[THe SToRY iS BeST ReaD iN WHiTe oN BLaCK + THe FoNT aRiaL]

ReaD oNWaRDS iF You DaRe...

Everything was dark and hazy, as it was in most of Scarlett's dreams. Growing up without a proper family had left her with a strange void in her mind that when left to it's own devices, showed nothing but darkness and mystery. Maybe it was the lack of love recieved as a child, or the bitter thoughts harbored by a girl who grew up feeling lonely and neglected, but whatever it was, it was nothing, and as strange yet comfortably familiar as it was to Scarlett, there was one thing she did know. She was not safe. The bus was a blur, everybody falling asleep or dead even, as if they had all had some slow acting poison and expired at the same time. It was like something out of those creepy stories Miss Kathy used to read Scarlett before she went to sleep as the child, where the figure in the red cloak came into the castle which had been locked up by the rude king so he and all the other noblepeople could drink wine and party as the countryside around them succumbed to the plague - punishing them for thinking that their foolish luxury and extravagance could shield them from the pain and death of the peasants wasting away in the fields outside. All of the rich people died at once, and then were reanimated, dancing as they had been doing before, but their skin red and bleeding. They danced the danse macabre and dragged the evil king down to hell with them and then the man in the red cloak, who was actually a personification of the disease itself, left the castle and met up with all the other plagues before moving to a different land.

A siren rang out, like those ones in England during the World Wars whenever Germans were dropping bombs over London. Scarlett felt herself wake up and her eyes fluttered open, before closing themselves again at the harsh light that nearly blinded her. She rolled onto her side and could feel something warm around her neck, something that had slowly been heated by her blood and flesh and despite that favour, was ready to spray one and burn the other if she so much as tried to remove it. She rolled herself onto her front and her face met the cool floor, there was some light sweat on her pale face and she started to feel the plastic covering of the floor cling to her face as she tried to pull away. Opening her eyes and gasping in shock, she realized that the entire floor of the room had a large sheet of transparent tarp over it, the sort of thing serial killers and torturers used to collect the blood of their kills so they wouldn't leave any D.N.A anywhere. Pulling herself to her knees, Scarlett could see that she was in what appeared to be a kids classroom, only all the colors from the posters, charts and wall displays had long faded away, giving every tone in the room other than the people in it a grey on gray effect. Staggering to her feet, Scarlett fingered the collar around her neck and saw that everybody else had one, a band of silvery metal, slightly bigger over the apple of the throat than it was on the rest, and on that a tiny glass panel with a blinking red light behind it.

On the back of each collar was a small yet complicated locking system, and Scarlett instantly feared that neither she or anybody else would be able to take this off themselves.

Suddenly, the door exploded open and slammed against the wall sending out a cloud of dust. A huge metal trolley was rolled into the room by a soldier-type person, that looked like the sort workers at the supermarket used to carry products from the back of the store to the shelves, only this one had been spraypainted a shade of olive green and carried what looked like nearly 50 army-looking bags. At least eleven other soldier men followed the one who had pushed in the trolley in single fire, before turning, pointing their guns into the sealing and each unloading a single bullet in sequence. Everybody began screaming and rushing around, pushing at others to find a safe place to hide and trampling those who had already fallen. A strong hand hit Scarlett between the shoulderblades and sent her to the floor where she slid a few feet over the plastic before hitting the wall and bumping her head. She yelped in pain and lifted a hand to her scalp, weaving her fingers between her shoulderlength hair that she had dyed a seductive yet alternative shade of cherry red, drawing her fingers away and examining them, she found droplets of dark blood on her fingers, causing her to grimace. At least half of the class made a mad dash for the door which the soldiers had entered through, and several were jabbed with the butts of rifles or shoved to the ground whilst those who were more aggressive in their escape attempt were clubbed over the head.

The soldiers retreated several steps and each fired several rounds into the ground at the same time, causing any of the students still standing after the frontline assault to jump backwards in fright, and trip over their already downed peers. Scarlett felt a hand on her shoulder and looked up into the face of Bones, neither of them said anything for a moment or two before Bones turned Scarlett around and examined her head before gasping at the sight of the wound.

"We need to get you cleaned up..I'm gonna say something." Bones said in a serious tone.

"No don't!" Scarlett cried, "They'll kill you!" and with that she grabbed Bones by the hand as he tried to stand up, and pulled him back down to his knees.

"Wow." He said, "You're kinda stronger than you look."

"I'm so sorry about what I said on the bus!" Scarlett cried, "My head was feeling all funny, I didn't know what I was saying!"

"It's okay..." Bones said glancing up at the soldiers, "I think we were all acting funny. They gassed us."

"Gassed us?" Scarlett cried in shock, "Why?"

"I don't know..." Bones started, "But as far as I'm aware, we're not on the mainland anymore."

"How can you tell?" Scarlett asked.

"I can hear the sea." Bones replied.

"We might be on the coast, somebody will come to find us!" Scarlett stated optimistically.

"No." Bones replied, "The coast is practically inhabited all the way down, somebody would have found us by now if we were there. I think...We're definitely out at sea."

"ALL OF YOU MAGGOTS SHUT UP!" Cried a deep, hoarse voice. All eyes went up to the thirteenth man who had joined the room, he had deeply tanned skin that was pink and sunburnt in places, the sleeves of his uniform rolled up to reveal tattooed wrists. His eyes were hidden behind aviators, and there was no hair beneath his army cap. "I AM CAPTAIN BOYD AND YOU ALL WILL ADDRESS ME AS SUCH!"

"Calm down Castor." Said a female voice, "You'll break the mics." In walked a woman, barely a year or two older than any of the students in the room. She was pale and slim, with dark brown hair, nearly black, cascading down her back. Her eyes were deep and hooded, her eyelashes long and curled, and purple eyeshadow giving her a near vamp-like look. She was several feet shorter than Captain Boyd, who in all rights was practically a giant and looked like he could pick her up with one hand and toss her half a mile, and pick up any of the burly soldiers behind them and snap their spines like twigs.

The woman in black stepped to the front of the room and with a devilish smile, said "Hello class A. I am Ebony Hunter, and I'll be your hostess for the next three days." Her movements were sensual and poised, like an actress from old silent movies who had to convey emotion in each and every movement, yet her voice was blunt and deadpan. Everything about this woman screamed femme fatale, and despite the fact she looked like a high class escort, she had an aura of coldness and sadism. Something about those eyes was enchanting, and not in a flattering way, she was like one of those big snakes in the jungle who hypnotised helpless animals into being compliant, so she could wrap herself around their frail bodies and crush their bones into dust.

The class erupted in voices, people demanded to know where they were, what was happening to them, why there were collars around their necks and what had happened to Mr Phillips. They were all hushed by the powerful motion of Ebony raising the palm of her hand to silence them, before she turned and pulled down a projector screen over the chalkboard and with a snap of her fingers, had a video appear on it. The video was silenced and merely showed the globe rotating, before zooming into north america, then to the eastern seaboard and then to an island in the atlantic that was close enough to the US mainland to be considered part of the country, but far enough away that it seemed perfectly isolated and forgotten. Then colour seeped into the digital reconstruction of the island, detailing wooden cabins admist a forest of pine and conifer trees, what appeared to be dirt roads leading into a dirty little shantytown and cold beaches littered with dark sand and hard rocks. Everything became computer animated again and the perspective shifted to birdseye, where the whole island was then divided into what looked like a chessboard.

"This is where you'll be spending the next 72 hours, and this little square here-" She said, pointing to one of the squares in the northwestern part of the island with a dark fingernail, "Is where you all currently are. You are going to leave this place soon, and you won't be able to return. After the last of you has left, this area will become a dangerzone, and simply entering it will warrant a swift execution."

People gasped and began whispering in fear, and then somebody raised their hand. Ebony Hunter motioned for the person to stand up, and it was revealled to be Andrew Scott, the class representative. He was a strong willed and decent looking boy who was interested in politics and eventually gaining a position in the US government, he seemed like a nice enough boy but Scarlett always secretly thought that somebody with such powerful ambitions was bound to be a snake. "What do you mean a swift execution? That implies death and I'll state the obvious that all of us, including you, our captors, are US citizens. To touch a single hair on our heads, let alone executing us, would be a serious violation of the law. Are you taking us hostage? We're from willowfield, ohio, we're not rich, we're all upper middleclass at best - so you better release us right now!"

"In response to that question, by quick execution we mean that yes, you will die - those collars you are wearing around your neck not only track your location on the island, but also monitor your life signs. If any of you act out of line or enter a dangerzone, and trust me, we'll add more every six hours, we will send a signal via radiowaves to a chip in your collar which will then tell the explosives lined around the inside to detonate. It isn't a very powerful blast, but trust me, it's truly lethal." Ebony said in a disinterested voice before clicking her fingers again and turning the projector off as everybody began crying and grabbing their collars, "But before we have an accident, I should just act that we don't need to send radiowaves if you begin trying to sabotage the collars or attempting to remove them, you'll simply set off an internal alarm system and they'll explode completely automatically - with no intervention from us."

All hands in the room dropped away from the collars instantly.

"As for the whole law and order debacle," Ebony started, "Yes, practically everyone in this room is a US citizen and the killing of anybody in this room is paramount to murder - a punishable offence in the eyes of the supreme court. Castor, his soldiers, the technicians and myself are all employed by a small and hidden branch of the US government that keeps frequent contact with the-"

"Republic of Greater East Asia..." Daisuke Ando said, the expression on his face frozen in shock and on the verge of tears. Daisuke was generally popular and funny, always invited to parties and social get togethers, there was hardly anybody that could dislike somebody as optimistic and easygoing as him.

"Yes, I believe you're familiar with the going-ons of that secretive nation, aren't you Daisuke - or should I say Shinji, being an illegal refugee." Ebony replied.

Scarlett, and probably nobody else in the class had any idea that Daisuke was explicitally from Japan. Everybody knew that he was Japanese in origin, but they all assumed he had simply grown up in the U.S. he didn't have a trace of a Japanese accent - and nobody knew why Ebony was calling him by a different name. Nobody knew what went on in the Republic, it was so shady and secretive, there wasn't even any mutual trade or shipping between them and the U.S. They were completely shut-off and isolated, as if the whole area was one giant impenetrable fortress.

"All of you are going to fight to the death on this island, and you have 72 hours to do it or else you're all going to die. Only one of you can leave this island alive. You'll each take a bag from the trolley over there which contains all the supplies you need, food, water, a map, compass and a random weapon...And then you'll leave this building and never come back - What is it now?" Ebony asked, pointing towards the other raised hand, this time belonging to a female.

"And what if we refuse?" Chloe Hill said, Chloe, like Andrew, was a political type, but instead of being interested in law and affairs like he was, she was into charity and welfare, she was an ace student who belonged both to the student government and the debate team, and even though Scarlett saw Chloe as less powerhungry than Andrew, Chloe was certainly more up herself. "What you're asking us to do is primitive and barbaric, battles and slaughters like this are frowned upon in the developed and sophisticated western world, and our government surely does not approve of this. Whether or not somebody survives this political tarbaby or we all die, what methods do you have of forcing our hands? We deserve freedom and respect!"

"Well..." Ebony said, "Your teacher, Mr Phillips is quite a like-minded individual to yourself, Miss Hill. He too didn't believe that any of you would partake in the activities that we have arranged, and that it was ethically and morally wrong to get any of you to participate. He was quite persuasive, I was quite moved by his passionate speech."

The doors were opened and a large leathery bag was wheeled into the room on a hospital gurney. The wheels squeaked with rust and a strange fluid had seemed to seep through the zipper of the bag and leave a trail along the floor that looked like fruitpunch. Ebony motioned for the soldier who had wheeled in the bag to unzip the bodybag halfway, and as he did so, revealing the gruesome contents and causing everybody to scream, Ebony pulled out a silver plated handgun from the holster strapped around her thigh and held it up.

"But he just couldn't reason with my gun..."

People screamed and moaned, some began to cry whilst others covered their eyes and tried to make their way to the back. Somebody vomited onto the plastic and the horrible smell met Scarlett's nose and she felt her stomach doing somersaults. Bones gripped her shoulder tightly, staring with morbid curiosity as the dead body of Mr Phillips, a bullet in the center of his forehead that blasted a large hole through the back of his skull, and caused the contents of which to pour out in a thick red goop, before staring away in disgust and biting down on his lip. Scarlett had covered both of her eyes with her hands, but stared between her fingers at the destroyed head as the brains and gore slowly rain down the legs of one of the gurney before collecting in a bloody quad just above the wheel, before falling to the floor and exploding with a squelch as the gurney, being pulled away again, ran it over. Ebony slid the gun back into her holster before rolling her black pencil skirt back down to conceal it, her black heels clicking against the ground as she marched over to the desk and retrieved a red envelope from it.

"Anyway, before I open this and reveal who the lucky one of you is who gets to leave first-" Ebony started before rolling her hypnotic eyes, "Christ, all of you stop whimpering and grow up! Haven't you seen a dead body before! You should all smile and count yourselves lucky, you'll be famous now! You're on to the internet!" And with that she pointed her finger in sequence to the cameras suspended from the cieling that nobody had noticed before.

"Sickos and sadists all over the world will be paying one hundred bucks each for every hour we stream this game to their computers! Don't you get it? They're your new fans and admirers, and to them, you're their champions and idols. So you better do each and every one of them proud and make their viewing very pleasurable and exciting." Ebony said in a sick voice, as if accusing everybody in the room of being ungrateful, "Which reminds me, we need to make two eliminations now to whet their appetites, they won't start giving us their credit details until we give them a little blood. Now...Which of you little piggies gets to die first?"

NoW THaT You HaVe MeT THe BuTCHeRS...ReaD aND ReVieW!