[hacker voice: i'm in]

VIVISEPULTURE

So the week passed quietly as it did before with very little activity. As you leave your room for the day, the eeriness of the halls feel….deeper than it had before. As you make your way down the hall, down by the A/V room you can see Tatsumi standing in shock at the door. Liyana seems to catch sight of this scene as well and goes over to see if he’s okay. Once over, she pauses too, going to cover her mouth.

Curious as this is quite a spectacle, you make your way over to see what they’re look at- ah…

REALLY?

“Ping pong pang pon! Students, a dead body has been found! Investigation will commence for the next 6 hours! Upupu, see you at the school trial!”

MONOBEAR FILES: Case 3 Victim: Nime ver Captionem - SHSL Let’s Player Time of Death: 12:20 AM

Victim: Kohaku Tachibana - SHSL Utau P Time of Death: 12:13 AM

The weeks are trucking along quietly- eerily. It’s as if the classmates you’ve lost are haunting the school and taking away all the sound. That’s a ridiculous train of thought but it gives some sort of explanation, right? As the time comes to when you expect another motive to pop up, there’s silence.

Silence? What the hell is going on? You carry on with your day, and as you prepare for bed, the loudspeakers go on.

“Ah- right. Forgot to mention.”

Great. You start to push yourself out of bed to get going towards the gymnasium.

“There’s no motive this week.”

Shouko opens her eyes after the claw comes and drags her off. All she can see is darkness, but it’s clear that she’s in a hallway. As her eyes begin to adjust, something comes shooting out of the darkness at her head. With lightning-fast reflexes, she catches it. A kunai. 

Shit.

A blast of air signals a second launch, which she parries using the one in her hand. However, almost instantly, a third comes out, and she has to step backwards into the darkness of the hallway unknown.

The pace of the firing picks up, and now they come from all directions - front, side, top, and even from underneath her. It’s all she can do, even with the surprising level of ability she’s portraying, to parry the worst and yield ground for the rest. Finally, right when she’s sweating and unable to continue, she steps onto some different ground.

The lights in the hallway come on. Shouko looks down to see… paper. The takes a second to register what’s happening, and starts to sprint forward, but it’s too late.

Having your secrets revealed is…kind of scary, not going to lie. Perhaps you even considered killing someone to keep your’s safe- it’s not anything to kill over though. Maybe. It hasn’t been a full week since he gave you this motive, but the closer it get to being a week, the more nervous you get about it.

You find yourself heading into the library, and ahead you see another one of your classmates. Ahead is Daniel, seemed stopped at the entrance to the library, you approach as he heads in slowly. When you come to the door, you notice him approaching Clara’s sleeping body. Daniel starts lightly shaking her to wake her up. Though, she doesn’t seem to budge. He tries to be a little more forceful but there’s still no reaction. At a closer look, you notice that…she isn’t breathing-

Oh god.

“Ping pong pang pon! Students, a dead body has been found! Investigation will commence for the next 7 hours! Upupu, see you at the school trial!”

MONOBEAR FILES: Case 2 Victim: Clara Rosalinda Montes - SHSL Botanist Time of Death: ???

Nime’s already pale face went stark white as soon as they opened their envelope. Whatever they’d been expecting… it clearly wasn’t what they were looking at. They swallowed hard, crumpling up the paper and shoving it deep into their pants pocket.

“Fuck… gotta get rid of this damn thing…”

“Yours too?”

Being on the observant side, Hwan had noticed that some of his fellow students hadn’t been so shaken by the secrets that had been distributed. Others... well, he was standing there, as was Nime. 

“Hey um... I don’t know if anyone else got this idea already, but there’s an incinerator in the trash room. If you wanna... I’d rather get rid of mine too.”

The school again, has been quiet for about a week, the bear not showing his face since the trial. It’s odd really- there’s this quiet sense of dread floating through the school since the trial. Two people died and you wonder if that could’ve been prevented. There was a new level of the school opened to explore but that’s it, really.

While you ponder the quiet and stillness of the school, you hear the grating voice of Monobear over the loudspeakers of the school, echoing in the halls and every room possible. Great, you were hoping that nothing would happen but this bear seems set on getting you to kill each other.

“Can I request that everyone hurries their asses over to the gymnasium again, thank you!”

You and the remainder of your classmates comply, making your way to the gymnasium. Once inside, you notice 16 envelopes on the floor in a line, each with your individual names on them. Monobear is sitting on the stage, just kicking his feet back and forth. Once the last of you arrive, he pushes himself onto the floor and makes his way to the envelopes.

“Hello hello! I’m glad to see no one’s wimping out just yet, it’s not fun to have to kill anyone myself.”

He gestures to the envelopes.

“Everyone, if you could, take your envelope. Inside is your most kept secret, something you wouldn’t want anyone but yourself and your close friends to know. And before you ask how I know them, I just do, okay?”

Anxious, you hurry to grab your envelope, as does most of your classmates. Some of them opening them immediately and hiding them immediately after reading them- does he really have your secrets?

“Now, since I know these, it’s a really bad situation for you all, right? I’m really bad at keeping secrets. I’m itching to tell others what you’re hiding. But I’ll hold out! But only for a week! However, I may be inclined to keep them secrets forever if someone kills before hand.”

He chuckles.

“Or, you can just wait until I spill your secrets to everyone. Your call.”

Something about his voice makes you think he’s smiling more than what his eternal smile already suggests.

“Have fun.”

About four days have passed since the food was taken away. It’s…gotten unbearable but the human body can survive three weeks without food, so it’s not the end of the world…yet. As you pull yourself out of your room for water in the morning, you notice Kohaku making their way out of the changing room, face even more pale than you recall them being.

“H- Ueha-san-”

They frantically look back into the room, pointing.

“Th-The sauna-”

Ignoring the fact that Kohaku really shouldn’t be going to the sauna on an empty stomach, you decide to walk with them back into the room to figure out what they’re going on about. They take you to the sauna entrance.

“There was a chair in front of the door ss-so I moved it to open the door, I was confused why it was there but-”

They push the door to the sauna open to reveal…

“Ping pong pang pon! Students, a dead body has been found! Investigation will commence for the next 7 hours! Upupu, see you at the school trial!”

After a week of nothing happening since the “reveal” that you were meant to kill others, no one has turned up dead. It really makes you question if this is serious or it’s just a really long orientation period.

It’s hit Monday, and as promised, you hear that annoying voice over the speakers again, calling you once again to the gymnasium. Is this going to happen every week? You and your classmates (you count to make sure it is everyone) arrive at the gymnasium. The bear is sitting on the podium, looking at his paw as if he’s admiring his non-existant nails. Once the last person enters, he turns towards everyone with a sigh, lowering his hand. Overdramatic, much?

“I see you’re not taking my words seriously, it’s really boring if I have to push you all to do this, but I guess there’s no other choice.”

He pushes himself to stand up and hop onto the floor to walk around.

“Like I said, I’d give out motivation to murder if no one wound up dead by now. So I though long and hard about this, what would drive someone to murder besides the fact that it’s their only way out of here?

“THEN it hit me.”

He saunters to the back of the room and turns back towards everyone.

“Quite literally actually! I was eating my lunch yesterday then it hit me! Right in the face then fell on the floor! How terrible a fate for such good food.”

He seems almost sad for a moment, completely going off topic of what he was originally talking about.

“It made me so mad that I just tossed out ALL of the food in the building! That’s right, there is no food left, you still have access to water, but food? Nah. It’ll take about…a week to get new food, which a human can survive that long without, but I’m sure it’d feel like it was actually killing you after that long, hm?

“And it’s not even guaranteed it’ll get here that fast! Maybe it’ll take two weeks! Or three! However long it will take, you’ll all still be without food.”

He starts to walk back to the fron of the room.

“Thouuughhhh I might be able to sneak the food in faster if someone kills. I mean, wouldn’t that be great? not having to wait and possibly die from starvation? I’ll leave it up to you all.”

He hopped back up onto the podium.

“You have all the time in the world to make up your mind, but you might want to do it before you die of starvation.”

It took her a minute for what had just been said to dawn on her. A killing game? With them? Clara wasn’t quite sure if she had heard right. When it hit her though, it hit her all at once. 

Clara was afraid. Probably more than she had ever been in her life. She wanted to believe that none of this was real but she knew it was. This was her reality now whether she liked it or not. Despite this though, she wanted more than anything to just go home. If she hadn’t trusted anyone before, she definitely didn’t now.

The words, they didn’t hit right away. His breath caught in his throat when he first heard them, and he let his mouth hang open slightly as the announcement was made. He seemed to be frozen in shock once everything was said and done, his small frame standing still in the middle of the gym with a shocked look on his face.

“Yeah, same here! I mean, I’ve had ‘japanese food’,” Sabrina made air quotes with her fingers, “but it was just a california roll, so I don‘t think that really counts.”

“Oooh!” Sabrina gave an exaggerated shiver as Hwan’s words, though it was clear that it was a shiver of excitement rather than  fear. “I wouldn’t want to get on your bad side!” She let out a hearty laugh.

“Really, though, that’s pretty noble! You’re like a superhero of the digital age! A hacking superman!” Sabrina put her fists on her hips and jutted out her chest, mocking a superhero pose as they reached the infirmary. “Oh, here we are.”

Hwan gave an understanding nod when Sabrina mentioned a california roll and chuckling quietly when she laughed.

“Yeah, most people don’t. You know, I’ve seen people start arguing just cause someone brought up my alias. The internet’s a wild and weird place,” he commented, grin plastered upon his face. 

“Well, I’d be worried if you weren’t. Not everyday something like this happens.” He watches him curiously, dividing his time glancing between him and his own fingernails - however, the latter seemed to demand more of his attention. 

Then he perks up. “…Mortal Kombat?” There’s an initial look of disbelief on Ringo’s face, and he sits up so suddenly his glasses nearly slide off his face. Then, once again, he shuffles forwards, his bony hands grasping out for a controller. “Hell yeah! Pass me one! Now who’d you play? Because I’m an expert Johnny Cage.” Life was too short to not play video games, even in a situation like this. 

Hwan gave a short nod at the first comment, cracking a smile and holding out one of the controllers for Ringo to take. He then turned around to open a folder, searching for and finding his desired launcher.

It was probably for the best that Hwan was putting all the suspicious activity behind him momentarily, because Sabrina had all but forgotten about it - not to mention she wasn’t even really concerned in the first place, curiosity and excitement replacing any wariness most people would have felt in such a situation.

“Beef bul- what?” Sabrina tilted her head in inquiry at the unfamiliar dish name. “They might have it, you never know! I bet they’ll mostly have a lot of Japanese food, though. Which is cool! I always wanted to try Japanese food. I’m more curious about what kind of tea they have, though.”

Sabrina listened as Hwan explained his reasons for wanting to check the infirmary. “Oh, that’s right! It would definitely be a good idea to make sure they have medical supplies that we might need,” Sabrina stated, wondering briefly if they had all the students’ medical files on record. They should be prepared to deal with any health considerations for incoming students…right? “So your talent is related to computers? Like an IT guy? That’s pretty cool. I don’t know hardly anything about computers beyond basic stuff.”

Hwan gave a smile and a nod when Sabrina commented on the prospect of trying Japanese food. He had his fair share at home, but he definitely wasn’t opposed to trying some of the more genuine cuisine.

“Yeah, I like Japanese. I’m kinda interested in seeing how different the cuisine is from the Japanese takeout places back home myself.”

He nodded at her comment about the medical supplies.

“Yeah, exactly. It’d be nice to have reassurance about that. As far as my talent though, I’m actually the SHSL Hacktivist. Leaking stolen information to the public for the greater good kind of stuff, helping bust up shady business practices and outing creeps and all that.”

Kohaku stared at the case on the ground for a moment blankly. Yeah that was coming. He looks up to Hwan when he speaks, then back to the case. He leans down to pick it up and place it on the desk. There. It’s safe here.

“I’m good yeah. I’m just- I’ve got bad luck with like…everything.”

The computer is booted up now so he can put his movie in!!! Looks for the CD drive now…he’s so used to his computer that he has no clue how to use these newer computers.

Hwan exhaled gently as he waited for an answer, quirking a brow quietly before replying when he got it.

“Hey, it happens. You need any help with that?”