We’d all heard that the entrance exams this year were particularly brutal. Not only had they changed the marking criteria, but the invigilators were now allowed, and encouraged, to shoot anyone who didn’t finish on time.

My friend, Will, and I were seated next to each other in the examination hall. It was a gym hall that smelled faintly of feet, but it was a hall nonetheless. The chairs that had been arranged for us looked to be on their last legs, figuratively and literally. Fused to the majority of them was a variety of discarded chewing gums. A plethora of muddy reds and blues, which blended with the dried blood.

I took my seat along with ninety-nine hopefuls. Everything about the experience was designed for discomfort it seemed. The acoustics of the hall were such that there was a slight echo for every sound made, and every scuff of a shoe, or creak of a floor board overlapped and became a mess of noise. The aforementioned chairs provided just enough support to keep your posture correct, but were rigid enough to make your arse go numb every two minutes.

Soon the hall grew silent except for the occasional cough, and the sound of heavy feet marching down the corridor behind us. I heard the double-doors swing open and then two voices talking in fast, sharp whispers. The two invigilators swanned past me with enough speed to conjure a small, stale breeze.

They looked nearly identical, except one had a failing moustache - the kind that has enough space between each strand of hair to make you fixate on it longer than you’d like. The bald-lipped one looked over the top of his glasses and scanned the room, not unlike a bespectacled hawk. He cleared his throat with one efficient effort.

“Welcome, potentials! This is it, the big day. I know a lot of you might be a bit nervous, and to that I say - fair enough. Not everyone is going to pass todays entrance exam and some of you might not even finish it!” he bellowed.

The moustached invigilator reached into his blazer and pulled something out. It looked like a gun, but I didn’t know enough about guns to know what kind. It had a long barrel and a scope,

like the kind you might use for hunting a deer, or an adolescent. I looked over at Will and saw that he was staring intensely at the unopened exam papers on his desk and picking at his frayed fingernails.

“In thirty seconds I am going to start this timer–” the invigilator gestured to a bizarrely antiquated alarm clock “–and then your one hour for this exam begins. Any questions you may have about the questions can be answered by me or one of my fellow invigilators - just make sure to raise your hand so we can see you.

Remember that we can’t answer the questions for you–” he stopped to chuckle at this remark “–but we can read the question for you if needed! If you think you can’t answer a question, move past it and try another and most importantly, try to finish on time. As I am sure your parents informed you, anyone who fails to finish the exam will be executed. Right! Well, I make that thirty seconds - papers open and good luck!” he summarily clapped his hands together and a few of the others near me ducked for cover.

I turned the first page of the booklet. ‘Please write your name’. Okay, I can do that - although it is easy to forget your name when threatened with conditional death. What read in the following pages may as well have been in another language. As I tried to decipher the questions and parse together answers, the invigilators paced around the hall, wafting their coffee breath around as they went.

When I reached the last page, I allowed myself a moment to check on Will. He was still in the same position as when I last looked over, eyes trained on the paper in front of him, except now he was tightly gripping his pencil - and there was no lead in it. It must have broken off when we started because he had only managed to write his name, and was now writing to no affect on the page.

I looked at the clock at the head of the hall. One minute left. Each ‘tick’ and ‘tock’ made my stomach drop further. Some of the other potentials had finished now and were beginning to look over at Will. I waited until the invigilator had passed by, and leaned over slowly.

“Will! Will look at me!” I hissed at him, and he seemed to snap out of it for a moment, “Will they’re gonna kill us, we have to try to get out of the hall and we have to go now!” I continued, trying to catch his eye.

I felt a hand clamp down on my shoulder, gripping gently, but firmly. Coffee breath filled my nostrils.

“Your time is up. Better run!” the voice rang loudly in my ears and I bolted up from my chair before I could think. My table flipped over with the abrupt movement and must have made a racket when it hit the floor, but I couldn’t hear it, I could only hear my heart pounding in my ears. I was running for the double-doors at full pelt when a sound popped my adrenaline-fuelled bubble.

BANG

Something slid past me at speed and slammed through the doors. It was Will. I could only tell who it was from the shirt he was wearing, because otherwise he was face-down and had a hole in the back of his head. I slipped on Will’s blood as I passed his body and went tumbling through the swinging doors and down the corridor. I would have thrown-up if it wasn’t for the bullets whizzing past me, and the voices of the invigilators behind me shouting “Aim for the legs!” and “He missed question B on page five!”

I made it to reception unscathed somehow, although practically hacking up my lungs from the effort. Just outside, I could see the carpark. I pushed through the final set of doors as the adrenaline wore off and my arms turned to jelly.

“Pete? Out already? How’d it go?” a voice came from somewhere amongst the cars. I scanned the car park for a few seconds before I saw a familiar bald head pop up from behind a large four-wheel drive.

“Dad? Dad! Oh thank fuck! We have to get out of here now! They’re trying to fucking kill me!” I screamed, my legs now starting to fail me too.

“Oh buddy, you didn’t finish the exam on time? What about all the revising we did together?” he said, with a bafflingly banal tone.

“What!?” I blurted.

“We were so set on this place, buddy, that’s all! Ofsted had good things to say about it and it’s really close to your Mum’s office!”

I fell to my knees and pressed my forehead to the warm tarmac. Soon enough, I heard the invigilators come out, barking orders as they went.

“Oh hey guys, he’s just down here taking a bit of a breather, you know how these things go” my dad said apologetically to the invigilator hit-squad.

“Oh hi George! How’s things? Your son here is quite a fast one, has he ever tried out for the cross country team?” one of the invigilators said, I could hear him smiling.

“Things are good, can’t complain - oh we tried all that, never quite took to it, always been more into his books!”

As the inane chatter continued, I could hear the invigilators getting closer. I looked up when they reached me and saw that moustache, it twitched as he spoke.

“You knew the rules, your dad knew the rules, it was all clearly outlined in the welcome pack.”

He raised the gun and aimed it squarely at my forehead.

“Now, you can close your eyes if that makes this any–”

I swatted the barrel from my head and I don’t know why. I didn’t have a plan, and yet I still grabbed the gun and snatched it from his hands. Pulling the trigger was surprisingly easy, the hard part was shouldering the kick-back that almost broke my arm as that first shot went off. The invigilator stumbled back from me, a look of shock was plastered over his face along with some of his own blood.

I spun to face the two others who had just arrived, guns in hand but lowered, not ready. I raised my own and let off another few rounds. One of them fell quickly, like his body had become one big unbearable weight, and let out a gurgle. The other clutched at his throat, trying to loosen his tie and unbutton his shirt-collar to get at the wound, which was now spurting blood onto the windshield of a nearby car.

I dropped the gun and hurried over to my Dad who was limply holding his car keys and looking slack-jawed at the carnage.

“Dad, we...we have to go, okay?”

“Yeah, buddy”

“Hand me the keys, Dad” I said, as calmly as my voice would allow.

We had peeled out of the car park and were five minutes down the road when my Dad spoke.

“We can always apply next term, buddy.”