Cops surround us at the center of the Washington Street bridge. The sound of the endless construction almost drowns out the shouts of the officers. When I decided to follow senior Miles Murphy for a night of Senior Assassins, I never thought I was going to get in this kind of trouble. We had to make a decision quickly. We jumped into the river.
None of this actually happened, of course. The reality of playing Senior Assassins is that there is a lot of waiting and watching and not much in the way of high-stakes water gun shootouts.
Senior Assassins, for those uninitiated, is a popular game among high schools where seniors are given a target in their class and they have to squirt them with a water gun to “assassinate” them within a certain time frame.
I spent a night shadowing Murphy to see what this game is really like, and to learn why this particular senior thinks he can go all the way.
The stakeout of Murphy’s current target started right after school. Since the game is still ongoing much of what happened has to be redacted from this story.
Murphy knew what car his target drove so he wanted to check possible places they could be (i.e houses, work or a school parking lot).
We drove by all of the possible locations, and believed we saw their car at the school. We spent several hours at the school watching [REDACTED]’s car.
Eventually, Murphy learned that the car was not [REDACTED]’s. Having struck out, Miles decided to help a friend get their target instead.
Once again, we spent a few hours watching cars drive by, hoping that the target would come home.
During the stakeout, in the midst of our boredom I was able to ask Murphy some questions about the game.
“I think I could get third place,” Murphy said. “But I don’t want to wiggle my finger too hard.”
Murphy’s water gun of choice? The Fortnite Legendary Hand Cannon water gun.
Although Murphy enjoys the game, one of his major gripes with it is the strict rules.
“Originally, I wanted to go all John Wick and everything,” Murphy said. “I wanted to do stakeouts and everything but you know since they’ve been making so many dumb rules and it makes it so limited.”
In the end, Murphy’s friend didn’t get his target either. In a game of waiting, sometimes that happens.
I left Murphy at about 9 p.m., but his night wasn’t over yet: he still wanted to go on the hunt after.
“This town should know that it’s senior assassins season,” Murphy said.
Murphy was eliminated on March 20th at 9:19 pm.
