[HIATUS] Survive the System

CHAPTER 1 | Sanctum Sanctorum

"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change."

- Charles Darwin

A woman leaves her house in the middle of cooking lunch, making her way to her neighbour's across the street. She looks both ways several times before crossing, despite the emptiness of the road. She knocks and waits patiently for the door to open; when it does, it reveals another woman. They greet each other, smiling. The owner of the house steps aside so her neighbour may come in, and closes the door behind them. "I need your help", she says, "I ran out of salt", and chuckles. The owner tells her neighbour to wait in the hall while she fetches a salt shaker for her. The owner is taking too long; the neighbour is becoming suspicious and decides to check on the other woman. As she enters the kitchen, she sees the owner standing still in front of the sink, with her back to the door; "Is everything alright?" She asks, approaching the woman. The latter turns around, slowly, and is carrying a knife instead of the promised salt shaker. "I'm sorry, I can't help you", she takes consistent steps forward as her neighbour backs away, "But you can help me". The neighbour doesn't have time to scream before the blade of the knife gets buried deep into her abdomen, and consequently ripped out; she falls to the ground, pressing her hand to the wound and gasping for air. With her other hand, she tries to grab her attacker's pants, to pull her back, to pull her down, to look her in the eyes, anything; but the woman avoids even stepping close to her wounded neighbour as she makes her way back to the sink, where she cleans her knife. The neighbour breathes her final breath as the woman slides the knife into the cutlery holder next to the sink. She looks down at her left forearm, placing her right hand on it. She feels a new name be carved into her skin like magic, though it does not hurt; she could barely feel it appearing, if it weren't for her hand on top of it, touching it. She takes a deep breath and turns around to face the dead body in the middle of her kitchen. She has work to do, now.

A high school sophomore finishes eating an apple and uses the locker he was leaning against to push himself away from it. As he begins walking back to the classroom, he throws the apple core behind his back, and scores in the trashcan by the lockers. Normally, he would've cared, but his break is ending earlier this time; there is something he must do. He enters through the door left ajar, turning left towards the teacher's desk, at which the man is sitting. "You still have four more minutes of break, is there something you need?" The teacher doesn't even look up from the pile of papers in front of him, and continued to flick through it. When he receives no answer for a solid ten seconds, he finally looks up about to scold his student, only to find the end of handgun just inches away from his forehead. "Actually, sir, there is. But not for long." The teenager pulls the trigger, seemingly unfazed by the recoil, or even the noise. But the noise attracted others, both students and staff. A few stepped inside the classroom, being greeted by a sight they didn't expect: their classmate standing still, blank expression across his blood-spotted face, staring down at their teacher's lifeless body, his torso sprawled over his desk and drenching the pile of papers in his blood. Someone mutters, "What have you done..." and it catches the teen's attention; with a sharp turn of his head towards the door where everybody stood, in shock, he looks at every single face with the same blank expression he had the entire time. With another sharp movement, he grabs his backpack and pushed his way through the crowd and out the door. They all watch motionless as he walks further and further away from them. No one stops him. They know what has just happened. The laws of survival are absolute. He is now aware of what he's capable of. He's ready.

In the delivery room, a mother cries tears of joy as she gets to hold her newborn baby girl for the first time; her life has just begun, yet she already means so much. A name appears on the baby's forearm, but the mother cannot see it. If she could, she would surely dismiss it; as they say, it is not important right now. In the waiting room, the child's uncle feels a single tear travel slowly across his face, but it has nothing to do with joy; he watches in horror, silently, as his baby niece's full name appears on her brother's forearm, just underneath their uncle's own forearm's skin. The uncle and the nephew were holding onto each other's arm and hand as they awaited news from the delivery room, but now the uncle felt the urge to hold his nephew for a different reason. He subconsciously squeezes the boy's hand. The boy looks to his left to face his uncle with a puzzled expression; he hasn't realised yet. It is something he will learn in time, though his uncle may not be able to aid him any longer. Their family was unaware of why the uncle arrived late, but it plagued him, it plagued him with a very bad feeling, deep in his guts. Wishing for a place in the Elite for his nephew – and, with it, a better life for the whole family – he had been the one eliminating the boy's rabbits, and a few foxes, so his nephew didn't have to. Each target or hunter eliminated by a third party counts as a half-kill for the individual in question; it wasn't much, but it was a tactic better spent in a younger individual. It was, however, also a very dangerous task to carry out – the uncle, if caught, would now be considered a regular murderer and, therefore, judged and sentenced; only the new system deemed these murders as much more serious than before changes were implemented. And, as if somehow inevitable, this poor uncle's worst nightmare becomes true before his eyes: a team of four special ops soldiers barge in, ripping him away from the little boy – the boy's father, on his way back from the bar, drops all the food he had bought for them at the sight of his brother-in-law being dragged towards the door. The boy's father now knows what's happening and nods at the uncle, who nods back and smiles through the tears.

The Elite System made citizens' lives much harder than they were, much harder than they ever needed to be. Situations like these are the main reason for the creation of the Elite Hybrid Academies; from a very young age, individuals learn to be cunning, resourceful, efficient – both as foxes and as rabbits. At first, they were clandestine institutions, aiming to help people defend themselves. Once the government realised these academies could be both highly profitable and a means to ensure the Elite is truly comprised of the best of the best, they were legalized and given clearance to operate freely, only having to report to the minister responsible. Attendance isn't mandatory, but rather encouraged. It's even a place where making friends is a possibility – one can only hope they aren't pit against each other.

"They should already be back by now."

"Relax, love. Gunner and Jude can take care of themselves."

Lying on an old couch in an abandoned warehouse were two young ladies, the calmer one on top of the more alert one. A third girl slid out from under the truck parked in the middle of the warehouse, sitting up on the longboard they used as a makeshift creeper. She turned to them and motioned her opinion; "Als is right, you know?" She gestured. "I'm getting worried too."

The girl sat up on the couch, looking back and forth between her girlfriend and their mute friend. "Come on, you two. How long have we been doing this for? It's not like we're fresh out of the Academy anymore."

"Bad things can happen, Stevie, you know that", Alice retorted.

Suddenly, the back door of the warehouse creaked open, followed by familiar laughter. The mute girl shot up from the longboard and aggressively retied her curly hair into a new bun as she marched towards the arriving duo.

"'Sup", the tall, muscular, dark-skinned woman by the name of Jude waved at her friends. "Why the long faces?"

"I was gonna tell ya we're a bit late 'cause these ones put up a fight, but I'm guessing ya already figured that out", Gunner chuckled. "How's the truck comin' along, Vicky? I bet it's a piece of cake for ya."

Victoria came to a harsh stop in front of her friends and unleashed a series of angry, rapidly changing gestures. Her already prominent eyes seemed larger when she widened them, stepping to the left and to the right to stop Jude and Gunner from avoiding her whenever they tried. She continued to rant like a scolding mother, not even letting them participate.

"Hey, stop yelling, will ya?" Gunner walked past her and made his way to the fridge, near their armoury, a wall full of guns and blades. "We're in one piece, I don't understand the drama."

"You had us worried sick, Gunner!" Vicky gestured.

"She's right, you know?" Alice agreed, "We've been here for over four hours, completely blind." Stevie and Jude exchanged looks, rolled their eyes and hid their chuckles.

"Communicating would compromise us. We figured it wasn't a problem, alright?" Gunner threw his hands up. "Can we move on from that, now?"

Vicky face-palmed and shook her head, accepting defeat. "Who're the new rabbits?" She motioned in curiosity.

"Some fuckface named Jameson Ian Beckett", Jude shrugged. "Poor dude, can't even imagine what's coming his way!" She laughed.

"Mine's a chick. Philippa Jane Thompson. But", Gunner closed the fridge door and turned to his friends, holding a can of beer for each one of them, "that's Tomorrow Me's business." He walked back to the group and threw the cans their way, sitting on the old coffee table. "Tonight Me's gonna enjoy some well-deserved booze, if y'all don't mind."

"Yeah's" were heard all around, accompanied by the sound of the cans being cracked open, and followed by general laughter and a toast.

Nightfall had long conquered the world outside,plunging the streets into starlit blackness, as the scarce streetlampsscattered along the lonely roads flickered their weak light and, thus, failedto properly illuminate their surroundings. Alice's group, happily and safelyholed up inside their safe house, couldn't be bothered to even notice, let alonecare; in any case, they didn't stop at one beer per person, so at the end ofthe night, their surroundings were the last thing they'd be concerned about,even if they wanted to. Life under the Elite System was rarely easy; carefreemoments were deeply treasured. By everybody.

// A/N: Hello, everyone! I'm back with a brand new story! : ) I hope you enjoy this new ride with me! Please don't forget to vote and, if you can, share the story so more people can read it, and thanks for sticking around <3 xx