The Game Begins

[VoltTurtle]

((Madeline Wilcox continued from A Trust Exercise))

Maddie walked away from the abandoned harbor still in a daze. Perhaps she should have been moving quicker, considering that Nina could wake up at any time, would likely be very angry, and would likely want to find her. Maybe Maddie wanted to be found, all things considered. Lost in her thoughts, she arrived at the scenic overlook without realizing. She decided to take in the view of the overlook, to try to get her mind off of the island and what was going on. It was quite beautiful, the view. The entire area itself was pretty nice, in fact. She finally took a good look at her surroundings. There were flowers, nice benches, and...

Maddie's eyes went wide. A corpse.

There was a corpse near the railing. A very bloody, mutilated corpse. She gagged. There was a corpse only twenty feet away from where she was. She couldn't tell who it was or even what they looked like, but she could see the blood. All of that blood... She felt sick looking at the corpse. She stumbled over to the railing of the overlook and vomited up half the contents of her stomach over it.

Who was it? Who's already dead? Who did this sick game already claim as a victim? She forced herself to get closer to the corpse, to get a look at who it was. Closing in on the body it took most of Maddie's concentration to keep from retching again. Once she got close enough to see who it was, she froze.

It was Gabriella Parker. Maddie didn't know too much about the girl, what she liked, who she was. All she knew about Gabby was that she loved to perform. But it didn't really matter who Gabby was, she could have been a massive bitch for all Maddie knew, she didn't deserve this. She didn't deserve to have her very last moments of existence be painful and scary. She deserved to have a full chance at life, a chance at success, a chance at happiness, just like everyone else. But the terrorists just had to take that all away from them, didn't they?

A tear streamed down her face. The terrorists didn't care about what they were doing. They didn't care that they were taking so many lives, so many chances, so many futures, away. Whatever problem that they have with the United States, the kids of Aurora High School had nothing to do with it, and the very fact that they were hurting so many innocent lives just to prove some sort of sick point made her angry.

But she calmed herself. There was no point in getting angry right now. Getting angry would distract her from her number one goal: survival. She needed to save her anger for later, when she was safe and sound. If she was safe and sound. She might wind up just like Gabby. Thinking about the possibility of her own demise made her look again at Gabby's corpse.

She looked into Gabby's eyes. The cold, dead look of them, the emptiness of her gaze, made Maddie sick again. She hurried to the railing and leaned back over it, once again vomiting, this time emptying her stomach completely. She turned away from the corpse. There was no point in staying around it at this point.

Walking out of the scenic overlook, Maddie was left with one last conclusion.

The game has finally, truly begun, and she needed to be more careful than ever.

((Madeline Wilcox continued in A New World Fool))