While the impending end of Spring Quarter marks a farewell to UCSB intercollegiate athletics, an enticingly dangerous extreme sport has just begun in the not-so-friendly confines of Storke Plaza.

Gradually, witnesses have come forth with reports of artillery-strapped renegades wandering around the tower by day. Complaints have also been filed citing rude awakenings from rapid-fire reverberating through the night sky.

Though the senses of innocent bystanders have been victimized by an event already garnering labels such as “savage” and “merciless,” their plight is nothing compared to the casualties of the guerilla warriors risking it all for glory. Breathe in the gun-smoke Santa Barbarians, it’s Nexus Assassins season.

In front of a crowded classroom of appalled onlookers, a point-blank pwning of unsuspecting photographer Rowan “Berserker” Byers early Tuesday set off the killing spree. Since then, the fatality count has reached double digits, including the premature departure of newly elected Nexus editor in chief Mackenzie “Mac 10” Weinger. Speaking through a ghost whisperer, the newly retired EIC had humble parting words directed at the team of conspirators that ended her.

“It’s embarrassing [to go out so early], but I think [the conspirators] really had to plot it out … so I give them props.”

With Mac 10 leaving the Nexus office in a state of disarray, there’s no telling who could be the next in line as bodies drop like dominoes. With paranoia running rampant, I myself was nearly enveloped in the white sheet after a friend-turned-foe tried to kill my chances, literally.

Luckily for this journalist, a fleet-footed escape would give way to a finger-blasting offensive that left yet another copy reader down for the count. Too bad the same can’t be said for my late sports editing counterpart… what a n00b.