Lines In The Sand

[ViolentMedic]

((Marshall West continued from Veridis Quo.))

Daylight hadn’t lasted long. Marshall had thought that perhaps they woke up late, but considering how long the night went for – and how it was still dark now – perhaps they were simply somewhere with short days.

They hadn’t reached a police station, but they’d ended up stopping at one of the many houses they’d passed by, somewhere in the middle of town. A lot of the night had been spent attempting to barricade it as well as they were able. Not a lot of discussion had happened. On Marshall’s end, it had been because exhaustion had hit him like a ton of bricks once they’d stopped at the house and the adrenaline of the lake had worn off, and it’d taken everything he had not to fall asleep before the house had been deemed safe.

But that was yesterday.

Now it was today.

Marshall was back to doing squats in the corner to wake himself up. He’d tried to do push-ups, but the hand he’d dunked in the lake hurt and made it not worth the effort. The pinkie and ring finger had gotten red and itchy later on in the evening once they’d stopped being numb. Not frostbite yet, but still irritating. Chloé’s assigned windbreaker on underneath his jacket, and the gas mask he’d been assigned perched awkwardly atop his head. He doubted it’d be useful unless they got hit with Round 2 of sleep gas… but better safe than sorry.

As he exercised, he stared out the window. Head popping in and out of view from the street, were someone to walk down it.

When they were all properly awake, they would have to discuss Chloé’s plan in proper detail. They couldn’t move on until they all agreed on a course of action.

[midnight_twelve]

“Hey, Marshall.”

((Chloé Delacroix continued from Veridis Quo))

Chloé hovered in the doorway, letting her eyes adjust to the dark before going any further. Marshall’s form, bobbing up and down in the corner, was the first identifiable object to emerge from the gloom. He was staring out onto the street, though at what, if anything, she couldn’t yet tell.

Chloé considered all sorts of questions: Did you sleep well? Have you had something to eat? How long have you been up? Are you warm enough?

But there was really only one question on her mind. The terrorist had said nine, but for all she knew nine had come and gone already, passed them by in the long winter night.

“They haven’t given the announcement yet, have they?”

[backslash]

((Kai Rosado-Prince continued from Veridis Quo))

Kai must have slept at some point, because time had passed when he became aware of it again, but it felt like he hadn't slept at all. Normally he didn't have trouble sleeping in unfamiliar places. New campsites, new trails. He liked the unfamiliar a little bit, at least out in nature.

There was something deeply unsettling about unfamiliar, abandoned places that had clearly once belonged to people, though. An empty trail didn't invite so many questions about what had caused people to leave. Where had they gone? What had they left behind?

Kai had given Jess the bed in the small house's bedroom and slept on the floor nearby. Sleeping in someone else's long-abandoned bed honestly sounded way more uncomfortable than the floor, and she needed the extra warmth and padding right now. He'd heard Marshall get up a while ago and start pacing around. Now Chloé's voice had joined the shuffling. Kai didn't move to let either of them know that he was also awake. He just kept staring into the empty space under the bed. With his glasses off and everything still draped in early morning darkness, it all looked flat and grainy.

"...Are you awake?" He asked quietly when Jess shifted slightly. He wasn't sure he really had anything to say to her if she was, aside to check on how she was doing. It might have helped to talk, though. Just to take his mind off of everything else.

How was Kitty? How were Ren, Cali? Were they safe? Were they scared? Who had they seen? What had they seen? Where had Ashlyn gone?

Kai wasn't normally one to ask so many questions. He didn't like the way it made his head buzz.

[Pippi]

((Jess Kawazoe continued from Veridis Quo))

Jess kept her eyes screwed tightly shut as Kai spoke, trying to force herself into a state of slumber, an uphill task that was making her more and more royally pissed off the longer she lay there. The environment was almost exactly perfect for her to pass the fuck out and rest for another good few hours; it was still dark outside, Kai had helped her collapse into the single bed in this little house, and her body was completely wracked with exhaustion. Yet despite all that, her body refused to let her power down, to give her even a second’s respite.

She was pretty sure she hadn’t caught a wink of sleep the entire night.

It wasn’t an entirely unfamiliar situation to Jess. Obviously the whole abduction thing was strange and unwelcome to her, yeah, that topic had been done to dea- to, uh, some other point of termination. And she wasn’t exactly a regular when it came to waking up in a stranger’s bed in an unfamiliar location; either all those movies had lied about the amount of wild, crazy, drug-and-sex-filled house parties she was supposed to have at high school, or JEM was a lot more boring than she’d first thought.

But she had spent countless sleepless nights coughing her little lungs out, wanting so badly just to slip into unconsciousness but not being able to. She was intimately familiar with being wrapped up in blankets and sheets and still shivering so hard that she felt she was about to shake herself to pieces. And she had experienced someone watching over her, sitting next to her bed while she struggled to sleep, wanting to make sure that she stayed as safe and sound as possible.

Jess didn’t respond to Kai for a while. She played the events of the previous night over and over and over in her head again, as she had done an infinite number of times since sprawling into bed. There was comfort in him being there, relief in knowing that she hadn’t been abandoned and security in knowing he had stayed with her all night, but it also felt… odd. Not fully natural. She hadn’t been super buddy-buddy with him at school or anything. And now, she was lying a few feet away from him, half-naked in the handful of clothes she’d struggled herself into. Same as she’d been wrapped in the towel, on the trudge over from the lake towards this little building. She’d stumbled a lot, tripping on rocks and divots in the ground, feet so numb against the snow and ice that they’d given way underneath herself. She was pretty certain she’d blacked out at least once, probably the most sleep she’d gotten in the last 24 hours. Had Kai been forced to help carry her then? Or Marshall? Or Chloe?

This wasn’t her circle. She would trust any one of them with her life at a moment’s notice.

She could hear low murmurings through the wall; presumably the room Chloe and Marshall had stayed in. She shifted a little again, trying to stay warm, tucking the sheets underneath her legs to eliminate whatever phantom draft was still making her shiver. She pressed her eyelids tightly against each other, then with a soft little sigh, relaxed and opened them.

Fuck it. Obviously this wasn’t going to work anytime soon.

“Yeah,” she mumbled, voice muffled by the pillow and her own hair.

Jess stared at the wall - or what she presumed was the wall, her eyes not yet accustomed to the darkness and the gloom. She still had one of her twintails in. It was loose and messy, her striped ribbon just about holding it all together, but it was there. It felt weird, lying in bed with her hair done up. Felt weirder still for it to be missing its pair. She’d kept her hair like that since she was tiny. Tinier. It was a very small thing, in the grand scheme of the universe. The world wouldn’t stop rotating with the loss of her hair tie. She pulled the sheets over her mouth and buried a sniffle into them.

“You doing okay?” she continued. She still wasn’t facing Kai as she spoke.

“You know what time it is? Feels like I’ve been lying here for…”

She shifted again.

“Forever.”

[ViolentMedic]

“No! No announcement!” Marshall confirmed, as he continued with his squats. “It must be soon! I hope the number of deaths is low! One would be ideal, but it would be blindly optimistic to expect.”

He wanted the announcement to happen. He wanted to know what was happening. He wasn’t looking forward to hearing if anyone had died, and he knew that morally it was wrong to hope that someone had.

No matter who died, it would be a tragedy. But someone had to, or they all would. Better to know about it.

He straightened up again, peering out the window, then dropped back down into a squat again.

“I’m keeping--” Up. “--an eye on the street--” Down. “--in case someone passes by!” Up. “No-one yet.” Down. “Are Jess and Kai awake?” Up. “We need to discuss your plan!” Down. “Should we go and--” Up. “--find them?”

He stopped the exercise, planting his feet firmly and beaming at Chloe. Almost a normal expression (for Marshall, at least) if not for the dark circles under his eyes and the more forced nature of the smile.

[midnight_twelve]

Chloé nodded. It was good to know she hadn’t missed it, but she still wished she knew how far off it was. Either way she’d be dreading its arrival, but something about knowing when your fears would be realised made the time before that point more bearable. It removed one element of uncertainty from the equation. Instead, she had to be constantly on edge lest the news of her friends’ deaths caught her completely off guard.

Marshall’s bobbing was getting distracting, so she followed his gaze out the window. Like he said, there was no one out there yet. Somehow, it looked even darker outside. At least in the house there were vague shapes of furniture and walls lurking at the edge of her vision. The dark outside was boundless and infinite.

Chloé turned her attention back to Marshall when his stream of statements turned into questions. Chloé had known she wouldn’t be able to avoid the topic forever. Her faith in her plan wasn’t indestructible, but she knew she had to subject it to scrutiny sooner or later. She breathed out heavily.

“Yep. Let’s get them up.”

[backslash]

Like Jess had, Kai allowed a silence to settle once more before he answered her question. “I guess.” About as non-committal as one could get. About as accurate an answer as he could give. There was no way to be good, but he wasn’t actively suffering.

“It’s still early,” he continued to answer the second question without elaborating or dwelling on the first. “I think- there’s going to be something soon.”

He kept staring at the wall. Kept not quite focusing on the buzz of voices outside the room. As long as he was half lost in some kind of void, he didn’t have to acknowledge the cold knot of dread in his stomach. Everything was softer around the edges with his glasses off. He didn’t reach for them yet.

[Pippi]

It wasn’t exactly sparkling conversation. Not that she was, y’know, expecting it to flow freely, given the potential avenues consisted of such fabulous topics as “Hey remember how I almost died yesterday?” and “Isn’t all of this super fucked up?” But it just made the whole thing feel even further off. The words shared were stilted and awkward. The silence stretched on for longer than the speaking.

This sucked ass. In pretty much every way bar the literal meaning.

When you thought about being trapped on an abandoned island, being forced to fight other people to survive - normal considerations for the totally rational, of course - you kinda got a picture in your head of it being a nonstop nightmare of exertion and fear, running for your life, running after people, running from people, getting into fights and danger and grabbing those scant few moments of rest to fall into a restless sleep. And yeah, she’d totally experienced the fear and the fight for survival already, dunk in the lake, yadda yadda. But after that it had just been… waiting, pretty much. Waiting to get dry. Waiting to find some place to camp out in. Waiting in bed for hours and hours and frickin’ hours, totally motionless if she hadn’t been shivering so badly. She was just staring at the peeling wallpaper in the dark, doing nothing except counting the seconds down. Or up, she supposed; at least if she was going down she’d have an actual goal to aim for.

She was feelin’ restless beyond measure - literally, given she hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep - and it was seriously pissing her off, because she knew, oh man she really truly knew, it was the only logical option available to her. She was still trembling from head to toe, she was still cold, even when wrapped up in blankets. She was half-dressed, and her remaining clothes were probably still dripping away the metric fuckton of water they’d absorbed from the lake. Wasn’t as though they had a radiator to hang ‘em up in front of or anything.

Yeah, it all made perfect, logical sense why she had to keep on lying here, having everything done for her. It didn’t comfort her one bit. It made her even more goddamn miserable.

“Huh? ‘Something’ soon?” Jess mumbled. She hadn’t flipped over to look at Kai still. “Whaddya mean, some-”

Oh. Oh That was what he meant, huh?

She fell quiet again, as the announcement blared over the entire island. She didn’t audibly react to any of it. Not to any of the names of her friends that she’d never see again. Not to the names of her classmates, caught red handed.

You could maybe, if you peered through the gloom, see her fingers dig a little tighter into the blankets surrounding herself. But it was easy to hide how much her body shook, among the shivering from the cold.

[ViolentMedic]

Marshall nodded and gave a thumbs up. He picked up the bag he’d brought on the trip – the one that had been empty except for a packed lunch when he woke up yesterday.

When he’d gotten up today, he’d shuffled his supplies around. He’d left his first aid kit and most of his food inside his assigned bag, but transferred just enough food and water to last the day into the backpack. He hadn’t had a chance to float it past the others, but he assumed he was the fastest of everyone here. None of them were on the track team. He wanted to be ready to sprint, and he wanted to carry the lightest load possible when he did.

Marshall slung the pack over his back and romped up the stairs, footsteps announcing his presence long before he reached the bedroom.

The announcement crackled to life when he was a few steps away from the door. Marshall slowed his footsteps down so they weren’t drowning out the voice that rang across the island, opening the bedroom door – he didn’t bother to knock, too preoccupied with listening – and sliding into the room, eyes up at the ceiling.

…

The announcement wrapped up. Now Marshall knew. He found that - against his usual instincts, or even the feelings of two minutes ago - he wished he didn't. It had been easier to consider when the numbers didn’t have names and he could hope for the best.

How many had he meant to say more to? He hadn’t apologized to Robin for making a racket in the bathrooms, or thanked Ethan for taking care of Liya at Dani’s party, or lectured Liya about being more careful with her alcohol consumption. Hadn’t properly thanked Constance for helping him when he fell out of a tree last month, and now Constance would never smoke again, never relax again, never take a photo again, because Aracelis had splattered her brains across concrete--

No. He couldn’t blame her. If he did, teamwork would be impossible.

As the announcement had continued, Marshall had crouched in the corner and folded his arms, resting them on his knees. He didn’t bother to hide his face scrunching up or the tears leaking out of his eyes as any hopes that it might only be one death were dashed. Instead, he fiddled with the edge of the windbreaker he was wearing. S114 – Chloe’s number. There were at least a hundred and three remaining classmates that could still be saved. But a hundred and three that needed to be found.

“Is this where we’re gathering everyone?” he said outloud. Voice damp and shaky, quiet even by the standards of someone who didn’t shout every third word. He scrubbed his eyes. No time to cry right now. There was a lot to do.

[midnight_twelve]

Half way up the stairs, a mechanical shriek cut through the dark. Chloé reached out to grab Marshall’s arm, but he was already gone, footsteps fading away as he joined Kai and Jess in the bedroom. She didn’t give chase, stopping instead on the staircase, clutching the banister. The list felt like it went on forever, her stomach sinking further with each entry, convinced each time that it would be the last, right up until the end when the dread started to creep in that the list would never end, that it would get to Marshall and Jess and Kai and finally herself and her intrusive suspicions that they might as well be dead already would be vindicated.

The terrorist’s change of topic brought some relief, but it was too little too late. That was when she noticed the hot tears already running down her cheeks. It took everything in her not to start sobbing. She wiped her face furiously with the sleeve of her sweater, wrung her eyes dry. She had to be stronger than that. She had to put on a brave face for the others. Slowly, she crept up the last few stairs. The door was already open.

Is this where we’re gathering everyone?

Chloé almost didn’t believe it was Marshall speaking, he was so quiet. When she leaned in to hear him better, she noticed tears in his eyes. That was almost enough to start her crying again, and for a moment she wanted to just collapse into him and burst into tears and cling onto her friend before any more friends were taken from her. But she had to be strong for them. She pulled herself together- stood upright, forced a calm expression, spoke slowly and deliberately.

“I know it’s hard, but we can’t lose faith. I know we can pull this plan off, together. If we act quickly, find the student government, the sports teams, our other friends, we’ll easily outnumber the… murderers.”

[backslash]

Kai sat bolt upright as soon as the first name was read off. It was one of those things people did in movies that you never really did yourself in real life, but here he was doing it now. He didn't know if he'd ever fully realized the meaning of something making your blood run cold before, either. It was a different kind of cold entirely from the cold outside. Something that shot through the body from his core to the tips of his fingers and toes.

He only started breathing again when Kitty's name came up a second time. Almost stopped once more when he finally realized what had actually been said. What it meant.

Chloé's words, closer and clearer. They got Kai's frozen blood moving again. He reached for his glasses with a shaking hand. Brought the world back into focus again.

Excuses and rationalization and denial were already on his lips, even though nobody had said anything about Kitty specifically yet. They had the wrong person on the announcement. Mixed her up with Ashlyn. It was self-defense. It was an accident.

Kitty wouldn't. Couldn't. She hated the idea of hurting people. Even in the most horrific worst-case scenario, this wasn't her.

And Kai wasn't going to take Chloé's side against her.

Stiffly, like he was remembering how to move again, Kai got to his feet. He didn't turn to look Jess or Marshall or Chloé in the face. It felt like they might be staring at him if he did. With mechanical movement, he picked up his belongings. The umbrella he'd left downstairs, but he'd pick it up on his way out. Jess could keep the towel.

"I can't help you," he said into the frigid silence following Chloé's speech. "I- need to go."

[Pippi]

She hadn’t seen or heard the other two coming in. Missed out on Chloe’s plea. The spark of conflict that would burn down this entire plan had gone entirely unnoticed by her.

The announcement had been loud, yo. Had to be, she figured, so that everyone across the entire island could hear it nice and clear. The recovery period for her, no matter what happened to be ailing her this go around, was always twice as long as it was for anybody else; the continuous shivering and shuddering was evidence enough of that. Her senses were still totally outta whack; her ears were still kinda ringing, along with this horrible low whining sound, both of which made her feel sick to her boots and like she was boutta collapse in on herself.

Yep. Yeah. Sure. Just the noise that had done that. Not the names that had been carried alongside it. Not the gut-wrenching realisation that she’d just been delivered their funeral rites in the same cadence as the weather forecast. Was she fooling anyone with that, yet? She sure wasn’t fooling herself with it.

So when Kai had spoken up - still a little muffled, still a little hidden through her heart wrenching itself apart - seemingly responding to something even though Jess had been doing nothing but pulling the blankets closer around herself and pressing her face into the pillow in the hopes it’d sop up her tears, her reaction was a simple

“Huh?”

Before she finally rolled herself over to face him, probably breaking some kinda world record for ‘longest time getting from one side of the bed to the other’ in the process. She could see Chloe and Marshall, now, or their outlines at least, standing just inside the doorway. That went some way to explaining Kai’s words; musta been a response to one of them two.

Course, that just dredged up another question, of what exactly had been said to make Kai react that way? Even in the dim light, Marshall looked like his usual wellspring of energy had finally run dry. Chloe looked much the same as she had the previous day, but hell, looks could be deceiving. The atmosphere in the room felt real heavy. Maybe that was why it was so much of a struggle for her to sit herself up, still all wrapped up in an attempt at finding warmth, perched on the edge of the bed, shaking hands pressed flat into the mattress.

“You’re leaving? Like… like, now? Already?”

[ViolentMedic]

“I… I do believe in the plan. I believe we all need to be together. If we weren’t, the terrorists would just put us in a big room together and let this happen in five minutes, but--”

That was as far as Marshall got, not registering that Kai was packing his things until Kai jumped to his feet and decided to go.

“Hey! Heyheyheyhey!”

Kai trying to leave made one thing clear. There was no time for moping. If there was one thing Marshall knew, is that being sad didn’t get anything done. He didn’t hit those walls much. But had sitting in his room doing nothing made his mother come back? No, it hadn’t. And it wouldn’t fix this situation, either. So Marshall HAD to have energy. He HAD to bring it back. Or Kai would leave, and they’d be one more person away from gathering everyone together.

When Kai tried to bolt from the room, Marshall barrelled over to block the door, spreading out his arms to push Kai back if he tried to get past him.

“Hold on, Kai! If you’ve got an issue you should say so rather than running! You’re part of everyone! And if you have something you need to do, we can help you!”

And with that, he turned his head back to Chloé. He hadn’t managed to wipe away all the tears, eyes still a ruddy red, but his voice had reached its usual volume again and only trembled slightly, overcoming grief in his need to be heard while there was still a chance. He inhaled hard, because he knew Chloé wasn’t going to like what he was going to say next. Heck. Marshall didn’t even like what he was about to say, as much as he knew it was what needed to be said.

“Chloé… we can’t separate this into us versus the murderers.” His mouth tugged into a scowl, eyebrows furrowed. “If we isolate anyone who slipped up, who panicked, who didn’t believe that rescue was coming and thought killing was the only way out… then they’ll only double down on it, and then we won’t be united at all! We need to offer a second chance!”

They had to forgive. At least until this was over. Then the law could decide what was to become of them.

[midnight_twelve]

“Kai- wait-”

Fortunately, Marshall gathered enough of his old speed and strength to put himself between Kai and the exit. Chloé shot him a look of gratitude before fixating on Kai. She nodded along eagerly to Jess and Marshall’s protestations then chimed in with her own.

“Marshall’s right. We need your help, and you need our help, too. Think what could have happened to Jess if you weren’t there, or what could happen to you if you just go off on your own. I know you must be grieving for someone, and if you just need a moment to yourself, I understand, but please-”

That’s when Marshall cut her off. She turned back to him, Jess and Kai temporarily forgotten. Her expression morphed from gratitude to betrayal. They needed to present a united front if they were going to stop the group falling apart. Why would he try and undermine her now?

“Marsh, you’re being unfair. I said I’d help everyone get out of here, whatever they’ve done. But we have to be able to defend ourselves if we’re going to manage that. I mean, you can’t seriously think Janice, or, or Kitty ‘slipped up’ twice-”

[backslash]

"Kitty is my friend." Kai didn't raise his voice much. He had never liked shouting. His dad was a shouter. Even now, Kai caught himself and didn't quite shout, but his voice cut across the room sharp and clear.

He could feel himself shaking. He did raise his gaze to look Marshall in the face now, before turning to do the same to Chloé. Tried to be firm.

His excuses for Kitty wouldn't mean anything to them. Chloé was going on about defending themselves, like all the people whose names had been read off were about to come lay siege to this drafty old house and the student council would defend it like a fort. A bunch of dumb kids playing war.

Real casualties.

"I don't know what really happened. But I'm not going to help you hurt her."

He turned back to Marshall. He felt like he'd spoken as calmly as he could, but his pulse was pounding in his ears. "Let me leave. Please." It wasn't really a request.