for lucitae: tramps like us

[bangtanmod]

Title: Tramps Like Us
Recipient: lucitae
Pairing: Jin focused, V focused, Rap Monster focused, various background pairings
Rating: R
Word count: 43,143
Warnings Character death, brutal bloody murder, non-graphic suicide
Summary: Thirty three Contestants go into the Program, only one can emerge victorious. It's everyone for themselves and may the most loyal Undesirable win. (Battle Royale/The Hunger Games/X Men AU)
Author's notes:
- This has got to be the least 'Valentine's-ey' Valentine's fic ever OTL.
- You can't do Battle Royale with just seven people so whilst this fic is predominantly Bangtan focused, DNH, EvoL, GLAM and Topp Dogg are used to make up the rest of the cast
- MASSIVE thank you to the people who helped beta this, you guys know who you are!





"Remember, in the end, nobody wins unless everybody wins" - Bruce Springsteen

LIST OF UNDESIRABLES



MALES

1 Choi Ikje
2 Kim Taeyang
3 Park Sehyuk
4 Jung Hunchul
5 Park Hyunho
6 Kang Minwoo
7 Kim Dongsung
8 Jeon Hojoon
9 Kim Seokjin
10 Yu Sangdo
11 Min Yoongi
12 Shin Yoonchul
13 Kim Hansol
14 Kim Byungjoo
15 Shin Jiho
16 Jung Hoseok
17 Kim Sungkyum
18 Shin Donghyuk
19 Kim Namjoon
20 Jung Taegyun
21 Kim Sanggyun
22 Seo Sangwon
23 Kim Taehyung



FEMALES

1 Kim Jinhee
2 Yoon Soojin
3 Park Jiyeon
4 Im Yuri
5 Kim Junhee
6 Kwon Sohee
7 Yoon Kristine
8 Kim Yeonju
9 Kim Dahee
10 Kim Miso



INTRODUCTION

By the time the Olympic Stadium in Seoul was declared a forbidden zone there was no one left to care. It was too big to move, too iconic to destroy, too derelict to renovate and too media friendly for folklore. There was nothing to be done – it could only be abandoned, locked up, the key thrown away and the popular conscious directed elsewhere.

Everyone will forget eventually. The subway hasn’t stopped here for years, so maybe they already have. If people can forget the Olympics it seems only natural that they could forget the tired out monuments to athletes long dead.

People forget, as if they ever had a choice, as if there was ever any page of any book or any website that can tell you what five interlocking rings mean. It hasn’t been that long since the games (or at least, people still think they were games) were staged, perhaps in some parts of the world they continue to this day but not here. Here they have been scrubbed from the records and from history, you couldn’t know even if you wanted to.

The fuse blocks are set along the outer perimeter – not long now.

The Olympics – a last ditch attempt at solving the War Crisis. If we can compete on the track perhaps we will not feel the need to kill each other over countries that are not ours to die for, or maybe that was an excuse to find a new war to fight along with everyone else. Did it work? Could it ever work? No one knows, no one remembers, they had to forget.

Somewhere someone flips a switch and the fuse blocks fly into the air, glowing angry red. No one can come here anymore, to so much as try to cross the boundary would be suicide (and some people will take the opportunity) and the final opportunity to remember will be lost. First it will sit at the back of people’s minds, and then it will be gone and in a hundred, a thousand, who can say how many years, maybe someone will return to kick aside the broken barrier and take a look inside.

Maybe they’ll understand, maybe they’ll get it, maybe it’s just a big old inconvenient building occupying space that no one knows how to use. In another time, far, far away from here, maybe there are people going about their lives, safe in the knowledge that the Olympics, that the games have saved them all. What use is there for war when a man can cover a hundred meters in under ten seconds, what use for combat when the human body can withstand 26 kilometres on the run?

Dear reader, did we fix the world or did we simply find another way to fight?



GOVERNMENT INTERNAL MEMO 2015, NO. 00387462 [TOP SECRET]

Dispatched by central authority secretariat special task force defence supervisor and battle experiment advisor of the special defence army

To: Curator in charge of no. 12 2015 experiment No. 69 program (December 03, 18:15)

Request for emergency group to be drafted into the Program, following the resistance of those troops selected by Song Hobeom. It is understood you were intending to Curate this group for next year’s Program. Central Authority apologises for any inconvenience this may cause.

Preparations are to begin immediately, the Program can start no later than a week from now. The press are watching.

Resistance of those subjects Curated by Song Hobeom to be played out as terrorist strikes, please ensure that your group believes the news.

Congratulations on being called up Curator. We wish you a pleasant Program.



PART 1: START GAME

33 CONTESTANTS REMAINING



00.

The Yellow Sea makes for a cold party destination at this time of year. Kim Seokjin (Male Contestant No.9) stands at the prow of the ship looking out across the water, to where the scattered islands surrounding the Incheon coast lie as pitch black blots on the horizon of the setting sun. The waves lap against the hull of the ship, inaudible over the whirring of the engine, throwing themselves at the vessel as if their tiny insignificant protest might stop it ploughing on.

On and on, out over the waves, all the way to China if they must. Though Seokjin doubts Hyosang has anything that fancy in mind.

The ship passes an island and immediately the deck is set upon by a strong, eastward wind. Seokjin shudders at the cold but he doesn’t move, just pulls his coat tighter across his chest and shoves his hands as far as they can go into his armpits. He’s cold for now, but in five minutes time his body will have reacclimatised, probably just in time for them to pass another island and the wind to pick up once again. Oh well, such is life.

“Jin….Kim Seokjin…what are you doing out here?” With the wind against them it takes a minute for Seokjin to realise that the shouting isn’t just another tone of the wind or the waves or the engine. He turns around to see Hyosang poking his head out of a porthole on the deck below, grinning but visibly shivering from the wind-chill.

Seokjin beckons for him to come up but Hyosang defiantly shakes his head, “Too cold for me. What are you doing up there? The party’s indoors,”

“I wanted to catch the sunset," Seokjin shouts, but his words get lost in the wind and Hyosang is left staring back at him, baffled.

Seokjin sighs, “Wait a moment, I’m coming down.”

He shuffles towards the door to the stairwell, careful not to open his coat and lose precious heat. He sacrifices a hand to open the door and then all of a sudden the wind and the waves are gone and only the humming of the engine, fathoms beneath him remains. The windows are too grimy to properly pick out the individual islands along the skyline, and so everything is reduced to the same shade of dust, engine oil and disrepair.

It’s a nice boat, broadly speaking, but sometimes people miss a few windows.

Seokjin shrugs off his coat – the engine at least keeps them warm even if it is loud enough to wake the dead. He sets off down the stairs, dropping into the belly of the whale.



Hyosang, of course is half way across the room laughing at something Jung Hunchul (Male Contestant No.4) has said. Seokjin knows Hyosang so well that he half swears they grew up together, but Hunchul he is less sure of and so he decides it’s not his place to join their conversation. The room is more than large enough to contain multiple human interactions, there’s alcohol and food and it’s warm down here. The excited atmosphere bleeds one person’s happiness into another’s and Seokjin isn’t familiar enough with all the guests to distinguish everyone as individuals.

He knows all their names though, they all at least know each other. Seokjin spots Kim Jinhee (Female Contestant No.1) standing by the buffet with her hands buried in a mountain of profiteroles, she’s excited, positively buzzing, but growing frustrated.

Smiling, Seokjin steps up behind her, “What’s troubling you?”

“Seokjin!” Jinhee half jumps out of her skin and bends double cackling at herself when she sees that it’s him, “Don’t sneak up on me like that!”

“I’m not sneaking up, I could feel you struggling and I wanted to help,” Seokjin pouts only semi-ironically in the hope that he can win her back over. He reaches forward to take a profiterole – it’s good, the cream bursts across his tongue and mingles perfectly with the toffee sauce drizzled generously on top of the light pastry. Seokjin loves profiteroles, he loves cake in general.

“I thought I saw a chocolate one in the middle,” Jinhee says, popping a grape into her mouth, “couldn’t see how to get to it though,”

Seokjin peers forward, “I don’t see anything,”

Jinhee shrugs and empties her glass of the suspiciously bright punch that Hyosang is serving. By the time her arm drops back to her side it’s filled with water.

“Seokjin!” Hyosang pushes Jinhee out of the conversation as soon as he throws an arm around Seokjin’s shoulders, “What were you doing out on deck? It’s awfully cold out there.”

“It was a nice sunset.” Seokjin offers Hyosang a profiterole. At the other end of the table he can see Jinhee strike up a conversation with Kwon Sohee (Female Contestant No.6) and Kristine Yoon (Female Contestant No.7); they’re not entirely happy that she’s joined them, but Jinhee feels too snubbed to care.

Seokjin would like to offer her an apology, but it’s difficult when Hyosang is the birthday boy.

“This is all so elaborate,” Seokjin pointedly casts his eyes around the extravagant dining hall in which the partygoers have assembled.

Hyosang shrugs, “It’s my birthday, I wanted to celebrate in style.”

“This is an awful lot of style for thirty three people.”

“Thirty four people,” Hyosang winks, “there’s thirty four people here tonight.”

Frowning, Seokjin checks the room again, “I can only feel thirty three.”

“You know, just because you have an extra sense doesn’t mean the others stop working. Use your eyes, not just that,” Hyosang performs an elaborate hand gesture, searching for the right word, “that thing.”

“Number thirty four must be somewhere else then. The thing about my thing is that even tricking it isn’t all that easy.”

Hyosang isn’t really paying attention, Seokjin follows his line of sight and sees his gaze has fallen upon Shin Donghyuk (Male Contestant No.18), “Go on then.” he mutters and Hyosang is gone before he can be told twice.

The room is large enough that the thirty three (and right now it’s definitely thirty three, Seokjin has double-checked) of them don’t make it look particularly full. Everyone’s talking, drinking, eating, bursting at the seams with delight at having been invited to such a gathering. Hyosang is good to his friends, but it’s hard to organise mass gatherings of people like them, the idea to hold his party away from the mainland is something of a stroke of genius that Seokjin suspects will be replicated many times over by the other pockets of Undesirables.

Hell, maybe they should all just pack up shop and leave for some remote island together. Staring around the room at so many happy, untroubled faces Seokjin can’t remember what made Seoul so great in the first place.

Amongst the ocean of partygoers, the stressy tension clouding one individual’s mind stands out. Seokjin snaps to attention the second he identifies it, wondering if someone has had a change of heart or if maybe…

“Number thirty four…” he breathes, seeing a half familiar face cut its way through the crowd. He’s a short man with well-kept facial hair and round, panic stricken eyes (though as Seokjin remembers, these eyes were always panic stricken). He can’t remember exactly where he’s seen that face before, but given the way that Hyosang makes sure all his friends know all his other friends, that’s hardly surprising. The man hurries through the room, no one but Seokjin appearing to pay him any mind, and vanishes through a side door.

It was as if he were never even there. Seokjin follows his path as far as he can without moving but his range was never that spectacular. Oh well, at least he knows what number thirty four looks like.

Seokjin spies Kim Namjoon (Male Contestant No.19) on the other side of the room and makes to go talk to him but is brought up short by the realisation that one of the emotional signatures in the room appears to be coming from nowhere. He pauses, staring at blank space, the person is happy but not exuberant and calm as calm can be.

And they’re currently invisible, that’s always a big giveaway.

“Shh!” Kim Miso (Female Contestant No.10) whispers, “I know you know I’m here but no one else needs to!”

“You should come out, join the party.”

“No thanks! You guys have no idea how much fun you are to watch.”

Seokjin grins at the spot where Miso must be standing, “Okay kid, have a good night.”

“Seokjin get over here!” a tall man in a top hat and tails barks, he’s standing next to Namjoon, peering at Seokjin through a monocle.

Seokjin rolls his eyes, “I know that’s you Yoongi. C’mon you can be anything here, use your imagination.”

“It’s harder than you think, I get so used to taking on inconspicuous human forms that anything else takes quite a bit of effort. This is honestly the most ridiculous form that I’m able to hold for longer than five minutes right now,” Min Yoongi (Male Contestant No.11) sniffs, he’s always a little on the defensive side.

Namjoon snickers, “Old man can’t keep up with his own Superpower.”

“You shouldn’t call them Superpowers,” Seokjin chides,

“Why not? Am I not allowed to define my abilities for myself?”

“That word has been used to make the things we do appear otherworldly and inhuman for centuries, why would you want to apply it to yourself?”

“It’s called reclamation,” Namjoon clicks his fingers and watches smoke rise from his palm as if to prove a point, “and honestly if being human means forcing thousands of Supers into hiding then I don’t want to be human.”

Seokjin bristles, “We’re not Supers! The correct term is Undesirables.”

“No offense Seokjin,” Yoongi cuts in, “but even history can’t change the fact that Undesirables is a way worse term than Supers. Plus, it’s literally just a term made up by the government to single us out, and seeing as the government isn’t exactly doing anything to alleviate our oppression I’d say that Namjoon’s completely within his right to identify as a Super. Dahee calls herself a Super, when the cops aren’t around of course.”

“I suppose their argument is that by subtly trying to kill us off they are in fact alleviating our oppression. I mean, you can hardly oppress someone who’s dead.”

Seokjin looks around for the source of the voice, confused. He sees a thin, dark haired boy with an impossibly huge grin standing at Yoongi’s side and feels his stomach drop.

“Hey Hoseok!” Namjoon greets him, “You know Seokjin?”

“I don’t believe we’ve been introduced, no.” The boy, Jung Hoseok (Male Contestant No.16) holds out his hand as a way of greeting, “Who’d have thought there was a friend of Hyosang’s I hadn’t met. Hi, my name’s-“

“I can’t feel him,” Seokjin cuts him off. He stares at Hoseok like he’s seen a ghost, “I can’t…he’s not there – he’s not real!”

“Seokjin…” Namjoon lays a hand on his shoulder.

“This isn’t possible!”

“Then maybe your…thing is playing up,” Yoongi casts a glance between the two of them, “I mean if it’s not possible it’s not possible right?”

Hoseok looks confused, “I don’t get it.”

“He’s an Empath,” Namjoon explains, “extrasensory Super. He can feel other people’s emotions. Any idea why he might not be able to feel yours?”

Hoseok opens his mouth but then seems to think better of it and instead shakes his head. Seokjin tries to think of any possible reason that a person wouldn’t register to him but is soon struck by a far more ominous thought.

“There are thirty four people on this ship,” he hisses.

The others blink at him: they don’t understand.

“Thirty four people! Hyosang said there were thirty four people on this ship and I’ve already read thirty four emotional patterns, but I can’t read his,” Seokjin raises a shaking finger in Hoseok’s direction, “There are thirty five people on this ship.”

“Okay, so… Hyosang miscounted?” Yoongi shrugs, but Namjoon and Hoseok both appear to have clocked the gravity of the situation.

“Are there thirty four people in this room right now?” Namjoon asks.

Seokjin nods, “but only including Hoseok.”

An augural silence falls between them, the sound of the party ongoing around them doing nothing to lift the sense of dread.

“We have to go check the rest of the ship,” Hoseok’s voice is steady but his face is pale. “Right now.”



Seokjin sprints across the hall as fast as his legs can carry him. Namjoon’s longer legs allow him to keep up but Hoseok gets ahead of them instantaneously – he’s fast, not Ability level fast but still fast. They follow his feet clattering down the rickety stairs and through whitewashed corridors.

They’re so loud, their feet fall so heavy, whoever is down here is going to know that they have arrived by now.

Hoseok rounds a corner in front of them and is lost from sight. Seokjin urges his legs to release whatever final burst of energy they may be hiding and leaves Namjoon behind, moving as fast as he can, left…right…right…

He comes to an abrupt halt. There’s a body lying on the floor before him, limbs spread eagled and face to the floor. Seokjin chokes on air and only then does he realise that he is hopelessly, helplessly out of breath.

“Ho...Hoseok,” Seokjin drops to the floor and shakes Hoseok’s shoulder. “Hoseok, wake up, wake…oh God.”

“He’s fine.”

Seokjin looks up and sees the man from before, the man who had crossed the room so quickly and anxiously. He’s not anxious now.

“What did you do to him?” Seokjin’s fingers tense over Hoseok’s shirt as Namjoon’s feet clatter up behind him.

The man smiles, “Tazed him. Just hard enough to knock him out.”

“What the hell are you doing here?” Namjoon hisses, Seokjin looks round and sees that none of the attention in the room is on him at that moment.

Namjoon and the man stare each other down. Seokjin looks between them, and just as he’s about to ask what he’s missing, the final piece of his memory falls into place.

“You’re Son Seongdeuk!”

“Shut up Seokjin,” Namjoon mutters, pulling him up by the back of his shirt. In principle Seokjin understands the severity of the situation, but be it out of shock or denial, his body refuses to respond. He can feel Seongdeuk’s calm glee, Namjoon’s dread, but his brain refuses to accept what’s happening.

Seokjin was good, Seokjin was quiet, Seokjin was kind. Kim Seokjin is an active member of society working for the betterment of The Republic; there is no reason for him to be on a boat headed to an unknown destination in the company of last year’s Curator.

Next to him, Namjoon’s back straightens, “there are more than thirty supers on this ship, all of us can fight. You don’t stand a chance against us so just-”

Namjoon’s breath catches and Seokjin wonders if he’s going to cry. “Namjoon,” he whispers, “There are others.”

“You can feel them?”

Seokjin nods, “Getting closer…”

The door at the end of the corridor slams open and half a dozen soldiers clad in full riot gear push past Seongdeuk. The leader of the line spins Namjoon and Seokjin around and shoves them hard enough to set their stunned feet moving.

Some of them are scared, some of them are just nervous, but all of them are stern, composed and terrifyingly real. Seokjin sometimes dreams of emotions, but try as he might he cannot persuade himself that that is what’s happening now.

He knows it’s real though he tries to choose not to. There’s no winning.

They are marched back through the complex maze of white-walled corridors, back up the stairs and into the dining hall and it’s only when they are standing, surrounded by the baffled faces of their friends that he thinks to look back to see if they brought Hoseok with them.

They did, there will be no survivors.

Well, one survivor.

If they’re lucky.

Hyosang is standing in the centre of the room with his glass raised like he was about to drink the room’s health. His eyes meet Seokjin’s, disappointment ringing loud enough to block out every other emotion in the room.

Disappointed. Of all the things to feel at a moment like this, Seokjin expected a little more empathy from the man he’s called his best friend these past three years. Still, it must suck to have your birthday party ruined like this.

“Pity,” Hyosang’s arm drops and his drink spills over the carpet, “I was just about to propose a toast to Park Jimin.”

Someone throws a gas mask in Hyosang’s direction and he pulls it over his head as if it were nothing. His breathing comes out raspy and creepy as he peers around the room at his barrel full of fish.

A hissing sound emanates from above them, and Seokjin has just enough time to feels helplessly, thoroughly betrayed before the gas blocks out his senses and he falls to the floor unconscious.

33 CONTESTANTS REMAINING



01.
It feels like falling, like flying, weightlessness. Seokjin loves this moment, the break between sleep and waking when your mind begins to live but your body stays below the waves, grasping for control of the world but toying with the idea of ignoring it all together. It is at these moments that he truly feels like he could do anything, like he could slip into a dream of his own creation and leave the waking world behind.

The carpet rushes up to meet him more abruptly than anticipated. For a moment he can’t remember where he is or what’s going on. He thinks he remembers something about Hyosang’s birthday…

Seokjin recalls the face of a man he’d only ever seen on TV before, a row of armed soldiers with their hands at his throat, a black haired boy lying motionless on the ground.
He jumps to his feet. They’re still in the dining hall, all of them by the looks of it, arranged in concentric circles around the point at which Hyosang had been preparing to give his toast. The lights are dim but even in the gloaming Seokjin can see the helmets of a terrifyingly huge number of soldiers lining the perimeter.

Where did they all come from? He could have sworn he felt no more of them than the six who took Namjoon, Hoseok and him from the bowels of the ship back into the waiting arms of Hyosang’s betrayal.

Seokjin feels unsteady on his feet. Hyosang betrayed him, Hyosang betrayed them all, Hyosang is on their side. Please, please let it not be true.

Around the room, others start to wake. Seokjin sees bodies shifting in the half light and hears the low groans of people who never knew how badly they needed to be conscious. Some people get to their feet like him, others stay on the floor, staring at the ceiling and praying that this is just a nightmare.

It is a nightmare, the worst nightmare. This is the boogieman come to take them all away.
From somewhere, a point too dark to see, a door creaks open and three more people enter the room. The first has an emotional signature that Seokjin recognises as Hyosang, the second is not entirely unfamiliar, and the third…

Kim Byungjoo (Male Contestant No.14) lets out a terrified shriek. Sure enough, as the trio step into the light it’s clear that Hyosang is in the lead, with Seongdeuk following close behind. And the third person is not someone that Seokjin ever expected, or wanted to see. Grinning like he could kill them all and consider it a fun game (and he did, oh God he did) is Jeon Jungkook.

The second they realise who it is, the room steps back from the trio. Seokjin’s blood thumps through his veins, his muscles taught and his brain dashing madly through any and all possible means of escape from this situation. He doesn’t want to be anywhere near Jeon Jungkook, he doesn’t even want to be on the same planet as him if at all possible.

They walk to the clear space in the centre of the room and Hyosang steps forward, “Ladies, gentlemen, friends.”

And when he says ‘friends’ Seokjin feels the room recoil from him. He is no friend of theirs, no friend of Jeon Jungkook’s is a friend of theirs.

“Thank you all for coming out to celebrate my birthday! Truly, it’s a pleasure to see so many of you here today in such a wonderful display of unity."

The corners of Hyosang’s mouth are turned up like he’s forcing himself not to laugh. Seokjin stares at him, outraged, how dare he play this off as a joke?

“I was thinking,” Hyosang continues, the first giggles bursting across his tongue, “That maybe now would be a good time for a little game. Does that sound like fun? A nice little game so we can all get to know each other a little better?”

Hyosang lets out a bark of laughter and dips his head to swallow the rest of the peal, “I do apologise, Hoseok’s making this difficult for me.”

Seokjin’s eyes flick across the room and he spies Hoseok over by the buffet table, glaring at Hyosang. If looks could kill…well if you get the right Undesirable they can.

“A-anyway, I was thinking that-I’m sorry, I’m sorry I just,” Hyosang lets forth a high, eerie cackle that stretches his mouth wide, making him look like a skull, “I was thinking,”

He takes a deep breath and Seokjin watches him take stock of the room, taking care to make eye contact with every single one of them. When it comes time for their eyes to meet Hyosang doesn’t even flinch, if anything, he grins all the wider.

“I was thinking that you should kill each other.”

33 CONTESTANTS REMAINING



02.

For the longest moment, everyone is silent. Then Park Sehyuk (Male Contestant No.3) steps forward, with a nervous smile, “Hyosang, what’s all this about?”

Seokjin holds his breath, watching Sehyuk walk slowly towards the group commanding the centre of the room. He’s aiming for Hyosang, that much is obvious, but before he can step beyond the front row of people Jungkook comes out to meet him.

Jungkook is fast, Sehyuk flinches away.

“Get back to your place right now or I’ll rip your head off,” Jeon Jungkook beams.

Sehyuk doesn’t need to be told twice. They all watch him scamper back into formation with a sinking heart, he’s one of the most headstrong amongst them, but none of them can blame him for being scared of Jeon Jungkook.

Seeing Jeon Jungkook standing next to Hyosang, Seokjin is struck by how much smaller he is than the TV made him look. The way he was presented, the way he looked next to last year’s Contestants, he always seemed to be a giant. In reality he is tall but not unreasonably so and under his hoody he seems somewhat thin.

And still, no one in the room is going to risk going against him. There isn’t an Undesirable alive who would voluntarily enter the ring with Jeon Jungkook.

“I’m sure a few of you are wondering what’s going on right now,” Hyosang has managed to stop laughing but he’s still smiling and he’s so gleefully happy as to unsettle Seokjin more than Jungkook’s presence, “and I’m sure that a fair few of your have worked it out. But for everyone’s benefit, and just to make sure that we’re all on the same page, I would like to welcome you all to the sixty ninth annual Program!”

There are no screams, there are no murmurs, the silence is not stunned. Everyone knew what was happening the moment the soldiers arrived.

Hyosang continues, “Now I know that people like to say this and that about the workings of the Program, and anyone who’s ever watched the broadcast will be able to tell you a thing or two about how the game’s run but you’d be surprised at how many people get chosen who have some wildly incorrect ideas about how we do things.”

“You may have noticed,” Hyosang gestures to Seongdeuk and Jungkook, “that we have last year’s Curator and Victor with us today! I think they deserve a round of applause, don’t you?”

Nobody claps. Hyosang’s expression turns sour. “I said clap!” from nowhere, he draws a pistol and fires it towards the ceiling over the front row Contestants. There’s an almighty bang, then a creaking, then a large slab of wood plummets down, landing squarely on Jeon Hojoon’s (Male Contestant No.8) back.

Hojoon roars in pain and though he’s on the other side of the room Seokjin has to fight the urge to run forward and help him. The collective terror is paralysing though, and out of the corner of his eye he can see Namjoon shaking his head.

Don’t do this, not now.

A sparse clatter of applause strikes up somewhere at the back of the room, getting louder and louder until Hyosang is quite sure that they’re all joining in. He holds up his hand for silence and continues, “So we have last year’s Curator and Victor. I’m sure you know them better as Son Seongdeuk and Jeon Jungkook. Didn’t they put on a mighty fine show for us last year folks? Another round of applause please.”

This time everyone claps on the first try.

“Now it’s Program tradition that the previous year’s Curator introduces you all to the basic rules of the game so I’m just going to step back for a moment and let Seongdeuk do his thing. Come on up Seongdeuk, I’m sure they’re dying to hear from you!”

Seongdeuk steps forward with a rather shy smile on his face. Normally Seokjin finds that beards make people look more intimidating but Seongdeuk’s expression is sweet as sweet can be. He has nothing of Hyosang’s sadistic joy or Jungkook’s overblown arrogance; he is calm and detached.

“The Program was established sixty nine years ago in response to plans for a mass Undesirable uprising; its purpose being to establish which Undesirables are loyal and therefore of use to The Republic whilst eliminating potential threats to the state in the process. It is known that Undesirables have great power between them and through observations made throughout the Program, we can be sure that the ruthlessness of the Undesirable is absolute and therefore the necessity of the Program is assured.”

Seongdeuk’s voice is soft and impartial, just enough colour to stop it turning into a drone but not enough to indicate any passion for the words he’s saying. He doesn’t have any passion for them, they’re the company line that he already knows everyone in the room will be able to rattle off in their sleep. His voice doesn’t give it away though, he speaks like any one of them might be fascinated by his words.

Seokjin finds it unnerving how tranquil he is in the flesh, when he saw Seongdeuk on TV hosting last year’s Program it was always so easy to ascribe him some sort of remorse, or even a calculating snideness hiding behind his flawless public image, but there’s nothing. The last hope he had for the Program was that the people running it at least appreciated how awful an institution it was – no such luck.

The country is run by people who run death games as easily as they go about their lofty office jobs. How can someone in such close contact with the violence remain so neutral?

“As I would imagine you are aware, the Program is a fight to the death between Contestants selected by a Curator. There are very few rules to which you must adhere during the time that the Program is running but the penalty for breaking them is steep. Rule number one: you must stay within the designated area at all times. For this Program we have chosen an uninhabited island to the West of Incheon, the designated area extends ten metres off the coast at low tide.”

Across the room, Seokjin sees Namjoon’s eyes go wide. A premise like that sounds easy enough to thwart, though he doubts it’s that simple.

“No conferring.” Hyosang snaps as a ripple of hushed conversation spreads out across the room. Seokjin can feel the tension beginning to break in isolated pockets – Park Hyunho (Male Contestant No.5) and Sohee appear to have resolved entirely to a smug sort of hope that Seokjin would wager means they’ve thought of a plan.

Seongdeuk continues, “Rule number two: you may kill any of the other Undesirable Contestants, but killing a member of the supervising staff is prohibited. For those of you who are confused as to whom the phrasing ‘Undesirable Contestants’ may be referring to, I would like to take this moment to confirm that last year’s Victor, Jeon Jungkook,” he gestures to Jungkook like the whole world doesn’t already know who he is, “is off limits as is your Curator, Jin Hyosang. To be clear, despite what he may have told you during your recruitment, Jin Hyosang is not an Undesirable, he is quite human.”

There’s a cold edge to Seongdeuk’s voice as he speaks the final four words. Seokjin knows that they are meant to wound but the confirmation that Hyosang is the Curator and not an Undesirable at all is far more upsetting. He knew, in his heart of hearts he knew from the moment he realised that Hyosang had lied about the number of people on board the ship, but having it confirmed is the final slap in the face after a brutal beating. Everything Hyosang ever told him, told any of them, was a lie. From the day he was born he was taught to be careful how he trusted because people were lurking in every corner of this country determined to hunt him down and kill him, and he had walked right into the ultimate trap.

“Rule number three: you may not make outside contact. You will find that any mobile phones you have are useless here, but should you attempt to make contact with anyone not on this island this will be considered in breach of the rules, even if your attempt ends in failure. Rule number four: you may not remove your tracking device. The tracking device has been injected into your right shoulder, you should not notice its presence. It allows us to monitor your whereabouts and heartbeat and it also contains a small amount of explosive, if we feel that you have broken any of the rules this explosive will be activated. The explosion it causes will not be significant enough to endanger other Contestants but we can guarantee that it will kill you, due to blood loss through a major vessel being ruptured or due to the shock.”

“In addition,” Seongdeuk’s gaze sharpens as he surveys them all carefully, “if we reach a point at which it has been twenty four hours since the last death, all of the explosives will be activated. No one will survive, it’s kill or be killed and. Good luck ladies and gentlemen, I wish you all a pleasant Program. May the most loyal Undesirable win.”

Seongdeuk steps back and Hyosang takes centre stage once again, “Okay, is everyone clear on the rules? There’ll be a copy of them in your packs so please do double check them, we wouldn’t want any of you getting blown up over something as silly as a phone call!” Hyosang winks at Yeonju (Female Contestant no.8) and she recoils as if burned.

“Now I’m sure you’re all excited to be appearing on TV right- I SAID QUIET!”

An almighty bang reverberates throughout the room and he hears Kim Taeyang (Male Contestant No.2) screaming somewhere behind him. Hyosang’s unnervingly sunny temperament appears only momentarily disturbed as he calms his bubbling fury and smiles around at them all like the gun in his hand is not still smoking.

Seokjin turns around hoping to see another hole in the wall. Instead he sees the body of a girl with a hole in her face, the carpet behind her streaked with what’s left of her brain and skull. Her bleach blonde hair is rapidly turning red as the blood seeps into it, she hasn’t even finished bleeding. She’s probably still warm.

Seokjin feels like he’s going to throw up.

“What did you do that for?” Hyunho screams, “She didn’t do anything you had no right!”

“You have no place talking to me about rights and liberties right now Hyunho. Please do settle down before I show you the same courtesy as I just showed Soojin,” Hyosang grins and his fist visibly tenses on the handle of his gun.

Yoon Soojin (Female Contestant No.2) lies ever more hopelessly in the space between Taeyang and Sehyuk and Seokjin can’t bring himself to look any more. Shaking harder than he’d care to admit, he turns to find Hyosang’s eyes boring into him, smiling.

Oh you fooled me all right! How did you do it? I thought I was so well prepared.

Evidently there are plenty of people in the room who never learned to fear the Program as they should. As the shock wears off the realisation that Soojin is dead and that this is really happening to them sets in, the prevailing feeling in the room is anger, uncontrollable, collective anger. Seokjin feels it too but he’s not stupid enough to give into it, that sounds like a sure fire way to get yourself killed.

He sees Hoseok staring up at Hyosang, brow furrowed like he’s thinking. Seokjin reaches out to see if he feels the same rage as everyone else, but there is still nothing there.

32 CONTESTANTS REMAINING



03.

The longer he stares at Yoon Soojin’s (Female Contestant No.2) corpse the harder it is to stay still. Park Hyunho (Male Contestant No.5) finds it hard to contain himself at the best of times, but in a situation like this?

It’s hopeless, what a bloody hopeless mess they’ve landed themselves in. He was never as careful as he could have been, he was never above using his Ability to help out a friend or settle a dispute that the law refused to handle. Proper old fashioned vigilante justice, the stuff they used to make comics out of until they were deemed ‘pro-Undesirable propaganda’. Hyunho could only ever be so cautious on his own behalf, despite what the government says, he’s always known that his Ability was a gift and to not make the best of it would be morally reprehensible.

‘With great power comes great responsibility’ – the defining quote of one of those comics. Hyunho keeps it stashed below his mattress and hopes no one ever thinks to raid his apartment. The comics are rare and expensive and Hyunho has almost gotten dragged into a jail cell on more than one occasion trying to acquire more.

He always assumed any Super that got themselves locked up was a shoe in for the Program. He can’t help but wonder just how much more he’s gotten wrong.

For starters, he’s not an Undesirable; he’s a Super. A Superhero. A Superhero protects people, a Superhero doesn’t let a friend die in vain. This Superhero has work to do.

He lets his legs lengthen and his arms form dense, stubby shields. His shoulder blades and elbows stretch into weaponised spikes and his jaw widens far enough to give his bite the necessary power to wound. Human skin is fairly elastic and Hyunho has almost always been able to work within its confines before but not this time, he feels his flesh rip and his muscles strain and knows that he has one chance to get this right. He can take down Hyosang, but after that either Jungkook or the explosive tracker or the blood loss from his torn skin will kill him – he has to make this count.

Hyunho is used to running on extended legs and so he knows he can get to Hyosang before he’ll have a chance to do anything about it. He crosses his arms across his chest, leaps to his feet and runs.

The first gunshot goes off when Hyunho is two meters away from his charge, but the bullet flies over his head. Amateurs, you’d have thought they’d at least get boys who knew how to use the guns they’re given to supervise a competition like this. He swings around, hoping that the movement will see his right elbow spike slash across Hyosang’s neck, or at least his upper arm. He’s so sure he’s going to make it, he’s so close and his bones are so long.

With a sickening crunch, the spike is torn off Hyunho’s elbow, and a moment later the spike on his right shoulder sees the same treatment. He crashes to the floor, shrieking in pain as a foot comes forward and shatters his recently extended jaw.

Hyunho can hear Hyosang shouting at the soldier who fired his gun, but he can’t tell if he’s angry he missed or angry he fired at all.

Something sharp pricks Hyunho under what’s left of his chin, he looks up to see Jungkook holding the broken tip of his shoulder spike, grinning like this is the best game he ever played. Hyunho doesn’t know where he came from, he could have sworn he was meters away as he closed in on Hyosang, he could have sworn he wasn’t even watching.

So Jungkook is Super-fast, along with being Super-strong and having bulletproof skin. He could do so much good with powers like that, he could take down the government single-handedly if he wanted to, but instead he kills other Supers like they’re game. A Supervillain if ever Hyunho saw one.

“Finish him off,” Hyosang snaps, Jungkook drives the bone down and Hyunho tastes blood.
The bone is in my neck, my bone is in my neck.

He feels the carpet dampen at his cheek, he knows that it’s blood spilling across the floor but doesn’t know if it’s from his jaw or his throat. Hell, maybe it’s from the skin he tore trying to go in for the kill – perhaps that was his step too far.

Dully, Hyunho wonders if he could have done it if he had a higher pain tolerance, maybe if he’d had the stamina to stand up after Jungkook knocked him down he could have had another go at them, but the thought is far off. The pain fades to a background concern and his world is slowly replaced by the taste of blood, hot and heavy and overly familiar on his tongue.

Then he forgets the taste of blood, then he forgets how to breathe.

31 CONTESTANTS REMAINING



04.

For a moment, Hyosang has hell in his eyes and fire in his heart. He’s annoyed, he probably thought this would all go off without a hitch. Seokjin wonders just how messy the start to any Program ever is – the first scenes you see are of the Contestants entering the area, spliced in with shots of them going about their daily lives to an overture of a brief history of ‘Their Story So Far’.

Almost all of them are involved in criminal dealings with multiple counts of murder to their name by the time they arrive. Park Jimin had been an exception, but this year it would seem that everyone involved is an innocent; Seokjin doesn’t want to pretend that he knows everyone inside and out, but when you’re in touch with people’s emotions either way you learn to recognise certain patterns within personality types.

Seokjin has met murderers and none of the people Hyosang is sending into the Program fit the profile. Realistically, the only one among them who could have blood on their hands is Hoseok. Even if he wasn’t mysteriously missing from Seokjin’s second view of the world they barely know each other, and if he is friends with Namjoon it seems odd that in a friendship circle as tightly woven as theirs he has never heard anyone else mention his name.

The real question is – would Hyosang throw thirty two innocent people into the Program with one killer?

Hyunho’s body lies completely still. Seokjin is glad that he’s too far to the left of the room to see all the gory details, judging by Jung Taegyun’s (Male Contestant No.20) expression it’s a grisly site. Not that that’s a fact particularly hard to extrapolate from the almighty pool of blood threatening to start nipping at the heels of the front row.

“Right,” Hyosang breathes carefully, “I think we should get a move on. You will be released one by one in age order, alternating between male and female Contestants until there are no female Contestants left and then we’ll finish up the boys. You will be let out in five minute intervals, if you feel this is at all unfair or that the older Contestants are getting a head start, please be reminded that they have a head start in life that you will never be able to measure up to.”

A group of three soldiers wheel an almighty rack of dark coloured rucksacks forward. Hyosang reaches out to stop it and pulls it in close to his side, “each pack contains food, water, a map of the area, a copy of the rules, a pencil, a watch, your coat if you are not already wearing it and a set of thermals. You should keep the watch handy as I will be announcing the dead every six hours starting at,” he pauses to check his own watch, “six am. Please remember that the aim of the game is to kill each other until only one Contestant is left. Beyond those listed in your pack there are no rules as to how you go about this – you are free to use your Abilities, any objects you may find in the area and there are various weapons stashed around the island for those smart enough to find them.”

“And remember,” Hyosang giggles darkly, “you’ll be on camera the entire time, so smile!”

He grabs the first pack and holds it out like he expects the first person to instinctively know that it’s theirs for the taking. The fact of the matter is that they all know who the oldest one amongst them is but despite the deaths, for as long as they’re not actively taking part in it the Program feels like something they can stay out of – most people aren’t as noble as Hyunho.

“As I said, we will go in age order alternating between males and females and then just with the boys. That means the first Contestant to leave will be Choi Ikje and the last will be Kim Taeh-“

As Hyosang speaks he glares pointedly at the people he’s talking about but when he turns to face Kim Taehyung (Male Contestant No.23) no one is there. For a second, Seokjin feels Hyosang’s stomach drop but then Taehyung flickers back into existence, eyes wide and panicky. He blinks in an out a couple more times before he looks properly settled back on the floor.

Hyosang beams down at him, “Better get a hold of yourself Taehyung, if you accidentally teleport out of the designated area your tracking device will be detonated, and we wouldn’t want that now would we?”

Taehyung shakes his head, trembling. He never had a very good grasp on his Ability, and he’s awful under pressure.

“Ok then!” Hyosang holds out the bag and his smiling eyes are like ice, “Male Contestant number one, Choi Ikje, please step forward!”

31 CONTESTANTS REMAINING



05.

Choi Ikje (Male Contestant No.1) takes his pack feeling a lot less confident than he looks. He follows the soldiers’ instructions to leave by the way he came in and before Seokjin knows what’s what his wiry frame is vanishing through a door at the back of the room.

The seconds tick by as they wait for Jinhee to be called. Everyone is almost breathlessly still, tension wound so tight that they might snap at any minute. It’s a good job that with the exception of Taehyung they all have fairly decent control of their Abilities.

Jinhee gets called, then Taeyang, then they have to wait ten minutes because Soojin isn’t able to leave anymore. Seokjin realises that images of his friends are being broadcast to the entire nation whilst they sit there waiting to be called – they could have started killing each other already.

Sehyuk is called and Seokjin’s breath catches in his throat. They couldn’t do that, surely. They’re friends, they wouldn’t have started murdering each other this quickly, it takes time to form that kind of suspicion, there’s no way…

They have 24 hours to make a kill between them, or the game is up for them all, they don’t have time to get over it any more than they have time to be old friends. It’s kill or be killed, or hide until they force you out into the open and you are killed.

Park Jiyeon (Female Contestant No.3) collects her pack, then Hunchul and Im Yuri (Female Contestant No.4). Then they have to break again because the contents of Hyunho’s veins are spilt across the carpet.

Will he kill or be killed? Seokjin exhales sharply, this still doesn’t feel real enough to be happening to him.

Soojin and Hyunho are dead, Hojoon is badly injured, Jeon Jungkook is here, Hyosang has betrayed them all, just how much more real does this need to be?

If Seokjin were in the mood to argue with himself he would point out that Hyosang can’t have really betrayed them if he was never really on their side. All he did was trick them – semantics gets you out of nothing.

Kim Junhee (Female Contestant No.5), Kang Minwoo (Male Contestant No.6), Sohee, Kim Dongsung (Male Contestant No.7) all go. Kristine gets called but won’t go till she’s helped Hojoon shake the last of the wood from the ceiling off himself. She glances back at him just before she leaves, laden with anxiety. Seokjin suspects she’ll wait for him, if Sohee doesn’t persuade her otherwise.

Kim Yeonju (Female Contestant No.8) tries to help Hojoon to his feet but flinches back when Hyosang cocks his gun and points it at her head – point taken. They watch Hojoon shuffle out of the room, wincing against what Seokjin suspects is several broken ribs and who knows what he’s done to his foot. He would say something about it being unfair, but it feels like a moot point.

“Male Contestant number nine – Kim Seokjin!” Hyosang barks. For a moment, Seokjin forgets the sound of his own name and blinks around the room waiting for someone else to stand up and take the pack.

Hyosang clears his throat loudly, reality hits home relentlessly hard.

Seokjin stands, straightens his shoulders and walks forward to take his pack like his hands aren’t shaking. His eyes meet Hyosang’s and he wonders if in them he might find some remorse, some apology, some sign that this is a game that they are all being forced to play and Hyosang is as powerless to change his role in it as the rest of them.

No such indication is given, Hyosang’s feelings do not waver, he barely even blinks. He is making what will probably be final eye contact with a man he has proudly announced is his best friend for the past five years and he feels nothing. Seokjin was never special to him.
Five years, he’s been planning this for five years. He’s stayed neutral for five years, what does that to a person?

Casting his eyes downwards Seokjin takes his pack and walks to the door. It’s lighter than he had expected, swinging wildly with every step he takes.

He follows the stairs down to the front door. The route is closely guarded by soldiers but Seokjin can see that once he’s outside he’s on his own. Beyond the door he can see the sand of a beach at low tide leading up to grassy sand dunes that block out almost everything from this angle, except the shadow of a single mountain peak in the dark.

Or maybe it’s a hill, he won’t know till he tries to climb it.

Hands still shaking and his pack hanging limply from his shoulder, Seokjin pushes the door open and steps out onto the sand.

31 CONTESTANTS REMAINING



06.

The wind blows in from the East, carrying dark clouds with it. A few meters away, a plastic back from a supermarket chain Seokjin doesn’t know blusters helplessly against the rock pinning it to the store. Further down, the remnants of a pier suffer the battering of the rising waves, but beyond that the light coming from the ship stops short and the island is lost in the night.

Shivering, Seokjin pulls his coat out of his pack. He’d left it hanging off a handrail somewhere between the deck and the dining hall – he supposes he should be thankful that someone took the time to find it.

Seokjin blinks up at the skies above, the stars stare back from their seats amongst the heavens. It’s bitterly cold, he’s glad he still has his coat but he wishes he had Namjoon instead – these nights are going to feel awfully long if he has to spend them trying not to freeze.

Nights. He’s unnecessarily confident that he’s going to last several days. Admittedly the Program normally takes around three days to run its course, and that’s when it’s being fought between people who know their way around a murder and know what to look out for as much as they know how to go about the act itself.

Explain Park Jimin then, eh? How are you going to talk your way around that?

With a start, Seokjin remembers that as of right now he’s supposed to be on TV. Right now, around the country, thousands, millions of families will have stayed up late, gathered together to meet the Contestants and maybe catch the first death. Everything will be repeated in the highlights segment later in the day but no one wants to find out the news second-hand if they can avoid it.

For however long it takes the Program to come to completion, it will be all Seoul can talk of. Each of them will become a brand with fans shrieking for them and fans of other Contestants shrieking against them. Everyone’s parents will come out in force because of course, the whole point is that all the Contestants are supposed to be evil and no one wants their precious darlings vocally supporting evil monsters.

All except one, one loyal Contestant chosen every year and added to the military’s supply of advanced weaponry.

He’s been standing on the beach too long already. Seokjin draws a deep breath and feels cold air enter his lungs, he has to pick a direction and move.

The obvious thing to do would be to go over the dunes, but the fact that it’s obvious means that it’s most likely someone has already made that move. That means he has to walk along the beach and risk being sniped by someone up on higher ground – both sound risky, neither more tempting than the other, and he has to move fast.

Seokjin makes his decision not a moment too soon, dashing off towards the pier and kicking the rock out of the way as he goes. Over the whistling wind he swears he hears the door of the ship open once again but he doesn’t look back.



The plastic bag gets caught in the wind and lands on Kim Dahee’s (Female Contestant No.9) face. It’s dark but she can just about make out Seokjin’s figure moving inelegantly away from her. With a grimace, her hand tightens on the sharpened ice shard already forming in her hand and she sets off over the dunes

31 CONTESTANTS REMAINING



07.

Jeon Hojoon (Male Contestant No.8) is surprisingly light, Kristine Yoon (Female Contestant No.7) thinks. He has an arm around her shoulders and both feet on the ground but it’s clear to them both that she’s doing most of the work. The wind is high and the night is dark and it’s hard enough trying to move quickly on sand when you don’t have a whole other person to move with you but she can see a dark mass coming closer with every step that she’s sure is a rock cluster.

They reach the rocks and Hojoon collapses against them, groaning and clutching at his broken ribs. It’s still cold here, but at least they’re out of the wind.

“Here, let me take a look,” she pushes his hands out of the way and reaches under his shirt to assess the damage. She finds the breaks immediately and winces when she feels sharp bone poking through Hojoon’s skin. She’s not an expert, but she doesn’t need to be one to know that this is bad.

“It’s fine,” she grins, “hardly more than a bruise, you’re gonna be ok,”

Even in the dark she can see Hojoon roll his eyes, “You’re a horrible liar,”

“Nope, you’re gonna be ok, Hojoon you are gonna be…just fine,” she turns away to look inside her pack and find him something to drink. There are two litre bottles of water inside so she grabs one and thrusts it into his hands, “Drink.”

Kristine’s phone is still in her pocket and even though Hyosang said that they wouldn’t work her hand instinctively reaches for it. Would it really be that bad if she called the emergency services? Or Kwon Sohee (Female Contestant No.6)? This all feels so surreal, like any moment now the lights will go up on set and everyone will emerge from behind the set laughing at her gullibility – we got you good Kristine Yoon!

Except Park Hyunho (Male Contestant No.5)…Yoon Soojin (Female Contestant No.2)…Jeon Jungkook…
“This is a bad joke,” she says, and Hojoon groans in agreement.

“Bad for us, but I bet someone’s laughing about it.”

“You don’t… do you really think that more of us will die?”

Hojoon passes the water back to her, “This is the Program Kristine, one way or another people are going to die,”

“Yes, but…do you think people are going to kill each other?”

Hojoon says nothing.

“These are our friends Hojoon you can’t-“

“This is the Program,” Hojoon says thickly, “We’ve all seen it, we all know how it always ends,”

“But we’re not like the other people who wind up here! We’re not killers, we’re not criminals,”

“We were born Undesirable! As far as the government is concerned we’ve been criminals since day one. This is our sentence,”

“But we’re not killers!”

“And you’re so sure that everyone else was? Kristine how many people have you known who have wound up on the program before?”

Kristine shakes her head, she hasn’t known anyone. Before she met Hyosang she’d never spoken to another Undesirable in her life; she was the first in her family to show some kind of Ability and spent an inordinate amount of time trying to hide it from them and everyone else. For minor bumps and scratches it was ok but trying to talk her way out of a lorry driver who swore blind he’s knocked her down was harder.

“I’ve known a couple,” Hojoon continues, “You remember Lee Youngjun, about three years back? And Oh Gwangsuk from last year? Both of them were my friends, both of them were as under the radar as you or me and when they first showed up on that wretched show, both of them were listed as killers.”

Kristine stares at him, horrified, “You mean…”

“They lie about us! All it takes is a few Undesirables running amok and the public is ready to throw us all under the bus with them. For all we know we were listed as terrorists, don’t assume that the only reason people kill in this game is because they’ve killed before. I wouldn’t be surprised if that ‘Undesirable terror cartel’ they’ve had all over the news for the past week were just a group of kids in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

It seems like it should be impossible that so much of her life had been a lie. The unspoken rule in The Republic is that if an Undesirable keeps their head down they need not fear the Program, but if they’ve been cherry picking whichever Undesirables they can find and throwing them in here regardless then what’s the point of the secrecy?

Oh Gwangsuk made the third kill last year. Any of their friends might be out there, plotting their demise at this very moment.

“I think we should move,” Kristine whispers, and no sooner have the words left her mouth than something flies past her cheek.

She frowns, “What was that?”

Hojoon doesn’t reply. Kristine peers at him through the darkness and can just about see a trickle of something dark coming from a tiny hole in the middle of his forehead.

Kristine’s blood runs cold, “Hojoon!” she shakes him and his body falls sideways. There comes a point where the sharp end of his broken rib punctures through his skin and tears along his side, spouting blood through his clothes and through the sand, warm where it meets her hands.

Her jaw hangs open, too stunned and terrified to so much as scream. It hasn’t been an hour, people are still leaving the boat, how can someone be playing already?

“Who are you? Who’s there?” She screams into the night. High up on the dune before her, Kristine sees a dark sharp move against the stars. She’s about to get to her feet – to run or fight or something – when a second stone flies. With all the force of a bullet, it goes straight through Kristine’s skull and clatters against the rock face behind it.

Kristine had never known how thorough her regeneration abilities were and had lived in the fond hope that she would never have to find out. In the split second before the neuron pathways of her brain go quiet, she wonders if her Ability is all encompassing.

It’s not impossible, just look at Jeon Jungkook.

Kristine isn’t as lucky as Jeon Jungkook though. By the time the blood reaches the tip of her nose her assailant is gone, and her eyes can’t see the shadow of the mountain any longer.

29 CONTESTANTS REMAINING



08.
The sun is peaking over the horizon by the time Seokjin finds a place to rest. It had taken him an hour or so trudging along the beach to find the mouth of a river that he could follow inland, clinging to the bank trying not to fall in. Things are cold enough as it is, he doesn’t need to make his situation any worse by saddling himself with water sodden clothing.

(Seokjin doesn’t know that at the other end of the beach, Kristine and Hojoon are lying dead, with holes in their skulls. The wind was too high, he couldn’t even hear the screaming).

He crawls into the thicket, dense with bracken and far enough away from the dunes for him to feel safe for now and lies on his back with his eyes closed as tries to reclaim his breath.
He can’t sleep now, you don’t get to sleep in the Program unless you manage to make a friend and given how that usually works out for people, Seokjin isn’t planning on talking to anyone unless he has to.

Sitting up, Seokjin stares downstream in an attempt to survey the area. The island would appear to consist of the slopes of the mountain building towards the peak and not much else. Further towards the sea there are open spaces that suggest it was once used for farming or grazing livestock but he would appear to be hidden in one of the lower points of the treeline. If he heads up, the trees get thicker, for a while at least, he’s not sure if the mountain goes up high enough to cut off the trees completely.

Out of nowhere, the harsh noise of electrical feedback booms across the forest and Seokjin feels his heart jump into his mouth. He leaps to his feet, heart racing and just as he thinks things could get no worse: Hyosang’s unnervingly cheerful voice greets the island and the day.

“Good morning folks! I hope you all got plenty of rest last night because you have a big day ahead of you! It’s currently six am and the sun is on the rise; as for me, I’m here to let you all know who’s no longer in the Program.”

Seokjin’s heart begins to slow. The dead, of course, they were told about this. It’s been less than six hours since the Program started though, other than Soojin and Hyunho surely no one else has died…

“I’ll read off names in the order of time of death,” Hyosang sing-songs through the speakers, “first we have female Contestant number two: Yoon Soojin, male Contestant number five: Park Hyunho.”

Seokjin holds his breath and hopes that Hyosang will stop there.

“Then male Contestant number eight: Jeon Hojoon and female Contestant number seven: Kristine Yoon,” Hyosang’s voice sounds entirely too pleased with itself, Seokjin wants to find one of the speakers and smash it.

“So that means that right now there are twenty nine of you left – very exciting! You guys are putting on an excellent show so far I’m sure you’ll all be very popular. Try to play nice kids, I’ll speak to you again at midday!”

Kristine and Hojoon are dead. Seokjin stands limp and useless in his forest thicket wishing that Hyosang were here right now – he reckons that would be enough to bring out the murderer in him.

Hojoon was to be expected, he reasons, it was a cold night and he was injured. But Kristine?
Someone killed Kristine, they must have. Maybe it was Hoseok or – hell, Seo Sangwon (Male Contestant no.22) and Kim Sanggyun (Male Contestant No.21) are morally grey enough that Seokjin could imagine them going dark pretty easily.

Maybe it was Hojoon.

Out of the corner of his eye, Seokjin spots movement in the field below. He freezes, watching carefully for some sign that it’s an animal.

A figure comes into view, clearly visible and definitely not an animal. The person is tall, long limbs and a small head making for an unmistakeable gait, simmering rage marking their unmistakable emotional signal.

Despite himself, Seokjin laughs with relief, “Namjoon!”

“Idiot! What are you standing there like that for? I could see you a mile away,” Namjoon hisses as he reaches the edge of the thicket. Seokjin doesn’t have it in him to feel scolded right now though so holds out a hand to help him through the dense foliage.

Namjoon makes it into the thicket and trips over his own feet immediately, of course.

“Seriously, we need to move further in. I think most people are still fucking around in the dunes but pretty soon they’re gonna start moving inland and when they do we’ll be sitting ducks here.”

We. Namjoon is already referring to them as a team. Seokjin opens his mouth to tell him that he’s happy for the warning but he’s not looking for friends but he can’t get the words out. He knows he shouldn’t trust, but this is Namjoon; he’s clumsy as sin but he’s got the brains to make up for it, and he’s always been such a good friend to Seokjin…

He closes his mouth and grabs his pack, “Let’s go then.”

Namjoon grunts in agreement, and follows Seokjin’s lead up the mountain.

29 CONTESTANTS REMAINING



09.

They’ve barely been walking twenty minutes when a rustling in the trees ahead has Namjoon pushing the pair of them down into the bracken. From below the leaf line it’s hard to make anything out and they spend five minutes trembling in anticipation of a fight before Seokjin thinks to check is anyone’s actually there.

“Wait, I can’t feel anyone,” he sits up abruptly and the deer crossing the path they had been planning on taking startles.

Namjoon cuffs him on the back of the head, “Idiot! You could have gotten us killed!”

“I told you,” Seokjin scowls, “I couldn’t feel anyone.”

“Well that’s all very well and good but what if it had been Hoseok?”

Seokjin blinks. He’d forgotten about that, and had he not been thinking just half an hour ago that if anyone on the island was out there killing people Hoseok would be the number one suspect? “Shit.”

“Just… be more careful next time,” Namjoon sighs and gets to his feet. The trees are thick enough here that they can’t see the meadows at all but he still peers around like he might be able to make out the shape of potential assailants amongst the undergrowth.

That’s the trouble with staying hidden, it’s harder for people to find you, but it’s harder to see who you need to hide from.

Namjoon gives Seokjin a hand up, “Can you feel anyone else?”

Seokjin pauses for a moment, checking as thoroughly as he can along the forest floor.

“All clear. Wait-“

He doesn’t have time to so much as express doubt in his own Abilities before someone drops from the trees onto Namjoon’s back. The pair of them fall to the ground, thrashing wildly, the assailant trying to get a decent enough grip on Namjoon’s throat to choke him and Namjoon bucking erratically trying to dislodge them.

Someone’s leg lashes out and hits the back of Seokjin’s thighs, bringing him down to the ground with a sharp thump. He hits his head as he goes and it takes a good ten seconds for his vision to clear enough to work out what’s going on.

The assailant feels very familiar, erratic and self-centred and scared out of their minds. It’s Ikje; Seokjin should have guessed by the number of insects now flooding the forest floor if nothing else. Namjoon currently has him pinned to the ground but his comically large hands are still scrambling for purchase, breathing fast and panicky beneath a low whine on his breath.

Seokjin blinks, he feels woozy. He sincerely hopes that it will pass and that he hasn’t picked up a concussion.

“Seokjin! Seokjin do something!” Namjoon splutters.

“Like what?” Seokjin looks between the struggling Ikje and the bewildered Namjoon. Ikje’s small and wiry and the two of them are, despite first impressions, fairly strong – unless there are venomous insects hiding on this island Ikje can’t hurt them.

And even if there are venomous insects to be found, fire beats bug. Teaming up with Namjoon was probably for the best after all.

The insects in the area are beginning to hit critical mass. The ground is a moving carpet of ants, beetles and various species Seokjin cannot name whilst the air begins to cloud with what few creepy crawlies are left alive at this time of year. It’s strange to see so many of them out in the early morning chill of winter.

“Shouldn’t they all be hibernating?”

Namjoon gives him a withering look, “Not helping.”

“Let me go!” Ikje hisses, “Let me go let me go let me go!”

“I’m not gonna do that till you calm down,” Namjoon chides, “You need to take a deep breath Ikje, Seokjin and I aren’t the enemy.”

“How am I supposed to know that? How do I know you didn’t kill Hojoon and Kristine?”

“You don’t,” Seokjin flinches at the tone of Namjoon’s voice, “But you’re gonna have to trust that if I was gonna kill you I would have done it by now.”

Ikje stops struggling, but he’s no less suspicious. His eyes narrows as he stares back at Namjoon, trying to call his bluff.

“Seokjin, is he safe?” Namjoon asks.

Seokjin nods slowly, “I think so. If he’s not I reckon we can take him though,”

“Ok.”

Namjoon lets go of Ikje’s shoulders and stands up. Ikje lies on the ground, his eyes still wide and wary, rubbing his wrists. Seokjin thinks the skin looks unusually pink.

“Namjoon, you didn’t…”

“I was being attacked! I panicked, I’m sorry Ikje. I didn’t mean to burn you,”

Ikje nods, but he doesn’t meet their eyes.

As silence settles in it becomes painfully obvious that their scuffle caused a not inconsiderable amount of noise.

“We should move,” Seokjin mutters, “If someone hears a ruckus like that there’s a fair chance they’ll come check it out.”

Namjoon nods, “We’ll head round the other side of the peak. We all got released onto the eastern side of the island so I reckon we’re less likely to be disturbed over there.”
“What do we do when we get there?”

“We’ll figure it out,” Namjoon scowls and reaches for his pack. “Ikje are you coming with us?”

There’s no reply. They look round to see a beaten down patch in the bracken and Ikje vanishing through the trees up ahead.

“I’ll take that as a no then,” Namjoon mutters.

They set off in the same direction as Ikje but have barely gone fifty metres before they hear a loud shriek cut short by an unpleasant gurgling sound.

“Was that Ikje?” Seokjin whispers.

Namjoon purses his lips, “I think so.”

“It sounded bad…”

“Shut up!” There’s a jerk of something heavy in Namjoon’s chest: worry, guilt, sorrow and hope bundled together as the ‘I may have just inadvertently caused a friend’s death’ super savers package.

They tread carefully through the woods, staying off of the obvious path that Ikje took but always keeping it in sight. On more than one occasion Seokjin opens his mouth to suggest that maybe they shouldn’t follow Ikje to whatever sticky end he may have met, but he knows that Namjoon has to know, and now that he has the option not to Seokjin doesn’t much fancy tackling the island solo.

It feels like several hours but Seokjin knows it’s probably no longer than thirty minutes before they find the body. Walking slowly, Namjoon just about manages not to fall off the hidden cliff that the density of the trees so expertly masked from the path. It’s easy to see how someone running in panic might have only realised it was there when it was too late.

“Shit!” Namjoon yelps as Seokjin pulls him back by the back of his coat to shop him going over the edge. Cautiously, they tiptoe forward and peer over the lip; it’s a sharp drop below, fifty metres, possibly more, onto an unforgiving rock face.

The rocks are smeared with blood and bones, Seokjin sees the angle of an elbow and shudders – they’re not supposed to bend like that.

“That’s his…that’s Ikje’s coat,” Namjoon sighs. He doesn’t know how to feel, but his emotions are feeling for him. He’s a little angry and not a little upset, but mostly he’s overwhelmed with disbelief. “What was he thinking?”

He wasn’t. Seokjin doesn’t say it though, it doesn’t seem like a particularly helpful sentiment right now.

Looking at his feet, he sees that the ground is thick with insects once again. The gap in the trees lets weak morning sunlight hit the polished shells of those lucky enough to have them and they positively sparkle, like the land is living and breathing.

They were smart enough not to follow Ikje off the cliff.

“Do you wanna...I dunno do you wanna say something?”

Namjoon shakes his head, “No, we should get moving.”

“Are you sure? I mean we could-“

“He made a lot of noise when he fell. That means even more people are going to be moving into the area, we have to go right now.”

Namjoon’s voice is unbearably flat. Seokjin knows it’s just a mask – something to cover the emotions that he never really understood Seokjin could share with him – but he doesn’t push the issue. Namjoon is and always has been adamant in his atheism, he doesn’t have anyone to send his friends off to.

Not that Ikje wasn’t Seokjin’s friend, he was just more of a friend to Namjoon.

They head into the forest, away from the treacherous edge of the cliff and then west. There’s a beetle hanging onto Seokjin’s coat for dear life, glowing iridescent rainbows in every patch of sun.

28 CONTESTANTS REMAINING



10.

“Tell me this is just a dream.”

“I…I want to.”

“C’mon, tell me this is a nightmare and that I’m gonna wake up any moment now back at home.”
Yu Sangdo (Male Contestant No.10) squeezes Park Sehyuk’s (Male Contestant No.3) hand, “I can’t do that.”

“Sangdo please…”

“I’m sorry.”

Sehyuk had waited for Sangdo, hiding in the sand dunes watching the door to the ship. He saw Kim Seokjin (Male Contestant No.9) and Kim Dongsung (Male Contestant No.7) slip off north, Kristine Yoon (Female Contestant No.7) waiting for Jeon Hojoon (Male Contestant No.8) and heading south, and by luck managed to avoid running into Jung Hunchul (Male Contestant No.4), Kwon Sohee (Female Contestant No.6), Kang Minwoo (Male Contestant No.6) or Kim Junhee (Female Contestant No.5) as they followed his lead and headed into the dunes.

By the time Sangdo emerged he already knew that south was their best bet. Wordlessly, they took each other’s hands and pressed on into the night, moving through the dunes till they hit the meadows then heading towards the island’s southern tip in their shadows. They hadn’t encountered anyone and Sehyuk isn’t sure if that’s due to his genius tactical planning or if they’re just lucky.

Sehyuk shakes his head, “I can’t believe one of us is already playing this game,” he mumbles for what feels like the hundredth time, and again Sangdo meets his gaze with his sad, soulful eyes,.

“That’s what the announcement said.”

“Yeah well what if he was lying?”

“Why would he do that?”

“To turn us against each other!” Sehyuk doesn’t mean to raise his voice, but accidents happen, “Think about it, he sticks us on an island and tells us all that two people have been killed by their friends, suddenly everyone’s suspicious of each other and pretty soon we actually start killing.”

Sangdo shakes his head, “I don’t think Hyosang would lie about that.”

“He lied about everything,” Sehyuk spits, “How can we trust him now?”

“Because we can’t trust anyone else. Even if he is lying…everyone thinks there’s a killer out there now, we can’t trust each other anymore.”

“But what if everyone else thinks it’s a lie as well?”

“They can’t be sure.”

The tip of the island is raised up into an ocean cliff. Below them, waves scramble against jagged rocks twisting up out of the deep, swirling angrily as they batter the land. Sehyuk looks down – it would be a long way to fall.

“I don’t want to play this game.” he whispers.

“We have to,”

“No we don’t.”

For a moment, Sangdo is confused, then comprehension spreads across his face, “Oh. Oh Sehyuk…no…”

“I don’t want to kill my friends, and I don’t want to be killed by my friends. What other option is there?”

“We could,” Sangdo stares out to sea, a thousand miles in his eyes, “We could wait. We could be the last one’s left. And then…”

And then they could be killed by Hyosang after all. Or whoever it is holding the controls to the explosives in their chests, there’s no way they’d be able to kill each other.

Sehyuk pulls Sangdo round to face him and lays a hand on his cheek, “You don’t have to, but I would rather end this on my own terms than on theirs.”

“You gonna leave me on my own out here?” Sangdo smiles but his breath catches and his eyes are shining with unshed tears.

Sehyuk shakes his head, “Never.”

Kissing someone as if it were the last time is a romantic cliché, the likes of which Sehyuk is only too happy to roll his eyes at. Standing on a cliff, on an island he doesn’t even know the name of, kissing Sangdo for the last time is as much a cliché as him taking control of his own destiny.

Two bird with one stone perhaps.

The kiss barely feels a heartbeat long, surely too short for something as significant as this, but Sehyuk feels Sangdo’s arms around him, feels his breath on his cheek and his heart beating steady despite it all. They won’t get to wake up at home, next to each other in the same bed, ever again – but this can be enough.

“I love you,” Sehyuk says. And though his heart is racing and his hands are shaking his voice is steady.

Sangdo smiles and it’s as if the sky split and half the sun fell upon the earth, “I love you too.”

And that’s it, they will never speak again. In unison, they drop their packs and hand in hand step towards the edge of the cliff.

The sea froths angry and red, like the jaws of a rabid dog that has just made its first kill.

26 CONTESTANTS REMAINING



11.

At the top of the meadows, hidden in the treeline, a rundown shack comes into view. Im Yuri (Female Contestant No.4) pauses when she sees it and wonders what the chances are that anyone else has found it.

Furthermore, if they have found it, what are the chances that they know she’s found it too.
She’s standing in the meadow, long, dead grass whipped up in a frenzy by the relatively light wind. Her coat is dark, as is her hair and she knows that if she stands out in the open too long someone is bound to spot her. The shack looks like a very nice alternative to the wind but to go in without checking it out first would be madness.

Most people would have to reason that anyone else coming past here would have reached the same conclusion and thus the shack should be empty, but Yuri can do better than that. Closing her eyes, she lets her body go numb and pictures the tearing of a sheet of paper.

Clean down the middle. And just like that, she’s two people.

Yuri stares at herself from two different pairs of eyes, keeping track of her senses like this is difficult and generally she refrains from doing it unless she is in a very quiet, secluded area. But that was then and this is now and needs must.

Ideally she would close the eyes and block the ears of one of her bodies and leave it standing in the meadow but she’s too exposed to risk it, so instead she has to watch herself walk the two hundred meters to the shack and experience the unutterably confusing sensation of being in two places at once.

She reaches the door to the shack and looks back at herself standing in the field, just to be sure she’s not missing anything. She tries the handle and the door opens easily – it feels like it might fall apart in her hands.

The awnings are low slung and the light from the window does little to illuminate the premises. Still, Yuri can see that towards the back of the one roomed building part of the roof has collapsed and the scant furniture is in various states of disrepair. She can’t see anyone though and so decides that it’s safe to step inside.

Out in the meadow, Yuri watches herself enter the house and struggles to stay present in both of her realities.

There is a thick layer of dust coating every available surface of the hut. From the looks of things no one has lived here for a long time but Yuri isn’t naïve enough to assume that cursory first glances will tell the full story. She takes note of the lone mug perched on the centre of the table and the cutlery left in the draining board next to the sink. It looks like whoever lived here left in a hurry and a while ago.

Yuri decides that for safety’s sake it’s probably best to stay away from the side of the house that is collapsing – no amount of danger from murderous friends could offset the very real threat of getting crushed by falling slices of roof.

And yet, here I am, out here. Ready to pick up the slack if I am killed.

And what if I do go, where will I be once I am gone? Can I even make another copy of myself if I am gone?

Probably not.

Well then.

Getting down on her knees, Yuri examines the floor for possible signs that someone has come by this way in the past six hours. It’s hard to make out entirely when her view keeps lurching between the grass of the meadow and the grain of the wooden floor. Still, she’s pretty sure that the building’s safe.

She’s just about to go to the door to welcome herself in when it slams shut. Outside the hut she freezes in her walk up the slope and inside she glances around for the nearest weapon.
There, in the draining board. There’s a steak knife – gotta be good for something.

Hanging on the back of the door like some sort of living overcoat, Kim Dahee (Female Contestant No.9) grins like a cat that got the cream. She slips out of her jumper and dashes across the room.

Yuri flinches away, but she’s not quick enough to escape the embrace that Dahee drags her into.

“Yuri!” Dahee squeals, “I’m so glad to see you. I haven’t seen anyone at all since I left the boat last night, I was worried you’d all left the island without me.”

Yuri smiles weakly, out in the meadow, she’s already telling herself to get out. This isn’t a safe situation to be in, she knows. But…

“I’m definitely still here. And I think I saw Donghyuk a little to the north of here about half an hour ago.”

“We’re not alone?”

“No.” Yuri shakes her head and allows the barest hint of a smile to grace her lips.

Dahee pulls out of the hug just far enough to look Yuri in the eye, but her hands are still firmly on her back. If Yuri didn’t know any better she’d think she was about to be kissed.

“You haven’t seen Yoongi then?” Yuri laughs nervously, pulling back far enough to get Dahee out of her personal space.

A shadow passes over Dahee’s face, “No, not yet. I’m looking for him though. I’m just…I’m really…I’m so happy to see you Yuri,” her voice is so warm and sincere. Even from the meadow it’s hard to doubt her.

Yuri breaks into a full bodied grin, “You mean that?”

Giggling under her breath, Dahee’s eyes flash, “Absolutely not.”

By the time Yuri realises what’s going on there are two shards of ice poking through her ribcage and in another body she’s running down towards the dunes as fast as her legs will carry her. The ice begins to melt at the heat of her body and as it falls away to water the bleeding starts in earnest. That’s the thing about weapons, as long as they’re still in you they can stem the blood.

Outside, Yuri feels half her vision begin to fade and as she falls to the floor in the shack so she does in the meadow. In principle, she can move her body fine but the pain of the sharpened ice tearing through her chest is paralysing.

If she doesn’t move soon, it’s going to double.

The door to the shack slams shut as Dahee leaves and Yuri is still on her knees. She barely has time to focus on the other girl’s face before the icicle in her hand is twisted into her eye and her brain is bleeding into itself. For a moment, she shares a twofold agony with herself, then one brain goes numb and out in the meadow she falls forward, driving the icicle through the back of her head as she goes.

Inside the shack, blood begins to pool on the dusty floor and the pressure in Yuri’s veins becomes too low to sustain life. She stares at the legs of the table in singular vision and watches them fade out to a dull grey.

25 CONTESTANTS REMAINING



PART 2: THE MIDDLE

25 CONTESTANTS REMAINING



12.

The island is deceptively small but the undergrowth is uncommonly thick. Seokjin is well aware that if they were moving over clear ground he and Namjoon could have covered twice as much distance as they have by now but he’s surprised to find the peak of the mountain almost directly behind them as they pass through a rare forest glade.

“We’ve made it pretty far. How much further were you planning on going, Namjoon?”

“Not too much, pretty soon we should start heading down.” Namjoon clocks Seokjin’s appalled expression almost instantly, “Don’t worry, I just wanna check out the lay of the land. I promise you we won’t leave the woods.”

“What are you expecting to find down there that wasn’t on the other side of the island?

Namjoon shrugs, “farm, maybe? I have no idea how long this place has been uninhabited.”

“I’d say forever,” Seokjin stares pointedly at the tangled canopy above them.

“Nah there was definitely someone here. Remember down on the beach there was that pier?”

Seokjin does remember, he just hadn’t realised what it might mean. He nods.

“Right,” Namjoon continues, “it looked pretty old but I mean it’s wood. It doesn’t have to have been there long to look that scruffy.”

Humming in agreement, Seokjin sits down beside Namjoon and for the first time takes a good look inside his pack. The water he’s already opened one bottle of to fuel their scrambling trek through the forest, but he hasn’t paid much attention to the rest of the items. There’s a set of thermals wrapped tightly at the bottom of the bag that he thinks would be a good idea to change into before nightfall and some rather battered looking bread. Other than that, there’s a map-come-rule sheet identical to the one Namjoon’s been using to guide them around the mountain and a watch.

“Shit I forgot we had these,” he mutters, strapping the watch to his wrist.

Namjoon grunts in ascension, “What’s the time?”

Seokjin’s just about to open his mouth to speak when there’s a crackle through the forest and Hyosang does his job for him.

“Good afternoon ladies and gentleman! I hope you’re all having a pleasant day and that no one’s feeling the cold too badly.”

Namjoon rolls his eyes, “Midday then?”

“Now I’m sure you’re all very keen to hear who else has died since I last spoke to you. I must say it’s been a fairly exciting six hours! And so without further ado, the list of the dead now includes: male Contestant number one – Choi Ikje, male Contestant number three – Park Sehyuk, male Contestant number ten – Yu Sangdo and female Contestant number four – Im Yuri. If we keep up this pace folks we’re going to have ourselves a speedy, action packed Program! Keep up the good work.”

Seokjin tenses, sure that Ikje’s death is a sore spot raw enough to set Namjoon on edge.
If it is, Namjoon neither shows nor feels it. He flips his map over to where he has compiled a list of all the people on the ship and draws a line through Sehyuk, Sangdo and Yuri’s names.

“Do you think Sangdo and Sehyuk were together? When they were caught I mean…” Seokjin asks
“Probably. I mean they were almost inseparable, wouldn’t be surprised if Sehyuk waited for Sangdo,”

“But…who could have gotten them.”

Namjoon shakes his head, “Your guess is as good as mine.”

“No, think about it,” Seokjin pulls Namjoon round to face him, “Sehyuk’s Ability was kind of weak and being a bit stronger than the rest of us isn’t much of an advantage. But Sangdo…”
“Probability manipulation, right?”

Seokjin nods, “Not the strongest or anything, but I would have thought he would have at least been able to keep them from running into anyone, at least until things got desperate.”

“I dunno,” Namjoon pauses, starring into the undergrowth, “I mean I guess Jiyeon might have had a better chance of finding them than anyone else but…”

Seokjin waits for Namjoon to suggest that killing is beyond Jiyeon. It’s a sentiment he would gladly echo, but the words never make it out of his mouth.

Abruptly, Namjoon hitches his pack further up his shoulder and lurches off through the trees again, “C’mon, I reckon in about half an hour’s time we should start heading down the mountain.”

They’ve barely moved ten steps when the shouting starts up.

“Hello friends! Hello! Can you hear me?”

Namjoon looks around wildly, “where is that coming from?”

“Top of the mountain I think…it sounds like Jiho.”

“This is Shin Jiho!” Shin Jiho (Male Contestant No.15) cries, “I’m here with Byungjoo at the peak of the mountain.”

“What are they doing? They’re going to get themselves killed,” Seokjin moans.

“Well there’s your answer right there – they’re getting themselves killed,” Namjoon picks up the pace, crashing through the trees as fast as he dares, “We should try to get a good view of them.”

“We don’t need to fight each other guys, if we work together we can fight back! I’m sure that if we all put our heads together we’d be able to get off this island. We’re so strong, by ourselves and as a team, there’s no way Jin Hyosang or the government or anyone can stop us.”

Namjoon and Seokjin barrel out of the forest onto a sheer rock face at the side of the mountain. It’s steep and slippery, stretching all the way from the beach on the western face of the island to the peak of the mountain. As soon as they’re out in the open Seokjin feels uncomfortably exposed; what if Jiho and Byungjoo are trying to draw people into the open so as to kill them off at once? What if Byungjoo has stored some kind of flawless death grip in his muscle memory? What if they’ve found a gun?

Peering towards the peak of the mountain, Seokjin can make out two figures, but it’s impossible to tell if they have any weaponry. What is clear, by the volume of their shouting, is that they have a megaphone.

“Where on earth would they get that thing from?” Seokjin hisses, grabbing Namjoon’s arm and pulling him back before he can stray too far up the mountain.

“I guess Hyosang might have hidden it on the island, but I would say it’s more likely that someone left it behind,” Namjoon flashes him a grin, “There may have been people here not so long ago after all.”

“If everyone makes their way to the top of the mountain, we can talk this through! We can work this out guys just…please…no more killing,” Jiho’s voice cracks just a little. Seokjin remembers that both Hyunho and Hojoon were good friends of his, and Jiho was always such a gentle soul.

If this is a genuine cry for help, the poor guy must be heartbroken.

“Shouldn’t we get out of here before someone with more of a stomach for murder gets here first?” Seokjin tugs hopelessly on Namjoon’s arm.

Namjoon shakes his head, “I wanna see how this goes, they might at least gather a few allies. And if they’re really not looking to kill then the more heads and the more Superpowers that we have to rub together, the more chance we stand of getting off the island.”

“You can’t be serious?” Seokjin almost laughs, “Why on earth would you try to break the game?”

Someone always tries to escape from the Program, every year they televise some poor Undesirables banding together, trying to get away from the arena. They always fail, their plans are never fool proof, and they go up in flames or with knives in their backs or, on a few rare occasions, they break the rules and their devices explode.

Seokjin hadn’t known that the heart attacks were caused by explosions until he was drafted into the Program himself, he supposes that takes some of the terror out of it. Not that it’s not scary to think that a tiny device in his chest could explode at any moment, but the people in charge seemed more live vengeful and all powerful gods when they could induce someone’s death at will, leaving no trace of any injury.

“Come one! Come all! Come quickly!” Jiho shrieks. Seokjin wishes they could melt back into the cover of the woods.

Up on the peak, another figure steps into view, tall and moving confidently towards Jiho and Byungjoo.

Jiho hasn’t even finished saying hello before he drops to the ground. Seokjin can see, even from here that he’s not moving.

“Shit,” Namjoon hisses as the same fate befalls Byungjoo.

The killer reaches down to grab the megaphone and rests a foot on Byungjoo’s body. They put the device to his lips and the island reverberates with the sound of Byungjoo’s wails and he suffers through whatever death it is that has befallen him.

The killer picks up something from the ground and all of a sudden, Byungjoo is silent.
Seokjin gasps, “Who on earth…”

“Run!” It’s Namjoon’s turn to pull Seokjin along by the arm now, back into the trees and scrambling down the mountain as fast as they can. Namjoon isn’t fond of unnecessary physical exertion and he’s breathing heavily in no time, risking them running off the edge of a cliff in his desperation to get them away.

They scramble and trip and force their way down the slope. There comes a point where they actually trip and the force of their momentum carries them forward at an alarming speed, limbs flying as they both try to come to enough of a halt to get to their feet.

As if out of nowhere, the ground rises into a sharp ridge before them and the crash breaks their fall. Seokjin waits for some part of his body to start aching like he’s broken bones but despite the bruises he can already feel forming across his legs and arms he feels fine. In fact, the ridge, whilst sturdy, appears to be constructed out of the soft peat that coats the forest floor.

Seokjin frowns, “What the-“

“Where were you two going in such a hurry?” a familiar voice springs up behind Seokjin and when he turns his head a familiar face is grinning down at them.

Donghyuk holds out a hand and helps Seokjin up, “Seriously, the ground’s pretty steep on this side of the island and there are cliffs everywhere. This game’s dangerous enough without you two oafs breaking your own necks.”

“Donghyuk!” Namjoon gets to his feet fast, breathing heavily and eyes wide, “Donghyuk the killer….it’s…”

“Someone’s coming,” Taegyun booms, passing through the trees to the right of them.
Donghyuk looks between Taegyun and Namjoon, “What the hell is going on?”

“No time to explain,” Namjoon steps around the ridge of dirt and gestures for the others to follow him, “We’ve got to go! Now!”

A stone flies through the air and lands at Seokjin’s feet. It’s small, but even so he can see the blood coating it.

Taegyun falls on his face with an almighty thump. Donghyuk’s mouth falls open in horror and even as Namjoon starts to pull him away from the scene he lets out a shriek of terror and rage.

There’s a hole in Taegyun’s head, it looks sort of like he’s been shot, except Seokjin knows that it was the stone that killed him.

There’s a rustling in the trees and Seokjin doesn’t even pause to think before he runs. He can’t see Namjoon and Donghyuk but he knows he’s heading down the mountain. Down, just like Namjoon said they would. He’s sure he’ll catch them up.

There are sounds, people, moving in the woods behind him, or so Seokjin thinks. The fear that the person using stones as bullets might catch them up is a powerful enough one to keep him moving, moving until the trees thin, moving until there are no trees at all.

Seokjin stops as he steps onto the sand of the beach. He looks back over his shoulder and sees no one coming, he looks to the north and to the south. No sign of Namjoon or Donghyuk.
Maybe Donghyuk killed Namjoon, maybe they were both killed by whoever it was that killed Jiho and Byungjoo.

The peak of the mountain seems an awfully long way up from the sea shore. There are two bodies lying up there, with holes torn through them by something as simple as stones. He has to admit, it sounds like something only Donghyuk would be capable of, but it can’t be Donghyuk. There’s no way that the stone that killed Taegyun could have been fired by any of the people who were standing in the woods at that moment.

But if it wasn’t Donghyuk then…

Oh.

Realisation hits Seokjin like a freight train. Oh dear, he never would have expected that.

The wind is calmer on this side of the island but the weather is still cold. Miserable, Seokjin casts his eyes around for some sign of Namjoon but sees nothing. He’s on his own again.

With a sigh, Seokjin steps off the beach and heads back into the forest, hoping that for now it is a safe place to be.

22 CONTESTANTS REMAINING



13.

When Jung Hunchul (Male Contestant No.4) sees Jung Taegyun (Male Contestant No.20) lying lifeless at his feet, he screams.

“No. No no no…Taegyun,” he falls to the floor and starts shaking his dead friend’s shoulders, “Please Taegyun no you can’t be-”

A short distance away, Kang Minwoo (Male Contestant No.6) is sat on a mound of earth, surveying the two of them calmly. Even from here, Hunchul can hear the stones in his palm clicking softly against each other as he shakes them like dice.

“You didn’t have to kill him,” Hunchul spits, “You didn’t have to do it Minwoo! What’s wrong with you? He was just a kid…”

Hunchul pushes Taegyun’s body over and blood pours from the hole in his head. Yelping, he steps away and watches the boy settle on his back, eyes staring eternally towards the skies, even as the blood covers them. It’s like something out of an uncomfortably realistic slasher movie.

He hadn’t Seen this, he was sure that it would be Kim Seokjin (Male Contestant No.9) who Minwoo caught up with first. Hunchul thinks things would be better if Seokjin was dead instead of Taegyun, it’s obvious who has the most useful power out of the two of them.

What a horrible way of putting it. Hunchul gasps for breath but it’s hard to so much as think around his sobs. This is so fucked up.

“Did you see the others…Namjoon, Donghyuk and Seokjin?”

Minwoo shakes his head, but he pats the mound he’s sitting on.

Hunchul nods, “Donghyuk did that.”

It’s not a question, and so he gets no response.

Hunchul knows that eventually Minwoo is going to kill him, Minwoo knows that he knows. It’s a strange bargain, but it works. Hunchul can either side with someone who has a decent chance of winning or he can die alone as his friends tear off down the mountain looking to save their own hides – at least this way he knows he’s going to stay breathing for a few more days.

The image of Shin Jiho (Male Contestant No.15) and Kim Byungjoo’s (Male Contestant No.14) bodies, surrounded by halos of blood, flashes across his mind. He supposes that if Taegyun had died on the rocks he’d look the same right about now, but the ground is absorbent enough to take most of the blood that falls from his head.

Closing his eyes, Hunchul Sees thousands, millions of possibilities for how this game could end flash before his eyes. His job is to try to narrow down their options as much as possible.

“We’ll stay here till nightfall, then head south. We should see a farm…”

Minwoo doesn’t need to hear anymore. He smiles at Hunchul and holds out his arms like he’s hoping for a hug.

Hunchul falls into him, letting Minwoo’s steady heartbeat calm his own.

22 CONTESTANTS REMAINING



14.

As the trees begin to thin, Kim Namjoon (Male Contestant No.19) and Shin Donghyuk (Male Contestant No.18) slow their pace, eventually pausing in the shadow of a large maple tree. From here, the rocky path to the mountain peak isn’t visible and when they look around they would appear to be alone.

“Where’s Seokjin?” Namjoon wheezes.

Donghyuk shrugs, “Lost him.”

With a groan, Namjoon collapses with his back to the tree, “Shit.”

“It can’t be helped,”

“I should have kept an eye on him,”

“Yeah, well maybe if you’d have done that you’d be dead right now.”

Looking up, Namjoon sees that despite his stony expression and a voice to match, Donghyuk’s cheeks are wet with tears.

“What have you got to cry about?”

Donghyuk looks appalled, “What’s wrong with you? Taegyun is dead and you’re worried about Kim fucking Seokjin? Holy hell I can see where your priorities lie.”

“Fucking forgive me for being more worried about a potentially living friend than a dead one. We can’t save Taegyun now.”

“Exactly!” Donghyuk roars, “We can’t save him! He’s gone, and we have to live the rest of our lives knowing that it could just as easily have been one of us.”

Namjoon closes his mouth and Donghyuk starts sobbing in earnest.

“Please don’t tell me this has gotten to you so quickly Namjoon. Please. This game sucks and we have to win but…we have to be human.”

If they’re human they’re gonna die. If they’re human this game is going to break them.

“Stop thinking about it Namjoon, please,” Donghyuk drops to the floor in front of him and crawls over till they’re eye to eye.

Namjoon reaches up to cup his cheek, “I’m just trying to stay alive.”

“I thought I told you to stop talking.”

They’re more exposed than he’d like and they haven’t exactly kept quiet, but Namjoon lets Donghyuk kiss him all the same. It’s desperate and sloppy but it’s something familiar, it’s letting down their guard. Namjoon’s pretty sure that when Donghyuk talks about ‘being human’ he’s talking about something like this.

They stay curled up under the tree for the next hour, and when Donghyuk asks about Ikje Namjoon only tells him not to worry.

22 CONTESTANTS REMAINING



15.

It’s funny that no one else decides to come back to the beach, Kim Sungkyum (Male Contestant No.17) thinks. He can imagine wanting to get away from the boat, at least until everyone was out and dispersed but he’s surprised that he’s the only person who’s come back here.

The ship left the shore as soon as the tide was high enough, he supposes that that’s a self defence mechanism as much as anything else. If they could get onto the boat they could take control of the game no problem.

Well, ‘they’ might be a little ambitious. The smarter amongst them, Kim Namjoon (Male Contestant No.19) and Kwon Sohee (Female Contestant No.6), could have probably worked something out.

Sungkyum doesn’t really know what he’s doing on the beach, but it felt like the place to be. Out on the waves, the ship carrying Hyosang and Jeon Jungkook and all those soldiers stares smugly back at him. He’s debating trying his luck in the water, it will be cold at this time of year but if that’s the price of escaping the island he supposes he can risk it; the only question is, can he trust that the explosives in his chest are not just a bluff?

He’s checked himself over thoroughly, took his shirt off and everything trying to find some trace of its existence. He knows that medical technology is good but he’s pretty sure that something large enough to track his location, monitor his heartbeat, and explode should leave some kind of impression on his skin. He can see nothing, except a tiny puncture wound that he supposes could be from a needle.

If the explosives are a dud, Sungkyum can get away from here pretty quickly. He’s been weighing up his chances all morning.

The sound of footsteps on the sand pricks his ears and Sungkyum looks round to see who else might have come back to the beach.

“Didn’t expect to see you here, didn’t expect anyone to be here to be honest.” Jung Hoseok (Male Contestant No.16) says as he drops himself down on the sand next to Sungkyum.
“No one else has been, just me,”

“Why’d you come back?”

Sungkyum shrugs, “Why did you?”

Hoseok shrugs. They sit in silence. Sungkyum thought that if he did run into someone it would probably be a bit more dramatic than this, but Hoseok seems perfectly content to sit around watching the waves.

“Were you thinking of swimming for it?” Hoseok asks after a while.

Sungkyum gives an indecisive hand gesture, “Not sure.”

“What’s stopping you?”

“The explosives. Not sure if they’re real,”

“Something’s probably real. I mean they have people drop dead from magic heart attacks every year, right?” Hoseok scratches his chin, “Still, if they’re all talk you’d be able to get pretty far before they found you, right?”

“Reckon so.”

“Hmm…”

For a moment Sungkyum thinks that the silence will descend once again, instead Hoseok moves to get up.

“Well it’s been a pleasure,” he says, reaching into his coat pocket for something, “but I have to go now.”

Sungkyum catches sight of the glass a second before Hoseok draws it across his neck. It feels jagged as it slices but Hoseok’s grip is firm and almost instantaneously Sungkyum feels the front of his shirt wet with blood and his breath fail to reach his lungs.

Hoseok’s expression doesn’t change as he stares down at Sungkyum gasping for air, but all of a sudden the profound calm that Sungkyum had felt for the past few hours lets go and instantaneously he spirals into abject panic.

He grasps at Hoseok’s feet, gulping air hungrily in the hope of finding oxygen. But Sungkyum has no such luck and his struggling only helps him bleed out faster.

The sand stains red around them, spreading down towards the ocean long after Sungkyum has stopped moving.

21 CONTESTANTS REMAINING



16.

Every sound sets Taehyung (Male Contestant No.23) a little further on edge. There are animals in the woods, dead leaves falling willy-nilly. The meadows swish and sway with every gust of wind and the beach has the roaring of the waves going against it. This is awful, he just needs to find himself a nice quiet place where he can calm down.

The problem with nice quiet places is that they’re exactly the sort of place that everyone is looking for. Taehyung can’t win – he either heads right into the lion’s den or stays out in the open letting his nerves fray a little more every second.

This, he feels, is his significant disadvantage against everyone else. If someone else gets panicky and scared they can lie low for a while and re-emerge ready to fight, if Taehyung gets panicky and scared the chances of him accidentally teleporting off the island rise exponentially and so in turn he becomes more panicky and scared.

It’s a vicious cycle that he has no hope of breaking. He’s already had one accident, half an hour ago he had been sitting on the edge of the forest on the eastern side of the island and in the space of time it took him to breathe, he was three metres out to sea on the western side.

Taehyung had scrambled out of the ocean and back to the beach before he got himself dragged out by the current, but his clothes are soaking wet and he has no chance of drying them in this weather. He’s managed to haul himself up into the branches of one of the larger trees in the lower reaches of the forest but he still doesn’t feel safe.

There had been a certain amount of noise just south of him not half an hour ago. Someone had been shouting from the top of the mountain and then Kim Namjoon (Male Contestant No.19) and Shin Donghyuk (Male Contestant No.18) had come barrelling out of the forest like they were running for their life. A large part of Taehyung very much wants to go over to them and see if they’re open to making peace, but he’s sure that they’ll shoot him down long before he gets close enough to talk to them. Namjoon’s probably the most powerful Undesirable on the island right now, he could take Taehyung down easily.

Well Taehyung says that Namjoon’s the most powerful Undesirable on the island, but Kim Dahee’s Female Contestant No.9) Ability is pretty strong too. If it came down to a fight between them then…

Taehyung stops himself, appalled. How could he possibly be thinking about the entertainment value of two of his friends fighting to the death? Disgusting.

There’s a rusting in the bushes a little way up the hill, followed by some crashing and a lot of shouting. Taehyung tries to make himself as small as he can possibly be, perched as he is in a tree and pulls out his thermals to cover his hair. He’s forever dyeing it but he never thought that having silver locks might actually put him in danger.

The shouting comes closer and Taehyung’s ears pick through it finding only one voice. Shin Yoonchul’s (Male Contestant No.12) voice. He sounds out of breath and terrified but that’s nothing new, he’s always been an easy one to scare and his overlong limbs are forever getting tangled in themselves – it’s something of a miracle that he’s lasted this long.

Again, Taehyung has to stop himself. He doesn’t want to think like that, clocking through his probability of survival against everyone else, he wants them all to make it out.

It’s not going to happen, he reasons, too many people are dead already. It’s too late.
It’s never too late. He could jump down from this tree right now, grab hold of Yoonchul and teleport them both to safety on the other side of the island. Sure, they might run into someone when they get there, but they can just teleport again…and again...

And if they’re really lucky Taehyung won’t carry them straight off the island. Hey, he might not even die of exhaustion! Just think of the possibilities.

Yoonchul comes into view, panting and trying desperately to stay on his feet. He’s whimpering pathetically, glancing back over his shoulder every two seconds and constantly losing his balance because of it.

So he’s being followed. Great. Taehyung hopes whoever it is isn’t smart enough to spot his hiding place.

No. He hopes they don’t want to kill at all.

Yoonchul falls to the ground entirely and begins a kind of crab walk further down the slope. He’s close enough that Taehyung can just about make out a mumbled, “Please…no,” amongst his whimpering. But whoever is chasing him doesn’t listen or doesn’t care and so the retreat continues.

It takes an inordinately long time for a head to appear in Taehyung’s line of sight but when it happens he can see why Yoonchul is so scared. Dahee marches through the trees expressionless and focused, her eyes trained on Yoonchul. In one hand she holds a long spike of ice that looks more than sharp enough to pierce flesh and in the other she holds a ball of tiny ice shards, ready to fly at a moment’s notice.

She looks calm, she looks like she knows what she’s doing. Taehyung doesn’t want to presume too much but he’d guess that Yoonchul isn’t going to be her first kill.

And again with the calm acceptance of other people’s fates. Taehyung should be trying to think of a way out of this, he should be down there helping Yoonchul flee, but knowing the difference between right and wrong doesn’t mean you’re any better equipped to act on it. Taehyung could be the hero, but he’d rather save his own neck.

That’s ok, that has to be ok.

The shards fly and Yoonchul screams, this doesn’t feel ok at all.

Taehyung averts his eyes as the screams get louder. He only needs to see the first blood blooming at Yoonchul’s sliced cheek to know what happens next and he doesn’t need to see it. Squinting into the distance, he tries to make out the shapes of Namjoon and Donghyuk under the tree they had been sat under when last he checked.

They’ve gone. Taehyung breathes a sigh of relief – no need for them to confront Dahee this early on, even if they are the only two people with a decent chance of taking her down.
(Taehyung’s being generous of course. Namjoon has a good chance solo, Donghyuk has an excellent chance as long as Namjoon’s there to pick up his slack)
Below him, something makes a sickening crunch and Yoonchul lets out a pained gurgle. Taehyung doesn’t have time to think better of it before his curiosity has him looking down to see the ice spike stuck firmly through Yoonchul’s neck, blood already dripping off the tip.

Yoonchul is bug eyed and when he opens his mouth to scream nothing comes out except blood. He collapses to the ground, gasping for breath that’s never going to come. He twitches like some hideous four legged insect as he struggles to shift the ice spike – of course all he does is give the hole in his neck enough room to start gushing blood in earnest and then it’s a matter of second before he stops moving altogether.

Taehyung clasps a hand over his mouth and holds tighter than ever to the tree with one shaking hand. Yoonchul’s skin is paper white, the colour still draining from it even though the life has left his eyes. Taehyung wants to be sick, but the common sense of self-preservation prevails, for as long as Dahee’s still standing over Yoonchul’s body that is.

Dahee stares down at Yoonchul. Taehyung can’t see her expression so he has no way of knowing if she’s passive, if she’s angry, if she’s sorry. He supposes if she wants to survive she’s going to have to be the first but for his own sake he hopes that the second two ring true for her.

She turns south, her face still pointed away from Taehyung, and starts picking her way through the trees. Taehyung watches her leaving like a hawk, and doesn’t dare move until long after she’s out of sight.

20 CONTESTANTS REMAINING



17.

Donghyuk’s ears prick to the sound of screaming before Namjoon’s.

“D’you hear that?” he hisses into Namjoon’s ear.

Namjoon holds still, straining his ears over the wind. Then he hears it, not so much a scream as a low wail, persistent, he suspects it’s been going on for a while.

“We should go see what’s going on,” Donghyuk continues, “sounds like they’re in trouble.”
“Which is exactly where we don’t want to be. We should get out of here.”

“Namjoon…”

“Don’t look at me like that! We don’t know who it is, it could be a trap.”

“You can’t go thinking like that!” Donghyuk pleads, “Once we stop trusting each other they’ve already won.”

“We stopped trusting each other the second we stepped off that boat. And no one’s won yet, this isn’t over until it’s over.”

Gently, Namjoon prises Donghyuk’s arms from around his neck and pulls them both into a standing position. He’s not sure if he’s just more aware of it now or if the wailing is getting louder but he wants no part in it.

Donghyuk stares off in the direction of the sound, “Namjoon, we can’t leave them.”

“Yes we can, and we’re going to. Look at me,” Namjoon takes Donghyuk’s face in his hands and locks their gazes, “you remember when we were running from Minwoo in the forest? Because we didn’t want to die? That’s what we’re going to do now, we’re going to run because we don’t want to die, because you and I both know that there’s no way that sound is a good sound and the chances are it’s someone running away from Minwoo. Just like we did.”

Donghyuk’s expression is still defiant and he makes to step away but Namjoon catches him, “Please Donghyuk, you can’t help anyone if you’re dead.”

The wailing is definitely closer now and Namjoon is desperate to get moving. Donghyuk looks like he might cry again.

“I just…”

“We have to go,” Namjoon says gently, taking Donghyuk’s hand and leading him away. Further down the mountain, hoping for some sort of miracle.

Five minutes later and the wailing becomes full scale screaming. Donghyuk jumps and tugs on Namjoon’s hand, trying to go back to whoever it is, who is, by the sounds of things, going to be dead very shortly.

The screaming comes to an abrupt halt. Namjoon was right.

Donghyuk’s palm is sweaty in Namjoon’s and the colour has drained from his face, “They’re dead.”

Probably. Namjoon doesn’t say anything though. Donghyuk is going to drive himself mad if he keeps trusting in his conscience.

“We have to keep moving,” he whispers, smiling slightly and leaning in to peck Donghyuk on the cheek, “We’re going to the farm, remember?”

Donghyuk snaps to attention, “Don’t baby me,” he snarls, “You don’t even know if there is a farm get your head out of your ass.”

“I’m-“

“And would it kill you to show some remorse for five fucking seconds?”

“I’m just trying-“

“Yeah Namjoon, I know. You’re just trying to stay alive,” Donghyuk is quivering with rage but he doesn’t let go of Namjoon’s hand. “You better hope there’s a fucking farm at the bottom of this fucking hill, this had better be worth it.”

“It will be,” Namjoon speaks with absolute confidence, partly because he’s sure and mostly because he’s not in the mood to have Donghyuk kick his ass.

“What do you even want with a fucking farm?”

Namjoon smiles to himself, “I have a plan.”

“A plan?” Donghyuk frowns, “What kind of plan?”

Namjoon pulls his map from his pocket and passes it to Donghyuk. He’s marked out potentially important locations on the map itself and some of the more crucial equipment they might need on the other side, next to his list of trainees.

Donghyuk’s smart, he figures it out pretty quickly
.
“This isn’t awful,” he murmurs, “Still though…”

“What?”

Donghyuk sets his jaw, “Forget the farm, we need to find Dongsung,”

Namjoon stares at him, “Holy shit.”

20 CONTESTANTS REMAINING



18.

Seokjin spends most of the afternoon running scared between sparse patches of trees, trying to work out if he dares risk heading back into the forest proper. On the one hand, it would be nice to get some decent cover, on the other Minwoo is still out there.

Kang Minwoo. It’s always the quiet ones. And what’s more if people find the bodies and the stones and put two and two together, they’re going to come to the conclusion that it was Donghyuk.

And why wouldn’t they? If you find out that someone’s using stones as bullets you’re going to find the nearest Terrakine and put them out of their misery. Donghyuk is so talented and not particularly careful about covering his Ability up, everyone knows that this is well within his range of capabilities.

Minwoo’s telekinesis has always been a little weak, but his powers of projection have made him something of a legend at Hyosang’s ‘Superpowered bowling’ nights, but that’s all Minwoo’s ever been, a harmless giant who barely has the Ability to hurt a fly. He can handle small stones though, and that’s proving more than enough.

A short distance from his current perch within a less than substantial glade of trees, a cluster of bushes offers far better cover. Seokjin casts around for some sign that someone is in the area, about an hour ago he felt the tail end of an emotional signal a little further into the tree line that, if he had to guess, he’d say belonged to Taehyung but other than that he would appear to be alone down here.

Unless Hoseok’s around of course, there’s always the possibility that he’s fucked up there.
Seokjin takes a deep breath and then takes his chances. It can’t be more than a hundred metres but when he’s so exposed it feels like running a mile, he ducks behind the few trees he passes on his way and makes it to the bushes unharmed. Once upon a time he would have declared them air tight and impenetrable but after his stint in the forest with Namjoon he crashes through them as if they were nothing.

And low and behold, there’s an opening in the centre, just large enough for Seokjin to sit in.

The screech of the speakers echoes across the island. Seokjin winces at Hyosang’s jovial laugh cutting across the insufferable tension.

“Good evening folks! I hope you’re all doing well – those of you that are alive that is! Ahaaa! I’m kidding, I’m kidding, you poor things must be scared out of your minds.”

In his mind’s eye, Seokjin can see the smile Hyosang uses to make these announcements. Angrily, he tugs a dead leaf from one of the bushes and crushes it in his hands in lay of actually being able to attack Hyosang.

“Now I told you folks to keep up the good work but oh my I didn’t realise how seriously you were going to take the challenge! I’d say we’ve got at least one serious killer out there, you know where you are! Give yourselves a round of applause.”

Against his better judgement, Seokjin strains his ears for the sound of Minwoo applauding his own gruesome handiwork, but Hyosang continues before he can appreciate just how foolish that is.

“On with the list of dead then! Since I last spoke to you, you have lost: male Contestant number fifteen Shin Jiho, male Contestant number fourteen Kim Byungjoo, male Contestant number twenty Jung Taegyun and male Contestant number twelve Shin Yoonchul. That’s all for now folks, you’re all putting on an excellent performance. I’ll speak to you at midnight!”

Yoonchul’s gone as well, so all that noise up by Taehyung must have been him. Seokjin was rather worried that Taehyung was the one having his throat slit, but this is ok. This is better…after a fashion.

Seokjin and Yoonchul were never particularly close, he supposes that it’s awful he had to die, but if he had to choose between Taehyung and Yoonchul…well…

Someone stumbles into Seokjin’s passive range at an alarming speed. He hadn’t been on the lookout for wanderers and the sudden influx of emotions that aren’t his own catches him off guard. He grits his teeth and does his best to remember that all that anxious fear is not his.

Seokjin has his own anxious fear to deal with after all.

The emotional signal is both familiar and unfamiliar, as if he’s dealing with an old friend feeling things he’s never felt them feel before. It’s like watching a film with an actor you recognise but can’t remember where you’ve seen them before: try as you might to enjoy the action, their face is going to bug you until you can put a name to them.

Whoever it is moves out of immediate range as fast as they moved into it, still Seokjin keeps his attention on them as they head off in the direction he saw Taehyung. He supposes all he can do is hope for their sake that whoever killed Yoonchul is out of the area.

Now there’s a thought – who did kill Yoonchul? Who killed Yuri? Who killed Sehyuk and Sangdo and Sungkyum and Kristine and Hojoon? It’s possible that Minwoo was behind a fair few of them but whatever happened to Yoonchul wasn’t his doing, Minwoo can kill quickly and cleanly, there’s no reason for him to start up a fuss and advertise his position like that.

Hyosang said there was ‘at least one serious killer’ among them. Seokjin can only assume that he was referring to Minwoo but that phrasing makes it sound like there’s someone else out there with multiple bodies to their name. But if someone else is killing then…

But if Hyosang is lying then…

Seokjin closes his eyes in exasperation. How is anyone supposed to win this game if they can’t even work out which bits are real? If Hyosang thinks he can lie to them all for five years and then have them all take him at his word when they all start killing each other, he’s got another thing coming.

A gust of wind rattles the bushes and though Seokjin is well sheltered within them he draws his knees to his chin to preserve heat. Looking up, the sky is almost completely black and Seokjin can’t remember the moment it stopped being bright as day. It seems just a few minutes ago that he and Namjoon were chasing Ikje through the forest trying not to come to the same sticky end.

The ground below him is soft and messy, not that Seokjin is in a position to complain but it’s not the most pleasant seat he could have found. It’s lumpy and sandy and he can feel it creeping into his clothing even now.

Which is odd really because all of the ground that he covered getting here was fairly hard. Seokjin frowns, Namjoon’s always warning him to take note of things like that.

Tentatively, Seokjin pokes his fingers into the earth and finds that his entire hand can slip into the soil with fairly little resistance. He touches stones and roots from the bushes and is almost about to pull his hand away when he brushes against something entirely different from the natural flora and fauna.

Something hard, something cold, something smooth and metallic designed for a human hand to hold. Seokjin holds his breath as he pulls the gun out of the earth and holds it up to examine it in what little light is left spilling over the horizon.

It’s a small gun, he supposes. A handgun like the kind the police in Seoul would always carry with them, but it feels uncomfortably huge in his hands. It’s wrapped in plastic – presumably to stop the earth choking the barrel – but even so his fingers slip nearly into the grooves designed for them. It’s a dull grey in colour with words etched on the barrel that it’s too dark for him to see. Inside the plastic wrapping a sheet of paper labelled ‘instructions’ written in Hyosang’s handwriting is visible, but there are no bullets.

Seokjin moves into a crouching position and starts digging frantically with his hands. The dirt covers him almost instantly and he can feel more of it than ever before sticking in his clothes. It takes a few minutes of mess before he finds what he’s looking for.

Pulling the box of bullets free, Seokjin hastily kicks the pile of dirt back into the hole and sits on it all to settle it. He pulls the plastic off of the gun and does his best to decipher what the instruction sheet tells him in the dark.

It’s impossible, Seokjin’s eyesight is bad at the best of times but trying to read in the dark he’s as good as blind.

Pointing the gun away from him, Seokjin fiddles with what controls he can get his hands on. He’s seen enough cop shows to know that if he needs to load bullets he has to first open the magazine. He pops this switch and that and is just about to surrender until the sun rises when a little black box pops out of the gun handle.

Seokjin looks inside and sees bullets. So it’s come preloaded, the box is just refills. All he has to do now is work out if he’s turned the safety on or off. Still though, he’s found himself a weapon! An actual real weapon! And a good one at that, some years Contestants spend their entire stint in the game trying to find the perfect weapon, but normally no one actually gets their hands on anything worth having.

If he has fans back on the mainland right now, they must be delighted for him.
Distracted by the gun, Seokjin is paying little attention to his surroundings, and so when the emotional signal from earlier barges its way back into his passive range he’s taken completely unawares.

Shrieking in surprise, Seokjin turns to the direction of the nameless person and squeezes the trigger of the gun.

The force of the blast knocks him backwards into the bushes and it takes the moments he spends disentangling himself from their branches to realise that the emotional signal is gone. Seokjin’s breath sticks in his throat and his grip loosens, the gun falling to the ground. Hurriedly, he tears through the bushes in the hope that whoever it was has simply moved out of range.

Hoping never got anyone very far. At least Seokjin can say that he’s accidently something of a crack shot. Miso is lying on the ground, legs bent up underneath her at an awkward angle and half her head splattered across the grass. In the dark her blood looks black against her skin, a single eye still open and glaring at Seokjin accusingly.

He can see steam rising from the space where her brain used to be. She was probably invisible, she probably thought she was safe.

Seokjin falls to his knees and retches violently. There’s nothing much to throw up and his eyes sting with the force of trying to vomit. He killed her, he killed Miso. She was just a kid, he’d known her so well, how could he not have known it was her?

Miso is dead because he couldn’t recognise her – is Seokjin really that obtuse or is he forgetting himself? It’s hard to tell.

Still, the gun made an awful lot of noise, he can’t stay here.

Shaking, Seokjin gets to his feet and sticks his head back through the bushes to retrieve the gun, the bullets and his pack. He steps back carefully, trying not to look at Miso’s corpse if he doesn’t have to.

And trying not to think about the calm, happy girl he’d met on the boat a lifetime ago. He killed her, and he didn’t even mean it. Seokjin wonders if Minwoo meant it the first time, if it’s even possible to take your first lamb to the slaughter by choice. Either way, he still has the gun and now he knows how to use it, only time will tell if killers are born or made.
To his right is the place where Yoonchul died, the place he saw Taehyung, the place Miso was heading before she decided to turn back and come this way again. Whatever lies to his right is not worth getting involved in, and his fear of Minwoo is enough to keep him out of the forest for now. Behind him is open land followed by open ocean and the sound of the gunshot will be drawing potential killers even now, as he stands in the dark contemplating his own morality.
Seokjin grits his teeth and turns left. He doesn’t look down at Miso as he goes, but he swears he smells iron and burnt flesh, like walking past the butchers just after they’ve got a delivery in. At least she’s not playing this game anymore.

19 CONTESTANTS REMAINING



19.

Kim Junhee (Female Contestant no.5) forces herself up the final few steps to the top of the hill. It’s smaller than the mountain but still a good vantage point, with a central clearing giving way to the particularly dense forest that covers the southwest point of the island. It had taken them the whole day to get this far, which was irritating considering how quickly they had covered the distance to the southern tip.

The southern tip hadn’t been quite what they were expecting. They were uncomfortably exposed out on the cliffs and the water had been bloody.

Kwon Sohee (Female Contestant No.6) thinks it was Yu Sangdo (Male Contestant no.10) and Park Sehyuk (Male Contestant No.3), she thinks they were the type of idiots to form a suicide pact. If they did and if she’s right Junhee can hardly blame them.

“What’s taking you so long?” Sohee hisses.

Junhee glares daggers that she knows can’t be seen in the dark, “Not all of us are gym monkeys Sohee,” her foot slips away under her and she just manages to catch herself before she tumbles back the way she came.

Cursing under her breath, Junhee accepts the hand that Sohee offers as aid, she’s not cut out for this.

In the shadow of the treeline, they set up some kind of camp. Sohee stands back, tapping her foot impatiently as Junhee carefully guides the trees through the patterns they have to grow into to form a backbone for the vines and ferns.

Florakinesis is hard work. Plants are picky little shits who will ignore you completely if you have them make a wrong move and Junhee’s out of practice. The finished structure doesn’t look particularly impressive, but there’s room enough for both of them to crawl inside and it’s a lot warmer than sitting out in the wind.

Sohee stretches out her legs and occupies half the space available, “We’re still gonna need to take shifts keeping watch, we’re not exactly inconspicuous here.”

Junhee knows that Sohee’s had a worse day than most (and considering how awful today has been, that’s really saying something) but she doesn’t appreciate having her handiwork ridiculed.

“I’d like to see you do a better job,” she snaps.

“Give me a ball of string and your coat and I’ll have something whipped up in no time.”
“Well I don’t see you clearing any paths for us any time soon so how about you say thank you for once?”

“Thank you? For what? For following my advice so you can save your own ass?”

Junhee closes her eyes, takes a deep breath and counts to three, they don’t need to have a row right now.

“I am going to step outside for a moment,” she says through gritted teeth, “You can change into your thermals so that you don’t freeze to death sitting watch, then we’re going to swap so I can do the same and THEN we’re going to talk about who gets first watch.”

“No we’re not, I did more of the work today, I’m sleeping first.”

“Fine.”

“Out you go then.”

Junhee steps back into the chilly night and kicks angrily at the nearest tree. Neither she nor Sohee are particularly good under pressure and their nerves are fraying badly. They need to sleep, and eat, and not wake up to the news that more of their friends are dead.

Junhee is rather of the opinion that if they were really her friends, she wouldn’t need to spend so much time hiding from them but whatever. She’s not fool enough to stand out in the open until she finds out who her real friends are.

She wound up with Sohee by accident. She’d taken off through the dunes pretty quickly, not expecting to see anyone but Sohee had been the next person out (Park Hyunho (Male Contestant No.5) was unfortunately indisposed) and her elastic limbs mean that she can really stride when she needs to. Junhee has no idea why she was so keen that they team up – maybe she was just panicking and looking for a friend.

Whatever it was, Sohee didn’t stay behind for Kristine Yoon (Female Contestant No.7) and even if she isn’t going to talk about it, Junhee knows it’s killing her.

Out of the corner of her eye, Junhee sees something moving. She whips round and comes face to face with a sharp, impish face grinning ear to ear standing between her and the bower where Sohee is dressing.

It’s Kim Hansol (Male Contestant No.13) and his claws are drawn. He starts towards Junhee and she shrieks loud enough to wake the dead. A tree branch comes down between the two of them and Hansol’s claws do nothing, but he’s athletic and quick to react and Junhee finds herself backing through the forest, fast but not fast enough, compelling plant after plant to try to fend him off.

Tree branches don’t stop him, she can’t hold him down with vines, his claws are sharp enough to slice clean through any especially dense foliage and he’s quick enough to hurdle his way over large obstacles. Junhee can do nothing but hope that she’s screaming loud enough to motivate Sohee to come and help her.

Unless Sohee doesn’t care. Sohee and Hansol were always close, maybe…

Hansol’s claws slash a hair’s breadth away from Junhee’s face and just like that she’s sure it’s over. She closes her eyes and waits for the final blow to fall but all she hears is a sharp thump like someone falling to the ground.

She opens her eyes. Two someone’s in fact. Sohee is clad only in her thermals with one arm stretched tight across Hansol’s throat and her legs pinning him to her body.

“Look out!” Junhee shrieks as the claws come up to tug at Sohee’s arm and a vine flies out of nowhere to try and stay Hansol’s hand.

Sohee leaps back and in the process Hansol is let go. He springs to his feet and rounds on Sohee, already backing away from him. Junhee raises a field of bracken between them and tries to find a tree that doesn’t hate her to provide a more substantial obstacle. A rather pathetic sapling shoots a branch in their general direction but it’s thin and weak and Hansol cleaves straight through it before chasing after Sohee.

Junhee pauses for a moment and sees the stump of the branch burned black. She takes a gulping breath and hopes that Sohee hasn’t been hit, then she runs after them.

The forest is dark and Sohee and Hansol are fast. It takes Junhee a good five minutes to find her way back to the edge of the woods and the area in which the fight is currently taking place. She bursts out of the trees just in time to see a single, long claw puncture Sohee’s arm.

Sohee relaxes almost instantly, Junhee screams loud enough to wake the dead, and Hansol rounds on her, grinning.

There’s no way out of this, Junhee realises with a sickening sense of dread, she doesn’t have a weapon and the plants aren’t going to help her fight if they’ll die when Hansol touches them. She hopes it’s quick, she hopes it’s as painless as the burning tree branches didn’t make it look.

Hansol doesn’t need to run now, he walks towards her calmly, smiling like the devil himself. Junhee desperately tries to persuade the trees…the grass…the fucking daisies, she tries every plant in the area but none are willing to play. Her back slams into one of the larger conifers and she knows that this is the end of the line.

Something drops down from the branches above her head and lunges at Hansol. It’s a person, a slight frame with dark hair running at Hansol like they don’t know how lethal he is at close range, she opens her mouth to shout some kind of warning but is interrupted by the sound of tearing skin.

Hansol falls to the ground, smile still on his face and a giant hole where his throat used to be. It may be dark, but the moon is bright enough here for Junhee to see his severed windpipe regurgitating blood as his lungs make their final attempt at coughing.

“Are you ok?” Jung Hoseok (Male Contestant No.16) steps towards Junhee, one arm covered in Hansol’s blood.

Junhee flinches away from him whimpering, “What the fuck?”

“It’s ok he’s gone now, he’s not going to hurt you. It’s ok Junhee,”

Junhee feels an abnormal wave of calm sweep over her. Hoseok’s right, it’s all going to be ok, he may have a weapon and he may be covered in blood but it’s all going to be fine. No use worrying about it.

Shin Donghyuk (Male Contestant No.18) always said Hoseok had that effect on people.

Junhee points to the weapon in his hand, “What’ve you got?”

“Just some glass,” Hoseok holds it up to show the jagged edges, bits of flesh are still stuck in it, “found it down by the beach.”

“How long were you up there?”

Hoseok shrugs, “Couple of hours maybe? I was trying to sleep, didn’t expect to see anyone else.”

“Why didn’t you move earlier?”

“Well like I said I was trying to sleep. And I wasn’t exactly best positioned to help out, you rather helped yourself out coming over here when you did.”

In the back of her mind Junhee knows that she should be suspicious, she knows that Hoseok’s story doesn’t quite add up. The calm in her mind is persistent, however and with Sohee dead, she has no one left to trust.

“Shit,” Junhee whispers and runs over to where Sohee is slumped on the ground. Junhee reaches for her neck to check for a pulse but there’s nothing, only the rapidly cooling body of a woman who had been her friend.

First it’s hard to breathe, then it’s impossible to do anything but. Junhee pulls Sohee’s body into a tight embrace and sobs into her thermals. They’d known each other so long, they’d been such good friends, and the last conversation they ever had was a fight. Calm or not, Junhee wishes the ground would open up and swallow them both whole.

“I’m sorry,” Hoseok says quietly at her shoulder, “I’m so sorry Junhee, I didn’t realise he’d gotten to her.”

Junhee lets Sohee go and sits back on her haunches, wiping her eyes even as the tears keep coming, “S’ok, you got the bastard.”

“I should have been here sooner.”

“It’s fine,” Junhee reaches forward to take Hoseok’s hand, “Really, thank you.”

Hoseok nods in Hansol’s direction, “He’d killed before, right? People on the street and stuff,”

“He always said he couldn’t help it. His venom was so strong…” Junhee sniffs, “He was loving this though, lying fuck.”

It’s alarming how quickly rigor mortis sets in. Within half an hour Sohee looks nothing like herself and when Junhee tries to lay her out flat on the ground her limbs won’t move properly.

Sohee used to be able to do just about anything with those limbs, she used to tie her arms in bow knots around Kristine, just because she could.

“D’you know who killed Kristine?” Junhee asks Hoseok.

He nods hesitantly, “I think so.”

“Who?”

“Donghyuk.”

Junhee can’t help but laugh, “That backstabbing, no good, shitty little boy!”

“Junhee you should probably-“

“I didn’t think he had it in him.”

“He’s…shit Junhee he’s killing everyone. Kristine, Hojoon, Byungjoo, Jiho, Taegyun, Sungkyum.”

“He’s gonna die,” Junhee sets her jaw, “I’m gonna kill him.”

Hoseok’s face splits into a wide, genuine grin, “Now that sounds like a plan.”

Junhee stares down at Sohee’s body and can’t help but smile with Hoseok,.

“You hear that Sohee? We’re gonna get the guy who killed Kristine, he’s gonna wish he’d never been born. I promise we’ll fuck him up extra good, just for you.”

17 CONTESTANTS REMAINING



20.

It’s a long time before Taehyung feels bold enough to move again. It must have been hours since Dahee moved on but he knows that once he jumps down from the tree he’s going to be confronted with Yoonchul’s body.

On the one hand he was hoping that the night would get dark enough for him to be blind to the blood, on the other hand the sharp, clear light of the moon stops him stepping in anything that wasn’t supposed to be stepped in.

Taehyung drops to the ground and looks around, shivering. His thermals are back in his pack and he would dearly like to change into them but it’s far too cold to remove any layers now. Besides, much as he rationally knows that his clothing will provide very little protection should anyone try to attack him, he feels less exposed with his abdomen covered by several layers of fabric.

The trees are neither still nor silent at this time of night; the wind is too high for that. The shadows of the swaying branches keep Taehyung’s heart firmly in his mouth as he scuttles from tree to tree, heading north. Several times he swears he sees the shape of another person up ahead and feels his fingers slipping away from him before he can so much as scream but every time he turns out to be wrong. The mind plays tricks on your when you’re in the dark and scared out of your mind.

Taehyung slams his back into the trunk of one of the larger trees and pauses to catch his breath. Movement keeps his limbs warm and he’s glad for that but his body protests being kept awake. He supposes that it can’t even be midnight yet but he didn’t manage a nap up in his tree and he’s been awake since they were first woken up on the boat. The way he’s feeling right now he wouldn’t be surprised to learn that most people die in the program due to the exhaustion born of never being able to sleep.

About a hundred metres away from him, something moves. At first he thinks it’s just a trick of the moonlight, but the longer he watches the more defined its outline becomes. It has tall ears, a small head and a thick tail.

Taehyung sighs, it’s just a squirrel.

A squirrel the size of a Labrador. That can mean only one thing.

“Yoongi,” Taehyung hisses before he can think better of it. The squirrel’s ears prick and it comes bounding over towards him.

Do squirrels have vicious fangs? Sharp claws? Taehyung hopes not, because there’s no way he can outrun Min Yoongi (Male Contestant No.11) when he’s like this.

“Thank fuck I found you,” Yoongi wheezes. He’s a human again, a blink-and-you-miss-it transformation that Taehyung has always had something of a morbid curiosity to see played out in slow motion.

Yoongi sits on the ground, legs akimbo and frowning up at Taehyung like it’s any other day. He seems remarkably unphased.

“Not a bad disguise,” Taehyung smiles weakly.

Yoongi grimaces, “I’ve been holding that form for the past half hour, I feel like a dish cloth that’s been wrung out one too many times.”

“Where’s your pack?”

“Dropped it in the forest running away from Minwoo,” Yoongi doesn’t miss Taehyung’s confused expression, “Minwoo’s the guy who killed Jiho and Byungjoo on the mountain this afternoon. I’m pretty sure he killed Taegyun as well and who knows who else,”

Taehyung doesn’t know where to start. Kang Minwoo (Male Contestant No.6) always seemed to calm, so happy, so at peace with the world. And his Ability is versatile but it’s not a strong strain of Telekinesis.

“How’s he doing it?” Taehyung asks

Yoongi reaches down into the dirt around him, casual as you like, and picks up a small stone, “He’s using these as bullets. Propelling them at high speed into people’s heads. It’s a pretty neat way of doing things to be honest, he’s got pretty decent accuracy and he’s on the rampage.”

“That sounds like something Donghyuk would do though,”

“I know,” Yoongi grins, “that’s what’s so brilliant about it. People see the stones and the holes in people’s heads and they’re immediately going to pin this on Donghyuk. He won’t last much longer, everyone’s going to be after him.”

“He was with Namjoon the last time I saw him.”

Yoongi’s smile falters, “Let’s hope they run fast.”

Taehyung purses his lips and dares to glance south. Somewhere down there Namjoon and Donghyuk are running for their lives, or dead – and Yoongi only cares as long as Namjoon’s left standing.

Yoongi’s lost a lot of friends, Taehyung doesn’t blame him for being a bit blasé when it comes to anyone who’s not in his inner circle. Losing people doesn’t hurt so much when you’ve convinced yourself you don’t care.

Yoongi knew Park Jimin, Min Yoongi knew THE Park Jimin. Taehyung doesn’t know how many people know this but he remembers seeing them together back in Daegu, he remembers calling Yoongi on the opening night of last year’s Program and being begged to never mention it again.

He feels like if ever there was a time to mention it, it would be now. But Yoongi’s already getting to his feet, dusting himself down, and Taehyung just knows that he isn’t going to want company when he moves on.

“Well, it was nice to see you and…I dunno, I hope the stuff about Minwoo was helpful?”
“Yeah I’ll pass on the message,” Taehyung feels stupid saying it, who else is left who might voluntarily talk to him?

Yoongi smiles, the kind of smile he saves for when he’s not sure what else to do with his face, “You do that. Taehyung, um…I wanted to ask you…”

Taehyung knows what Yoongi’s going to ask and is honestly surprised that he didn’t broach the matter sooner,

“I was wondering, have you seen Dahee?” Yoongi peers up at him with pleading eyes. Taehyung would sorely love to smack some sense into him, but Yoongi never had much sense where Kim Dahee was involved.

“I saw her heading south a few hours ago,” Taehyung’s heart sinks when he sees the hope spreading across Yoongi’s face, “but she’s dangerous Yoongi, I think the game’s broken her. She-“

“Doesn’t matter,” Yoongi whispers. His gaze is fixed at a point past Taehyung, a point in time where Dahee is waiting for him to show up and save her day.

He’s doomed. The thought bores into Taehyung’s brain long after Yoongi has set off in search of his beloved. When Hyosang’s voice tears the night asunder he holds his breath waiting to hear that Min Yoongi has been lost to the Program, but only Kim Miso (Female Contestant No.10), Kwon Sohee (Female Contestant No.6), Kim Hansol (Male Contestant No.13) and Yoonchul’s names get called.

17 CONTESTANTS REMAINING



21.

The dunes seem to Kim Yeonju (Female Contestant No.8) to be the perfect place to hide. Filled as they are with nooks and crannies, vantage points and hiding spaces, she has been able to navigate her way around the people leaving throughout the entire day. Maybe it’s not the most brilliant scheme anyone ever worked out but it sounds like a far nicer option than risking the apparent bloodbath that’s taking place across the rest of the island.

Hyosang sounded disappointed in his last update, she supposes it must cause something of a lull in the ratings when the death toll stays steady.

But hey, people need to sleep. Contestants and citizens alike. If they’re going to stop killing each other for five minutes, surely it’s in the Program’s interests that they do so at night when their viewership would be on the low side anyway.

Yeonju has been on the lookout for cameras – she’s watched the Program air every year since she was born (as they all have, except maybe Choi Ikje (Male Contestant No.1) and Kim Jinhee (Female Contestant No.1). Not like they ever had much choice) and has always assumed that the arena must be filled with cameras and microphones to track the every move of the Contestants. From what she’s seen though there’s nothing, at least not within the dunes. As far as she’s aware, the audience back on the mainland doesn’t even know she exists.

The fan club culture that surrounds Contestants has always served as a grim reminder of the extent to which Undesirables are perceived as acceptable. The only Undesirable it’s ok to like is one that’s dead or has killed several others. Fan clubs for some Contestants persist for years after they get killed off in the Program, avid fans uncovering every detail of the life they never got to live out in full.

Yeonju sincerely hopes that never happens to her. Her parents have lived a happy life as undercover Undesirables and the last thing she wants is for them to be found out and tossed into the Program after her.

Something flashes in the moonlight and Yeonju’s head whips round. The moon is bright but it’s still hard to see in the dark; she squints at the surrounding sand trying to work out where a person might be hiding.

There’s nowhere. She’s positioned herself well for this time of night and there’s no one in her direct field of vision. In an ideal world, her Ability would alert her to the presence of other people or at least let her carry out checks of the immediate vicinity to be sure of her isolation but sadly she wasn’t gifted like that. If Yeonju wants to use her Ability she needs to be looking straight at her target.

Still, it can’t hurt to try. For the thousandth time, Yeonju stretches out searching for a mind that isn’t right there with her and waits for her projection to fall off the edge of the map.

Except it doesn’t.

Yeonju slips seamlessly into someone else’s mind, someone staring back at her, barely two meters away. Someone with their fingers curled around the handle of a weapon hidden in the sand behind them.

Yeonju pulls her mind back sharply, blinking at the space that her mind has just allowed her to occupy. It’s hard to make out, impossible if you don’t know what you’re looking for, but she can just about see the outline of a body against the sand.

She doesn’t even have time to scream.

Seo Sangwon (Male Contestant No.22) doesn’t bother to shift out of camouflage as he runs at Yeonju, the scythe in his right hand polished like a mirror, raised above his head and ready to strike.

He’s never used one of these before, but as it comes down on the back of Yeonju’s neck, spraying blood across the sand and across Sangwon, he smiles to himself.

Too easy.

16 CONTESTANTS REMAINING



22.

“Well would you look at that?”

“I told you there was gonna be a farm somewhere on this island,”

“Alright, alright, no need to sound so smug. This place looks old as hell, I’m not sure they’re even going to have what you need.”

“Technically I don’t need anything, we just need to find Dongsung,” Namjoon grunts, trying the door of the barn to no avail, “Still, it’d be nice to have some fertilizer and a power source as a backup plan.”

“And some fuel,” Donghyuk peers around the empty courtyard, “I can’t see any machinery that might be able to help us out there, this place looks kind of pre-technology.”

“Well I can’t imagine that anyone’s lived on this island in a very long time, I’m hardly surprised.”

Donghyuk frowns, “What you mean ‘hardly surprised’? I thought this was your big plan.”
“Well it was a plan, and until you showed up it was the best plan I had.”

“Where would you be without me?” Donghyuk leans up to press his lips momentarily against Namjoon’s, pulling the bolt of the door open in the process.

The door flies open and Namjoon crashes to the ground swearing loudly. Donghyuk laughs uproariously right up until he remembers that noise is likely to draw attention and he smothers his giggles in his sleeves.

“You could have just told me it was locked,” Namjoon grumbles, picking himself up and dusting himself down.

Donghyuk shrugs, “More fun this way,” it’s still an effort not to laugh.

The interior of the barn is lit only by a patch of moonlight streaming through a hole in the roof. It smells like long ago there used to be animals living here but it’s clear that they’re long gone. It’s cold and rickety, creaking in the wind and decidedly empty.

Namjoon sighs, “I suppose Hyosang’s people probably cleaned this place out before they let us on the island. Pity.”

“There are at least three other buildings we haven’t tried, there could be anything in them,” Donghyuk slips his hand into Namjoon’s, “We can check in the morning.”

“We can check right now, no need to wait till morning.”

“But what if there’s a nice hayloft up at the back, just waiting for a couple of reckless teens to spend the night in it.”

“We’re not ‘reckless teens’, we’re not even teens,” Namjoon snaps, but he doesn’t pull away when Donghyuk takes his other hand and laces their fingers together.

“Does that mean we can’t be a little reckless?”

“Donghyuk…”

“This might be our last chance.”

“It’s like something out of a bad horror film! People slipping off to have sex when they’re in mortal peril, and they always-“

“This isn’t a film!”

“I know,” Namjoon rests his forehead against Donghyuk’s, “I know it’s not a film and I know it’s scary but I promise you, we’re gonna get out of here. We’re gonna get off this island and run off somewhere the Republic can never find us and once we’re there we can have all the sex we want but right now we need to focus. Get distracted and who knows who might find us?”

Donghyuk opens his mouth to respond but a clattering sound has both of their attentions in an instant. They look round for the source of a noise and spot a head poking through a hole in the ceiling.

A familiar head. One with long red hair and a razor sharp grin.

“Sanggyun,” Namjoon hisses.

Donghyuk’s pretty sure it’s not possible to have worse luck than this. Kim Sanggyun (Male Contestant No.21) is self-centred, fast on his feet and a Duplicant. Of all the people to have to deal with at night he’s the last person anyone would choose.

Except perhaps Seo Sangwon (Male Contestant No.22), but that’s a worry for another time.

“Get the door,” Namjoon mutters.

“No time! Or point, he can just drop in from the ceiling.”

“Well it’s that or take this outside.”

“If he’s outside we can see him better.”

“If we’re outside he can confuse us more easily.”

The door slams open, casting shadows across the barn. In the doorway the silhouettes of Sanggyun block the exit.

There have got to be at least a dozen of them, and for all they know there are more.
Donghyuk feels his stomach plummet, “What are we going to do?”

“You know exactly what we’re going to do,” Namjoon clasps his hands together and from the place that they join flames begin to spill, “or I’m going to do it. Just stay close and everything will be fine.”

The first of the figures runs towards them, teeth flashing in the light from the moon. Namjoon opens his hands and the fire within them burns through the clone in a heartbeat so that there’s nothing left but smoke.

It wasn’t the real Sanggyun, but Donghyuk feels his skin crawl.

“What if that had been the real Sanggyun?”

“Then he’d be dead right now,” Namjoon says through gritted teeth. Another clone runs at them, then another, then they start fanning out. Namjoon’s fire chases them around the barn, unravelling them one by one, twisting itself into long ropes and slashing at the ankles of the ineffectual illusions.

They each pop out of existence before the smile can fade from their lips. In principle Donghyuk understands that none of them are real but he is painfully aware that any one of the remaining clones could be and the calm determination with which Namjoon burns them down is as unnerving as it is out of character.

“Stop Namjoon! Please!” he shrieks, pulling at Namjoon’s arms hoping to direct the flow of fire somewhere else.

Namjoon puts down his arms, “We need to move.”

Looking round, Donghyuk spots no fewer than three points at which the barn walls have caught fire and even if the wood is slightly damp he’s pretty sure that it won’t take long for the whole farm to go up in flames. He grabs Namjoon by the hand and hurtles towards the door, charging straight through the clones and feeling not a thing as they vanish under the force of his body.

They come to a stop in the centre of the courtyard between the buildings that make up the farm. Even as they try to catch their breath the clones continue to multiply around them, surrounding them, blocking their exit.

Except not really, the clones shatter on impact. But Sanggyun’s playing games and he’s not the type to do so unless he has a killer last move planned – perhaps he found a weapon.

Donghyuk pulls Namjoon in close, “We have to eliminate the clones.”

Namjoon nods, “Got any ideas?”

“Yes! But-“

“Do it.”

Donghyuk debates protesting but he already knows Namjoon is going to win, “Hold on tight,” he mutters. He drops to the ground and lays a hand flat against it. He’s hardly ever had a chance to do something like this, he can only hope that he knows what he’s doing.

The waves start out small at first, growing larger as Donghyuk gets the hang of them. For about a ten metres out, the ground physically ripples at Donghyuk’s command, earth rising and falling like so many waves caused by the water displacement of a large ship.

And the clones fall. They may be made of smoke and mirrors but their balance is as human as Sanggyun’s own, their infirm nature seeing them shatter the second they hit the writhing ground. First one, then ten, then…

“That’s him,” Donghyuk points to the last figure left.

Sanggyun is on the ground but the real thing is more than solid enough to withstand the fall. Donghyuk slows the shaking of the ground to a halt and makes to move over to him, “hey Sanggyun!”

A jet of flame hits Sanggyun in the chest. First his clothes catch fire, then his hair, then the air screaming its way out of his lungs. The fire curls around his shoulders, around his legs, forces its way into his mouth and leaves everything it touches blackened and unrecognisable.

It must take two minutes for the whole thing to come to completion. Two whole minutes screaming in agony at the heat boiling his blood and melting his skin, and when it’s done there’s nothing left of Kim Sanggyun but a charred skeleton sitting in the courtyard of a farm that never had the things they needed anyway.

The fire stops and they are left standing next to the barn as it burns and crackles through the night, shedding unwanted light on Sanggyun’s corpse. Donghyuk is still frozen in position, like a stuck CD that might start up at any moment.

“I dropped my pack in the barn,” Namjoon mutters,

Donghyuk doesn’t know where to begin, “You killed him.”

“It’s probably too dangerous to go back in there now, the structure’s unstable.”

“Namjoon he’s dead,”

“At least we still have your pack.”

“He’s dead and you killed him!” Donghyuk turns to look at Namjoon but Namjoon’s attention is on the floor, “Why did you do that?”

“I had to, if I didn’t kill him he was going to kill us.”

“You don’t know that,” Donghyuk whimpers. He feels like he should shout, he wants to shout, but his voice is squashed, “How could you possibly know that? He couldn’t kill us with his bare hands, you don’t even know if he had a weapon.”

Namjoon shrugs and stares into the flames swallowing the barn, “Even if he didn’t have a weapon now, if we let him go he would have come back for us eventually.”

“You don’t know that!”

“Look Donghyuk this is one less person trying to slit our throats, doesn’t matter which way you look at it, we’re safer now.”

“This is one more of our friends dead!”

“He wasn’t our friend anymore!” Namjoon finally has the courage to meet Donghyuk’s gaze, “What do you think he was trying to do? Do you really think he wasn’t trying to kill us?”
“This…this is the Program, it puts people in awful positions he can’t be blamed for that.”
“Right, well I was put in a difficult position when one of our friends decided to kill us!” Namjoon growls, “That’s not a friendly thing to do Donghyuk and if I hadn’t done something he’d have killed us instead. That’s how this game works.”

Donghyuk knows what Namjoon is trying to say but his heart is heavy. Donghyuk made Sanggyun a target that Namjoon took advantage of, he is guilty in this.

“I don’t want to kill anyone,” Donghyuk whispers, quiet enough that Namjoon has to come right over, wrap his arms around Donghyuk’s waist and let him say it into his ear to hear.

But his voice is still cold, “I didn’t want to kill him either,” he tells Donghyuk as they flee the site of the burning barn – a literal beacon alerting the whole island to their presence, “but I had no choice.”

“You always have a choice Namjoon.”

“Park Jimin chose not to kill, remember? And Jeon Jungkook ripped him apart the same as anyone else.”

15 CONTESTANTS REMAINING



23.

It takes an awfully long time to retrace her steps, though Junhee appreciates that it took a lot more effort getting to the southeast hill than it takes to head back west. Ideally she would have liked to sleep through the night, but Hoseok assured her that Shin Donghyuk (Male Contestant No.18) wasn’t on the east side of the island and the easiest way to make sure that remained true was to power round to the west and cut him off.

The first light of a new day begins to peek over the horizon as Junhee collapses onto the damp peat of the forest floor. She’s more tired than she’s ever been in her life: physically weary, sleep deprived and emotionally exhausted she’s about ready to curl up and sleep right here.

Just as soon as they’ve found Donghyuk of course.

“Here, eat something,” Hoseok passes her half of one of the pitiful bread rolls they had been given. Two each, just like the water – it’s not enough to sustain someone for longer than a couple of days. Junhee can’t remember seeing the Contestants eat at all in previous years’ Programs, but she supposes that it was probably all cut out. Everything’s a bit more exciting when it looks like no one’s getting any help from anyone.

Help. Ha. They boot you out the door with two litres of water and enough bread to stage a small picnic and even that is too much compassion for the viewership. God forbid that Undesirables be treated as human, even for a second.

“Sun’ll be up soon,” Hoseok says through a mouthful, “S’been more than 24 hours since we were shown off the boat I’d say.”

Junhee blinks up at him, confused. It feels like she’s been crawling through the forest for a lifetime rather than a day. Time seems warped in the bubble of the island, like it’s stretching out their last few hours to be as long as humanly possible.

She takes a mouthful of bread and immediately feels her brain spark back into life. She needs to remember to feed herself.

“Any idea where he might be?”

Hoseok shakes his head, “No, but knowing Donghyuk he won’t be moving fast. He’s more of a thinker than a man of action.”

Junhee lets out a derisive bark of laughter, “Well he’s not exactly the brightest crayon in the box either.”

“Careful, Donghyuk is very easy to underestimate. He’s smarter than he lets on and smart enough to not let on exactly how powerful he really is.”

“You think he’s tough?”

“Definitely. I’m talking Dahee level tough, maybe even Namjoon. Speaking of which,” Hoseok reaches into his pack for water, “I wouldn’t be surprised if he was with Namjoon.”

Junhee freezes, “What?”

“Well…you know they’re a thing…”

Junhee does know, she just assumed that that was unimportant in this game. Sohee and Kristine were more of a thing than Kim Namjoon (Male Contestant No.19) and Donghyuk and they weren’t all teamed up.

“I can’t fight Namjoon,” she waits for Hoseok to offer some kind of reassurance that Kim Namjoon is not as tough as all that, but nothing comes, “I can only fight with plants, you’ve got an old bit of glass. That’s no match for a powerful Pyrokine,”

“Depends how you play it. Namjoon’s smart and his Ability packs one hell of a punch but he’s clumsy as hell. I’m light on my feet though, I just need to be faster than him.”

Hoseok’s smile is entirely too self-satisfied. Junhee feels like he hasn’t understood the concept of fighting Kim Namjoon.

“You need to be faster than fire Hoseok, and your weapon will melt pretty quickly if Namjoon gets anywhere near it. You know he burns hot.”

“Look, if we find Donghyuk and he’s with Namjoon, you let me handle Namjoon ok?”

Rather you than me. Junhee doesn’t say it out loud, but she strongly suspects that if put to the test she’s not above leaving Hoseok to his fate and making her getaway. All she needs to do right now is kill Donghyuk, she can figure the rest out later.

A loud thudding noise accompanied by some undignified squawking snaps them both to attention. Junhee and Hoseok meet each other’s gaze and as one nod towards the source of the sound.

It sounds like someone moving alone, and right now solo targets are easy targets. Hoseok’s hand reaches into his pocket and he pulls out the glass that he used to kill Hansol, cleaned for the most part but some of the blood along the edges was impossible to shift. Junhee feels like she should have some kind of moral objection to their silent agreement to kill whoever it is, lost in the forest up ahead, but it’s hard to argue with the way her chances of survival increase every time a new body drops.

They move quietly, Junhee taking care to only shift the odd essential branch rather than entire plants as they go. Whoever it is that fell is making an awful lot of noise for someone who should really be trying to keep a low profile, swearing profusely under their breath.

Junhee recognises that voice, it’s Kim Taeyang (Male Contestant No.2), but when they’re this close she has no way of telling Hoseok as much.

They creep forward until Taeyang’s shoes are visible under the low hanging branches. Hoseok makes a vague gesture that Jinhee interprets as instructions for her to flatten the last few plants separating Taeyang from them when the time comes and she nods in ascension.

The swearing calms down, Taeyang must be almost ready to move. Hoseok gives the signal.
The trees part with a soft whoosh and Hoseok darts forward in the space of time it takes Junhee to breath. His hand comes up to cover Taeyang’s mouth as he drives the glass first into his lower back but the roar of pain that he lets out is audible enough all the same.

Hoseok pulls the glass out of Taeyang’s back with a look of grim determination, before pulling his victim’s head back and slashing his throat. Just as he’d done with Hansol.

Junhee thinks that the glass doesn’t look sharp enough to do that much damage, she certainly doesn’t think she’d be able to do the same thing with it.

Hoseok lets Taeyang go and he falls to his knees, clutching desperately at the gash in his neck. He struggles desperately for breath, sucking on air with an awful gurgling sound only to bring up blood when he tries to exhale. It’s ghastly but it doesn’t last long, it takes all of ten seconds for him to be lying lifeless, face down on the forest floor.

Hoseok stares at Taeyang’s body for a moment like he can’t quite believe it’s real, then he pockets the glass and heads back through the trees, past Junhee to where their packs are still sitting.

Junhee turns to follow him but her eyes make out something in the receding dark. Taeyang’s body lies at the bottom of a small ridge that she can only assume he fell down but further up in the trees she sees a face staring down at her, eyes wide and scared.

She knows that face, or at least she thinks she knows it. She turns her head for a moment to see if Hoseok is in beckoning distance but when she turns back the face is gone and she doesn’t know if he’s just that fast or if his face was just a figment of her rattled imagination.

Turning away from the space where she was so sure she saw the face of Kim Taehyung (Male Contestant No.23), Junhee moves back down the slope to find Hoseok. They need to move fast if they want to find Donghyuk before fatigue overwhelms her completely.

14 CONTESTANTS REMAINING



24.

“Good morning everyone! I hope you all had a good night, got a lot of rest, made sure you were ready to start the day right! Now we had a fairly eventful night all things considered – if you haven’t seen the barn fire on the west side of the island I really recommend checking that out – so I suppose I better list off the dead. In the past six hours the Contestants killed include: female Contestant number eight, Kim Yeonju; male Contestant number twenty one, Kim Sanggyun and male Contestant number two, Kim Taeyang. Well done on all your hard word so far guys, you’re doing great! There’s just 14 of you left, meaning that our audience back home only have thirteen deaths left to see! Let’s make them the best thirteen deaths of this competition – right gang?”

The transmission cuts out rather abruptly. Kim Jinhee (Female Contestant No.1) imagines Seongdeuk pulling the mic out of Hyosang’s hands (it’s what she’d do after all) and lets herself smile.

She thinks she deserves a smile here and there. She’s spent most of the past twenty four hours hiding in the long grass of the meadow hoping not to get caught, a nerve-racking and historically unsuccessful way of trying to win the Program. There’s always someone – usually more than just one person in fact – who decides that their genius tactic for survival will be to find themselves a nice little hideaway and to stay put until everyone else is dead. Who on earth did they think was going to kill the final Contestant?

Jinhee had no idea who the final kill was supposed to be made by as she lay in the field, listening to Im Yuri (Female Contestant No.4) gurgle and wheeze her way through death, but she knew she wanted nothing to do with whatever was going on above the grass.

The problem, as it turns out, is that even if you are well aware that your life may depend on it, lying on the ground for extended periods of time is unspeakably boring. Jinhee’s patience lasted up until the midnight announcement, but by then she was half frozen from being still for so long and was beginning to look upon a scenario in which someone stumbled across her in the grass rather favourably, at least that would mean that something was happening.

At that point, Jinhee knew she had to move. She had found her muscles stiff from the cold and had to walk slowly across the meadow to the trees, hoping that no one saw her. Once undercover she had braved the chill of the night to put her thermals on underneath the rest of her clothing. She’d been hoping for a little more cover – cameras are everywhere, too tiny and too cleverly installed to see and they love to show the entirety of the Republic shots of the female Contestants changing.

There’s always some kind of optional outfit additions that require removal of clothing, Jinhee always assumed that it was a deliberate ploy to encourage partial female nudity and she’s still fairly sure that’s the case, but once she has all her clothes on again she can’t pretend it’s not nice to have an extra layer.

Should she move or should she stay still? If you stay put there’s more chance of someone running into you but if you move there’s more chance of you running into someone else. Jinhee doesn’t know why the second options sounds so much more appealing to most people, they both sound awful to her.

So she moves through the woods till she comes to the stream (the same stream that Kim Seokjin (Male Contestant No.9) crawled up around 24 hours before) and sits herself down to play with the water. She’s always liked this and what few Undesirables she was able to openly associate with have told her that she has a talent for it, but Aguakinesis is an art at the level she can use it, not a weapon. She can make pretty shapes that refract the first light over the horizon just beautifully, but she can’t send a tidal wave after her enemies and even if she could she’s not sure she has the stomach to drown them.

First light was a while ago now. The sun is halfway up the sky and its milky light sheds all manner of rainbows across the stream as Jinhee plays with new shapes in the air.

She floats a large orb of water off downstream, testing how far she can push it before it’s no longer in her control. 1…2…3…

It’s just over five metres away before Jinhee loses her grip and drops it. She can feel it slipping a moment before it goes completely but she can’t save it. It falls back to the stream with a good natured splash.

Except the fall is not perfect; Jinhee sees it fall around something, a shape stood in the middle of the stream that is too dense for water to pass through.

Jinhee jumps to her feet, heart pounding. Now that she’s aware of the shape she can see something there, an outline that doesn’t quite match up with the background and the more she moves the less it matches. There’s water dropping from what looks like fingertips and yet more is dripping from someone’s hair.

The shape moves, and so does Jinhee. She’s fast on a good day, and small enough to be light on her feet but this is not a good day. Jinhee is scared, more scared than she knew she could be, unable to stop herself screaming as she runs for her life through an unfamiliar forest trying to resist the urge to look back and see if she’s still being followed.

A rogue tree route catches her out and Jinhee falls down hard. She feels her wrist crack and a lightning rod of pain runs up her arm. She howls louder still and sits up to cradle her injured limb.

For a minute, it’s all she can do to try to catch her breath, then she looks up and sees a man shaped section of the river bank is standing over her, holding a scythe.

“Sangwon…Sangwon please…”

But Seo Sangwon (Male Contestant no.22) has no mercy, Jinhee suspects that he never did. Though his head is coloured like grass and his feet like water she can still see him smiling as he leans down and puts the scythe to her throat.

He pulls up sharply, one good strong tug and then it’s all over. Jinhee doesn’t even have time to appreciate that dying isn’t that awful after all.

13 CONTESTANTS REMAINING



25.

The problem with constantly running is that after a while you can’t remember what you’re running from. Seokjin hasn’t stopped moving since he killed Miso (it was an accident…it had to be an accident…) and the urge to keep moving drives him even though he hasn’t slept in over twenty-four hours.

He doesn’t know what he’s supposed to be fleeing, but he can only suppose that it’s guilt and the body of a girl whose brains are no longer within her skull. One of them is easy to run from, the other keeps catching up no matter how far he goes or how fast he runs.

Heading back into the dense woods on the upper half of the mountain was an unfortunate inevitability it would seem. Seokjin made his way between the less closely packed trees on the lower slopes for as long as possible but eventually the island dropped off into the ocean as a sheer cliff and then the only way to go was up. The forest is particularly thick here, but hopefully that means fewer people will try to make their way through.

Seokjin glances down at his watch – the morning announcement can’t have gone more than five minutes ago and yet it’s already 7am. Time flies when you’re not having any fun.

The sun creeps up the sky. The clear night has given way to a fairly warm morning for this time of year, and although he can’t see them Seokjin is surrounded by birds singing enthusiastically to greet the morning. They chatter and flutter between the trees, a constant flurry of noise that keeps Seokjin’s nerves firmly on edge. He becomes convinced that at any moment he’s going to round a corner and come face to face with his killer, and so his finger stays at the trigger of the handgun, ready to fire at a moment’s notice.

Seokjin steps through the trees and finds himself next to a pond, though that’s perhaps a generous term for it, more a glorified puddle. Still, there is a definite space cleared for it, an open patch of blue sky in the canopy looking up towards the mountain peak.

Lying by the water, limbs thrown haphazard around his body, is Kim Taehyung. Seokjin flinches back into the trees instinctively and raises the gun but Taehyung doesn’t move. He steps forward cautiously and hears snoring.

The boy’s asleep. He’s alone in the forest and he’s sleeping on the ground, cheek pressed into the mud. His clothing looks damp and Seokjin wonders if he stepped straight into the pond when he found it or if he was ambushed by the ocean. Either way, his slumber seems deep, deep enough that when Seokjin steps forward he doesn’t stir.

A pack, Seokjin can only assume it’s Taehyung’s, is lying on the ground not far from his feet. Seokjin picks it up as quietly as he can and tosses it to the other side of the glade, he strongly suspects that Taehyung doesn’t have it in him to kill but he would rather not take the chance, there’s nothing in his hands and his coat pockets aren’t big enough to hide anything large, Seokjin will have to assume that this is enough.

Besides, Seokjin has a gun. Taehyung’s going to have a hard time beating that.

Seokjin has dealt with enough potentially dangerous unconscious people to know better that to wake Taehyung by shaking his shoulders. He bends down and shakes him by the foot, letting go as soon as his muscles start to tense.

Taehyung wakes up slowly, sitting up and squinting around like he has no idea where he is. His eyes droops heavy with sleep and his face is still covered in mud, Seokjin has to resist the urge to wipe it off.

“Not the smartest place to take a nap,” Seokjin says. He meant it as a joke but his voice comes out stern.

Taehyung suddenly catches up to what’s going on. His eyes go wide and fearful and his hands come up on either side of his head, open and empty, “Please don’t kill me,” he whines, and Seokjin doesn’t miss the way his eyes are drawn to the gun.

“Kill you?” Seokjin raises the gun and points it right between Taehyung’s eyes, “Why on earth would I do that?”

Taehyung immediately bursts into tears and his hands shake violently, flickering temporarily out of sight. His fear is all consuming and distracting and Seokjin has to keep his hand from shaking in sympathetic fear. It’s always harder to separate everyone else’s emotions from his own when he’s tired, and the problem is only magnified by the intensity with which Taehyung feels.

Seokjin honestly doesn’t know what he’s going to do with him. On the one hand every person dead leaves Seokjin one step closer to being the final Contestant, on the other hand shooting someone point blank like this feels like he’s crossing some kind of line.

But he’s already shot someone, and just because he couldn’t see their face doesn’t mean he didn’t know exactly what he was doing at the time. There’s really no need to keep Taehyung alive.

Seokjin stares into Taehyung’s eyes and tries to pull the trigger. He can’t. He can shoot a girl dead if he doesn’t know her identity but he can’t look someone in the eye and take their life. Hypocrisy at its finest, but Seokjin can’t fight it.

The gun falls back to his side, “I’m not going to kill you,” Seokjin mutters, “Unless you try to kill me first.”

“Th-thank you!” Taehyung’s still crying and his hands are still shaking but he’s smiling. The fear recedes almost immediately and Seokjin is grateful for the relief that settles his own heart, “I won’t try to kill you, I promise! I don’t even have a weapon.”

No weapon, no combat based Abilities and no stomach for violence – Seokjin supposes that running away has got to be a pretty good strategy if Taehyung’s still alive. He walks over to where he threw the pack and rummages through it, just to be sure that there are no weapons inside.

“Don’t take it personally, I had to make sure that you didn’t have any weapons on you,” he says, passing the pack back to Taehyung.

Taehyung opens it up eagerly and pulls out one of his water bottles. Seokjin doesn’t miss the care with which Taehyung sips at it, it’s half empty as it is.

He gestures towards Taehyung’s pack, “You got any more water in there?”

Taehyung shakes his head, “No. I accidentally teleported into the ocean yesterday morning, wound up swallowing a lot of sea water. I didn’t mean to drink so much but I was so dehydrated.”

So he teleported into the ocean. Can’t have gotten too far out though if his tracking device didn’t explode. Still, it explains the wet clothing.

Seokjin reaches into his own pack and brings out half a bun. Somewhere along the line he wound up eating almost all of his pathetic food supply and this is all he has left. He supposes him and Taehyung have that much in common at least.

“Where are you headed?” Taehyung asks. Seokjin doesn’t know and he says as much.

Taehyung looks thoughtful, “You don’t know if there’s any clean water out there do you?”
“There’s a stream, up at the north east end of the island.”

“So about as far away from here as possible,”

“Pretty much. It’s a small place though you should be able to get there by nightfall if you move fast.”

“Great,” Taehyung beams, “Let’s go.”

Seokjin blinks at him, nonplussed, “What?”

“I said let’s go, to the stream I mean,” Taehyung’s trying desperately to stay optimistic but he can’t help the doubt from obstructing him, “Unless…”

“Look Taehyung, I’m not…”

“I just thought that because you didn’t kill me you’d want to maybe team up?”

Taehyung’s smile is still present but it’s weak, hope is feeble and dying in his emotional signature.

Just why would Seokjin let Taehyung live if he didn’t want to team up with him? Taehyung is clearly prone to panicking under pressure and his lack of control over his Ability makes him an unreliable partner. He has no weapon and isn’t strong enough to beat up anyone in a fistfight – he’s a liability. And yet…

Seokjin thinks back on having Namjoon with him, on how much more secure, how much more human he felt. Sure, Namjoon is powerful and smart but neither of those things were of that much use to them in the forest; it was just good to have someone he could talk himself into trusting there with him.

Seokjin nods, “Sure, yeah we can go to the stream together. On one condition.”

“What do you want?”

“We’re gonna move on maybe two hundred metres, then I’m going to sleep. I haven’t had a chance to rest since I was let off the boat and I’m gonna need it.”

Taehyung smiles in agreement, “No problem, three hours do you?”

“Better make it two. You can share some of my water if you need it. Till we get there I mean.”

“Thanks,” Taehyung takes the hand that Seokjin offers him to help him up, “Where did you wanna go?”

“Just up he-“

A shadow passes overhead, too fast to be a cloud and too large to be a gull. Seokjin presses himself back into the treeline and drags Taehyung back with him but doesn’t go so far as to be unable to see the figure now flying up the mountain.

It’s human shaped and moving with not an inconsiderable amount of speed – it can only be Park Jiyeon. Seokjin has no idea where she’s been hiding, they’re so close to the edge of the cliff as it is.

“Where do you think she’s going?” Taehyung whispers.

Seokjin shakes his head. He has no idea, as far as he knows there’s nothing at the top of the mountain except for Jiho and Byungjoo’s bodies and they’ve been lying up there more than long enough to start smelling fairly unpleasant.

They’ll never know what she was trying to do. Half way to the peak Jiyeon lets out an awful scream and her body drops down into the forest. Next to Seokjin, Taehyung tenses and a wave of fear washes over him.

“What happened to her?”

“Minwoo,” Seokjin says grimly, “I’m gonna have to take a rain check on that nap. We have to get out of here.”

12 CONTESTANTS REMAINING



26.

Hunchul doesn’t see Park Jiyeon (Female Contestant No.3) flying over them, but when her body crashes through the trees he sure notices. He has to bite his tongue to stop himself from yelling as she comes to rest, at least one arm broken from the fall and a bloody mess where her right eye used to be.

Hunchul doesn’t want to know, not really, but he still goes over to examine her body. Sure enough, there’s a tiny hole in the back of her head leaking blood and who knows what other fluids into her hair. Disgusting, really, he should be doing something to stop it.

Behind him, Minwoo strolls through the forest, whistling to himself as if this were a normal day and everything were fine. Hunchul watches him approach, the stones in his hand clacking together like so many dice he might roll to determine the other Contestants’ fate.

Except Minwoo plays with loaded dice and no one’s strong enough to call him out on this. His aim is uncannily sharp and his morals alarmingly absent for someone who apparently never killed before he stepped into the arena, not to mention that he has co-opted the use of a technique that people are unlikely to attribute to him.

That’s the worst part about it all, Hunchul just knows that people are going to pin most of not all of Minwoo’s killings on Shin Donghyuk (Male Contestant No.18). If he were in their position he’d make exactly the same deduction – how could he not?

“She’s dead,” Hunchul announces. Minwoo smiles a little wider, he knew. Of course he knew.
Hunchul has given up making a fuss, Minwoo’s going to kill whether he likes it or not, Minwoo’s going to kill him. It’s bizarre that when so much around them is changing that of all things should remain the immutable fact, but Hunchul knows what he Sees.

For example, as of right now Kim Namjoon (Male Contestant No.19) and Donghyuk are going to find Kim Dongsung (Male Contestant No.7) and together they’re going to build a bomb to take down Hyosang’s command ship. It’s a good plan and it’s going to work, but sometimes Kim Junhee’s (Female Contestant No.5) going to kill Donghyuk before they even get started and that’s going to throw a serious spanner in their plans.

Minwoo thinks he’s going to win, he doesn’t need to speak for Hunchul to know as much. Hunchul would sorely like to know himself but for as long as Minwoo is going to kill him it’s impossible to tell – he can’t see past the current point at which he dies after all. Up until about five minutes before Hyosang’s soldiers broke up the party on the boat, this was going to be a point many years in the future and Hunchul’s Gaze was far reaching, but unfortunately for him, no longer.

(Hunchul doesn’t know that it was only when Seokjin realised there had been a miscount that his death was cut short. If he knew that he might be able to work out what lies beyond his Gaze after all.)

From far down the mountain, in the direction of the smoke still rising from the burning barn, comes the sound of screaming. Minwoo’s eyebrows raise and he turns as if he might see what’s going on through the trees. Hunchul freezes, he feels his Gaze slipping.

Wordlessly as ever, Minwoo offers out his hand to help Hunchul up. Hunchul obliges and doesn’t let go as Minwoo leads the way down the mountain – where there is sound there is people and where there are people he can kill.

In the field of his Gaze Hunchul sees Hyosang’s boat, a couple of miles offshore going up in flames. It feels increasingly more like a memory than a sign of things to come.

12 CONTESTANTS REMAINING



27.

Namjoon doesn’t realise anything’s wrong until it’s too late. He had gone ahead, just a little to scout out the area ahead of them. The trees are thicker on this side of the island and they weren’t sure they were going to be able to find a clear path through them; Namjoon is perfectly capable of removing any trees that might prove particularly troublesome but there’s always a danger that the fire will get out of hand. In an area so covered by woodland, he could accidentally set the entire island ablaze and he’d rather not risk it.

Ten minutes into the undergrowth Namjoon hears shouting below him. One of the voices is definitely Donghyuk’s but the other (others?) he’s less sure about and there’s nothing more frightening than that. Trying not to panic, he turns back the way he came and starts picking his way through the forest as fast as he can.

Then the screaming starts, loud and earnest, the scream of someone who no longer cares about noise control. Donghyuk sounds like he needs help, he sounds like he’s in pain.

Namjoon crashes through the trees, burning holes to make a path where he has to. He’s not sure if the screaming’s getting louder or if that’s just a trick of getting closer but it rings in his ears like the tolling of his own bell.

By the time Namjoon gets back to the tree he left Donghyuk sitting under (large, coniferous, easy to spot) the screaming has stopped. On the ground lies a bloody mess of limbs separated from their accompanying torso, all dressed up in Donghyuk’s coat, but there is no head.

He can’t believe his eyes, it defies belief. Sure, there are powerful people with a range of Superpowers on the island but to separate someone’s arms from their body…

And for it to happen to Donghyuk…

The cold, rational part of Namjoon’s brain urges him to examine the body in order to establish the method used to remove Donghyuk’s limbs but he can’t bring himself to take so much as a step towards it. His throat feels like it’s going to close up and his heart is beating so fast he swears it’s going to short circuit any minute, of all the things that he expected to go wrong he never anticipated this.

He can’t process it.

Namjoon’s legs give way and he falls to the ground. He tries to right himself but his arms are shaking too badly to keep him steady so he has to lie, choking around the shock clawing up his oesophagus.

“That’s pathetic.”

“Honestly.”

“You’d think he’d be used to dead bodies by now.”

“Aww but Junhee! You hurt his feelings!”

Namjoon can hear them laughing but the sound feels distant and far removed. He feels an odd numbness sweep through his body, stilling his shaking arms and calming his breath. Donghyuk is dead and he can feel nothing – that’s nice.

He hears a dull thump and then a spike of pain springs up at Namjoon’s ribs, serving to clear his mind rather abruptly.

“Sit up!” a voice snaps.

Namjoon does so, wobbling a little where he nurses his sore ribs. He think one of them might be broken, whoever kicked him has strong legs.

‘Whoever kicked him’ drops down onto their haunches and looks Namjoon in the eye.

“Did you know what he was doing Namjoon?” Kim Junhee (Female Contestant No.5) asks. He voice is stern but she’s smiling wide.

Namjoon blinks at her, confused. He’s not even sure who they’re talking about, “Who…?”

“Your boyfriend over there, Donghyuk! Did you know he was out shooting people down?”

“Donghyuk…shooting…what?”

Junhee scowls and diverts her gaze to a point somewhere above Namjoon’s head, “What’s wrong with him,”

“Calm mixes badly with shock, trust me he’s a lot safer like this,”

“Can’t you get rid of the shock?”

“Not right now, it’s too fresh. You’ll have to work around it.”

Junhee makes a frustrated sound at the back of her throat and turns her attention back to Namjoon, “Right I’m going to try to make this as easy as possible for you. This,” she picks something up off the ground and holds it out for Namjoon to see, “Should tell you all you need to know.”

It’s Donghyuk’s head. Skin pale and waxy, it stares at Namjoon with dead eyes and a slack jaw that doesn’t move in Junhee’s unsteady grip; rigor mortis already fixing it in a death mask. The neck has been severed unevenly, leaving a couple of vertebrae poking out below the messy line at which the flesh has parted. Namjoon sees clots of blood clinging onto ripped skin and tendons, the splatterings of it across Donghyuk’s face darkening to brown even as he watches.

Namjoon retches violently. Nothing comes up but the few mouthfuls of bread he’d let himself have for breakfast, he retches again and nothing comes up at all.

“Gross,” Junhee mutters, throwing Donghyuk’s head back on the pile with the rest of his body.
Namjoon can feel the shock, the choking, beginning to set back in. It fights the numbness but he’s sure that neither can win. He doesn’t know what to do, he doesn’t know what to feel.

But he has to know, “What…did you do…to him?” talking is hard.

“I had a word with some of my forest friends, and they agreed to rip his arms off,” Junhee grins a most self-satisfied grin, “Then they agreed to rip his legs off, then his head.”

The plants – of course. Namjoon would never have imagined that a Florakine would be able to use their Superpower with murderous intent but he supposes he’s been looking at this all wrong. Vines, roots…with the right encouragement it’s easy to see how they might be grown to trap someone. And of course, no matter how stable the human body if you pull hard enough it’ll rip apart the same as anything else.

The choking subsides. Namjoon is sure that he should feel angry but the numbness is still all consuming. Only now instead of helpless he feels an unusual sense of purpose wash over him. Without pausing to consider, Namjoon reaches forward and brings his hand up to Junhee’s throat, letting flames blossom in his palm as he makes contact.

For a moment, Junhee’s smile is still in place; then she’s howling in pain. She tries to back away but Namjoon grabs her wrist and holds her down. He clothes catch fire, then her hair, then her skin blisters and her flesh chars and soon enough there’s nothing left to hold onto.

And then Junhee’s body doesn’t have a head either. Namjoon stares at the hand that burned through her neck – it seems like the right thing to have done.

Something sharp digs into the skin just below his jaw then is drawn across his windpipe.

A familiar chuckle sounds beind him. Of course, Namjoon should have known.

“Thanks for taking care of her for me,” Jung Hoseok (Male Contestant No.16) hisses into Namjoon’s ear. But the light in Namjoon’s eyes is almost out and he doesn’t hear a thing.

9 CONTESTANTS REMAINING



28.

In principle the island is fairly small, any island that you can walk from one end of to the other in less than twenty four hours is on the tiny side, but for someone trying to locate one specific person in amongst the trees and cliffs it feels hopelessly huge.

Min Yoongi (Male Contestant No.11) leans heavily against the trunk of a fallen tree, his breath coming in gasps. He’s exhausted and has long since passed the point at which shapeshifting is remotely possible. He had been down by the beach when it happened, struggling to stay upright on the thin legs of a deer – the next thing he knew he was face down in the sand and further out in the open than he would like. It had been an effort making it back to the safety of the woods without being seen and he’s been pulling himself along from tree to tree since.

Yoongi doesn’t have any food or water, sometimes he catches himself drowsing when he pauses for too long but other than that he hasn’t slept since the game began. He is very much aware that if he doesn’t find what he’s looking for soon he’s going to die anyway.

He’s pretty sure that he’s positioned close to the rocky slope that cuts the forest in two leading from the foot of the mountain to the peak. He can’t see the slope but his sense of direction has always been good and he’s sure that he’s close to where he hid from Kang Minwoo (Male Contestant No.6) the previous day.

Has it only been twenty four hours? He feels like he’s been running forever.

Yoongi’s balance fails him and he begins to fall sideways, scraping his arm down the side of the trunk. He falls to the ground cursing under his breath and finds it embarrassingly difficult to get back to his feet.

He’s looked everywhere for Kim Dahee (Female Contestant No.9), he’s sure he has. He doesn’t know where else she could be.

There’s a whole other side to the island of course, but Yoongi’s trying to ignore the not so helpful voice that chooses to remind him of as much every time he worries that he’s not going to find her. If Dahee’s on the other side of the island then that’s it, he’s lost her.

“Yoongi?”

He looks round, dazed. Dahee is sitting on the same trunk that he’s leaning on, not two feet away from him. She looks quite content, as if she’s been there for a while. He doesn’t remember hearing her coming, he doesn’t remember seeing her get up there.

“Where’d you come from?” Yoongi’s voice is hoarse and his words are slurred. Great, exactly the final impression he was hoping to leave.

Dahee giggles and it sounds like all the life that Yoongi can no longer see them sharing, “I’ve been with you for ages silly! Ever since the beach.”

“The beach…”

“Of course, you couldn’t have made it back into the woods on your own now could you?”

That makes sense. If Yoongi had been too weak to hold a Shape it seems logical that he would have been too weak to walk. Someone must have helped him back up here, there’s no other way.

“I thought I’d lost you,” Yoongi’s voice cracks and he feels tears that he knows he’s too dehydrated to be shedding bloom at the corners of his eyes, “I thought I wasn’t going to see you again.”

“How could I leave you?” Dahee smiles. Yoongi holds out a hand but she doesn’t take it.

He frowns, “No chance of a hug?”

Dahee giggles again, that beautiful, bright sound that he remembers from countless afternoons wasted in bed and avoiding the world. She’s quick witted and sharp tongued and she hated people just as much as Yoongi. It was perfect.

She’s so fiery, too fiery for someone with an Ability like that. Yoongi was always joking that her and Kim Namjoon (Male Contestant No.19) should swap.

Hyosang’s announcement comes and goes. Yoongi’s trained himself to only focus on the list of dead, “female Contestant number one: Kim Jinhee, female Contestant number three: Park Jiyeon; male Contestant number eighteen: Shin Donghyuk; female Contestant number five: Kim Junhee and male Contestant number nineteen: Kim Namjoon” everything else is as much bullshit publicity as the smiling montage they will show of the winner once the broadcast is officially over.

So Kim Namjoon’s (Male Contestant No.19) dead. That evens the odds. In fact, by Yoongi’s reckoning that puts Dahee as the front runner provided that she can take down Minwoo. Especially if Shin Donghyuk’s (Male Contestant No.19) gone too.

Despite himself, Yoongi smiles. His friends may be dead but the girl he loves might just get to live because of it. Dahee smiles back at him, her expression unchanging.

She giggles. Something feels wrong.

“You’re gonna win this Dahee, I know you are,” Yoongi tries but his conviction is weak.

Dahee keeps smiling, “How could I leave you?”

“Dahee please-“

“What?”

Something sharp nudges Yoongi in the side and he almost falls over turning round to get a better look at his assailant. Her eyes are cold and her hair is a mess, she looks nothing like the happy girl sitting on top of the tree trunk, but it’s definitely Dahee.

“What…but you…what?” Yoongi understands what’s going on, but he wishes so dearly that this was not his reality.

The sharp thing sticks further into Yoongi’s side, Dahee rolls her eyes, “You’re a mess. Do I need to bother killing you or do you think you can manage to drop dead on your own?”

“You said you were going to stay!” Yoongi wails, “Why would you kill me? What are you talking about?”

He glances back over his shoulder to where Dahee was sitting on the tree trunk not a minute earlier hoping for some support but she’s gone. Vanished into whatever corner of his imagination she came from, he knew he was dehydrated but he hadn’t reckoned he was so far gone as to start hallucinating.

The confirmation that there is only one Dahee and that she is not amicable helps bring some clarity back into Yoongi’s mind. The sharp object is pushed deep into his side, he can feel it burning cold against whichever internal organs it’s disrupting. It’s painful, it’s going to kill him.

“Why are you doing this?”

Dahee’s eyes narrow, “Because I want to win this game? Why’d you think?”

“But…I love you…” I thought you loved me. Oh well.

Tipping back her head, Dahee laughs. Long and loud, shoulders shaking, bellyaching laughter. It sounds nothing like the happy giggle that Yoongi had hallucinated, it sounds so much more real.

“Love won’t save me now,” she spits, and still laughing she pulls the icicle out of Yoongi’s side.

The effect is instantaneous. The pain multiplies exponentially and it feels like his insides have turned into a current, driving towards the exit wound carrying blood and intestines and who knows what else with it.

Yoongi screams and falls to his knees, his hands coming up to shield his injury. He feels blood, hot and raging spill from the hole in his side with alarming vigour and he can’t stop it. He cannot push the blood back into his body any more than he can stop his intestines following it as they are carried downstream.

Dahee lays a hand on Yoongi’s head “Well, it’s been fun. Thanks for everything I guess.”

Yoongi hears the sound of his skull cracking in twenty different places as tiny, super dense spikes of ice are driven into his brain. As Dahee pulls her hand away blood begins to trickle down Yoongi’s face, but by that point he’s too far gone to even feel it.

He’s too far gone to do anything but fall into the mess of blood and intestines pooling at his knees, his eyes staring skyward; quite dead.

8 CONTESTANTS REMAINING



29.

Hunchul was so sure that they were going down the mountain to examine the bodies of whoever was killed, possibly just to get a positive ID on them, possibly to chase after whoever did the killing. Whatever, they were going to work it out when they got there; Minwoo’s new plan of action doesn’t make much sense to him though.

They had kept moving until the trees cleared enough for them to get a look at the layout of the land, round to the west the burned out farm was just visible and to the east the southern cliffs dropped off into the ocean. Everything Hunchul Saw suggested that they were going to continue onwards and downwards, to follow whatever trail there was left to follow.

Then Minwoo turned around. That hadn’t even been an option before and it had taken Hunchul a good ten seconds to clear the head rush and re-establish what lay in their future.

Minwoo’s changed everything. He appears to be heading back towards the peak of the mountain, storming through the trees faster than Hunchul’s seen him move since the game started.

New possibilities pop up with every step: Minwoo’s going to kill Jung Hoseok (Male Contestant No.16); Minwoo’s going to kill Kim Dahee (Female Contestant No.9), Seokjin’s going to kill Minwoo, Seo Sangwon’s (Male Contestant No.22) going to kill Hunchul, Dahee’s going to kill Minwoo, Seokjin’s going to kill Hoseok, Hunchul’s going to kill Kim Taehyung (Male Contestant No.23)…

It’s impossible to keep track of it all, up until now the lease of life that Hunchul’s Gaze could view has been cutting itself alarmingly short but there’s no way he could See so very much more without the very real possibility that his life expectancy has increased. He still can’t see beyond the end of the Program, but he can see pretty far.

Honestly he hadn’t been paying attention to who else was left. With Donghyuk, Namjoon and Junhee gone the last person left in his immediate understanding of how the game was panning out is Hoseok. He supposes it makes sense that Dahee and Sangwon have made it this far, they’ve always been rather cutthroat for lack of a better word but to think that Seokjin and Taehyung are still alive is bizarre. They must be excellent hiders, there’s no way they’d still be alive if they weren’t.

Not that Hunchul’s the type of person he can imagine people having much hope for. A Seer without a weapon – no one bets on that horse; his best chance for survival had been Namjoon and Donghyuk’s bomb, now there’s nothing left to do but find out which death will fall to him.

Perhaps ‘bomb’ is the wrong word – ‘hellish ball of magma’ seems more fitting, and in the hands of a Farcry as capable as Kim Dongsung (Male Contestant No.7) they stood a pretty good chance of getting it far enough out to sea to disable the command ship. Without anyone there to operate the broadcast and tracking devices they’d have been able to work out a way off the island without fear that they might be killed for stepping beyond the game boundaries.

Minwoo swerves out of view round a bend in a path of his own devising. Hunchul swears he’s already moving as fast as he can but he finds a burst of energy from somewhere and forces his legs to move faster. He turns the corner and sees Minwoo just up ahead, surging on through the trees.

Something catches on Hunchul’s leg and he trips, landing hard enough to knock the wind out of him. Instinctively, he flinches to protect his stomach but his leg is still stuck, as if there were a hand physically keeping him trapped.

Hunchul looks down at his leg, he can’t see anything. He tries to move it but there’s definitely something holding him down.

Very abruptly, all of the futures that Hunchul had Seen merge into just two possibilities. It feels like someone has just tipped a bucket of ice water over his head and it’s all Hunchul can do to thrash against his invisible assailant, screaming like a man possessed.

“Minwoo! Help!” he can’t be that far ahead. Hunchul manages to get his leg free but two seconds later it’s caught again, firmer this time.

Hunchul hears someone swearing under their breath, then there’s a flash of something metallic catching the light falling through the trees and Hunchul’s foot is separated from his leg.

The pain is like nothing he has ever known. Hunchul tries to claw his way away from the attacker but it’s hard to escape when you’re missing a foot and rapidly losing blood. He gets no more than three feet away before his other leg is trapped and a similar fate befalls his other foot.

There’s only one possibility left now, Hunchul’s never Seen so clearly in his life. The absolute certainty is awful and he half wishes that Minwoo wouldn’t come back for him, just to prove fate wrong. It could lead to a far more painful death, but he wouldn’t know that until it was over.

Hunchul hears hurried footsteps breaking through the later of dead leaves that coats the path and when he looks up Minwoo is ten metres away. He still looks unnervingly calm but he’s no longer smiling, his eyes searching frantically for whoever it is who’s after Hunchul.

“It’s Sangwon!” Hunchul sobs. It has to be Sangwon, because the only other person it could possibly be is Kim Miso (Female Contestant No.10) and she’s already dead. He had no idea that when Sangwon bragged of ‘perfect camouflage’ he was capable of pulling off something this extreme.

A shadow falls over Hunchul and looking up he sees Sangwon’s outline clearly. From this angle it’s obvious that there’s a person there but he’s still trying to blend in – feet the colour of the earth, arms the colour of the trees and hair like sunlight darting between branches. In his right hand he holds a scythe, looking for all the world like the Grim Reaper’s more environmentally conscious brother.

He must be naked to camouflage like that. He must be freezing.

Sangwon’s shadow walks towards Minwoo, confident and collected. Hunchul realises that from where Minwoo is standing it must be harder to tell where Sangwon begins and the forest ends.
“Look at the shadow!” he yells, but his voice isn’t all that loud. Sangwon’s head whips round and for a moment Hunchul thinks he can make out the shape of his eyes, his nose, the way his fringe falls across his face.

A stone exits Sangwon’s temple with a dull pop and hits a tree somewhere behind Hunchul. A tiny trickle of blood follows the bullet out as he wobbles on his feet, then he crashes to the ground. By the time he’s fallen, his skin has lost the colours of the forest and his corpse lies naked and helpless across the path. Sangwon’s eyes stay fixed on Hunchul’s as he falls, only flickering out completely when his body has come to rest.

Hunchul thinks he looks beautiful. Hunchul wonders how much blood he’s lost.

Minwoo hurries over to him, stepping over Sangwon’s body like he doesn’t even see it. He cradles Hunchul’s head in one arm, and with the other he holds up a single stone.

The stone. Hunchul blinks, he knows what that means. There’s no point trying to fight it anymore, there’s only one choice to make.

“Do it.”

And Minwoo smiles sadly, leaning down to kiss Hunchul’s forehead before he lets the stone fly.

There are no more options after that.

6 CONTESTANTS REMAINING



PART THREE: FINAL STAGE

6 CONTESTANTS REMAINING



30.

Seokjin doesn’t know where he was expecting them to end up but it wasn’t back at the edge of the meadows. They had avoided the more exposed route over the top of the cliffs at the southern point of the island but it had meant having to blaze a trail through an almost impenetrable stretch of foliage, the space between the trees made nigh on impassable by rising saplings and fallen branches.

They are officially out of food and water now, both of them. They can get to the stream to try to stem their dehydration but they’re going to have to get creative if they want to keep well enough fed to remain on their guard.

“Where’s the stream from here?” Taehyung asks, squinting across the meadows like water might burst forth from the ground at any moment.

Seokjin points north, “A couple of miles straight through the fields I’d say, maybe a bit more,”

“A couple of miles?” Taehyung’s face lights up, “That’s great! We’ll be there in no time.”
“I wish. We’ll have to go through the forest.”

Taehyung’s face falls, “But it’s so close…”

“At the last announcement there were nine of us left. You, me, Yoongi, Minwoo, Hunchul, Dahee, Dongsung, Sangwon and Hoseok.”

“So?”

“So with the way this game’s going chances are there have been a few more deaths since then. I mean it’s been three hours since the last announcement – that’s half a cycle.”

Taehyung blinks, “I don’t get it.”

“Basically the fewer people left in the game the more likely it is that everyone else has killed someone. If someone’s already killed once it’s more likely that they’ll kill again, especially when the end is in sight.” Seokjin shrugs, “Plus we get a maximum of twenty four hours without anyone dying before all our tracking devices explode. The fewer people the less likely it is that you’ll run into someone by accident so people will be actively hunting us from here on out.”

“Oh…” Taehyung’s brows droop into a solemn frown, “Do you really think they’d hunt us? I mean…they’re our friends.”

“That doesn’t matter anymore. It’s way too late to work this out peacefully.”

A gust of wind hits them hard and Taehyung groans, wrapping his coat further around himself. In just another three hours another announcement will go and it will almost be dark, if they’re going to get to the stream Seokjin thinks they should aim to be there by then.

“C’mon,” he beckons Taehyung to follow him back into the woods. The foliage is still thick here but they’ve barely moved fifty metres before it starts to thin out, becoming more like the forest that Seokjin first entered with Namjoon.

That was only yesterday. Forget a whole new day, Seokjin feels like a whole new person.

“Seokjin, did you…” Taehyung pauses, Seokjin can feel him worrying over word choice. He doesn’t remember Taehyung ever being particularly timid but he supposes that being trapped in a fight to the death with a group of friends brings out the worst in everyone.

Seokjin rounds on him, “Spit it out then.”

“Y-you haven’t killed anyone, have you?” Taehyung stammers. He’s scared enough to jump right out of his skin.

Just for a second, Seokjin hesitates.

“No,” he snaps.

Seokjin turns and marches onwards, not bothering to check how close Taehyung is on his heels. It’s so easy to lie.

They walk and they walk; Seokjin’s not even sure why it’s taking so long. The trees are now thin enough that they can easily pass between them, it’s just a matter of staying far enough down the mountain not to lose their way without stumbling into the meadows by accident.

Taehyung grabs Seokjin’s arm and pulls him back, “There’s someone up ahead,” he hisses.

Seokjin squints through the trees, he can’t see anything.

“There!” Taehyung points to a figure crouched in the crook between two branches of a large deciduous tree. It’s a foolish place to hide in daylight, it’s almost bare of leaves and the dark blob stands out starkly against the pale afternoon skies.

“Who do you think it is?” asks Taehyung, his grip uncomfortably tight on Seokjin’s arm.

“I think it’s Dongsung,” Seokjin peels Taehyung’s fingers off of him, “I’m pretty sure he was the only one of us with a brown coat.”

“Do you think he’s dangerous?”

“If he’s worked out exactly how tough that voice of his is, then yes. Extremely dangerous. But if he’d worked that much out he’d have killed us all by now so I doubt it.”

Taehyung looks alarmed, “how could a Farcry kill?”

“They’re not just good for sonic booms ya know,” Seokjin smiles wryly, hand flexing over the grip of the gun, “a good Farcry can manipulate sound however they choose. Think about it, they find the right frequency and they can tear you apart at an atomic level.”

“Shit,” Taehyung’s eyes widen, it’s almost comical, “Do you think Dongsung can do that?”

“I think he can, that doesn’t mean he will.”

“What are we going to do?”

“Just…move quietly, try not to wake him up.”

Kim Dongsung (Male Contestant No.7) can’t be more than fifty metres ahead of them, but it feels like the longest fifty metres of the Program so far. Seokjin keeps his eyes firmly focused on the boy in the tree, taking care to let his feet fall as softly as possible.

The good news is that Dongsung is definitely asleep. As they get closer Seokjin can see his head slumped backwards, eyes closed and mouth gaping open. He could almost be dead except that once they’re close enough his breathing is only too audible.

A potentially dangerous competitor is asleep in a tree. Seokjin is standing at the bottom of that tree holding a gun. It’s an easy shot, if he can keep a steady hand there’s no reason he shouldn’t make it.

He shouldn’t. Taehyung will hate him, Taehyung will look at Seokjin like he’s a murderer.

Oh well.

By the time Taehyung’s aware enough to try and stop him, Seokjin has already fired. Dongsung falls from the tree, wailing and clutching at his chest. The bullet had entered through his lower right shoulder, close to the heart but not close enough.

Seokjin could leave him to bleed out, but that would take an awfully long time and all this screaming is going to attract a lot of unwanted attention (the gunshot will bring attention enough). If they’re really unlucky, Dongsung might regain enough of his senses to start using his Ability again.

It takes all of three seconds to march over to Dongsung and put a second bullet in his head. His skull explodes, splattering brains and blood across the ground and across Seokjin.

He doesn’t care.

“You…you killed…” Taehyung raises an accusing finger in Seokjin’s direction.

Seokjin drops his gun arm, “I’m not Park Jimin.”

“But you said…you hadn’t…”

“Yeah well there’s a first time for everything,”

Seokjin’s ears are ringing slightly from the blast. They’ve made a lot of noise here, it’s going to become a beacon for any surviving Contestants.

“We gotta move,” Seokjin starts off again. Taehyung doesn’t move, “You coming?”

Taehyung’s eyes are fixed on Dongsung’s body, like he’s never seen a corpse before, “You said you wouldn’t kill me.”

“I won’t,” from somewhere within him, Seokjin forces a smile, “I’m not gonna kill you Taehyung, don’t be silly.”

For a moment he thinks that he hasn’t been heard, then Taehyung nods, “Ok.”

The route around the meadows is longer than expected, giving Seokjin plenty of time to try to count the number of lies he’s told today.

5 CONTESTANTS REMAINING



31.

Kim Dahee (Female Contestant No.9) hears the gunshot echo over from the other side of the island and decides that the fastest way over there is to head for the mountain peak. She hasn’t been there yet, and with so few people left in the game it’s her best chance at spotting any last badly thought out hiding places.

It’s a hard climb; the slopes are steep and riddled with vertical drops that are too large to be scaled. It seems strange that she could have spent so much time stealing through the forest on the hunt for other Contestants yet failed to notice how much effort it took for her to move. She supposes that before she was always on the easiest route possible, but there’s no easy way to the top of the mountain.

The good news is that once Dahee’s out of the thick middle belt of the forest, the trees start to thin out pretty quickly. The ground beneath her feet becomes less earth and more rock, making it harder to keep covered and easier to keep climbing. She’ll be ok, if anyone tries to kill her she’ll kill them first.

The mountain plateaus into its peak rather abruptly. It’s not a large area but it feels like the entire island is contained within these ten metres of barren land. To the east the mountain slopes gently down towards the sea, the forest quickly giving way to the meadows and to the west the steep slopes are packed and peppered with trees almost down to the shore.

About two miles out to sea, the boat that brought them all here in the first place sneers at the island. Dahee feels like she should hold some sort of grudge against Hyosang for what he did to them, for lying and betraying their trust and for choosing them of all people to enter into the program but when she sees his face in her mind’s eye she feels only the barest twitch of rage. Sure, Hyosang is a devious, sadistic arsehole, but are the rest of them that much better? They were thrown out into the night and told to kill each other, and they did.

Dahee refuses to feel bad about it, she has no reason to prioritise someone else’s survival over her own, but she never could have done it if she wasn’t a devious, sadistic arsehole in her own right. Min Yoongi (Male Contestant No.11) is the proof of that.

Shin Jiho (Male Contestant No.15) and Kim Byungjoo’s (Male Contestant No.14) bodies are still up here. Dahee stays as far away from them as possible. It’s not that she can’t handle dead bodies but it’s been over twenty four hours since they were killed and if she stands downwind of them her nose is graced with a less than pleasant odour. Besides, she’d hate to disturb the gulls so eagerly pecking at their eyes and lips.

The wind is loud enough from up here that Dahee doesn’t hear the displaced rocks pounding down the mountain as someone else makes their way to the top. In fact, she doesn’t see Kang Minwoo (Male Contestant No.6) at all until he’s practically standing next to her.

She jumps, but she doesn’t flinch. She supposes that it was inevitable that they meet eventually, he’s played such a good game.

They stare each other down.

“You could have killed me from ten metres away,” Dahee tries to keep the emotion from her voice, she can’t say the same for Minwoo’s eyes.

He doesn’t say a thing, just looks at her with a forlorn expression and rattles the handful of stones he has at his side. He looks like all the fight has gone out of him.

Dahee’s fairly sure that Minwoo’s responsible for more deaths than anyone else in this Program. Her immediate assumption upon finding Kristine Yoon (Female Contestant No.7) and Jeon Hojoon (Male Contestant No.8) dead on the beach with stones through their skulls was that it was Shin Donghyuk (Male Contestant No.18), but the subtlety, the precision – it’s not his style. Donghyuk was grand gestures or nothing at all (‘go hard or go home’ as he would have put it) and he never refined his Ability to the point where he had such dexterous control over small objects. Minwoo on the other hand only ever had control of small objects and his aim has always been deadly.

Plus he’s now standing before Dahee with a hand full of stones, that’s kind of a giveaway.
Dahee rolls her eyes, “if you’re not gonna try to kill me, I’m gonna kill you.” She holds out her hand and an icicle forms in her palm. It’s sharp, as ready to kill as she is.

Minwoo’s eyes dart from the ice, to Dahee, to the bodies lying on the ground. Almost imperceptibly, he nods.

It’s not what Dahee was expecting but she’ll take it. She takes a step back then runs at Minwoo – she can use the extra force - and drives the icicle into his belly.

Minwoo gasps and falls to his knees; his hand open and the stones spill out, skittering along the hard ground and off the edge of the peak. Dahee holds out her left hand for a second icicle and sticks it though his neck.

He doesn’t stutter, doesn’t choke, Kang Minwoo doesn’t leave his mouth flapping like a fish unable to breathe around the hole in his windpipe. He looks up to meet Dahee’s eyes then topples sideways, snapping the icicle through his neck as he hits the rock. His arms lie perfectly still, his legs are curled up neatly under him. It’s almost elegant.

Dahee doesn’t know what she was expecting from him, but she’s fairly certain it wasn’t this. She kicks him in the shins just to be sure that he’s dead and is almost surprised when he doesn’t move. All that effort and in the end he let himself be killed, she supposes she should be thankful, he saved her a lot of hard work.

“Have it your way,” she mutters, then sets off down the eastern slope.

4 CONTESTANTS REMAINING



32.

“Did you know Hoseok?”

Taehyung frowns, “What do you mean ‘did’? I still know him, he’s my friend.”

“Might not be any more.”

“If you think this game’s going to change him then you don’t know Hoseok.”

“I meant that he might be dead.”

“Oh…”

Seokjin passes Taehyung a bottle of water and watches him drink deep. The stream laughs its way towards the ocean below them, unaware that it’s the sweetest thing Seokjin has ever tasted.

It feels good to have gotten here, like they’ve reached a suitable destination. Behind them they can see the meadows, just beyond the trees leading all the way down to the dunes and the beach beyond and up above the canopy is clear enough for them to see the sky. Blue tinged with pink – the sun is beginning to set.

“I only met him on the boat,” Seokjin starts, “Hoseok I mean. I never knew him, don’t know anything about the guy.”

“Will that make it easier for you to kill him?” Taehyung’s words have no bite. Though he feels betrayed, he still trusts Seokjin to know what’s best for them, even if he doesn’t like it. He wouldn’t be here now if he didn’t.

Seokjin nods, “Probably. If someone else hasn’t killed him first.”

Taehyung glances at Seokjin reproachfully and closes the cap of the water bottle. He still hasn’t given Seokjin the information he so sorely needs.

“I can’t feel him, you know? I don’t know what he’s feeling,” Seokjin tries to laugh like it’s nothing, “Isn’t that strange? Do you think his Ability could do that?”

“I dunno, do you normally have trouble with Pathokines?”

Seokjin blinks, “I don’t even know what a Pathokine is.”

“Seriously? No one told you,” A twinge of genuine worry creeps into Taehyung’s emotional readout, “That seems like something really important for you of all people to know.”
“Explain it then.”

“Pathokines can use pathokinesis. They control other people’s emotions; it’s like super human emotional manipulation.”

“Holy shit.”

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t even know people could do that,”

Taehyung frowns, “That’s weird. Hyosang said he was going to introduce the two of you.”

“Yeah well, Hyosang said a lot of things.”

Feedback spills from an unseen speaker and Seokjin winces – he’ll be glad to hear the last of this.

“Good evening everyone!” Hyosang’s tinny voice isn’t even hateable anymore, it’s just annoying. An annoying necessity that lets them all know just how far up shit creek they’ve come.

“It’s been quite the afternoon’s entertainment, I’m sure the mainland is just buzzing with excitement right now. So much emotion! So much drama! But of course, you don’t care about that, you just want to know who’s dead, don’t you my little murderers.”

Hyosang chuckles darkly, “Well, murderers and Kim Taehyung, but you know what I mean. And so without further ado, the lives lost since midday include: male Contestant number eleven: Min Yoongi, male Contestant number twenty two: Seo Sangwon, male Contestant number four: Jung Hunchul, male Contestant number seven: Kim Dongsung and male Contestant number six: Kang Minwoo. It's all down to the wire now isn’t it? Ok kids, play nice and I’ll speak to you at midnight.”

The transmission goes dead. Seokjin doesn’t know what to think, unless he’s calculated things incorrectly the only Contestants left apart from himself and Taehyung are Hoseok and Dahee – the former of whom is the only person whose emotions remain for him a closed book and the latter is undeniably the strongest person left.

Still, he supposes they can be glad that someone took Minwoo out of the running. Seokjin allowed himself to become far too spooked by his presence, it’s easier to see things clearly now.

Taehyung’s heart aches with grief and he’s obviously blinking back tears. For a moment Seokjin cannot think why a list of names would affect himself.

It shouldn’t take so long to remember that Hyosang’s lists give the names of actual friends of theirs now dead. Taehyung was close with Yoongi and Hunchul, they both were, but the less he cares about details like that the easier it becomes for Seokjin to accept his fate within the game.

“You haven’t killed anyone, have you?” he asks quietly.

Taehyung shakes his head, “How could I? No weapon, no chance of offing anyone with an Ability like this. I couldn’t have done it even if I wanted to.”

“Look at you with your clean slate, you’re like Park Jimin.”

Irritation bordering on rage sweeps through Taehyung alarmingly fast. It’s the most antagonistic emotional response Seokjin has seen in him all game. Or ever.

“Don’t talk like that, I’m nothing like him.”

“Alright! Sorry,” Seokjin holds up his hands in surrender, which would probably be more effective if he could let go of the gun, “I’m just saying, it’s not often that people make it this far in the Program without a single kill.”

“It happens all the time, there’s always someone who gets taken under a stronger competitor’s wing and holds out until things get really rough. Then the tougher Contestant kills the weakling and makes a break for first place.”

Oh.

“I never noticed,” Seokjin mutters.

Taehyung continues like he hasn’t heard him, “The whole reason that Undesirables, that we love Park Jimin so much is because that never happened to him. He was strong enough to be a top competitor and he fought hard enough to make sure that he lasted out until the end, but he never killed anyone and no one ever died because of him. And when the time came for him to show his true colours, he threw down his weapon and asked Jeon Jungkook not to kill him.”

“And Jeon Jungkook didn’t listen,” Seokjin finishes. In the space of a year it has become legend – the two youngest competitors, hopelessly overpowered went head to head and one of them didn’t even try to win.

“The government hates him, all humans hate him,” Taehyung spits, “Park Jimin doesn’t fit into the image of the Undesirable that they’ve been selling for the past god knows how many years. He refused to kill even when it would have been completely understandable, excusable even. Then there’s Jeon Jungkook, the violent pet of the military who they all think is kept under lock and key to stop him disrupting polite society. That’s the image of us that sells.”

“I never even thought about it like that,” Seokjin says, “we love Park Jimin because we think he represents what we’re really like.”

Taehyung shakes his head, “We love Park Jimin because he gives us hope that we’re not all like Jeon Jungkook. Everyone else hates him because he makes them worried that they’ve been killing innocent people for decades.”

Taehyung is weak and Taehyung is scared. Taehyung no doubt believes that he’s not going to make it out of this game alive (he’s right) but the boy has a brain on him.

Seokjin doubts it’s going to get him very far, but with any luck no one will think to shut the cameras off before it’s too late.

4 CONTESTANTS REMAINING



33.

Dahee decides to avoid the hut at the edge of the woods if at all possible. For one thing she thinks it’s a bit too much like returning to the scene of the crime and for another she can’t imagine that Yuri’s smelling too fresh given the stink Jiho and Byungjoo were giving off. There’s a chance that someone has taken up residence in the shack despite the body but she would rather not return there if she doesn’t have to. She has the whole east side of the island to hunt through before she gets that far.

She’s less good about staying off the path she beat with Shin Yoonchul (Male Contestant No.12).

“Shit,” she curses as she trips over a fallen branch. It’s large, heavy enough to stub her toe through her trainers. She squints at the break then up at the peak of the mountain, this is all too familiar.

She had encountered Yoonchul not long after killing Yuri, he hadn’t bothered waiting around to find out if she was friendly and bolted into the woods. Dahee had chased him, up and over the northern ridge and down the western slopes but Yoonchul’s legs were long and he could move like the wind.

He was also clumsy as sin, Dahee had almost caught up to him completely when he ran straight into a low hanging branch, detaching it from its tree and winding himself in the process. There’s still green flesh below the break of this branch, it must have been here.

She picks herself up and dusts herself down, annoyed. She appreciates that the island is small but she should be able to do better than that when it comes to not retracing her steps.

“Fancy meeting you here,”

Dahee’s eyes dark about the woods, trying to find the source of the voice. It’s dark enough that she can’t make out much beyond her immediate vicinity, there could be anyone hiding in the trees.

Cold laughter rains down upon her, “Up here, silly!”

Perched between the boughs of the very tree Dahee’s sitting at the bottom of, Jung Hoseok (Male Contestant No.16) grins down at her. His mouth has too many teeth, she used to think it was adorable but right now he looks like a shark preparing to strike.

Dahee gets to her feet slowly, her eyes not leaving Hoseok. She opens her right hand for an icicle and waits for him to join her on the forest floor.

Hoseok’s eyebrows raise, he looks unimpressed, “Really? Ice? You’re going to fight me with ice?”

“It’s worked pretty well so far, go ask Yuri, Yoonchul, Yoongi or Minwoo.”

“Oh, you killed Minwoo? Thanks for that.”

“No problem,” Dahee spits from between clenched teeth.

Hoseok hums to himself happily, “Surprised you killed Yoongi though.”

“Really? I would have thought he was an obvious target.”

“Ha!” Hoseok cackles, “You’re more coldblooded than I ever gave you credit for.”

Dahee waves the icicle at him, “This wasn’t clue enough?”

“Ah, I suppose I should have seen it coming.”

Hoseok hoists himself forward and jumps down from the tree in one fluid motion. He adjusts his coat and moves round so Dahee can see him properly. She holds out her icicle like it’s a shield as much as a weapon.

“Dear oh dear Dahee, what are you waiting for? That was your big chance.”

“My what?” Dahee stares at Hoseok, nonplussed.

Then all of a sudden she’s not staring at Hoseok anymore. She’s not staring at anything. Somewhere to her left she can hear the rustle of feet on leaves, like someone running away.
Then the sound is behind her, then to the right.

Dahee barely manages to move out of the way in time before Hoseok comes charging back out of the trees at her, swinging wildly with something pale, catching the last dregs of light. She lashes out at him with her icicle but only manages to catch his coat.

Hoseok runs forward, leaving the coat behind and moving back into the trees. Dahee is more alert now that she knows what’s going on, her eyes straining to make out details through the criss-cross of branches and tree trunks in the gloaming. Her ears keep track of Hoseok’s whereabouts and she knows that the next time he comes through she’ll be ready for him.

A creeping feeling of dread begins to wash over her, slow burning, nipping at her fingertips trying to distract her. Dahee breathes deep and reminds herself that she has killed before and she can kill again. After this she only has to find Kim Seokjin (Male Contestant No.9) and Kim Taehyung (Male Contestant No.23) and lord knows they’re going to be laid out like a brace of ducks. She only has to kill Hoseok and then they might as well crown her the winner right then and there.

The profound sense that she is doomed won’t leave. She feels it suffocating her, raising her pulse and sending sparks of anxiety right into her adrenal glands. It’s so hard to breathe, and harder to concentrate. Dahee wrings her hands and forces herself to breathe evenly but it doesn’t work, she can’t stop it.

She doesn’t understand.

“Feeling lucky?” Hoseok smiles against the curve of her ear. She can’t see his face but she can hear that shark-like grin boring into her skull. She’s so scared of him, she’s so scared and she doesn’t know why.

Dahee drops the icicle and brings both hands up to wrestle Hoseok off her neck. She tugs and tears and squeals against him but it’s too late. With practiced ease, Hoseok drags the glass across her jugular and lets her go.

All the dread, the anxiety, the fear – it stops, like someone turned off a tap. All that’s left is a blinding, all-consuming rage trapped inside Dahee’s body with nowhere to go. She was going to win this, and then she was going to go home to a nice life, protected by the government rather than hiding from them for a change. She was going to be a national hero and everything was going to be ok.

Now she’s going to die in the woods. Dahee feels her front drenched in blood, sticking her clothes to her skin. Sticky and hot like glue. Then her legs give way and she’s dead before she hits the ground.

3 CONTESTANTS REMAINING

34.

The sun starts peaking over the horizon at around five thirty, waking the birds with it.
With the birds wake everything else.

Seokjin has been awake since midnight. Hyosang’s announcement that Dahee was dead marked the change in watch between himself and Taehyung. It was good to get some proper sleep, Seokjin feels blessed with a new sense of clarity. He knows what he has to do now, it’s all so simple.

He can win this, he knows he can.

It’s strange to think that this time last year he was watching the finale in his own home, sandwiched between Namjoon glaring daggers at the TV screen and Yoongi pretending he didn’t care. Hyosang had been so serious, he cried with the rest of them when Park Jimin was killed.

(Yoongi cared and they all knew)

The strange thing is, on that day, a year ago, Seokjin had desperately wanted Park Jimin to win. He had wanted that kind, sweet little boy to raise up his weapon and fight back, he had wanted to see blood. Jimin had ducked and dived between Jungkook’s attacks – he was built for it, superfast reflexes and all – and on the few occasions he was hit he got back up and was fine.

Again, built for it. Hyper rapid regeneration will do that to you. A bullet could pass through Jimin’s skull and by the time it left his body he would be whole again.

Bullets can’t even pierce Jungkook’s skin in the first place. No one could shut up about it at the time, they seemed like the ultimate final pair. They had to kill each other, but how do you kill something that not even bullets can touch.

They had been so young. ‘Bulletproof Boy Scouts in Final Fight to the Death’ had been the universal headline on every portal site, for the whole day.

It had taken the whole day.

Seokjin isn’t going to take the whole day. If he’s lucky he’ll have this over with by the six o’clock announcement.

He has to walk upstream to refill the water bottle. Not too far, but there’s too much blood in the water back when he and Taehyung made camp. It’s not a big deal, just one of those little inconveniences.

When Jungkook had crushed Jimin’s head between two rocks, the Republic held its breath. Was Jimin dead? Could he recover from this? Was it even conceivably possible that anyone could recover from this?

Seokjin had wished along with every Undesirable in the country, hoping against hope that the jam like mess of blood and brains could reconstitute itself into a living boy. Even the official channel hadn’t known when to call it, no one knew how long it might take. Jungkook spent three hours beside the body, waiting for something to happen.

Nothing happened, no one comes back from having their head crushed. Jeon Jungkook had won and Seoul cheered.

The gun had sounded just over half an hour ago, Seokjin’s sure that it’s going to draw Hoseok in. He has no idea how close he is – how could he? But Seokjin knows he’s going to come.

It’s ok, Hoseok is a horrible monster, only horrible monsters don’t have feelings. Horrible monsters hide in the woods, or on the mountain, or in a cave, waiting for gallant heroes to come by and slay them, to rid the land of such horror as they might rain down upon it. Every story with a horrible monster has a gallant hero to balance the universe out.

Park Jimin had been a gallant hero. Seokjin’s not Park Jimin but that just means he has a shot at survival. As the gallant hero in his own story he feels that’s far more important than playing martyr for a cause that doesn’t know how to carry on his work.

Seokjin heads back to camp. His coat and pack are covered in blood but it’s ok, he doesn’t need them anymore. His shirt and trousers and shoes (nice shoes, or at least they used to be) are dark enough, he shouldn’t stand out too much.

He doesn’t really need to hide at this stage. Still, it’ll make for better TV if there’s at least a bit of a struggle. The Victors who make the best TV are always the ones viewed most favourably by the public, that’s ninety percent of the reason that they’re already calling Jeon Jungkook the most popular Victor in history. That boy knew how to kill with flair.

Taehyung grins at him from the river bank. Seokjin thinks he looks cute, handsome even, but he’d look so much better if he wasn’t for that horrible hole in his chest.

These things can’t be helped, Seokjin was never going to win with him around.

He goes to kneel in front of Taehyung’s body. He’s still bleeding profusely but it’s been almost half an hour since there was any kind of life left in him. Seokjin reaches out a finger and traces his jaw.

“Sorry I lied to you. I was always going to kill you.”

Seokjin smiles sadly at the corpse but its expression is unflinching. Right now Seokjin would say it was a grin, but when they play the footage back for the highlights package on SBS they’re going to call it a grimace.

“C’mere,” Seokjin whispers, pulling Taehyung’s body into a tight embrace. The movement sends yet more blood pouring from the wound and the stream around them turns an ever more angry shade of red. Seokjin can feel the blood seeping into his clothes, coating his hands, soaking his shoes.

“You were my friend to the end.”

Seokjin lets the body go and it falls backwards against the bank, its face frozen, the first rays of sunlight that tumble through the trees making his platinum hair glow. He looks like an angel.

Almost forty minutes since he shot Taehyung, Hoseok should be here soon.

Seokjin steps out of the stream into the patch of sun shining on their bloodied camp. It blinds him, but it’s beautiful, warm on his cheek despite the cold sea air. This is as good a day to die as any he supposes, but he’s still thankful that he doesn’t have to die.

The gun is loaded, the time is now. There’s no one left to cloud his mind and contaminate his emotions, the only person Seokjin can feel now is himself, desperate to survive at all costs.
Hoseok can’t even feel that much.

A last glance over his shoulder confirms that the current has dislodged Taehyung and he is on his way downstream to the ocean. Seokjin turns to look up the mountain and heads into the forest.

Covered in blood.

2 CONTESTANTS REMAINING



EPILOGUE

2 CONTESTANTS REMAINING



Hyosang sets the microphone back in its stand. Just one death since midnight, male Contestant number nine, Kim Seokjin had shot male Contestant number twenty three, Kim Taehyung in the chest at four minutes past five that morning.

Good. Hyosang would hate to have created another Park Jimin. Honestly he had been shocked to come back after dinner and find Kang Minwoo dead, none of the people Hyosang had anticipated making the final four were alive after that – it was an odd sort of turnout.

All the same, he’d rather create Park Jimin 2.0 than deal with any of the mess Song Hobeom’s having to clear up. He keeps trying to claim that his Undesirables were particularly vicious but Hyosang doesn’t buy it. If Son Seongdeuk could get Jeon Jungkook into the Program without civilian casualties then Hobeom should be able to bring his brats into the game in one piece.
Hobeom’s probably going to be executed for this one. Hyosang sorely hopes that he never fucks up that badly.

For now, this Program seems popular enough. Perhaps not as big a deal as last year’s but he wasn’t hoping for miracles.

In the distance they hear a gun sound. Once, twice…

Hyosang tenses over the monitors, watching Kim Seokjin and Jung Hoseok’s names like a hawk, waiting for the first sign of either of them flickering out.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner!” someone calls over the intercom.

Smiling to himself, Hyosang picks the microphone back up. “Well I never would have predicted that…”

1 CONTESTANT REMAINING

GAME OVER

Comments

[seonwoong]

This was fucking amazing. Definitely one of my favourite fics to come out of this exchange, and I'm just. Wow. So blown away. Your recipient is a lucky one!

Thank you for writing this!

[lucitae]

SCREAMS AT YOU BECAUSE HOW. COULD. YOU. LEAVE. IT. LIKE. THAT.

my soul was sold the moment I saw 40,000 words worth of a fic and now my heart is in shambles as I keep trying to guess and figure out the last sequence of events. In retrospect, this makes things a lot more fun and interesting but I need to take a breather before coherently commenting on this gem of a fic.

okay. okay. i'm back and hopefully have some shards of sanity - enough to write something decent in reply to this beauty of a fic. (i have my own guesses at who wins but that might be wishful thinking) so before i even attempt to tackle my favorite portions, let's go with something more objective.

1. Thank you for writing this monster of a fic based off my very vague and unhelpful prompts. It is most definitely my own fault and self-inflicted pain as I sit here all numb and processing information. This, of course, extends to your betas as well and I can't thank you enough for doing this. You don't understand how happy it made me to see it posted (literally the high light of the day) and wanted desperately to abandon everything else and read it but obligations...

2. The world building was fantastic. Simplistic in the reaarangment of names and titles given to people like the Curator or Undesirables... for me that might be the most difficult part and I admire you for creating a world (modelled after the original battle royale with your own unique elements in place).

3. The ease and elegance in your writing: the dispersion of death, reflective thoughts, and humor when we needed it most. Simple sentences forever impact me the most and I can't express how in love I am with this fic (despite the ending. despite the deaths. despite the audible shattering of my heart).

On a deeper level, I thoroughly enjoyed the portrayal of the characters and the pov switching. Craftily done and I am still in awe as the smooth transitions as readers are taken to each scene and countdown (most likely what one would experience as a viewer of this Performance) except there were also general threads (humans) we followed with deeper connections. The romance sprinkled was perhaps one of my favorite things in conjunction to the level of ties that grounded people. And now onto my favorite parts and quoting because there are too many things I want to say and not enough words to express them. I only began quoting half way through though, saving them in a word document so I wouldn't forget the favorite lines and passages.

The talks of morality and what humanity means sometimes had me pause and reread the passages, reflect upon how easily humanity frays:
If they’re human they’re gonna die. If they’re human this game is going to break them. (namjoon/donghyuk broke me in too many places but nothing as much as minwoo willingly allowing himself to be killed)

but knowing the difference between right and wrong doesn’t mean you’re any better equipped to act on it.

Seokjin wonders if Minwoo meant it the first time, if it’s even possible to take your first lamb to the slaughter by choice. Either way, he still has the gun and now he knows how to use it, only time will tell if killers are born or made.

Of all the things I suppose I rooted for Seokjin the hardest but it also hurt because he lost himself in the process. The amount of conviction and explanations towards the end (justifications at how he was unlike the others) only marks the toll the games had played on them all.

The lines that made me crack up and take a breather from the violence and the deaths were the following (your glorious brain, bless your soul):
A squirrel the size of a Labrador. That can mean only one thing.
“Yoongi,” (i think i cried when i read this)
“It’s like something out of a bad horror film! People slipping off to have sex when they’re in mortal peril, and they always-“ (in which i practically messaged all my friends that i was dying)
An annoying necessity that lets them all know just how far up shit creek they’ve come. in reference to hyosang's voice... sighs...

But the most impactful was Park Jimin. I was, during the beginning, constantly frustrated at the mentions of Jimin but we never met him, wondering if he was a contestant or not. Then injured, over and over again by the mentions of him. It hurt the way he was both a hero and an example not to follow, a martyr that Seokjin used as an inspirational figure but never allowed him to follow his path.

“I never even thought about it like that,” Seokjin says, “we love Park Jimin because we think he represents what we’re really like.”
Taehyung shakes his head, “We love Park Jimin because he gives us hope that we’re not all like Jeon Jungkook. Everyone else hates him because he makes them worried that they’ve been killing innocent people for decades.”


And this that was so ironic I think I laughed out loud:
"They had been so young. ‘Bulletproof Boy Scouts in Final Fight to the Death’ had been the universal headline on every portal site, for the whole day."

All in all, I loved it. Thank you so much for writing it PLEASE TELL ME WHO DIED OKAY. THAT'S ALL THAT MATTERS!!

Also the brilliance of Hyosang's deception... of course I was so freaking mad but then it died down after a while like Seokjin's disbelief I suppose. I mean: Sure, Hyosang is a devious, sadistic arsehole, but are the rest of them that much better? They were thrown out into the night and told to kill each other, and they did. pretty much sums it up. But man my 2jin heart was in shambles and I basically screeched at all my friends (the poor unfortunate souls who had to hold my hand through this because I was an emotional wreck).

Anyways, I can't thank you enough for your time and energy in this gem of a fic and I'm sorry I am incoherent and super late (I wanted to be the first commenter.... ; ~ ; ) but just forever grateful and this was probably the best thing I could ever ask for. kisses your brilliant brain and sobs for an eternity.

[lucitae]

I'm going to do one reply a day until you get revealed (probably not because I'd rather come up with something worthwhile to say then just spam).

I went back and reread the introduction (I still need a few days to heal before I attempt rereading this entire thing again) and loved how it can serve both as a prologue and as an epilogue. A point of reflection and the breaking of the fourth wall was a strong way to start off the fic as well as a retrospective mediation as to the fragility and malleability of memories. Truth be told, once upon a time I attempted a hand at something like this (back in my exo days) but made it only the second game because it was now or never attempt - one day these games will be taken for granted and mutants will be nothing more than entertainment pieces... what becomes of them then?

I digress.

But reading parts of the beginning made more sense after finishing the entire fic, like the curator letter for example. And upon mulling it over for two nights I think I pinpointed why it was so impactful towards the ending. Correct me if I'm wrong but not once do we dwell in Hoseok's head, as if because of his closed off emotions... so too are we closed off from his brain and process of thoughts. A true enigma. Seokjin takes in everyone's emotions, identifies humans and tries to separate their fluxes from his own, differentiate reality from delusion and in a way the entire switching of povs reflects that (I'm probably reading too deep but I always read too deep). What hurt the most was the second to last part. As a reader we were always privy to Seokjin's thoughts and still were till the very end but there was always this sense of ... I'm losing my words to phrase it. But the fact that he had killed Taehyung and we didn't even know till the very end seemed as if he was slipping from us. In a way his emotions were closed off? No fear, a sense of tranquility as we spiralled towards the end (now who is the monster here? Does it matter which one won? Isn't the ending going to be the same?)

There’s no one left to cloud his mind and contaminate his emotions, the only person Seokjin can feel now is himself, desperate to survive at all costs.
Hoseok can’t even feel that much.

And who can we say is the winner?

Last year may have been the best show down between bulletproof boy scouts but this time its a fight of one who can feel too much and one who can manipulate the rest i just-- am still emotional over all of this. Once again, probably reading too much into things but just had to share(?) I had so much to share when I first read through it so-- distance gives a more coherent mind to appreciate without the taint of emotions (or at least I hope so).

Once again, thank you so much. I really am lucky to have you as the writer for my terrible prompts ; ^ ;

[vangtan.livejournal.com]

namjoon :(( yoongi :(( taehyung :((((( omg i loved this so much idek how to comment??

i could quote a million things, but i'll just quote "Bulletproof Boy Scouts in Final Fight to the Death" bc i laughed and cried i think at this point

augh this was just really great and i assume, by the way hyosang started his announcement, that seokjin won, maybe? but that just makes it even more sad bc gdi seokjin i was rooting for you!! but at the same time, i think it was pretty clear since the beginning that seokjin wouldn't be anything like park jimin, what with his opinions re: being called either Supers or Undesirables and all that... so his subtle changes throughout the entire game weren't altogether that surprising and just!! yeah!!

idk what i'm saying anymore, tl;dr this was great, thank you for this <3

[bcnf3nf.livejournal.com]

okay.... so...

i spent so long reading this bc i read really slow but it was so worth it??? i mean..... that ending wasnt what i expected (WHY), and i was googling people out of curiosity the whole time because im not too familiar with the characters. but omg..... idk how to explain my feelings for this fic..........

i dont usually enjoy stories where the pov keeps changing but you do it so well... i love how you tell the story? idk what im saying tbh.. i feel like its abnormal to kill your friends because youre told to, but you write survival instinct so well?

and like the whole time i keep saying WHO IS PARK JIMIN WHAT DOES HE HAVE TO DO WITH ANYTHING and when it's finally revealed im like.. omg........... how do you build worlds so well.

anyway. tl;dr thank you so much. i loved this a lot.

[aka-agustd.livejournal.com]

First, THIS IS THE BEST THING I'VE READ IN THE FANDOM.
Second, why I've never heard of Battle Royale? I'm going to read it now.

Ok, it wasn't my intention to read it because of 40,000 words?? No. But as usual my curiosity won.
I loved the way you built Jimin. Like, who's this Jimin guy? And then just JUNGKOOK WHY YOU ASSHOLE. Although I fell in love with Jungkook since the beginning, I think I love that psychos?

I'm not sure about the end, I mean I liked it, but it was Seokjin, right? Because of the gun sound, but what if Hoseok stole his gun? I hope it was Jin, I didn't like Hoseok character completely, I'm not sure why.

THIS WAS AWESOMEEEEEEEE.