As long as you are breathing

Ambush

Kalil and Zahid entered the ship. They were flown to a specific part of the area, probably the one they selected from the dart game. They were made to stand on two discs and the disc descended them on the grassy field. Thus the ship left.

“What now?” asked Kalil.

“I don’t know. Let’s just not do anything suspicious. They feel intimidating,” said Zahid.

“I guess I will comply,” replied Kalil.

They roamed around not going far, sat down, stared at the grasses for about half an hour after which they heard the sound of a person on a loudspeaker. It was smooth English.

“I request the attention of every participant of the game ‘Survive.’ I shall introduce the rules to you. The rules are pretty simple actually: the last man standing wins. Anything goes.

But of course, to give you an idea of what you can expect, I will talk about some arrangements for you. First, let us introduce ourselves. We are GC. You guys are an alien race who calls themselves the humans. We decide to hold a game to see what your race comes up with in order to survive and basically give us some form of entertainment.

 We have collected one million of you. Of course, all of you came here by your choice.

I would not consider this unethical since we collected people who were candidates of death while they were dwelling in your world. For example, we collected fighters and soldiers which are professions that contract their life away. We also collected criminals which were sentenced to death anyway. Not that I care much about ethics.

 Inside this spaceship, we have a huge area dedicated for you guys for playing this game. It has different types of biomes from different planets, artificially arranged while making sure all of them are habitable or at least survivable for a minimum of five minutes.

We have also gathered different types of animals to spice it up a bit. Some of them are really dangerous, so look out for that. Also, edible herbs, fruits, and animals are available; you guys will probably be stuck here for days. So you might need those.

Speaking of which, we have arranged our lighting system to imitate the 24 hour day and night cycle of your planet, including reddish light for sunrise and sunset. We haven’t arranged any weather though; we don’t think you will be here for that long. But our different biomes include snowy biomes and desert biomes too, so you can get an experience of weather differences if you want to.

Lastly, the most exciting part is the weapons crafted by reprogramming of Jusog particles. We are not going to explain this one. It's best kept a surprise. But they are scattered throughout the map. Don’t worry, you won’t miss them. We kept them in a decoration they deserve. We can’t wait to see you guys discover them

 That is all for our arrangement. There are one million of you. Keep the game interesting. Entertain us to the best that you can. The game won’t stop until there is just one of you standing.

Best of luck!”

Kalil and Zahid blankly stared at each other for a few minutes. They are both paralyzed by the shock.

“Man, this became more serious than we thought,” said Zahid.

“Well, we will just have to do what we have to do. Survive!” replied Kalil.

They both observed their environment. They were in a grassy terrain beside a forest.

 “We aren’t in too bad of a situation I guess,” said Zahid as he leaned on a tree.

Immediately a man jumped from the tree and landed with a double kick to Zahid’s gut.

“Ouch!” exclaimed Zahid as he lost his breath and dropped down on the grass. The person then took a basic fighting stance against Kalil.

“Whoa! Everything’s starting sooner than expected,” said Kalil.

He ran towards Kalil for an attack while Kalil bounced in his Muay Thai stance. He threw a wide shovel hook to Kalil’s body. But starting with body shots isn’t common in Muay Thai. So, Kalil was caught off guard. Even though he could somehow evade due to reflex action, it hit his liver hard enough for him to fall to his knees.

“Dammit!” he said to himself.

The opponent quickly kneed on Kalil’s face, throwing him flat on the ground. He jumped on Kalil and started grounding and pounding.

“Hey! You have another opponent right here,” said Zahid as he barely stood up holding his gut.

“Uh, I don’t care. There are actually three of us,” said the opponent.

“Wha-” Zahid’s voice was blocked by a hasty rear-naked choke from behind. But due to its hastiness, the choke caught the upper jaw instead of his throat.

“We totally got’em,” the opponent thought to himself as he clenched his fist out of excitement.

But Kalil and Zahid are pro-fighters. Turning around the tide of a fight isn’t something new in their world.

Kalil threw an elbow to the quadriceps of his opponent. The millisecond shock from that pain gave Kalil a chance to perform a hip thrust after which changing positions was easy.

But even though Kalil was in the advantageous position, as a standing fighter it was more convenient for him to get up and wait for his opponent to stand up along with him.

On the other hand, while one of Zahid’s opponents was busy tried to choke Zahid better, another opponent tried to attack him from the front. Zahid intended to kick the opponent in front and from there spring to imitate a headspring, bending his choker in the process.

 However, Zahid only managed to do the kicking part while the rest of his fantasy remained a fantasy. He had to resort to biting his way out.

Now Kalil is face to face with his opponent while Zahid stands off against two of his own.

“Give up. We win by numbers,” said one of them.

Zahid smirked and replied, “Oh yeah? Well, we win by power.”