The screen turned to static.

Akik couldn't even watch the whole thing, and not just because his head had started hurting from watching the screen. The students stood in a shocked, horrified silence, processing what they'd just seen. The tragic death had happened so fast, they'd all barely had time to realize the reality of Cinder's execution.

"...oh my god," someone stuttered out - Dusk, Akik guessed based on the voice.

"Wasn't that exciting?" Monokumadi said, somewhat pleased with her handiwork.

"...what the hell?!" Anatox yelled at the wolf suddenly. Her expression looked sickened and her skin was pale, but her eyes shone with a steady anger that didn't cease. "You just killed her, why are you so happy about it?!"

"Hey, she killed someone first, I was just getting rid of the danger," Monokumadi shrugged. Her smile was almost taunting, like a knowing smirk.

"Because you traumatized her until she did! She would never kill on her own accord!" Anatox began to walk firmly towards the headmaster, hands tight in shaking fists until she was stopped. A hand held her shoulder - Akik's. He looked down at her, trying to keep down his shakiness as he shook his head.

"It's not worth it. She'll just kill you, too."

Anatox looked like she was about to ignore him, but processed his words before sighing, giving Monokumadi the finger before going back to her friend's side.

"Anyway, now that the show's over, you all just go chillax. Hopefully we'll be getting another murder soon~!" Monokumadi's taunting voice chased everyone out of room, Cinder's dying moments still imprinted fresh in their memories.

-

Akik knew he should be resting with his concussion, but restless unease kept him on his feet. He'd wandered around the corridors until he'd found the stairway to the second level. They'd always been there, just barred off from the rest of the school. But now it was all open, the bars gone.

I guess Monokumadi unlocked the second floor because of the first murder, Akik thought. If there's more, she'll probably unlock the rest.

He decided to hope the rest of the school would remain a mystery under that logic.

"Akik?"

Akik jumped, spinning around. Spade was standing not far behind him, the fortune teller having been wandering around the halls, probably for the same reasons as Akik.

Akik relaxed. "Oh. Hey, Spade."

"I see we've been given access to the second floor of the school," Spade observed, walking next to him and looking up the stairway.

"Wanna explore with me?" Akik smiled, attempting to be friendly. "It's probably better that we stick together since... well, the looming threat of death is always there, you know?"

Spade sighed. "I guess you're right. Better to make allies than enemies here."

The two walked up the stairs, quickly making it to the second floor. There were two halls, and Akik considered splitting up to explore more, but then decided against it, remembering how Octavia was killed while she went off alone. While exploring they discovered the archive, library - which Akik was pretty happy about, he hadn't had anything to read in a good while - and a few classrooms. There was another stairway as well, however it was barred off as the second floor had previously been. After returning to the staircase and taking another hallway, they found what appeared to be locker rooms. There was a girls' and a boys' locker room, and Spade unlocked the boys' door with his handbook.

Akik looked around and froze, his eyes finding the large machine gun that hung from the ceiling near the door. There were two, one aimed at the boys' door and the other at the girls'.

"Good eye, there!"

Akik was jumped by Monokumadi, who had seemingly appeared right next to him. Spade jumped a little as well, looking at the canine headmaster with surprise. He also glanced at the machine guns, though he didn't seem too shocked that there were more ways for them to die in this school.

"Don't worry. Those are just there to keep the boys out of the girls' room and the girls out of the boys'. As long as you don't try to get into the other locker room, you should be able to keep your body lead-free!"

She giggled as if she'd just said a joke. Akik glared at her, rubbing his head, which had been jostled enough to start hurting again. This concussion was an incredibly irritating inconvenience.

"Where did you even come from?" Spade asked, more curious and annoyed than caught off-guard.

"I have my ways of getting around," Monokumadi said. She winked. "Anyway, good luck with the murdering and all! I know you guys can do it~!"

And then she skipped away, satisfied.

"God, I hate her," Akik groaned, glaring after her.

"I'd be careful what you say about the headmaster, especially when it's her," Spade said reluctantly. "Better to stay on her good side if you wanna live longer."

"I guess that's fair," Akik sighed. "She doesn't seem like she's gonna kill any of us, though. I think she wants us to do that ourselves."

"Most likely, yes. But I'm sure she wouldn't hesitate to... join the game if she saw fit."

Spade opened the door to the locker room. There were, as locker rooms have, lockers inside, along with another door in the background of the room and various workout equipment. It smelled like chlorine. Was there a pool somewhere?

Akik confirmed this when he went through the door in the back, which, indeed, opened up to a large pool area.

"Well, at least there's more to do here now," Akik shrugged.

"More places for people to die, too," Spade sighed. "And more means to do it with."

Akik looked at him skeptically. "Why so pessimistic? I'm sure we can all get out of here somehow. Or live in peace, at the very least."

"I'm... not too sure of that," Spade said solemnly. "Monokumadi was willing to... motivate us with any means possible in order to get a murder out of us. I don't doubt she'll try to push us along in order to keep her game rolling."

Akik put a hand on his friend's shoulder. "I guess that's fair. But I think we can get out. You, me, everyone else. We can get out, and put an end to the crazy murder game Monokumadi has us playing."

He hesitated. "Actually, no, Gradient creeps me out. Maybe we can leave him here."

Spade smiled slightly, chuckling lightly. "I wish I had your optimism, my friend. I just... like to focus on the facts I can see. And those facts are looking glum."

When the two left, they found that a few others had found their way up to the second floor. Fabian was excitedly roaming the halls, seeming happy to have something new to look around at - he was the Ultimate Explorer, after all, and what's an explorer without something to explore? He thought he saw Gradient pass down the hallway, and Addie and Dusk were still sticking together, Addie trying to comfort him about the amount of death he'd witnessed in the past... what, hour? Two hours? It's hard to keep track of time here. Akik guessed the others were around somewhere.

"Have you ever thought about who might be behind this?"

Akik was started by the words. He looked down at Spade, processing his statement. "What do you mean?"

"Monokumadi is no normal being," Spade said. He spoke quietly, to prevent any unwanted attention from being drawn. "Anthropomorphic animal beings aren't quite... well, in existence in this world. Meaning either that's not true, or she's a robot of some sort. Considering she is able to self-detonate and reappear unharmed, the answer is most likely the latter. And no mechanical being can exist..."

"...without control from some other source," Akik finished the statement for him in realization. "Yeah. Yeah, you're right."

"And if we find the mastermind, we can shut down Monokumadi and whatever's keeping us in here."

"Yes." It made sense now. "But how would we find the mastermind? And who would it be?"

"I'm unsure of both of those questions," Spade sighed. "My suspicions as to whom would be for the original headmaster of Hope's Peak. However, I have no evidence to back that up, considering we've never met the guy."

"Yeah..." Akik thought for a moment, then shrugged.

Just then, a familiar voice came over the intercom once again.

"Everyone, pep assembly in the gym! NOW! Please and thank you~!"

The last words had a more cheerful tone to them, as though she was a small child asking to get a cool toy from a store.

Akik exhaled anxiously. "You think it's more... 'motivation'?"

"I don't doubt it for a second."

-

Spade was not incorrect.

"Y'all are stubborn!" Monokumadi barked at the students when all were present. "Seriously, where's the bloody murder when you want it? Won't you at least do it for meee~?"

Everyone shot her a glare.

Monokumadi exhaled, visibly irritated. "Oh well. Anyway, let's get to the pep part of this pep assembly!"

The wolf pulled something out from her podium and held them up excitedly - different slips of paper with the students' names on them. "Who wants their deepest darkest secrets~?"

Spade and Akik both exchanged worried glances. Everyone else seemed visibly confused.

Monokumadi passed out the papers, happily skipping about and seeming even more cheerful than usual as she gave everyone said "deepest darkest secrets." Akik stared at his skeptically.

"There's no way she knows anyone's secrets," Akik chuckled nervously.

"I wouldn't be too sure about that, considering what she does seem to know," Spade said, observing his own paper.

Even while Spade was realistic about the situation, Akik wanted to believe that as he unfolded the paper, he would see nothing, or something he had never done.

The paper unfolded.

...ooookaaaaay how the hell does she know about this-?!

He gripped the paper tightly, eyes shifting around the rest of the group. Everyone else showed different multitudes of horror and shock (besides Gradient of course, but that was no surprise, nothing Monokumadi did seemed to faze him), staring at their respective secrets with no clue as to how they'd gotten on that paper.

How the hell did she get this information? I never told anybody about this! Akik crumpled the paper, shoving it in his pocket to refrain from looking at it. He could hardly believe it had happened himself, or that he'd let it happen to himself. If only he hadn't- oh god, now I'm overthinking.

"What's your game here? How do you know this?!" Anatox yelled at Monokumadi, seeming increasingly furious that the headmaster had known whatever her secret was.

Monokumadi giggled. "There's the spirit! But don't worry. I won't tell anyone anything... if we find a body in the next twenty-four hours, of course."

"You're sick, you know that?!" Fabian lashed out at Monokumadi. "You're a sick bastard!"

"Oh, boo-hoo, I'm so insulted!" Monokumadi acted overly offended that Fabian would ever say such a thing. She quickly returned to her normal self, however. "Yeah, no, someone's gonna have to murder someone if you want to keep your secrets. Have fun with that, though. Buh-bye! Happy murdering~!"

And then she left again.

"...well, this is a slight predicament here," Spade sighed, putting his paper in his pocket.

"C-can't we all just... share our secrets?" Addie timidly suggested. "Then we wouldn't have anything to lose?"

Addie's idea was immediately shut down by everyone else. She remained silent after that.

"Okay, then." Spade exhaled. "We won't be doing that." He shook his head. "I'd like to stay optimistic, but I know that there's someone here with a secret dark enough to kill to protect. I guess we must wait and see what will happen."

"Oh, come on, lighten up," Akik said, nudging Spade with a forced smile. "This'll be fine. I'm sure it will."

Spade looked up at him.

"No. I know it won't be."

-

Twelve hours had passed. No one had yet been found dead.

Akik's head was starting to hurt again. He'd taken multiple doses of ibuprofen through the night, however the concussion still fought him with a vengeance. He tried to think of it as a good thing, almost like a scar he'd gotten from saving someone's life. But of course, that person was now dead anyway, so it was really in vain.

He was bored. He decided to get something from the library to read. Maybe it wouldn't quite help his head, but he wanted to do something besides wait like a sitting duck for someone to come along and kill him.

It was morning... probably. There were no windows, no clocks, no sense of time in this horrid place. Kind of added to the whole prison aspect. Akik left his dorm, walking down the hall and nearly running over Addie as she rounded a corner.

Addie stumbled backwards a moment, shaking her head to regain her bearings. Akik quickly apologized - this happened occasionally, he was tall enough that he sometimes didn't see anyone below eye level. Addie assured him it was alright before her expression returned to the concern it'd been before she'd rounded the corner.

"Akik? Have you seen Dusk anywhere? I haven't been able to find him, and he didn't answer me when I knocked on his dorm door."

"Dusk?" Akik hadn't seen the kid since sometime after the pep assembly yesterday. "No, sorry."

Addie gave him a small smile. "It's alright. I'll keep looking."

She went on her way, and Akik went on his.

Dusk crossed his mind once or twice more on the way to the library. Where was he? He and Addie had been close to inseparable since the start of this whole thing. Was he...

Akik decided not to think about it anymore, and instead thought about what he might look for at the library. He was the Ultimate Astrologist in this place, and for good reason - space had always interested him in a way he couldn't describe.

As these thoughts drifted in his mind, he nonchalantly opened the library door and closed it behind him. He took one step, brought his gaze to a shelf on the opposite side of the room, then froze as his heart skipped a beat.

Dead yellow eyes stared at the ground, a thin cable cutting into his neck as he dangled from a light fixture on the ceiling. Blood ran down his neck and stained his dark green hoodie darker than it'd already been, dripping down onto the ground, where a blood red pentagram was drawn with the dark red fluid. His hoodie was torn in multiple places along his abdomen, where it seemed multiple organs were visible or ripped out, maybe hiding somewhere in the library for someone to eventually have a nasty surprise while getting a book. His heart laid in the center of the pentagram, ceasing to beat in a pool of lost life.

It seemed someone had deemed Dusk a worthy victim to be rid of to keep their secret unrevealed.

-

2529 words

Ahahaaaa finally a gorey murder, TOOK Y'ALL LONG ENOUGH! But yeah Dusk is dead, rip :(

Originally Dusk's killer was gonna die and he was gonna kill them, but then I realized how ironic and out of character that would be (considering his secret), so nope he's dead lolll.

Again, take a guess as to who it is for a cookieeee :D