5 Seconds of Suicide.

three| house rules

(( a/n: sorry it's been awhile! Double update for everyone :D ))

Keira watched the rest of the branding in horror. She watched as a whole lot of other names were called out: lions, giraffes, sloths, crocodiles and even grass. When a girl, who looked like she was 17 came up, Calum decided that she should be a penguin. Luke's eyes widened.

"But I'm a penguin!" he protested. "Sorry Cal. But can't you make her a cat? Or a cheetah?"

"Why can't you both be penguins?" Michael groaned, and threw his head back. "A male and female penguin."

The girl watched the banter, and obviously, wanted it to continue. "Can't you change Luke's, then? Why don't you change him?"

Now Luke was angry. Keira found this awfully fun to watch.

"Excuse me?" Luke protested. "I am so not becoming anything else. Thanks. Calum, kindly make this one a wombat."

Calum didn't know who to listen to, so he just gave the brand to Ashton and let him decide.

"You're okay being a wombat?" Ashton asked, when actually, he couldn't care less.

"No," the girl smiled evilly. "I want to be a penguin."

Michael and Calum had to hold Luke back from throwing his fist at her face.

"Oh gosh let's just all be penguins now shall we?" Luke yelled. "I hate this. I hate life. Go. Take that stupid penguin brand. I never liked penguins anyway!"

Ashton had finally made a decision that they would both be penguins.

Both the male and female penguin were very unhappy.

-.-.-.

"I'm so sorry you had to witness that," Michael apologized to the crowd, glaring at both Luke and the girl beside him. "But now that everyone's branded, we'll get to the explanation. Have any of you heard of the food web?"
A few hands were raised, Keira's included.

"Right," Michael clapped his hands. "As you know, in the circle of life-"

"Ooh," Ashton smiled. "Love that one. The Lion King, right?"

Michael ignored his comment, which Keira assumed was sarcastic, and he continued. "So anyway, in the food web, animals kill other animals for food. This time, we have set you up do the same. Don't worry, though, despite all our insanity we have found a way to make it slightly more pleasant: you don't have to eat anyone. Apologies to anyone who looked forward to doing this. You will only kill. The brand on the side of your neck has been programmed to make that your manna. You can say goodbye to that nice dinner your mum made yesterday, because I'm afraid it's no longer necessary to eat human food anymore. Every person you kill serves for a day's meal. Like I said, eating isn't necessary. But if you want to go that extra mile, we won't judge."

"You will only kill the people whom your animal has been adapted to hunt down. For example, if you're a lion, you will need to kill a deer or a boar to survive. If you're a rabbit, you will hunt down a person of the grass brand. If you're grass then, congratulations, you won't live two days here. Don't worry, though, the dead are usually the lucky."

Luke glared at Michael, and most of the people could make out that the last line wasn't in the script.

"Now that you all have been branded, you will soon develop the characteristics of your animal. Only some of your physical features will change. So that is all," Michael grinned. "Any questions?"

Keira's hand flew up. "I have a question."

"Proceed."

"Why are you doing this?" Keira didn't know what made her ask this, but it was something she really needed to know. That's one thing about White tigers-they can't keep their mouths shut.

Michael cleared his throat. "Our generation is weak. Animals are living longer than we are. These brands are to help you survive, don't you get it? We are trying to help you."

"I don't want your help. You know you could get arrested for this, right? You are using humans. That's against the law." Keira's words flew out from an unknown source. She was never like this.

Michael simply smiled. "How can we get arrested, if the law is on our side?"

Keira's mouth was stunned shut. The police, the government, and everyone authority had approved of this. All the people her parents looked up to were built on lies and money.

"You're testing your brands on humans; you do know that, right?" Keira snapped.

Luke interjected. "What do we do then? Test animal brands on freaking animals?"

"Or you could just not test it at all," Keira muttered.

"That's enough!" Calum yelled. "If you say one more word, I swear, we will kill you before your friends get the chance to."

Keira said no more.

Luke snorted, "Right." Calum glared at him.

"Are you denying the wrath of Calum Hood?!" asked Calum, tempted to strangle him.

"No," said Luke and kept his mouth shut immediately.

"I'm still a penguin," muttered Luke and looked down.

"Luke, you can take your penguins and shove them up your-" Ashton got cut off by Michael before he could say anything rude.

"Now, it's time to state the rules. Just a little warning, if you do go against these, you will get killed then and there, by us," smirked Calum, running a hand through his gelled back, blonde hair.

The boys said the classic rules, typical ones that nobody really cared about because they knew they were going to go against them anyways.

"Rule number...15. This is not The Drinking Games, or whatever that movie is called. You do not and I repeat, do not, fall in love. We do not accept this, "Oh, no! Kill me not him!" stuff. We'll just kill you both," warned Ashton and raised his eyebrows. All couples in the crowd looked at each other, as if they were about to cry. But the boys didn't care. No one in that crowd did. All they cared about was being able to survive.

"Lastly, rule number 16. We can see everyone and everything. So if you cheat, we'll kill you just in the snap of a finger," Calum snapped his fingers, sassily.

"Yes, if anyone cheats, works in a team or even tricks one of us into working with them, they will be shot in the head, in front of everyone in this town," said Luke.

"Now you know all the rules, are they any more questions?" asked Michael, looking around. A boy's hand went up.

"Yes, Tom?" Michael sighed. Tom was one to ask quite stupid and reckless questions.

"Um, what if we're already in a relationship? Because my smoking hot girlfriend, Jamie over here-" Michael cut him off. "Break up," he simply said. Tom stood there, gobsmacked. Yep, these boys were kind of demanding.

"I guess that's all the rules and instructions covered," said Ash and clapped his hand.

"And remember," started Michael.

He looked straight into Keira's eyes and smirked. "Stay alive."

( a/n: next update's a shocker!)