The Culling (1)

After hearing the alluring woman's voice, his world turned dark.

Lucas soon found himself standing in the middle of an open grassy field.

The land under his feet was flat and the green grass beneath him grew lushly.

But the grasses only grew as tall as his ankles, which means that they did nothing to hide the fact that Lucas was now not alone.

Instead of finding himself standing alone in the middle of the huge field, dozens, hundreds of other people were also found all around him.

There was a few meters distance between himself and the other people, but Lucas still felt the huge field was fully packed with the sheer number of people.

Just as Lucas started observing everyone else around him, the other people also did the same as they looked at each other with wariness in their eyes.

The majority of people there were teenagers about the same age or slightly older than Lucas.

But there were also younger and much older people present.

A lot looked to be college students, a portion looked like middle school kids, some were employees, still wearing their work uniform, and a few looked like parents who already had 2 children.

There were all kinds of people, be it a man, a woman, a boy, or a girl.

Currently, the people there just stood still, not knowing what to do as they were wary of everyone around them.

Just like Lucas, they all heard the alluring woman's voice and her command for them to kill each other.

However, none of them started moving or talking to each other.

The same as Lucas, killing people, wasn't something that they could just do because someone told them to.

'Is this not happening? Are we safe…?' 

Some people, including Lucas, thought, as none of them did anything.

A few more minutes went by and the people eventually started relaxing as they didn't see everyone else around them as their potential killer.

It looked like the people there would only stand still and nothing would happen.

Unfortunately, that wasn't what was planned for them.

"Ahem, I think that you all couldn't quite understand what your task was, so I will kindly remind you."

Instead of hearing the alluring woman's voice straight to their ears, now they all heard her voice coming from the sky.

"There are about 300 hundred people right now and only 100 of you can join us."

"So what you have to do is…"

She slowly said the words, hoping someone would fill up the blanks.

But not a single person on the field finished her sentence.

"Kill each other!"

"Holy immortals, you guys were surely slow even for mortals!"

The woman then stayed silent for a while seemingly trying to think of something.

Then as if finding a lightbulb above her head, she excitedly said,

"Then let's do it like this!"

"I will give you 30 seconds from now, and the person that killed the least amount of people will be given a punishment!"

The clouds above their heads then began to form a countdown as they formed the number 30, then 29, then 28 and kept continuing as it counted down every passing second.

The people below then began tensing again as they began eyeing each other once again.

Some of them started balling their fists and a few even started eyeing the people who looked weak enough for them to pick on.

However, even when the countdown reached number 3, none of these people had actually moved and killed another person.

They didn't even know what was happening to them other than the fact they were suddenly transported to an unknown white room before being told to kill each other.

They were just filled with confusion and nothing that had happened in front of their eyes could make sense to them.

*0*

Eventually, the countdown ended, and the woman's voice could be heard once again,

"Since the countdown ends, it's time for your punishment!"

"Eenie, meenie…miney…mo…"

"I choose you!"

After she said those words, an old man, one that didn't even think about hurting the others and only stayed still in his place, started floating up.

Still in confusion, the man started flailing as he lost control of his own body and started screaming when he saw he was about 10 meters above the ground.

Which was enough height for him to die if he ever fell headfirst.

Unfortunately for him, he didn't stop floating up until everyone in the field could see him clearly, which was way more than 10 meters tall.

"HEY! PUT ME DOWN! I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING!"

Fortunately, dying from falling wasn't his fate.

"PUT ME DOWN RIGHT NOW! I DON'T HAVE ANY BUSINESS WITH YOU MESSED UP FOLKS, RETURN ME HOME RIGHT NOW!"

The woman's voice appeared once again and it drowned the man's voice.

"That's exactly why I chose you. You were told to do something yet you didn't do anything at all."

"We can't waste this golden opportunity on someone like you."

The man who heard the woman's voice was about to retaliate when he heard her answer,

But his voice never left his throat as his head suddenly exploded.

No one saw what had just happened.

The only thing that their eyes saw was the fact that the man suddenly lost his head.

And the other fact was that a rain of blood began pouring down from above, drenching a few people around the man with his blood.

After that, the man's body just fell down, crashing onto the ground as it released loud cracking sounds of his bones breaking and an unknown weird sound as a few parts of his body turned into paste from falling from that height.

Silence descended on the grassy field below that now had a red spot on it due to the man's blood.

But it didn't take long for the silence to disappear as screams of panic and horror reverberated all over the place.

As if seeing it as an appropriate time, the woman put the countdown back in the sky and disappeared after excitedly saying,

"Now, go ahead and do what you are told to unless you want to be the next one to be punished!"

And just as the woman expected, after making a little show and leaving her parting words, all hell breaks loose on the green grassy ground that would soon turn bloody red.