Wakey wakey, sunshine...

[chitoryu12†]

((Christopher Carlson continued from Woods of Paranoia))

Chris didn't get much sleep the night of the first day.

He was plagued by nightmares. Constant, never-ending visions of fire. Black skulls. A young girl with her flesh melting off. He didn't even know her name, just that she was dead. And he witnessed the whole thing.

He finally awoke with a start as the early morning sunrise beamed through the cracked windows of the infirmary and onto his head. He grumbled and slowly got up off the couch he had fallen asleep on. He had tried to sleep in one of the patient beds, but the thought of sleeping on the same bed where somebody had possibly been sick and died was a bit too creepy for him.

Chris had a hell of a night. After the brawl in the woods that ended with a girl (God, who the hell was she?) getting immolated by a flare, Chris had just ran through the fire and didn't stop until he was clear of the woods. The smell of burning flesh seemed to follow him until he reached the infirmary at sunset.

The building was already empty. It was dirty from being uninhabited for so long, but the place was pretty much in fine condition. He had looked around for any scalpels or scissors, but found every drawer cleaned out. There were some medical supplies, but it looked like someone had haphazardly cleaned out most of the cabinets recently. Besides, he was uninjured. The flames in the forest left his skin a bit sore, but it wasn't any worse than a sunburn.

And so he set his pack down, the strap around his arm to wake him up in case anyone tried to sneak up on him and take it, and fell into a fitful sleep.

As he yawned and rubbed his eyes, a sudden, piercing screech sent his hands to his ears. "Gyah!"

The feedback subsided, though his sudden headache didn't. It was replaced with a slow clap. Chris had the feeling that he was in a bad teen movie. The voice coming through the loudspeaker on the corner of the building quickly put an end to that.

"Kids, I have to say that I'm truly impressed with your first day showing. Blood! Tragedy! Explosions! Mayhem! You've utterly smashed the record for first day kills; it makes an old man proud to see you all taking his instructions so thoroughly to heart! Congratulations to those of you that are still alive, because you've already outlasted 19 of your classmates."

And so Danya began mockingly going over each and every death and killer. Chris listened carefully, listening for any names he recognized. With each one he did, his stomach sank a little more. No tears came, but he was doing his hardest to keep them back. For the first time, he knew the loss of a friend. Not just the person having a fight with them and never speaking to him again. These people were never coming back.

He refused to think about what bloody corpses were left of the headless Remi Pierce, fellow Drama Club member, or Reika Ishida from his science class. He did, however, laugh hysterically at the death of Eric Lorenz. Eric was a white supremacist, and racism was something Chris hated beyond all measure. He never got the chance, but he always wanted to find some excuse to break the skinny bastard's nose. Picturing him impaled on a fence just made him laugh.

But he stopped. Was he going mad? Was he honestly laughing at the death of someone he personally knew?

He shook his head. Eric deserved death. He was a piece of shit who didn't deserve the life he was given. He bet that every single black and Hispanic student watching his death on TV was cheering just as much as him.

Fortunately, the infirmary wasn't listed as a danger zone. He was safe, as was the town he was headed to.

What really got him was Ivan Kuznetsov getting the Best Kill Award. The loner who loved rabbits from science class? No way. He couldn't have been a killer.

Or could he? Chris had just seen Phillip Ward trying to beat a girl to death with his bare hands. He wasn't very experienced with the show, but he knew that it changed people. Perfectly normal kids became stone-cold killers. Or worse, psychopaths out for blood.

That was when he made the decision: trust nobody. He would be on guard 24/7 for the rest of this game. He didn't want to avoid anybody, but he would definitely not be giving anyone the benefit of the doubt.

So Chris grabbed up his pack and headed off. He had a town to hit.

((Christopher Carlson continued in Ten Shades of Gray))