36 Chambers

[Deamon]

((Darryl Smith Jr. continued from As Fierce as My Morning Cornflakes))

Shockingly no one had arrived to kill them in the night. A small or perhaps large mercy he happily took, even as waking up for another day filled him up with an unreasonable amount of existential dread. Maybe it would have been easier, in the long run, to have been killed in his sleep. Darryl's throat was dry and scratchy as he stood up from the bed he had sloppily fashioned from whatever he had available. He was unsure what the time was exactly but given the lack of someone reading out a list of names he guessed he was up prior to the announcement, which again, he wasn't sure if that was good or bad.

Digging into his bag Darryl withdrew a bottle of water and wandered over to the bar setup. As he'd guessed there were no glasses filled with alcohol, which seemed to be something that had been removed based on the idea folks would have been provided with alcohol. He guessed they didn't consider it as special if just anyone could find some beer lying around. Artificial scarcity striking again, he was stuck in a death game and late-stage capitalism still hung over his shoulder like a cheap trick. Clearly, nothing was sacred, not even fighting for his life.

He wondered if the terrorists were aware of the economy they had created. Then realized that was a dumb train of thought, they'd been conducting their attacks for a decade, they either knew or they didn't care. It didn't particularly matter which it was. He sighed to himself, lamenting his ego and its attempt to make him feel better with imagined arguments.

As Darryl was leaning with both arms on the bar the screeching feedback of speakers turning on made him wince.

He turned to the other two and listened as Danya began to list out names.

[decoy73]

((Joan Leaven continued from Ghosts))

Joan hadn't been around anyone for about, what twelve, eighteen hours? She was of two conflicting minds about it. On the one hand, nobody was around to attack her. No baseball bats to crush her head in. On the other hand, it meant that she was alone with herself, and nobody to just shoot the breeze with. Just herself, and her fear that someone was just going to come up behind her and end it.

So now she was just walking around this ... area, looking for someone? A quiet spot? She didn't know.

She'd just noticed someone leaning when she heard someone else.

Skrrrch

"Good morning students of John Endecott Memorial Academy!"

[Cicada]

Salem was already awake. Not necessarily the early to bed sort, but early to rise because the early bird caught the first train to Boston to observe mayoral debates ongoing.

This time he'd laid there a while longer though, pretending to sleep because try hards were probably on the short list of people to get knifed by that short Uggs chick from the houses yesterday. He'd heard Darrel moving around and then he'd shifted up, half seated when the announcers greeted them. Their version of a rooster, as if Salem's suburbia white picket fence white boy ass knew what poultry sounded like when not fx built in a sound studio.

Someone else was peeking their head in though. He recognized Joan's face, ish. They'd worked similar events covering, one for newspaper, one for broadcasts on the school network.

She in turn would hopefully recognize that he'd casually pointed the barrel of his gun at her.

"Insurance policy, sorry. Whatever weapon you have take it out then keep it strictly to yourself. We're here to hang out and... actually, not sure what else we're here for."

The ear not dedicated to hearing himself talk like he was an action movie B-lister reading off a script continued in parallel to process the words of dear mother Danya. Kitty twice and no Ash.

Honestly didn't even surprise him. Both Graves girls were serious kinds of fucked up, which was specifically why he liked them the way he rarely actually liked any of his peers who weren't harboring lifetimes worth of trauma and self-loathing. That was to say, he liked them in his own special snowflake antisocial way. Also they both had great asses but like, that was a bonus more so than it was the main deal.

[Laurels]

((Letitia May continued from As Fierce as My Morning Cornflakes))

Letitia would like to say she was worse sleeps in her life, but this was definitely the worst. She had tried to sleep on one of the couches, curled up to not fall off or to lose the rifle. Letitia wasn't sure how much sleep she actually got. She was sure she would look and feel like shit in the morning. She already hated having to take her makeup off in front of these boys, as she sure as shit didn't want anyone to know that she had next-to-know eyebrows. Even her bandanna had to be repurposed to tie her weave up so it wouldn't get messed up in the night.

This week was already going to be hell on her sanity, so if she could preserve her appearance as much as she could, she was going to take advantage of that.

Letitia was awoken by the sounds of the announcements coming on. She got up and tried to listen carefully, but Darryl and Salem had already noticed someone else who was nearby.

"Keep the bitch in your sights," she mumbled to the boys as she sat up and grabbed her rifle. "Don't let her go until the announcement is done."

Letitia listened to the announcements. Janice had apparently killed more people, along with a few other names from school. That YouTuber with the nickname that was cheesy for the 90s was dead, and aside from that, there wasn't much else for Letitia to pay attention to. The research station was still a safe zone, so they didn't have to move out yet.

But once they were done, Letitia grabbed her rifle and stood up, facing the new person.

"Alright, bitch," she began, also joining Salem in holding her gun to her. "No time for tricks. If your name was on the announcements just now, you better let us know."

[Deamon]

Darryl didn't have much of a response when Salem pointed his gun at Joan, besides thinking that maybe it was a bit much, but he didn't say anything. He'd become acclimatized to the two guns he'd been sharing the room with. Their owners had decided he was fine to keep around, Joan being a new person had no such leeway. It was understandable, but also a shame.

Salem said some stuff to the girl while Darryl focused on what their kidnappers were telling them. Unsurprisingly, some of their classmates had already committed murders, some of them more than one. It was another thing that wasn't as much of a surprise as Darryl felt it should have been. But the thing was if the setup didn't work the terrorists would have switched up their method. That they hadn't made any meant it worked, and again they'd been proven right. So Darryl listened to the names and figured out who he needed to watch out for. He'd have to process those they'd lost later, which felt cold but, there were things happening.

Letitia had also decided to point her gun at Joan, which was a lot of guns to point at one person.

"It wasn't," Darryl said, turning around fully. "So she didn't kill anyone." He adjusted his lean so his elbows were on the bar while he face the other three.

"But she could have been present for any of them." He continued with a shrug.

[decoy73]

Joan had been present for one death - Constance's, which had just been announced. But Joan wasn't going to say that. She almost was going to say that, but something caught up in her throat. Maybe it was fear, or maybe it was the fact that the two guns pointed at her implied that saying something to that effect would probably not be seen as a good thing for her.

So, she just, very slowly, pulled out her fan, and flipped it open.

"it's just a fan. It wouldn't even be that useful in June."

[Cicada]

"Yep," Salem parroted Darryl's confirmation that Joan wasn't a killer unless she'd managed one in the ten seconds between announcements starting and her face presenting itself for two gun's worth of morning target practice. "Her name was not called."

Helpfully redundant, Salem prided himself on being. He supposed it had a bit more of a purpose in a JEM social order post-kidnapping, people vouching for one another became significantly more valuable when the average greeting was less a 'suh bitch' or a 'hey yo' and more of a 'gunpowder explosion noise'.

"It's a nice fan though. Looks like it's part made of metal, maybe you can get some use out of it."

Salem stopped training his doubtless amazing virtuosos aim onto an innocent and kinda pretty face. He noted with dispassion the order of operations that he had defaulted to- brainless chatter first, only then withdrawing the threat of head asplode. Nice to know some of his priorities didn't shift with the times. Salem's gun kissed his hip. His brow kissed his bangs as he returned his attention to the issue of morning announcements. Except for Aracelis and to a lesser extent Kitty (or a greater extent? His opinion on Kitty's volatility depended primarily on how much Ash-brand nihilism he consumed that particular day) Salem was dully struck- like a water balloon to the face that didn't pop- how few names seemed to fit the description awarded them by the terrorists. None of the names he would have picked to win a 'most likely to snap and bring a gun to class' award.

Something to that, there was. Anyone could be anything now. Salem supposed he'd have to meditate on continuing to limit himself to his braindead boytoy schtick.

"I think I'm done here, guys. The safety and warmth was appreciated. And tell Big Dick I'm rooting for him if you manage to find him dude." He nodded Darryl's way. Curtsied for Letitia because he definitely looked better doing it than she did. Moving on out was as quick as the thought had been spontaneous- he hadn't unpacked a single thing, not even his food or clothes to put under his head as a pillow. Yes, he did in fact have a stubborn pain in his neck.

"And sorry for pointing a gun at you, Joan. If that means anything. I'll admit that if you guys hear my name on the announcements any time in the next few days I can't promise ahead of time that it was self defense."

Had to be honest with these things. Deceit only worked if people had a reason to want to believe you, and Salem was under no impression that people liked him that much. He'd been fun to hang around with, but fun meant less in context than reliable, an adjective definitely less applicable to the reputation that preceeded him.

His footsteps, light, vanished within a moment of him sliding past Joan and out on his way.

- imagine having an exit tag though, continued elsewhere -

[Laurels]

Letitia kept her gun trained on the girl as Darryl confirmed she wasn’t a killer, but with the caveat that she could have easily been an accomplice. The girl herself had shown she was given some fan too weird looking for a tea party at Tara, but before Letitia could speak Salem had decided to bounce.

“Alright, bye then,” she muttered.

He clearly was okay letting them handle this standoff, which was just a stupid thing to do. Letitia was sure that this was the sort of quick choice that would lead to his death down the line. It was fitting for someone dumb like him.

“Ok, so we know she’s not a killer and her fan tells us she’s not a threat,” Letitia said to Darryl. “What do we do with her?”

[Deamon]

Darryl raised an eyebrow as Salem just up and walked out. The girl didn’t pull out another weapon and kill him so that was a good sign. She was friendly and non-aggressive, two traits he was looking for in those he would be forced to spend time with on murder island worldwide. The abrupt exit concluded and Salem not being Worldstar'd put him more at ease with the situation as it stood.

So when he turned his attention to Letitia, he felt comfortable leaving Joan just in the corner of his vision. There was enough of her visible that he'd notice if she moved but he could put his focus fully on the one with the gun. Who, in the grand scheme of him not getting shot was more important. Not that he thought Letitia would shoot him, but Salem had walked off with the only other gun, so one of the things holding her back had disappeared into the snow.

When she asked him what they wanted to do with the new arrival Darryl took his time to think about the options. As bad as it sounded he didn’t want to take responsibility for looking after someone without a weapon and to him an iron fan did not a weapon make.

Darryl shrugged, playing off the fact he had already made a business decision.

“I don’t know, she seems fine.”

He gathered up his bag and picked his coconut mascot back up.

"You can have the room," He said turning his attention to Joan.

“I’m going to go looking for my people.” His vision moved back to Letitia.

“You can come too if you want.”

[decoy73]

This did not look good. First Salem decided to leave. Well, actually, given that Salem had a gun pointed at her, it was actually not that bad. The main problem was Darryl. Darryl had specifically invited Letitia. Not Joan.

Of course, there was still a gun pointed at her, so Joan just put the fan back, and kept her hands up.

Come on, just put the gun down!

[Laurels]

Darryl invited Letitia to come with him as they moved around. She nodded, but there was something else he said that gave her pause. Darryl was content to let Joan go and take over the room while they left. Letitia raised an eyebrow at that.

"Really?" she asked. "I mean, we have her where we want her."

She glanced over to Darryl.

"This is a game of attrition," she said. "Maybe this young lady should pay us for our mercy. Say, a bottle of water or two?"

She turned back to Joan.

"Sounds like a good starting price, right?"

[Deamon]

Realistically, Darryl probably should have seen that sequence of events coming. As it was he had grown too complacent with the lay of the land, he'd assumed—naively, clearly—that Letitia wouldn't take the first opportunity to use her gun as a tool for violence. Now it wasn't that Darryl couldn't understand the thinking, if you spent all your life keeping an eye out for a certain group of people who loved to use violence and guns to keep you in line then it was probably an easy step to take. Some real "Shoes on the other foot now whitey," shit.

And really they could do that. Joan certainly couldn't put a stop to it. Unless she ended up being Kitana she wasn't armed with anything that could even the odds. The same could have been said for Darryl himself if he decided to interfere. He had no way of stopping Letitia from putting a bullet in him and then Joan, or just him if Joan decided to run.

He wanted to ask Letitia if she was insane or what she really thought she was going to accomplish. Instead, he could only settle for something much weaker.

"You sure this is a good idea?"

[decoy73]

Leticia did not put her gun down. In fact, Leticia further decided to ask, wait, no, demand that Joan give over her water. That was what really started raising Joan's hackles. Suspicion, sure. She understood suspicion. But hostage-taking and theft? Hell, no. She knew it was kind of selfish as she held her bag closer to herself, but especially from her. Darryl at least seemed to agree with the sentiment, albeit weakly.

"No. No. What'd I do to you? I'm not giving you anything!"

Joan's reaction was slightly stronger.

[Laurels]

"It doesn't matter what you did," Letitia said. "What matters is that we have to survive at all costs, and you're standing in the way of that."

"Now," she continued, taking another step towards Joan, "the starting fee is one bottle of water. Continue to fight, and I'll raise the price to one water and one bullet in your foot."

"It's your choice."

[Deamon]

"Hey come on," Darryl started, taking a step towards Letitia and Joan. His focus was on the girl with the gun. He hadn't taken his focus off her, even when Joan protested the turn of events. Which, fair he supposed, but she had to be careful she didn't protest too much. A fact she didn't seem to realize, funny how that worked.

He'd taken a step closer but he hadn't moved quickly, he'd made no sudden moves and truthfully he was closer in some much as he wasn't where he had been standing previously. It hadn't been a big step. But he wasn't going to risk a quick action or a sudden movement. Darryl didn't think Joan deserved to get robbed but he also didn't know her well enough to put her safety above his in the lead sweepstakes.

"One bottle of water isn't going to make a difference to anyone," He continued, "It's not worth shooting or getting shot over."