Chapter 6

They were each sent outside one by one, and Sarah was the fourth to be released. She walked slowly at first and then quickened her pace to join the other three who stood waiting at the end of the path that led to the building that they had been held in. The bag that she had been given bumped against her side as she broke in to a run to meet them.

"We're going to get out of this aren't we?" was the first thing that a worried Serenity asked her as she joined the group. Mokuba and Marcus where also there.

"Of course we are." Sarah assured all of them even though she felt unsure of it herself. "We all agreed that none of us would play along."

They waited a little while and the next person, Roland, had been released. He swiftly joined them and gestured for Mokuba to follow him. "Come, I have orders from your brother."

"What orders?" Mokuba asked surprised.

"We are to keep moving so that you don't become a sitting target for someone who's looking for an easy elimination." Roland explained eagerly wanting to continue away from the others.

"That's not the plan that we agreed to." Sarah told him. "There's safety in numbers so we all have to stick together." She tried to block Roland's way determined not to let him by.

"Mr Kaiba's orders are for me to guard Mokuba at all costs." Roland told her, and something in his voice sounded like he too agreed with what Sarah had said.

"How do we know that you aren't planning to eliminate himyourself?" Marcus butted in as he glared at the taller man.

"I trust Roland with my life, as does by brother." Mokuba stated as he stood beside Roland. He stared up at Sarah. "And I also trust my brother's judgement on what's best to do in this situation."

Knowing that they had to stick together as planned, Sarah reluctantly moved aside as she watched the two of them disappear out of sight. She had her own doubts about if they all would survive the twisted game that they were being forced in to playing and didn't want to decrease anybody else's chances of survival. At least she knew that they weren't out to get each other so the only things that they had to worry about were the other dangers that had been explained to them.

Kaiba was the next to be sent out for his own survival. He walked along the path from the building checking the contents of his bag. He saw that his useful item was nothing more than a cheap joke-shop smoke bomb. Disappointedly he began to zip up the bag as he heard a loud scream from ahead of him.

Kaiba broke out in to a sprint towards the direction of the scream. And saw two people standing whilst one lay on the ground with arrows sticking into their back, and could just make out another person hiding in the bushes nearby. Quickly he reached in to his half zipped up bag and threw the smoke bomb in the direction of the bushes where it caused a huge cloud of smoke as it impacted on its target.

Looking down at the body that lay on the ground Kaiba was able to see that Marcus had been shot three times. Serenity who had been the one who had screamed was sobbing as Sarah struggled to help hold her up whilst trying to process all of what was happening.

"Unless you both want to end up like cosplay boy, I suggest that you follow me." He told the two girls as he began to move away quickly before the smoke cleared and the attacker had time to pick out their next target.

Sarah pulled at Serenity to follow her as together they ran to catch up with Kaiba, leaving Marcus where he lay, dead, face down in the dirt.

"Player, Marcus, has been eliminated. Thirteen players still remaining." announced the speaker voice as Andrew was about to leave the building. He walked quickly not wanting to hang about as it was clear to him that the game had begun and wasn't going to be the next person to be eliminated.

As he reached the end of the path Andrew saw Marcus' body, blood had saturated the ground where he lay. He quickly scanned around to check that Marcus' attacker wasn't still around before he too continued off in to the rest of the island.

To him it was clear that nobody had planned to keep to the agreement that had been made just a short while earlier.

Emma was the last one to leave and was extremely disappointed to find that everybody had left. She couldn't believe that nobody had kept to the plan, but as she saw Marcus fear began to take control and understood that the others must have also felt the same thing and understood why they hadn't stuck around.

The first thing she had to do was to try and find some of the others, but Emma was unsure of where to start. She removed the map from her bag and stared at it blankly, before she placed it back in her bag as she decided that she would follow the river.

After half an hour's walk Emma came across Joey who was washing his hands in the river. "Joey!" she called out to him as she approached him. "Are you okay?"

"Of course I'm not okay!" Joey screamed at her. "I've just watched my best friend die in front of me, been told that I have to kill twelve other people if I want to live, become separated from my sister who I'm supposed to be looking after and now I'm lost." He paused as he scrubbed at his hands trying to clean every last drop of Tristan's blood from them and started to cry. "Why won't this stuff come off?"

Emma knelt down beside her friend and put her arm around him. "Its going to be okay, I'm here for you now."

"Don't you even touch me!" Joey spat as he forcefully pushed Emma away. "You're part of the reason why this happened and I hate you for it."

"I know you're just looking for somebody to blame, but Seto and I were totally unaware that this would happen." Emma said holding back the hurt that Joey had just caused her with his outburst.

"Two people are dead because of you, and one of them was your friend. How can you be so unaffected by what you've done?" Joey narrowed his eyes angrily. "You're turning out like him."

Emma had to take a deep breath to stop herself from bursting out in to tears. "You're angry and scared so I know that you don't mean anything that you're saying right now."

"If anything happens to Serenity I swear that I'll kill you myself." Joey's threat was real and Emma could tell that apart from the other things that he had said.

"Please, calm down." she begged him.

"I am calm!" Joey roared before he jerked forward as he was hit in the back by an arrow.

Emma did her best to catch him before he hit the ground but was cut off by another arrow that narrowly missed them both. She looked in the direction that it had come from and saw one of the eliminators holding a crossbow. He, or she it was hard to tell, was dressed in black, and aimed the crossbow directly at Emma.

As the eliminator pulled the trigger, it jammed. They threw the now useless weapon to one side and charged at Emma who was more concerned about Joey than her own safety.

She felt herself pulled away from her friend as the eliminator grabbed Emma by the shoulders as they tried to get a grip around her neck. Forcing her elbow backwards she managed to hit her attacker in the ribs and the hold on her was released. She turned and kicked them backwards and watched as they stumbled backwards and fell in to the river.

Emma focused her attention to Joey once more. He was whimpering in pain and bleeding quite badly. She tore the sleeve from her blouse as she applied pressure to the wound to stop the bleeding. Once again the eliminator grabbed hold of her and threw her across the ground where she ended up on top of her bag were she had left it by the river. She searched her bag for the item that it had contained.

As the eliminator approached her once more Emma spun round holding out an electric shocker. She pressed the button and blue sparks emerged and found their way to the soaking wet eliminator who jerked violently from the electric shock. Emma pressed the button again and again sending more sparks through the body of the eliminator as they fell to the ground. Once on the ground she zapped them once more and only stopped when the eliminator twitched very slightly.

Emma stared down in horror at what she had just done. The emotionless eyes of the dead eliminator stared up at her. She felt sick to her stomach and threw the electric shocker as far away from her as she could. She was unable to believe that she had just killed somebody even though it was in self defence. Joey whimpered, and Emma snapped back in to reality.

Emma crouched down and held Joey in her arms. The bleeding had become heavier even though she had done her best to try and ease it. Joey had almost lost consciousness. "Joey listen to me. You're hurt but everything is going to be okay." She felt her voice quiver as the doubts in her mind almost took control, but managed to keep it together as Joey gripped hold of her hand. "It's okay I won't leave you."