Chapter 3: The Game Begins
The mutual sense of relief across the classroom quickly faded away as trauma began to set in. A murder had just taken place right in front of their eyes, and nothing would change that. To make matters worse, the students could smell the faint stench of a rotting body wafting through the ceiling, intoxicating the room and depleting it of all its energy and life. Many of students started scrolling on their phones, trying to ignore the smell of a dead corpse and forget the murder that just took place, but all that did was create an eerie silence. An empty silence that combined with smell of rotting corpse created an almost deathly tension- a piercingly sharp tension that impatiently waited for someone or something to cut it, a desire that the students fearfully refused to answer. Beneath the deadly silence, one could hear the violent barrage of beating hearts crying in terror, earnestly waiting for a justice that they knew could never come. The students were controlled by fear. The fear of death.
So was Elijah Crawford, but his was a different type of fear. Whereas the other students externalised their fear towards the teacher, Eli held an inward fear. A fear aimed at himself, at his forgotten memories.
"Would you like to leave this place?" The whisper of the elderly man from the memory reverberated within Eli's consciousness "There's a better world out there."
Eli grimaced hearing the words relay through his head against his will. He started playing a game on his phone to divert his attention away from the repressed memory, yet it was futile under the heavy weight of death consuming the classroom. Almost subconsciously, he began questioning the voice.
'Is it really a better world out here?' Eli asked himself. 'Can anything be worse than my life now?'
Overbearing hopelessness and despair flowed through his consciousness as he asked himself that question. The hopelessness quickly escalated to panic, sending cold shivers down his spine. In defence, he tried dispelling the memory from his mind, but to no avail. The memory continued.
"Here." The whispering memory continued, now taking on a more kindly tone. "Let me help you forget."
Elijah madly tapped his foot in agitation. He frantically skimmed his eyes across the classroom trying to find something to distract himself, yet all he saw was the weight of death oppressing his fearful classmates, their eyes glued to their phones as they tried to forget something that was unforgettable.
"Let me show you a new beginning. " The ancient voice echoed in his mind. "You are in control of your life now."
Eli's breathing become uneasy and jagged, his hands madly trembling in fear. He could feel the weight of the classroom thickening. And stretching. As if it was a tense thread at the brink of snapping, waiting for something or someone to break it. A deadly tension that no one would dare to break.
So it waited.
"You are in control now."
Waiting.
"You are in control now." The voice eerily repeated itself.
Thickening.
"You are in control now." The voice echoed once again, morphing into a ghastly tone under the thick and viscous influence of death.
Stretching.
"You are in control now." The voice echoed morbidly.
Breaking.
"You are in control now."
BZZT!
The tension broke. A buzz sounded from Eli's phone.
'What the-'
BZZT!
BZZT!
BZZT!
Almost immediately, a buzz resonated from every phone across the classroom.
"What the fuck?" Ollie spoke up in confusion. "Why is everyone's phone going off?"
Everyone hastily moved through the apps of their phones to access the text message.
"Death?" One girl asked aloud in exasperation. "Why does it say I have a text message from Death?"
"Wait?! You got the same message?" Omesh asked aloud in bewilderment.
"Yeah it says I did too!" Jerome shouted.
"Same here!" Another boy pointed out.
Confusion and fear set in amongst the classroom as they all realised they had received the same message. And it was from Death.
'What in the world is going on here?' Eli asked himself still trying to pull up the text message. 'This doesn't make sense.'
Silence overwhelmed the classroom as they quickly read through the message.
"The Killing Game?!" Omesh asked with perplexment. "Is this a joke?"
"Yeah this has to be a prank." A girl spoke up, her voice shaking in fear. "It's probably just a hacker that's trying to give everyone a scare, right?"
Eli finally reached the text message on his phone and began reading it thoroughly, his eyes growing larger the further he read.
"[Good afternoon mortals. It is I, Death. Earth has been peaceful far too long. You humans are very close to ending war and bringing about world peace. And I don't want that. So how about we start a little game? 7 billion people fight to the death and the last one standing wins. Sounds fun, doesn't it?]"
Eli suddenly pinched his cheek to check that he was not dreaming. A sharp and tingling pain followed. He was certainly awake.
'What on Earth is going on today? A student gets killed by teacher and now this? A text from Death?'
Eli really wanted to stop reading the text, but his crippling curiosity got the better of him.
"[It certainly sounds fun to me.]" The text continued, maintaining its devilish and mocking tone. "[I'm sure some of you will enjoy it as well. No need to follow rules anymore. Do whatever you want. After all, no one can stop you. The law means nothing in the face of Death."]
A tremble of shock resonated through Eli as he read that last sentence.
'This can't really be a text message from Death, can it?'
Eli felt strongly convinced that the message was just a hoax. Death couldn't be real. No one possessed the power to transform the world into their playground. It had to be impossible. Yet deep inside of Eli's memory, a quiet and nagging voice told him otherwise. It told him that it wasn't impossible. It told him that Death was real.
'I'm making unrealistic assumptions right now.' Eli concluded. 'Let me read the rest of the text first.'
"[So I encourage you to kill people.]" The text continued. "[In fact, I will reward you for it. If you check the app that I just installed on your phone, you will see that there is Kill Leaderboard. If you are in the Top 10 for most kills in 7 days, I will personally reward you with a gift."]
'A gift?' Eli thought unconsciously. 'What gift can Death give you other than death itself?'
"[Anyway, I think I've said enough. Enjoy your death and destruction, and welcome to the Killing Game.]"
Eli instantly tapped out of the text message as he finished reading it and went to the home screen searching for Death's App. He found it immediately.
'Wait. Is there kill really a kill leaderboard?'
Eli opened up the app to find out. Quickly agreeing to the terms and conditions, he found that there were three icons at the bottom of the screen. Drawn towards the one with a bloody skull, he clicked it. It brought him to the Kill Leaderboard.
"Wait, what!" A girl called out at the front of the classroom. "There really is a kill leaderboard!"
Eli's hand began trembling wildly as he watched the names of unknown people rise and fall among the leaderboard, with numbers stood besides all of their names. It was their kill counter.
'This can't be real. This has to be a prank. There's no way this is real.'
His other classmates had come to the same conclusion.
"This isn't real guys." Omesh suddenly spoke up. "It's gotta to be a hoax. Any good hacker can claim to be Death and create a fake kill leaderboard."
The other classmates nodded in agreement.
"Yeah Omesh. You're right." A small Asian girl stated confidently. "This definitely isn't real. If Death was real, why's he revealing himself through a text? Wouldn't it just be easier to kill a bunch of people with his magical powers to reveal himself. It doesn't make any sense."
"I also agree." Jamie added. "And the names on the kill leaderboard are definitely fake. Any decent programmer could do that."
"Yep. Death is a fake." Omesh concluded with overwhelming confidence. "I'm 100 percent sure of it."
Eli externally nodded his head in agreement, yet deep inside his consciousness, a distant and forgotten part of himself was still convinced that the Killing Game was real.
'C'mon Eli.' Eli told himself mentally. 'You know that this is all fake.'
Yet despite this, the forgotten part of himself refused to waver.
'You know that Death is real Eli.' The forgotten voice whispered inside his head. 'You're just trying to fool yourself.'
'I'm fooling myself?' The dominant Eli answered. 'You're the foolish one here. There's no evidence to support that Death is real. Only superstition.'
Eli expected the other voice within him to go silent after that argument, but it didn't.
'You're a coward Eli.' The distant voice whispered tauntingly. 'Use your brain for once.'
Eli clenched his fist in irritation.
'Use my brain?!' The dominant Eli began ranting in frustration. 'There's no way to prove that the Killing Game is real or no-'
Eli stopped halfway through his mental rant. Realisation hit him.
'Unless...'
Eli diverted his attention back towards his phone. Below the words 'Kill Leaderboard', Eli could spot a white bar with a magnifying glass on it. A search bar.
'Surely not...'
Eli violently typed on his phone's keyboard and clicked the search button.
THUD!
The phone fell onto the class desk, slipping through Eli's shock seized fingers.
'N-no way...'
Eli's eyes slowly shifted towards to the screen of the phone.
[Hector Evans] [1]
'T-that's i-impossible...you wouldn't know t-that the teacher k-killed a s-student unless...'
The Killing Game was real.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
NotBlind
NotBlind This chapter was very hard to write. Very hard. Needless to say, many braincells were lost trying to make this chapter as good as I wanted it. So I would really appreciate it if you added this book to your library and gave me some power stones. That way, I may have enough braincells to continue writing this book...
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