Aven had been asleep for all of two and a half hours when she was awoken by two especially loud notifications from their phone.
Rubbing their eyes, Aven forced herself to sit up and grab her phone. The general channel was blowing up, with all of the students online having a fast-paced conversation. Aven opened the "Evidence" channel, figuring it was a good place to start. Sure enough, she had been pinged from this channel, twice. The first was from Pokekuma.
"Attention @everyone! A body has been discovered, and class trial will commence in three hours from now. Participation of all students is mandatory!!! Use witness testimony and evidence from the crime scene to deduce who the culprit is! And work like your lives depend on it, because they do!!!"
The second ping was from Skylar. "Let's hope that one of the first people I became friends with doesn't turn out to be the murderer," Aven thought, "That'd be kinda jewish, enn jee ell."
Skylar's message read,
"@everyone, i found jfk dead in his room. He was so upset last night, so I went to check on him as soon as curfew was lifted, and yeah he was dead. I really don't know what to say, but let's work together to find his killer!"
Aven felt sick. This "killing game" wasn't some kind of dream that they could wake up from, it was now their reality, and they would have to survive this if they wanted to go back home. Speaking of home, Aven really missed her family. She would just have to live through this and see them after.
"In that case," Aven said to themself, "I'd better go investigate. I'm not getting smoked in a carpet for some other fags murder."
Aven wasn't actually sure of which room was (had been) JFK's, but noise from the crowd of students told her that 201 might just be his. Crossing the hallway, they noticed Skylar leaning against the wall outside JFK's door. He was clearly shaken up, not crying, just on edge, as anyone in his situation would be.
"Aven! Thank Sbeve you're here," he said, "Listen, you don't think I did it, right?"
Yeah, he was very shaken up. Aven didn't know how to reply, "Um, I don't know..."
"That makes sense, that's fair... It's just- he was so shaken up last night, and I really wanted to check on him. I cant believe someone would take advantage of that..."
Aven was really hoping that no one else heard this, because Skylar would be voted guilty for sure. Despite how suspicious they seemed, Aven couldn't help but feel that he didn't do it. Something was very off here.
"Okay, Skylar, I'm gonna go look around in there. Um, it'll be alright...?" Probably not the best thing to say to someone convinced that they're going to be executed later, but there's a first time for everything, right? Aven didn't like it, but she knew that today wouldn't be the last time something like this happened, either.
~x~
Nothing seemed out of place upon entering JFK's room. Any potential weapons were seemingly untouched, and there weren't any signs of forced entry. It felt weird, going through a dead peer's bedroom, and Aven opted to stand awkwardly by the door instead of going through her late classmate's bedroom. It felt too personal, intrusive. It felt wrong. And the off feeling wouldn't go away. After another moment of contemplating, Aven pushed all of her thoughts to the side. If she wanted to find the root of this "funny feeling", and make it through high school in the greater scheme of things, then this was just something she would have to get used to. Since most people had been by the bathroom, they decided to check in there. Only two people were in there now, Kayley and... Aven did not know this kid's name. He was short, and wearing a really cute pair of green jeans. He was inspecting the scene in front of him quite thoroughly. Aven started to do the same, or, at least, try to make it look that way. He took a few steps towards Kayley and asked in a quiet voice, "How the fuck are we supposed to do this?"
