closer to despair

Chapter 4: what a load of barnacles.

I stir awake. Only god knows what time it is.

Knowing I won't be able to fall back asleep, I stretch and groggily get out of bed. I put on my jacket, the one that had been abandoned at the foot of my bed, over my heavily wrinkled clothes. Of course I slept in them, why bother changing? I slip on some shoes and with one last eye rub, I head out.

I walk down the flight of stairs and make my first pit stop at the doors just before the stairwell. They were pretty damn large and were a deep brown color. I reach for the handle and opened it. Inside was a large concrete room filled with racks upon racks of miscellaneous items. Boxes stacked on never-ending boxes. Some clothing racks pushed towards the far wall. It reminds me of what "the back" would be like. Of course, I wouldn't know. I never did work in retail.

I peer into an open box and find my favorite snack. The opportunity was too good to pass up, so I took one (or more) to munch on. I haven't eaten anything today and I'm starving. Pleased with my findings, I close the door behind me and continue exploring the school. I stop at the first classroom and attempt to go in. The doorknob resented. Locked. Luckily, I remembered my master key. I take it out of my pocket and scan the card on the sensor. It beeped at me and flashed a red light. "What?" I swiped again. Still no. "So that was a fucking lie." In what world is it a master key if it won't let you access the rooms you should have access to? I shove the card in my pocket and continue.

Amidst my journey I stumble across a token, just laying out in plain sight. As soon, and I mean as soon as I picked up the coin, stereotypical celebratory music started playing from who knew where. If I hadn't known better I'd think I had won a trip to some happy heartthrob of an exotic island getaway. Monokuma appeared out of seemingly nowhere, party horn loosely pinched between his fingers like it were a cigar.

"Congratulations M(/x) (Y/n)! You won 100 MonoCoins™~!" He tooted on the horn and popped a confetti cannon. He looks down at the mess then back to me who was unamused. "You're gonna have to clean that up upupu~" He snickered.

"Right now what's that supposed to mean," I say in a tone that was nowhere near as excited as his was.

"To which one?", he tilted his head.

"Both."

"It's what I'm paying you for (Y/n)!"

I look at him, still clearly unamused. "You're not paying me at all."

"Nonsense! You clearly just found your first MonoCoin™! Redeem them at the shop for a prize! And keep an eye out, there'll be more where that came from! Puhuhu!" I look back at the supposed shop he had just described for a split second and then he was gone. How does he keep doing that?!

I head to the store and inside was cluttered with various knickknacks. No— junk. It was junk. The thing that stuck out was the gashapon capsule machine. Which had been generously dubbed the 'MonoMono Machine'. I rolled my eyes and inserted the coin. With some jumbling and a pop, out dispensed the prize. I opened it up and inside was a little slip of paper labeled "Monokuma".

Annoyed, I crumbled up the paper and tossed it and it's container out.

Man what a load of BS.