“Anya, put the knife down.”

She doesn’t make a move, only stares at me.

“I’m your friend. You can’t kill me.”

She takes a shaky breath that sounds more like a gasp. “You don’t understand how much this means to me. I need the money. Don’t you see?”

“And I need my life. It’s just a twisted game.”

She takes a step towards me. Her hand trembles. “I wouldn’t have played if I didn’t need to. And I didn’t know we’d be the last two people left.”

“Because you thought… that somebody else would have taken me out for you.”

She nods, looking relieved. “I’m glad you understand.”

“I don’t! I don’t see why we can’t just be done with it now. Since we’re the last two left in the game, we can each leave with 50,000 dollars.”

“Or, if I kill you and become the last person standing, I can leave with 100,000.”

“Why don’t you get it?” I cry out. “50,000 dollars is a lot of money!”

“Actually,” she says, “I think you’re the one who doesn’t understand. At school, the other kids always asked me why I looked so hungry, why I had to walk every day when the other parent drove their kids to school, why I didn’t have the designer clothes that everyone else had. You grew up rich, so of course you don’t get it. You never could.”

I’ve never seen anything like the disdain in her eyes until this moment, the undisguised envy and hatred.

“You’re mad at me because my parents had a lot of money?” I ask.

“The reason doesn’t matter. What does it that I’m going to kill you.”

I’ve never felt so betrayed. From the moment I applied to join the game, I knew that it wouldn’t be pretty. But I never thought it would be this bad. I should’ve seen it coming. The Survival Game is all about money. It starts with 100,000 dollars that are divided evenly among every contestant. The more people that are killed, the more money for the remaining contestants.

“And why did you play?” She questions me. “You have enough money already.”

“For… for fun,” I admit, finally hearing how bad it sounds.

“See? You brought this upon yourself.”

Anya advances, taking a step forward, knife held high above her head. She’s a mere few feet away from me now.

“Please don’t,” I whisper softly.

The knife wobbles in her hand.

“Listen to me!” I shriek. “You’re going to let go of the knife. We can talk later.”

“I’m sorry. I need to do this.”

“Anya. Stop it, now.”

“If listening to you means things will go back to how they were before,” she says, “I don’t think I will.”

She stares at me for a moment, then plunges the knife into my stomach.