The Way the Sun Can Still Burn Down

[randomness]

((Jordan Green continued from Woof Woof, I'm a Dog. Kill Your Friends))

He should have guessed Alex wouldn't have come along.

But in hindsight, it was obvious that he wouldn't. Glad to meet them, my foot. Not glad enough to leave his own deathtrap of a hideout, at least. But at least it was clear to Jordan now, that Alex had been lying about everything, and that it was all the best that they had left when they did. That little sympathy Alex had managed to garner with his friendliness seemed squandered now.

But Hazel's words echoed through his head. They'd left Alex behind, alone, and who knew what he'd do now. It shouldn't matter to him what Alex did, but even if he wasn't responsible, he'd feel responsible and that was the worst feeling.

Okay, probably not the absolute worst, but mixed with everything that had happened so far, it was a mess that he would be perfectly happy to not think about.

But it had been a day since they'd left, and the initial irritation had long since abated and had been replaced with a mild unsettling dissappointment, which had only made the trek through the asylum all the more uncomfortable. They clearly weren't the only people there, not with the occasional sounds of someone shouting, but it was always distant and echoing, and he was half certain each one was accompanied by someone getting hurt.

He barely remembered any of the route they had taken, partly because he was distracted by conversation or thought, partly because the corridors felt like they were blending into each other as endless masses of rust and rotting wood and discolored concrete. They'd rested somewhere, somewhen, but it had barely seemed to register, apart from the fact that he woke up feeling more miserable than he had the previous day.

He and Jeremy had talked a little, mostly about banal things at they had gone along. Mostly about school and the people they were looking for.

Emma. Serena. Alessio. Clarice. Joshua. Jasmine. Caedyn.

That was the list Jeremy had, and Jordan guessed that Vanessa would have been hastily scribbled on after yesterday as well. Most of that list was fine with him, with the probable exception of Alessio and Caedyn. But finding the rest of them was a nice thought, and the morning had been spent looking into some of the therapy rooms.

This one was different from the rest though, large, with more doors and light than he had come to expect from the asylum. It even had a chandelier, making the whole room look all the more ethereal. But most striking of all were the chairs, which apart from the few that had been knocked over, had been set in a neat circle, like a great fairy ring in the middle of the room.

"This room gives me the creeps. Maybe we should..."

No. They probably shouldn't leave. It was probably worth a search, at least. There was more they needed to do too than just finding people. Food. Water. Neither of those were lasting as long as he'd hoped.

He shrugged, as if they could somehow discern those thoughts from that one movement alone.

[Ruggahissy]

((Hazel Jung continued from Woof Woof I'm A Dog Kill Your Friends

It wasn't her preference to leave Alex behind, mostly because she wanted to make sure he didn't do anything dangerous to himself or others. However, there was no budging him. She left with the others, mostly silent as they wandered. She hadn't slept well and felt tired, allowing Jordan and Jeremy to talk without her for the most part. It was morning now, and they'd made it without encountering anyone else, for good or bad.

"Do you feel like you're waiting around for it to be you?" she said quietly to Jeremy. "I feel like every face is kind of unfamiliar even if I've known them my whole life. I get this cold feeling thinking of people who were friends and I wonder 'Do they want to get rid of me?' I think about people who I thought of friends- now I-... and I feel this chill that makes me want to hug myself. Who else can I trust to hug me, right? Haha." She had a half smile that didn't even try to cover up her sadness.

"Sometimes I think, maybe I should....before someone else takes me out. Isn't that better than watching the people you've talked to and confided in for years trying to get you? I don't even really know why I'm trying or caring. I think it's out of habit. It feels like trying to hold up a sand castle after a wave just came along. It's mushy and running through your fingers and the harder you try to keep it up, the more it crumbles and in the end it's an impossible thing anyway. Every minute since I woke up I have this pang in my chest and it doesn't hurt me that much, but it does still hurt."

She don't know what she was doing. She wanted to see people again and remember what things were like. She wanted to feel warm and happy like she used to and smile. Hazel knew that she would never feel that again. Every minute was like being slowly poisoned and she don't know if she wanted to stay long enough to become swallowed up- a column of poison.

"But I don't know what else to do."

Jordan was still with her and she felt a certain responsibility not to just leave him. He'd been good enough to stay by her even after everything that had happened and every stupid thing she'd done. She didn't know him well, but it felt unfair to leave him on his own.

[Yugikun]

"Cameron Herrig took a pickaxe to the stomach courtesy of our newest challenger to take up the game, Alessio Rigano.”
"...courtesy of our newest challenger to take up the game, Alessio Rigano.”
"...challenger to take up the game, Alessio Rigano.”
"Alessio Rigano.”

((Jeremy Frasier, continued from Woof Woof, I’m a Dog. Kill Your Friends.))

He hadn’t heard anything else.

Maybe there were other people he knew who had been mentioned. Maybe something had happened to Alex since Jeremy had left them. Maybe someone like Isabel or Kimiko or you know what maybe even fucking Nancy had killed a bunch of people yesterday and he wouldn’t have noticed. Al was up there. Al murdered somebody. Everything in his mind came back to that and he couldn’t think couldn’t focus because Al killed someone he heard so he knew so and nothing else mattered nothing else was there and it hurt and it bit and it clawed and it fucking screamed at him and it was all he could think all he could feel all there was.

There were others here. He hadn’t talked to them. He gave vague confirmations and looked away and they didn’t really press him on it. He was walking with them now. That’s what he was doing. There were people, next to him. They weren’t who he was thinking about right now.

Because there was Al.

His friend.

The guy with the Rubix cube. The oddball. The one who you could bring into your world and not feel awkward about doing it.

The newest challenger to take up the game.

And it was a trap. And it was a cycle. He had probably thought this thought a hundred times since this morning. Ripples. Stones hitting the water. Thinking about his thoughts and the sentences being completed before his thoughts caught up and the same words appearing at different times bouncing off each other clouding fuzzing making it unable to think making it annoying mak-

Voices, calling out.

Hazel.

Talking to him.

His mind came back. His ears made themselves attentive again. There were things she was saying. Things she felt. Things he felt. Well, maybe not quite the same, as far as he knew, but he felt her. He sorta understood. He felt sorry. She just couldn’t really take it. There were still thoughts in his head changing moving altering what was there but he understood. He could listen. He could sympathise with her.

And he could respond to her. She asked a question. She put her heart and soul into what she was saying. She tried. The least he could do was give her something.

“Not really, it’s like…”

Mr Graham getting shot. The church, with Scout, when he finally realised what had happened. Where he was.

Clarice. Getting an axe straight through her arm.

Alex. The corpse in the room.

“I-.”

Alessio. The newest challenger to take up the game.

Al. Killing.

Al. His friend.

“I dunno.”

He looked at her. Hazel. An ally. Someone who had just opened up to him right now. She was scared. Unsure. Ready to accept her fate. Willing to tell that to someone who was a total stranger until a day ago.

She was talking to him.

It was his duty to respond.

“It’s just…”

Al.

His friend.

The newest challenger to take up the game.

“Fuck, I’m sorry.”

He looked away. He didn’t want to see her disappointment.

[randomness]

The suitcases were a mess, a few of them scattered on the ground next to a small pile, half-opened as if to prove that each and every one of them was devoid of anything that could help them.

The feeling of emptiness, of lack seemed like it was a theme here. The island had been stripped bare, not a single object for sustanance had been left, things that felt as if they should have been there were missing, leaving behind some sort of almost liminal space, haunted by the ghosts of those who had left this place all those years ago.

Jordan could hear Hazel and Jeremy talking as he continued to look around the other side of the room, the near-whispers worrying to him for no discernible reason at all. Some sense in his head was absolutely sure that they were talking about him, but that was some clearly misplaced sense of self-worth.

But he couldn't help but try to listen anyway.

Honestly, he was worried.

Not just about himself. Not just about Hazel too, though the tone of her voice prevented him from doing anything but, but he worried for Jeremy as well, who had been uncharacteristically distracted suddenly, and Jordan was sure that something, somewhere in those announcements had hurt him; Jeremy certainly hadn't been like this yesterday.

He wanted to say something.

To Hazel. To Jeremy.

But he sucked at this.

Jordan knew that too often, he was sometimes just there, listening, thinking, absorbing things, and sometimes that meant it felt like no one ever acknowledged him. But yet it was so difficult to put himself out there. But that meant he never really knew what people were talking about him. If people even knew he existed, really.

But after this time, he felt like he needed to try. Not like that token 'are you okay?' he'd given in the morning because no one ever said they weren't okay unless absolutely everything was already off kilter in the first place.

"Uh, I-" His breath caught on the start of his sentence.

"Yeah, you guys are- Do you guys wanna talk? I couldn't help but overhear you and while I can't tell you guys that everything's gonna be okay, I can try and help. I guess."

[Ruggahissy]

Hazel's plea was met with uncomfortable glances from Jeremy. He started, stopped, looked to be thinking, looked pained, started again.

And turned away from her. Hazel's face fell and she dropped back, holding her clasped hands to her chest. Her eyes began to well up with tears. After trying everything she could think of, she'd reached out and only had her hand burned in return.

She heard something. It was Jordan. In his own uncertain way he was reaching out to them. Hazel bit her lip and walked to Jordan with her head hung low. She stopped when they were perhaps two inches apart. Her low-hung head made her appear even shorter than she was.

Hazel put her forehead against Jordan's chest and her arms snapped forward, circling around him. She sobbed into him. The noise was muffled against his body, but her shoulders shook. Her fingers gripped the boy. The tightness of their hold seemed to correspond to her shuddering.

"I'm t-t-trying," she said into Jordan's midsection.

Hazel didn't want to do this. She really wanted to try and push through until they could figure out the right course of action and she really hated the idea of being seen as a "cry baby."

"I don't know--"

In a world where suddenly no one was trustworthy, there was at least a floss thread's worth of trust binding Jordan and Hazel together. Half the width of that was Jeremey. Was this their life now? How had they even managed to make it this far? Hazel had a pair of binoculars for godsakes.

"How much longer can we hold out?"

A moment of weakness.

"Should we....find Min?"

[Yugikun]

He could hear her crying.

He could hear what he had did.

He…

Fuck.

He didn’t want to be here.

So he stepped away, into the room itself. He could see the circle of chairs, in the centre. There was one on the ground, crushed to pulp. He couldn’t really guessed how that happened. He stepped forward, further in. The light from the windows illuminated the trail of blood on the floor. He couldn’t really guess how that got there at all, so he went forward. Step by step. Moving forward and just hoping there was something, someone here. A person, a thing, an event, he didn’t know. Anything to make him forget. Anything that could just distract him, for one second. Anything that could just get him off this island for one single moment. Anything that could make him forget about the game’s newest competitor. An-

Oh.

Hey Jasper.

He had made it through the room, past the chairs. Far away from Jordan and Hazel, at this point. That was where he saw the corpse. Jasper’s. He was - used to be - a friend, sorta. A talkbuddy. Maybe not one of his best friends and maybe not someone he made sure to talk to every couple days but that didn’t really discount anything regarding him. They talked. They were nerds. Sometimes they were able to share war stories about Caedyn. That meant something. Maybe it didn’t mean as well as the people he had put on the list but it did nonetheless. He was Jasper. He was his friend.

And he was dead on the floor, bullets fucking everywhere on his body and being dragged out here.

That was Jasper.

And that was all he was now.

And all he’d ever be.

But there was something that clicked in his head, when he saw it.

This was Jasper.

This was what happened to him.

And this could happen to anybody. Maybe you, although that wouldn’t be too bad. But maybe it’d be Serena. Maybe it’d be Emma.

No, no. That was right. He was on borrowed time here. He had to find them, before it was too late. People were fighting out there. People were dying out there. Maybe it could have been someone like Adelaide or Brendan or someone else he didn’t really give a shit about, but maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it was important.

And there were problems, yeah. Al had killed. Hazel was crying. But he couldn’t think about them. There was work. He had to do this. He had to find them. There was that thing - Jeremy Frasier, 0% chance of winning the game - that he had known since here. No. He had to do it now. He couldn’t distract himself. He couldn’t think of anything else other than that.

So he had to do it. There was a list, there was a goal, and there was an entire island of people out there waiting to be found.

So he had to do it.

And he would.

He knew that.

---

There was a note, left beside the corpse, after he had left. Maybe he had left them - well yeah, he did - and maybe they hated him for that.

But if they didn’t, well, they’d know where to find him.

((Jeremy Frasier, continued in Noland the Liar))

[randomness]

Jordan hesitated, almost stepped back. But somehow, he found himself relenting and the next thing he knew she was crying into his chest.

He didn't know what to do when a girl was crying. Heck, he doubted anyone did. So he stood there, wondering whether to hold her or not.

And maybe he should have. Make her feel safe, or at least safer. He could have done it. But it felt wrong somehow. As if he was betraying some mental image he had of her or something.

How long could they last?

He didn't know how to answer her.

Maybe if he hadn't trying so hard not to think about it, maybe if he weren't so exhausted, maybe if it'd been just a little more, then maybe he'd be the one crying instead. But he wasn't, and she was, and she needed him to help and Jeremy wasn't helping, so he'd have to come up with something by himself.

"We're still alive." he said, voice quiet, unsure that he was telling the truth. "There's gotta be something we can do for now. I mean, we have to try, right?"

But then she asked about Jay.

Her question hung in the air.

A moment passed. Maybe two.

There was a silent battle of instincts in his mind, something that didn't quite resolve into words properly. No and yes simultaneously straining to be said, leaving only the least empathic maybe behind, reluctant to push it's weight onto either choice.

She was still thinking about him. Jealousy, and guilt at that jealousy, and anger at that guilt and god knew what else mixed in.

Jordan didn't want to find him.

He was a killer.

He'd killed Samuel, and who the heck would think that was in self-defense?

He'd left them too.

He'd left Hazel behind to cry like this and him to pick up the pieces.

The absolute last thing he wanted to do right now was to find him.

And yet-

"Yeah." The sentence was little more than a breath.

[Ruggahissy]

To Jordan's reassurances that they had made it this far and had to keep going, she nodded into his slightly soggy shirt.

Hazel straightened up after a moment and took a deep breath.

"That was probably gross. Sorry," she said, sniffling a bit and hastily mashing her hands into her eyes.

She moved her hair away from her face. It stuck to her cheeks a bit from due to the tears. Hazel looked up at the boy and half smiled, crossing her arms in front of her chest. She could tell he wasn't very hot on the idea, but the fact that he said they would do it despite being uncomfortable with it was sweet.

She'd picked a good ally, or rather, she'd stumbled into one due to blind, unbelievable luck. Hazel could drop it and not pursue Min which would likely make Jordan feel safer, or she could pretend she didn't notice that he wasn't crazy about the idea. She didn't know which she would do.

Hazel broke her gaze with Jordan to look around. No Jeremy.

"Oh jeez, did he leave because of me?" she wondered out loud, biting her lip.

There was a new piece of paper with writing that wasn't there when they'd entered. A note. Hazel approached it cautiously and picked it up. She stared at it a moment before turning back to Jordan.

"It says to meet him tomorrow."

((Hazel Jung continued in If You Had My Love))

[randomness]

"It's okay." He wasn't going to let her apologise. Not for this.

"Really."

Hazel had been warm. That was all he knew right now.

She was warm in the way only a soul could be. He regretted it now, after she had let go of him, returning him to a cold, fragile world once more, that he didn't dare, that he simply didn't hold her in his arms.

But it was right. Maybe. At the very least it was not wrong.

Besides, if he had, he might never have let go.

Hazel noticed it first, that Jeremy was missing.

He had half forgotten Jeremy, but he remembered now, that look on his face, before he had gone over. And now he was gone.

It had been clear. He had been out of sorts since the morning, quieter since those announcements, since that voice, since their friends names resounded across the island in twisted elegy. And he had known. But he hadn't managed to help.

And now, Jeremy was gone.

Not quite panic, there was more regret, less fear. But sometimes people did things he couldn't comprehend, like everything that everyone was doing on this island.

"Tomorrow?" How long would it be till then?

"So we've got one day to try and find Jay?"

He still didn't want to. But it was almost a promise now, and he'd see it to the bitter end.

And they'd find Jeremy tomorrow.

But for now, it was just the two of them once more, just like it had been at the beginning.

This time though, he was sure of one thing.

He didn't want to see Hazel cry again.

((Jordan Green continued in If You Had My Love))