Danganronpa: Dark Despair

Chapter 3 - Lying in Wait

Ding dong ding dong! Kirin woke up hurriedly, a ringing noise blaring throughout their room. They looked up at the screen over the bed, where Monokuma had appeared in the same fashion as last time.

"It's 7 A.M.! Time to wake up and get out of bed! Now!" The screen clicked off, and Kirin begrudgingly got out of bed. After getting dressed, they exited their dorm and headed to the cafeteria for breakfast.

When they arrived, nobody else was there except for Sara and Likasi. Likasi waved Kirin over, and they sat down.

"Good morning, Kirin! Did you sleep well?" They nodded.

"Surprisingly, yeah. I didn't expect to, but the bed was really comfortable." Sara and Likasi both nodded in agreement.

"Agreed," Sara stated. "You wouldn't expect beds in a locked-down school building to be comfortable in any regard, but our expectations have been defied once again." After a bit, everybody else entered the cafeteria. Tara was first, followed by the twins, then Todakati, Dashiki, and Yigana. After a few more minutes, Nikisha, Alana, Suchi, and Dakai entered. Finally, the final three entered - Chinuki, Kasa, and Tashi.

"Alright, now that everybody's here, I think we need to discuss something." Likasi started speaking. "In my opinion, it would be safer for everyone to agree to meet up every morning here, in the cafeteria. Also, on the same topic of safety, we should all stay in our dormitories during the nighttime period, just in case anybody gets any ideas." She looked directly at Kasa with that final addition. Everybody agreed to the plan relatively fast, and they all sat down to eat.

After breakfast had ended, the group dispersed throughout the school. Kirin decided to go to the gym. It was large and open. It's a nice place to take a break from the impending stress of the murder threat. It was there that they ran into Tara.

"Yo, Kirin! What's up?" Kirin thought to themselves. Tara's nice. Maybe I should spend some time with her. Ultimately, Kirin decided to do exactly that. "So, how do you feel about this whole situation?"

"Not great. I might not have had the best time growing up with school, but it was never anything like being locked in the school and constantly thinking about the possibility of getting murdered, you know?" Tara nodded in response.

"Yeah, I get that. But I don't think anybody here is actually going to murder someone. I mean, why would we? I get freedom is something everybody wants, but most people wouldn't kill another person to get it. Personally, I'm going to take the time to train myself. Always gotta be on the grind, you know?"

"I wouldn't really. I was never the most athletic person." Tara audibly gasped.

"What?!" She shot up. "Why didn't you say so?" She grabbed Kirin's hand, pulling them up off of the bleachers. "We're going to get you exercising in no time!" With that, they started exercising.

It started out with a warm-up, doing pushups, jogging across the gym, and doing some jumping jacks. After that, Tara led the scientist out of the gym and into the hallway, where they did some running throughout the hallway. After about 30 minutes, they came back to the gym, where they ended with some more pushups, along with some situps.

"So, how're you feeling? You feel stronger?" Kirin, gasping for air, responded.

"Surprisingly, a little bit."

"Great! Then we'll do this every day. Maybe we can even get Sara in on this." Kirin laughed as well as they could without a lot of air and walked back to their dorm. They entered and lay down on the bed. Weirdly enough, they were excited for the next day, nervously anticipating the exercise routine with Tara.

Little did any of them know, the next day would change everything.

Remaining Students: 16