Self rolling balls? I think I’ve seen that somewhere on youtube. But for dogs.

Are we just dogs to whoever’s up there? The one's watching. Laughing. As we chase our own tails.

Fuck them. We aren’t animals. We’re humans. I’ll show them the real depth of human capability.

But first I needed to figure this game out to beat it.

The board says 26:32. Fifty people dead in three minutes. Fifty friends dead. I’m gonna kill whoever’s behind this.

“Eek. Get it away from me.” One ball went to Lindsey, on my team.

“Why’s it keep following me?” Another to Ellen, a junior.

“Nobody touch it. She said the balls will kill you.”

The two girls step this way and that, but the balls keep chasing them down. The last ball is at Jackson’s feet. He hasn’t moved. He eyes it closely. Then, bends down.

“Wait, don’t!”

He picks up the ball. But nothing happens. It's safe?

“Here, catch.” He throws the ball to Pat, one of his baseball buddies.

“What the fuck, man?” Pat jumps out of the way. But the ball only reaches a bit over three quarters the distance between them. He did that on purpose. No way he his throw's that weak.

The ball starts rolling, but this time, it goes to Pat’s feet. He steps back, but it pursues.

“Come on, man. Why’d you gotta do that?”

BEEP. What was that sound? Did it come from the ball in front of me?

BEEP. It definitely came from the ball. BEEP. BEEP. It’s coming from the others, too.

BEEP. BEEP. The girls are still running in circles, trying in vain to escape from the persistent ball. BEEP. BEEP.

“Someone plea--aaagghhh.” Lindsey trips, falling to the ground. A wide V of crimson sprays behind her. Her legs are missing.

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. The sound gets faster and louder.

Silas pushes me away and jumps on the ball, like a soldier on a grenade. It might as well be one. The beeping stops. But on the other side of the court, it continues.

Ellen’s ball. She’s gonna die and I can’t save her. The sound reaches the climax. BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP.

She kicks it. Hard. Straight to our side.

Before anyone can react, the ball tears through three people, three holes in a straight line, leading to a splotch of red where it bounces off of the wall.

Screaming. Two screaming for help with Lindsey. Seven screaming near the three dead in a row. Twenty screaming bloody murder at Ellen. They’re not gonna shut up anytime soon. I can’t concentrate. I can't figure it out. What are the rules? The ball went quiet when Silas jumped on it. Pat's ball hasn't made any noise. What happened? It should've started by now. I look over and Jackson has it. Pat passed it back?

BEEP. The sound shuts everyone up. When faced with someone else’s death, they’re so loud. But when faced with their own death, they shut right up.

The balls have found new targets, all of them on our side except for Jackson’s ball.

"It's starting!"

“What do we do?”

“Are we all just gonna die?”

“We have to play the game.”

“Guys! Calm down. We don’t have to play the game. Just give me a minute."

"We don't have a minute." I know. Jackson must've figured it out. He passed it back. I got it.

“When a ball’s following you, that means it’s yours and you have 30 seconds to get rid of it.” I saw the clock out of the corner of my eye.

“So we have to throw it.”

“We do have to play.”

“No! We don’t! We can pass to each other and the countdown resets. Like Silas or Pat. We can just pass the ball to each other for the remaining time.”

“Is she right?”

"That makes sense."

“We’re saved?”

“Thank god.”

“We’re not gonna die.”

“So everyone, we should get in a circle. If we work together, we can all survive.” I step away from Silas, trying to start a circle, but the people near us back away.

“Fuck that.”

“I’m not going near the ball.”

“You guys do it.”

“It’s not my problem.” The only people who come to join the circle, or square are the two unfortunate guys, Axel and Jayce, who ended up with other balls.

"How do you know this'll work?" Standing next to me is Axel, who’s just as tall as me which means he’s pretty short and scrawny for a guy. He's a dick because of it. Classic height complex.

"I don't. But do you have any other plan?" I guess we don’t need anyone else. It might even be safer this way. I don’t want Izzy touching the balls either. In case, this doesn't work.

“Ok, ready? Just keep passing it to your left.” I pass it to Axel who passes it to Jayce who passes it to Silas. I look up at the clock, we only need to do this for 25 more minutes and we can all live. We can make it. 24:30. 24:00. The time is going by--

BEEP. It’s the ball that I have. I pass it to Axel.

BEEP. What’s going on. I passed it. Axel gives it Jayce.

BEEP. It’s not working. Why isn’t it working? Jackson’s ball starts beeping. He stops and holds the ball, looking at it curiously, as if it wasn't a ticking bomb.

BEEP. It’s getting faster. BEEP. I’ve gotta think of something. I give the ball to Axel who passes it. Then, he steps away.

“I’m done. I’m not doing this anymore.” Is he joking? One of these balls was his and he’s just gonna leave?

“I could just throw this ball at you.” Silas growls.

“Yea but I know you’re not going to.” The bastard. I look at the other side. Jackson had handed the ball to Pat and was telling him something I couldn’t hear.

“I’m done, too.” Jayce throws the ball at Silas and backs away slowly, looking down at the floor, his greasy hair covering half his face as if he was trying to hide his shame or his acne problem.

Guess we didn’t set a good precedent when we let Axel go. Ten seconds left until the beeping stops. And we die.

“Gimme the last ball, too. We don’t both have to die.” Silas reaches for the ball, but I stop him.

“No. We’ll figure something out.” I can’t think of anything. Do we have to throw it? Do we have to play this fucked up game?

I can’t. I’m not gonna murder anyone to save myself. I'm not gonna play. I'm not gonna throw it. But where does that leave me? Dead.

Wait, I don’t have to throw it at anyone.

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

"Here, I have an idea. Give me the balls!" I grab all three balls, run to the half court line and dump them on to the ground.

The sound finally stops. We’re safe. BEEP.

A ball whizzes by my ear and a howl erupts behind me. In front of me is Pat. He threw it. But not at the ground, he threw it at someone.

“I swear. We didn’t know. We thought you had to throw it at someone to be safe. If we knew we could throw it at the ground, we would’ve done that. We’re not killers.” Jackson entreats my angry team. They don’t believe him. I don’t know if I believe him.

"You're all fucking murderers. You're whole team is crazy."

“Why did the balls start the countdown anyways? I thought Sophia said passing it would be fine.” Shifting the blame onto me. He should go into politics, the shifty bastard.

“Deadball.” Izzy seems to have woken up from her stupor.

“What?”

“It’s called a dead ball. Dodgeball rules. To prevent live balls from being kept out of play. When you hold the ball for too long, it’s a dead ball. When you’re team has the ball for too long, it’s a dead ball.”

“Shit. What do we do now?”

“I don’t know."

"Seems like Soph’s plan won’t work now.”

“You got another plan, Soph?” Somehow, Axel ended up with the ball again and therefore very curious about my thought process. He's lucky cause I do have a plan.

“Yea,” Finally, I can help them. I can save them. “We keep passing it between each other across the line. We just have to let it bounce first.”

“Great idea, Soph. You're just full of them today." Jackson's compliment doesn't feel very complimentary. "As an apology, I’ll volunteer the baseball team to stand on our side of the line and pass.” Isn’t his team the one with three balls? Aren’t we the ones helping him?

“Fuck this. I don’t trust Soph anymore. I almost died last time cause of your shitty plan.” I also saved your ass.

“I promise it will work. We can all live.”

“You’ve been saying that the entire time and look how many people died.”

“That’s not her fault, you asshole.” Silas steps in.

“Whatever. If you’re so sure about it, why don’t you put your own life on the line. Here.” Axel holds the ball out. My whole plan hinges on both sides working together. I can’t refuse the ball or it might all fall apart.

“No problem. I’ll do it. Let’s get in line. Who’ll stand with me?” Silas is already next to me. Izzy comes, too.

“Are you sure, Iz?”

“Yea, I think I can manage throwing a ball five feet.”

“I’ll help, too.” It’s Jayce. He still doesn’t look me in the eye. He must’ve felt bad about before.

On the other side is Jackson, Pat, Victor, and Aiden. Victor’s just as big as he sounds, the heavy hitter on the team. Aiden plays shortstop and is almost as fast as Jackson, but has spiky black hair instead of the afro Jackson’s sporting. Pat’s the pitcher and his subsequent ego is only tempered by Jackson’s iron fist leadership style.

“Everyone matched up?” Pat’s throwing to Jayce, Victor to Silas, and Aiden to Izzy. Jackson’s mine.

“Let’s do this.”

See, you fuckers. We’re not dogs. We’re human.