Danganronpa Midnight: Lantern Lament (Fanganronpa)

Chapter 6 - An Encounter of Destined Despair

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Chapter 6 - An Encounter of Destined Despair
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Darkness. That was all I could see with my eyes shut tightly. It felt like I had been asleep for days with absolutely none of my senses functioning.

My body felt different. As if the one I had been in all this time wasn't actually mine. For the first time in a while, I felt...truly like myself. With real feelings, thoughts and beliefs instead of the artificialness of what the killing game was like.

This bizarre feeling of nothingness. The only word I could find to describe if after what felt like weeks of intense death and torture was just...peaceful.

My momentary silence was abruptly interrupted by the sensation of someone tapping me on the shoulder.

"Hey...Can you hear me?" An unrecognisable male voice asked from above me.

"H-Huh...?" I blinked my eyes open, yet once again was met with the same darkness.

Where am I...? And what the hell is on my face right now?

"Oh, you probably can't see a thing. My bad." The stranger apologised quickly before removing whatever was blocking my vision.

Once he did, my vision slowly readjusted to reveal where I was. It appeared to be some sort of abandoned meeting room, with rusty pipes lining the walls and dust invading every floor tile.

But that's also when I realised who exactly was the boy in front of me, smiling sympathetically as he put the strange headset that had been on me on the table.

It did take me a moment, but the two golden eyes and mole under his lip were enough for me to get it.

"Kei...Kei Shizuka." I blurted out, slowly raising my hand to point at the boy before me.

"Ah. So you do know who I am." Kei nodded with a weak grin. "Good. I thought that you had forgotten everything all of a sudden. But it seems you're ok." He paused to think to himself before sighing in relief. "I'm glad."

Kei proceeded to step back and extend his hand out towards me in an attempt to help me up. I cautiously avoided it and just stood up myself, Kei quickly noticing the gesture a slowly putting his arm down.

"Right. I should give you some time to adjust. You have been in that game for many hours now. Take as long as you need." He offered.

"W-Wait...Hours?" I repeated. "What the hell do you mean hours?!? That killing game was weeks long-"

"The passage of time in the virtual world is greatly accelerated. Less stalling means more killing games and fun for that bastard." The boy before me clenched his fists in frustration. Once Kei remembered I was right beside him, he dropped his fists and thought of an excuse. "Sorry about that...I guess I got pretty worked up."

"No...It's fine?" I replied in a very confused manner.

"Great. Right, you're probably confused. If you've got any questions, feel free to ask me. You do deserve answers." He explained. "If you don't have any well...you can talk to your friends, I suppose."

"Hold on." I stopped him from walking away, grabbing his wrist. "I think you're forgetting to fill me in on the most important detail. What the hell do you mean by a virtual world?!?"

"Right. I should summarise that." He took a deep breath. "In the simplest terms, the killing game all took place in a virtual world - an actual game made by my classmate who is the person really behind this, so you can somewhat trust me. That headset allowed you to take part." He gestured to the object he had taken off of my face and placed it on the table before me. Now that I could probably see it, I realised it looked exactly like one of those virtual reality headsets.