"I was with four of my friends and we were walking from the bathroom back to the library. I was with this person for a really long time and I didn't really suspect anything, and then all of a sudden I was putting my hair up and I just put my ball under my arm for one second. She was walking with us in a straight line, but she snuck behind and I didn't notice and she got me." — senior Nura Mostaghimi. Photo: Emma Jiang
"So I was slain in cold blood by my friend, or so I thought, Gregor Tillman. He knew I was going to be late for first period auto, so he camped out outside — and I mean that literally, he had a chair, okay? A foldable chair. He was waiting for me, and the moment he saw me he ran up to me, tagged me. It's a brutal game. No one is safe, and I feel truly truly horrible for the next victim he's going to kill, because he will kill them brutally." — senior Eric Solway. Photo: Emma Jiang
"I didn't have high aspirations for this — I only wanted to eliminate one target and last a single week — but sadly, I could not even do that. I was in the art classroom for lunch and I put my ball down for one second and woosh — he's right behind me and he's like, 'Gotchu.' It was shocking. My heart dropped, and I haven't been able to live it down. There's been so many people that have come up to me like, 'I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry for your loss.' But, it's okay, it's just a game. That's what I'm telling myself. But it is nice not to have to carry [the beach ball] around anymore." — senior Grace Lam. Photo: Emma Jiang
"I was pretty hopeful about getting past more than two days in Assassins — I got eliminated by Nishant. That was totally unexpected. I forgot my ball when I was walking to the bathroom and then he sprinted towards me. I didn't think anything of it because other people had done that to me before just to troll me. When he did it, I was just like, 'Hi.' And then he tagged me out and I was like, 'Wait, Really?' Everyone knew about it within like five minutes since it's publically posted online, like a wall of shame. There's a little bit of regret — I wish I was holding my ball." — senior Nick Padmanabhan. Photo: Emma Jiang
"So I got eliminated on Tuesday. I actually didn't bring my ball to school that day and I nearly survived the entire day without my ball. But I was actually leaving school right before seventh [period], since I have a seventh prep, and I had math, so I decided to go down the back staircase instead of the front staircase since you'd think that your assassin won't be in the place where there's less people. But she happened to be there, and she tagged me, and I got eliminated." — senior Andrew Shih. Photo: Emma Jiang
"So one of my really close friends had me as their target, and we're both in the show together, so we were spending a lot of time together. We went out for dinner after rehearsal and I sat next to her and I put my ball down in my lap to take a bite of my food and she got me." — senior Robert Vetter. Photo: Emma Jiang
"In the Elimination rules, there's this whole section called 'The Blackburn Exception.' In most classes, when the bell rings for the start of class, you can't be playing anymore, but in Mr. Blackburn's class — he actually asked David, 'Can my classroom not be a safe zone?' — when the bell rings, you can still get tagged. I have Blackburn fourth [period] for Econ. I was in his class and he made a big announcement at the beginning of class about how we didn't have to be holding it in our hands, but it had to be on us somehow for us not to be tagged. For the first fifteen minutes I was like, I can do this. I was holding onto my ball, I was taking notes. After a while, my hand started to get tired, and I looked around — there are 330 people playing this game, there's maybe 25 people in this class, what are the odds that this person's in my class? So I let go of my ball, and immediately I get tagged. I turn around, and Kennedy Herron has been sitting behind me the entire class and was just waiting for me to put the ball down so she could tag me. So I just high-fived her — I'm not even mad, that was really impressive. Mr. Blackburn gave me a sticker, he was like, 'I'm sorry.'" — senior Christina O'Konski. Photo: Emma Jiang