Battle Royale Fan Fiction ❯ Battle Royale: All American High School ❯ Allies and Enemies ( Chapter 10 )

-------> TONIGHT ON A BRAND NEW EPISODE OF “BATTLE ROYALE!”

 

Greetings true believers! Tonight's “Battle Royale” introduces all of you to a brand new contestant, one sure to become a fan favorite! Martial artist Victor Adams seems to have been preparing for “BR” all his life. Using an intense and ritualistic training style since the age of seven, Victor has toned his body into a well oiled fighting machine. He brings a skill to the game surpassed, perhaps, only by natural born killer, Luke Shipman. But will Victor play the game? That, faithful viewers, will surely be obverse. Also tonight, the unpleasant couple of Shelly Ganner and Edward Delihanty meet their fate. But what might that be? Set your video recorders! Get the snacks ready! Powerful bloodshed is on the horizon! Tonight on “BATTLE ROYALE 5: DESERTED ISLAND!”

 

At 2000 hours tonight on America Network 7.

 

GOD BLESS AMERICA AND THE GOVERNMENT! <-------

 

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Chapter 10: Allies and Enemies

 

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Eddie can't stop looking at my arms. I haven't looked up from the ground but I can tell he's staring. I can feel his eyes on me. This is embarrassing. I'm better then this. He's just a dumb boy. And I empathize dumb, it's not like he has any power over me. It's not like he has any right to judge me. He's no better. At the very least, I have the right to explain myself.

 

Hmm, why do I need to explain myself? Do I have to explain myself to this loser? He doesn't deserve an explanation. It's not like he would understand what I'm going through. He's not smart enough. He hasn't felt the stress I've felt. He hasn't, constantly, everyday of his life, been forced to reach a certain standard. `You have to keep your grades up, Shelly, you have to get into a good college!' `You have to make Mom and Dad proud! You don't won't us to be disappointed do you?' I've always been told I have to succeed. I have to be the best, because no one will accept me if I fail. I have to pass, and not just pass, but pass on the honor roller, in my class' top ten, in the school's top ten, I have to go as far as humanly possible. My limits aren't important. What's important is I win. I didn't want to sign up for soccer, but I had to because I have to have to be in some sort of sport. I didn't want to sign up for Student Council, but I have to because I need more social credits. I didn't want to get that goddamn job in the photo lab, but I needed on the job training. All this bullshit I've been told that I need to succeed at because it just what I need to do.

 

And all the good it's done me. That on the job training doesn't mean shit now that I'm stranded on a deserted island with thirty-some heavily armed classmates whose only goal is to kill me. I suppose my parents want me to win Battle Royale as well. I bet they're just shitting their pants with excitement over the fact that their little girl has the chance to be a national champion. They would just love…

 

“Why do you do that? I mean, what's so horrible in your life?”

 

My train of thought is shattered by Eddie's rough voice. I face him, for the first time in a while. “Do I need to have experienced some horrifying past trauma in order to enjoy self-mutilation?”

 

His eyes squint and he makes that confused, grunting, monkey noise. “Umm, yeah, eh, I guess you do.”

 

“Sorry to disappoint you but I don't have a good reason. It just helps me. It's how I relieve stress. Believe me, I've got plenty of stress.” I try to tell him in as ordinary a voice as I can muster.

 

“But it ain't healthy. I mean, what if you cut a vein or something?”

 

That little prick…

 

“Well, what do you do? You drink yourself in a murky stupor? Fuck countless girls, most of which you can't even remember the names of? That's what you do to feel better about your worthless life! What makes you any better? It's not like it's any healthier for you!”

 

His eyes become deep for a moment. Maybe I reached him.

 

He speaks, almost whispers, “Yeah. I guess your right. Everyone has got that one thing. You know, that things that makes them feel better, I guess. We all need to get it out there. Fight our demons.”

 

I lean back against the tree I'm sitting in front off. “That's what everyone says.”

 

Neither of us speak for some time. Eddie squirms where he's sitting. I can tell this topic makes him uncomfortable. Yeah, I can see why. What a time to confront your personally self-perceived inadequacies. They're are people out there hungry for our blood and all we can do is talk about our feelings.

 

“I bet you blame this on your parents, don't you?” Eddie says.

 

I laugh. I can't tell if he's been serious or not.

 

“Maybe I do. Doesn't everybody blame their problems on their mom and dad? Isn't that part of the normal teenage cycle?”

 

“I don't think that's right though. We only have ourselves to blame for our problems, you know? Mom and Dad ain't responsible for shit.”

 

“I don't know about that. It's probably a little of both. Either way, they make a really convenient scapegoat.”

 

“What's a scapegoat?”

 

“Doesn't matter.” I stand up and burst some dirt off my legs. “We should really keep on the move. We've been standing still for to long. The only way we'll ever survive this is to keep on the move.”

 

Eddie stands up as well, holding his bag in one hand, and his gun in the other. “Do you really think we'll survive this?”

 

I grab up my on supplies. “No, I don't.”

 

We start to walk again. This time I make sure Eddie's in front. I don't fancy him starring at me, wither it's because he likes my ass or is wondering when I'll go nuts next. God knows, I have enough eyes on me all ready.

 

A pitchfork is a ridiculously ungainly weapon, you know that?

 

----

 

My name is Victor Adams.

 

I've been on the move since last night. I don't think I've really rested any. I'm far to wired. I've pasted a couple of different people. A lonely big guy with a crossbow, a skinny, nervous guy in glasses with some sort of wire weapon, I passed a boy and a girl not that long ago, one had a pitchfork and the other had a gun. They were arguing. They didn't look like I should interrupt them.

 

That was maybe an hour ago. Not to long after I left the scene, I heard some gunshots. Guess it was a good idea that I got out of there when I did. They were around the river, but something about that thing made me nervous. To easy to mistake running water for something else. I decided to head in the opposite direction. Further into the forest. I don't trust the river. Trees are easy. They provide cover and are it's easier to recognize a certain tree then you think. I can find my way around a forest. I don't like water. It's always moving, always changing. You can't track water.

 

Speaking of tracking, I've been tracking this couple right here for a while now. The girl is about normal height, dark hair, brown eyes, Hispanic skin. She is carrying a large handgun of some sort. She seems to be in good physical shape, works-out-often, I bet. The boy is maybe four inches shorter then she is. He wears his school jacket buttoned up, but keeps rubbing over it, like he's hiding something. His head is shaved but his chin has a fine stubble over it. His eyes are blue. I can't find a weapon on him. He currently has two bags thrown over his shoulder. The girl is carrying one bag. Every once in a while they will whisper something back to each other, but I don't think they're really interested in small talk. I can't blame them, either.

 

The boy's name is Colin Little, Boy Number __, and the girl is Kerlina Menendez, girl number __. I know them, but I'm still leery. I just not sure I can trust anyone on this island.

 

It's weird. I've always been interested in survival and wildlife and things like that since a very young age. I guess I always found it easier to relate with animals then people. People can be tricky but animals are a little easier to guess. Just a little, mind you. But that's not really what I like about animals. It's just, animals don't kill for money or power or anything like that. Animals didn't invent Battle Royale. Humans did.

 

I've studied martial arts since I was seven, for ten years now. This may sound stupid, but I started working on them because I truly was interested in the inner discipline and self-regulation. I tried working through as many styles are possible, but Jujitsu is the only form I feel confident in. Mr. Stephens handed me a katana earlier, as my designated weapon. That would be pretty cool, if this whole game wasn't so damn sick.

 

I'm not going to kill anybody. There has to be some other way around this. I don't like all my classmates, but that doesn't mean I'm going to give into killing them, just because the teacher says so. This is some sort of terrible loyalty test, isn't it? The government sorts out the rebellious ones but making them blow each others brains out? Is that how far the human society has fallen? Is this what it's come to? I don't even know what life was like out of the system. That was before my time. There are probably people who remember, but I doubt they'd tell anyone, if they're even still alive. I wonder how many people truly like it this way. In this government run world. You would think that very few thinking, intelligent, people would enjoy this kind of existence. Maybe they aren't intelligent. Maybe they are all stupid and easily fool. Maybe these people need the higher ups to tell them what to do and what to think and how to live their lives. I'm not one of those people. I can't speak for everyone, but it shouldn't be this way. We should be in control of our lives. We can think for ourselves, so that is obviously how it was meant to be.

 

I guess I should be asking myself why I'm stalking around in the woods instead of meeting this people, upfront, since I'm so idealistic. I don't know. Ideas often sound really good on paper, but how often is it when they just don't work out in real life? I just don't know if I can trust these people. Who's playing and who isn't? There's paranoia in that idea. The game is obviously designed to breed such concepts. When you don't trust anyone you're more likely to shoot them in the back of the head when they aren't looking. And using teenagers? God, it's a brilliant idea. Is there any group on the planet more fueled by irrational emotions then teenagers?

 

I feel a slight itch above my neck and reach up to scratch it. That's when I feel the cold metal of these damn colors. Yeah, I had forgotten about them. I begin to feel around the metallic ring, try and get a handle on it. I don't think I've realize just how little of your own neck you get see from your own perspective. I had seen them on the other students, but it just different when the glorified bomb is on your neck.

 

I begin to carefully feel around the collar, trying to absorb as much information about it as I can from just feeling over it with my fingers. Geez, now I know how blind people most feel. It seems to be smooth steel around most of the collar, except for in the very back and in the very front. Right below my chin, I feel a small, scratched pattern, like a grid of some sort. Next to the grid is a small, circular dip. The circle feels like it's made of… Glass? I rub the back of the collar and feel the same kind of circular glass dot. Wait…

 

Cameras. Tiny cameras are equipped on both sides of the collars. And that grid. That must be a hearing device. Crap, of course, for the telescreen broadcast. I had almost forgotten about that. This country likes to get its thrills and watch them too. Shit, we've become an entire nation of voyeurs.

 

*click*

 

I'm being watched too.

 

----

 

It's been quit for a time now. I don't know how long Eddie and I have been walking, but it seems like hours. Time crawls when you have nothing to do but try not to get killed. My arms are beginning to strain a little, just from lugging my bag and this damn pitchfork around. The still hot cut on my arm is beginning to burn to. I hope an infection isn't setting in or anything. I knew I shouldn't have used that stupid pitchfork. It's not like I had a lighter lying around that I could sterilized the point with. It wasn't easy, either. I had to stick the handle into the ground and drag my arm across the upward pointed fork. That was dumb. There are certainly better places to cut yourself then some deserted island. I was just so upset. Maybe the heaviness of this whole event was just beginning to mount on me and Eddie being a jackass was just the last straw. I didn't feel better, afterwards. I never feel better afterwards, anymore. When I first starting cutting myself, it helped, somehow. There was a thrill, an adrenaline rush. A shock of endorphins to my brain. Like a little mini-orgasm. Maybe it was just from doing something that has been barred and forbidden by “society.” A weird subconscious thrill that came from breaking the rules, but maybe it was more. Maybe my brain was just confusing pain with pleasure. For whatever reason, it was good at first. I'd just go back to the bathroom, either clean a old razor blade or just open up a new one. Just a quick flip of the wrist, a slid down the underside of my arm, and I was filled up with the most peculiar feeling. It's hard to describe how it feels. I would sit there and squeeze the cut, watch that trickle of blood ooze out over everything. Sometimes I would drink the blood, but only once or twice, that coppery taste was gross and it would just stick to the inside of your mouth. For the rest of the day, you would eat something and all you could taste was blood. I didn't like that, but I was curious. Not like it hurt me anymore then anything else did. I made sure, most times, not to hit a vain or anything. I didn't want to kill myself. I don't believe this habit stems out of some weird self-loathing I have. It's wasn't about that. It was about release Being able to loose yourself and all the crap we as humans feel sometimes, it was about being able to get lost in sensation, in that pain. You would just sort of slip out of your body and when you woke up, you would feel better. Cutting was my soul vacation. It just let me get out of that negativity. It started out that way.

 

The scaring was the worst part, though. You'd move your arm and there'd be this sharp, biting pain there. After a while, that's all I could feel. After I had cover my lower arm in scars, after the scabbing healed and the vague red marks were the only thing that remained. After a while, it just wasn't fun anymore. It just started to suck. But I couldn't stop. I kept going back to that place, hoping to get something out of it, but I never did. After time had pass, it was just more pain and more blood. But I went back anyway. Maybe my brain had been rewired to think that was a safe place, the razor. Maybe I was drop too much as an infant. I'm still not sure. It's weird, the relationship a cutter has with the sensation the act causes. Anymore, it just hurts, yet still, at worst, there is some satisfaction. Just a little bit of gratification even if I only get pain out of it. Maybe that pain means something. I hear sometimes people self-mutilate because they don't “feel” anything in their everyday life, and the act causes a sensation, no matter how unpleasant. Maybe that's it. Maybe I've just become so cynical and cold that pain is the only thing I can feel.

 

God, would you believe I'm only eighteen?

 

Eddie hasn't said anything since we've started marching and I haven't heard any ominous sounds since those shots this morning. Oh, yeah, not to mention when Eddie gunned down that Alistair kid. Why didn't that bother me? That kid did attack me, after all. But even when we found Brittany's dead body, I wasn't to phased. Is that weird? That dead bodies don't bother me? Eddie didn't respond very well to the sight, he was disgusted. Any yet… Goddamn it, maybe there really is something wrong with me.

 

“Stop.” Eddie breaks the penetrating silence that had fallen over the area.

 

“What's wrong?”

 

“Look ahead.” Eddie says as he reaches behind him and removes a gun clip from his backpack.

 

Ahead of us, less then a meter down the tree-laden path, another student waits. About average high with short bleach blond hair. He carries several backpacks and lets his uniform coat hang open and blow in the wind. The student, whom I only vaguely recognize, looks directly at Eddie. He then raises his left arm and points a gun at us.

 

Oh, shit…

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“Why were you watching us?” Kerlina questions me. She has a large handgun pointed right in my face. Colin stands behind her. He seems decidedly unsure.

 

My hands have shot up and I've dropped my sword on the ground. That seemed to be more of an automatic reaction then anything else.

 

“Answer me!” Kerlina yells again and moves the gun around in my face.

 

“Kerlina, calm down.” Colin says to her. “This is Bryon. I know him. He's on the level.”

 

Kerlina, stern, looks back at me, “You're not playing the game?”

 

I shake my head no, maybe I'm to nervous to speak.

 

“Then why were you watching us?”

 

Colin, ever the optimistic, speaks up before I can respond, “I'm sure he was just watching out for us. Bryon wouldn't hurt us, would ya'?

 

“No, I don't think I would.” I respond, trying not to sound too much like a liar. I don't think I'm lying. Why do I feel like I'm lying?

 

Kerlina cautiously lowers her gun, “All right. But if you pull any shit, you're dead, understand?”

 

I nod my head, “I understand.”

 

Colin smiles at me, “Its great to see you, man. I was worried you were dead or something.”

 

I begrudgingly smile, “No, not yet anyway.”

 

The two explain their plan to me. They want to seek out as many friendly students as possible and maybe build up a force against the school. I don't think it'll work, but I don't say anything. If these two can hang onto hope, more power to them, I suppose.

 

----

 

Eddie grabs my arm and pushes me to the ground. That's the second time today that he's pushed my to the ground like that. I'm beginning to discover that he's not exactly a gentle person. Of course, this is the second time today someone's tried to kill me, so maybe there is something to be said for Eddie's behavior.

 

Bullets rip the tree branches above my head to pieces. I swear I can feel their heat just above me. I crawl behind a tree, dropping my bags along the way. Eddie is crouched behind a tree just across from me. He is slowly peaking his head around the corner and holding onto his gun like his life depends on it. Gee, I guess his life does depend on it. Eddie pulls his head back just as another storm of bullets tears through the tree bark. A rapid, consistent tapping sound fills the entire area.

 

Eddie turns to face me, a real fire in his eyes, “Shelly, get the hell out of her!”

 

“But what about…”

 

“Don't argue!”

 

Goddamn it, we sound like extras in some cheesy action movie.

 

More bullets fly through the air around us. I stumble to my feet and begin to run as fast as I can, away from Eddie and fighting. More bullets ring out around me, but slowly, very slowly, I can hear the sound dimming.

 

That is, right before I hear Eddie let out a death scream.

 

I don't look back though. I have to survive, not for him, not for my parents, but for me. I have to make it out, somehow. I can't let some random, nameless guy slaughter me like this. I'm better then that.

 

There is sudden heat in my left leg. Directly following that is an insurmountable serge of pain. He's shot me. I scream, uncontrollable, tumble, and fall to the dirty forest floor. Before I can do anything else, a bolt of logic runs through my mind. I stop.

 

Stop. Don't breathe, Shelly. Don't even think. Don't give this guy any idea that you might still be alive. Animals do this all the time. Trick the predator into thinking they're dead. Well, this island is an awful lot like the wild, so it'll work here to. I try to slow my breathing down, ignore the pain in my leg, which is a lot fucking harder then it sounds, just focus on survival. Don't even think about what will happen if he does realize your alive, just focus on surviving. Eddie couldn't do it, but I can. I CAN DO THIS!

 

I clamp my eyes shut and try to calm myself. Play possum. I hear the distinctive sound of a shoe sole making rough contact with the dirty ground. Not to far away from me I hear something heavy roll and drop. Hands sorting through a duffel bag. A weak gasping. That's not mine is it?

 

I can hear a weak whisper. It far off and the speech is slurred, but I recognize it as Eddie's.

 

“You…” Heavy gasping, “Don't kill me. Please, don't kill me…” More heavy gasping.

 

The other doesn't say anything in response. The next thing I hear is more of that constant, rapid clicking. And then nothing.

 

More footsteps, this time, their approaching me. All right, time to pull out the class act. Fool the guy. Don't let him know the truth.

 

I can hear him breathing, just above me. I don't see it, but I can tell. He's staring at me, making sure. I feel his foot smash into my side. I do everything I can not to respond. Silence, for a moment. Then I hear the footsteps walking away from me. Slowly, they get more and more far away.

 

I'm tired, so tired. It would be easy, just to go to sleep here. Didn't sleep well, last night. I can go to sleep and when I wake up I will be in my bed, at home, and none of this would've ever happened. That would be so easy…

 

I feel a cold, metal object press against the back of my head. That rapid, clicking sound soon follows. It's over.

 

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It's about a half hour away from noon. Me, Colin, and Kerlina have been walking longer now then we never intended to. We haven't run into another student.

 

Maybe a half-hour ago, I heard some bullets being fired, not to far from here it seems. I couldn't really decipher the direction, but I've been nervous ever sense. Colin and Kerlina haven't said anything, but I can tell. It feels like death could be around any corner.

 

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End of chapter ten.

 

“24 contestants remain!”