Battle Royale: Season 1

Prologue

Disclaimer:
Although, I did not create this concept, I did create these characters. Every character written here is an original.
This is a work of fiction. All character similarities to real-life persons are completely coincidental.

Brief Authors Note:

If you'd take an author's suggestion, the best way to read this story is to get a few pieces of scrap paper, or a notebook, or open a Word document, and write down the names and numbers of the fifty contestants as they come along, as well as a brief description of their personalities or your thoughts as you see fit, so that you can avoid confusion.

Synopsis:

This is the story of fifty American high school students chosen to compete in the first American Program.
Enjoy.

Prologue

Stacey Oneal (girl number twenty) throws the lit cigarette into the grass just as her history teacher comes around the corner of the bus. She covers her mouth to muffle her cough as her best friend Janie Ray (girl number three) does a piss poor job of waving the smoke away. Adam Caldwell gives Stacey the same stink eye he's been giving her all year long and his already militant facial features harden as if they were going to crack. Stacey, sitting on the rear end of the bus, pretends to look into the distance, past the service station, deep into the bowels of the surrounding woods.

"What did I say about leaving the bus?" Caldwell asks.

"I just wanted to get some fresh air," Stacey says, which is half true. The other half of the truth is that she wanted a cigarette, and honestly she still wants that nicotine fix. Janie stifles a giggle with her palm, looking away.

"You're extremely fortune that we're already halfway there," Caldwell says. "Otherwise, I'd have the two of you sent home for your disobedience."

"I promise it won't happen again," Stacey says rather contentedly. She raises two of her fingers. "Scouts honor."

He nods, then holds out his hand. "Cigarettes, miss Oneal. Yours too, miss Ray."

This knocks the grin off of Janie's face. "I don't have any, Mister Caldwell."

"Sure you do," He tells Janie. "Now you either hand them over or I will personally see to it that the two of you spend the remainder of your trip in your hotel rooms if I have to sit outside of the door myself." He looks at Stacey then. She sighs internally, gives him her already opened pack with faux disappointment. She's got another pack and even if she didn't, Nick Yang (boy number thirteen) would. When she enters the bus, making her way to the back, she garners the stares of some of her nosier classmates.

She flops down in a seat next to Nick, who is covertly rolling a blunt on his phone. Caldwell takes his seat at the head of the bus. As the bus pulls out of the service station, Stacey catches him glancing in her direction a few more times. He's never approved of her. Not many teachers do, she reckons. She's the only girl in the grade to have gotten sent to detention by every teacher in their year and she figures that she makes for hot conversation in the teacher's lounge. But Caldwell might be the most annoying to her. She's sent her out of class for her skull earrings and knife ripped shirts before. He never calls on her, although history is her favorite subject, and she gives minimum effort in class. Janie, sitting across the aisle in a seat next to Louis Eaton (boy number ten), takes a sharpie and starts drawing on the seat in front of her.

"Careful with that," Stacey whispers to Nick. "Hitler's going to catch us again."

"What's he going to do? Give us detention?" Nick smirks.