CHAPTER 2

[Hospital X, Thursday, 12 p.m.]

The first thing I saw upon waking up was a nurse leering at me. “Oh you’re awake.”

I could feel a sharp pain on my head, I was also sore all over my body from yesterday’s beating.

“You were unconscious for three days,” the nurse said as she checked my blood pressure. “You’re very lucky.”

“...lucky?” I asked.

The nurse gave me a judgmental look. She paused and looked away. “You’ll find out sooner or later.”

 I laid on the bed silently, swallowing my saliva each time I felt a throbbing pain on my head. I couldn’t move very well because I was under heavy anesthesia.

The doctor told me I had four of my ribs broken and a mild concussion. It was a miracle that I wasn’t announced brain dead even after all that’s happened. He also told me that the perpetrators were nowhere to be found, and that the police might come to ask some questions regarding the incident today.

I couldn’t care less about the people who almost killed me. I was alive and that was all that mattered. And since they acted for the good of the lady anyway, I bear no grudge against them. I would gladly lie to the police.

After the doctor finished talking to me, I was left alone with a nurse in the private room I was settled in.. The doctor told me that I would experience the side-effects of post-surgery anesthesia, so I should have at least someone to watch over me.

And since I didn’t have any willing visitors, the same nurse had no other choice but to stay with me until tomorrow.

I really wanted to have ask about the cliffhanger she threw at me earlier with her but she ignored me no matter how long I pried. 

Knock, knock, knock.

I honestly jumped a little bit from the sudden knocking, entirely because of the cold air between the nurse and me. I was relieved someone came and disrupted it.

“You look horrible, Ad!” The class representative, whose name I didn’t know, exclaimed. “I’m really glad you didn’t die though.”

The nurse left the two of us alone to have a smoke. She glanced at us before leaving and issued a warning to not leave the room. 

"Wow, she's really unfriendly.." the class representative whispered. "Aren't you glad I came?"

The class representative was very young-looking and also a bit on the chubby side, she always sported pigtails to school and was also one of her girl friends . We weren't close but she was friendly with me for some reason. Also, since she was the class repesentative, the teachers asked her to visit me to deliver notes of the lessons that I missed.

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Her looks certainly wasn’t the best, though, but she was tolerable.

Speaking of which,

“..Hey, Is she, you know, well?” I asked bashfully.

“Wow, that’s the first thing you say to me after I came all the way from school just to see you?” She nagged at me in disbelief.

“Yeah, she’s fine. She even placed first in the IQ test. And for your information, I placed sec-”

“That’s so amazing of her! But IQ test?” I asked as the sudden test piqued my interest.

“Oh, right. News didn’t reach you yet.” Class rep said in a slightly disappointed tone.

Class rep then began to explain what happened a few days ago, the time I missed school.

Apparently a day after my beating, the educational system of my country underwent a drastic change. The higher-ups believe that students are mentally corrupted by routine studies and examinations, especially high schoolers.

They deduced that the Z generation under this kind of mundane system are not evolving. This was utterly unacceptable, since evolution plays a very important role in maintaining the survival of humanity in the future. Therefore, based on Darwin’s theory of evolution, they decided to put teenagers from the age of 14-19 who have reliable cognitive ability in an entirely new environment from what they were accustomed to as an experiment, situations that science has predicted to occur in the near future.

Offsprings from this project are hypothesised to be able to adapt to any change in domain. This was the main reason to why evolution was necessary, to produce advanced humans.

Evolution by natural selection is one of the best substantiated theories in the history of science, supported by evidence from a wide variety of scientific disciplines, including paleontology, geology, genetics and developmental biology.

Thus, the series of ‘games’ the students are to participate in were created in foundation to Darwin’s idea of Natural Selection.

Of course, guardian consent was taken into account.

And since I was out for three days, I missed the first ‘natural selection’ which served to cut down students to a smaller number.

“So the first ‘natural selection’ was an IQ test?” I asked out of curiosity.

“There were a lot of tests actually, blood tests, fertility tests, physical test... it was just like P.E class.”

Oh, thank God I missed that part!

“And the second natural selection is in 3 days time, so you better prepare yourself! Because it might be something you need to be physically active to survive, you know?” She laughed.

“Sure. Thanks for visiting, class rep.”

Class rep got up to leave since it was already late evening. 'Girls her age have to be careful when going home alone', she said.

“Oh and by the way,” She added. “My name’s Mana, you should at least remember your classmates’ names!”

She was nice enough not to ask me about what happened. She must've tried to avoid making me uncomfortable.

I nodded nonchalantly. I didn't want to bother myself with remembering names since I don't care about my classmates. 

More importantly, I get to play games with her! I can’t wait to go to school tomorrow!

[X High School, Friday]

I walked into class in excitement, my head still bandaged. As expected, everyone’s eyes were focused on me. I was used to the glares of the people around me, I find it hilarious at times.

They’re stupid, and I’m not.

I took my seat, ignoring the stares. As expected, nobody cared about me enough to talk.

I checked the clock on the wall of the classroom.

7:36 a.m.

Four minutes until she comes. I could feel my heart rate increasing as seconds went by. She was the only person I was looking forward to getting friendlier with, although we never spoke to each other.

My eyes naturally followed her figure as she walked through the school’s gate. I felt as if my heart was about to burst. I couldn’t handle 3 days without seeing her, it was so painful.

 My seat was diagonally across hers, so I could indulge myself staring at her stretched short skirt and tight school uniform whenever she sat down. Fortunately, I made it to the bathroom before the first bell indicating class was about to start ringing. 

The teacher entered the class normally, and began to take our attendance. The classroom was noticeably quieter than usual. I noticed that the group  I loath was not making as much noise as they routinely do every single morning. I also noticed that the guy who tried to kill me was absent.

“Teacher, aren’t we missing a few people in this class?” Mana asked, doing her duty as a class representative.

“Hm? We aren’t,” the teacher answered. “You’re all the survivors from the first natural selection. The trash were put to death.”

Silence befell the whole class.

“ Didn’t you know?”