Splash: A Short Story

On a bright and sunny spring day, I called up my friend Daniel. As we ventured into Memorial Hall for our English class, he asked, “Hey, you know that Splash is coming up right?” 

“Wait, what’s Splash?” I replied. 

He gave me a quick rundown of the rules, explaining that “the goal is to survive as long as you can while eliminating as many targets as possible.” 

His words made my heart pound. As a thriller movie maniac, Splash seemed right up my alley. My inner voice told me it was my time to shine, and from that point on, I had only one goal in mind: to become the next John Wick. 

Even though others looked at me with a pitiful gaze and Daniel called me “overindulged,” I still decided to dress in sunglasses, a mask, long pants, and a hoodie in 85°F weather, necessities in order to escape a precarious scene. Soon, School Meeting on April 19, or the beginning of the end, had come. 

“Let’s see who will be my first unfortunate victim…James Muzzy ’23. When I revealed my target to Daniel over text, he responded with a request to terminate our alliance, implying that my conquest would never be successful. How dare he doubt me! While it might be difficult to defeat the captain of varsity football, hockey, and lacrosse, I was determined to achieve glory.

School Meeting was when and where the battle started. I was dripping in sweat from the layers of clothing wrapped around me, and I could feel the anticipation building inside. “Second form, you are dismissed!” yelled the School President. The II Formers instinctively began to dash away from the KAC, unaware of the massacre which would soon follow. As soon as they stepped outside the door, upperclassmen ambushed the innocent rookies, eliminating just over half of them. Unlike the others, I managed to exit using the backdoor, resulting in my safe arrival to GCAD. Even better, my target just so happened to have class in the same building, so I sat anxiously in the classroom waiting to see him, trying to get my teacher and class to help. My plan was simple. As soon as the target walked outside of the building, I would ambush him. When the bell rang, I dashed downstairs, waiting for him to leave the building so I could follow.

He pushed the door open and walked outside with a wary glance. Thankfully, my well-prepared disguise kept him blissfully unaware of my presence until water hit him. With a sigh, my victim resigned to his fate and handed over his code. Ha! I hoped he’d learned a lesson on being more well-prepared if he wanted to survive. With one target down, I was now one step closer to sweet victory.

My next target was a little more difficult. I got an elusive III former who had turned her Google Calendar private…What a shame! This did not stop my formidable self, though. Luckily, after reaching out to a sophomore baseball teammate, camping by the KMSC entrance with a reluctant friend in tow was still a fool-proof plan. Even if people exchange judgemental looks, I would keep my head high. They would never understand this strategy anyways. My target stepped out, and I worked myself up.

Time slowed, and I felt one step closer to sweet victory until an ominous feeling crept over me. I found myself looking down at the cold barrel of a spray bottle. It glinted in the sunlight, mocking me. My fate was sealed. Water splashed all over my face and I was dumb, dead, and defeated. The world suddenly seemed darker. Just like that, my hopes and dreams were crushed, a phrase my friends would continue to hear for days to come. “Still,” I told myself, “my Splash career can’t be over yet. All I need to do is find a revival code, and how hard could that be?”