It’s 10:45 p.m. on a weekday and you’ve just dragged yourself home after a full day of classes, after school practice, and studying for AP exams. 

You’re halfway to your door when you hear rustling in the bushes. 

It’s not a raccoon.

It’s not the wind.

For a split second, you even consider sprinting away. 

But you accept your fate and brace yourself for what’s about to happen: A blast of water to the face from a Super Soaker held by a classmate in a green wig or pink goggles or even a clown nose.

You’re another victim of Senior Assassin, a game that’s sometimes chaotic, sometimes fun, and sometimes, especially recently, out of control. 

For the unfamiliar, Senior Assassin is intended to be a friendly (albeit competitive) game in which each participant buys-in for $5 and is provided a target to eliminate by water gun. To stay in the game, participants must wear “safety items,” like the aforementioned wigs, goggles, and clown noses. 

For the 157 BOHS seniors currently participating in the spring tradition, daily life has turned into the Hunger Games. But instead of 24 murderous tributes, the thing standing between you and that $785 jackpot could be a clown nose you forgot on the dresser or a wig left in the car. 

To “survive” the game, participating seniors must stay alert at all times. Every trip to Target or study session at Starbucks becomes a potential ambush point. Those who fall into routine — taking the same route home or stopping for coffee at the same time each day — are often the first to be eliminated. Routine daily errands turn into strategic missions. 

However, while Senior Assassin is a daily rush and can create stories to be shared for years to come, the game can — as it has for some of this year’s participants — shift from playful strategy to reckless obsession. 

This year, one overly bold participant used several vehicles to block their target’s car from leaving. After toilet-papering, clingwrapping, and dousing the car in sprinkles, the assassin refused to budge until the target was eliminated. 

While some rely on physical traps, others use more invasive, and even illegal, methods like GPS tracking devices placed under a car or in backpacks to stalk their targets. Under California Penal Code Section 637.7, using an electronic tracking device — such as AirTags or SmartTags — without someone’s consent is illegal. 

Obsession with the game drives some players to go to even greater extremes, and distances, like the senior who drove four hours to Las Vegas to eliminate their target in the game’s first round. 

(And then there are the lazier assassins who resort to bribery, exchanging cash for “kills.”)

These extremes aren’t unique to BOHS. Across the country, students have gone to similar outlandish lengths to eliminate a target, like trampling through private backyards to ambush a target, or public showdowns between plastic gun-wielding students, prompting frantic calls to 911 from confused neighbors.

Last year, a Florida senior was shot after being mistaken for a home invader while trying to eliminate her target. 

These instances, and countless more that don’t make the news, illustrate the dangers of a game played by seniors who take things too far. Because the problem isn’t the game, which, at its core, is a fun and memorable way to end senior year; the problem is crossing the line from silly competition to stalking, obsession, and even violence.

The majority of this year’s players compete responsibly (and sanely), but some, clearly, get too caught up in pursuit of a jackpot. Senior Assassin is meant to be harmless fun, a competitive way to end senior year. What Senior Assassin isn’t supposed to be is something that makes people uncomfortable, affects the participants’ mental health, crosses boundaries, impacts public safety, or even breaks the law.