Everyone gathered in the gym for another "pep assembly." Akik looked around, glad to see that Tonix had at least left his dorm. The scientist didn't look at anyone, and if he did it was more looking at the wall behind them. Akik wanted to go over and talk with him, however before he could Monokumadi started to speak from her podium.

"And then there were seven," she said, quite happy. "Good to see my little game is working well! Of course, not well enough." She scoffed. "No one's died since the last death!"

"Can we just go now?" Gradient said, irritated. "None of us wanna be here, and there's really not much you can do to encourage us anymore."

Monokumadi flicked her tail. "No, you can't leave, that defeats the whole point. And I can encourage you. Just watch me. In fact, that's why I called you all down here!"

"Surprise, surprise," Akik muttered sarcastically, mostly to himself.

"If the next killer succeeds..." Monokumadi started doing her little drumroll with her paws on the podium. "They and their loved ones... will receive ten million dollars!"

Dead silence.

"...money? That's what you're trying to encourage us with?" Spade said, almost confused. "What is this, a game show?"

"I mean..." Fabian genuinely seemed to be contemplating the offer.

"Fabian, no."

Akik glared at him, and the explorer kept silent.

"Jesus, I wasn't going to actually listen to her."

"Thank you."

Monokumadi giggled. "Please, money's the root of all evil! It'll do something, I know it will."

"Yeah. I wouldn't be too sure," Gradient exhaled.

"Whatever you say."

-

After the assembly, Akik managed to catch Tonix before he went and hid again.

"Hey," Akik smiled in a friendly manner. "Are you alright? I know you're probably upset about your friend dying, and you don't seem very... in it right now, so I thought I'd check."

Tonix stared at him blankly for a moment. He was, somehow, a few inches taller than Akik, making him the tallest of the students. Also making him look somewhat down at Akik, which Akik wasn't quite used to, considering he's usually the tallest of any present group.

"I'm fine. Don't worry about me." He wasn't unfriendly about it, but it was obvious he just wanted to be left alone.

Akik thought for a moment. "I can tell you're just saying that, you know that, right?"

He said nothing.

Akik smiled sympathetically. "Hey. I know something that may cheer you up. Do you like chemistry?"

Tonix glanced at him. "...I'm more into radiology and things of that sort, but yeah. Why?"

"Well, I think there's something you might like on the fourth floor, then. Here, follow me."

Tonix hesitated for a moment before slowly beginning to follow Akik.

-

To distract himself from the thousands of stairs he'd have to climb, Akik decided to try and maybe talk to Tonix a bit. It might even make the scientist feel better.

"So, how long did you know Anatox before this?" He asked.

Tonix was caught slightly off guard by the question, but exhaled and answered. "I'd known her since I was pretty young." He looked at the ground, trying to hide the tears threatening to break him down. "She was a good friend."

Akik gave him a light pat on the shoulder. "Yeah. I bet she was."

"Yeah." He remained silent for a moment more. "She was the one that talked me into applying here. I wanted to go to the same school as her, so I agreed." He chuckled a little. "And... now she's dead. She's dead and I'm not."

He wiped a tear from his face with his green sleeve. "God, it should've been me..."

"Don't say that, Tonix," Akik's tone turned serious for a second. "You're gonna make it through this. We all are. You're alive, and that's what matters, okay? She shouldn't have died, I agree, but we can't reverse what happened. I'm sorry."

Tonix didn't reply.

Akik led him silently up the rest of the stairs and finally made it to the fourth floor. Taking the turns he remembered, he brought him to the chemistry lab.

"Here we are!" Akik smiled at Tonix, hoping to see him cheer up at least a little.

Tonix looked around, a flicker of excitement alighting in his eyes. In the moment he finally seemed distracted from the sadness he'd been feeling, stepping into the lab and looking around at everything.

"...woah." He smiled, just a little. It wasn't much, but it was enough to tell Akik that he wasn't planning on locking himself in his dorm again, at least for the time being. He was glad at that - he knew what loss could do to a person.

"Cool, huh?" Akik said. "Thought you'd like it."

"I... yeah," Tonix said, still admiring the lab. He looked back at Akik. "T-thank you. For... bringing me here."

Akik, satisfied, smiled. "You're welcome."

-

Xerc wished there was a lock to the art room door, but, unfortunately, there wasn't. He'd just have to remain aware while he was in there. Which was not a strong suit of his if he was deep in a project. At all. But he hadn't painted in a bit, and he wanted to save sketchbook space, so he just left the door as it was and searched around for the supplies he needed.

He found a small canvas and some acrylic paints, as well as a few different brushes, then started painting. Really, it wasn't much different than the sketches he'd been creating lately, subject-wise. Not really much else for him to recall into his work.

At some point someone came in. Xerc didn't even really realize it until she talked from a chair behind him - out of the way, out of sight, but still in a place that Xerc could tell whether she's moved out of the corner of his eye.

"Whatcha painting?" Addie asked.

Xerc contemplated telling her to leave, but decided to just go along with it. "Nothing."

She tilted her head, observing the work. "It's really abstract. I like it."

"You do, huh?" He didn't really care for approval.

"I like to draw sometimes, too," she shrugged. "It just has more form, usually. Abstract is cool, though. Shows a lot more emotion, in my opinion."

At least she wasn't clueless. "Mhm."

Addie kept silent for a while, just watching the brush move across the canvas. "Is it of anything or is it non-subjective?"

Xerc thought for a moment. "...don't really know. I just draw what comes to mind, usually."

"Respectable."

After a while Xerc tried to make the conversation less one-sided, since Addie was just awkwardly watching from behind with no obvious signs that she was leaving soon. "You said you draw sometimes. What do you draw?"

"I just... draw characters from stories I write." The usually outgoing girl suddenly turned a bit nervous, like she was embarrassed or nervous at the fact. "It's not, like... cool art, really, I know, it's just... I like to visualize what I write. Helps me describe things."

Xerc nodded. "Interesting. What makes it 'not cool,' like you said?"

"Well, it doesn't really mean anything, is the thing," she sighed. "It's just silly characters being silly. Usually, art is... deeper than just a character design."

"Do you use symbolism in designs? I know authors do that in writing."

"Well... yeah."

"Then there is meaning," Xerc said. He never took his eyes off the canvas. "It's just different than a fine art piece."

Addie processed that for a moment. "...yeah. Yeah, I guess that makes sense."

The rest of the time was silent, just less tense and awkward than before.

-

This place sucks.

Gradient was exploring a bit before going back to his dorm. He was bored, really. Usually when he was bored before this, he'd spend his time finding people to add to his kick-the-bucket list (a somewhat stupid name he'd given his mental list of people to take out in his free time). But now he couldn't even do that, because it was either get out or die. And while he could imagine even children covering up their crimes better than these idiots, he wasn't going to take any chances, especially considering they all knew who he was now.

Maybe I could take them all out, he thought, a small smile forming on his face. Wait for them to dwindle their numbers fewer, gather them up, and boom. Lights out for everyone. Except me, of course. Then there'd be no one to testify against me as I get out of this hellhole blame-free.

The smile turned to grin. Perfect. Just gotta wait-

"...why are you smiling like that?"

Gradient snapped out of his thoughts as a voice breached his ear. He stared at Fabian, who had rounded a corner towards Gradient and was now seeming to contemplate going back the way he came.

Gradient stared at him for a moment before responding, his smile gone. "Nothing. I was just..." he thought up a lie on the spot, "...going to the library."

"...that doesn't explain anything."

"It wasn't meant to."

Fabian backed up. "Okay... please don't kill me, okay? We're cool?"

Gradient scoffed. "No one here is 'cool' with me, I'll tell you that, but I'm not planning on murdering anyone. Especially you. You're too easy. You look like I could snap you in half like a twig."

Fabian laughed nervously. "Heh... yeah, yeah, I... don't work out much, really. I guess that's fair."

"Mhm. Yeah, I could tell. Now if you'll excuse me, I want you out of my sight before I decide maybe I feel like setting some twigs on fire."

His eyes widened, and Gradient watched as he scrambled back down the hall he came from faster than a child to the top of a slide.

Gradient laughed to himself. While he would love to see someone burn alive right about now, he probably wouldn't have done it here of all places, but Fabian didn't know that. As long as no one knew his intentions, he had all the power in the world over these imbeciles.

He ended up actually going to the library, out of pure boredom. Dusk's corpse had been taken down mysteriously after Anatox's trial, the bloody pentagram completely cleaned. The light fixture he'd been hanging on was slightly crooked now, but other than that it was as if such an excitingly gruesome crime had never happened. Gradient had to admit, Anatox had done a decent job replicating his methods, but not well enough. At least his crime scenes were cleaner - it was best to get all the organs outside of the corpse (or visible at the least) for maximum effect. It was hilarious when someone squeamish about blood walked in on the murder. Sometimes if there's cameras in the house, he'll take the owner's phone (turning off the location tracking, of course) and watch the reaction live.

Spade was inside the library. He seemed to take note of Gradient's presence, but never engaged in conversation. Gradient was fine with that.

He walked around the library, casually scanning the shelves, ceiling, and walls without much to look for. Maybe he was looking for something. He didn't quite know, sometimes he did things without realizing he was doing it.

As he walked he casually pulled something from his pocket - a knife, the very knife that Anatox had used to kill Dusk. He'd taken it from Spade when he wasn't looking a while back, and now played with it like a fidget toy. Spade knew, of course, and only he knew, but seemed to trust that Gradient wasn't out to kill everyone... yet.

Spade glanced at Gradient as he came into view from the bookshelves. "Best you be careful carrying that thing around. If someone besides me knows, they may try to frame you."

Gradient scoffed. "Why would you care if I was framed? It's happened once already, and she failed, too, so I'm not worried. Besides, this thing's not going out of my sight. If someone tries to take it, it's probably gonna end up in their neck."

"And then you'd be caught, due to the reckless nature of the crime," Spade said, his back still turned. He glanced back at Gradient with a small, knowing smirk. "And then you'd die, and we'd get nowhere."

"You think I give a crap about dying?" Gradient chuckled. "I've got a guaranteed spot in hell, my work ensures it. I know what's waiting for me and I'm not too scared of it."

"Whatever you say," Spade shrugged, going back to the bookshelf he was looking at.

Gradient wasn't much of a reader, but he decided to grab the book that Anatox had used to allude the students and frame him. He liked to see what the police thought of him.

It was pretty funny, after all.

-

It'd been multiple hours since Akik had left Tonix in the chemistry lab. He wasn't that worried about him, but he wanted to check in on him. You could never be too careful around here.

"You're sure it was a good idea to leave him alone?" Spade asked Akik as they walked to the lab. "Anyone could use his current state as an advantage against him."

"I'm sure he's fine," Akik said, slightly unsure himself. "The only one I can think of with any guts to attack someone like Tonix is Gradient, and I don't think Gradient's willing to risk that now that we know about him."

"You're certain?"

"Of course!" He wasn't.

The two walked up the stairs to the fourth floor and made their way to the chemistry lab. The door was closed. Akik tried to open it, but it barely opened before being jammed, just barely ajar.

Immediately Akik's worry increased. "Tonix? You okay in there?"

No answer.

"That's not a good sign," Spade sighed.

"Tonix!" Akik slammed his shoulder against the door. It didn't budge at first, but after a few hits, the object holding it shut broke, and the door swung on its hinges.

Tonix was sitting against the low cabinet peacefully. It was like he was just sitting, sleeping. Besides the small trickle of blood coming from his mouth and the large pools of the same substance surrounding him and coating most of his clothes. The same blood that soaked his brown hair, tussled in a messy, careless manner, the ponytail keeping it out of his face missing and allowing his hair to fall past his shoulders.

Akik just stood there, staring at Tonix's lifeless corpse.

Somehow, deep down, he knew what happened here.

-

2446 words

Alright, who did it? :3

Also I swear I didn't mean for him to die in such a similar manner to Stratus in Ace's AU, I planned this all before writing it and this is how it worked out :,)