Survival of the Weakest

16

I shook as I turned to Bo, and he gasped.

"What? No, are you kidding me?!" He leaned down to see Isaac and stared at him in disbelief. Tears welled up in his eyes and he wiped them away. "W-Why don't you go get Haydn. We can talk about how he died."

I sighed and stood up. How could Isaac be dead? He was such a genuine and good person. Bo really liked him. They were as close as brothers. I walked over to Haydn, who was checking on June's arm.

"Valerie, where did you go?" Haydn asked.

"Isaac- he's dead," I told her.

She stood up and cursed under her breath. "You found him, huh? He wasn't in his tent." Haydn rubbed her eyes. "Alright. Take me to him."

I led Haydn over to Isaac's corpse, where Bo was still crying. Haydn examined Isaac's body for a few minutes silently and then turned to us.

"Well, he was definitely murdered," she started. "He has a wound on his head, probably caused by a stick or a rock. But that didn't kill him." She pointed to his neck. "He was strangled."

"S-strangled?" Bo whispered.

"Yeah, those markings confirmed it. And it was probably around 3 am. So, at night time."

I sighed. "So, I guess it'll be hard to talk about."

"Yeah. Come on. Let's go round everyone up."

Bo and I went around to everyone's tent, rounding up everyone to talk. It seemed surreal. There were only 8 of us left. And one of us had murdered Isaac.

Giovanna. Ichiro. Zach. Dana. Jordan. Ryley. Brycin. Colin. Jelka. Thane. Pazia. And now Isaac. All of them had lost their lives unfairly to this game. I was determined to have Isaac be the last death. Whoever died next was going to be the organiser.

We all sat down and stared at each other. None of us knew how to start. The last time this happened, it ended horribly. But I had a feeling this murder wouldn't be justifiable like Brycin's was. I cleared my throat and started talking.

"So- Bo and I found Isaac's body this morning. According to Haydn, he must've left around 3 am, but he didn't come back. He was murdered."

"How did he die, Valerie?" Haruko asked.

"He was strangled," Bo answered.

Everyone looked dejected. We didn't have any leads.

"Did anyone see anything?" June suggested.

Penn scoffed. "Yeah, because the murderer took the time to announce their plans. 'Midnight, went out to murder Isaac'." They rolled their eyes.

"Maybe he saw something," Florian said. "Maybe he saw the organiser and then was killed for that."

"Did anyone go out last night?" Xue asked. Everyone shook their heads. "Well, either someone's lying or there's a different reason."

We all stayed silent for a few minutes. It was looking pretty hopeless. Killing someone at night was an easy way to get away with it. And last time it happened there were more people, so there were, therefore, more witnesses. But no one had anything to say. Apart from the murderer, everyone had been asleep as Isaac was killed.

Penn exhaled dramatically. "Ok, since this isn't working, I think we should think of something else."

"What do you want to do now, Penn?" Haruko asked.

"Let's end this," they declared. "Tomorrow, let's all do a strike. We won't go anywhere, we won't eat anything, we won't even sleep until the organiser reveals themselves."