Survival Of The Fittest

Now, listen, yeah, Jess Kawazoe was never one to, like, whine and cry an’ shy away from a risk if it got her what she wanted, yo. Someone said jump, she wouldn’t ask questions, she would just find the nearest trampoline. Someone said ‘Hey, the big math test is tomorrow and you haven’t studied at all for it’, she’d go “Yo, suck my dick,” and work her ass to the bone to grind a passing grade out. Someone said ‘You wanna explore the abandoned-’ and all that’d be left of DJ JAZZY JESS would be a couple scattered pieces of paper and a cloud of dust, like in a cartoon or some shit. Yeah, there wasn’t much in the world that’d slow her down, no frickin’ way, she was, like, totally built different (smaller).

This, though? This was really takin’ the piss. She thought she’d, like, heard Poppy say that one time.

She sat, flat on her ass (man, these cutoffs really were lacking in padding in the butt area, yo), gazing at the light-grey landscape that sprawled in every direction around her. Her arms were folded, partially ‘cause she totally had forgotten to bring gloves of all things on this trip - actually, man, did she even have any gloves? She didn’t think the pair of, like, teddy bear mittens she had when she was 5 would fit her any longer - and like hell she was about to put her bare palms down onto the ice cold ground, and partially cause, well, this fuckin’ sucked, man!

As if being abducted wasn’t bad enough. They’d really gone and put her right in the middle of a frickin’ frozen lake.

“Huah…”

And this wasn’t, like, some rinky-dink little duck pond, nah. This oval of frozen liquid bullshit? Fuckin’ huge. She could just ‘bout see the coastline from here, yo. Wait, was ‘coast’ line the right word? Lakeline? Iceline? Dickheadline? Whatever it was called, it frickin’ sucked. And was real stupid. And was, like, a huge heapin’ pile of shit and fuck and ass, all in one. If she was sittin’ on the sidewalk right now (and it wouldn’t have been the first time that’d happened), then she wouldn’t have thought twice about running over there. Right now, though, it was like someone had tasked her to run all the way to, like, Nova Scotia (which wasn’t pronounced ‘Scotty-ya’, apparently). She was kinda reminded of when she’d been a kid, an’ everything had looked way bigger than it actually was, everything took way longer, every brand new sensation was a totally new Everest for her.

Maybe she shoulda brought those teddy mitts with her. Or somethin’ warm. Somethin’ soft. Somethin’ comforting.

“Huah……”

She sniffed a lil. From the cold, yo. Nothing else, that’d be, like, totally crazy. There wasn’t any time to be thinking about, eh, that shit right now anyhow. Wasn’t gonna be productive, wasn’t gonna help her. It was a real rational train of thought, powered by logic rather than emotion or anything, and Jess wondered for a second whether that knockout gas had left her real woozy. Like, if they were knockin’ out some man-mountain like Matty B, then that had to be one helluva powerful dose, yo. Or maybe she’d smacked her head on the ice when the dickhead terrorists had dropped her off.

Eh, whatever had happened to her in that dreamy, hazy, unconscious state, first task was to get her ass, literally, off of this lake. Just had to figure out her starting point for that, and… and…. A-

“HUAH-CHUUU!”

Jess tugged her mask down just in time for her to let loose a cannonball sneeze - jeez, dude, she sneezed like her freakin’ dad - that echoed all across the lake, a couple lanky looking birds that had been perched on the pondline taking flight at the sound. She wiped her nose, tugged her mask back up again.

She was pretty sure she’d heard some kinda cracking noise from behind her.

Jess didn’t dare move. A single bead of sweat, uncomfortably warm, rolled down the side of her head.

((S010: Marshall West: START))

Marshall had drive and direction. He might not always have an end goal that was completely known to him, but he always knew that if he just kept moving, and trying his hardest, that eventually options would open up to him. Did he know what ‘doing his best’ meant in this situation? Not in the slightest.

When in a rare moment of doubt, he’d go for a run. He’d run until his legs gave up. But that was proving difficult right now, because he’d been dumped on a frozen lake.

So nevermind the larger picture right now. Right now the priority was getting off this lake. He’d already checked his bag to see if footwear had been part of the equation. It had not been. Only a gas mask that he thought might have been a joke about hindsight.

But he’d gotten to his feet.

That was a victory.

He moved, and slipped immediately.

...That didn’t negate the first victory. He could get up again.

A sneeze. The loudest of sneezes, enough that Marshall could hear it. A figure some distance off.

He took a few edging steps in that direction before he heard the cracking. He stopped. ...Not reassuring, but he couldn’t sneak up on her either. That’d be improper.

“Hello!” he called out. “Are you okay over the—eep!”

The ice cracked again.

Marshall clapped a hand over his own mouth to stop his instincts, while waving the other arm over his head in an attempt to catch her attention.

Y’know, maybe if she stayed, like, totally still for a lil while, absolutely frozen to the spot, not even breathing, then the ice would, like, accept her as one of its own, or something. Then she could just, like, stroll on outta here, no problemo, no worries, nothin’ to… aw, jeez.

There was wishful thinking, there was total delusion, and then there was whatever the heck that’d been.

Even if that plan hadn’t been, like, totally insane, she needed to do something that wasn’t just sitting around and waiting for something to go down (hopefully not her (through the ice and into the water)). Her outfit mighta been a-okay for a ski resort, lodges and cafes and heaters a-plenty, but out here in… wherever the fuck they were, Alaska or Canada or somewhere even more cold and gross like England, she was startin’ to feel totally underdressed. A double-layer of cotton tops was only doing so much; her absolute fave combo of shorts and leggings was doing jack squat.

Her windpants and shitty ugly awful horrendous fashion-disaster jacket were both nestled all nice and neat at the bottom of her backpack - which, hey, nice of the asshats in charge to have let her keep that, least she’d still have her DS and her family-size pack of sour gummy worms to tide her over in this frozen wasteland - but like hell she was gonna try putting them on while she was on the World’s Deadliest Ice Rink. If sneezing was enough to make it starts splintering, then wriggling around and shuffling her bags about would probably, like, make it melt outta pure friction or something.

Jeez, she was really starting to shiver, now. Her nose was twitching again, which meant another abominable snowman avalanche sneeze was incoming. Maybe she could scoot on outta here on her butt, like this? It’d be slow as heck, but at least she would - ah, shit, nah, then she’d be putting her hands right down onto the ice, which, like, she was kinda fond of keepin’ all her skin intact, being honest! Okay, so like, what if she -

Oh, holy crud there was someone else out here?! Hell freakin’ yeah, maybe she wasn’t destined to turn into a Bomb Pop after all!

Jess craned her neck, looking around to find the guy who’d yelled at her (and being real brave about ignoring the horrendously loud cracking sound that came with it, if she said so herself), and a massive grin broke out underneath her mask. Now, she couldn’t quite tell who the guy actually was from this distance, could be some loser from the asshole factory, but there were two real important things to take note of right now. First up, the guy hadn’t just abandoned her and tried to find a way off the lake himself, or like, started lobbing shit to try an’ break the ice around her. That was, like, what was the opposite of a red flag? Blue flag? Flag with a smiley face on it? It was that, whatever it was.

Secondly, the dude was like, way bigger than her (yeah, yeah, not like that was difficult or whatever, that just meant everyone was in perfect dick-punching range), and he was standing up just fine. Ice hadn’t turned into a particularly shitty jigsaw just yet, so she was pretty confident that the girl who weighed as much as a bag of sugar could do that too.

Jess waved back, arm swinging wildly above her head, before gingerly pressing her fingers onto the ice - Jesus DICK that stung like hell - and pushing herself at a snail’s pace up onto her feet. Her legs bowed inwards briefly, but by some Christmas goddamn miracle, she managed to stay nice an’ upright.

“H-”

She started to yell, the usual instinctive reaction to seeing a (probably, hopefully) friendly face, before smacking her hands to her face to make herself shut the hell up, yo. Just in time for a double whammy reason too; that sneeze that had been tickling her sinuses finally decided to make itself known, slamming headfirst into the barricade of mask and hands and coming out like the sound of a squashed rubber duck.

No crack this time. Thank jeezus. Jess didn’t think her sweet lil heart could take any more of that shit.

She jabbed her finger towards herself five or six times, in big, wide, unmistakable motions, before doing the same in the general direction of Mr. Mysterious Stranger. Hopefully he could figure out that meant that she was, like, comin’ towards him, and he should either stay put or try meet her in the middle. She really wasn’t used to not using her words, yo.

She knelt down to scoop up her bags. Looking down, straight down at the ice, she saw a bubble of water shift a lil as she moved around. She gulped.

Aw jeez.

Okay! Marshall had gotten her attention! He couldn't tell who she was from here, but she seemed okay, which was good. She was flailing and pointing, which either meant she was coming over, or Marshall should go over to her. Perhaps they should meet in the middle! That would take the least amount of time!

Marshall took a couple of baby steps forwards, and heard another crack. Abort, abort!

He held out his hands to flail and indicate that the girl shouldn’t come any further. He pointed down at the ice frantically, then – for lack of a better gesture to indicate the ice cracking – made an odd double fist gesture that looked like he was using an imaginary pepper grinder.

This would be okay. What they needed to do was make their way off the lake, staying separate enough that they didn’t put too much weight on the ice, but not so much distance that they lost each other.

Marshall pointed to his right, where the land was visible. If they headed in the same direction, they would be okay.

That would be a victory, and then they could build from there.

She had only taken, like, one, maybe even two steps if she was feeling real spicy, eyes facin’ straight ahead because looking down was a real yikeserino moment, before she realised the other guy was trying to grab her attention. Least, she figured that was what he was trying to do. Dude was flailing his arms all over the place like he was trying to take off, and now he was…

Uh…

Hey, uh, yo, what the heck and fuck was this?

Jess frowned, trying to figure out what in the goddamn that double-fist-twist gesture was meant to be, which really wasn’t easy when she was dedicating most of her brain power to ‘standing upright’. He wanted more pepper on his ice-spaghetti? He wished he had a pair of skis right now (dude, same)? ‘At least if the ice cracks we can just row ourselves to shore’? Something that a real classy and refined girl like herself should be averting her eyes from?

Incomprehensible my dude, have a great day.

Eh, maybe if she got a little closer to him then it’d make a little bit more sense. And she could do that, easy peasy lemon squeezy; ‘sides from the whole potential for slippage, this was going way better than she had expected. Just needed to take it nice and slow and steady, shuffling motion yo, and she’d be over with him in no time. One step, two step, three step, foooooohhhh crap shit fuck that was a REAL loud crack coming from real real nearby.

And, like, don’t say it out loud, and definitely don’t look down or anything, but Jess was almost certain that she could feel water soaking into the fabric of her shoes.

Man. She didn’t usually press the panic button for anything. But her eyes told ya everything you needed to know here.

Good thing there was a part two to the guy’s ridiculous flailing, yo, and this time it was easy as pie to decipher. Dude was pointing off to the dampline in that direction, huh? Sure, she could head on over there as well. She could do that. It was fine. Definitely wasn’t waiting for the moment her heart leapt out of her chest. What had she said about this before? Difficult difficult lemon difficult, yo.

Jess nodded, and then just to make sure he knew that everything was just fine, gave him a double thumbs up to boot. Then, rotating on the spot like the last blueberry muffin on one of those rotating cake stands, she turned to face the direction he’d been pointing at, and started shuffle walking once more.

Aight, there we go. Slow and steady. Slooooooooow and steady. Don’t look down, look straight ahead, yo. Focus on getting yourself to shore, girl. Don’t think about the phrase ‘dead ahead’ instead. Don’t succumb to the urge to adjust your backpack even though it’s digging in real badly to your shoulder.

Don’t focus on the monster of a sneeze that’s building up in your sinuses.

Some more furious flailing had been included during her brief attempt to continue walking towards him, and Marshall had almost been on the edge of risking yelling since his admittedly confusing hand gestures clearly weren't getting the point across. (How did one signal cracks in the ice?)

But she'd gotten the picture well enough to change trajectory, so Marshall beamed and flashed the thumbs up at her before turning and making his way in the same direction.

Carefully.

Carefullyyy...

Marshall was not an ice man, particularly not in sneakers. Grip or no grip, sneakers simply weren't made for solid ice. He took little steps, a penguin in a sweater vest, but even then... even then there was a wobble here, a wobble there until--

One step wrong. Just a little too far, a little too impatient, and his leg slid out from underneath him.

Marshall tried to correct it, started seemingly running on the spot in an attempt to stay upright before gravity betrayed him and sent him straight back onto the ice once more.

The Ice against his face was so cold it burned, scraping against his nose and jaw unpleasantly before he clattered to a stop on the ground, lying on his side and briefly anticipating potential icy doom.

...

Huh. There was the noise of something cracking, but much more distant. The ice must be more solid here.

The girl, though...

Oh, how could he not have recognised her earlier? Though some distance away, she was close enough for him to process the pigtails, purple tips and all, and associate them with the girl who often wore her name, or a related allas, on her clothes. DJ Jazzy Jess. Known primarily through friends of friends - Marshall knew she was a partier and heartily disproved. But that was irrelevant. Here, they were simply... classmates? The word classmates didn't sit right for the specific situation, but that was a thought for another time.

He started to push himself up into a kneeling position. Did the ice look worse under her feet, or was It his overactive imagination? He tapped his knuckles against his part of the ice pointedly, then gave Jess a thumbs up.

He got to work at getting up, but not at moving any further. He could wait until she was in a better position. Abandoning a fellow classmate on an icy lake, even to wait in safety on the shore... no, better to be nearby, even if it was riskier.

Y’know, for a hot second there, Jess had been pretty convinced that loud-ass WHAMP sound had been her own damn sneeze. Woulda been real impressive if that was the case, honestly, cause for starters, it was a brand new, fascinating noise, even by her own nasal standards, and for seconders, she would have had to have learned how to throw her voice in the past five seconds, and like, she was talented as fuck, yo, but she wasn’t Ellis. That sorta shit lay way outside her wheelhouse.

Nah, turned out it was her ice-travelling companion slipping over and eating shit. Kinda inevitable, given what they were doing, but still, yikes. And ouch. Yeowch (was that the etymology of that word?). She made another slow pirouette - solid 4/10, woulda scored higher if it wasn’t for the “wildly flailing windmill arms” - until she was facing him, waiting to see if everything was a-okay, or whether she needed to do a sudden rescue job (God, she hoped not, the dude’s arm looked like it weighed more than she did).

Took him a few seconds, but he managed to push himself up onto his knees, give a good ol’ thumbs up, and aw shit, that was Marshall, wasn’t it? That was… well, kinda a mixed back, being honest. Dude entered every room with the force of a tornado, which, hell yeah, that was the energy she could get behind, but he tended to channel that into being loud and pushy and a stickler for the rules, rather than, like, anything interesting. But, eh, wasn’t like she was gonna just leave him on the ice just cause he’d been a big damn abrasive asshole at school, was she? He was helping her out, she was gonna help him out, this could be the start of a real beautiful friendship.

Jess gave Marshall a double thumbs up of her own, before wordlessly rotating back around to resume her ever-onwards shuffling. Now, maybe she was being, like, optimistic here, but it felt like they’d actually made some pretty solid progress towards land? Could be she was just fooling herself here, but damn, if the placebo effect was what was giving her this positive energy inside of her, then it sure as hell could stay, yo!

Hey bitch, her nose said. Remember me?

Aw, for fuck’s sake.

“HUAH-CHUUU!”

Another blast from her nostrils almost sent Jess flying backwards and off her feet, the sheer power of her sneeze sending vibrations coursing through her bones, her heel inadvertently slamming down in time with the ‘chuuu’. The sound echoed across the lake, the birds that had previously scattered thought better of it and made another long looping circuit round the perimeter of the ice, and frickin’ jesus, ow, that stung like all hell. She’d brought some of that saline solution shit to clear out her sinuses, so even more reason to get the heck off the ice, but-

Shit. That crack was loud. Real, real loud.

She glanced back at Marshall, eyes wide open, hoping like hell that it had come from some other random place on the lake, not daring to even glimpse down at her feet.

Okay, double shit, that was another crack, that was close, uh, fuck, uh, okay, so, like, new plan, right frickin’ now.

Jess turned, and started moving again. It wasn’t quite a run, but it sure as shit wasn’t just shuffling at snail’s pace any longer. She had to get off this shit, right the fuck now.

The telltale sound of something breaking free and getting swallowed up by water followed in her wake.

A sneeze.

Oh no.

Marshall paled - a rare occurance - and took a step forward the moment he saw the ice crack worse under DJ Jazzy Jess’ feet. No. Wait. Bad idea. He’d send them both to their watery grave if he did that.

Think, Marshall, think! If he couldn’t think his way out of this, how could he ever expect to think of a way out of… well, all of this?

Marshall remained still for a moment, eyebrows scrunched together in thought. Hands bobbing up and down as he tried to think. She needed momentum. He needed to give her momentum without going over there. How did…

Did he have rope? No. He would have noticed. But he was warmly dressed. Scarf and jacket included. He had a windbreaker in the bag. It wasn’t ideal, and he wasn’t sure the jacket was thin enough to make a good knot… but...

“DJ Jazzy Jess!” he whispered. His whispering was nearly as loud as another person’s speaking tone. “Stay calm, and walk towards me!”

As he spoke, he knelt carefully and unzipped his bag, retrieving the windbreaker inside. He removed his scarf, and started tying the scarf to one of the windbreaker’s sleeves. Not long enough yet... but something. Maybe--

As he removed his jacket – the chill blew through him the moment he did, even with the sweatervest underneath – he kept glancing up to check on Jess’ progress.

Jesus wow. Wasn’t every day you heard someone whispering loud enough to make the sound barrier feel real nervous. Then again, it wasn’t every day you were dumped on a freakin’ frozen lake with a fricking bomb collar strapped to your neck, and expected to find your friggin’ way off before the entire motherloving thing shattered underneath you. So, hey, she guessed this was gonna be a Monday full of firsts.

Even with Marshall being The Human Foghorn, Jess still came real close to totally missing what he was saying entirely. She wasn’t used to freaking out like this, yo. Last time she’d been, like, this overwhelmed and started melting down had been… man, so long ago she totally couldn’t even remember it. It was easy to avoid; if you never put yourself in a position where you could get hit with an attack of the panics, then it would never sneak up on you and getcha. No wandering around sites with the structural integrity of a damp tissue, no clamberin’ along the most precipitous-ass walkways and ledges, and going one step further than ‘When it rains, no drains’ to ‘No drains, ever’.

She’d not been given any choice here. She’d been dropped, like, smack-bang in the middle of danger, no clues as to how to get out, no way of retracing her footsteps to safety, and most importantly, no idea about what Step 2 would be if she managed to make it off of this damn lake. The normal rush of adrenaline that came from breaking rules and living life to the max was amplified tenfold, rushing through her way too loud and way too fast. She was choking on her own harried breath, her heartbeat sounding like a bass drum shoved into her chest.

And all the while, every little movement had her on tenterhooks, waiting for the sound of shattering ice to follow along after it.

She did catch what Marshall was saying, though, even if it didn’t make even the tiniest lick of sense to her. Hadn’t they, like, just agreed that shuffling towards each other was a bad idea, yo? And Jess was feeling real reluctant about stopping and shifting gears, considering the entire ground was vanishing beneath her feet.

Still, she gave him the benefit of the doubt. She skidded to a stop, little shavings of ice piling up on the toes of her boots, turning to look at what Marshall was planning (if, like, anything at all), and ohhhh, okay. Okay yeah. Yeah she could get behind that. A tether together forever, that’d give ‘em a safety net in case the worst case bullshit happened (although, yeesh, she really hoped that the Marsh Man wasn’t gonna freeze his butt off, removing all his clothes like that).

There was still a bit of a trek to go before the makeshift rope could reach her, though. Jess’ feet scuffed against the ice as she moved herself closer. Every crunch of a footstep could so easily turn into a snap. The ice groaned behind her, a great patient beast, ready to devour her at a moment’s notice.

Scarf and windbreaker were successfully tied together. The jacket was proving more difficult. It had thick fabric, the thickest of any of his clothes, and that didn’t lend itself to knots. Marshall wrinkled his nose as he tried to tie it up with the windbreaker, tugged at the knot to make sure it was good, and it immediately slipped out of shape and fell apart.

He glanced over at Jess again, then at the distance between them, then at his rope so far. No. Not nearly. The jacket proving uncooperative wasn’t helping. Marshall stuck the end of the ‘rope’ underneath his arm for a moment as he checked the thickness of the rest of his clothes. Judged the length of them.

Marshall hesitated for the briefest moment. Another cracking noise stopped that hesitation before it could go far.

He found out quickly that the sweatervest wasn’t really made for rope, either. Too short, only added a few inches of length. His shirt, however, did well. Marshall pulled the jacket back on as quick as he could, so that he at least had something on the upper half.

Still not enou--

Marshall was already pantsless before the thought had finished, undoing the front buttons and nearly slipping as he tried to pull each leg out of his slacks. Shoes and socks, gloves and his uncooperative jacket still on, the rest of his clothes going into the rope.

...Could be worse.

He shuffled as much as he could, attempting to keep warm while trying not to move enough to slip, as he completed the rope without paying much attention to what tied to what, as long as the knots ended up okay. He gave the rope a tug at each knot, then hurled the end of the improvised rope towards DJ Jazzy Jess. When it landed shy of its target, Marshall started whipping the rope up and down to get it to flop further, like he would with the battle ropes at the gym. Pants gripped at his end of the rope, the shirt end flapping closer and closer to DJ Jazzy Jess. The moment she could grab it, he'd pull with all he had.

Another scarf, bundled up to help it cross the distance from the shore, slid to a halt a few yards from Marshall's leg.

((S114 Chloé Delacroix – Start))

So, like. Yo. ‘Freezing your butt off’ was just a figure of speech. That was, like, a well known fact, yeah? That was totally clear, she hadn’t missed a memo or anything, right? It wasn’t meant to be totally taken seriously, it was just an expression to show just how frickin’ cold it was, she wasn’t actually concerned that someone’s cheeks were about to freeze over and slip right off, yeah? Okay?

Definitely not an invitation for Marshall to take his whole-ass pants off, yo?

Despite how urgent it was that they got their butts off of this stupid-ass ice rink, Jess couldn’t help but stop short for a hot second, and hell, it felt like even the creaking and cracking had been put on pause for a moment, the lake itself trying to figure out what the hell was going on. She stared, face totally blank, wondering whether she wasn’t suffering some kinda hallucination or ice-cold mirage, as Marshy looped his pants into the clothes-rope. And like, she got it, yo, they were definitely giving the thing more length, and looked like they were holding pretty firm, but jeez, didn’t he have anything else he coulda added? Nothing else in his bag at all?

Well, yeesh, add that to the least of reasons they had to get to shore, stat, make sure he didn’t get frostbite on something you really wouldn’t wanna snap off.

Jess started to crouch down as she shuffled inch by painful inch towards him, looking like some kinda weird crab gremlin thing, close enough to the rope that Marshall could start whip-cracking and sine-waving it towards her. Still wasn’t quite enough though; she only had little arms, yo, and she didn’t wanna make any sudden movements, just in case that was finally enough to tip the balance.

Now, Jess didn’t wanna act all hasty like, but something else sure as hell did. She glanced up in the direction the fuzzy curling stone had come from, and hell yeah, someone else had joined the party, all ready to kick ass and help out. She was still too far away from shore to tell exactly who their newfound saviour was, but they sure as hell knew how to make a good first impression, yo.

“YO, THAN-” Jess began, forgetting herself for a moment thanks to the euphoria of scarf, before she smacked her hand over her mask to make herself shut the fuck up. The Shore Stranger got a double thumbs up instead; it’d have to suffice for the time being. An’ with any luck, it wouldn’t take much longer, for really reals this time. Marshall had integrated the scarf into the rope now, and fwipped it even closer to her. Hell yeah, it was go time.

She twisted back around and reached down to grab hold of the shirt’s sleeve. She had to lean forwards, just a little bit - tiny T-Rex arms, remember? She barely even moved, really. Just a bit more. Just a bit more than that. Just enough for one foot to slip and stamp down hard in an effort to keep her balance, as she wrapped the sleeve tightly around her hand and wrist.

Something shifted underneath her. There was a crack, loud and heavy, that stopped her heart dead. She glanced up at Marshall, eyes wide and staring.

Then the ice broke and tumbled away beneath her feet, and Jess disappeared beneath the surface of the water.

How far out was Jess? How much length did Marshall need on this rope? He had nothing left! He couldn’t skin himself and use that! He needed something to--

A scarf gently thwumped onto the ice nearby.

...God?

No, even better. The student council president herself had arrived to help. Marshall recognised it was Chloé from here – he recognised the white and red ensemble from the bus – and he flailed a hand in the air and then gave a thumbs up in an attempt to communicate ‘hello, it is good to see you and thank you for the scarf’ without speaking.

The rope made it.

That was a victory.

Now--

The ice broke.

Marshall froze for a second, brain going entirely blank as Jess just disappeared. All that, only for her to just--

He mentally slapped himself. Icy water wasn’t immediate death. He’d read about the Titanic. People had fallen into the water and been okay, as long as they got out of the water. And he could still feel movement on the end of this rope.

He gave it a tug so she’d know which way to swim, then looked back at the shore. He gave up keeping quiet, instead bellowing at the top of his lungs.

“CHLOE! DON’T COME OUT HERE! GET, UH… FIRE, WARMTH!”

The ice under his feet remained solid. The further he went out towards Jess, the weaker the ice would likely get. ...But what if she was stuck? What if she got trapped under the ice?

He started to shift forward. Slowly. An inch at a time.

The time that had passed since Chloé had woken up had done so like a dream. She’d been in shock, of course, so she’d sort of disassociated with the world around her. She’d walked through the quiet forest as the snow fell softly and, numb to the cold, she’d been able to hope it was just a dream. Survival of the Fittest nightmares couldn’t be that uncommon, especially if you were taking a nap on a school trip, where it you’d be subconsciously worrying about that kind of thing anyway.

The sheer incongruity of the scene she’d seen out on the lake- Marshall half-naked and DJ Jazzy Jess, someone Chloé couldn’t be entirely sure wasn’t a delusion to begin with- hadn’t immediately convinced her she wasn’t dreaming. It had spurred her into action, picked up her pulse, sent her scarf rolling out over the ice to join Marshall’s rope, but it was Jess falling through the ice that had finally, irrevocably, woken her up.

Tearing herself away from the lake, Chloé got to work on Marshall’s fire plan. There were a couple of problems with it. The major one was Chloé didn’t know how to start a fire, unless rubbing two sticks together worked as well in real life as it did in cartoons, which she doubted. But it was also snowing lightly, and the wood she started to gather from the trees was wet to the touch.

Desperate, she swung her daypack off her shoulders, tore it open and started rifling through the contents. She could do a full inventory later but for now she just needed to find something that could start a fire. Flashlight, map, rations… a first aid kit. She ripped that open too, tipped it out onto the ground and started scrambling around in the pile.

There was a lighter!

And alcohol pads and hand sanitiser as well, they might be able to offset the dampness of the wood. Casting frequent and frantic looks across the ice to check on Marshall’s progress, Chloé set about making her makeshift bonfire.

She was close, real real close, to blacking out, as the shock hit her like a steamroller and the ice-cold water rushed up to greet her, surround her, frigid hands wrapping around her to claim her and drag her further and further down. Her mind had gone blank, knocked senseless by the freezing lake, her limbs had locked in place.

For a moment, she drifted downwards, motionless.

The shock passed. The numbing sensation turned into one of a thousand icicles piercing into her. Her body started working again, her head twisting and turning, legs starting to flail manically. The water soaked her to the skin, seeping into her, rushing through her head, sending herself into a wild panic, one thought remaining above all others, clinging desperately to the last outcrop of rock.

She couldn’t swim.

She’d never learned; never had a chance to when she was a kid, too sick to leave the house or even her own bed on most days and forced to rush back from school as soon as possible on all others, and never saw a reason to in her teenage years. Wasn’t like she was yearning to dive into the ocean or anything like that, she’d never had dreams of being a surfer or an olympic swimmer. She took extra caution around rivers and streams, never went anywhere close to storm drains, lived her life without a worry or a care.

Fuck, oh fuck, she wished she’d learned, she wished she’d learned now.

Her mask was glued to her face, damp and freezing, pressing tight against her mouth and nostrils, suffocating her even before the water could swarm her. Her bags were filled with lead, trying to pull her down. The world surrounding her was a featureless grey, the same blurry expanse wherever she looked. Her wrist stung, something cutting into it, like barbed wire wrapped around her-

The rope.

Jess flailed at the shirt looped around her fingers and arm with her free hand, trying to push herself towards it, willing herself upwards. She swiped at the rope, missing twice, palm colliding with it the third time, and she wrapped her hand around it, grabbing hold of it tightly, using it to haul herself up. She felt so slow, like she was trying to climb up the side of the Empire State Building with her bare hands, and her lungs were starting to feel tight and heavy, another weight dragging her down.

Her fingers breached the surface. With a sudden burst of energy, she pulled herself up once more, hands smacking down onto the ice, ignoring the way it burned her skin. Her nails dug in, clawing for purchase, and then with a gasp and a spray of water, her head burst up through the hole in the ice. Her hair clung to her like a veil, one ribbon nowhere to be seen, floating dreamily away underneath the ice.

“FUCK!”

Jess grabbed hold of her mask, ripping it away from her face and hurling it onto the ice. She panted, breathing harsh and heavy, she could barely keep her head above water, but she could see Marshall - or the vague, blob-like shape of him, thanks to the ice water dripping from her hair and filling her vision - coming towards her.

Then her body shifted again. She felt something start to untwist. A link in the rope loosened.

“MARSHALL!” she yelled, panic rising in her voice again. “QUICK, HELP, MAR-”

Her fingers gave way, and with another spray of water, Jess disappeared again.