”

T he whole trial room paused for a moment, silent as I looked around a circle of stunned faces.

“We’re still gonna vote Haley, right?” Sebastian broke the silence. “This is obviously just Emily being desperate for her sister to live,”

“Probably, yeah, who wouldn’t?” Maru raised her eyebrow at her brother. “Though… I dunno if Emily would lie about something like this,”

“Until now we didn’t even know if Emily helped Haley cover up Leah’s murder,” Victor declared.

“I did!” Emily yelped. “Remember how Haley couldn’t have broken the window, I broke it!”

H aley stayed silent, seemingly desperately thinking of something to say.

“Um… well…” Sophia stuttered, deep in thought. “Huh, th-that does seem like i-it fits with the current theory,”

“I-I’m skeptical…” Clint mumbled, poor guy didn’t want to believe Emily would do something like this, but… the more I think about it, the better it explains a couple of inconsistencies…

Like how Haley had no kind of wound from breaking the window…

EMILY’S INJURED ARM

“I HAVE SOMETHING!”

“If you broke that window, it’d explain why your arm is injured and why Haley’s isn’t-”

“Emily, just stop,” Haley gritted her teeth at her sister. “You too Claire, what you just said was so dumb. I broke that window with a bunch of crystals Em gave me,”

“That explains the lack of a wound,” Harvey nodded firmly.

“I did it,” Haley sighed. “Ugh, you made admitting boring now. Thanks a lot, Emily,”

“I-I…” Emily trailed off. “There needs to be something, I did it. I killed Leah, I helped hide it, you have to believe me!”

“I told you to stop, just stop!” Haley yelled again, tears or anger pricking the corners of her eyes.

“Well…” Maru put a hand to her chin. “There is one last thing we could discuss. It was pretty confusing though,”

I imagine that would be…

PHOTOS AROUND LEAH

“IS THIS WHAT YOU MEAN?”

“Do you mean the photos hung up around Leah’s body?” I turned my head as I asked.

“Yeah!” Maru snapped her fingers as she responded. “Haley, Emily. If you’re the killer, can you explain those?”

“I took them cause I thought Seb was into weird occult shit,” Haley shrugged. “It was all part of making him look guilty, y’know?”

“Asshole…” Sebastian grumbled. “Those photos don’t seem very relevant,”

Maybe not, but they do prove something… some of them only feature Haley as the subject, so by extension…

SOMEONE ELSE TOOK THE PHOTOS

“WHAT ABOUT THIS?”

“No, at the very least the photos prove that someone helped Haley with the murder…” I said. “Quite a few of them feature Haley as the subject, so-”

“I put the camera on a table while Emily was out getting you dumbasses,” Haley rolled her eyes and sneered. “How dumb are you?”

“Haley, you know I took those photos!” The blue haired woman shouted out. “How- Why are you still denying this!?”

“I’m not denying anything!” Haley, despite her stature managed to verbally tower over her sister. “You’re being so goddamn pushy about this. Just let me do this, Emily!”

“It’s more than possible for her to just put the camera on something…” Clint added. “Most cameras have… like a timer thingy,”

“Y-Yeah, I-I don’t know what to believe!” Sophia sniffled. “This is awful, th-this is so awful!”

“I guess that…” I stopped myself before I answered, before I could admit defeat. There was something off about the photos with Haley in them.

Something the photos featuring Haley all had in common…

BLURRIER PHOTOS

“WHAT ABOUT THIS?”

“Wait!” I shouted out, everyone now looking at me. Even the two sisters arguing over who killed a friend. “The photos taken of Haley are all… blurrier than all of the others,”

“And? The focus could’ve been fucked I dunno!” Haley shouted as she shrugged. “What does that even prove-?”

“It proves that someone else took them, someone with less steady hands than you,” I said as I squinted my eyes at Haley. “And those photos of you knocked out look real, like you have someone knock you out to make the break in look like it happened,”

“What are you!? What are-” Haley let out a grunt of frustration as she struggled to find the words to say in response.

“Your sudden confession is… convenient, and so is your sudden willingness for us to vote you off” I added as Haley continued to think of something to say, grunting in frustration. “Like you’re trying to protect the actual murderer of this case…”

“No one would be excited to get executed,” Abigail said in agreement. “Especially considering what we’ve already seen…”

WHO IS THE KILLER?

EMILY YOBANSEN

“NO DOUBT ABOUT IT!”

“Emily, in my opinion it’s more likely to be you, and I have a theory about how it happened,” I began.

“I’m confessing, because there’s nothing else to say!” Haley shouted. “You figured me out, just vote already!”

“If anything, Emily’s confession is more sudden…” Sebastian said.

Emily shook her head. “No, no. I killed Leah, I can tell you exactly how it happened,”

“Without changing your story again?” Shane raised an eyebrow.

Emily shook her head again. “Of course not, I remember it all too well…”

“HELP, HELP!”

Emily shot up as she heard her sister’s scream from her room, probably knocking over whatever crystals she had set up for her meditation as she ran through the house… she heard something crack on the other side of her sister’s door.

Haley panicking, frantically flailing her arms on the bed, Leah with an axe embedded into the wall trying to pull it out, and Haley’s camera sitting at arm’s length on the dresser…

Leah’s eyes, scrunched in rage slowly softened as they turned to Emily and-

“WAIT-”

*THWAK*

“That would explain why the wound was on the back of her head,” Harvey added. “A sudden attack makes more sense than self defence in that scenario,”

Elliott nodded. “Now that I think about it, her being taken by surprise makes more sense than Haley of all people managing to kill her,”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Haley shouted, and then shook her head rapidly once again. “Whatever, whatever bullshit you’re making up no-one’s gonna buy it, Em!”

“W-Well, it does recontextualise a lot of stuff…” Sophia mumbled. “Like the window, if Emily did it after she knocked you out, i-it’d make a lot more-”

“You too Sophia, shut up!” Haley sneered.

“Eep!”

“Dude!” Victor’s face scrunched up in offence.

“Haley, please,” I sighed. “I don’t think Emily’s lying, you don’t need to-”

“If Em is the killer, why the hell would I help her!?” Haley shouted. “Answer that, you’ve been a bitch the whole trial, and I’m sick of it,”

Rude, Haley’s not going to listen to reason. I’m going to need to wear her down before I can deliver the final rebuttal to Haley…

PANIC TALK ACTION

HALEY YOBANSEN

GO!!!

“JUST SHUT UP!”

“YOU’VE BEEN A BITCH SINCE YOU GOT HERE!”

“EMILY’S FUCKING INSANE!”

“SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP!”

“WHAT ARE YOU EVEN TALKING ABOUT!?”

“I KILLED LEAH, DUMBASS!”

“SHE ATTACKED ME, I SHOULDN’T EVEN BE HERE!”

“EMILY DOESN’T HAVE A MURDEROUS BONE IN HER BODY!”

“SHE’S JUST TRYING TO DEFEND ME, SHUT UP!”

Haley let out heavy breaths, seemingly calming down enough to say something coherent as she looked at me, venom in her eyes…

“If I helped Em cover up a murder, I’d die if she got away with it!”

KILLING GAME FAMILY RULE

“IT ENDS HERE!”

Haley let out one final shriek of frustration as I brought up something by now we’d all have long forgotten, the only circumstance that there could be an accomplice.

“You had every reason to help Emily cover up this murder. If we didn’t vote for her, you would be able to escape with her,” I declared.

“I-I-” Haley grunted.

“It’s true, after I killed Leah we both put this whole thing together,” Emily confessed with a depressed sigh. “So that we could escape th-this place at-”

“The cost of the rest of our lives,” Sebastian shook his head.

“Goddammit Em,” Haley sighed, her voice now completely defeated, all the malice and shrieking rage gone. “I could’ve kept it going long enough for them to vote for me,”

“Cause if we voted for you, you’d still be able to escape,” Elliott hummed. “Quite the smart plan if I do say so myself,”

“Yeah, someone ruined it, though,” Haley sighed again, I couldn’t tell if she was glaring at me, Sebastian or her own sister.

“Well, that should settle it, but I’m still unsure on who to vote for,” Victor shrugged. “With all these confessions it still feels like we have two options,”

“I-I don’t want it to be either of them…” Sophia mumbled, still a bit teary eyed,

“Me neither…” Clint mumbled. “Especially not Emliy, she was our friend…”

Penny nodded. “No one does, but… I believe what Emily is saying,”

“I’m… a little lost,” Abigail said, almost chucking but being too sad to do so.

“That makes sense,” Emily nodded. “Claire, I need you to explain this entire case; everything that happened, so that everyone here knows to vote for me,”

I nod firmly. “Of course, for the sake of everyone here, I’ll explain,”

“HERE’S EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENED IN THIS CASE!”

ACT 1:

“This case starts in the morning, everyone getting up for the party that had been announced yesterday. While everyone else planned to use this as an opportunity to relax, Leah, planned to use it to murder,”

“She even made sure her costume had something to carry her weapon of choice, a duffel bag. In that, she stored the axe that had been given as part of the motive…”

“After brief preparations, the party began, going well into the afternoon as the culprit waited for the perfect time to strike…”

ACT 2:

“As the party continued, people began to leave. Sometimes in groups, sometimes one at a time…”

“Sophia, and more importantly Haley left early six PM which I assume Leah saw. What Leah didn’t see was the culprit leaving the party late six PM, after they had repaired a tear in Elliott’s costume,”

“This one piece of information Leah hadn’t taken into account is what led to her murder plan going so horribly for her…”

ACT 3:

“At seven, Leah sneaks out of the party, she uses the lack of people still there to make her disappearance unnoticeable. Next, she heads towards Haley’s house, the door was unlocked, which allowed her to enter quietly…”

“She unzips the bag, takes the axe out and bursts into Haley’s room! She takes a swing at her, but misses and gets her axe embedded into the wall. Haley lets out a scream,”

“From her bedroom, the culprit hears Haley’s cries for help and rushes to her aid. In a panic they grabbed Haley’s camera by the harness, and swung-”

THAWK

“Hitting Leah in the back of the head, killing her instantly,”

ACT 4:

“I imagine the culprit would be panicking, obviously, but Haley seemed to sense an opportunity. She and the culprit began to forge a plan to make this murder look like a break in gone horribly wrong…”

“First, they used the bag of Leah’s costume to cover up her wound, so they could move her to Haley’s darkroom without making a mess. This is also how they could have taken the photos without getting blood on their hands, by drying the camera off with the bag,”

“Then, the culprit made a replica of Sebastian’s mask. This would make him look like the most obvious candidate for the murderer,”

“Next, Haley took pictures of Leah and framed them throughout the darkroom around her body, she apparently did this to make it appear as if Sebastian was the culprit, my adding a flair of the occult to the case,”

ACT 5:

“As preparations continued, they began to get more and more complex. The culprit broke the window of their house, scratching up their clothes and arm in the process,”

“And finally, to make the preparations look all the more real. Haley had the culprit hit her hard enough to knock her unconscious, she then had them take pictures of her unconscious body to make the case that much more confusing,”

“After that, the culprit bolted out of their house to the beach, to convince everyone at the party that their house had been broken into…”

“And the reason they had agreed to have Haley as an accomplice in all this? Because if someone kills someone, their sibling gets to escape with them,”

“That’s the truth behind this case, right Emily Yobansen?”

“That’s everything,” I let out a shaky breath as I finished.

“Indeed it is, and you got everything right!” Emily gave me a hollow smile. “Good job, and… I’m sorry, everyone,”

“It’s really-”

“Don’t fucking apologise, Emily,” Haley shook her head as she grumbled out her words, interrupting Elliott. “You- you didn’t have any control over-”

“I could’ve swung less hard!” Emily argued, tears spilling from her eyes. “I could’ve-”

“Let me fucking die!?” Haley shouted. “Are you kidding me? You barely know these people, we could’ve left this fucking shithole together!”

“I didn’t want to sacrifice eleven innocent fucking people, alright!?” Emily shouted back, the angriest I had heard her. “You did, that doesn’t make me a bad person. Murdering Leah does!”

“You’re not-”

“Well, I’ve heard enough!” MonoMo chuckled. “Sorry to interrupt this round of bickering, but it’s voting time!”

“Motherfucker!” Haley yelled. “I’m gonna- I’m, for-” The blonde continued to grunt as the screen in front of everyone’s stands lit up…

VOTE FOR THE KILLER:

EMILY YOBANSEN

…

DONE!

The large screen fell down once again…

WHO WAS THE CULPRIT?

EMILY YOBANSEN: 12/16

CLAIRE HARPER: 1/16

“Now then, did you make the right choice?” MonoMo began. “Or did you fuck it all up like these two?” The creature laughed as he motioned at the two sisters, both watching the screen in anxious silence.

***WHO IS THE KILLER?***

…

…

|EMILY|EMILY|EMILY|

CORRECT!

“Bingo bingo bingo!” MonoMo cheered, raising a hand in the air. “The spiritual weirdo herself, Emily Yobansen was the killer behind Leah’s death!”

Haley stared up at the screen in utter shock, her eyes shrunken in fear. Unable to even speak. Emily could though, she looked at all of us and spoke with a sniffle.

“I’m…” She sniffled, tears falling from her eyes. “I’m so sorry, I failed every single one of you,”

“Y-You didn’t…” Clint tried to reassure, but found the words dying in his throat.

“You don’t need to comfort me, Clint,” Emily declared. “Or forgive me, or anything. I’m not scared of what’s about to come, I understand what I deserve,”

“Can you even hear yourself right now!?” Haley shouted out. “Anyone else would be panicked. Emily, we both deserve to live!”

“Everyone else here does too!” Emily snapped back. “I-I only wish I could’ve taught Leah that before-”

“You had to kill her!” Haley reassured. “Sh-She doesn’t deserve to die, please, just let her-”

“That’s not how it works!” MonoMo declared gleefully. “Now then, I’ve prepared a very special punishment for Emily Yobansen, The Ultimate Seamstress,”

“Haley,” Emily said as she looked at her wide eyed sister. “Go on without me, don’t let yourself fall into despair like I did. End this killing game like I wanted to,”

She said nothing, but the blonde woman slowly nodded as she continued to cry.

“Let’s give it everything we’ve got, it’s punishment time!”

MonoMo raised his stubby arms into the air and hit a button in front of itself with a gavel…

G A M E O V E R

EMILY HAS BEEN FOUND GUILTY

TIME FOR THE PUNISHMENT!

Emily found herself standing in the middle of a decadent white and gold church, encircled by an excessively large number of sewing machines. MonoMo’s sat in the pews all dressed in suits or formal dresses as they looked at the blue haired woman at the end of the pews…

MonoMo itsself jumped from the altar, and grabbed a handful of barbed wire that was coming out of a sewing machine he had landed next to, hatred and despair glinted in the eyes of his grinning face as he stared down Emily, who’s expression stood stoic and firm as a large sign of the vessel rose from the ground behind her…

STRUNG UP SEAMSTRESS

Ultimate Seamstress

Emily Yobansen’s Execution: Executed

MonoMo began to fly around Emily, wrapping the wire individually around her wrists, ankles, arms, legs, torso and most dangerously her neck. Emily gritted her teeth as her clothes began to tear, and blood began to spurt from the newly made wounds around her body. The wire was then pulled around the sign of the vessel, crucifying Emily upon it as she was straddled against the golden statue.

MonoMo pulled harder and harder, the wounds on Emily’s body got bloodier, and more gruesome until…

SHLICK

All at once, the woman had been torn to pieces. Her limbs flew through the air and fell to the floor one by one… the last being her head which landed at Haley’s feet, the cold dead eyes staring into her own…

Most of the trial room stood in silent shock, some let out loud screams of terror like Sophia or Penny, but most were dead silent… least of all Haley who looked up at the roof like a deer caught in headlights.

“I-I thought I’d be more ready for that by now…” Elliott gasped as he spoke.

“H-How!?” Abigail shouted as she gaggeds. “Holy fuck, holy fuck that’s the worst thing I’ve ever seen,”

“EXTREME! EXTREME!” MonoMo cheered, he always cheered when the worst thing possible would happen.

“W-We’re never going to go through this again!” Maru shouted out, looking spitefully at the host of this twisted game. “You hear me? We’re going to work together from now on,”

“We said that last time,” Sebastian grumbled. “And look where it got us, the more we trust everyone here the more likely-”

“Hey Seb, do you want us all to kill eachother?” Maru turned her head as she walked towards her brother. “Answer me,”

“Now now, Maru,” Penny reached a hand out to the roboticist. “Just calm down, I-I’m sure he doesn’t mean it, we’re all pretty-”

“Penny, don’t… involve yourself with this,” Maru gritted her teeth as she let out a frustrated breath, then she turned back towards a rapidly shrinking Sebastian. “Do you want us all to live?”

“Of course I do!” Sebastian shouted out. “I’m just saying we need to be more realistic-”

“Oh sorry for trying not to be the saddest fucking loser in the room like you!” Maru yelled back, her voice then went down to quiet frustrations. “Realistic my ass, you’re just being an asshole. That’s all you’ve ever been!”

I sighed. “Please don’t do this now-”

But the two continued to argue and bicker, shouting so hard that we all almost forgot about Haley, who was still silently crying, tears pouring from her eyes…

But her expression was hardly one of misery, no, there was nothing but rage in those eyes as she slowly pointed those eyes at me as I tried to reach a hand between the bickering siblings…

THWAK

I didn’t notice Haley bolting towards me until I felt a sharp pain in my temple, I had only barely registered what had happened when my vision went blurry and I fell to the floor…

I think I saw Haley bolting out of the trial room, and I’m decently sure I saw Sebastian and Maru now staring down at me in shocked concern, but everything after that was completely black…

CHAPTER 2: WAVES OF THE SINFUL SEA COMPLETE

12/16

YOU GOT THE CHANELLING CRYSTALS

Chapter Text

“Oh, good. You’re finally awake,” I heard the voice of Harvey speak as I slowly blinked to consciousness, finding myself in the sterile, white hospital where I assume the doctor also lived.

Before I could even ask what happened, the memories of yesterday came flooding back: Leah’s death, the trial, Emily’s execution, Haley knocking me out. It was all almost too overwhelming for me to get up from the bed I was laying on, but… there’s no point in waiting here.

“How long have I been out?” I grumbled as I sat up in the bed, clean as everything else in the hospital.

“A good few hours, Haley must have hit you very hard,”

“My head is still ringing a bit,” I said as I clutched my head with my hand. “But, I should be fine. What time is it?”

“Nine,” Harvey said. “Everyone should still be in the Saloon,”

“That’s good,” I nodded as Harvey and I left the hospital for the saloon…

---

“Hey, there she is!” Abigail cheered as she saw me come into the building, a wide smile on her face.

“Didn’t think you’d be up so soon,” Sebastian mumbled as I sat at the table I usually sat at. Though it appeared that Penny and Maru had elected to sit at the table over.

“I’m a good doctor, I suppose,” Harvey smiled as he went to his usual seat. Everyone seemed excited to see me up again. Everyone that was in the saloon, anyway…

Haley was nowhere to be found…

“How are you going?” Abby asked me. “Hopefully your head isn’t too hurt,”

“It’s fine,” I said. “I should be fine,”

“Well, that’s good!” Abigail said with a smile.

Breakfast continued without much fanfare, without any interruptions, without any announcements… without any Emily…

…

CRASH

MonoMo groaned in pain as he got up from his back after he had crashed through the roof into the middle of the saloon. “I need to get a better entrance… Hello students!”

“What do you want?” Elliott sighed as he looked at the apple creature before him.

“You know what I want? What I really, really want?” MonoMo’s smile widened. “I want you… to see the mountain I removed in the north of our lovely town!”

“Removed!?” Penny yelped. “You can’t just remove a mountain, that’s-”

“It’s possible when you’ve got the powers of a Junimo on your side!” MonoMo flexed its skinny, black arms to no-one’s applause, as deserved of the thing keeping us here.

“So, there’s more to explore up north?” Victor asked. “How interesting,”

“Yep yep yep! Yepperinos!” MonoMo cheered. “And there’s something very, very interesting up there that’ll be the key to your next murder!”

“We’re not going to do anything like that again!” Maru shouted out.

“You keep telling yourself that,” MonoMo chuckled. “Have fun exploring the new northern area of the town!” He then waddled his way out of the saloon. Everyone then began to pour out of the saloon, all to explore the new area, presumably.

Abigail grabbed my wrist. “We should explore the new area together. It’d be fun, dont’cha think?”

I smiled and nodded. “Of course, let’s get going then,”

…

We got to the northern part of the town, the tall mountain had as MonoMo said been completely removed, revealing a path leading further into the newly discovered mountainous part of Pelican Town up the new path through a thin number of trees and overgrowth. There were three things of note in the first area of the mountainous part of town: the path leading up an incline, a decently sized house with a blue roof, and a lake that connected to the river running through the east of the town. Abigail bolted directly for the lake, seemingly because Maru and Penny were sitting at the edge of it. I let out a breath of exertion and walked up to where the trio were all sitting by the lakeside.

“So, how have you been? Normally I’d talk to you during breakfast, but you sat somewhere else so…” Abigail trailed off.

“I’ve been as good as I can be,” Maru sighed.

“We’re all pretty frazzled from yesterday, at least we have eachother though, right?” Penny smiled.

I nod. “That’s right,”

“Oh, heya Claire!” Abby met my gaze with her usual wide, somewhat lopsided smile. “Sorry for running off like that, got excited,”

“You… tend to do that, I’m used to it by now,” I chuckled, covering my mouth with my hand. “I’m glad you’re doing well, Maru, especially since what you and-”

“Seb and I argue sometimes,” Maru near instantly responded. “We’ll… we’ll get over it, we always get over it eventually,”

“I would recommend talking to him,” I said.

Penny nodded. “Yes, it’s… odd to see him depressive, more than he is normally at least,”

Maru sighed. “I-I can’t right now, I’ll try tomorrow, but right now just isn’t a good time for it,”

“That’s fair, that’s fair,” I said.

“In less depressing news, this lake is really pretty!” The purple haired girl cheered. “Like, kiss your girlfriend on the lips pretty!”

Penny and Maru blushed beet red and attempted to stifle a giggle.

“Maybe,” Maru chuckled, then gave Penny a peck on the cheek, Penny blushed even harder, her small smile becoming wide and lopsided like Abigail’s.

“Well, I’ll have to leave you two to it,” I said as Abigail and I prepared to leave.

“Bye Pen-Pen, bye Maru!” Abigail beamed as we returned to the path, we elected to explore the house right in front of us. The further part of the path looked like it would be quite a climb anyway…

“Heya,” Sebastian mumbled as we walked into the front room of the house, homely and wooded with a counter at one end for… whatever reason. Even stranger was the laboratory to the east of it, after a flight of stairs that led to the basement, and another that led to the upper floor.

“Hello Sebastian,” I greeted. “There seems to be a lot in this house, huh?”

“You’re telling me, there’s a computer in the basement too,” Sebastian added. “Before you get excited, it doesn’t work. Tried everything,”

“Well that sucks…” Abigail pouted. “Maybe that lab has something that could help?”

“Maybe… I was gonna get Maru for that,” Sebastian said. “Seems like something she’d be into, y’know?”

“Yeah…” Abigail mumbled awkwardly. “Are you gonna sleep here?”

Sebastian shrugged. “Probably, beats Victor’s place anyhow. He’s up by five,”

“How is anyone able to be up before like… eight?” Abigail chuckled.

Sebastian shrugged. “That’s what I ask him,”

“Well, hopefully you have a good time moving in here,” I said. “We should get going now, we need as much time as we can to explore the new area,”

“Yeah, see ya around, Seb!” Abigail said with a smile as she waved goodbye. We both returned to the outside of Sebastian’s home.

---

“More walking up, huh?” I let out a chuckle with a hint of annoyance, as the only place left to explore was an even higher section of the hilly terrain of upper Pelican Town.

There was an even higher section of the town with another farmhouse, this one labelled “Emerald Farm” stationed next to a large bathhouse. On the section we were on there was a yellow tent, a small shack made of wood with the symbol of a sword above the door which was next to a hole dug out in the side of a mountain, wooden supports covered the inside to ensure it wouldn’t cave in.

“Holy shit, I’ve seen that-” Abigail said as she pointed at the wooden shack. “I’ve seen one of those before! The Adventurer’s Guild set those up when they move into a town!”

“I assume you’re a member?” I said.

Abigail shook her head. “Sadly no, but I’m prolly gonna be once we get outta here!”

“Well, you seem more than ready to go in,” I nodded, Abigail nodded back harder and more energetic than I as she lead me into the shack.

The inside of the shack was decorated with what appeared to be a map of some kind of underground complex alongside a stone fireplace, a bearskin rug on the ground and a bunch of stands which held various weapons on them, mostly swords. Clint was in the room seemingly inspecting them.

“Hey Clint!” The man yelped as my purple haired friend called out his name. “Whaddaya doing here?”

“Just uh… inspecting stuff,” He mumbled, sounding notably out of it, at least more out of it than he normally sounded. “The weapons mainly…”

“They’re cool, right!?” Abigail cheered as she picked up a sword. “I used something like this once to kill like… a really big slime. It was sick!”

Clint nodded. “Sounds uh… cool I guess, that swords feels kinda familiar to me…”

“I mean, you’re a Blacksmith right? You’ve made swords before,” I said. “Maybe that’s what it is?”

“I mean… maybe… but like, that sword specifically feels familiar,” Clint trailed off. “Maybe it’s just deja vu or something, I dunno…”

“Maybe…” I mumbled. “It’s going to be the afternoon soon, we should explore the rest of this section, Abby,”

“This is kinda the only building in this section,” The purple haired girl chuckled as she moved to my side. “The hole in the wall doesn’t count… plus it’d probably take too long to explore if it’s what I think it is,”

“What you think it is?” Clint asked.

“Oh, uh… don’t worry about it. Just being cryptic!” Abigail said as we left the shack, Clint mumbling out a goodbye.

---

I didn’t even elect to comment as we left the shack, then trudged our way up what was hopefully the final incline of this part of town, I let out a deep breath as we reached the top, Abigail let out a giggle in response.

“Not used to this much walking, huh?” The purple haired woman said.

“Can you tell?” I chuckled back. “I am… untrained for climbing,”

“They made me climb a bunch of stuff for training,” Abigail said with a smile, she then patted her stomach proudly. “This uh… mostly isn’t fat, it’s muscle. I’m built like a tank!”

“I can tell,” I let out another breath as we began to walk towards the bathhouse…

It felt kinda weird to be fully clothed in a Spa, but we weren’t exactly going to use it right now so we walked through the female changing room and into the actual Spa area of the Bathhouse, blue tiled and with a large pool of steaming water in the middle: Victor and Sophia were standing around the room.

“Oh, hey. Didn’t notice you there,” Victor said.

“Y-Yeah, I guess you’re also exploring?” Sophia said with a turn of her head.

“I assume everyone is, a whole new area has been unlocked for us,” I said. “This place seems nice,”

“Y-Yeah, I didn’t expect a spa to be here!” Sophia said with a smile.

Victor nodded. “It’d be nice to use it at some point,”

“I haven’t been in a spa since forever,” Abigail added. “I got kicked out of the one in my old town for not keeping my locker clean enough,” She said, scratching the back of her head.

“That’s not hard to believe,” Victor chuckled.

Abigail crossed her arms and pouted. “Rude…”

“I’m surprised we’re both h-here at the same time, y-you’re normally far faster with exploring,” Sophia said. “A-And I thought you’d be more interested in the Mine,”

“Yeah, well someone can’t handle going up some stairs,” Abigail chuckled as she motioned to me, I was still somewhat heaving from the three inclines I had to go up. “Also we have a mine now!?”

“Yeah, it’s that hole in the mountain. MonoMo told us to not use it as a way out, and that it was infested with monsters,” Sophia added. “S-So I’m prolly not gonna try it, b-but-”

“But I could!” Abigail declared proudly, putting her hands firmly on her hips. “Just gotta steal a sword from the Adventurer’s Guild and I’ll be in business!”

“It’s not an official rule that you can’t try to use it to escape,” Victor added with a shrug. “So, I say go ahead,”

“You should plan this out, Abigail,” I added, putting a hand on her shoulder. “I’m sure you could do it, but I don’t want you to die from overestimating how well you can do it,”

Abigail let out a dramatic sigh. “Ugh, fine. I’ll think about it, it’s just that it’s been so long since I actually did some adventuring stuff… I just really wanna get back into it, y’know!?”

I chuckled and patted the woman on the shoulder. “I understand, just please be careful, okay?. Besides, we still have something else to explore,”

“Right, that farm!” Abigail nodded. “Bye guys!”

“See you,”

“B-Bye!”

“Alright, one last place to explore for the day,” I said as Abigail and I stood in front of the door of the cozy cottage that made up most of Emerald Farm, there wasn’t much to explore in the untilled and cropless fields of the farm itself, anyhow.

“Ahhh, it appears others wish to explore this lovely abode,” Elliott chuckled as we walked into the living/dining room of the Emerald Farmhouse, dotted with potted ferns, a table with a few chairs, a brick fireplace, a well stocked bookshelf and even a large grand piano that Elliott was leaning on. “Though, I’d imagine you’d be more interested in what Harvey is looking at,”

“How so?” I asked.

Elliott chuckled. “The bedroom of this house holds some… very interesting things within, and it’s connected to a room filled with kegs, isn’t that fun?”

“Did… whoever used to live here make wine or something?” Abigail asked. “Seems kinda redundant to have two people who make wine in the same town, though…”

“Two people can have the same idea, dear,” Elliot said with a wave of his mane of hair. “I will remain here as you two explore,”

“Have uh… fun with that I guess,” Abigail said with a shrug as we moved to the bedroom, the wallpaper and bed were the same muted green as the rest of the house… I mean it is called “Emerrald Farm”, I’m not sure what I expected.

As Elliott said, Harvey was looking intensely into a drawer at the side of the green bed, which was situated next to the locked door which presumably led to the keg room.

“Hello Harvey,” The man jumped a bit as I said his name, but quickly composed himself.

“You seem real interested in that drawer,” Abigail added. “Why?”

“Ah, did Elliott not tell you?” Harvey turned his head. “I assumed so, this drawer is full of keys to… pretty much every building in this town…”

“What?” I said, shocked as I quickly peeked my head into the drawer, dozens upon dozens of keys all laid out and labelled with which building and room they corresponded too.

“Oh jeez, that’s… really fucking scary actually,” Abigail shivered. “We should have someone like… guard this place or something,”

“It’d be a good idea,” Harvey said as he walked over to the keg room, holding the key to it in his hand. “Let’s explore some more, this house has even more… concerning discoveries about,”

He opened the door with a creak, the Keg Room was simply a dark room lined wall to wall with empty kegs, mostly empty kegs at least. One had a slip of paper sticking out of it, the three of us squeezed our way towards it to look at it, and-

“What the hell?” I mumbled in confusion as I looked down at the photo, consisting of Emily, Leah and Haley taking a selfie in a room we hadn’t seen before, what looked like a studio of some kind.

“This is… odd…” Harvey mumbled.

“When was this?” Abigail asked to no one in particular. “We- none of us knew eachother before we got here, right?”

“That’s what I thought…” I added. “We need to discuss this with everyone else, now!”

“Right!” Abigail nodded. “I’ll get everyone in the Saloon,” The purple haired woman then burst out of the house, full sprint as Harvey looked at me.

“I feel like we’ve… discovered something that makes our circumstances more confusing than it already was,” Harvey sighed. “We should head off to the Saloon now,”

“Indeed,” I nodded as we left the house…

---

Soon enough, everyone sans Haley was gathered in the saloon, standing around a table looking at the photo we had placed in the middle.

“That is, huh…” Maru mumbled. “Does anyone remember a room like this being in anyone’s house?”

“No,” Penny added. “There’s nothing like this room anywhere in town,”

“Th-That’s freaky…” Sophia mumbled. “D-Does this mean that Leah and Haley and stuff already knew eachother?”

“Nah, can’t be,” Shane added with a grumble. “None of us knew eachother when we got here, why would Leah and all that be different?”

“Then… hm… how strange…” Elliott said to himself, deep in thought as we continued to discuss.

“Where did you even find this?” Victor asked. “Maybe that’s a clue, I dunno,”

“We found it on Emerald Farm,” I explained.

“There was also a drawer that had keys to every room in town!” Abigail added. “Real freaky shit, y’know?”

“Oh, that’s real nice…” Shane sighed.

“S-So there’s a real possibility that-” Sophia stopped herself before she finished her sentence. “O-Oh jeez, oh jeez!”

“Try not to panic too much,” Penny said, attempting to calm the pink haired woman down.

“How’s that possible?” Sebastian grumbled. “There’s no physical barrier stopping someone from just up and killing us, now,”

“We should make sure we protect one another, then,” Harvey added. “Perhaps two or so people should guard the Emerald Farm at all times, then?”

“That’d be 12 hour shifts!” Abigail yelped.

“Right, perhaps four people then?” Harvey suggested.

“I’d be up for first shift,” Shane said.

“Really?” Harvey questioned. “Not to sound rude, but I feel as if you aren’t the kind of person who gets up that early,”

“Nah, I usually sleep in the early afternoon, it’ll be fine,” Shane chuckled.

“That’s… concerning, I suppose I’ll take the next shift, then,” Harvey said.

“I’ve got third shift!” Victor said, putting his hand up. “I’m not normally doing much by then,”

“None of us really do much here…” Clint mumbled. “Uhhh… if no one else will take it, then I’ll take the last shift,”

“Ahh, fantastic. That was incredibly quick,” Elliott said with a proud chuckle. “Very impressive organisation, I do say,”

“Thanks, I guess…” Shane shrugged.

“Now, that’s cleared away. Let’s return to the photo,” Elliott said. “The only person in the photo still alive is… Haley, where is she?”

Abigail scratched the back of her head, looking a bit ashamed and nervous. “I tried to get her to come, but uh… she refused. She doesn’t wanna leave her room,”

“I-I guess that makes sense,” Sophia mumbled. “I-I’d wanna be alone too if… what happened to her happened t-to me,”

“I don’t think we should pressure her into leaving,” I added. “She’ll come out on her own, I think,”

“We can only hope,” Harvey said with a sigh.

“I feel that our time here as gotten a lot more…” Elliott trailed off. “Interesting,”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Sebastian gave the man a sneer.

Elliott shook his head. “Just my thoughts, my friend. Anyhow, I believe we should reconvene about this tomorrow, hopefully with Haley in tow,”

“Hopefully,” I said.

“Welp,” Victor said with a yawn. “It’s getting quite late, I’m going to head home,”

“I’m gonna start guarding the keys,” Shane added as he and the boy left the saloon, one by one the rest of us began to leave too, it was dark out by this point in the day anyway…

---

“What do you think?” Abigail asked as we entered the general store.

“About what?”

“About the photo, what do you think it means?”

“Hmm…” I put a hand to my chin, I’m not exactly sure what it meant to be honest. “I don’t believe Leah knew Haley and Emily before they all ended up here,”

“It’s a photo taken outside of the Killing Game, though,” Abigail puffed out her cheeks. “Maybe it’s just a random photo then? I dunno, seems like kind of a weird thing for the people running this thing to steal…”

“That is… part of what makes me so unsure,” I mumbled. “There’s no way to get answers without asking Haley, anyhow,”

“Right, that’s what we gotta do tomorrow,” Abigail nodded as she headed to her room. “G’night Claire,”

“Goodnight, Abby,” I said back as I went to my room and firmly planted myself onto my bed…