Deep Red Bells

[Kermit]

A broken nose seemed.... plausible, Valerija supposed, though the shoeless girl's explanation felt kind of off - almost unnatural. What irked Val in particular was the use of the word 'associate'; nobody... nobody used that word in real life (other than law firms, maybe). It was just such an overtly ominous word.

However, Claudeson's explanation actually kind of made sense. Val knew Tyrell to be somewhat of a volatile person, and it seemed plausible enough that he'd punch Claudeson in the face. Claudeson still seemed way too calm - and not, like, a depressed calm a la Julien but more of a zen calm - but if he was telling the truth, he had Val's respect. She couldn't honestly say that, if put in the same situation, she would have saved Tyrell.

Claudeson complimented her 'hat'. She disagreed with him. It was neither nice nor was it a hat. She kept the thought to herself. "Thank you," she nodded in acknowledgement. "It's an infantry helmet. A pickelhaube." She tapped her finger against the helmet. It was metal and had kind of a lobster-tail-shaped neckguard, which told Val the helmet was quite old and likely very expensive. It was quite different from the helmets worn by the Germans during the First World War, which Val was thankful for, as she could remember seeing pickelhaubes issued by the German army made from paper and hard-pressed velvet in museums.

Val crossed her arms. "Other than Ty, have you seen anything... noteworthy?" She asked, hoping for some inclination as to who, if anyone, would be hostile on-island and if there were any casualties.

[Endellion]

Julien had to wonder if it was lost on Claudeson or not that those who'd come before him had said much the same thing, and been inexorably proven wrong. It was admirable that he seemed to genuinely believe that the people he thought he knew wouldn't stoop that low. But all the same, far too naïve for his own good in the end.

"See, about that? Abel is dead, and it was fucking Mikki, of all the people, who found him first." Julien had to stop and try to assert something like composure, because he could hear the acid seeping into his voice, and Claudeson was too sincere and well-meaning to deserve having what he'd said thrown back in his face quite so violently. It didn't work very well. "And then we had to drag him out of the mud he'd been left him and wrap him in fucking curtains, Claude, because had nothing to bury him with. So you're a little too late, I'm afraid."

Looking at him, at any of them, was too much all of a sudden. So Julien kept his eyes on the floor as he picked up a stray stone, rolling it over his fingers before it was sent arcing out into the water with a faint splash.

"He, ah..." His voice hitched. "He was cold already. So that has to be one of the first fucking things that someone did."

[General Goose]

Camille was inclined to believe the story about nosebleeds. She'd had quite a few nosebleeds in her time - something about the skin inside her left nostril was apparently prone to injury at the slightest provocation - and yes, it did look like the aftermath of a nosebleed. A forceful one, yes, but it didn't look like Claudeson had been bathing in someone's blood. It didn't look like it was the result of some grave laceration or some grisly hand-to-hand brawl, but Camille was aware that she wasn't exactly trained in analysing blood splatter or forensic scenes. Still, she was minded to believe Claudeson's story. Her gut said so, and though the risks of a miscalculation here were high, that cut both ways.

If there was reason to doubt, she could probably ask Princess and Claudeson for more details privately, one on one. To compare their stories. Spot holes. Work out if any contradictions that emerged were due to the standard flaws of human recollection or something more sinister. Not that Camille felt there was probable cause for that level of scepticism, mind, but it was good to have that option prepared, to have that strategy ironed out.

She hadn't even noticed Valerija's helmet.

Well, she had noticed it. Of course she had. Camille had just merely accepted it as part of the scenery, yet another odd part of the world around her that defied convention and yet made sense in the ludicrous situation that they all found themselves in. It was only when her attention was drawn to it, by a brief conversation on the matter, that Camille realised that, yes, in any other situation, a pickelhaube would have raised even her eyebrows.

There was a slight temptation to quote Team Fortress 2's Medic here, but it passed as quickly as it appeared.

"Nice helmet," she murmured, just before the conversation moved on from what passed for small talk, onto more pressing subjects. Whereas Claudeson's story had been...not uplifting, but if true, at least a reminder that there was still strength and decency in this island, that at least there were some people willing to take a knock on the nose to help out, Julien's was more in keeping with what she'd expected from the Purge-like chaos that this island inevitably invited. The way Julien described it was intentionally dysphemistic, the profanity helping emphasise just how brutal and horrendous a sight it had been. "That's...horrible. It's very kind of you that you gave him some kind of dignity in death." She wasn't traditionally so keen on placing positive spins on things, but here it made a degree of sense.

"I suppose we'll find out who did it tomorrow. That's how this works, right?"

She looked around as she said that. She was hoping, against all logic, that if there was a liar in her midst, they might just crack at the reminder that a murder could be concealed for a day at most.

[Cicada]

"Oh. We also met, um. Paloma, Anna- Herbert, and Megan."

She'd been trying to forget the lattermost name- losing her was ultimately a boon for Princess, insofar as her weaker constitution couldn't handle the thought of her inevitable fate. Out of sight and out of mind, at least that was how the saying went. The nausea wasn't so easy to abstractify away.

"They all seemed alright, I suppose..." Her contributions were in keeping with her role as temporally out-of-place, irrelevant up until all the other inevitable failures and botched plans came and went. She came off as uselessly vague because she elected to.

It was as Julien already revealed- one of their class was dead.

Abel, at that, fairly popular albeit in a mostly unproductive and valueless way. Princess hadn't thought much of him, and that fact remained. She could idly recall his face in the quiet moment, the lull in their conversation where all of them were left with this news to digest. 'News'. It wasn't news to Princess, it was a footnote. An unnecessary conformation of the inevitable. To think that her peers were ultimately uncultured beasts who fell prey to their instincts and excesses the moment they were given a flimsy excuse- she would never have guessed!

She glanced sidelong at Claude. He actually might never have guessed. She almost took pride in being the first one to the punch. She could pretend to be stunned into silence, too shocked by these 'unthinkable revelations' with air quotes longer than the school athlete's grotesquely overgrown fingers.

"Wait," she murmured small. "You don't mean..." She searched Julien's face, the rest as well. She was almost curious, how they'd react. Possibly relevant information.

[Cactus]

At Julien's venomous outburst, Claudeson's skin crawled and he felt something deep within him - it was a fire of sorts, a visceral reaction to the news that he couldn't quite classify. It was a feeling he'd never quite felt before. Scowling, he looked down at the ground for a moment as he considered Abel's demise. Coming upon his classmate had obviously impacted the long-haired boy more than he was admitting; that he had been able to maintain his decorum for this long without breaking down and crying out was admirable. Perhaps when he'd written Julien off as a future miscreant, he'd been mistaken.

Of course, in a sense, it didn't matter what he suspected any of their futures would have had in store for them. For the lot of them, the future was a concept that no longer existed. Particularly if people had already started killing.

Shutting his eyes for a moment, Claudeson crossed himself and said a quick prayer for Abel's departed soul. He hadn't known the baseball player all that well - he'd come across him many a time, and in running the door at the party he had made small talk with him a few times, but he would not shed any tears over his death. He would feel sorrow, wrap himself in the familiar cloak of despair as the inevitability of their situation slowly crawled upon them.

But he would feel that later.

In the here and now, Claudeson finished his prayer with a softly muttered "amen", and addressed Julien first.

"I apologize for misspeaking, Julien. I just find it unfathomable that someone could so easily stood to that level. I had more faith in the goodness of our peers, I suppose."

The Lord would forgive such a crass and blatant dishonesty in such a horrible situation, Claudeson decided. His faith had been sorely tested as of late, and his opinions of many of his peers were not overly high, particularly around the time of the party. He had found himself casually dismissing the long-term prospects of many of his peers, guessing how long it would take before they found themselves as mere shadows of what they had once been. How long until they were broken, a blight upon society?

Once more, Claudeson blinked and sighed softly. Evidently it hadn't taken very long at all.

"Nothing as noteworthy as what poor Julien witnessed, fortunately," he started, backing up Princess' account. "I came upon Princess and the others at the cliff-side after my encounter with Tyrell. Paloma appeared wary and was gone almost as quickly as she had appeared. The others just seemed frightened."

The odd feeling still burned within him - doubt had also surfaced. He had awoken feeling strong, as though he were in the right place. But with Julien's revelation, the gravity of his situation had truly descended upon him. His resolve was strong, but... Another lie. "I believe you are correct," he allowed a sad smile for Camille. "Have any of you come upon any other classmates; in passing or otherwise? It would be good to understand who among us is capable of violence, and as I believe Valerija was inferring - avoid them."

His hand tightened around Min-jae again - vigilance. He must be aware, he must not allow himself to be comfortable. Their lives depended on it.

[Kermit]

No. No No no no

Abel was dead. Abel was dead and there was nothing Val could do about it and she would never see Abel again because Abel was dead and Val's plan would be that much harder to pull off because someone began killing right away and that person would probably have to die for the plan to work but that was selfish to think about right now because Abel was dead.

Julien seemed like the only person here giving Abel's death the weight it deserved. Camille and Claudeson had almost glossed over it and the girl with Claudeson had to be an idiot because she was dancing around in a jungle without shoes on.

"Don't mean what?" Valerija snapped. "Što bi drugo moglo - You do know where we are, right? What do you think it means?"

[Endellion]

Shit, she knew him. Fuck. Fuck this damned place.

"Hey. Hey. Look at me," Julien interjected, "I know that you must want to fall apart right now, and... fuck, you've got every right to." He could see the weight on her heart, and he'd been the one to drop it there, so trying to help alleviate it was the least he owed her. "But you're going to need to find something, anything, to try and help you through it. It's going to be painful, but you can't let yourself fall apart completely. Especially not here."

Long before this point in time, Julien had asked those he relied on for guidance so much how they had coped with loss, when it seemed as good a time as any to broach such a subject. Hopefully something of what they had told him could be of use now.

Both his parents had also, at one point or another, told him they ardently believed that people shouldn't take the duties of judge, jury and executioner all upon themselves alone. And normally he agreed. But normal meant nothing now, where they were all stuck in a game with Death at the other side of the table watching, waiting for the final mistake; and he was not stupid enough to hold to a delusion that he planned to act on behalf of Abel, for that road led nowhere he desired to go. Besides... The dead couldn't speak for themselves, not really, and fuck anyone who claimed they spoke for them.

Life ended, too. Of that Julien was more painfully aware than ever before. But the truly important thing was that life had the right to be lived, and to end as well as it could when it came to that, and that right to dignity was something to be respected. Whoever had killed Abel had gone beyond simply denying him that, leaving him face-down in the mud and casting what little had been with him in like it, like he had been nothing to them.

That wasn't something he could ever forgive.

[General Goose]

Camille found herself with nothing of value or utility to add to the conversation as those with more intimate connections to Abel or more emotional reactions to the news processed it. It was a small comfort, she supposed, that there was no hiding from the sins of the day before, that stealth and subterfuge were strategies of time-limited efficacy. It was a small comfort, too, that there was still enough decency in this world to enable some acts of due respect to the dead.

Small comforts, eclipsed by a horror so great it made them seem like mockingly trivial acts.

Camille was horrified too, but she kept her emotions in check for now, even if it came across as cold or disaffected, because those with a greater need to grieve still needed space to do so. Her hands trembled and there was an occasional glimmer from a tear at the corner of her eyes, but beyond that she kept her composure. A group needed composure, even if it wasn't found in every member or equally distributed among them.

She pulled her cigarette packet and her lighter from her jacket and lit up. "Does anyone...want one?"

[Cicada]

Princess shrunk back.

"Mm-... mm. I know." She sounded smaller than she felt. She felt okay. She was more legitimately prepared than anybody in this group- an inoculation's worth of a healthy dose of unrepentant misanthropy.

Valerija, at least, seemed earnestly affected. She was a politician, so it could well have been crocodile tears, but Princess would afford her the benefit of a doubt. There was nothing wrong with a little lack of pretension.

Princesses wandering eye became wandering dirt. She couldn't look any of them full on in the eye- she sold her subtle devastation in an underappreciated way, that was, she didn't steal the scene for herself with any sort of pathologically pathos gratuity. This was her stage, to be sure, but she knew when to play supporting role. Contrast that to Claude with his perpetual grasping at straws.

Silence, discomfit silence. Princess was used to preferring to shut up around other people anyways- many a conversation in this life did not deserve engagement.

She glanced at Camille, hesitatingly nodded. Gesture could have been read either way- Princess didn't actually want a cigarette. She just wanted a prop.

[Cactus]

It wasn't that Claudeson's heart didn't ache for Abel; he felt awful hearing about the boy's demise, but he had a difficult time feeling unimaginable sorrow for someone whom he'd met in passing. Besides, Abel was with God now, and He would ensure that the boy's soul was protected and embraced for all eternity.

For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.

The passage gave him comfort, he reminded himself. It still felt hollow somehow. Unfortunately, it appeared as though some of them had been closer with Abel than he had realized, and Valerija in particular was reacting rather poorly to the news. As Julien tried to focus the distraught girl's thoughts on something else, Claudeson shook his head at the offer of a cigarette. Such things were foul, though under the circumstances he would forgive it.

"These are tragic times, but Julien is correct. We must keep our wits about us. Abel's fate, while," he grimaced at Valerija; hesitating, "devastating, is an awful reminder that there are those among us who are scared, desperate."

Princess hadn't said all that much, it finally occurred to him. She had reacted at the news of Abel's demise, but Claudeson wasn't under the impression she was as familiar with him, likely upon the same level as he. It was a hollow thought, but it intrigued him. He kept on orating; no one else had much to say outside of Julien. He tried to keep his tone hopeful; respectful.

"We cannot know who among us has the potential for violence, the capacity for darkness. But we should remember Abel as an example, to steer us away from harm. Think of him as he was, not how he is. I believe that he is with the Lord now, and no longer feels any pain. That is all I can do to bring myself comfort."

Claudeson sighed, and looked down at the dirt with sadness.

"I am sorry, Valerija."

He didn't feel sad, of course. The fire was still buzzing through his body and it was taking everything he had not to fidget. But this was a somber moment and it demanded an appropriate reaction.

[Kermit]

Julien was right. Everyone was right. It was just... Valerija knew this would get worse. It would get worse before it got better.

"I - I'm sorry - thank you. I knew this place would hurt... just - it feels real now, you know? Abel, he was like a brother to me."

She stared at the ground. She hadn't felt this powerless since her father's death.

[Endellion]

"It shows. Well, you have him as he was, for what little it's worth. That's... well, better than the alternative."

Julien saw no need to mention that for most of them the only genuine comfort that awaited was in meeting their ends. So he didn't. Nor did he see any need to indulge the intrusive compulsion of stamping all over Claudeson's canned compassion and citation of his beliefs to show him just how much he thought those were worth here.

Because that was all he had, really, when Julien thought about it. Nobody actually knew what happened after the end, and so it was inevitable that people would choose to believe in things for the sake of their own affirmation. Who was to say they didn't all just end up stuck inside an empty shell to scream at the world and watch themselves fade into nothing?

Abel had certainly looked the part.



Fuck it.

"I'll take one," he said, looking at Camille. "Ideally more than one. Little need to worry about my health anymore. That does depend on how many you have to spare though."

[General Goose]

Camille looked around the group, gauging reactions.

Princess nodded, with a degree of hesitation. The reason behind that hesitation - or reasons, as it may be, it made no difference - were of no concern to Camille. Princess had made a choice, responded to Camille's offer, and any doubts that might have arisen - an ingrained aversion to smoking because of the health impacts or familial chiding or whatever - were not ones for Camille to be concerned with. A more paternalistic person might have read into that hesitation, used it as a chance to deny Princess's request or ask for additional confirmation, but not Camille.

So she handed Princess a cigarette.

Claudeson shook his head. Instead, he saw fit to pontificate about life and death, to pose answers to complex questions, answers that were filtered through a rather simplistic Christian philosophy that Camille - who normally endeavoured to be respectful of all faiths and none - couldn't help but find a tiny bit obnoxious given the context. But she suppressed her instinctive urge to judge and decided that she had no right to criticise Claudeson for processing this in whatever way worked best for him. If he understood it wasn't for everyone, that would be fun - and it was an act of uncharacteristic rashness for her to assume otherwise.

So she nodded respectfully in response to Claudeson's removal, and looked on.

Julien responded out loud, putting his thinking on the table, expressing an implicit 'fuck it, we're gonna die' philosophy that was, if adhered to dogmatically, probably no less helpful than the 'we'll be with God in the end' mindset. Camille made sure to tell herself to park her judgement, that thinking out loud and discussing these viewpoints openly, even if not necessarily constructively or in a structured way, was probably healthy for everyone.

So she handed Julien a cigarette. Hesitated. Shrugged. Handed him about five more. "I brought a few packets," she murmured, as way of explanation, not wanting her act to be misinterpreted as meaningful charity or sacrifice.

Valerija was the hardest one to read. She was struggling the most. She had lost someone akin to her brother - Camille thought for a moment how she'd feel if she lost her cousins, heard about their demise in such an awful way, the only comfort being that at least the announcement hadn't been first made by Danya's gloating self. That thought made the empathy feel more real, more impactful. It made Camille even more clueless about how to react. Valerija was the one who needed acts of kindness the most - but she also hesitated to disrupt her private grieving.

So Camille spoke, softly, with a tone that made it clear it was alright if she was ignored. "Valerija...it's not much, but if you do want a smoke..."

[Cicada]

Princess gracefully- not graciously- accepted the offered arbitrary unit of substance abuse. She remained close, for the lighter. Her three fingers wrapped around the little tube cartoon of tobacco were comfortable and cozy- of course she'd really only ever held the idea of cigarettes before, cast as gruffer and grittier than had ever personally resonated with her during some odd post-modernist series of improv exercises.

'We cannot know who among us has the potential for violence, the capacity for darkness.'

Look in the mirror, Pontius Pilate.

Princess appraised the scene once more. She, standing next to Camille, the others merely doing their own odds-and-ends things. It was quiet. Mostly meaningless fluff, the padding out of the interlude before the action proper, until someone was roused to their carpe diem and made whatever ill-considered move they considered best. She idly wondered how it'd go. Perhaps nobody in this group would be relevant or alive in a days time. A twisted little ditty of a thought, that.

Or perhaps, in some days time, someone or some many would be cursing one of their names with their petulant and impotent fury. But Princess wanted to err on the side of a more sober assumption- their class would go out with a whimper's worth of a bang. The retort of guns only occasionally, never truly with purpose or effect. People would cry. Princess herself would. And life would continue on, to it's truncated conclusion.

Julien, at least, seemed to be slightly more willing to contemplate the end in a rawer way. Smoking himself to death? Charmingly novel, albeit hardly aesthetic.

"It's odd, hm." Princess spoke at Julien without really speaking at him- it was important she keep her riposte subtle, maintain that her words were plausibly hollow attempts at filling the silence. "Our health isn't the most relevant thing, all of a sudden. An investment worthless. I don't know if I'd be... one of those people, I guess. Who would still think they get to leave... n-no matter what."

The lake's still waters had more spring in their step than she did- that was the point. 'She', the caricature of Princess, sounded defeated, now that she was confronted with death for the first time.

"I don't think I would be. I'd... rather be anything else."

[Cactus]

In another time, another place, Claudeson Bademosi may have sat and silently judged each and every one of them for taking up smoking. Here they were, in 2018, and even after decades upon decades of research that proved smoking was a bane upon society and upon the health of those who partook, cigarette companies still made hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars every year. There was much condemnation to go around; the smokers themselves, the advertisers, the manufacturers, and the people that peddled their poison. But in the here and now, Claudeson couldn't help but agree with Princess. While he would never take a puff of a cigarette; a foul action in the eyes of the Lord, their immediate health seemed less crucial than it may have before. It took people many years to agonizingly die of lung cancer. Most of the George Hunter High School class of 2018 didn't have a fraction of that.

Evidently, Abel didn't even have that, anymore.

The mood of the pond was low, though Claudeson had to use every ounce of restraint he had not to start pacing in circles. The energy burned in him, it crackled. Like the fire in the lighter that Camille used to light the cigarettes, he felt it burn at his core. The energy mixed in with the pain from his ribs and felt like a strange duality. Claudeson knew that he could run five miles right now if he wanted to, but his injuries likely wouldn't have permitted it. He had to do something, say something. But what? No one else was saying much. Everyone was devastated at the news Julien had given them. But not you. The stillness of the water gave the appearance of serenity when the reality was more of a malaise. Were they all truly doomed to die here? Claudeson believed not. He was here for a reason. There had to be a reason for all of it; a plan. He tried not to question the Almighty, to trust that the journey he was on was righteous.

Sometimes though, he wondered. Every path had its ups and downs, but their path to salvation was paved with sadness and angst, violence and brutality. He clenched Min-jae as a reminder. He was not alone in this fight. He would have a companion.

"We must not give up."

The words were mumbled, almost as though they had crawled out of his mouth, but he meant them. To give up meant allowing Satan and his bedfellows access to their minds and souls, and that was not a compromise that Claudeson was willing to take. This was the time for sadness and mourning, but that time was soon approaching its end.