Credit: Abby Bergeron

The senior Class of 2025 reflects on this years game of Senior Assassin. Senior Assassin is a standing tradition at WHS and this year had a pool of 138 players and a remaining six winners

Swim goggles. A Monopoly board. A full Starbucks strawberry açaí refresher, any size. What do these things have in common? For seniors at Wayland High School, they were all safety items, protecting them from a ‘death’ by water gun.

Every year, seniors can choose to play the game “Senior Assassin,” which begins at midnight on May 1. Seniors who sign up are assigned a target that they have to shoot with a water gun in order to get them out. The organizers of the game generally choose how long each round is. Oftentimes, the first round is the longest and is when the most players are eliminated. As the rounds progress, they get shorter, and fewer kills happen with the deficit of players. Failure to get your target out before the end of a round results in elimination from the game.

At most points in the game there is a safety item, which is a random object that keeps a player safe from the person attempting to “assassinate” them. These items can range all the way from a picture frame to an underclassmen, as it changes every few days. These changes are announced periodically on the Wayland Senior Assassin Instagram page that is re-created annually for each senior class. While these items are crucial to participants survival, during a “purge” safety items no longer exist, meaning there is no protection should one fail to escape their assassinator.

“During purges I went out as little as possible because I was very paranoid,” senior Olivia Todd said. “I would make my friends get out of the car before me to check if anyone was around, and I would also be super cautious whenever I left my house.”

While some players were more focused on survival during the time of purges, others saw this as an opportunity to get their targets out. However, according to senior Micheal Likerman, people were often too afraid of getting assassinated to go and get their targets.

This year’s pool of players consisted of 138 seniors, and it cost $5 to join, coming together to form a total pot of $690 for the winner. The game was run by seniors Revathi Srinivasan and Lily Thompson, who handled tasks like assigning targets and safety items, picking the names for revival, running the Instagram account and more. According to Srinivasan, the pair would often get complaints from participants.

“People treated us as if we were complete experts who have ran this game many times, so they gave us a hard time [and] didn’t seem to understand that some mistakes are inevitable,” Srinivasan said.

The game began this year with a kill of senior Reece Davies by Likerman just minutes after midnight on May 1.

“My day-one kill was a work of art to say the least,” Likerman said. “Reece was told earlier that I had somebody else, so he thought that he was in the clear when I was around.”

According to Likerman, he and senior Ben Jackson had convinced Davies that they were going to get a different friend of theirs out. The three drove around aimlessly until midnight when they arrived at the “target’s” house and Davies was eliminated.

“He felt very betrayed, and we had a 5 minute silence that was very awkward,” Likerman said. “I felt really bad and offered to pay for a meal at Mels [Diner in Wayland].”

The game must end every year on the senior’s last day of classes, May 31. As the last day neared, the nine remaining players agreed that whoever did not get their kill that round would be eliminated.

“We had already made a rule that there could only be six winners max, so the six people with kills said they should win because the other three didn’t have kills,” Srinivasan said. “We agreed, but gave those three people $10 each.”

With three players failing to get their kill, seniors Emma Gargano, Michael Likerman, Nathan Tobe, Olivia Todd, Sarah Rice and Schuyler Kilmon all agreed to split the typical 75% of the winnings six ways, with each of the winners receiving $82. Sarah Rice and Olivia Todd additionally split the last 25% of the prize, as they were tied for most kills, with seven targets assassinated each.

“I was a little upset that there were so many winners, but at the end of the day we were all deserving of it, so it’s good,” Todd said.

Seniors were committed to playing by the rules previously outlined, as failure to follow them resulted in immediate elimination. Before the game began, there were multiple pages of rules posted on the Senior Assassin Instagram account explaining the game and prohibiting things like assassinations on school grounds during school hours, entering people’s homes without permission and breaking into vehicles.

Announcements forbidding kills at events like prom, school concerts or other events were also sent out via the Instagram account. Players were safe when playing a sport, watching a JV/varsity game for a sport that they played and attending religious events.

Kills in the game took place at players’ houses, fast food places and other out of school locations. Some players would learn their targets’ out of school plans so that they could catch them off guard at off campus locations, like the gym. A common cause of elimination was getting in and out of a car without the possession of a safety item.

“Most of my targets didn’t have a garage and were parked outside their house, so I would be at their house before school to kill them,” Todd said. “I also would do a lot of drives past their house to see when they were usually home.”

The first round ended on May 11, with 45 seniors left standing. This end was followed by the release of a graveyard, which was a list of the 74 assassinated players, as well as 19 players who failed to get their target. Shortly after, on May 13, a revival chance was offered to the eliminated players. 15 players were selected randomly from a raffle to be brought back into the game and were assigned to target other revived players.

“I got betrayed in the first round and brutally died at an IHOP, but was thankfully revived in the second round,” Likerman said. “The leaders of the game sent out a recording of themselves pulling names of eliminated players out of a hat, [and] 15 lucky students were chosen and were brought back in the game.”

The second round of the game started at 10 p.m. on May 11, and was the shortest round of the game, lasting one week. During this round, 35 players were eliminated, 10 of which being players who had been revived two days into the round. There was only one purge, which occurred on May 18 and lasted until 4:25 p.m. on May 19. The round ended on May 20 with only 25 players left.

The final round had three purges, with the last being a “super purge”. This meant that any remaining players could eliminate other remaining players, regardless of assigned targets. On May 26, a “cornucopia” took place, and the location was revealed for the remaining players at 9:30 p.m.. During cornucopia, the players met up at a specified spot where a number of safety items lay in the middle of a circle.

“We announce a cornucopia a few hours before and then give out the coordinates right before it starts,” Srinivasan said. “Lily and I stand in the middle of a circle holding safety items, but there are less safety items than there are people in the game, [causing] a lot of people to get out.”

Their goal was to try and get the rest of their competition out while holding onto a safety item for protection.

“It was really fun and scary waiting with my friends for the location to come out,” senior Lily Cerne said. “We all got in one car and waited at Sandy Burr, and we saw other people that were still waiting there too.”

Senior Assassin is a long standing tradition at WHS, and while some aspects can be stressful, students typically enjoy the game and the chance to connect further with their classmates.

“I enjoyed seeing how the game played out, and it definitely brought our grade closer,” Thompson said.