Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
Olivia
Night one.
" D id you hear that?"
The voices come from the direction Lexie and Tara disappeared earlier, and I realize they couldn't have gone very far. They're probably close enough to have heard the same scream that's currently making my skin crawl.
They emerge from the tree line again, but this time they're not parading their matching mean-girl routine. Tara's pixie cut is messed up, twigs caught in the dark strands, and Lexie's perfectly applied makeup is smeared with sweat and dirt. They both look shaken, but not in the way I feel shaken.
"Oh my God, did you guys hear that?" Tara says to her wrist camera, but there's something wrong with her tone. She's not scared—she's excited. Thrilled, even.
Lexie positions her wrist camera to capture both of them in frame, her influencer instincts kicking in even in the middle of whatever this is. "That was so crazy! Like, whoever's doing the sound effects for this show really knows what they're doing."
Sound effects.
"Right?" Tara giggles, actually fucking giggles. "I mean, it sounded so real. Like, genuinely terrifying. The production value on this show is insane."
They think it's fake. It’s gotta be fake.
Because if it wasn’t…
But that scream made every primitive survival instinct in my body scream. How could someone fake that? They didn’t exactly give us acting classes going into filming.
"That brings us one step closer to winning," Lexie says, checking her reflection in her camera screen and adjusting her hair. "I mean, if someone's already out, that's one less person we have to worry about, right? More money for the rest of us."
She's talking about money while someone might be bleeding out in the forest fifty yards away.
"You're both fucking insane," I say, and the words come out harsher than I intended. "That wasn't a sound effect. That didn’t sound scripted. Someone had to have just?—"
"Someone just what?" Tara interrupts, rolling her eyes at her camera. "Got scared and dramatic for their followers? Please. This is reality TV, Olivia. Everything is faked."
"The scream went on for like thirty seconds," Lexie adds, laughing like it's the funniest thing she's ever heard. "No one screams for thirty seconds unless they're getting paid to scream for thirty seconds. It's all about the views, honey."
I stare at them, these two perfectly coiffed sociopaths treating potential murder like a marketing opportunity, and something cold and hard settles in my chest. They're not just naive or sheltered—they're genuinely broken inside, so disconnected from reality that they can't distinguish between entertainment and actual human suffering.
"Besides," Tara continues, "even if it was real, which it totally wasn't, that just means we're better at this game than whoever couldn't handle the pressure. Natural selection or whatever they call it, right?"
Natural selection. She's talking about natural selection like we're discussing a nature documentary.
"You know what?" I stand up, shouldering my backpack. "You're right. This is natural selection. And you two are about to find out what happens to the species that can't tell the difference between a TV show and reality."
I turn away from my fire, from the clearing that felt safe just minutes ago, from these two walking disasters who can’t see anything except fame.
"Where are you going?" Lexie calls after me. "The smart play is to stay near water!"
"Running away already?" Tara adds, her voice dipped in false sympathy. "I told you that whole tough girl act wouldn't last. Some people just aren't built for competition."
Their laughter follows me into the trees, high and artificial and wrong in every possible way. They're still performing for their cameras, still treating this like a game show where the biggest threat is looking bad on social media and getting cancelled.
I push deeper into the forest, away from the stream, away from their toxic bubble of delusion. My fire falls behind me, a warm glow that shrinks to nothing as I navigate between trees that seem to close in with every step.
The forest feels malevolent now. The darkness between the trees isn't just absence of light—it's the presence of something that watches and waits and chooses its moments carefully. Every shadow could hide a threat, every sound could be a warning I'm too fucking inexperienced to understand.
But I keep walking because staying near those two idiots feels more dangerous than whatever might be lurking in the woods. At least the forest's threats are honest.
My flashlight—a small LED attached to my backpack—creates a narrow cone of visibility that makes everything beyond its reach seem infinitely more frightening. I try not to think about what else might be out there, what kind of predators consider fifteen lost humans an opportunity to feast.
I've been walking for maybe ten minutes when I see it.
A metallic reflection against the dark bark of a pine tree, about chest height, caught in the rough texture.
Naomi's sweater.
It has a small number six stamped on it. That’s her number.
I approach slowly, my flashlight beam trembling slightly as my hands shake. The fabric is scratchy between my fingers. There's a dark stain on one edge that looks black in the LED light.
Blood . Real blood, not the corn syrup shit they use in movies.
My stomach lurches, and I have to lean against the tree to keep from falling over. The forest spins around me, stars dancing at the edge of my vision, and for a moment I think I'm going to pass out.
That scream. That horrible, endless scream that I didn’t want to believe.
She was dying. It had to be. Why would they go this far to fake it?
I drop the fabric and stumble backward, my breathing coming in short, sharp gasps that fog in the rapidly cooling air. This is real. This is actually fucking real. They’re hunting us.
They’re hunting us to kill us.
I double over, dry-heaving against the base of a tree. Nothing comes up—I haven't eaten enough today for my stomach to reject—but my body tries anyway, convulsing with the effort to expel something that can't be vomited away.
Terror. That's what I'm trying to throw up. Pure fucking terror.
When the retching finally stops, I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand and force myself to think. Panic will get me killed. I've known that since I was twelve years old and learned that adults lie about keeping children safe. Panic makes you stupid, makes you careless, makes you dead .
I won’t be careless. Not here. Not now.
Someone is probably still out there, watching, waiting, choosing their next target from the remaining fourteen contestants.
I need to move. To find a better shelter, a better defensive position, a better anything than standing in the open with a flashlight that might as well be a signal flare advertising my location.
I'm just shouldering my pack when I hear it—a low, mechanical whir that makes goosebumps rise across my skin. One of the drones, descending through the canopy like a digital vulture, its camera housing gleaming in my flashlight beam.
It hovers directly in front of my face, maybe two feet away, close enough that I can see my own reflection in its lens.
Close enough that I can see the red recording light that means this moment—me discovering evidence of murder, me realizing that we're all going to die—is being broadcast live to millions of people.
My wrist camera blinks in sync with the drone, both devices capturing my trembling hands, my wide eyes, my face pale with shock and growing fear. The audience is getting a perfect view of the moment their entertainment became my nightmare.
"Fuck you," I whisper to the drone, to its camera, to everyone watching. "Fuck all of you."
But even as I say it, I can feel tears burning at the corners of my eyes. Not from fear—though there's plenty of that—but from rage. Rage at being trapped in this situation and at being watched while I process what’s happening.
The drone captures it all. Every tear, every tremor, every moment of vulnerability that I'm trying so hard to hide. I flip it off with both hands, middle fingers extended toward its unblinking lens, and then I turn and walk deeper into the forest.
Behind me, the mechanical whir follows for a few yards before the drone pulls back to a higher altitude. But I can still feel it watching, still feel the weight of all those invisible eyes judging my performance, rating my fear on a scale of one to viral.
The forest closes around me like a predator's mouth, and I know that somewhere in these trees, someone is hunting. Someone who knows these woods better than any of us ever will.
And they're coming for us.
I adjust my pack and keep walking, because staying still feels like painting a target on my back. The darkness ahead is vast and full of dangers I can't see.
I follow my flashlight beam deeper into the forest, away from the clearing.
I will be the one who's still breathing when the sun comes up on Monday.
And right now, that feels like the longest shot in the world.
One foot in front of the other. One breath at a time. One decision after another.
The forest stretches endlessly ahead, vast and dark.
And somewhere in its depths, death is wearing a human face and carrying cameras to make sure everyone gets a good view.