The End of Summer

Chapter 23- 'Honesty really does cleanse the soul.'

A/N: MERRY CHRISTMAS MY LOVERS! My present to you, and its a very big chapter!

A tad depressing, but oh well we've all had lovely days something needs to make it a little sadder, its the tradition of Christmas. Sorry if this isn't proof read properly, it's Christmas. I'm a bottle of baileys down and I'm still making the effort to upload for you amazing little soldiers!

Let me know what you think! love you all and a merry Christmas! 

--

I had been saying all night how time doesn’t feel real anymore. Since being trapped here, I had no idea whether an hour went by or it was only a minute. Everything was slower.

However, nothing had been slower than Mr Cook’s death.

As soon as the chair went over the edge of the stage, time went into slow motion. It was like in films, I swear as the life slowly drained out of him I had enough time to look at everyone’s reaction to it. I looked between Frankie who was crying out, I looked at Gavin who was shouting abuse at the screen, I looked at Jaden who was following his friend’s lead and was screaming in protest. I looked at Archie who by this point was gripping the back of his hair because he knew he could do nothing to stop this. I looked at Alex who was standing on the spot frozen, knowing that what he was watching was because he said the wrong thing. He hadn't even lied and he got the answer wrong. I looked at Kevin who had a hand over his mouth, the experience suddenly being very real to him.

I had time to look at everyone, and when I looked back at Mr Cook dangling with a noose tied around his neck he was still swinging. He was still gasping.

I had no idea how much time went by before his gasps got fainter, his eyes got dimmer and his body went limper.

Time had never felt more irrelevant in that exact moment because it finally dawned on me none of us knew how much of it we had.

When the life finally left him, he just hung there. His body was still faintly swinging from where he had been struggling. He was still tied to the chair. He had no hope of ever escaping. Melt face knew that full well.

I also had time to look at his reaction on the laptop screen as our teacher had the life choked out of him live on webcam. He was just standing there, his head slightly tilted as he watched. I couldn’t see his reaction, the mask made that impossible. I could picture it though. I could picture his sick, sinister and satisfied smile.

Once it was over, there was silence around the hall. No one said anything as we all watched melt face slowly walk to the edge of the stage, his big cartoon eyes staring transfixed on Mr Cook’s hanging corpse.

“Well, contestant number one has been disqualified.” Those were the exact words that came out of that psycho’s mouth. As he looked at the life he had just taken, that was the only thing he could say. He thought the whole thing was a joke. I don’t know why this surprised me, I realised that a long time ago.

Frankie was shaking her head, tears staining her eyes “You’re f*cking crazy! You sick bastard!”

Melt face pointed at Mr Cook’s body “I didn’t do this. Your lies did this. You got questions wrong knowing full well what the penalty would be. The reason you are all so affected by this is because deep down you know it’s down to you and your inability to tell the truth.”

Frankie cried out in desperation and placed both hands to the back of her head “Oh my god, what the hell do you want from us? So we lie, everyone does! The human race bullshits day in and day out, it is not up to one sadistic prick to set humanity straight! Taking people’s lives is a lot worse than lying!”