Zee stormed inside the academy building. Immediately, the contestants were greeted to a high-reaching, massive-spanning entrance room. Two staircases headed off ahead of them to the right and the left. There were separate halls leading left and right, as well as a hall forwards, behind the staircases. To add to the myriad of confusion, two more halls between the right and forward halls and the forward and left halls. The contestants flooded up staircases and down halls like a colony of roaches retreating upon their Floridian homeowner turning on the lights.

As Zee caught his breath, he noticed Lauren walking past him as calmly as if spring had just bloomed around them. The sight of her undying smile had Zee hesitating, but he still spoke.

"Hey, uh, Scary Girl? You all right?"

"I need no floaties in the river of decay. For a drought was once what my people longed for, now, as the dust settles, we're all children of the sun. The sun's light could do nothing to protect from the torrential waves of the sea, however."

"Uhm... yeah, word."

Zee took a pause, uncomfortably watching Stephen stepping past them without a care in the world, his hands buried in his black jacket pockets.

Confessional - Zee

"I wouldn't have expected so many people to take this challenge so lightly. It got me thinking... is there any reason to freak out? About anything? If a serial killer tried to kill me, what if I were to just give him a nice, disinterested expression and be like, 'Bruh'? Think he'd let me live?"

End of confessional

"You should probably get outta here, bro," Zee decided. "That Russian's gonna come in here any minute." He quickly stood back up, his eyes widened with fright as the glass doors to the academy's entrance shot open to Smirnoff stomping forward with his paintball gun in his hands. "Oh, no, he's here!" he cried.

Smirnoff eyed them with a twisted smile. "Gryaznye podrostki."

"Run, Scary Girl! Run!"

Zee darted down one hall as Lauren strolled down another.

Smirnoff readied his paintball gun, eyeing Zee down with pleasure. The yelps of fear flowing from him were enough to bring him deep satisfaction. He turned to aim at Lauren, but lo and behold, she had vanished. Befuddled, Smirnoff's pleasure ran thin.

As Zee ran, a door on the left side of him, closed in by lockers, opened up to Kobe peeking his head through.

"Kobe?"

"Indian stoner dude?"

Zee smiled a chill smile. "Hispanic descent actually, but clos-" He yelped as a paintball got him right in the back of his head, shooting him forward.

Kobe shut the door tight behind him. He pressed himself up against the door as he held his breath.

"What happened out there?" Jill asked.

They were hiding in a classroom, Jill sitting at a desk with Matcha and Shawn leaned up against one of the walls.

"That dude with them pink-ass pants just got hit," Kobe answered.

"Good god, what are we gonna do?" Shawn panicked. "That jacked-up Russian was bound to have seen your face!"

"I barely stuck my head out."

"Dammit, kid, it doesn't matter! A zombie wouldn't need to see your face, it'd smell you and then it'd hunt you down and eat you!"

Silence.

"I'm not 100% on Smirnoff being a zombie, though," Jill replied.

"Probably can't smell anything but his own body odor," Kobe joked.

"We need a plan," Matcha decided. "Shawn's right, he's coming. Does anybody have any ideas?"

Kobe, Jill, and Shawn were silent, but Shawn's beating heart was almost audible.

"Nevermind, I've got something," Matcha replied to herself. "Shawn, you aren't even on our team, so we're gonna use you as bait."

"C-come again?"

"Oh, good thinking, Matcha," Jill praised her.

Adding to Shawn's horror, now the three others in the classroom were skulking towards him. With Jill and Kobe at her sides, Matcha prowled towards Shawn very slowly, while the zombie-bait inched further away from them.

"Trust me, you don't wanna do this," Shawn insisted. "I can be of use to you! H-have you ever needed help stocking up on canned goods? If so, I'm your man!"

"Get him!" Matcha ordered.

Kobe lunged for him, but the nimble maniac was too fast, yowling in terror and darting over top of several chairs, knocking them over in the process. Kobe let out a groan as he collapsed to the floor, banging against the chairs on the way down.

"Are you okay, Kobe?" Matcha asked.

"Fuck..."

"Matcha, look out!" Jill cried.

The moment Matcha looked up, Shawn had launched a chair at her. The Dropout went down immediately, the chair clanking right into the center of her face. Matcha growled, then let out a groan of pain.

Jill cringed away from the sight of it, then her wincing turned into horror as the door to the classroom slowly creaked open.

Smirnoff had found them.

Jill and Shawn stood, absolutely frozen in fear by the sight of the huge man standing in the doorway. Smirnoff cracked a chuckle, slinging his paintball gun back over his back to pull out a cigarette. As he lit it and took a drag, Shawn's bulging eyes bounced to the hallway out past him, then back to Smirnoff and back again.

"Don't try it," Smirnoff rumbled.

Silence.

The stillness remained for a few more moments. The next thing you knew, Shawn leaped forward, bounding past Smirnoff for the exit. Lightning fast, Smirnoff slung his paintball gun back around and aimed it at the teen. Paintballs splattered the wall of the classroom, but Shawn managed to wind his body around them, evading in just the right fashion. Next, he slid forward and past Smirnoff between his knees.

Smirnoff turned for a moment to see Shawn scrambling back up to his feet in the hallway, then he growled as Shawn immediately booked it and vanished.

Confessional - Shawn

"I'll be damned if something besides a zombie kills me! Hell, I'll be damned if a zombie kills me! The day that marijuana becomes strong enough that it could kill a person? Well, that's the damn day that I die!"

End of confessional

As Smirnoff turned back around, Jill rushed forwards with a chair out in front of her. Her red hair swished back from under her green beanie as she charged towards him. The girl was too quick for the assassin to sling his gun back around. Slamming him with the chair, Jill made her escape, taking a turn down a separate hallway. Smirnoff roared with anger, launching the chair against the side of the classroom where splattered paint stained the tacky learning posters.

As Smirnoff caught his breath, he suddenly took notice of Kobe stumbling back up to his feet, clinging onto a chair for support.

"God, my fucking balls..."

Meanwhile, Matcha was still sprawled on the floor.

An evil smile spread across Smirnoff's face. In a second, Kobe was pelted with paintballs, yelping as he crashed back over several more chairs. Next, he pelted Matcha where she lay on the ground, wincing in agony with nowhere to hide.

Confessional - Jill

"I swear, everything in my body was begging me not to hit Smirnoff with that chair. I mean, I'm a basketball player, not the type of person to huck a chair at a trained killer. Those aren't the right people to get on the bad side of..."

End of confessional

Meanwhile, Jayshawn prowled along another hallway somewhere else in the academy. As he walked, he noticed a gift store on one end of him, with several more sets of lockers and doors to "classes" on the other side. The gift shop was loaded with tacky nicknacks, tables with stacks of stuffed bears, and all around had the appearance of one of those gift shops you walk past in an airport.

"What the fuck?" Jayshawn muttered as he pressed his face to the glass. "A gift shop in an academy building? Really?"

That's when he noticed Bowie approaching from around the corner of one of the halls. "Heya."

"S'up?" Jayshawn replied, yet his gaze rested on the gift shop, and he'd hardly raised his voice.

Bowie stood by him for a few moments, the two staring out at the store as a pair.

"Why do you think Mercutio even has this room in the building?" Bowie wondered. "Do you suppose we're gonna have a challenge down the line that has to do with teddy bears and anniversary cards?"

"Shit is tacky as hell. I'm hopin' Mercutio doesn't pull any lame-ass challenges on us."

"You looking for something more involved?"

Jayshawn leaned on the glass. "Yeah, man. Hey, bro, I heard about your athletic performances, the trophies and whatnot. I also see that you lean, and real recognize real, right? So, I bet you can recognize I got some mass myself."

"Why, thank you. And likewise, you're leaner than a piece of steak. You look great."

Jayshawn smiled and chuckled. "Hey, thanks, homi- wait. You tryna make me let my guard down? You tryna fuck with me?"

Bowie shook his head, composed as ever. "Uhm, no, I'm just making conversation. Feels a little early for schemes, wouldn't you say?"

Jayshawn flashed him distrusting eyes, and he hesitated. "Fuck if I know, bro. Someone could mug me on the first day for all I know, that's all I'm sayin'. We runnin' from a fuckin' killer, dog. Anyway, I bring that muscle shit up because I'm here on Total Drama to get the experience that no one could handle in the first five seasons, no one except for a couple here and there, you know-Axel, Lightning, Duncan, people like that. I'm tryna get pushed to the limits and win because I worked my ass off." [1]

"Funny," Bowie responded. "I'm here because I'm secure in my strengths and want to improve my weaknesses."

"What?"

"I don't doubt guys like you and me can handle most of what Chris or Chef would have thrown our way, but if you take a look at the cast this year, you'll find a majority of them aren't athletic like me and you. Maybe there's a reason for that. Maybe Mercutio wanted a cast for intellectual challenges. Maybe not, but a majority of my trophies are for athletic competitions. If this contest is a little different, then that's fine; I just want to try something new. Oh, also, I wouldn't use those three guys you named as people to compare yourself to. Axel wound up burned and crippled, Duncan went to jail, and Lightning's dumber than a broken light bulb-probably never even made it to Mexico."

"Wait, wait, wait. Hang on, homie. You said... you said 'I'm secure in my strengths'. Are you tryna tell me I'm not? That I'm some kinda insecure bitch boy that needs physical challenges to boost myself up, or some shit like that? Huh?"

Bowie chuckled and murmured, "Hey, boo, you said it, not me. All I'm saying is that-"

"Nah, homie, I don't give a fuck what you're 'just saying'," Jayshawn budged his finger against Bowie's chest. "Asshole."

He shrugged. "All right."

Confessional - Bowie

"Jayshawn is definitely an interesting character. Deeply insecure it seems. I'm sure I can use that to my advantage when the time comes."

End of confessional

From out of nowhere, one of the lockers down the hall came bursting open, the door to it crashing against the lockers across from the set adjacent. Out crept Smirnoff with his paintball gun out and ready. Jayshawn screamed and Bowie braced himself.

Meanwhile, down the hallway to the left, Damien clutched his ears while hiding behind a set of lockers on the other side with Izzy.

"I think my brain is bleeding..." Damien complained.

"This guy reminds me of Chefy," Izzy mentioned. "Maybe this is Chefy, but just in a costume. Maybe he started smoking cigarettes between seasons! Silly little lung cancer man."

"I don't know who that is, but if he looks anything like Smirnoff, I'm okay keeping him far, far away from me."

Damien winced when he heard the sound of paintballs pummeling one of Smirnoff's victims. The whimpers and wails gave Jayshawn away easily.

"Ay! Ay, stop fuckin'- ow! Ow! Stop shooting me, mothafucka! Bitch-ass- ow!" he cried.

Once again, they cringed at the sounds of more paintballs shooting against human flesh.

Soon after, the paintball splatters stopped, and Jayshawn and Bowie were left writhing on the floor. Izzy and Damien paused when they heard the sounds of approaching footsteps from the direction of Bowie and Jayshawn's failure.

"Something big is about to happen..." Izzy whispered, a grin on her face.

"Whatever it is, we shouldn't be around for it. Come on, let's get outta here," Damien urged.

Smirnoff skulked down the hall, his paintball gun ready to take even more victims. "Gryaznyye severo amerikantsy. Come out wherever you are, children..."

A few more suspenseful beats of Smirnoff nearing the duo's location followed. Izzy and Damien huddled up by the lockers. As the lead, Izzy held her fist up like a sergeant having her troops wait. There was near silence; the pained moans of Jayshawn and Bowie distant.

Instantly, Smirnoff popped out in front of where the group hid.

"Ah! Drunk Russian jump scare!" Izzy cried.

Smirnoff cocked his paintball gun, grinning wide as he aimed it at the teenagers. "You'd wish I was drunk for what's about to come. You die now."

"'Die'?" Damien whimpered, on the verge of wetting himself.

The killer sighed. "No, not truthfully. I apologize, I often use guns for killing, not for paintballing teenagers. It is a muscle memory of sorts, you know?"

He nodded uncomfortably. "Y-yeah, I get that."

Smirnoff raised the gun. In the same moment of pulling the trigger, Izzy let out a yowl and leaped into the air, kicking Smirnoff back with terrific strength. He flew backward, keeping on his feet, then he unloaded fire. The shots managed to hit Damien, but Izzy leaped, cartwheeled, and somersaulted around, maneuvering her way down the hall and out of harm's way. Damien moaned and wheezed, clutching his paint-covered chest.

Smirnoff's attention to pursuing Izzy suddenly drifted to what was happening down the hall where he'd shot Jayshawn and Bowie. He turned around to see a door shoot open, followed by Fish skating down the hall with Cody running after him. Smirnoff let out a growl.

"You ready, Cody? You got enough brain cells up there to remember the plan?" Fish asked.

"What need was there for that comment?" he shouted back.

"Wait 'til we get closer!"

Fish skated towards the massive Russian killer. As he came closer, Smirnoff shot paintballs out at them, but Fish skirted the board aside, dodging the shots as they came at him. Luckily, Cody managed to do the same.

"Come on already, Fish! Do it!" Cody yelled.

"Wait!"

He rolled closer and closer, still managing to evade the shots flying out at them. Finally, Smirnoff had to reload his gun. At that moment, Fish shouted, "Now!"

Cody threw his arms out and Fish thrust the board up into the air while he flew backwards into his arms.

The board shot upwards, nailing Smirnoff in the jaw. The big man crashed against a set of lockers. Fish and Cody barreled forward. Smirnoff writhed on the ground beside Damien for a moment, then scrambled back up to his feet to quickly reload the paintball gun. Further up, the pair were back on the run, and neared a dead end hallway with two doors on each side of it.

"Dead end!" Cody yelled. "Two doors!"

"Very expository of you!" Fish responded. "Hit a fat left, let's move!"

Cody followed Fish through the door to the left, evading a sudden barrage of paintballs. Cody was unfortunately pelted with them. He yowled in agony as his body ragdolled and thudded against the wall ahead of him.

Later, Noah opened up one of two doors in front of the massive library, nonchalantly looking back and forth to check for any Russian killers. The bookworm shrugged and stepped out, strolling down one of the hallways with a book clasped under one of his arms.

"Nice, relaxing couple of chapters during a challenge? Not bad."

Not too long into his walk, he suddenly heard rustling up from afar. Noah raised an eyebrow, glancing around at his surroundings. Suddenly, the egghead heard a massive bang sound coming from down a staircase straight down the hall. His eyes went wide as he heard pounding footsteps against the stairs-two separate sets-accompanied by heavy, panting breaths. Not long after, Noah could make out the sight of Caleb racing down the hall towards him.

"That can't be good," Noah muttered.

"Run! Run!" Caleb cried. "He's coming! He's right behi-"

As he came closer, suddenly a barrage of paintballs overtook him, causing him to cry out with pain and crash towards him. For the second time today, Noah was crushed under the weight of another human, this one much larger than him. Smirnoff appeared at the top of the stairs, his paintball gun resting on his shoulder.

"My pancreas! Get off me!"

But he had gone catatonic. Noah strained to shove the guy off of him, but to no avail. Noah cried out as Smirnoff pelted them both with paintballs. The huge Russian didn't stick around for long afterwards, instead chuckling to himself in a deep tone before stomping off to find more victims.

"It's in my eye!" Noah complained. "It's dripping into my eye!"

Pitch darkness.

A hatch from the floor opened up with a ray of light giving way to the surroundings of this room. Iko stood on a ladder and held open the hatch to find himself in an attic room of some sort.

"H-hello?" he murmured softly.

Iko scanned the surrounding walls and crates stacked around all over the dark room. As he climbed through the hatch, wiping sweat off his forehead, Iko figured the "attic" had to be used as a storage space of some sort. Here at the highest point of the academy besides the roof, the amount of crates and dust made the place resemble a warehouse.

"Is anybody here?"

Confessional - Iko

With his feet kicked up on the table, Iko spoke. "I figured the best way to stay out of that terrifying Russian guy's way was to get up higher. He'll be scouting around on the lower levels, I imagine. Besides, who's gonna try to get to the dorms when they're up so high?" Iko chuckled, then his amusement faded. "Shit. I guess I didn't think that thr-"

The music producer jolted in fear as Tracy appeared beside him.

"Where did you come fr-"

"No feet on the table. Sorry, bro. Mercut's rule."

Iko caught his breath as Tracy walked off into the expanses of the library.

"Where did he come from? Worse yet, now how am I supposed to look cool when I record these confession things?"

End of confessional

Iko walked around in the warehouse attic, brushing his overcoat of dust as he wandered.

"Dusty in here."

Silence. He sighed.

"Who knows how long I should hide out here?"

That's when Iko heard the sound of a crate falling over. Frightened, he jumped, then darted over to hide behind another crate, banging his head against it.

"Ow!"

He instantly clasped his hand over his mouth to keep himself from speaking any more. Next, he heard footsteps. They were lighter than he'd expected from Smirnoff, yet this didn't subdue any fear he felt. He worried that any fear he felt would permeate the air, attracting the terrifying killer. Peeking his head out from behind the crate, he barely made out a set of footsteps along the dusty ground. He squinted his eyes to look at them, inching himself a tad closer to see.

"Iko?"

Iko let out a wail, crashing backwards and once again hitting his head on the crate. "Ow, shit! Wait! Don't shoot!" He threw his hands out in front of him, flinching hard.

Moments later, the face of Jill appeared from the darkness. "Iko?" she repeated.

He opened his eyes, slowly moving out of the pose he'd put himself in, yet he wouldn't look at her. "Hang on. That's a girl's voice. R-right? Smirnoff didn't get castrated during the challenge, did he?"

Jill chuckled. "No. Your name is Iko, isn't it?"

He turned around to face her. He was about to respond, but in the same moment that he saw her, the words seemed to fly out of his head. He stared at the features of her face. Her eyes were big and so green that Iko almost thought they'd work as light sources in the "attic" they stood around in. His eyes wandered to the powerful red of her hair, the luscious length spreading down to her shoulders in front, and even further down in the back, as well as her side-swept bangs. He saw her exposed shoulders, blown away by th-

"Hello?"

With a shake of his head and a wipe of his hand against his mouth, Iko snapped back to reality.

"Oop, there goes gravity."

"Excuse me?"

"Sorry, I spaced out. Yes, yep, my name is Iko. You're... Jill?"

She nodded, smiling warmly at him.

"Oh, that smile..." Iko spoke under his breath, regardless of how close the two stood together.

"Again, excuse me?"

"Nothing," he replied instantly. "Sorry, I am just scrambled right now. Hehe. Like an egg."

"I wasn't expecting anyone else to come up here," Jill explained. "When I heard the hatch open, I thought for sure that Smirnoff had found me. Again."

"'Again'? He found you before?"

Jill nodded, not quite as fondly this time. "Yeah. I was in a classroom with Kobe, Matcha, and Shawn. I'm pretty sure those are their names. We were gonna use Shawn as bait, you know, since he's a Grad? Yeah, well, we tried that, but Smirnoff made quick work of Kobe and Matcha after Shawn escaped. I rammed him with a chair and got away, which made me even more afraid of seeing him again. What if he's angry, you know?"

Once more, Iko seemed spaced out. ""Again'? He found you before?"

Jill flashed him a face of confusion.

"Oh, shit, my bad, Jill, I said that already! Phew!" He slapped himself right in the forehead. "I am all over the place. My mistake."

She smiled, letting out a quick, embarrassed chuckle. "No, it's fine. Sorry if I'm, like, really talkative all of the sudden. I just rambled a bit."

"No, no, no, no, no, no, no, you are totally good."

Confessional - Iko

"So, there I was, hiding in the... the... the attic? Sure, yeah, that one. There I was in the attic, then when I think it's Smirnoff coming to get me, I find out it's actually another girl on my team. Except this girl... is really pretty. Her eyes alone are like... emeralds. It was crazy."

End of confessional

"Uh, I can leave you be, if you want," Jill mentioned. "If you want. I don't mean to intrude."

"I-I insist that there was no intrusion! None at all!"

Jill shrugged. "All right, cool."

Iko nodded awkwardly. "Yeah, really cool."

That's when the hatch banged open. This time, it was much harder than when Iko entered. They both gasped. Each remained silent as they watched a big, muscular arm under the sleeve of a beaten down leather jacket place a paintball gun out in front of the hatch.

Confessional - Jill

"Great! After what I did to him back in the classroom, there's no way a paintball to the chest is all I'm getting. I am so screwed..."

[1] To anyone new here, that's Axel, the antagonist from Journey of My Life 1, not Axel, the reboot character. I came up with Axel before there was a canon Axel character. Wish I could rename him now

Dropouts: Caleb, Damien, MK, Scary Girl, Athena, Holden, Iko, Jill, Kobe, Matcha, Queen

Grads: Cody, Izzy, Noah, Alanna, Shawn, Bowie, Zee, Fish, Jayshawn, Londyn, Stephen

Some quick OC descriptions:

Athena: orangey-blonde, orange contacts, black and white dress

Holden: long, scraggly hair, heavyset, short, leather jacket

Iko: slim-fat, short, stylish overcoat and vest

Jill: athletic build, red hair, tan skin, emerald green eyes

Kobe: tall, big afro

Matcha: brunette, business casual

Queen: purple hair

Alanna: tall, brunette

Fish: typical influencer look

Jayshawn: fit, muscular, dreads, gym tank/shorts

Londyn: brunette, face tattoos, gorgeous features

Stephen: early 2000s emo look

Mercutio: chiseled face, suit, wide-framed

Tracy: slim, suspenders/bowler hat

Brook: silver hair, oversized cardigan