Day 1 8:02 AM

Beneath the sterilely pure bathroom light, Sylvie Becker (Girl #15) agitatedly wept. She looked again at the cardboard packaging, re-reading the finely printed blue instructions; trying to calculate how much longer it would be...

Sylvie jumped slightly as Daisy Donahue (Girl #4) rapped sharply against the door for the umpteenth time.

"Please Sylvie, you can't stay cooped up in there forever, so come on out now," Daisy soothingly entreated, "we're making preparations to leave; please come and join us."

Sylvie ignored these pleas and continued to stare fixedly at the tube she held in her hand. How long – thirty minutes, an hour? The agony of needing to be patient was almost unbearable and the pessimistic speculation that was continually running through her mind only exacerbated this frustration.

She cast her mind back to where it had all started, the reason why she was now up to her eyes in shit. Though that American girl Joanna had insisted upon referring to it as a 'prom', the rest of the school collectively knew it as the 'annual disco', a celebration in honour of the student's completion of their exams. They were never exactly wild events; no booze, no drugs and most importantly of all, no sex, but the festive mood amongst the students – always prevalent once exams had been finished – ensured these parties would at the very least be memorable.

'Memorable'? A sour understatement for Sylvie, a more appropriate description of what transpired amid the swaying bodies and inebriated giggles would be 'life-altering'.

She'd had a lovers' spat a couple of days beforehand; not an argument over anything significant, just a petty squabble that had somehow escalated into a fully-fledged shouting match that quickly drove a rift of jealousy between the two of them. At the disco, each of them had stood on opposite sides of the gym, pretending to enjoy the company of the various boys and girls in their vicinity, whilst cautiously sneaking surreptitious glances of longing at one another.

Sylvie had already downed a few too many bottles of Jack Daniels (courtesy of Tian Berkley), so when Daniel Swane suavely approached her and suggestively whispered those sweet words in her ear, she was mere putty in his hands. He'd led her into a nearby corridor and pressed her against the wall, excitedly hitching her legs apart and then...

Sylvie cringed at the memory. She hadn't been as drunk as she liked to imagine; she'd gone with Daniel on something of a whim, eager in her intoxicated state to cruelly spite her true love by being with somebody else. At first it had even been pleasurable, a novel and stimulating experience that for a moment enthralled her. But then...it became gynaecological and painful; an emotionless rhythm of ululating whilst she remained more or less in a detached alcoholic torpor.

Daniel had left her in the corridor; opting to slink back off to the party rather than stay with her, presumable wishing to satiate his whetted sexual appetite with another unfortunate girl. Sylvie wearily returned to her dorm, only to discover her true love already there, seated on the bed with an expression of appeasing affection. It turned from a night of torment into one of blissful reconciliation; Sylvie never spoke of her tryst with Daniel to anyone, she regarded her brief moment of wayward judgement to be nothing more than inconsequential history now.

Or so she thought.

She was late. Sylvie was a punctual person in every aspect of life and to her this errant lateness was inexplicable – a spoke in her menstrual cycle perhaps? No, she suspected otherwise. The day before the departure of the geography field trip, Sylvie had skipped the morning chapel service – risking a severe reprimand in doing so – and snuck into town to go to the chemists and procure a pregnancy test. She'd succeeded in this task, but the fraught preparation for the trip and the constant presence of her love made it a nigh on impossible for her to actually use her purchase to find out whether or not she truly was pregnant.

She looked at the tube; the result was finally coming through...

Daisy again hammered away at the door and uttered more appeals for her to leave. Sylvie sighed, stood up from the toilet seat and approached the mirror. She washed her face to remove the tear streaked mascara that blemished her cheeks and carefully brushed her dishevelled strawberry-blonde hair, before finally advancing towards the bathroom door and apprehensively opening the lock. Sylvie stepped back as Daisy guardedly pushed the door open. For an imperceptible moment they stood and stared at each other, in an instant Daisy rushed forward and threw her arms around Sylvie and kissed her on the lips. It was a long, slow, greedy and voluptuous kiss that Sylvie had experienced many times, but one that she now felt too numb with panic to really enjoy.

"I've been so worried about you," sobbed Daisy "I thought that you might have...God I can't even bring myself to say it."

"I'm alright," Sylvie mumbled in return "just been frightened that's all."

"I love you," Daisy quietly said with absolute sincerity.

Sylvie knew she should have been thankful; she still had Daisy and could even expect to spend the last few days of her life in her company (She suspected that Ben – amongst others – would not be receiving this privilege of spending the last hours of one's life with a loved one), and yet that somehow wasn't enough for her. The night she'd carelessly spent with Daniel had taken its toll on her; though initially she pretended otherwise, she knew that a flame of her passion for Daisy had been extinguished and was doubtful that it could ever be rekindled. It was probably because of the overwhelming guilt and self-recriminations she'd gone through, or maybe it had something to do with the secrecy her love required. She was losing the will to keep going, was it worth the effort to stay alive? Yes it was, and not for selfish reasons either. Maybe the BR admin would be willing to make exceptions given her unique circumstance? Perhaps not...

"I love you too," Sylvie replied, but though it was the complete truth, it offered her surprisingly little assurance and she still felt hopelessly lost and desperate.

Anthony Stapleton (Boy #6) lethargically draped himself over the sofa's armrest. He was tired, he'd had plenty of sleep but he was still insufferably shattered from all the stress, which had only been worsened by her arrival. Liz Dunn (Girl #6) was nowhere in sight, a fact that was causing Anthony considerable grief; Saul Emerson (Boy #13) had left the cottage to scout the area and check what was wrong with the proximity sensors (which had recently ceased to function properly) whilst Jeremy Callaghan (Boy #7), complaining about being afflicted with particularly painful stomach cramps, had locked himself in the cottage's one toilet. Anthony's single source of consolation was Liz's pistol; he at least felt a degree of comfort in knowing that he had a gun, but still, Liz was one mean girl to say the least and who knew what she might...

There was a slight creak as the door connecting the living room to the kitchen was shoved open. Anthony roused himself from his slothful daydreaming to see Liz stride into the room, a mug in each hand, vaporous steam rising from the liquids' dark surfaces and a richly appetizing scent of chocolate filling the room.

"I brought some hot chocolate with me in my bag," she said genially, "I thought you might like to have some?"

"That depends what it's spiked with?" Anthony curtly retorted, though he could already sense himself yielding.

"Nothing, how could you think I would do a thing like that?"

Anthony raised his eyebrows. Liz huffed slightly and set a mug of the steaming hot chocolate down on the coffee table.

"Well, if you want it, it's there – I promise I didn't load it with anything other than milk, water and chocolate powder." Liz tartly informed him, "I'm surprised at you Anthony; I'd of thought that you of all people would have wanted to try and get along, rather than make baseless accusations when I'm only trying to do something kind."

Anthony looked at the hot chocolate (licking his lips involuntarily as he did so) and then at Jeremy's small bottle of powdered cyanide, which was also stood on the table, and seeing that it was full and obviously untouched, picked up the cup and took a long single swig of the sweltering chocolate.

It was delicious; moist, creamy, sensual, a sublime tickling of his taste buds, but then...something else, it was prickly, constricting, parched and choking. He began to splutter as he fell onto the floor, gasping for breath as his vision, doubled, tripled, blurred and finally retuned to normal as he clawed for Liz's pistol.

"You bitch!" he coughed, "what the fuck did you put in it?"

Liz smiled nastily, "I found some diesel in the cottage garage – though no car unfortunately – and mixed it in with your hot chocolate, I knew you wouldn't be able to resist. Though just think about it; if you weren't such a complete chocoholic you might have stood a better chance of surviving – I suppose it goes to show that greed truly was the death of you and you've really nobody to blame but yourself for the painful demise you're about to suffer," she laughed cruelly, "I'm not actually sure how long the diesel will take to actually kill you, but luckily for you I'm going to do the charitable thing and quicken your death."

Anthony writhed on the floor, frantically attempting to scramble away from Liz and alert Jeremy of the danger that had now unveiled itself before his very eyes; the convulsions in his stomach were becoming ever more violently frequent and he was starting to cough up a grotesque mixture of bile and blood. Liz's pistol still lay idly on the table, he tried to snatch it, but Liz effortlessly moved it out of his reach.

"Sorry to disappoint you, but it's only a water pistol," she smirked evilly, "so you're going to have to give up any delusions about killing me."

Anthony's normally rosy and sanguineous face was now completely devoid of colour, apart from a faintly green tint, and he was finding movement of his limbs almost impossible, his senses anaesthetized by the torrid pain that encompassed his entire body. Liz unhurriedly reached for the cyanide and upon picking it up, slowly unscrewed the cap.

"Time to take your medicine Anthony, just like a good boy would. I'm not going to lie to you; this will taste gross and I can't give you any sugar to help you swallow it, but hey – that's what comes of being a naively trusting pig, you just have to take the rough with smooth. It's a real pity that you won't be around to see what I do to those other freaks who you regard as your friends; you've no idea how fucking poetic it's going to be!"

Anthony squirmed even more as Liz knelt down on his flabby chest, trying to fight her off but too weakened and sickly to do so. Liz snapped his head back against the ground with her right hand and pinched his nose with her left; emptying the rough powder down his throat, through his now open mouth. She stood up again, gleefully watching the sight of Anthony frenetically roll around on the floor whilst projectile vomit periodically spurted from his mouth. The ruckus of Anthony's continued maniacal tossing and turning lasted for a minute or two, before he finally laid motionless, entrails of saliva and vomit staining his mottled cheeks and the pale beige carpet.

For a few moments, Liz stood upright and basked in the tranquil sereneness that had befallen the room, a rare interlude of peace amidst the raucous sound of mayhem. She grinned; phase one had been completed without a hitch (though not without a sizeable amount of mess being made) and she was ready to kick-start phase two into action.

Liz stood silently for a moment, opened her mouth and with all the energy she could muster, let out a mind-bogglingly shrill scream and collapsed onto the sofa.

A kilometre or so away from the log cabin, another plan of action was gestating in the mind of its creator, as he calculated the finer aspects and went over the intricate details with typically determined precision.

"And you're sure you heard everything correctly?" Tian Berkley (Boy #1) asked with total conviction and seriousness.

"I am capable of hearing, you know!" Phil Argyle (Boy #15) tersely answered

"Yeah but not thinking, unfortunately," Fergal Mills (Boy #9) muttered to himself.

"Shut the fuck up you Irish cunt!" Phil shouted in return.

"Keep your voice down!" hissed an exasperated Tian, "we don't want to draw attention to ourselves!"

"Bit difficult not to with this idiot hanging around us," Fergal snarled.

"I'm warning you! Do you want me to rearrange your face?" spat Phil.

"Why? So it can look like yours?" Fergal smugly leered; Phil stood up and balled his fists but was promptly sat down again when Tian firmly yanked down on his left arm.

"Why are you so fucking hell-bent on getting at each others throats (in the figurative sense that is), we need to trust each other now. OK?" Tian crossly asserted, "What's the matter Fergal, I can tell your pissed off about something so what's the deal?"

"Why am I always the one who gets the shit weapon?" Fergal moodily answered. Phil had been awarded an MP5 for his 'innovative' killing of Fei Yan and hence Fergal had been the recipient of Fei's Beretta M92F pistol whilst Phil and Tian continued to posses the superior firepower, much to Fergal's chagrin.

"Look; when we confront Sue and her gang, you'll get her Uzi and Phil will 'get' Jewel, alright?" said Tian.

"As if I could ever say no to an Uzi," Fergal assured them.

"It's just 'boys with toys' with you isn't it?" said Phil.

"And I suppose your 'toy' is Jewel?" retorted Fergal.

"What can I say; I need something to play with," Phil sharply replied.

"I wouldn't get your hopes up; Jewel's probably a dyke just like her friend Sylvie, and even if she weren't I doubt she'd want to do anything of a carnal nature with you"

"Fuck you," laughed Phil, "Jewel's not a lesbo, you can tell she's straight by the way she looks at guys with obvious interest. And where did you come by this info that Sylvie likes girls exactly?"

"Well I doubt Jewel looks at you very often; unless she's bulimic and needs visual assistance to help her puke up her food." Fergal said with his characteristically well-honed slyness, "And it's Tian who told me about Sylvie's 'preferences'."

"And it was Daniel who told me," said Tian, clearly bored by the conversation, "and before you ask, the reason he apparently knew all this was because he claims to have nailed her at the disco but she didn't seem to have much in the way of a pleasurable reaction. He was a bit worried about it, even upset..."

"Well it's not as if Daniel's the most irresistible of people. He also probably just hasn't grasped the proper methods you need to master if you wanna make a girl come like nothing you've seen before." Phil let out a throaty chortle and took another sip of his beer – Tian refused on principle to travel anywhere without a six-pack of some variety of alcohol.

"You speak from experience?" asked Tian.

"Perhaps," Phil replied coyly.

"I didn't realise that an oversized lump of cheese could be a Lothario," sniggered Fergal, "but I guess there are many things I have yet to learn about the world in which we live."

Phil looked as though he was about to imminently make a scathing riposte to this slight, but Tian quickly interrupted again,

"For fuck's sake stop bitching you two and listen up – we have better things to be talking about than which way Sylvie Becker is sexually inclined. From what Phil's said, we know they're going to the infirmary, they're well armed and there are five of them in number. I'd wager that they'll take the southern pathway rather than cross through the forest; they're probably thinking that because they've got automatic weapons and reasonable strength in numbers, they'll basically be invulnerable to attack. We are going to prove they're seriously fucking wrong in this respect."

"Where do we wait to attack from?" asked Fergal.

"I have a few ideas; I've also got some complex attack patterns that I'll need to go through with you."

"It's a shame Phil didn't listen in for longer; we might have at least got some more specific info if he had." Fergal mused bitterly.

"I had to leave; it would have been dangerous to linger there too long. Besides, I didn't see you offering to eavesdrop on the girls."

"If it weren't for me, we wouldn't have even found out where the girls hiding!" Fergal angrily replied.

"Shut. The. Fuck. Up!" Tian growled, forcefully subduing his mounting rage as best he could, "and let me finish."

There was silence, Phil and Fergal looked unusually cowed by Tian's anger. Tian cleared his throat and began his second attempt at an authoritative colloquy.

"As I was saying,"

The girls had finally packed their bags and gathered their weapons together. Originally they'd intended to leave the sanctuary of the log cabin as late as was feasibly possible, but the sneaking paranoia that the infirmary might already be occupied unless they left soon had driven them to make a prematurely early departure.

Jewel was visibly shaken, the televised interview with her mother having left in her in an emotionally distraught state that only Daisy and – to a lesser extent – Sylvie, had tried to alleviate. Daisy was positively elated by Sylvie's exit from her hideaway and this joy was clearly manifesting itself in her giddily optimistic mood. Even Sylvie had lightened up and relaxed slightly, whilst Anne and Sue retained their patented demeanours of cool indifference.

Little did Jewel realise, as she exited the comfort of the log cabin and stepped out into the foreboding woodland, what fate awaited her and her friends amongst the dense and mysterious greenery of the forest.

Either way, the events that would emerge over the course of the next few hours would leave their indelible mark on every person involved.

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