[S119 - Julia Guercio - continued from SLEEPING ON A BED OF THORNS]
Things were almost a little too calm. The stormy gusts that had engulfed the island for the past week had fully subsided and was instead replaced by a lingering quilt of tranquillity. Julia sat by the abandoned campfire, perched by the edge looking down across the island. The shadow of darkness coated the island with only the occasional flash of a torch or spark of gunfire lighting the island. The halcyon in the air had sure as hell made hiking significantly easier. The trek up the mountain was a piece of cake after a week of being battered and bruised by the blizzards and gales. It was by no means warm, but wrapped in her coat and arms crossed it almost felt cosy. Moonlight illuminated the crashing waves from the sea in the distance, like a moody photograph of a midnight swim. The pulse of the water felt refreshing, the tender scent of saltwater disarming. She felt it was stupid to be sentimental, and yet all she could picture was the happy memories of being down at the Salem waterfront. She always had that affinity to water, the drumming waves bashing against the shore had always been a soothing sight. Julia would often frequent the waterfront, either stopping off whilst walking home from school or swimming practice, or in the evenings for the pacifying effect of the siren song.
Surreal or not, the tantalizing song of the sea was enchanting her once more. A joyous warmth disguising the cold that ensnared her.
It was Julia’s first time up the mountain, all of the days she had spent hidden in or around the old mining town or the forest had prevented her from straying too far up. Besides it didn’t seem like a good idea to be climbing a mountain during a winter storm, she hadn’t struggled all this time to just die of exposure. She wasn’t going to go out like that. It took a while on her trek to find the hiding spot that Lily had referenced. The safe space that was shrouded in the shadow of the mountain looming above her. When Lily left her, she had an unbridled passion in her eyes. Burning embers in her glance that wouldn’t easily be extinguished. Whatever it was that Lily was going to do, she had left Julia with the glimmer of hope that it wouldn’t be their last time together. That once she had completed her mission, she would come back to scoop Julia up. Julia had used the time apart from Lily to go out there and fend for herself. To try and rally the troops, as they had joked about whilst eating the goat. Except all she found on her pilgrimage was death. More bodies, some scenes bloodier than others, some corpses recognisable whilst others distorted, and faces blurred by layers of snow and frost.
Patiently Julia waited. Not daring to go to sleep in case she missed Lily. Afraid that somebody else would find her hiding spot instead. She paced back and forth occasionally before resting herself back down on the snowy floor. The burnt out campfire her only companion as she waited for Lily to come. Waited for something to happen.
Eventually the glimmer of hope started to fade. More gunfire detonated in the distance, the horizon smeared with the smoke of unrest on the island as each shot of a gun likely represented another one of her classmates meeting their final demise. Julia felt blessed, despite the dicey moments, despite the repetitive dance with death, that somehow, she was still here. Still alive. Just.
Numbers were dwindling and the tide had started to turn in her favour, it was shifting towards the meaty end of things and the persistent dread she felt in her gut had started to relinquish. She didn’t know just how
Watching the sun rise in the horizon only added to the sentimentality of her memories. The reminiscent memories of watching the sun rise over New York City from Jersey City was something that had always stuck with her. She wasn’t a very good morning person, yet making the effort to go out with her family in the early hours to see the legendary sunrise was always a worthwhile experience. The auburn heat of the rising sun catching the glass of the skyscrapers was stunningly beautiful, a kaleidoscope of colours painting the city like an autumnal forest. The Hudson River starting to light up, the sun reflecting off the turbulent waters that flowed out to the ocean. In her mind it felt sick. To watch the sun rising over the fractured island and be transported away to happy memories of the past. Julia frowned, the inevitability of Lily not keeping her promise starting to truly sink in.
Julia ate some of the rations she had stolen from Molly to maintain her strength as she waited. Her patience rapidly deteriorating towards pessimism. The muscles in her body ached from the exposure as she waited. Not wanting to leave just in case there was still that small chance that Lily hadn’t forgotten about her. That she was about to ride in to the secret little overlook and they could put their brains together to come up with some sort of plan. On what to do, and most importantly on how to get off this island.
Call her stupid all you like, but Julia believed in fate. Things happened for a reason. They always had, long before this island she recollected the times that her worst pool defeats had resulted in some of her best race wins. She calmly thought about the time that her sister couldn’t pay quick enough and they lost Jonas Brother tickets up in the skies at the back of the arena, only for a week before the concert a friend to come to her with two spare standing tickets. Maybe it was the best night of her life. Joe. Nick. Kevin. All three Jonas Brothers, in person. Nick Jonas looked even hotter in real life, and they all sounded so much better. Just thinking about it felt electric, goosebumps shivering up and down her arms as she hummed along to her favourite song.
But now? Fate was finding the right person. Fate was dodging the right bullet. Fate was finding innovative new ways to survive when your back is against the wall. Fate was making it off this island alive.
Fate was being woken up by the start of the booming morning announcement, reclaiming her from her slumber. She must’ve nodded off in the cold of the night, maybe for a few minutes or maybe for a few hours. The sun had risen high into the heavens, her only accessible watch to estimate the time. The precise details didn’t matter so much these days, not much did anymore. Fate was the symbolism of the sun, the misty haze fading almost in its entirety to reveal what foolishly promised to be the start of a good day. The sun always arrives as the storm dissipates and this appeared to be no different. After over a week of hellish encounters, maybe this calm was here to stay. A welcomed soothing to alleviate the pain and exhaustion she imagined that they all felt.
Listening to the terrorists talk complete and utter rubbish every morning was never a nice experience. The first elongated sip of his coffee repulsed her, the satisfaction he always felt from starting off the announcement and smacking the sheets of paper against one another, just about audible enough to be heard through the warning sirens. The utter contempt he felt for the souls that he joked all over was nothing short of anguish. He may as well be jumping up and down on their cold, dead bodies like a trampoline at a leisure park. The sick entitlement never got easier to swallow.
Yet swallow she did. Ignoring him wouldn’t do any good, not when her life was on the line. A light gulp of preparation was all she could muster as his first words pierced her eardrums, each syllable leaving her with a tension, like a stabbing sensation haunting her bones.
“Hello children! Here we are again.”
With a deafening resolve, she listened in as he forecast the state of play for another day. Kitty Graves had wasted no time whatsoever in killing again, this time Darryl and Big Dick. The former she didn't know so well, but the latter had always been nice to her whenever they encountered each other in classes. Julia's heart hurt for both of them, and it stung even deeper for Lily who would probably not be taking this news well, that Kitty had killed not one but another two classmates. Her optimism, the maturity that Kitty wasn't actually to blame for her actions and that she was just the result of a Lord of the Flies style tyranny that was spurred on by the act of the terrorists. Having been there herself, she knew it was unwise to blame her entirely, yet it was incredibly difficult to consider absolving her for the crimes she had committed. They were never close, which obviously doesn't matter much, but she knew that Kitty wouldn't hesitate to stab her or blow her up if they had ever met each other.
Adam Lader was the next to fall, quite literally. This one didn't come as a surprise, she had already seen Adam's sprawled body with her own eyes, a look of shock and panic written across his face and frozen in time from the force of the impact. Salem was more shaken than she had ever seen him before. Maybe her evangelical speech about forgiveness was misplaced, but she could only consider that his moral compass was catching up with him. The next time that they meet, if there is ever a next time, she will get him on side. Jezzie had also racked another one, keeping the kills all within the hall of fame once again. Kathleen Vozelnik was the name of her victim. She didn't know her so well, they didn't have any common interests so any conversation was only ever a fleeting afterthought. Julia sighed, a rush of defeatist energy crushing over her like the waves down on the shore.
The next name was the one she had dreaded hearing all night. The eagle had landed, metaphysically. Lily Larsen's name. A feverish sweat broke from her brow as she bowed her head out of both shock and respect. Looking down at the snowy ground beneath her, she could see Lily Larsen stood there crystal clear. Like a magical mirror that was manipulating both her conscience and her imagination. The figure of LIly, walking away from her resiliently, was engrained in her mind. That strong glance of strength and rebellion that had incensed her final movements was clear as day and in that moment of recollection everything started to become clear. The terrorist didn't shy away from calling Lily out for breaking the rules. She wished, more than anything, that her fate could've been different. And maybe Lily felt that, too. But she was being carried by a burning desire to make a difference and it was impossible for Julia to question that. Suddenly the trepidation that Julia had been feeling all morning had started to make sense. Whatever had happened, whatever it was that Lily had journeyed out to achieve... Julia wiped the early fragments of a tear from her eye as she clenched her jaw from the courage and defiance that Lily had spurred her on to have. Her sacrifice would not be in vain. She would make sure of that.
She'd barely been able to catch Dawn Montogomery's death at the end of the announcement, wrapped in her own thoughts she had numbed herself to the rest of the announcement. That was…
Until there was an explosion.
She didn't know what it was, or how to explain the swelling of hope that it doused.
But it was definitely something.
Nightingale
multishot / Day 11 - just before & after the announcement
The explosion, it must’ve been a bomb or something, rippled across the island. First booming through the speakers like a cataclysmic eruption. Just hearing it took the wind out of her a little, the panic in the terrorist’s voice that followed only heightened her sense of panic, confusion, a tiny bit of hope alleviating the mood. A few seconds later the sound of the explosion once again befell the island. This time it wasn’t loud as such, more like a shockwave of rumbling thunder that struck the island. Julia, her view clear of the sea in the distance, darted to the edge of the mountain to try and get a look. If they could hear the explosion then it had to mean that it had to have happened somewhere locally.
Comparatively, all she could think of was counting the time between a lightning strike and the ensuing thunder stalking the flashes of light. It was, of course, tracking of the speed of light versus sound which caused the variation so she figured a similar methodology could be used to figure out the distance between them trapped on the island and wherever the source of the explosion was. She grappled with her memories despite the augmented tension running high, struggling to think about what the calculation was. Like a flash of light behind her eyes, the cogs of her brain remembered being a young girl sat on her father’s lap.
Julia had always been afraid of thunderstorms, she remembered screaming many times in the night as the rolling thunder rumbled outside the window, the lightning illuminating her bedroom. It wasn’t just the loud noises, but the fact that the lightning stopped her being able to hide from any monsters lurking in the shadowy corners of her room. Her reaction would always be one of fear, whether it was hiding under her duvet desperately trying to block it out, an audible scream followed by muffled crying as she clung to her Nonna’s homemade quilt that kept her wrapped up warm in the winter months. Like always, she would always try to keep such shows of emotion to herself, not wanting to bother anybody around her. It wasn’t until one night that her father had walked past the door to her bedroom and heard her cloaked tears. Despite the initial fright of him opening the door, the creak alarmingly like the sound a monstrous demon would make sneaking out of her wardrobe to kill her.
Like always, her father had come to her rescue. She had always been a daddy’s girl, especially when she was younger, a fond smile emerging on her face as the recollection continued in her mind. He gave her the biggest hug he could, she wrapped her arms around him like a koala bear climbing a tree. He was always able to make her feel better, the gravity that pulled her to him cradling her in a feeling of safety. The grin on her face soured slightly, she wished that he was here now to tell her it would be alright. She was still a daddy’s girl at heart, even if she would be super embarrassed at the thought of ever admitting that to another soul. He carried her through to the living room, sitting her on his knee and helping her to confront her fears. The roaring in the louds was still frightening, but being in a controlled state, like some sort of science experiment, soothed her nerves. He told her what thunder and lightning actually was, reassured her that there was nothing to actually be afraid of. Taught her the cool trick on how to calculate how far away the lightning strike actually was.
One Mississippi … two Mississippi … three Mississippi … four Mississippi … five Mississippi.
Five counts of Mississippi meant that it was about a mile away. Allegedly.
Being honest with herself, Julia had no idea whether you could use the same trick for loud noises like explosions and it didn’t actually matter because by the time the noise had travelled and hit her she hadn’t even started the count. It must’ve been five, six, maybe seven seconds? Maybe less, it all happened so fast that her memory was a little blurry already. Five seconds, that’s what… three Mississippi? Four? She never understood why a word that was so long winded, and even harder to spell, was the unit of measurement for something like this. How do you quantify the seconds of a Mississippi?
She wasn’t about to actually say Mississippi out loud but Julia stopped herself before the forsaken words slipped from her tongue. It didn’t feel appropriate to conflate the severity of the actual situation with a little trick used to make a young child feel better about something scary.
The announcement was cut off with impromptu volatility. Whatever the loud boom was, and however it happened, it wasn’t planned and definitely caught the terrorist group off guard. His voice had always sounded so cool and calculated, the sarcastic undertones and the brash rudeness that he used to carry himself through the daily announcements had been fully stripped bare. Instead replaced by a perplexity, the slight tremble of stress and confusion immediately detectable. A strange fuzziness emerging from the pit of her stomach in retaliation. That mixture of confusion, an alien, veiled excitement about what it could mean. A new wave of hope echoing at the same time with a flare of pessimism at the prospect of them being trapped on this god forsaken island until they eventually starve to death.
Literally a million possibilities scrambled through her mind; was this a rescue attempt? Were they about to get off the island? How would she come to terms with the monstrous acts the island had made her commit? Was this Lily’s handy work?
What did it all mean?
Either way it gave her a purpose. That spearhead of motivation that she had lost after Joshua and Victor, the driver that kept her breathing, wanting more. This only cemented in her mind that there was a way for all of them still alive to get off of this island. If Salem refused to believe her before, he had no choice but to accept this reinvigoration of their fate after that announcement.
The weight of the world felt just that little bit lighter, a metaphorical relief as the fate of her existence seemed to relax a little.
One thing stood out to her mind about everything that had just happened – what rule did Lily break and did it somehow have a knock-on effect or cause whatever just went bang? It was a giant clusterfuck and that sanctified the regret and sadness she felt for Lily’s death. The short-lived burst of sorrow had been replaced with that same rebellious sneer that Lily wore on her face as she marched off to make her move. All this time, Julia had been positive that the lesson that Lily taught her was one of forgiveness and acceptance, the harbringer of clemency that she needed badly after being in a rut for so long after Victor died. But all along that wasn’t it. It was a lesson of defiance, perhaps inadvertently.
All her life Julia had gone with the flow of the river, never stood up and thought for herself. She was essentially a sheep in the colonialist, capitalist reality that had embedded itself within the United States of America. However now a new page had been turned and a new chapter published.
Lily’s legacy?
That it was okay to go against the status quo. To challenge what you think is the norm or rise up and revolt against what wasn’t just and find her own way through this.
Whatever Lily had done that got her in trouble, whatever it was that resulted in her forfeiting the ultimate sacrifice, it must have been linked. She knew enough about Survival of the Fittest and the terror it had invoked over the years that they took this seriously. They didn’t just make fuck ups. Things didn’t just go wrong habitually. Their plans were watertight from the start to make sure that they weren’t disturbed. Lily must’ve been the one to throw the first brick at this wall. Julia figured it had to be connected to the sniper rifle that she carried with her. It probably wasn’t enough to cause an explosion, especially if the announcement was to be believed and Lily had already passed away by that point, but it must’ve been the trigger that leveraged everything else. She was by no means a weapons expert, but the scope of a sniper rifle was meant to be impenetrable. If the explosion was only a mile or two away, maybe there was a slim possibility that Lily had been able to scout something out through the hunter’s gaze of the sniper rifle scope.
Delusional in her thoughts or not, she wasn’t about to let this opportunity go unnoticed. Her next move had already been decided for her, she had to find a way to initiate a ceasefire. People couldn’t go on and keep killing after what had just happened. Surely the others would see that, too. There was too much risk in the fight continuing, why commit such tragedies if there was no point to it in the end and they were able to fight against this thing together, or in a perfect world just be rescued outright. Yes, she saw herself as being more intelligent than a lot of others but that didn’t mean they were stupid enough to not see this opportunity for what it was. They had to stop fighting.
Julia sat back down, enjoying the view from her little mountain conclave whilst she got to work on figuring this one out. She had enough commonalities with the others left alive that meant they should take her at face value. She needed to preach forgiveness, preach pacifism without it sounding threatening. She knew it would be an uphill battle to get people on side, fighting against the resounding irony of somebody who had two kills to her name and a stupid best kill award as the icing on the top of the cake trying to find peace.
But she wasn’t about to give up, the rebellious fire in her own eyes burning brighter than ever as she formulated a plan of action.
[S119 - Julia Guercio - continued in Swan Song]
Comparatively, all she could think of was counting the time between a lightning strike and the ensuing thunder stalking the flashes of light. It was, of course, tracking of the speed of light versus sound which caused the variation so she figured a similar methodology could be used to figure out the distance between them trapped on the island and wherever the source of the explosion was. She grappled with her memories despite the augmented tension running high, struggling to think about what the calculation was. Like a flash of light behind her eyes, the cogs of her brain remembered being a young girl sat on her father’s lap.
Julia had always been afraid of thunderstorms, she remembered screaming many times in the night as the rolling thunder rumbled outside the window, the lightning illuminating her bedroom. It wasn’t just the loud noises, but the fact that the lightning stopped her being able to hide from any monsters lurking in the shadowy corners of her room. Her reaction would always be one of fear, whether it was hiding under her duvet desperately trying to block it out, an audible scream followed by muffled crying as she clung to her Nonna’s homemade quilt that kept her wrapped up warm in the winter months. Like always, she would always try to keep such shows of emotion to herself, not wanting to bother anybody around her. It wasn’t until one night that her father had walked past the door to her bedroom and heard her cloaked tears. Despite the initial fright of him opening the door, the creak alarmingly like the sound a monstrous demon would make sneaking out of her wardrobe to kill her.
Like always, her father had come to her rescue. She had always been a daddy’s girl, especially when she was younger, a fond smile emerging on her face as the recollection continued in her mind. He gave her the biggest hug he could, she wrapped her arms around him like a koala bear climbing a tree. He was always able to make her feel better, the gravity that pulled her to him cradling her in a feeling of safety. The grin on her face soured slightly, she wished that he was here now to tell her it would be alright. She was still a daddy’s girl at heart, even if she would be super embarrassed at the thought of ever admitting that to another soul. He carried her through to the living room, sitting her on his knee and helping her to confront her fears. The roaring in the louds was still frightening, but being in a controlled state, like some sort of science experiment, soothed her nerves. He told her what thunder and lightning actually was, reassured her that there was nothing to actually be afraid of. Taught her the cool trick on how to calculate how far away the lightning strike actually was.
One Mississippi … two Mississippi … three Mississippi … four Mississippi … five Mississippi.
Five counts of Mississippi meant that it was about a mile away. Allegedly.
Being honest with herself, Julia had no idea whether you could use the same trick for loud noises like explosions and it didn’t actually matter because by the time the noise had travelled and hit her she hadn’t even started the count. It must’ve been five, six, maybe seven seconds? Maybe less, it all happened so fast that her memory was a little blurry already. Five seconds, that’s what… three Mississippi? Four? She never understood why a word that was so long winded, and even harder to spell, was the unit of measurement for something like this. How do you quantify the seconds of a Mississippi?
She wasn’t about to actually say Mississippi out loud but Julia stopped herself before the forsaken words slipped from her tongue. It didn’t feel appropriate to conflate the severity of the actual situation with a little trick used to make a young child feel better about something scary.
The announcement was cut off with impromptu volatility. Whatever the loud boom was, and however it happened, it wasn’t planned and definitely caught the terrorist group off guard. His voice had always sounded so cool and calculated, the sarcastic undertones and the brash rudeness that he used to carry himself through the daily announcements had been fully stripped bare. Instead replaced by a perplexity, the slight tremble of stress and confusion immediately detectable. A strange fuzziness emerging from the pit of her stomach in retaliation. That mixture of confusion, an alien, veiled excitement about what it could mean. A new wave of hope echoing at the same time with a flare of pessimism at the prospect of them being trapped on this god forsaken island until they eventually starve to death.
Literally a million possibilities scrambled through her mind; was this a rescue attempt? Were they about to get off the island? How would she come to terms with the monstrous acts the island had made her commit? Was this Lily’s handy work?
What did it all mean?
Either way it gave her a purpose. That spearhead of motivation that she had lost after Joshua and Victor, the driver that kept her breathing, wanting more. This only cemented in her mind that there was a way for all of them still alive to get off of this island. If Salem refused to believe her before, he had no choice but to accept this reinvigoration of their fate after that announcement.
The weight of the world felt just that little bit lighter, a metaphorical relief as the fate of her existence seemed to relax a little.
One thing stood out to her mind about everything that had just happened – what rule did Lily break and did it somehow have a knock-on effect or cause whatever just went bang? It was a giant clusterfuck and that sanctified the regret and sadness she felt for Lily’s death. The short-lived burst of sorrow had been replaced with that same rebellious sneer that Lily wore on her face as she marched off to make her move. All this time, Julia had been positive that the lesson that Lily taught her was one of forgiveness and acceptance, the harbringer of clemency that she needed badly after being in a rut for so long after Victor died. But all along that wasn’t it. It was a lesson of defiance, perhaps inadvertently.
All her life Julia had gone with the flow of the river, never stood up and thought for herself. She was essentially a sheep in the colonialist, capitalist reality that had embedded itself within the United States of America. However now a new page had been turned and a new chapter published.
Lily’s legacy?
That it was okay to go against the status quo. To challenge what you think is the norm or rise up and revolt against what wasn’t just and find her own way through this.
Whatever Lily had done that got her in trouble, whatever it was that resulted in her forfeiting the ultimate sacrifice, it must have been linked. She knew enough about Survival of the Fittest and the terror it had invoked over the years that they took this seriously. They didn’t just make fuck ups. Things didn’t just go wrong habitually. Their plans were watertight from the start to make sure that they weren’t disturbed. Lily must’ve been the one to throw the first brick at this wall. Julia figured it had to be connected to the sniper rifle that she carried with her. It probably wasn’t enough to cause an explosion, especially if the announcement was to be believed and Lily had already passed away by that point, but it must’ve been the trigger that leveraged everything else. She was by no means a weapons expert, but the scope of a sniper rifle was meant to be impenetrable. If the explosion was only a mile or two away, maybe there was a slim possibility that Lily had been able to scout something out through the hunter’s gaze of the sniper rifle scope.
Delusional in her thoughts or not, she wasn’t about to let this opportunity go unnoticed. Her next move had already been decided for her, she had to find a way to initiate a ceasefire. People couldn’t go on and keep killing after what had just happened. Surely the others would see that, too. There was too much risk in the fight continuing, why commit such tragedies if there was no point to it in the end and they were able to fight against this thing together, or in a perfect world just be rescued outright. Yes, she saw herself as being more intelligent than a lot of others but that didn’t mean they were stupid enough to not see this opportunity for what it was. They had to stop fighting.
Julia sat back down, enjoying the view from her little mountain conclave whilst she got to work on figuring this one out. She had enough commonalities with the others left alive that meant they should take her at face value. She needed to preach forgiveness, preach pacifism without it sounding threatening. She knew it would be an uphill battle to get people on side, fighting against the resounding irony of somebody who had two kills to her name and a stupid best kill award as the icing on the top of the cake trying to find peace.
But she wasn’t about to give up, the rebellious fire in her own eyes burning brighter than ever as she formulated a plan of action.
[S119 - Julia Guercio - continued in Swan Song]