Young Writers Society

You've been chosen as one of the ten students to be accepted into the prestigious Hope's Peak Academy. At Hope's peak, they bring in only the top students from every field imaginable. They are a government funded school of privilege. If you graduate from here, you'll be set for life!

Every year the academy sends out their students into the world as specialists who are the best at what they do. They are the birthplace of the pioneers who will go out to change the world and make it a better place.

No ordinary student can enroll here. The two things you need to get in: You need to already be attending HighSchool, and you need to be the very best at what you do. The only way you get in is if you're scouted by the school itself.

And as one of the lucky few, standing there at the gate of the ultimate school with the ultimate students...

is you.

The lights flickered on, taking the room from pitch black darkness to the stark bright flourescent light lining the ceiling. In the light revealed was a simple classroom. At the front of the room was a blank chalkboard and the teacher's desk. Lining the room in neat rows were ten desks - nine of them were full of students, each slowly lifting their heads from the uncomfortable wood that was their pillow. There were no windows.

All of the students could feel the disorienting haze of waking up in a place they didn't remember coming, and almost as soon as their eyes opened to the bright light, an announcement was heard over the speakers.


The voice sounded high and cheery. Despite the intended tone, it was oddly unsettling. This certainly wasn't how he expected his first day to go.

Kaito briefly rubbed his eyes before looking around at the other students, each of them unique in their own right, and looking just as confused as he was. Strange thing was, he couldn't remember getting to class or falling asleep. He couldn't even remember getting past the front gate. All he could remember was looking up at the school's building and then waking up in a classroom with no teacher. What, did they all take a collective nap while the teacher stepped out?

Before any of the students had a chance to murmur more than a few questions, there was movement at the front of the room.

A stuffed animal bear fell from the ceiling and plopped in the center of the teacher's desk. Half of its face wore a smile that said "cute" and the other half more like the monster under your bed who's happy to eat you kind of "cute." Kaito made a face.

"What's with the bear?" A purple haired girl said, with her mouth twisted into a frown.

"Maybe it's our teacher," said a boy with thick glasses and a blue collared shirt.

Kaito opened his mouth to spout another comment but his voice fell silent when he heard a voice coming from the direction of the bear.



Everyone's eyes were set on the stuffed animal bear. It's mouth was moving. It was talking! Murmurs of confusion were again silenced as the bear opened it's mouth to speak again.



And with that, the bear smiled a toothy, menacing smile. There was no way a robot bear was their principal. This had to be some sort of elaborate prank or joke.

Carolyn

Carolyn awoke from her stupor to find herself in a classroom with no teacher. Wait, there was a giant stuffed bear, more demented than cute. There were eight other students, all in similar states of confusion. Surely, this was a nightmare. She didn't remember walking into class.

Then, the bear spoke. This had to be some kind of prank.

"What's the idea?" Carolyn said.

"Explaining the ground rules like I said, princess," the bear replied.

That shut her up.

His head was pounding. Whether this was the result of some blunt trauma or simply because it was difficult to take in the sight of a talking bear, it was impossible to tell. But, whatever the case may be, it appeared that he had to adjust accordingly if he wished to figure out what was going on.

He vaguely remembered arriving at Hope's Peak Academy. From the setting they were in and the role of the enigmatic bear, it appeared that he was among his classmates. If he held dialogue with them or simply looked at them long enough, he was bound to recall who they were. Hope's Peak Academy hosted students that were extraordinarily skilled to the point where they became famous in the eyes of those who weren't even in their field of expertise. If they were within a classroom and these adolescents were roughly his age, they were likely meant to be his peers from Hope's Peak Academy.

"I suppose you were the one who brought us to this room," he surmised, turning his attention back to their apparent principal. He adjusted his glasses. "Though I do wonder how you managed such a feat, when your current stature is much smaller than our own. I assume you managed because you are controlling that body from another location, Mr. Monokuma?"

The bear spun around, before striking a pose and pointing at Logan.

"Looks like we've got a smart one, Mr.Sanders." Monokuma put his hands on his hips with a little "hmph."

"And whether I'm controlled or not is none of your business. But I am a very advanced automation! Pretty fancy, huh?!" He smiled, but the smile quickly faded. "So listen up!"

"I know what you're all thinking. And no, this is not a prank. This isn't some wacky TV show and no one's gonna come popping out with a camera saying 'gotcha!' This is all very real!"

"So now that you're here, you all will live a communal life within the confines of the school. Everyone will adhere to the rules and regulations and live in harmony together. As far as for when this communal life ends..."

Monokuma paused, rubbing his paws together. Then he clapped.

"There is no end!" He laughed. And laughed.

"You'll be here til the day you die! This is the school life you've been assigned. But don't worry! We have an abundant budget so you will not finding yourself lacking in common conveniences! That is, unless you're one of those teens who's glued to their phones and social media, because that's one thing we don't have down here! Here, you are completely cut off from the outside world! No internet! No phones! So you don't have to worry about everything beyond these walls ever again! No matter how much you might scream for help, it will not come. So feel free to live out your days here with reckless abandon!"

Taji Kubota
Ultimate Mathematician

Her head hurt.

Her ears were ringing (although it had seemed to get quieter) and it had been hard to make out what everybody in the room. She saw the rest of the kids- her peers, she concluded- and what seemed to be a teddy bear? With full mobility? She would ask what was going on- but they'd probably already discussed that and she hadn't heard. Slowly but surely, the white noise in her ears died out,and she heard a little of what the bear said.

"...so feel free to live out your days here with reckless abandon!"

What? Taji thought, without intending to speak her mind out loud as well. But nevertheless, that was what she did.

Kaito didn't know how to process what was going on. They were going to be trapped here? Forever? No, no, no! That didn't make any sense! He had family and friends who would look for him - who were expecting him! They would try to contact them! Surely the authorities would come for them soon enough. They wouldn't be trapped forever.

"Th-that's-" Kaito stuttered, finding himself slamming his fists on his desk. "That's bull! You can't keep us here forever! People will come looking for us!"

That only seemed to amuse Monokuma, who just started laughing again.

"Bold of you, to assume that your family has reason to believe you're in trouble," the bear chuckled, winking at Kaito. Kaito's face turned to a grimace.

"But oh! I forgot to tell you! There is a catch! Or, well... would you call it a catch? Oh well. Anyways! FACTS! There is a way you can get out of here! Escape from your school prison with this one simple trick! Upupu!" Monokuma paused, but not long enough for anyone to reply.

"Here at the school, we rely on an environment of harmony and peace for communal living. But if someone were to disrupt that harmony, they alone would be allowed to leave the school."

"Just what the heck does that mean!? Disrupt peace and harmony?" Rosaleen finally spoke up, after a lot of mumbling and grumbling to herself. Slamming her hands on her desk, she stood, and she scowled at the bear.

"You're not going to have a lot of harmony kidnapping a bunch of people like this!" She looked around the classroom at the people it seemed she was going to be forced to live with if this bear was being serious. With any luck maybe this was all a dream.

An adorable mascot advertising dictatorial control? he thought to himself, looking around the room. I may be dealing with a kindred spirit.

And he knew that this was a bad thing; people like him often were. So, the boy with the naturally untrustworthy face decided to test these foreign waters.

"You say we'll be rewarded for disrupting peace and harmony?" He smiled and shook out his hands. "That doesn't seem fair, does it?"

"Who said anything about it being fair? These are the rules!" The bear shot back at Takuro, before spinning around to Rosaleen.

"And the harmony is up to you! Would you rather stay here forever? Or would you rather kill to get out?" The bear looked surprised for a second, and slapped its paws on it's mouth, laughing. "Oh... upupu, I didn't mean to say that just yet. But well, now the cat's out of the bag! To disturb the peace, Rosaleen, would be if a student were to murder another!" The bear ignored the shocked responses from the students, and kept talking.

"So yes! You must kill someone if you want to leave! It's as simple as that! The rest is up to you. Give it your all to achieve the best outcome in the worst way possible."

Carolyn

Carolyn rolled her eyes, waiting for the moment when she would inevitably wake up from this incredibly weird nightmare. Was it because she'd snuck into the pint of mint chocolate chip her parents kept in the garage freezer late the night before? Maybe, maybe not, but regardless, never again.

She eyed the uncomfortable reactions of the other students. She didn't have much to say to any of them but was glad they also seemed similarly perturbed.

A giant stuffed bear was telling them to kill each other. She couldn't help but laugh; it was all a little bit ridiculous.

"What will you do if we don't?" She challenged with a smirk.

"Well... then you can stay here forever, I guess," the bear says with a mischievous little grin. "But I do have some... motivators in mind. For later." He winks.

"But before you all start thinking you can just go around killing each other, there are some limitations. Or just one. You can't get caught! So make sure to be sneaky about it okay?"

He narrowed his eyes. This entire situation was absurd, but the final comment was the most absurd of all. To believe that they would willing kill another solely for the sake of escaping was something only a fool would think. There would always be the possibility that one person would follow through with what Mr. Monokuma said, but that possibility was slim and did not account for the class as a whole.

"You must be telling us falsehoods," Logan argued. "A kidnapping of this magnitude may not be easy to pull off, but it would not be unheard of. Covering up a murder would be far more difficult, and the reasoning for it is unclear in the first place."

Carlotta considered the situation, deep in thought. In a place like this, she had been taught to keep her calm. And she would uphold those teachings, even now. Deep breaths.

"This is a life or death game, and having multiple chances would ruin the 'fun' of it," she finally said. "So I would guess that if somehow the culprit was found guilty, they would be executed. Isn't that right, Mr. Monokuma?

"Ding ding ding!" Monokuma clapped gleefully at Carlotta's reply. "Looks like someone already knows the play of the game! There'll be an investigation and a trial when someone gets murdered! If you all figure out who the killer is, the killer gets executed for a job poorly done! But if you condemn someone who isn't the killer, then the killer goes free and the rest of you die!"

Mr.Monokuma pointed an accusatory finger at Logan. "And you can talk about how this doesn't make sense all day, Colonel Sanders, but it's happening anyway! So deal with it!"

Kaito couldn't believe what he was hearing. With stakes like that, no one would murder anyone anyway! This was ridiculous! But somehow, despite all of the denial and logic, he found himself very, very, afraid. His heart was racing faster and he could feel butterflies rapidly fluttering in his stomach in what he felt he could safely label as suppressed panic. Or not to suppressed. He looked around at the other students, observing their faces and their expressions. There wasn't any way any of them were taking this seriously. None of them would even consider actually killing someone to get out.

"Whatever, Mr.Build-a-bear. None of us are really going to kill each other," Kaito replied with contrasting non-chalance compared to his previous outburst. His voice seemed to completely change in tone. In seemingly just a minute... he was over it. "We can just figure out how to take you apart and figure out how you're being controlled or something. One of us here's gotta be a technical or math genius. We could probably figure out where the signal's coming from or whatever.""

Monokuma's face began to turn red. "Ha! Fat chance! Violence against the principal is against school regulations!!! Among other things..." Monokuma hopped down from the desk and began to pull something out of a drawer in the desk. It was then that he set a bunch of small tablets on the desk.

"Speaking of regulations. There are more rules, since I know you love those. And don't think of breaking any of the rules either. You wanna live long enough to murder your way out of here, don't you?" Monokuma lifted up a tablet, flipping it to the screen to reveal a name appearing on the screen:


"Now, as one last gift to congratulate you and get you started on your first day of school: here's your student handbook! This is very important to you so don't lose it. It contains all of your school regulations, and you can also take notes on it. But you ought to make sure you always have your own - it will display your name whenever you turn it on!"