Something tells me this isn't Disneyland

[Fiori]

They were catching up. They were catching up, and there was nothing she could do to shake them off.

She continued to run through the woods, not even daring to look back at her pursuers. She didn't need to make check whether or not they were still behind her, not with all the bullets flying her way. The only time she faltered in the slightest was when she felt a sharp pain in the side of her gut. Damn, one of them must have clipped her. Bastard. Thankfully though, she was too fuelled on adrenaline to give a damn and carried on like nothing had happened.

Eventually, she stopped to take cover behind a nearby tree, wiping sweat from her brow as she checked the gun she had managed to get her hands on before she had made her escape. Fifteen bullets. Not much, but more than enough to take down the the sons of bitches after her. No way she was going back, not after seeing what they had done to everyone else.

She ducked out of cover, a stray bullet missing her head by inches, and pulled the trigg-


"Whatcha working one there?"


Ruby looked up from her laptop to see Brian Zhdanovich looking down at her, a Starbucks coffee in his hands and a bemused grin on his face.

"Just working on my latest project." Ruby replied, motioning her friend to sit down beside her. They were currently in the middle of an Airport lounge, waiting for the moment that their plane would be announced. Whilst a fair amount of her classmates decided to hit the tourist traps, Ruby had decided to use this opportunity to get some writing done instead.

"Cool, what's it about?" asked Brian.

"Dunno yet. Probably a sci-fi thriller of some description. I'm pretty much making it up as I go along, seeing where the story takes me. Kind of a writing exercise type of thing."

"Cool, cool... So, uh, what ever happened to the vampire novel you were working on?"

Ruby paused for a moment. "I'm... Still working on that. This is just a side project, that's all. Shut up."

The two began to chuckle, Brian briefly glancing at his phone to check what time it is before taking a sip of his coffee.

"Heh... Wow, can't believe I'm finally going to Disneyland." said Brian.

"Really? You've never been before? Not even as a kid?" asked Ruby.

"Could never afford it." Brian replied. "Hell, it took a lot of convincing for me to get dad to donate some cash for the trip."

"Well, I'm sure you'll have a great time. Rides are kind of tame if you ask me, but unless you're scared to death of theme park mascots you should have a lot of fun. Thinking of getting Regan a Pluto plushie or something."

Ruby sighed. "Shame she couldn't come along though."

"Yeah. Why couldn't she, anyway?"

"Well..." Ruby began, but at that point one of the chaperones caught their attention. "Seems like it's time to get going. Remind me to tell you later."

From that point on, the two made their way down the various aisles and cues towards their plane, chatting amongst themselves and their fellow classmates. Things were going pretty smoothly for the most part. Apart from a brief panic because of some students who had gone off to the bathroom, everything seemed to be shaping up for the perfectly normal school trip.

"Ah crap, forgot to bring a miniature chess-set." exclaimed Ruby.

"Why do you need a miniature chess set?" asked Brian.

"No reason. Come to think of it, I wouldn't of been allowed to bring glue anyway."

Once they had made it onto the plane, it finally occurred to the two that they had been allocated separate seats. Much as Brian would have liked to sit next to Ruby to continue their conversation, he settled for sitting by the window next to Mallory instead. "Oh well, see you in California!" he said, not realising that those were possibly the last words he would ever say to her.

Once the plane got going, after chatting to Mallory about soccer for a bit, Brian began to feel somewhat drowsy. Understandable of course, he wasn't used to getting up this early and he'd meant to have a nap on the plane anyway. Still, this desire to sleep did come up more suddenly then expected, but at the time he didn't think much of it. All that concerned Brian at that particular moment of time was that after a whole year's worth of teenage drama, stress and first world problems it was nice to finally get a break. Sure, in a couple of months he'd be worrying about college-related stuff, but in the meantime he could sit back and take comfort in his dreams.

Little did he realise that he would end up waking up to a nightmare.

---

Roughly twenty-four hours later, Brian was lying against a tree in a forest he knew nothing about, on an island far away from home.

He'd been lying there for quite some time now, trying desperately to get his thoughts straight. He had already gone through all the usual motions of someone who's just woken up after being told that they have to kill all of their classmates to survive. Christ, just thinking about it sounded surreal. It was the kind of thing that he had heard happen to other people, but never expected to experience himself. Especially not after how the last one of these ended.

He could still clearly remember the dark room. How his first thoughts had been something along the lines of "Huh, this doesn't look like Disneyland..."

Then things took a turn for the deadly serious when Mr Davidge got shot. Jesus Christ, Brian had not expected to see anything like that during his lifetime. Sure, he'd seen news footage of this kind of thing happen, not to mentions years worth of violent movies more-or-less desensitising him. But seeing a guy get shot in the head right before your eyes? Nothing prepares you for that kind of shit.

The scariest part though was that he was now expected to do that to his fellow classmates.

Well, this trip seems to be off to a good start...

He checked his pockets, trying to figure out whether he had anything useful on his possession. As much as he would have liked to smoke a joint to calm his nerves, he knew for a fact that he wouldn't have been allowed to bring any with him anyway, what with the airport security being so tough and all. Still, he was surprised that he couldn't find his phone on him, or anything electrical for that matter. All he had in his pockets was some loose change and the receipt for the coffee he had brought earlier.

Tossing the contents of his behind him, he decided to finally check what was in the big ominous duffle-bag that was lying right next to him. He'd heard about the kind of things people found themselves being assigned in situation. Stuff like blow-up sex dolls, DVD boxsets and occasionally something that was actually useful. Much as he didn't want to find himself armed with nothing but a floppy dildo, Brian dreaded to think what weapon he was expected to murder people with.

From the looks of things though, he was expected to kill his classmates with a pointed stick. No, make that eight pointed sticks, which made a hell of a lot of difference. According to a note that they came with, these weren't no ordinary pointed sticks either. Oh no, these were mother-fucking Punji Sticks. Woo hoo.

At least this means if I go apeshit i'm less likely to actually hurt anyone.

He sighed to himself, unconsciously reaching into his jacket pocket for the joint he knew for a fact wasn't there. Well, now what? That was the big question. He was stuck on this island, and short of a miracle there wasn't much he could do about. He could probably go looking for someone who might know a way off this island, try to form a group and try to escape. Something like that. He was pretty sure it wouldn't work, seeing as the guys in gas masks made it pretty obvious that escape was pretty much impossible this time around. That said, no way in hell he was killing anyone, that was for certain. Which meant he didn't really have any other options if he wanted to be proactive.

Plus, there was also the fact that Ruby was out there, somewhere.

Jesus, bad enough that I'm in this mess without worrying about you as well. If some son of a bitch lays a hand on you, I swear to god...

Eventually, he stood up and surveyed his surroundings, taking note of how he was next to a trail of some description. Two directions. Where, oh where, should I go...

With no clues whatsoever as to the whereabouts of his classmates, he grabbed on of the punji sticks from his bag and tossed it into the air, watching it as it fell on the ground pointing in one of the two available directions.

All right, looks like I'm heading that way.

He picked up the stick and put it back in his bag, hoisting it over his shoulder alongside his schoolbag. He gave the surrounding countryside one last look before making his way, praying to god that he hadn't forgotten about anything.

Stay safe Ruby...

((Brian Zhdanovich continued in Russian Roulette))