Seniors compete in a student-run game for a cash prize of 421 dollars

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Seconds before the fnal bell, seniors still in the game don their goggles and foaties, trying desperately to avoid being eliminated. At the same time, they watch their friends eliminating their classmates in ways ranging from disorienting their target with car horns to hiding in trees. For a prize of $412, it’s worth it.

Senior assassin is a game run by students in which a senior and their partner, another senior, are assigned a pair to eliminate from the game. To do this, they shoot their targets with water guns while avoiding being shot themselves, as another pair is tasked with hunting them.

These are the rules: no attacking during school hours, no attacking during work and actions that are against the law are still against the law, so no breaking into people’s houses.

According to senior Camila Gamboa, that doesn’t make it less scary.

“Last night, the people that are [targeting] me circled my house twice at 10 at night,” Gamboa said.

Part of the competition is that all players have to have their Snap Map on Snapchat turned on, which tracks their location in real time. This is to provide a way for assassins to gain information on their targets when they have no common connections. However, that doesn’t help much when Gamboa’s target lives far away.

“You’re burning gas for a 20-minute drive just for your target to walk in their house right as you get there,” Gamboa said. “It’s frustrating.”

Players ambush their targets in common places like stores and restaurants , which changes after school plans for some students.

“After school, I’m al- ways going to Starbucks,” Gamboa said. “I can’t even sit in peace in Starbucks anymore. I have to mobile order, throw my goggles on, pick up my order and get out.”

For senior John Doe, the only sacrifce is his time. Doe asked that he remain anonymous as he wants to avoid the spotlight as much as possible, as a key strategy to winning the prize.

“My main strength right now is that no one who’s playing the game really knows who I am,” Doe says. “When people see how aggressively I’ve been playing - looking for loopholes and waiting for hours outside people’s houses - they will see I’m actually trying, and therefore a threat.”

For Doe, Senior Assassin has been acting as a de-stressor.

“I would have anx- iety anyways because of college appli - cations, and [the game] gives me a chance to put my anxiety into something more productive,” Doe says.

Senior Mele Corral-Blagojevich wanted to make the game unique, so she added in a few quirks. For example, the pairs system is only in place for the frst three weeks.

The "bounty" system encourages players to move the game along. Pairs that fail to take out their targets by the end of the week can be eliminiated by anyone for the weekend. The only way to get of the "bounty list" is to eliminate someone else on the list by the end of the weekend, otherwise risking disqualifcation. Additionally, immunity items like foaties and goggles are rendered useless for those "on bounty."

“Each school has its own set of rules for Senior Assassin. Part of what will make [the Redondo student’s] game unique is that it’s being played by Redondo students,” Corral-Blagojevich said.

She also has to build in safeguards to keep the game from going overboard.

“We do try to build being respectful into the rules,” Corral-Blagojevich said. “We make safe spaces, like school grounds during school hours. We want to respect the learning environment.”

At the end of the day, according to Corral-Blagojevich, it’s just a game.

“We’re trying to be respectful of people’s lives,” Corral-Blagojevich said. “I just hope that everyone enjoys it and has a good time.”