I wouldn't say that I've ever been a particularly compassionate person. As a journalist, sometimes you just have to shut off all emotion completely, otherwise you're not able to do your job properly. Even in spite of all that though, I rarely cry and I rarely feel sorry for others. I deal with the news; I don't deal in feelings, but at the same time, it's not my fault when people are in pain and suffering, so why should I?

But this night of the year is always a difficult one, even for me. I look among my papers, scattered rather idly in front of me on the desk before I locate the list of students. I don't particularly know why I need it at the present moment; some information about the school would suffice. In fact, I don't even know why this kind of thing is still broadcast on the news. Well, that's a lie; it's all propaganda and PR, naturally. I'm the voice through which the president apologises publically to the families of the selected school class, but reminds them of the great sacrifice, and how it's all for the good of the nation, etc.

"Adam, you're on in ten."

Oh, am I? I nod vaguely to the camera assistant, a young blonde girl scuttling around with a clipboard. She smiles back at me. She's blushing; how sweet.

"Thanks," I reply, "what's your name again? I'm sure you told me before, but-"

"Oh, I understand Mr. Anderson…erm," – she blushes again – "I mean, Adam." She giggles nervously. Get a grip. She's quite fit, but to be honest there's only so much fawning a man can take before it becomes unattractive. "I'm Sarah," she said.

"I'm sorry," I give her my most charming smile – it's terribly good practice for the camera- "Nice to meet you." I shuffle my papers and adjust my earpiece and mic with as much importance as I can muster; she gets the message and trots away.

I might actually remember her name for next time. She seems like a nice girl, and totally impressionable. I wonder if she has a boyfriend, or if that even matters.

Ahem. Anyway, yes, back to the day job.

My stylist quickly appears from the edge of the set to fix my hair; apparently it's all sticking out at the back. "Well, I'll be facing the camera the whole time of the broadcast, so what- ah, ok. Whatever." The hair is fixed. I catch a glimpse of myself in the television projecting my image from Camera 1. Oh, you handsome silver fox.

I finally get a chance to study my papers. So, the school they're devastating this year is the Glorious Tenth Anniversary Secondary, which is in…Norwich. How nice. There are twenty-four students competing; most intriguing. And – oh – what's this? The location of the event is being kept a secret. Shocking. And, ah yes, a bit of information about "The Former United Kingdom Youth and Education Act of Honour (FUKYEAH)".

In other words, this broadcast will be exactly the same as that of previous years, but I'll be mentioning a different school's name. I could wing it, but of course the network has insisted on me reading the same script from the autocue. Good thing my hair is nice; the last thing I'd want is to announce the impending deaths of two dozen kids looking like I ain't worth it, or whatever that daft slogan is.

I wonder which of the children I will be interviewing this time. I hope it's someone who keeps it together; last year was a complete basket case I could barely get a word out of. Just like the one the year before that. And the one the year before that. So, realistically, I'll have to prompt someone who should be in a mental home to say 'I am proud to have made this sacrifice, but I am glad to be back home with my family', or some crap like that. That's the hardest part, in truth. Announcing the event today and giving updates of the events over the next few days will be the easy part.

Plus, I'll get paid quite a lot of money for doing it.

To be fair, looking reasonably good on camera does help me do a better job, I think. I resent the notion that viewers may think that I'm one of the Establishment, but that can't be helped. You may think that I must be heartless to volunteer for a job in a medium that is so highly manipulated and blatantly biased in favour of the government and its tyrannical regime, but what am I supposed to do? I do what the rest of the population does, and pray that someone will step up to eventually end the horrific bloodshed of the "Battle Royale" (which of course, you're not supposed to call it in public – it's strictly the Youth Rehabilitation Incentive, YRI, people), but unfortunately, that person isn't me. I value my life too much.

Oh dear, I appear to be lost in my thoughts. The red light is flashing. It's time to sit up straight and talk to the world.

The producer gives me thumbs up.

"Good evening," I give a serious but polite smile, "and welcome to Channel 1 News at Six. It is my great privilege to tell you all that the school chosen to participate in this year's annual YRI is the Glorious Tenth Anniversary School in Norfolk." Pause. "On behalf of our Most Excellent State, I would like to take the opportunity to express condolences to the families of all the young people involved, and to appreciate the dignity and honour with which they accept their sacrifice."

As this is going on, I'm aware that a number of images that are flashing behind me. The first is a class portrait of the twenty-four teenagers participating this year; this has already been shown to me beforehand. The image is rearranged so that each pupil's face is placed inside a white square. The squares are then arranged on a black background in alphabetical order by surname; this will help us all keep track of the kids as they die.

I read out some more guff about our glorious nation, and how proud we should all be that we live in it. I wonder whether the parents of the kids taken off to participate are informed officially prior to the broadcast. I suspect that I'm not popular with a lot of them.

"Thank you for joining us, and we will be with you over the coming days to keep you fully up to date with the YRI, as well as all other important news items. For now, from me and the rest of us at Channel 1 Studios in London, goodnight."

The hand comes down, the cameras go off and activity resumes in the studio and newsroom to my left. Well, that's me done for the day. I unhook my microphone and earpiece, leaving then on the desk for some assistant to clear up. On second thoughts, I decide that isn't very gentlemanly and put them in the plastic zip bag they came in. Another junior staff member, Helen (I think), passes by and upon seeing my thoughtfulness, offers to take the bag and sort them out for me. She's rather plain, so I smile in thanks, but don't bother to be overly grateful. Apologies if that sounds shallow.

In addition to presenting the news, I do quite a lot of research as well, which is how the network justifies giving me my own office, where I wander off to at the end of every day to collect my things. It's a pretty dingy place well into the west wing of the building; this is considered something of a slight. The further away your office (if you have one) from the newsroom is, the less important you are judged to be. Meh, who cares?

I mutter "goodnight" and "see you" to a number of colleagues as I make my way down the narrow, winding corridors to my office. It's a pretty damn depressing building to work in, but then, so is everywhere really. As a corporation, we're funded entirely by the state, with no provision whatsoever. What this amounts to is that we get virtually no money spent on refurbishing our working conditions. What the public don't see, they won't complain about. I once had some old cleaner complain to me that the budget for my hairspray was more than the budget for antiseptic wipes used to scrub the toilet sinks. I was slightly embarrassed by that, but of course it wasn't my fault. And that nag certainly wasn't going to complain to the CEO, director or financial officer if she wanted to keep her job.

But it is a joke. I have to walk past a bucket collecting leaking water and a rotting wall just to get to my office. I close the door and flick the light switch on, before sitting at my computer desk to quickly read up on the Glorious Tenth Anniversary School. I won't have time in the morning; I'll have to be in at about five just to do some prep work with a number of select reporters who get all the information about the Battle Royale as it's being played, as well as with a number of researchers. And that's before I even get started with the regular news. Luckily, I don't have to preside over the coverage of the full thing; that's reserved for the other channels and other news anchors who, well, aren't quite of my calibre. I'll only be doing the main announcements.

I log on, and my computer loads up quite quickly. On the Channel 1 News database, the grid with all the students appears in the right hand corner, along with links to the rest of the information about this year's group of contestants. I enlarge the image to get better acquainted with them.

Incidentally, we don't receive that much information about the YRI itself. We only discover the school that's been selected at the same time as the school itself does. Couldn't go blabbing and wrecking the government's carefully prepared events now, could we? As for the location where the students fight it out, that remains as much a mystery to us as to the viewers at home. You hear rumours, naturally, but that's pretty much all there is to it.

Quickly scanning the grid of students, my eyes fall on a particularly dopey-looking boy named Andrew Fox. He's ginger with a skinny face, and I actually laugh at how appropriate his surname is. I think that I want Andrew to win. You can actually place bets on the contestants, but I've never done it; it seems very unethical to make money off the bodies of dead children for some reason.

So, Andrew Fox. He's the one I hope to be interviewing. I have a feeling that he's a total weakling, and I always support an underdog.

When I announce the names of the pupils who have died by 6 a.m. tomorrow, I hope to be able to at least know their names after all.

I read the full student list:

Grace Anderson

Jake Anderson

Liam Brennan

Henry Brown

Flynn Cutter

Lucy Davison

Kelly-Ann Edwards

Sarah Ellis

Andrew Fox

Elizabeth Frost

Laura Harriman

Ryan Head

Bethany Hill

Brianne Hutchinson

Tiger Jackson

Iain Johnson

Destiny May

Carter Lynch

Louise Parker

Reeshan Patel

Jack Smith

Catherine Stanley

Katie Thompson

David Wills

Good grief, who calls their kid "Tiger"? Not that it's any of my business what people want to call their children, of course. But still. I kind of feel sorry for him, too. But no, my allegiance is now firmly with Master Fox. More information on him will be made available on the internet at just after midnight, when the Games actually begin. Well, I say "internet", if you can call it that. There's nothing online in this country that the government doesn't approve of, let's put it that way.

I decide that I can't be bothered with this shit anymore. I'm a serious journalist, for the love of God; I can't be expected to do research into some sensationalist bloody death show. No more than I already do. To be honest, it's making me all a bit sick. I take my jacket off the back of my chair and slip it on. It's a nice studded leather thing I picked up on the cheap. I reckon shows a good balance between my professional side and my inner wild child which just can't be tamed.

Others have said that it makes me look like a bit of a prick desperate to look a bit younger. Maybe they're right too.

I leave my office and head off to the car park. I can't help but keep thinking about the horrific events that are about to come. It's just disgusting the way they've installed cameras in the arenas to make the YRI seem like something of a T.V. show. I've never actually watched "the highlights" which are broadcast on the very inferior Channel 4 periodically.

I've certainly never watched it. To be honest, I was surprised that the government started allowing it; after all surely it gives an indication of where the YRI is going on. Although on the other hand…maybe they had to broadcast it because the public were losing interest or just ignoring it completely. I suppose it wouldn't be serving its original purpose then, would it? That being, intimidating the entire country into subservience, toeing the party line, etc.

Just for the record, there have been no elections of any kind in our country for the past forty years.

With a heavy heart, I cross the car park and head to my car. It's so bloody cold; imagine how those kids are going to feel stuck outside in this. The thought strikes me again. I don't understand why I'm constantly referring to these people, even in my own head.

Maybe I'm beginning to become a little bit more compassionate after all.

A few hours later, Andrew Fox was immersed in a deep sleep on the wooden floor of an abandoned cabin in the north of Wales. He wasn't the only one. Around the room, his twenty-three classmates were all scattered around, completely dead to the world.

They were all miles away from any kind of civilization or settlement. Partly, that was because this was a very remote area of the country, but it was also due to the fact that the very few inhabitants of this particular area had been quietly cleared away within the last few months, via one method or another.

It also helped that the party were, in fact, stationed on an island.

Andrew was just an ordinary boy, really. Unfortunately for Adam Anderson, there was very little to suggest that Andrew had any real chance of winning this year's YRI. He was slight and scrawny, and had never been much good in any kind of athletic capacity. He was particularly weak outdoors; as one might expect from a ginger person, his skin did not cope very well under the sun.

The YRI was this year taking place in late March, which was in fact probably good luck for Andrew. Sometimes, the YRI took place right in the middle of July; sometimes in the darkest days of December. The latter somewhat spoiled Christmas for the majority of people who cared about those on the island. Which, unfortunately for the nation, didn't seem to be that many people.

Andrew Fox would not have been comfortable with the knowledge that everyone in the country would be aware of who he was, however fleetingly that may be. The idea of having your every move, your every sound, recorded on camera would have been far too much for him to bear, had he not been more concerned with staying alive. That's another area in which Mr. Anderson would not have been best pleased; Andrew Fox's shyness did not make him an ideal interviewee.

Class 11A of the Glorious Tenth Anniversary School (GTAS) had been told they were going on an educational field trip, in order to learn more about geography. Fair enough. The vast majority of "field trips" were pretty genuine, but all were compulsory. How else to minimise the idea of alarm bells ringing in the heads of the pupils?

Of course, this field trip, as the class were quickly about to realise, was far from genuine. They all knew that it was always a possibility that they could be selected for the YRI; everyone in the country knew that of themselves when they reached their mid-teens and were still in school. But, much like non-smoker knowing they can technically get lung cancer, it wasn't really something that ever tended to genuinely worry people.

They'd all been gassed while they were still on the bus. Their teacher and other supervisors had quickly been disposed of several miles back, and the children had been escorted on the boat under heavy guard to the island where most of them would certainly die.

It sounds like a much easier feat to pull off than it actually was.

Andrew was one of the first people in the class to start stirring. He didn't wake up straight away; being extremely groggy for at least fifteen minutes. He'd totally forgotten that he was even supposed to be away with the school, and so he was extremely surprised to find that he wasn't in bed. He sat up, beginning to fully register his surroundings. It was quite dark, he noticed, and he wasn't entirely sure where he was. The room seemed to be lit only by one bulb hanging from the ceiling. It was then that it fully clicked; of course, he was on the school trip to Anglesey. That's right. Phew; for a moment there he was actually starting to worry.

But then…why had he been sleeping on the floor in an unheated building? And why were the rest of his classmates all sprawled alongside him? It didn't seem to be making much sense.

Other people seemed to waking up too. Andrew looked around to see Iain Johnson and Destiny May slouched up against the wall to his left, each looking quite bewildered. Destiny, a small girl with braided black hair peered at Andrew as though seeing him for the first time.

"You…you OK?" she asked.

"Yeah…yeah I think so…are you?"

She nodded. "I don't…I don't get it."

Iain Johnson replied, "I think we were all asleep."

"No shit, Sherlock," a voice right behind Andrew startled him. He turned around to face Flynn Cutter, a distinctly large and gruff boy Andrew tended not to talk to if he could ever help it. "Course we were all asleep."

Iain ignored the contempt. He looked confused before suddenly turning an ash-white. "Hey…you don't think that we could have been-"

"No!" cried Lucy Davison, who had suddenly sat up a few feet away from Andrew "There's no way!"

In the first few seconds, Andrew wasn't sure what she was talking about. But then it all became horribly, nauseatingly clear.

"Yes way, I'm afraid!"

Without any of them noticing, a man had appeared in a doorway from the back of the room. More than one member of the class actually shrieked from the shock alone. But it only got worse.

The man himself was about fifty years old. He appeared to be decorated in a uniform of some kind, fitted with medals and ribbons; at the back of Andrew's mind, he supposed he was a senior member of the armed forced. By now, everyone in the class was fully alert as their new arrival stepped forward and into the dim light.

"It's very dark in here," he seemed to be somewhat displeased, "I don't think I can properly impress upon you children the scope of your situation without shedding a little light in on the subject. We'll just have to hope that the projector and the computer are running on full power, won't we?"

He reached the front of the room, and surveyed the class with a mixture of pity and dislike. By now, they'd all realised exactly why they were sitting here. They'd all watched it on television; now they were going to be starring in their own battle to the death. Andrew himself didn't fully comprehend the horror of it all, clinging to the vague hope that this might all be some kind of horrible practical joke. But their teachers didn't just jump out from under blankets or from behind some wooden panels and shout "Surprise!"

It was over. Andrew jumped at the sound of what was undeniably marching footsteps from the same entrance their uniformed soldier had entered the room. Sure enough, in came six armed, and much younger, soldiers. Three lined the wall to the left, three to the right. Several pupils scurried out their way without needing to be told. They were all dressed identically in combat gear, all the way to the hat, but most crucially were carrying what Andrew could only have described as machine guns. The entire class recoiled in terror.

"Oh, shut up," the man at the front said, "They're not going to shoot you, for fuck's sake. But if you don't stop making that rather offensive noise," he spoke directly now to Lucy Davison, who immediately stopped whimpering, "they just might have to."

He turned to the rest of the class, clapped his hands together, and smiled. "Now then. I take it you all now you understand why you're here. Who wants to get started?!"