The game known as Assassins has reached its peak; there are only five players left. It’s a high-stakes, every-man-for-himself game that is a senior tradition at Wakefield. Seniors gave the organizers, Kathleen Martin and Julia Simon, $10 about a month ago. Half of that money was put towards the senior class treasury and the other half went into a pot for the last person standing, #WINNING. This year’s pot is a whopping $468.50.

How exactly is this money won? It’s simple: survive.

Every week there’s a new safety, a ridiculously difficult task that must be performed at all times, except during class. Whenever players are outside of class; in the halls, at the grocery store, even at home they are not safe unless they are performing the safety. These safeties have ranged from having to walk around holding a textbook on your head to scrubbing yourself with a bar of soap and a loofah. Another unpopular safety was having to hold an apple in your mouth at all times. This week’s safety involves wearing a fanny pack with a stuff animal inside it and hopping up around like a kangaroo at all times.

Each player is also assigned a target to ‘assassinate’ and that target could be anyone, even your best friend. All the assassin has to do is wait for their target to not perform the required safety, and then they assassinate them by hitting them with a balled up sock. Voilà! They’re one kill closer to winning that sweet, sweet pile of cash. They have to remember to watch their backs, because their assassin is waiting for them to slip up, too…

Senior Nadia Rendon is one of the five people still left in the game. She was really enjoying the game, but started getting tired of it while trying to keep up with school work. However, this week, she finds herself really excited with the money so close…even if she does have to hop all over the place. “If I win, you better believe I’m saving it for college,” she said, “But I’ll still use it to cover certain expenses at school.”

Senior Casey Mcclintick-Sink was playing earlier, but was eliminated when she failed to keep both hands on the textbook she had to carry on top of her head. “I felt kind of relieved but disappointed too”, she said, “I was probably going to spend the prize money on college textbooks.”

Georgia Allin, also a senior,  said she was really happy she didn’t play because she thinks it’s really funny to just watch. When asked why she never bought a spot in the game she said, “I didn’t play because I was partly lazy and partly because I thought I would get insanely paranoid.”

Assassins’ Facilitator Julia Simon said, “In the spring we want to combine juniors and seniors to create a closer bond, and maybe even pick who will run it next year.”

The junior class is already excited for their chance to play, “I will definitely be playing Assassins! After seeing how it has bonded all the seniors this year and brought them together, I really want to be a part of that” junior Kenza Lo said. “And the money seems good, too.”