Survival of the Fittest, Part 6

Morning came too soon for Jack, and the rain came with it. Being the first to wake again, he climbed out of his tent, and took a look around. Interestingly, there was a car parked behind the truck. Sitting in the passenger seat was a man that looked mildly familiar. The man climbed out when he saw Jack getting out of his tent.

"Well, this isn't too much of a surprise Jack. I guess you picked up a lot from my class." Once the man started talking, Jack immediately knew who he was. This was clearly the TA from the wilderness survival class.

While the man might not have been terribly surprised by Jack's presence, Jack was certainly surprised by his. "What are you doing here?" Jack began. "There is almost no reason that I can think of for you to be here randomly. Why aren't you at camp? Where's the professor? And what is the deal with that plane crash?"

"Well..." the man paused, and walked over to the truck, leaning against the side. "You may have guessed by now, this was actually your final. You all jumped out of the plane, with gear to last a couple days, and your tents had tracking devices in them. Interestingly enough, in four years of administering this test, you are the only ones to successfully find your way back to civilization, though to be fair, we didn't really count on anybody finding a truck that worked. Also, I am the professor. The guy who stood up every week was my TA."

Jack walked over to a tree stump, and sat down. "Don't you think this is a little cruel? For an exam, this is a little over-the-top. What if somebody died?"

The professor paused for a moment as if in thought, then smiled. "That hasn't happened yet, and I feel fairly safe about that. After all, you people just went through a wilderness survival training class. If you guys had trouble lasting the woods for a week or two, then you really shouldn't be passing a class on wilderness survival, now should you?"

As Jack contemplated his next question, he noticed that Alli had woken up. She was still a little silent, so it was entirely possible that their visitor he had yet to notice that she was up. "Still, there is no way that the administration actually endorses this test. In fact, they probably don't even know about it, do they?"

"Do you honestly think that I would do something like this without some kind of higher up knowing about it? Do you really think I'm that dumb?"

Without warning, Alli's tent opened, and Alli came charging out, carrying her gun. She quickly swung it around, pointing it straight at the professor, who promptly dropped to the ground.

"Are you mad woman? Don't point that gun at me! If you're not careful, you'll kill someone!"

Alli looked at the man as he cowered on the ground, anger clearly visible in her eyes. She had every right to be angry; she had been dumped in the middle of nowhere, without warning, as part of a test for a class. "I don't think there's a jury on earth that would convict me after this fiasco of yours. You threw us in the middle of the jungle, and asked us to fend for ourselves for a week without warning. I'd be surprised if no one took a shot at you in the past some time."

"Look, look, just calm down, there's no need for violence here. Just get in the car, we'll go to the airport, and you can get home, get a shower, get some sleep, you'll feel better in the morning. I promise."

Jack got up from where he was sitting, and walked over to Alli. "Look, he's right, you know. We can't exactly get out of this country easily without him. So don't go blowing his brains out until we get back home."

Alli smiled and then started laughing. "I wasn't going to shoot him. I just wanted to scare him a little. I wanted him to feel a little bit of how we feel we right now."

The professor got back up, and started making his way back towards his car. "Wake up your last guy, and let's get out of here. I want you three to be on your way back home, by noon."

Jack went over and gave Jon's tent a shake. Jon came climbing out a few seconds later, and the three of them packed up their gear, throwing it in the trunk of the car.

The trip to the airport was uneventful, as was the flight home. When they got back, they all headed to their respective houses, to get cleaned up. After quick showers and changing clothes, they all met up in front of the administration building for their college. They were determined to make a change to the wilderness survival course. They were sure that they could get something to happen. But hours of conversation with administrator after administrator was futile. No one knew what was going on in that class, and no one believed them when they said that they had been thrown out of the plane with almost no equipment, and no way to get home. Finally, after all the administrators had gone home, they gave up hope. After a while, they resorted to simply telling the story to anyone who would listen. No matter how often they told the story, no one believed them. It seemed like a runaway ghost story you'd tell at a campfire, not anything that could possibly have happened in real life.