Dysthemia Morte

[Espi]

((Blair Moore continued from Creeping Doom))

It was too much.

On one hand, she was vindicated, proven in her suspicion of Caedyn Miller's morals, ethics and intentions. The bitch had apparently bludgeoned and stabbed a girl to death. Knocking someone over the head? Possible accident. Stabbing them repeatedly? There was no other way to put it; she was a psycho.

The rest of the deaths barely registered as she sat on the sandy beach; same killers, more victims. That Will guy killed someone apparently, the infamous Darius van Dyke, but that was all. Mostly it was Caedyn. Because Blair being right about the other girl was a chilling prospect; she really was dangerous.

It startled Blair when it occurred to her that murdering Caedyn was now much less morally questionable. Stupid idea. As long as the bitch didn't show up on Blair's doorstep, she'd probably get killed by someone else. It wasn't Blair's problem, sick as it was. Plus, she was unarmed and probably less fit than Caedyn, though she'd hate to admit it.

Since running into that creep Alan, Blair had spent the day wandering to and from the asylum, somehow slipping any sort of contact with other students, though she did have to hide on occasion. She had been soaked in the rain and cold and was probably going to get sick, but shelter was an enticing risk. After all, other people wanted it too.

Now that Day 5 had rolled in, she was frankly surprised she was still alive. Not for lack of trying and luck, but for all her bluster about staying alive, she'd had doubts. It was still early, and very likely that she was still doomed in the short and long run, but living to see morning five days in a row on a murderer-filled island was good enough for her.

Shivering in the wind, Blair checked her rations in the bag sitting next to her for the umpteenth time. Only about a day left worth of stuff. Not good, but what solution was there? Looting corpses? Robbery? She was better than that, and stealing was impractical, dangerous and difficult without a weapon.

Another day, another problem. How wonderful. She laid back in the surprisingly comfy sand and closed her eyes.

[Aura]

((Rene Wolfe continued from Calm Before the Storm))

Another incredibly uncomfortable night passed, making way for yet another ungodly shitty day ahead.

Rene wasn't usually the pessimistic type. She liked to approach each day with at least a somewhat positive outlook. Unfortunately, when the best she could hope for out of any particular day was that she would be granted the privilege of continuing to breathe, that tended to take a lot of sunniness out of the way that she looked at things.

It certainly didn't help that she had a pretty good feeling that she was losing weight. Not in the healthy 'finding a diet and exercise routine that works for you' way, but more of the 'I'm starving and running around a borderline-deserted island' sense. She had been surviving almost solely on crackers and water, with about one energy bar per day. Wasn't there a quote about how man cannot live on bread alone? Well, Rene was trying that shit, and she was inclined to agree.

The announcements had offered her no encouragement either. More people died. Some she knew, some she didn't. She had a feeling that she should probably feel more affected than she did about this, but after three announcements almost exactly like it, she couldn't muster up much of a response aside from general grief at their situation. She didn't know whether this meant she was becoming numb to it, or if she was headed for a breakdown later on. She just hoped that she lived long enough to find out.

Once she was finished with her morning crackers, she walked over to where Blair was lying in the sand and sat next to her.

"Hey. Room for one more?"

[shotgunkid*]

((Wade Cartwright continued from Remember Everything)).

He awoke groggily inside the large cavern with multiple aches and sores on all of his limbs, and his entire side well-caked with sand, a leg soaking wet from the high tide that had risen and ebbed during the night.

That was what Wade Cartwright got for trying to just slum it, but he could live with it. Day five. Day five. The game was almost at its halfway point. Most of them had ended around the two-week mark. Pep himself up. Only a few more days to go before he was dead meat. No, force that out of mind. Only a few days before-- living on? Salvation? Winning? Come on!

In the end, the little cadre had split up after Trav had discovered the body of his apparently-dear friend, Toby.  He just pissed off in a huff to find this Jerry character and left Cass to split off from him in turn, in a heartbeat. No Ten Little Indian shit, no dramatic and tearful betrayal. Just a quick and awkward breakup. Left alone. Hanging.

And that had given Wade the cue to focus on reassessing his situation. He just looked about the map of the island and thought a little bit. These announcements gave no damn clue, not the least, as to the locations of murders, so analyzing those was out. He still didn't feel the impulse to go anywhere in particular tickling his guts, not even after all this time (five damn days already?) so he just plopped down and slummed it in an appropriately secluded spot. Notably, one that wasn't corpsefront property. (Who was she again? Andreassen? Andreasson? It was kind of sad he couldn't even call up her name for crissakes. So much for small world! It wasn't even a small school!)

The announcement instantly annihilated his train of thought and put it back on track. Voice again. Names names NAMES! Had he even been paying attention these past few days?!

Will McKinley, the boy he'd met that first morning, had killed. Faint memories. In retrospect, he did seem the reckless type, but..

Bernadette Thomas, sounded familiar. Maybe they'd known each other and had just forgotten. The name meant nothing much now-

Irene Djezari.



GodDAMNIT!

If only he hadn't acted so damn rough toward her, had spoken more softly, had just been more convincing..! DAMNIT! GOD-! FUCKING-! DAMNIT!

How much had she let on? How many things did that Alvaro bastard know now?! Of all the things!

Wade instinctively stood up, fists clenched. This wasn't any time to mess around or dick around! Alvaro was a known player! If that shit knew about the group.. about him! There could be an armed murderer after him right this second! He had to.. he had to..

Breathe in. Breathe out. It didn't do much to stem the panic, but it kept him from losing control. That's it, that's good. You need to be focused, because this is the exact. time. when shit goes wrong the most. You blow off half-cocked and you'll just be playing into your enemy's hands. You have to be chilled. Ice.

Dammit...! His mind flooded with regret, and he wracked himself for any distraction.

There it was. There were two chicks standing near the cave's mouth. People. Numbers. Safety. It'll be alright. It'll be alright.

He managed to calm down just enough to be satisfied with how he was carrying himself, and cautiously approached Blair and Rene from behind. It would be suicide to sneak up on them like this if they were well-armed, so he tried to make a respectably loud sound:

"Hey."

It felt just a little on the loud side- no, too quiet! Argh, why did he have to be so awful at judging the sound of his own voice? Breathe in, breathe out. It isn't that important. Focus on the moment. Either one of those options could be recovered from, yes, this place was increasingly.. barren (what a euphemism.) and he could always repeat himself just that little bit louder.

At least he knew the dead girl's name for sure now. That counted for some situational awareness, right?

[Espi]

Rene sat down next to Blair, who tried to smile in return. Not much luck, but some progress was made. She sat up and brushed the sand out of her hair. She looked at her companion. The poor thing, she was probably used to eating a lot-well, okay, that was unfair. What a time to be judging someone for their lifestyle, when they're one of the few people you think won't be out to kill you.

"Hey. Go ahead, not like I'm doing much." Fuck, her mind went back to Caedyn. She'd won something, hadn't she? A prize for being a good sport. Hah. Fun times.

"It's a stupid name, Survival of the Fittest." Blair spoke up after a moment of silence. "It's a misappropriation of a scientific term. If this was about the fittest, we'd all be equally armed to start, so we'd adapt. And I mean, in the real situation we'd reproduce but nobody here is thinking about babies I'd bet."

Just then, before Blair could continue her random train of thought, some guy called out. She turned to look at him; he wasn't a familiar face, but at least he seemed not-crazy, unlike Alan.

"Sup. You here to kill us?" Blair heaved herself to her feet. "'Cause you can try, but I'm bulletproof and my friend here has, uh, we'll say eye laser powers. The water's, I dunno, radioactive or something." She shrugged comically. A bit of mirth, not like her, but she was beyond taking this seriously. Someone here was probably going to kill her, and it was doubtful she'd get a chance to fight back when it came down. Why not go out with a snarky one-liner?

[Aura]

Rene nodded in agreement as she listened to Blair's criticism of the whole SOTF concept. To be honest, Rene never would have thought to bring up any arguments against it aside from the whole part about them being forced to kill each other, which was such an obvious problem that it wasn't really worth debating. However, Blair was right. They weren't testing who was the fittest to survive in a hostile environment. With the random weapon assignments, danger zones, and other dickery, the terrorists were pretty obviously just entertaining themselves with this whole mess. Yeah, it was sick, but that was why they earned the brand of "terrorist", now wasn't it?

It was a line of conversation that probably could have provided some brief source of entertainment for both of them. Too bad someone else decided to butt in out of the blue. That was a trend that seemed to be becoming disturbingly common for them as of late. She turned to see who was calling out to them, and this time it was easy to out a name to a face. It was hard to miss Wade in a crowd, and even harder out of one. Probably helped that she knew him decently well, though. It was surprising how a few conversations about League of Legends can familiarize one with their peers.

Blair had elected to take the not-giving-a-fuck approach to introductions. Strategically, it probably wasn't the best move, but they still had a two-on-one advantage, and now they could still have fun despite being so rudely interrupted. So if Blair wanted to screw around, then Rene was game.

"Yeah, we're basically the sisters of destruction out here." She followed up her ally's description of themselves. "We've been wrecking so much shit that they're afraid to talk about us." To take the facade further, the flexed a nearly nonexistent bicep and gave a toothy, over-the-top smirk. "Yeah, you're lucky you didn't explode when we looked at you just now."

Was it stupid? Yes. Was it fun? Yes. By that logic, why not just go for it?

[shotgunkid*]

Emotional forces clashed in Wade's mind. First, the horror of Trav and Irene's deaths - which he couldn't help but feel painful pangs of guilt for, even knowing the inherent danger of the island - and second, the impromptu humor with which the girls had responded to his entrance. His first sensation in response was angry revulsion: a sense they were somehow sacrileging what was meant to be a moment of sorrow and regret.

Of course, but why believe it was 'meant' to be that or any way at all? The real world wasn't preordained to follow dramatic tempo like fiction had to. Next, Wade tried to shift the mental blame for some reason. Trav and Irene became responsible for themselves the moment they left him, right? Trav probably hadn't wanted him following, and Irene would probably just have become angry if he'd tried to stop her with noises of an awful premonition, Final Destination-style. Still, it felt somewhat wrong to just foist the blame onto them. "It wasn't my fault they ran off and got themselves murdered!"

Any way he sliced it, though, it seemed right. No matter how much mental sarcasm he threw at that fact, it resisted and kept on going.

The gag was kind of funny, even. Inappropriate, perhaps, but it could help him chill. Take his mind off the fear and horror.

So he retorted by stumbling backwards and falling onto his ass, his pose exuding self-awareness. Mustering the best deadpan voice he could: "Aaaaarrgh. Your mere words hit me right in the heart. I'm dying." He slumped unceremoniously onto the sand, voice wrenched and deliberately overacted: "Curse.. you. My.. upper.. aorta.. collapsed.. just from the.. sonic.. waves!" ..turning his head and closing his eyes for good measure. He couldn't suppress a smirk of his own.

[Espi]

She laughed, nearly doubling over before devolving into violent coughing.

Blair had to admit, corny though Wade was, it was a pretty funny reaction. She could at least assume he wasn't some kind of psycho, at least, not yet. Jesus, what a morbid thought. 'Oh, he's not crazy. YET'. Then again, morbid didn't exactly mean unrealistic.

For example, almost everyone here who'd killed was probably some manner of nutjob. Nancy, Kimiko, Alessio, Alvaro, Isabel, etcetera. Caedyn too, but she was probably crazy to begin with.

Blair realized her mirth had almost totally decayed by this point; she felt sad again. Whee. It didn't help that Wade, though obviously not actually dead, would probably find himself in that state sooner than later. Then again, same for Blair and Rene. Ugh.

"Yeah, haha." She forced a laugh, but it was pretty obvious she'd lost the humor of the situation. Blair sighed. "You can get up now. We're not gonna hurt you."

[Aura]

Well shit, Rene didn't think that Wade would actually play along. She laughed at his little performance. She laughed pretty hard. Someone call the Oscars or the Tonys, because this guy deserves some kind of award for this unbelievable death scene. She particularly liked his slow devolution into William Shatner as his life force ebbed away. Very theatrical. Very entertaining.

She noticed that Blair stopped laughing pretty quickly though, and her own chuckling faded away with that realization. It was pretty hard to have fun with the situation when her partner clearly wasn't into it, especially considering that the situation itself was one that was exceedingly difficult to squeeze any iota of cheer from in the first place. Now the aura that reminded her that everything sucks was back in control, and she looked at the goofily prone Wade with a less cheerful smile than the one she had moments before.

"Come on, man." She requested, following the behest of Blair. "All that shit was a joke. You know that, right?"

[shotgunkid*]

For Wade, the joke had pretty much stalled out too. It had been run into the ground, nowhere else to go, the horse had been beaten to death. Trying to wring any more out of it would just be, well.

The girls -- especially Rene, who he recognized from a few cafeteria and hallway conversations -- seemed a bit over-the-top with their apologies, but he could forgive them that. Caution was a given on this island if one wanted to survive a decent period of time.

He sat up. With the wash of enthusiasm from moments earlier having left as abruptly as it came, he replied:

"I get you. It feels like-" but then hesitated. Telling his emotional state out loud, naming the undercurrent of despair and dread that flowed beneath every feeling here, would just give it more power to corrode and destroy any trace of rational thought. And that would be lethal. So he rephrased:

"-I mean, I'm pretty alone out here. I just.. separated from a group. It's psychologically reassuring to be with others. We're social creatures, you know?"

The shape of the beach and their stances called back another all-too-familiar memory, though... which he consciously tossed back out. What were the odds they'd share that esoteric interest? Having met Hannah like that was a stroke of pure luck.

At that moment, he just so happened to be glancing toward a far wall of the cavern. Just as he finished the sentence, a small figure resolved from behind its visual barrier, moving slowly across the beach toward them.

[Espi]

Well now Blair just felt guilty. The guy seemed pretty down on himself.

She considered her options. Having him tag along would only bring trouble; hell, it took her this long to get used to Rene, and look at her. This kid seemed about to freak out, and she was not excited to have a loose cannon around if she could avoid it.

On the other hand, why stress about it too much? She was fucked anyway, as established since Day 1, and this guy didn't exactly scared her. If he wanted to stick around for a bit, hey, more the merrier.

On the third hand-wait, what was he looking at behind her? Suddenly paranoid, Blair whipped around to look. There was someone over there, and Blair's eyes widened in shock. She couldn't tell for sure, but they looked armed. Not good.

"Shit, we should go. Coming?"

Blair made a run for it in the opposite direction. Her poor internal organs, complaining now though they were, would thank her later when they weren't perforated.

((Blair Moore continued in Another Disappointment of Many))

[Aura]

Now that the joke was over, they actually had to find something to talk about. Good thing Wade started things off by talking about himself. Saved Rene the trouble of trying to dredge up some way to find something to talk about regarding their situation. That probably would have been uncomfortable. Hell, it would probably be uncomfortable regardless.

Poor Wade sure did seem to be having a rough time of it though. Just lost his group, now just wandering the island alone. Kind of made Rene remember how lucky she was that she and Blair had been able to stick together so long. Sure, it sucked that they lost track of Sandra and Noah, but at least there was someone that she still had by her side.

Speaking of the person by her side, Blair just up and booked it out of the blue. "Hey, what..." She started as she watched her ally leave before turning back to see someone in the distance. She couldn't tell who they were, but they were coming in their direction.

Shit.

Rene brought her bag with her as she got off the ground, turning to Wade as she did so. "Hey, you care to talk and run?" Once she got that statement out there, she ran off to catch up with Blair.

((Rene Wolfe continued elsewhere...))

[D/N]

(Kaitlyn Greene continue from This Was My Dream...)

...Was that Blair?

Oh man.

Kaitlyn crouched off in the distance on the shoreline, staring down at the entrance to the cove. She couldn't quite make out the other two, but Blair's hair (hey, that rhymed) made her stand out at least.

Pretty cool how so far as Kaitlyn could tell all the rollergirls were still going strong here. Softball players, wrestlers had been getting picked off easily. But not them. Cause really, they'd always kinda fucking ruled, despite them never being a cohesive unit of any kind inside or outside of school. No, they just... got up and did their thing together when they could. Less regulations. Less order. Do it their-damn-selves. It was self-reliant as shit, and she was proud of that. Caedyn. Alba. And even Blair, though she'd never really liked Blair.

Blair was kind of a stuck-up bitch.

Too bad she hadn't been alone. She could've worked well. But... nah, wouldn't have been a fair contest with Blair. Kaitlyn would've totally squashed her, and that wouldn't be sporting, really. Wouldn't prove anything.

Kaitlyn pulled out her gun and weighed it in her hands as the figures turned. She stood up. No clue what the three of them were saying, but, well, she hadn't heard Blair on the announcements, and she thought the other girl might be Rene Wolfe; hadn't heard her either, so their reaction to "gun-toting figure in the distance" should probably  be... yep, they were going. Showed they had enough smarts to have made it this far, after all.

Too bad it further showed they didn't have the nerve to make it all the way.

Anyway. It was late and Kaitlyn was looking forward to a nice night here.

She raised Mia's Uzi and fired a few bullets into the air.  That'd get them going faster.

[shotgunkid*]

Talking and running, huh? He could do that. Especially while being shot at. Yikes.

The deafening crack-crack-crack would make it a little tricky, and it brought back so many memories on its own. But those were for later.

((Wade Cartwright continued elsewhere!))

[D/N]

Good job.

With the coast clear, Kaitlyn ambled down the shoreline and poked her head into the cove. Yeah. Felt like home.

Not in any tangible sense or anything. But she'd been here three times now. And that gave her... that gave her more than squatter's rights. She'd built the sense of security the cove gave her. Chipped it out of the fucking rocks near her feet.

It just wasn't big enough yet. But it would be. Tomorrow.

She kicked around there as the sun finished coming down and then she wandered out by the shoreline, zipping up her windbreaker and finishing off the beef jerky she'd brought along. Still feeling great. Still had enough supplies for another day or two.

See, that was another thing. 'Cause she was probably like the only one here who recognized that you didn't just try to let those dinky rations the fucks gave you stretch out over god knows how many days or weeks in this place. That just killed you. Your strength, energy, focus, man. Idiotic. No, you kept yourself strong, and then... you just got more supplies. Like she'd done. You owned it.

Kaitlyn smiled and pulled the other book out of her bag.

You owned it.

She bent and read by flashlight for a while.

(Kaitlyn Greene continued in The Girl Who Owned an Island)