Chapter Text
She remembers a hand reaching out to her, with her own subconsciously reaching back, but to no avail. Her other hand on a device clamped around her neck, hoisting her up like she was some sort of prize in a claw machine. She was selected like a claw machine, but not for any good reason. She’s placed on a giant grand piano, but she’s not in control of any melody this time. Both hands are around her neck as her body’s dragged around each key. The tempo speeds up, her body dangles as she’s moved side to side, and her face starts to change to purple. Some sort of crowd boos as she’s starting to take her last breaths. She notices the inside cover of the piano is filled with large spikes aiming towards the keys and herself for that matter as well as barbed wire? She wasn’t sure she was starting to black out. Finally the song ends as her presumed lifeless body hangs and slowly sways. The fallboard on the piano starts to close and shuts with a loud thud onto the keys and her body.
Then she wakes up.
She screams as her body jolts upwards and her eyes open. Where was she?
“Aren’t I dead? Is this hell?” She rubs her eyes and pinches herself like what’s cliche to do in these scenarios. She feels the pinch, this has to be real.
She calms and finds herself in a bed pod of sorts with hers open, so she leaves the tight space and walks towards the next of the room as she feels compelled to the hall. She looks back and sees sixteen in total, with two open, the rest filled with some sort of gas that looks like thick smoke so she can’t see what they contain.
With so many questions in her head, too many to list while she walks the halls, she ends up in the middle of a school?
“Great, that adds at least ten more!” She says to just herself. She gets cut off before she can say anything else.
“Kaede Akamatsu” A voice echoes through the room which makes her turn her head every which way to see if she sees anyone before she lands her gaze on a large speaker in the room.
“Who’s there?” “How do you know my name? At least I think so”
“No need to know, but yes that is you. You have lost in the 53rd season of the game Danganronpa. Nice try, the fans really did like you, but you shocked the entire world with your stunt.”
“Danganronpa? That sounds familiar, but my what? “ She thinks to herself.
“Danganronpa’s a hit show, of course you’d remember it, especially seeing as you applied to be a contestant. You should also recall what happened if you think hard enough, maybe your brain is just exhausted from getting your old memory back. We wiped most of it before the game began and placed you into a simulation so you still are Kaede Akamatsu, but you have your real life and now this fake life you had.”
“This really is making my head spin, and I’m not even talking directly to someone I can see. Maybe I am dead and you’re God.”
“I can promise you you’re not dead, just in the franchise you are. Now you have two options, one is tha-”
“I wish I was dead rather than having to talk to you.” She mutters under her breath while her arms are crossed.
“I heard that.” The disembodied voice speaks more sternly and she stiffens up. “Now listen, you have two options. One is that you can leave now, but you can’t return until after this season ends and if you want to participate in another game of Danganronpa, or you can stay and spectate the others until the game is over. Yes from the outside world you can watch too, but that's no fun. Here you can wait for your quote on quote friends and we also will provide you with food and utilities and such for your stay. The place you remember actually does exist, but we programmed it into the simulation, you can stay in the physical set.”
“I… I don’t know. This is all so much to take in.”
“We will allow you to stay at least a full 24 hours here before we need an official answer, but we do encourage you to stay and perhaps participate again!”
“Hell no to that last part!”
“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that. Anyway, you know where everything is located, and there may be a familiar face you run into tonight.”
“Someone familiar?”
“I hope that has piqued your interest, now allow me to leave you be with your thoughts, any questions you can just speak aloud and someone will hear it as we’re still monitoring you for safety reasons and don’t say we can't cause your contract you signed with us says we can.”
“Now that sounds really sketchy.” She felt goosebumps on her skin.
“We have our reasons, especially with you right now. Try not to kill anyone again, we’ll have to call the police on you and you’ll get into real trouble." The laugh of the voice booms through the speaker, Kaede thought she could feel the sound wave.
“Again? And how is that even funny?”
“You can figure that out yourself! Too many questions, bye!” The voice shuts off and the speaker before she can get any more words out.
“But- ugh. I need time to think about this.” She sounds irritated and gives up trying to talk to the speaker and whoever is behind this so-called game, and she decides to go to the dorms, seeing as it's the same place as she can recall, she must have her own room like before.