Hour 15

The hideous voice boomed over the stadium's loudspeakers at such an intensity Emi felt it in her bones, "You have proven yourselves strong, intelligent, resourceful, and lucky enough to make it this far. In this final game, we will determine who wins the right to be called champion of your country!" The audience shrieked in pure euphoria like they were watching the most exciting game ever conceived as Emi thought, "Champion? Like, of all of America?" The voice explained, "There are 50 of you on this field, and you must solve the word you have been given." Emi looked at her phone but all she saw was a dubious question mark that looked similar in design to the one she had touched in the middle of the laser field in phase 2. The announcer explained, "You will not know how long your word is and the only clue you have is that your word is intrinsically bound to your life story. Furthermore, you will be gifted 3 letters." Emi saw a new text message, one that granted her the letters "r, o, and u." The voice continued, "These letters are of no use to you, but they might be helpful to someone else. You may trade letters with others, however, a trade will cost 10 hours per letter for both sides involved. If you're lucky enough to get a letter you need, it will glow golden, but you will not know its placement in the word itself." Emi could feel her blood pressure rise to an unhealthy level as she thought, "Who is coming up with all these convoluted rules?" The voice said, "You are, of course, allowed to kill others to gain their letters; however, be warned that in this special game, you will not gain any hours for killing others." Emi thought, "this is ridiculous, if you have hours to gamble with, you're promoted to work as a team, but if you don't have many, it's every man for themself. This will be chaos, People will become focused on surviving and it will be hard to think about this asinine word puzzle." "One last thing you should know," the voice remarked, "is that you may only guess what your word is in either endzone of the field, Guesses anywhere else won't count. You may guess as much as you like, but a wrong guess will cost you 10 hours." Alex said what everyone was thinking, "So, the moment anyone starts heading to an endzone, they're a threat, an immediate target to be killed. If they guess their word, they win, and the game ends." Emi thought, "Ideally, I'd like to work together to figure this out but the competitive nature of the game dissuades such actions, especially since there can only be one winner. Also..." She rubbed her elbows anxiously, "once someone is killed, it's likely to start a chain reaction. There will be no stopping the unrest after that, no reasoning with logic. Kill your opponents, get your letters and figure out your word." The announcer's voice paused one final time before it said in a much lower and devilishly excited cadence, "Let the game begin."

The audience cheered in a primal rumble of sound, but the field was quiet. Some people were still processing the rules, but most were scanning the competition, already on guard. A Spanish woman in her early 30s with a red T-shirt and khaki pants stepped forward and said, "Lets try to work together, at least for a few minutes. We won't get anywhere if we fight each other from the beginning." Emi was instantly comforted by the notion presented and stepped forward herself, "I agree, if we devolve into fighting immediately it will be hard to figure out your word while fighting for your life." Most people appeared to ignore her but a few had their attention swayed. She took advantage of this, doubling down and saying, "If someone kills a person with letters you need but they don't then those letters will just disappear, you'll lose your clues. Let's try to think rationally." A male voice with a radiating Southern accent shouted, "Why should we trust you?" Emi responded soundly, I'm not asking anyone to trust anyone. I'm just saying, we shouldn't jump to killing each other." The audience booed so spectacularly that the earth seemed to tremble. Emi used this as a weapon, "see! That's what they want! They want us to fight and kill each other!" A black man in his late 50s with a shaven head and grey hair that had just started to accent his small beard said, "That may be true, but in the end, only one of us will live. It's hard to cooperate knowing that." A gunshot rang out as if to illustrate his point, and the Spanish woman fell to her knees with a whimper. That's all it took, the audience screamed with applause and the final game had metastasized into another life-or-death brawl.

Emi took Alex by the hand and retreated from the crowd that was now dispersing from the gunshot. Emi thought in a panic, "All I have to defend us with is one shotgun slug and that 4-inch pocket knife I used on Liam." She berated herself internally, "I should've at least taken the knife I used on Alice! I'm so stupid!" Alex screamed, "look out!" As a hulking man who could've easily been a pro wrestler grabbed Emi by the top of her backpack, breaking the seal of the outer flap and causing her pocket knife among other essentials to spill out. Alex tried to free her from his dominating embrace but the man easily brushed him aside, and as Alex fell he pivoted on the ankle he had sprained fighting Cliff in a way that forced him to painfully sit down. Alex's brief interference demanded the man's attention for a split second which allowed Emi just enough time to slip out of the straps of her bag before the man's giant hands could resume probing for a solid hold on her flesh. As she regained her balance, the shotgun slung around her back fell unimpeded by the man taking her bag in a perfect slide right into her hands allowing her to pound him under the jaw with its base just like she had done to Alice. The man's impressive convex jaw absorbed her full force strike painlessly as if it had been created specifically for that function in mind, his expression that of someone who had just been struck by a toddler. Emi hadn't anticipated for her blow to amount to nothing so she was a second too late to react to his bulky hands snaking their grip around the barrel of the gun. Her body was instantly thrust forward almost strong enough to rob her of her breath and she could feel the gun slip from her grasp in a terrifying displacement of gravity. She dug her heels into the ground and put all her body weight behind her hold on the gun, but even with all her might she could feel it pinch past her fingers as it steadily left her control. She thought helplessly, "shit, shit! Not like this!" Alex had been indisposed for this moment, rubbing his throbbing ankle. He had crunched it just right to bring a tear to his eye, and thought, "I won't be able to run for a while, this is bad." As he looked up, he had the perfect view to watch Emi slowly losing possession of the gun. He didn't mean to think it, didn't want to think it at all, but the first thing his mind deduced was "It's over. This is it." As he massaged his burning ankle, his thoughts continued to unravel in a self defeating slurry, "I couldn't stop Cliff, I can't do anything to this monster." That's when his mind accepted, "I don't care if I die. I've never been good at anything. I've never really thought about a future. Emi's the smart one." He felt comforted in giving up, a pleasant release from his self doubt and any kind of moral responsibilities. The man who was confronting Emi, keeping a secure grasp on the gun with one hand, used the other to rotate a palm destructively into her soft face. As Alex witnessed the pure pain and terror dismantle his sisters pretty facial features, he realized, "But Emi's going to die." Something in him broke, something that he didn't even know he had in the first place. It had always been him, Emi, and their mother, and being the youngest he had always felt guilty, he had always blamed himself for forcing Emi to grow up too soon. When their mother was at work, it was Emi who made dinner, Emi who helped him with his homework, and Emi who gave him life advice. He never felt like he deserved any of that, never felt like he had earned it or had truly been there for her in any true way like she had been for him. Now, looking at this man having his way with her, his sister, the one who had always been his pillar, some biological or psychological force injected a supreme malice into his blood that he didn't know existed. He sprinted off his hurt ankle, not feeling it crackle and scrape in its socket, and grabbed the pocket knife that had fallen onto the ground when the man had latched onto emi's backpack. In one swift flick of the wrist he pushed it directly into his crotch, making sure to dig it in with the palm of his hand just like the man had been digging his palm into his sister's face. The man didn't react to it at first, possibly due to shock, adrenaline, or the thickness of his pants absorbing some of the force, but the second time Alex rammed it in he growled in pain and Emi was able to just barely reclaim the gun from his grasp. Alex was in a world of his own now, he didn't know where he was or who he was anymore, all he knew was he had to kill this man. He barreled at him with all the strength his small body could generate and screamed, "Stay away from my sister!" As the man doubled over to reach between his legs he bent right into Alex's lunge which propelled the knife smoothly into his left eye socket. He shoved Alex away with an agonized grunt but his strength wasn't as deadly as it had been before, allowing Alex to recapture his balance and send the knife through his neck. Alex didn't weigh much, but his full-force tackle combined with the amount of pain the man was in and his awkward, low to the ground position aided Alex in forcing him flat on his back. He stabbed him in the neck in much the same way Emi had stabbed Liam, blood spritzing out like a malfunctioning sprinkler system and staining the glossy green of the field with a deep, almost black red. The man wasn't moving anymore, but his chest was fighting for respiration, which meant he was still the enemy. Alex's eyes were glazed over in a wicked hatred as he kept digging that knife into the flesh of his neck until it began to resemble cheap supermarket chop meat. Emi tore him off the man, crying, "Alex! That's enough! Alex!" The sight of her frail, timid little brother becoming a murderer made her hug him as she sobbed in a heartbreaking amalgam of relief, anger, and self blame.