Alexandre became alert as screaming filled the night. He glanced around and quickly noticed a naked man bleeding in the moonlight.
"Please help me!" the man wailed. "He stripped me and took everything! All my money and my water, too!"
A huge black shadow suddenly loomed behind the shouting man and lashed out, dealing a heavy strike to the victim's head. "Shut up, faggot!" the man growled. Based on his size, he seemed to weigh about a hundred kilos. "Stay on the ground, where you belong. Here, only the strongest are allowed to survive."
Most candidates simply stared at the scene in horror. Many looked away, either ashamed at the pathetic scene or wanting to avoid drawing the predator's attention toward them.
But none of them were surprised. This was the harsh reality of the Hunter admission exam. Most had read the official guide to preparing for the exam, which had clearly explained that they'd need psychological resilience and moral callousness to survive. The guide has said that candidates would be confronted with "situations unknown to civilian life" and that they would be confronted with "certain situations of great injustice." The candidates would simply have to ignore these situations if they wanted to survive and pass the various tests.
Many candidates had believed themselves to be cold-hearted and professional enough that this wouldn't be a problem. It was another thing altogether to see the brutal injustice occur in front of their eyes.
But to intervene would mean reducing their chances of completing the exam. So despite this difficult scene, most candidates simply tried to ignore what was happening and hope that they didn't become victims themselves.
But, of course, the first attack wasn't the only one. A cluster of screams were ringing out all across the zone: shouts of pain, begging for mercy, men calling for their mothers.
They lasted all throughout the wintry night.
***
The screaming in the dark terrified William. He'd been feeling more confident after helping save the girl earlier in the day, but now he could only think back to the many times during his life when stronger boys had beaten him up. His physique was pretty scrawny, and he knew it made him a target.
Even still, as he'd already proved, William had a surprising amount of both courage and humanity. At one point during the night, he saw a small candidate running in terror from a larger attacker. The attacker caught up, struck the smaller candidate savagely, and ripped away all his victim's belongings. Then he hurled the smaller candidate to the ground, and the victim landed painfully on his left arm with a moan of pain.
William gritted his teeth in frustration, knowing he could've done nothing to protect the victim from his attacker. But the moment the larger candidate walked away, William ran up to the figure shaking in pain on the ground. He tore off part of his shirt and used it, along with a nearby tree branch, to make a splint for the victim's arm. "Sorry I can't do anything more," he whispered. "Try not to move until the test's over. I bet the medics will be back by then."
***
When day finally broke, the predators grew more cautious. They settled down and ceased their attacks, like foxes sitting in the middle of a henhouse they'd just emptied of its inhabitants.
The night had been terrible for everyone. About thirty candidates had passed out from their injuries or from exposure to the cold, though nobody was dead. Some staff members had returned and were staring at the candidates from the loudspeaker area. They remained silent.
Many candidates looked around themselves in horror, realizing that the Hunter exam staff weren't going to intervene. Many shouts of anger or confusion filled the air.
"What, seriously?!"
"What's with these psychopathic monsters?!"
"I've had enough, I'm going home!"
"Where are the police?!"
"Why are the Hunters doing this to us?!"
Over a hundred candidates were terrified or fed up enough with their situation to leave the zone and disqualify themselves from the exam.
At long last, the staff spoke through the loudspeakers, announcing each eliminated candidate. The loud noise rang through the icy morning air like thunder.
Incidentally, the candidates who were lying unconscious on the ground were not disqualified. Neither were the candidates who had attacked them. All of the theft of food, water, and clothes had just been a natural part of the test conditions. It certainly wouldn't be the last of the violence.
***
Soon after the candidate numbers were thinned, the sun rose high enough over the horizon that the frosty ground and trees glistened in the sunlight. Candidates sighed in relief as their skin steamed in the warmth of the sunlight. They were all lucky that the sky wasn't cloudy.
William had laid out a dozen discarded water bottles the previous night. He'd cut the tops off the bottles and inverted them, creating something like a funnel on top of each bottle. The bottles had been coated in frost during the night, and now the sunlight melted the frost and trickled water into each bottle.
The humidity in the winter was low, unfortunately. In warmer weather, William would've had better results. Even still, he'd managed to collect about 300 ml of water, or about a full glass. Thankfully, William had done all this work as stealthily as he could to escape the notice of the other candidates. His bottles had escaped the notice of the predators during the night, and now he managed to gather all the water without being noticed.
As casually as he could, William walked close to Alexandre. "Here," he said. "Take half my water. It's only a couple mouthfuls, but it'll keep you conscious."
Alexandre didn't meet William's gaze, instead staring at one of the predator candidates out of the corner of his eye. "That's kind of you," said Alexandre, "but I don't need it. You'd better drink it quickly, before someone notices."
William replied, "You'll have a hard time staying conscious if you don't drink a little."
Alexandre turned and pointed toward a candidate who was urinating into an empty water bottle. "There are different ways of winning this test. Drink your own pee, steal from others, whatever. I don't need your charity to keep myself from dying of dehydration. You'd be surprised what human beings are prepared to do for survival."
Then Alexandre took out his half-full bottle of water and drank a big gulp in front of William.
William's jaw dropped. He hadn't expected Alexandre to have any water left at all. He flushed, understanding what Alexandre was trying to tell him. 'That guy can take care of himself,' William thought. 'He's right… I need to look out for myself when I can. I can't expect other people to help me when I need it, after all.'
He drank some of his water, grateful that, for the moment, he wasn't reduced to drinking his own urine.