Who Knew?

Shocking News

"Listen up everyone!" A voice called out, jolting me from my sleep. My eyes snapped open as I realized I was still stuck in the bleachers. That's gonna be great for my neck, I thought, groaning as I jumped up. I made my way quickly over to our tent, unaware of what was happening in the gym.

I sat down next to Troy, who was holding his head in his hands.

"Stacey, I'm so-"

"Stop talking!" The voice from before shouted, making me sigh. I was happy that I didn't have to hear Troy apologize, but was sad that I couldn't hear how sincere he actually was. "Now, we have some bad news to tell you!"

I looked up to see 5 identically dressed men standing at the end of the gym. They were all wearing black suits, little spots of red and blue on their uniforms and a U.S. flag patch on their shoulder. They scared me, I'll admit it, especially with the fact that they each carried small, black guns with them.

Everyone stared at them as one man started to speak. "Sadly, folks, the end of the world is here."

Gasps of confusion and surprise flew around the room. I stared at Troy, shock clear on my face. The end of the world? Because of a storm? How?

"Quiet down please!" One man snapped, silencing everyone else. "Now, we know this sounds crazy, but you guys are one of 10 surviving groups in the world. Asia, Africa, South America, and Australia are all wiped out from floods and earthquakes. There are only two parts of Europe that survived: Spain and France. Everyone else got wiped out from storms."

"And there are tiny groups in Upstate New York and some in the middle of the country, but everyone else on the coast was wiped out, or some in the southern middle of the country faced tornadoes. So, you guys are some of the only survivors in the world. Congrats."

There were only tiny cheers to that statement.

"And, we have good and bad news for you," the second man continued. "Chief?"

The tallest man there nodded. "The space station up in space has some room for about 30 people to stay as we try to build a colony on Mars, since the earth now is uninhabitable. So, we're going to run some tests, and the top three scorers will go to Mars, while the rest of you guys will stay on earth and be terminated."

"What?" Someone screamed. "Why do we have to be 'terminated'?"

I froze. That would mean death for at least one of our group, if three of us were to make it through.

"You would have to be killed because we aren't allowed to leave earth until everyone is dead that isn't coming with us." The "Chief" replied. "The tests start tomorrow, and today we're going to put you into random groups. So, we need you to write your names onto a card and pass it up for the drawings. You have an hour, and you have to be the ones who write your name. If your name isn't on here, you will be terminated immediately."

A shudder went through my body as I found an index card and ripped it in half, grabbing a pen and giving the other half of the card to Troy.

"I'll go hand in our cards." I told him, standing up.

"What about the boy?" He asked me, gesturing in the tent.

"Shoot! I completely forgot about him!" I shouted, dropping to my knees. The boy was sitting in the tent, playing with the flashlight. "I'm so sorry, little boy, I forgot..."

He laughed as he took a bite of a granola bar. "Call me Shane, Stacey."

Suddenly, everything clicked, and I felt like the dumbest person on earth.