Sorry for the lack of action. Some pretty shocking deaths will come along soon, though the body count will become insanely high only when darkness falls. :)

"Jay, nooo!"

"Stop it, Josie! Remember what we said?!"

"But they're my friends!"

"Just as everybody else in the whole class said… where the fuck do you live, Josie?! How many deaths there have been?! And what, do you think they all simply committed suicide or what?!"

Josephine Anderson let go of her brother's hand and turned away, sobbing. Jacob was right...

The boy tried to pull off the safety pin of the grenade with his teeth, as seen in the movies, but realised he couldn't, and used his hand instead, cursing stupid Hollywood directors. Then, as in baseball (he used to play as a hobby), threw the grenade from zone D4 to E4, using the mountain's slope to his advantage. In zone E4, Fran had raised her binoculars in that exact moment.

"Frannie…?" Hannah raised her head, scared.

"Just run! Fast! RUN!!!"

Hannah, still holding her axe, stood up and motioned for her bag, but Fran stopped her.

"Leave it!"

Fran grasped her friend's hand and pulled her away. A few seconds later Hannah noticed the flying object, and her eyes widened. She had seen things like that in war movies: a hand grenade!

Hannah could follow Fran only with difficulties, as she had the axe for one, and, second, the other girl could run far better with her tennis shoes, while she had cute little loafers with ribbons.

A second later a loud explosion was heard, and Hannah felt as if she had been struck with hot kinives in her back and leg as she fell down. Fran got a splinter only in her right shoulder, but Hannah pulled her down as well.

"Hannah! Hannah, are you okay?!"

The other girl just whimpered in pain; her red dress became darker around a triangular piece of grenade in her back, while her right leg bled heavily. The piece could not be seen, it must have got deep in the wound. Luckily, though, it seemed they managed to avoid most of them, probably because of the trees and the bushes, too.

"Hannah! Does it hurt very much? Hannah!"

"I'm… alive…" the skin on Hannah's face was scratched off, and the left lens of her glasses cracked, now looking like a spiderweb.

"Come! We gotta run, now!"

Hannah stood up shakily, but fell almost immediately, her right leg getting heavy.

"Stand up! Hannah! Hannah!"

"I can't, Frannie! I'm gonna die!"

"Stop speaking nonsense! Get up, and come! Wait… I got something in my bag…"

Fran left Hannah and went back looking for their stuff, but of their bags, only torn shards remained, water bottles broken, so nothing of use.

She ran back to Hannah, whose right leg turned all red by then, but the bleeding started to slow down around both her wounds. Fran knew she couldn't just pull the splinters out.

"God, Hannah! Please, hold on!"

She couldn't leave her alone, but she knew Jacob (as she had seen him very well), or anyone else alerted by the explosion, could come along any moment to finish the job.

Hannah began to sweat, and cried in Fran's arms.

"I'm gonna die!"

"You're not! I'm here with you!" a thin trail of blood descended from Fran's shoulder, making Hannah's hair sticky.

"Water…! Frannie, water…!" panted Hannah.

What should I do now? Just say there's nothing to drink?!

"There's no water! Our bags are gone!"

"Spotty! Water! Leopard! Water!"

Hannah began to speak nonsense.

"You want Spotty?" Fran looked at her a little uncertain.

"Spotty! Water! I wanna die with Spotty!"

Fran had heard enough.

"You're not gonna die, get it?! Come with me!" with this, she tried hard to drag Hannah away from there.

"I'm dying! I'm gonna die!"

"You. Are. Not. Gonna. Die!" Fran noticed they had only the binoculars around her neck, as Hannah must have dropped the axe.

"Wait for me, I'll be back in a minute!"

"I'm gonna die! Gonna die!"

Fran tried not to listen, picked up the axe with her left hand (thank goodness she was left-handed!), and ran back to Hannah.

"Spotty…!"

"He died!" Fran had seen the peluche pieces around the remains of Hannah's backpack "now, come!"

"I can't! I'm dying!"

"Stop it, no, you're not!" Fran grabbed her friend's shoulder, and shook her "you're not gonna die!"

"Jay, what's now?"

"No idea…"

"They're dead?! You've killed Fran and Hannah?!"

"Josie, I told you I don't know! I can't see them any more!"

"Let's go and see!"

"What if they've got a gun?"

"At least… they must be wounded, right?"

Josie bit her lip. She's just sitting on the top of the mountain, quietly discussing with her brother whether two girls she liked were dead, or better, if they managed to kill them.

"Come, Jay!" she took Jacob's hand, but he pushed her away.

"It's safer here."

He left no place for objections.

"Hannah…?"

"I'm trying, Frannie…" Hannah smiled slightly; she couldn't stand up and felt pretty weak, too, but somehow could move, half kneeling and crawling.

They got about fifty metres from their bags, and Fran hoped they could get to the clinic she saw on the map or at least reach a house. Too bad their maps were in their backpacks as well, Fran could only hope they were going the right way. Very far (especially with their wounds) to the south, they could see some tiny cabin beside a cornfield or something, around zone F4, but they had no hope of finding any medication there.

"Who was that…?" whined Hannah.

"Don't speak! Just come…"

"Who was that?!" asked Hannah, louder this time.

"Jacob. Come!"

Hannah sat up, and looked at Fran as if she'd been hit in the head with something heavy.

"But he couldn't! And Josie…?"

"It was him, I have seen it!" Fran pointed at her binoculars.

"Frannie! Look! A house! Over there!" Hannah pointed towards it.

Zone E5, right. They could see a white wall from between the trees.

"See? Come now! You'll resist until there!"

By the time they reached the door, the clock struck eleven. Fran smashed the wooden door in with the axe, and helped Hannah inside as well. Once there, they lay on the floor to regain their breaths. Soon Fran stood up, however, and walked to the switched off refrigerator, where, to her delight, she found not one, but two bottles of water!

"Hannah! Here, have a drink, we've got water!"

It was quite a bad decision to get away from their previous spot, or not trying to reach the small cabin. For at eleve, after half an hour had passed since the explosion, and so it seemed safe, one of their best friends, Madeleine Beaumont (Girl #2) showed up there, and scratched her head seeing the ruined bags. But she merely shrugged, and walked back to the cabin, where she had been hiding since morning.

All around the world there are several psychologists, students, or ordinary people who would swear there's no pure friendship between a boy and a girl. Now, if any of these would have taken a look inside a house situated on the souther edge of zone C6, they would have immediately taken it all back.

After 7 AM Lindsay Carter (Girl #6) cleaned and bandaged Daniel Scovell's (Boy #10) wound, and they began to talk about the impossible situation. They embraced once, when they met, but since then no holding hands, and no kisses. All Lindsay did was laying her head on his shoulder for a while. They were just best childhood friends, nothing more!

"Danny, I was so afraid! I was sure everyone was out to get me!"

"I wasn't, for sure."

"I'm so silly! I slept through the news!"

"They weren't that loud anyway, Linnie. And maybe it wasn't so clear from inside here."

"Who…? Not too many, right? Right?!"

Daniel's expression turned dark, and he gave Lindsay the class roster, on which he circled the name of their dead classmates.

"Oh my goodness, Dora! And Kristen, Pete, and Susie… but… how…?

"The game has begun" Danny found it better not to say Benjamin Booster became a victim of his crossbow.

"Game… silly joke!"

"Not funny" Daniel shook his head.

"And what happened to your leg, anyway?"

"Some idiot shot me, I don't know who, I tried to get away, at least."

Lindsay didn't question him. She didn't even wonder why the atatcker didn't finish Daniel.

"Have you been here all along?"

"Yeah."

"Hm, give me the map…" Daniel crossed out the danger zones.

"Will you stay with me?"

"Well, if it doesn't become a danger zone, why not?"

"You've got a great weapon."

"Could be, but I think your palmtop is much more useful. Like, what use is this" he lifted the crossbow "if I don't know somebody is lurking around?"

It was around half past ten, when they heard an explosion from the southwest.

"My goodness! Like fireworks!"

"Not that, Linnie… but it wasn't a gunshot…"

"It continues…"

Daniel nodded.

At half past eleven Lindsay began to munch the bread she received, and took out also some of the chocolate cookies she brought herself.

"You want some, Danny?"

"No, thanks… but, what about some warm food?"

"From where?"

"Let's go see the kitchen downstairs, shall we?" the boy stood up; he was still limping a little, but not too much.

"Wonderful!" Daniel found a few soup powders, several canned foods, and even some rice. In the fridge there was a singler bottle of water (as Miss Durham predicted, the tap didn't work), and, to top it all off, a heater teapot working with batteries!

"Danny, is this water enough?"

"For a few soups, surely. But there's no electricity or anything, I can't light a fire, we can't put everything into that heater!"

"Maybe… cold food will suffice…"

"No, Linnie. We need something more to resist. Wait…" Daniel reached the house from the west, and in daylight, so he saw much more than Lindsay, who came there in total darkness and from the east. True, she walked around the house, but focused only on enrances.

"Linnie, is anyone around?"

Lindsay took out her palmtop: nothing, only their two dots in the middle. She shook her head.

"Then wait for me." Daniel carefully opened the door, and walked out.

Lindsay, though no new dot appeared, got exremely nervous after five minutes, but luckily her best friend entered just then, with some firewood in hand.

"I found this behind the house. Oh, and there's a well, too."

It didn't take long for the midday news to be heard.