Sami piled a second tray beside her own. Regardless of what was ahead for the remaining girls, they needed to keep up their strength. One girl in particular. The thought pinched her chest. Chyou had survived the previous week solely by giving up. She had taken herself to bed and barely moved until the weigh-in at the end of the week. It had been only through force that Sami, Myeong, Jun and Chyou’s agency friend Minji, had kept Chyou drinking tiny sips of water throughout the days.

Now, at their cafeteria table, they all watched Chyou as though she could crumble at any moment. Sami dropped the trays to the tabletop and pushed one to Chyou. She gave her a stern gaze, in case she required any additional convincing.

Thankfully, Chyou dug in. A silent sigh of relief rippled around the table, and they joined her in eating heartily.

The main stage had become familiar to the point of nervous stomach flutters, even just from the reflections of the insane lighting shining down the hallways in all direction when it was being set up for another awful announcement. The remaining fifty-two girls filed in and lined up in front of a pleated purple curtain for such an announcement now. This week’s deadly challenge.

They're weak. In the gauntness of their faces, the trembles of stick-thin legs, the loose space under clothing that were already size: doll. It's obvious. Sami silently prayed for a singing challenge, even though it fell second in her 'triple threat' line-up. Sami didn't feel like much of a threat these days, not unless she had a hand-held mic to whack someone over the head with.

They were counted in.

"Ladies and gentleman, survivalists and newcomers, thank you for tuning in to Idol Survival!"

The girls cheered for their audience. AeRi was bouncing with her hands up like she was at a concert.

"We are all so grateful for the phenomenon you have made of our show." The girls knew nothing of what a phenomenon they were or weren't on the outside, so they simply nodded along. "All we want, in our lives as entertainers, is to bring the audience excitement!" After every sentence he seemed to pause for effect. Sami wondered if the viewers found this as cheesy as she did. "And this week we want to double that excitement." Another pause, smiling as he let the audience mull over his over-exaggerated hint. "What do we love more than a dance challenge?" Sami's heart sank. Dancing was her favourite part of being an idol, but these girls needed to rebuild their strength after a week of starving themselves. "A double speed dance challenge!"

What was worse than making malnourished girls take on a physical challenge? Making them do a really difficult physical challenge.

Sami had some experience with the one-point-five and double speed dance challenges since they were commonly requested for variety shows. Either you were very good at them and that afforded you some public interest. Or you were very bad at them, and that also brought about a burst of attention, although only if you were funny about it. GAL didn't really fall into either group, they tried to be good but they just weren't on the same level as some of the groups out there.

"They have three days to prepare and three minutes to choose their groups and song." A pair of production assistants ripped the curtain away and revealed a giant board with eight coloured boxes in a horizontal line, evenly spaced apart. The boxes all had a number and a song written inside. The girls 'ooh'd and 'aah'd. "Eight groups will perform for you, but how many will survive? On the sound of the gun, the girls must arrange themselves beneath the group box they wish to be part of. Be wary of the number, this is the maximum amount of girls that can be in each group." Sami scanned the numbers, two groups of five and six groups of seven. She would need a seven box to keep her girls with her. "The song labelled inside is, of course, their choice of performance. Which they will perform in front of a live audience - visit our website now to enter the ticket sweepstake and be a part of the crowd cheering on our Idol Survivors! Now, it is time to select groups and songs. Choose wisely, Survivors, and may you perform flawlessly. Any mistake, and you are OUT!"

On the word OUT, the gunshot rang and chaos just like the very first challenge ensued. Half the girls panicked at the sound and froze or cried on the spot. The other half took off with long thing legs and flailing arms. Sami grabbed the point of Chyou's sharp elbow, and snatched Jun's wrist. Myeong was at her side instantly, her eyes trusting and her lips tight. It would be Sami's decision. She had Minji's hand in her own. They ran through the crowd, keeping their links tight. Sami knew the songs she didn't want, there were two that had jumped out at her as pure insanity when the curtain was pulled back. Fast-paced songs with intricate footwork that they would never learn in three days - not even at normal speed. The way she had reasoned it in the seconds they had been given between reveal and running, they had three reasonable options. Two of them were at the right-hand side, so that's where she dragged her troop.

The furthest box, lime green and blaring the number seven, had only one other girl firmly planted under it. Sami's sneakers pounded the shiny floor harder as she dragged her friends to it. As soon as she was close enough to claim it her feet skidded and Myeong and Minji collided with her back. They were all panting and stumbling forward to show they were under the box, to ensure their chosen group couldn't be questioned. Another girl was at the back, she counted them with her eyes and her face crumpled.

Her head flung back and forth, eyes darting over the boxes and the groups that were solidifying beneath them.

"Please!" she cried to the lime group. Sami jerked back a little, and the others seemed to gather tighter behind her.

"I'm sorry, we're full," Sami said softly. And she was sorry.

"The dances left are too hard, I won't make it."

"I'm sorry."

"I don't want to die!" the girl sobbed.

Sami squeezed her eyes shut. She wouldn't let her friends down, and it wasn't her place to turf out the girl that had been here first.

"Number seventy-two," The Host called jovially. "You must join your group now."

Sami opened her eyes and the girl had turned away from her, but was now approaching The Host. "I'll die in that group!" she begged.

"That is up to you, number seventy-two. Work hard and prove yourself to our view-"

"Fuck you!" Seventy-Two screamed.

The Host smiled mildly, a fiery humour sparkling in his black eyes. "OUT!" he announced.

The gunman didn't bother approaching, his shot passed through her temple at a near straight angle. The neatness of the shot didn't keep the blood from spraying in every conceivable direction. It felt like a warning to the others, that they don't have to be near to carry out your sentence. Seventy-Two flopped to the ground, long silky hair following a few seconds after her.

Her body was dragged away and The Host apologised for the dear viewers having to hear such foul language from the mouth of an idol, and gave a spiel about the generous access the girls had to practice rooms and how they now had three days to get their performances ready. He signed off to the camera and the lights around him flashed and then faded. The segment was finished and the girls were free to discuss the new challenge ahead of them. Sami scrubbed her fingers through her hair, she had chopped it for the weigh-in and her once-long copper hair was now a blunt bob and she was struggling to style it. She had always had long and heavy hair, and that weight had helped to pull her already straight hair into immaculate curtains. Now the ends flicked and bits sprung from the top of her head and she couldn't stop touching it.

Chyou's was worse, she reminded herself. Her beautiful waves of blonde hair had been hacked into a choppy undercut. It had taken some convincing, and at one point Chyou had mumbled from her bed that if she was going to die anyway, she wanted to look herself when she did. Sami's eyes had prickled then, the thought of such things as how they would look in their caskets were off limits in her mind. If she let herself think about the specifics, she would curl up into a ball in her bed, just like Chyou had.

She turned to her group and forced a determined smile. They did their best to return it and she appreciated the effort.

Their seventh girl was number twenty-nine, but Sami needed to know her name. They were people. She wished she had the mental, or emotional, capacity to learn all ninety-nine names of her fellow survivors.

"My name is Ju, but it means daisy so I was thinking I should make Daisy my stage name because there are so many similar names - especially with lots of the Korean girls having Jun in their names... but now we're halfway through the competition and I keep telling people my name is Ju so maybe that's too confusing… My agency didn't give me a clear answer on whether I should or shouldn't but just that I should make a decision for the sake of clear branding." She laughed awkwardly. "I guess I messed that up. Sorry, I talk too much."

"Not at all," Sami reassured. "It's nice to meet you Ju or Daisy."

Ju or Daisy laughed.

"We have a Jun in the group actually." Sami pointed her out and Jun smiled. "But she's Japanese, not Korean."

"So nowhere I go will my name ever be unique?" Ju or Daisy joked.

"I like Daisy," Myeong offered with a smile. The others nodded.

"Okay. That's me decided - I'm sticking with Daisy from now on! I probably wasn't noticed by the viewers before anyway with so many other girls..."

The girls all greeted Daisy with a range of smiles from warm to nervous.

"You're the leader, right?" she said to Sami.

The others nodded before Sami could answer, so she shrugged.

"Please take care of us!" Daisy gave a small bow and the other girls followed suit. Myeong had a cheeky grin and Sami shook her head at her.

"Let's go practice," Sami announced. "We don't have any time to lose."

They bundled into the first available practice room and stayed there all day except for a thirty-minute lunch break in which Sami all but force-fed the six girls a calorific concoction of carbs and protein.

Even with one of the relatively easier songs... the double speed was feeling like a death sentence by the end of their first practice day. They had spent the first half learning the dance at normal speed, and thought themselves incredibly lucky to have such a nice routine without too many position changes or fancy finger symbols. Then the second track, the double speed version, had been played and a heavy sensation of doom had settled over them. They listened through once, not moving at all, staring at themselves in the wall-length mirror.

Without being allowed to swear on camera - and the cameras were always on to capture cute behind the scenes footage of the girls learning and growing and maybe falling over in a funny way - it was difficult to describe exactly how fucked they felt.

The girls wanted to practice until the early hours, but Sami ordered them to bed at midnight. They would be up early to practice instead. No one questioned her, and that made the sour feeling in her stomach worse. She didn't like to be the authority, it left her completely responsible for them. If someone argued with her or gave an alternate opinion, they could debate it and find the real right answer. Right now, all they had was her limited experience to rely on.