Danganronpa: GHOST TOWN

Epilogue

I wasn't ready. For, who ever could be? Deaths so painful. A betrayal so twisted. Lovely truths whispered and revealed as lies, and a despair that spread. Who's hope could have conquered such torment? Why were we the ones who suffered? Could we not, in this moment plead for selfishness and question: why us? this time?

I wasn't ready. And the walls that were our enemies spread their arms wide in offering. We could leave. But I wasn't ready.

Too many fallen before us and too many behind. Those remembered and those forgotten. Those coating our thoughts like dust. As a mirror reflects and records, our thoughts were ours again. To record and recall, and yet I was not ready.

Nostalgia chilled my soul. Nostalgia for a place that brought horror. I felt afraid that when we left, all those perished would be forgotten. All those fallen would be condemned.

I was not ready. But they were and maybe that would help. We would find the other survivors, we would not be alone anymore. Despair infested us here but there was still the possibility of hope.

Hope. Leave and we would learn. Stay and we would fall.

I was not ready to be selfless again. I longed to be selfish and yet I knew one thing: in hope or despair there was one similarity: contagiousness. If one was in a room filled with people who despaired, then they too were likely to fall into despair. Just as a person in a room filled with people who had hope were likely to hope.

The people beyond these walls...what were they feeling? Hope or despair?

I didn't think I deserved it but I was not ready to let go of hope. And did I not once think that each person hopes for different things? The hope for the world, hope for others. hope for themselves. But I did not believe I fit into any one of those categories.

I found myself hoping that when we left this place that one thing could occur. One thing could be accomplished as a result of our departure: the destruction of despair. To burn their shelters and wreck their plans. An outsider may take this incorrectly. For how would that make me any different than them?

Because I have hope. Without despair you cannot have hope. And without hope you cannot have despair. 

The destruction of despair would lead to the destruction of hope and I would fight for the ending of both. First in the name of hope, until hope was no longer necessary.

I was not ready to leave but we would and I knew I would pursue this path. A path not of hope or despair, but of freedom from both.