It could happen almost anywhere at almost any time. You’re walking to class, chatting with your friend about your latest Silly Bandz, when you feel something strange brush against your hand. As you glance down to investigate, you realize that what you thought was a meaningless graze was actually the ultimate mark of death: a black X etched in permanent marker. Your heart begins to race, the sweat starts dripping from your forehead, and you fall to the ground, stone cold dead. You have just died an instant death during Ames High’s game of Assassin. The game is relatively simple. Everyone involved receives the name of his or her target in a top-secret envelope. Their goal is to “kill” that person using fake weapons in creative ways. A clothespin could be pinned to their shirt, a Sharpie could be used to mark their hand, and CDs containing explosive sounds could be used to simulate a car bomb. There are other allowed mock-weapons listed for those involved with the game, but, sorry, Nerf guns are not permitted. They’ll have to wait for the next basement game of Zombie. The students that brought this madness to our Ames High community are juniors Jessica Jacobson, Katrina Henderson, Anna Kilzer, Alyssa Bovinette, and Greer Brown. “We were just sitting around thinking of something exciting to do for the beginning of school,” Brown said. And, boy, has it brought some excitement. There were some pretty intense deaths during this past game of Assassin. Senior Adam Lane was one of the first to die on August 30th, the beginning day of the game. He was brought down via permanent marker, but in an agonizing way. The Sharpie used on Lane was old, so the assassin pushed harder to try to get some ink to come out. This caused Lane a great deal of pain, and it left him with an X-shaped scratch on his leg, although he didn’t mind. “It hurt real good,” Lane said. “I wish I would have tried harder. This game is ‘da baste’.” Some people were attacked by players who weren’t even their assigned assassin. “[Senior] Joe Linduska pretended to kill me by hitting me in the face with his T-shirt,” complained junior Martha Ryan. “It obviously didn’t work, because he is a loser.” Linduska responded by saying, “In my defense, the shirt was in the shape of a sword.” Some people just have the assassin spirit, be it toward their target or toward someone else. This spirit is what will ultimately keep the game enjoyable and thriving for future play. Car bombs were set, squirt guns were fired, and friends sabotaged each other in ways that would otherwise break up their friendships. Though the rules might not have been extremely clear from the beginning, there was one fundamental rule: “Basically, just kill as many people as you can,” Bovinette said. She proved to be a skilled assassin, lasting 3 days, but she started on a rather sympathetic note. “I decided to let my target experience at least a day of this intense game, so I laid off the first 24 hours,” she said. One player was fortunate enough to have an assassin who left them only with death threats for the entire game. This poor strategy left junior Bridget Fonseca unharmed, which gave her a great advantage among the other players. Saturday, September 11th, at 12:30 p.m., Fonseca finished the game after she murdered junior Jayson Ochanpaugh. Her last kill was “the most epic,” Fonseca said, “I had never seen Jayson in person, but I looked him up on Facebook the night before, so I kind of knew who to look for. I saw him walk by my car, I ran up behind him, shot him with a huge rubber band and then ran away doing a victory dance.” There are many students that wanted to play but didn’t get the opportunity. After seeing the game in action, many became instantly interested. But, never fear! Another game of Assassin is said to be planned for later in the year. “A lot of people asked to join, but I had to turn them down. Once the names are set we usually can’t add others into the mix,” Brown said. It was fun while it lasted, though. The experience brought many people together from different friend groups, and exposed them to something unique and fun. As Ryan said: “This game kicks assassin.”