A Pinch of Murder

Chapter 1- The Beginning

  Jade sat at the breakfast table, watching her brother Max eat his usual cereal.

"Hurry up, slowpoke," Jade reprimanded, anxious for the day to come.

She had finished her bagel a few minutes ago and she stood there to get ready to drop Max off at school.  She dreaded this day ever since she learned in first grade that the population was overpopulated.

People from first grade through twelfth grade had to participate in an improper war, and ten students die each year. Every school participates in it and students even call it unnecessary murder.

Ten schools have ten students die each year, meaning that one hundred students die in a total of ten schools. The government took advantage of everyone's names, so they assigned each and every one of the students to a role: murderer, sheriff, or spy.

Murderers kill, and make sure they don't get caught by the sheriffs. Spies just try to find out which is which and snitch on them. Sheriffs find out who the murderers are. The schools are on lockdown until the last five people die.

Meanwhile, sheriffs look out for murderers. Murderers look out for sheriffs, and spies just try to survive. If the sheriffs find all the murderers, they win.

The murderers have to kill all the sheriffs and kill everyone until five people are left. The people killed after the first five are teleported to a lobby, where they can watch the "murder" at other schools.

Fortunately, all the groups are separated by how many syllables are in each person's name. Let's say that people who have two syllables in their name are sheriffs. In other schools it will be the same.

This is Max's first time, so Jade had packed all the necessary items, food, medical kits and water.

"Why are you so worried?" asked Max.

"It's your first time, so of course I'm worried!" Jade exclaimed as she grabbed food for herself.
"But whatever role you get, I get, so I'm not that worried."

"Well, alright, as long as we get out of our schools alive, then we are fine right?" Max asked as he finally finished his cereal.

"Yep," Jade agreed, although she knew it was way worse than that.

Fortunately this week the first graders, sixth graders and ninth graders were playing this week. Next week the second graders, third graders, seventh graders and tenth graders will play. The week after that the fourth graders,eleventh graders and twelfth graders play against each other.

"Come on,"Jade said, grabbing her brother's backpack.
"We are going to be late for school."

School was the same as normal on the day of Kill for Law. They talked about the roles, what to do and the rules.

"This is torture!" Jade exclaimed to her friends during lunch.

The sixth graders all had lunch together for once, so the cafeteria was filled with new faces. The sixth graders were also the only ones there because of the Kill for Law schedule.

"It is unnecessary, but the group that wins gets food and money, along with the chance to change a law," Nova explained.

Being the smart one there, she was one of the most calm and could bring a smile to any of them on a gloomy day.

"But imagine if we were part of the lucky 5!" Eden gushed.

Eden was Jade's oldest friend. She was very kind and would not participate in arguments. But, she would always end conflicts easily.

The lucky five were five people from the two syllables group. As there was too many people in that group, the government made a rule that five people could choose their role.

"Really Eden? Only you and Nova have the chances but what about everyone else?" Trinity complained.

Trinity was pressured more then anybody else. If she died, her family would have nobody left.

Violet stared at her friends in silence.

Violet was tired and wanted to sleep. She had stayed up all night studying. She silently nodded off and nobody noticed.

"But remember how quickly global warming ended?" Wren retold happily.

Wren was the newest member of the group. Although she did know everyone, there were sometimes some disagreements.

"Yeah but it is still unne-," Jade said unsuccessfully.

"Attention students," the intercom interrupted.

"People with one syllable names come to the library."

This was such a fun chapter to write! See you in the next chapter!