Chapter nine

Alex stopped walking. Lance and Leo were dead. Two of his best friends in the world were dead. Tears started to swell in his eyes, and he felt his legs give way. "Alex!" Damien stopped and bent down next to him. "I know it's hard to deal with, but at least you don't have to deal with killing them yourself now."

Alex felt sick. He had thought about killing them. Known they would have to die, but now that they were actually dead it just… it hurt. It hurt more than he thought it would. Wait, Emily was still alive. There was no way that Leo or Lance would have left her alone. She wouldn't have… Did Emily kill them? Did she wait until he left and then kill them? "Emily wouldn't have kill them."

"Who said she did? Maybe Tobin did it," Damien said with a shrug. "Or, maybe it was Frederic, or anyone who is left in this game. Maybe she got away, and that's what happened. We have no way of knowing so there's no reason to worry about it. If we find Emily, I'm going to kill her."

Alex looked up to Damien, "you'll kill her? Just like that? Besides you, she's the only friend I have left."

"She'll have to die sooner or later, might as well make it sooner," Damien said. He shrugged. "I'll kill anyone we run across. We'll need to kill everyone who is left if we have a chance of survival."

"But… We don't have a chance for survival. Only one of us has a chance. Even if we… even if we have it all the way to the end of this, even if it's just the two of us, then.. Then we'll have to kill each other. One of us have to die," Alex looked down. "It's not fair. If I'm going to live, then everyone I can about has to die. Everyone."

"That's fine," Damien said matter of factly. "I know what I'm doing, trust me." Damien stopped when he heard movement. "Alex, get your gun out."

"What? I didn't-" Alex was cut off by what looked to be a- Damien grabbed Alex and shoved him to the ground, laying on top of him as a large explosion went off just behind him. "What the hell was that?" Alex yelled.

"If I had to guess, it was some kind of rocket gun or launcher or something like that. I hope there isn't another shot," Damien said. His breathing was fast as his was. It looked like Damien had saved his life again. Damien said he knew what he was doing, and Alex wanted to believe him but… how could anyone know what they're doing in this situation? "We have to find who shot that and kill them, quickly."

Alex nodded, waiting until Damien got off of him before getting up himself. "I think it came from over here," he said softy, starting to walk to where the shot had been fired from. The whole area behind them was destroyed, and Alex was surprised that they hadn't been killed. Thankful, but surprised.

Damien nodded and walked along with Alex. "Over there," he pointed to Saffron.

"I can't believe that didn't kill you two," Saffron said, frowning. "It should have killed you several times over."

"Well, it'll take more than that to kill me," Damien spat. "Alex, shot her."

Alex picked up his gun and pointed it at Saffron. Alex started to shot at her as ran at him. After only a few shots, she was down, dead. Alex felt weak. He had… how many people would he have to kill before he got killed himself? "I… I'm not even sure if I can keep doing this. And… I'm almost out of bullets."

"Then give me the gun. I'll take care of the killings then," Damien said. Alex looked at the gun. If he gave it to Damien, then his friend could just kill… no, Damien wouldn't keep saving him to kill him, and he already gave him the bullet proof vest. Alex handed Damien the gun.

"Where are we going to go now?" Alex asked softly. They were have to move. He knew that. If he didn't move there would be issues, but if they did move they would have the same problems. Problems like killing their friends. Though, it wasn't as though there was many of his actual friends left. There was Damien, and Emily.

"Simple, we just keep moving. Sooner or later we'll run into someone else and then we'll kill them and move on," Damien said.

Alex shook his head, "how can you say that so simply? As if it didn't matter we're going to kill people."

"Because it's the only thing we can do right now," Damien said. Alex frowned, but soon had pulled himself off the ground. He didn't say anything, just kept walking with Damien.

XxXxXxXxXx

Amani sat there, frowning, and glaring at the reason she was tied up at the moment. They had just used their jackets, but she couldn't get away. Mark and Liz were sitting near her, just talking.

"Mark, I think we should just kill her and get it over with. I mean, we have her two weapons. A knife and a gun will come in handy when we kill the others," Liz complained. Amani pulled against the jackets again. They were going to kill her. She had to get out of here. She had to make it back to her family. She was going to prove that she was just as good as her older brother. She could win the Battle Royal Program too.

Mark got up, taking the butterfly knife, her own weapon, and sighed. He started to walk over to her. If she didn't do something quick, she was going to get killed. "You know, it's stupid for you two to work together. I mean, you'll have to turn on each other sooner or later. It's so stupid that you're working together, and even that fact you didn't even kill me to start with. I mean, come on, it's going to get you both killed."

"Is not. I'm not going to get killed, just wait, I'm going to be the one who gets out of this," Liz said.

Mark stopped and turned around. "Who's to say that you're the one who's going to make it out alive? I'm going to be the one who makes it out," he said harshly. As he lunged at Liz, and she grabbed the revolver with blanks, Amani finally got the jackets loose.

She took a deep breath, and knew what she had to do. When she heard Liz scream, she knew Mark had stabbed her. Amani jumped on top of Mark's back and got her hands around his throat. He was soon trying to throw her off, what she knew would happen. "L-Liz, get the knife and stab him," she cried. "O-or d-do something!" Liz winced and didn't move at first. She just laid there, starting to cry. "Liz! We're both going to die if you don't-"

Mark threw her off and stabbed Liz again. This was a hopeless care. She ran. She ran as fast as she could away from them. She was going to be without a weapon, without food or water, but she would be alive. Liz was dead, she was sure of it, or would be soon enough to not matter, and-

"I'm not letting you get away!" Mark yelled. He was chancing her! Amani quickly thought of where she was. There was one chance, and if it worked… well, no matter what happened there would be another person dead soon.

Amani stopped running and changed directions. It had to be around her somewhere- She took a step and heard her collar start to beep. Good. She took a few steps back, until the collar stopped beeping. Mark was running at her. Amani moved out of his way and he ended up running past her and into the danger zone. She quickly ran after him. Mark turned around when his collar started going off. Amani ran at him, pushing him to keep him in the danger zone. She kept holding onto him, even as he stabbed her in the shoulder. She held him there until…

Amani screamed as the collar went off and cut open Mark's throat. She was soon covered in blood, in his blood. She just stood there. She slowly started to make her way back to where she had left Liz. Her wound needed to be treated and she needed to eat something and get ready to move on. The numbers were going down quickly, and she needed to stay on her toes. She didn't know much about knife wounds, but that was okay.

Amani could still remember seeing all of her brother's wounds when he came home. She could still remember how badly he must have been hurt to get the scars he still carried with him. Did he still have nightmares about those wounds? Would she have nightmares when she made it out of this mess? Amani found herself walking slower. Her brother still didn't come out of his room that often. He still had issues trusting people, and he hadn't spoken much to anyone after their fight. Would she be that way once she got out this mess?

Amani didn't want that. She didn't want to make it out of this only to find herself depressed and unable to do anything with her life any longer without fear of people around her hurting her or something. She didn't want to go back to not even trust her family.

She didn't want to go back to have someone demand to know what happened to any of the other students.

A sick feeling started in the pit of her stomach. She wanted to talk with her brother. She wanted to tell him how sorry she was. She wanted to beg him to forgive her. She…

She shook her head and made it back to where Liz's body was. Well, all she could do now was to win and tell her brother everything she wanted too, everything she understood now. She wanted to tell him it is okay. That he did nothing wrong, and mean it. She had to make it out of here alive. She just had too…

XxXxXxX

It was funny. Here she was, in lovely area C6, where she had been since the beginning of this whole thing, and now she was surrounded by danger zones. It was probably possible for her to get through the corners and make it to one of the other non-danger zones. Leah wasn't sure she cared all that much though. She planned on just doing what she had been doing this whole time, smoking. She had not plans on winning this thing, had already came to grips she wasn't going to live more than a few days, and she was okay with that.

Leah always had drugs with her, but she had used a lot of her harder stuff already. She didn't want to be sober for the rest of her life. Ha, she could probably do that too. It wasn't like she was going to live much longer. Even if there wasn't anyone else in this area with her, sooner or later this area would become a danger zone and she'd die. Maybe she should just overdose and get it over with. At least she would make sure she went out happy.

Her weapon had been a joke, a paddle ball. That was out for a painless way to die. She dug threw her bag and pulled out all of her drugs. "Guess this is it. Had a good run I guess," she laughed and took the rest of her pain killers and lit up another joint.

XxXxXxXx

Dana sat there, her body shaking. How much longer would she have to wait until everyone just killed each other and she could go home? The last time she had seen another person was at the school. Her weapon was a hunting rifle, and she knew how to use it.

"I don't want to go hunting. I'm not going to be any good at it," Dana complained to her older brother. Since her parents 'left' the two of them lived together. She was fine with that, and she knew he was as well. She could take care of herself for the most part, and he could still play big brother when he felt like it.

"Come on, it'll be fun. A lot of my friends are going and I don't want to leave you here alone. This isn't the best neighborhood and I don't want something to happen to you. Besides, the guys got you a pink gun."

"A pink gun? What is it some plastic thing?" Dana couldn't help but laugh. She didn't have many friends at school, but she loved to hang out with her brother. He was the one person who would never leave her.

Her brother laughed, "Nah. They just got some spray paint and painted it. It's a bad job and it looks horrible, but hey they tried, right?"

"Well, if they put that much effort into it then I have to go."

Dana looked at the hunting rifle again. It had smears of her pink nail polish all over it. Maybe, if she tried hard enough, she could just pretend she was out at that cabin, on that hunting trip with her brother and his friends. That she wasn't alone out here, fighting to live, she could pretend that he was there making sure she stayed safe. She held the rifle close to herself as she heard a sound. It was only a matter of time before someone found her. She could do this. She had to be able to do this.

She moved the gun so she could actually fire it. After a few moments, a naked Dustin jumped out of bush and yelled. He had a katana in the air, waving it. "D-Dustin?" Her voice was shaky and she pointed the gun at him. Dustin didn't say anything, just screaming again and ran at her.

Dana just pulled the trigger. The bullet went right into his chest. It was a good shot, and Dana felt pale. She turned to the side and threw up. Sh-she had just killed someone. She had just killed Dustin. He had seemed like such a nice guy, even though he had looked so crazed just before she killed him, and she just killed him.

What was she supposed to do now? Sh-she was… she was a killer and… and… she couldn't do this again. She couldn't…

"I can't believe I killed something. What if it had a family? Aren't other deer going to miss her now that I've killed her?" Dana asked, staring at the deer she had shot. She didn't understand all of the rules of hunting her brother had tried to drill into her, and she had killed a fawn.

"It doesn't matter. It's part of life. Animals die all the time. We're going to cook it up and eat it, so it's not like it's death is going to be in vain. If you kill something with good reason then it's okay. Don't feel bad about the things you do in your life. You only live once right? So, never feel bad about what you do. If you don't like something you did, then change it and make up for it. Can't change the past, just got to keep living." Her brother helped her started to pull the deer back to the others.

Dana slowly walked over and picked up Dustin's katana. Her things were soon gathered up and she started to walk. If she kept walking she would find someone else, right? Someone else to kill. There couldn't be that many people left, so she wouldn't have to kill that many more people if she was going to live…

XxXxXxXxX

Kristina looked at her weapons. Wooden stakes. What was she supposed to do with wooden stakes? Shaking her head, she leaned back onto the ground and looked up at the sky. Blue skies, nice weather, and she had been alone since she had left the school. If she just kept hiding she would win this. Just let the others kill each other. The number of death had just come last hour, thirteen people left alive, counting her. Only twelve more people needed to die and she would be able to make it out of this mess alive, without killing anyone. Wouldn't that be perfect? It was probably a first. Maybe she would even go down in history as the only person to win Battle Royal without killing a single person. All of her friends were already dead, and the only person she wouldn't mind seeing was Damien.

Kristina was convinced she was in love with him, even though she wasn't sure he even knew more than her name. That was okay. He was going to die, so… so she should just let him go. Biting her lip, she hoped he died soon. If it came to him and her, she was sure she couldn't kill him. She didn't think she could kill anyone, but… maybe it wouldn't be so bad if she saw Damien once more before she died. She could tell him how much she loved him. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to die if she could tell him how much she loved him. Maybe he wouldn't kill her and tell her he loved her back and-

"Look there's someone over there," Alex said.

"Where?" Damien asked.

It was Damien! He was with Alexander though… Kristina got up and took a deep breath. "Damien!" She called, walking over to the two. Her steps were stopped when she noticed his gun pointed at her. "D-Damien I… I'm glad I got to see you. I-I want to… I love you Damien. I've loved you since the day I met you. I-" She screamed as the pullet went into her side. Her knees gave way and she was soon on the ground.

She could see Alex's pale face, and he's saying something she can't make out. Her eyes are on Damien as her vision started to go blurry. She had told him… even though he… he killed her… "I'm sorry I had to do this. I've loved you too Kristina, and I'm sorry." He leaned down and her last sensation was him kissing her gently on the lips.

"Damien, why did you lie to her?" Alex asked. "I know you don't love her. You don't even like her."

Damien got up and turned back to Alex, "because I wanted to give her some happiness before she died. Everyone deserves to be happy before they die." He looked around, before talking over to her bag and taking everything he wanted out of it. "Let's get going. There can't be more than twelve people left."

Alex just nodded and started to follow him again.