Dissolve

[Dr Adjective]

Bright sunlight filtered in through the gaps in the blinds, melding with the tepid yellow glow of fluorescent tubes. For a moment, the groggy creature stirring in the room's only bed wondered if she was somewhere else. Somewhere warm and inviting, where a pretty girl was waiting to play Super Smash Bros with her.

[Evie McKown limps on into the future.]

Groaning heralded Evie's return to consciousness. The soft rustle of bedsheets, the creak of something firm underneath her calf. The hazy image of a nondescript hospital room came into focus, smaller lights became distinct from the noise, soft beeps emitted from some unseen machine. No, it wasn't Kelsey's living room. But it was somewhere, anywhere, other than the island. So she relished it. It was somewhere to be, somewhere warm and safe, somewhere - thank God - boring and uneventful. Somewhere to be. All she had. The glare of the low winter sun, the indistinct noises of human and machine activity. The room. The pain. She was still alive. In that moment, Evie told herself that she wouldn't put up with being cold ever again.

Turning her gaze down, the girl took stock of herself. A glimpse of a hospital gown under the bedsheet, her leg suspended at a slight angle, a thick plaster cast encasing where she'd been shot.

She could only assume she’d fallen asleep on the boat after the strong painkillers she’d been given, and been kept sedated so as to operate as quickly as possible. Lucky for her it was comfortable; looked like she'd be bed-bound for a good while.

Next, she looked to the far side of the room. A nurse appeared to have noticed her waking, and approached to check on her. He explained that she would need to be monitored for complications and the progress of her recovery. That she was in a military hospital on a base near Tacoma, where they’d operated on her leg to hopefully save the use of it. Most pressingly, that someone from law enforcement would want to ask her about her experience now that she was awake. Evie thanked him, and enquired in return about food and painkillers: already her stomach growled with demands for something hot and not-bread, whilst her face, hands, flank, and obviously leg all throbbed with varying levels of pain.

Answers delivered, the nurse soon departed, and Evie was left to wallow in stillness. Punctuated only by the ambient sounds of medical equipment, seconds bled into minutes, and her thoughts turned inexorably to the journey that had brought her to this point. To her immense luck at surviving, the monstrous unfairness that survival hadn’t come a day or more sooner.

Or later.

No. No, it was no more worth dwelling on what she might’ve achieved than on who might’ve survived. The dice had already fallen, past was past, all that was left was the make the best of now, just as she’d made the best of then. On the island she’d striven to win; to survive. Now, goals had to align again to the new reality.

So with respect to how she’d gotten here? Evie would have to do everything she could to be helpful. She’d already expected, hoped, to come home a winner, and that came with anticipating that some people would simply never accept that one could be a survivor and a victim at the same time. She’d have to prove herself not bloodthirsty, not monstrous, just afraid.

Maybe she’d even convince herself, if she tried hard enough.

Until her questioner arrived however, there was nothing to do but wait. Wait to see if the hospital could produce something for a vegan sick to death of bread to eat, wait among the supplies and machines, and try not to think too much about Chloé, nor Lara, nor DeMarcus. Not Dani, Anthony, Kaede, nor least of all Kelsey, and how much they each deserved to have survived too. About how much their families would hate her. How she’d be a pariah. How she could never show her face in Salem again, how…

A knock at the door disrupted the downward spiral. A man’s voice enquired if Evie wanted to see a visitor.

First she looked to the familiar face behind the uniform at her door, then to the unfamiliar one who’d asked. Something about the juxtaposition struck her as odd, just for a moment. And then she nodded.

[ViolentMedic]

“Good morning!”

((Marshall West continued in the Aftermath.))

Marshall spoke brightly and loudly, a near-perfect mimicry of his old self, as he hauled his IV in. The moment he’d figured out it had wheels, he’d been difficult to contain to one room. The staff had relented and allowed him to move about after they realised the alternative was him doing exercises he didn’t have the energy for.

They couldn’t perform surgery on his hand yet, because infection had set in. Replacing the bandages had been gruesome enough. They’d prescribed him antibiotics, and lectured him intensely about his choices. ‘Next time, actually use the first aid supplies you have and change the bandages regularly.’ In case Marshall ended up in a second death game, he supposed. He’d been patched up as best they could for now.

Aside from a bunch of half-healed cuts in his scalp, the frostbite on his nose and cheek, an achy skull, and the lingering exhaustion caused by the experience in general… he was in better shape than he had any right to be.

He was alive. Against all odds, he was alive, and only because Kai died to make it happen.

He couldn’t rest. Because whenever he laid down, this fact gripped his lungs and squeezed, and the only way to make it relent was to get back up.

He had to do something. He had to use the time given to him well.

What came to mind when he thought about using his time well was checking on everyone else. He was the only member of the student council left here… it felt like his responsibility to try and look after them.

Even if Evie was one of those people.

Marshall approached the bed and examined Evie, keenly aware that they were supervised. It was for the best. They couldn’t know what was going through his head. He could be like Matthew, trying to take revenge now.

Anthony, one of the track team members. Dani, someone who’d always been around since grade school. Lara, the other lacrosse captain. DeMarcus… someone whose death caused a lot of conflicting emotions, now that they knew it never had to happen. And Chloé. …Chloé hurt so much to think about. Five that could have made it back, and didn’t. And one who only made it back because he and June had made it happen.

There was a lot to think about. A lot to talk about. But right now, Evie looked as exhausted as the rest of them.

So Marshall kept the smile up, and hoped if he tried enough he could make it reach his eyes.

“How’s your leg?”

[Dr Adjective]

In burst Marshall West. Bright eyed and bushy tailed, in clear defiance of... well, of everything. Of reality. Why?

His greeting was warm enough, his manner charming enough, but all it did was put the beginnings of a scowl on Evie's face in reply. Good morning he said, as if it were as simple as that, stepping out of their frozen nightmare into happily ever after where all was well. Over he sauntered with IV in tow, as if to highlight her lack of mobility. When he was slow to follow up his greeting, eventually Evie responded with a half-hearted wave as he drew near and took a look at her cast-encased leg, the yellowing bruises that covered much of her visible skin, at the way her nose had healed slightly crooked from being broken. Not that Marshall himself was unscathed: even covered in bandages, it was clear to her that his hand had seen better days and wouldn't simply heal back, to say nothing of his face.

They'd both been through hell, were still going through it. Yet the hells were all too different.

At last, Marshall asked how Evie's leg was.

It had to be a jest or a taunt, she couldn't conceive of what else he could possibly be asking for. He hated her. Of course he did, they all did, all of them that had kept their heads down and escaped with clean hands. Everyone that had bet their lives on bad odds and won nonetheless. Like zealots, they couldn't help but scorn the non-believer. Evie hadn't put her faith in the hand of fate coming to pluck her away from danger, she'd put in the work towards saving herself, and for that she had to be shunned. How's your leg? How the fuck did he think it was, perforated by a maniac who hadn't known when to stop, wrapped in fibreglass and confined to a bed?

"Fucked."

By now, her scowl was quite fully formed, wordlessly asking the question screaming inside its owner's mind: what the fuck do you want from me? But Evie decided against immediately going on the defensive, she wouldn't give him the satisfaction of an opening to respond to. If he wanted to judge her, he could make the first overt move, not keep acting like he was better than her. Instead, she parried.

"And your hand?"

[ViolentMedic]

She didn’t look pleased to see him.

Marshall decided to ignore that.

“Itchy. They can’t do much about it until the infection goes away, but… most of the hand is still there. Silver lining.”

He wasn’t sure how much finger he’d have left once they did the surgery. Marshall had seen a glimpse (despite the doctor telling him not to look) and it had been difficult to discern what was what. Just that it hadn’t looked… good.

“There's a silver lining with your leg, too. At least you got shot at the end, not at the start. You’ve got a much better chance of getting use of the leg back than if it’d been days with no treatment.”

That meant Matthew had a good chance of recovering, too. ...More than he deserved.

A flicker of Marshall’s frustration flickered across his face, his own expression twitching into a frown for a moment, before he pushed it down and tried to wrap that in a little box for later.

“I came to check on you. See if I could get you anything. Not just you, I’m checking everyone.” Marshall drummed his fingers against the IV before he added, “And it’d be bad if you died now, after the effort of getting you off island.”

He kept the smile up, but he couldn’t make the last sentence sound entirely convincing.

[Dr Adjective]

It was a double-edged issue, Evie could agree. As much as she dwelt on having been shot after the final whistle, it was no small mercy that it meant she was almost immediately treated not by a teenager with a first-aid class under their belt, but actual qualified medics. She was confident that she'd walk again, the nurse had suggested she'd need at least a couple of weeks to recover but hadn't intimated they expected any major complications. Evie hadn't had the heart to ask what it would mean for her swimming. Having no information, she could remain blindly hopeful instead. If, of course, she still had it in her to compete again.

What Marshall didn't know was that her injury wasn't the only thing Evie had to dwell upon. She wanted to know who'd done it, and perhaps more importantly, why they'd done it after the metaphorical final whistle. She wanted to know if the familiar sound that accompanied the shooting meant she'd been targeted on purpose, meant that it was the same person who'd shot and killed Kelsey, perhaps thinking she was someone else. The two did cut a similar figure at a distance.

"Yeah. Hopefully less than a month, they think."

The relief and the optimism were real, but the bitterness remained layered over them. Evie's expression still said what her voice didn't: what do you want?

And then, he had to twist the knife. He had to remind her. The effort of getting you off island. What exactly did he mean by that? His effort? The military's? That she didn't warrant those efforts, after her own efforts to survive? That she should be grovelling and thanking him for the mercy she hadn't been able to dispense?

Fuck that.

"June's effort."

She wasn't about to let him take credit for that, unless he knew something she didn't. Maybe he'd tell her. Speaking of June's struggle...

"How's her arm, anyway?"

[ViolentMedic]

“June’s effort. You’re right. She did a lot for you. I hope you remember to thank her once she wakes up.” Marshall glanced back at the door. “I wasn’t allowed in to see her, so I’m not sure. But the people keeping me out said she was stable. Resting.”

He hoped the guards hadn’t been lying just to keep him out. There was no reason they’d lie… but still, Marshall worried about June. She needed to be okay.

Evie hadn’t acknowledged that Marshall had done anything to help, so she probably didn’t know. Of course. Who would have had time to tell her? She’d barely been conscious by the time she was rescued, and she’d barely woken up. And if she didn’t realise Marshall helped, then...

“Okay. I’m not just here to check up on you. I’m here to keep a couple of promises I made to myself. And one of them was to make sure what happened on island doesn’t get brushed away. So.”

Marshall moved closer to the bed, glancing around before he found a chair to nudge over with his foot before sitting down, so he could look Evie better in the face.

“Matthew shot you. I’m sure he would have finished you off if June and I hadn’t stopped him. I thought you deserved to know.”

And that Matthew deserved not to be able to hide it.

[Dr Adjective]

So he did know something she hadn’t. And he had been part of saving her life, quite possibly risking his own in the process. Last she’d heard, Matthew had been closing in on Evie’s own body count. He was, come to think of it, probably the single greatest obstacle Evie had left to face had the rescuers not intervened: taller, stronger, more experienced with real firearms, everything she brought to the table as a competitor but more.

But why? Why keep it up after he knew they were all going home? Sure, his politics and hers didn’t align but Evie didn’t have the boy down as a violent maniac. She’d assumed he’d come to the same unlovely conclusions as her and chosen to fight for his life. Evidently assumed wrong.

But there was a second why. Why tell her? What did Marshall stand to gain from revealing a secret so incendiary, that could easily have gone to the grave? Did he want her to go after Matthew? Did he want gratitude, to lord his moral superiority over her? Evie chose not to give him the satisfaction of her thanks, much as they may have been owed.

Her right hand came up to brush aside stray hair around her eyes. Evie remained silent for a second or two, at once looking at Marshall yet averting her eyes from meeting his. Her slender fingers lingered for a moment on the bridge of her nose, feeling where the shape had changed from how she remembered it. A memory of Anthony Jones that she’d always have to carry. Eventually, she allowed herself to meet Marshall’s gaze, and spoke.

“Why?”

An open question, he could interpret it how he wanted.

[ViolentMedic]

Why?

Why what?

“Hrrrrmmmmm...”

Marshall crossed his arms, kicking one of his feet idly.

“If you’re asking why Matthew did it… that one’s easy. He had a problem with the idea of killers being able to leave the island. Though he also seemed to think that he was exempt and that all his own kills were justified or small mistakes. Even though he’d threatened California with torture over nothing, and shot her for even less. So… the reason he did it is that he’s a sub-human piece of garbage who thinks he’s a hero.”

Bitterness crawling back into his voice, though the tone failed to affect the still-present smile. If Evie lost her sense of hearing all of a sudden, Marshall would look casual enough.

“If you’re asking why I told you… it’s because I don’t want him to get away with it.” Marshall raised his good hand, realising what he might have implied, and added, “I don’t want physical vengeance wreaked upon him or anything like that. I just don’t want it to be ignored.”

He lowered his hand again, drumming the good fingers against his arm.

“And… if you’re asking why we saved you…”

The smile faded as he thought about it for a few moments. As much as he wondered if he’d regret saving Evie in the long run… just as he might regret Matthew… when it came down to it, that didn’t really affect the fact that it had been inevitable.

“Truthfully, I didn’t know it was you at the time. But I don’t think that mattered. Too many people died. It didn't matter how many of those deaths you caused. Anyone that could be saved had to be saved. I’m sure June would agree.”

[Dr Adjective]

Mmhm, of course you don’t. That’s why you came to the next biggest monster to tell her she’s got a great reason to hate him.

Why else? If Matthew was less than human, what did that make Evie in his eyes? Barely human? Sub-human, non-garbage? Regardless of the specifics, she didn’t need to devote much thought to getting the gist of Marshall’s opinion. But if he hoped to get rid of both of them on the sly, she wouldn’t be obliging.

“I agree too, believe it or not.”

On a calm and logical level, at least. Had it been her behind the trigger, and had she known then that Matthew had been responsible for Kelsey’s slow death in her arms… perhaps she wouldn’t have been so logical. Lucky for both of them that hadn’t been so. She wouldn’t waste her stay of execution by committing a cold-blooded murder now.

“I don’t expect it to change your mind about me, but what I did… it wasn’t for anything more or less than survival.”

Better not to even bring up the word win. It’d be too hard to hide her reaction to the notion. To how much she’d wanted triumph as well as life, by the end. At least in part to draw attention from her expression, Evie adjusted her wounded leg. Grimace, grunt, display of some other reason for discomfort.

“I wish it’d ended sooner, that I’d known, that I could’ve stopped, sooner.”

For Kaede? Literally minutes sooner. Kelsey? About a day. Everyone else? Every second counted, potentially.

“Juanita made it back too, right? Can you let me know how she’s doing?”

[ViolentMedic]

Marshall’s eyes moved down to Evie’s leg as she adjusted it, missing the shift in her expression.

He wasn’t sure what to believe. He hadn’t seen why Chloé and Evie had been fighting, but once Chloé had suffered that injury… it had been at least intended as a mercy kill. He could understand it, even if he disagreed with it. If it had ended there… even if it had been an indefensible kill, that would have been one thing. But piling on body after body… why did four more need to die for survival? Aside from DeMarcus, he’d known all the others to be reasonable, rational people.

But he would have said that about almost everyone in their class, and it had proven wrong once the game got to them. Like Josh… he’d been so bland and inoffensive that Marshall could never have anticipated him doing anything but folding like cardboard in the face of the game. Instead he’d killed three people, and been congratulated by the terrorists by name for it.

Marshall was sure the boy he’d been two weeks ago would have deemed the current Marshall unforgivable, too. After Jacob. After failing Jess, Chloé, California, Kai.

He looked back up again. Back at Evie’s exhausted face. Then he slapped his legs before getting up with a groan that was embarrassingly reminiscent of the elderly.

“I’ll check on Juanita, then! I’ll report my findings later.”

He shuffled towards Evie’s door, followed by the light squeak of his IV wheels. He stopped by the door, bouncing a little on his feet as he tried to think of words that fit what he felt.

“I think a lot would have been different if we’d known. But we didn’t,” he finally said. “A lot of what was done would be more forgiveable if there’d only been one survivor… if it had been inevitable. But that’s not how it went. It makes everything messy. It makes my head hurt thinking about it… but that might just be the general agonies. Either way… I think it’s best considered later, once you’ve had rest.”

He looked back and fixed a big grin back on his face before pointing at Evie.

“So… do that! Good-bye!”

He could hate Evie later.

Much later.

((Marshall West continued elsewhere.))

[Dr Adjective]

Back came the irritating pep. Marshall announced his intent to check on Evie’s erstwhile partner, seemingly making a purposeful show of how functional his legs both still were as he went to the door and lingered there a moment.

But then, the gravity returned. A lot of what was done, he said, not taking any responsibility of his own. To the best of Evie’s recollection, no, Marshall hadn’t gotten his own hands dirty. So why the air of shame? Had he nearly? Been ready to? Been where Evie had been perhaps a week prior, building himself up to the deed?

Impossible to know. Just as it was impossible to know how different things might’ve been if they’d been rescued sooner, no matter how much she turned it over in her mind. Maybe a different girl would’ve made it back home, but it was too late to not become this girl.

Finally, as if a switch were suddenly flipped, Marshall’s exaggerated smile returned to accompany his advice not to think too hard about it. Easier said than done, especially with someone in uniform en route to question her about her experiences. Nope, Evie would be agonising over what was and might’ve been for a good while yet.

“Yeah, take care,”

Her choice of goodbye hadn’t been meant in sarcasm, just a typical phrase to use. Given the circumstances, it hit a little different all the same.

[Evie McKown's got plans to be in a warmer town, come summertime.]