Danganronpa: Despair's Fallen Children

Chapter 19 - The Mastermind

Jacob's eyes flickered open slowly, his head hurt, and the rest of his body but mostly his head. He looked around him and saw that he was in a large, rectangular room with plain grey walls. The room was empty except for some beds against the walls except for where a large door was. He moved his feet off the bed he laid on and stood to his feet slowly, his right hand rubbing his head gently.

What had happened yesterday, everything had gone perfectly at first but then everything was off the rails and him with it.

He looked at the other beds and saw the others were still sleeping, Marco had been to Jacobs left with Simon after him and Carlos next. On the opposite side of the room was Abby and Lexi.

Jacob didn't make a noise, he stayed to the door, not even bothering to try opening it, and simply stayed away from the others so he could keep to himself.

"I failed" he said to himself, trying his best to keep his body from trembling.

He lowered his head to look down at the floor, his right hand holding onto his left as they were stuck behind his back.

Ten minutes passed, then fifteen, and then finally twenty before someone finally awoke. It was Carlos who awoke and Jacob knew this wasn't going to end well.

Carlos noticed Jacob immediately but he didn't respond, either he didn't remember what had happened earlier or he was just ignoring the boy but either way Carlos looked around the room and sat the end of his bed while shaking Simon awake who, once he awoke, shook Marco awake.

"Where are we?" Simon said as Marco finally got off the bed and sat at the end like the other two boys.

"Possibly outside the dome, is that even possible?" Carlos said.

"We can hope, I don't think we saw a room like this in the school" Simon said.

Marco turned to see Jacob who in response kept looking at the floor, Marco immediately standing up and walking up to the boy and grasping his neck with his right hand. Jacob was lifted into the air and without a word Marco squeezed his hand tightly. Jacob floated there for a while, not resisting but instinctively trying to breath, the two boys behind Marco trying to ignore the actions going on but it wasn't them who stopped Marco.

"M-Marco, stop it!" Abby said as her eyes awoke and the first thing she saw was Marco strangling Jacob.

Marco didn't stop, he kept squeezing until he felt something hit his back causing him to stumble and let Jacob go who fell down the wall with his hands rubbing over his neck.

Abby was behind Marco, her fists having hit Marco's back as hard as possible. Marco turned in response, but he didn't try to retaliate: he moved to his bed and sat down with his face staring forward in anger.

Abby looked down at the hurt Jacob, her eyes close to tearing up but she turned and instead walked back to her bed where Lexi was awaking as well.

"W-what?" Lexi said as she rolled to get off her bed.

She stood to her feet and looked around to see everyone awake already, but when her eyes met with Jacob her eyes widened slightly and she walked up to the boy, her hand slapping his cheek before she stared down into his eyes.

Jacob kept looking down at the floor, avoiding everyone's gaze as they began staring, but his eyes caught a hold of tears dripping down to the floor and he looked up to see Lexi crying.

"I'll never forgive you..." she said and began walking to Abby.

Jacob brought his legs up to his chest, his arms hugging them closely as he stared at the other students.