The morning on Wawanakwa Island did not begin with the soft sounds of nature, but with the deafening roar of Chris McLean's helicopter rotors. The contestants stumbled out onto the dock, disheveled and rubbing their eyes, where the host was already waiting for them in full gear, grinning ear to ear.
"Good morning, losers!" Chris bellowed through his megaphone. "I hope everyone brought a change of underwear, because today is all about adrenaline and pure, unadulterated terror! First task: Sofa Skydiving!"
The rules were simple but insane: each team had to send one member into the sky, who would then be tossed from a plane while sitting on a floral-patterned living room sofa. Their goal was to land on a tiny rubber mat placed in the center of the lake. From the Killer Bass, the gentle giant DJ was chosen, while the always-hungry Owen stepped up for the Screaming Gophers.
Ten thousand feet up, the air was ice-cold. DJ's face turned as ashen gray as the ashes of a campfire. His hands gripped the armrests of the sofa until his knuckles turned white.
"Chef, please... I'm afraid of heights! I have a mama waiting for me at home! You can't do this to me!" DJ sobbed, his tears whipped away by the wind.
Chef, however, only gave him a surly glance before a well-aimed kick from his boot sent the sofa flying out of the plane's open door.
DJ's scream echoed for miles across the island. During the fall, DJ was so paralyzed by shock that he froze solid. This "statue-state," however, unexpectedly saved him: since he wasn't flailing, the sofa didn't start to spin. Instead, it cut through the air steadily, like a well-guided glider. When the parachute opened, DJ plopped down precisely in the middle of the rubber mat.
"I'm alive... I'm alive!" he whispered in disbelief, kissing the wet rubber.
Then came Owen. He wasn't afraid at all; in fact, mid-fall, he remembered the massive stick of salami he had swiped at breakfast and stuffed between the sofa cushions.
"It's snack time, baby!" he yelled, letting go of the armrests to rummage through the cushions. The sudden shift in the center of gravity sent the sofa into a wild spin. Owen's legs flew up into the air, and the salami was flung out of his hand into the distance.
"NOOOOO! My dinner!" Owen screamed, and his frantic flailing caused the parachute cords to tangle into a complete mess. Owen didn't land on the mat; instead, he crashed miles away in the middle of the stinking marsh, burying himself headfirst in the muck.
Chris, standing on the dock, satisfied, marked a tally on his board:
Killer Bass: 1 – Screaming Gophers: 0
The air was thick with the scent of pine and the aggressive musk of the massive bull moose pacing inside the corral. Chris McLean stood on a wooden platform, looking down at the contestants with a smirk that promised nothing but pain.
"Round two: The Moose Rodeo!" Chris announced. "Stay on the beast, or stay in the dirt. Who's going first?"
Tyler stepped up, his face set in a grim mask of determination. He needed this win to erase the memory of his past failures. "Watch and learn, guys! This is pure athleticism! EXTREME!"
He leaped onto the moose, but the animal reacted with volcanic force. After a few seconds of violent bucking, the moose launched Tyler like a projectile.
The scream Tyler let out was cut short by a deafening crash. He hit the main support beam of the Killer Bass boys' cabin with the force of a falling meteor. The structure shivered, then groaned as the wood splintered. In a slow, agonizing cascade, the entire cabin collapsed into a pile of rubble.
Harold fell to his knees, his jaw hitting the grass. "My... my limited edition ninja star collection! My vintage technomancer gear! It's all... atoms!" He clutched his head, looking at the ruins of his life with a hollow, haunted expression.
Duncan stood next to him, his hands balled into white-knuckled fists, while DJ openly sobbed, knowing his favorite blanket was now buried under three tons of cedar.
Tyler crawled out of the dust, turning a ghostly shade of white as he realized he had just made himself homeless—and an enemy of Duncan.
"Brutal!" Chris laughed, wiping a tear. "Gophers, you're up! Zeke, let's see what you've got."
Ezekiel stepped forward. The air around him seemed to chill as he moved with a calm, predatory grace. He reached down, grabbed his green hoodie, and pulled it over his head.
"Hold this, eh," he said, handing it to Gwen.
As the fabric left his skin, a deathly silence fell over the clearing.
Gwen felt the heat rush to her face, a deep, crimson blush spreading across her cheeks. Her eyes widened as she took in his torso. It wasn't just the corded, functional muscle; it was the violence etched into his skin. Her breath hitched, and a thousand questions swirled in her mind. Where had this boy actually been?
The reactions from the others were raw and immediate. Heather and Lindsay, who had spent weeks mocking him as a "homeschooled freak," were paralyzed. Heather's eyes darted across the scars, her usual snark replaced by a genuine, fearful shock. Lindsay let out a small gasp, her hand covering her mouth as she stared at the jagged marks.
Duncan narrowed his eyes, leaning in. He had seen knife wounds in juvie, but the map of scars on Zeke's back was something different. It was a map of survival against things much scarier than street gangs. He gave a sharp, single nod of grim respect.
In the back, Owen, Leshawna, and Bridgette stood in stunned silence. They had been too polite to ask before, but now the truth was laid bare. Harold, momentarily forgetting his destroyed gear, stared at the bear claw marks on Zeke's back with a mixture of terror and awe.
DJ looked away, winced by the sight of the jagged knife scar near Zeke's ribs and the wolf bite on his arm.
Even Chef Hatchet lowered his clipboard, his eyes softening with a veteran's recognition of a fellow survivor.
Chris McLean actually stopped talking, his smug grin flickering as he realized the "kid" he'd been making fun of had survived more than Chris could ever imagine.
"Zeke..." Gwen whispered, her voice trembling as she gripped his hoodie. "Your back... the knife... the bite... how are you even standing?"
Zeke didn't look back. He didn't explain the bear that had pinned him in the snow, or the winter he had to fight for a kill, or the machinery that had nearly claimed his arm. "The farm doesn't give anything for free, eh," he muttered. "You pay for your life in skin."
He walked toward the moose. He didn't jump. He stood inches from the snorting animal and let out a low, vibrating shepherd's whistle. The beast, which had just leveled a cabin, suddenly lowered its head in submission. Zeke mounted it and sat perfectly still for four minutes, his scarred muscles glistening in the sun like a bronze monument of survival.
"Point... Gophers," Chris said, his voice unusually quiet. "We're tied, 1 to 1."
The afternoon sun beat down mercilessly on the swamp, turning the humid air into a thick soup of rot and gasoline fumes. Chris stood on the edge of the dock, pointing toward a rusted, powerful motorboat bobbing in the murky, black water.
"It's time for the tie-breaker!" Chris announced with a wicked grin. "Mud Water-skiing! The rules: one person drives, the other skis. Your goal is to collect as many flags as possible from the marsh. But here's the kicker: the opposing driver's only job is to make sure the skier gets absolutely doused in filth!"
For the Screaming Gophers, Lindsay stepped onto the skis, looking surprisingly focused. Behind the wheel of the boat for the Killer Bass sat Duncan, whose face was still a mask of fury over his destroyed home.
"Alright, Princess," Duncan growled, gripping the steering wheel. "Hope you like the smell of sewage, because you're about to wear it!" He slammed the throttle forward.
The boat lunged like a shark. Duncan pulled out every dirty trick in the book: he took sharp, ninety-degree turns, braked suddenly, and then accelerated at full speed to create massive "rooster tails" of thick, black sludge. But Lindsay was a revelation. She didn't just stay up; she danced. With incredible grace and professional-level balance, she slalomed through the waves, performing high-speed 360-degree spins and one-handed grabs that left even Chef Hatchet speechless. Not a single drop of mud touched her clothes or her hair; she remained perfectly pristine amidst the filth.
Duncan was so obsessed with watching Lindsay in the rearview mirror, trying to find a way to knock her off, that he completely lost track of where he was steering.
"Duncan, look out!" DJ screamed from the shore.
But it was too late. The boat roared toward the bank at top speed and, with a deafening crash, slammed into the Screaming Gophers' boys' cabin. The structure held, but the bow of the boat shattered the main window and lodged itself halfway into the bedroom.
Lindsay elegantly let go of the rope and glided to a stop, walking onto the dock completely dry.
Then came the swap. Gwen took the wheel for the Gophers, while the Bass's last hope, Harold, got on the skis. Harold actually held his own for a while, using his "ninja reflexes" to balance in the thick sludge and snatching up flags with precision.
However, Gwen was relentless. With a sudden, aggressive maneuver, she steered the boat toward a low-hanging cluster of trees. Harold realized the danger too late. He let go of the rope, but his momentum carried him straight into a dense tree, where he became hopelessly snagged by the seat of his pants on a sturdy branch.
"Help! My trousers! Gosh!" Harold yelled, flailing his arms as he hung five feet above the mud.
Leshawna burst into a fit of giggles from the shore. She walked over with a long fallen branch and, chuckling to herself, poked at Harold until he finally tumbled down into her arms.
Chris blew his whistle, signaling the end of the challenge.
"The Screaming Gophers win! Your prize is a luxurious mobile shower, complete with steaming hot water and scented soaps! As for the Killer Bass... well, tonight, one of you is going home. See you at the campfire for the elimination ceremony!"
The night was dark and heavy at the Killer Bass campsite. The boys sat on the bare ground in front of the splintered ruins of what used to be their home. At the campfire, Chris McLean was waiting for them, but for once, his usual mocking grin was replaced by a strange look of anticipation.
"There is one rule on this island: if you lose, someone has to go," Chris began, holding the tray of marshmallows. "But today, the voting was... surprisingly unanimous."
Chris started tossing the marshmallows. "Duncan... DJ... Bridgette... Harold..."
One by one, they caught their sweets, until only Tyler was left standing empty-handed. He didn't look surprised or scared; he looked resolved.
"Don't even bother with the suspense, Chris," Tyler interrupted, his voice steady for the first time in weeks. "I was the one. I voted for myself, and I know the others did too. I admit it—I messed up the most today. Maybe that moose was more aggressive than usual, but a real athlete should be able to stay in control. Because of me, you guys don't have a roof over your heads, and because of me, we missed out on that luxury shower."
Duncan, who had been kicking the debris of his cabin in rage all afternoon, went silent. He saw a level of honesty and "grit" in Tyler that he hadn't noticed before. He stood up and walked over to the athlete.
"You know, Tyler... I thought you were just some clumsy reject. But this? This is a stand-up move. You earned my respect, man," Duncan said, giving him a firm, masculine handshake.
Harold and DJ nodded in agreement; there was no malice left, only the cold logic of the game.
Tyler didn't wait for the Boat of Losers to honk. He turned and walked down the Dock of Shame with his head held high.
In the distance, Lindsay waved a tearful goodbye, and Tyler gave her a confident thumbs-up. He wasn't leaving as a loser; he was leaving as a man of his word.
After the boat disappeared into the mist, Chris turned back to the remaining Bass boys.
"Alright, wipe those tears! Since Duncan decided to smash the Gophers' window with the boat earlier, and since Owen and Ezekiel are the only ones living in the guys' side of that cabin anyway, there's plenty of room. Effective immediately: Duncan, Harold, and DJ will be sleeping in the Screaming Gophers' boys' cabin."
Harold's eyes lit up. "At least we have a roof. Though I hope Owen's snoring isn't at a hazardous decibel level..."
"I'm just glad I won't be sleeping under the stars with the bears," DJ added, as they began hauling what was left of their gear toward the Gopher camp.
Ezekiel and Owen were waiting at the cabin door. Zeke gave a silent, respectful nod to Duncan as they entered.