Welcome to Camp Nightmare

[BlizzardeyeWonder]

She lost her hearing, they'd say.

They being this group including Tenshi herself, them being other people who described her. But it was an inaccurate shorthand - it worked if the intention was to get people to realize she wouldn't understand their words. It was always words and speech that Tenshi had the most trouble picking up, maybe it was the complexity and the fluctuations of pitch and tempo or some other science-y sounding stuff that her audiologist talked about. But on a whole, Tenshi did have some hearing left, and sometimes it was even enough.

Cedar's usual speaking voice dipped in and out of Tenshi's range of hearing constantly, which she hated - her low alto vocalizing, not as much. When they were sitting right next to each other, she could simply sit and hum and listen (kinda) (mostly) to Cedar's wordless singing. She didn't have to sign it, but Tenshi appreciated that she did anyway.

She took a deep breath and opened her mouth. Maybe it was alright, to sing a little bit.

Staying closer to the lower end of her soprano range, Tenshi shuffled her chair closer to Cedar, and tried her best to harmonize. Tenshi didn't have perfect pitch like all the cool singers, but she was good with intervals and harmonies, she thought.

Of course, it was harder now, and she could feel her own voice wavering in her throat. There were distortions in her audio, like the black marks and faded visuals on old film - even her own voice would have seemed like a world away if she didn't feel it in her vocal chords, feel it as she pressed her fingers very gently on her throat. Maybe it was traveling to her, all the way from her bedroom, or from someone's bedroom or living room, with a screen on the wall where lyrics scrolled past. There weren't any lyrics she was thinking of, though. But if Cedar was thinking of any, Tenshi thought she might like to project them on a screen like a karaoke video. Like the good old days.

[Cicada]

A... flat? Probably not even close. The school's choir club had never been particularly ambitious and their poor teacher's efforts to impart the gift of relative pitch had gone entirely thankless and without fruit.

Thinking of teachers spoiled the moment. A call for the dead, like flowers on a gravestone. Cedar drifted back into the moment, at unease, but she had a blanket she could drape like wool over her eyes. Tenshi really did have a voice like a lullaby, haters who called her shrill, annoying, or over-singing prone be damned.

Or maybe it was the more general exhaustion. Hard to keep the lights on with this empty a battery.

Back in the moment Cedar noticed two things. First, Tenshi was hitting those harmonies. It was hard to know what to mechanically do with the air she tried to craft into sound, but at the very least she could understand when two notes were dissonant. Anything but- Tenshi had to run in a half step behind Cedar, but the effect was pleasant. Never one without the other. Who knew how long that would last.

Oh, and. The second thing she noticed was that Tenshi definitely did not know how loud she was being. It was probably hard to judge the volume of something inches from your own skull. One of the many effects of friendship was how it warped auditory perception into an illusion of well-mannered dialogue- screaming, hyperactive monkeys were the default of many a friend group in the depths of conversation and they'd never be able to guess with their particular perspective. Hearing the fun, as opposed to suffering it.

Another memory of karaoke nights. Tenshi was even louder at those, objectively, but the decibels were more stark against the silence of the apocalyptic winter just outside.

Small comfort- most of the Platoon kids hadn't gone due to various contrived, extenuating circumstances. Thank god for the plot armor. Cedar held onto that like a talisman. In one hand that, in the other, Tenshi's presence, wrong by virtue of being where it shouldn't be, but at least being by Cedar's side in these final days. Both hands were a metaphor. Or maybe not. Maybe Cedar had literally grabbed onto Tenshi's hand in a moment of needy weakness, bridging the gap between their chairs, a chasm between pathetically puny sources of body heat. Maybe that had happened and Cedar was just falling too out of it to notice.

[ViolentMedic]

Midway through scavenging, Fitz lifted his head at the sound of very loud singing coming from the cabin. He paused, then lowered his head with a slightly irritable sigh and kept working, digging in the snow around anywhere that looked like it might have once been a fire.

By the time he was done, he’d scraped together an unbroken beer bottle, some pebbles, some chunks of charcoal that had been buried far enough underneath other, damper charcoal that they were at least somewhat dry, and he’d swiped one of the tents. They had started to tear and rot away over time, and would no longer make a good shelter. Even so, he had taken it.

He had taken the bags he’d found on the ground with him. In the one marked S007, matching their other bags, he was dumping anything he found. He kept the skull and crossbones bag empty for now.

Eventually, the S007 bag slung over one shoulder, the crossbones backpack dangling emptily from the other arm, and his gun awkwardly aimed as a result of trying to carry both, he walked back to the cabin, knocked on the door – shave and a hair cut, but he was already pushing the door open before hearing any two bits.

“I can hear you from the other side of the--”

He stopped, huffed and crossed the room to where he’d left the manual – it hadn’t budged from its location, despite him asking them to read it – and picked it up. He put both bags down, grabbing some scraps of charcoal from the unzipped opening of S007. On the way, his eyes briefly lingered on Cedar clinging to Tenshi’s hand, but he didn’t remark on it. He instead tried to write with the charcoal along the edge of the manual. It wasn’t the most effective… but it was something.

He wrote two sentences, then put it by Tenshi and Cedar, alongside the little pile of charcoal that was the best writing implement they had. He also dropped the skull backpack by them.


I’d be able to hear you singing from the other side of the island. Stop it.

Do you recognise the backpack?


Communication done, he pulled out the half-rotten tent from the S007 bag and put it on the table. While he waited for a response he rummaged in his assigned first-aid kit for the scissors.

[BlizzardeyeWonder]

Tenshi smiled wider, and kept singing, very very VERY lightly squeezing Cedar's hand-

and then someone had to come back and be a wet blanket, and her singing came to a sharp stop (literally, the surprise made her voice go way sharp, she could feel it), and her hand jerked away from Cedar's.

Fitz came back in, looking huffy and a little mad, and Tenshi assumed he was also saying something huffy and a little mad. Her assumptions were confirmed when (horror of horrors) he found a medium of communication with her in the form of writing. Ugh, charcoal. It got everywhere. Tenshi didn't want to touch the provided writing implements, her dress had already been stained. She stared at the writing, and then up at Fitz, blinking and saying nothing.

A skull and crossbones bag. How... basic. It was like the school-supplies-carrying version of a Nightmare Before Christmas graphic tee. She shook her head, and scrunched her nose.

[Cicada]

She felt a vague pleasant sensation, sought it out. Warmth, radiating over her. Hard to move though. She fumed in silence.

To the outside she was lights out, impossible to differentiate from a Cedar that was asleep. Or one that was dead. A pile of clothes and stale sweat, slumped over in her chair, forehead and nose awkwardly mashed against the table between. Two fingers remained by the loosest of tension welded to Tenshi's grip.

She lapsed into and out of actual slumber for a while. In moments of lucidity she wouldn't startle. She was among friends.

[ViolentMedic]

At the lack of any knowledge, Fitz shrugged and left the bag on the floor by the table, and went about attempting to cut the half-rotten tent into strips using the scissors in the first-aid kit. His eyes flickered over to Cedar, noting her sleeping form, before his gaze switched to Tenshi. He paused in his scissorwork for a few long seconds, then went back to cutting away.

After some consideration, he reached out for the manual and wrote another sentence on it.


We have to talk at some point if we’re both going to stick around.


He tapped the sentence pointedly while looking at Tenshi, then withdrew his hand and went back to working on the tent.

[BlizzardeyeWonder]

Tenshi was focused on Cedar's unconscious form, but what for? She was worried, no doubt, but what would she actually do if something threatened them and some (not necessarily benevolent) gunman wasn't there to stop it? It wasn't like Tenshi could hear the danger coming from far enough away to both warn Cedar and get them both out of there, in all likelihood.

Her worrying was interrupted by Fitz's attention. If nothing else, Tenshi was quick to notice people staring or pointing - even before she learned ASL, where staring and pointing and waving were standard procedure.

She sighed, probably louder than she thought she was again, as she slouched in her chair. Admittedly, Tenshi was also kind of sleepy, and sleep would honestly be a great escape from confronting Fitz AKA Cedar might jokingly call him her boytoy but we all know how Cedar is AKA the guy who shot at her earlier today. Over a whistle! It was tempted to get that whistle out right now and sound it just to make clear what she really thought of Fitz, but she'd already been reprimanded once for being too noisy, and she wasn't sure that Fitz wouldn't shoot her for real if she did that.

She also didn't know what the fuck Fitz was doing, but it somehow didn't really interest her, just like how him going off to fuckoff knows where didn't interest her. She glanced over at Cedar, tempted to reach out and pat her on the head. She looked back at Fitz, with an eyebrow raised.

She raised her hands but then put them back down because Fitz didn't know shit about signing and it was so frustrating to keep having to choose between charades and vocalizing. And right now, if she chose to talk, she'd probably say something stupid like but we're NOT gonna both stick around even in the best case scenario but that wasn't what he meant.

Instead, she just shrugged, putting both her arms into it - the nonverbal version of enunciation.

After a moment, her vocal chords chimed in. "I still don't forgive you for shooting at me, so."

[ViolentMedic]

Fitz grimaced and nodded a little at Tenshi’s rebuttal. He tugged the manual back and started writing. He was keeping his writing small, in an attempt to spare as much of the page as possible.

I’m sorry. Accident. A stupid one. Don’t need forgiveness. Just comms. So less stupid accidents happen.

He tapped the charcoal lightly on the table as he considered his next words, eyes flickering over to Tenshi, then Cedar. They remained on Cedar for a while, then went back to the paper. He kept writing.

Need hand signs. For danger. Don’t know ASL. Only a few military hand signals from a wiki page? Can’t have Cedar translate if there’s danger. Need to know enough.

Before pushing the manual towards her again, Fitz paused, then added.

What’s the plan if we meet anyone else?

He paused for an even longer time after that, as if debating adding something else, before he finally slid the piece of paper towards her.

While waiting to see if Tenshi would deign to give him a response, he took some of the strips of tent he’d cut, twisting them to make them thinner. He gave them an experimental tug, then started tying them together. He retrieved the unbroken beer bottle he’d found outside, and started filling it with the pebbles before tying one end of his makeshift rope around the top.

[BlizzardeyeWonder]

Tenshi read over the paper. It figured that the military would have hand signals of their own, but for some reason Tenshi felt instant revulsion at the idea of using them instead of her familiar signing. Maybe it was because Fitz was the guy suggesting it. And maybe like, why the fuck was she supposed to be the one learning all new hand signs when Fitz couldn't be bothered to learn even a little ASL? It wasn't fair. Nothing about this was fair.

Seriously, they put her in a death game of survival-of-the-fittest and made everyone rely heavily on hearing announcements and then took away her hearing. And gave her a fucking whistle instead of a weapon. All her life, Tenshi had seen other people get the short end of the stick, like Cedar with her family's constant undercurrent of brokeness and the myriad inconvenient health issues she'd been saddled with, but Tenshi's life - hearing loss aside - had always been charmed. And even her hearing loss was hardly as bad as it could have been, as long as she had her aids, and to be honest not even fully deaf could have stopped her from chasing her dreams of being a star whose voice would echo across the internet, across the entire world...

Her lips stayed curled in a slight frown as she read on.

"I can still like, talk. Duh. Are you gonna teach me those hand signals or what?"

She wondered if she gave Fitz a fright the first time she talked out loud, like this. Her voice probably sounded kinda weirder than normal, but it wasn't that weird, just a little under-rehearsed.

"And I dunno," she muttered. She remembered to enunciate her next words, but they were still flippant. "Do a Hellen Keller and put my hand over their vocal chords?"

[ViolentMedic]

Fitz grimaced a little at the Hellen Keller joke, but it was accompanied with an awkward ‘yeah okay’ shrug. He didn’t acknowledge it in writing when he started writing once more.

True. You can teach me if it’s easier. You’re right, you can speak so you understanding me is more important. What’s ASL for

Fitz paused, thinking about what word to use, before he wrote

player/killer/enemy?

He tapped the last one – enemy – and made the sign he remembered. It resembled upside down finger guns, but with just one hand. He stopped after doing it, looking clearly unsure in his own memory.

I assume stop, go, etc isn’t hard. Windows/doors is

Fitz traced a square in the air. He paused, then nodded a little. As he considered things, he looked over towards the sleeping Cedar for a long moment. His expression, mostly neutral if a little confused, developed a scrunch between the eyebrows for a second. He looked away from both Cedar and Tenshi for just a moment, then scrawled – in bigger, less careful text – another couple of sentences.

I don't think playing survival mode's going to work for her. You know how Cedar is.

[BlizzardeyeWonder]

Tenshi stared blankly at that last line of text.

For now, she elected to ignore it. She thought for a moment, but couldn't remember a sign for ENEMY, though she was pretty sure something like it existed.

"I know 'die'," she said, signing <<DIE>> as she did. The sign always kinda made her laugh, it was just like... flop. "And I know the like, er-suffix thingy," she said, performing it as she did - which was the sign for <<PERSON>>. "But like... not kill, or enemy."

After a moment of thinking, she signed <<HATE--PERSON>> (or "hater", for those so inclined). "Maybe that'll do. Or like, we could use yours."

She was quite aware of how unenthusiastic she sounded, even moreso after knowing what was on Fitz's concerning list of things to address. He seemed like the kind of weirdo who had a plan for SOTF, the kind that involved keeping a list of people he'd shoot first.

Quite pointedly, she hunched over and read over the last line again. That was mostly for dramatic effect, but to be quite honest, it was surprisingly hard to read in twilight. Then she flopped right back and yawned - the yawn was real, if a touch exaggerated for effect, also.

"We don't have shit for light so I won't be able to read soon. I'm going to bed," she announced, entirely aware that it was probably like 4:30 PM or something.

[ViolentMedic]

Fitz nodded, then tapped his chin briefly before he nodded and wrote three words.

He tapped them one at a time.

Friendly. To that, he mimicked her sign for person. Corpse. He mimicked her signal for die. Player. This time, he stuck with the signal he knew for ‘enemy.’ That’s probably enough.

Tenshi declared her overdramatic intent for bed, so Fitz just nodded and gestured around as if to say ‘by all means.’ With that, he went back to working on his project. By the time he was done, he had a decently long string – albeit tattered in places, not designed for long-term use – with the bottle filled with rocks at the end.

Once he was done, he briefly went outside again. He didn’t take the rifle with him this time, and had to squint a little in the incoming darkness. He then looked around, looking at the ground for something to tie the other end to.

“Ah,” he muttered.

With it being too dark to search for something to pin the tripwire to the ground with, and actually make it something resembling a trap, he tied the other end to a loose nail near one of the windowsills. He opened the door, and watched the bottle slide upwards, jangling promisingly before the rotted plastic came loose and it landed on the ground, the top of the bottle cracking and scattering glass across the floor.

Fitz huffed, kicked the glass outside and gave up on his attempted alarm. Instead, once he went back inside, he just picked up the rifle again and sat himself down by one of the windows and stared out it.

Night fell.

Fitz didn’t sleep.

[Cicada]

Conserving energy wasn't something that came naturally to Cedar, even at her worst. Every hour of sleep deficit demanded deeper debt in her busy terminally online life. Thus, mountains of student debt before she'd ever attended a day of college.

Defaulting imminent, she guessed. Whatever Fitz and Tenshi might feel about it... well, with any luck Cedar outlived them. The emotional burden of mourning could be hers and not theirs, and then she could take that pain to the grave along with all her innumerable other ones? Something like that seemed like the only plan she had left. She was something lesser than what she'd once been, just a little doll, one heart still beating, one mind still dreaming odd phantasms of an old life and current maybe friends lost to the unknowable horror movie scenes that played in real time beyond the edge of the observable universe- the tree line all around, barely poking out of inky midnight lit only by the stars above, all too far to come to their rescue.

Tenshi and Fitz, at least, tried their best to be recognizable. Time passed quieter than Cedar was used to though. What she managed to get out of them boiled down to mostly signals for danger and... something about Hellen Keller? Cedar had pretended she'd gotten that particular in-joke, much like she tried her best to smile along to many an in-joke she didn't understand.

"You can get some sleep. If you can, I mean."

She lingered in the corner of the cabin best lit by the tiny slice of moon melting into the distant fairy lights of the stars. She didn't want to pipe up from an unseen place. She knew that Fitz knew her voice, but she did also know that he hadn't exactly been raised with trigger discipline. Hadn't even held a gun, unless a story about that was buried in a place more intimate, not yet dug up after a month's of a romance best described as pleasantly inessential.

She got up slowly, grudgingly. The fastest she moved now was every now and then when she rushed out of the cabin to empty her digestive system in one of two directions. It wasn't calm, not even after she hadn't eaten the entire day. She was pretty close to the state of losing even the water she tried to replenish electrolytes with. The sweat omnipresent on her skin was another nutritional void. She was... hanging in there was too strong a word.

"But you probably can't. Feel a bit selfish I was able to but, not really by choice I guess."

It had been sleep the same way death ended consciousness. She had sworn she'd seen a light compelling her to walk into it, during one of her sojourns into feverish unconsciousness. But she was here, now, with energy. She walked to Fitz's side and... laid herself by one leg? She was probably robbing more body heat than giving it, but maybe the gesture would still be appreciated.

[ViolentMedic]

Fitz sat up slightly when Cedar first spoke, but quickly settled down again. He was, this time, keeping his hands far away from the trigger.

“I don’t know if I can,” he said, as he went back to staring out the window. “Don’t feel bad about sleeping, though. It’s smart. Bet everyone else is sleeping, anyway. Who’s going to risk climbing a mountain in the dark?”

Fitz shifted forward in his seat and rested a hand briefly on Cedar’s shoulder. Though he seemed unwilling to tear his gaze away from the window, despite his own assertions. But a slight smile flickered across his face.

“Anyway… always been kind of a night owl,” he added. “Good time for researching. You have a good nap?”

[Cicada]

"Sorry," Cedar offered anyways.

She-

Needed to go out. Their conversation took a necessary ten or so minute detour. Every motion from getting up to hobbling out the door had to be slow and calculated- no energy, accident prevention, so on.

In a way, Cedar was getting used to the routine. Her dignity for the associated frostbite risks. Hygiene, she supposed, as far as that was possible to maintain without the associate supplies. She'd had half a thing of pads still in her bag, useless for anything other survival consideration except a full-heartedly token effort at keeping the worst of her mostly literal shit off her where it belonged.

Well anyways. She came back. Conversation resumed because what else was there to do with her 'quiet' time to herself except deepen her developing hypochondriac mentality and ruminate on two sentences worth of conversation?

"If anyone's turned killer-" Which they definitely had. No denying that, Cedar was positive by the position of the moon that it was already early morning. The first deadline had passed, the final and most awkward of all group projects was well underway. "I feel like trudging up the mountain at a dead hour to check a landmark on the map would probably be a decent play."

She shrugged. Insightful, probably? The way she and Fitz had talked back home practicality had never been much of a concern. This was all pretty new stuff to her, tonally.

"I was a night owl too," she grinned humorlessly. "The sleep's okay but I wake up and still feel terrible, so."

She was quiet for a short moment. There was always a bit of social calculus involved with any statement, its phrasing, weight of each syllable. Something something derivatives. What she was about to ask was not something she had a lot of experience asking the correct way. But it was Fitz. Most of the fun had left him long ago, she could tell and she could as much relate, but he was still the same person besides.

"How are you feeling about the idea that you might have to put a bullet from that gun in somebody soon? Taking a temp check here, I guess. Besides the obvious 'its fucking cold' angle."