5 Chapter 5 - Hannah

Hannah looked down at her feet, fidgeting with her hands. Firstly, she did not sign up for this game - she would much better prefer being in jail. Besides, the game authorities had gotten her jail time completely wrong. Secondly, she did not have a good night sleep yesterday with the stench of blood and dead bodies. She had strangled them and beat the two to death, in an attempt to not sleep with iron shoved up her nose, but of course the big buff guy's hands were bleeding. She heard each person had roommates, and if there were only four rooms without machine guns, she would be forced to sleep with the emo sitting in the corner.

Speaking of him, he was sitting in the corner right now, all curled up in a ball. It mentally hurt her to see his hair like that – she was a barber and make-up artist. She sighed, leaning on the wall behind him.

"One person is lying about the degree of their murder."

The intercom paused for dramatic effect as literally nobody reacted.

"Ahem. The years on your namecards, please never show anybody or the years of both contestants will double. Just keep the name cards in your pockets and make sure not to lose them, or somebody might try to double your years!" With this, everybody except for Scarlett and Emma glanced at Will, who laughed and shrugged.

"Continuing with the rules, all of you average to twenty two years old, and since an average person lives seventy five years, that means you only have fifty three more years to live, which will be rounded to fifty five. Anybody whose age is bigger than fifty five will be instantly executed if they don't lower their years by the time the next round ends. Looking at you, 306 and 307." Everybody looked at Oscar and Ren when the intercom couldn't.

"Anyways, let's start with the second game! Right now you guys are team eight, and you'll be competing together against team seven. The loser will have their years doubled, while the winning team, if above fifty five, will be lowered to fifty four, while anybody lower or equal to fifty five will be deducted five years." To this, Emma smiled from beside Hannah.

"I've done a lot of explaining. Head to the arena first before I explain the game. Oh, remember, any years added in the game will be counted first and independently before the winning and losing consequences. Goooooood luck comrades!"

"Let's do this!" Will exclaimed, jumping up and running towards the door that had reopened. Oscar followed him, the six other people filing silently after them. He was awfully excited for somebody who had recently sold out his own teammates for… not apparent reason. Hannah looked around, then grabbed the emo 309, forcing him out the door, taking one last look at the white room, before shutting the door and walking outside.

They entered a giant greenhouse with plants that reached the sky, pots and racks with vines curling around them, an abomination of color but a dull and unhappy presence in the air. She sighed, inhaling the smell of grass and dirt, plopping down on one of the sacks of fertilizer and watching as the others looked around. They were in a glass container, she realized. It wasn't evident at first since everything was glass, almost like a see-through maze. There was too much green, too. An annoying amount of green.

Hannah looked towards 309, who she predicted she would be forced to stick with for a long time, or until either of them died. She got up from her fertilizer pile, walking over to him who was sitting in the corner again, watching as Group 7 filed in.

"Morning, I'm Hannah. What's your name?" she asked in her nicest voice possible. He shook his head, looking away, to her annoyance. She jabbed him lightly. "Hey, I'm talking to you."

"...I know," he muttered, burying his head further into his knees. She groaned, giving up. This boy was clearly not in the mood for talking. It's not like she wanted to get to know him anyways. Not like she wanted desperately to fix his hair.

"Hello, hello, contestants!" The intercom man started again. The intercom sounded quieter in the large glass dome, which was good, since she didn't like his annoying voice. He sounded like a boomer trying to relate to teenagers, although he probably was one himself. 

"We're gonna play a killing game, since that's what you all are here for, right?" Hannah looked up at the sky as he talked, leaning back on the glass. Unconsciously, she glanced at Willow, who didn't seem like he was registering the instructions. She was slightly annoyed by how out of it he always seemed. He applied for the Killing Game. It's literally a game about killing. Why does he look so scared? 'Oh no, the rules are exactly as explained in the title?' Hannah huffed and looked away.

"Each team will have one participant as a protectee, and if that person dies, the game is over and the opposing team wins. Now, the goal of the game is to kill the opposing protectee. It doesn't matter how they die or who killed them, but as long as one of the protectee dies, the other team wins. But, similar to the last game, if you kill the wrong person, your years increase by ten. The last rule - this game will go on for at most three days, and if either protectee dies within that span, both teams double their years. Lastly, the protectee can harm in self defense but can't kill anybody. I'll judge what is and what isn't self defense, by the way.

Man, that was a lot of talking. Good luck, guys! I'll give you ten minutes to start talking, and good luck again!"

The intercom shut off as Hannah glanced at the members on the other team, on the opposite side of the arena, behind many layers of glass. Suddenly, she felt tired, curing a vine idly around her finger.

"What's our game plan?" Emma asked, crossing her arms. Will frowned, a hand on his chin.

"The protectee… it would be rational to choose a weak person as one, right?" They all looked at Willow.

"So is that what we're going to do?" Hannah piped up unenthusiastically. Will shook his head.

"It would be too obvious that Willow is the protectee, and we would have to focus on protecting him instead of finding the opposing team's protectee." 

"Then what?" Emma asked. Will looked at Oscar.

"Hey man, you know how to restrain your killing instinct, right?"