Archive of Our Own ^beta

The rest of the elevator ride was silent. Or at least, if anyone said anything, Damon couldn’t tell. He lay trapped in his mind, repeating the last few moments over and over again in his mind.

Wolfgang's murder… the trial... Eva, dying right in front of me... swallowed by a pit of fire…

Unspeakable horrors had occurred over the last few minutes. Yet, he couldn’t help but be fixated on those five words.

"I'll follow in Wolfgang's footsteps".

He clenched his fists and grit his teeth.

Hearing those words come from Diana... after everything that’s happened...

Seeing her raise her chin and act so tall and proud, just like Wolfgang once did...

…

It pisses me off.

The elevator finally reached the bottom with a sharp clank. As the doors opened, the Ultimates sluggishly walked themselves out and past the hallways, into their dorms. Damon walked past Kai’s room, the one he’d been sharing for the past three days, and headed to his own.

Kai hesitated for a moment and cast a meaningful glance over his shoulder, as if he was actually concerned for Damon.

Whatever he meant with that glance, however, was up to the jury. The trial had worn all of them down. All Damon had to do was shoot Kai a sharp glare, warning him to leave him alone. 

Kai squeaked and looked away, quickly heading into his own room. Soon after, the hallway was empty, and Damon was left alone in his dorm room with nothing but his thoughts.

…

He took a deep breath, attempting to compose his mind. However, it was hard to do so when his body was still trembling and his tears were still warm on his cheeks. He clenched his fists, cursing silently.

Diana… that foolish girl… does she even know what she’s saying? The weight of her words? The consequences ? She means to follow in the footsteps of a man who died first in a killing game… what a numbskull.

His nails dug into the skin of his palms, drawing bright droplets of blood. Damon barely noticed.

How can she even say something like that after all that’s happened? Wolfgang’s idealistic outlook was the reason he got killed. The reason she went through everything throughout the murder. The reason this killing game began in the first place. 

How can she so fervently believe in Wolfgang, even after seeing him at his lowest point? After she’s seen him become so delirious he mistakes her for whatever long-held ghosts of the past he holds in his closet and be out for bloody murder? After almost being stabbed by someone she looked up to and trusted? Blindly chasing after his aspirations, living your life for who’s practically a stranger… that’s only a recipe for disaster.

The images plaguing him flashed before his eyes once again. 

Wolfgang, laying strewn across the floor, body limp and face frozen in a look of terror and delusion. I never understood this man - I didn’t even try. I brushed him off as a reckless and foolhardy lunatic.

What did Wolfgang even hallucinate to act in such a way? What would cause that pretentious, law-abiding man who despises murder to suddenly become inches away from committing one himself? What possessed him with such ferocity to attempt stabbing Diana? If I confronted him sooner with his blackmail… maybe I could have understood his intentions. 

Despite our disagreements, despite isolating me and Eva, despite his actions inadvertently leading to the first murder… he was a good person. He never meant for any of this to happen. 

He didn’t deserve to die.

And… 

He bit his lip, trying not to think about the one person’s betrayal who hurt the most. The one whose shrieks of utter agony still rang through his ears. The one who, in front of a room full of people who despised and mistrusted her, had suffered through her final moments. 

His efforts were futile.

Eva… stabbed by the tools raining down above her head, desperately crawling away from the hellfire beneath her. Her horrified expression as she fell into the depths of the flames, the fact she would never achieve her dreams… never be known as anything other than a mere “Mathlete”... 

Had anything ever been real? Was her trust only a farce? Had she been manipulating me from the start? How was I foolish enough to trust a stranger I’ve only known for five days, let alone in a killing game!?

Fuck!

The worst part was, he had barely realized himself doing so. Despite all his barriers, if it had been that easy to have him let down his guard…

Dying… suddenly feels a lot more real.

Everything between us had been a ploy. Every sign of trust we’d shown each other in this damned hellhole of a killing game meant nothing to her… I meant nothing to her… 

Their “friendship” was worthless and Damon had been too thick headed of a damn fucking fool to notice or question what she’d said until it was too late to make amends.

Until it was too late to stop her.

He let out a dry laugh and fell to his knees. It felt like the world was collapsing on itself.

Why… Why did this have to happen? Why are we here in the first place? Why did Tozu decide to do this..?

There was no answer to his questions. The room stayed silent, and Damon was still pathetically lying on the floor of his dorm room.

He inhaled sharply, taking a gulp of fresh air. His right hand seemed to move almost involuntarily, next to his face. His arm reeled back, and then... the abrupt sound of a slap rang across the room. 

On Damon’s face, a red welt quickly swelled on right cheek. He blinked, for a moment surprised by his own actions. However, while the palm of his hand and the point of impact stung, he refused to let himself shed any more tears.

Damn it, Damon! Get a hold of yourself. What the fuck were you expecting in a killing game? 

He took another deep breath, and then exhaled. He couldn’t dwell on this any longer. What he needed to focus on was surviving long enough to see the end of this wretched game.

I can’t rely on anyone here. Whatever bullshit they’re spewing about friendship and trust… it’s all lies. Lies they are foolish enough to believe. But, I know better than them. It’s Wolfgang’s spiel about trusting each other that caused them to let their guards down and allowed this mess to happen.

Wolfgang’s corpse and Eva’s last moments flashed back in his mind. He scowled and cursed himself.

Don’t think about them… don't think about them… just stop… thinking…

…

If I can’t trust the people here to fight for my survival, that just means I need to do so myself. I need a plan… in case I’m ever attacked or locked or restrained. And… I need to confirm some things for myself.

But first…

He glared at the camera blinking in the corner of the room, and then wiped off his drying tears. Tozu was watching him. He couldn’t let Tozu see him so weak, not after what that bastard had just done.

Walking out his room and back through the hallway, the building was near silent. A few sobs could be heard here and there as he passed everyone’s dorms, but mostly everyone seemed exhausted by the day’s events and was attempting to sleep. Everyone except him.

I need to confirm something.

Damon walked down the eerily quiet stairwell and past the storage closets, trying to ignore the fear creeping down his spine. The atmosphere was ominous and dark, like it was warning him to turn away. 

When he reached the boiler room door, he glanced at the door handle. The knobs had been rescrewed back to their original positions, with the door now locking from the inside as opposed to the outside. He closed his eyes and rested his hand above the knob.

I can do this. I can do this. I can do this.

He turned the handle, and the door opened with a click.

Holy shit. 

The room looked just like it had been before Wolfgang’s murder. The floor was spotless without a trace of blood, the taser and knife had disappeared from the ground, the generator seemed back to working condition, and… Wolfgang’s corpse had vanished.

It’s like nothing ever happened here to begin with.

Damon approached the water surrounding the platform and took a look inside. The shrapnel and extension cord formerly floating above the surface was gone, as well as the lightbulb Eva had thrown.

He then walked towards the generator and scrutinized it with a careful look. The generator was humming with energy, and the metal, while still rusted and old, was no longer charred. The sharp and nauseating stench of cereal and alcohol also was not present.

Strange… wouldn’t it take a long time to fix a generator charred beyond oblivion and remove the pungent odor of a chemical reaction that had been permeating the room for at least a few hours?

Not wishing to further dawdle in a former scene of murder, Damon quickly hurried out the boiler room. As he walked past the storage closets, he noticed the bloodstains across the floor had also disappeared.

This should confirm two things, if my hypothesis is correct. 

He climbed the stairs back to the first floor and headed towards the Janitor’s closet.

One, Tozu or his assistant somehow cleans these rooms during the trial. How he does so is beyond me, considering he was present throughout the entire trial and Mara is likely watching us to dole out punishments and confirm we don’t break any rules. This means… Are there more people involved with running the killing game than we originally thought? 

Two, although we originally assumed the Janitor’s closet was locked because of the crime scene placed there… if they can clean up an murder scene and fix a broken generator in a matter of hours, why is the closet still locked? There’s something Tozu doesn’t want us to see there, but… what could be hidden in something as inconspicuous as a Janitor’s closet?

When Damon finally reached the door, he took the handle and gave it a firm shake.

The handle shook but did not open. The door was still locked.

I’m right.

Damon shook his head in frustration and sighed.

Seems like this investigation has only left me with more questions than answers.

He ignored his trembling hands and headed back to the dorms. There was one last thing he needed to do, before he could allow himself to rest.

Diana’s horrifying situation trapped inside the boiler room was still scorched inside his mind.

When it comes to it, I’m not exactly the strongest person to fend off a surprise attack, and I don’t have anything on my person that can be used for defense. I can’t rely on my surroundings either. There are just too many risks. The objects around me could be useless in the moment, or they might be far away. 

I need something reliable to defend myself… after all, for all I know, anything could happen.

If something like Diana’s situation happened to me… I doubt I’d be able to defend myself long enough to stay alive, much less pick the lock to a boiler room and escape from the basement.

He grit his teeth and strengthened his resolve. Then, it was decided. He needed to obtain a weapon of defense.

I can’t steal a knife from the kitchen - they would notice it was gone too easily. 

There’s nothing I can use in my dorm room, unless I feel like stabbing someone with a pen or hitting them over the head with a podium. I can’t carry something as large as that discreetly on my person, anyway. 

I can’t destroy school property and break the edge of a glass, lamp, or pot. I would surely be punished by Tozu, and I’m not exactly looking forward to whatever that entails.

Desmond or anyone else is surely going to watch over their dorm rooms like a hawk after all the thievery that has occurred in the last murder, so I can’t steal a gun or piece of metal.

So… what’s left?

Damon’s mind flashed back to a conversation he had, before the trial and everything that had happened.

“So, what's your dorm room like?”

“Bleh… the bed is okay, but the rest of the room is just mean.”

“‘Mean’?”

“I've got an opisometer, but I don't have a map, and I have an ellipsograph, but I don't have anything to draw a circle on… I have a bunch of mathematical instruments, but none of the things they're meant to be used for. 

That room is definitely making fun of me.”

Eva’s room. That was the answer.

No one would be willing to enter the room of a convicted murderer, especially one they saw as a traitor, and Damon doubted they would remember anything missing from her dorm room. In addition, Damon had seen the damage caused by mathematical instruments first-hand during Eva’s… execution. Eva herself admitted to having “a bunch” of those same instruments in her dorm room.

If he could find something small and sharp, something he could fit into his pocket or blazer and hide discreetly so no one knew he had it, it could be repurposed as a weapon of defense.

At least, until I can find something better…

Holding his breath and keeping his footsteps as quiet as possible, Damon walked past his own dorm room and followed the hallway until he reached Eva’s. It was the third door on his left, and he wasted no time in swiftly allowing himself in and closing the door behind him.

This… feels wrong.

He bit back his hesitation. What was wrong with him? Didn’t he just agree this was the best course of action to preserve his safety?

But… she just died… and I’m ransacking her room without her knowledge.

So what? Why should it matter? Better the objects in her room be put to good use after her death, rather than rot without purpose.

With his abrupt internal conflict sorted out, Damon returned his focus back to examining his surroundings.

The room was mostly gray, with a few blue and red objects scattered around. The walls were covered with countless mathematical equations far beyond Damon’s comprehension. There was a large whiteboard hung on one side of the room, with faded traces of nearly illegible scribbles. A bed with silver sheets and red pillows was placed on the other. Beside the bed, a wooden desk with a lamp was placed on top. Above was a calendar with an image of horses galloping peacefully across a field, flipped open to September.

He carefully headed to the desk and opened the drawer. He found himself face-to-face with countless mathematical instruments he barely knew the use for. Shifting through the tools, he ended up pulling out a V-shaped tool. It looked similar to a pencil compass, but had two sharp points instead of one.

I think I’ve seen this instrument before. Is it a… divider?

Well, regardless of whether a “divider” was the correct name, Damon was going to call it that from now on. 

He tested the instrument on the tip of his finger, pressing down until he felt a sudden prick and saw a tiny drop of blood well from the wound.

Seems sharp enough.

Shaking the blood off, Damon pocketed the divider in the inner coat of his jacket. With no reason to linger, he quickly escaped from Eva’s room and returned back to the hallway.

Just then, a head full of pink hair peeked out from his room and hurriedly turned his head back and forth, as if looking for something. When their eyes met, Kai gasped and made a gesture waving Damon over. 

“Get over here!” Kai mouthed, sending him an urgent look.

Did something happen? Damon wondered to himself. He felt a trickle of unease. Surely not…?

When Damon entered, Kai quickly closed the door behind him. 

“Where were you!?” He exclaimed, fidgeting anxiously with his fingers, “I couldn’t sleep because I was worried you got yourself murdered. I can’t deal with three deaths in one day! Not after… you know… um…”

The influencer deflated, losing his momentum after being reminded of the day’s events. Damon sighed and pinched his nose.

“Do you seriously expect someone to commit a murder right after we all witnessed that execution? Let alone have the time to plan one?”

“ Dude ,” Kai whined, “I don’t know. I just saw two dead bodies today. Give me a break! And answer the question.”

Damon sighed. “I went to my dorm room to compose my thoughts. When I couldn’t fall asleep, I went to the dining hall to have a snack. Afterwards, I returned back to your dorm room.”

“You were going to abandon me alone?” Kai huffed in offense. “How cruel! And… huh… eating away your feelings? Didn’t take you as the type.”

Kai flinched under Damon’s sudden glare, quickly changing the subject. “Uh… a-anyways…”

He paused, hesitant to continue. 

Damon did not have the time or energy to deal with Kai’s scatterbrain. He raised an eyebrow and gave him an annoyed look. “What? Spit it out.”

“I mean…” Kai trailed off, but seemed to gather the resolve to finish his statement. “I know you and… that Eva girl were close.”

“We’re not. ” Damon snapped sharply, sending the pink-haired boy a scathing glare. 

“You were!” He protested, raising his voice. “I saw you two all the time. She even called you over while we were talking! No need to be such a dickhead over it.”

“Well, you’re wrong.”

“Whatever. Ugh, I just wanted to ask if you were okay…”

Damon shot Kai a surprised glance. “ You were worried about me?”

“Hey, what’s that tone for? Of course I was worried about you. You’re my roommate, for fuck’s sake.”

“Huh. Well, you don’t need to. I can worry about myself.”

“Of course you can…” Kai grumbled. “At least you’re acting normal.”

Confused, Damon asked him, “What do you mean by that?”

“W-well…” He mumbled, “Now that Wolfgang’s gone, and Diana’s being all weird with her chameleon thing, and everyone’s all scared and dejected, I was wondering if… you know, after that trial and execution… you’d change too.”

“Didn’t you just call me a… ‘dickhead’?”

“Oh, screw off! You know I didn’t mean it that way. I just don’t want you to act any more condescending and antisocial than you already are.”

He snorted. It might be too late, considering Damon had already re-examined the boiler room without telling any of the other students, stole a divider from Eva’s room, and agreed to not to trust anyone in this hellhole.

Meanwhile, Kai let out a huge yawn. “Dude, I’m wiped after all that. I’m going to bed. You sleep wherever you want.”

He headed back towards his bed. Damon, feeling tired himself, followed. Crawling under the sheets, he lay in silence and stared back up at the ceiling. 

… Fuck my life.

 With that heartfelt sentiment, Damon closed his eyes and let drowsiness overtake him.