COLD was the soundless coach transit that headed further up north in the country. The Kids kept to their seats and said nothing other than to ask Councilwoman Kahi with the guard and his rifle standing promptly next to her like a statue, permission to use the restroom. It had been a three hour drive, and none, out of the thirty Kids seated, knew how much longer they had. Sohyun sat in a row by herself. A few others had done the same, some were sitting with the person they were close with which left troubled and perplexed assumptions by the others who knew not to get close to anyone. They had to kill each other, after all.

The bus finally came to a stop. Sohyun had been perfectly calm during the ride but her heart began to pace faster, pounding in her chest like it wanted to flee just as desperately as the others.

“Get out.” The Councilwoman commanded at the front. She departed the bus first and watched as the Kids filed out into a damning chill. The winds were high and had it not been for the dark, the Kids would have saw how white and pale their surroundings were. Kahi had to raise her voice over the wailing gusts of air.

“Everyone move inside the school immediately!”

The school did not appear as a structure for learning, nor similar to the one-room school house the Kids had attended, but as a massive and haunting European gothic castle out of a literature of horror. The Kids didn’t take the time to gawk and instead ran inside as they were instructed. Their track suits would not have allowed them shelter from the freezing temperatures.  The foyer had only been slightly less cold than outdoors and the Kids blew their fogged breaths into their hands to keep warm while the guards trekked in after the Councilwoman. She wasted no time diving into the black boxes they had carried in and began to hand out hand held devices. The children stared at them oddly and observed curiously. Sohyun flipped hers open and navigated the settings. There was, of course, no wifi.

“Listen up, Kids,” Kahi started, “These are called cell phones. Like the ones you’ve seen on TV during movie nights.” Which they’ve only seen a handful of, but some of the Kids began to grasp the idea of their newly devices. Kahi gave a quick and brief demonstration on how to use them. She didn’t repeat herself and no one could ask her to do so. “The only thing you need to do is check your text messages. It will alert you on who has been eliminated from the course.” Meaning who had died. “Each cellphone has a number labeled on the back of their phones. Although you cannot call each other, you may send messages to each other.”

Sohyun understood the concept immediately and tucked her phone in her jacket pocket. She scanned over the other kids doing the same once they got the idea as well. Some faster than others. Some were completely lost and blankly put their phones away. Someone raised their hand.

Kahi smiled, “Yes, Sehun?”

He had short white hair, the same platinum blonde as Sohyun’s and a few others whose physical traits had altered from stress and harsh living conditions over the years. Sohyun couldn’t tell if Sehun’s eyes were tired or dangerous.

“How long does the course last?” He asked. Sohyun thought of him dangerous, then. There were a handful of Kids she knew she’d have to be cautious of. Some were even the friendly types who Kids were oblivious to. Kahi began to walk around the foyer, her black stilettos knocked against the marble floor as her voice echoed in the empty building.

“The Registry Course has different time standards depending on the location and event. As you all know, the Battle Royale is the most common form of taking the course. This school is one of the main BR stages. There are triggers throughout that could lead to your death so you must be careful.”

The moonlight poured through the large ceiling windows and made everything glow ethereal. Kahi’s glee was chilling as she paced around the group, speaking of their impending deaths casually.

“You have 24 hours to complete the course. There can only be one survivor remaining in the building. However, anyone who manages to escape the building will automatically be registered. I will say this, no one has ever escaped. Well. Either you can all work together to figure a way out, or kill each other until there’s one remaining. The winner will, of course, receive their citizenship and be officially recognized as a Korean. If luck has it, you may even be able to go back to your families if they’re not serving out a prison sentence for having you.”

Everyone was grim, their faces hardened with fear and readiness. They all knew about the course since they were young. No one expected anything different, their reality had come to fruition.

“The Course will begin in sixty seconds. The guards and I will be exiting from the main entrance doors that will be welded shut. Good luck to you all.” Just as she said, she and the guards took their leave. The large doors were shut closed and chains were heard being scraped against the handles. None of the kids moved as the seals in the opening where lit in orange and fiery red until all metal was as one.

A loud and high pitch frequency sounded over the school’s intercom system and then there was the voice of a young female moderator.

“The Registry Course, Battle Royale Assembly HN49 has begun.”

A horde of them moved towards the doors. That was their first plan, to escape as one and avoid the killing. Sohyun watched idly to the side. Just as she thought to linger off while the Kids struggled to move the doors and open the windows, a boy approached her. He had dark skin, evident of him having worked the Line growing up. Sohyun wasn’t familiar, but she was aware she had some form of interaction with him previously.

“You have a plan, don’t you?” He asked. He came off eager and desperate, like any child who knew there was a genius in their midst would react in hopes said genius could figure out a way to preserve everyone’s survival.

Sohyun responded blankly, “A plan?”

His eyes lit up. “An escape plan.” He whispered, “I know you, I had school house with you a few times. I’m Kai.”

Kai. For those that could not remember their real names or had been sent to the Tundra when they were just infants, the administrators gave Kids aliases. Sohyun briefly remembered him. In their small one-room school she had seen Kai in class every now and then. She took her attention away when a chair loudly bounced off the glass from the doors like rubber and clattered to the ground. Sohyun blinked slowly.

“It’s ballistic.” She spoke quietly as if only to validate her common sense to herself. It was a good thing the Kids were daft. She knew she would have to walk away soon. Everyone else would start when they realized it as well. Escaping was futile.

“Where are you going?”

It was a loud and aggressive voice, and Sohyun thought it was directed at her until she looked over her shoulder. The Kids stopped wrestling with the doors and one tall child had begun to move away. Another, slightly shorter, stopped him.

“This is pointless,” His name was Junior, or JR as Sohyun remembered some had referred to him. Sohyun considered him a high threat as she watched JB and Sehun take his side in opposition of Jimin who had grabbed him. “The doors aren’t budging and the windows won’t break. There’s no getting out.”

“From here at least. We should keep looking.” Sulli’s voice quivered as she spoke, as though she were on the brink of tears. She locked her hands together, either to keep them warm or to break out into a prayer, Sohyun didn’t know which. She took note of Krystal’s presence standing closely beside Sulli with an unbothered expression. Krystal was also dangerous.

Jimin nervously agreed with Sulli and clamped on to JR’s shoulder. “As a group.” He said.

JR smacked his hand away, “Don’t touch me!”

The arguing began. Sohyun didn’t need to see more. She walked away without grabbing any attention. She needed to get some distance before the Course went into full effect. There were six corridors on each floor of the school. The school had five floors in total, and Sohyun didn’t know if there was a basement or an accessible roof. They would not make it easy. It was well established that a one man survivor was preferred. It was Darwism at its finest.

Most of the classrooms had been locked, but they weren’t completely inaccessible. There were two doors to each room, some on the same side, and some on either sides. They were all traditional pull and push doors, none sliding.  Sohyun finally found a class to settle in. She stacked chairs and braced the doors shut. She was on the third floor in the west wing corridor. The windows were large in size and exposed the clawing tree limbs swallowed in snow and the moon peeking behind dark clouds. Those windows were also impenetrable. On the main desk fit for an instructor in the front of the room there was a text book. Sohyun carefully approached it as to not trigger any possible traps. It was just a simple book and the title made her frown. Sociology. She picked it up and gauged its weight and size. She quickly dropped it and began rummaging through desks for more useful weapons. They were mostly filled with old paper and mediocre school supplies. There was nothing worth having until she came upon the last desk in the corner of the room. There was a small item wrapped in a ball of paper. Two keys fell out and Sohyun studied them quickly. Master keys. She chuckled nervously.

“They’ve made this course a cruel one.”

There was suddenly a loud bang at the door. Sohyun shut her palm tightly around the keys. She saw black hair and then wide eyes peeking through the glass of the door. It was Kai. She hesitated but she made her way to the door and let him in. He assembled the blockade and caught his breath. Sohyun figured more Kids broke from the group when they realized teamwork to escape was diminished.

In between breaths Kai spoke, “I saw you sneak off but I couldn’t pull that type of stealth when things were getting toxic. Luckily people were beginning to break off, and I mean sprinting down the halls like it was no one’s business. The Kids were runnin, people were screamin, I was doing both.”

Sohyun kept silent and walked towards the front desk. Kai followed like a shadow.

“So what did you find?”

She didn’t have to look at him to know he was smiling like crazy, happy that he teamed up with someone beyond his learning comprehension. Sohyun went back to the text book and traced her fingers along the spine.

“A book about irony.” She said wryly. Kai chuckled.

“A book. Of course. You were always reading whenever we had schoolhouse.” He sat on a student desk and propped his foot up cooly.  “You knew all the answers whenever the teacher asked questions.”

“And you answered them all wrong.”

Kai frowned, and Sohyun laughed, and then he laughed.

“Sohyun, is it?”

“It has been.”

“Right. Sohyun, I know we don’t know each other very well and given our circumstances, which absolutely , it’s hard to trust anyone. We were told about this day since we were kids trying to survive the Tundra. Along with worrying about how not to freeze our little bodies to death, we knew there would come a day, in our 18^th birth year, where we’d have to take the Registry Course.”

“Well you’re not wrong about that.” She spoke slyly. She kept the textbook in her possession and circled Kai while she fiddled with it, sifting through its pages to take a glance at visual examples of a happier and peaceful world. A world that never existed for them.

“What was your labor at the Tundra, Kai?”

“I worked the Lines.” He confirmed. “I would be out all day, grabbing and passing tools, equipment, iron and zinc. It was back breaking.”

There was a gunshot. It sounded from a faraway location of the school, but surely everyone heard it. Kai snapped his attention towards the barricaded doors at the explosion of the weapon. Sohyun watched as he flinched.

“The Course is really happening. The Kids are taking it seriously.” He stammered.

Sohyun tilted her head and smiled, “Kai, do you know what’s more back breaking than the Lines?” She didn’t draw his attention as she expected. His fear fixed his eyes on the doors, making sure no one could enter. Sohyun continued to speak to him from behind. “Working in the actual mines. There’s a reason why they call the Line kids weak. Although they strengthened their legs, arms and backs, it was considerably easy, passing back and forth rocks and whatnot. The real work came from the mines. Being left behind in claustrophobic tunnels. Digging your way out until your nails peeled and your fingers bled. Being sent back the very next morning until dusk. The cold and the dark. It’s like death. For those of us who worked the mines, we’ve already experienced the afterlife. So. Have you, Kai, realized why I can’t work with you?”

He finally looked over his shoulder and his eyes widened at the smile Sohyun had on her face. It wasn’t a happy smile, it wasn’t a smile of victory, it was liberation, and Sohyun burst out laughing.

“It’s your mental weakness that will cause you to die.”

“Sohyun.”

The spine of the text book crashed into the center of his face. A loud crack came from his nose and he jumped up only to stammer over the desks and fall on his back. Sohyun hovered over him; he cupped his nose and squinted his eyes to suppress his pain and screaming. Sohyun held the text book in both hands, spine down, and hammered it down on the center of Kai’s face again, and again, and again. She pressed down hard and deeper each time until there was no more movement. Blood soaked the cover of the textbook and rendered it useless. Sohyun tossed it aside and checked her text messages. Two Kids were dead now.

CHILDREN ELIMINATED FROM COURSE

NAMES: KAI. WOOHYUN.

28 TO GO