Chapter 3: and now, the rules
When Levi Ackerman wakes up, he thinks for a minute that he's back in school. Looking around, though, he sees that that's not possible. The first thing that hits him is that the windows are all covered in dark sheets of metal.
Around him are his study group mates, all passed out in their seats, still in their school tracksuits (the required uniform for trips). Most of his friends/classmates are scattered throughout the room, which is weird; in study group they sat by grade level, but there are Erwin, Mike, and Hanji clear across the room, while Mikasa Ackerman is seated right behind him. It looks like they've been arranged in alphabetical order. Weird.
The last thing he remembers is being on the bus on the way to some riverside campsite and then… like, falling asleep or something. He doesn't really know. Looking at his watch, he sees that it's one o'clock on Saturday. Whether it's one in the morning or afternoon, though, he doesn't know.
Something else feels off too-something other than being in an unknown place with boarded up windows and unconscious classmates. He studies the others for almost a full minute until he realizes what it is.
They're all wearing silver collars.
Levi had only just reached for the one around his own neck when the door at the front of the room opens and three men enter, two of whom look like soldiers and are holding shotguns and a large black bag between them. He stares at the last unarmed man for a long minute, feeling uncomfortable but not quite knowing why. The man stares back, and the look on his face tells Levi he should definitely recognize him.
But then the man shrugs idly, like it doesn't matter much either way, and claps once. "Everyone up?" His voice, while loud, has the low rough quality of a chain smoker. The confused murmuring takes a minute to completely die down, but the room is quiet soon enough. "We're already behind schedule now, so let's get right in. The reason you're all here is because your class has been selected for this year's Program."
It's like someone had just sucked all the air from the room. Levi wants to throw up. Next to him, Marco Bodt's eyes widen almost comically. Auruo's face has gone slack. Someone-he doesn't bother turning around to see-gasps, they actually fucking gasp.
They all know what the Program is. It had come into practice more than a hundred years ago, under the guise of keeping what was left of the country together and maintaining their independence. Levi doesn't know the specifics or history of it, since the Program itself wasn't publicized, and no one ever even learned what happened until after the fact, when the winner emerged (and even that was just broadcast locally). What he does know is that each year, for the last hundred and three years, thirty classes of forty students-ten classes a province-were selected to die by the hands of their classmates. Around twelve hundred students dead each year. Chances of any particular student being picked were something like one in one thousand. Statistically speaking, he was three times more likely to die in a car accident. But here he is.
"Excuse me? Excuse me?" Levi twists around in his seat to see Nile Dawk standing next to his desk with his hand half raised. Like many of the others, he looks a little hysterical. "Sir, there must have been some kind of mistake." His voice tremors slightly. "The Program usually chooses classes of freshman. We're just a study group, most of us aren't even in the same grade. And seniors are always exempt. This… it doesn't make sense."
The man at the front of the room looks at Nile silently for a long bit. "Nile Dawk, aren't you?" he says finally.
"Yes, sir."
"Kenny Ackerman." The man looks around the class. "You all got that?"
Levi feels his classmates' eyes on him and probably Mikasa, and because of that, he refuses to turn, not even when he feels Mikasa tug slightly on the back of his jacket. Now he knows he should recognize this man, but he forces any budding memories back down to focus on the task at hand.
"Now." Kenny crosses his arms and leans back against the desk. "You're a smart kid, I assume-you co-preside your class with Erwin Smith. So you know there's no such thing as true equality. There will always be someone smarter or dumber, stronger or weaker. That's why we humans are considered social animals-we rely on each other simply because there is always someone better to do the work and someone worse to make the mistakes. You're right, single classes are usually chosen, and seniors are usually exempt-if only because you've just been educated to usefulness and it'd be idiotic to have you kill each other. But anyway. You see, the members of your study group aren't equal to each other on any level at all. So what better way to showcase everyone's lack of equality than with you guys?" He waves his hand dismissively. "You can sit down now."
"But…" Nile actually sounds a little irked. "There aren't even any freshman in this class. And what about our parents? And Mr. Pixis, the group coordinator… he knows this isn't right and he wouldn't have let it happen."
"Any parents who protested were beaten or killed, so let's hope yours didn't," Kenny says calmly. "As for your teacher…" He beckons to the soldiers, who drag the bag out from behind the desk and rip it open, displaying its contents for everyone to see.
Someone shrieks. Levi's urge to vomit grows.
Their chaperone's mangled bloody body is inside. Half of his face is pretty much gone, a broken mess. Levi can see it up close and personal. Oh God.
More people begin to scream-he can hear Rico Brzenska's vaguely irritated sounding exclamation over it all, which means she's trying not to cry-and Kenny snaps his fingers a few times. "Quiet!" he yells. "Quiet!"
Levi isn't even listening, so when one of the soldiers lifts his shotgun and opens fire on Pixis's body, he barely manages to shut his eyes and clamp his mouth closed before the bloody mist sprays out, splattering over him and the other students unlucky enough to be seated in the front row.
The room is silent.
"Your teacher objected, so he was killed," Kenny says flatly. "He had some pretty suspect loyalties anyway. No-you there! Hey!" From the top of the desk he snatches something and throws it. Levi whips around to see what has happened, then immediately wishes he hadn't.
Sasha Braus's expression is frozen in shock and horror, but worse is Lynne, who'd been leaning into the aisle, presumably to whisper something. A blade is imbedded in her temple just above her ear, and her hand, shaking, comes up to touch the handle. A second later, she collapses out of her seat. Her body lands with a solid thump on the floor, right by Sasha's feet.
At the back of the room, Nanaba screams, Henning already at Lynne's side, having leapt over desks to get there, and shouting, "Lynne? Lynnie!"
Those are his last words.
Nanaba rises after this, but Petra, sitting behind her, grabs a handful of her sweatshirt and yanks her back, while Gerger, in front, twists around and pushes her into her seat. For a second that feels like an eternity, the three of them teeter precariously, desks and all. Then, suddenly, they regain their balance and Nanaba is seated again.
"Two rules," Kenny says as if he hadn't just thrown a knife into one student and ordered the shooting of another. "One, no talking. Two, stay in your seat until I say you may leave. If you can all follow these rules, then maybe we can start the game without losing any more players."
Under the desk, Levi digs his nails into his palm. Once again, the classroom is totally silent. No one's going to try anything now.
"If you'll let me continue, I was going to explain the purpose of the silver collars you all wear. First and foremost, they are a tracking device. This island has been evacuated for the purpose of the Program. On the maps you will each be provided with, the island is divided up into a grid. Four times a day, every six hours during the announcements, one square will be designated as a forbidden location. You will have one hour to get out, else your collar will explode. The ocean, of course, if already forbidden. And dead students don't matter." He raises his eyebrows. "I hope you're all good with maps."
No one says anything and he goes on. "During the announcements, you'll also receive news of which of your classmates have died in the last six hours. And on like this until there is only one of you left and we have our winner. But if twenty-four hours pass at any time without a death, all of your collars will explode, and there will be no winner.
"During the game, you may do whatever you like as long as you follow these rules. Do you understand?"
Still no one responds.
"Good. Now then." Kenny starts down the rows, distributing a piece of paper and a pencil to the remaining students. It does not escape Levi's notice of how casually he steps over Lynne and Henning's bodies. "I'm sure you're all thinking that you can't just kill your classmates. But please know, thousands of other classes before you have done it; only a dozen or so games have expired from the time limit. But just to be sure you all have the basic principle down, write this down three times; We will kill each other."
Levi is tempted to rebel, but after seeing Lynne killed without warning for something as minor as whispering, he knows not to test this man's patience. He picks up the pencil and does what he'd been asked. The room is silent except for the the scratching sound of the others writing.
"You all have that? Now; If I don't kill, I will be killed. Three times too. Quickly, we're falling behind schedule."
This is slightly harder to put down, but Levi does it anyway.
"We're about ready to start, so now it's time for dismissal procedures." Kenny comes around to tap on Levi's desk. "You will be released in alphabetical order, one student every two minutes. To keep us on schedule, anyone lollygagging in the halls will be shot. You will come to the front to collect your bag. In it you'll find a map, some crackers and water, a watch if you don't already have one, and a weapon. The weapons are completely randomized. A little more inequality, if you will. You'll also have whatever you put in your overnight bags."
Levi, still stuck on the alphabetical order thing, glances back. There isn't any rule against waiting outside the door, but that doesn't matter anyway. Most of the people he knows for sure he can trust are much further down the roll call and wouldn't be dismissed for at least an hour after he has, much too long for him to stand around outside. Auruo Bozado is closest to him, but that would still be a fifteen-minute wait, and Levi doesn't think he wants to risk that. He doesn't know if there's anywhere to hide just outside the door, and if he goes too far he risks losing Auruo or catching the attention of another student. One who is willing to play.
He considers Mikasa Ackerman and Armin Arlert for only a second before dismissing them as well. Mikasa is okay, but he doesn't trust Arlert. He's too smart, too calculating, too much like Erwin (and if Levi hadn't known Erwin for six years, no way in hell would he trust him either). And of course, there's no way Mikasa would be willing to leave Armin behind just to make Levi comfortable.
Now that he thinks about it, maybe he shouldn't trust Mikasa either. Despite being first cousins, their relationship is spotty at best. Though they both know that his mother had refused to take her in after her parents had been murdered despite being kin, which had forced her to move in with the Jaegers instead, they don't talk about it. Levi knows his mother's refusal hadn't come from callousness but from fear. Mikasa's parents being targeted meant exactly that; they'd been targeted, despite living way out in Shiganshina, much too far for any government official to want to have bothered. If she'd come to live with Levi and his mother, that would have pinned an even bigger target on all their backs. Three Ackermans under one roof? Hmm. Better kill them all.
Then she'd moved to Trost from Shiganshina after the so-called terrorist attacks, and her not moving in with them had pretty much been for nothing.
But Mikasa doesn't know that. Levi's pretty sure she doesn't even know his father had been killed too, maybe even by the same people. And the Program isn't a prime time to explain anything. Especially not something like that.
So, he decides, I guess I'm on my own.
When Kenny finally calls his name, Levi picks up his bag and goes to the front of the room to get his daypack. When he is finally given permission to leave, he goes out the door into the dark hallway without looking back at his class once.
34 students remaining.