Chapter 1: 21st July 2016 -23:06-
"As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect."
The words of Franz Kafka pulsing in the forefront of his head, Jacob Silver (Boy #4) was roused from slumber. Initially, he considered the idea that he was still in fact asleep. The situation was just that bizarre.
While the lighting in the room was dim, he knew for a fact that he was sat down. Arms still hanging limply by his sides, he was slouched forwards, the side of his face pressing into the surface of what seemed to be a desk. The same mass-produced construct used in almost every school in the country.
He wondered if, maybe, he had fallen asleep at school. But that wasn't right. He had gone to the Nurse's Office for his vaccination. Talked to Emily on his way there. Perhaps he had fainted? So if he were to be waking up anywhere, then it would be the Nurse's Office. And this certainly was not the case.
His mind still addled from sleep, Jacob's thoughts ambled slowly along. He was far too confused and sleep-strung to even consider panicking.
Even the fact that he couldn't move his limbs left him strangely lucid. It reminded him, once again, of Metamorphosis. Of Gregor's inability to move upon his awakening.
"I can't turn!"
Slowly, he regained feeling in his fingertips. The sensation crawled up Jacob's arms and washed through his head. Before long, he was able force enough effort to sit up.
That was when he noticed the other students.
Himself rising, in front of Jacob sat Johnathan Schultz (Boy #3), while to his right was a girl from 3C who's name he couldn't remember. From behind his back, Jacob could just about make out the slight ministrations of Sky Rochmil (Boy #5)'s voice as he groaned weakly.
But they weren't the only ones.
How many are here? Twenty? Thirty?
His chest tightened in panic. He didn't know where he was, or how he got there. The fact that he had company didn't reassure Jacob. Far from it, it served to panic him even more.
How could the same thing have happened to so many other people?
A lump rose up in Jacob's throat. Swallowing hard, in an attempt to rid himself of it, he found his Adam's apple restricted.
Instinct took over and one hand shot up to his neck. Beneath his fingers, a smooth band had been wrapped around his throat. The cold bite of metal gripped his skin as he hurriedly dashed his hand over the slick surface.
Eyes finally having adjusted to the dim light, Jacob threw his vision across the room. Everyone else was wearing the necklace as well.
No. Not necklace. A collar. Collars. Like we're fucking dogs!
Sat the next row over, diagonally in front of Jacob, he could see Stephanie Abbot (Girl #3) fiddling with her own collar. A tiny girl, her small fingers probed the construct desperately trying to figure out a way to remove it.
That was when the lights came on.
Blinding, searing light flashed through the large space, illuminating every inch of the room. Everything came into sharp focus, forcing Jacob to momentarily shut his eyes. When he eventually reopened them, he finally was able to get his bearings. A quick count of the other students revealed that there were 40 in total, positioned around the room at desks. Eight rows of five. These rows alternated between boys and girls. All were sat blurry-eyed and confused.
The ceiling was high and slanted at an angle, and the windows were strangely dark. Almost as if they had been painted over or blacked out. Positioned at the front of the room was a stout lectern, and behind it a whiteboard was fixed to the wall.
Already the confused students had started to mutter and talk amongst themselves.
"Where are we?"
"What are we doing here?"
"What time is it anyway?"
"I don't know, my watch is gone!"
"Wait, where's my phone? Has anyone seen my phone!"
"Is anyone seeing this? What the hell's that thing on your neck?"
The sound of clapping hands suddenly perforated the air, quelling the conversation to a slight murmur. A trio of men entered the room from the far right, passing in front of a floodlight and cutting the light with shadow. The closer they came to the desks, the more Jacob could make out their features.
Two of the new arrivals were kitted out in military apparel, combats swathing their forms, while slung over their shoulders were AR-15s. Both wore steely expressions, and a large automatic pistol to match. Belted to their left boots were trench knives.
Flanked by the two soldiers with similarly blunt faces, the man in the middle was young and bore a boyishly good looking face. The smooth skin of his cheeks and chin was flecked slightly with stubble. His eyes were dark, shining coldly from beneath his narrow brows, and his sandy brown hair was slicked back out of his face. As he walked, several sharp locks of hair tumbled down over his forehead before being pushed back into place. His face was calm and flat, betraying nothing.
Beneath a thick black overcoat, he wore a dark grey suit and a royal purple shirt and tie. It was obviously expensive; almost seeming to radiate opulence.
Under the clothes, his trim body moved deliberately and mechanically. A wiry strength clung to him.
A slight clack of metal reached Jacob's ears as the man continued to clap, the rings adorning both of his middle fingers clashing together.
"Rise and shine," the man called out. His clear voice bore a slight twang to it; his common accent standing at odds to his dressed up appearance. "Have you all had a good sleep? You're going to be thankful for it later, trust me."
What do you mean? Jacob felt like blurting out, but restrained himself.
Around him, all of the other students remained silent; locked into a confused stupor.
Taking up his place at the front of the room, the man stood behind the lectern and broke into an insincere smile. Gripping the sides, he leaned forward towards the students and continued to talk. "So?" he asked. "Are we all awake? Yes? Good."
That was when Sho Homura (Boy #13) shouted out. "Who the hell are you? What the fuck is going on?"
His harsh shout was what set everyone else off. Almost every other student started to call out questions, their voices overlapping in a deafening crescendo. Only a small number remained in silence.
Owen Taylor (Boy #8) kept quiet, his dull eyes locked on to the man, as he remained sat bolt upright. Gavin Watts (Boy #18) was similarly silent. His hulking bulk of a frame was crammed behind the desk at which he sat, and a hard expression gripped his features. Then there was Alexander Kemp (Boy #1). He was the one that looked jaded. Sarah Matthews (Girl #17) wore her typically steely expression, while next to her Boy #17: Jack Kim chewed the inside of his cheek.
Jacob's attention danced over them before returning to the man stood behind the podium. Nervous feelings washed over him. The man was far too calm. Almost eerily so.
As the questions and accusations were hurled at him, he remained perfectly still until it began to die down. Turning around, he picked up a black board marker and began to scribble onto the whiteboard in sharp italic text.
"My name," he began, as he wrote, "is Mr Charles Freeman, and I will be your new Homeroom teacher."
Within a matter of seconds, his name had been scribed on the board, giving him leave to turn back and face the students.
"Now I can imagine that you're all a bit confused, so I'll use small words." He spoke in a condescending manner; his sentences punctuated by twitches of the corner of his mouth, almost as if he was fighting the urge to laugh or grimace. Possibly both. "As you can all see..." He swung his arm wide, indicating the teenagers sat before him, with a sweeping gesture. "You're all set up like it's time for class. So, naturally, I'm going to need you all to pay attention. Today's lesson - or rather this week's lesson - is really a very important one. Survival is key. And the reason for that is, well, because what we're going to be learning... Is how to kill each other."
Jacob felt his heart lurch. It surged upwards so violently that he was terrified that he was going to vomit up the organ whole. As his throat expanded to draw in a panicked breath, he once again felt the restrictive choke of the collar.
Mr Freeman continued on in, strangely enough, a casual manner. As if what he had just said didn't bear the horrific implication of murder. He began to pace, moving around the lectern and sitting on the front lip of Laura Buggs (Girl #16)'s desk.
"You see," he said. "All of you have been selected for this year's Program."
Someone screamed.
A piercing shriek, it cut the air like a knife and ricocheted off of the angled walls. In the background, someone else was sobbing. A quick glance around revealed to Jacob that Emily Moore (Girl #11) was the one crying. Fat teardrops rolled down her cheeks, taking a large chunk of her eye makeup with them.
Sat across the room, Sarah's jaw clenched tightly. A prominent vein bulged in her neck. Realisation flashed over Sho's face; an identical expression appearing on his twin, Rin Homura (Girl #13).
"I can see that some of you are familiar with the concept," Mr Freeman said, flatly. "Though I doubt many of you know much about it, past what they report on the news. And, honestly speaking, that's just not very much, is it?"
At this point, Jacob barely registered his new "teacher"s words. They were a buzzing in the back of his mind. A fly flitting around his head. The words were there, they were noticeable. But compared to the bigger picture, they were all negligible.
He would have to murder his classmates. Kill them.
Either that or be killed himself.
But who would actually do that? Kill their friends? We've all known each other for years. Some of us since Elementary School. So there's no way! No way we could kill each other!
Whether it were simply a nervous compulsion, or paranoia, Jacob again stole a glance around the room. His eyes flitted over the faces of students. Of his classmates. Only they suddenly didn't look like the people that he once knew. They looked intense and focussed. Some, he thought, looked ready to start killing there and then. As if they had resigned themselves to their fate.
Starting to sweat and choke on his breath, Jacob lifted one hand and began to fumble with the collar. He felt restricted. Trapped.
Like he couldn't breathe.
The panic had started to set in.
His eyes lost focus and his hearing was reduced to a dull muffle. The only sensation Jacob was still aware of was that of the metal choker digging into his windpipe. Cutting off his airway.
His fingers started to claw at the band.
He couldn't die here.
There was no way that it was real. He had simply fallen asleep or passed out in the Nurse's Office. It was all just some kind of sick dream.
Not in a million years would Jacob have ever been chosen for The Program. The systematic slaughter of Highschool students. He had never been this lucky before, so it didn't make sense for him to start now.
Having your class drafted for the annual murder games was at least a one in a hundred thousand chance. And Jacob had never so much as won a pack of gum at a local raffle.
It's not real! It can't be real!
Had Jacob been paying heed to Mr Freeman's words, he would have noticed the shift in the teacher's tone. The sudden weight to his voice.
"Now before we begin, I need to tell you all something important. And that's about the collars that you're wearing. You see-"
Jacob's right index finger slipped underneath the metal band.
Charles' voice was eclipsed by a deafening crack.
The front of the choker exploded so violently that Jacob's body was shocked backwards. His chair skidded across the floor, screeching out yet more noise to accompany the blast.
Jacob's throat was completely crushed by the detonation, and a portion of his lower jaw had been completely blown off. Teeth shot through the room like enamel bullets, and blood doused the back of Johnny's leather jacket.
As Jacob's head arched backwards on what remained of his neck, Sky was left staring into the dead and vacant eyes of the boy who had once sat in front of him. The feminine looking boy instantly started to tremble and shake in horror.
Seeing the sudden explosion from across the room, Charles broke into a laboured sigh. "You should have let me finish. I was going to tell you not to play with the collars. Because, if you try to remove them... Well, they explode."
This time, everyone started to scream.
-39 Students Remaining-