I gasp beneath Aaron’s sweaty hand and my eyes enlarge in shock as I stare from Anna to Robbie and then to Aaron. Surely Anna can’t be right. Surely she just can’t find his pulse, he can’t be dead. They wouldn’t allow that. They couldn’t allow that. This is a TV show, not a death match!

‘’What do you mean?’’ gasps Alex, seemingly in as much shock as I am despite the fact that he had a knife to Robbie’s neck just moments ago.

‘’There’s no pulse. I’m telling you, he’s dead. He’s actually dead!’’ she explains as tears begin to form in her eyes, her arms are shaking.

‘’What?’’ he questions again, running over to Robbie’s body and kneeling down beside it – checking for a pulse himself.

After a few seconds, his face completely drops.

‘’No. No. That can’t be,’’ he mutters.

‘’Why are you acting so shocked?’’ sobs Anna as the other boy comforts her, ‘’you had a knife to his throat a second ago!’’

‘’I was only trying to scare him,’’ begins Alex, ‘’I would never have done it, ever!’’

I turn from the clearing and stare back at Aaron. I give him a look that hopefully sends him the message that I think we should do something. We can’t just sit here and watch. Aaron simply shakes his head and presses his index finger to his lips. I can feel tears trickling from my eyes, rolling down my face and onto his hand.

 ‘’They can’t do this,’’ says the other boy, ‘’this can’t be legal.’’

‘’What do we do?’’ questions Anna with short, jagged breaths – she can barely speak.

‘’We stop playing their game until they end it,’’ he announces, there is no conviction in his tone.

‘’No,’’ begins Alex, ‘’we have to finish it. The only way off the island is the boat and the only way to get to it is by getting the code.’’

‘’So what? We continue killing them!?’’ gasps Anna in complete horror.

‘’This obviously isn’t a television show, whoever is running this won’t let us leave any way but the yacht. We have no choice,’’ replies Alex.

‘’No,’’ argues the boy, ‘’we’re not killing them.’’

‘’How do you think they will react when they found out that we killed Robbie?’’ questions Alex.

‘’We didn’t kill him! They did!’’ argues Anna.

‘’He died as a result of our actions!’’ snaps Alex, Anna actually jumps with fright.

‘’So what are you suggesting we do?’’ questions the boy.

‘’They will think we are psychos when they find out Robbie is dead. They will kill us through fear of us killing them. They won’t see it as a crime, they’ll consider it self-defence,’’ Alex explains.

‘’Oh God...’’ mutters Anna, ‘’he’s right.’’

I desperately want to run forwards and explain to them that we are harmless. We will not fight them, we will refuse to participate and we will end this before it gets even more so out of hand than it already has. However I cannot move, Aaron has me in his grasp and is reluctant to let go.

‘’What do we tell the others?’’ asks the boy.

‘’The truth,’’ begins Alex, ‘’we asked him for his letter, he gave it to us and then he was electrocuted by his bracelet.’’

‘’They’re going to freak,’’ says Anna, her eyes distant.

‘’We’ll calm them down. We’re going to get out of this,’’ he assures her.

‘’We’re going to kill them?’’ asks the boy with no name, ‘’we’re actually going to kill them?’’

‘’We have no choice. It’s them, or us.’’

Neither of the two with Alex replies to this. Alex grabs his bag, throws it over his shoulder and storms from the clearing. The two with him say nothing. Anna glances once more to Robbie’s body – bruised and lifeless – and then follows the two boys, disappearing from view.

I turn to Aaron and point at his hand – still clamped over my mouth.

‘’Not a sound, I’m not gonna take any chances with them,’’ he begins in a whisper, ‘’I’m going to keep you safe. I promise.’’

I nod my head. I feel butterflies swarming my stomach. Did he really just say that to me? Am I special to him? The fact that he wants to protect me makes me shudder with a weird but positive feeling. I cannot help but smiling despite the horrifically dark circumstances. Am I in love?

‘’I’m going to take my hand from your mouth now, don’t say anything,’’ he instructs in a hushed voice, I can barely hear him.

Carefully and painfully slowly, he pulls his hand away from my mouth.

‘’We have to leave here,’’ he explains.

I nod my head.

We get to our feet silently and tip-toe carefully away from the clearing and through the trees, moving further and further away from them with each step. The reality of what just happened still hasn’t hit me. This actually can’t be happening. This is so surreal. It has to be some horrific nightmare. Nothing but a dream would explain all of this, especially the fact that a guy as perfect as Aaron even talks to me – let alone has feelings for me!

‘’What do we tell the others?’’ I question.

‘’The truth, I guess,’’ he replies, ‘’and that the red team are prepared to kill us.’’

‘’We don’t know that.’’

‘’I’ve known people like Alex before; I have a feeling he’ll be able to convince them. We have to assume the worst in order to be prepared,’’ he explains and I nod.

Unfortunately, he is right.

‘’So we’re going to fight them?’’ I ask hesitantly.

‘’It’s out of self-defence. We have no choice.’’

I nod. I know he is right. We are in something darker and more serious than we could ever have imagined. We really do have no choice but to fight. These people are strangers to us. Hell, we’re strangers to each other! It would be different is we all knew each other. The fact that we don’t know each other means we don’t know what to expect.

‘’I have an idea,’’ says Aaron and then he breaks into a run.

I have no choice but to follow.

‘’What?’’ I ask as I struggle to keep up.

‘’We have to let them know we saw them,’’ he explains as we move.

‘’How?’’ I question.

‘’We know the letter.’’

‘’The LIS,’’ I realise and he nods.

As we ascend the metal steps to the LIS, I glance back the way we came from – to make sure we are not being followed. We can’t afford a repeat of last time. Aaron steps inside first and I follow. He approaches the stand with the red ring around its base and stands in front of it.

‘’E,’’ he says.

I nod my head.

‘’Just making sure.’’

He presses down on the keyboard and the first box lights up with a white letter ‘E’. It worked. At least we know how to use it for whenever we get a letter. If we get a letter, that is.

‘’Know when they come to punch in the letter; they will see that we were already here. They will know we saw what happened and we are prepared for them,’’ he explains.

I nod my head.

‘’I don’t like that Alex chap,’’ I say as we walk down the steps from the LIS.

‘’Neither do I, he seems ruthless.’’

I almost respond by saying that he seems like he’ll do anything to get his hands on the prize money, but it’s clear there isn’t any.

‘’Do you think we’re even on a TV show?’’ I ask.

‘’I don’t know. I doubt it.’’

‘’Who would do this?’’ I question.

‘’There are sickos in this world Alice, people worse than this happen every day. I guess we just assume we’ll never be caught up in it.’’

I nod, he’s right.

‘’Are we going to get out of this alive?’’ I ask.

‘’I don’t know, but I will do everything in my power to make sure you are safe,’’ he vows.

‘’I still can’t believe Robbie is dead. I keep thinking about it as though for the first time, it doesn’t feel real. It can’t be,’’ I sigh, fresh tears begin to form in my eyes, slightly blurring my vision.

‘’I know Alice, I know...’’

***

When we get back to the camp, the others greet us with warm smiles. They have no idea what has just happened. However they obviously tell something is up due to Robbie’s absence and the look on our faces.

‘’What’s wrong?’’ questions Kate, running to me and hugging me as I begin to sob.

‘’They got him,’’ I begin, sobbing into her shoulder, ‘’they got Robbie.’’

‘’Don’t worry Alice, it’s just a game. It’ll be alright,’’ she assures – how little she knows.

‘’About time! I was sick of him already to be honest!’’ laughs Eve, she really has no clue, ‘’where’d they take him?’’

‘’Have a seat guys, this isn’t going to be easy,’’ orders Aaron, ignoring Eve’s comment.

We sit around the fire pit – which is now stacked with logs, however it has not been lit. I sit beside Kate. The quite boy sits beyond her and Eve sits alone on the other log. Aaron stands in front of us.

‘’This isn’t a game. There’s something darker going on here. Something bigger than us all,’’ he starts.

‘’Where exactly is Robbie?’’ asks Kate again.

‘’He’s...he’s...dead.’’

‘’They killed him!’’ I scream, tears pouring down my face freely – talking about it has only made me realise how real this whole thing is. Robbie is dead and more of us are going to die. The worst is yet to come.

‘’Who did?’’ gasps Kate, letting go of me and getting to her feet.

‘’The red team!’’ I yell.

‘’What?’’ gasps Eve.

The quiet boy catches my eye, he gives me a pained look and then turns away.

‘’The were hurting him,’’ explains Aaron, ‘’kicking and punching...they wanted his letter but he wouldn’t give it to him. Alex – their leader – took out the knife and threatened to kill Robbie...’’

‘’Oh God...’’ mutters Kate in horror.

‘’He gave them his letter, ‘E’. Then the bracelet around his wrist began to beep, it electrocuted him. He’s dead.’’

‘’Wait, the bracelet killed him?’’ gasps Kate, ‘’the people running the TV show killed him!?’’

‘’We’re not in a TV show, we can’t be. This is something darker...’’ answers Aaron.

Eve has started to cry, ‘’please tell me you’re joking.’’

Aaron shakes his head.

‘’They can’t do this,’’ begins Kate.

‘’Well they are,’’ replies Aaron.

‘’That’s not the worst part,’’ I add through tears and sobs, ‘’they’re going to keep playing. They’re going to kill us.’’

Kate slowly falls to the ground and curls up, resting her back against the log. I sit beside her on the ground and cry with her. This can’t be happening. We haven’t done anything to deserve this. Nobody deserves this.

‘’What are we going to do?’’ questions Eve, holding herself together pretty well.

‘’We have to play,’’ explains Aaron, I can tell it pains him to say it.

‘’What?’’ gasps Kate from beside me, I place my arm around her shoulder.

‘’We have no choice, if they are going to hunt us, we have to be prepared to defend ourselves,’’ he replies.

‘’No...’’ begins Kate through tears, I can sense she barely has it in her to argue.

‘’He’s right,’’ I sigh.

''It's them or us.''