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Everything felt fuzzy, like static drowning out his thoughts. Shuichi had no idea where he was, but the bed he was in was too comfortable to be the one he remembered. His sheets were perfectly neat, as if he’d just appeared there instead of tossing and turning all night as he usually did. His head and throat both ached, but mostly everything just felt numb.
What was the last thing he could remember? Tsumugi, the trial, Keebo, rejecting the sick game and whatever he’d been in his past… He, Maki, and Himiko all stood to face the world together, but after that, nothing. It was as if the world stopped existing after that moment, as if nothing at all could possibly come after that. It was as if it had all been a nightmare, and now he was waking up.
But that couldn’t be possible. Aside from it all seeming so real, this room definitely wasn’t his. It was immaculately clean, but not in the lifeless way a hotel room was. There were photos he couldn’t make out with his eyes half open, and some various random objects like some crystals he might have seen among Himiko or Angie’s things, and an oversized plush fox sitting on a shelf.
Sitting up, he tried to get his bearings, looking down at himself. He didn’t even recognize the pajamas he wore- some elegant buttoned shirt with matching pants, where he’d normally just throw on an oversized t-shirt. But, in a vanity mirror across the room, he could make out his own figure, hair as unruly as ever, if not a bit longer than he remembered it. Unmistakably himself, but unmistakably different.
He forced himself to look at the bedside table, knowing his eyes would have to meet the photo on it eventually. He could only tell himself the half empty water glass was enough to look at for a brief moment, or the digital alarm clock reading 8:09. No, he had to face the photo, but he was terrified of what he’d see in this strange room. If this truly was a sick joke, what would it be? A framed picture of a blood spattered piano or hydraulic press?
Somehow, what it actually was made him feel even more sick. It was a picture of five very familiar faces, including his own. It was of a sunny day where he was sitting outside some fancy building, smiling in some outfit far too nice for him to ever wear himself. Kaede stood beside him, smiling brightly, wearing a jacket that would look more at home on someone in a PE class than the Ultimate Pianist. Kokichi was sitting beside him, leaning on him and smirking- same as always but he seemed so much more casual, just wearing a pretty normal looking school uniform rather than the pretentiously overdone getup he normally did. Maki was there too, squinting like the sun was in her eyes, looking as unamused as always but without the laser focus in her eyes. And, Kaito was there too, leaning over the bench, grinning like he always did but dressed in black.
His hands shook as he picked up the picture frame to look at it closer. Was this edited? Was it of that old life Tsumugi insisted they’d sprung from? And who had taken this picture? Had it been put here to mock him, as a fleeting image of the happy, peaceful life none of them could ever have? His eyes burned and his stomach churned, but mostly he felt disgusted. It had ended, he had refused to play, but clearly someone wasn’t done playing with him. He just wanted it to stop, why couldn’t he just have peace? Or at the very least, an ending?
Something had to be done- he needed to investigate this, as much as he hated the idea. He forced himself to his feet, slipped on the slippers sitting next to the bed, put there far too nicely to have been his own doing, and approached the door. Would it not open? Or shock him when he tried? Hesitantly, he touched the doorknob and tried to throw it open as quickly as possible.
To his slight relief, it opened like a perfectly ordinary door did, into a hallway marked with room numbers. Was this some sort of dormitory? Or was it a hotel after all? For a brief moment, he wondered if he’d just had some strange memory lapse caused by trauma before remembering the photo. Something had to be going on here, and he had to figure it out. He didn’t have a choice in that.
He followed the hallway until it met a sitting room of some sort. It definitely looked as if someone had recently been using it- a book was lying open on a coffee table, and a laptop covered in cutesy stickers sat next to it, but no one was there. A cold shiver ran down his back, but he decided to take a look at the book. He didn’t understand a word of it- not because it was in a language he didn’t understand, but rather it seemed to be about coding. For a brief moment, he wondered if it were Miu’s before remembering she was dead.
Part of him wanted to look at the laptop too, but he didn’t want to pry unless he absolutely had to, so he continued down the hall. It looked almost like a school- not the sorry excuse for one Monokuma ran, but an actual school where actual students might live and study. A few of the doors were slightly ajar, and he could see what looked like classrooms.
Worryingly, the buzz of idle chatter began filling his ears the further he went. So other people were here? Was that worse or better? Maybe Maki and Himiko would be among them, if he was lucky, and they’d be able to tell him what the hell was going on. He headed towards the noise, and could make out what looked like a cafeteria, with a few people eating and chattering. But, the closer he got, the more he wanted to turn back.
A few familiar voices started filling the air, and a few familiar faces stood out in the crowd. Faces that shouldn’t be here, voices no one would ever hear again. He stopped dead in his tracks as he noticed Gonta’s unmistakable figure, clad in an apron and chattering with Angie, whose hair was pulled back into a braid.
His breaths began coming out shaky and frantic. No, no, this wasn’t possible. His eyes darted back and forth across the room, begging his vision to be false. Instead, he noticed Kirumi yawning as Korekiyo animatedly told her something or other, and Rantaro asleep next to a plate of food that Miu was stealing a strip of bacon off of.
Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, some twisted hallucination- whatever he was seeing, it didn’t make sense. He’d seen some of these people die right in front of him, and investigated the dead bodies of the others. None of these people could be here, and yet, there they were, and here he was. He felt frozen. He wanted to run, but he wasn’t sure if it would be towards or away from these spectres.
Before he could make a decision, he heard a voice that just about made his heart stop all together. “Shuichi? Are you okay?”
His eyes met the pink ones that haunted his dreams. “K-Kaede,” he almost whispered. His entire body felt cold as she frowned at him, standing all too close to his face. She was dressed similarly to in that photo, in sweats and a sporty jacket, and holding a water bottle in one hand while the other was drawn towards his forehead.
Her touch wasn’t as ice cold as he would have expected a living ghost’s to be. Instead, she was just… kind of warm and sweaty, actually. “You okay?” Kaede asked, but he could barely hear her voice over a loud pounding filling his head. “You look really pale. And why are you in your pajamas?”
“What’s going on,” he demanded of her, voice trembling and weak. “Where are we, why are you here?”
Kaede’s eyes widened, her hand pulling away. “What do you mean? We’re at Hope’s Peak, I just got back from my morning run. Seriously, what’s wrong?”
Hope’s Peak, he recalled the name as the place the Killing Games had all begun. Why would they be there, the place never even existed, right? Even if it did, why would they be there? Morning run, that part was weird too. Kaede never seemed like the athletic type, so why would she take a run in the morning? And on a school day, from the looks of it?
“You- you can’t- all of you…” He started backing away, shaking like he’d been dunked into ice water. “You’re not…”
“Allow me to assess his current state!” Heavy clanks started towards him, and his eyes landed on someone who was unmistakably Keebo. He’d just seen him explode, how could he be here, rushing towards him as if he was the one to worry about?
This was all too much. His head began to feel light. The room was spinning around him. Shuichi fell to the floor, blackness filling his vision as voices melted together into an indistinguishable blob.