The Final Night

I was having another nightmare. A horrible scene in front of me: A dead body and a lot of blood.

I wanted to wake up, but… would that make any difference? Right now, my life is a nightmare.

People around me died and I saw what happened with them with my own two eyes, creating terrible memories that will haunt me forever.

I didn’t want to just wait for a resolution, so I tried to find something I could do. The idea that Mei had hidden something was my only hope, but I couldn't find it.

What now? After I open my eyes to escape from the current nightmare, what can I do to escape the nightmare of reality? My mind is broken, the fact that I’m seeing Mei walking with me is something to worry about. I need a light to show me the way, no matter how faint it is. I need to find something tonight.

“Good morning! Let’s have a good day today! Let’s fight!”, Mei said when she saw me in my way to the kitchen.

“Good morning.”

There was a clear difference in the tone of our voices. Mei was trying to cheer me up, so I should answer that by not being gloomy.

“Let’s have a good breakfast so we can have enough energy for the school!”, she continued. “Today we’ll be our day!”

“I hope so. Let’s end this today.”

The weather outside was great, so nothing would disturb our plans.

“During the lunch break we’ll look for any possible place Mei might have used to hide whatever she wanted to hide. At night, we’ll recheck the gardens.”, I summarized the plan to the fake Mei while we walked to school.

“Today we’ll find it!”

This was the last hope I had and I would hold it until the end.

At school, only one thing got my attention before the lunch break, an announcement from our teacher.

“I have good news for everyone, the club activities will resume next week.”

The class got excited with the news and the students started to talk about it.

“Silence, please! Wait until lunch so you can discuss about this.”

The killer is still out there, so that was a strange decision. Every single murder involved someone from our school, so keeping the students in their homes was the safest choice to make.

What are they thinking?

While the other students wanted to talk about their clubs during the lunch break, I wanted to find something.

I said to Hina that I would eat alone today and left the classroom. And while I was still eating my sandwich, I started my search in the schoolyard.

“What are the possible places?”, Mei asked.

“I hate to say this, but the same thing I said about the desks in the classrooms can be applied to the benches here. But there’s a very high chance that the paper would be destroyed by rain.”

“The benches? With all these students here, will be really difficult to check all of them.”

“That’s true. Let’s check the area and if we see an empty bench, we stop to check it.”

“Understood!”

This was easier said than done. No matter were I went in the schoolyard, I couldn't find a place where you could hide something without it getting destroyed by rain. And you couldn’t hide in every single possible place, because you need to take in consideration the possibility of any student finding it by accident.

I saw someone leaving a bench so I sat on it. While trying to not draw anyone’s attention, I used my right hand to touch under the bench.

“Nothing here...”, I whispered.

I resumed my search until I saw another empty bench.

“Nothing on this one too...”

Search resumed and another empty bench.

“Nothing… Oh, a chewing gum.”

“That’s disgusting.”, Mei said.

The lunch break ended and the search didn’t result in anything. I couldn't check every single bench, but I had no hope of finding anything on them. Everything would be decided with the last search tonight.

After classes ended, Hina asked to talk with me alone, so we’re behind the first building and not even Mei is with us.

“What is it?”, I asked her.

“You’re coming to school at night, right?”

“Huh? Why you say that?”

“Last night, you weren’t online during a time you normally would be. And I can say the same thing for other days before.”

“I...”

“And today I saw you searching something in the schoolyard during lunch.”

“I can’t really hide this for you. Sorry, Hina. You asked me to not do it, but I couldn’t just sit and wait.”, I confessed in defeat.

“So, what is your plan? What are you doing? Are you coming tonight too?”

“Do you remember that I asked you about what club Mei attended?”

“Of course.”

“I thought she and Sakura hid something during the club activities, and they probably buried whatever it was.”

“Huh… Now I can imagine what you were doing. Did you find it?”

“No. In truth, I searched the entire schoolyard and returned with empty hands. Tonight I would come just to be sure that I didn’t miss anything.”

“So you’re coming tonight.”, she stopped to think for a moment. “If you don’t find anything, what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. Finding something was my last hope.”

“Okay! I’ll come with you tonight!”

“What?”

“But regardless of what happens, you won’t come here at night anymore. And I won’t accept no as an answer! It’s dangerous to leave your home at night! And I don’t want to lose another friend!”

She was pretty serious, but should I make another promise with her? I already lied one time and I don’t want to do that again. But no matter what the result of the search will be, I won’t have any reason to come here at night.

“I understand. We’ll search together today and no more trips to school at night after that.”

“Good, it’s decided! I’ll visit you at 8:00 PM.”

“No, I’ll pick you up at your home. You said yourself that it’s dangerous to be alone at night, so I can’t let you do this.”

“Don’t worry! I have someone to give me a ride!”

Is she speaking of her parents?

“If you say so, I’ll be waiting for you.”

“Someone to help is a good a thing.”, Hina said while we returned home.

“Sure, it is helpful, but I didn’t want to involve Hina or Naoto on my actions anymore. I don’t want them to become possible targets...”

“We just need to stay together all the time.”

At home, I took a good bath, rested a bit and had dinner. Everything in preparation for the final night.

Some minutes after 8:00 PM, the doorbell ringed.

“It’s time.”, Mei said.

I opened the door and Hina greeted me. “Hello! Are you ready?”

“Yes, let’s do this.”

It wasn’t really late yet, so we tried to not be seen by anyone in your way to school.

They sky was clear with a big moon watching us. The weather wouldn't disturb our search today.

After some minutes walking, we could see the school. The street in front of it was empty, so we decided to run to seize this opportunity to jump the gate. And soon, we were inside.

“What is your plan?”, Hina asked.

“I divided the school in four areas and every night I would search in one of them. I would look for possible spots in the gardens where Mei could have buried the object. At first, I thought she would bury it somewhere with new plants...”

“Because they would have to make holes anyway, no one would find strange she digging a hole and Mei could put the plants on top of it?”

“Yeah, but...”

“You didn’t find anything.”

“So there are three possibilities: First, I missed one of those spots. Second, she buried it somewhere else. Third, I’m completely wrong and I’m just wasting my time.”

“The idea of Mei hiding the object by burying it is plausible.”

“Let’s search on more time. Starting with the south area, we’ll look for possible spots for her to hide it. We don’t have time to dig the entire school, so we’ll save that for the most plausible options.”

“She wouldn’t just bury it in some random place with nothing to remember her where she hid it.”

“Yes. And let’s stay near each other. We can’t say for sure that the school is a safe place.”, after saying this, I looked at Mei who was silent.

“Okay. Now, let’s start, the school is too big for us to waste time.”

I nodded to her and we started.

“I think this is a good spot.”, Mei said while we were in front of a tree in a grass area.

“Seems really good. Let’s look for any other potential spot first before digging.”

The clock was ticking, under a night sky full with stars, Hina and I… No, Hina, Mei and I were walking around the dark school grounds.

While we searched, every now and then I would look towards the buildings, trying to see if anyone was watching us, but everything went smoothly for us.

“Huh… Eleven potential spots.”, Hina said.

“I’ll dig five of them and check the time, then we’ll decide if we go to the north area or if I’ll dig more.”, I said.

“Can’t I help with the digging?”, Hina asked.

“If you dig somewhere near me, it’s fine.”

“Okay! Let’s start.”

We went to the grass area I saw earlier.

“But… How are we going to dig here?”, Hina asked.

“It’s not something you can do with your hand.”, Mei said.

“How did I forget about this? Using you hands to dig soft earth is one thing, but these old grass areas...”

I stopped to think for a moment before proposing a solution. “Let’s go to the third building, maybe we can find some tools there.”

“If the deposit is not locked, I’m sure we can get some shovels.”, Hina said.

“And with shovels we could dig everything!”, Mei said.

We went to the third building. The deposit was under the stairs on the first floor.

“It’s locked.”, Hina said.

“It’s an old door.”, Mei mentioned.

This is our final night here, so I didn’t think twice and slammed my body against the door, breaking it.

“Hey, you shouldn’t do something like this!”, Hina said.

“We have no time to waste.”

Inside we did find some shovels, so I got one for me and one for Hina. With Mei being a hallucination, she couldn’t help us.

We returned to our digging spot and we started the search.

“Nothing here.”, Mei announced the result of our first excavation.

We undid the holes and Hina commented: “Huh… We damaged the grass.”

“That’s inevitable. If we don’t destroy the gardening club’s plants, we are safe.”

“You better keep that in mind.”, Mei said.

The second spot didn’t had anything too. The same thing with the third. And soon, we finished checking the first five.

“Digging in the dark is difficult, but the shovels made the job a lot easier.”, I said.

“But I’m feeling bad for the trail of destruction we’re leaving behind.”, Hina said.

“Like I said, just don’t damage the plants, but the grass will be sacrificed.”

“If we’re going faster than expected, how about we check all the eleven spots? Doing that, you won’t try to return here tomorrow.”, Hina said.

“You don’t have faith on me...”

“Let’s do that, Souma.”, Mei approved Hina’s idea.

“Well, we’re here anyway, let’s do a complete job.”, I accepted the proposal.

Checking all the eleven spots was the best for me anyway, but after all the effort we did, we didn’t find anything.

“One half left.”, Hina said.

“Yeah...”, it was the only thing I could say.

I wasn’t happy with this result. We were getting closer and closer to the confirmation that there’s nothing hidden here.

Is this the end?

“For this second half, let’s just go digging every spot we think it’s good to check.”, I said and the girls nodded.

I was getting anxious and I tried to hide this from Hina, but because Mei was a part of myself, she was looking at me concerned.

After finishing another hole and finding nothing, I looked to the sky, remembering that night, that moon watching over Mei’s body.

Please, let me find it!

“I’m getting tired...”, Hina said after we were halfway through the second half of the school grounds, digging behind the second building.

I wasn’t feeling tired at all. The desire of wanting to find the object would keep me going until the end.

“Take a break. I’ll keep digging.”

“You should rest a bit too.”, Mei said.

“No, want to finish this as soon as possible.”

“I’ll accept your offer.”, Hina said while stretching her body.

I went to a nearby tree and started to dig near its trunk. Mei was observing my work, staying really close to the future hole and I was too focused on it to notice Hina walking away from us while looking at her phone.

“Nothing again...”, I whispered after finishing.

“Don’t lose hope, we’ll find it.”, Mei tried to raise my spirits.

“I really hope so...”, I said while returning the earth to the hole.

Some effort later, the hole was gone.

“Where next…?”, I said while looking around, and I finally noticed that Hina wasn’t here anymore. “Hina? Where did she go?”

“Maybe she needed to visit the toilet?”, Mei said.

“And she didn’t say anything? Let’s look for her.”

Me and Mei went to the front of the second building.

“Hina, are you there?”, Mei yelled after entering the building.

“Hina, are you there?”, knowing that Mei’s yell and nothing was the same thing, I yelled too.

No answer came from inside the building.

“So she isn’t in the toilet.”, Mei concluded.

“Maybe she is resting in the schoolyard.”

We walked towards the center of the schoolyard while looking for Hina. With very few lights illuminating the school, it was hard to search for her.

“Hina, where are you?”, I yelled.

“There!”, Mei said pointing in the direction of a bench.

“Oh, did she fall asleep?”, I said while speeding up my steps to reach her.

After approaching a bit, I could see that her head was tilted to her right side.

“Hina, are you sleeping?”, I said when I finally reached her.

There was no response and Mei was silent too.

“Hina?”

I touched her left shoulder, but once again I had no answer.

“Hina!?”

I shook her a bit and then time stopped for a moment. My heart wanted to yell, but my brain wasn’t answering. Mei’s face got filled with despair.

“No… It can’t be...”, a weak voice left my mouth.

Someone had cut Hina’s throat and blood was pouring from there. Hina was no longer in this world.

“This isn’t happening… This isn’t happening… This isn’t happening...”, I kept repeating after assuming fetal position.

“Hey, keep yourself together!”, Mei said after seeing my deplorable state.

“This isn’t happening… This isn’t happening… This isn’t happening...”, I was still repeating.

“Stop! This just happened, so the killer is still here!”

“Ha ha ha… The killer?”

“Yes, the killer! We are not safe here, let’s call for help!”

“The killer...”

“Please, don’t lose yourself!”

“We don’t need to look for the killer anymore.”

“What are you saying!?”

“Please, think… Who could be the killer?”

“Souma… What are you…?”

“Let’s bring an end to this game of pretend.”

“Souma!!”

“After all...”

“Stop!! Don’t say that!!”

“I’m the killer.”