Jane sat, slumped forward, a look of glazed apathy overlaying her frustrated features, staring at the blank piece of paper before her, listening absent-mindedly to the faint sounds of her parents arguing downstairs. She'd been here for about an hour, twiddling her pencil between her narrow fingers. Originally hoping to create a masterpiece, any pretension of art had been replaced by a growing lethargy – she'd held so much inspiration, and her pencil hadn't even touched the paper. She fell back into her chair and released a long pent up sigh of exasperation. Today really wasn't her day. She'd been late to school, thanks to an unscheduled power cut that lasted all the way through the early hours of the morning, followed by a berating by that old hag, Miss Locke, then had the contents of her bag fire themselves across the hall; at which point little miss Village Bicycle, Jess, sauntered across kicked the empty bag down the corridor, and strutted into the classroom. Peroxided bitch hadn't even received a mean glance for being those 5 minutes later. In honesty, that was that which had inspired her to draw in the first place – violent images would have really cheered her up – but in the end, she'd got nowhere. Not that pre emptive criminal execution was too high on her list of priorities either. Best keep it inside, she affirmed to herself.
She sighed again, less deeply, and hauled herself to her feet – best creep downstairs and find something to eat – going by the racket her parents were making, it was unlikely she'd be getting anything off them any time soon. She glided to the landing, and began stalking down the stairwell. Her parents' voices gradually began to fade into focus – she realised they weren't alone. That was weird- they didn't usually receive guests, and when they did, they always acted as if they were competing to be as polite as possible. Never to any avail, obviously. She decided to check what was going on, listening to the quiet patter of her footsteps as she crossed the hall and poked the side of her head through the open doorframe into the lounge. Over the years, she'd become extremely good at sneaking through the house unnoticed as a way of avoiding her parents' bitter, but not violent tempers (what a shame that divorce had been banned, eh?). Her parents were stood facing away from her, looking instead at two authoritative looking men – both clad in black suits, and with poise almost impossible to find among the shambling wrecks that she normally had to deal with. They were both staring at her, she noticed, faint smiles playing across their lips. "Here she is," the one to the left- slightly taller and better built than his colleague, speculated coldly. "Revealing herself at last, I see." He spoke with odd inflections – it was impossible to tell if he was being sincere or sarcastic, though she suspected the latter.
"Well, how pleasant of you to join us, though I'm afraid I shan't have the pleasure of your acquaintance for any measurable amount of time." he continued. She nodded, confused – trying to grasp the tone he was projecting, getting nothing. "You've been selected from your age group as one of the lucky 24 to take part in the government funded 'Battle Royale' project, for the assessment of psychological patterns among future workers." Her mouth opened slightly, as she tried to gasp away a sudden spike of panic – she'd heard of the Battle Royale project, or specifically, the horrors committed there.
"W-what?" She finally managed to stammer, weakly. She turned to her parents, indignation and anger clear in their eyes – and on their lips,
"WELL, WE SAID YOU COULDN'T HAVE HER!" shrieked her dad, his lips curled back tightly over his teeth, in what was almost a perverse smile, beads of sweat rolling down his face as he panted heavily, barely managing to control himself. Her mother stood back behind him, sad, but with no defiance in her. Useless bitch. She felt herself tremble with fear and anger. Every year, another 24 innocent kids were selected for the project. 24 children were forced to fight to the death, just to satiate the country's bloodlust; anyone with a brain knew there was no valid information to come from a situation like that.
"Irrelevant." mumbled the smaller man, the larger taking over;
"Parental permission is not a factor; both you and your child forfeited the right to this choice, by virtue of benefiting from the safety it provides. Should she die, she shall be benefiting the state as a whole; a sacrifice which, until becoming involved, you yourselves will have considered necessary." So, the cost of safety is death here, hmm?
"Bullshit..." murmured her dad. "I'll kill you before I let y-"CRACK. As he'd spoke, a small, black and silver rectangle had appeared in the taller mans hand. The end now smoking slightly, as the contents of her father's skull dribbled twisting patterns down both the door and Jane herself. A hole had appeared in the door, a few inches to the left of her head – another in the wall behind her.
She opened her mouth, flapping her jaw, in a vain attempt to form words.
"I'll assume that was a death threat. Such are illegal – and this great country's justice is both swift and fair." He paused, from what had lost all inflection to a cold monotone, he turned the gun on her mother - who had yet to even move, let alone challenge them, "As is its reaction to possible threats." The gun cracked loudly twice more – sending the light fitting shaking, and her mother into violent spasms as she collapsed forwards to the floor, crimson liquid flowing rapidly from two almost disproportionate perforations in her back. Exit wounds? Jane could see bone. Retching emptily, she collapsed to the floor, feeling tears welling in the corners of her eyes.
"Monsters... fucking MONSTERS!" She screamed.
"This won't hurt a bit, my dear" smiled the shorter man, pulling a strangely shaped pistol from a holster in his jacket he levelled it at her, his serene smile warping into a sadistic smirk. He pulled the trigger with a sound like a polite cough. Her vision clouded over instantly, as the tranquillisers spread quickly from her neck to her brain. She slowly collapsed to the side, her face pressing against the floorboards.
"Nice shot" she heard, a distorted roar, as the room stopped spinning, and turned to black.