Chapter 3: Hollow Trust and Empty Alibis Part 1

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Ceáser's body sat there, up against the wall, limb, and unmoving.

I was fully numb, completely frozen in sheer terror. Confusion, fear, anger, every emotion flooded my head, making even one rational thought impossible. After staring at Ceáser Balad's limp body for what seemed like hours, an awful sound pulled me out of my trance. I turned to the sound of Urkstin gagging and retching whatever he had left in his empty stomach.

"AKA! What happened to him still being alive?!" Jambo asked me again, forcing me to think of a response. Unfortunately, all I could muster was a mess of incomprehensible mumbles.

"Y-y-y-y-you did this, D-d-d-d-didn't you?!" Jinju stammered, shaking violently whilst he started pointing fingers. Before I could throw out a rebuttal of any kind, someone interrupted.

"Attention participants. If you could please turn your attention to the corner of the room, you will be able to find instructions on what I'll be having you to do next." The loudspeakers rang out, interrupting the finger pointing in my direction, "Also, just as a heads up, you all can have your access to food again, as the cafeteria has been restocked. Enjoy yourselves."

The Loudspeaker boomed, silencing everyone in the room, and reminding us all of our lingering hunger. Either way, we all collectively looked towards the corner, where there was indeed a sheet of paper laying. Mia rushed over and picked it up, and we listened to what she was reading.

"... 'An introduction to...Court?'" She read out, just as confused as us. "...'Once a body is found, you will all be sent to Court. Here, you all will argue and debate on who you think the culprit of each crime is. And yes, you can be certain that in every single of these cases, one of you will be the murderous traitor.'" I could feel the asshole's grin just by hearing his words being read out to me. Mia continued all the same though.

"'Before you are sent to decide on the culprit however, you will all have limited time available to collect evidence on the murder and alibis from your fellow friends and possible traitors. I have also left a notebook for any of you to add evidence to.'" We once again looked to the corner to find a notebook, and pencils scattered about. How thoughtful.

"'Finally, towards the end of court, if you think you all have come to the correct conclusion on who the murderous traitor is, you will all vote accordingly. If the majority votes for the correct culprit, you all will be let go, while the traitor is dealt with. If the majority votes for the wrong person, you all will be punished, while the killer gets to leave this prison.'" Those words caught everyone's attention. Knowing that information is just going to make people more desperate to get out of here.

"'Have fun! And don't forget: Only one of you gets to win.'" Mia finished, before tearing the paper in half out of anger, tossing it to the ground. We all stood in silence, collecting our thoughts.

"...We need to get investigating." I finally spat out. Everyone turned to me, familiar suspicious glares eyeing me up. "If we don't, we're going to have no leads for this…'court case.'"

"H-How can you be so ok with this?" Akira questioned, coming up and staring me in the eyes, "You're not phased at all? Huh, did you do it or something?"

"Y-Yeah! H-How do we know you didn't d-d-d-do it?!" Jinju joined in.

"These lot have a point." Jambo chimed in, "We don't have any reason to trust you." Feeling overwhelmed by the three accusing me of something so heinous, I turned to Poppy for help. However, she looked just as flustered as me. Fear and panic was starting to kick in, I wasn't sure how to respond to these horrible allegations. Luckily, someone was still on my side somewhat.

"Pointing fingers isn't gonna to get us anywhere." Urkstin said, as he stood up and stood in front of me, shielding me from the three berating me harshly. He turned his head away from everybody and spat out the disgusting leftover residue in his mouth. He turned back to the three, wiping his mouth on his sleeve, "We need to work together to solve this, so please, please stop!"

"He's right though." I was shocked to hear Mia of all people backing me up, "Getting what happened to the poor guy solved is what matters now. Save the accusing for when we get to court."

With that, the three backed off of me, even if it was only temporary. Relief fell over me, allowing me to regain my composure. Mia picked up the notebook and tossed me it, catching me off guard.

"This is all awfully suspicious, but this whole body thing is making me squeamish. I'm giving you this book, but mark my words Nishinzu, I will find out if you tampered with anything, and if you do, I will give you hell."

Her icy stare made me gulp nervously. All I could do was nod in response, as I cautiously approached the body. I turned back for a moment to see that for once, Poppy was not accompanying me. Like everyone else, the body made her feel uneasy and she chose to avoid staring at it. I turned back to Ceáser's body, and carefully looked around his body.

"It's a crying shame," Jambo said, examining the knife lodged in Ceáser's shoulder, "No matter what you say, love, this lad didn't deserve this." I kneeled down and glanced at the knife with him.

"Where did this knife even come from?" I thought to myself aloud, looking around and sketching up the look of the knife.

"Not a clue. I didn't have one on me, otherwise you'd be cut once or twice already." Jambo responded, glaring at me. I tried to keep my attention away from his empty threats, and looked back to Mia.

"Is it ok if I take this out of him?" My question was met by a mixture of shock and disgust from everyone, including Mia.

"...Go ahead, just don't let me see it please." She replied, turning around, alongside every other squeamish person in the room. With that, I carefully pulled out the knife, finding that it was incredibly deep inside of Ceáser's shoulder. I finished up my rough sketch of the knife and paused for a second. The knife seemed…familiar, for some reason.

Nevertheless, I jotted down some notes about the stab wound, and moved on to his foot, were Liam was occupied, trying to avert my eyes from the blood seeping out from Ceáser's shoulder.