Kill each other? Yeah, there were some people in the room that the world would be better off without, but none of them really wanted to have to kill anyone.
After a few minutes of silence, someone from the back of the room yelled, "What kind of bullshit is this?"
"Yeah!" A girl with black hair and dark green eyes, standing next to Cat and Linda, Claudia Thompson (BNL Player number 24, graduate) yelled at the TV screen. "This can't be real!"
That caused an uproar in the room, allowing everyone to start demanding to know what kind of prank that statement was. The man on the monitor just sighed and reached for something off screen. A moment later, the wooden sliding doors on the right side of the room opened and made way for ten soldiers dressed in light green digital camouflage and carrying both a berretta on their side and a shotgun in their hand.
Seeing that caused everyone to shut up and look at the soldiers with wide eyes.
"Don't worry, they won't hurt any of you unless I give the order. Now, I need complete silence for this next part, and anyone who interrupts will be shot without warning." The camera zoomed out, showing the map again. "Okay then."
He pointed the baton at the map. "We're on an abandoned island that looks just like this. The three schools where you currently are, are here," he pointed the baton to an eastern square, "here," he pointed the baton to a northern square, "and here." He pointed the baton to a southern square. "Bedford-North Lawrence is in the south, Bloomington South is in the east, and Bloomington North is in the north. Now, we're not going to just released a hundred plus students onto each other at the same time, that'd be madness. So, as you'll see when you obtain your own maps, there are boundaries for each school.
"In reality, those boundaries are electrified barbed wire fencing. They will keep each of you in the southern, northern, and eastern zones for twenty-four hours before a group of Army helicopters comes in to lift carry the boundaries away. After that, whoever is left from the three schools can kill each other off." The camera panned to the right as the man walked over to a table with a dark green Army rucksack and one of the metal necklaces resting on it.
"On to a few more important matters: your collars and supplies. First off, I'm sure all of you have noticed the metal collars around your necks," everyone began to finger them again, "and if you haven't, you did now. These collars monitor your pulse and location, telling us if you're dead or alive, or even where you are." A red square appeared in the corner of the screen. "Every six hours - four times a day - I will be announcing those who have died along with an array of danger zones. This is where the collars really come into play, because if you step into one of those danger zones, we press a button and…BOOM!" Everyone jumped. "The collar explodes. Of course, this will start once the barriers have been lifted. For the first twenty-four hours, the only danger zones will be the schools. Once the last person has been released from each school, you players only have two minutes to get out of the zone before your collars explode."
"Where the fuck do you get off doing this?" The moment that question was ended, one of the soldiers shot his berretta at the back of the boy's head. Cat, Linda, Victor, and Ray turned to see the remnants of Ron Harper (BNL Player number 19, graduate) staring up at the ceiling in shock through grayish brain matter and bright red blood.
Everyone in the room saw and tried not to scream to avoid the same fate happening to them. A huge circle formed around where his body had fallen, and suddenly the security footage of the room appeared on the monitor.
"This is just a fair warning to the two other schools. Bedford-North Lawrence lost a player who spoke out of turn. If you don't want the same to happen to your class, then I suggest keeping your mouths shut."
Everyone looked at the monitor wide-eyed. No one cared about them anymore, they were expendable. Why though? What possibly could have gone through the minds of the government officials when they thought this was a good idea?
The monitor flipped back to the military man. "Now, onto the supplies. Every person gets a rucksack that looks like this." He lifted the rucksack to the camera. "Inside is a map, a watch, a list of all of the players, a pen, a flashlight, feminine products for the girls, a loaf of bread, two bottles of water, and a random weapon. This weapon could be anything from something that would be conventional in a household to something one would imagine existing only in a war zone." He leaned against the table as more soldiers entered the room wheeling in two carts with rucksacks piled on them.
"This game has a time limit of four days, and when that time limit has been reached, if there is more than one person left, then all of the collars will explode, so fight hard to make sure that doesn't happen. All the monitors will now switch over to three separate people who will be releasing everyone by graduate and guest number. I'll see you at the first announcement."
The monitor switched to a white room where a fatigue clad woman was standing with a list in her hand. "Hello there Bedford-North Lawrence class of two-thousand ten and guests. I will now be releasing all of you by graduate and guest number. This will not necessarily be the order in which you signed in, seeing as some of you didn't bring guests, but it's relatively the same. When I call your name, please grab a rucksack and go outside to start the game. Remember, there will be people more dangerous than you, so think things through when you exit the building.
"Graduate number one, Edward Zuniga."
A tan boy with short black hair ran to the front of the room and grabbed a rucksack off the top of the pile before running out of the room and building. The woman on the screen waited a minute before saying, "Guest number one, Shannon Beck."
It continued like this until she reached Cat. "Graduate number eleven, Catherine Black."
Before Cat ran up to grab her rucksack though, she looked at Linda, Victor, and Ray and muttered, "I'll wait for all of you outside of the school."
"Catherine!"
"I'm coming." She ran and grabbed a rucksack as she left the school.
The woman waited another minute. "Guest number eleven, Victor Grey."
Victor grabbed a rucksack and ran as fast as his legs would carry him out of the building.
"Graduate number twelve, Linda Burbanks."
She ran quickly and grabbed a rucksack before darting down the hall and out of the door. As soon as she was out the doors, she noticed that the entire area was completely covered in foliage and the left over evidence of the people who used to live on the island. Linda took a step forward and looked down, seeing a puddle of blood staining her flip-flops.
"What?" She looked at to the left and saw the body of Kenny Clare (BNL Player number 8, graduate) lying there with a silver metal arrow sticking out of his chest. "Oh my god…"
"Linda, move." Ray grabbed his friend's shoulder and led her into the brush.
"Kenny's dead…" She looked back nervously at the bloody corpse. She might not have known him well, but it was nerve wracking to see.
"Yeah, he's dead but we gotta move." Ray held onto her arm and led her towards where he heard Cat and Victor beckoning them.
"Did you guys see who killed Kenny?" Linda asked once the group settled in a small area surrounded closely by thick bushes.
"…Yeah…" Cat shined her flashlight on her right arm where part of Victor's shirt was wrapped around it as makeshift bandages that were covered in blood. "It was Amanda O'Shea," (BNL Player number 3, guest), "Isabella Blackwell's," (BNL Player number 3, graduate), "cousin."
"She shot at you?" Ray asked as his eyes narrowed.
"Yeah."
"People are more than willing to go through with this insanity," Victor sighed.
"I can tell that…" Linda reached into her rucksack for the map and ended up grabbing onto a machine gun. "Damn."
"Holy shit," both boys breathed.
She set the gun on her lap and reached for the map again. She unfolded it and sighed. "Okay, so we're still in the school's zone, but we still have nearly an hour before we really have to be out of the area." She zipped up her rucksack and slipped the map into her front pocket.
Cat reached into her rucksack for her weapon and found that she had a military issue berretta. "Nice."
"I wonder…" Ray reached into his rucksack and pulled out a semi-automatic rifle, and a small bag that contained a vile of red powder labeled "special bonus." "Cool."
"Hmm…" Victor reached into his rucksack and pulled out a pair of black nunchaku. "…That sucks…"
"Sorry Victor," Cat apologized as she tried holding back a laugh.
Linda threw her rucksack onto her back and got into a crouched position. "Let's go. We're probably not the only ones who'll think to hide back here for a quick breather, especially the ones more faint of heart once they see Kenny's body."
"Yeah."
The other three got into crouched positions with their rucksacks on their backs and followed Linda as she looked at the map, trying to lead them to an area she figured no one would be near - the southern beach.
…
BNL Players Remaining: 38
Graduate Number 8 - Kenny Clare
Graduate Number 19 - Ron Harper
Bloomington N. Players Remaining: 55
Bloomington S. Players Remaining: 37
