Hour 24

35 Contestants Remaining

Just as he entered the first day of the Third Annual Battle Royale, Gervase Rockwell, a.k.a. Boy # 24, entered day two in complete and total agony. Whereas the agony he had accomplished nearly twenty-four hours ago was because of an aborted attempt at killing one psychotic bitch, this time it came from an aborted attempt to find help. Long story short, people skills were something Gervase really could have used.

He was lucky in one regard, at least, if lucky could be used to describe his situation. After being lit on fire by the class stoners, Gervase had run through the forest without any regard for the world around him. He had run by one guy who yelled in surprise as the flaming Gervase passed (Matt Hunter, a.k.a. Boy # 15 as things would be, but in Gervase's world it was rather inconsequential), and stumbled over some roots from a tree. As his tortured body crumpled to the earth beneath him, Gervase found himself in an odd moment of clarity... just enough of a pause from the agony that had been his life for the past 24 hours to have the thought flash through his ruined mind just before things flashed to black, "Y'know, when life gives you lemons, the lemonade is not supposed to taste like blood."

He was pretty sure his dad had said it at one time or another, but he wasn't entirely sure on the matter. After being on fire for almost a minute, he rolled on the ground, burning some of the moist leaves with a sickening sizzle. The pain was immense. He could feel and hear his flesh burning away, he could feel it scrape off on the ground as the flames licked around him. Had he not inhaled the flames, he more than likely would have been able to smell it. Rolling some more, he felt a steep drop in the ground and fell...

...about one foot, landing in the stream that bisected the island. Rolling slightly in the shallow water, Gervase put out the fire that had consumed his body. God, it hurt. He could hear it sizzle as the water put out the flames. Through his one good eye he could see the smoke coming up from his body as it met the water. With nerve endings destroyed all over his body, he couldn't feel much except for blinding pain. Shouldn't I be going into shock by now? Can't I go into shock now? Please?

Rationality gone from a combination of intense pain from the fire and having survived the past twenty-four hours in severe shock (the injuries that Marie had given him earlier never healed, but the bleeding did eventually stop), he clambered to his feet. The pain radiated through his body, seizing him up as sheets of skin fell from his body. He collapsed on his back into the water, floating slightly with his mouth and nose barely above water. With nasal passages and throat seared from sucking in fire, breathing was a Herculean task, yet Gervase Rockwell, a.k.a. Boy # 24, stubborn survivor, wasn't giving up.

Besides, he'd be dead soon enough anyway.

He'd have sighed if he could, but really it was impossible. He hadn't been in his right mind since the earliest moments of the game when he had decided to play the game for his survival. He had taken his knife, planned on killing the first person he could find to take their weapon, and then do everything it took to make it to the end.

He, like many, had not expected Marie Cooper, a.k.a. Girl # 21. She had robbed him, beaten him, destroyed his face (taking out many of his teeth and causing him to bite off his tongue in the process), carved words into his chest and cut off his thumbs.

Needless to say, Gervase was in a lot of hurt. As blood loss and pain had set in, he had succumbed to shock. His body had become very cold, his flesh turning a bluish-white color as it tightened across his skin, feeling clammy to the touch. His thinking wasn't in the best of ways, and imminent death was far from his mind. All he wanted to find was help, and every person he came across had run away in fright. Fuckin A. Then again, the zombie-like moaning probably didn't help much.

For several hours in the middle of the day, he had stayed there, collapsed to the ground, breathing shallowly and welcoming death. He was shivering despite the midday heat, knowing that death would come soon. It didn't. The pain was gone, but so was all his energy. He would die soon, real soon, he knew it.

He didn't.

After the collapse, he had found will that he didn't know existed before and resumed his shambling, moaning ways, searching for help. By then night had fallen, and things the world was actually as dark as it seemed in his mind all along. At least that much was a plus.

Seeing a light coming from a building, he had approached it merely seeking the aid that he had searched for during the entire game. He could even recognize the face through the window, Jackson (Boy # 7), and although the boy was a stoner, he was a good guy. Gervase knew that of anyone he could trust for help, he could trust Jackson. Instead, he had a fireball thrown his way. He had run around to the other side of the building, trying to find a way in to find some shelter.

He had gotten inside, and actually started rattling the cage as things may be. Well, as things tend to go, they went downhill. Gervase wasn't thinking straight and decided to attack Jackson for trying to light him on fire earlier, and, well, this is where it got him.

If he'd still had a sense of humor, Gervase would have laughed. Instead, all he could do was lie on his back and wait for death to come.


Two figures passed before him, mere shadows. Angels? The Grim Reaper? Hardly.

"Is he dead?" the tall one asked in a feminine voice.

"I don't know," the other female responded, "Probably."

"What happened to him?" the first asked.

"My first guess would be, a lot," the shorter, stout one replied with a soft chuckle, "come on, let's go, I saw him headed off this way."

So there he lay, on his back with eyes limply open (even though only one could actually see much of anything), his breath shallow and coming in almost a whisper. The sound of thunder, wind and the insects in the jungle filled his ears as the footsteps of the two girls disappeared.

Letting his eyes close, Gervase could feel sleep coming on. This is it, the big sleep, the end is near. It'll all be over soon... In some sick way, Gervase was glad. For the last day all he had known was pain, and right now ending it all didn't seem to be that bad an idea.

Footsteps, wading in the water. Not again, can't it be over already? They approached, and their reaction to Gervase was rather obvious.

"Holy shit," the girl blurted out in surprise. Gervase opened his eye limply, looking on as the outline approached. They moved tentatively, getting close enough to Gervase to poke him with their foot. In no mood to move, Gervase simply lay in the shallow water. The figure then proceeded to reach down to Gervase's pants, feeling around in his pockets. What for? Weapons? I don't have any weapons. Leave me alone to die in peace you stupid bitch.

Instead of pulling out any weapons, she pulled out his wallet.

"Fifteen bucks, you gotta be shitting me," the girl said, tossing Gervase's now-empty wallet on his chest. No, no way you just did that. There is no way that happened. You gotta fight back Gerv, yeah, that's the ticket, fight back and take it on. You gotta show her!

Gervase sat up with a shriek, grabbing hold of Brynn Sanchez, a.k.a. Girl # 6's, leg as she passed. She screamed, trying to get away. With a quick move, she unsheathed and swung her machete, striking Gervase firmly in the head. He let go of her leg and she kicked him away, pulling the machete blade from his skull in the process. Thoroughly freaked, she ran off.

Battered, bruised, broken and burned, Gervase fell back into the river with a large chop to the head from Brynn's machete blade. Being the stubborn survivor that he was, he was still alive, though with brain activity popping back and forth, remembering girls he'd slept with, baseball games, commercials from when he was a kid, screams from the old Braiwood Institute, friends, 9/11, Joanie Loves Chachi, mom and dad I'm sorry, blood, pain. Fuck, what's a guy gotta do to get killed around here?

So went the lonely death of Gervase Rockwell, a.k.a. Boy # 24.


It didn't take much for Matt Hunter, a.k.a. Boy # 15, to lose all faith that he had in humanity. Sure, there were the great things that came along with it; love, friendship, honor... but then there was this. He had seen the bodies, the death and destruction that this "game" had caused. He had seen what his classmates, his friends had been reduced to in order for survival. Every time he closed his eyes, he could see them.

Homer's half corpse being eaten by vultures.

Brian split end to end.

Lisa without a head, what little of it remaining reduced to a thick paste in the bushes.

Katie shrieking maniacally, holding her scythe and swinging away at him (he shot her, but her name wasn't announced... shouldn't she be dead by now?)

Flies swarming around the remains of Peter Larkin, entering and exiting his nose and mouth as they feasted.

Sky sprawled out, shot and with her face crushed in, that one evil eye bulging out and staring into his soul.

And, most recently, a figure he couldn't identify (Gervase as things would have it), engulfed in flames and running through the jungle.

What the fuck is going on?

He had broken down earlier and smoked one of the joints that Jackson had given him. Searching for Lexie was turning out to be a much more difficult task than he had initially expected, and he just needed relief. True, the dope would only dull his senses and likely make him paranoid for a few hours, but god it felt good. Not that he wouldn't have given the feeling for one minute of seeing Lexie, but still, it helped take his mind off the fact that his classmates were killing each other around the island. However, seeing a classmate run around on fire while stoned out of his mind wasn't exactly what he considered a good time. If anything, that was seriously, seriously fucked up.

Matt sighed. He knew people were dying, and already he had started to become somewhat desensitized to it. Times used to be that seeing a classmate running around engulfed in flames would get a huge reaction, but after seeing the array of corpses he had seen throughout the day, it wasn't as much of a shock to him as it probably should have been. He was looking for Lexie, something even he would admit seemed rather futile at the moment. Odds were that he would've been safer staying in one place, but really, he just couldn't do that. He'd known the girl for years, never said a word to her, and now they were about to die. This seemed as good a time as any to let the feelings be known.

He was tired though. Too tired from running around all day, nearly getting killed, close encounters with Katie and Jacob (now there's a badass of the ages, if anyone could make it out of this thing it'd be Jacob). Having done one day's worth of surveying the island, he was willing to take a rest and collect his thoughts, maybe come up with a plan of action. Heading back right now to Jackson and Eliza didn't sound all that bad. He wouldn't even mind if they were screwing around right now. He really needed a friendly face.

Instead, he heard a whimpering.

He could see the female outline leaning against a tree, whimpering softly as she held her head in her hands. She was crying, that much was apparent, but Matt was hesitant nevertheless. There had been a lot of killing done during the past day, most of it done by girls. Ashley, Katie, Lori, Lara and Brynn had already gotten a sizable body count if the announcements were any indication. Nervously, Matt pulled the pistol from his belt and held it out in one hand.

"Please," she whimpered, her voice clearly quivering in fear, "help me."

Getting closer, Matt's eyes adjusted to the light and he could see who it was. Lori Nicotero (Girl # 1) had been crying for some time by the looks of it. Her clothes were tattered and spotted with blood in some areas, and the burns that dotted one side were quite apparent to the paleness of her skin. The wavy brown locks that fell about her shoulders obscured her face slightly, but even then Matt could see that the look on her face seemed to be genuine.

Still, this was Lori fuckin' Nicotero, one of the class sluts and not exactly the most trustworthy person on the planet. She was used to getting things the old fashioned way (on her back) and the fact that she always wore next to nothing didn't hurt either. Lori was beautiful in the way that most supermodels were beautiful: tall, petite, and oozing sex. This, of course, wasn't Matt's style in the slightest.

What was his style however was helping a girl who needed it, siren or not.

"Step forward," Matt said as he held the gun higher, shifting the bungee board onto his back, "real slow."

As she stepped forward into what little ambient light existed, Matt reached to his pocket and pulled out the supplied flashlight. With gun in one hand and flashlight in the other, he brought them up and pointed both to Lori, hitting the button and illuminating the girl.

"Please, no light," Lori pleaded.

"If I'm going to help you," Matt said, "I have to make sure you're not going to kill me Lori."

"Why would I kill you?" she asked innocently as Matt scanned her with his flashlight, showing that she was indeed unarmed, and indeed damn near nude.

"You and Lara killed Luke," Matt said cautiously, "they called it out in the announcement. If you did something even JJ was afraid to say, something tells me I don't want to be around you."

"But he attacked us first," she said with false sincerity, putting out her hands as if to prove her innocence, "Lara and I were just running around, trying to find out what was happening, and, and, he attacked us. We had to defend ourselves. It was horrible, he wanted to do things to us before murdering us."

"What about Lara?" Matt asked defensively, quickly darting his eyes around.

"She tried to kill me earlier," Lori responded coolly, her voice wavering slightly as if tackling difficult material, "I hit her in the head with a rock and ran off. I've just been scared, I haven't seen anyone else who's normal and you're the only one around I've met."

Still with his guard up but slowly letting it fall, Matt looked to Lori. He knew he wasn't a great judge of character, but it didn't take a genius to know that she was scared. He wanted to make a joke, wanted to make her smile somehow, but he couldn't figure out how. Instead, he just turned his flashlight off.

The light faded out and the whole world was in disarray for a moment as he let his eyes readjust. Mental note; don't do that again. The bright circles and colors faded into darkness soon, and once again he could make out Lori's face. She was smiling softly, tentatively, and she looked almost at peace. The only thing that caught Matt off guard was the quick glance she made over his right shoulder before looking back into his eyes.

It was then that Matt remembered something back from biology class. Biology was by far one of his least favorite subjects, then again science never did interest him. Well, physics did, but only in that it described how in fact he could prevent himself from being a victim to gravity. Anyhow, the part that Matt did enjoy about biology class was the videos. They always turned the lights out, gave ya time to sleep or at the very least watch a cool movie. Sometimes they brought in autopsy tapes, or videos of kids being born, but for the most part they were nature documentaries. One in particular that Matt always enjoyed was on animals of the African savannah. Certain predators, in an effort to attract prey, would leave one of their own with the appearance of being wounded, thereby making the prey think it was okay to walk nearby. While the prey walked about with not a care in the world, another predator would sneak up from behind and attack, tearing at the throat in a spray of gore rivaling any of the splatter flicks they did at Rialto's midnight movies.

Instinctively Matt dodged to the side, rolling on the ground towards safety. Lara Drake, a.k.a. Girl # 24 had been holding the crossbow that she and Lori had won from killing Luke at the back of Matt's neck. Another second and he would have been dead. Instead, she still pulled the trigger, sending an arrow flying in Lori's direction. The other girl didn't have time to react, and the flying arrow made a clean cut across Loris cheek. In immense pain, she screamed out as Matt started sprinting into the forest.

"You shot me!" Matt could hear her shrieking, "You shot me, you god damn bitch!"

Jumping over a downed tree, Matt looked quickly over his shoulder to find some sign of them following. What he was met with was a low whining sound, followed by a brilliant blast of white as a flare exploded ten feet in front of his eyes, blinding him temporarily and sizzling his skin with small flecks of magnesium and phosphorous. Groping around without sight, he closed his eyes and only got a flash of vibrant colors. No, nothing. I can't see a fucking thing!

He groped around blindly, propping himself up against a thick tree. Matt then heard a snap, followed by a whirring noise and the sound of something impacting on wood inches from his head. His face was sprayed with small flecks of bark from the tree. With his vision returning slowly, Matt could see only fleetingly a small protrusion from the tree. An arrow. They shot a fucking arrow at me.

"Shit," he muttered to himself.

His mind didn't have time to recognize the other snap followed by a quick whir, but the blinding pain in his right bicep was unmistakable. He winced in pain, groaning miserably as blood trickled down his arm. He could see the arrow sticking from his flesh, and it hurt more than he could ever have imagined possible.

"I think I got him!" he could hear one girl say. He could then hear them running through the trees and bushes, and all Matt could do was panic.

With his good arm, he used his gun to fire off seven quick shots in their general direction. He didn't know if he had actually hit any of them, and he didn't care. They scattered, and that was all that mattered. But he knew they'd likely follow him. He could head to Jackson and Eliza easily now, but the prospect of bringing danger their way didn't really appeal to Matt. He didn't want these two sirens killing off his friends. Scratch that, a siren and a harpy. One so beautiful to lead men to their doom, the other to scratch their eyes out.

Picking up a jog, he ran away from the brig and hoped that he could find a nice, quiet, and clean place soon so that he could pull out the arrow. The bleeding was really beginning to make him nervous.