The Camp

Chapter 15

By the time I'd retied my shoelaces and attempted to secure my makeshift collar down the siren had sounded and I was trampling across the grass on my way towards the first trial of the day. Celebrities were plonked in their chairs; Rachel was waiting by a stand-alone mic and the crowd was gathering. I looked behind us in an attempt to catch a glimpse of what we would be doing but almost immediately regretted it. A deep trench had been dug into the ground where the previous trials had taken place and said trench was filled with the murkiest water that I had ever seen. It was brown and had leaves drifting across the top in the mild breeze that had accumulated over the course of the morning.

Rachel tapped her mic to check that it was still working as a camera drone positioned itself high above us. "Welcome, welcome, to today's first trial. Now we think that our trials have been too easy, and well, we've just had to fix that. So, I introduce to you your next task." Her arm extended to the trench and most of us looked round in confusion, there would be barely enough space to pass someone else never mind fit us all in. "While you may all be thinking that swimming isn't that hard, we think that it is because you won't just be swimming. Our scores will be a little different today. That means that the last seventy-five of you that remain will continue to the next trial while the twenty-five who are cut will either be dead or will have given up." I was starting to understand what they were doing, why he trench was so narrow, we were being made to fight for our survival which meant if you got into the wrong place at the wrong time then you'd be gone. "You can always choose to stop or not even start but if you do that will mark the end of your journey in our competition." A small smile that accompanied her flitting eyelashes crawled onto her face. "Make your way to the starting line." She cried and I followed the straggle of people across to the edge of the pool, pushing forward to get closer to the front than the back. "One final thing," Rachel bellowed as we readied ourselves for the plunge of icy water, "You must keep swimming, or you'll be disqualified." The cannon sounded and we all jumped forward, hitting the surface of the water in a collective splash.

When I brought my head up it was chaos, the stronger people amongst us had turned on the weaker people and I swerved out of the way as a beefy girl slammed another into the water and held her there without much of struggle. With widening eyes, I began to swim, pushing forwards as fast as I could through the water in an attempt to escape the blood bath. After dodging another large contestant, I found myself out into a more peaceful stretch of water where I took the time to collect my thoughts. There was no way that I could defeat one of the stronger girls in hand to hand combat and so I decided to stay away from them, the other threat was being drowned from behind and I came up with a way to safe proof myself from that as well: I would glide along below the surface of the water, towards the floor and hope that when I came up for breath no one was around me. Fear had already settled over my body and my swimming style was clunky and stiff but still it was better than some. Something touched the back of my leg and I almost let out a scream, it was cold like flesh but didn't grab onto me and when I turned back to find out what it was I almost let out another scream, there was a dead body caught on the leg of my suit, dragging along behind me as I swam.

Holding my breath, I leaned back and pried the girl's lifeless hand from the fabric, hearing a small tear as I did and that was when I hit something behind me and felt a hand duck my head under the water. I opened my eyes to the sting of the dirty water and began to thrash around, not thinking in my panic and then realising that moving was wasting my air. Allowing myself a few calming seconds I formulated plan and unwrapped the string from my hair, bracing myself with my feet on the slippery floor I pushed upwards and threw my hands out of the surface of the water. I felt the top of my head hit something and a horrific crack echoed through the water. Almost immediately I pulled my hands back down beneath the water and crossed them, puling the string between them into a cross section and pulling even harder, bracing myself with my feet on the wall. At that point my head was released, and I exploded onto the surface for air, gasping it in and choking it down. I didn't let my hands slip even as I moved and even when the girl stopped twisting, I stayed where I was, pulling the string tighter round her neck and holding her head under.