I awake to the sounds of hushed whispering. The voices hurl themselves at each other. Two of them are girls, certainly. The other two could be two more boys, or just one boy. My mind is too jacked up to tell the difference by now. Still keeping my eyes closed and breath neutral to avoid suspiscion, I continue to eavesdrop.
My heart soars in joy and I almost jump out of of my position to hug Akimitsu when I recognize his voice. He's alive!
I can hear him whispering "It wasn't his fault! Akira didn't kill them!"
Hoshiko, I recognize her voice, hisses back "How do you know? When me and Raiko were peeking through the window, you know all we saw was Akira holding a gun, standing over the bodies of Akana and Atsuhiko!"
Akimitsu puases for a second, before saying "I refuse to believe he purposely murdered the two of them. Yes, I mourn them, but Akira would never kill just to kill."
They actually thought I had kill Akana too! That was crazy! I had only killed Atsuhiko and that was because he tried to kill me! This wasn't fair! Without thinking, I sat up quickly and yelled "I didn't kill Akana!"
Four heads look at me in shock. Akimitsu's look of confusion is immediately replaced with a smile. Hoshiko looks relieved. Raiko and the other boy, Natsuki Soda, have no emotion seen on their faces.
After a few seconds of awkward silence from Hoshiko, Raiko and Natsuki, as well as Akimitsu's weird beaming smiles, Hoshiko immediately goes in for the kill "Did you kill Akana and Atsuhiko?" she demands.
I stutter "W-well, I k-killed Atsuhiko b-but"
"HA!" Hoshiko shrieks. "He killed him!" while Akimitsu is the one who looks shocked.
Quietly, Akimitsu says "Why did you kill him?"
I immediately begin, starting from being released from the school, my sheet of paper of the weapons, hiding, walking to the shack, being attacked, killing Atsuhiko with his own gun. Seeing Akana already dead. After five minutes of rapid talking, I finally finish. While I get a breath of air, Akimitsu breaths a sigh of relief. Hoshiko looks unconvinced, but she doesn't say anything. Raiko and Natsuki exchange glances, but also say nothing.
Finally I say, "Now it's your turn to explain. Why did you kidnap me? I was doing fine on my own."
Akimitsu snorted. "Really? After almost getting killed? I don't think so. And I know you were headed for the village to hide in one of the houses. That was suicide, Akira."
But I ignore him completely and don't say a word, opting instead to glare at my shoes. I don't owe them anything. Hell, they kidnapped me!
I grow bored of the look of my plain navy dress shoes mandatory for school, so then look at the weapon on the table. I see Akimitsu's Walther PPQ Semi-Automatic Pistol a few inches away from his hand. I don't view this as a threat, but instead as one of caution. Hoshiko looks bored as she taps her weapon, an IMI Micro-Uzi, probably one of the best weapons assigned in the Program. I'll have to be careful o what I say or do around her with that submachine gun, or she's shoot me dead without hesitation. I don't blame her wariness around me. I would be scared too if I thought a boy standing a few feet away from me had murdered someone with a gun. Raiko spins her weapon around in her hands absentmindedly, one exact to Akimitsu. A Walther PPQ. Natsuki has his gun behind him on a counter, a Brugger & Thomet Machine Pistol, a submachine gun, just like Hoshiko's weapon.
We just sit there for a moment, glancing between one another. Hoshiko avoids my gaze completely and casually blows nonexistent smoke off of the mouth of the gun, which, according to my understandiing of the act, is a threat. As a precaution I cock my gun with my hands and gun under the table. The tension in the air seems to inflate, almost suffocating. Even Natsuki quietly turns his chair to the side, as so he should be able to reach his weapon at any moment. It is at that moment I realize that all four of us are armed with a firearm, and if we end up in a shooting match, it could definitely be fatal. But Hoshiko eventually rolls her eyes and sits up, placing her Micro-Uzi on the table. She leaves the room for a moment, weaponless. Akimitsu and Raiko, who I had forgotten was there, exchange glances.
After a few extrememly uncomfortable minutes, Hoshiko returns, shooting me looks of daggers. I don't know what's up with her. I had clarified that the incident with Atsuhiko wasn't my fault. She pauses for a second, before pointing to me and screaming "It's your fault! It's your fault! You killed Atsu! You killed him! You killed him you fucking little shit head! You killed him! I saw you, you... you merciless asshole! He just wanted to save himself! And... and you didn't save Akana! You didn't freaking save Akana! Fuck you and your parents that gave birth to this shithead!"
I am taken aback by her statements. What did she mean, that he just wanted to save himself?
Hoshiko tries to keep going but she seems to have a loss of words. So she just shrieks "You're like the fucking devil! No mercy! No mercy! No mercy! No me-"
She is cut off by Akimitsu standing up and calmly holding his Walther PPQ to her chest. "Don't you dare threaten Akira."
Hoshiko's eyes bulge. Her mouth changes into a sneer. "Oh, have you killed too? Haave you killed an innocent classmate? ARE YOU A MONSTER LIKE AKIRA?"
That was it. I yanked my gun out of my belt and held it to Hoshiko's chest. Raiko immediately went for her gun, but Hoshiko made a weird shrieking sound and opened fire, the bullets firing out of the submachine gun like horizontal rain. While still standing, Raiko's body making spasms before collapsing onto the ground, the multiple holes in her body oozing blood like slime. Natsuki screamed and held his gun out, one very similar to Hoshiko's. Ducking for cover, I leaped under the table. Both Hoshiko and Natsuki opened fire on me, but luckily none of the bullets touched me, the closest one skimming past my knee. Akimitsu yells "I don't think so!" and fires three bullets at Natsuki. All three hit him, one in the side of the neck, and the other two in his stomach. He screams and curses in pain as he falls to the ground, his eyes widened in shock. Hoshiko yells "No!" and aims for a shocked Akimitsu. Hoshiko closes her eyes and pulls on the trigger, emptying her gun out on him. The bullets seem to slow down in midair as I jump out from under the table. Instead of firing at her, I throw my weapon at her, hitting her blunt in the chest. She yells out in pain as he falls into a chair. I see Natsuki's submachine gun lying next to his corpse and I yank it off the ground. Hoshiko looks at me in mercy, but instead it's anger and blind rage that compels me to pull the trigger and end her life.
She's dead. So is Raiko, and Natsuki, and... and Akimitsu? I dash to his lying body, his lifeless eyes looking at the ceiling. No.... this can't be happening. No. No! Akimitsu is not dead. Thsis positively cannot be happening. It's only about seven hours into the Program and almost half of us are dead! Including my best friend.... the one who came to my house almost every day after school, the one who ogled girls with me at the pizza place. The one who protected me and always had my back... is dead.
Shaking in fear and anger, I cry again, my wet tears falling on his angelic face. Trickling down his face as if it were his tears of sadness, not my own.
I know I should move on. I'm not the only who lost a friend by now. I should leave, but I cna't bring myself to do it. i had thought that being surrounded by dead bodies was scary, but now I realize that it's only sad. You can only think about how they died. And their deaths were so recent, if you ignore the blood staining all their clothes, you would think they were only sleeping.
Only sleeping. That's a good thing to think. Not dead, only sleeping.
With a heavy heart, I collect all the weapon dropped in the massacre and collect the remaining water and food in their packs. I then say goodbye to each of them, taking a minute to think of them before all this. I linger extra long on Akimitsu, and give him one last goodbye, before walking out the door, not looking back.
The Program has only just begun.
