Cabin Fever

Chapter 3 - Daily Life 3/4

The next day, the morning announcement plays, waking Juro from a sleep haunted by nightmares. He sits up with a groan, rubbing his face when he notices something lying on the ground in front of his door, as if someone slipped it underneath.

'I don't remember dropping a piece of paper...' Juro climbs out of bed and walks to the peculiar object to take a closer look at it.

An envelope.

Staring at the object in his hands, Juro swallows the lump that's starting to form in his throat as he tightens his grip on the envelope, creasing the paper a little. His heart drops when he turns the envelope around and notices a wax seal with a logo that includes a shape he recognizes to be Monokuma's red eye. Just above it a few words have been written.

Anyone who doesn't open this envelope and reads its contents will be punished!

The message is ended with a smiley face, which only serves to add to the tension that Juro feels is weighing him down. He sits back down on his bed in a less than elegant manner, resting his elbows on his knees while heaving a sigh. What he assumes to be the next motive might be a physically small message, but it will most likely have a great impact on everyone's mental state. It might even cost them yet another life.

Taking a breath, Juro works up the courage and breaks the seal to open the envelope. Inside is a folded piece of paper, which he takes out and unfolds, discarding the envelope by his side.

Hello to whoever is reading this! I hereby present you the third motive of the Killing Game.

Yuuma Ryoko, such a cold and quiet girl, never showing how she feels. Ever wondered why she is like that? Her best and only friend died of cancer when she was fifteen, and she never got to say goodbye to her.

This is Yuuma Ryoko's biggest regret in life.

I wonder what else she is hiding behind that tough exterior. I wouldn't trust her, if I were you.

Juro grips the paper tightly as he presses his lips together. Even though they're under threat to read this, it feels like such a massive invasion of privacy. It's almost as if he shattered the little trust he managed to build with Ryoko over time by reading this, something she likely intended to keep a secret, especially in a place such as this.

The bold sentence stares back at him. Has someone else received his biggest regret in life? Who? Are these targeted at specific people or handed out at random? Would such secrets be enough to convince one of them to kill another person?

Juro furrows his brows and rubs the side of his head as all these questions race through his mind, although they remain unanswered. This was something Monokuma came up with to trigger yet another murder. There had to be at least someone with a regret bad enough to push someone over the edge. Or at the very least this motive will create enough distrust so something else can push one of them to commit murder. One of these has to be it. Monokuma seems to know everything about them, their homelives, their families, their past trauma. The twisted bear has to know exactly which buttons to push in order to give someone that final push to commit murder.

But who will it be this time?

Shaking his head to get the thought out of his head, Juro gets up and shoves the letter in a drawer. He doesn't want to accidentally lose it so someone else may stumble across it. The least he can do ensure is someone else's secret won't be leaked even further than what Monokuma has already done.

After rushing through his morning routine, Juro leaves his room to meet up with the others at the main building. At least, he hopes the others will be there. They might not be. Paranoia is running high right now, so it's very possible some people will withdraw themselves and hide in their rooms.