School Creepypasta

6: The Poster

The grass field still had a dark red spot where Denise had been. I stared at it before hearing my name, that I should pay attention.

I nodded at Jeff, I would pay attention. Once I get over my own actions which will be never.

"Because of your sloppy movements were going to do simple sparring."

Anthony went with me, the other three stepping away from me.

We started and immediately I wasn't paying attention again. Turns out, Anthony knew something or other about fighting already as I fell to the ground with an ouch.

"Sorry," Anthony grinned awkwardly, "When I was in juvie—"

"What?" I sat up, "You were in—"

"Stop chatting!" Jeff called out. And I got up completely.

We both got ready, but instead of beating me up or throwing me down, Anthony gave me a few tips.
In the end we had both improved.

Everyone got a break.
As Anthony and me sat down on the grass again, I looked away from the blood. I took the water bottle he handed out and we chatted for a bit.

Maybe this wouldn't be so bad? My eyes slowly glanced back to the blood. Maybe.

—Valley POV—

"Why are we here?" I asked monotonously, my eyes stuck on the book. Toby explained all about having to train more to be able to actually get them to survive.

"Okay," Dian said, "But why? Why are you helping us?"

Toby shrugged that he didn't know, but then said, "For the prize, if you all die I kinda am going to get laughed at as well."

I closed my book and threw it on the hopefully dry grass. It looked brown and dead, the summer having done it's job, so I doubted it could do much harm.

"We'll start with some sparring," Toby said, "To put what you have learned into practice."

As I turned to Dian, they smiled only to get a hand on their shoulder. Dian turned to one of the boys and I sighed when they partnered up. My besty, Dian, I feel betrayed.

"You're alone?" Toby asked me and I sighed.

"I guess..."

"You're with me then! Don't worry, I'll go easy!"

I nodded, already done with this shit.

Toby was quick to begin, he immediately gave me tips and I was surprised at how he was so good at explaining. He laughed off all of my clumsy mistakes and eventually I managed to down him. In other words, Toby let me, he really was going easy on me.

Finally we finished up and Toby helped me up.

"You did great!"

"I did?" I asked in surprise.

Toby grinned. "You improved, didn't you?"

Right, we weren't striving for perfection yet. Soon failure would mean death though, so I picked up my book and asked Toby wether I could go to one of the training rooms. We had free range now that people didn't chose to leave anymore. Five kids had been killed already.

I walked to the training room, my eyes on the ground. Five students, dead.

In the training room I recalled how they had pulled someone up the stage in the main hall. Her stomach had been stabbed and her throat slid.
I wasn't going to give up. I wasn't going to end up like that!

Punching the punching bag, I let myself get tired before I closed my eyes and wiped away all the memories, the truths and the fears.

Nodding to myself I grabbed my book and read a chapter while slowly walking back to the dorms.
Inside, Toby was fast asleep, his tics continuing even then. The three boys sat playing cards while Dian sat on their own.
I felt my lips twitch.
Stupid kids.

"Hey," I said to Dian. They looked up from their phone. As a precaution nobody used them, or turned off their WiFi completely. Calling parents or anyone wasn't the best idea as one of the dead kids had tried. They were displayed in one of the trophy cases, their head half blown up.

"Hi," Dian sat back and patted the spot next to them. I sat down with my book and continued to read.

"Look at those weirdos," Stephen said as he looked up a bit at them. A teasing smile was on his face, "I bet they're the first of us to die."

I rolled my eyes. "We can hear you, asshole."

Elijah grinned at me as he turned a bit. "Oh, I didn't know you could hear above your smart mouth."

They laughed.
"Good one!" Stephen said.

"Oh, by the way," Dorcas said with a forced smile, "I win the game." He put down his last card and the boys attention went back to the game.

I looked back at my book. Did we just get saved from the bitchy conversation?

—

The next day in class Dian and me sat together. We exchanged our notes and looked them through at the end of each class, just chatting away the boredom before the 'school' day was over.

As we walked through the hallway, Dian apologised for having me spar with Toby.

"How do you mean?"

Dian shrugged. "I just know you were signing that you wanted to partner up with me," they looked away awkwardly, "And I just said yes when Elijah asked wether I wanted to partner up with him instead. I'm sorry for doing that."

I smiled, glad to hear a sorry. "It's totally okay."

"You sure?"

"True as toasted toads!"

Dian's face gave a weird look and I hoped he wouldn't ask wether that was a quote (or I'd start ranting about a book awkwardly).
As Dian paled though, I stopped walking next to him.
Looking where they were I slowly felt a shudder going down my spine.

A large poster was announcing the first fights. To the death. What... the fuck?
The poster told us two people would get chosen by chance. One of them would die. This meant we might get lucky and not have to fight.
Still we stared at the poster, thoughts rushing through our heads.

"This is..." Dian mumbled.

"Madness." I finished.

We glanced at each other in dread.
Let's hope chance would save us...