"Hm, I wonder where all the other students are."

"Y-yeah, who knows..."

"Feels a bit like we're playing hide and seek, haha."

"..."

I had done what any sane rational person in my current predicament would do -- shut up, don't run, and act normal. Fight or flight was for morons or animals. Either option would had certainly led to death. 

Following Shika cautiously from behind across the campus, I made sure not to lose sight of the bloody knife in her hand. 

How?

How was it possible that I had not been able to read anything off about Shika?

Sure, there was that one time when I felt something weird about her being late apology, but this?

Something this wrong should had been picked up by me from a mile away. My readings of people were seldom wrong and when they were, they were never this wrong.

Especially given how long I had spent talking with Shika.

My confidence was shattered. 

"...you okay?"

I glanced up to see Shika peering back at me with a worried expression. Most of the blood from before was cleaned up, so her milky face and dainty features were as prevalent as always. 

"Yeah, I'm okay." I replied.

Again, I felt that her worry was genuine, but I no longer had any conviction.

"Don't worry..." Shika said, "I'll protect you, Eita. I promise."

"..."

Suddenly, Shika stopped moving.

"Did you hear that?" 

Her voice was quiet, listening for something.

I stopped as well, trying to listen for what she heard, "I don't hear anything."

She remained unmoving and so did I. 

After a minute of total silence, I finally heard what she heard;

Quiet footsteps... coming towards us. 

Slowly, Shika placed an index finger to her soft pink lips. I nodded and stayed silent. 

Carefully, the quiet footsteps moved closer... and closer... and closer... and

Suddenly, Shika threw herself out to the corner of the wall.

The timing and precision was frighteningly perfect.

A tall dark-skinned boy stepped into view and Shika jammed her knife straight into his earhole, pushing the blade all the way in with the entirety of her weight. A spine-chilling yelp lurched out of the boy's mouth for just a second or two, his entire body shook violently and uncontrollably like he was having a seizure.

Even when I was sure he was dead, his body continued to spasm as Shika laid the boy down on the concrete. A metal bat rolled out of his limp hands.

Shika slid her knife out of the boy's ear, then stabbed it down into his chest.

"Gotta make sure they're dead." Shika said casually.

'They look pretty dead to me' is what I wanted to say, but my voice wasn't working so I said, "Mmhm..."

I watched as she stabbed the corpse over and over again until she was satisfied.

Finally, she rose and turned to smile at me, half-covered in blood. 

"O-kay! Let's--"

At that moment, a small ball-like object flew near us and exploded, knocking me out instantly. Apologies for the lack of detail, that was just how sudden it happened. 

~x~

Dark.

Cramped.

I fidgeted, then light spilled in.

I stepped out of the locker, finding myself at the back of an unfamiliar classroom.

Someone had stowed me away inside a locker while I was unconscious. Probably Shika.

My head hurt.

Scanning my surroundings, I noticed a knife had fallen out from the locker I came out of.

I bent down to pick it up and felt my body aching.

Bruises and cuts, nothing too serious.

The knife was Shika's, I recognised it from before. A kitchen knife stained with dried blood, but a very durable one. Clearly, she left the knife here for me to use to defend myself. How thoughtful of her.

Well, this was no time to be a coward if I planned on surviving. 

Wiping the blade on the hem of my shirt, I hobbled out of the classroom, trying to make as little noise as possible.

The sky outside was orange which meant it would be night time soon. Best to get the hell out of this school by then while Shika wasn't around. 

Distant sounds of screaming and running could still be heard, so students were obviously still slaughtering each other. Despite knowing practically nothing, I already had a vague hunch about the true nature of this school and the meaning of the siren. 

Guided by the noises to know where not to go, I snuck around quietly to reach the exit of the school building I was in.

The sky was getting darker with each passing second, I hurried across the campus, hiding in between bushes and whatever else I could find to avoid other students along the way, before finally making it to the school front gates.

...

A mountain of corpses laid piled before the gates. 

Students that had tried to climb the closed gates to freedom but was electrocuted or pierced to death by bullets in the process. What a horrendous sight, I felt like I was a protagonist in a horror movie.

"Hidden machine guns surrounding the school fences."

A voice suddenly answered from behind me.

~x~

Spinning around, a girl stood before me, smiling playfully like a child about to crush a toy.

Blonde hair to her shoulders, sharp emerald eyes with a bored undertone, foreign features, and a tall slender figure almost like a model. An intimidating aura reeked from the girl in spite of the lack of any visible weapons on her. 

"What?" She blinked innocently, taking a closer look at my face, "Was I wrong about what you were looking around for?"

I didn't hesitate to show her my knife.

Either she didn't see me as a threat or wasn't taking this situation very seriously.

"Get any closer and I swear to god I'll stab you." I said, taking brisk steps back to distance myself from her.

"Is that how you say hello to a beautiful young girl?" She frowned. "Gosh, no wonder you're a virgin."

"I mean it!" I shouted, making her wince. "Show me your hands!"

"Yes yes, jeez, no need to shout..." She sighed, raising her hands into the air, empty, "There. Happy?"

I kept the knife pointed at her. I needed some time to think about what to do about this girl that just spontaneously showed up out of the blue. 

How did she even get that close to me without me noticing?

"What's next?" She asked, "Do you want me to start stripping for you now?"

That would probably be logical if I wanted to be 100% certain that she didn't have any weapons on her. 

As I was considering it, I spotted the cheeky grin on her face and realised this was all just a waste of time.

"Very funny." I said. "I'm curious how you're still alive with these antics."

"Well, being born beautiful comes with perks." She said, then tried to put her hands down.

"Did I say you can lower your hands?" I said.

She stopped and raised them again with a grouch on her face. 

"My arms are tired." She complained.

"I don't care." I replied. "Was what you said before true?"

"About what?"

"Hidden machine guns around the school fences."

"You can try climb the gates yourself and see."

"Don't test my patience."

She sighed, "Yes, it's true. Well, the gates and fences are charged with electricity and can deliver about 20,000 volts, but if you managed to somehow survive the shock, there's automatic machine guns hidden in the ground outside the fence waiting to finish the job."

"..."

It sounded ridiculous. But, my whole situation was already ridiculous. I couldn't sense that she was lying.  

"This is all around the fence, not just the front gate?" I asked.

"Alll around."

"And, how do you know all this?" I asked.

"I've been a student here for a while so I've seen people trying to climb up the fence." She said, getting impatient. "Also, it's pretty obvious from the bodies, isn't it?"

Well that much I know. What I had meant was the voltage of the fence and that the hidden machine guns were automatic. But I didn't want to start arguing with her.

"Can I put my hands down now pleease?" She said.

"Hm..."

My reading of her said that she would not harm me... right now. The girl was using me for an ulterior motive. I didn't know the motive, but once achieved, she would have no hesitation to kill me.

Extreme ice-cold intelligence, moreso than me, playing stupid was her pastime, I saw a sinister childish view of the world as her playground and I was but another toy to her. 

Like I said, I'm good at reading people. Or at least that was what I thought until I met Shika. 

With my belief in myself marred, I stepped over to the corpse pile by the gate, pulled out a torn length of rope that I had seen earlier, then strolled over to the girl.

"What? Are you serious?" She complained as I tied her arms tightly behind her back.

"Be happy that you're not dead." I said, ignoring her complaints. 

Maybe the logical thing to do was to kill her. But, she was talkative and had information I needed. Unfortunately, I also have something called a conscious. Don't get me wrong, I'm ready to kill if I have to, but I'd rather not. 

"Alright," I said, once I was satisfied with the knot, "Time to go."

~x~

"This is the worst foreplay ever."

"..."

"Are you sure you're not gay?"

"..."

All throughout the school, I had to endure her snarky little comments while dragging her around and trying to keep us alive.

I was trying to get us to the dormitory where we could lock up in my room and stay safe whilst waiting for this senseless massacre to end, but it was pretty hard when most of the weakest students have already died, leaving no fodder to use as distraction.

Tactless, I know, but that's how I have to think of them in order to survive this nightmare. I was no rambo and physical confrontations weren't my thing. All I had was my brain and my ability to read people. The latter of which betrayed me. 

"My hands hurt, can't you loosen it a little?" She complained.

"No."

If not for the fact that I still had questions for the girl about this school, I would had already left her to die long ago. 

A miracle happened when she finally stopped talking as we were nearing the dormitory. The silence lasted for about 10 minutes, and then broke as we were hiding behind some bushes, close to the front entry of the dormitory. 

"Hey..." She suddenly called to me in a strangely quiet voice, "You never asked for my name." 

Glancing back, I expected her usual mischievous nonchalance, but instead saw a melancholic face, gazing down at the dirt where we sat. 

"If you're going to force a girl to strip at knife point and tie her up, you should at least have the decency to ask for her name..." She murmured, but there was none of the normal quip in her tone. 

I purposely didn't ask for her name in case I had to kill her.

Knowing her name would make it too personal. 

But, of course I didn't tell her that.

Instead, I chose to stay quiet, keeping a watch through the bushes for the group of students near the front doors of the dormitory to disappear. 

"Sorry..."

Her voice was faint, but I barely made out the word. 

"Huh?" I turned to face her. 

"I-I'm not going to say it again...!" She whispered reluctantly, then huddled to herself, burrowing her face to her knees. 

I sighed. 

I'm not going to pretend I even understand the female psyche. 

After a moment of silence, I said, "Eita Tagawa."

"...I know."

"Huh? How do you know?" I said in surprise.

"C-coz I'm in your class, dumbass...!" She shouted at me in a whisper with cheeks flushing with embarrassment, "Emiko Ueno...?!"

Crap, my inability to memorise faces as a result of my anti-social behaviourisms was coming back to haunt me. 

I mean, I had only briefly scanned the faces of my classmates one time, and that was only to look for anything abnormal. I didn't think that I would have to remember their faces. Useless memory would only clog up my brain's capacity. 

The only classmates' face I had remembered was Kenji, and well, he was dead so it had been useless to memorise his face. 

Emiko was breathing out in heavy puffs in front of me, glaring, "I was wondering this whole time when you would recognise me...!"

"Hey, give me a break..." I said. "Yesterday was my first day, and it's not like we were sitting close, right...?"

Emiko looked like a tomato that was about to explode. 

"I. sit. right. behind. you." 

Thank god I tied her up, otherwise this would probably be the dead end.  

"Listen, how about once we get to my room, we can discuss then?" I suggested civilly.

The fury on her face was terrifying. 

And she was getting closer. 

It didn't matter that she was tied up and that I was holding onto a knife. For all intents and purposes, I might as well be holding onto a banana. 

"Emiko, seriously..." I tried to reason with her. "We're in a serious situation right now, our lives are on the line here..."

It was no use.

She edged forward, I fell backwards, she fell on top of me, then Shika popped out from above the bushes with an axe held above her head.