Chapter One

Drowning into the Night

The Landing zone was almost full, there were a total of 89 people, teams from ranging between two and four individuals from almost every single nationality in the world. There was fear in the environment as no one knew who was going to be the first team eliminated or the first person to hit the dust. There were rumors that the last 10 people would be selected randomly as they didn't had an affiliation to any team and a solo player would be joining in the squads to break the number even as the producers couldn't find an equal number of contestants that passed the preliminaries.

Palma Martinez was 19, also she was one of the younger players selected for the battle royal; she was quite petite also by being around 4'9'' and extremely pale as if she was a ghost. She was sitting with her team which consisted on other three people and her being the leader of the team, but she was concerned what to do on the field as they never developed a strategy to win the game.

Not far away from her, the last bus arrived to the docking station, the last 10 people where there, 9 of them where in a team and one of them was a single player who was asked to join to make the number even. She was analyzing them, to see if she could spot the single player as that would be the easy kill. She knew by first hand that the last 10 people where paired in a lottery as they didn't have proper sponsorship and language barrier could become an issue; she was trying to remember their faces, so she could kill them first.

She saw a team composed by two women and one man, the man had a heavy Portuguese accent and the two women seemed to be also Americans, maybe from Tennessee? She wasn't sure, as she only met two people from that State, while she was living in California with her mother after they moved from Bayamon. The second team consisted of two people she couldn't identity their nationality, but she assumed to be from somewhere in Southeast Asia, the last two teams consisted on a girl's duo and three boys.

She started to wonder if the single player made a pact with one of the teams, so they wouldn't be suspected to be the weakest link of the game and an easy prey. All the players were waiting for the instructions until they heard the voices of the hosts.

"Hello people! We are your hosts Mako and Samara" They appeared from a screen in the middle of the sky. Mako was a young woman, with black hair but also she had a heavy Quebecois accent even if she spoke English and Samara wasn't too different albeit she had some vague accent that was probably from Ireland.

"The rules as you know are simple! the last team standing wins, it doesn't matter if you are the last member of your team, it means your team will win" Said Samara while dancing on the screen, showing as if she was happy.

"That means the money will be yours! And that is exciting ladies and gents. You need to collect your ammunition and weapons, also there will be health kids around, which some of them could contains injections of adrenaline and a few other goodies if you find yourself wounded" Mako was also showing the same enthusiasm as Samara, which it gave Palma a creepy vibe that they were waiting for the carnage.

"Every 60 minutes thanks to the fabulous De Mol Corporation, which also hosts this event around the world, we are going to implement a barrier around the island, that will shrink and will force you to go to the designated safe area in which the last team or player will be considered the winner of the tournament." Said the host in perfect sync.

"There is also one little thing you need, two of them, well some. The first one if you get caught in the barrier you will be pulverized or something like that; the second one you will see navy ships around the island, those aren't there to help you as they are designated for two scenarios, in case there is no winner by the designated time (6 PM) of tomorrow evening they will bombard the entire island and if you fall on the ocean because you miscalculated they have orders to execute any of you, even if you are dragged by a breeze… you have ten minutes to board the modern transportation device, which is a bus with balloons and rocket launchers" Mentioned Mako in a sarcastic tone.

Palma was freaking out, she wasn't expecting to be such a brutal game; even if she saw some fragments of previous tournaments, she never imagined it was designated to leave as little survivors as possible, she was really freaking out. The bus started to take flight, and everyone got their parachutes and maps, she spoke with her team to land on Tomato Town and from there kill anyone even if it had to be with their bare hands.

To everyone's surprise, all of them where given a weapon, it was a pickaxe, it could be used to gather supply such as wood or try to make themselves a fort or anything, it could be used to kill. Palma was thinking about the brutality that was going to start but she was thinking that she was doing that for fame and to gain political power when she went back to Puerto Rico.

"Everyone. In 60 seconds the bus will destroy itself, is time to jump" Said a male voice coming from the audio system that was inside the bus.

"Wait, when we reach Tomato Town, we will jump" Mentioned Palma to her team.