Chapter 1: Trial

Asher hit the button with Alex's face on it. He seemed like the only option. No. He was the only option.

Oscar struggled with his ID, nearly dropping it on the floor. He was lucky he didn't chose himself or something as he grabbed for it.

His hand shook over the screen until at last his finger hit Laura's button. There really didn't have to be any more explanation behind this, but the second Oscar hit it he felt a punch in his gut.

Alex didn't want to vote.
He scanned across the buttons, but finally his fingers acted before his mind.
He pressed Laura's button.
If out of revenge, or anything, he did it. He couldn't take that back.

Eloise had even limited the choices down to two for herself, and she still found herself staring at the screen. The faces didn't even mean any thing anymore, her headache was getting worse.

She tried reasoning, but eventually cursed herself for letting personal sympathies get in her way. The "what if"s piled up even further and finally she made a split-second decision.

She chose Alex. She was sorry.

David stared blankly at the buttons in confusion. He had to chose which one of them killed someone?

"This is bullshit." he muttered angrily. He didn't want to vote for Alex and upset Herbert who already hated him, and he didn't want to vote for Laura and upset Eloise and Asher. He sighed - he never liked choices. He figured he had to make the better of the two.

David, after a minute, pressed the button with Alex's face on it.

"Well,"

Monobear's voice was monotone as he began.

"Well, well, well!" He was getting more and more excited now, almost rising from his seat. "The vote's in! We have a winner...!"
The room suddenly got dark. A spotlight shone down over the podium of one of the students.

Alexander Redman's.
"Congratulations. You've chosen your murderer."

He laughed.
And laughed and laughed until he didn't know what to do anymore. Wild eyed he whipped his head back up, gripping the sides of the podium, smiling crazily.
He was at a loss for words.
"When opportunity presents itself, I take it."
He laughed again.
"And to think I thought I would get past with little resistance. Oh how I hate my mind. My reason is so selfish, so selfish."
His grin almost looked inhuman.
"I can only hope to be reincarnated as a rock. Tis only justifiable for what I did."

"But why... why would you be so desperate... that you w-would kill?" Adda still couldn't wrap her head around the mutual killing, much less understand the benefits to murder in the first place.

Especially after her dad's death.

He shrugged.
"I was childish. I saw the one person I had yet to train under coming out from hiding- I couldn't help. Everything else was small fry, but that..." he sighed, crossing his arms. He couldn't believe he was on death row.
Perhaps he wanted to be. Perhaps he would finally be free from his own mind.
"I think we all were to some degree murderous. I was just the one who snapped. To think I would forgo all the rules and kill someone for just such a thing. Meh. I suppose I won't hear my voices anymore."

To so calmly say he killed a man... after Herbert himself believed that it was someone else.
He was in shock, his mouth open. He slept with a murderer. He played darts, talked friendly with, became friends with someone that would eventually go and kill someone in the night when he was asleep. What if Laura was right? What if he was just doing that for an alibi? Things started to make sense.
"You used...my chain..." he squeaked.
How could Alex be so calm when he was about to die?

"The chain? Ah, that. I was surprised nobody found it. I hid it under the bed, after all. Was pretty easy to pick those knots off and make it rather deadly." he giggled. He was slowly losing it. Everything felt unreal.
"I tried so hard to make it look like someone else did it, but I guess in the end the court of idiocy managed to win on sheer luck alone. Pity. I was planning on trying to make everyone else kill each other if I got out alive. Maybe even try my odds again." He cast a rather narrow eyed gaze at Laura from the corners of his eyes, and slowly swung them to Herbert.

Laura didn't miss the look Alex gave her. In that moment, a switch ticked off in her brain, and her feelings of guilt were absolved. "Y'know? It's funny. I felt bad for you, Al. If I hadn't seen you in the hallway, I'd be the one on death row right now."

A manic grin spread over her face. "I guess if there's one good thing I can say about you, you're one handy loving loser! You literally saved my life! And I voted you to your death!" She let out a cold laugh. "Hope you enjoy your last moments, you piece of poo poo."

"Oh don't worry." His gaze fully shifted to Laura. "We're all going to die. Me and Jaden just got a lucky break. We don't have to fear anyone killing us. Perhaps I wanted that. perhaps I didn't. I don't know my own mind, after all."
He laughed. he was doing that a lot. Perhaps he should do it again.
He laughed again.
"But it's nice to know I'm not the only one with mental issues here. It was quite lonely in the asylum."

Laura couldn't help but giggle at Alex's response. Didn't he understand? He lost! No amount of clever remarks could change that. "Desperate words from boy staring his own death in the face," she whispered. "But I'll be honest. Maybe I am a little off." She tilted her head to one side.

"Sucks that you won't be around to see how this story develops." She stuck out her tongue at the kickboxer as if she were a child.

"Oh really? Who is to say I will not become a ghost?" He smiled, rather sweetly.
He opened his eyes, looking at Adda.
"I've always wanted to know what it was like to be a voice. A teeny little voice. Whispering little things into people's minds.
"But enough of that. Let's get the show started, hmm?"

"Upupupu!"
Monobear has now appeared back in the room, opposite to the window display of rubble and blood.

"Now that the main event’s over with, let’s take it to the falling action! More specifically, you all need to know what happened between your dear, dead friends last night! I didn’t want to have to be the bear to divulge this information, but seeing as you bastards couldn’t even carry out a proper investigation and trial, I don’t have a choice!

This despair-inducing tail takes place in two parts! Mr. Redman and Mr. Masters hadn’t met up until late into the night, so it’s important you get a full idea of where they both were! Let’s start with the smelly hulk, shall we? Early in the night, the Kick boxer and the Hunter chatted a while. But poor Mr. Smith had no idea what was really going on! You see, he had prepared a weapon for incase he was attacked! Insignificant chimes that he put outside his door. He could never have known that his deceitful friend planned to use them to kill! Upupupu!

So the homicidal student waited until his stupid friend was asleep. Then he went outside and took the chimes with him. I’m not an academic bear, but if I had to make a guess, I’d say he would have killed the first person he met! And he almost did! As I’m sure you bastards have gathered, he ran into an unexpected foe! Of course, I’m talking about the loony biker chick! She charged him, and he struck back, like any model student would. He probably would have killed her if it hadn’t been for her shady friend with the poorly dyed hair jumping in at the last minute to drag her off with only a broken leg.

Let’s cut to what our little TV star was doing last night. And if you want a humble bear’s opinion, he was boring! Very very boring! He spent all night hanging out in the damned locker rooms. I almost went into hibernation watching him! Eventually, he left to go to the cafeteria. I feel a certain kinship with our dancing friend, in a way. We both love midnight snacks!

See? Mr. Masters wasn’t very interesting. Added nothing to the school’s atmosphere, know what I mean? Good thing the bastard was killed off so soon! Anyway, back upstairs, Ms. Besley and her girlfriend Ms. Rutford both returned to their rooms, not paying any attention to the monster still lurking the hallway. What idiots they were! Mr. Redman was still outside, patrolling the hallway. If anyone was wondering why I allowed Mr. River to get away with sleeping outside his room, this is it right here! The stupid kid would have been killed if he tried to get back upstairs! In a silly sort of way, he didn’t really have a choice! Upupupu!

Anyway, our late kick boxer was almost about to give up on his mission, when out of the corner of his eye he spotted guess who! A dazed, very tired student with awful fashion sense returning to his room! It didn’t take long for our ogre to decide what to do. The moment Mr. Masters scanned his ID at the door, he met his cruel end at the hand of the only student he never even spoke to! How ironic! You should have seen the sorry bastard fidgeting in his final moments, clawing at the chimes that wrapped around his neck! It was a sight filled with despair! For him, anyway.

Once the deed was done, our culprit took the body and threw it inside the shower room. The kid always liked showers. Fitting, I think! Then he stashed the chimes under the bed in the next room, which none of you incompetent bastards bothered to check. I think, anyway. There was too much commotion to really see what you kids were doing!

Mr. Redman wasn’t very good at hiding the fact that he was the culprit, was he? He tried to frame his stupid friend for the murder by using his chimes, not that anyone found them, and then he threw Mr. Master’s Electronic Student ID in front of Ms. Besley’s door to try and frame her afterwards! Any competent group of students would have noticed the connection right away. You’ve all really let me down! I’m beary, beary upset with all of you!"
Monobear waves his arms in the most upset manner he could muster.

Laura was satisfied with the outcome of the trial, but her adrenaline rush was gone and she was tired. She leaned heavily on one crutch as she recounted the events of the last day. So she had been right; Alexander Redman really was the murderer. As a class they only barely reached the right conclusion, but they did, and that was enough for her.

She looked around at the other students' faces and smiled weerily to herself. If this is what the rest of the investigations and subsequent trials would be like, there was no need to be worried.

"So... that's that, then... this is what we can expect?...gently caress..." Asher mumbled under his breath. He had tipped the brim of his hat over his eyes to cover up the fear in his eyes. He wanted to do something, clenching his fists, but instead dropped his arms down to his sides. Instead, he walked over to Laura.
"y'know, I've made plenty of worse mistakes," he began, hoping she would get what he was referring to, "I thought it'd be a good idea to wear a big bow tie to my first day of 3rd grade!" he sighed soon after. He just wasn't feeling up to clowning around.

Herbert wiped a little blood from his chin. He probably bit his lip. gently caress.

Did the bear call him stupid? He bristled, his slight tremors growing even more pronounced. But he couldn't say anything, because when he opened his mouth, all he could make was just a choked off hiss. Finally, he could say something.
"H-he was my only friend, you bastard!" He said, his voice low and almost a mumble as he gripped the sides of his head, trying to close his eyes to hold back tears.
It was going to be a long night. He had a lot to think about.

Adda's completion had turned pale, almost like that of the ghosts she studied. She held her head in her hands, then looked up, trying to meet her friends' eyes. If there was anything to find comfort in, it was the fact that she wasn't alone. She had people to count on through the insanity.

"Oh my god..."
Oscar wheezed, barely keeping himself standing. He still had his eyes closed half way through the explanation, of all things. It took him the entire monologue to finally recover and even then he was completely speechless. He took multiple quick glances through the window, wincing and then searching the room for an exit.

"L-let us out...now..." he whimpered, squeezing the side of his podium tightly.
Slowly he turned his head around, to face Adda, but all he could muster was a blank expression.

David sighed, trying to hide any signs of emotion from his face, primarily because his head was a jumble of confusion, anger, horror, and some form of sadness he had never experienced before. Mostly the horror, which he was sure was evident in his eyes quite obviously.

He tried to forget that...that horrible thing the bear had done to that poor kid (which regardless of what he did, was way too taxing of a punishment), but it wouldn't leave his mind. He flinched as others spoke up around his own voice not forming as he tried to speak. He stayed silent for the first time in his life, and for the first time in his life, he didn't exactly mind.

Laura felt little sympathy for Herbert. She didn't really know what it was like to get the short end of the stick in that situation. She turned to Asher and gave him a warm but serious look. "I don't think that counts as so much worse. Y'know, you're talking to a would-be murderess right now," she said, letting a frown slip as she continued talking. "That's nothing to scoff at. You don't have to pretend you still want to be around me."

She gave Asher a hurt look. As much as she knew any normal person would break off their friendship, she didn't want to be alone as this school life continued.

Asher heavily contemplated what to do here. This was the closest he'd ever been to someone. Of course, this was also the closest he'd ever been to a potential murderer.
"Call me a fool, or anything you want, but frankly, I don't care. I'm gonna trust that the gal I know is the real Laura Besley, Super High-School Level Dirt Bike Rider," he said, staring into her eyes. He pulled her into a hug, even lifting her off the ground a tad, "But there are also your feelings to consider," He put her back down, making sure she had a grip on her crutches.
"If you don't want to be 'round me, I get it. But know this- you've got a friend in me."