Surprise! It's another chapter! And y'all thought I had given up on it ;) I already have the final chapter drafted and I'm super excited about it, so no way am I ditching this story, no matter how long the updates are. Haven't answered reviews in foreverrrr so here's a quick token of my appreciation! :D

Mrs. Starry Oak - I'm glad I'm back too!

DarkJeneral - Thank you so much! That's really great to hear :D

triggeredStereotype - I'm so sorry for the wait again but thank you for sticking around even now!

pizzawizz - Thank you so so much! It really is interesting to see what these characters would do in a life or death situation.

ComplicatedYetSimple - Thanks again for sticking around! It really makes me glad that some of my original readers are still reading!

Lachlan Ball - Thanks man! Well, here's Chapter 7! Get reading :D

Guest - I will force myself to finish this!

If ya don't remember what happened, give the last few chapters another read!


"Big O…. No…" Izzy whispered, her eyes welling up with tears. Her usual craziness had completely dissipated and now she was filled with despair.

The room was heavy with sullen silence, for almost everyone had liked and connected with the loveable guy.

"OWEN!" Izzy suddenly crouched down and clutched her hair, screaming at the orb. Suddenly she did the most unexpected thing since the cast woke up in the room. With the inhuman speed and agility she possessed, Izzy leaped from her circle onto Owen's body which was a few metres away, in one swift movement. And for the first time, the electric zaps from the orb missed its intended target. Instead it killed the innocent person standing behind her. Leonard died in Izzy's place .

The whole remaining cast stared at Izzy who was sitting on top of Owen, trying to resuscitate her former flame desperately. Everyone collectively gasped when, without warning, Leonard and Owen's bodies were pulled into the darkness with Izzy still sitting on top of him looking around in confusion.

Izzy, still alive, was consumed by darkness.

"Hey guys! I can see—" she was interrupted by inhuman screams... her very own screams. But they didn't stop short. Izzy's screaming continued for a half a minute. It was a demonic blood-curling howl that caused many of the cast to start crying out themselves. Without warning, the red head's voice abruptly stopped and the smell of burnt meat filled the room.

Zoey started sobbing hysterically.

Gwen was shaking uncontrollably.

Brick wet himself.

Harold hyperventilated.

LeShawna had her hands clasped over her ears and her eyes shut tight.

Even Heather had to suppress tears of fear.

Noah was trembling the most. He had just witnessed two of his closest friends from the show die the most gruesome deaths. He tried to push it out of his mind, convincing himself that that had to happen; it was the only way he was able to live. But even so he couldn't stop shaking. He felt himself blacking out for a few seconds which snapped him back to reality. He looked down and concentrated hard on staying on his circle, trying to push his friends' deaths away.

"I want to go home." Cameron started bawling. "Please, please, please, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE!" What superb intellect the bubble boy possessed had now been overriden by shock, and poor Cameron began to lose his sense of rationality.

There was a horribly sad silence.

Ezekiel had his head down in prayer. He mumbled a few indecipherable phrases and then looked up. "Maybe we should pray, eh?" Ezekiel addressed the group.

"Prayers ain't going to get us out of here, moron." Leshawna snapped angrily.

"Hey, calm down. Let him do whatever will help him." Shawn defended.

"Well, that fool will only be wasting his time. We ain't being looked down upon."

"No, we are, eh. Whether we make it or not, God's got a purpose for all this." Ezekiel asserted.

Cameron looked up at this and felt a little more hopeful.

"Purpose, my foot! We're all abandoned here, left to fend for ourselves, and anyone who can't see this is a darn fool who doesn't deserve to be alive, much less the final person walking out of here!" Leshawna gave her piece of mind. "So don't you go preaching to us church-boy."

"Woah, okay, we're getting off track here. He - Zeke is it? - has a right to live out his final moments however he wants." Shawn resolved. "Don't go painting a target down his back just because of his beliefs, Leshawna."

Leshawna looked flabbergasted. "Excuuuuse me? Is that what y'all think I'm doing? Next you'll be playing the race card claiming I'm targeting all you whites!"

Lightning crossed his arms. "Y'know, maybe that ain't such a bad idea after all."

Many of the cast members gasped.

"Why do y'all look so sha-surprised? I've had my fair share of abuse from the white guys in football always telling me how much I suck or how I can't do nothing as good as them! None of y'all deserve to be the sha-worthiest one to live!"

He angrily eyed the Caucasian males in the room. It was a look that felt out of place on Lightning. The star jock had never expressed such racial contempt on the show but little did everyone know of the manipulation played by one of the scheming dirty eels standing silently in the background. While Leshawna and Shawn has been arguing, Alejandro, who was standing behind Lightning, planted the idea of starting an argument in his thick head.

"Back up Leshawna's argument and I can personally guarantee they'll vote her off next." He slyly whispered. Of course, the Latino did not believe this. Now that the plan to vote off Dakota had failed terribly, Alejandro's new goal was to stir conflict, in hopes that he and Heather would harmlessly pass through the rounds as the other teens hopelessly argued amongst themselves.

When Lightning made that racial comment, the Spaniard felt a little relieved. The star jock was sure to be voted off. That was until a new voice spoke up.

"I can't believe what you're saying!" Topher fumed. "You're going to vote us white people just because of some petty feud?! "

"Sha-duh."

It wasn't white supremacy or discrimination that caused the wannabe host to say what he said next, but rather the increasing panic that his life could be cut short that skewed his judgement. "You really are as dumb as they say you people are."

"EXCUSE ME?" Leshawna verbally stepped in. She rolled up her sleeve. "EXCUSE ME?"

Beep.

Topher suddenly realised his mistake and put his hands up in defence.

"Woah, th- that was uncalled for. I'm so sorry." He sincerely apologised. "I just... my heads not right, especially after Lightning threatened to… to kill us off."

"NUH-UH, I DONT THINK SO." Leshawna boomed. Having been raised in a white neighbourhood, the ghetto girl had been subject to racial discrimination for a good part of her childhood. She was not ready to back down and let the dignity of her fellow African-Canadians be humiliated, even in this twisted game of life and death. She would stand for her rights, or die trying."YOU ARE GOING DOWN."

Beep. Beep. Beep.

"Hey settle down," Brick attempted to play peacekeeper. "He's trying to apologise. This whole thing's screwed everyone up, causing us to say things we shouldn't. Take…" he faltered for a bit. "Jo. And, and Duncan."

"Yeah, but racism is not something you can just 'accidentally' advocate for." Jasmine growled, having experienced her fair share of discrimination as an Indigenous Australian.

Beepbeepbeep

"I'm sorry… I was… I'm just so, so scared." Topher whispered as he closed his eyes…

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

"Wha..?"

...

Topher tentatively opened his eyes and found himself illuminated by a column of light. He looked around and found himself tied with not only Leshawna, but also Lightning.

"Oh man. Ohmanohman." The white boy didn't know if he should feel more relieved or terrified.

"Leshawna, no!" Harold began to cry. His heart broke even more when Leshawna caught his eye with an equally terrified glance.

"Uh… n-now what?" Rodney feebly asked.

"Whaddaya think? We vote, dummy!" Anne Maria replied.

"...no..." Courtney suddenly spoke up. "No."

Everyone looked at the CIT in anticipation. Courtney took a deep breath. All the pain and empathy she harboured in Duncan's death, she had finally managed to shove away in the dark recesses of her mind. While everyone else had volunteered and argued and attempted to vote off Dakota, Courtney tried to remain silent, willing herself to move on for her sake. For Duncan's sake. Now, Courtney didn't care who else had to die; she would live, regardless of the price.

"Why bother saving them? We shouldn't vote. Let them all die."

At those harsh words, many of the ex-contestants gasped at such a notorious proposition. Courtney braced herself as she glanced around the circle. She caught Alejandro's eye and he subtly nodded at her, for the latino understood the practicality of what she was saying.

"We're at the halfway point people. We all want this game to hurry up so we can survive and leave. This is the perfect time to get rid of three players and let this torture finish!" She argued passionately. "And besides, how many of you actually want to choose who to vote for? This is a break from the murder we've been doing all along! This is our one chance to stop choosing who to send to their deaths!"

There was silence as those words sank in. Everyone was unanimously conflicted; Courtney made a very valid and very tempting point. Not voting would result in three less people, meaning greater odds of survival.

Lightning broke the silence. "What? No!"

Justin tried to ignore Lightning's panicked face as he addressed the rest of the group. "Guys, maybe… maybe Courtney is right. Not voting means three less people stand in our way, right?"

"Th-th-that is logically true, eh." Ezekiel stammered as he came to terms with what Courtney was saying.

Beep.

"Courtney, we ain't animals! You can't do this!" Leshawna cried in outrage.

Two arguments began to take place at once. The teenagers who were currently all tied pled to the group for mercy, that it was not fair all three should be murdered. Simultaneously, Courtney was also trying to reason with the rest of the group, and it soon became evident that her argument was becoming the winning choice. And as the majority of the group began to murmur in agreement, the more conflicted cast members also began to feel pressured in following suit, especially a certain ginger.

No words could ever explain how ashamed he was for feeling this way, but Harold felt extremely tempted by Courtney's proposal. Sure the scrawny nerd was infatuated with Leshawna, but throughout the seasons of Total Drama, he began to recognise that it was not a mutual love on the ghetto girl's part. How many times had Leshawna claimed to have liked him back, only to immediately turn on her word? Though Harold was always quick to take her back when she changed her mind, it was far too many times than he liked. The geek knew that his attraction for her was not strong, and Leshawna only had herself to blame for that. He tried to convince himself that it would be wrong to let Leshawna follow her fate, he really really did, but his love was simply not too strong; his survival instincts won out.

Beepbeepbeepbeep.

"No, no, no." Topher began to wail.

Lightning was wide-eyed and paralysed, unable to comprehend what was about to become of him.

"Shawnie never cries…" she whispered as she stared at the orb head on. In the last split second before her life ended, she locked eyes with her former flame. The hurt look on his face was all that it took for Harold to immediately regret his decision with a pain he had never felt before.

ZAAAAPPPPPP.

Three bodies came crashing onto the floor.

Silence.

"What did I just do?" Gwen buried her face in her hands as she cried. "Leshawna was- is my friend."

"It was the only way." Courtney feebly answered.

"Courtney's right. We shouldn't have to feel bad for what we did." Noah crossed his arms "That was a reasonable and practical way to do what we needed to do to survive."

Even though Noah was situated right in front of Harold, the ginger couldn't concentrate as the latter was attempting to explain the 'logic' of their actions. Harold was so overwhelmed by such pain and regret. How could he have betrayed Leshawna? The girl who saw right through his flaws? The girl of his dreams?

It was you. Harold stared at Courtney who was across the circle from him and felt an inhuman anger rise up in him. You fiend! You monster!

"It was their fault for putting a target on their own backs, after all." Noah shrugged as he finished up. "Their fault if they wanted to play the race card..."

Harold couldn't take it anymore. The pain, the anger, the regret - it was all too much.

"...Nothing we can do about that."

With all the strength he could muster, he pushed Noah out of his circle. And that was the last thing the two boys ever remembered.


mwahaha i hope that was a surprise, especially considering I kinda set up Noah as if he was going to go far in this game. only goes to show you that anybody can die or live, no matter how much focus i've put on those characters.

also the views represented by the characters are not representative of my own views so please don't go flaming on me for that. it's just to develop the more political side of the story that hasn't been explored as of now.

Anyway please review! Show me that this story is not forgotten and is still loved!

Thanks so much and until next time~