Dexter Worthington: Winner of the Fifth Annual American Battle Royale

I don't have much time left.

They have already announced my name. In a matter of minutes, a rescue helicopter will come here, and pick me up. There's no doubt anymore. I won. The boy I just killed, someone I did not even properly know the name but blasted a hole in his forehead nonetheless, was the last contestant besides me. Everyone else is dead, and out of fifty people, I am the sole survivor. Right now, my parents are either hugging each other in joy, or crying tears of blood. Others, from other classes, must have their eyes wide with surprise, incapable to understand how a skinny, weak boy like me managed to survive three days in the biggest fear of every single teenager in America.

Many people are proud of me. I should be proud too.

But I'm not.

I have only one eye now. The other one was gouged out yesterday, when a girl I was trying to kill attacked me with a knife. I'm going to die soon, but I'm sure that I won't feel more pain than what I felt on that moment. She completely mutilated me. In retaliation, I used the same pistol I'm holding right now to shoot her several times, destroying her ribcage and turning her eye into a hole as well. She was beautiful, but now she's dead. Just like all of them.

The boy lying dead at my feet is not the only corpse in the field where I'm standing. Around me, there are four, two boys and two girls, stabbed, shot and bludgeoned in ways even I am afraid to even think about. And you know what's really interesting? I'm the winner right now, the champion, but it wasn't me the one who killed them. They did it to each other, and my only visible kill is this boy who I have just murdered. In my little season in hell, I've killed a total of four people. An OK quantity, but nothing special.

Soon, they will be five.

But before I do what has to be done, my brain decides to stop me. It sends me images of all the years of my short and miserable life, blocking the bad ones and only giving the best of them. When mother singing me a lullaby, many years ago. My first kiss, in middle school. The school play when I played a comedic role and everyone laughed. Me playing the piano at home.

I thank my brain for it, but I'm already way past its help. If I haven't been selected to Battle Royale, it would probably have worked. People do it all the time nowadays, they kill themselves over silly, absolutely futile reasons. After being fired from their jobs, abandoned by their girlfriends, or facing the death of a friend. Sometimes, when I read about suicide news online, I wondered if none of those people had good memories of life that kept them in this world. Now I understand why they went so far.

Because them, or at least most of them, were people like me.

I was never popular at school, but, like every other teenager, it had always been my dream to be as such. If I think for a moment, the reasons will come: I don't have anything that points for attractiveness. I'm not handsome, not strong, not optimistic, and most of all, not sociable. I never felt that strong need to be with people, to have people of your age and school by your side 24 hours a day. I was OK while alone in my bedroom, but not happy. Because no one ever told me I should be. In high school, a happy person is beautiful, popular, and not a virgin. At least, this is what the world says.

However, I still tried. During middle school and the two years of high school I've had so far, I was always close with the popular crowd. I sat with them at the cafeteria table, listened to their conversations patiently, and tried to fit in by talking to them whenever I had the opportunity to do so. They liked me as a company, now I'm sure of that. But they were never my friends. Not even close.

Yes, I did everything any internet forum would advice in order to achieve popularity. Still, it did not work. Because I did not live in the same world as they. Their talks were about parties, sports, and women. When they talked about it, I never knew what to say, and remained in awkward silence, listening and listening. Why? Because I wasn't good at these things. Crap, my first kiss happened when I was already fourteen! How am I supposed to feel after knowing that the ones from the guys I talked to happened before they even had hair on their crotches?

I begin to walk around the desolate field, contemplating the quietness and brutality of the place. I recognize some of the faces. That muscular guy over there, who was shot several times in the chest, I used to be his confident. That blonde girl who is lying face down with her throat slit by a knife, she was the one I wanted to hook up with at a party, but I was too shy to actually approach her. And the black boy who had his head destroyed by a hammer, to the point his face ceased to exist, is the classmate I'll miss the most wherever I go to. He was the closest thing I had to a friend. We shared the same interests, and I really trusted him. I don't feel as sad as I should, because I knew,that, sooner or later, he would die. He wouldn't harm a fly, I'm surprised he lasted this long. After finding his ruined body, I regret not talking to him more, not calling him to hang out with on weekends, not taking the initiative. However, it's already too late to change that.

I stare at the sun of the twilight, examining the flame of life that will soon by extinguished by the laws of nature. Night will come, my body will be taken away in a body bag, and life will continue as it was before. The government will call this Program a "massive failure", some people will riot, and maybe, just maybe there's a small chance this annual tradition will also disappear, like the last rays of daylight. Due to a single bullet, a single kill. What a dream, huh? Me, saving the world? Saving the lives of tons of other children? Me? Maybe I'm in a dream right now, or better, in a nightmare, just waiting for my mother to wake me up, like she always did.

Mom, dad… I'm sorry for both of you. You only had me, and no one else. No other children, no living parents, no friends of your age. For you, I was irreplaceable, no matter how mediocre and common I was in my life. I realize I never really did anything to make you guys proud, and as I think about it, my only working eye begins to tear up. I just want you to know that I also loved you, until the very end. I could never ask for better parents, and I hope you manage to have another son before leaving this world like I did. If it wasn't for your affection, the care the two of you gave me, I would have succumbed to depression and put a bullet in my brain a long time ago, even before the beginning of this carnage.

You two are the only people in this world who will miss me after I'm gone. I don't have any other attachments, and all the ones I had before are dead. Please tell your neighbors, bartenders and God-knows-who that I was not a monster for having killed my classmates. Please do it in my memory.

I turn around. I can already hear the sounds of the coming helicopter. It's time.

The gun feels heavy in my hand. Strange thing, it's the first time. Since the moment I woke up in that classroom, shivering and trembling, until my name was said out loud for the entire world to hear, it was as light as a feather. This gun was my only partner during this entire game, the only "friend" I managed to find. My first kill was in self-defense, but the others were not. I realized that I had to kill if I wanted to survive, and so I did it. But guilt began corroding me, eating away my heart and torturing my wounded, fragile body. I was never made to kill. I wasn't made for this game, none of them did. They did not deserve it, and by killing them, I became a monster. I should have shot myself before, or at least died with honor and dignity by the hands of one of my classmates. I do not deserve to be so nervous. I'm a killer who's afraid of being killed. Something to make a movie of, if this movie was not set in real life, with real blood, and watched by millions 24 hours a day.

Suddenly, the barrel of the gun is already in my mouth. It feels cold and tastes like blood and iron, horribly. I think about throwing up right here, and my hands begin to tremble. It won't take long, I remind myself. It will be fast and painless. But still, I'm not ready to die. I'm as ready to die now as I was when the doors of hell opened themselves for my class, three days ago.

I stare at the sky. A flying figure appears. I see the reason why I have to finish what I started.

They.

I won't let them win. They already took too much from me. My classmates, my normal life, and my future. What will I do when I go back home? I won't look at my parents in the face. I won't receive any special price or privilege besides some money. I will be seen as a murderer by the entire society, and even if I move to a different school, no boy or girl will want to talk to me. Forever an outcast. Forever a failure.

The helicopter comes closer.

I can do this. For me, for my class, for all the other classes, for everyone who has ever lost a loved one in this game. Let this be a message to the monsters who rule our world. Let them feel the loss in their pockets, as the money they bet on me goes down the drain. I hope they feel the mass of people revolting against them, calling them murderers, pigs and animals. Until, someday, they finally lose.

I can see the pilot of the helicopter yelling at me, upon seeing the Browning Hi-Power that is between my lips. I'll let him see it too. I can't hear what he is saying, and I absolutely do not care.

Goodbye, everyone.

I pull the trigger, and all of my head feels like exploding, like a balloon popping. I feel a excruciating pain for less than a second, but it quickly fades away. I can't move my body anymore, my arms and legs have gone completely numb and useless. I look at the sky one last time. The sunset behind the helicopter is the last thing I see, before darkness engulfs it completely. It's absolutely beautiful.

My body begins to fall, and I don't feel it when it hits the floor. Now, I'm 100% certain that I am happy as I've ever been before. I did what no one else ever told me or pressured me to do to. If I could still move my mouth, I would be smiling right now.

My brain activity ceases to exist. But before it's flame disappears in the darkness, a final sentence comes to me.

I won again.