The Sun Rises in the East...

[Megami†]

Dark brown eyes slowly came into focus to reveal the sea of midnight blue above him.  Blinking once, twice, three times, Ricky Callahan remained on his back, the morning dew from the wet grass soaking into his shirt as he stared up at the dark sky.  The sea of darkness was slowly but surely giving way to the light, causing his surrounding to be illuminated in an orange glow.  Normally, sunrise symbolized the start of a new day.  For Ricky Callahan, now dubbed Boy #27 in a deadly game of musical chairs, the rising sun signified the beginning of the end.

It was on this day that life as he knew it ended and a whole new ordeal began.  Ricky inevitably pushed himself up into a sitting position.  Now, the rocky terrain around him came into view, as did the nearby drop-off and the vast expanse of sea beyond.  Ricky sighed audibly as he looked out toward the sea.  Somewhere beyond the horizon was his home... his mom, his dad, his brother.  Would he ever see them again?

The scenery from this point on the island was beautiful, there was no arguing that.  The sun was just starting to rise and the vast stretch of water shimmered and danced in the morning sunlight.  It was only when he looked to his left at the green daypack labelled "B27 - Callahan" that he was reminded of the harsh environment in which he'd suddenly been thrown.  Reluctantly, Ricky reached over to the eyesore of a daypack and unzipped it.

The words of the Asian woman who'd informed the of their "acceptance into the SOTF Program" rang clear in his mind as he stared down into the bag.  Kill or be killed.  That was the name of the game, alright.  It was Darwin's Theory taken to the extreme.  Part of him wanted to believe that his own classmates.  Sure, kids didn't get along sometimes, but there was no way that they'd actually physically take the lives of another person, right?  Ricky shook his head in disbelief as his hands searched blindly through the daypack before pulling out his "designated weapon"... a slingshot.

You're kidding, right?

Now the entire SOTF ACT seemed like even more of a joke.  He couldn't deny the fact that the deaths of Mr. Dolph and Mr. Duana had been horrific in every sense of the word -- in fact, Ricky quickly pushed the cold-blooded murder of the two men to the back of his mind.  He didn't want to think about it.  Really, though, the students he'd gone to school with couldn't be as heartless as that woman, could they?  She was sent in to stir up fear in the students, that much had been a given, but they wouldn't knowingly, willingly... would they?

Don't get paranoid, Ricky.  That's what they want you to do.  They want you to get paranoid and try to hunt down somebody.  They want you to attack them with this lame-ass weapon they gave you so you can spook the other kid into fighting back and inevitably killing you.  That's how this competition works.  You know how it works, man, so don't lose your head.  You can handle this.

Slowly but surely, the hispanic boy was convincing himself that things would work out.  Sure, everything would be okay.  In the end, Ricky knew that he was in the "denial" phase of the SOTF ACT, like so many others before him had gone through.  The fact was that Ricky Callahan simply couldn't come to terms with the circumstances that had placed him on this island, with this weapon, where he was supposed to be fighting for his life.  A light smile formed on his features as he plotted his next action.

Everything's gonna work out.  I'll just find Eric, Gregg, Colt... everybody.  I'll find them all and we'll figure this thing out.  This is outrageous.  They took care of this already.  The government took care of this, so this can't be happening, right?  This is probably some copycat wannabe who's trying to pull off a program he could never hope to orchestrate.  We can beat this thing, no problem.

In that instant, Ricky had assured himself that this was not the SOTF ACT, Mr. Danya himself had not orchestrated a second abduction involving Franklyn Senior High School, and things would work out okay.  He was confident.  He was self-assured.  And in the next instant, the dark-skinned boy turned an abnormal shade of white.  From somewhere to the south, he could hear it even at this distance, the unmistakable noise rang out, breaching the silence of the atmosphere with its vile cry.

Gunfire.

A sinking feeling formed in the pit of Ricky's stomach as a gunshot rang out into the air.  Silence followed, causing a worried expression to formulate on the hispanic boy's features.  No way.  There was no way that they were playing.  How could they?  The faux confidence he had built up only seconds prior collapsed in a heap as the silence continued.  Ricky slowly rose to his feet, dusting the dirt and grass that had accumulated on his clothing away, before turning to face the direction from which the gunshot came.

They're already starting...

He stood there, a stunned silence having overtaken him as he gazed off into the deep, dark woods that lay to the south.  Much to his dismay, Ricky had come to a very harsh realization.  The contest had already begun.  Despite his protesting, despite false hope, Survival of the Fittest had begun again, and like it or not, Ricky Callahan was a participant.  Now, he had to find the rest of the team.  Colt, Andy, Gregg, Eric... together, they could find some way to take this thing down.  Only as Ricky reached down to pick up his daypack did another thought suddenly rush into his mind.

Whitney...

Ricky had been so focused on himself for the moment that the one person he should've been thinking about had completely slipped his mind.  He'd never told her.  He'd never told her how he felt.  Now, he might never see her again.  What if he found her laying dead on the ground, a victim of the solitary gunshot he'd heard just moments ago?  He had to find her.  He had to tell her.  Even if she just looked at him funny, or laughed, she had to know.

Ricky Callahan had been many things in his short life.  He'd been a hypocrite.  He'd been a coward.  He'd been a benchwarmer.  He'd been a baseball player.  He'd been a pawn.  He'd been bordering on obsessiveness over a girl he barely knew.  All of that was in the past.  Now, Ricky was starting with a clean slate.  All Ricky Callahan was now was Boy #27, SOTF contestant.  Ricky wasn't satisfied with that.  Now, Ricky was determined to add something new to that list.  Hero.

So much that I have to tell you... so many things I never said.  Things I should've said.  Things I wanted to say.  People always held me back... told me it was a bad idea, told me I shouldn't do it.  No more.  No more following orders from people who claim to know what's in my best interests.  From now on, I'm living for myself... for however long that may be.

Slinging the daypack over his shoulder, Ricky nodded to himself.  In a way, he was trying to assure himself that he could, in fact, do the things he planned on doing.  Never in his life had he thought that he would be in a situation this extreme.  Now, it was no longer a matter of will.  It was a do-or-die situation, in which he either had to conform to a line of thinking beyond "pawn" or die a cold death for a so-called friend just looking to prolong their own life.  It might've sounded cliché, but to him, there was only one person on the island worth that.

And he was determined to find her.

A light gulp escaped him as he removed the map of the island from the confides of his daypack.  He didn't know where to start.  He didn't even know what he was looking for, really.  He just knew that he had to find her.  He had to find her, and he had to tell her.  He had to find Eric, and he had to find the rest of the baseball team, and they had to formulate some sort of plan.  They just had to.  All he knew for certain was that he was on the easternmost part of the island, so there was only one logical thing to do: head west.

Clutching the daypack tightly, Ricky began his journey across the island.  Step by step, his legs carried him further from his point of sanctuary on the cliffs and into an island which surely breathed death and damnation to them all.  As Ricky meandered into the treeline in front of him, a second gunshot resounded.  His walk quickly broke into a jog, and Ricky was off... whether it be to the start of his tale or to his death, only time will tell.

((Continued in: Empathies and Desperation))