Bro, I'm Straight Up Not Having A Good Time

[Gundham]

((S037 - Steven "EXTREME STEVE" Dodds Game Start))

"WOOOOO! Yeah, baby!"

The man, the myth, the legend that was EXTREME STEVE had arisen. And he was ready to shine.

EXTREME STEVE wasn't what you'd call a proactive thinker. But Survival of the Fittest was just one of those things you had to think about, right? Like zombies. Pretty much everybody had a plan for zombies. Because there were government dudes who'd probably come up with some kind of shit that'd kill somebody and bring 'em back to life, and if you weren't ready, you'd get munched on and then wham, you'd be one of those brainless zombies. It was like that. Everybody had a plan, deep down, for terrorist deathmatches. It was just one of those things that came up from time to time.

So, yeah. EXTREME STEVE knew exactly what he'd do. He'd go out there, put on a good show for the cameras, kill a bunch of dudes, probably blow some shit up, save some hotties from being creeped on by creepy guys, begrudgingly accept their willingness to repay him with their bodies, and then tragically shout "Nooooo!" when they sacrificed themselves for him at the end of it all. It probably wasn't entirely realistic, but like, you had to have a Plan A.

It wasn't like he wasn't scared. He was. Like, real scared. Deep down in his guts. Survival of the Fittest was some real shit, and the terrorists weren't fronting. But being a wuss wasn't gonna help anything. The kids who sat around crying and refusing to kill anybody never made it to the end. Probably. EXTREME STEVE hadn't really watched the vids or anything - though he had milked the similarity between their last names to convince people that he was related to Adam Dodd a few times in middle school. So he'd sack up and he'd get the job done, and he'd find time to be scared later. Right now, though? It was showtime.

Rule one of being a YouTuber: never miss a content opportunity. Go viral or go home. He looked around for the cameras. There had to be some around here. Huh. He looked around a bit more. Shit, they were probably like... hidden or something. After trudging around a while, he eventually found one stuck into the knothole of a tree. He flashed it some peace signs, flexed, and then shouted "Woooo!" again.

"Whaddup, world? EXTREME STEVE is comin' at you live from Death Island! That's right, babies, I'm taking part in the most EXTREME competition there is, and it's LIFE OR DEATH, yo! Check it, I got my bag here, gonna do a little unboxing here so you can see what I'm gonna use to waste all these fools! Rest in peace, suckas!"

He fiddled with the zipper. The bag didn't open. He tried again. And again. "GAH!" He finally yanked it open on the third try. A large plastic jug plopped out and landed on the snowy ground.

"It's... uh... It's bleach, baby!" EXTREME STEVE crowed, rallying bravely despite his initial confusion. "I'm gonna get so many kills with this!"

Truth be told, EXTREME STEVE had no idea how he'd kill anybody with this. Maybe he could beat someone over the head with the jug? Or, like... pour it on someone while they slept? It probably didn't work like acid in the movies, but it'd probably sting like a mother. Oh well, he'd figure that out after he found his first victim. He hoped it wouldn't be a hot girl.

He held the jug up like a video game character receiving a power up. "All right! The game is ON! I'm out, bitches!"

EXTREME STEVE dashed off into the woods, but after a second or two he remembered something and made his way back to the camera. "Also, don't forget to buy some swag at EXTREMESTEVE.COM! We've got t-shirts, keychains, and baseball caps! Supplies are super limited, and I'm not home right now to send 'em out, but I'll do it as soon as I get back!"

Having sufficiently motivated the fanbase, EXTREME STEVE went running off into the woods, shouting his battle cry. He crashed through the underbrush, battering branches aside with his trusty bleach jug. "Ready or not, everybody, here I come!"

He vaulted a fallen log, jumped off, and landed on a slushy patch of wet ice. "Waagh!" he yelped, falling heavily as his feet slipped out from under him. "Aw, jeez. That hurt." But it'd take more than a bruised tailbone to stop an extreme dude like him. He jumped upright, and charged up a nearby hill.

Unbeknownst to EXTREME STEVE, the slope he was running up was an embankment, and it ended abruptly, plunging down into a steep-sided ditch. He spotted the pitfall just in time, and skidded to a stop, kicking a bit of snow down into the fissure. "Whew. That was a close one, dude," he said. A half-second later, the frosty dirt beneath his feet gave way.

With a panicked yelp, he plunged into the ditch, dropping his bleach jug and his duffel bag as he fell. He landed hard, knocking the air out of his lungs as he came to rest on his side, wedged tight between the walls of the ditch. Some dirt and snow rained down around him, with some of the ditch wall he'd displaced falling down to partially bury his legs.

He wheezed a bit, trying to get the air back into his lungs. His back hurt, and he'd taken a pretty good whack to the back of his head, but other than that, he was okay. Except that he was pinned, and not going anywhere fast.

EXTREME STEVE was stuck.

[Fiori]

This is the story of how Mitch McDuffy died.


((Mitch McDuffy V8 START))

It started out with him awakening from the second deepest sleep he would ever experience, the first of course being his inevitable demise. His body ached, his curly hair full of twigs and leaves, and he was chilled right to the bone.

It wouldn't take long for him to arise from his groggy slumber, shake his head like a mutt who'd been out in the rain and look dead ahead as he tried to figure out where the hell he was. There were... Trees. A lot of 'em. Red ceders, sitska spruces, western hemlocks. Not that he actually knew the names of any of 'em, but it helped to be specific when setting the scene.

He'd scratch his itchy neck, only for his finger nails to clang against metal, giving the explosive collar a couple test prods to see what happened. Oh. Yeah. That's right, he'd been kidnapped, right? Along with all his classmates, shackled up with these collars and told to...

"Oooooookaaaaaay, keep it together Mitch..." he'd say, taking a few deep breaths as he sat back against the tree he was slumped up against, closed his eyes, and took a moment to let it all settle in. After which he'd open his eyes and shrug. "Well, when in Rome!"

He'd reach out for his bag and start unzipping, keen to find out what he'd been assigned, though all he could find was a small manual making mention of a digging bar. A confused expression on his brow, it wouldn't be until he turned his head to the left that he'd spot his assigned weapon laying up against a nearby tree, a six foot long bar of metal with a spaded tip.

With an excited grin on his face, Mitch would jump to his feet and head over to pick it up, wielding it like a spear and testing it's weight. He'd seen tools like this before on YouTube, on this channel where these two South Asian guys go around building huge elaborate swimming pools and shit! It wasn't a gun, but hey, he couldn't complain!

"Wicked sweet!" he'd say silently as he did a couple test jabs, before hearing a sound in the distance that made him jump to attention. A stumbly kind of noise along with a feral yelp, his eyes darting around the immediate vicinity for where it came from.

As he did so, his eyes would meet that of a young buck on the prowl, the two having a brief staring contest. He'd slowly raise his hand and wave, at which point the buck quickly dipped, Mitch breathing a sigh of relief. Yeeeeeah, better not stick around here too long...

He'd gather up his things and scan the horizon, his eyes eventually catching sight of an impressive looking mountain in the distance, just barely visible behind the treeline. Maybe he can get a good vantage point of the island from there, and figure out his next steps? He didn't have much of a plan just yet, other than seeking his friends and teammates out. He bet Evie and Steve would be down for squadding up, or Big Dick and the rest of the Terriers! After which... Well, figure that part out later. For now, he ought to vamoose.

Fortunately for Mitch, his friend Steve had fallen less than a hundred yards or so away from him, and he had the perfect tool for getting him out of that ditch.


Unfortunately for Steve, Mitch unknowingly ran in the complete opposite direction.

((Mitch McDuffy continued in You can't fight crime if you ain't cute))

[backslash]

S059 TAYLOR THORNE: START

You know, the snow world in Yume Nikki was one of the most calming areas, in Tay's opinion. A lot of the follow-the-leader games had similar ones, and a lot of them were nice, but there was just something about the original that had always set a little happy bubble in Tay's chest. They'd replayed Yume Nikki so many times over the years, most of the time without any specific goal in mind even though they had long memorized where most of the collectibles were. Plenty of early mornings, they'd fallen asleep with their laptop sitting open next to them on the bed, the soft music of one of their favorite levels beeping away.

So like, as long as they just kept wandering and not really thinking about anything, just kept looking at the trees, kept listening to the sound of their footsteps crunching into the snow, kept humming their favorite part of the soundtrack, this was kind of almost okay, right?

Like, if they timed their steps just right, they could kind of get a beat going, and then they could sing the noises of the song instead of just humming, and that was kind of cool. The cold was stinging Taylor's face at this point, but watching the way their breath misted in the air in front of them and settled on the edge of their scarf in fine little beads was nice, very aesthetic. Yeah, yeah, Tay could work with this.

"Do do-do do, do do-do do, do do-do do, waa, waa, do do-do do, do do-do do, do do-do do, waa-aaaaw, shit." Taylor stopped short when they abruptly caught up to another pair of tracks in the snow. Turning to look backwards confirmed that it wasn't their own footprints looping, and following the trail ahead with their eyes led to... hoo boy.

Oh boy. Boy howdy. Oh man. Various other expressions of concern and anticipated regret that invoked the masculine presence. Yeah. Yeah. God. Him too.

"Hey, God, you got anything to say about this, by the way? Any cool pieces of advice? Thanks, love you dog, just get back to me whenever you can, cool, bye!"

With their request filed, Taylor slowly shuffled up alongside the other footprints to the edge of the precipice where they suddenly stopped. They hesitated there, chewing their lip and clenching and unclenching their hands in the pockets of the numbered windbreaker they'd slipped on, debating on how much they really wanted to look. What if there were like- sharp rocks down there? Nobody had been calling for help. They hadn't seen or heard anyone at all yet on their winding trek through the forest, and honestly, this sudden new evidence of other human life hanging around was kind of harshing the vibe.

Tay swallowed thickly and slipped one hand underneath their scarf, hooking a finger between the metal collar and their skin.

"Hey," they said aloud again, looking straight over the ditch instead of moving closer to peer down into it still. "Is, uh- is somebody down there? You good?"

[Gundham]

EXTREME STEVE was feeling a bit woozy. He was lying on his side in the bottom of the ditch, with steep dirt walls pressing up against his guts and his back, effectively pinning him in place. The cold dirt was also pressing right on the spot where he'd bruised his tailbone earlier, which was a literal pain in the ass. His left arm was trapped beneath him, and had gone numb pretty quick. He could still move the fingers and stuff, and he was right-handed anyways, so he figured that it probably wasn't anything to sweat in the grand scheme of things. A few experimental pushes with his free hand hadn't achieved anything, and his legs were covered under a lot of loose dirt, so moving them took a lot of effort. Until he figured out a better plan, he was stuck.

But, on the plus side, his bag had fallen down the hole with him, and it wasn't too far away. Plus his shades had somehow stayed on his face. That meant that EXTREME STEVE could still use his other arm to grab food and water if he needed it, and that he still looked dope as hell. So that was a win, right?

He heard someone calling out from above, asking if he was good. He didn't recognize the voice.

"Oh! Hey, dawg!" he called back in response, coughing a bit as a small clump of dirt tumbled into his mouth. "Phwaw! Blech! I'm doing great, homie! Just vibing. You know how it is."

Good soundbite there. Totally oozing confidence right now, for all the fans back home. Now to subtly extricate himself from this situation so he could start racking up that kill count.

"Got kind of a cave-in situation going on down here, though. You wouldn't happen to have a ladder on you, would ya? Or, like, a shovel?"

[backslash]

And Tay got an answer! They kind of hadn't been expecting one, so that was- cool, yeah, that was cool. Voice sounded normal and familiar, which was better than not being either of those, right?

One hand still curled in their scarf, Taylor carefully shuffled forward to peer over the edge of the crevasse at Steve. EXTREME STEVE, they called him, "they" being actually just Steve and his internet split personality. It was dumb, but dumb in a fun way that Taylor appreciated (not enough to like, buy any of his merch, but appreciated all the same). He was funny and nice, and now he was in one hell of a pickle, wouldn't you know.

Yep, there he was. They reflexively threw up a peace sign with their free hand in acknowledgement of his greeting and question.

"Uh- no, sorry," they called down. "I don't have anything like that, but- I can go look for somebody? You good down there for another little bit?" Honestly, they felt like a bit of an asshole even asking, because it wasn't like Steve had a choice. But seriously, Tay had handcuffs and some kind of gag that they were afraid was a sex thing, and no upper body strength besides. There was no way they were doing any EXTREME EXCAVATION on their lonesome, as cool as that would be in literally any other circumstances.

A snowflake drifted past their field of vision, and they followed it down into the ditch where it settled on Steve's prone form. "It's snowing again," they said absently.

[Gundham]

"Snowing?"

Well, that wasn't a good sign. Being buried alive would be a pretty metal way to go out, all things considered, but EXTREME STEVE still had shit to do, yo. He hadn't even killed anybody yet. It was one thing to die in a death game. Pretty much everybody did it. That was like, the whole point. But EXTREME STEVE had never been one to just run with the herd, you know? Besides, to die on day one, without getting a kill or any "We're gonna die anyway, why not have one last good time" action? That was some weaksauce, for real. Just one step up from full-on teabagging. He was gonna have to start mowing people down pretty quick once he got outta here, or people would be dunking and flexing on him in the comments hardcore.

But, like, the cameras were rolling, so he still needed to play it cool.

"No sweat, brah. If you could find someone to help, that'd be, y'know, helpful. But don't rush or anything. I'm doin' great down here."

He craned his neck, trying to look upwards. He mostly just saw his own hair. "Yup. Just keeping it zen, getting in touch with nature. Finding my chi, or whatever. So no hurry. But, uh, yeah. A shovel, brah. Or a rope or somethin'. Sort this shit out, and I'll hook you up real good, know what I'm sayin'?"

[BlizzardeyeWonder]

A gunshot echoed out from distressingly nearby, accompanied by an almost-as-loud

"OW, FUCK!"

[Daniel Ozanne continued from Some Like It Cool]

[backslash]

"Yeah, yeah, totally." Taylor nodded rapidly in agreement with Steve's, uh, plan. Yeah. Good plan. His cool was pretty admirable, and Tay wished they could mirror it instead of feeling the deep shivers that wanted to wrack them all the way to their core. "I, uh, I gotta-"

And then the shot rang out. Tay jerked as suddenly and wildly as though they'd been the one shot; the motion sent them forward one dangerous step towards the place where Steve had gone over the edge of the crevasse.

There was a freezing, dizzying moment of vertigo, where there was only the ringing of the shot in Taylor's ears and the gray sky above them and the slice of dark earth below them where Steve was half-buried. A scream stuck in their throat.

And then some instinct, some involuntary reverse momentum, threw them back and away from the edge, and Tay went sprawling backwards into the snow. They stared up at the sky, gasping. Another snowflake drifting down drew their eyes, and they followed it in a daze until it landed on them without even a whisper of weight.

Weird, right, how such a tiny thing could bury a person? If they didn't get up and get a shovel, Steve was gonna get buried. Buried. He was going to be buried, he was going to be buried-

"Oh God," Taylor choked out, their unreleased scream crumpling into something closer to a sob. Their ears were still ringing. Someone was out there, close, firing off a gun at God knew what, and they needed to get up, needed to run and find help, for themselves, for Steve, but their ears were ringing and their head was buzzing too much and they couldn't breathe-

God, the great big bastard, still didn't have anything to say.

[Gundham]

"Whuh!?" EXTREME STEVE blurted as a shot rang out somewhere above.

Where had that gunshot come from? Was the person who'd been talking to him shooting at him? That was a total wuss move, for real! But if so, props to him for managing to dodge a bullet while staying absolutely still at the bottom of a hole. Based AF.

Then he heard what sounded like someone falling over and some sort of muted sobbing from up near the lip of the ditch, so he figured that he'd been off base. Maybe someone was shooting at the person who was up top? If so, that sucked major ass. If there was violence going on, EXTREME STEVE belonged up there in the thick of it! He should be up there dodging and weaving, ducking bullets like a pro before decking the gun-haver with an uppercut and taking their weapon. This was worse than that time when he tweaked his ankle and everybody else went skateboarding without him.

But that wasn't the only problem here. If the shovel-finder got killed, who would bring the shovel? That'd definitely slow down EXTREME STEVE's escape by at least an hour or two.

"Hey!" he shouted up towards the person. "You all right? You get shot? 'Cause if not, you should probably run, dog! ...And then come back with a shovel!"

[BlizzardeyeWonder]

"owowffffuuuuck..."

When Daniel wasn't too busy swearing and wondering if he heard a pop in his shoulder, he realized the gunshot hadn't hit its designated snowman target... at all. And there was a scream in the air. Best case scenario, it landed in the snow somewhere and the scream was incidental, worst case scenario, he was gonna end up on the announcements tomorrow with a maybe dislocated shoulder, all because of a shitty gun.

(Seriously, this level of pain from firing a gun couldn't be normal, like they lived in the land of freedom and guns so he'd figure he would have heard more ahhhh, dislocated my shoulder going hunting, you know how it is if it was ordinary and expected for... well, this, to happen.)

And at first glance, it seemed Daniel's worst predictions came to pass. He ran over, holding his right shoulder all the while (the weapon remained in his other hand, for now), and saw someone laying in the snow and oh fuck, anything he'd been building with Marian or wanted to build with anyone else was gonna be dead in the water and people would be coming after him and dear god his shoulder still hurt-

Wait. Wait a minute. Daniel took a deep breath, and stepped a little closer. Now he could recognize this classmate, Taylor, seen around sometimes. Taylor didn't seem to be bleeding, at least, but...

...probably best to drop this gun, then. He set it down in the snow, fairly certain he never wanted to fire it again.

He stepped a little closer again, and kneeled by his classmate.

"Hey," he spoke softly.

First order of business: apologies. Second order of business: determining if Taylor was actually hurt. Just because... she? didn't look like she was bleeding out, didn't mean there were no injuries.

"Sorry about that. Wasn't firing at you." Well, he didn't mean to, anyway. He glanced over... her? "Are you hurt?"

[backslash]

A face appeared above them, the auburn hair framing it appearing a brighter red against the iron-gray sky. The warmth of a body settled next to them, and it would be kind of comforting in literally any other time and place.

"I can't breathe," Taylor wheezed in a tiny voice. Obviously they could sorta breathe, but it felt like something was crushing their chest. The weight of the whole situation finally crashing down on them all at once, like the snow was going to be on Steve, Steve was gonna be buried, buried, BURIED.

Taylor sniffled, but they weren't actually crying with tears. "I can't- fuck-" Some distant part of their brain was like, Ah shit, is this a panic attack? This is a panic attack, my dudes. Only not really, because brains didn't work exactly like that, but if Tay could have put their scrambled egg thoughts in order, that was more or less how they would have come out.

"I'm- 'm n-not hurt, just- I can't breathe-"

[Gundham]

Well, shit.

From what EXTREME STEVE could hear, it sounded like whoever was shooting had done it by accident, which was good. Meant that they were less likely to pull a fish-in-a-barrel routine on him while he was stuck here. But instead of running away, Shovel Finder sounded like they'd gone into... that thing. That thing that people who were allergic to peanuts went into when they ate peanuts, where their throat closed up and they couldn't breathe. Anal phalanxes. That thing. And, like, that was bad. If something happened to Shovel Finder, then EXTREME STEVE was going to be stuck down here, for who knew how long?

Like... EXTREME STEVE couldn't just hang around in this hole. He couldn't just get stuck here forever. He had... you know, plans and stuff. This wasn't how it was supposed to go. The shooter sounded like they were a decent person, so maybe they'd join in the shovel/ladder finding mission? But, like, they'd probably want to make sure that Shovel Finder wasn't dying first. So, new plan. Step one, fix Shovel Finder. Step two, send Shovel Finder and Shooter to go find a shovel or a ladder or something. Step three, profit.

"Hey dude!" he shouted up at the sky, and, by association, the shooter. "Hey!"

He craned his neck, looking towards the bag that had fallen down the ditch along with him. "There's like... a medical kit in the bags, dude! If my homie there is going into..." EXTREME STEVE paused, then decided not to try pronouncing his version of the word 'anaphylaxis' out loud. "If homie's... having an allergy attack or something, you can probably give them some meds from that!"

[BlizzardeyeWonder]

It didn't look like there was anything that could constrict the airway - well, other than the collar, but everyone had a collar on, Taylor wasn't special. So the next likely option, considering everything else was-

-someone in the nearby ditch had opinions, that it was an allergy attack. Daniel was going to say panic attack, but like, he could actually see the situation. Also wait, there was someone in the ditch?

"I'll be right back," he murmured to Taylor, before getting up.

He walked over to the ledge and peered over it. Down there was someone familiar, with his legs partly buried. Yikes, not great, but he seemed to be alive and... well, not kicking, but otherwise active.

"Oh..." he waved once (with his good arm), and spoke louder - but not too loud, for Taylor. "Heeeeey, Steve. I'll uh... be right back with you too." He actually seriously pondered calling him EXTREME STEVE out loud, he'd done plenty of roughly equally silly things today anyway, but right now he just wasn't feeling it. Panicking Taylor behind, Steve (Extreme) stuck in the ditch ahead. But he couldn't be in two places at once. Just take it one at a time - he turned around to Taylor again.

He knelt by her(?) still unsure of what his next move should be. Yeah, he was pretty sure this was a panic attack and not an allergy attack. Man, Genevive worked so hard to keep him away from mom's worst breakdowns only for him to now kind of wish he was there to see how she handled it.

Alright, so the goal was to get Taylor to stop panicking, but that was probably completely out of Daniel's hands. He suspected it was just as much out of Taylor's. There were things he could do to make it easier, so that was the real goal - a waiting game, essentially. Wait, and don't fuck up and make things worse. That sounded like a plan.

...of course, in the unlikely case that it was an allergic reaction, the solution would be very simple. Tangible, even.

He spoke softly again. "Do you uh... have allergies...?"

[backslash]

"Wh-what?" Tay asked, just taken aback enough to be momentarily distracted. "I-I, uh, I dunno? My dad's got- uh, he's allergic to bees, like if they sting him, b-but I've never been stung, so I. I dunno. Maybe?"

They laughed a little, high-pitched and strained. "Shit. Sh-shit." They were becoming aware of how cold the back of their head was, just laying in the snow like this. Their hair was getting wet, and the tips of their ears were starting to sting. Tay sniffled a bit and turned to curl onto their side; that only solved half the ear problem, but it helped with the rest. Breathing came easier like this, but it still felt like someone had put an industrial clamp around their sternum and cranked it tight.

"Steve's uh," they managed between gasps. "He's not doing so- hot. Y'know. I was- gonna, gonna go and find. S-somebody."

[Gundham]

"Yeah, bro," EXTREME STEVE called. "Not doin' so hot down here. Doing, like... pretty cold, actually. Got snow in places snow shouldn't be, know what I'm sayin'?"

He looked around the dirty, snowy confines of his surroundings. The cold felt like it was leeching into him. Even with his winter gear on, some of the dirt had spilled up into his shirt and down his pants, and it was not a pleasant sensation at all. If he didn't move, it wasn't so bad, but if he shifted a bit, then the chill would start again and he'd have to try and remain still until everything felt normal again. He wasn't an expert or anything, but he was pretty sure that he'd be in trouble after a while of this.

"So, yeah... please... go find somebody. Bring a shovel or a ladder or something. That'd be... I just... I wanna get out of here, you know?"