Survival Of The Fittest

His skull throbbed. He sat up, rubbing the back of his head. Holy fuck that hurt. Where was he? He looked around, he was lying in the dirt surrounded by a bunch of freaky statues covered in bird shit. Early morning sunlight came in through a broken net roof. What? What had happened-

Oh, yeah. Danya. Killing. Survival of the Fittest.

Of fucking course this shit had happened to him.

Guillermo “Billy” Trevino - Start

Billy knew a lot about Survival of the Fittest, more than most people his age. He hadn’t watched the footage, he wasn’t some uncaring bastard or some pervert who liked that sort of thing. But he had read articles, listened to podcast, and lurked countless internet discussions. He knew most of the conspiracy theories behind it – of course, one of the most popular ones was that it was an inside job perpetrated by the US government to control the populace through fear. Others said it was run by America’s rivals like Russia and China. Some said it was run by a shadowy group of billionaires who organized the whole thing for their own sick amusement. Billy didn’t know what the hell he believed, but there was one thing that was unarguable: Survival of the Fittest brought out the worst in people.

Every single “game” they’ve had, a bunch of kids revealed themselves to be complete psychos. He’d heard of a few: Nathanial Harris, Cody Jenson, Liam Brooks… people who’ve done shit that would make most serial killers cringe. A lot of people were just born rotten, and this game is where that came out. Billy had no doubt that it would happen with his classmates, too. Hell, some of these idiots were close to killing each other even before they got put in a death game.

So shit was going to get real bad real fast, and Billy had to be ready for it. He didn’t know what he would do in the long run- he doubted they’d get saved, and he sure as hell didn’t want to win- but that didn’t mean he was just going to give up. If those shitheads wanted him dead, they’d have to fight for it.

A big ol’ dufflebag labelled “B63” was lying right in front of him. Billy lunged towards it and zipped it open, digging through its contents. Whatever weapon the terrorists had decided to give him would be in here. He dug through rations and a first aid kid before he found the can at the bottom of the bag.

Pepper spray? That wasn’t too bad. But it wouldn’t work great against an MP5, probably.

(B057- Kyle Harrison: Start)

When Kyle was afraid, he would usually pray. When his mom had to work late, he would pray for her to make it home safely. When his dad got sick, he would pray for him to get well. Whenever there was a major storm or some other event of the like, he would pray for safety. Prayer was what he did to soothe his nerves. It made him feel like there was an angel coming down to reassure him.

And in this giant cage he had found himself in, that was all he could do.

Kyle was on his knees in the corner, silently sending his pleas above for not only his safety, but that of his friends and classmates. He had never been this scared in his life. Not when a big, mean dog was barking at him when he was really little, and not when he got the flu and was stuck in bed for almost a week. He had been forced to watch one girl kill another, and told that the same thing would happen to him. It just felt so wrong. He worried that the idea might seem sacrilegious, but it seemed like if God ever had a blind spot, the men behind this lived there, and Kyle and his class had fallen into it.

His eyes remained closed and his head down, and he gave his final few thoughts before he unclasped his hands and looked up, mouthing the word "Amen" as he got to his feet.

(G045 - Mackenzie Baker start)

A figure stirred in the corner of the enclosure, lying on her back. Slowly she rose, but as her eyes opened and she came face to face with one of the aviary's statues, a quick yelp filled the space, followed by a frenzied string of "No no no no no..." as she began to pace back and forth.

Mackenzie Baker had awoken, only to wish that she hadn't.

Why had this happened? Just a day ago...she stopped there. What time was it? What DAY was it? She looked around for her purse. Where was her purse? They'd taken it, or was it in one of these bags? She unzipped them and let out a sigh of relief when she found her clothes in here, along with the most important item of all, which she immediately placed upon her head. If they'd taken her purple straw hat, she didn't know what she would have...

But no cell phone. Dangit! She knew she should have invested in a nice wristwatch, but she never could find one that complemented her outfit. It was...sunny, judging by the hole in this weird place. Judging by the perches, maybe it was some kind of birdhouse?

Someone else was here, on the other side of the building. He was also rummaging through his bags and pulling something out, but she couldn't see what. It occurred to her that there was one more bag she hadn't inspected, one marked with the code G045, whatever that meant. So as long as there was some distance between them, she might as well. She unzipped it, and her eyes fell on something right near the top, something that looked very, very sharp.

It was magnificent.

Her eyes widened as she pulled the fencing saber out by its handle and began to turn it from every angle. She had never picked up fencing, even though she'd been fascinated by the idea, and yet, the romantic ideal of it had struck her immediately upon observing such plays as Romeo and Juliet. She realized that this was a game of murder, that she'd have to use this to defend herself sooner rather than later, but she was very, VERY happy with what she'd been given.

With luck, maybe she'd never have to use it at all.

Sword in hand, she zipped up the bags, adjusted the hat on her head, and shouldered the two of them as she approached the stranger in the aviary. Well, no stranger, really, she knew his name. Billy Trevino. He was...someone. A name was a start. At least she could lead with that.

"Billy! You're alright!" she shouted, walking towards him. "You are alright, yes?"

Billy head jerked to the side as he noticed movement in his peripheral vision. It turned out he wasn't here alone. He gripped the can of pepper spray and pushed up to his feet

Eugh, his head still hurt like a bitch.

The short read-headed boy, Kyle, was probably the most harmless person in his entire class. Scrawny, friendly, good student, loved Jesus. Kyle wasn't Billy's idea of a fun guy to be around, but Billy didn't have anything against the boy. He certainly wasn't afraid of him. Though, wasn't it always the harmless-looking ones who turned out to be the most fucked up?

Eh, guess he'd see about that.

Just as he was about to take a step over to the boy, however, he heard a girl calling his name. He turned to see Mackenzie Baker bounding towards him. She wasn't his type of person. She wasn't too bad compared to others at their school, but she was always fishing for attention and she hung around with the rich idiots. Out here, though, she seemed happy to see him, which took him aback. Was she trying to play at something.

His eyes drifted to the sword. Looked pretty dangerous. But if it came to it, he could spray her before she could do anything with it, right?

"Heya, Mac." he said, giving her a weak smile. "Hope you're not planning to do anything with that."

For a second, he looked back to Kyle, wondering what he would do.

Kyle turned and saw that he was being watched. Two people were in the aviary with him. When had they shown up? Were they there the whole time that he had been praying? If so, then he was thankful that neither of them had interrupted him or tried to attack him while his back was turned. Especially with that...

... That... big, long, sharp-looking sword...

He would have taken a step back were he already not in the corner. The presence of the weapon on its own was enough to frighten him. Even if Mackenzie wasn't aggressive, she could still drop it, or not look where she was swinging it, or any other form of accident could occur. Descriptions of lacerations flashed through Kyle's mind. He had studied how to treat them, at least in terms of general care and bandaging, but he didn't have any actual experience in the field. Plus, in the situation they were in, he felt that keeping a little caution was a good thing.

Mackenzie and Billy were both names that he knew. They weren't really friends, but it felt good to have people around that he could recognize. He shrugged off his shock from the weapon sighting and spoke up.

"Please be careful. That sword looks very sharp." He added to Billy's statement, pointing to the blade.

It took a few seconds for Mackenzie to realize what was making everyone so nervous. She'd figured that if everyone had a weapon, there was nothing to be afraid of from hers, but what if not all weapons were equal, if perhaps her sword was actually on the higher rungs of quality? They were afraid of her because she had something better than them.

How intriguing. She'd never scared someone before.

Still, she supposed that she might as well put them at ease, so she unzipped her bag again and carefully slid the sword back inside, taking care not to nick anything or herself. "I'm sorry," she said, "I didn't realize it made you uncomfortable. Still getting used to this."

Nonetheless, the sword was staying at the top of her bag. This was a good and proper game of murder, after all, and she had no pretensions about what people thought of her. And for that matter, she had no idea what these folks were packing. Better address that now, actually.

"So what'd you guys get?" she asked in a casual manner. "Just curious."

Billy let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding in. It looked like she was being honest about not wanting to stab anyone. If she'd wanted to, she could've just run at him while he'd had his back turned. He wasn't dumb enough to trust her or anything, but he didn't think he'd have anything to worry about right away.

"I got this can of pepper spray." he said, holding of the can for them to see. Maybe it would have been better for him not to reveal that he had a sub-par weapon, but he was already carrying the can openly, so there was no point in trying to hide it.

Billy glanced back at Kyle. He wasn't carrying anything- maybe the weapon was still in his bag? He was as curious as Mackenzie was; what did the kid have?

A sword and pepper spray? Both of those seemed pretty dangerous. The sword was deadly, and the pepper spray would be extremely effective at incapacitating someone. And not only that, but it could be used against a group of people at once rather than just one. Kyle hoped that both Mackenzie and Billy kept a tight hand on their weapons, because if someone was up to no good, then either of them could be used to cause some serious damage.

"Um... I don't know what I have. I can take a look." He said earnestly before kneeling down to open his pack.

He stuck his hands inside the pack and expected to come across something similar to what the other two had. Maybe some kind of knife, or even a gun. He felt around the tins, bottles, and other miscellaneous items until he felt something unusual. It was big, and it felt weirdly plastic. He gripped his hands around it and pulled it out of the bag, albeit not without difficulty thanks to its awkward shape. Ultimately, he pulled a series of tubes that vaguely took the shape of a cannon out of his bag. He looked at it oddly before turning back to the other two.

"I have no idea what this is."

Alright, pepper spray! They were really pulling out some neat concepts for this game. Mackenzie didn't want to believe that it would ever be used, but she'd never seen this kind of stuff before, so she was nonetheless occupied just with the novelty of it all.

Then the cannon came out, and she was just flabbergasted.

"Gyuuhh...well...it's very unique."

Was it even a gun at all? It looked like it could vaguely be something of that sort, but it seemed almost slapped-together, like a project some kid would make if they were very, very bored. And high. How did it even fire? Was there some kind of special ammunition?

"Hmm...see if there's anything else, maybe?"

She couldn't help it. When it came to stuff like this, her curiosity was overwhelming. She almost didn't care if it blew up in their faces. She just wanted to know how it worked.

Billy raised an eyebrow at the contraption that Kyle pulled out of his bag. It looked kinda like some sort of rocket launcher or bazooka... actually, more like some ten year-old's attempt at making a rocket launcher.

"That's, uh..." Billy chuckled "Wow, I sure didn't expect you to pull that thing out."

It definitely didn't look dangerous, but Billy still had to be cautious. He really had no clue what the fuck it was. It could be a piece of modern art, or it could be some sort of supervillain poison gas cannon. At this point, he'd buy either explanation.

"Yeah, ckeck again. See if there's anything that tells you what the fuck that thing does."

Judging by the reactions of the other two, he didn't think that they knew what the weird tube thing that had just come out of his bag was either. He got back down on his knees and started rummaging through his bag once more, feeling around for anything that might have felt out of he ordinary, and holding it open so that he could peek inside for good measure.

He felt around and felt a lot of the same things that he had felt the first time around, at least until he moved his hand to check under his medical kit. He felt something lumpy. It was hard to describe, but it felt like something that he had felt before, although he couldn't put his finger on exactly where he had felt it. Adjusting his point of view and digging his hand further into the bag to get a decent grip, he pulled out a small sack of potatoes.

He held the potatoes next to his head, feeling justifiably confused as he looked at it. "Um... did either of you get potatoes?" He inquired, still not sure what to think about his discovery.

Potatoes. Huh. Mackenzie didn't think that they'd given her a bag of those, but she hadn't investigated her bag thoroughly. "Well...I suppose I could check."

Laying it down on the ground, she unzipped it again, setting the saber aside on the grass. There was a case full of bandages and stuff, some bread, some water...

"Nope, no potatoes."

So they'd given Kyle a plastic tube and extra provisions? Kind of weird, but...Then it all clicked together. Potatoes. Bazooka. Or perhaps potato...gun?

"That's it! The tube fires the potatoes!" she exclaimed. Kind of a waste of food, in her professional opinion. By taking inventory, she determined that this supply of hers wouldn't take her too far at all. Which was perhaps the point. Once supplies started to diminish, people would start fighting with one another just to survive.

Those clever fiends.

"Personally, I'd just eat them," she said. "In case you hadn't noticed, we've got bread and energy bars." She'd never had raw potatoes, but if they could get some water boiling, they'd soften them up pretty easily. Nice thing about potatoes. They were peasant food for a reason.

Billy stared wide-eyed at the sack of potatoes. He'd checked his bag, he'd seen the rations they'd given him. He didn't remember a bag of potatoes. Why would they even give them a bunch of potatoes?

Then Mackenzie had her sudden outburst and it all clicked together. A potato cannon. Billy couldn't contained himself. He laughed, harder than he had in a long time.

"I don't know..." he said between gasps "Don't knock it till you try it.... it could be... pretty deadly..."

He broke off and starting laughing again, and once he started, he couldn't stop, and soon his eyes were watering and he was holding his stomach. It was just so stupid. It was such a serious situation, and it was so stupid. He had a fucking potato gun! It was... it was like...

The terrorists were really treating their lives like a big joke.

Suddenly, it wasn't so funny anymore. The laughter died out, and Billy wiped the tears from his eyes.

"...To be serious, though, she's probably right. It might be best to keep them for extra food."

... Potato gun?

Kyle looked down at the weapon on the ground next to him. So he was supposed to put his potatoes in there, then it would fire them somehow? Honestly, it sounded like a waste of perfectly good potatoes to him. Plus, it looked kind of clunky, and he couldn't see himself enjoying hauling it around very much, much less trying to use it in a fight. Not like he really wanted to fight anyone in the first place, but in terms of self-defense, it seemed too awkward to really be useful.

And then Billy laughed. He laughed for a while. Kyle tilted his head as he waited for the laughter to stop. Okay, the potato gun was kind of funny because of just how weird it was, but it wasn't that funny... right? Even if the cannon was useless, which Kyle kind of thought it was, at least he had potatoes, so he could stretch his supplies further. Well, at least as long as he could cook them. He did not want to risk the potential digestive problems that raw potatoes could bring on.

He looked back down at the potato gun, sitting there on the ground in the same spot since he had removed it from the bag. "I kinda feel like just leaving this here. I don't think I can really get much use out of it." He said with a shrug. "I feel bad about littering, though."

Mackenzie gave a huff and narrowed her eyes at Billy as he laughed at Kyle's misfortunes. It wasn't HIS fault that he'd been stuck with something like a potato gun, and it just seemed really mean-spirited and rude to make fun of the situation.

Still though, they both had a point. There wasn't much use in carrying around a cumbersome thing that he couldn't use effectively.

"It should be fine if you litter. I don't know for sure, but..." she pointed at the gaping hole in the ceiling of this weird enclosure, "I think this place might be abandoned."

What was this place? Seemed like some kind of bird zoo, judging by the perches. There was a name for that, but it wasn't coming to her at the moment. At least the birds escaped, or maybe all the weird statues scared them off. She'd hate to think that they'd been trapped here when the owners left. The thought of a bunch of birds starving to death was really, really sad.

"Anyway, I think maybe we should stick together. If you're going to leave that behind, I can't let you go walking around without a weapon. I mean, I don't THINK anyone's trying to kill anyone, but on the off-chance someone is..."

Okay, she shouldn't be naive. She'd known enough people at this school that she could name at least five who were on the edge all the time. She wished more than anything that everyone was getting along and trying to work together, but she had to face the facts. Someone was going to snap at some point, and it was her duty to guard these two when they did. And maybe, just maybe, when people went crazy, she could be there to bring them down to earth.

"Well, what do you say? Allies?"