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Somewhere in the South Pacific, where the water is calm and the deep blue sea stretches seamlessly from one horizon to the other, there is a tiny, uncharted island that cannot be found on any map. Lush green forests, white sandy beaches, a ring of cascading waterfalls, and an active volcano at the very heart of the island have made it one of Polynesia's best kept secrets for centuries. Today, as the human population skyrockets past seven billion, the natural glory of Nāmaka’s Island remains untouched, frozen in the hourglass of time.

Which is precisely why Hollywood has decided to turn this paradise into its hottest new reality TV show! Yes, for the past eight months, camera crews have been feverishly installing surveillance equipment and listening devices in every tree, rock, and animal on the island, so that not one square inch is left uncovered.

The rules are simple. Twenty-eight strangers have volunteered (trust us on this) to live on a remote island somewhere in the South Pacific and compete in some of the most grueling, disgusting, dangerous, and morally degrading challenges ever imagined. At the end of each day, one unlucky contestant will be voted off the island and can never, EVER return. This will continue until only one cast member remains, the ultimate champion of Nāmaka’s Island. Who will it be?

Who will be…the LAST ONE STANDING?


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The gigantic cruise liner docked on the shores of Nāmaka’s Island at sunset on the first day. Most of the twenty-eight contestants were already standing outside their cabin doors, waiting for the gangplank to be lowered. As they gathered their belongings and moved towards the rear of the ship, a few of them turned their heads to the side and stared at the island that would be their home for the next month. With colorful Tiki huts lined up on the beach, palm trees swaying in the breeze like half-naked hula dancers, and the sky a swirled mixture of pink and red, the island looked exactly like it did in the brochure.

“It’s…so…AWESOME!” said a jolly, hefty boy of about eighteen. He was a towering behemoth, wearing an XXXL t-shirt that was still about two sizes too small.

The brunette behind him sighed. “That’s a pamphlet, Wendell.” She snatched the flyer away from him, rolled it up, and pointed at the actual island. They really weren’t all that different, except for one very big, very noticeable detail.

“Hey… Where’d all those cameras come from?”

The entire island was covered in surveillance equipment.

“We’re going to be on a reality TV show,” the girl said, in her usual matter-of-fact tone that would be condescending to almost anyone.

“Awesome! Are you going to be on it too, Angie?”

“Yes, Wendell. We all are.” She put a hand on her hip and gently tapped him on the nose with the pamphlet a few times. “Isn’t that why you signed up for this?”

“I just came for the all-you-can-eat buffet…”

Angie shook her head and followed Wendell off the boat.

“There’s no longer any doubt,” muttered the balding guy in a Marlboro cap behind them. He never told anybody his real name, so the rest of the folks had just gotten accustomed to calling him Rusty. “Only the United States government would spend this much time and effort on island-wide surveillance. This whole ‘reality TV show’ is nothing more than a front for a psychological experiment involving extreme isolation.” He stopped for a moment, took a long drag on the cigarette in his hand, and flicked it over the ship’s railing.  “S'all part of NASA's plan to terraform Mars. Gotta know how often they'll need to send replacements once the colonists boil over and tear each other to pieces.”

“Well, I think this will be a truly enlightening experience,” said the white-haired girl named Butterfly, who was meditating on the railing next to Rusty. “Being this far away from industrialized society will allow us to get back to our true roots, as nature intended.”

“I just hope there are some new species of insects for me to collect,” said Naomi. She was an exceptionally short Japanese-American with red-rimmed glasses and black hair. Next to her was her good friend Misra, a quiet girl from the Philippines, who spoke in only broken English.

“I hope so too,” she said.

Naomi and Misra descended from the ship without noticing Luigi, one of the more shady fellows on the boat, who had casually positioned himself on the dock next to the ramp. From where he was standing, he had a perfect view up their skirts as they passed by overhead.

He snickered and nibbled at his fingertips.
   
Meanwhile, a lanky man with hair like a porcupine on steroids leapt onto the railing of the ship and struck an epic pose over the face of the island. He held the pose for a minute, while his enormous buckled trench coat whipped in the ocean breeze. As he surveyed the island overtop tiny wireframe lenses sitting too low on his nose to be useful, he expanded his chest and began a grand proclamation to all within earshot.

“Such splendor!” he remarked. “I shall make my mark upon this land and the name ‘Zero’ shall be uttered henceforth with awe and—GAH!”

“Nobody is impressed,” said Claudia, the bitch, as she walked by and pushed him into the water.

“No! My coat is dry-clean only!”

Still sitting cross-legged on the railing, Butterfly opened her eyes to the flailing man in the sea and rotated her head around.

“Your aura is very black today,” she said to Claudia.

“I just want off this stupid boat. Make way!” She pushed Naomi and Misra aside and jumped onto shore, leaving behind two footprints where her boots had landed.

Next, coming down from the ship’s upper deck was a freakishly tall girl named Bridgette. She had coffee-colored skin, braided red hair, and always wore a sleeveless jersey with the number ‘10’ on the back. For comparison, the guy next to her, Adam, was over six feet tall and built like a tank, but she could still see over his head.

Bridgette put a hand on Adam’s shoulder. “Look… All I’m saying is the Steelers are not a good team. I mean, you guys lost to Tim Tebow in the playoffs. Tebow, man. How does that even happen?”

 “…Don’t ask me,” Adam muttered. “Not even God knows how Tebow made it to the playoffs.”

There was a guy following closely behind them who was named “Mean” Joe after the first day, and for good reason. Upon hearing the topic of their conversation, his left eye began to twitch and the blood rushed to his face.

“The DEFENSE kept his team in the game!” he shouted. Even without the wifebeater shirt he was sporting, Mean Joe was obviously a troll, and a bad one at that. “I’m so sick of hearing about that Jesus-loving freak. ‘Tebow this,’ and ‘Tebow that’. Maybe if I routinely criticize him every chance I get, I might someday get to say, ‘I told you so!,’ despite being proven wrong week after week.”

“Yeah, that about sums up all Tebow haters,” Bridgette said.

“…Hey! You’re lucky you’re not my wife!”

“Yes. Yes, I am.”

Mean Joe continued to rage on, so Bridgette and Adam hurried off the ship.

Mean Joe tried to give chase, but he was so out of shape that he didn’t make it very far. That made him a hypocrite too. Bending at the knees, he gasped for air and grabbed onto the closest thing next to him.

That ‘thing’ just happened to be Henri, the dapper gentleman with a Louisianan accent.

“Ah find sports to be most vulgar,” Henri said, fanning himself. “Why don’t we discuss more civilized matters?”

Behind them, the cabin door to the most expensive suite suddenly burst open, and a red carpet was rolled onto the ship’s deck. Literally, people. We can’t make this stuff up. Then, straight from a magazine shoot, the gorgeous Mercedes stepped out, silvery blonde hair done up like she had been primping it all night long, and she dropped her luggage at her feet and looked around.

“Where’s the bellhop?” she asked, sliding her orange-tinted sunglasses down the brim of her nose. She scanned the deck of the ship quickly, looking past Henri and Mean Joe, and waggled her fingers at the baby-faced, towheaded lad coming her way. “Oh, bellhop! Yoo-hoo, bellhop! Yoo-hoo!” Their eyes met. “That’s a good boy. Carry my bags, would you?”

The confused lad blinked.

“…Um, me?” he asked.

“Yes, you.”

“You want me to carry your bags?”

“Very clever, little boy, but I’m not tipping you to ask silly questions.” She pushed her sunglasses back into place and dismissed him with a casual flip of her wrist. “Hurry along now.”

“But…I’m not a bellhop. My name’s Pip.”

But Mercedes was too busy studying the ridges of her fingernails to even acknowledge him anymore.

“How could you not know that? We’ve been on this boat together for two days. We even sat next to each other at lunch…”

Mercedes yawned.

“Allow me, Corazón.” A tall, dark, handsome man with slick black hair scooped up the baggage in one fell swoop. He then began to juggle the suitcases on his biceps while the buttons on his silk shirt nearly burst from the power of his bulging muscles. When he was finished showing off, he threw the luggage over one arm and leaned his head onto Mercedes’ soft, dainty shoulder. “Buen dia, mi bonita. Shall we disembark from this ship hand in hand, so that we may leave adjacent footprints in the sand of this foreign beach for all the others to see?”

“Mm. Thank you, Alejandro, but just the bags will do for now.”

“As you wish, señorita.”

Pip continued staring at them.

“Why does everybody think I’m a bellhop…?” he asked.

“I think it’s becaaaause…” A girl crept up behind him and put her hands over his eyes. “You’re as cute as a button!” She leaned over his head and rested her chin on his forehead.

“Cut it out, Piper!”

His sister laughed and ruffled his hair with her face. “Sorry, little bro, but you’re just so adorable.”

“Well, I know, but…” He looked down at his feet and frowned. “Look, Piper. This is my chance to finally make something of myself. I know I can win this contest, but nobody is going to take me seriously if they see you treating me like a baby out there.”

“So what if people don’t take you seriously?”

“That’s easy for you to say! You’re captain of the cheerleading squad. You can get whatever you want.”

“I can’t get a cuter brother, though.” She bopped Pip on the nose and giggled as he tried to swat her finger away.

“Stop that!”

High above them, the curtains in one of the cabins opened ever so slightly and a pair of watchful eyes looked out. It was the mysterious Dizzy. He hadn’t left his cabin since they had boarded the ship. Not even to eat. Not even to say hello. Not even…to use the restroom.

Which was probably one of the reasons the others steered clear of his room.

The curtains closed and, suddenly, Dizzy was standing on the beach. He walked confidently up to the others and opened his mouth to speak. They had been waiting for this moment for two days. What kind of profound thing would he say? All eyes were upon him.

“…I like pizza.”

They moaned and looked away.

“Oh, look,” said Chloe, the resident goth, as she stepped off the boat and shielded her eyes from the waning sunlight. “The hermit decided to come out from hiding.”

“As if you’re to talk, dhampir,” said Travis (aka, Kidd Katt). He was a white punk dressed in baggy clothing, with ripped jeans around his knees and boxers with skulls on them exposed to the world. He moved with swagger, not swag, his hat was tipped at a perfect angle to the side, and he spoke with an ebonic tongue that was about as natural as his tan. “What up, Islanders? You brothas and sistas ready to rock this crib? AH-RHOO!”

“Hi, I’m Kathy!”

“Yo—what up, dawg!? Stop pushing!”

A horribly obnoxious girl forced her way past Travis and into the center of the crowd, to repeat what everybody already knew. “Hi, I’m Kathy! That’s Kathy with a ‘K’ Not a ‘C’. O-K? Ha, ha! Get it? Yeah, you get it. Nice to meet you all.” She then proceeded to shake everybody’s hand, whether they wanted to or not.

That little distraction allowed Lydia, the brown-haired artist, to lower the brim of the beret on her head and slip past the crowd unnoticed. When she found a spot she could be alone on the beach, she sat down with her sketch pad and began to draw the volcano’s peak at the center of Nāmaka’s Island while singing softly to herself.

Meanwhile, as the ship began to clear, one of the contestants still hadn’t left his cabin. And how could he? He was almost on the last level of Dragon Wars: Legend of the Black Dragon Warrior King IX—only the coolest game ever invented. Just a few more carefully timed jumps and he would be there. Finally. His lifelong dream was in reach.

“Soldier—you’re going to be late!”

“Leave me alone, Roger,” Dante said. “I’m almost to the boss.”

“It is 20:00 hours! It is time to disembark from this ship, or you will automatically be disqualified from the contest.”

“Whatever, dude. I’m busy.”

“Don’t make me carry you on my back, soldier.”

“You’re not going to do that.”

Thirty seconds later, Dante’s character was dead and he was getting dragged off the boat, kicking and screaming like a two-year-old.

“Your video game avatar is an acceptable loss, scrotum,” Roger said. “Now, get movin' or I'll have your ass with my corn flakes!"

But what true gamer could listen to such rubbish? Dante restarted his game and kept playing, even as he was carried away.

The next man…er, woman…to emerge from one of the cabin doors was Maxine. You might want to cover your eyes for this one. The butch woman stepped onto the ship’s deck in chain leather boots, camouflage cargo shorts, and a black, heavy metal band t-shirt with the sleeves missing.  She scratched under one arm and then the other and waited for her roommate.

“…I can’t believe I got stuck sharing a room with you,” her roomie said, dragging a heavy suitcase out the door. “You are the most disgusting person I have ever met.”

“Eh, whatever,” was Maxine’s charming response.

“And stop sniffing your armpits. It’s not sanitary.”

“You want to sniff them for me, Erica?” She shoved her hairy flabs forward.

Erica made it off the ship in record speed.

The last man on the boat (and arguably the last REAL man on the planet), Willie, tipped his hat to Penny from Oklahoma.

“After you, ma’am,” he said.

She blushed a rosy red and stepped onto the gangplank. From down below, Luigi had a very nice view of the inside of her jean skirt.

“Cowgirl legs,” he breathed. “Niiice…”

He was so engrossed in looking up her skirt that he didn’t look behind him, where Willie was now standing with a very stern expression on his face.

“Now, that’s not a very polite thing to do to a lady,” said Willie. “You should say you’re sorry.”

“Get out of here, cowboy! I’m trying to do something.”

“Come on, guys!” said Wendell, cheery as ever, burying them in a two-arm grab as he led them away from the ship. His jolly laughter was all that was needed to break the tension. “Let’s go meet our host!”

And so the twenty-eight contestants, each with their own reasons for being here, hurried towards the small village of Tiki huts, where a ‘WELCOME TO THE ISLAND’ banner and a roaring bonfire awaited them. There were tables full of delicious foods and they filled their plates and sat down to eat. As they did, the cruise liner raised the gangplank and shoved off, eventually disappearing beyond the horizon.

“Um…how are we supposed to get back?” Pip thought to ask, but Piper just patted him on the head and assured him that everything would be okay. “No, really. Guys. The captain just marooned us here. We don’t even know—”

“Ahh, what a charming cast of characters,” came a heavenly voice, and a woman stepped out from one of the Tiki huts in an elegant blue gown and elaborate headdress of flowers and feathers. She had a big smile on her lips and the longest, brownest, curliest, most EPIC hair ever. Did we mention it was epic? Well, it was. “My name is Cassandra, but you can call me Nāmaka, Goddess of the Sea! Now that you are all here, I would like to welcome each of you to my home.”

“Hi, I’m Kathy!” said you-know-who, as she grabbed Cassandra’s hand and shook it violently. “That’s Kathy with a ‘K’!”

“Obviously, because the ‘C’ is mine.” Cassandra pulled her hand away and clasped her fingers behind her back. “That aside, you are all here because you agreed to be contestants on the first season of ‘Last One Standing’… For that, you are all winners in my book. Each and every one of you.” She smiled, bigger than before, and moved to the head of the great table at which all twenty-eight contestants were seated. “But, of course, there can only be one winner. To determine who it will be, we will split you into two teams. Every day, we have a competition of some sort, and the losing team will have to vote one of their members off the island. Members who leave the island may NEVER RETURN. We will continue in this fashion until only one of you remains. Any questions?”

“Yeah, is there any more food?” Wendell asked, after finishing his plate and the two of those next to him.

“WENDELL!” they cried.

“…I can tell you’re not going to last long here,” Cassandra said with a sigh.

“Demon’s Souls reference!” Dante yelled, but his eyes were locked on the Gamepad Pro DS2 in his hands.

Cassandra waved her hand and food began to fall from the sky and land on the table. Their plates filled with a second helping of shrimp, roast, and tropical fruits, and everybody marveled, except for Dante, who was on level two of Super Macho Donkey Wrestler III.

“Pfft,” said Claudia. “I’ve seen cooler.”

Erica finished what was on her plate and pushed it aside. “So…um, what kinds of competitions will we be taking part in?” she asked.

“Each competition will be different,” Cassandra explained. “Some will be physical exercises; some mental. It will be your job to get to know your teammates and learn how to best utilize their individual talents.”

“Do we get to choose our own teams?” Naomi asked. She really hoped to be paired up with Misra. The others weren’t as nice. Or…normal.

“Can I get some pizza?” Dizzy asked, and a huge slice of pineapple pizza landed on his head.

“No,” Cassandra said. “The great Nāmaka will create the teams for you! But do not worry. She will be fair. For tonight, though, you may feast and partake in festivities. At sunrise tomorrow, we will meet here and I will announce the teams. Then, we will begin our first competition.”

The others nodded and agreed to the rules. Naomi and Misra weren’t too happy about being told they might be split up, but they shrugged and decided to enjoy the night anyway. After all, there was much to do, and it felt wonderful to be off that ship.

“Good!” Cassandra said gleefully, clapping her hands together when nobody else had any complaints. “I must get ready for tomorrow, so I will leave you all in the hands of my wonderful assistant, Rip the Zombie. Rip, would you come here?”

A horrific zombie with limbs like twigs and the top half of his head peeled away stepped out from the shadows. He had buckteeth and walked with a crick in his back, dragging his misshapen legs through the sand.

“Rip will carry your bags and show you to your sleeping quarters when you are ready,” Cassandra said, ignoring the zombie’s grumbling moans. “Each of the girls will have a room in my bungalow, while the guys will have their own…accommodations. I hope that’s okay.”

Luigi frowned.

“Do we have to have roommates?” Erica asked, glaring at Maxine.

“No roommates. There is more than enough space for all of you. Especially the guys.” She grinned when she said this.

“Well, I’d be more than happy to share my lodgings with any of the beautiful señoritas, should they see something that goes bump in the night,” Alejandro said, and at least half of the girls swooned.

“Oh, and ONE more thing…” Cassandra said, as if it was an afterthought. “To keep this show from being like the ten million other reality shows on television, we’ve come up with a little something-something to keep things interesting. Nothing big, I assure you! Just a little gimmick to increase the show’s ratings.”

“I knew it!” Rusty said, slamming his fist down. “There’s a catch. There’s alwaaays a catch.”

The others stopped eating and Dante even paused his game to hear what Cassandra had to say. She just kept on smiling and regarded them all with a twinkle in her eye.

“Beginning now, all of the men on the island will be shrunk and will remain that way until the contest is over. I wish you all the best of luck. Ta-ta!"

“NOT AGAIN!” Pip screamed, and there were suddenly fourteen empty chairs.

“Uh…guys?” Angie asked. “Guys?” She looked around and then peeked under the table. “Oh. There you are.”

"This isn't completely creepy or twisted at all,” Claudia said. “I'm going to bed. See you losers tomorrow. And quit looking up my skirt, sleaze.” Claudia gave Luigi's chair a swift bump with her hip, knocking him to the ground.  She didn’t even break stride and he had to dive out of the way as she followed Rip the Zombie towards the bungalow in the distance.

The rest of the girls looked at each other.

“Well…” Erica said slowly. “If it ends up being boys against girls, I think we got this in the bag.” And the others laughed.

Well, half of them anyway.

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