The Special Special Special!

[Catche Jagger]

So, that was it. Aditi and Charelle had probably been dead the whole time. Theirs were the first names listed out that morning, and Thomas found himself paying little attention to those that came after.

He’d been right back in the village, to keep himself, Sakurako, and Sean away from there. If they had stuck around, they’d be dead too. Did that mean he’d let Aditi and Charelle die, though? That he’d marked their deaths as acceptable?

Is it worth thinking about?

The first person he wanted to look to was Sakurako. Maybe she could put this in perspective, keep him from getting bogged down in questions of morality and culpability. However, as he turned to her, she was on the ground.

“Hey… Hey Sakurako.” He began, quickly getting down at her side.

She was clearly out of it. Had she passed out? Was it the announcements? Crap crap crap.

He didn’t know to resuscitate someone, not properly. He hadn’t ever seen someone faint outside of cartoons or old movies his dad watched. What was he supposed to do? Could he end up making things worse?

Deciding, with some hesitation, to go with his best instinct, Thomas gently cradled Sakurako in his arms, rocking her slightly and continuing to speak to her.

Zach was spouting some bullshit about Wyatt Carter that Thomas really couldn’t give two shits about.

“Hey, Sakurako, are you alright? Is everything alright?” He spoke up again.

[Ohm]

And there it was, Zach seemed elated that Wyatt wasn't around anymore. Sean was not sure how to feel about that. He hadn't heard anything about Wyatt on the announcements, no one he's met so far had seen the guy so all he could assume was that he did not get into any trouble, well, till he died.

Still, that was one less person out there that had a thing against them so they could rest easy in that case, more so for Zach than Sean, but he had to take the small things. As he said, they were still around and safe.

His thoughts of that were pulled as Thomas started trying to wake Sakurako up. She seemed real out of it. Like legit knocked out. Out of them all she knew Aditi and Charelle better than the rest of them. It must have been a real shock for her.

Seeing her like that reminded Sean of some faint stories from he'd heard, like at the theaters and at the movies n' shit... back then they used salt? Or something like that? He looked over to his bag as an idea came over him. They had something far worse.

He knew what to do. He opened his bag and grabbed his weapon.

"Tom, back up would ya?" Sean said as he made his way over to them and got down on one knee and held it over her. He made a wide circle motion with his right hand as if he was holding a offering. Speading that smell around which was as overpowering as ever.

[Ryuki]

Looks like Sakurako wasn’t taking the announcements that well. Zach imagined no one would take the constant updates of their dying classmates that well, but he’d never seen anyone react like this. It’s been about a week since everyone was kidnapped. As morbid as it sounded, but by this point, Zach thought people would be used to this by now. But perhaps someone especially close to Sakurako died. That was his guess at least.

“What happened?,” Zach asked.

Before Zach could receive an answer, Sean lept into action. Sean had pulled out some sort of smelling salt and hovered it over Sakurako’s nose. Zach had seen stuff like that in the movies. The stench would supposedly be pungent enough to snap her out of shock. Zach was a bit skeptical of however. The last time Zach tried to induce a procedure from a movie, it ended badly. Fucking idiot.

“Which announcement was it?,” asked Zach.

[Sunnybunny]

The scent of a dead body, over time was. Wasn't. Was. Definitely wasn't! Worse than whatever whatever scent was wafting in her curse nose right now. Offal? That one time her mom had cooked chitlins in an attempt to impress her dad?

Hell?

Was this hell?

If it was, why would she want to prove it was true?

Her head was swimming, one stem of her glasses broken off to the side. World's worst hangover. Everything was worst. Breathing in stunk like Sean was on one knee waving his stinky durian in her face. That was happening. Her body jerked up as if pulled by janky strings, a mousetrap built wrong, a Lego set misconstructed.

"A proposal is coming on pretty strong~" The words were weakly coughed out, but there. She tried to smile, couldn't quite. Gave a lopsided thumbs up to Thomas despite that. "But I guess we don't have to worry 'bout how legal three-way teen marriage now, since... oh hey Zach, when'd you get here?"

If she could lie here with Dane and Kyle and play dead she would. If leaving that wicked-looking gun on the ground, out of their sights and minds wasn't begging for trouble, she would have, and gladly. But.

"We can leave now, right? Since the meetup isn't happening ever?"

((S-... she's continued elsewhere))

It would just be pretending still.

[Catche Jagger]

Just as Thomas was starting to get really worried, Sean stepped in to save the day, finally finding something useful to do with that plant he’d held onto since the very beginning. The relief of Sakurako coming to allowed him to almost forget that he was supposed to be sad about Aditi and Charelle.

He was surprised that Sean had come up with the idea, impressed really. He’d come to think of Sean as a pretty level-headed and decent person, but he hadn’t ever thought of him as particularly resourceful. Shows what he knew.

However, the momentary relief was interrupted when Sakurako spouted a strange non-sequitur about legal three way teen marriage. Thomas was relatively sure that this probably meant something relevant in her own head, but out in reality with no context it just seemed like a bit of nonsense and all Thomas could do in response was to glance over to Sean and Zach to see if they had any idea what she meant.

Regardless, it was clear that Sakurako was still shaken up over the announcements and she wanted to leave.

Was she hoping to head back to the village? Thomas couldn’t really think of a reason to avoid it, particularly if it’d help put Sakurako’s mind at ease.

Though if the fire got to their bodies… yeah, not worth thinking about right now.

There was an alternate reason they should head back to the village, although not one that would be advisable to mention out loud. From day one, it was pretty obvious that the terrorists had not provided enough food and water to last more than around a week, even with strict rationing, and they were all going to be running out soon. If Aditi and Charelle’s bags were intact, then whatever food they had left might be divided between himself, Sakurako, Sean… and Zach.

“Yeah… Yeah, we can go.” Thomas replied to Sakurako after a moment, helping her up so that they could make their way out.

“Oh, Sean. Thanks, by the way.” He spoke up, giving his longtime companion a smile and a nod before walking away with Sakurako.

((Thomas Buckley continued in À Tout le Monde))

[Ohm]

Signs of consciousness started to show on Sakurako as her eyes opened somewhat behind her glasses, but it was clear she wasn't fully there yet. Sean put the fruit away back in his bag and stepped back as Thomas held onto her, relief written on his face.

As this happened, Zach was asking questions and since Thomas wasn't gonna answer 'em, as busy with his girl as he was. Sean turned to him and spoke as quietly as he could. "We lost some good people. Aditi and Charelle." A quick shhh gesture on his part before he turned back to Thomas.

When she seemed to fully come to, she started talking about legal three way marriages which made Sean's face redden with warmth. He didn't really know how to process or react to that and wasn't given a chance before she was suprised that Zach was there. Sean stared at her and then shifted his eyes towards Thomas as he turned back to them. The relief was gone and replaced with concern instead.

Was she really alright?

It didn't take long before she wanted to leave, talking about the meetup that was not indefinetly cancelled. He could hear Thomas agreeing with her as they got up to do so. Sean was not sure about that as he turned over to Kyle's dead body. Should they just leave like that? No matter where they would go, their reality's ugly head would show up an uninvited guest.

His thoughts of that were pulled away when Thomas thanked him. Sean stretched his back and lifted his arms up high.

"No problem, man." Sean said to Thomas as he walked away with Sakurako. Before leaving, he looked back to Zach, right hand closed with his thumb pointing at the duo. "Guess I'm getting married, huh?" A smile on his face. "Wanna be the priest?"

((Sean Leibowitz continued in À Tout le Monde))

[Ryuki]

Aditi and Charelle, the two that died because of the fire? Zach wasn’t well acquainted with Aditi, but he remembered Charelle for getting in on a prank of his.

Anyway, as Sakurako came to, she started talking some funny shit about three way teen marriage. Whatever Sean used must have made her high as fuck.

The group was preparing to vacate the area. Sean made a crack about getting married and offer Zach the position of priest. Zach shrugged.

“Eh, crazier things have happened, why not push the envelope further.”

(Zachary Beck, continued elsewhere...)