Chapter Six: A Thrilling Start to the Trial

Snake 9:30 A.M. Seventh Day

"Sooo, who got accused?" That's the first thing Tiger says as he walks up to the group of us standing in front of the closed ballroom doors. Ox had already tried to open them but they were locked and we assumed it was due to our missing group member. I was standing slightly apart from the rest as we waited for him to arrive. 

"Shouldn't that be obvious?" I mutter, slightly annoyed. I was just lashing out at him…though everything did turn to shit right as he left. 

"Ah, someone got hasty and accused you, right?" He guesses, a smirk on his face. My eye twitches, and I take a deep breath to keep my feelings in…I really want to punch this guy right now. 

"If you know already, then don't ask anything," I tell him. 

"Good! You're all here! Before we get in, I must ask that anyone deciding to defend the accused move to the right door and anyone aiming to prosecute them move to the left. Thank you!" 

Mr. Cat's cheery voice echoes through the hallway over the loudspeakers. Everyone looks around hesitantly. I move toward the right door, I am obviously going to defend myself. Tiger also skips toward the right door. Rooster unhesitatingly places herself in front of the left door. 

After the first few people begin to move, the others follow: Dragon and Rabbit move toward the left, Horse and Sheep move toward the right, and Boar and Dog also move toward the right door. Monkey and Ox hesitate for a bit before Ox moves toward the left and Monkey toward the right. 

There were quite a few people open to defending me, which I was glad of, though I think it's more the case of Rooster accusing me too fast and the others disagree with her. When everyone is in their place, the doors to the ballroom open. 

When we explored before, the ballroom was a humongous room with a hardwood floor and no chairs in sight. Now, it has been transformed into a courtroom before our eyes. Though slightly different from the ones you would see on the TV. 

There was a judge's seat at the very end of the room, and Mr. Cat was sitting there with his suit and mask. In front of him were two seats sitting at a small distance from each other with crude signs marked 'Accused' and 'Accusor'. Behind each chair were more chairs, exactly equal to the number of people defending and prosecuting. 

To both sides of the room were the jury seats, people wearing fancy outfits and animal masks sat with tables full of food and drinks. I spare them a quick glance, they must be these wealthy patrons Mr. Cat was talking about before. 

We slowly file into the room, as the accused I go to sit in the chair with the crude sign next to it and the people defending me plop down behind me. Rooster gives me her meanest glare as she sits down primly in the chair next to me, I choose not to react. We're all sitting nervously in front of the audience, the usual sound of quiet conversation is nowhere to be found.

"Welcome everyone! As you can see we have an audience for this lovely trial and as such I hope you all put on a good show. As I already know what has happened I will refrain from making any comments that could provide information. Simply discuss what happened amongst yourselves and at the end, we shall vote on whether you want to keep the accused or switch them!" Mr. Cat explains. 

"Ahem, since I've been in cases like this before, I would like to speak up first." Horse states, raising her hand. Mr. Cat motions her forward and she steps up in front of him. 

"The first thing I would like to talk about is the time of death, we found a note in the deceased's pocket that points toward the time of death being six in the morning, does anyone disagree?" She turns to address everyone in the room. Nobody says anything and Horse takes that as a sign to continue. 

"After finding out the time of death we of course asked about alibis, the only two not able to provide one were Snake, and Tiger, who was not there at the time. Could you please provide us with this information?" Horse asks Tiger. 

"If you want, I was still asleep at the time, afterwards I wandered around and talked to a few people before discovering the body," Tiger replies with a shrug. 

"While it is not the best alibi, it is still better than Snake, who was caught in a lie, would you like to tell us what you were actually doing?" Horse questions. I tighten the grip I have on my arms where they're crossed over my chest. Explaining what I was doing isn't going to help my case…but not explaining wouldn't help it much either. 

"I was…looking for weapons." I hesitate only slightly before sighing out the rest. 

"See! I told you he was up to no good!" Rooster shouts. The others murmur in surprise. 

"I was looking for them alone because I wanted to put them in a safe spot away from the rest of you, it wouldn't work if I brought someone with me," I explain. 

"Mhm, I see, we cannot deny that sounds suspicious." Horse mutters. 

"If you're going to talk to me about my alibi the entire time, then why did you decide to defend me?" I question. 

"Because of one simple matter, my gut tells me something isn't right." Horse answers. I blink back at her in surprise, I didn't expect the reason to be something as flimsy as that. 

"Well, I think we've talked enough about alibis and time of death, if someone would like to move onto the next topic, please take the lead." Horse states, moving back toward her seat. 

"Please, we should just end it here." Rooster snorts. 

"We shouldn't be hasty, there is still a lot to discuss." Dog cuts in. 

"But shouldn't it be obvious? He has no alibi and the victim wrote a damn final message, that about clears it up." Dragon scoffs. 

"Though I wouldn't quite put it that way, I do have to agree," Ox says. 

"Aren't we overlooking a lot though?" Tiger questions. 

"Like what?" Rooster asks abrasively. 

"For example, the dying message. What sort of killer would I be if I just left it there, huh?" I reply. 

"Maybe you didn't know she was alive?" Rabbit says. 

"And what killer wouldn't make sure their victim isn't dead if they planned everything else out?" Horse questions. 

"I-I don't know." Rabbit stammers. 

"He could've just killed her in a fit of passion or something." Rooster sighs. 

"Alright then, this conversation is clearly getting away from us, so I'd like to bring up a topic, how the victim died." I cut the conversation off by standing up in front of the room. 

"Oh, I know this one, she was stabbed in the gut," Monkey says, raising his hand. 

"Potentially, but I found a strange cut on the back of her neck, indicating a prior injury, not only that, but there was no blood," I explain. 

"Ah, I remember that! I had forgotten after the whole alibi fiasco." Horse says, snapping her fingers. 

"But to have no blood would mean…" Rabbit trails off. 

"That she could've died much earlier than we think." I finish. Rooster shoots Rabbit a glare and she squeaks, covering her face in shame. 

"A different time of death, if that's the case then the alibis from this morning don't count for shit." Horse curses. 

"If we assume she died to the slash in the neck, then that opens up possible times of death anywhere from two days ago to earlier this morning." Dog muses. 

"Not necessarily, the blood on her stomach was still all fresh, which means it couldn't have been too long ago." Tiger grins. 

"Is there any way to tell?" Sheep asks, tilting his head. 

"Somebody here might know…two people specifically, Horse and Dragon," Tiger reveals. 

"I get Horse, she said she was a police officer already, but why Dragon?" Monkey questions. 

"I asked about everyone's jobs the other day, Dragon was a surgeon, he might know," Tiger replies. We all turn to stare at Dragon, who gives us all his best scowl. 

"Well, it depends on the situation, it usually starts to coagulate after thirty minutes to an hour." Dragon answers. 

"Oh yeah, I remember that, but it usually starts in the head area and then moves downward, so it would've probably taken longer for the area in her stomach to coagulate. We're probably looking at a timeline of anywhere from this morning, to last night." Horse adds. 

"Then, does anybody have an alibi for last night?" Ox questions the group. We all glance around at each other, each person is suspiciously silent. 

"Ugh, back to the bottom." Horse sighs. 

"Hmph, it's not too bad, at least we know that the killer was trying to misdirect us with that note, probably with the final message as well," I say, sitting back down in my chair. The left side of the room is looking decidedly more uncomfortable than when they walked in. 

"Then, what should we discuss now?" Sheep throws out the question. 

"We should talk about something easy, the weapon," Tiger says cheerfully, bounding out of his chair to take the stage in the center of the room. 

"Do you know what it is?" Ox asks him. 

"Of course, it's a knife from the kitchen," Tiger responds. 

"Can you prove this?" Rooster questions accusingly. 

"I was with Monkey at the time it went missing, he might've seen it." Tiger smiles gleefully. 

"I can't say I paid much attention, but I remember there were five knives…I think." Monkey replies, closing his eyes to think harder. 

"There were six when I went in this morning, that means the killer must've taken it last night and replaced it sometime this morning." I think back to Tiger dragging me into the kitchen to look at the knives…he probably knows more about this than he's letting on. 

"So we can probably assume the correct time of death was last night." Horse confirms. 

"Not only that, but I saw Rat last night right before that, she was looking at a suspicious note with a worried face." Tiger suddenly reveals important information that would've been better to know at an earlier date. 

"What time was that? We can use that to figure out a more specific time of death." Ox states. 

"Hrmmm, I wanna say aroundddd maybe nine-thirty?" Tiger answers. Then, he walks back to his seat. Horse is practically vibrating as she takes in the new information. 

"Ah, though I only got a quick glance at the crime scene, I wanted to ask…was she really killed in the laundry room?" Sheep suddenly brings up another point.

"What do you mean?" Dragon asks. Sheep moves up to the front of the room. 

"It's just, I saw drag marks on the ground, and the sheets were all bloody, maybe she got dragged there." He explains. 

"Are you saying the killer murdered Rat in another room, then tied up her body in sheets so she wouldn't bleed over the floor and dragged her into the laundry room?" Dog questions. 

"But we already confirmed her stomach wound was made in the morning, why would there be drag marks in the laundry room? The killer must've done it after, not before." I point out. 

"But why would they do that is the question…" Horse trails off. 

"Ah, maybe it was to make it look like they had been killed somewhere else," Tiger says. The room falls silent as they think about it. The drag marks were made after, though the sheets being bloody were most likely from the neck wound…something else points to the killer not wanting the crime scene to have been found in the first place.