𝐇𝐨𝐩𝐞'𝐬 𝐋𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐒𝐞𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐭 | Inquisitormaster & Zsquad| Danganronpa

☆𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟐𝟔☆ || 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐓𝐫𝐮𝐭𝐡 𝐅𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐎𝐮𝐭

SOPHOMORE YEAR- FEBRUARY

*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: **✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *

~3rd Person POV~

The dance had been a great success—good for fundraising, even better for the students. Music pulsed through the gym, laughter rising beneath the glow of string lights. For most, it was the perfect night. Darkness stood at the edge of the room, arms wrapped around herself, her black dress pooling slightly at her feet. On the dance floor, couples moved in slow, easy steps, the soft melody of the song filling the space between them. She watched them for a moment, then looked away. She wasn't lonely. At least, that's what she told herself.

She felt out of place. Wrong. Standing here, among her classmates, didn't feel natural—it felt suffocating. Like a fish flopping helplessly on land. Like an alien, stranded on a planet she wasn't meant to be on. She didn't belong. Not here. Not anywhere. The thought clawed at her, tightening like a noose around her mind. She tried to shake it off, but the memory surged forward, unbidden. What she saw that day—what no teenager should ever see—was burned into her brain. The labs were nothing compared to that nightmare. Her stomach churned. The music was too loud, the air too thick, her breathing too unsteady. Voices called to her, but they blurred into the noise, distant and meaningless. She needed out. Out of this room. Out of this suffocating, too-warm crowd. Out of this body that felt more like a prison than a home.

Darkness turns sharply on her heel, swallowing back the acidic feeling itching at the back of her throat and urging her out of the room. The music had left the range of her ears when the door closed, but everything still felt annoyingly loud. Uncontrollably loud; Everything was out of her grasp and she didn't know what to do, where to go, if anyone was there to save her. Her mom. Her brother. Her sister. They despised her; the voices raging inside of her mind never let her forget it. Darkness tried biting back her tears as she stumbled through the halls, her balance and coordination intoxicated by this horrible wave of unrecognizable emotions that no one could deem or name for her to process. Everything was burning, every step was heavier than the last, and no one was going to save her if she had so happened to collapse right here in the hallway. Everyone would point and laugh. That's what her mind had convinced of her. That she was nothing more than a laughing stock for the rest of the class to enjoy. She hated herself for making herself such an easy product of laughter, but that's all that she was good for, and that's the only way people would remember her. If she was nothing more than a joke.

Not even the fresh air outside could save her from this internal hell she was facing. She wanted to die. If that was the only way to make it stop right here, right now, then that was what she wanted this very moment. To make everything go away at a moment's notice, to make the pain stop, to make this uncomfortably in her own paling, matted with sweat skin. Then, that was what she was going to get. Freedom from everything. As she got closer to the top step of the staircase leading up to the school, she contemplated whether or not jumping down was the best resolve right now But then she'd be like that damn girl who they had used before, and she didn't want to witness another incident like that. Not when the blood was on their hands... and Drake's.

Darkness clambers down the steps using the railing as a guide and throws up her guts of whatever she had eaten days before into a nearby bush. The world spins around her, and the toxic feeling burns her throat as everything comes up. She hasn't eaten in days. She can't bring herself to do so. That would make her too normal for this. Hanging out with her "friends" was too normal. Being here, alive, was too normal. Everything was too normal. Darkness felt a pang of jealousy toward Levi, trying to take notes of how he could act so casually in public after what had happened to them as a pair. Darkness hated him. She despised Junko. She wants herself dead. To stop everything. But what would that do? Levi was devoted to that bitch, and Darkness was, too. Even if she wanted to kill her to save everyone else, her mind would erase that thought before it could be executed. That was another thing she hated about herself. How quick she was to satisfy Junko's needs, even if it meant sacrificing life for themselves.