Chapter 2
"Crystal Winters (Girl #11)…Are u awake yet?" a cold masculine voice spoke from the black screen filling the padded room with a remote evil where Crystal sat strapped up in a straight jacket. She had been awake for what seemed like a few hours staring blankly at the bottom of the padded wall trying not to think of the events that had just occurred.
She focused her eyes on the black screen that had been asking her the same last question over and over again for the last few hours, with a mean intent. She didn't know what she was going to do with it, but she had decided at the beginning of her time in the room where they normally locked up insane people that she would never verbalise a single word I the program and would silently protest against the government. She was stubborn, but she was at straining point, having just witnessed her parents being killed and having herself just killed a man.
"Crystal Winters…Are u awake yet?"
She stirred her arms once more desperately trying to undo the straight jacket, but to no avail. She wanted to escape, but there were no doors, just her and the black screen two enemies facing each other off in a staring duel.
"Crystal Winters…Are u awake yet?"
She shuddered as she remembered how much blood had oozed out of his body and how he had twitched convulsively for a few minutes, each limb spraying out more and more blood as he moved, till finally he lay still. She had killed him with one of her kitchen knifes after she had discovered her parents lying dead sprawled out on the kitchen floor. She had snuck up behind him repeatedly stabbing him. He had come to take her to the fucken program.
"Crystal Winters…Are u awake yet?"
She hated that dead man, he at least had a name while she was simply now a number. A number that had to play in a godamn game killing other numbers, there was no humanity in a game such as Battle Royale. With her parents dead, she had lost who she was and the government had now told her that she was a number. The government had stolen her identity, but at least she had stolen that dead man's identity however the sweet taste of revenge hadn't been satisfied just yet. How could she ever be a winner in this game when she had already lost all that she already was.
"Crystal Winters…Are u awake yet?"
She moved her head up and down moaning slightly and bighting on her lip to stop herself from crying. She wasn't going to cry.
"Crystal Winters…Are u awake yet?"
Crystal looked around the room for the hundredth time searching for some door that could help her escape, but again all that she could see was a bag with the letters Battle Royale which frustrated her because she couldn't open it with her hands being tied in a straight jacket.
"Crystal Winters…Are u awake yet?"
Crystal looked up to the ceiling as if for some sign of hope that her parents could find her, but alas had found none and finally after hours of silence determination and holding herself together, gritted her teeth and spoke in a slow drawn out voice.
"I am awake"
The silence surprised Crystal for the first time because the black screen did not instantly respond, until finally the screen switched on which shocked Crystal so much that she smashed herself hard against one of the white padded walls.
The letters BR displayed across the screen.
The voice spoke up again in a cold malicious tone which sent spasms of fear shivering up Crystal's spine "It is currently 10AM in the morning on Day One and you are participating in the Battle Royale program. Currently four students are dead"
Crystal's hair, a wild mane of ginger ringlets, which reached her shoulders swung around uncontrollably as she tried to fight back the tears.
"As you already know a group of soldiers came to pick you up to take you to the program however due to our producers coming up with a clever marketing scheme we have decided to release you into the program at a later time which will be announced in around five hours time. Think of yourself as a show gimmick. When we finally retrieved your body hovering over your parents dead bodies and one soldier who you had murdered, you were drugged taken here and you have been asleep for around an hour. We have been repeating the same message to you over and over again because we cannot legally consider you a participant before you respond that you are awake. You could sleep now, couldn't you? The mark of a true killer."
He burst out into a cruel laughter.
She roared back at the voice "I didn't attend that stupid dead soldier's funeral, but I sent a letter saying I approved of it"
The voice chuckled in response "Ahhh….Crystal's first words and a Mark Twain quote a very intelligent man I must say. You are quite an interesting girl. Your report says you are quite lazy which I must say in unintelligent feature while it also says you have a problem with authority which is unintelligent considering we could easily kill you if we wanted too yet you seem to want to scream at me and refuse to speak to us for hours on end. I like you quite a lot because I believe you have some chutzpah and that is important for this program, but we must get onto explaining the program's rules first"
Crystal stood up frustrated and screamed back as piercingly as she could back at the screen "You'll know the full force of my chutzpah when I reach down your throat and pull your fucken dead heart out"
The voice again chuckled in response infuriating Crystal even more "Crystal you already know most of the rules, so I don't know why I'm bothering. You spent a lot of time with your parents protesting against them for gods' sakes, but I guess I have to. Damn hippies. The other students have obviously all been debriefed on the program's rules. It's as simple as this, 21 students enter the program….or 17 now" he added in a sly tone.
Crystal tightened her fist, her slightly stout body shaking in anger.
The voice continued "And only one comes out. Like in the first Battle Royale it will be televised for the Australian community and Bert Newton will be hosting it. There are camera's everywhere and there will be nowhere you can hide. The channel broadcasting it will not televise it live, but rather decide what they will put in their programming exactly a day after it happens, so they therefore can manipulate how each student will be shown and decide to include or not include every conversation that happens. "
Crystal muttered to herself, something that her mother had always repeated to her "The first casualty of war is truth"
He continued now in a slightly more menacing tone" There will be no attempts to leave the program area which consist of a mansion, which you are currently in and its grounds. If you choose to do so the collar we will place on you in some time will explode and your head will blow off. The Collars will also explode if more than one person is left at the end of the three day period of Battle Royale and they will explode if you enter a danger Zone which will be read to you every 3 hours. We will fill in the danger zones on your map and you will soon see how the map is divided into certain squares. That bag that you have been eyeing at for some time now contains a map, some food and water and your randomly selected weapon which you will kill your classmates with. Thank you for being so cooperative over and out"
"My fucken pleasure" Crystal screamed out
Crystal slumped herself against the wall trying to remain strong and fight back the tears that her parents deserved.
