They said salt air had a way of making people hungry. It could have just been childhood memories, but sometimes, she really thought it was true. The briny smell of the beach was the same thing that she equated to weekend beach trips with her family. Just the scent of the ocean made all the other senses come back. She could hear the wild clamor of carnival rides on the boardwalk, she could see gulls flapping in the air, and most of all, and she could smell sugary funnel cake. Funnel cake was the best. And nobody makes it better than the Louisiana boardwalks. Good times, good times. Gosh, I'm sick of all of this shit…

Shyla Ryals (Girl #16) was homesick. Not just homesick, but really more helpless than anything else. The whole premise of the situation was getting a little unnerving. It was getting demanding. For as long as she remembered she'd thrived on control, keeping her head above water in her honors classes and feeling comfort in knowing what was behind the next corner. In her mind, if she had played her cards right, that attitude might have even gotten her into law school before she'd been signed up to be cannon fodder. She kept wishing she was home – each time praying it would come true more than the last – but nothing was happening. Every time she tried, the only thing cemented in her mind were those two cryptic words that had plagued her since sunrise. Day two…

She shuddered and looked around the beach again. The white sand was as bright as snow in the sunlight, piling up into tiny dunes and finally sloping down to shore where it sank undertow into the blue waters. Mollusk tide creatures clung to the wet rocks. Palm trees whistled above them like infant's rattles. But when Shyla looked around the beach, she observed it all dully; because more than anything else, she was paying attention to her….

"F3! F3! F3!"

She was standing on the other side of the beach – a windswept, ragged mess silhouetted by the afternoon sun – and she was screaming again. It was hard to tell exactly what her ramblings meant, and as far as Shyla was concerned, there probably wasn't any sense to them. She knew people handled stress differently. Some stood strong, some put up faults to hide the truth but most just caved in when things got outside their comfort zone. When it came down to it, almost everyone was in a disguise - and there was no denying that the guise of Adrienne Spring (Girl #17) had finally fallen. Either that or it's the other side of it. It's all calculated. It has to be. Everything's calculated when it comes down to it….

"I wish I was insane", Shyla sighed.

"Beg your pardon?" Amber said.

She was sitting upright against the sand dune. A half-full bottle of water was clutched in her hand and her face was a mess of oily perspiration. Still – with all of the aside – she looked more or less the same as when the game had begun. She'd kept her dirty-blonde hair straight somehow, only allowing a few uneven curls to brush out from the ocean wind. The only real flaw she had going for her was her leg. With the bullet still encased in there, the flesh on her knee had grown blue and weathered. The hole the bullet had gone through was as dark as the end of a cigarette bud. Scrapings of dried blood and god know's what else were poking through like the bloody porthole of some kind of massacred whale.

"Nothing", Shyla said. She paused for a second. "Y'know, I feel….I feel like I could eat a cow…"

"Same old Shyla", Amber laughed.

Shyla grinned back. "Same old Amber. How's your leg treatin' ya?"

"Good enough. I feel like it'll collapse if I put any real weight on it, but I think I'm good. As long as we kick back for awhile, we should be good".

"Don't worry", Shyla said. "I don't think we'll be doing the old charge of the light brigade for awhile".

"Erin tried to run away", Amber noted. "And she made it too".

"Erin", Shyla said matter-of-factly. "Took a gamble and won. Besides, she didn't have a leg that's probably going to have to be amputated when this is over".

"Fair enough", Amber sighed. She was quiet for a moment. "No more cheerleading, huh?"

"Unless you think you can hop around on one leg, I think that career is pretty much over".

"Ah well, fuck it. I was getting sick of it anyway. I never really thought going out for varsity was a good idea. My parents were never really into me cheering, especially being a captain. I mean, who wants to show their underwear to a million people anyway?"

"Well, there's Adrienne", Shyla replied. "And then there's the rest of those self-impressed bitches - the kind of girls who were showing their underwear just for the fucking sake of being a cheerleader and not because they liked doing it".

"Ah come on, Shy", Amber laughed. "You can't say you took cheerleading to have fun, did you? You did it for the whole social scene just like every other girl on the squad".

"Well, I took it because everyone else was doing it", Shyla said. "Sure. But I always liked cheering for our school. I really did like Spanish Rivers. I mean, I thought it was a good school when it came down to it – lots of nice kids. And what about you? Why did the Queen Bee here try out for cheerleading even though she hates it so much?"

"Adrienne signed me up", Amber said. She wasn't even smiling anymore. Instead, she gave a strange half-shudder and started nibbling at her bread roll. "No choice really".

"Yeah", Shyla said thoughtfully. "I guess a lot of things were like that, weren't they?"

"I guess they were", Amber sighed. She was silent for a second. Her eyes stared down numbly at her leg and the infected gash of flesh bloating out of it. "Christ, I want to go home…"

"I've been there", Shyla sighed. "Trust me".

She smiled and suddenly felt a gnawing craving in her gut. There were only a few scrapings of bread rolls left between each of them though, and wasting them just because her stomach felt a little queasy didn't really seem like a good idea. But is it really because you're hungry, Shy? Or is it just because you're scared. There's such a thing as comfort eating y'know…

Shyla liked eating. It was something that made her feel bad, but she just couldn't help it. Hard day at school? No problem. All she had to do was spend a minute or two rummaging through her fridge for leftovers. Sometimes her luck turned out dry with cold Chinese noodles, but sometimes there'd be real after-school snacks like a slice of devil chocolate cake. And even when the food wasn't the most nourishing in the world, it didn't matter - despite how it tasted, no Tupperware dish was safe for more than a few days. I need food. Real food. Not sawdusty bread rolls but a nice big sundae full of hot fudge and walnuts and…and….

It just wasn't working. It really wasn't. You could try to take your mind off your worries, but it just wasn't going to work out. Shyla prided herself on being able to keep her head above water. Control was a good skill to have. The debate team had been a great way to let off steam, and although she was just as fiery an activist as other school revolutionaries, she never spoke her real opinions. Words were dangerous. Shyla had read enough of the newspaper in the morning to know that voicing your opinion in the good old U.S.A was sure-fire suicide. It was better to lay low and pride yourself on knowing the truth. It was good to be one of the thinkers, but that was just it. You needed to be a thinker – not a speaker. The issues Shyla debated about were the distilled school issues that a teenager in every town seemed to fight for. Why is the town lake so polluted? Why is the school funding the athletic teams instead of the tech department? Oh wait, here's a new one. Why are we on this fucking island?

But the game was different. Keeping your head above water didn't seem to matter anymore. She pictured herself being submerged under the tide that was sloshing in and out in front of them, gasping for air but being pulled down to the undertow. It was coming soon – her breaking point. Soon enough, she'd been flapping her arms too and screaming every time the ship came around.

And then, almost like she was reading her thoughts, the screaming started from the other side of the beach again:

"F3!"

"F3!"

"F3!"

"The ship's back", Amber said bluntly. "Christ, I wish she'd shut the fuck up. What the hell is she doing anyway?"

"I don't think we'll ever know", Shyla sighed. "Really, I'm stumped".

She gazed out into the ocean and scanned the whole horizon line until she found herself back at the shore. The ship was passing the beach again, a massive white ocean liner piled high with bidders that were practically climbing over each other on deck to get a decent view of them. They were calling out things, vulgar and obscene – this wasn't fazing Adrienne at all though. She kept jumping up and down, screaming out those string of coordinates and swinging her arms out like some kind of scarecrow that had abruptly come to life.

"F4!" Adrienne shrieking. "F4, you bastards! You heard me! F fucking 4!"

The entire deck seemed to cheer like a rippling wave, chanting out manic support for Adrienne. Now that they were slowly cruising toward their side of the beach, Shyla was able to get a decent view of them. There was easily over a hundred of them just on the deck, the majority of them overweight and clad in business suits. Wall Street guys. Office guys. High bidders. Christ, what's happening to this country?

And then one of the bidders called something out – this time not even directed at Adrienne:

"Hey Prescott! How about a quick peak for the camera? The audience fucking loves you, baby! Am I right or am I right?"

"GO TO HELL!" Shyla roared. "I HOPE YOU FUCKERS HIT AN ICEBERG AND SINK!"

But this didn't have any effect on them at all – in fact, it only made them cheer louder. They called out more things, some downright obscene and others poor attempts to motivate the girls into making it to the end. It was a strange thought to think, but in the end, there was bids riding on all of them. The bidders on the deck jeered more and more before finally vanishing around the corner as they had so many other times the day before.

"Pigs", Shyla spat. "They're all a bunch of fucking pigs".

"You didn't have to stand up for me", Amber said blankly. "I…I could have done it myself…"

"Forget it", Shyla sighed. She was infuriated now and she was trying her to best to mellow out. "That was when and this is now".

"Guess you're right", Amber said simply. "You hungry?"

"We only have a few scraps of bread left. We better save-

"If you're hungry just eat", Amber said. She sounded impatient but she also sounded like she had a point. "Don't starve yourself. You never know out here which meal is going to be your last…"

For a moment, Shyla considered arguing. And then – remembering how words had hurt them countless times before – she turned around with a grimace and unzipped her backpack that was lying in the dirt beside her. After rummaging around and feeling slightly crestfallen at the sight of empty water bottles, she found a crusty loaf of bread and shoved it into her mouth. It tasted awful and she felt the urge to spit it out, but nonetheless, it was food.

"Bon appétit", Amber said with a grin.

"This stuff sucks", Shyla said and smiled back. "I mean, if they want us to kill each other the least they could do is give us some half-decent food to get us going".

"Remember the bowling alley, Shy? Cora's party?"

"Do I ever", Shyla laughed.

There was no way they could forget the incident at the bowling alley – not in a million years. Cora Marlack was a girl on the cheerleading squad that nobody really liked. Vain and self-centered with oily skin and even greasier hair, the only reason anyone really put up with her was because her family was rolling in money from owning several local business around town.

One of her family's greatest attractions however, was the Roll-Till-U-Win Bowling Alley down at the otherwise deserted downtown strip mall.

Cora Marlack had jumped at the chance of hosting the school's traditional party there to celebrate Spanish River's recent football victory against their neighboring rival Omaha Central. With Cora's parents out of town for some kind of cocktail party, everyone was excited at the prospect of getting stoned and turning on the alley's multi-colored laser lights for a night of fun. The party was intended to last until midnight. It ended up only lasting until nine-o-clock before the police came.

The first step toward disaster had occurred a day before the party when Cora had approached Shyla with a wonderful idea. Considering how marijuana went well with practically every pastry in existence, she had ordered her to make a raspberry chocolate cake since there weren't enough people bringing refreshments. Even though she absolutely detested Cora, Shyla had agreed – the comfort of baking things in the kitchen had always appealed to her. If the debate team didn't open up any careers for her, she'd considered being a chef – God knew that cheerleading wasn't going to get her anywhere.

Amber had come over after school to help her with the cake. After four hours of tireless baking, it had turned out great. They'd even decked it out in the school's colors – blue and white – and stenciled on the words, "SPANISH RIVERS SULTANS RULE!" Carrying the cake out to the car had been a feat, but they'd pulled it off and it had survived the entire ride to the bowling alley. Everybody was walking in by the time they got their and bad-techno music was booming out of the doorway. They could even see the strobe lights, flickering on and off and casting light around the shadows of hundreds of wasted teenagers dancing in the alley's waxed lanes. The entire room smelled like an even mixture of pot and liquor; in Shyla's mind, the smell of high school.

Cora had been waiting just inside in her pink and frilly dress. When they'd approached her with the cake, her eyes had enlarged in her head. She screamed that they'd gotten the whole thing wrong and it wasn't anything like she wanted. She demanded that they go home and bake the whole thing over again. When Amber had yelled back at her, saying that they'd worked four hours and she should have just gotten someone else to bake her fucking cake, Cora had glared and shoved her. Unprepared for the blow, Amber had stumbled into Shyla who immeadidly lost her grip on the cake. The double-decker raspberry chocolate cake had fallen over, splattering over Cora's head and coating her hair with globs of icing and batter. Staggering backwards, the real fun had begun when she'd hit the wall and accidentally set off the fire alarm. The sprinklers had gone off in the bowling alley and everybody had run outside screaming with no clue what was going on. Even worse, the police ended up coming because of the noise when the partygoers was gathered in the parking lot and everybody had to make a break for it. Nobody had ever forgotten the night – nobody besides Cora had really known about the cake either.

"It actually tasted pretty good", Shyla said with a grin. "I kept some in my fridge. It's too bad no one else got to taste it".

"Yeah", Amber said with a grin. "Everyone got away right?"

"I think so. I heard Chris Barrister and one of his friends got sent to the station, but I think they were just looking for attention. It may not have been a great night, but you can't forget times like that. Especially not now".

"You sure can't".

The silence came out of nowhere. Neither of the girls really knew what to say next. Those really were times long gone. There weren't going to be any more bowling alley parties. No more football games. No more getting stoned and dancing to strobe lights with the prospect of your future a world away from you. It was all so unreal now.

"We're going to die soon, I think", Amber said finally. She was still smiling a little from the story, but it wasn't a warm smile anymore. It was one that Shyla had never seen; cold and cynical.

"Yeah", Shyla said. She didn't even feel the need to argue. "I think we are…"

"Well", Amber sighed as she picked up her empty water bottle. "Then let's make a toast".

"You make toasts with wine", Shyla said with a smirk. "We don't even have any water left…"

"I have about half a bottle here", Amber noted. "Here".

She reached out and grabbed the empty water bottle that Shyla had rummaged out of the bag earlier. Filling it with half of the lukewarm water supply she had left, she handed it to her friend with a smile on her face. Shyla didn't return it.

"What do we drink to?" Shyla asked.

"To being alive", Amber said. "And being friends".

"Right back at ya, girl".

They clinked the plastic bottles together and drank.

Adrienne Spring (Girl #17) was watching them talk. She pursed her lips and squinted her eyes, trying to make sense of their conversation but really not getting much of it. The boat was gone now so there was no real reason to scream anymore. She just stood there on the beach, watching with those calculating, cat-like eyes. A gust of ocean wind swept by and she shivered.

The boat would be coming back soon. She was exhausted, but if she wanted to get the message across, she would have to scream again. They seemed to be listening to her, but she needed to go that extra mile. She had to really get them to listen to her if she wanted the bigger picture to work out.

The bigger picture. That was what she'd been planning since her arrival in the game. In the grand scheme of things, it was how everything was going to work out. There were definitely several things that had gotten in the way (most notably Erin running off to fuck with some boy like a bitch in heat) but it would all be trivial in the end. Trivial was a good word to describe everything; the island, the people that were on it, the people on the boat. Trivial, trivial, trivial….

Adrienne watched the tide slush in again and wet the sand into a soft brown before rolling back. She walked out unwillingly and stood there in the sand, closing her eyes and letting the cold, green water brush in between her bare feet. She knelt down slowly, hugging her knees and gazing out into the surf. Christ, I'm going out of my mind here….

Memories were coming by now. They were far and in between, but they were definitely memories, no denying that. She tried to push them back, trying as hard as she could to resist the low thrumming sound of those voices, but they ended up coming through.

I'm taking you off the pills, Adrienne.

But I-

No, there's no more buts! Listen to me, Adrienne! There's absolutely nothing wrong with you – in fact, you're a perfectly healthy young girl. You've definitely had some trauma, that's for sure, but it's trauma that can be dealt with. There's nothing that's stopping you from living a perfectly normal life.

But I'm a schizo! I have to be! I looked at all the tests! There's something wrong with me!

I'm taking you off the pills. There's no point anymore. All you're doing is worrying your foster parents to death. D o you know what these pills really are, Adrienne? They're nothing – all you're really swallowing is a load of hot air and some water in a tablet. It's nothing, nothing at all. In fact, it's a placebo. I've been giving you a placebo, Adrienne.

But I'm a schizo! I am! I am!

I'm not going to get angry at you. I'm just going to tell you the facts. You have to stop. The tests are final. In fact, I believe these emotions you have only come from your dissatisfaction with other people. Whenever anyone tries to love you, you feel the need to push them away. And whenever you see someone being loved, you have to do the same.

But…but….

Adrienne tried to think back to that meeting, trying to remember how she'd finished their conversation in that final doctor's appointment. She'd definitely said something. All she knew was that after that, there hadn't been any more appointments. It was just like the doctor said. There was absolutely nothing wrong with her. But there has to be! There just has to be! Why am I thinking like this?

Adrienne shook the thought away and grimaced, looking out at the sea for the ship to come around again. All according to plan…

The world had become a haze.

He smelled smoke, wafting in and out of his nostrils and making him feel like he was about to puke his guts out. Something was pinned against his stomach, giving him the feeling that he was being put down against an operating table. But the smoke – that was definitely the worst part. It was a pleasant enough smell in a small dose, the same smell of the bonfires he always used to have down at the creek with David and Enrique on the Fourth of July, but this was just too much. He felt like he was going to die. No, not die. No way. Persevera y triunfaras….

Miguel Chavez (Boy #3) coughed and struggled to open his eyes. It wasn't necessarily dark – there was just an absence of light. A haze. There were pinpoints of colors dancing in front of him, circling on and off in a wayward cycle. He pictured himself on a carousal, spinning around in around with lights flashing in every hue and shape around him. And they were laughing. Somewhere off in that cold, flashing light of world, he could hear people laughing.

But what were they laughing at? What had he done? Miguel grimaced, trying to piece together what had happened. Was he dead? No, there was no way. He was completely aware of his surroundings. If there was an afterlife, there was no way this could have been it. He'd gotten on a bus in the morning, but after that, it all just seemed like a tunnel leading to a brick wall. There was an abrupt crash – a complete lack of memory - and then nothing at all. What the hell happened?

A cycle had happened, that was it. Miguel's whole life had been a cycle – a load of lies to keep up with a hardass reputation that wasn't even real. A cycle of lies.

Random thoughts of no connection slipped into his mind somehow. He thought about shitty commercials he'd seen on TV. He thought about helping his brother Omar stack boxes outside the family's corporation building. He thought about old time rock and roll. Eddie Cochran, that's a good one. Sometimes I wonder what I'm gonna do but there ain't no cure for the summertime blues….

And that was when it all came rushing back to him. Sitting in the classroom and feeling like he was about to piss himself out of fear. Leaving the manor after Enrique's head got grounded into paste. The explosion at the station. The explosion! Oh man, hijo de puta!

Miguel sat up and finally opened eyes.

He was in the tram station – only he wasn't.

Almost all the walls had crumbled down and the room was full of smoke. Planks of wood had fallen out of the ground, exposing the pillars that were at the verge of collapsing from all the fire damage. The fire itself hadn't died out at all. It was still going, burning away at the thick wood but taking forever to do so. The fire was mostly off near the landing dock, piling up into the domed ceiling in a white and orange blaze. The tram station was still standing. It was just too big to all go down at once – if anything, it would take time. How long do those wildfires in California take to burn out? Days? Who knows? Maybe this thing will even spread across the whole island before it goes down….

Miguel groaned and tried to get up. He couldn't. He was sitting against the far wall. No, not just sitting there – he was pinned by an enormous plank of wood that had fallen and heaved him into the corner. He gazed out wearily through the smoke and eyed the long strip of metal cleating that made up the long loading dock for the trams. The red tram that they'd been planning to bomb the school with – the one with Enrique's face – was now dented like a massive explosion had gone off inside it. Feeling an oncoming headache from the smoke inhalation, he tried to put everything together piece by piece. He'd been in the tram lobbing cocktails. And then something had blown up and he'd been sent flying across the room.

Groaning with his head cocked toward the ground, Miguel grabbed the plank of wood with hands that felt feather light. Heaving all of his muscle into it, he managed to push it off and sent it scattering to the ground with a deafening clatter. Then he sat up slowly, bringing his hands up to his face and finding it caked in grease and sweat from the smoke. He steadied himself slowly, looking around at the mess of cabinets and wooden planks with alert, wild eyes. And then he started walking though the smoke.

"Erin", he remembered suddenly. "Erin Thompson. The chick that David dated. She was here, wasn't she?"

He shivered as he walked across the pine wood flooring of the station, expecting any second to see her corpse lying there with sickening burns all over her body. He didn't though. All he saw was that long stretch of a fiery hallway that finally opened up into the sunlit sawed-off wall at the end of the station. Where's David anyway? He's here, isn't he? Why doesn't he just come out? Did he leave without you or something?

"Dave", Miguel said suddenly. "Where are ya buddy?'

He walked down the long corridor, struggling to see through the smoke and finally regaining his sanity. Their plan was over, that was for sure. But the way he saw it, maybe there had to be a few disasters for a miracle to work out. Dave and him could leave the station later that day, maybe look around outside to see if there was a real escape mission going on that wasn't two kids putting a half-assed bomb together in a treehouse. It was a selfish thought, but with his conscience too cleared out now to feel any grief, Miguel was almost glad for the fire apocalypse on the tram station. His plan was gone now – at least there wasn't any more pressure. No one was expecting him to be a leader anymore. No one was looking up to the ghetto thug with the stick up his ass to lead them to salvation. Maybe David would even calm down a little and they could get things rolling in the right direction. They could go for a fresh start. Maybe things might end up working out….

Miguel suddenly had a coughing fit and almost vomited. The smoke really was over-powering. He thought about cancer for a second, but then realized that it was probably the last thing on his worries. Walking faster now and more than a little worried, he started scanning the loading dock up and down. Nobody was there. Careful to avoid the patches of flames, he walked down the smoke-logged corridor and wiped a string of sweat from his mouth. He probably looked like hell, but then again, that was also one of the last things on his worries. God damn it man, where the hell are you?

He was only several feet away from that sawed-off wall where the cable exited when he finally saw it.

"OH SHIT!" Miguel screamed. His eyes went wide. "NO! NO! NO! NO!"

He ran forward and collapsed, refusing to believe what was in front of him. There was no way. There was just no way it could have happened. That's two friends down, now! Two friends down because of you!

David's body was eagle-sprawled out on the ground beside the loading dock. His skin had gotten soft and weathered from the smoke and flames, his face charred and peeling with a small patch of fire licking it. There were three powerful gunshots in his chest, each of them giving Miguel the impression that he could his whole fist in them. Part of his face was torn away, his braces a tattered fence of blood and metal that was tearing out of his cheek. David Rodriguez didn't just look dead – he looked like someone had tried cremating him.

"NO! NO! NO!"

Miguel couldn't take it anymore. He collapsed over the charred corpse, sobbing his eyes out and rubbing his face into David's chest that already had the foul stench of decay. There'd been so many opportunities; so many chances to stop it from happening. David had been such a fighter. In his eyes, everyone had been out to get him. He'd had a good heart when it came down to it, but that hadn't stopped him from suspecting people and losing control every time a situation became too much for him. Maybe if he just tried a little harder, he could have calmed him down and gotten him to see the truth about the world. He could have shown him that everyone wasn't out to get him. He could have showed him that even though it didn't look like it, there was much more good on the planet than there was evil. He could've. He would've. He should've. But he didn't – and that was what hurt the most….

"Lo siento", Miguel whispered. "Lo siento…"

It was a cycle. That was the only way to describe it. On the island you could try to take control, you could try to show your friends that you cared about them, but it always ended up falling apart. And there were many more cycles than that. The cycle of lies was one of them. The fucking cycle of lies that had been the wraparound that tied together Miguel's life. In school he'd walked around in the hallways with his buzz cut and reputation, but that had only been a façade. An image. Just like how he'd told his friends all those stories about his life. All those childish stories about growing up in L.A that they'd swallowed like clockwork every time. And he died believing it! He died believing you were some kind of fucking street warrior, you asshole! He died for you! He was murdered! Murdered in cold blood by….

Miguel's tears suddenly halted. He sniffled them up and stared out into the flames, his fists clenching on the cuff of David's shirt. Him. Nathan Carpenter. He'd shot David to shit and went on his merry way like nothing had ever happened. David' violent nature was one thing, but there was no way he could forgive him for what he did. You have to do it! You have to get him, man! You have to get him back! Get him good!

Revenge wasn't good and he knew it. His father had always said that revenge was one of the deadliest motives a man could have. In the end, all it did was come back hurt the man himself. But there was absolutely nothing left to do now. He was alone now – completely alone with absolutely nobody to turn to - and there was no way he could just sit on his ass for the rest of his time on the island and wallow in the cycle of lies. The cycle had to end. You have to do it, man. You gotta do it….

"I'll kill him…." Miguel sobbed. "I'll kill him for you, man . I'll fucking kill him…."

And so he hobbled away toward the tram station's stairwell with every intent of murdering Nathan Carpenter.

The Cuna Cielo Police Station was a small building on the east coast. It was a hut essentially, hidden in a grassy undergrowth that jutted just off from the dirt trail that eventually emptied out into the woods. With the incredibly small amount of residents the island had – mostly wealthy, retired old couples and a handful of native islanders – the station really never had much crime to fight. In fact, it really didn't have any at all. The hut mainly served as a resting place for the island's alcoholic sheriff John Durocher. Other than that, it was really just a shack that gathered dust in the woods.

The outside of the station was sullen with criss-crossed rows of ivy that stretched up the walls and onto the rusty double doors. The inside was well-kept for the most part, but that wasn't saying much; the inside of the police station was really just a haphazard wall of locked filing cabinets and a desk with a wastepaper basket beside it filled with empty bottles of booze. Flies circled around the dim bulb hooked up to the ceiling, twittering away at it like it was a piece of glowing, rotten fruit.

Beside the filing cabinets was the door to the basement. It was almost always open, secured by a heavy brick that counterbalanced the weight. After that it was just rickety steps leading down into darkness. There had been an electrical system in the station at one point, but a recent power-surge had put fixing the lights on Sherriff Durocher's to do list. The steps went down into a concrete room – light shone through the floor-leveled windows. A boiler croaked wearily in the corner.

And sitting in that basement near the end of the thirty-third hour of the Battle Royale was none other than Jude Mercedes (Boy #11).

He was sitting in a lawn chair just in front of one of the floor-leveled, slitted windows, staring down at the battered packet of files in his eyes. Blue light shone up the paper. He read the words quickly, his eyes sliding back and forth and out-of-place, and every so often they would enlarge, impressed or interested by the latest thought that had slipped into his mind. He'd been feeding off information for hours now and wasn't anywhere close to getting sick of it.

Jude turned the page and read onto the next file. They really were interesting when you thought about it. You could look at people as cardboard cutouts all you wanted, but when you really got down to it, there was pretty surprising information buried under the surface. All you had to do was be a prospector and be eager enough to dig it up – and in Jude's mind, he was on a gold rush.

He looked at the header and picture at the top of the page. The yearbook picture was a little dated considering he still had braces in it, but there was no mistaking that overly rosy skin and Ivy League haircut. Adam Spencers. Plays baseball. Lives with both of his parents. On a bunch of vitamins. Really nothing interesting here, huh? The guy's still alive if that's anything important. Better be sure to keep a note of that…

A little frustrated and getting bored like he always did, Jude turned the page and looked for somebody interesting. There really weren't a lot of files left now. Most of them had just been lost while he'd jogged around the island. Besides Adam, there was just Erin, Mare, Lea, Zane, Leana and Mae. And some of those people are dead. What good is that going to do you?

His attention span had reached its breaking point. With a sigh, Jude turned the page over and folded the torn packet back together in a mess on his lap. Out of all the problems that plagued the highly troubled life of Jude Mercedes, his impatience was definitely high up there. He tired of people easily - just like the way you would tire of an episode of a show that you watched too many times or a food that you ate too much of. At a very early age, he'd been taught that people weren't valuable – in fact, if anything they were expendable by nature.

The bog massacre. That was definitely the highlight that proved that this was true. Chris had thought he was the king. He'd thought he was the king of the castle just like he did at school. But when survival of the fittest came into the picture, Jude knew that the kings and the pawns all went back to the same sandbox. Chris was no better than anyone else – and because of this, he'd died. Same thing with the others. Mae. Demi. Preston. Eddie. They all had it coming in the long run. Then again, neither are you. You have just as many flaws as they do. When is it going to be your time to go out here?

He shuddered. The basement that had been sweltering a second ago suddenly felt cold. He got up from the lawn chair slowly and started walking over to the boiler. There had to be some kind of way to turn it up. It wasn't one of those old-fashioned ones though; it was high-tech and it would probably take some tinkering. Then again, so does everything else. You'll get the hang of-

And halfway there was when he started to hear the voice in his head:

Hello Jude.

"Who's there?" Jude demanded – but it didn't sound threatening at all. He sounded like a little kid and he knew it. "Who….who are you?"

There was a grim silence for a second with no answer. He looked around the cellar quickly, making sure that nobody was there. It wouldn't be that hard to take care of them, but if you really thought about it, there wasn't anything he could say with his mouth that they couldn't do with their fists. Or even wrose, a gun.

The voice came again:

Why don't you go turn the heater up, Jude? It's too cold for both of us down here.

He knew the voice now. With the boiler completely out of his mind now, Jude started to walk back toward the lawn chair. His heart started pounding and sweat beat down his face in thick drops. It was the voice that he thought about every day. It was the voice of the person that had made him the way he was – the person that had taught him absolutely everything there was to know before the incident happened. The voice of his father.

Hey sport, what have you been up to all these years?

"No", Jude stammered. "No, there's no way…"

I've seen the work you did out here. Looks like you got a little out of control, didn't ya? It's a shame sport, it's a real shame. You were always such a good listener….

"But I stopped listening", Jude said quickly. He sounded like a little kid. "You're gone….they took you away. You're go-

People are expendable by nature, Jude. I am, you are, and as I'm sure you know, all of your friends out there on the island are. We're the destruction, Jude – we're the constant ring in the ear of every man and animal in this shithole that brings out the most primal instincts that God knows. You've used your words, Jude. Just like I taught you in the lessons. You should feel proud of yourself, and quite frankly, I can't wait until you go out and get some more! Who's next? What about someone close? Prudence? Or maybe Sadie? How would you feel about that?

"No!" Jude screamed. He ran for the wall and clenched his fists into the concrete. "No! No! No!"

And that was it. Just as quickly as the voice of Randall Mercedes had come, it drifted away and left him alone in that cold, dark cellar. He blinked and looked back at the boiler. There was a dull flame coming from it now and it felt surprisingly warm. Maybe even warmer than before. Shuddering again and struggling to regain himself, Jude walked over to his lawn chair and sat down.

The lessons. He'd tried to forget about the lessons. Up until his father had been sent away to the River County Penitentiary for the incident, the lessons had been the most integral part of his life. Randall Mercedes wasn't a kind man – he was the very opposite in fact, but he was very intelligent. His outlook on the world was different than everyone else. He didn't see things like love or compassion. He just saw people and society as things you could toy around with. But most of all, he saw Jude as his reincarnation – his way of dealing with the repressed thoughts he had. The lessons had both destroyed and enlightened Jude's mind. No more, no more, no more….

Jude lied back in the lawn chair and closed his eyes. He felt expendable.

No Students Eliminated

22 Students Remaining

A/N: Jude's full backstory will be completely revealed in a very short time. Don't worry. Also, pay attention to the character's dialogue when they're talking about things that happened at Spanish Rivers before the program. I'm not going to say much, but there's more to the class being chosen for this than you think.