Game Of Survival

Chapter 19

JAMES

The footsteps became more and more obvious and with every second that came by, my fear choked me harder.

"Guys…" The overly familiar voice said as he stood at the mouth of the cave in a cautious manner.

"Dave?" Eve pitched.

"Oh my god, you guys are alive!" He exclaimed and then he trotted towards us but none of us were eager to receive him.

"One more step and I promise you I'll slit your throat!" Eve warned and he stopped midway.

"You coward, so you left us to die just to save your own skin eh." Daniel growled.

"I'm so sorry, I couldn't think straight and I just listened to my instincts."

"So that is your excuse huh, would you have been happy if we left you in the face of death instead?" Eve retorted.

"I'm sorry--"

"Shut up and just leave." Daniel waved him off.

"Come on--"

"I said leave!" Daniel barked.

"Please--"

"Daniel is right, we can't trust you anymore." Eve quoted in an icy tone.

"Wait, is that…" His voice trailed off. "Jason?" He pointed and our eyes fell on Jason.

"How did he?.."

"I killed him." I answered and he went stiff.

"And you're going to be the one to dispose of these bodies." I glared.

"What why?!"

"That's your punishment for deserting your group. If you want to stick with us then this is how you atone."

"James, what are you saying? I'm not going to let this bastard spend another minute with me." Daniel interjected.

"Yeah me too." Eve affirmed.

"You guys are right." I sighed. "I don't trust him either but he's not one to turn on us like Jason. Besides, if we leave him it's like we're basically pushing him to his death." I explained. "We all know the plan, we want to leave this damned place with as many people as we can. Isn't that why you saved Kate and her friend?" I glanced at Eve but she remained quiet just like I expected.

"I swear on my life guys, I won't ever run away. We're going to face whatever danger that comes together." Dave interjected, Eve hissed while Daniel scoffed.

"Just so you know, I'm only accepting this because of James." Eve uttered.

"Thank you so much…" He heaved a sigh of relief.

"Well then, you better get to work. The scent of blood is killing me." Daniel grumbled. Dave nodded like an obedient child before walking reluctantly towards Kate's body.

"Where am I going to--" He asked.

"I don't know, you decide that for yourself." She replied and he sighed before dragging her body out of the Cave. We watched in silence as he disposed of their bodies to goodness knows where. And after a while, we all sat together in a circle. Each of us is engulfed in our own world of thoughts.

"I can't believe Jason turned on us." Dave suddenly muttered.

"This damned show brings out the monster in all of us. If not for James, he wouldn't have hesitated to kill us back in the forest."

"Still we had a plan, why would he--"

"He probably thought it over and over again and he let his doubt take control. And I don't blame him much." She paused, staring at us. "I mean who wouldn't have doubts? There's almost next to zero assurance that any of us might survive."

"So what do you want to do now?" Dave asked. "Are you also considering it? Did you want to be used like a puppet for their entertainment?"

"If I wanted to, I would have run away like you and you probably won't be alive to come back and check the cave." She answered him.

"In any case, we need to have the same goal if we're going to survive." Daniel interjected. "I trust my brother and Eve but I don't know about you Dave."

"I already apologized to Daniel, I promised to stick to the plan already."

"I don't believe that. None of us do. You're just being lucky. But I promise you, if you try anything funny, I'll kill you myself even if it costs me my last breath." He paused. "Either way, we all need to come to a decision now. The four of us are sticking together and no other person is joining us. It's the only way we have to avoid what happened tonight repeating itself."

Eve and Dave nodded but they were forgetting another thing. If we were going to survive, then we must be ready to kill. Because at one point or the other, situations like this would pop again.

I heaved an inaudible sigh. My body was incredibly tired and I needed sleep more than ever but after tonight's events I doubt any of us had sleep in our eyes. And after long hours of nothing but silence and endless thoughts the morning finally dawned.

"So, what are we going to do now?" Dave asked as we stepped outside. I looked into the sky.

"First, we have to cover as many grounds as we can." I said. "I'm not quite sure the shore is our only way out of the Island. There must be another way or two."

"Yeah…" Daniel whispered.

"Hold on guys, we don't even know how large this place is, not to mention there are still people out there who would want to kill us." Dave interjected.

"Escaping here wasn't going to be an easy thing in the first place." I answered. "If we're going to survive, we would have to take risks."

"Yeah." Eve affirmed. "If we don't do this, we'll just keep on being at a disadvantage. We need to know the landscape first and then figure out a means to escape."

"Alright then, I guess we're doing this." Dave sighed and suddenly an alarm blared. We all took protective stances, looking around for anything odd. But we couldn't even detect where this loud sound came from or what it meant.

The alarm suddenly stopped and we stared at each other with confused expressions.

"All contestants should head south to the second Arena within the next hour."

The deep voice repeated again and I frowned. It kept repeating for the next five minutes and it suddenly stopped.

"Should we go?" Daniel asked me.

I sighed.

"We don't have a choice for now. If we don't, we might have our heads blown to pieces."

"I definitely don't want that, so I guess we're going then." Dave pitched.

Another sigh escaped my breaths, whatever lies ahead in that Arena was probably another bloodshed.