**THE FOLLOWING STORY IS A WORK OF FICTION**
It was a beautiful sunny day, with a sky that was the brightest blue that I had ever seen. The clouds, little there were, were wispy and light, reminiscent of smoke floating lazily out of a gun barrel. It was a picturesque day, but despite the perfect weather, I couldn’t shake the feeling that rain would soon fall.
I was sitting in a classroom along with my fellow students as our class president, Ava, announced the rules for this year’s Senior Assassin competition—a grade-wide battle royale that pitted each senior against a fellow student who they are required to “eliminate” using a water gun before the time runs out. Ava explained that the winner of the competition would receive a $1000 cash prize, which explained the large crowd of students that had come to the meeting. As she spoke, Ava’s enthusiasm sounded a little menacing. Like all high school politicians, she spoke with a tone of self-interest, unlike the subservient attitude that ideal public servants were supposed to have. Ava finished her explanation by listing off some final rules of the game: eliminations could happen at any time of day, they could occur anywhere besides private property, and all assassinations must be recorded by a phone.
A plastic bowl was then passed around from person to person, and everyone drew a random student’s name—their target for the competition. As we read our wrinkled slips of paper, I noticed a sudden shift in the demeanor of the kids around me. The sounds of snickering comments from before turned to an uneasy silence, and everyone was hiding their papers from the darting glances of others.
After the meeting adjourned, it wasn’t long before the first elimination occurred. I was walking with my friends, Pedro and Logan, to our cars. We were talking to each other about our targets and casting suspicious glances at the students around us. All of the sudden, I heard snickering behind us, which quickly turned into outright laughter as a thin stream of water glazed Pedro’s back, turning the shoulder of his white T-shirt translucent with moisture. We turned around to see Brock, a fellow senior, dancing in victory in front of his phone camera, celebrating his clever trickery. “You’re OUT!” said Brock before running away. “Holy crap!” I thought to myself. It hadn’t even been five minutes since the game began and the first senior was already “dead.”
The competition took over our lives. The following days were a blur of eliminations. It was one battle after another. Every morning I would open my phone and see a new photo or video of someone getting terminated at their job or while eating with their family at a restaurant.
I could never relax at school. In between periods, the hallways were full of armed seniors intently stalking their targets from class to class, while others ran from possible assailants. When the final bell rang, the giddy socializing that usually occurred after class turned into a frenzy of paranoia, as students rushed to cars and buses eager to make their escape, ignoring anyone who called their name. Even going out with friends far away from the battleground of school required careful precautions. Wherever you were, locating the exits became a must, just in case a quick getaway was required. Everyone lived faster: they drove over the speed limit, jogged from place to place, and darted their eyes around like a hummingbird flapping its wings. The paranoia would even invade our subconscious minds. A few times during the week, I would wake up in a feverish sweat at night. I was having the same recurring nightmare where a shadowy figure was chasing me down an endless hallway.
The town buzzed with news about the competition. Kids talked about it constantly, updating their social media with the latest alerts. The school newspaper published countless stories about the contest with savage headlines like “Massacre at the Student Assembly” or “Another One Bites the Dust at the Library.” At our school’s annual spring art show, crowds swarmed around a watercolor painting depicting a group of leprechauns shooting at one another with water pistols while chasing a pot of gold—a rather on-the-nose commentary on our current battle royale. The light-hearted nature of the cartoon made me laugh, but deep in the eyes of all of the grinning leprechauns I saw an unmistakable feeling of fear.
Somehow throughout the paranoia-packed week I managed to stay alive … until that fateful day. I was driving alone to the theater to watch a movie with my friends. As I cruised down the highway, with “Every Breath You Take” by The Police playing on the stereo, I noticed a black sedan trailing behind me. I thought nothing of it until I spotted it right behind me as I pulled into the parking lot of the theater. Glancing back at the car, I couldn’t distinguish the driver through the heavily tinted windshield. The vehicle became a shadowy, alien presence, its driver’s identity left completely to my anxious imagination. Was the driver here to kill me? I wasn’t going to stick around to find out. I swerved around the corner of the parking lot, nearly slamming into an oncoming truck, before abruptly pulling into a spot right by the entrance. With a surge of adrenaline running through my veins, I dashed into the theater, hurriedly handing my ticket to the usher, who brandished a ticket puncher that looked like a water pistol.
Entering the dark theater, I was relieved to see my friends already in their seats, and I quickly joined them. As the opening credits rolled, I relaxed, thinking I was finally safe. My friend leaned over and offered me some of his buttery popcorn. It was a typical action film, opening with a bullet-heavy shootout scene between a group of liberty-loving freedom fighters battling against an assortment of extravagantly dressed terrorists. I settled back into the theater’s plush leather recliner and enjoyed the chaos. But just then, out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of a group of jovial late-comers sauntering into the theater. They all went to their seats, revealing a shadowy figure standing by the entrance. I squinted at the mysterious presence. Where had I seen this shadow before? From afar, the figure had no form, no complexion, and it seemed to be facing neither towards nor away from where I was sitting. The staccato sounds of the shootout on film faded from my attention, and I locked eyes with the visage. Was what I was seeing real, or had the past week’s accumulating paranoia taken over my mind? The shadow didn’t move, didn’t flinch, didn’t waver; perhaps the only thing fueling its existence was my persistent gaze upon it. As I stared, gunshots from the movie rang out in the background. I looked at its hands but didn’t seem to make out the shape of a water gun. I waited for it to move. Nothing happened. More gunshots—were they from the movie? I stared deeper into the shadow. I realized that it did not matter if it was actually there. The shadow existed in my head, and that’s what made it real. More gunshots. I waited for the shadow to move. Nothing happened.
The following week my assailant never caught up with me. He didn’t need to because my demise had played over and over in my mind. As George R.R. Martin said, “Fear cuts deeper than swords.”
