330 Hours

Story

It was June 1, 8442. Jack sat on his twin bed in his wooden cabin. The cabin was filled with clothes, toys, defunct cell phones, and several other vintage items lying around, including a news article about a serial killer called the Strangler from thousands of years ago and a novel called The Adventures of a Sword. He fidgeted nervously as he watched the newscaster on TV reading out the names of all the people who had been chosen for the decennial Program.

For details about the Program, the planet of Remia that Jack lived on (which used to be called Earth) consisted of ten countries. There used to be over a hundred more, but all of them ended up being deserted due to lack of resources, incompetent leaders, and other issues, and the ten countries that survived were renamed to Poplaton, Yofren, Facria, Ocrines, Uswistan, Pefry, Ustor, Sudron, Aplua, and Ufly, with Poplaton being the country Jack lived in. For the first hundreds of years after Earth was renamed to Remia, each country would fight for world leadership by engaging in sport and gaming competitions. However, the government of Yofren rigged the results in one of the competitions, resulting in them unfairly winning. Afterwards, they got rid of the original traditions and implemented an extremely barbaric method of fighting for power which they simply dubbed the Program.

The Program would take place every ten years during the summer, and in the Program, five young men from each country between the ages of ten and twenty-five would be handpicked to fight to the death in the Program, with one guy in each group serving as the leader. They would be given 330 hours to fight, and by the time those hours were over, whichever surviving team that had the highest body count would win. If only one team was left standing before those hours ended, then the one surviving team would automatically be crowned the winner. The country of the winning team would then gain world leadership. Unfortunately, the corrupt Yofrenian government was incapable of playing fair and constantly cheated in the Programs. Consequently, they remained in power for thousands of years with virtually nobody to stop them.

Back to the story, after almost twenty other names were read out, Jack finally heard the words, "Jack Lane."

"No," he said. "No. They didn't pick me. They couldn't have. I'm only sixteen. How can I survive? No. NO!" He picked up a pair of shoes and hurled them at the TV before running out of the cabin and into the woods. "THIS CAN'T BE!" he hollered.

"What's wrong?" a voice said the distance. Jack turned around. It was his girlfriend Raven Thompson. Jack ran up to her, and they embraced.

"What happened?" Raven said. "You were chosen weren't you?"

"Why? Why me of all people? I've never even touched a weight in my life. I've seen reruns of those Programs on TV before. I could be up against killing machines."

"I'm sorry," Raven said quietly. "I'm--"

Jack's best friend Cole Glover walked up to them.

"Cole--" Jack began.

"I heard," said Cole. "I saw them read out your name on the news. Sick bastards."

"I'm going to be shipped off tomorrow though," Jack said, frustrated. "I can't do this. I'll die after the first day. I don't even have my parents to support me since they were captured and executed by the government years ago."

"Hey, you have us," said Cole. "We'll help you prepare. My dad used to be a spy. He can give you tips on how to hide from the other contenders."

Jack didn't sleep a wink that night. How will I do this? he thought. I won't even make it to the second hour.

The next morning, Jack heard a knock on his door. He opened it. It was the bus driver. The bus had arrived for him. Jack packed up his belongings, tearfully said goodbye to Raven and Cole, and hopped onto the bus.