First Hour – 44 Students Remaining

Barret checked his watch quickly; still two minutes till midnight. "One last thing before I forget. You are more or less free to roam about the island as you like for the duration of this game, with one exception; two minutes after the last student leaves, this building and the area around it will become off limits, meaning that any student who comes with one-hundred feet of this place afterward will have their collar automatically detonated."

Checking his watch one more time, Barret couldn't help but let a smile play on his lips as he saw that it was time to start the game. "Enough preamble. Now that's all taken care of, let's get things started." Reaching back onto the table behind him, Barret pulled a clipboard out of the confines of the pack and read the first name from the list in front of him.

"Alright, the first lucky contestant is B1: Kevin Landers."

****

Kevin stood up slowly, not quite trusting his legs to support him yet, and forced his face into an expression of neutrality as he walked towards the front of the room. There stood the large rack of bags that contained their supplies for the next three days and the weapons that they would use to kill each other. The hooded figure that stood next to the rack threw one of these bags at him as he approached, and he caught it as it hit him in the chest.

He turned around to leave, but couldn't help but pause as he caught sight of all the other students in the room, many of which would likely be dead before he got the chance to see them again. Not a violent person at heart, Kevin realized just how hard this game would be on everyone. The people in this game had all known each other for years of their life; in some cases even longer. That familiarity alone would make it much harder to kill each other, not to mention the relationships, friendships or grudges involved. This game would affect them in ways that it wouldn't a group of strangers.

At the sound of someone clearing their throat behind him, he turned around once more to see Barret tapping his watch with the barrel of his pistol and wearing an impatient expression. "One minute."

Kevin lifted the pack up and placed the strap over his head before hurrying towards the back of the room, stopping only to lean down and whisper a message to his girlfriend that he would meet her outside. As he approached the double doors at the back of the large room, the two cloaked figures on either side grabbed one of the handles and pulled them open, closing them again behind him as he passed. Waiting for him on the other side of the doors was a short corridor leading to another set of double doors which presumably lead outside.

Two rows of armed and cloaked soldiers stood on either side of the corridor, flanking him as he made his way slowly towards the heavy-looking metal doors opposite him. The fact that none of the soldiers moved an inch as he passed, and the fact that they all looked almost identical to each other- except for minor differences in height and build- unnerved him slightly and did nothing to help with his already nervous state. Feeling a sudden need to get out of there quickly, Kevin sprinted the rest of the corridor and pushed open the double doors without slowing down. He paid no attention to his new surroundings, focusing only on the tree line directly in front of him. He stopped running once he had made it under the cover of the trees, only now seeing how dark it was outside- the only light being provided by the single, solitary floodlight above the exit he had just passed through. His current position gave him a perfect view of the doors to the mess hall, and would allow him to see everyone who left the building without them seeing him. All he had to do now was wait.

****

Steven Ambrose, aka B3, stood calmly from his seat as his name was called and walked over to collect his pack confidently yet swiftly. He turned around, and with a quick flash of a smile to the other students, he walked out of the room. As soon as he was outside, however, he let the act drop, taking off at a dead sprint the second the large metal doors closed behind him, not wasting any time in putting as much distance between him and the next student to leave as he could. His pack weighed heavy on his shoulder, banging against his side with every step as he leapt over a small bush, signalling his transition from the open area just outside the mess hall to the forest that made up most of the island.

As he ran, he thought about his chances in the game; and truth be told they weren't that good. True, outside of the game he had quite a bit going for him; he was popular, good looking, and had enough charm to get by. However, none of that mattered here. Physically, he wasn't very strong or in very good shape, as the painful stitch in his side proved to him. Plus, he really didn't know the first thing about weapons, fighting, first-aid and anything else that would help him survive out here.

He slowed down to a brisk walk to save his breath, readjusting his pack higher on his shoulder. His only real chance at survival in this game would be to ally himself with one of the other students, even if only temporarily. This, at least, would be easy for him. Being an almost constant fixture in the school theatre productions and starring in more than a few had made him somewhat of a school celebrity; making him popular, or at least well known, at all levels of the schools hierarchy.

Of course, teaming up would only help him to survive- not win. To win he'd have to play the game, he'd have to kill his fellow students. To be honest this was not something that exactly bothered Steven. True, if he wasn't being forced, he would never even consider killing another person. But if it was a choice between his life and theirs? That was really no choice at all. The only problem was how, and then it hit him. He was a good actor, which in turn made him a good liar; he'd always been able to charm and lie his way through any situation he'd tried to, and he would do the same here. He would find another student or even a group of them and then he would charm his way into allying with them; he would make them trust him, make them lower their guard, and when they least expected it he would stab them in the back.

Of course, all this planning was pointless if he didn't get a decent weapon. Before doing anything else, he needed to find a nice secluded spot where he could settle down and search through his pack to see what he had to work with.

****

G6, aka Samantha Winters, clutched her pack to her chest as she stood outside the mess hall, looking nervously from side to side as she tried to decide what to do now. After a while, she realized she made a pretty good target; standing directly under the spotlight above the door and outlined against the wall of the building like she was. She moved into the tree line directly to her left, feeling a little calmer and less vulnerable once she made it under the darkness and cover provided by the branches overhead.

She leaned back against the trunk of a nearby tree and closed her eyes, trying to think of someway out of the current situation. She gave up when all that entered her mind was the image of Mr. Edwards severed and bloodied head soaring through the air before bouncing across a table. She wasn't cut out for this game; she wasn't used to that kind of violence. Before seeing that she only thought of violence and death as things that existed solely in the movies; and she would have preferred to keep it that way. Yet here she was, on an island in the middle of nowhere being forced into a death match with her peers.

Samantha was so absorbed in her thoughts that she didn't see or hear the person approaching her through the trees until he had gotten close enough to place a hand on her arm. She quickly snapped out of her thoughts upon feeling the sudden contact, and turned to run. But the hand tightened around her arm before she could put any distance between the two of them. She was about to scream for help when a calm and familiar voice reached her through her panic.

"It's okay, Sam. It's me."

She turned around as the speaker let go of her arm and was met with the welcome sight of her boyfriend, Kevin, easily recognizable to her even in the meagre light available. In any other circumstance, she would have been happier to see him; as it was it just meant that he was stuck in the same life or death situation she was.

"Kevin, what're we going to do?"

"I don't know. This is all happening so fast. I need more time to think things through. For now, I think we should just get as far away from this place as we can" With that said, he turned around and walked away. He headed deeper into the trees, looking back over his shoulder every few steps to make certain she was still following. Samantha quickly threw her pack over her shoulder and hurried to catch up with him. She knew this program would be Hell on both of them, but she was glad she was with the person she trusted and cared for more than any other in the game. Few others were as lucky.

****

Looking down at the gun in his hands, Tim Scotts, aka B12, had no choice but to conclude that the Battle Royale was indeed real. He had hoped that it was just a hoax, a nightmare, a delusion; anything other than what it seemed to be. Unfortunately, that was not the case; the weapon that currently weighed heavily in his hands wasn't a fake. No matter how many times he looked away it didn't go away or change, it was real; real gun, real bullets, real trigger. It was all real.

He sighed as he reached for the box of bullets that he found in the pack with the weapon and, with the help of the instruction manual, proceeded to load the large .357 magnum rounds into the revolver. The manual that Tim found with the gun told him that it was a Colt Python; a double-action revolver and easily one of the most powerful weapons on the island. He wasn't sure why he was loading it, he didn't plan on using it; killing wasn't something that Tim could bring himself to do. He doubted he could even point it at anyone convincingly, but it was still better to be safe than sorry. At the very least he could fire off some warning shots, maybe scare people away if they tried to attack him.

Would anyone really attack him, though? Could anyone really be considering killing just to save themselves? He knew the answer to his question before he even finished thinking it; of course people were going to consider it. Whether out of fear, paranoia, malice or just the will to survive, the people in this game were going to kill each other. But not him. He couldn't; he just didn't have it in him to hurt someone, let alone kill them.

He finished loading the revolver and packed everything except the gun back into the pack. Closing it up, he lifted it onto his shoulder and began to walk deeper into the forest. Just because he wasn't going to play, that didn't mean he was just going to sit around and wait for death. No, he was going to find as many people like him as he could; all the people who didn't want anything to do with the game. Then he'd keep them alive for as long as possible. It didn't matter what Barret said; three days was a long time. Someone would find them, someone would come and rescue them. If not, then someone would escape. There were a lot of smart people on that bus and he refused to believe that none of them could think of some way to beat this game. He just had to make sure he was around long enough to see it.

It may have been naive of him to think that he could keep so many people alive for so long; it was probably naive to think he could even keep himself alive that long. However, none of that mattered. It was either this or play the game, and no matter what he would not have blood on his hands. Not unless it was his own.