//------------------------------// // Together Forever, In Life and In Death - Daily Life 1 // Story: Danganronpa vP: Harmony of Despair // by witegrlninja //------------------------------// "...Twilight..." "...Twilight, can you hear...?" Yes, I can hear you...! Where are you...?! The voice in my dark dream was much more distinct this time, and now I could tell that it definitely belonged to a mare... but I still had no clue as to who the voice belonged to. I tried to think logically and lucidly within my dream, desperately grasping at the voice's owner, but anytime I thought I was getting close it would slip through my hooves and vanish like mist. "...Listen, Twilight..." "...danger... We are..." "...get you..." What...?! What are you trying to say...?! As if responding to my thoughts, the voice became more frantic, but also more intermittent and frayed. "...just a little longer..." "...be safe..." "...the jewels..." Jewels...? What about jewels...?! But the voice soon became incoherent and too quiet to make anything else out. I called out to it over and over again, screaming, begging for it to come back and try to communicate with me again. Something about it felt so important to me, so vital to my continued survival... ~ *ding dong, bing bong* "Goooood morning, everyone! It is now 7am and Nighttime is officially over! Time to rise and shine! Get ready to greet another beee-yutiful day!" ...It's far from a beautiful day... I didn't wake up feeling depressed, nor did I feel much like mourning. I didn't actually feel much at all. It was the morning after yet another trial. Yet another one of my friends had been murdered, and yet another one of us had been gruesomely executed for it. If I concentrated, I could actually feel the toll it was all taking on my psyche. I could feel the scars it was all leaving on my brain. Applejack... Fluttershy... Discord... Rainbow... All of them were dead, as were the ones who had murdered them. Yet during our time in this horrifying prison, even they had become my friends... so the betrayal hurt even worse when they were driven to kill, only to be found out and killed themselves... Numb. My body felt entirely numb. I shivered underneath my blankets before throwing them off. They were damp with sweat and tears; though I knew why, I mentally felt nothing for it, even as my body retched and spasmed from a subconscious psychosomatic response. It knew I was supposed to be grieving. It knew I was supposed to be mourning. Damn you, Monokuma... you won't even allow me the right to grieve my friends...! Frustrated, I got out of bed and headed for the cafeteria. Maybe some food would settle me down. ~ Nurse Redheart and Flam were the only ones inside the Cafeteria when I arrived. After putting together some breakfast for myself, I pulled up a chair and joined them. "Good morning," I mumbled, trying to be polite. Redheart simply nodded. "Morning, my dear," replied Flam. "I'd ask if you slept well, but I can imagine you slept just as well as I did." "Yea..." I sighed, staring into my extra-strong coffee. "Ah, another trial has happened..." Redheart blinked and sat up a little. "Did you have another one of those dreams?" "Dreams?" Flam asked. "Oh... yes, I did!" I gasped slightly. "What was it this time?" "Well... the voice was much clearer, I could definitely tell it was a mare's... still can't really understand what it's trying to tell me," I frowned. "...But it did say something about jewels." "Jewels?" Redheart repeated. "You're sure about that?" "Yea..." I mumbled as I started eating. She briefly explained the dreams I had been having to Flam, and together they began thinking of the possibilities. They were silent as I ate. "...Well, the only thing I can possibly come up with are those power crystals in that one room," Flam finally said. "Me too. They most certainly must be important," Redheart insisted. "We've already tried manipulating them and the machinery in that room, though. Nothing affected them at all," I reminded them. "Indeed... perhaps there is something on the final floor that will explain how to work the machines," said Flam. "Ah, yes... the last floor is open to us now," Redheart sighed, then chuckled darkly. "There goes our last real motivation for murdering each other." "I don't suppose there's anything worthwhile on the roof, is there?" Flam asked. I shook my head in response. "Pretty sure there's no basement, either," Redheart added. The sound of distant hoofsteps made my ears flick. "Well, we'll search the 5th floor after everypony's finished here," Flam nodded as the others walked in. First came Lightning Dust and Bulk Biceps, looking rough but energetic enough. Then came Rarity, whose eyes were red, puffy and mascara-less, and her entire body seemed pale, not just her face. But then Pinkie Pie entered... hopping along as cheerful and frilly-maned as ever. "Gooooood morning everypony!" she beamed as she collected herself a massive breakfast of fruits and pastries. Rarity, in the meantime, sat down beside me with only a pair of espresso shots in tiny teacups. "Uh... what's with Pinkie?" I asked quietly, all too wary of her extremely sudden mood change. Rarity shrugged. "All she would say is that she had some sort of... epiphany. She wouldn't elaborate." I pursed my lips and looked on with concern as we turned to see Pinkie balancing and spinning plates on her hooves. I don't know if I like this... but at least she's feeling better than yesterday, I suppose... ~ Our breakfast finished, we set off together for the final floor of the school. Climbing or flying up the stairs was mildly exhausting. Finally, we arrived on the 5th floor. Indeed, there were no more staircases blocked off by barriers, so it had to be the last. Peering down the long hallway, painted with azure blotches and swirls, I saw three sets of doors on the left, but only one on the right. Wait... only one room on the right...? But... the final set of secret runes of mine, there should be another room...! So we began with the first door on the left. It opened into a large office - desks and chairs lined the walls, filing cabinets and shelves full of documents formed an island in the center. Each chair held a stack of parchment and some quills with ink bottles, and most of them had a computer in front of it. But something made my fur bristle as I scanned the room - it was completely empty as expected, but a light blue vase with a single white rose sat in every office space. "An office?" Flam stroked his mustache. "A rather large one, too. This must be where all of the administrators and their secretaries do their work." I wracked my brain for memories of how my School of Friendship was supposed to look at this point. "It looks like it... but..." "We... didn't really need such a space before," Rarity frowned. "If I remember correctly, Twilight handled the vast majority of the paperwork, and usually did so in her castle." "Yea... that's right," I agreed, the memory finally coming back to me. Meanwhile, Redheart walked over to one of the vases and carefully sniffed the flower it held. "...Freshly cut. It's the real thing," she commented. "...That just makes even less sense." "How so?" asked Lightning. "We've been here for what... two weeks now?" Redheart turned to me to confirm; after a quick and unnerving mental count I nodded. Oh, Celestia... it's really only been two weeks...? Nine of us have died within two weeks...? "If these have been here since we arrived, they'd be all wilted and dried out," Redheart explained. "Yes... I suppose Monokuma could be taking care of them, but that really doesn't seem like something he'd do," agreed Flam. "Well, is there anything in here that might help us get out?" asked Lightning. Spurred on by her suggestion, we spent an hour or so attempting to activate the computers and pouring over the documents in the filing cabinets and shelves. Unfortunately, every computer was password protected, and neither my magic and computer knowledge nor Pinkie's attempts at hacking could get past them. The documents weren't much different - every word that wasn't "a", "or", "the" or something else totally meaningless without context was thoroughly blacked out with thick, opaque lines. "What a waste of time," Flam lamented. "I'm so bored..." sighed Pinkie. "Whatever might be here, we simply cannot access it," said Redheart. "It would be best if we returned to our exploration." And so we left. The next doors in front of us were the second set on the left and the only set on the right, both a pair of double doors. However, the ones on the left were made of glass and allowed us a glimpse of a large, bright room, while the ones on the right were made of thick metal plates and strangely labeled as the Teacher's Lounge. "WHICH ONE SHOULD WE LOOK AT FIRST?" asked Bulk. "I don't know about you, but the doors on the right just fuckin' scream 'evil mastermind's lair' to me," Lightning growled. I examined the metal doors, finding myself drawn to them... like the Power Crystal room directly below it, I felt that sense of déjà vu again. "...I feel like I've seen these before, too," I finally uttered. "Like the room with the crystals on the fourth floor?" asked Rarity. "It is just below this room, I believe." I took a deep breath and tried to open the doors, but they were locked tight. Even Bulk would have no luck getting these to budge. *boing!* "Oh-ho! What are you doing, miss?!" Monokuma suddenly appeared behind us, shouting so we all jumped from the shock. "FUCKING... ugh..." Lightning groaned. "EEEEEEEEE!" Pinkie shrieked, although the grin on her face led me to believe that she was enjoying the jumpscare. "Breaking into a locked room is incredibly prohibited, don'tcha know?" Monokuma's entire face was glowing red, not just his eye, and the claws on his right paw were extended as he shook his fist at us. "It... is...?!" Rarity shivered, terrified of the implication. "Well, we haven't actually-" "You're trying to tell me you didn't actually bust in yet, right?" Monokuma interrupted me. "But... I can see that, ya dolt! Don't waste my time telling me crap I can see for myself!" "EEP!" Bulk recoiled at the shouting and promptly hid himself behind Flam. In response, Monokuma seemed to settle down... his face stopped glowing red, anyway. "It looked like you might break in any second, so I just thought I'd give you a friendly reminder... or are you gonna try and tell me that this is your Teacher's Lounge?" he grinned smugly, directly at me. "I... uh..." I mean... if I answer him truthfully... I maaaaay get myself killed... "That's what I thought. Now get outta here! Yea! YEA! Shoo! Shoo!" After spending a moment or two flailing at us to make his point, Monokuma then zipped down the hall and disappeared from sight down the right staircase. "...Well, that about settles it. This room is definitely important somehow," Redheart grumbled. "This and the Power Crystal Room beneath it, whatever is in there must be being powered by those. It's the only explanation!" "Miss Twilight... can you think of what might be beyond these doors?" Flam suggested as he pulled out his e-Handbook. But just like before, I ran through my memories and could confirm that I had never seen these doors before in my life. After thoroughly mulling it over, I was forced to sigh and sadly shake my head. "I see... guess we'll just have to figure it out ourselves," sighed Redheart. "Perhaps there's a way to sneak inside," Flam mumbled quietly, almost mischievously, putting the e-Handbook away. "I've just double-checked the rules... it doesn't actually say anything about getting into locked rooms." "Maybe... but we're probably being watched especially carefully at the moment... we should leave for now," I suggested. "Yes... better safe than sorry, at least where that crazy bear is concerned," agreed Rarity. While the others turned their attention to the doors behind them, I found my gaze lingering on the metal doors a while longer. The sense of seeing these doors before, but unable to place when or where was frustrating, to say the least. Oh... if only I could remember...! Turning my eyes from the metal doors, I caught a glimpse of Lightning eyeing me warily. "Uh... something wrong?" I mumbled. "Seems fuckin' fishy to me," Lightning sneered. "You feeling like you miiight remember seeing that room downstairs, or you miiight remember these doors from somewhere..." The others slowly turned back to look at me... suddenly I felt very nervous. ...Oh, no... you guys don't think I'm the traitor... do you...?! "I don't think I like your tone," Rarity huffed and glared as she quickly stood beside me. "This was Twilight's School of Friendship, once upon a time." "Yea! Monokuma probably just messed with these rooms and now she doesn't know what's inside anymore!" Pinkie agreed, bouncing to my other side. "Thanks, girls," I sighed before regaining my composure. "Lightning, I assure you, I am not the traitor... what reason could I possibly have for putting my friends, myself and other innocent ponies in this sick game?!" "I dunno," Lightning shrugged, never losing her sneer. "Haven't figured that out yet." "Throwing the blame on somepony other than yourself... you seem awwwfully suspicious right now!" Pinkie pointed. "I'm not the traitor," Lightning argued, her expression falling. "Denying it, eh? Suuuper suspicious!" Pinkie continued, then whipping around and pointing at Rarity. "And you! Defending Twilight because she's not the traitor... AAALSO suuuper suspicious!" "Pinkie... now you're just being ridiculous," Rarity sighed. "This whole conversation is ridiculous," grumbled Flam. "We'll never get anywhere arguing like this." "Agreed. Let's set that aside for now," said Redheart, already pushing open the glass doors. The rest of us shrugged and followed her in silence. The room beyond the glass doors easily took up most of of the space on the 5th floor - it was an indoor pool area, complete with a hot tub set into the corner of the pool. The far walls were entirely made up of huge panes of glass, letting in plenty of sunshine. White plastic lounge chairs and side tables dotted the flagstone tiles surrounding the pool, and over to the left were two individual bathrooms and an open shower area lined with white tiles. The pool itself was huge, the turquoise-tinted water as still and reflective as a mirror. Darker tiles at the bottom designated lanes for swimming, and a diving board reached over the center of the pool from the opposite side. The scent of diluted chlorine was oddly comforting. "Ooh! Pool party!" Pinkie chirped. "YEAAAAA! I LOVE A GOOD SWIM AFTER A WORKOUT!" Bulk cheered. "Oh, that hot tub looks heavenly right about now," sighed Rarity. "We have one more room to explore," chided Redheart. "After that, you'll be free to swim all you want." Amidst a low din of complaints, we left the Indoor Pool and made our way to the final door on the left. Being entirely plain and unadorned, I assumed the room beyond it would be just another classroom. But as we entered the room, sheer confusion took over our minds. It was a rather ordinary room, with simple white walls and beige carpeting. A dimmer switch by the door controlled the brightness of the lights. But the most striking detail was the furniture: sixteen plain, wooden beds, perfectly made up with white blankets and pillows, entirely untouched... and nothing else. The heads of the beds were arranged against the walls so the center of the room was empty. "Well... this is unsettling..." Flam murmured. "What the hell is this room for?" asked Lightning. "It reminds me of a patient room in the hospital," said Redheart. "...But we would never cram sixteen patients into a room together unless there was some sort of crisis going on." "MAYBE IT'S SOME KIND OF MASSAGE PARLOR?" Bulk suggested. "Ah... maybe for a large group of friends, perhaps?" Rarity tried to reason. "I've never heard of such a thing before, though." While the others tried to explain this room's existence, that familiar feeling of déjà vu returned to me. Wait... I've seen this room before, too...? Where...? Why...?! "Twilight?" Redheart asked, noticing the look on my face. "...I feel like I've seen this room before, too," I frowned, struggling to put the pieces together. "Why, though...?" "Hmm..." Flam hummed. "That would lead me to believe that this room, the Power Crystal Room and those metal doors are related somehow." "How, though?" Lightning asked, casting a suspicious glare upon me once again. "...What kind of weird shit are you into, Twilight?" "N-Nothing!" I stammered. "I can't even begin to think of why I feel this room is familiar to me! I definitely didn't have a room like this in my school!" "Ooh! Sleepover room?!" suggested Pinkie. "No, that doesn't sound right, either," Rarity shook her head. "It lacks far too many homey touches for that sort of thing." "Yet another mystery, huh...?" Redheart sighed. "...Well, this is the final room on the final floor, so it appears that this may be our final clue." "Agreed," Flam nodded. "Now it's up to us to put the pieces together... and hopefully, it'll lead to us being able to finally escape." "...Can we go swimming now?" Pinkie asked after a few moments of silence. "I suppose so," Redheart replied. "I'm going to try and think this over for a while... I'll be needing some tea." ~ In the end, Redheart, Flam, Rarity and I made the long trip back to the Cafeteria together. After putting together some tea and light snacks, we sat at a table and began to discuss everything we had discovered thus far. But hours passed without coming to any sensible conclusion. Tea and snacks soon gave way to supper, and the others rejoined us to eat. Taking a break from our ruminations, we mostly ate in silence, with only the occasional sentence or two of small talk spoken among us. As I ate, however, I kept catching Lightning staring at me, glaring with suspicion. I didn't take it personally... everypony's nerves were long since shot by now. The constant stressors of death and grief, horror and terror, suspicion and mistrust was clearly taking its toll on our minds. In fact, it was only logical for me to be suspected... this was once my School of Friendship, I was the only Alicorn left alive, and I felt déjà vu whenever I thought about the Power Crystal Room, those metal doors guarding the self-proclaimed "Teacher's Lounge", or that strange room with the sixteen beds. But there was simply no way I ever would have dreamed up something so macabre, so deplorable as subjecting us all to a killing game. ...What about the others, though? Flam? Lightning? They were former villains of ours, with Lightning never really having been redeemed for her actions. Redheart? Bulk? ...But something on a scope like this seemed far out of everypony's realm of possibility. And my trust in Pinkie and Rarity was ironclad - they would never do something like this, either separately or together. So... by that logic, it could only be me... and yet, that was entirely wrong! I'm not the traitor... I can't be the traitor...! I closed my eyes and focused hard. I tried to envision the Power Crystal Room, the doors to the Teacher's Lounge, and that strange room. There had to be an answer among them! Nopony else could, but I could remember seeing all of those before. But where?! Why?! ...I just don't remember... I don't remember... I don't remember...! I growled in frustration. Damn this place, damn you, Monokuma! Why were we even here?! Why did we have to suffer?! ... ...And then I gasped loudly as I remembered something - none of us had known how we all even arrived here in the first place! Not just when we had woken up outside of the school, but the school itself had been moved... why? How?! ...I don't remember that, either... I... I can't remember... ...That was it. That was it! And the implication of it all hit me like I was being blasted into a mountain. Oh, Celestia... I can't remember... we can't remember... our memories are gone...! "Twilight? Are you alright?" Redheart asked. Hearing her voice broke my concentration and startled me into a coughing fit. "What was that gasp for?" "Wrong pipe?" Pinkie bounced over behind me and began lightly hitting my back. "...Our memories are missing!" I blurted out, much to everypony's alarm. "What?!" Flam stammered. "The fuck you mean our memories are missing?" Lightning narrowed her eyes. "We've been looking at this the wrong way," I rasped, gulping down some water to calm my throat. "None of us remember how we first got here, right? And I don't know how my school was moved here or modified the way it was!" "Hmm... true," Redheart thought for a moment. "We've all been assuming that we were brought here immediately after falling asleep or fainting somehow," I continued. "But... what if we've actually been here for much longer than we thought?" "Oh... oh my...!" Rarity shivered. "And what makes you think that's the case?" Lightning growled. "That room with the power crystals... those metal doors, that weird room with beds... I feel like I remember them, but I've never seen them before!" "...So you think you can't remember them because your memories have been tampered with?" asked Redheart, her face fraught with concern. "Once is a fluke. Twice is a coincidence. But three instances of déjà vu? That has to be on purpose!" Sweat began to bead on my forehead and drip down my muzzle as the others began contemplating this new implication. "...Well, memory manipulation is rather high-level magic, but it can also be accomplished with expertly-crafted potions," Redheart blinked, her usual stoic expression threatening to break. "And the illegality of doing so without consent would hardly bother the traitor or mastermind." "But to move Miss Twilight's school all the way out here, or to build a convincing copy... and all of those elaborate, gratuitous, graphic executions," mumbled Flam, "...it would require far more bits than even my brother and I own!" "...No... no... I passed out in bed after a night of drinking, and I wound up here the next fucking morning," Lightning held her head in her hooves, shaking it furiously. "We haven't been here for longer than that...!" "JUST HOW LONG HAVE WE BEEN STUCK HERE?!" Bulk panicked. "Oh... I knew that," Pinkie suddenly said very calmly. Bewildered, we all immediately turned our heads towards her. "You... fucking what?" Lightning snarled. "How did you know? How long have you known?!" asked Rarity. "I dunno, really..." Pinkie shrugged. "It's just the way my Pinkie Sense has been acting lately... I can't really explain it myself, but there it is." Redheart sat back in her seat with a thump. "...You just... felt that was the case?" "Yea... it is what it is. We are here, we are trapped, our memories are kaput. Nothing more, nothing less," said Pinkie. She seemed to barely even notice everypony staring at her, either with a mix of horrified confusion or sheer rage. ...Is this that epiphany Rarity was talking about...? "So you didn't actually fuckin' know..." Lightning growled. "I had my doubts about Twilight, but now you're the one who sounds fishy as fuck." As soon as she was accused, Pinkie's calm demeanor broke. "...WAH! I'm not the traitor! There's no waaaaay!" she cried, flailing. "Oh... I don't know how much more of this I can bear..." Rarity sighed sadly. Almost as quickly as her mood had changed from calm to frantic, Pinkie stopped her flailing. "Ooh! Wanna come to the pool with me? It made me feel lots better to have a nice swim!" she asked. "Ah... sure, I did say soaking in that hot tub sounded positively divine," replied Rarity. "Great! Anypony else?!" Pinkie glanced around the table. Bulk and Flam agreed, as did I... the realization of our memories being taken away had drained my will to think about it any longer tonight. "No thank you... I must admit, I never even considered the possibility of memory manipulation. Now I have more theories to consider," waved Redheart. Her tireless commitment to solving this deadly mystery was truly impressive. Lightning, however, simply glared at us all without a word... honestly, her suspicious expression told us exactly what she was thinking. ~ We put our dishes away, then briefly returned to our rooms for towels before heading for the Indoor Pool. Bulk and Pinkie splashed and swam around, while Flam, Rarity and I elected for light conversation while relaxing in the hot tub. The other two would join us on occasion, then leave for a time to play before joining us again. Before we knew it, it was almost Nighttime. Feeling exhausted after the day's events, Bulk, Flam and I quickly showered off the chlorinated water and took our leave. The Indoor Pool had no time restrictions, so Pinkie and Rarity decided to stay a while longer, enjoying each other's company. My entire body felt warm and fuzzy as I returned to my room... maybe tonight, I would finally have a good night's rest.