Lessons Whispered In Blood

[BlizzardeyeWonder]

[Daniel Ozanne continued from One Who Seeks]

Let's go to the research station, Wendy suggested. Daniel had nowhere in particular to be in opposition, and he didn't know how to build a fire or a shelter outside, or how to patch up broken windows, so sticking to the great indoors was just pragmatism in their case. He agreed, trying not to think about what happened to Karin, where Josh was heading, on the way there. (Selfishness was a situational virtue, but only if you commit to it. And Daniel had trouble committing to anything, even commitment issues.)

He tried to not think about the corpses piling up in there either, but that grew harder and harder the closer they got. It became impossible once they entered. It didn't help that there was one at their destination - no, there were two. The sight of Eden (Zima, not that it mattered because both the Edens were dead and he didn't know them that well because did he know anyone at all?) just inside, positioned just so that you couldn't see him (it's a corpse) until you passed the threshold. It brought to mind a sick, twisted killer's joke - but Katelyn didn't seem like that type, for whatever his past and fleeting present observations of her were worth. Perhaps if she were here, she'd apologize for the mess and surprise like she apologized while running away, tail between her legs, leaving a bleeding Taylor in her wake. (Or perhaps she simply didn't care or think anymore. What would be easier?)

He lowered his gun. (He was quick to start calling it "his", he just realized that. Thinking about it more, it certainly wasn't a gift to him from the terrorists. It had strings attached, negative space trails left in rations, empty water bottles, and bullet casings, and coming into the light whenever Danya described the meal one lucky killer a day would get over the announcements.) His stomach rumbled, unaware of its surroundings. (Forget potentially shooting someone in rage, he might devour more food and water than he could afford to if he let his guard down. The only way to find joy in bland crackers, bread, and protein bars was in the throes of such mindless hunger that anything that could count as "food" would taste good.)

"It's clear," he called over his shoulder. When he looked forward, his voice dropped. "...'cept for the corpses," he muttered, cementing their place in his mind's eye. Eating here would be a monumentally bad idea, but where on the island was enclosed and free of corpses? There had to be somewhere, right? How big was this place, how many enclosed spaces, how many of their classmates were dead, exactly?

[Ryuki]

[Wendy Kennedy continued from One Who Seeks]

They had arrived at the research station like Wendy wanted. It would be nice to get out of the cold. And if they were lucky, they could hold up here for the day. Daniel took a look inside the dining area to see if the coast was clear. Thankfully, it was. Except for the corpses.

Wendy came up from behind and took a peek. There was a dead classmate near the entrance. What a disgusting sight. As much as she didn't want to take a break in the same vicinity of a dead body, she couldn't afford to be picky.

"Ugh, terrible," Wendy sighed, "Okay, let's go in."

The pair entered the dining area. Wendy put her bag on one of the tables and grabbed a seat. She felt relaxed despite the smelly elephant shaped like Eden Zima in the room. She knew a scent like this from before. On the first day, when that girl under the bed she woke up on, vomited blood. The scent of death.

"Do you think we'll be safe in here?," Wendy asked Daniel, "At least for now?"

[BlizzardeyeWonder]

That was a good question. (That had a simple, dismissive answer.)

Exit and entry points: two. One lead out where they came from, one lead into the kitchen, a bit of a dead end emergency-escape wise. He strode over and peeked into the kitchen - "Nobody's in there either." Better safe than sorry, still.

If they wanted to prevent someone from the outside coming in, they could do so fairly easily. If they wanted to escape someone inside, that was manageable but carried a risk of having the one escape blocked, which grew if there was like, a vaguely coordinated murder duo or trio or bigger group who could effectively divide the tasks of "block the exits" and "murder".

Were there any such groups? The announcements weren't any help in figuring that out, every death (so far) had exactly one killer, or none at all. It was clear the announcements omitted much context, so he figured they only counted the killing blow. If any of the killers had assistance, they were anonymous. That was a pretty big "if", though - last he saw of Katelyn, she was alone. Same with Josh, unless Karin decided to join forces with him in unholy prayer circle fraternity. A big "unless", she took off running instead of sticking around him.

Where was he going with this?

He pulled up a chair, and dragged it closer to the door. "Well, here's what I can do. I can like, stick by the door."

The gun was loaded. He took another bit of ammo from his bag and slipped into his pocket. He let the gun rest against the leg of the chair, within his grasp. "And keep my eyes and ears open for anyone approaching. Make sure they're friendly and all."

(What would it take to get him to do anything other than make empty threats? He was awfully prepared to shoot for someone who didn't even want to, allegedly.)

[Ryuki]

"Good idea," said Wendy. Daniel and his gun could be way better defense than the shield thing Wendy had. Ironic, given a shield's purpose is to defend.

Wendy took the shield-gauntlet from of her bag. She hadn't had to use it so far. Five days, and Wendy was still alive. She hadn't killed anyone, and generally avoided large groups. If she carried on like this, she'd never be able to leave this death game. The only way to escape is to be the last one standing, while having at least one kill to your name.

"I think I should get in some practice with this," Wendy said, pointing to the shield in her possession.

Wendy found the instructions to her weapon. Lantern shield. Included within the instructions were steps on how to put it on. If only she had a YouTube video to look at to see how she could fight with it.

"I wonder where they find these things," said Wendy, "They must have someone supplying them with these interesting weapons."

[BlizzardeyeWonder]

Daniel nodded. "Sounds good. I practiced a bit with my gun on the first day." He was unable to stop himself from wincing at the memory. "It didn't go all that great. Firing this thing is a miserable fucking experience."

Did he admit that to Taylor? He couldn't remember. (They were melting away like the memory of a dream, leaving behind the platonic ideal of a victim, a personal failure. Wendy, too, would soon join this formless mass.) Not if Daniel had any say in it. (Like hell he did.)

He took a deep breath and tried to compose himself. The air itself felt rotten. Instead of an exhale, he coughed.

"Uh... good question," he muttered, urging his mind along the path Wendy brought up. He stared into the middle distance, and pondered out loud. "Probably multiple somebodies. I don't think the people giving them medieval-to-renaissance weapons are the same guys selling them weird guns."

He narrowed his eyes at nothing, the march of his thoughts tripping over something. "Where do they get the money for all this, anyway? Can't imagine the streams would bring very much in. Like, shit, it's tough enough to make money on regular old YouTube or Twitch, and I don't think this video's a pay to view thing... is it?"

His gaze tilted up, meeting the eye of a camera. Through it, he imagined gambling rings, rankings and odds. The price on his own head was...?

[Ryuki]

"Who would even watch this thing?," Wendy asked, baffled by the idea people would pay to watch teenagers kill each other.

Wendy took a look at the same camera as Daniel, and glared with disgust.

"Hey!," she shouted at the camera, "Whoever is watching this and enjoying it! You're a weirdo!"

Wendy felt a bit silly for shouting at a camera. It's not like what she said would make a difference. Still, it felt nice to take out her frustration at something.

"Sorry," said Wendy.

[BlizzardeyeWonder]

Daniel snorted, lips curled just so into a smile. The medusa's gaze of the camera broke, and he looked back to Wendy. "Don't be." He needed that.

A theory wove itself together in his mind (dancing on the edge of conspiracy). "Right, so, it's obvious they're not making all their money off the streams, yeah? So some other party is funding them. Who, though..."

He batted candidates around in his mind. A government? Danya's voice echoed over the island every morning, but his accent was unplaceable to Daniel - not that that would help necessarily, come to think of it. If it was an enemy of the States, this was an awfully expensive and roundabout method of attack. Actually, come to think of it, there was little he could do other than throw darts at targets as to who funded the AT without knowing why any of this was even happening. (There was little he could do but speculate. Period. And why would he want to? The reason would inevitably be as depressingly banal as, say, murdering a classmate for their rations.)

His stomach rumbled, again.

He shrugged. "I got no clue. Can't without knowing why the AT... you know. Does what they do."

[Ryuki]

"Maybe they do some kind of hustle on the side," Wendy said, "Like drug deals, or weapon manufacturing."

That was the best theory Wendy could come up with. Who knows how these terrorists get this stuff? But that was all they had. Just theories.

"I just wish we weren't stuck in this mess," Wendy said with a sniffle, "Like, why did have to be us? What did we do to deserve this?"

What made these terrorists want to target John Endecott Memorial Academy for their sick game? Did someone from the school tick them off? Did they hold a lottery on which school to target, and JEMA just happened to be the unlucky winner?

"I just hope we can survive," Wendy said.

[BlizzardeyeWonder]

Daniel let out a long sigh. "I don't know."

(He could never know. He could never know why this school, of all the schools in America, was chosen. He could never guess what dangers tomorrow, or even tonight, might bring to them.)

"I'll- I'll try my best. We can try."

(Well, he did know one thing, himself. He'd never been ambushed before, and he'd never held a gun or shot one until this was bestowed upon him. He never had to exercise this much control over how much he ate, and he'd never been this hungry. He never had to control his trigger finger until he learnt that lesson at Fitz's hands. He never had to think about how someone would murder his classmates - yes, he did have to think about it, in detail. How else could he defend against it?)

He shook his head lightly. "Best to conserve our energy," he muttered mostly to himself. On that note, their day would end. Darkness would fall, and they'd fall asleep, or Daniel would try to anyway.

(So now we're alone to ponder this for a moment, or several hours. How would someone kill Wendy? How would you kill Wendy, with your bare hands or the gun you lay next to you? While she sleeps? While nobody else is around to interfere? While you idly wonder what it would feel like, purely out of curiosity of course, what it would feel like when you inevitably take a life?)

(Yes, it is inevitable. You've always been selfish before, why would you have a fundamental change of heart now? Never mind the island, or even high school, what about the many times you took the last of something in the pantry as a child until your mother caught sight of a cookie in your hand and snapped at you, about how nobody ever gives or leaves anything for her? Or how she looked at the dusty floor of the living room and gave you a dirty look while you sat curled up on the couch with a console in your lap? Or the time when...)

He mostly tossed and turned and occasionally knocked his forehead against the stock of the shotgun.

(...and if it weren't for the hard wired disgust at the concept you would have eaten those corpses out of hunger and you know it. Anyway, where were we? Ah right, back in elementary school, one Valentine's day...)

---

Both Karin and Joshua had killed someone yesterday. He made a point to not think about that too hard as he bit into a protein bar for breakfast, or his stomach would churn.

In a certain light, the fact that most of those on the announcements were repeat killers was a bit of a comfort - most of the crazy in this class was concentrated. (For now - the rest hadn't had a good outlet. The pressure would increase with time, as evidenced by the greater number of danger zones, the dwindling amounts of protein bars and places without corpses.)

Still bothered him, how many and how few names he still recognized by face. They were beginning to get fuzzy in his memory, like wear and tear on a tape, or static from a damaged screen. It was harder to concentrate on things. Harder to keep his lips pressed into a neutral expression with the fucking corpses still in view while more deaths poured over their heads.

Harder to keep his voice from cracking as he said, "Let's keep moving, Wendy."

Harder to ignore the whispers that intruded on his thoughts and bayed for his blood.

[Daniel Ozanne continues to seek Elsewhere]

[Ryuki]

The next morning, the announcements came on right on cue.

Karin, the girl who killed Ashlee, killed again. Wendy wasn't surprised, but still disgusted. She was a no good murderer. The way Karin tried to justify her murder of Ashlee was a clear indicator she'd do it again.

The other boy she met yesterday, Josh, had killed as well. Matthew Bell had been mentioned twice. And Bethany, the girl Shawn had been hanging out with, was killed as well. It was a mutual kill between her and Rebekah Hayes. And another student had walked into a danger zone. Guess they wanted to end things on their own terms.

After the announcements, Wendy had some bread and water for breakfast. Once she finished, Daniel said it was time to keep moving. Wendy nodded. She gathered her belongings and followed after him.

(Wendy Kennedy, continued elsewhere...)