SAN JOSÉ POLICE DEPARTMENT (201 W. MISSION ST.), SAN JOSÉ, CALIFORNIA
Peyton Smith stared at his shoelaces. His workaday eyes, which glistened like wet brown marbles, pointed down—a far cry from the artificial ambers and cotton-candy colored contacts he had grown used to seeing at his school from day to day. Through a pair of thin lenses on his face, the boy traced the contours of the tiles on the ground of the local station's lobby, familiarizing himself with them. His head canted towards the ground, held low, weighed down by the gravity of the situation. As much as he wanted to will it, though—this wasn't just Cyberspace. No. It was much worse.
He gulped. In the distance, the air conditioner droned. He tilted his head to the left, blinking away an errant tear. Beside him, in the next chair over, his mother was there, her face red. She could see the fear in his eyes. He could see the fear in hers. He felt the touch of her arm as it wrapped gently around his back, pulling him into her warmth. He felt her fingers as they rose his neck towards the top of his head, her nails rubbing into his scalp and messing up his scruffy brown hair. If someone had told him this would happen yesterday, he'd have thought it was a joke—a meme.
He would've laughed it off. He wasn't laughing.
This—all of this—was real. Somehow, despite it all, despite everything that Peyton wanted to believe, this was real. It was real. See, he had to repeat those three words, over and over, like a manta. Otherwise? Well, otherwise, it just wouldn't stick. It'd all go right through one ear, out the other, and it'd slip his mind, and then, he'd be back right where he started: the river in Egypt, denial. Insisting, hoping against hope, that everything could somehow be okay again. Because the truth was so awful that he couldn't even wrap his head around it, no matter how hard he pulled.
This was real.
He didn't know what to think. He didn't even know what to feel.
How could he? How could anyone?
...
It was like a bad dream. Peyton Smith had those sometimes.
Some nights, he woke up in a sweat. With a jolt of electric fear, his body would spring itself up from its rest in a moment of all-out panic, convinced that, against all odds, he was now falling—falling, falling, falling. For that split-second, it was real. And then, well, he'd realize that he was still on his bed, that he was never in any danger, and that it was all just a trick of the mind. And he'd turn his pillow to the other side, take a sip of water, and like it had never happened, he'd go to sleep. As quickly as he had willed it into being, it would disappear again, vanishing like a ghost.
The good thing about bad dreams is that once they're over, they're over.
But Peyton Smith woke up that morning. And his nightmare didn't end.
10:00 PM (PST) — 04/17/2023
SAN JOSÉ POLICE DEPARTMENT (201 W. MISSION ST.), SAN JOSÉ, CALIFORNIA
Detective August Paletta opened the door to the lobby. In his mind, he pictured hundreds and hundreds of possible reactions. Fear. Confusion. Anger. He wouldn't have blamed them. This situation, more than anything else, would be enough to send most people into hysterics—much less a kid. Honestly, he wasn't sure if he felt right about questioning the boy. It was too soon—the wounds were still new and bloody and raw. But orders were orders. And, if nothing else, he followed orders. So, slowly, the man stepped inside the room, filling his cheeks with air and breathing it all out.
In the lobby, besides the reception, there were only two people. The first was the boy's mother, a trim, young-ish woman with brown hair and bland eyes; her pale skin was red with worry, and her jaw clenched tight in fear. In her arms, she clutched the form of her child as if afraid to let him go. The witness—Peyton Smith—was a scrawny young man with glasses and an unkempt shock of brown hair, his head firmly entranced in his hands, wearing what appeared to be pajamas. "Mr. Smith," the portly Detective said, his face blank and unexpressive—though not for lack of trying.
He couldn't force a smile.
Neither one looked up at him for a moment. Eventually, the boy untangled himself from his mother's grip and came to stand. His mother was reticent to let him leave her side but acquiesced, sinking into her seat with a sort of languid misery. "Mr. Smith. Or, if I may—Peyton? Is it alright if I call you that? I don't want you to feel uncomfortable." He tugged at his tie as if to free himself from the tight, choking grip of a hangman's noose. At the moment, though, he couldn't meet the boy's tearful eyes. They reminded him too much of his little nephews. He couldn't bear the thought of that.
Peyton swallowed again, hands trembling inside the pockets of his lounge pants. "Um," he murmured. "Yeah, uh, I guess that's alright. Yeah. Sure." He inhaled through his nose, breath catching and hitching in his throat, nearly making him hiccup. Detective Palletta's right arm stretched out momentarily as if to lay a hand on his shoulder, but then, he drew it back. Instead, he held it low, offering a handshake. Peyton took his hand and gently shook it, the young man's hand shaking like a leaf in fall weather as he did so. Detective Paletta cleared his throat and then gulped like a fish.
"Peyton, my partner and I—he's back in that room—would like to talk with you about the incident—" the Detective said, pausing to point a thumb back. He tugged at his collar with an uncertain expression, looking like an open book. "—if that's okay with you, obviously. You can decline to speak to us if you'd like, but any information you can provide us is valuable. We're doing everything possible to help; anything that might lead us to the right conclusion would greatly benefit our investigation." His posture slackened and deflated, making him look less fearsome than he should've.
Peyton Smith hesitated a moment, crossing his arms. He looked away from the toadish face of the Detective and back towards the wary eyes of his mother, whose face seemed to beg of him a question. For a moment, the young man steeled himself, willing into existence the courage to choose. He made his decision. Peyton nodded his head. Without delay, he turned back to Detective Paletta. "Okay," the boy said, with a creaking fry in his sobbing-strained voice. "I want to do my part, if, well, if I can do anything. But, hey, you just said it yourself—anything helps, right?"
10:10 PM (PST) — 04/17/2023
SAN JOSÉ POLICE DEPARTMENT (201 W. MISSION ST.), SAN JOSÉ, CALIFORNIA
The station's interrogation facility was a small room, two entrances down the hall from the lobby. Its opening was a massive steel door with a large square window on the front, inlaid with a black grid. The interior was akin to a penitentiary cell—a little concrete box with corners that terminated sharply some five feet away from the center of the room going in any given direction. Many people—officers, suspects, and witnesses alike—had come to view it as a claustrophobic place, and for good reason at that. Nobody wanted to be in this room. Not before. Certainly not now.
Like the walls, the floor was concrete, its veneer covered in a dark, blued gloss that allowed the barest hints of reflections to appear. As for the walls, they were similar, but their gloss was less shiny, and their paint was two-toned; a little more than halfway down, though not quite two-thirds, it shifted from a pale, neutral gray color into a moderate blue. In one place, to the direct right of a large metal mesh grate that peered into a darkened air vent, a single large support pillar jutted out from the wall, disrupting the room's intent of perfect architectural symmetry—a necessary evil.
In the center of the room was a large, four-legged table of a substantial construction. On opposite sides of the table were four chairs, with two on either side directly next to one another; one set was for the person to be interviewed (and a lawyer, if desired), and the other set was for the police interviewers. A small recording device was attached to the underside of the table. Directly above the table, hanging from the ceiling, there was a bright lamplight. A CCTV camera watched vigilantly from a single corner. The mirrored surface of a one-way window shone, overlooking the room.
Detective Ruben Guella sat in one of the two chairs at his end of the dark room. Beside him sat his partner, Detective August Paletta. Opposite both of them, Peyton Smith—one of only two members of Sycamore's Class 12-B to avoid the lethal consequences of the now-unfolding situation—slumped in his chair. He was hard to read. His eyes were almost entirely blank as if woken from a poor night's sleep, and his posture carried a resignation tinged with anxious dread. He looked so young. At a single glance, they could tell—even at eighteen, he was more boy than man.
It was hard to believe that he was a suspect at all.
"Okay," the dark-uniformed, dark-haired man said, nonchalant as he could stand to be. "Now that we've reviewed your rights, I will start your formal interview. Is that okay with you?" The young, pajama-clad boy opposite them nodded, crossing his arms as if to protect himself from an unseen threat. The policeman placed his hand underneath his side of the table and flipped a switch on the small device located therein. A small red light blinked silently on the device, which signaled that it was in a powered-on state and would be recording all of the upcoming events in the room.
"This is Detective Ruben Guella of the San José Police Department." His voice was monotone, as though he had done the same procedure many times before. "I am here today with my partner, Detective August Paletta, who belongs to the department mentioned earlier. The date is Monday, April 17, 2023. The time is 10:11 PM. This transcript will be of a taped and electronically recorded conversation with Peyton Alexander Smith, first name P-E-Y-T-O-N, middle name A-L-E-X-A-N-D-E-R, last name S-M-I-T-H. The date of birth of the person in question is February 8, 2005."
He paused. Detective Paletta picked up the slack. "Now, Peyton, see what my partner here just did—he turned on a recorder so we can tape this conversation. Just in case there's something we want to be able to go over later, either with you or with somebody else. You know? And, just for the record, can you confirm that, before this recording, we reviewed your Miranda Rights? Is that not correct?" Peyton turned his head to his right, staring at his reflection in the one-way window. "Yeah," he mumbled. His voice was still weak from all his grief. "Um, yeah. That's all correct."
Detective Guella spoke carefully. "Could you repeat that a little louder?" Peyton Smith nodded his head and did so. "Yeah. That was all correct." "You're a twelfth-grade student at Sycamore High School. Is that right?" He nodded. "That's right." "And you're a member of that school's Class 12-B. Is that not accurate?" "Yeah. I am." "Could you tell me a little bit more about your school? About how it works?" "It's—well, it's a school. It's one of those virtual high schools. There's not really a lot else to say about it. Every day, we'd go to classes through our headsets. Like normal people."
Detective Guella was silent for a moment. Detective Paletta nodded his head as if to commiserate. Detective Guella spoke. "Could you tell me about how you attended your school? Could you walk me through the process? I'd like for you to give me the rundown." Peyton sank back into his chair. "Yeah. So, at the start of the year, the school sends us one of those headsets. And we use it to log into classes. Um, we put the headset on, and we select the server, and we input a password that they give us—and then, um, we go about our day, as if we were, you know, really there."
Detective August Paletta threw him a softball. His voice was gentle, as if trying to soothe the boy before him. "Peyton, if that's okay, I wanted to ask you a quick question. Do you like attending classes at Sycamore High School?" The young man looked away, crossing his arms tighter. "Yeah. I like going there. Well, liked—past tense. I mean, I liked it enough. It's not—wasn't—the worst. And, well, it's—was—a whole lot better than actually being there—you know—there in person. But, well, just about anything is." Detective Guella, almost imperceptibly, raised his eyebrow at this remark.
"And," Detective Paletta continued. His voice was gentle, yes, but firm—gentle but not soft. "Peyton, if I may ask, did you get along well with your peers at Sycamore High School?" The boy frowned, uncomfortable. "Yeah. I mean, I guess so." Detective Ruben narrowed his brown eyes. "Could you please clarify that?" "I got along with some of them. Others, well, not so much. I wasn't, like, uber-popular or anything like that. But I had—I had friends." His breath hitched up; his eyes watered. "I had friends there. Actual friends. And I'm probably never going to see them again."
Detective Guella was silent—pausing to consider how to approach the topic at hand. Detective Paletta adjusted his tie nervously, clearly feeling remorse for his line of questioning, but a glare from his partner set him straight again. After thinking his words over, placing each one with care and a craft, Detective Guella spoke again, an unbridled honesty in the way he spoke. "Peyton, you're aware of the situation at Sycamore High School. Is that not correct?" Peyton looked away, using the back of his hand to wipe tears out of his eyes. For a minute or so, he was utterly silent.
"Of course I am. I—how couldn't I be? It's everywhere. You can't fucking escape it." Peyton's eyebrows knitted themselves into angered angles; his jaw tightened, and his hand balled itself into a fist at the thought. The boy blinked back the water and the salt from his eyes. His whole gaunt body seemed renewed with a burning-hot anger. "You look around, and, you know—every station in the country's talking about us twenty-four-seven. Every television—fuck, man, even the one in the lobby, your goddamn lobby—in the country's got us plastered on it. So, yeah. I fucking am."
"And," Detective Guella said calmly. "How do you feel? What's it like?"
"What's it like?" His voice tremored. There was strong emotion behind his tone—a sensation at the triangular intersection of pain, sorrow, and anger. Even as his trembling breaths hitched and caught, as his voice cracked and quavered—there was a sudden resolve there. "It's like a nightmare that never ends. It's like I'm high up in the air, and I'm falling, and—I'm terrified. My eyes are shut and I'm just waiting for the moment where I finally hit the ground. But I never do. I'm just falling, falling, and falling, and it goes on forever. That's how I feel. That's what it's like."
...
**[#███████events]**
[user <@m-1> has connected]
[user <@mineralmotion> has connected]
[user <@cranegame> has connected]
[user <@thusword> has connected]
<@m-1> alright. i'm setting up this room so y'all don't get /b/anned or vanned or whatever. hot topic. dangerous ground. y'all tread careful.
[user <@cottonedoncandy> has connected]
<@thusword> Took you long enough.
<@mineralmotion> right...
<@mineralmotion> so...
<@mineralmotion> ...y all heard about the terrorist thing rite/
<@mineralmotion> ?*
<@cranegame> yeah, sounds like a stunt. edgey pra nk maybe?
<@thusword> You're implying the average 4Chan edgelord has the resources to pull this off.
<@mineralmotion> i mean high schoolers these days are always looking for new ways to off each other lmao, fucck, i mean, it's a school,rofl
<@cottonedoncandy> ya people are dying out there....
<@mineralmotion> uit's not dying if its in a game lmfao
<@thusword> That's what they want you to think. It's all fun and games until you're the one strapped in...
<@cranegame> yeah because that's what I want to do in cr...die
<@mineralmotion> he just like me fr fr
<@m-1> i mean, CR; way of the future. it could be real, could be a hoax
<@thusword> Maybe it's a social experiment.
<@thusword> Or something by the government?
<@thusword> Hard to say.
<@m-1> por que no los dos?
<@cranegame> fucks that mean lmfao
<@m-1> spanish.
<@cranegame> spanish or simlish or whatebber bro i don't care
<@cranegame> fucks that mean
<@m-1> google.
<@mineralmotion> retard
<@cranegame> oof owch owie my bones
<@cottonedoncandy> why........ cant we have fun cr games like cute animal world or something instead of murder death game...............
<@m-1> if you can't handle the heat, get out of the kitchen.
<@thusword> It could be some rite of passage. Only the strong survive--digital Darwinism?
<@m-1> survival of the fittest. back to primal instincts.
<@mineralmotion> what makes you say that
<@m-1> it's the name of the game.
<@mineralmotion> huh sound effect
<@thusword> Did you even watch the opening ceremony?
<@mineralmotion> bro did you lmfao all the streams went down
<@mineralmotion> fuck you think
<@mineralmotion> kek
<@thusword> I hate you so much.
<@mineralmotion> bitch
<@m-1> i'll just drop this here.
<@m-1> https://real-mirror-sites.ru/survivalofthefittest.jpeg
<@cranegame> holy shit you have a link?
<@cranegame> ...
<@cranegame> fuck you
<@m-1> rickrolled.
<@mineralmotion> did you actually think it was a real link
<@mineralmotion> it's a jpeg retard
<@m-1> real thing:
<@m-1> https://www.4j3k2l1h9f8g6e5d7c0b.com/encrypt?data=ZmFrZS1taXJyb3ItbGluaw==
<@cottonedoncandy> whrt the fuck
<@cottonedoncandy> this is fucked up you guys are fucked up
<@cottonedoncandy> this is illegal right???????
<@cottonedoncandy> you're all sick yojr all nuts
<@cottonedoncandy> sickos
[user <@cottonedoncandy> has disconnected]
<@mineralmotion> bro would not survive five seconds on 8chan
<@mineralmotion> or liveleak
<@m-1> they will not survive the winter.
<@cranegame> ominous
<@cranegame> you sending them a oipe bomb?
<@m-1> maybe.
<@m-1> maybe not.
<@mineralmotion> based
<@cranegame> so what got them so bothered its not like this is different from the shit we usually watch
<@cranegame> serial killers and shit
<@cranegame> idk
<m-1> game is a game. distasteful, yes. illegal, probably. real? unclear
<m-1> either way it's free entertainment.
<thusword> Indeed. The law has always been slow to catch up with technology.
<thusword> I don't think anyone will put an end to this. They never do.
<mineralmotion> well, either way, I think most people wouldn't touch the with a ten foot pole.
<@cranegame> you gotta be crazy to actually play something like this tho
<@m-1> crazy or desperate.
**[#███████events]**
10:17 PM (PST) — 04/17/2023
SAN JOSÉ POLICE DEPARTMENT (201 W. MISSION ST.), SAN JOSÉ, CALIFORNIA
...
"Let's pause here. We'll pick up again tomorrow."
8:00 AM (PST) — 04/18/2023
ROSE GARDEN, WHITE HOUSE (1600 PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE N.W.), WASHINGTON D.C.
A crowd of reporters from all the nation's major news stations—and from some that were anything but—remained seated within the rows of metal chairs across the White House's Rose Garden, waiting with bated breath for the day's arrival. Scattered throughout the area were members of the Secret Service, decked out in black suits and sunglasses, their guns holstered at their sides, who would occasionally talk into the radios on their coats to one another and others outside of view. That was the state of affairs for a few minutes until one last conversation—the go-ahead.
After a second of silence, a figure—Roger Goodwin, 46th President of the United States—emerged from the White House's labyrinth, flanked closely by two raven-clad members of his detail. President Goodwin was an older man with thinning hair, stained a stark white with the wear of many years. His wrinkles and laugh lines ran parallel across his face like the Tigris and Euphrates. Robed in a dark suit, a striped tie hanging from his neck, and the nation's symbol pinned to his label, he wore solemnity as his look, rings of pallid darkness sweeping across the sagging edemas of his eyes.
His lumbering gait, slow but steady, eventually saw him take his place at the wooden podium—emblazoned with the emblem of his office—set before the crowd. Cameras flashed, lights streaking across the Rose Garden. Bated breaths turned to hushed whispers as more minor officials moved to silence them. He silently swallowed, eyes narrowing in the form of resolution—now, the older man stood tall, posed with steel in his spine, raising his shoulders and pushing his torso out. The recordings rolled, images of him playing out across televisions country- and worldwide.
He cleared his throat, then breathed in, searching for his voice amidst the turmoil—finding it deep within himself. "My fellow Americans," President Goodwin led, the start of every speech he made, a routine in his calls to action; as if to call the wind itself to heel, a breeze swept through the area, swaying the Rose Garden's greenery every so slightly, sending chills through all present. "My fellow Americans," he repeated. "Today, we are facing a grave and unprecedented threat. This threat strikes at the heart of our nation, the crux of our way of life—the very future of our country.
"Yesterday, a group of terrorists launched a horrific attack on our nation's children; using sophisticated means, they have trapped many young folks—the innocent students of Sycamore High School—within a nightmare. This act is unspeakable evil, and we will not stand for it. As I speak to you now, federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies are liaising with their counterparts on the state and local levels, all of which are working tirelessly—day and night—to locate and apprehend the perpetrators of this heinous crime and to free the victims from the ongoing ordeal.
"The federal government is also coordinating with associates within the Cyber Reality industry to prevent further attacks of this nature and with our allies and partners across the globe to ensure that those responsible are held accountable. Rest assured, we will not rest until we bring justice to these terrorists and secure the safety of our nation's children—who represent the best and brightest of tomorrow's future." With that, he paused, taking a breath. He shuffled the papers before him, moving the page at the top from the front to the back, and cleared his throat again.
"And, to the families and friends of those students taken, I want you to know that you are not forsaken. The nation is with you in this dark hour; we share your pain, grief, anger, and longing. We will do everything possible to bring your loved ones home again. You have my solemn promise. And to the students of Sycamore High School, stolen from your everyday lives, hear me loud and clear. You are not forgotten; you are not abandoned; you are not alone. You are brave, and strong, and cherished. You have a future—and we, on your behalf, will fight for it, tooth and nail.
"Please, do not give up hope; do not give in to fear; do not let them win. Rest assured, we will bring you home again. Soon, you will wake up, free, to the light of a new dawn and see your friends and families again. All of this will become ash and dust, swept behind you by the winds of time." And with that, he paused. Taking a moment to straighten the ruffles from his suit jacket, President Goodwin took another breath. At his age, making such long speeches had become more and more complex, straining his voice. He shuffled the stack of papers on the podium once more.
"And for those who are already lost, their lives cut cruelly short by this evil, and their bereaved families, I hope these words of mine can provide even the smallest amount of solace and comfort." His voice was struck solemn, almost eulogizing with how he spoke—a rasping caution in each word he uttered, talking slowly. "These darkest moments, the seconds and minutes of hate and fear, will not be your legacy; they will not be how we define you. The world will not remember you for how you died; it will remember you for how you lived. You are far more than just your fate.
"And, to the American people," the President continued, glancing about with eyes as deep and blue as the sky or the ocean. He looked directly at the rows and rows of cameras, staring into them as if to directly speak to those watching on their televisions. "I ask that you stand together, united as one, in this crisis. We are facing an inhuman, evil enemy, one that seeks to, and will stop at nothing to, sow chaos, fear, and division among us. They want to destroy our values, our freedoms—our very ways of life. They desire, more than anything, to break our spirits and our resolve."
There was a pause.
"But they will fail."
Allowing the words to sink in momentarily, the President continued his address. Now, his voice shifted into a tone of resolute determination—as if to set hearts into motion. "These villains will not succeed in their wicked crusade, in this mission of utmost night. Because this is the United States of America, and we are all Americans—and, together, we are stronger than any adversary. Our common bonds, our common ideals, and our common destiny unite us. We are one nation under God, indivisible, and with liberty and justice for all. God bless you, and God bless America."
9:00 AM (PST) — 04/18/2023
"SYCAMORE HIGH SCHOOL"
███.█.███.█
Just as with the dead day prior, the game's subsequent announcements began at exactly 9:00, when the three sharp hands of the virtual school's chronographs came together and struck the hour—a clockwork precision tuned to the same second. The bells tolled once more—a grim herald that foretold more funerals. Were this the students' typical day at Sycamore High School, those bells, at that moment, would have marked the start of the day's classes. But this was no typical day at Sycamore High School. There were no classes. There were no teachers—only the students.
Together, alone—the living and the dead.
The Heads-Up Displays (HUDs) of every student opened, whether they wanted it to or not. Within the screen-within-a-screen, they were treated to a view of the Principal's Office, just as before, along with its occupant occupier. Zeph Newman lounged in the chair, relaxed, as though he had spent the last several hours lazing about—a stark contrast to the high and mighty persona he had stuck to throughout the previous day's remarks. Furthermore, the Principal's desk was no longer empty—numerous papers littered the desk. A coffee pot, visibly steaming, and a mug resided there.
"Yo," said Zeph Newman, with a lackadaisical hand raise. "What's up?"
Seemingly without any rush, Zeph took the coffee pot and poured all its contents into the mug. After that, he shook the pot once, gave it a once-over—wherein he looked inside—and threw it behind him, where it exited their visible range and went where they were not privy to see. The distant shatter of glass told of the coffee pot's demise. He paused a beat. Then, with a silent solemnity, he raised the steaming cup to his lips and took a long drink of the black roast. Only after he took his sweet time enjoying the bitter concoction did he decide to address his fellow students.
"This is your host, Zeph Newman, here with Initiative Earth—the United States' number-one station for your best blood-and-guts reporting. Now, I'm sure you'd all expect me to say something cliché—like 'I hope you all had a good night,' or something along those lines—but, instead, let's cut to the chase and stop kidding ourselves. I know, you know, we all know you didn't. But, hey! You made it through the first twenty-four hours of our little game. Congratulations. That's a quarter of the way until the end. All of you remaining deserve some props on not dying—yet."
He clapped his hands together slowly. There was more than mockery to it.
"Still, I think we all know what you're here for," Zeph Newman declared, smirking. His smile seemed addressed to everyone and no one, general and specific, all-inclusive and yet ostracizing. He chuckled lightly under his breath, a sadistic, evil laugh that reeked of apathy towards their pain. After that, he raised the cup again and sipped his black coffee. "I won't waste time—yours or mine—with pretense. I know, I know. I'm sure you're all devastated that I won't stay longer. But, hey—that's life! We don't always get what we want, do we? So, let's get right into the news!
Another video feed started, like the previous day's "instructional video." It showed the elongated interior of a luxurious car with two students sitting inside. One of them, a fair-skinned girl with reddish-brown hair, held in her hands a harpoon gun, which she was pointing at the other person, who was almost like a silhouette, their features—both face and body—made grayscale and hidden behind layers and layers of gaussian blur. Suddenly, the girl put down the gun. A few seconds passed, and they talked about something—the silhouette's words likewise garbled, a secret well-kept.
To the contrary, the girl's declaration rang out loud and clear. "Still, I can prove to you that what I want to do works. Trust me. Follow after my example with whatever you've got. You'll be back at home before you know it." She raised her weapon again, its point gleaming from the rays of sunlight that streamed through the limousine's windows. Unexpectedly, however, not at the silhouette—but at herself. She placed it in her mouth, resting her finger against the gun's trigger. With a pull and a muffled "watch this," the weapon activated, sending the machinery into motion.
The entire mechanism of the speargun seemed to shift as it fired. The spear, its metal sheen still glistening, pierced through the bottom of the girl's palate and up through the top of her skull, bursting out of it with a confetti-like stream of blood and brain matter spraying everywhere. It continued its path upwards into the ceiling of the limousine, pinning the top of her head to the vehicle's roof like a butterfly to a collector's case. After a moment wherein the camera hung on the image of the corpse—its movement ceasing almost instantaneously—the feed became static.
"As you just witnessed," Zeph said, his feed clawing back its place in the spotlight, "one of our game's many resident skeptics, Kirsten Slagel, had some doubts about the whole 'you die in the game, you die in real life' philosophy of our little simulation. Now, I'm just going to nip these doubts right in the bud: you're free to throw your lives away as much as you want but trust me, it's not us that stand to lose. Are you willing to risk it all? Because the odds aren't on your side. It's the wrong horse to bet on. Still, she was right about one thing. You'll go back to your families—in a coffin."
"That said, though," Zeph continued, his voice a bored monotone, with a dismissive wave of his hand, rolling his eyes with a blasé annoyance. "She wasn't the only one to make a mistake there. See, her unintended suicide happened just before my first announcement—so close, yet so far! By the time she'd eaten her gun, we were already rolling with our footage and our script. Whoopsie-daisy! Now, do your part by trying not to bite the bullet so close to our deadline, or it'll be a real inconvenience for the rest of the poor sods who'd really wanna hear about your untimely death."
Zeph Newman quickly snapped his fingers following a dismissive shrug of his shoulders. Another feed opened, its tale unveiling like a Shakespearian tragedy when its curtain rose. Four students floated freely in the lower part of the room; a fifth clung to the ceiling. All five of them were blurred at the moment as if the terrorists wanted to create a sense of suspense around who might be involved in the death—whether as a killer or killed. On the other hand, their voices were crystal clear, the whole chamber seeming to erupt into an explosion of screaming, shouting, and shrieking.
One silhouette threw what seemed to be their assigned weapon—a metal crowbar—against the wall, and with that, their captors peeled back the layers and layers of obfuscation. The silhouette with the crowbar became a pale-skinned girl with short black hair and blue eyes—just in time for one of the other students, a white, hairless boy, to raise a polygonal gun at her, declaring aloud: "I won't be!" He opened a rapid-fire volley of bullets at her, and, with a single proper shot, the girl's cranium burst open, sending a splatter of blood pollocking against the walls of the enclosure.
The video cut there, and Zeph Newman returned.
"As you bore witness to, our good friend, Raymond Sullivan, decided that our resident rebel, Andrea Patson, was a little too loud for his liking! As such, he did the reasonable thing and shut her up—and then down. Now, that's another object lesson for you all! Forming a group to come together and sing Kumbaya won't protect you, nor will it keep you safe. This game is a free-for-all, not a team deathmatch, and there's no such thing as strength in numbers. Lone wolves eat herds of sheep, and when those numbers tick down," he said, pointing to the clock above, "they'll turn!"
Zeph Newman paused to catch his breath again.
"Now, to counter all the doom-and-gloom we've shown off tonight," Zeph said, his voice full of false joy and malice, betraying his true feelings. "I'd like to announce that we've got some fantastic news—and I couldn't be more proud, really! Some among you are finally starting to comprehend the kind of purpose and drive we expect from your caliber. With that in mind, and on behalf of my organization, Initiative Earth, I'd like to give a gold star to Ilya Arkadi! Our resident Eeveelution showed his claws—and, boy, were they sharp!—when he mercilessly disposed of Julia Edwards."
The final video took place within Sycamore High School's Common Area. A group of students stood close to one another, three of them in total: two of them were the killer and victim mentioned before—Ilya Arkadi and Julia Edwards—while the third was another silhouette. They were having a relatively normal conversation, one that might occur on any number of ordinary days. Until Ilya stepped towards Julia—his malice aforethought, arm raised towards her neck. He then flexed his wrist—sending a blade extending out from the vambrace on his forearm directly into her jugular.
"And, with all that, we've concluded the killings," Zeph said, giving a gentle smile that would have looked genuine if not for his deception's reveal. He laughed a little, tilting his head to his right side. "We're happy with yesterday's total—you've avoided our ire, so we'll continue the game as usual. That said, don't be content with the bare minimum! We want to see every single one of you go above and beyond the call of duty—strive for better! We'd love to see more action as we advance into the game's second phase. Speaking of, a new day is sure to bring new opportunities!"
He paused.
"It's time for us to come to the matter of the Danger Zones. This time, there's no clarifier. First of all, The Rooftop is back in business! It's the perfect place to secure the high ground or to get the drop on your foes." The red faded from that part of the map and appeared in two different areas instead. "Conversely, The Emmett Sterling Memorial Planetarium and The Common Area are now off-limits. Yes, there are two Danger Zones this time around. The less of you still kicking, the more the arena starts shrinking. We've got to keep you all on your toes, after all!"
Zeph Newman closed the announcement by raising his cup of coffee.
"That brings the morning news to a close. It's time for you all to get to work!"
