I felt a blurring feeling through my body. It was relaxing, but it just made me very tired. I wanted to stay this way. Perhaps I could fall asleep. My eyes jolted back open as the memories of the day came flooding back to me. Boarding the bus with my classmates, talking the entire time, then what? Did I fall asleep? I sat up in place, looking around. We were in some sort of room, it was dark. I could see a teacher's desk in the front of the room. The wall adjacent to it held double doors, in which were clearly locked up tight. Across the walls with the doors was the wall with the windows. The curtains were closed, though I could probably open them with ease. I wondered where I was. A classroom? Weren't we on the study trip? The musuem? Then I heard coughs and looked behind me quickly. All of my classmates were behind me, some still seemingly sleeping, though most were up and confused. I looked around desperately for Akimitsu. I finally saw him nestled between Ikumi and Suzume. I leaped for him and grabbed his shoulders, jolting him awake. He blinked around, confused. That's when I saw the collar on his neck. A silver collar with a red square in the middle. What? I looked at Ikumi to see if he had it too. He did. I grabbed at my own neck and felt it. The cool, steel necklace. What were they for?
The double doors suddenly opened. Forty-two heads swiveled over to the noise. Some soldiers with the Commonwealth seal stepped into the room. Most scooted a few feet back to let them pass. Then a man stepped into the room as well, followed by more soldiers.
Finally, the strange man spoke, positioning himself behind the large desk. "Now chuldren, please take a seat," despite the majority of us were already sitting on the floor or on the few chairs scattered around the room.
After the last ninth-grader had taken her seat next to her best friend near the double doors, he spoke again. "Welcome to class. Before I begin, is there any questions as to where you are now?"
Forty hands went up in the air, including mine.
After about twenty seconds of scanning the crowd that sat before him, he finally picked on Hiroki Mase. "Yes, Hiroki, what is your question or questions?"
Hiroki spoke, "Two questions, please. Firstly, where are we?"
The man chuckled, "Why, you are on the hidden and virtually unknown island of Hasakake."
"Secondly sir, what are we doing here? Weren't we supposed to be on the museum trip?"
"That was three questions, dearie. You are doing on Hasakake because we have a very important lesson to teach you youngsters." He pointed to the blackboard and yelled "Battle Royale!"
There was silence of confusion for about five seconds before Kameyo Tanabe burst into sobs and cried endlessly. She was met with glances of surprise. Why was she crying?
The muscular man before us smirked, "Well, someone knows what it is."
What did he mean? What is this 'Battle Royale'?
Kameyo asked her friend, in between tears "Is this real? Please tell me it's not real."
Azami answered "It's real"
That was blunt.
The man spoke yet again "My name is Aguri and I will be your teach from now on. I don't know what happened to your previous teach and I really couldn't care less. Anyways, you are the lucky class to have been selected to participate in the sixty-ninth Battle Royale!"
More silence.
"Your phones and other personal devices such as tablets, iPods, Kindles, other e-readers, cameras and laptops have been confiscated and destroyed."
I patted my pockets for my phone and sure enough, it was gone.
"You are in the school right now." Aguri said, pointing to a large map taped to the blackboard. There was a dot where according to Aguri, was where we are.
