In celebration of Amazon Prime Video's newest series Panic, I am thrilled to be teaming up with Amazon Prime Video and Wattpad to write this exclusive chapter that puts my characters from this story into the world of Panic!

I hope this chapter intrigues and inspires you to learn more about Panic. Visit the #PanicWritingContest on Wattpad for the chance to put your creative writing chops to the test and learn more about the show!

To find out more about the contest, prizes, and how to enter, check out the #PanicWritingContest here: wattpad.com/AmazonPrimeVideo

Don't forget to watch the series premiere on May 28th, only on Amazon Prime Video, here: http://primevideo.com/

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Carp, Texas. From the moment you were born, you were trapped to walk circles along its unpaved roads, never given the chance to walk off. Every day you wake up wanting to escape, feeling lost in this tedious cycle, but how could you be lost in a small town where nothing happens? It was a town where you know everyone and their business, but even that was not enough to bring a spark of life to this place. It was the dead end. The last stop. In the middle of nowhere, you will find Carp.

Like every small town, there are people with big dreams, hoping to find a way, any way, to escape. But there is one thing in Carp that gave such an opportunity, a secret whispered amongst its residents to be free. However, it wasn't an open, welcoming hand to pull you from the clutches of Carp. You had to crawl out, scraping your bloody fingernails against the dirt. You scream without a voice, crying for help knowing that no one would because they were struggling themselves.

It was brutal. It was terrifying.

It was Panic.

- - - -

Naomi Lorraine

It was the same old song.

The clang of the lockers when shoved against them. The snickers and giggles as they watched. The fading taps of their shoes as they walked away.

If only that song stopped being stuck in her head.

As she waited for the ringing in her ears, ignoring the whispers of students as they passed by, she closed her eyes.

There was no future for her here. There was no future in Carp. She had believed she and her family were lucky, just scraping by enough to be okay. But that until her father was laid off after being replaced by someone younger at the warehouse, leaving her and her mother the only ones keeping the family afloat. 

If she were to stay in Carp, she would be stuck being a cashier struggling through minimum wage. Maybe that fate wouldn't be so bad if it also meant she would be trapped with her bullies in this same small town, having to face them every day until she died. 

Having worked at the same job since she was 16, she already knows the slice of what she will experience for the rest of her life. The accidents they made and the new ones that appeared as she cleaned up the mess. The conversations they said aloud to each other as if she was thin air. Even the obvious shoplifting that they knew she couldn't even speak up about or else they'll meet her behind the store after her shift.

It was only a matter of time things will get worse and her bullies will force her, either physically or blackmail, to give them the stocks of prescriptions from the pharmacy. With an end like that, there really will be no hope for her if she stays in Carp.

She had to get out of here. If she won, she can go to college, get a stable job, and pull her parents out of Carp with her. 

That was... if she won.

Panic was a spectacle to cure the boredom of living in Carp with one winner walking away with enough money to start a new life, while the game itself would have taken lives seeing that two kids died in last year's challenges. She knew, everyone knew, that it was terrible, traumatizing even, but was just as tempting.

She had always believed that she didn't need Panic. She had always looked down on it. That life would find a way. Karma would help her and hurt her bullies. But with her graduation just around the corner and her bullies as relentless as ever, she knew that it was the only option.

With a sigh, she forced herself to stand up and began walking to her next class, dreaming of a better life than the one she was living in right now as if that would give her a higher chance to win Panic.

- - -

Declan Lynch

As he was walking out the door, he stopped just as the can of beer hit the wall in front of him.

"Where you goin'?" The average person would find it difficult to translate the drunken slur forming the string of words, but he managed to figure it out within his first year living with them.

"School," he grumbled out.

"Thought you graduated already. When will the checks stop coming?" He asked with a snicker, flicking the burnt-out cigarette bud towards the trashcan and missing entirely.

He held back the urge to sigh, knowing the consequences if they were heard. "When I'm 18, I won't be in the foster care system anymore."

There was a familiar crackle of a lighter to light up a cigarette as a woman leaned against the door frame of the kitchen. Despite it being so early in the morning, it was quite a feat given she was holding a bottle of alcohol in the same hand.

"You better send checks once the foster ones stop," she managed to say with the cigarette between her lips. "You owe us for taking care of you so well with what little they gave us."

As if. "Yeah, alright."

"Get me a couple cases of beers on your way back," the order was called out as the door was slammed behind him.

Leaving the house, he was able to catch a breath of fresh air. He had only hoped that the smell of alcohol and cigarettes wasn't stuck on his clothes. He already has a bad enough reputation with everyone. He hates that people believe he does that crap too.

Panic was the only option the moment he knew it existed when he moved to Carp for another foster family at freshman year. Another... incident happened which led the system to dump him to this foster family. He still didn't know if he should have gone to the group home. If the dead end in his life would be any different.

As always, he was avoided at school with the wary stares and whispered conversations. Being a foster kid with no concrete background was like being a piece of meat to a pit of starving animals. In a town like Carp where nothing happens, his arrival and existence was the only talk of the town for the past four years. He figured the isolation was better than being bothered by the jerks in the football team. When he turned down their offer to join the team, they saw it as an invitation to be some sort of punching bag, realizing their mistake soon after in the alleyway.

Checking out what was inside his worn-out wallet, he gritted his teeth. He has barely enough for a case of beer. With his foster parents keeping the checks for themselves, his pay from working at the warehouse was the only thing keeping him alive- food, clothes, supplies. That and cigarettes and alcohol- for his foster parents, not him. It was because of that, he hasn't been able to save enough to get out of Carp.

He slammed his locker shut, ignoring the flinches from the people around him as if he was about to go on a rampage. All he needed to do was win Panic. Given the panic people seem to have whenever they see him- that might be just the sign saying that he'll win.

- -

Jordan Wallace

"You doing alright, mum?" He asked, having taken a seat at the edge of the bed and placing a hand on her own.

"I'm just having another one of those days," she replied, forcing out a light chuckle. "I think I'm going to have to call my work, tell them I can't make it today."

"It's alright," he assured her. "Just be sure to take your medicine. I'll give them a call for you. Make sure that they won't give you a hard time."

"Thank you," she said, giving him a kiss on his forehead. "Have a good day at work."

He fell back onto one of the few good seats amongst the broken or dirty ones in the old bus. He was starting to regret not just walking given the summer heat was winning against the bus that didn't have working air conditioning or windows that opened all the way.

His deadbeat father might as well be dead given that he left him and his mother after the accident. Since then, his mother had been stuck behind a wall. Some days she was doing great, she would be happy, showing that smile that he had inherited. Then other days, days like the one he was stuck in now, she just couldn't find the will to get out of bed. Maybe it was because of his father or maybe because of the debts piling up. 

The only reason she still has her job at the pharmacy is only because of that girl who worked with his mother covering for her- picking up shifts or giving them up.

The warehouse was the hope to bring life to Carp- jobs, people, anything. But like everything in Carp, it was a disappointment. The company got bankrupted halfway through construction. If it weren't for that family picking the construction back up for whatever business venture they can get rich off again, Carp wouldn't have the new handful of jobs it has now. It wasn't anything, but it was at least something.

"The green bin! Green!" The foreman barked. "You make me repeat myself one more time, you won't be able to get into the warehouse with your card anymore!"

He ignored heat on his face from either the embarrassment as his coworkers gave him sideways glances or the sweat he was working off because the warehouse obviously shouldn't have working air conditioning either. Through gritted teeth and the sweat dripping off his brow, he heaved the correct bin up after the third time, although he couldn't find the charm in it. He told himself the foreman was all talk because everyone knew that he and his mother needed the job.

If only he was smarter. Why did he like to have some kind of knack of art out of all of things? If he was smarter, maybe in tech or management, he could earn more. No, if only he was stronger, had more stamina, he could be working overtime for the extra pay like that foster kid who came to Carp a couple of years ago. He eyed the foster, carrying two bins under either arm, as he spoke to the same foreman before earning a pat on the back from him. It was no secret the foster was going to enter Panic- everyone will.

Even if the foster and everyone else with their sob story will play Panic, he had to win. He'd use the money to find a place and two jobs for him and his mother before he tried out college. Then with his mother out of Carp, he can help her get better. Well, getting out of Carp will make anyone get better.

"Pick up the pace or you ain't getting a break!" The foreman yelled out.

He forced himself to pick up that very pace, thinking about how he could get better.

-

Bennett Frazier

He stood between his father and brother as if he was an ornamental statue, there for the passing comment but with no other purpose. His father shook hands with another potential business partner, holding the fake business smile he has yet to perfect. He and his brother were only in the meeting to learn how to negotiate- one of the many skills necessary for inheriting the business.

With his father owning the majority of business and properties in Carp, which doesn't say much, you would think that they were lucky. But that didn't make him untouchable. He had to give up his wallets and threatened with a knife whether it was because his family took another business or they were asking for a job as if it was a new type of interview. Everyone in Carp, classmate or neighbor, put him on a pedestal or wanted to put him in a pit.

Inheriting the company will be the final shackle keeping him in Carp. His father was disillusioned, believing he had to stay in Carp just as his father before him did. There was no future in Carp. With the trend of businesses failing under them, it was only a matter of time the town will be after their heads.

Once the meeting was over, he and his brother were ordered to walk the warehouse grounds and get the reports from the foremen. It was obviously a form of intimidation, seeing one of the brothers gave them the incentive to work faster or else a letter will be waiting for them at their locker. It was terrible, but because of the state of the company and of the town, they needed an excuse to fire someone. Without another word, the two brothers parted ways to do as they were ordered.

The brothers haven't had a proper conversation in years. Ever since she won. Their older sister won Panic when it was just starting out, when it wasn't as dangerous as it was now. Because it wasn't as established, she didn't get as much money but it was still just enough to get by to leave Carp and her family without another word.

It was cruel but they knew that they would have done the same thing if they were in her place. As the obvious inheritor, she took the brunt of the abuse from the town's anger and their father's expectations. In order to truly disappear, she had to get money that wasn't their father's to become independent. To say their father was furious was an understatement. But he couldn't afford any more money to find her and bring her back to the clutches of Carp after the first business went under.

Taking a break, he leaned against the railing that looked over the warehouse floor. He looked down at the cheap postcard displaying a picture of the Hollywood sign, outlined with palm trees and suns. Turning the card around, it read only one word:

Win

He couldn't tell if it was a word of encouragement or a taunt.

Turning around, he saw one of his classmates being berated by the foreman. He frowned, knowing that he had given him plenty of chances, having even made the foreman keep quiet about the guy to his father because everyone knew about him and his mother. If his father knew about it, he would get a lecture about his compassion will cost the company.

But... he knew that guy will be playing Panic.

Taking a final glance at the postcard, he pocketed it back into his jacket before walking down the stairs to enter the warehouse floor.

If he wanted to win Panic, he had to do whatever it takes and use whoever he could.

He was his father's son afterall.

Author's Note:

Saying it was interesting coming up with these backgrounds and stories for the 4M into the world of Panic would be an understatement. It was almost tempting writing an entire oneshot. Well, I hope the bonus chapter made you interested enough to join the writing contest and watch the series. 

Comment of what interesting backstories or plot points I made in the comment thread of this paragraph! Have fun and I'll see you in future chapters of TGGBB2 (sequel of TGGBB1) and Broken Glasses (TGGBB in an alternative universe)!