haunted

mad world

haunted

chapter four: mad world

At least it looks like I get to have one last ride . . . not that I deserve one.

Mondo had been tied to his motorcycle, Monokuma sitting in front of him with his paws on the handle bars and . . . really? A pompadour. The fucking teddy bear was wearing a pompadour. I guess I deserve to be mocked right now, too. He looked ahead for a moment and saw one of those huge, circular cages they used for bike tricks. He'd always been tempted to try one.

Not that he expected this to be "fun". He used to be fascinated by them as a kid when Daiya brought him to motorcycle expos and they watched the live demonstrations. When he'd been younger he'd always been asking if he could try it, and his brother always told him no, that he was too young and it was too dangerous, and it always made him angry because he hated being too young, but then Daiya would throw him over his shoulder, yell at him to not make a scene, and they'd go somewhere else.

Mondo knew Daiya would have no way of actually knowing, but maybe some part of him knew that one of those cages was going to be the literal death of him. Maybe on some sort of cosmic level, some small part of his brother's mind knew, just knew, that his little brother was going to be killed in one and he'd done everything in his power to stave off fate or destiny or whatever, but now Daiya was dead and even if he wasn't there was no way he'd be able to save him now.

Not that Mondo wanted to be saved.

Really, Mondo wasn't that concerned about himself. It was bad enough he'd killed Chihiro. It was bad enough he couldn't keep his secret for him. It was bad enough that everyone knew what had happened to Daiya. But seeing Ishimaru, his only friend here, freaking out like that back in the courtroom and hearing him screaming now . . .

This . . . this was too much.

The bike engine roared to life and rocketed forward. For a moment, Mondo was angry – he'd accelerated too fast, that would be bad for the bike. Then again, whatever Monokuma had in mind probably wouldn't be good for his bike in the long run anyways. Not that the bear seemed to care – he was ejected from the bike before it entered the cage.

For a few seconds, the bike was just going round and round and round, and Mondo was feeling sick to his stomach. If he'd eaten anything recently (he couldn't – he hadn't been able to eat after what he'd done to Chihiro . . . poor kid, he didn't deserve what he'd done to him) it would have been all over the cage.

Then came the crackling, buzzing sound.

Electricity.

The cage lit up, sparks shooting across the cage in a web. Mondo screamed, the bike whipping around faster and faster, the friction of the air and the zapping of the electrical current buzzing and the sound of his own screaming was so loud he couldn't even hear Kiyotaka anymore. It all came to a chaotic, noisy head – his body couldn't take it anymore, he felt like he going to explode, there was a sharp pain in the middle of his chest . . .

. . . and then suddenly he was flying. . .

. . . and then he was falling.

Mondo landed flat on his back. He winced, but then realized the impact hadn't hurt or knocked the wind out of him. Shit. Now the bear's going to want to try again. He wondered if he was going to do something different this time, like just flat out crash him into a wall – if he was going fast enough that would kill him. Or have him get hit by the truck that should have taken him out three years ago anyways.

Wait. Three years ago? But Daiya's only been gone one year . . .

No. No, it's been three years. But . . .