“Monika Taego,” Mr. Schwarzweiss announces to the assembled students. Unlike most others he takes a small break to clear his throat before announcing your talent.
Despite the situation you find yourself in, you’d be lying if you said you aren't curious about your specialty. Your whole life you’ve been perfectly average in pretty much everything you did, neither too good or too bad at whatever you tried. Some people said you’re a bit more optimistic than others, but you could never gauge that for yourself. Your interests are very average, by usually just following whatever is popular at the moment. When it came to test scores, yours always were the closest to the class average. In sports your results were always middle of the pack. In competitions you’d always drop out halfway through. That's what you’ve always been, your average girl-next-door.
Your average-ness also extends to your body. Average height, average weight, average sizes, nothing either too big or too small. Even your current outfit reflects that by you apparently being the only one to properly wear the school uniform without any modifications to suit your needs or personality. At least among those that are even bothering to wear it. The school dress code doesn't seem to be as strict.
Your blandly brown, shoulder-length hair is still slightly unruly from whatever brought you here. You should've fixed it while you were looking at yourself in the mirror, at the very least the cowlick standing up straight from your head. But now it's too late and doing something against it would only draw unwanted attention.
“Gifted in luck,” he finally declares while giving you a dismissive side-eye.
Luck?! That's it? You really don't consider yourself lucky at all, especially considering your current situation. It sounds more like he couldn't find a suitable talent and just made something up. Does that mean there really is nothing that makes you special, to stand out from the rest. It's a depressing thought to have.
“And that's all of you.” The headmaster's voice grabs your attention again.
While you were rambling inside your head, he finished introducing all the remaining students. You hoped asking those for their names later won’t come off as awkward. Why are you kidding yourself? It definitely will.
“I’m certain you're all curious to spend some time together, learn more about each other, explore the school grounds or start planning your first murder ploys, even if I highly discourage that last one. Therefore you’ll be free for the rest of the day to do as you please. Do mind the rules and don't forget the curfew, though there will be a separate nighttime announcement for that.” He points towards the sexdo– Miss Jackson. “For any further inquiries or problems, please turn to Miss Jackson here. It's her job to take care of all your needs, so make great use of her.”
“I’m looking forward to spending time with each of you,” Miss Jackson says, as she continues standing on the stage unnervingly still.
The attention turns back to the headmaster. “That should be everything for now. Unless an incident occurs, we’ll see each other again tomorrow at 9am for my first lesson. You can find me in the headmaster's office, if necessary, but as a very busy headmaster I do not appreciate being disturbed for light reasons. Until we see each other again, I bid you adieu, my dear students.”
Mr. Schwarzweiss turns around to leave the stage, but before he reaches the curtains a voice speaks up from the audience.
“Do you really think you can get away with this? Somebody will stop your crazy plans!”
Schwarzweiss stops and without bothering to turn around says, “I’m not the one trying to get away with anything here. If you follow the rules, you will not have to fear anything from me. Who you should actually fear are your fellow students.”
You can hear several exclamations of surprise and confusion around you.
Now the headmaster turns and holds out his arms, a disturbing grin of absolute superiority adorning the two-toned dragon-fox’s face. “Can you say with absolute certainty that not a single one of you down there is planning right now to take the life of another?”
As he speaks those words, you can feel it. The person beside you can feel it. The whole audience can feel it. This inescapable carpet of dread that's falling over every human. You and everyone else can't help but look around at everyone else, unable to suppress that feeling of suspicion. You can't tell what anyone else might be thinking right now. You can't tell if you can trust them. You can only tell this what you’re feeling right now must be despair.