‘’What is it?’’ I question as Aaron steps forward.

‘’It seems to be some sort of campsite,’’ he suggests, ‘’I guess this is where we’ll be sleeping.’’

‘’We’re sleeping outside?’’ questions Eve with a gasp of disgust, ‘’as in, actually outside?’’

‘’No, the fake outside,’’ mutters Kate under her breath to my left and I grin at her.

I glance around the area we are in; this is the brown section on our maps. It is what seems to be an abandoned camp ground. There is no grass in this area, it is just dirt – the grass has clearly been worn away. There is a blackened patch on the ground in the centre, where I assume a fire once burned. Surrounding the fire pit are logs – that obviously acted as seating.

There are large trees towering on wide side of us, and an opening on the other – the opening gives us a clear view of what could be approaching from the North, the red team won’t be able to sneak up on us that easily. The clearing is quite shaded, as the thick trees block out most of the sun’s light.

‘’Surely we can’t be expected to sleep on the dirt,’’ says Eve in a mix of shock and disgust.

‘’We were given sleeping bags,’’ I point out.

‘’I didn’t bring mine,’’ she replies, ‘’the bag was heavy enough as it was!’’

As she says this, the rest of us stop what we are doing and just look from each other to her in complete and utter shock, hoping that somehow, some way she is joking and not completely thick.

‘’Are you serious?’’ asks Kate, biting her lip to prevent a smile breaking across her face.

‘’What’s so funny?’’ yells Eve, advancing on Kate.

‘’Nothing, nothing,’’ smirks Kate, standing her ground to the posh brat squaring up to her.

‘’Eve, you can share mine with me if you want,’’ suggests Robbie, clearly taking this opportunity to come onto the girl.

Eve mutters something under her breath but doesn’t answer Robbie. She drags her bag along the ground to one of the logs and sits down; opening up her lunchbox once again and fishing out the final sandwich she has.

‘’I wouldn’t eat that if I was you,’’ advises Aaron, however Eve ignores him and begins chewing it anyway.

‘’Just ignore her, she’s probably just acting for the cameras,’’ I assure, Aaron shrugs his shoulders.

‘’I bloody hope that’s acting, or I honestly have lost all faith in the human race,’’ adds Kate and the three of us crack smiles.

‘’Maybe we should take a break and have a bite to eat. It’s been a long day so far,’’ suggests Aaron.

We join Eve around the empty fire pit, taking out our food and eating it sparingly. Nobody eats more than a single sandwich, we pace ourselves – eating slowly to ensure we fill up quicker. Nobody is going to make the same mistake Eve did and eat it all in one go; she will regret it in a few hours time when she’s starving and has nothing left.

‘’So what’s the plan Aaron?’’ questions Kate, sitting to my left whereas Aaron is to my right on the quite uncomfortable log.

‘’I’d say we split up; half of us stay here collecting fire wood and looking for a water source to fill our bottles whilst the other half go scouting. If they could find the LIS and just check it out, it might make things easier for us when we get a letter,’’ he suggests.

‘’Split up,’’ I repeat uncertainly, ‘’are you sure that’s a good idea?’’

‘’Well I don’t particularly want to be taking Eve with us up to the LIS, she’d slow us down. We’d move faster with less people; we could get in quickly and get out again without anyone seeing us – assuming the red team is near the LIS too,’’ he explains and I nod.

‘’Yeah, you’re right,’’ I say.

‘’So who’s going on the trek and who’s staying here?’’ asks Kate.

‘’I will go to the LIS,’’ says Aaron.

‘’I’ll go too,’’ I add, eager to stay close to him.

‘’We can’t leave Eve with Robbie, or Robbie with the quiet guy. So I will stay here, and you take Robbie,’’ suggests Kate.

‘’Yeah, that sounds like good reasoning. So Alice, Robbie and myself will go looking for the LIS while you, Eve and the quiet guy stay here, collecting firewood and looking for a water source,’’ explains Aaron, making sure we know what’s going to happen and that we agree before he enlightens the rest of the group.

Both myself and Kate nod ours heads.

‘’Eat up then, we’ll need our energy,’’ he explains with a smile and I tuck into my ham sandwich.

The sandwich is impossibly fresh, as though it was made this morning – meaning someone must have been on the island earlier today before we woke up. The taste is heavenly, delightful. It’s surprising how good the simplest of foods can taste when you are starving. I was never even a fan of ham before coming here, but like I said, it’s funny what you will eat when you’re hungry.

I glance around the fire pit as I eat, watching the others. Eve has finished hers, and is examining her red polished fingernails in great detail, holding them up in front of her face and making faces as she inspects them.

Robbie sits to her right, eating his sandwich and sneaking a few cheeky glances over at her every so often. It’s unbelievably obvious he likes her – even before he invited her into his sleeping bag – but what’s even clearer is how much she despises him. But in fairness to Eve, there is nothing worse than having a guy like Robbie coming on to you – he’s the type of guy that can’t take a hint.

I glance to the quiet boy; I wonder why he hasn’t said anything. Is he a mute? Can he really not talk, or is he just scared? What is his background? What is going through his head? He really is a mind-boggler.

I stuff the last piece of my ham sandwich into my mouth and lick my fingers clean – even though there is basically no taste off them. Anything to keep my mind occupied until we are moving again to prevent me from eating another of my sandwiches. About ten minutes later, Aaron gets to his feet and everyone turns to him.

‘’OK, I have decided what we are going to do,’’ he begins, everyone remains silent, ‘’I will go looking for the LIS with Robbie and Alice whilst Kate, Eve and...the other guy stays around this area and collects wood for tonight’s fire and looks for a water source to fill our bottles. Does that sound good?’’

‘’Why do I have to collect wood?’’ questions Eve in her snotty tone that makes me want to throw something at her.

‘’Would you prefer to go walking across the island into unsafe territory where you are at risk of getting caught by the red team?’’ asks Aaron.

‘’No,’’ she replies.

‘’Then shut up and get on with it,’’ he barks, finally losing his patience with the girl.

Aaron instructs myself and Robbie to take anything unnecessary from our backpacks; anything we won’t need on this trek. I take out basically everything apart from my water bottle, Aaron instructs us to keep our daggers with us however.

‘’Why?’’ I ask.

‘’You never know, we might spot a rabbit or two that we could use for tonight’s dinner,’’ he suggests, ‘’assuming you’d like something nicer than a ham sandwich.’’

I smile at him, ‘’I’ve no training with a knife.’’

‘’I will teach you all later then,’’ he promises.

In about five minutes we are ready to leave, so we say a quick goodbye and leave the clearing, heading towards the centre of the island – following our maps carefully. We walk in silence for quite some time. Although I desperately want to talk to Aaron and get to know him better, I feel I can’t ask anything too personal because Robbie is here. A big part of me wishes Robbie wasn’t here, it would have been much better if it had just been Aaron and I.

‘’Do you think Eve wants me?’’ asks Robbie after a few moments.

‘’You’ll find out tonight if she decides to take you up on your offer,’’ replies Aaron and Robbie grins.

‘’She so does, I’ve seen the way she looks at me,’’ he explains and I fight a smirk.

If he really saw the looks he gets from her, he’d see that she loathes him and his cockiness. Although he is quite muscular and well built, there are probably more brain cells in a burnt piece of toast! Not that Eve is very smart; she just seems to know that Robbie is the type of guy that girls would want to avoid.

‘’We’ll see,’’ says Aaron and we walk on.

The island really is beautiful, the grass is a bright shade of green and there are hundreds of different types of flowers blossoming amongst the emerald. I spot reds and oranges, blues and purples, pinks and yellows. It really is a sight! After about ten more minutes, we come to a halt.

‘’Do you hear that?’’ questions Aaron, we come to a stop.

‘’I don’t hear-‘’ begins Robbie.

‘’Shh,’’ I interject, ‘’I hear it.’’

‘’What?’’ he asks.

‘’Water,’’ explains Aaron.

We stray from our path slightly and enter into a large clump of trees. It takes us only a few minutes to track down the source of the noise – a fresh water spring that flows into a small stream which leads into a small but deep pond. We fill our bottles and then drain them – filling our stomachs with the beautifully refreshing water. We drain them a second time, we had truly been dying with the thirst.

‘’I really needed that,’’ says Robbie, filling his bottle up again and placing it in his bag.

‘’It felt good alright,’’ I smile.

‘’We should keep moving, we need to get there and back before it gets dark,’’ explains Aaron and we head off again.

The sky is still a wonderful shade of blue, and is still free from the presence of clouds. The sun is shining down on us gloriously; it really makes this walk bearable. It would not be any way pleasant if it was raining and we had to trek through mud up to our ankles.

‘’Have you seen any cameras since we got here?’’ I ask, as the thought pops into my head.

‘’No actually,’’ replies Robbie.

‘’I saw one in the main hallway of the building we woke up in. Since then though, none,’’ he explains.

‘’I guess they have to make sure they are well hidden, so we don’t know where they are and play up to them,’’ I suggest.

‘’Because nobody is doing that already,’’ grins Aaron.

‘’Who?’’ asks Robbie, although I feel he already knows the answer – he just needs clarification before he says anything.

‘’Nobody,’’ I reply and he drops it, clearly not bothered enough to investigate.

We continue walking with nothing more than some casual small talk to keep us occupied.

‘’I wonder what the viewers think of us, I wonder who their favourite is,’’ says Robbie after a few more minutes.

Neither of us respond, neither of us have the answer.

‘’There it is,’’ exclaims Aaron a few moments later, pointing to a building off in the distance – about a five minutes’ walk away.

As we approach and the details become more and more decipherable, I become more and more amazed. It is like an ancient temple – only modernized. It is circular and grey, in the shape of a dome. There seem to be four entrances, one North, another South and then on the other two sides of the hemi-sphere. There are a small set of steps leading up to it on each side.

Aaron leads the way up the steps and we enter through the archway of the southern side of the dome – which upon closer inspection is made of some sort of metal material. As we step inside, a robotic voice sounds from seemingly everywhere within the dome at once.

‘’Welcome candidates, to the letter input station.’’