Chapter 3 (6AM DAY ONE)

Noel Anderson's mother watched silently gripping onto some tissues as the first hour of the game her son was in, switched on her television. She slowly tore through every tissue nervously hoping more and more as each minute passed that her only son would survive the program and be the winner.

She watched as the television screen broadcasted a nerdy looking boy with a silver collar on his neck flipping through the pages of a dictionary muttering words to himself.

Death-

State of being dead

Adam flipped through the pages of the dictionary reflecting on certain words, mouthing them as he passed them and then turning to other words. He had been mouthing the word death too himself for around two minutes repeating the word and its many meanings in his head. He had been thinking about what it would be like to die.

He crouched behind a table hidden by its shadow it gave off in the morning light. He looked up for more evidence on his surroundings, but still made sure his football shaped head was hidden by the shadows. He was in the library specifically C5 located in the mansion that his classmates had been told the "game" was occurring in.

The room gave off a sinister atmosphere with the considerably sized bookcases sitting either side of the table painted a menacing red and filled with tales of human anguish and misery that Andy had never heard off. The table he was hidden behind was a shade of grey and he sat awkwardly on the soft chocolate coloured carpet. He had recognised that the door that he had opened to walk in was a modelled from an eighteenth century dungeon door that he recognised from playing too many role playing computer games. To the left of his crouching shrivelled gangly body was a small blue door, literally so small that he had to crouch to try to open it, but had unfortunately discovered it was locked. A painting on the wall to Adam's right showed a man whose face was in torment hung by a noose and Adam whimpered too himself every time he looked up to it quickly reverting to looking for more relaxing words that made him much more secure like his most treasured thing in the world, chess.

Chess-

A game for two people, played on a board with pieces that are moved in an attempt to checkmate the opponents king.

Adam stared at the BR bag they had given every student; he had already taken a swig of the water and eaten half his bread roll. When he had been given the BR bag, he had run east out of the room where they had been debriefed along the tiled floors into the library and hid in the shadows that the table gave him. He had then discovered the dictionary inside his BR bag which he decided could be used as a decent weapon even though he was not physically strong enough to really hurt anyone, but he could at least slow them down.

Adam blankly stared at the map that they had given him trying to make sense of it. The main part of the map was the large bushland area to the south east and next to the bushland was a large maze. The Mansion took up most of the north of the map and was divided into several rooms, the kitchen, study, ball room, library, lounge, hall, dining room with the room labelled HQ in the centre of the mansion. HQ was where the students had arrived after being drugged on their bus for the Battle Royale program and where the producers as they had been called monitored the game. He remembered the initial shock finding himself strapped to a desk in chains being told by several menacing guards that he would have to kill his friends. To the east of the mansion was the servants quarters and surrounding the mansion was a scatter of small sheds.

He instantly recognised the mansion resembling a board game called Cluedo, a game somewhat limited in strategy when compared to chess. He became so enthused as to how the mansion had been divided into similar rooms as a cluedo board he decided he would look the word cluedo up in his dictionary.

Cluedo-

Congratulations reader of the dictionary. You have discovered a clue. The mansion is divided into sections just like a cluedo board. Although this weapon appears to be weak if you follow the paths on the dictionary right it can lead you to areas that will save your life. Your clue:

Those who die for a cause die comforted and coy;

Believing their cause God's cause they die with joy

Adam lifted his head from the dictionary with his spirits soaring. It was so early in the game and he already had hope, he would not lose his sanity, he would remain calm and use the clues from his weapon to survive.

He looked up to the library filled with literally thousands of books. He would find out who had written that poem and discover what the cryptic poem meant. Somewhere up in one of those books was a poem that which would give him a further clue. Somewhere up in one of those books was hope.

A camera situated on a hedge near the northern maze's entrance centred on an Asian girl with a light face complexion, fit frame and medium length black hair. The producers than decided to switch to a shot straight after showing the girl of the entire maze making the hedge maze appear larger than it actually was and making the viewer feel a sense of hopelessness that anyone who entered it would never actually get out.

The girl ran into the maze shifting her focus behind her occasionally to see if anyone had been following her. The girl then looked up at the camera saying something that the microphone attached to her collar couldn't pick up.

"Bastards! Watching innocent kids killing each other." Aquina Matsuda said with spite.

She hated the Battle Royale program, as they nearly held one every week in her country of origin Japan, killing thousands of teenagers like herself in the process. The major problem in Japan was that no one could voice their opinions against the program, but she did recall speaking in hushed voices to her old friends from Japan about how corrupt the Japanese regime was. She used to trust her friends in Japan, but she had lost her feeling of trust towards people a long time ago.

She reflected on her friends while running through the many passages of the maze. She had left behind all of her friends when she had come to Australia which was like a free somewhat peaceful political paradise for Aquina and her beloved sister Rumi until she discovered on the news that Australia in hope of pleasing the US would adopt the BR program. She remembered watching in horror as they broadcasted the program, selling merchandise of the children on 1800-numbers. She remembered watching the program on television while her sister Rumi cried into her lap sobbing violently as a voice announced student after student being killed.

She ran along another passage of the maze while not making too much noise, a technique she had learnt from martial arts.

She reached a dead end hitting the sharp hedge with too much force, as she had been running too quickly.

A dead end, just like her life in Australia, new school, no friends and most importantly no Hiro.

A pain hit her deep in her heart when she thought of his name and she clutched on the shell necklace that her boyfriend's parents had given her after he had died, but she was thinking too much of him and whenever she thought of the way he died, it made her lose concentration and break down, something she could not do in a game like this. Every time she was faced with a problem she would clasp onto her boyfriend's shell necklace hoping that he would give him hope, but it usually gave her moments of despair like it was giving her now.

Her mind shifted back to the game as she ran down another passage through the maze, hoping she would hit the centre soon. There were so many passages and she was starting to get lost.

Her hand gripped tighter onto the randomly assigned weapon that the producers had given her, a replica of a ceremonial court dagger used by napoleon himself. It was a large dagger with the grip engraved by napoleon's profile and his monogram displayed on the sheath still inside her bag she was carrying with her other hand. The dagger itself had been painted gold making Aquina feel honoured to be given a weapon such as a replica of napoleons dagger and less afraid of the horrors that the Battle Royale program could produce.

She could easily kill someone with the dagger, but she was not interested in killing her fellow classmates even though she barely knew them and would thus suffer less guilt. She only needed the large dagger to defend herself against the ones who were playing the game. She was going to protect one single person that reflected her dead boyfriend Hiro and defend that person till her own last breath. She decided that in the first few hours she would scout the maze and then the bush area for anyone that could fit Hiro's purity and then she could offer her services to that person and fight in their honour against the other classmates.

She realised that in sacrificing herself for someone else meant that she would soon die, but that did not worry her. Death would bring her closer to her love Hiro, her old boyfriend that had died and gone to heaven.

She hit another dead end again reflecting on how her life had become a living hell after Hiro had died.

She grasped again onto her shell necklace realizing that she could only afford one single moment in the game before she would die that she could reflect on Hiro.

She lay down on the ground and silently sobbed. She grabbed her shell necklace at her neck below her silver collar and brought it too her face, so that she could rub away the tears falling down her check with it, but the finally lifted it over her head.

She slowly dug a small hole and placed the shell necklace in the middle before quickly covering it up with soil.

She patted the smooth brown earth slowly muttering to herself "This is to be your final resting place my love Hiro. After I have buried my only possession of yours, I will be able to be strong enough to forget you for a few days and protect one of my honoured classmates. When you died your parents gave me this shell necklace to give me comfort, but I need to push your memories behind me now and remain strong. I will find someone that will have the same qualities as you. I hope that you will understand. I love you and will meet you soon"

Aquina lifted herself up from the soil mound with tears still strolling down her check, but with a renewed intense sense of bravery. She ran forward along a passage certain that she would save a fellow classmates life and unaware that someone had heard her crying and had been watching her at a safe distance from behind her.

She ran straight forward into another dead end, but this time instead of emotionally breaking down, she stood firm and clasped her hand tighter around the dagger determined that she would fight through every dead end that the maze offered her.

Her head was filled with thoughts of honour and triumph as it was struck down by the heavy bronze double bladed axe from behind her, cracking her skull and then slicing through her soft flesh, killing her instantly. Blood spurted out of her as she hit the brown earth of the maze with a loud thud.

Her body lay still, sprawled on the ground with the axe still heavily embedded in her flesh. Her blood crawled out from her head into every route making the effect as if it was trying to still escape from the maze.

The murderer clasped onto the axe's handle, ripping it out of her head spraying Aquina's blood onto the hedges that surrounded him.

A camera situated on the roof of the servants quarters focused on a girl who looked startled and horrified while she stared into the dining room's windows situated to the north of the library. She had a look of complete terror both in her blue and brown eye. She stood right outside the mansion's eastern wall and was so stunned that she was completely unaware of what was going on around her.

The glowing red windows that were situated in the dining room made Liberty Newman completely horrified as she remembered the frightening movie "The Amityville horror story". She had been bewildered as it is finding herself in Battle Royale, but she could not pass by the windows amazed at how much they resembled the windows of the house in the movie. She was already in complete terror, but seeing windows that resembled a horror story, made her so startled that she could hardly move.

She was so absorbed in the sinister looking windows that she failed to notice the figure creeping slowly behind her and no one could hear her screams when she found a familiar looking hand clasped tightly around her mouth.

The hour of BR highlights finished making Noel's mother sigh in relief. She had decided to sit by the television not concentrating on anything else, but her sons' wellbeing. An entire box of tissues all torn up into tiny little pieces lay around her feet as she nervously pulled out another tissue box ready for another hour of Battle Royale. In a mad frenzy she had bought every tissue box that was selling at the supermarket, so she could have something to do while she watched the BR program, something that she could release her stress onto. The supermarket had only 36 boxes left which Noel's mother hoped was not some sort of omen that her son would not last the entire game and would only survive for 36 hours.

Aquina Matsuda Female#8 Dead

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