a school decided to do something fun--but it soon turns deadly. WHO WILL SURVIVE? |
chapter 1: something new. I hate school. Why do we even have to go anyway? There’s no point. Maybe I’ll skip today. I thought as I walked down the street to the horrible place we call school. “Hey Squid!” somebody shouted from across the street. Nah. Not today. I turned my head to see the only reasons I don’t skip school every day. My four friends-Ripley, Ryder, Raelyn, and Kaylie. We all have nicknames, so we know when we’re serious. Ripley is Rip, Ryder is Rye, Raelyn is Rae, and Kaylie is Kae. My real name is Sydney, but everyone calls me Squid. It’s been my nickname for as long as I can remember. “Hey, Rae!” I yelled back I crossed the street over to them. “I was thinking of skipping today.” I said. “Anybody wanna skip too?” I got four “nopes” immediately. Kaylie sighed. “If you keep skipping, the school’s gonna end up putting one of those weird trackers on you like they did to Ashley.” “Yeah. I know, but nothing ever happens at school. I could miss school for a month and still ace everything.” “Whatever.” My school sucks. It’s a school for kids with disorders. Every single kid in my class has ADHD or ADD. The worst part about going to my school isn’t that we get babied and never learn, It’s that we get tested against kids who don’t have ADHD or ADD. A lot. The teachers call the tests “games” but we all know what they really are. They’re tests to see how stupid we are and if we’re paying attention. Ryder swears the government is behind it, but so far he hasn’t gotten any good proof. Anyway, we don’t even really learn anything and when we do its things that we’ve learned before that are super easy. "Alright, class," said my teacher, Mr. Bernard clapping his hands. "today we are going to play a game." "What's the name of the game?" Ripley asked. He likes the ‘games’. Anything’s better than learning. That’s what he always says. “Well, there isn’t really a name, Ripley. This game will test your minds to see how you react in stressful situations.” Mr. Bernard walked to his desk, grabbed a bin off of it and walked around to each desk, carefully placing two big black things on each one. As I watched, I realized one of them was a pair of headphones. When he came around to my desk he put a little black sticker thingy on my arm that said my name and age: Sydney M. age 14. Then he set down the other stuff. Now that I had a closer look at the other things, I saw that they were googles. On the side they said “FOR LAB USE ONLY” on the other, it said “ VIRTUAL REALITY GOGGLES. WARNING: KEEP OUT OF REACH OF CHILDREN.” something else was on there also, but it was smudged and I couldn’t read it. Raelyn turned around in her chair and pointed at the label on hers. It said: DANGER: DEATH HAS OCCURRED BY USE OF THIS PRODUCT. BY USING IT YOU AGREE TO THE TREMS SET FORTH FOR YOUR SAFTEY. I sighed. Leave it to our school to give kids something that could kill them. “What are we gonna do with these?” somebody shouted. “The VR goggles in front of each of you are hooked up to a monitor that will let me see what you're seeing. Those little stickers will show me how you feel, or really just your pulse. DO NOT TOUCH THEM!” he shouted as Ryder started picking at his. Mr. Bernard cleared his throat and continued “The headphones just enhance the effect of the VR goggles. Basically, you’ll be in a trance/dream kind of thing. You will be under very stressful situations, but remember that this is all fake. Actually, you will have no memory of today at all, but that’s beside the point.” He mumbled that last part. “Alrighty, everyone understand? Good. On the count of three, I want you all to hold down on the sticker. It’ll hurt but that’s good. That means that you are going under. Oh, and also don’t trust anyone. ” ‘Going under?!’ That didn’t sound good. Before I could raise my hand, Mr. B started counting. “ONE...TWO...THREE! Ok, kids, press your patches!” I heard someone behind me snort from laughter. I pressed the patch as hard as I could. Mr. B was right. It did hurt. A lot. My entire arm screamed in protest. The pain was horrible. It felt like my arm was going to fall off. My entire body started to burn too. This is how I’m going to die a voice echoed in my head before my ears started to ring. I screwed my eyes shut, which were filling with tears. I thought I was going to pass out from the pain. Then, everything stopped. Just like that. Everything that was hurting just wasn’t anymore. |