Burn On

[JamesRenard*]

The girl didn't answer, neither of them did.

Instead, the blond-haired girl picked up the huge weapon, swung round and pointed it right at him. Garry's eyes went wide and he stepped back, though that wouldn't have helped him in the slightest if she was to fire it, which she was probably intending on doing. 'Shit!'

She was going to try and kill him. All he did was ask for her name, and she was going to blow him to pieces. He needed to stop her. He quickly raised the gun and flicked the safety off. But there was still an element of doubt in his mind.

'I-I can't do it - She's going to kill you - But what about her? - Do it, do it now or you're going to DIE! You don't want to die, do you?'

...

'No I don't.'

His finger tightened around the trigger.

There was an almighty crack. The recoil stung his hand like a bitch, jerking his upwards. He gritted his teeth and scrunched his eyes shut, the tendons and muscles in his arm feeling like they'd just been smashed by Saul's sledgehammer.

He'd been perspiring so much that the gun, as soon as he fired it, slipped out of his sweaty and slippery palms and fell to the floor. 'Aw crap!'

He immediately opened his eyes and tried to catch the gun, but couldn't grab it in time and it clattered on the ground. For a moment, he was worried that it was going to fire again from the impact, but it didn't, just resting there with five bullets inside. He knelt down to pick the gun back up. Taking his eyes off the girl who was still very much alive.

Big mistake. A giggle reached his ears.

THUNK

He froze while down on one knee.

'Oh God no...'

It was that sound. The same godawful sound he'd heard just before Sunil was blasted to pieces. He looked up and saw the girl holding the grenade launcher, aiming right at him. A silver orb flew through the air towards him and hit the ground, bouncing once and then rolling closer and closer. It came to a halt a few meters away from his feet.

'You fucking bitch-'

Garry only managed to turn and take two steps away before the grenade exploded.

----

Saul jumped a foot in the air and screamed when he heard the booming explosion. It was loud, and looking up towards the top of the slope, he could see large plumes of smoke spreading in all directions as they were caught by the breeze.

The smoke was coming from right where Garry had headed off to.

"GARRY!" he yelled, fearing the worst. He scrambled up towards the summit, hoping that Garry was not the one caught up in the blast.

----

One moment, Garry was trying to run away from the grenade, the next he was lying face up on the ground, several meters away from where he was originally, with no recollection of how he'd even got there. The lower part and left side of his body felt like it was on fire though, and he couldn't feel anything below his left knee.

'It... it hurts...'

There was a very good reason for that; he'd suffered extensive burns and lacerations to those parts of his body, and the bottom half of his left leg was no longer attached to the rest of his body. It was just gone, ripped to pieces by the force of the blast.

'Oh god... it hurts so much...'

He blinked, then realized that only his right eye was responding, and that the left side of his vision was black. He tried to move his arm, but the muscles just wouldn't respond. Same for his legs - at least, what was left of one of them. He could move his right arm slightly, but his hands, no dice.

'What... what did she do to me...?'

----

"Oh my God, GARRY!"

He'd been praying, literally praying that Garry was safe as he rapidly made his way up the path to the summit, but Saul's worst fear was sadly realized. Arriving on the scene, he could see Garry lying in a growing pool of blood. Half of his leg was missing, and most of his body and clothes had been burned beyond recognition. It was a sickening sight to lay eyes on, and the smell of burning skin and hair only made it all the more horrifying.

"No... no! this-this can't, it isn't-!" he howled out, ignoring the others assembled nearby and rushing to Garry's side, dropping to his knees. 'This can't be Garry, this can't! There has to be a mistake!' Blood stained his jeans, but Saul didn't give a damn. Garry was all that mattered at that moment in time. "Garry, Garry, hang in there! Please don't die... please, you can't!"

----

'Saul!'

Saul had arrived, and if Garry had been capable of smiling, he would've done. Saul was mouthing things, no, he was shouting things in desperation, looking completely distraught. Garry couldn't hear a word he was saying, in fact, he couldn't hear a single thing apart from a persistent buzzing noise. The explosion had also deafened him, making everything seem like a movie with the sound turned off.

"S-S-Saul," he croaked, barely able to get his friend's name out. It hurt so much to speak, his lungs felt like they were on fire, and he was pretty sure they'd been badly damaged in some way by the explosion, along with the rest of his internal organs. "I-I'm sorry..."

He nearly choked on the words. Not through emotion, he was literally choking on a mixture of saliva, blood and bile that was accumulating in his chest, slowly suffocating him.

He wanted to tell him to go on and survive, he wanted to tell him to hunt down all the bastards who were playing the game, he wanted to tell him to kill the people who'd put them here in the first place, turn the tables on them, make them feel what it was like to be hunted.

But he couldn't. Try as he might, he couldn't force any more words out.

Just one more thing to remind him of how big a failure he was.

He failed Cyrille, he failed Violetta, and Rena, and Sunil. And by rushing up to confront what was going on, he'd failed himself. Here he was, dying, and all because he just had to go investigate something that wasn't even his problem. 'I am such an idiot, I deserve to die for being so stupid,' he thought.

It was getting near impossible to breathe. All he could manage were a few gargled noises from deep in his throat, a sign he was fading fast. The buzzing noise was diminishing, the sight in his good eye was darkening, like he was being dragged backwards through a tunnel.

The last thing he saw before his sight finally gave out was Saul leaning over him, tears running down his cheeks.

'I'm sorry... I'm sorry for everything...'

'Go... win this...'

'Sur... vive...'

B145: GARRY "GAROU" VILLETTE - DECEASED
43 STUDENTS REMAINING

----

"Garry... don't go, please, Garry!"

No response.

"Garry!" He roughly shook his shoulder. Garry's head shook limply from side to side. No movement of his own. No breathing. No pulse. 'No... please, no...'

He was gone.

"Garry..."

Saul immediately buried his face into Garry's chest, clutching the charred and bloodied remains of his shirt tightly. He cried heavily, his back jerking up and down with each sob. The tears flowed freely, a cascade of grief that didn't show any signs of stopping any time soon.

The husky howled to mark the passing of the wolf.

[Grand Moff Hissa]

From her place on the ground, with her blurred vision and tearing eyes, Kimberly could see perfectly for the first time in a long time. There was the discharge of a gun, the thump, the explosion that left her ears ringing, the screams of anguish or sadness. There were the blurs, there was the smoke, and there was Kris, and Kris was what she could see clearly, who she could see clearly. In that instant, she could understand. The chain of events was there in her mind, all too fresh. Boredom, anger, frustration—whatever had carried her to that dock with that knife to that boy's throat—and then it all went wrong. It all fell in on itself, collapsed into fear and pain.

Kris was no monster. She was no fiend. She was a scared girl, a scared girl with remarkably poor self control and decision-making skills, a scared girl perhaps somewhat deficient in empathy, but a scared girl nonetheless. That was all she'd ever been. Whatever happened with Reika, whatever had possessed her to come to that beach, that had been fear. When she'd pulled that trigger, when she'd sent Kimberly spinning to the ground, screaming and bleeding, that had been fear. She could see it. Someone approaches, tries to calm things down in the only way they know how, and it's just impossible to believe them. Oh yes, she could see it.

None of that meant a fucking thing.

There were screams again. There was death again. Kimberly was angry again. Now, though, now she knew more than ever that it wasn't justified. It was the same thing Jeremy had taught her in the forest, so long ago (and he still had her hat, didn't he? She hoped he had that fucking hat. Hoped he went home and looked at it and wondered for a good long time whether such a thing as a lucky hat existed): the strong could take what they wanted, and the weak had to live with it.

Kris wanted to live. Always had, probably. She was too stupid to go about it in a reasonable way, but she couldn't really be faulted for that. She wanted to live, and she was willing to do whatever she thought was necessary in order to survive. Reika, Roland, Kimberly, whoever had just died, all the others, they were nothing to her. Nothing, perhaps, except reminders of what she was losing to attain her goal.

Yes, Kimberly could begin to understand this.

And Erik was out there somewhere. Erik was out there, and Kris had who-knew-how-many shots left. Kimberly didn't want him to die. She didn't want anyone to die. She'd never truly planned to see death, never truly reconciled herself with the idea of killing, even after Aislyn.

This wasn't about her, though. This had absolutely nothing to do with her, with the fact that her anger had boiled away now, with the fact that she thought that maybe, just maybe, she might be able to walk over to Kris and say some silly nothing and they could sit down and talk and maybe make amends somehow. This had nothing to do with the fact that she'd just lost her stomach for torture entirely, at least, as far as Kris was concerned.

This was about someone in the background, grieving so loudly she could hear it as a whisper through the pain in her ears. This was about Erik, out there and in danger. This was about everyone Kris had killed, and everyone she still would kill. It was about lost friends and sisters and lovers, and it was a damn shame, and Kimberly knew there was nothing just or right or heroic about anything she'd done or anything she was going to do, but, just for once, she decided not to take the selfish route, not to do what she wanted, but to do something for everyone else.

Hey, Kris,

She stood, slowly, carefully, making sure not to tip over again. It was hard to hear. It would be hard for everyone to hear. Her hand slid away from her boot, holding the knife. Once fully upright, she took a couple deep breaths, looked at the blurs. Found the right one.

just thought you should know:

One step. Two steps. A flick of the wrist, and the knife was held underhand. She still had her manual dexterity. Good. A couple more steps, arm raising high. Moving, closer and closer. Behind Kris, now. Right behind her.

I forgive you.

She brought the knife down.

[Namira]

Kris's hands were numb. The grenade launcher fell from nerveless fingers, clattered somewhere onto the mountain path. Her ears were ringing. It had been so loud, so bright... And the screaming... Had there been screaming? Was it just the selfish, callous little part of her that refused to give in, refused to stop the bloodshed, roaring in triumph? Was it the other part of her, the part that skateboarded and drew pictures and aspired to be in a skating game one day, screaming in mourning for the person she once was?

The dead.

Maybe that was it. Perhaps it was her conscience, wailing its dirge, but...

Kris was beyond guilt now. She'd just attacked. Like a rabid dog.

What am I...?

She stared down at the weapon. One hand jerked spasmodically towards it, then... then she seized that hand with the other. Clamped down on the wrist. Kris looked at her own hands.

Looked at them until a lance of agony cut straight into her back.

It was the first sensation Kris had truly felt for days.

Hurt.

"K-kris won't hurt us."

"MOMMY IT HURTS! IT HURTS!"

Kris is gonna hurt us

Kris staggered forward, but didn't lose her footing, even though she could feel the blood oozing down her back.

She turned around as if in a dream, eyes wide yet barely seeing anything. The scenery spun wildly around her.

"I forgive you."

You can't

Ihurtyou

youcan't

it's not allowed

Kimberly. It was Kimberly. Blood on her face.

She saw the stiffness of her arm. Where she'd been shot.

Kris's fault.

Could've killed her.

She didn't feel regret.

"Ah'll stand by ya Kris, no matter what ya do."

Didn't deserve you

My fault

Etain I'm sorry I'm so sorry

I let you down

I let everyone down

Kris looked at Kimberly.

Kimberly looked back at her.

She hadn't meant it, back on the beach.

But that - Kris hacked as the pain worked its way deeper into her - that wasn't good enough.

"He-hello?"

VoiceJumpSpinSqueezeBangDead

She falls

god what did I do?

"You cow."

Mördare

sick freak

"DON'T YOU HAVE ANYTHING TO SAY FOR YOURSELF! SAY SOMETHING DAMMIT!"

I'm sorry

I'msorryI'msorry

I tried I justcan't

I'msorry


Kris stumbled again, and this time, didn't keep her balance. She fell to her knees with a thud and the blood was everywhere, she could feel it spilling out onto her jeans and there was just way too much of it for her to possibly be okay. And Kris's head lolled back as she stared up into the sky and a cackling black skull buzzed around her head and taunted her for Al. A haunting piano melody drifted through the air and she looked around and saw Reika, Reika sitting at the keys of a mag ificent piano and a smile was on her face even though there was a hole in her ch st.

K is blinked and glance to one side and saw a girl lying back on the ground next to her. And she looked back and scow ed accusingly because she was impaled to the grou d with a huge metal spike and Kris realised that it was Janet. Kris heard a forlo n howl and there stood a wolf, blo d matting its fur, half of its he d missing. Somewhere, anoth r girl sobbed for their mother, cr ing with pain, desp rate for help, slowly dy ng as she wept.

And Kris tur ed her head and wh re the w lf had be n now inste d was a disjo nted bundle of body par s like some kind of twis ed jigs w puzzle. And she kn w that it was Sunil, and she had d ne that to h m. Then Kris lo ked down to the ground and star ed to cry, te rs spi ling for e ery fu k-up, s arti g f om t at sec nd s e h dn't thr wn the g n aw y in th s amp.

She whi per d

"I'm sorry."

"Tha's alroight, Kris."

And she was wrapped in warm and reassuring arms and it didn't hurt any more.


F29: KRISTINA HARTMANN - DECEASED

[JamesRenard*]

The world was a blur, light and color refracted by the tears that would not stop flowing from Saul's eyes.

He sat back and stared at the swirling black and red mass that was Garry's body. He just continued to lay there as still as a statue, the heat dissipating from his body. He wasn't going to spontaneously leap up and yell "gotcha!" as if he was only playing dead. There was no pretending here, he really was gone and he wasn't going to come back.

'Why? Why did you have to be so stupid? You didn't have to come up here! You'd still be alive if you listened to me in the first place! God dammit, Garry!'

Saul punched the ground and let out a loud sob, ignoring the pain he'd just inflicted on his poor knuckles. He went to rest his head on Garry's chest again, but there was a thump from behind him. Saul whirled round onto his knees and wiped the tears away, giving him a brief view of the scene before his vision could blur over again.

From the few seconds that he was able to see, he witnessed a dark haired girl standing over another female that laid on her side, blood seeping out from a fresh wound in her back. The girl who stood there was holding a knife, stained with blood. Fresh blood.

The girl lying down wasn't moving either. Saul wiped his eyes again, making sure he could see properly, and stared at her more closely. She wasn't just immobile, she wasn't breathing either.

She was dead. Dead like Garry.

Saul looked up at the dark-haired girl, his mouth agape in horror. His eyes flickered back and forth between the girl's face and the stained weapon in her hand. 'No... no...'

Wound. Knife. She'd killed the other person. She was a killer. So... that had to mean...

'She... she killed Garry.'

Saul hurriedly reached into his bag, rummaging through it for several seconds and then brought his hand back out, his fingers clasped tightly around the handle of his gun.

"Hey, you! Yeah you, standing there with the knife. You killed him, didn't you?" Saul snarled, pointing the barrel at Kimberly's torso, his arm shaking badly to match his eyesight. "Didn't you?!"

[Grand Moff Hissa]

And Kris was gone.

Everything else seemed pretty insignificant in light of that fact. Erik was around, somewhere. So was whoever else had been there. Whatever. She just watched the blood flow from Kris, watched the life fade from the other girl.

It took the words of the other boy to shake her from her reverie. He was pointing his gun at her, demanding to know if she'd killed that other guy. All of a sudden, there was nothing in the world more boring for Kimberly than having guns pointed at her. The boy was shaking, maybe in rage, maybe in fear. Kimberly didn't give a fuck what was going on with him, what his problems were. He could go off somewhere else, die or whatever there was left to do in this game.

Maybe he wouldn't. Maybe he'd insist on sticking to his delusions, on getting his revenge on Kimberly. If he did that, he'd have a fun time come the next announcements. Whatever. It wasn't like Kimberly had lost the will to live or anything. She felt pretty much like she'd been feeling for a long time now. Slightly more aimless, but only a bit. She had a pocketful of obsessions. It would be a simple matter to draw a new one forth. She just wasn't quite sure she wanted to yet. She wasn't sure what she wanted in general. Well, mostly. She wanted this loser to fuck off, just now. She wanted some time to think, to talk to Erik. She thought she could hear him, not so far away. She was going to have a lot of explaining to do, probably. She'd have to make sure he understood. That was what being partners meant.

But she had to deal with this shit first.

She dropped the knife. Flexed her fingers. Glanced at the boy.

"Oh, yeah," she said. "I totally picked up that rocket launcher or whatever the fuck it is with my one good arm,"—she gestured at the bandage covering her left shoulder—"aimed the damn thing, and shot someone I couldn't even see. I definitely didn't deal with the person who actually could've done that shit, who killed like a half dozen people or something. That's just unreasonable."

She was tired. Didn't even have the motivation to be properly biting.

"Look, that's Kris Hartmann there. She's been terrorizing everyone since she woke up. Shot me on the first day. Now, you wanna shoot me too and feel better, go ahead. I mean, fuck, you'll probably regret it, but I can't do anything to stop you. Otherwise, fuck off. I kind of need some space here. You aren't the only one who has problems, you know."

Yeah, fuck off. Leave me alone. Go grieve somewhere else. It's hard and shit, sure, like I don't know that. Like everyone else on this island doesn't know that. Like we haven't all hurt by this point.

But she didn't care enough to say all that, to keep on ranting and cutting this boy down. Whatever. So he was selfish and stupid. So what? So was everyone else. So she would hope he'd take it elsewhere and leave her in peace.

"Almost done here, Erik," she called, still facing the grief-stricken boy, calling to her partner, somewhere behind her. Just a little something, to let this boy know she wasn't alone, was no raging psycho, and had someone who would back up her version of events.

[ifnotwinter*]

Everything was happening too fast. Kimberly was behind him and then she wasn't, slipping forwards instead and telling him to wait and that he shouldn't get involved and that she'd be back and then she was smiling (an unbidden picture rising in his mind of those bloody fingertips slipping one by one off the edge of her cliff of sanity) and launching herself at Kris. He stumbled backwards and watched in horror as Kris came back to life and Kimberly wavered under her assault. His body froze as adrenaline flooded in great waves through his veins, caught in that horrific moment between flight and fight where there was nothing but the world and the knowledge of not doing anything--

And then there was a grenade launcher.

Had it been there the whole time?
It must have been.

And there was another boy. He had a gun. There was a grenade launcher and there was a gun and they were being pointed at each other and there was Kimberly, right in the middle of it all. Partners, she'd said. Partners. Partners stick together. They protect each other. And yet here he was standing stupid and frozen in fear. No. No. Couldn't let this happen. He had to go help her. He had to.

He bent down, one hand grabbing for a rock. It fit his palm snuggly -- not much of a weapon, but the best under the circumstances. He was already planning how it was going to go as he stood up, already seeing it in his mind's eye the way he used to visualize his runs. He had height and probably strength advantage over everyone. It would be okay. He could do this. Partners. Protection. He could--

The gunshot was the sound of a whipcrack in the air. The pain was a line of white-hot fire across his ribcage (that wasn't fair, he thought dazedly, they always said shock took care of the pain but this fucking hurt) and the blood that came immediately was a tiny waterfall that soaked his shirt. His knees buckled and dumped him to the ground.

Shot. He'd been shot. He'd been hit by a bullet. Someone had pointed a gun at him or somewhere near him and a bullet had gone into his skin or his body and there was blood. There was blood. He'd been shot. His eyes were squeezed shut but tears still forced their way out hot and wet and salty copper where they mingled on the lip he'd bitten. He'd been shot. And Kimberly was still there and maybe she was dead now or shot too but he didn't know because he. Had. Fucking. Been. Shot.

His mind was blank. His hands were both pressed reflexively to the wound, slipping in crimson. When the explosion came in a wave of hot air and blown-up dust, he couldn't even be sure what it had come from. Someone was screaming but they were far away. Or maybe just sounded far away. The ringing in his ears distorted their voice. It was a boy. He thought he knew that much. The world spun and slid around him. Shock? Blood loss? Maybe. He pressed his face to the earth. Thought dizzily, the bracelets are going to be ruined and choked on a laugh that felt like swallowing razor blades.

Someone was crying. The boy again. Or was it? Kimberly was out there still. And Kris. Kimberly and Kris. He'd been her partner. He was going to protect her. Sorry, Kimberly. He hadn't done that. Was she dead? The explosion. Maybe it had been her.

His eyes opened. The world swam into focus just in time for the knife to come down.

Oh.

Oh.

Oh. Kris was dead. Oh. The panic was gone now. Everything was calm. Kris was dead and someone was dead or probably, anyhow. He thought you might need more limbs or less charred skin to live. There was another boy crying over the corpse. And there was Kimberly in the middle of it. Swaying. Dirty. Alive.

Still alive. Blood from his lip washed around his teeth as his mouth curved into a smile. Still alive. Still there. And okay she'd just killed someone but normal, what was it they'd said? Normal was relative. Lot of crazy going around. People were dead but, but Kimberly wasn't and they were partners and that meant that it was still okay.

He could feel the wound on his side with his fingers. Deep, but not too deep. A graze. He'd gotten, hah, lucky. They'd all gotten lucky. And hell he hadn't done much, or anything to help, but now that part of their lives was over. The piece of shit that was Kris in the fucked-up crapsack of their life was gone. And that was good.

He was slowly pushing himself to his feet when he saw the gun leveled at Kimberly's head. The other boy was shouting something at her and now she was talking back, angry, voice dripping sarcasm but that didn't matter because someone was pointing a gun at her and no, you know what? She wasn't allowed to die now. Erik had just taken a goddamn bullet and still hadn't done shit-all to help and that was not the definition of partners.

She was saying something to him over her shoulder even as he pushed hard and managed to stand. Swayed for a moment, finding his feet again. But they wouldn't let him down. He wrapped his right hand around his side and took a limping step forwards, ignoring the way the world pulsated delicately around him.

"Hey!" Was that really his voice? It was hoarse and strange-sounding and it almost made him pause but no, no, he had to help. Had to protect. Had to keep her safe.

"You heard the lady. Put the -- put the fucking gun down. Just put it down." Or what? He wasn't sure. He took another few steps, drawing level with Kimberly. Under his breath to her, "Sorry. Got, uh. Held up." A bark of not quite laughter again. Considered saying more, decided against it. He thought he sounded like enough of an idiot already.

[JamesRenard*]

'Oh... oh crap...'

According to the girl standing before him, Kris Hartmann lay dead on the floor. He knew the name well, it was the name that Garry had freaked out about. The girl who had killed several people as well as Garry's friend, the girl Garry had thought he'd killed himself. And now she really was dead.

Not before she killed Garry, it seemed.

'Damn... I got this all wrong, didn't i?' he thought. The anger and the hurt was fading, his mind working more rationally as he calmed down. He realized that he'd jumped to conclusions, and that had he been slightly more trigger-happy, he could've killed her in the heat of the moment.

Saul slowly lowered the gun until it pointed at the ground. The girl (who he still didn't know the name of) was neither dangerous nor a threat to him. In all honesty, she'd done everyone remaining on the island a huge favor by taking out one of the biggest killers. He shouldn't have threatened her, it was a bad, bad move on his part and he was fortunate that it hadn't escalated into something worse.

Saul opened his mouth to apologize to her, as he rightly should've done.

But then she carried on and told him to fuck off.

'W-what?!'

All thoughts of saying sorry flew out of the window. Instead of an apology, Saul's mouth just hung open with nothing coming out. He really couldn't believe what he was hearing. His best friend had just been killed, and now he was being run off by that, that bitch! Wasn't he even allowed to grieve for his friend?! How unfair was that?!

He wanted to stay behind. He wanted to show her that she couldn't just boss him around. What he was doing didn't even concern her, so she could just butt out and leave him alone. She should be the one to leave, he wanted to stay there and be with his friend for as long as he could.

But he didn't.

"Fine..." he muttered, glaring at the girl. Her friend approached her from behind, a patch of bright red covered his shirt. Saul briefly wondered what had happened to the blond-haired guy, but as terrible as it sounded, he really didn't care anymore. Both of them could just drop off the face of the Earth as far as he was concerned. "Fine... I'll go."

And so he did, turning on his heel and starting to walk away from the pair. He passed by Garry's body, looking down at his face and sighed noisily. Garry's gun lay on the ground, Saul bending down to scoop it up; he wasn't about to let anyone else have that weapon if he could help it, especially not the pair standing behind him. Fuck that.

As Saul made his way down the path leading from the summit, he stepped over a blackened and misshaped piece of fabric. The charred remains of what was once a green beret.

((Saul Fetteralf continued in The Wolfman Cometh))

[Grand Moff Hissa]

The annoying boy left. Good. That was good. That was something, at least. Kimberly didn't need his self-indulgent bullshit, not now, not ever. She just needed to sit down, to sit down somewhere and pull herself together a little, to come to terms with all the ways the world had changed. That was for later, though. For now, she saw that Erik was here, and he was bleeding. Kimberly couldn't even begin to figure out what had happened. Didn't much care. He was here, and he was hurt, and it wasn't like she had any clue what the fuck she was doing when it came to medicine, but she wasn't dead yet, and she was better than nothing.

"Hey, it's okay," she said, glancing after the boy to make sure he didn't have a parting shot planned. He didn't. "Things came out okay. You alright?"

Erik didn't look alright. She was just asking as a formality, to let him hang onto some pride or some shit like that. Kimberly knew all about getting hurt. She knew all about not wanting help. She knew all about needing it. One way or the other, she was going to browbeat Erik into taking care of himself. That was what partners meant. That was what caring about someone meant. That was something worth doing, something worth living for.

Kris was dead, gone. It was still soaking in. Still hard to believe. Sarah and Bridget were gone. Brook was out there, somewhere, in his shrine of death, but Kimberly wasn't going to drag Erik there to deal with it, armament of flammables or no.

She felt like she'd hated other people too, had wanted to make other people pay, but she just couldn't remember whom. She was pretty much spent. It just didn't seem worth the effort to go dredging up ancient angers, to stoke the fires of dead grudges. She could help Erik. For now, that would have to be enough.

"I can help you out with that," she added. Then, with a hint of a smile: "I know a bit about cleaning wounds."

[ifnotwinter*]

It all seemed a bit anticlimactic when the other boy just...walked away. If he'd been in a movie, Erik thought, there would have been some dramatic last stand. It was perfect. Him and Kimberly outlined in bright blood, facing off against a stronger enemy amidst the carnage lef behind. Oscar bait for sure. Starring roles. But the tension had gone out of the moment like air from a balloon, and there was just him. And Kimberly. Just partners, standing unsteadily together against...what?

Who knew.

He gave her a shaky smile, one hand splayed firmly against the torn place where blood leaked sluggishly between his fingers. It wasn't all bravado -- the warmth of shock and adrenaline in his veins helped enough that he didn't feel particularly panicked. That would come later. Later he would think about blood and bullets and knives and two dead people at his feet where there had been two live ones earlier. Later he could scream and cry and break down but in the here and now there were things to do and people depending on each other and he was one of them, so.

"I'm okay," he said. And meant it. "It's not so bad. I think it just winged me. Week and a bit on this stupid island and -- first one to get me wasn't even aiming, it's just," he choked on a nervous laugh, "um, funny. I guess."

Besides, he knew how this went. He'd seen the movies. He was supposed to be the one tending her. "Are you?"

[Grand Moff Hissa]

It seemed like Erik was as fine as you could be with blood running down your side. Good. Kimberly would've been pretty fucking pissed if he'd dropped dead on her. That wasn't what partners meant. That wasn't what was supposed to happen, not now. Not after everything she'd done. And then he asked her if she was alright. She blinked, bit back the instinctual flash of resentment. Erik wasn't trying to imply she was worthless. He was doing his part as a partner, same as her.

Besides, as she thought about his question, the answer was all too clear.

"No," she said.

"I mean, fuck, she didn't hurt me too bad. Lost my glasses, but fuck 'em. But, you know, it just wasn't, this wasn't how it was supposed to happen. I didn't want this to happen."

And that was that. She wanted to kick something. Wanted to burn something. Her matches found their way to her hand, inside her pocket, hidden from view. She couldn't even begin to describe what she was feeling, not in her own words. And then, all of a sudden, there it was. A flash from reality, a way to make it all make sense.

"Hey, Erik," she said. "You ever read Frankenstein?"

[ifnotwinter*]

No, she'd said, and wasn't that just the truth? No. Of course she wasn't. Beaten half to hell, no glasses, bullet wound she'd been carrying for days and that sure as hell wasn't okay. Those bodies lying in front of them -- one lying, anyhow, one sort of scattered -- they weren't okay either; they were dead. The boy who'd left probably wasn't even close to okay. The whole world around them or at least the little bubble world that was the island was no, no, no.

But he'd said yes.

And he was, Erik thought. A little band-aid of yes over a torn flesh wound leaking no, scraps of no ragged against gleaming white no-bone, no spurting from arteries and no hardening and drying under his nails -- but yes still holding the ripped edges of no together. That was what came to mind when she said Frankenstein, when literature crept into the morbidly visual effects invading his subconscious.

He shook himself briefly, like a dog. Pinned his lips around no and said, instead "Uh-uh. Well." This was easier. Conversation. Something where he wasn't thinking grandiose and stupid thoughts that would disappear like smoke on the wind or will-o-the-wisps when the shock wore off and cold hard reality set in, bringing pain as a permanent house-guest. "Read bits of it. Did Lit but we never got so far in, just analyzed the hell out of it and then got in trouble when someone wrote a four page essay on it being about repressed sexual issues."

[Grand Moff Hissa]

Kimberly chuckled at Erik's response, but only briefly. Leave it to school to ruin a good book. Leave it to teachers to miss the point.

She turned away from Erik and just stood, looking out over the island. From here, she could see almost all of it, just by rotating. It was a good place to be, as good as any. A good place to die, perhaps. That was some solace.

"Too bad," she said. "It's worth a read. Frankenstein is this scientist, you know? And he creates a monster. He doesn't try to, it's just, he has this life in his hands and he's too much of a fucking coward to realize, so he gets scared and he hurts his creation, and he drives it away, and that's when it really becomes a monster.

"And this monster, it doesn't die off like it's supposed to. Everywhere it goes, it can't escape from Frankenstein's memory. They're drawn to each other, feedback loop or some shit, and they haunt each other, destroy each other, and they just keep going, and it looks like it'll never stop, and then one day the monster takes things a bit too far and Frankenstein bites off a bit more than he can chew, and he ends up dead.

"And you know what's funny? The monster, he realizes that maybe they were never so different after all. He realizes that, fuck, that maybe things could have been different, maybe better. And then he realizes that maybe there's not a place for him anymore, and so he goes far away from everyone and he burns himself on a pyre."

And Kimberly withdrew the matches from her pocket and pitched them as far as she could, off the side of the mountain.

"Fuck that, you know? Fuck not learning from your mistakes. Fuck giving up. It's like... Erik, I've fucked up so many times, and I don't even know what's right anymore. I think I did the right thing, but I can't know, and that's awful, and I don't even know if I care, and that's worse. But I just want to stop all this shit, break out of my cycle, you know? I just want things to be better, and I know they never will be."

She sighed. Erik seemed a little out of it still. Probably fucking lying about being fine. Probably she would have to patch him up later. She didn't care, not in the slightest. She could almost smile again. She could talk to someone, could interact without hating. She could live with everything she'd done again. No regrets, not now. Never again.

"I'm sick of this mountain. Let's find some shelter or something."

It didn't take long to pack and get moving. Kimberly didn't bother with the weapons strewn around. She didn't really expect to need them anymore.

((Kimberly Nguyen and Erik Laurin continued in Everybody Knows))