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2

Ricky Adams clutched his bag and ran straight out the door, causing him to slip on the snow. Snow? It hadn't been snowy back at the school. Where was he? He got back up and ran past a few houses until he reached the diner. He decided that it was as good a place to hide as any, so he lept over the counter and opened his pack. A flashlight, a map, a compass, loaves of bread, packaged food, bottles of water. Where was his weapon? He dumped the contents of his bag out onto the tiled floor and dug through the pile. Where was it? He pushed a box of crackers and sent something sliding under the counter. He put his arm under and felt around until he found it. A paperclip. He was silent with shock for the first five seconds then angry the next. What kind of weapon was this? How could he protect himself with this? He threw it into the kitchen and began to shove everything back into the bag. He looked at his watch. The third person was about to be released.

Nicole Boyd left the building slowly, looking around for Brittney. She walked cautiously towards a neighborhood area and waited until she had the green paneled wall of a house to her back to check her bag. Lying near the top was a black cylinder with a bright, neon orange label.

Pepper Spray.

Not lethal, but good for defense. She held it in her hand as she meandered through the houses. Snow started to fall and she made her way to the porch of a house. It was bearably cold out, but the snow already on the ground started soaking through her sneakers so she made her way to the porch of a house. She wondered who had lived here before this. There was a "Home Sweet Home" sign above the door.

The open door.

Nicole slowly pushed the door open and almost screamed when she saw him lying there. It was that really smart kid from class. John, she thought. He was pinned to the ground with a short arrow. Someone was already dead. She wanted to scream but nothing came out. She ran away from the house and made it across the street. She had expected some people to play, but not this soon.

There was a click and she saw Brittney emerge from the house next to her.

"Oh! Thank God it's just you, I thought you were Spencer." Nicole said, taking in a deep breath.

"You found me!" Brittney said cheerfully. Nicole climbed the steps to greet her friend.

"Oh my God, this is so crazy. I didn't know whether you were dead or not and… Oh my God."

"I've been waiting here hoping that you and would find me. I'm just so happy that you found me."

"I saw John, in that house over there." Nicole said pointing to the house. "He was dead. Someone's playing. We need to…"

But she stopped short, because at that moment she noticed that Brittney was holding a crossbow.

"You don't understand… he had a knife." Brittney began, but it was too late, Nicole was already leaving. She was about to jump off the porch when she felt the crossbow pressed against the back of her head.

"Don't leave."

"Brittney… you killed him…"

"Don't you leave me!" she screamed. Nicole swung her arm around and grabbed ahold of the crossbow, shoving it out of her hands until it skittered across the porch. Brittney shoved Nicole down the steps and pulled out a knife, probably John's, and pinned down Nicole by the neck with her free hand. The knife hand was being held back by Nicole's hand, but Brittney was stronger, and the knife was getting closer. Then Brittney was blinded as Nicole sprayed her with the pepper spray. Brittney recoiled in pain, giving Nicole time to slip out from her mass. She was just standing up when the knife slammed into her calf and she fell onto some shrubbery. She yanked it out and screamed in agony. She was bleeding everywhere, but she tried to hop away on her good leg. Brittney was crawling back to the porch in surrender, so Nicole stopped hopping and examined her leg. There was blood everywhere. She threw up. When she went to look at her leg again, her view was blocked by a crossbow, pointing right between her eyes.

Boy #2, John Banks- Eliminated

Girl#3, Nicole Boyd- Eliminated

24 Students Remaining

Javier Cruz was chasing the sun down. It was almost night and he had to get to the mansion on the map before anyone else did. He figured he could just hide comfortably in the mansion and wait it out for a while. He hadn't seen anyone else so far, but he had seen someone's footprints near the clothing store. He tried not to think of who it was, so he concentrated on only stepping on rocks as to not leave a trail in the thin layer of snow. He was light on his feet due to the years of soccer he had done in both El Salvador and in the U.S. The sun's last rays went down and Javier found himself in a small wooden shack next to a lake. He didn't want to travel at night, so he curled up in the corner and waited for the midnight announcement.

Lindsey Hughes had barely left the front door when a bright light shone in her face. She screamed when someone put their hand over her mouth. She stepped on their foot repeatedly until:

"Shut up, it's me Lindsey." Said the familiar voice of her best friend, Ivy Hines.

"Oh, sorry, I just…"

"It's fine, we need to get out of here now."

"Yeah. Where to?"

"This way!" Ivy said, leading the way to the shabbier looking houses.

Donna Yarber was the last to be released out into the game. It was about nine at night, pitch black, and freezing. Luckily she had her grey hoodie on. But there were still many other problems. Anyone could be waiting in the shadows of the moonlight to take her out. Nicole, Brittney, Maria, Brandon, the rest of her class. She wasn't exactly close to anyone in the class, and she would be an easy target, considering she was overweight and couldn't run for very long. Hopefully she got a good weapon.

She sat down on the steps of the radio station and opened her bag.

She dug through it, using the flashlight to see, to find that her weapon appeared to be a PSP. Only there weren't buttons on it, just a screen showing a green dot in the middle, and way off to the top right was a red dot. The red dot moved closer to her green dot for a second, then went off of the screen. She dug through the bag more and found the manual, which basically said it was a locator device, which meant that the red dot was one of her classmates. She held it in one hand, her flashlight in the other and ran down the road towards the bigger houses. If she was going to die she might as well do it in comfort. She went up to the second house on the right (the first house would seem too obvious) and locked the door behind her.

Nicholas Green was in the bathtub of someone's old house, clutching his knees and crying. Why him? Why was it always him? He took in a deep breath, trying to get himself together. There was a tiny slit for a window above the sink that let in the moonlight. Thankfully he had gotten out before it was night. Some of the others wouldn't be so lucky. They were called out by last name, alternating boy-girl, so that meant that Ivy would have gotten out after him. He hoped that she was okay, but at the same time, he didn't. One less to fight later on. He shook his head and tried to ignore that thought. Only three hours into this and he was already wishing people were dead. He didn't want to be like that. He brushed his black bangs out of his face and looked at the window, wondering how long it was until the first announcement.

Owen Miller, the captain of the math team, was woken up at midnight by the sound of Mr. Randolph's voice echoing through the night air. He shook off the snow that had collected on his black hair in the brief time he had been sleeping, pushed his glasses up more, and listened to the man's deep, yet cheerful voice.

"Hello, my little warriors! You've been very lazy so far. Only two dead so far. Boy #2, John Banks, and Girl #3, Nicole Boyd. I expect you guys to make up for the lost time once you're all rested and ready to go tomorrow. Oh, and Section F6 will become off limits at 4 am, and Section A4 at 7am. That's all I have for you right now, so good luck, and have fun!"

He may have stopped speaking, but his voice resonated in Owen's mind. He had been waiting for John to join him.

John was dead. He wanted to cry. John, his friend John, was dead. He wanted to throw up. Smart, funny, friendly John was dead. He wanted to scream. Who did it? He started shaking. If they killed John then they could kill him. Then sweating. They would kill him. He started hyperventilating. Next. He needed air. Unless. He needed to think. Unless he killed them first.

He needed revenge.

And with that thought, the sleep deprived boy ran deeper into the woods with GP 35, ready to win.

Maria Rodriguez was huddled against Ryan Walters. The sun was beginning to come out, bringing with it the warmth of the day. She looked up through the treetops to see that snow was no longer falling, and all the clouds of last night were gone. She looked up at her sleeping boyfriend. She had been dating him for about a year and loved everything about him. His light brown hair, his muscular build, his hazel eyes hiding underneath his eyelids. Perfect in every way. Although, as far as a human pillow goes, he had some work to do. She sat up, accidentally waking him up in the process.

"Hey." He said in his drowsy deep voice.

"Hey." She said back. They held each other's gaze for a long time before either of them moved. Would that be their last moment like that? She wondered. She kissed him and he held her and kissed back.

Would that be their last kiss?

"Want some breakfast?" he asked her, reaching for their bags. She nodded and he fished out some jerky and a loaf of bread. She looked over at where their weapons lay. For him, an axe, for her, and AK-47. They got such good weapons for people who didn't need to use them. Which meant that the people who were playing didn't have them either. She took a piece of jerky from Ryan and began to gnaw on it. Would this be their last meal?

"Ryan?"

"Yeah?"

"What if… what if one of us…"

"Don't worry about that. We're safe here."

"But for how long? How long until this becomes a danger zone, or until someone finds us?"

"I don't know, but I know that I won't let you get hurt."

"But… Even if we make it to the end… Only one of us can…"

"That will be you. Once we are the last two I'll make sure of that."

"You're going to kill yourself?"

"Yeah, but don't worry about that now. That won't be…"

"No."

"What?"

"No. I won't let you kill yourself for me. You're strong, and fast. You can win this!"

"I've already won. I've found you."

"But I will never win if you aren't with me." she countered. There was a long silence before Ryan spoke.

"Maybe we could win together?"

"That's impossible, only one can win." Maria replied.

"No, we can't win their way, but we can win our way. If we stop playing we both loose. But we can win together if we remove ourselves from the program completely"

"What do you mean?" she asked. But she already knew the answer, and she was afraid of it. Not because it meant dying. But it meant facing the unknown, the unknown of whether she would ever see Ryan again. The unknown of whether she would ever be able to feel his fingers in hers again, if she would ever smell the sweet forest smell that always seemed to cling to him, or if she would ever run her fingers through his sandy brown hair again. A tear began forming in her eye. "I understand. We'll do it together. I just don't want to lose you Ryan."

"And I don't want to lose you. That's why we have to do this. There's no way we can live together in this life. I want to be with you forever Maria. I love you. We can be strong enough to do this together."

They stared into each other's tear stained eyes for a few moments, savoring the last few moments they knew they had together. A tear rolled down Maria's cheek and Ryan brushed it away with his finger and softly kissed her nose.

"Ok" she whispered.

"Section F6 becomes a danger Zone in a few minutes. It's not too far away."

"Okay lets go." Maria pulled out of the embrace with a fierce determination glinting in her eyes.

"We should throw our weapons in the lake so no one else can use them." Ryan suggested.

"Agreed." She replied, picking up his axe and chucking it far into the lakes depths. He did the same with her big gun. Then they walked towards Section F6 together, ready to win.

Boy #13, Ryan Walters- Eliminated

Girl #11, Maria Rodriguez- Eliminated

22 Students Remaining

Jacob Tyler was walking around some old trailer homes. He had spent the entire night trying to find Kristin Jenkins, and for some reason he wasn't tired at all. He had marked off the sections on the map where he had checked, this was his tenth. But she hadn't been named in the announcement, so that meant that she was alive at least. He was tempted to call out her name, but that would give away his position to some of his more eager classmates. He had been lucky and not seen anyone, except for the fat girl for a brief second when she left the radio station. He saw no reason to kill her with his sniper rifle. Not yet anyways. He had to focus on finding Kristen. Maybe she was one of the unlucky ones who had gotten a piece of lint as a weapon. Then again, maybe she had a cannon. Either way, he had to find her. She was a small girl with ashy-blonde hair and the ferocity of a tiger. Still, her ferocity couldn't protect her from a bullet.

He slowly opened the door to one of the homes and checked inside. He looked at the dingy floor of the living room, covered in miscellaneous toys. What had happened to the people who had lived here? The bedroom had only a bed a crib, and a mirror in it. He checked the bathroom and the kitchen, empty also, except for some corn chips which he stowed in his bag.

He went back outside when all of a sudden a bang sounded and he felt something slam into his arm. He fell against the door, closing it shut and another bullet hit right where his chest had been. He reached up to grab the doorknob and yanked it open and crawled inside as two more bullets hit the house. Who was shooting at him? Spencer? Brandon? He peeked out the window and saw the person he least expected.

Owen Miller!? Nerdy, math geek, tech-club Owen Miller!? Why was he playing? He kept shooting at the house with a hand gun of some sort, focusing on the door.

Click. Click. Click.

He had run out of ammo, but he kept pulling the trigger. Jacob slowly walked out of the house.

"Hey… Owen, you don't have to…"

"Shut up! You did it!"

"Did wha…"

"I said SHUT UP! Evil! You must pay!" he screamed, still pulling the trigger. Jacob looked at the Owen's slit-eyes, completely glazed over." Jacob unslung the sniper rifle from his shoulder and aimed it at Owen. Could he really do this? Owen was kind of weird and all but, could he really kill him?

"DIE!" Owen screamed through clenched teeth, tears and snot running down his face, hands shaking and pulling the trigger to no use. He had lost it. Jacob could put him out of his misery. He aimed the sniper rifle, closed his eyes, and pulled the trigger.

Owen stopped pulling the trigger.

Boy #10, Owen Miller- Eliminated

21 Students Remaining

Kevin Byrd was walking into a bar, with Section A4 to his back. He figured that he could hide here for a while and avoid most of the players. After all, they were all underage and shouldn't be drinking, but he knew that a few did, but they could probably find all the booze they needed at the store or in someone's house. He took a seat at the counter and took a swig of his water. His weapon: a ball of yarn. Just his luck. He took another swig and the bell above the door rang. He turned around to see Spencer Bennett and Brandon Lowe enter the bar.

"Hey look, it's our little fag friend." Spencer said. Kevin bolted to the door, grabbed the handle, and was yanked back by Spencer. Spencer threw him to the ground and Brandon held him down with his foot.

"What's the matter, don't you want to catch up with your old friends?" Brandon asked.

"Go to Hell!"

"Now that's no way to greet your buddies from class, now is it?"

"You're right Brandon. Somebody ought to teach him a lesson." Spencer said. Spencer took out his Korth Combat revolver and put a bullet in Kevin's leg. He screamed as the pain shot through his body. Spencer kicked his face into the ground and Kevin screamed even more.

"What weapon did you get faggy?" Spencer asked, going towards Kevin's bag and taking out the ball of yarn.

"You a cat now?" Brandon chuckled, keeping his foot firmly on Kevin's back. Spencer looped the string around Kevin's chin and pulled up on it, painfully choking Kevin.

"St…st…ahhhrrrgg!"

"We're just starting kiddo." Spencer said smiling.

"We're wasting time though…" Brandon said, with a nervous tone in his voice. Spencer didn't hear that though, as he was busy shooting Kevin Byrd. After he died, Brandon sat down and looked at the grenades in his backpack. What had he done…

"So," Spencer said, putting a cigarette in his mouth, "who next?"

Boy #4, Kevin Byrd- Eliminated

20 Students Remaining

Kurt Hartman straddled a branch of the tall pine tree that stood just behind the old brick building that was the school. The building looked as if it had been abandoned a while ago; moss crept up it's dirty brick walls and several of the windows were broken or boarded up. He had been up in the tree since the Program had started. He doubted that anyone would be able to reach him up here. He was extremely fast, and if it came to a chase he could easily outrun any of his classmates, (with the exception of maybe Lisa Allen, who was the fastest girl in the school by far) so he wasn't worried about that aspect. He was probably wouldn't be hiding up in the tree at all if not for the soup ladle that he had been given as a weapon. But, he had been given probably the most useless weapon ever so in the tree he would stay. Unless Section D5 became a danger zone. He sighed and started eating a piece of jerky. Hopefully that wouldn't happen.

He glanced down to in front of the school and just saw Kelly Dennis disappear through the front doors. The class president. He could only imagine what this must be like for her, having to kill all of the people who adored her so much. Her vote in had pretty much been unanimous, with Brandon Lowe and Spencer Bennett being the only exceptions.

A few minutes later he saw Brittney Albert strutting down the weed cracked sidewalk that led up to the school's front doors. She held a crossbow in her hand and he could see something in sticking out of the waist line of her skirt. What had she been up to? She opened the door and he lost sight of her. This wasn't going to end well. He sighed again and stared up at the sun. The next announcement should be coming on soon.

Ruth Campbell and Naomi Coleman were hiding in the bigger of the two history classrooms on the second floor of the school building. The floors were a bare wood, the carpet appeared to have been removed and now a dozen or so desks were scattered throughout the room. A tattered map of the world remained on the brick wall and a few push-pins remained in some of America's capitals. The girls were across from the door behind the teacher's desk. They had agreed that they weren't going to fight anyone. The shotgun and the steak knife lay on an empty shelf. Naomi put her curly brown hair into a pony tail and chewed on a piece of gum she had in her pocket. She was much more relaxed than Ruth who kept glancing at the door while she ate some bread.

The announcement should come on soon. Ruth looked down at her watch and saw that it was only twelve more minutes until twelve. She hoped that the school wouldn't become a danger zone and continued eating.

Then they heard footsteps. Quick and light ones, echoing through the halls. They dove behind the desk and the door to the room opened. They didn't dare breathe. Naomi's eyes suddenly opened wide in horror.

Their weapons still remained on the shelf where they had left them. Whoever in the room would surely see them and….

"Hello? Is anyone in here?" said a familiar voice.

"Kelly?" Ruth asked as she peered out from behind the desk.

"Oh my gosh! Ruth, Naomi, you're alright!"

"Kelly! Oh, I'm so glad you found us!" Ruth said.

"Guys, this isn't a safe place to be. I'm sure plenty of people are going to try and hide here. We should go."

"Yeah," Naomi said picking up their bags. "where should we go?"

"We can probably hide safely in the forest for a while." Kelly said. They followed her out into the hall. She had a pipe thing slung over her shoulder. She noticed them staring at it and quickly answered their unspoken questions.

"It's a pipe for blow darts." She said, pointing to the darts on her belt. "Only for emergency though. I'm not going to play."

They walked a bit more, when Brittney revealed herself from behind a pile of boxes.

"Oh, Brittney, I…" Kelly began, but she trailed off as she noticed the blood on her hand that was loading the crossbow. An arrow shot at Kelly's shoulder but she dove out of the way and watched it careen into Naomi's instead. She let out a scream and the trio ran back down the hall. Unfortunately Brittney was faster than them. She took out a knife and swung it up between them. Kelly tripped into a classroom and Naomi and Ruth jumped inside of a janitor's closet and slammed the door shut. Brittney came at Kelly, so Kelly kicked the door onto her wrist. Her hand grasped at the handle madly, as Brittney slammed herself into the door. Kelly kept her feet pushed up against it, but she had very little grip. She slammed again and most of her forearm was through. Kelly reached to her right and grabbed the blow dart pipe, which had fallen off in her entrance to the room, and swung it as hard as she could at Brittney's hand. Keeping her feet pressed against the door she swung again, and again, until Brittney removed her hand from the classroom. Kelly closed the door and shoved a bookshelf in front of it with some unknown strength.

She scanned the room. There was no way out. Except through the broken window, but that was out of the question. She was in the second story. Unless…

There was a tall pine tree about seven feet away from the building. But she couldn't possibly jump that far, could she? Her decision was made for her as the bookcase fell over and she found herself freefalling. For what seemed like an eternity she was flying. Then, the eternity ended as she smacked into a pine branch. She grasped at it but slipped and managed to grab the next branch down. Kelly dropped herself down another branch and made her way to the trunk. She looked up at Brittney's scowling face. She let out a scream of rage and threw the bookshelf out the window.

Kelly let out a breath of relief. She was about to make her way down when a pinecone hit her head. She looked up and saw Kurt Hartman staring at her with disbelief about ten feet above her. There was a tense moment of silence as the two sized each other up, wondering if the one was going to attempt to attack the other. Finally, Kurt let out a laugh.

"You're crazy!" He said loudly. Kelly just stared at him and then proceeded to make her way down the tree. She hit the ground and was joined a few seconds later by Kurt.

"You're a mess." He said. She was. Her blouse was torn, there was sap and pine needles in her hair and her pencil skirt had ripped a bit near the hem. She combed through her hair with her hands and stared at the now crumpled bookshelf. She turned away and a glint caught her eye. She moved a few math books and found her pipe. It must have been caught in the bookshelf when it was thrown out. She picked it up and looked at Kurt.

"I would get out of here if I were you. I don't want to be around when she comes down."

"Yeah…" she replied and walked aimlessly into the forest behind the school. She looked at her watch. Three minutes until noon.

Naomi and Ruth had shoved a chair in front of the door to the janitor's closet that they were hiding in. They heard Brittney screaming, meaning that she probably hadn't killed Kelly. There was no way out, except for a tiny slit of a window above an empty shelf. Ruth and her tiny frame might be able to squeeze through it, but Naomi was rather larger and even if the arrow wasn't sticking out of her shoulder she wouldn't be able to make it out.

"You should go." Naomi said, gesturing to the window.

"I'm not leaving you."

"Well you should. You can go find Kelly and make it through this thing."

"No, I won't let you die alone."

"Ruth, I was going to die one way or another."

"So was I. I'd rather die with you than die later alone."

"Ruth…"

"No, I'm staying and there's no point in trying to talk me out of it."

"Ok." Naomi was surprised and touched. Her friend was usually scared and shy. Now she was willing to die for her. Literally.

They hugged and started praying.

The door burst open.

An arrow hit each of them directly, and they fell to the ground, still in each other's arms.

Girl #4, Ruth Campbell-Eliminated

Girl #5, Naomi Coleman-Eliminated

18 Students Remaining