P.J. Gilroy Academy Prologue

[Megami†]

The SafeTours bus' engine rumbled loudly as Mr. H led his students towards the back end of the private bus, pointing and laughing as he sat next to the open door of the bathroom. The bus driver had a blank face, and not many kids took notice of his light green eyes and SOTF ballcap. Mrs. Garrick only nodded quickly to the man before she went on to smack at her students with a rolled up attendance sheet. He barely glanced behind him once he closed the doors, mentioned to the children to put on their seatbelts, and sped away with both homerooms, the license plate numbers 5S6O8TF fading from view as they turned onto the street.

A second bus pulls up to the school, and a young man checks his watch, waits fifteen more minutes, then takes off, informing his company that the students at P.J. Gilroy have cancelled.

The bus that held the kids was bustling with noise from the back, and every so often Mrs. Garrick would turn and glance disapprovingly at the other teacher. Had she paid more attention, she would've noticed, and thought it odd, that the bus driver had a rearview mirror, and that he was currently looking into it as he turned onto the side street with the "scenic route" sign posted into the shoulder of the road. The bus began to slow, dirt caking the tires from the rain beforehand near the cliffside. Only then did she turn back to the front, where she didn't even have time to blink as a bullet shot through her forehead and exited out a window into the cliff face.

Student's screams, especially of the girl who had bits of her teacher's brains sitting on her lap, dulled the sounds of footsteps outside, and before the children could realize that their seatbelts had locked them to their seats, three men clad in black piled into the bus and took posts in sections of the bus. The man who took the back grabbed Mr. H and passed him up the walkway, where the last man punched him hard in the face. Blood trickled down from his nose, and he looked towards the bus driver as if to ask, why?

Melvin's green eyes didn't welcome the gaze. His large hands grabbed the teacher and lifted him by his collar, down the bus steps and into the mud the bus was half parked in. One of his hands was gloved, the gun still grasped in it and pointed right at Mr. H. Hallam began to sob, and he seemed frozen to the cliff face as he cried and begged for mercy from the tall bus driver. Half of the children tried to see what was going on outside, trying to bang against the windows and failing to unfasten their seatbelts. One child in particular had not listened to the instruction beforehand, a student of Mr. H, and he tried to jump out to help his teacher. One of the guards didn't even flinch as his fist collided with the boy's stomach. The sharp intake of air paired with the harsh force of his knees meeting the floor weakened his will.

"Please," tears fell hard down Hallam's face and his nails were almost ripped off with the force he was using to tear into the rock wall. Whether Hallam wanted to believe the man would give him mercy, or if he had just snapped, he took Melvin's silence as remorse, or at least hesitation. The teacher began to tense his legs to run as Melvin's hand whipped across, and the pistol hit Hallam hard against the face. He spit out his six year old molars.

Knees in the dirt and his hands covering his face, Hallam neglected to notice Melvin place another glove on his other hand. He only felt the sharp pain as his head was pulled up by his hair, and he arched his back as he was thrown hard into the rock wall. The students tried to hit harder against the glass, and the guards took to restraining the few who tried to squirm from the tightly locked seatbelts. A few tried to scream their teachers name as the gun was once again pointed at him.

"Don't do it," he cried once more as he felt the metal of the silencer press against his forehead. The sweatdrops were sticking on the barrell, and another moment of pause made Hallam look once more at the evil bus driver.

Melvin grabbed Hallam's wrist and jerked it upwards, forcing the handle of the gun into his palm, and shoving the gun's barrell hard into the teacher's mouth, chipping his front teeth as he angled it upwards towards his brain. Hallam squinted out tears as he tried to move his tongue to plead some more, but Melvin looked the man dead in the eye, forced the gun in further, and held Hallam's hand firm.

The barrell made him vomit into his own mouth, and he began to choke on it, crying harder and unable to breathe, unable to plead for his miserable life. Melvin watched this for a few more minutes, and children kept on with their screaming and their pleas to save their teacher. Hallam's face began to turn red, and his eyes looked towards the bus driver for help. He only kept Hallam's hand locked firmly in position.

"You have a choice," Melvin finally spoke, and his last words to Hallam, the only ones he would speak to the dying man, were these:

"Pull the trigger and the nightmare stops."

And Hallam, choking on his own vomit and the barrell of the gun, believed him.

There were a few things the students did as they were rounded up in blindfolds and shoved into a dimly lit room, one could put them into categories. Some were silent, still shocked at the spectacle of both teachers being murdered right in front of them, like the girl who had Mrs. Garrick's brain bits on her plaid skirt. The boy who hadn't buckled his seat belt and others who had wanted to take action against the men and bus driver tried to dodge the guards, but with as many that came after the destination, the students made about as much leeway as the last group. With their own little river of tears, some kids had almost completely lost control of themselves. There wasn't even a handful, and each had seemed to implode internally as the guards lifted their limp bodies and tossed them into the room.

Melvin entered the room, dressed in his usual combat and military uniform, and the guards encircled the students as they stared at him standing at the front. A television set was on a movable cart next to him, and he only pressed the button to turn the television and DVD player on to cue the gruesome footage from version one of Survival of the Fittest.

"Cool it princess," came the voice of Cody Jenson as he pinned down a fragile and terrified Madelaine Shirohara.
Cody dropped the water bottle and placed his hand over her throat.

He placed his other hand on her forehead and forced her head back, exposing her neck. He then brought his mouth down on it, kissing it hard. He trailed the kisses up her chin until he met her mouth and flicked his tongue over her lips. A smile appeared on Cody's face as he stared into Madelaine's frightened eyes.

"Ok, we are going to play a game, and here is how it works."

Cody brought the gun up from where he had placed it by her prone form. He ran the barrel up and down her cheek, letting her feel the cold metal against bare skin.

"If you scream, you die. If you bite, you die. If you poke, or squeeze, or claw, or don't cooperate, you die."

Cody then rammed the gun into the soft skin of her cheek.

"Sound fair?"

Letting a gasp emit from her mouth, Madelaine winced in pain as Cody's hand met her throat and squeezed it slightly, partially cutting off her air supply. She let out a strangled cry, struggling madly against him, about to scream aloud, when suddenly his hand pressed against her forehead, forcing her head in incline backwards painfully.

A crawl of revulsion found its way underneath her skin as his lips pressed against the side of her exposed neck, sending a chill through her spine. She winced in horrified disgust as his mouth found its way upwards along her chin like some repulsive insect, feeling his tongue lightly making contact with her lips, leaving a stain upon her.

Somehow, in her bout of horror, his words managed to reach her, and register themselves in their reeling mind as she realized with dread what was going to happen to her. The feeling of cold metal running against her check, no doubt from a gun he had at the moment, was enough to make her freeze in fear.

She gritted her teeth, as though about to struggle yet again, but her face contorted itself in an expression of pain and helplessness. It was clear that she starting to give up.

Tears began to cloud her vision. Tears fell freely down her face in thick streams as she gave a tense, slight, yet distinct nod, an anguished whimper escaping her lips.

Cody went on to strip the girl of her clothing and dignity.

By now, Madelaine was numb with trauma, almost paralyzed beneath the crushing weight of her captor, unable to feel much pain from her face being struck repeatedly over all else that was happening to her. A sickening wave of nausea smothered her mind, already recoiling from her overwhelmed senses. Still, she winced and cried out as she was struck again and again, the recoil causing her head to bend sharply towards the grimy floor of the clearing. Her neck and face burned now, stinging with the marks of his assault. Amidst the feeling of devastation he was yet still wracking upon her now desecrated form, she was still able to hear his words, and register them in her mind, making sense out of all that he was saying between ecstatic gasps.

"I...never...planned on...letting...you...go..."

Her pained eyes, burning red from tears and tension, suddenly widened at the sickening realization of what was to happen to her.

She trembled violently, feeling truly and utterly broken now. It was then that she felt like crying again. Her bleeding face distorted in an anguished expression. She thought numbly, unable to utter coherent words instead of wracking sobs and screams that parted her lips.

Madelaine's shuddering sobs were cut short as he suddenly drove his face into her neck. Immediately, a searing pain overwhelmed her as he tore into the flesh at the side of her neck, ripping it apart savagely. A strangled, choking noise emitted from her mouth as she recoiled in agony, feeling red-hot blood gushing from where his teeth had torn into her neck. The inside of her terrorized throat was suddenly burning, drenched in a warm liquid that caused her to gasp and choke painfully. She felt blood streaming down her neck in torrents, staining her paling flesh and torn clothes a deep crimson.

This is something that no one should have to go through.

She struggled as hard as she could to pull away from him, writhing helplessly beneath him, though the most she could do was powerlessly cringe in terror, while her hands were bound and useless. Pain and torment still continued to consume her as he continued his cruel assault upon her with renewed fervor. In her mind, she wished with all the torment that she was going through right now that someone would just end it all. And then, with all of that blood draining away profusely, uncontrollably, it was then that Madelaine's tormented form began to run cold. Her cries were nothing more than desperate gasps for air. Her struggles began to subside as a shadow began to cloud her mind and sense of consciousness. The shadow that was suffocating her mind was now overwhelming her, clouding her senses and ability to think. As blood continued to spill relentlessly, Madelaine realized that she was dying.

Here she was, first being coerced into submission, then finding herself being violated and tortured in just about one of the worse ways imaginable. On top of that, death was now looming over her. She wouldn't last another day on this island. She would never return home to her family. Her game was over.


Her breathing was now reduced to weakened, shallow gasps that emitted from the depths of her throat. As she lay dying beneath the large form of her impassioned captor, now at the peak of his fervor, her exposed body suddenly fell limp and motionless against the filthy ground. Blood was no longer coming out of her neck in gushing streams. Her head lolled to one side, tilting backwards slightly to direct her face towards the sky above. Though tears and blood continued to stain her face, she was no longer crying. In fact, she was no longer moving at all. She never even noticed the boy who had just walked in on the scene by a stroke of chance.

And then, her blood-smeared, tear-stained face relaxed itself, falling from its anguished contortion in to a blank, listless expression that showed not the slightest sign of living. Her hair, having been loosened from the ribbon that tied it back, now fell about her face in free flowing strands. Pale fingers along her bound hands hung limply now, pale and lifeless. Though her reddened eyes were starting to glaze over, they continued to gaze in an oddly peaceful expression that disregarded anything and everything that was still happening to her, focused only towards the sky, as though looking towards something that was far beyond her reach. Her stained lips were slightly parted, though nothing came out of them now. No cries of pain emitted from the depths of her throat, for she no longer felt pain. No words came out, for there was nothing to be said.

There was no sign of life...for she was no longer living.

Melvin didn't watch the footage, only heard the crying of the girl, and the words of her rapist from his seat in a metal chair behind the television rack. The stunned faces of the children, of those who had not watched SOTF, or the recognition in their eyes of the show they had watched. While Melvin would have to explain further why the children were here, and what they had to do; the ones who knew the clip, and knew the game, already had an idea of what fate had brought to them.

He turned the television off and stepped in front of it. The children looked at him fearfully, and possibly a few may have remembered him as the bus driver who killed their teachers. Melvin still looked of a blank slate, and kept his words short and sweet.

"You can be raped of your dignity, and die in this game. Or you can attack those who will do as much to you, if not worse."

With that, he left the room, and let the guards handle the rest of the steps.

((Written by Leo))