Chapter 1: Trial

Well, now was a better time than any to bring this up.
"Speaking of monobear and the school, I couldn't help but notice a few things wrong with my room..." Alex began.
"First off, my medicine box had a different code. I always use the same code, but somehow I knew this new one. I only change it if someone figures it out, but who could have possibly done that within a day? I'm under the impression I never been here before in my life." He threw his hands up in exasperation.
"The second is much more important. It takes four days for my drugs to start wearing off, and due to complications I may have, I take them every second day. I couldn't take them today and yesterday, which was only two days. Yet I began to break down today." he looked even more worried, as if this fact was eating away at him. "I'm sorry, I just needed to get that off my chest. To make it more relevant, I went back to bed after Laura jumped me. That was about midnight."

"Upupupupu..."

Monobear had watched the trial in silence until now, a grinning, malicious silence.
"I'm afraid a 'dumb bear' like me cannot answer those questions," He hung his head in mock-shame, "Oh, surely you're imagining things, that's all."

"Alibi's are more relevant right now. After all, your life depends on them!" He wasn't going to let them question in that direction.

"I feel like if we all just try and defend ourselves, we won't get anywhere. No one's going to come out now and say 'Oh yeah by the way I was around Jaden at 2:15'! There's gotta be a way we can approach this, right? Some way to narrow down the pool of suspects?" Adda was getting scared. People were being accused left and right, both directly and indirectly, and no one believed each other- it was no way to conduct a trial.

Laura had regained herself as much as she could, and was ready to speak by the time Adda finished talking. "We don't have anything else to go on. Jaden was killed in a way that any of us would have been able to pull off, so all we have is our alibis." Laura felt lightheaded as she spoke. She hated that people were looking at her, probably thinking she was some kind of monster. She gulped. "We can't trust each other," she stated blankly. "If we do, we'll never find the murderer. The only ones we can trust are the people who couldn't have possibly murdered Jaden."

Laura thought for a moment. "And the only way to prove that is to back up each others' stories. Who was with who late last night, and if they were keeping an eye on each other." She sighed. "There's no other way."

"You're right, Laur. In fact..."
Asher had begun to put some pieces together in his head, and though he doubted the conclusion was correct, he was pretty proud of his reasoning.
"The only way to prove an alibi is to back someone up. But at the same time, not everyone is cool under pressure. David!" he turned to face the chauffeur.
"We know that late last night you fell asleep in the main office. But, you've been acting kinda antsy lately-not that we know how you usually are. You could want a quick ticket out of here, and have taken advantage of Jaden. Sleeping in the office sure would distance you from the crime scene!" There was a bit of apology in his eyes, but not enough to make him really seem upset. All he knew was to be direct, and he was sure it wasn't making him many friends right now.

"An' ah'll add summat in too. Cause I ain't likin anythin' around here." Herbert leaned forward, flicking his nose with a gloved finger, as if he was going to say some sort of secret.
"That kid's too stupid to figure out how to kill someone even if he wanted. I mean, he nearly got his little ass killed by that stunt. Ya think some murderer will risk 'is hide before 'e got a chance to get out fair an' square? Though, what I'd like to know is how 'e got in there." he paused, giving David an almost envious glare.
"Tho we don't really know much about each otha' so maybe it's an act. or Somethin'. Eh."

David frowned. "Jesus, I'm not dumb! I'm actually pretty smart - I just, none of that knowledge is applicable here." he crossed his arms and sighed. "Ah well."

"Either way, my alibi's for real, I promise, because the bear literally announced where I was, when I was there, and what I was doing. Late night, sleeping, and in the main office are the answers if you've already forgotten. If you want to know what I did earlier in the night because you still don't believe me, I stayed in my room until midnight or so, just to relax, then went out and walked around the bottom floor's halls. I ran into a bunch of people: Adda and Marci going to the Library, Jaden walking around, and I even saw you walking to the gym, Asher!" he frowned, looking at the Carny.

"And for the antsy part, I dunno, maybe it's because we saw a dead body, a kid go near-insane," he looked at Alex sympathetically, "and one of us is now wearing an eyepatch. " he nodded to Adda. "Not to mention one of us is a murderer! I dunno about you, but I think that's a pretty damn good reason to be a little 'ansty'."

Asher held his head in his hands.
"This is going nowhere! Like Laura said, this rides on what other people saw!"
He shook his head and then stood up again.
"Someone was killed last night! There's no way everyone saw nothing suspicious!" He looked to Alex, and then David.
"I hate that we're accusing each other! Believe me, I'm not doing this for kicks!" His hands balled into shaking fists. He was pleading at this point.
"Even if it's not something that seems important, come out with it!" His head darted around the room, from student to student.

"Well..." Eloise didn't know how to begin, considering her alibi was arguably the worst. The others could claim they had the worst alibis, but that would be a whole other trial. She was at least glad the attention had turned away from Laura, for the time being.

"We have some evidence," Eloise sighed before continuing, she had tried her best with the investigation, "but...what about things we can't find? Surely a culprit would try to hide evidence. And considering our investigation got nowhere fast, that's more likely than anything. Did anything go missing? I mean, besides food in the cafeteria?" She recalled someone shouting about a missing object, or maybe someone at least noticed something out of place. It was the only lead they had, the one that was missing.

"Before well...this..." she indicated to the bandaged eye, "all I noticed was Herbert throwing some things around in the shower. And there's also the pictures that Laura found. But otherwise..." she stopped there. She felt bad having begun to comment on this, knowing that her information was limited.
"Was there anyone who was in and out of the room a lot? Someone who could have been grabbing stuff quick and running off to hide it."

"Th- that couldn't have happened! We had guards watching the door. Anyone who left the room was checked over by Asher and David." Laura had to admit, it was a weak argument. The two guards, Asher and David, had gone out into the hallway to check on Alex shortly after being assigned to their posts. But she doubted anyone had something they needed to get rid of.

"I'm telling all of you, we need to get back to the alibis!" There were several people she would have liked to call out on their flimsy stories. But Laura realized she was in no position to be accusing anyone at this point, and slumped down over her podium once more.

"We definitely need to pick one point and stick to it. Going back and forth just slows the whole thing down-and alibis are the most logical place to start. But what are we exactly supposed to do when all most everyone claims they were asleep?"

When Asher mentioned the other classmates claiming to be asleep, Laura remembered something. Two of her classmates had a pretty solid alibi, but only because they were together. But if one of them wasn't watching the other... Forgetting her fear of being judged for calling someone out, Laura raised her voice again.

"Ey, Herbert! You and Alex shared a room, right?" She prompted. She tried to keep her voice as objective as possible. "But you couldn't have been watching each other the whole time! You've even said that you've been asleep!" Even though she was loathe to accuse someone after her debacle, Laura couldn't leave it hanging there. "Either you're lying and were awake watching each other, or neither of you really have an alibi at all!"

"Are you suggesting while Alex was out, I woke up and snuck out?" He said, taken aback.
Well, the truth was his savior.
"Well, I did wake up once to take a piss, but Alex was back, so maybe it was past midnight. If you want confirmation, he drools when he sleeps. And twitches. But in the early night were were playing darts with my knives." He eventually trailed off, realizing the truth really didn't help at all. "Aw... b-bloody hell! I'm not saying anything else!"

"Look, that's kinda vague. And to be frank, we don't care what you did early and mid night," when Herbert stopped, Asher got a bit irritated.
"If you want us to trust you, now's not the time to go saying that you can't tell us anything!"

"Ah-ah got up once, okay! I 'ave a tendency to get up a lot durin' the noight, kay?" Herbert stammered, realizing he just slipped up. he was getting more and more nervous the more he was addressed about the night. "But ah slept real well tonight! Ah woke up just once! Once!"
He took his hat off, fidgeting with the edge of it and kneading it in his gloved hands. "C'mon! Ya think the one guy who hated Jaden's guts would kill him? It'd be too obvious!" He laughed nervously.

Asher leaned forward at his stand.
"In a story, that might be reason to ignore someone. But this is real life! That's plenty reason to kill someone!"

"We knew that we'd have to kill people from tha bat! I mean, I wouldn't do it, even if I wanted to- Oh bloody hell forget I said that!" Herbert dropped his hat, quickly picking it back up, hitting his head on the podium.
"Yeow! B-But I took part in the investigation! I mean, I helped try to find who killed tha guy! I'm just about as clueless as you guys are!"

Laura gave Herbert a hard look. "I don't like it, but I doubt Herbert is the murderer. He was helpful in gathering evidence when no one else was. Besides, if he really did do it, he's got other ways to kill a person than choking them to death..."

She pinched her chin in thought, furrowing her brow. "He probably is just as clueless as the rest of us. Herbert must have been asleep when the murder happened!" Laura almost felt like she understood Herbert. They were both in a bad situation. She knew she would have to apologize to him for her accusation after the trial was over.

"Well, since we ruled out Herbert, it's only natural to move onto me. I am the other person that shared his room, and perhaps it is time to examine what I said in detail." He took a pause, taking a breath and steeling himself. He wasn't used to so much human interaction.
"As mentioned before, Laura attacked me. I broke her leg. I...never really had that happen to me. I was a bit... disappointed." He looked a bit saddened saying that. "That was also the first time I inflicted a serious injury on purpose as well. I...returned to Herbert's room and meditated soon after. That hammock does wonders for the mind." He took a shaky breath. "I was perfectly sane yesterday, though." he added, hoping nobody would bring up that damn... disease he had.

"Well, considering Laura's obviously hurt a bit, I feel like it makes his alibi pretty strong. So then, who would be the next most likely suspect? There's gotta be someone who stands out!"
Adda had a few guesses herself, but there was no way she would start throwing names around.

Laura was dumbstruck by Adda. "Most likely? You just heard him talk!" She took a deep breath. "I guess I have to spell this out for you."

"Herb shared a room with Alex last night. But he was asleep and not keeping an eye on Alex! It couldn't be more obvious! I'll bet that if Herbert had been asleep around midnight, someone else would have died at that time, because Alex waited until Herbert was asleep to kill someone! That's why he was out in the hallway when I... I attacked him! He thought having a roommate would be the perfect alibi!"

"So you're saying Alex could've killed Jaden before you attacked him, then. That makes sense- sorry to make you explain again," Adda finished as she shrunk back a bit. Who knew dirt bikers could be so intimidating?

"The murder took place at late night. Laura attacked me at around midnight!" Alex gripped his head, completely frustrated by the way this was going. Weren't they his friends? Why were they accusing him?
"And for god's sakes I didn't kill anyone! Most of us were out and about during the night, all for different reasons. I...really couldn't sleep. My thoughts were racing, and I needed to calm down, which suffice to say backfired. I originally was going to..." he paused, looking a bit guilty, as if he ruined something. "I was going to get some plants. I picked them out yesterday, and I never got the chance to move them to my room. If we're going to go on like this, what if someone else has been silently avoiding this conversation and they're the murderer. We're just running in circles around the favored suspects, and I'm starting to feel like this is shaping up to be similar to the investigation."
He sighed. He made a promise. He intended to keep it.
"Besides, I promised Herbert I wouldn't let him get killed because of a false accusation. I murdering someone would go against that, and frankly I think I destroyed everything I... worked for." Alexander suddenly deflated, not looking too happy with himself. He wanted to stop all this talking. His mouth hurt and his heart did as well.

Asher took in the statement, and tried to analyze it as best as he could. He began to realize just how much rode on the coming decision.
"Well, do you have any suggestions? You're eager to prove you're innocent, which is fair, but then what other leads do we go on?"